New blog!

Hello,

I’ve recently registered a new domain, and have exported everything from here to there.

All new updates are going there, so I never want to see you here again!

Go to: http://blog.tallgrove.com

See you there!

The Season Begins . . .

Howdy everybody, long time no post.

The time has come to fulfill my promises to keep up a blog, and the result will be this post. Yes, I had a nice, though brief sojourn in the North Okanagan, and as of Sunday I have been in the bush a few kilometers from the charming town of Logan Lake.

The first day of camp was typical in that everybody worked, for free. Holes needed to be dug (for the shitters and the sump), tents needed to be set up, and tarps needed to be roped together. Myself, I spent most of my time digging the sump pit, which turned out to be an ominous foreshadowing of the ground we were about to plant. In the foreground of this picture you can see some of the heftier boulders that required excavation:

Well, at least we got a chance to start a few of our blisters. And soon enough, it was time to drink beer around the campfire. The next morning, it was time to work! After being introduced to the pleasures of the pie-plate (a screefed spot a foot wide around each tree), we got to work, and boy, was I ready to go!

Yep, I did make money that first day, and it didn’t even hurt too bad! For sure, I was taking it quite easy . . . it’s rocky out there and it’s not worth getting tendonitis right away. Still though, I finally had a day that ended in the black!

I went to bed early that night (last night), as I was rather fatigued, and we were doing the same thing tomorrow! Well, it was pretty gusty last night (the flapping tarp kept me up for a couple hours at least), and when I woke up this morning, this is what I saw:

Brr.

So no planting today. We’re sitting around camp bored and freezing, just waiting for dinnertime. So another day in the red, I guess. Yes, it sucks, but anyone who has been planting before knows that shit going wrong is par for the course, to the point that it’s unsettling when everything goes right.

So enjoy your central heating and nice mattresses, folks! I have neither, and today I can’t even justify this unpleasantess with a large income. Oh well.

‘K bye.

Hmm?

Does anybody read this?

Is this blog kaput, or should I re-commence updates?

Only your comments will decide this enigma.

Shameless plug: Listen to Neil Young.

Love.

From Trekking in the Cordillera Blanca to Culture Shock in Miraflores: A Long Title for Possibly the Last Post

Word up.

So I managed to escape the severe-sunburn-inducing beach town of Huanchaco, but by no means unscathed (actually, my left arm and shoulder made it out OK, but everthing else is currently peeling). I arrived in the cold little town of Huaraz, which is situated in a beautiful setting, surrounded by the craggy peaks of the Cordillera Blanca, home of the highest peaks in the Andes. There are over twenty peaks here at over 6000 meters, with the highest at about 6800. Obviously, this is the place for some hardcore trekking and climbing. Unfortunately, due to the season, the latter was out of the question, but many excellent hikes remain open year-long. I booked myself on a four-day excursion to Santa Cruz, an especially beautiful mountain in a region of beautiful mountains.

Unfortunately, this is what we saw:

Yes, we spent the entire first day hiking through fog and snow. We occasionally got a tantalizing glimpse of the base of a mountain (the guide kept pointing way up into the fog and saying, “and there are three beautiful mountains!”), but on the whole we had to imagine what we were seeing.

We were again hiking at high altitudes, and thank goodness I’ve been acclimatized! The rest of the group was experiencing severe difficulties in trying to hike up the hills at these elevations, while I just trucked on. Plus, the coca leaves really help a lot.

Fortunately, the next day was a bit better, with sunshine in the morning. We hiked through a beautiful flat valley, and were often rewarded with views huge, snowy peaks. Sadly, it was the day before that we were actually hiking in the peaks, but it was still a lovely hiking experience. I’m not going to put any of those pictures in this post, but rather a picture I took of a flower of which I’m somewhat proud.

Anyways, I’m unfortunately (for you) feeling rather uninspired to write in my blog — I’m doing so out of a vague sense of obligation, though I do get a certain satisfaction from doing it.

I’ve read lots of cool books on my journey, and quite a few really horrible ones too. I read a great Samuel Clemens semi-autobiography (for those of you who are unschooled in the ways of classic American literature, Clemens’ nom-de-plume is the more commonly known Mark Twain) of his adventures in the Wild West, entitled “Roughing It.” I also read a book by a Canadian author previously unbeknownst to me, John Metcalf. The book, “General Ludd,” is one of the best books I’ve read for a really long time, and you shoud all read it. It’s a cuttingly satirical comedy focussing on poetry, the university system, and Canadian society. I really cannot praise it enough. And finally, right now I’m reading some real literature (the last word is to be read in a haughty British accent): Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov.” For the first time in some years I am reading a book where I feel that much is going right over my head, but at the same time much is going through it as well. I’m only a mere hundred pages in, but I’m convinced that it is fully deserving of the previously-mentioned bold-faced label. Yes, I know I’m in South America to appreciate South American culture, but at heart I’m a reader, and a lover of good books.

So now I’m in Lima, in the suburb of Miraflores. It is here that I am currently experiencing strong culture shock, or perhaps reverse culture shock is a more accurate expression. This place is just like Canada: no street vendors, busy roads packed with shiny new single-occupant vehicles, and the unexpected presence of Pizza Hut, Scotiabank, and (gasp) Starbucks. Suddenly, instead of being well-dressed, I’m a slob again, even though my clothing has not changed. The price of everything has suddenly quadrupled, and I’m hard-pressedx to get my boots shined. Honestly, it’s horrible, and I’m going to start making the daily commute to the grimy Central Lima, where I can again get diarrhea from street food and smell the odor of calf stomach sitting in the sun. I came here because I thought this is what I wanted, but after a mere four hours here I’m ready to get out again! Ah well, it’ll be good acclimatization for my return to Canada.

Anyways, I’m done for now. I’m going to head back to the hostel and try to scrub the Nescafe stains out of my white t-shirt (mission impossible, I know, but I just did laundry yesterday, dammit! It never fails . . .). Hope this post finds all you readers fine and dandy! And for those of you who are enjoying this blog, please give a little something back! I can’t tell you how voraciously I read your comments and emails (mainly because I hardly get any). Here, let me help you. Email me at turvyc (at) gmail (dot) com. The address must be written like that in the blog text to protect against spam-fishers: geek-jerks write programs that fish through the source of millions of web pages looking for the username@domain.com format, and upon finding these addresses, they add them to the cheap viagra and penis enlargement advertisment mailing lists. Definitely something to be avoided, especially since I need neither of these products.

Anyways, ciao.

‘K Bye.

Trekking to Machu Picchu

Greetings, one and all.

I think I’ll start this post out with a small apology and a little semantic lesson. It turns out that I’ve been unintentionally spelling the name of Peru’s foremost wonder quite incorrectly. Here is the correct spelling: Machu Picchu. Sorry.

Machu Picchu is a Quechua name, meaning “Old Mountain.” While this is more or less uninteresting in itself, our guide, Warton, instructed me on the correct pronunciation of the words. I, and probably most of you, had been mispronouncing the name as MAH-choo PEE-choo, but the correct pronunciation is actually MAH-choo PEEK-choo. A small difference, perhaps, but the former pronunciation actually means (in Quechua) “Old Penis.”

No wonder the locals here have such big grins when we gringos talk about it.

The first day of our tour was another day of downhill mountain biking, though not as dangerous as riding down the Death Road in La Paz. The sixty kilometers of coasting downhill from the high hills into a lush jungle valley was incredible, but for some reason I didn’t pull out my camera. I guess high speed and photography doesn’t mix. But the road was incredible: the harrowing switchbacks slowly (yet speedily at the same time) delivered us gently into the valley, which was spotted by tiny villages every couple kilometers, from which issued little kids screaming “Hola!” as we sped by. After a belly full of beer we went to bed in anticipation of the next day.

We awoke, and after a typical Bolivian breakfast of bread, jam, and Nescafe, we started off on our first day of trekking. It was amazing hiking through the jungle (as always), though this time we had a clearly defined trail. The hills here are all incredibly steep, yet have many small cultivated clearings that the locals use to grow corn, coffee and coca. The way of life seemed largely unchanged for hundreds of years, as all work was done by hand, and the workers lived in little huts in the forest. Yet to a person, all were exceedingly friendly and accomodating to us intruders, perhaps because they all had water and snacks for sale, which we greedily bought and consumed. One lady had a delicious beverage called chicha morada, which is a vaguely sweet, non-alcoholic drink brewed from purple corn. She also had a monkey and another strange little animal which we could play with, and she grew coffee, pineapples, papayas, coca and marijuana.

The valley we were walking through was incredible. Often we would pop out from the lush growth to be rewarded with incredible views of this ancient Inca valley.

At one point we walked along an old Inca trail. They had a system quite similar to the 19th century American Pony Express. To deliver messages from Cusco, the Inca capital, to what is now Lima, runners would sprint top speed along these narrow, precipitous trails for three kilometers, where a fresh runner would take the message and sprint his three kilometers. In this way, a message could be delivered between the two cities in only one day. To put that into perspective, today it takes 20 to 24 hours for a bus to make the same journey.

The third day was much the same, but with the addition of a harrowing way to cross a river. Building bridges is evidently far to expensive and difficult, so rather the locals use a small platform suspended by pulleys on a cable which stretches across the river, essentially a zip line. Two people hop on, and it is sent down the cable, to be pulled across by a rope by a person on the other side. Yes, it was scary (the first time), but soon it became routine to be on a tiny platform a hundred feet above a raging river.

This next paragraph shall be dedicated to the weird bugs we saw along the way. Unfortunately, most moved to quickly or were too far away to properly photograph, but I got a few good ones. Everywhere there were these red and black butterflies which sat in large groups on the path, presumably (if I remember my Zoobooks correctly) extracting vital minerals from the path. These guys were so docile that they wouldn’t fly away if bothered . . . I suppose whatever they were eating had some very soothing effects. Also common were the huge butterflies which I also saw in Bolivia. About the size of my hand (I have large hands), the underside of their wings were a dull and relatively unexciting brown, though with large eyespots, but the top were this incredible iridescent blue. They were so large that the flapped through the air much like a bird, but were wary enough to avoid being photographed. I also saw for my first time ever a Monarch butterfly (or it’s extremely similar imitator butterfly). Definitely a crowning moment in my entomological observations (or is it entYmological? Sorry, dad, I always forget). We also saw a few enormous centipedes about four or five inches long. These guys were cool because as they walked their legs moved in waves up their body. It’s hard to describe . . . you really just have to see it, I guess. Then there was this monster insect with huge jaws about an inch long (the jaws, not the bug. The bug itself was the length of my finger, or a good four inches, not including the jaws). Who knows what it is or what it does, but here’s a picture of it:

But by far the coolest were these big piles of caterpillars which squirmed along the ground all together. Each must have had at least a hundred each, and were thoroughly repulsive, yet absolutely fascinating. Dad, if you could ento(y?)mologically explain these in the comments section for the other readers of this blog, that would be really cool. Anyways, a picture is worth a thousand words . . .

Anyways, let me give you some more multimedia. Here’s a short little video clip of some of the scenery (not the best stuff; I always seem to be so awed I forget to photograph it). It’s cool.

Anyways, we trekked and trekked and trekked, and eventually we got to the horrible little town of Aguas Calientes. Here, there are more tourists and more annoying touts that Cusco, and that’s all I’ll say about it. About Cusco I will say I’m so friggin’ sick of people on the street pressuring me to buy their food, massages, drinks or drugs. (Side note: the nightlife in Cusco is weird. Walk to the main plaza, and be instantly mobbed by about a dozen touts offering free passes and free drinks to their nightclub. Brandon would always get sucked into their bullshit — they always wanted to know your name, your country, and all these personal things so you would think they were your “friends” — and apologize and apologize that he was going somewhere else for the time being. The guy just wouldn’t accept that the assholes were doing it on purpose, and actually didn’t give a damn about him except for his money and their commission. BUT, we got lots of free drinks, and went from club to club (being mobbed in between each one, of course) drinking our free cuba libres — rum and cokes — and then leaving. Getting drunk for free is easy, but really, really annoying. Oh yes, Brandon went off to Lima to meet his sister before I left on the trek, so I’m by myself again)

I’ll just skip ahead to Machu Picchu. We awoke at 4 am, and by 5 we were toiling up the eight kilometers of stairs to get to the famous site. Turns out I still have my treeplanting legs, and I easily outdistanced everybody else, but when I arrived at the top, I was greeted with a line-up of several hundred old and fat people who took the bus to the top. Honestly, there should be a special line for those who actually put in the effort to climb by themselves. This was a tourist scene I’d had yet to see: these were REAL tourists, not budget backpackers looking for culture and adventure like myself. Everybody was in a big floppy hat and silly adventurer dress, and at least 90% of the Japanese people were carrying huge tripods. Everybody was pasty pale and hurredly applying sunscreen and bug dope. Honestly, it was sickening, but it made me feel like a totally hardcore adventurer, even though I’m not, really.

Fortunately, Machu Picchu itself was amazing. What can I say? We walked all around the site, marvelling at the truly incredible stonework, set against an incredible backdrop of mountains. Just look at my pictures, you’ll understand. We also totally lucked out and had the first sunny day there in quite some time. Our guide was most impressed with our luck.

The coolest, though, was the hike up Waynu Picchu, the tooth-like mountain behind Machu Picchu you see in all the postcard pictures of the place. It was an incredible grueling climb up narrow and steep stairs, but my treeplanter legs pulled through once more and I did the 45-minutes-recommended climb in a mere 20, without rests. I earned many a raised eyebrow as I sped by hyperventilating tourists in fancy hiking boots and trekking clothes (I must say, my Blundstones absolutely rule. Buy a pair, now). Coming down was equally amusing, as I skipped down the steep stairs past “hardcore” hikers in elite name-brand gear who were clinging to the rocks in evident fear. The most hilarious were these two Japanese-Canadian girls who have evidently never left the city. Actual comment: “Like, now we can say we’ve been hiking, but oh my GOD let’s go back to the house.” Hilarious.

Here is a big picture of me just after conquoring Waynu Picchu. You can see the bus road up to Machu Picchu, but you can’t see all the stair I walked up. By the way, do you like my hat?

Anyways, I’m pretty tired of writing by now. I’m back here in Cusco to resusitate, do my laundry, update the blog, and get ready for the next leg of my journey. Tomorrow I leave for Lima, but when I get there I don’t even plan on leaving the bus station. I will immediately depart for Trujillo, a medium sized beach town north of Lima. After a night there I’ll take a bus to an as-yet-undecided little non-touristy village (a.k.a. not in my guidebook) on the beach, where I’ll chill out until it’s home time. I think I’ll punctuate my beach leisure time with a trek in the Cordorilla Real, which is quite close to where I’m going.

Hasta la vista, baby!

‘K Bye.

Lake Boobypoo and the Incan Capital

Howdy folks!

Round two in La Paz was unfortunately not as enjoyable as round one: I now heartily wish I hadn’t spent so much time there in the first place. Admittedly, I was stuck there waiting for my replacement debit card, but STILL, there are way, way better places to be in Bolivia. One of these places is the charming (yet overwhemingly touristy) lakeside village of Copacabana.

Copacabana is on the shore of Lake Titicaca (do you get my extremely hilarious title-joke now?), which my guidebook describes as everyone’s favorite elementary school statistic. It is the largest and highest navigable lake in the world, but more interestingly it is from where the legendary founders of the Incan empire emerged. The lake is famous for it’s trout, and we enjoyed many fried fish in the beach shacks, looking across the lake, which is so huge it seems like the ocean.

However, the place to be is actually on the glorious Isla del Sol, which features ruins dating to before Christ and an ancient lifestyle by and large unchanged by the hordes of tourists that visit each day. Here, all the slopes are terraced, and have been for thousands of years, and they are still cultivated by the locals in traditional ways (that is, totally by hand). After a steep climb to the top of the island, we were rewarded with stunning views of the lake, which is ringed on one side by a mountain range to rival the Rockies. All the cafes have patios from which to enjoy the views as you sip your ice-cold beer, and our afternoon was largely consumed by doing just that. We then went on a walk around the terraces, and talked with the many field workers as they harvested their primary crop, peas. Every little girl or boy we met eagerly asked us to take their picture, but we quickly learned: as soon as the shutter clicked, their pleas changed to “paga me, paga me!” Evidently they desired renumeration for their work as an indigenous model.

A word about my Spanish skills. Some time in the last couple weeks, something just clicked, and suddenly my listening comprehension took a huge leap forward. I don’t know how, but I realized I was suddenly able to differentiate easily the individual words in a string of speech. It’s very exciting . . . talking with the locals has never been better. As Brandon put it today, we are no longer super-gringos, but a more savvy traveller. It is incredible what breaking down the language barrier provides. I suppose my ear just needed two months to adjust to the Spanish sounds.

Sadly, we couldn’t linger at the beautiful Isla del Sol, because Brandon has to meet his sister in Lima in a couple days, and my visa had expired. We rushed off the island, and headed (finally) into Peru. The border crossing was extremely easy (nothing like what Keiran & Co. are currently experiencing in the Middle East!), and after converting our Bolivianos into Nuevo Soles, we were ready to go. The first, only, and most striking difference upon crossing the border (apart from new and exciting beers to try) was the sudden appearance of rickshaws. These are bicycles (the fancy ones are motorcycles) that have been converted to have two passenger seats behind the pedeller (or driver). These bike-taxis are extremely common in India and China, I hear, but I never expected to see them here in Peru! I’ve yet to try one but I can’t wait.

We arrived in Cusco, Peru, which I had never heard of before coming to South America, but my guidebook affirms (as do my initial experiences here) that this is THE gringo capital of South America. Cusco (which means “The Navel of the World” in Incan) was the capital of the Inca Empire, which was founded by the two original Incans soon after they emerged from the icy depths of Lake Titicaca. The modern city is built on the remains of the ancient one, and most of the buildings here have foundations of Inca stonework. The stonework is amazing, because the stones were painstakingly chosen to fit perfectly together — they were not carved or hand-jointed.

Of course, Cusco is now most famous for Maccu Piccu, Peru’s answer to the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, and the Statue of Liberty (joke). It also stands at the mouth to the Sacred Valley of the Incas, which contains countless Inca ruins all within walking distance from the city. This place is seriously cool.

Maccu Piccu is ridiculously expensive. Just taking the train (the only way to get there) up and back for a day trip is about $250!!! The famous Inca Trail, which is a four-day trek to the site sits at about $400, but is so popular that it is fully booked until mid-May or so (only 200 people a day are allowed on — but that’s still a lot!). Fortunately, I have found a somewhat cheaper option: for $200, I can go on a four-day excursion (food and everything is included), which features a full day of downhill mountain biking, two days of trekking in the mountains past other ruins, a full day at Maccu Piccu, and a relaxing finish at a thermal spring. A bit of a budget buster, but it’s gonna be great!

Just walking around this town is hilarious . . . for the first time I’m seeing tourists other than budget backpackers like myself, and EVERYBODY is trying to sell something. I’m thoroughly thankful that I’ve had two months to become skilled in evading agressive sellers. Everybody speaks some English here (unfortunate, because it is very useful to confer in a language they don’t understand when considering their offer. Many sellers do the same however, by speaking in Quechua, the indiginous language of these parts. And yes, most people speak it, and some speak only it — no Spanish! Cool.), and as a tall white guy I am a prime target. My favorite are the pretty girls who are trying to sell us massages — one hour for about six dollars. It is actually somewhat useful having three or four of them at once trying to sell us the same thing, because then we can work them off each other: one offers thirty soles, and another immediately counters with twenty-five. With patience and a practiced “Well, maybe, but I’m not sure” expression, you can get crazy cheap deals.

There is much more to tell, as always, but I’m afraid I’m tired of writing. Unfortunately there’s not too many new pictures, the quality of which I’m only somewhat pleased with, but wait for next week when I’ll write about Maccu Piccu!

Thinking of you all!

‘K Bye.

PS: Beer in Peru comes in 1.1 liter bottles! Life is good.

Insert Post Title Here, I Guess

Greetings all!

Guess what? I’m tired and I don’t feel like writing anything, but my sense of reponsibility is somewhat over-riding these sentiments. I can, however, take the easy way out and merely gloss over recent events.

We headed down to this awesome little organic farm set in the jungle, which was run by a great hippie and his family. It was great . . . we had our own little cabin set deep in the woods, all the food was grown and cooked there, and our host, Christobel, was not only totally cool but loved jamming and chess.

The idea behind his place was that people would come and stay for a couple weeks and learn how to do all sorts of stuff, from farming organically to making home-made cheese. Sadly, both Brandon and I were (and still are!) tight for time: Brandon because he has to meet his sister in Lima on the 24th, and I because my Bolivian visa expired on the 14th. This meant we could only stay for a totally insufficient three days. Fortunately, we made the best of it.

As I mentioned, Chris loves chess and was confident enough to play all comers without his queen. According to his Bolivian wife, he always won. Always. Of course, I couldn’t let him go unchallenged! Maybe I was lucky, but I came out on top after three games (we both agreed there is no luck in chess)! The poor guy looked quite put out, and obviously wanted to play three out of five, but naturally I stopped while I was ahead, and then got the heck out of Dodge. Okay, okay, maybe not a great narrative of my interactions with Bolivian culture, but it was friggin’ sweet!

The highlight of our stay was a crazy jungle trek we undertook one day. We were assured it was four hours in to a 300-meter waterfall, and only a mere three hours out. It actually developed into a full-on thirteen-hour slog through untracked jungle, complete with three river crossings and numerous crazy drop-offs. Totally sweet. It was just what Brandon and I wanted — an extreme trek hacking through the jungle with machetes (without the machetes we would have gotten nowhere). It culminated on a rock ledge right underneath the enormous waterfall, with an incredible vista over the jungle. The mountains of Amboro National Park are incredible . . . it looked like it was where King Kong was found . . . look at my pictures, please.

The ride back to Santa Cruz deserves mention. The road was totally obliverated by landslides (often whole sections of road were just gone), so direct passage was impossible. This, however, is normal for the locals, who have ways of working around such difficulties. Our first ride was in the back of a pick-up truck, who drove to the edge of the first slide. The slide site is an insane tangle of trucks, busses, personal vehicles and construction equipment. All around the locals who lived nearby were selling all sorts of food and drink . . . they must thrive off the landslides. I can just imagine them seeing a landslide, and immediately cooking up a couple hundred tamales for the hungry and bored workers and travellers.

Anyways, we crossed the slide on foot, and caught a taxi on the other side. There was yet another slide to negotiate before getting to SC, but the taxi drivers loved it, as they were making a killing ferrying people back and forth in between the two slides. It was actually incredibly painless doing all this.

We finally got to SC and took a cama (bed) bus to La Paz, where I am now. I now honestly wish I hadn’t spent so much time here in the first place, now that I know what else Bolivia has to offer. Oh well. I am going to try to find another place like Ginger’s Paradise in Peru, in between Maccu Piccu and surf lessons, of course.

Sorry about the declining quality in blog posts, it’s just really seeming like work right now. You’ll have to satisfy yourself with pictures, but even with those I’m going for broke. No titles for the latest batch (except for the jungle trek, which was totally bad-ass), just sets. Sorry.

Exhaustivly yours!

‘K Bye.

Just a Mini-Update, or, Feelin’ Lazy

Howdy Folks!

Well, let’s see. Even against my best intentions, Santa Cruz developed into another Sucre. That is, we spent a lot of time lazing around. However, our Hostel was most certainly suited to leisure pursuits. Every morning we were served fresh melon juice and an assortment of fresh, ripe tropical fruits, which we consumed while watching the only available English channel on the wide- and flat-screen TV, CNN. Turns out the Israelis are still killing the Palestinians. Some things will never change, I suppose.

After breakfast, Brandon and I generally retired to the hammocks in the courtyard, which was overflowing with a veritable jungle of flowering tropical plants. To top it all off, two tame toucans (yes, toucans) lived there, and were more than willing to chill out with you.

The days slipped by easily there, and we avoided doing too much in the city, because for some reason everything was half again as expensive as anywhere else in Bolivia, and beer stores were almost impossible to find. One memorable evening, though, we North Americaned out and went to an arcade in a mall. There, you could rent a little cubicle with a giant flat screen TV, a super comfy couch, and a Playstation 2 for only two dollars an hour. We had a pretty good geek-out session for sure.

I think the height of our hedonism occured on Sunday. We decided to get some serious drinking done, and to do it right. So we went off to the huge market and bought a few coconuts, a couple ripe pinapples, some fresh mint and a large bottle of Havana Club 3 Year (for those of you who haven’t drunk it before, do so. It is quality in a bottle). We milked the coconuts, juiced the pineapples, and made cups from the empty coconut shells. We then concocted the freshest piña coladas I’ve ever had (thanks in part to the blender at the hostel), and garnished them with the little drink umbrellas I’ve been carrying around this whole time (thanks, Robin!). When we got tired of piña coladas, we made excellent mojitos with the good mint we had. What a day!

Like most good things, though, Santa Cruz had to end. Too much partying had been taking its toll, and the slacker-traveller guilt was starting to get strong. So we headed to Samaipata, a sleepy little town set in the sub-tropical hills three hours from Santa Cruz. The drive, typically Bolivian, actually took seven hours (actually not that bad, as it turns out), due to a washed-out bridge first and a landslide second. We got here, though, and this place veritably rules. Everyone is friendly and says hello on the streets, the heat and humidity are at most acceptable levels, and the surrounding countryside is gorgeous.

The first day we went to a little zoological reserve only a three-kilometer walk from town. The walk alone would have been worth the time, but the zoo (for short) was totally way cool. Excuse my slang, but that’s how you would describe it too. There were all sorts of cool animals, like tropical birds and turtles and even a little armadillo you could hold in your hands (under the shell he was actually quite disgusting looking and stinky), but the stealers of the show were the uncaged monkeys who wandered around. These guys just loved people. They would walk up to you, or climb, and hold out their hands as if to be picked up. The second you reached down (or up) they would grab on and climb right up onto your shoulder, where they would hug you and pick through your hair for lice. It was so funny! Also, watching them climb was amazing. Their (prehensile) tails have a little pad on the end like their hands, which give extra grip when they’re swinging around. Playing with monkeys is the coolest ever, and you all have got to try it one day. What else can I say?

The next day it was off to some waterfalls. After being dropped off by the taxi, we struck off down the trail, which was regularly taken out by landslides. Traversing these was most enjoyable and resulted in extremely muddy boots. Beautiful forests, falls and mountains were the keywords for that day. I also saw my first tropical butterflies . . . specimens larger than my hand floated around on their almost unnaturally colored wings . . . dad, you would have been in paradise (especially with the giant — and repulsive — non-butterfly insects everywhere)!

Apart from that, we’re eating well (steak with mango chutney sauce, amazing, and cheap!), drinking well, and living well. In a couple days it’s back to La Paz, then to Lake Titicaca. Then it’s into Peru, where Maccu Piccu awaits. After that, I will work my way northward along the coast, eating seafood and enjoying the beaches, until I get to the north where I will learn how to surf. And then, it’s back home. No pictures on Flickr this time around, I’m afraid, so you all will just have to cope with the little flavour I’ve given you here. I’ll take care of that when I get back to La Paz.

Thanks for the emails, Mark and Kieran!

‘K Bye!

Don’t Worry, I’m Still Alive!

Greetings one and all,

Allow me to fill you all in on my latest exploits, of which, unlike the last post, there were actually not that many.

After so many activities crammed into such a short space of time, I decided that I needed some serious vacation time to just straight up chill out. Sucre was definitely the place to do so. Perfect climate, beautiful city, a great hostel, and abundant street food made it a relaxation-seeker’s dream, at least as far as Bolivia has to offer.

I met a fella from Colorado, with whom I teamed up with for that week. Our days were simple, yet satisfying: wake up at about eleven, and then strike out into the city to find some good street food for breakfast. Then, at about two or so, grab a beer (or in my case, gin — they actually had Gordon’s!!!), head back to the hostel, and play a few games of cribbage. After this, we were hungry again, so back onto the street for more comida de la calle. And after that, well, it was time to party! What a great week.

A paragraph (maybe two) about the street food. First of all, it was abundant in both selection and quantity. Secondly, and most importantly, it was dang cheap. Our favorites were the renellos (or was it rellenos? I can never remember), which are little balls or patties of mashed potatoes with a filling of either beef (my personal favorite), cheese, or a whole hard-boiled egg. These are coated in a very light batter and then deep-fried right there one the street. It comes with an onion sauce and as much hot sauce as you want (a brief aside: the Bolivians are always surprised to see a gringo eat hot sauce. Without fail, every time I put it on whatever street food I was eating, their eyes would widen slightly and they would ask, “you like the piquante?” Evidently, stereotypes exist.) About four of these little guys count as a good lunch, and they cost a mere 1 Bs. (about fifteen cents) each.

Also available were empenadas, which are a a deep-fried (everything is deep-fried here — you can’t escape it) pastry shell filled with anything from meat to chicken to eggs to all three. These have a variety of sauces and veggies available, and the way you eat them is to stand next to the stand and adding a blob of whatever you like for each bite. Then you order another. They are more filling, but more expensive, weighing in at 2 Bs.

Another amazing thing were the street pizzas. These old ladies would wheel a little propane oven out into a plaza, and sell you a whole (small) uncooked pizza for 6 Bs. Then they would fire up the oven and cook them up for you! I ate a pretty ridiculous amount of street pizzas, I must admit.

My favorite, however, was to eat in the main market. Upstairs (and this is a feature in every market), there exists a cafeteria of sorts, consisting of rows and rows of tables, at the foot of each is a mini-kitchenette (wo)manned by a matron and her daughter. Here was sold “real” food: soups, rice, pastas, meats, and most deliciously, chorizo sausage. It is hilarious walking into that place (and not only because there are never any other gringos there), because all the women would clamour for your attention and try any means possible to get you to sit at their table. I managed to form a bond with one lady, and I sat at her table every day for a week, much to the jealousy of the surrounding cooks. I loved it — good, real food for only 5 Bs. a plate. In fact, I already miss her.

Brandon (the Coloradan) and I did in fact do one thing that broke our daily schedule outlined above. We decided to hike up one of the many hills surrounding the town. So up we went, through the slum, into the woods, and lo and behold there was a stone staircase going right to the top! In hindsight, it was no surprise seeing the chapel and giant Jesus with the halogen halo at the peak.

The views were great.

Then, what with all the street food, the inevitable struck, and we both got very sick.

That was Saturday night. I can proudly say that for the next two days I had the worst diarrhea I have ever had in my life. Maybe you didn’t need to hear that, but it’s too late now! We tried self medicating with bowls of All-Bran to no avail. The extra-strong medicine we got at the pharmacy didn’t work either. And to top it off, we had to spend 19 hours on a bus with no bathroom. Not exactly the best bus trip I’ve ever had, needless to say.

Our destination was Santa Cruz (where I am now), the cocaine capital of South America. Yikes. It is stinkingly hot and humid (I’m sweating like nothing else just typing this), and I can’t wait to get out of here. However, we hear the nightlife is good so we’ll stay for the weekend. Oh yes, it sits at a mere 400 meters, by far the lowest I’ve been since mid-January. I was right – the air is noticably thicker, and dang but it’s nice!

I’m tired of typing, so I’m going to go now.

‘K Bye!

The Last Week’s Adventures, of which there were Quite a Few

Howdy all!

Sorry for the long hiatus from updates, I have been far from any place civilized enough to have internet connections, let alone electricity. Please, allow me to explain.

One of the greatest attractions of Bolivia is the Salar de Uyuni, which is the largest salt lake in the world, weighing in at 12,000 square kilometers, or about twice the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. I was like, “heck yes I’m going,” so I booked a tour from Potosi to do a three-day excursion into the wild. The bus ride was most stunning between the two towns (Potosi and Uyuni, that is) — take a gander at this.

Anyways, after eight dusty and bumpy hours, we rolled into the tiny town of Uyuni. Along the way we passed an interesting place — a tiny village that I honestly thought was a ghost town until people started emerging from the decrepitude at the approach of our bus. The raison d’etre of this pueblito was that it boasted the first train ever to ever enter Bolivia, but much more cool it had a train that had once been robbed by none other than Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Wow! But regardless, the place was really depressing, and I’m glad we didn’t stop there for long.

After an incredible night in a SINGLE ROOM (what luxery!) with a DOUBLE BED I got up, ran around the market buying up water and munchies, then jumped into the Landcruiser with six other tourists and our guide, Edwin (pronounced with a Spanish accent). First destination, the Salar.

After lunch in a salt mining village (they dig it up out of the flats, then grind and iodize it before selling it) where everything was made from salt bricks, we headed out. Being the rainy season, the flats were totally flooded with about three inches of water, so we unfortunately could not drive very fast. The salt water splashes up and ruins the electrical system, supposedly. This meant we could not do the very cool trick photography on the flats (due to the absolute lack of perspective, you can run way off into the distance, and rather than looking like you’re far away, you just look tiny. This allows for many humorous trick photos, but sadly I have none), but the reflection of the sky and mountains was unreal. It was very bizarre. There you stand, in a total flatness stretching off in all directions, with the only things visible on the horizon being the snowy peaks of mountains about 250 miles away. Where there were no mountains, one can’t even distinguish the line between water and sky . . . a horizonless land is disconcerting to say the least. Being unconvinced about the salinity, I tasted the water. It was indeed very salty, and my curiosity was satisfied.

We walked around in this strange landscape, and for the next four days my pant cuffs and Blundstones were whitely encrusted with salt, which no amount of water would dislodge. In fact, today is the first day since then that I have black boots, thanks to a boot-blacker here in Sucre. Oh, I suppose I’ll tell you all . . . I decided not to go to Chile, and rather just pay the 165 Bs. for a new visa. It probably worked out to be the same price anyhow. Anyways, forgive my digression, and I shall continue.

We left the Salar and drove back through Uyuni to a tiny village where we spent the night. We settled in to wait for dinner, and watched Jackie Chan movies which were unfortunately under control of the remote-control-weilding little girl who lived there. In just under two hours, we watched four movies in little segments, as she would constantly skip some parts or re-watch others. It was certainly the most aggravating movie experience I’ve ever had, and it was just made worse by the fact that we waited for over two hours for the lady to cook some dessicated fried chicken and soggy french fries.

The night was horrible. One of the members of our group, a 62-year-old Japonese man (more about him later . . . this guy was a true character), was unfortunately endowed with symphonic snoring abilities, and nobody (except him) got more than three hours of sleep. He woke up refreshed, we woke up angry. Nobody really spoke to him all day, except Edwin, because he had a seperate room.

But after a nice strong cup of Nescafe, I was ready to roll. First stop, the incredible Bay of Rocks, which is an area consisting of at least 10 square kilometers containing the most incredible rock formations I’d ever seen. They were so fun to scramble around on! It honestly beats Ellison Park or Twin Lakes all to hell for cool rock scrambling.

Soon, we were off again, and began climbing up to the high deserts which made up the bulk of the next two days. A word about these deserts: amazing. It is literally an endless expanse of sand, interrupted by the occasional soda lake or random rock, ringed by craggy Andean peaks, all at about 5000 meters above sea level. For those of you in Victoria, that’s five kilometers, straight up.

We drove all day through this, stopping at various points of interest, mostly the soda lakes, in each of which were hundred or thousands of pink flamingos. Yes, flamingos.

A brief side note . . . all these pictures are also on my Flickr page, I just enjoy taking the best ones to spice up my posts. Don’t hesitate to check out all my pictures! To give you an idea of the immensity of the desert, have a gander at the following picture. It was quite a run out there, and let me assure you, ANY physical exertion of any type is almost impossible at these altitudes. It was a full ten minutes before my lungs stopped burning and my heart rate reduced to a tolerable level. It was an additional fifteen before full comfort had been re-attained. By the time I get back down to sea level, I swear the air will seem like soup!

There you have it. There’s a lot more great pictures on my Flickr page, and honestly I’m done trying to explain with words. Not only is my butt getting really sore sitting here, but the pictures should explain a lot better. The only thing they cannot convey is the absolute immensity of the scenes, the whipping wind, or the sense of absolute desolation and isolation one gets standing there. But for that you’ll just have to visit yourselves.

Perhaps this is a good time to put in a few sentences about our Japonese amigo. He barely spoke Spanish, but that sure didn’t stop him from trying! I spent many hours answering banal questions about any matter of things, though I’m sure (or am I?) the banality was only due to his barely-existent grasp of Spanish. It turns out the poor guy had booked a flight from La Paz to Santiago, Chile, without realizing that he could have gotten off the tour in San Pedro and bussed to Santiago. The fella had to go all the way back to La Paz (a long way), and for the entirity of two days it was all he could talk about. At one point, while chilling next to a laguna, he came and squatted next to the Californian and I, and asked how to say “shit.” Due to his position, I thought he had to go, and offered him some toilet paper, but the Californian correctly intuited that the Japonese guy just wanted to swear. So we said, “you say ‘shit,’” and said it he did, at the top of his lungs. It was hilarious. In fact, he was very prone to vocal outbursts: any time he found something surprising, or finally understood something he’d been confused about, or in any moment of emotion at all, he let off this huge Japanese shout, somewhat akin to what I would imagine Samurai warriors letting loose before an especially powerful swing of the sword. His gesticulations were a matter of amazement to me as well. As he struggled through his speech, one word by agonizing word, he would define the most delicate abstract finger paintings in the air in front of his face. Geometric shapes, swirls, jabs, and forms which defy description – none were exempt from being traced by his fingers as he spoke.

He had a special amazement with me, and most especially my backpack (actually Lauren’s . . . thank you so much!). He was astounded that it was all the gear I had for three months, and took several photographs of it from various angles. He then presented me with a pad and pen and asked me to write a list of everything I had in the bag. Naturally, I did so, while he watched and slowly stamped his foot on the floor. I showed him some of my packing techniques, which are now immortalized in Japanese script in his notebook. What a guy.

For the last night, we stayed in the dormitories for the park rangers. Praise be, there was a cantina there, with Coca-Cola (honestly the most universally available product. You can get it anywhere and everywhere), but more importantly rum! The Californian and I were very excited, and got down to business.

Okay, I’m going to speed things up now. We woke up for a ridiculously cold and early morning and headed off for some geysers in the area. These were no geysers in the Old Faithful sense, because only steam shot up from the ground, but were still amazing, because it was essentially giant potholes filled with bubbling mud, emitting this disgusting sulphur smoke. After we walked through them we got to the other side, where a prominent sign was posted, warning any and all not to approach that which we had just walked through. Look at the pictures for more info.

Then it was off to some thermal baths for a quick swim, then to the Chilean border!

I’m fading quickly . . .

Anyways, fast forward to right now. I am now in Sucre, the official capital of Bolivia (but all the government buildings are in La Paz), the “White City” of Bolivia, and the Chocolate capital of Bolivia. That’s a lot of titles! However, most importantly, this place is clean, has trees, and the poverty is not as apparent as in Potosi, Uyuni, or even La Paz. This place is beautiful! It is so nice to be in a place where poverty does not stare you in the face everywhere you go . . .

I’ve decided to stay here for at least a week more, especially considering that the next leg of my trip to Santa Cruz is an 18 hour bus ride. I need to chill out muchly before attempting that one. For some reason, the Bolivians never open the windows on the buses, due to the “dust,” and prefer instead to sit in sweltering stale air, breathing in other people’s (and sometimes my) farts.

I’ve probably forgotten some of the coolest parts of the adventures, but oh well. If I remember I might post it. If not, well, oh well.

Hi Mark!

‘K Bye.