Monthly Archives: April 2009

Peru Adventure Part V

26 Sunday Apr 2009

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I know its only been a day…but I´m heading off to the Amazon jungle tomorrow for four days so I need to take this opportunity to journal my time since I arrived in Cusco last Friday. Because a LOT happened to me. Some tragic, but all funny when told in hindsight.
Mirjam and I spent the first two days in Cusco acclimatizing, and trying not to do too much. The first morning, after recovering from the Death by Pan Flute Express, we went out for brunch at a restaurant called Jack´s that was recommended to me by the people I met in Huacachina. It did not disappoint. I had the best breakfast with fresh baked bread, eggs, tomato, potatoes, avocado, fresh orange juice and a piping hot latte. I needed a little bit of home.
We then headed up the hill to check out the beautiful little neighborhood of San Blas which was just charming with lots of very steep narrow streets that twisted and turned endlessly. Continuing up we decided to visit the original Incan fortress of Saskaywaman…which tourists affectionately refer to as “Sexywoman“. From there we could admire the incredible stone work of the incas…some of the rocks used to construct the fortification weighed up to 3 tonnes, and yet were carved and put together to stand for over 600 years without the use of mortar or clay. And none of the stones were rectangular, they were all polygon shapes fitted together like a giant jigsaw. From the top of the hill we could appreciate a bird´s eye view of the entire city of Cusco, the oldest inhabited city in South America. It was much larger than I had expected and surrounded with beautifully lush green hills and valley as far as the eye could see…with just a few snow capped peaks visible in the very distance.
Coming back to the city …I hopped in a cab to have a chiropractic appointment and sort out my bus ravaged body. Getting back I attended the first orientation for my five day trek..and it was a complete waste of time. The agency couldn´t answer my questions, I was the only one from my group in attendance…oh well! This is the Peruvian way, I´m beginning to appreciate.
However, it was my birthday and Mirjam and I had invited a bunch of travellers to come out and celebrate with me. In all, 11 people showed up and the drinks started to flow. We were even joined by a guy from Miami, originally from Israel, who´s birthday it was too! It was a great night out which ended in a karaoke bar (of course!!) with lots of singing and dancing… I even managed to get a very nice good night kiss from my fellow birthday boy (unfortunately he was flying home the next day).
The next day, Mirjam and I awoke with a serious hangover. I stayed in bed most of the day and only ventured out to buy some last minute needed items of gear for my trek like rain pants, and a poncho. Then we went out for a lovely meal and I tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour because I was being picked up at 4:15am the next day!
Of course, I hardly slept. And the pickup was an HOUR late. Which pissed me off. However, I got in the van and tried to sleep, to no avail, all the way the trail head at Mollepata. Beginning to converse with my fellow hikers, I was shocked to discover that I had paid FOUR TIMES what each of the other 11 trekkers had for this trip. This put me in a horrendously bad mood as I felt completely cheated, robbed and lied to. It wasn´t so much the money…but that I had been told that the 19 April was SOLD OUT and that the company was making an exception adding me at the last minute. Well, everyone had booked the trip in the last three days. My poor impression of tourism operators in this country continues to be formed.
Our first day of hiking we covered 19 kilometres and climbed 1000 metres to our first camp at Soraypampa. The scenery and weather changed drastically…we started in very humid, mosquito infested, semi-jungle, and then climbed into an alpine valley with lush green meadows and snow capped peaks in the not too distant horizon. By the late afternoon we had piled on our jackets, pants, gloves, and hats…Our porters (the cooks) and the pack mules were way ahead of us and had laid out a lovely spread of hot tea and popcorn (okay!!) for our arrival. It was so lovely and cozy, I could definitely get used to someone carrying my shit, and cooking for me when I backpack. So spoiled were we. To add to the atmosphere of it all, there was even a little ginger kitten who curled up in a ball on my lap while we ate and drank.
Dinner was not disappointing either…we had cream of asparagus soup, strips of sirloin steak with rice and vegetables, followed by jello for dessert. Yum! After several rounds of cards with my new group of trekkers, I was ready to crawl into my -15 sleeping bag for a good night´s sleep. Thankfully, it was.
Day 2 was going to be the toughest, with over 11 hours of hiking and climbing over the pass at 4950 metres- 15250 feet. I felt ready for it, physically, but was still nervous about the altitude. We were extremely blessed with fantastic weather, and the clouds soon dissipated to reveal glorious 6000 metre peaks all around us. I found the trekking poles very helpful as we began the gruelling switchbacks, up, up , up to our goal. I was the fifth to make it to the top and felt really good, just a little breathless. The biting wind also took a hold once you had stopped for a few minutes. After taking in the vistas of the glaciers overhead, and hearing them crack and move, it was time to move on to our descent back into the sub alpine green meadows and then further down into the jungle.
After nearly 7 hours of walking we stopped for lunch and ate ravenously. I couldn´t fathom that we still had 3 hours to go. That section of the trail was the toughest, and your aching muscles just willed the campsite to come into view as we went around each and every bend. I was starting to feel very weak, my stomach was hurting badly, but it wasn´t until I arrived into camp that I began to suspect that there was something very wrong with me.
I sat down, exhausted, on arrival. Then I thought to myself: ¨”oh, I´ll just lie down for a few minutes before I get into my tent and change”. That’s when everything went downhill. In a matter of minutes, I began to feel nauseous. Then the world started spinning around me, and every time I tried to sit up I was sure I was going to be sick. I was feeling really bad and worsening. Then I started to shiver, and I realized that I was lying on the ground in my sweat soaked clothes, and that I needed to get out of them quickly. I just couldn´t move and I began to panic. I willed someone to help me, but no-one seemed to notice me lying on the ground. Eventually, my tent mate asked if I was ok…I explained, though terribly embarrassed, that I was going to need help getting in the tent. With her´s and Nico´s help, I got in the tent, and somehow managed to get into dry clothes and curl into my sleeping bag.
No sooner had I got in my bag than I needed to get out again..and crawling just steps from my tent, I threw up. That was when things got bad, and things started exiting me from..um..both ends, shall we say? A fever began to spike and I was unable to keep water down.
What had I eaten or drank different from anyone else? I couldn´t think of anything. My guide, Nico, was convinced I had altitude sickness. All I knew is that things were bad and I wished to be anywhere but in the middle of nowhere.
Concerned with dehydration, my guide gave me hydration tablets and lots of water, which I promptly threw up. Nothing was staying down. It was so awful. He fetched me some Gatorade from another campsite, and I managed to keep sipping that throughout the night, thank God.
It was by far one of the longest nights of my life. I didn´t sleep at all, but just lay there writhing in pain and nausea for over 12 hours. In the middle of the night, I knew I had to go to the bathroom, but I had no idea where it was, or how on earth I was going to muster to the strength to walk there. I woke my tent mate who explained that it was about 200 m east of the tent, and that I should just head to the river.
There I was, in pitch black darkness, stumbling horrendously with my headlight trying to stay upright to get to the latrine. I stepped in donkey shit. In sandals. I tried to avoid chickens and nearly walked into a mule. Finally finding the outhouse, my heart sank as I saw that these toilets were no more than holes in the ground.
Now, as any of you who´ve had the pleasure of using such facilities will know…a good ¨”aim” is difficult at the best of times…but when you are delirious and have diarrhea….well, lets just say, that I missed….and creating such a disgusting mess that I threw up again.
I couldn´t go back to the tent like this…so I tried to find the water bucket that is used to flush the toilet…it was empty. So I hobbled down to the river and tried to rinse my feet and sandals, but the current was so strong I nearly got swept away.
Its all really funny to recall now, in retrospect, but I can assure you that at the time, it was severely lacking in humor.
Back in the tent, I was so uncomfortable and sick, that the only relief I could find was in scratching all the mosquito bites on my legs. Well, that soon got out of hand and I think I scratched myself till I bled.
In the morning, my guide came over and told me that I had to get up and walk. I just wanted to crawl up in the corner and die. God. How was I going to walk?
I can´t even begin to describe how hard it was to get ready and start walking when I felt like collapsing at every step. I was so dizzy and nauseous, it was a battle of the mind just to keep going. At one point, unable to go any further, I sat on a rock on the trail and just started to cry. It was especially difficult not having anyone else that I knew there to offer even so much as moral support. Some hiker came over and pointed out that I didn´t look so great. “What an astute observation,” I thought to myself sarcastically…but when he explained that he was a doctor…it was like music to my ears.
Turned out, he thought I had caught a virus, and promptly gave me some drugs which he explained might help with the nausea and dizziness. He said that if I still wasn´t keeping liquids down within 6 hours that I should stop and have an IV administered.
Yeah, that´s likely in the middle of the jungle.
Thankfully, the drugs helped a little and I was able to keep going and keep some liquids down. After about an hour, a local came by on horseback, and after some negotiating, I managed to bargain my way onto his horse in his stead. It was a relief not to be walking, but the horse trotting and crossing rivers and large rocks jolted my insides so bad that I threw up a couple more times.
After what felt like eternity, we reached our lunch stop for the day, I slid off the horse and crawled over to a nearby tree and lay down in the grassy shade, so incredibly grateful to not be moving anymore.
I didn´t eat much those next 2 days, but I was beginning to feel better by that evening…even well enough to go to the Hot Springs in Santa Maria with the rest of the group. It was an incredible setting, and it was so nice to get a sense of cleanliness after 3 days of roughing it.
Thankfully, the next day was pretty easy, without much climbing…just a long trek along the River Urumbata towards the train tracks leading to Aguas Caliente…the town at the foot of the mountains of Machu Picchu. It was now lush green jungle and we saw lots of beautiful birds, cascading waterfalls, and got eaten alive by swarms of mosquitoes.
The night before our dawn climb to Machu Picchu I was again, unable to sleep a wink. The entire next day I ran entirely on adrenaline and the excitement of seeing a sight I´d been dreaming about for nearly 20 years.
We set out at 3:30 in the morning with headlamps to tackle the very steep climb up the incan stairs to the entrance gates of Machu Picchu. It was a ridiculously steep climb, but it felt worth it when we claimed one of the first places in line to be allowed in. Walking into the ruins just as dawn was breaking is a spectacle I will not soon forget. Nothing can prepare you for that first glimpse of this wonder of the world, and as I gazed on this lost city of the Incas, surrounded by the mist enveloped green peaks, I couldn´t help but be overcome with emotion and tears flooded my eyes. It was so unreal…to finally be here.
We all raced through the ruins to get ” in line ” for permits to climb the famed Wana Picchu mountain, since only the first 400 hikers are permitted to get to its summit on a daily basis. Nearly 5000 tourists visit Machu Picchu on any given day.
After a two hour tour led by our guide Nico on the history and story of the city, it was time to head up the peak. I was so tired that I nearly fell asleep standing during the tour, so I´m not sure how I managed to summit the 700 metre climb. It was ridiculously steep and narrow, and having to make room for some people descending as we climbed was particularly precarious. I was a puddle. My legs shook with the effort. Just when I thought we´d reached the summit…we had to CRAWL through a very narrow tunnel like cave in order to emerge on top on the other side. It was barely large enough to push my body through.
The view made it all worthwhile…the ruins below us formed the shape of the condor and looked like a small spec all those metres below us. The bridge we had crossed the river on the day before was but a brown spec on the valley floor below us.
Most unfortunately, despite being the one person who had paid through the nose for this trip, I also seemed to be the one person singled out to return to Ollantaytambo and on to Cusco on the 2pm train- everyone else on the trip was reserved on the 6pm train. I was very upset at having to leave the site early as I wanted to spend the day there. Having said that, by the time I descended from Wana Picchu, and climbed up to the Guard House to take some of those iconic photographs…I had been walking for nearly 10 hours and I was completely wrecked. I would never have suspected that of our gruelling 5 day trek, the day in Machu Picchu was going to test me physically the most.
I was so dead that I decided to take the bus back down to Aguas Caliente. Sadly, I didn´t even get to say goodbye to the rest of my group, only Nico, who had tried unsuccessfully (bless him) to change my train ticket to the later departure.
By the time the train pulled into Ollantaytambo 3 hours later, I was convinced that I was going to spend the night here and get some rest, and take advantage of the location to see the Sacred Valley before heading back to Cusco the next evening.
Turned out to be a good decision. Actually relieved to be all alone for a change, I ate a quick dinner and then promptly fell asleep around 7pm…only to awake 14 hours later at 9am the following morning. I had needed it.

Peru Adventure Part IV

25 Saturday Apr 2009

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It has been too long since I last wrote, and if I don´t put pen to paper soon, figuratively speaking of course, I will forget what I have done this past week or so. I have just returned from a six day trek through the Peruvian Andes, the “Salkantay“, ending in Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley…but before I get ahead of myself- I will continue my travel account from where I last left you…standing alone in the middle of the night outside my hostel in Arequipa waiting for someone to let me in.
Here is the latest link to pictures from my last trek-
Well thankfully, someone eventually listened to my persistent banging on the door and cries for help. “No, we are not open all night,¨I was told by a solemn faced young man who finally came to my rescue. ¨”Well, then don’t advertise that you are on your website!” I madly responded as I set my bags down in my room which would be my home for the short four hours I had before my tour leader to the Colca Canyon was picking me up.
The Colca Canyon is advertised as the deepest canyon in the world (which technically isn´t true..the Cotahuasi Canyon a few hundred kilometres from there is 150 metres deeper), over twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. I was excited to hike down to the bottom of it and spend a couple of days exploring its famous villages that house people who live at the bottom, isolated from the world around them, separated from the conveniences of public transport and a grocery store by a five hour climb straight up!
It was about a four hour drive to the canyon in our minivan…and I tried to sleep, to no avail. The altitude immediately started affecting me, especially since I hadn´t spent any time in Arequipa, and we were driving over a 4900 Metre pass. I felt lightheaded, dizzy, and generally quite out of it. We first stopped at the “Stone Forest” for some pictures, and though it was only a five minute walk, I was completely winded by the time we got back to the van.
My travelling party consisted of a lovely Dutch girl by the name of Mirjam (who I´ve been travelling with on and off since), as well as a couple from France, a couple from England, a guy from Montreal, Francois, and myself. It was a lovely eclectic group, but I struggled yet again with the fact that the French language is stored in the exact same space in my brain as the Spanish language, and switching one to the another is next to impossible!
After a fabulous buffet lunch we continued on to the “Condor” viewing area and took a few kilometre walk to reach it. Unfortunately it had begun to rain and the temperature had plummeted to the point where I was extremely grateful I had bought that winter jacket in Nazca. We didn´t really spot any condors and by the time we made it to our hotel on the canyon rim for the first night in Cabanaconde, we were all shivering and chilled to the bone. Some hot coca tea helped warm us up and (though I never really felt it) alleviate the symptoms of altitude.
The town itself felt extremely authentically rural Peruvian. There were only dirt streets, and women walked carrying their traditional parcels of goods wrapped around their shoulders, muddy children ran playing in the streets, chased of course by the obligatory plethora of homeless street dogs.
I slept under six blankets that night, and though I felt smothered, managed to keep somewhat warm (no heating in the hotel).
The next morning we started bright and early on our long trek down, down, down, into the canyon. We were blessed with warm sunny skies this morning much to our relief. The views were stunning (as you’ve probably already seen in the pictures I´ve sent) and the shades of grey rock turned to yellow and orange as we got closer and closer to the Colca River. Upon arrival at the “Oasis” where we would be sleeping, I was surprised to find an almost “resort like” set of swimming pools, palm trees, lounge chairs, and green grass…where our guide was busy setting up our tents. We all relaxed and swam in the pool while our lunch was prepared.
The food on this trip was amazing…the freshest of soups..asparagus, corn or vegetable, lots of stuffed avocado, chicken with rice and salsa…all home prepared. Wonderful.
After lunch, a few of us set off for our excursion to the next village up the canyon, Mallata, which was another 2 1-2 hour hike away. First we descended to the bridge across the river where we hungrily snapped pics of the churning frothy rapids before huffing it up the switchbacks over to the next “valley” within the valley itself. We had Alicia, an indigenous girl from Cabanaconde, accompany us on this trip and she showed us many of the plants along the way and the medicinal uses they had. For instance, we came across the Aloe Vera Plant, and placing its juice directly on the sun burnt arms of one of my fellow hikers, within five minutes there were two healthy brownish patches of skin in the middle of the red…amazing. Alicia was also a force of nature, hiking with barely any water, without let up straight up the hill wearing sandals. When it got really dark on the way back, she didn’t even need a flashlight…it was as if she knew the location of each and every stone as she walked.
The town of Malata was fascinating…so small and full of mud and stone huts, a little town square where we engaged a group of local kids in an impromptu game of soccer. I tried imagining what life would be like here, so far from the world far above, and found it very difficult. As I had mentioned before, it was dark by the time we made it back to the Oasis, but hiking with headlamps and seeing the glow of the stars overhead just added to the atmosphere and adventure of it all.
After another fabulous meal we all exhausted headed off to our tents. I had a quick swim in the pool under the night sky first, and climbed into my sleeping bag feeling somewhat worrisome alert as opposed to sleepy.
I didn´t sleep a wink that night. I tossed and turned and felt each hour drag by till the dreaded time of 4am approached and I knew we had to wake and tackle the monster climb out of the canyon before the heat of the day hit home. I later realized that insomnia is one of the popular symptoms of altitude adjustment. Ugh. To make matters worse, my period had started.

FANTASTIC!

That climb kicked my ass. I was beginning to wish I had decided to book a mule the night before for the 1400 metre climb, which took over 4 hours. It was horrendous. I don´t know if Ive ever been so tired in my life. But I made it through a sheer force of will.
Back in Cabanaconde, we greedily packed away a second breakfast before collapsing in the van and making our way to the hot springs! That was a welcome refreshment and offered some relief to my aching limbs.
I tried sleeping on our drive back to Arequipa but was unable to because of the windiness of the road we had to drive. However, after bidding our adieus, I grabbed my bags from the stupid hotel where I´d spent the first night and checked into my hostel which was just a few blocks from where Mirjam and Francois was staying. Knowing that if I didn’t go out for dinner right away I would simply pass out….I set out to find my new friends and grab some drinks and food with them.
We found the cutest little pizzeria and ate the melted cheese and welcome “taste of home” washing it down with a glass of red wine. It was some of the best pizza Ive ever tasted. At about 9pm, I´d been awake for over 48 hours and I crawled into my bed bunk and passed out.
The next two days were spent in a blissfully relaxed fashion, and I needed it after the crazy travelling of the past week. The first day I had breakfast with Mirjam and some of her friends she´d met in Bolivia in the main square overlooking the cathedral….they were a couple from Canada-UK and were travelling for TWO YEARS!! Wow. They had quite some stories to share…and encouraged me to move to Vancouver! Hmmmm..Food for thought. I then wandered the streets with Mirjam, dropped off some laundry, bought our night bus tickets to Cusco for the following evening, and then we both decided wed treat ourselves to massages!
Well, we got a little more than we bargained for. A cab driver dropped us off at a massage place….and the strange thing was that all the masseuses were blind. Weird, eh? Well, I thought….Blind people might make excellent masseuses since they have such a stronger sense of touch. Wrong. My female masseuse, who refused to listen to even the most BASIC Spanish commands like, “NOT SO HARD”, or “THAT HURTS”, kept insisting on punching me with her fists with all her might, and then trying to loop her arms around my neck and legs, contorting me to try and crack my spine. NO WAY. I put a stop to that.
Turned out I fared better than Mirjam, who´s male masseuse also massaged her breasts, which made her extremely uncomfortable. Feeling very weirded out, we ordered some chicken mole burritos and tried to laugh over the whole strange event.
That afternoon, I watched the sun set on my hostel terrace while swinging in a hammock. Ahhhhhh. Lovely. Then I treated myself to a movie! My hostel had a little cinema room with tons of pirated DVDs and Mirjam and I settled in with some chips and hot tea to watch “The Last King of Scotland”…which was a riveting albeit disturbing film which I enjoyed thoroughly. It was the perfect antidote to the last 3 days of hiking.
On my last day in the beautiful, white, second largest city in Peru…I decided to go be a tourist and spent the morning and most of the afternoon wandering around the incredible Catalina Monastery…a veritable city within a city. Nuns still live a cloistered life here, but in the times of the first Spanish settlement, they had quite the life complete with servants, flowing wine, and lots of parties! The buildings were absolutely gorgeous, all brightly painted in hues of blue and orange set against the white volcanic rock of the buildings themselves. If I had to be a nun, I would do it here…I thought to myself.
After more wandering, repacking of my backpack, collection of laundry, trip to the Internet cafe, and a lovely meal…it was time to meet Mirjam for our cab ride to the bus station….and our bus journey of 11 hours to Cusco….a journey that I shall fondly remember as “Death by Pan Flutë“.
Music videos of some guy playing Pan Flute for the first two hours was replaced then by incessant Pan Flute music for the rest of the journey while we tried to sleep in our reclining seats, which were so large, that for small women like Mirjam and I…made it impossible to get comfortable since we were sloshing around in them each time the mad driver took a hairpin mountain road bend doing 60mph…like feet in shoes four sizes too big.
We were exhausted upon arrival in Cusco (I seem to have begun a trend of a good nights sleep followed by a night of no sleep, and then a night of good sleep etc etch) but I was happy to see someone greeting our bus with a sign with my name on it! We got to my hotel (which was included in my trip to trek the Salkantay) around 6am…and were told that check in wasn’t until 11am. However, the very kind man at the front desk gave us a key to a twin room where he said we could sleep for a few hours until my real room was vacated. I could have kissed him, I was so elated. And I didn´t even have to tell him that it was my birthday!!
I´ll leave it there for now and pick up from here, probably tomorrow, where I will relate my stories of the trek and Machu Picchu!

Peru Adventure Part III

19 Sunday Apr 2009

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Its 4.30am and I am waiting to be picked up for my Salkantay Trek which ends in Machu Picchu next Thursday. It is going to be one of the hardest hikes of my life, covering 75 kilometres and going over a 4950 metres pass! I am excited, exhausted, and terrified at the same time. One things for sure, I´ll be coming back thinner.
I am sorry I didn´t get a chance to write you all yesterday. I was in bed most of the day suffering from the effects of heavy partying for my birthday. Thanks to all of you who sent their well wishes. It was amazing the fun I managed to have here in Cusco with only 11 strangers all meeting up at the last minute invite. Lots of fun, and singing, which is all important for me as you know.
It has been an amazing week leading up to this since I last wrote. I spent 3 days hiking in the worlds deepest Canyon, followed by two days of recovery in Perus southern city of Arequipa, followed by an overnight bus and acclimatizing in the continents oldest city – Cusco!
My guide should be here for me any second now, so I will probably write off now and write properly from Aguas Caliente if I can…the night before my big climb to Machu Pichu itself. Its so weird that after all these years of hearing that name, and imagining myself there…that I am actually about to set out on my own to walk to it! Hard to fathom.

Peru Adventure Part II

15 Wednesday Apr 2009

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Where did I last leave you hanging? I believe that I was just arriving in Pisco, dismayed at what I witnessed, a town that looked like it had been ravaged by civil war for 10 years…
Nevertheless, I was happy to be out of Lima, and set about using the afternoon to firm up some of my other travel arrangements (still minus an English guidebook!!). I booked a day trip for the following morning to the ¨Poor Man´s Galapagos Islands¨ of Las Islas Ballestas followed by an afternoon tour of the Reserva National de las Paracas. Then I spent all afternoon in an internet cafe arranging accommodation and my Inca Trail Salkantay Trek for when I arrived in Cuzco..(am leaving for Cuzco tomorrow night…so excited!)
The following day I headed out bright and early to the islands which are a natural wildlife reserve, home to literally thousand of Cormorands, Pelicans, blah blah blah birds (i´m not an orthonologist by a stretch), Humbolt penguins, a colony of 10,000 sea lions, and lest we not forget for the smell we were tormented with during the 2 hour visit…one of Peru´s primary exports= GUANO, or more commonly known as ¨BIRD SHIT. Wow it was bad. Somehow the smell made my already seasick stomach churn all the more and I had to stay seated much of the time, buring my nose into my shirt. The scenery was beautiful, as was the wildlife, but I am just such an, Í don´t know, ¨¨spoiled, over-travelled bastard¨´, that I´m left comparing it to other more spectacular places I´ve been to in the world. I know, I know, its awful. Today I had lunch with a couple who said they knew it was time to head home after travelling through South East Asia when they sat on a beautiful, pristine, white sand, turquiose water beach and thought ¨´Ugh! Another paradisaic beach…I´m so bored with them!´¨ It happens.
I spent the whole day with a small group of women from Argentina, Peru, and Belgium who had met living in Buenos Aires. It was my third day conversing with other people ONLY in Spanish! By this point, I was getting pretty good…and I even made my first joke in Spanish (though I can´t remember what it was at this moment). The afternoon took us to the Paracas Reserve which was interesting because of its vast sand dunes, rugged coastline ….very damaged by the earthquake, with visible 3 foot cracks in the rock caused by exposed fault lines. Our guide had me on the edge of my seat, as it were, as he recalled that day August 15, 2007…when he had taken tourists down to the beach and walked under the natural arch and cave only hours before the whole thing came down in the 7.8 quake. He explained how the shaking had started vertically and then moved horizontal, lasting an agonizing 4 minutes and completely flattening the city. There was a big celebratory mass taking place in the cathedral and all 400 or so souls inside perished.
We also learned about the Paracas culture which pre-dated Inca culture, with ruins dating back to 2100 years BC. They are credited with the design of the Nazca lines where I was heading in a few days…
After a nervous hour waiting at the bus station, with my hands and arms wrapped around my luggage (Pisco is very dangerous…I was told not to walk on the street after 3pm!! WTF!….People are desperate since they lost everything in the quake) I was taken by cab back to the PanAmerican Highway to rendez vous with my bus to Ica. I shared the cab with an annoying buddhist German traveller who kept talking about his infected foot, and how the pain and trouble it has caused him travelling, coupled with the suffering he experienced as a child, was a profound blessing. I bid him adieu with a heartfelt wish that he continued having horrible experiences on his trip that he could learn from…which he seemed genuinely pleased to hear. Bizarre.
The sunset against the desert from the bus was spectacular. I started worrying about the cab I was going to have to take to get to my next stop…the desert Oasis of Huacachina. Everytime I step into a cab on this trip, a small part of me wonders whether I´ll end up at my desired destination or…God forbid, some other locale where I might be robbed, raped, or worse. Its a worry shared by all solo travellers, especially women. Luckily for me, my driver Tony seemed very pleasant and happily chatted to me all the way to the Oasis.
I arrived in the dark and it took a while for me to find my hostel. I checked in, dismayed that there was no window in my dorm room…and wandered outside to grab some dinner. Having not spoken to a soul in English in over 3 days (the German dude did not count)…I couldn´t face another meal alone, and invited myself to sit at a table with 2 Australian girls and their mother. It was so nice to talk in English…but, I must admit…after listening to them chatter wildly about their wonderful friends and family reunion hiking the Inca Trail, and how 6 of them were continuing on to Bolivia, and how Mom had flown 36 hours to come spend a week with her daughter…I began to feel very sad about my going it alone. They left when I was still waiting for my meal to arrive…and I admit a few tears were flowing by the time I asked for my check. It was such a picturesque setting, even in the night, the sky full of stars, a nearly full moon reflecting against the lakes backed by mountainous looking sand dunes…but all I longed for was a companion that I could share it with.
The following morning I met up with two girls who had staggered in drunk to my dorm room at about 3am. They were the craziest travellers I have ever met…arriving in Peru with no money, working in Lima for a month for room and board, hitch hiking on local trucks from town to town, walking the train tracks to Machu pichu because they couldn´t afford the bus or train… They´d been in Huacachina for 6 days and talked to all the locals as if they´d been friends since childhood. We went for breakfast, stopped on the way for Lauren to try and talk one of the local drunks who was still sleeping in the street after their night of revelry into having breakfast with us, an effort which she thankfully gave up on after ¨´Rodofo´´ walked into a lampost and promptly fell down. I listened to another hour of their insane bohemian, drunken stories…and was relieved to go back to my way of travel…heading back to the room to grab my laundry and a book by the pool….how very boring and conservative of me.
That afternoon I decided to go sandboarding, an activity that Huacachina is famous for. Well, the company I went with had their marketing all wrong. The sandboarding was fun, but HOLY SHIT, the sand buggy we drove up the sand dunes in was absolutely, undeniably, the most insane, bone jarring, neck twisting, stomach churning, gut wrenchingly terrifying thrill ride of my life. These drivers are completely bonkers. I wondered how many people had died being crushed by the rolling steel mass of this cage like rollercoaster of an all terrain vehicle, as they careened around sweeping dunes at breakneck speeds and gravity defying angles. We would accelerate up a sand dune that was near vertical, and I kid you not, literally launch at the crest of the sand before crashing down the other side where the driver would immediately accelerate so that your stomach fell away with the drop like you were coming down a theme park thrill ride.
I had sand in every single crevice of my being by the end of the three hour…um….ordeal? I was still sneezing gobs of sand 2 days later! And they should have warned contact lens wearers like me that they would be rendered blind by the sand blasting your face while they raced around the moonlike landscape. The scenery was spectacular, and felt like we were on location for the next Star Wars movie. The sandboarding itself was fun except that my feet were too small and kept coming away from the velcros straps invariably throwing me into a cartwheeling fall, head over feet. After two descents, someone said ´´Did you know that someone died here last week?´´ WHAT? Apparently someone fell off their sandboard and broke their neck. Lovely.
I went down the next four dunes on my butt, using the sandboard like a toboggan. Way more fun, and a tad more safe.
I was so late getting back to the tour place that I literally had to run (sand clumped in my shoes) back to my hostel, deciding that I just had to shower and change before grabbing a cab back to the highway in time for my bus to Nazca. I still had sand all over me, but it was bearable for the 2 hour journey. I just made my connection.
Nazca is famous for the Nazca ´´Lines¨´ …strange shapes of creatures and symbols that can only be seen from the air. There were many theories that I had read about why these Lines were created and how, and I was hoping that my pre flight would include some more information about their genesis. Unfortunately that was not the case.
After cabbing it to my hotel, we were greeted by a roadblock for another Easter Procession…so I walked the last 4 blocks through hundreds of people, with all my bags, still crunching with sand, to my place for the night. Setting down my bags, I ran out into the street again and joined the throngs of candle waving Catholics eager to throw flowers on the statue of the Virgin Mary…and a glass coffin with an ephigy of Jesus inside. I turned left out of the crowd, ran ahead of the procession and then doubled back on myself to get photos ahead of the crowd. It was quite beautiful.
Not that hungry, I bought some fruit from a street stall, and after wandering around the city munching away for about an hour, I headed back to my room, re-de-sanded myself in the shower, and collapsed into bed.
The following morning I woke early, took some travel sickness pills, ate a tiny breakfast and headed out to the local airport. The plane was a 5 person Cessna, and being solo, I got to sit next to the pilot. Despite the medication, I still felt very sick, especially when the plane banked and circled again and again around each figure allowing us to get a good look and hopefully a photo of the shapes below. Overall, the lines were much harder to detect than I had imagined…and despite it being a curiosity satisfier, I was left feeling a bit disappointed in myself for wanting to do this just to have ´´ticked it off´on my to do list of Peru.
Oh. I forgot to mention my next wondrous experience with my lovely bus company Ormeno. I had booked a trek to the Colca Canyon for the following morning, and the company were picking me up at 8am sharp from the bus station in Arequipa. I had checked, rechecked, and triple checked with Ormeno staff and website to ensure that the bus would not be late. I was assured, repeatedly, that the scheduled arrival time was 6am, but normally it arrived around 7am, and occasionally in heavy traffic 730am. However, on arrival in Nazca at 11pm the night before, I reconfirmed my ticket only to be told, mockingly I might add, that the bus to Arequipa NEVER arrives before 9am, and that EVERYONE should know this. I was infuriated…and was told that I should book the afternoon bus leaving Nazca at 3pm, getting me in to Arequipa at midnight. Could I do this over the phone in the morning? Of course, no problem, I was told.
Liars. All of them. In the morning I called, having decided to take the afternoon bus, and was told ´´no its not possible, you must come to the bus station to change ticket. Must come soon as its Easter weekend and nearly no seats left´¨. So, after my flight…instead of being able to take advantage of the free lunch and pool at the next door hotel, I had to taxi it another 20 minutes to the bus station, and 20 minutes back to my hotel just to change my stupid ticket. And when I got to the bus station, the guy at the counter just looked at me blankly and said he couldn´´t change my ticket. I learned how to give violent protest in Spanish…to which he shrugged his shoulders, picked up the phone, mumbled for about a minute to someone, then handed me back my ticket and said ¨´its ok…come for bus at 3pm´´. THAT was what I HAD TO COME IN PERSON FOR? To listen to your initial refusal, then one minute phone call? No new reservation, new ticket, new seat assignment? I left in a huff, telling him that not one person working for Ormeno had told me the truth yet. Ugh.
After a mountain of cab fare, I packed the rest of my stuff and set out in sun baked Nazca to find a winter jacket for my high altitude trek to the Colca Canyon. Where was I going to find this? In the parched desert? I was having no luck, then stumbled on place that had a few reasonable coats, and grabbed the only one that fit, paying way too much for it I´m sure.
The bus to Arequipa was about 9 hours….and they played 3 action packed, violent, LOUD, movies back to back. Crash, followed by Death Sentence, and a Jet Li film to finish us off. By the time the martial art film came on…about 2-3rds of the bus was trying desperately to sleep, so I went downstairs and suggested that they put the movie on in English with Spanish subtitles (all movies were dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles…weird huh?) and turn the volume down since all were trying to sleep. She nodded, seemingly in a daze. They changed the movie into English…but then turned the volume UP. Jesus. I jammed in my earplugs and tried to sleep listening to the sounds of incessant fighting. Oy.
The bus was late. I got in to Arequipa at 3am, was dropped off at my supposedly open 24 hour hotel, looking forward to my 4 hours of sleep…only to find that no one answered the door and I was left standing on the street, in the dark, with all my bags, wondering if I was facing a cold night alone on the street….I´ll leave you there…wondering what happened as this letter is long enough by now!!

Peru Adventure Part I

12 Sunday Apr 2009

Posted by in Costa Rica, Peru

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When I last wrote you, I left off at the point where I was saying farewell
to Central America and heading to the airport for my solo adventure in Peru.
Well, what an adventure it has been so far.

We´ll start with the saga of the guidebook. All travellers know that a
guidebook is essential to any foreign excursion. Especially when you are
doing a ¨DIY¨deal, it is essential to know what there is to do, where you
can stay, how you get to places etc. Without said guidebook, one might say
that you feel somewhat paralyzed, and that’s in a country where you speak the
language, and buses arrive on time, and people tell you the truth when they
are selling a trip. But not Peru. Here, being without a guidebook is
extremely difficult. As I found out on Monday.

On my last night in San Jose, I went searching for a guidebook in several
large bookstores. They had all kinds of books from all of South America but
nothing on Peru. ¨You´ll find one at the airport, they told me¨. No
problem.

SO, at the airport, departing San Jose, there were plenty of guidebooks,
hundreds in fact, but they were all for Costa Rica. Not sure why that would
be necessary if you´re leaving Costa Rica, but oh well. I figured the same
would be true in Lima, and I would find myriads of books in the departure
area of the airport. I wasn´t too concerned. However, upon arrival, to my
dismay ‘ I found lots of travel guides but NONE for Peru…for Rome, Athens,
London, Europe, Chile, India, Nepal…anywhere you wanted to go, except the
country YOU HAD JUST ARRIVED IN. When I asked, I discovered that it wasn´t
that they were out of Peruvian guidebooks, they just didn´t carry them!

Ok. Deep breath. I´ll find one. Stela´s family had very generously
offered to let me stay with them in Lima. Her brother, Saviour, met me at
the airport and we walked out to the car. I then saw her father, 76 years
old, Jose ¨Pepe¨ Diaz standing in the heat with his walking frame in the
heat and I just wanted to give him a hug for being so kind.

The Diaz family were wonderful to me and extremely hospitable. It was
also the greatest Spanish lesson of my life, I think I spoke more
Spanish in that one day than I have in the last 10 years. I also
learned, to my horror, that I´ve been saying certain phrases that mean
something completely different than I originally thought. Apparently,
when in the past I have commented to someone ¨Wow, its so hot, and I´m
so tired…but I´m excited to be here¨ I have actually been saying
¨Yeah, I´m hot stuff, and I´m so married….but I´m sexually aroused.¨

Oops.

I immediately noticed with the Diaz family just how patient everyone
is here with one another. After driving to their family home and
dropping off my luggage, Savior and I sat and chatted for a while. I
asked him what the plan was..and he said that he was waiting for me.
¨Where is your Dad´´ I asked, ¨¨in the car, waiting for us!¨¨ So
bizarre. I was sure that I was waiting for them.

So off we went to find the local tourism office and enquire after
finding an English language guidebook. I couldn´t imagine it to be
too difficult. Well, they sent us to 3 different bookstores, and we
ended up fighting traffic for the next 4 hours, disappointed at each
store that had lots of guidebooks, but none on Peru. I felt so awful
to be wasting their time, not to mention gas for their car, and the
fact that they were all hungry. Pepe kept telling me not to worry,
because if I was a friend of his daughter, then I am also his
daughter. He was so sweet.

This all would be stressful enough, except that, did I mention, Pepe
really can´t drive to save his, and ultimately, our lives. The entire
time we were in the car I was braced for a metal twisting, screeching
brake, people yelling collision. Pepe drove very slow, causing every
car to honk their horn at him, yell angrily, and drive madly around
him. Because he drove so slowly, he kept stalling the car…when he
tried to rev it from 5mph in 3rd gear. We would stall in the middle
of an 8 way intersection, and I would just close my eyes and brace for
impact. I ts a miracle we survived.

At one point, Pepe decided he didn´t want to turn right, and turned
left into oncoming traffic, honking his way through cars, in order to
make a U Turn. It was absolutely terrifying. I asked Savior why he
didn´t drive, and he said that he didn´t want to pass the exam. I
don´t know, I wouldn´t let my dad drive me around if I felt that each
venture out of the house might be my last.

At one point, Pepe just stopped the car dead in the middle of the
street and started to get out of the car. It took him about 10
minutes, after which he stood there and peed. It was
very…interesting.

After an exasperating time looking for the damn book, we gave up and
decided to go buy my bus ticket for tomorrow to Pisco, as the lady at
the tourism office had warned us that since it was Holy Week, I MUST
buy tickets today, I couldn´t buy tickets in the morning, and the bus
might be sold out.

I kid you not, it took another hour and a half just to crawl through
traffic MADNESS to get to the bus station, then another hour waiting
in line to talk to an incompetent sales agent who moved at the speed
of tortoise on valium. The bus company had been recommended to me..it
was called Ormeno‘ it was supposed to be the nicest of the companies,
and the safest. However, I really think they should change their
slogan from ¨´We are the people who help people travel´….to ´´We are
the people who make it as difficult as possible for you to give us
business!!´´

The following morning, I arrived, early. The bus was an hour late and
wait for it…there were only 2 passengers on board. We had to spend
5 hours arranging tickets for THAT. I don´t understand why people
can´t just make bookings on the phone or the Internet, especially
since it is a city clogged to a full stop with traffic. Apparently,
as I´ve discovered over the past few days, you can ONLY change your
ticket IN PERSON, AT THE BUS STATION, even if that means you have to
spend an entire afternoon and taxi fare going back and forth.

That evening the family and I went to have Chinese food, which was a
little odd for my first day in Peru. However, I did try a Peruvian
staple of Inca Kola…the Peruvian soft drink of choice which is
bright yellow and tastes of bubble gum. By the time we finished
eating it was 11pm, and I still had to go to the Internet to print AT
LEAST one chapter of the Lonely Planet,…which ended up taking
another two hours to print, no laser printers here!

Needless to say, I was extremely sleep deprived in the morning, but
caught my bus to Pisco and felt quite relieved to be leaving the dirty
metropolis. I loved staying with the Diaz family, I only wish I had
had the time to watch them teach in their local folk ´´Marinera¨dance
school….

The bus itself was very comfortable and despite being tired, I
couldn´t resist watching Marley and Me even though it was dubbed in
Spanish. These Ormeno Spanish movies have been really improving my
language skills. I arrived in Pisco having balled my eyes out after
Marley had died, and then nearly started crying when I looked at the
city I was entering for the night.

It looked like what I imagine war torn rural Iraq to look like.

The roads were dusty, buildings completely destroyed, thousands of
makeshift homes made from mud and clay….The earthquake of 2007
clearly had very visible remnants of its impact, and rebuilding has
only just begun.

I was beginning to wonder what my hotel would look like, but I was
extremely pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful, clean, courtyard,
with restaurant, and very welcoming room with breakfast for 16 bucks!

I have to end there…to be continued! I am currently in the Colca
Canyon, so I might not be able to write again for a couple of days…

Hope you enjoy!

Central America Part III

10 Friday Apr 2009

Posted by in Costa Rica, Nicaragua

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I am writing this letter from the Desert Oasis of Huacachina in Peru…so much has happened since I last wrote to you that I could probably fill a novel with the stories. Which, hopefully, I will one day. I started this account in La Fortuna, Costa Rica…so Ill just start there and go chronologically up to Peru…
I´ve had another incredible day in Costa Rica, perhaps even one to rival the Canopy Tour-zipline day! This morning I tried the sport of canyoneering for the first time, which includes hiking, climbing through rivers, rappelling down wet rocks and waterfalls! It was exhilarating.

Our guides (who were delightful eye candy) picked us up at 7:30am and kitted us out with harnesses, helmets and gloves. We were warned that we were going to get wet, so I just had on my quick dry shirt and shorts with a swimsuit underneath. We were going to be traversing through the jungle, through a canyon called ¨The Lost Canyon” because, apparently, it doesn´t exist on a map. The scenery was lush and spectacular. After a safety briefing we started our first rappel down through the river, holding tightly to our safety ropes, lowering ourselves stepping carefully on the slippery rock, while our guides kicked water all over us.

The entire experience was a thrill, especially the 300 foot rappel down the main waterfall. I had to not look down and just trust that the guides were going to keep the rope taught should I lose my grip on my “speed controlling” rope. We also got the chance to jump, swim, immerse, plunge, traverse and get heavily doused in water for the entire morning…and we were spent by the time the tour came to an end and we had to climb back up to the top of the canyon.

After a quick shower and change into dry clothes, we were delighted by a fantastic home cooked meal of stewed pork, rice, mango pico de gallo, avocados, coleslaw, black beans, and tortilla chips. Yum!

Arriving back to our hotel we all disappeared for a couple hours´ of nap. Then I decided that there is no rest for the wicked and set out to rent a couple of bikes for a ride up to La Fortuna waterfall, which I was assured was an “easy, 7km, 30 minute” ride to the waterfall. Lies. All of them.

The bike ride to the thundering and spectacular La Fortuna waterfall was even more challenging that climbing the volcano in Nicaragua. Sweat poured off of me, I finished my water way too early, and to make matters worse, I had to keep stopping to get off the bike and reattach the chain that kept coming off every time I shifted down. My hands were covered in oil, and then my face too as I kept forgetting not to wipe the sweat off of my forehead with my hands! The last section was so steep that I was forced to dismount and haul myself and the bike the last 500 metres.
We were rewarded upon arrival. Throwing off our clothes we dove into the crisp cool water and swam out to the falls, delighting in the powerful undertow created by the force of the falls. We were told not to swim out too far as some unlucky swimmers had been pulled under by the sheer power , and then drowned because they got stuck in the spin cycle that it creates. I decided to skip that one.
Heading back we raced against time and the beautifully setting sun to have a couple more goes on the rope swing at the swimming hole (where we had spent the afternoon the day before after our long journey from Monteverde). It is a favorite local hangout and the rope is a no joke Tarzan like apparatus which requires you to take a leap of faith and time the release just right so that you plunge 20 feet into the deepest part of the river below. It was a lot of fun, but it took me counting to 3 like 10 times before Angela had the nerve to do it. By the time we made it back into town, it was dark and we were completely spent.
After a welcome ice cold beer, and a much needed shower, the group headed out for our “goodbye dinner”. Thank God. I couldn’t wait to say goodbye to these people. Ive never travelled with a more inane and unfriendly bunch in my life. They were the only downside to my time in Central America and I was getting nervous about my organized trip in Peru, for fear it would be a similar experience.
The following day we had the morning to ourselves before our last van ride down to San Jose. The two girls desperately wanted to go visit this animal sanctuary where they rescued and cared for animals that had been hurt, mistreated, or kept as pets illegally. They needed 3 people to arrange the trip which included 4 hours of volunteer work with the creatures (or bubiks as I like to call the cute ones..its a made up word my sister and I invented). So, being the generous person I am, I decided to sign up as well.
It was quite enjoyable. We got to play with a gorgeously cute Kicachoo called Benjamin who had been hit by a car (kind of a red raccoon), and hold hands with a spider monkey who thrived on human contact. They also had baby sloths and racoons that were unbelievable cute. The Asis sanctuary was doing good work and had a lot of volunteers who had come to vacation here for a few weeks and work with the animals. We were put to work cleaning a raccoon cage…which wasn‘t as bad as it sounds…except it was rather strange to be raking leaves for a creature that is considered such a pest back home and often destroyed because of the disease that they carry. In any case, it felt good to be putting some good into the universe for these creatures. I got some adorable pictures too which will follow for sure.
That afternoon we drove the five hours down to San Jose, and it was so winding that it turned out to be, for me, the worst travel day of the trip thus far.
I was starting to get nervous, as I still had not received my email confirmation from GAP adventures for my 21 day Peru extravaganza. When we arrived at 7pm and I still hadn’t heard, I asked my sister in the UK to call them…and that’s when I found out that I hadn’t made it on the trip. I cried for like 20 minutes at the news, then pulled myself together…reminded myself that I could do the same trip alone and that I would be ok. That this might be a blessing in disguise. That I would meet people along the way, that I wouldn’t be lonely, that I’d get a guidebook, and book things as they came up. It would all work out.
Having said that, when I’ve travelled alone in the past, it was after extensive research and planning. I had read nothing, and had done nothing except book my flight. I didn’t even know where I{d be staying in Lima, and was nervous about travelling in a country which is notorious for theft and crimes against travellers, especially women.
SO, it was with great trepidation that I fell asleep that night. Fortunately, my Peruvian friend, Stela, was kind enough to call her parents in Lima, who offered to put me up for the first night. That felt better.
But oh boy, so much has happened since I got here, and its only Day 4!!
However, I will leave it there and complete my saga later…..and so it continues!

Central America Part II

03 Friday Apr 2009

Posted by in Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua

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Greetings from Costa Rica!

Let me start by saying a big thank you to those of you who so kindly wrote to me offering words of encouragement and support. It really means a lot to me. I have decided to keep travelling…(what the hell?) since I don’t know when I’ll get another opportunity like this! And I really need to time to heal, regroup, figure out what is next in my life. On Tuesday, this part of the Central American adventure will end and I will be flying to Lima in Peru!! I’m going to spend about a month travelling through Peru and then end up in Bolivia, flying back to San Jose in Costa Rica (where my original flight home was from) on April 28. SO: if any of you would like to meet me in Costa Rica for a week or so at the end of my adventures….PLEASE LET ME KNOW!! Right now, I’ve changed my flight home to Seattle to May 13…..!

SO! I have the CRAZIEST day today! We are currently staying in the cloud forest reserve town of Monteverde in Costa Rica. This afternoon I reluctantly agreed to partake in a canopy tour of the cloud rain forest, which basically involves hurtling yourself at high speeds across mountainous chasms (at least 1500 feet up in the air) attached to a steel zip line and a hip harness. Some of the “crossings” were over 2600 metres in length, taking a full 2 minutes to cross. It was the closest thing to flying that I’ve ever experienced in my life and it was both exhilarating and utterly terrifying. They give you a lot of tips to help prevent you from starting to spin out of control, or worse yet, braking so much that you end up suspended in the middle of the cable, dangling over the canyon…as the only way out of that situation is literally pulling yourself hand over hand upside down to the other side….CRAZY!

If that wasn’t bad enough- the last canopy “ride” was a Tarzan style swing which was kind of like zip line meets a bungee jump. It was insane, and I don’t know how I did it! I literally held my breath and let the guide push me off the ledge where I was standing, where I proceeded to free fall for about 35 feet before the rope held taught and I was flying screaming over the treetops. Exhilarating.

I was so exhausted by the end, and it was mostly because of all the built up adrenaline from the afternoon.

I left off my last email in the beautiful colonial town of Granada in southern Nicaragua…the poorest country in Central America. On the first afternoon a few of us took a boat trip on Lake Nicaragua to several of the thousands of islands that dot this second largest freshwater lake in all of South America (after Lake Titicaca). Our guide gave us the history of the area as well as some pretty grim statistics of current affairs- 62% unemployment, 71% of the nation is under age 30, and the average wage is $1,000 a year. He said that having a job here is like owning treasure…you cherish it. Gave me a lot of food for thought and helped to explain the events that took place over dinner that evening that I described in my last email. People pushed to the edge just to survive are capable of doing anything.

It has been difficult not to notice the extreme poverty in Nicaragua. It was bad in Honduras too…but not quite as evident. A lot more people are begging on the street, many of them young children, and there are plenty of hawkers trying to sell anything they can to those who will part with cash. Many homes for multiple family members are single room abodes with dirt floors and little furniture or creature comforts. For the most part though, everyone I´ve met seems happy- because the one thing that stands out here as being available in an extremely plentiful fashion is…community. Everyone here knows their neighbors, they acknowledge each other and linger in conversation, they offer rides to one another as they drive by, and in the smaller towns, everyone knows each other. Family seems very important too, so it appears that despite the hardships of life, the people have one another and therefore find joy in their day to day lives. That is at least my impression.

The next day I went on a tour of the active Masaya Volcano. Unfortunately (felt like cheating) you could drive to the top and then peer over the edge into the steaming cauldron of sulphurous gases. I thought it was funny that there were miles of hiking trails, some of which we did, and also signs stating that you had to park backed into a spot, just in case the area had to be evacuated in a hurry!

Afterwards we visited a craft market, had a delicious hearty lunch, and visited a ceramic factory where we could try our hands at clay pottery. I was dismal unfortunately- the foot-eye coordination that spinning the wheel and simultaneously molding the clay required was beyond me. 😦

That evening we had the worst meal of the trip in this nasty local restaurant lit with blindingly bright fluorescent lights. ugh. Couldn´t complain though…it cost $2 for a plate of chicken, rice, and beans.

Though it has improved somewhat, I was still having a very hard time getting along with my group who seem to have simply excluded me from their conversations. I am looking forward to being with new people come Peru…I´m beginning to wonder if its just me and that I make an awful travel companion?

I committed to moving on to doing my own thing, and meeting more locals. Which I did.

After a gruelling 12 hour travel day, which began at 5am, we arrived in Isla Ometepe, which is a Volcanic island created by the molten lava flowing between two volcanoes in Southern Nicaragua: Concepcion and Madera. The heat was astronomical here. It was well over 100 ´F by 10am..and we had most of the journey on HOT, STICKY, I AM NOW AT ONE WITH MY SEAT, chicken buses. We had the added pleasure of riding on the chicken ferry that afternoon too! Don´t ask me what made it chicken. I threw up.

Our hotel was located another hour´s bumpy unpaved road away on the beach of Lake Nicaragua. It was a charming little spot…lots of pink cabins cooled only with fans, and lots of hammocks dotted around the grounds and beach front. We were in the middle of nowhere. Lovely. It was so hot, that after I´d ordered my lunch….I got up from the table, walked into the lake (fully clothed), submerged, got up, walked back to the table, and sat down. Sleeping was very hard these two nights….especially when the power went out and the only relief from the fans was cut off. My roommate and I just kept getting up in the night, taking a cold shower, then lying back on the bed sopping wet…giggling at the situation. It was quite funny.

The following morning I set out at 6:30am to climb Volcano Masaya. I was feeling very brave as it was a 4586 foot mountain, and we were at sea level….that’s quite a day hike, especially in the heat. And I was the only one who wanted to go! I managed to find a guide who was taking another few people from the hotel next door, and joined his group. I hiked with a lovely gay couple from England, and a married couple from Toronto. Our guide, Daniel, was charming and asked for help when struggling with his English (he also let me sing Beatles songs to him all the way down which gave him extra bonus points in my book). Thankfully, most of the hike was in forest canopy, so we were shielded from the unforgiving sun. It was a challenging climb, about a 1-4 of the way up, our English friends said they were headed down to get a couple of Margaritas and sit it out… I was undeterred. I felt SO HAPPY finally hiking again, doing something active, and was so excited to see the cloud forest at the top and the giant crater. It was the first time my surroundings really penetrated deeply, taking me far far away from my life back home, from my relentlessly painful heartbreak, from my job loss, from Seattle…and I surrendered to the wild cat like sounds of the howler monkeys, the heat of the jungle, the hum of the cicadas, and the steady sound of my heart as it burst from my chest with exertion.

By the time we summited, after a 4 1-2 hour uphill slog, I was covered head to foot in mud, cuts, scrapes, not to mention sweat. We descended then into the crater which had a lush green floor and beautiful lake. I immediately wanted to swim, and my guide warned me against it saying it was muddy. How bad could it be? In I went, only to discover when I stood up, that I sank, as if in quicksand, UP TO MY CHEST!! Holy crap. Literally. Luckily I had brought an extra litre of drinking water as I had to use it just to get the muck off of my flesh. he he.

Upon reaching the car on the way back, we were all completely spent and filthy. Our guide was kind enough to drive us straight to Ojo de Agua…a freshwater swimming hole in the forest, where we all gladly collapsed into the cool, refreshing, water. By the time our cold Capirinhas and chicken tacos arrived (this water hole had a restaurant next to it!!) I was in ecstasy. I met a man by the name of James there, who happened to be from Oregon. Since he was travelling alone, (and kind of cute), I invited him to come have dinner with me later at the hotel. I was pleasantly surprised when he turned up!

We had a wonderful 3 hour conversation, and it was exactly what I needed after having felt such a lack of relating to my fellow travellers. About life, travelling, being American, culture shock (when returning to the States), love, family, etc, etc. One of those conversations that are as delicious as a good meal. Then came a shocking coincidence. James lived NEXT DOOR to Korey´s father in the little town of Jacksonville, Oregon. How bizarre is that? To say its a small world after all would be an understatement.

I was sad to leave Nicaragua yesterday, and upon arriving in Costa Rica, you could immediately sense an economic and social shift. What do you mean I have to pay more than a dollar for a beer??!!!! Yes, goodbye to unreal prices…hello burgeoning western style tourism.

There have been many long travel days on this trip thus far. I haven´t minded them so much as I am about 600 pages into my 1000 page English Middle Age novel ¨”World without End¨”. Its weird to be taken away from my Central American “world” into my Gothic English “world” on every bus trip, but it adds an interesting dynamic which I´m repeating after having read this novel´s prequel “Pillars of the Earth” last year in Chile. The only thing that is really bothersome (and I think of you, Monica, when I say this!!) is that you have to exercise supreme bladder control…because we can be leaving at 6am and not stopping for the bathroom for 4-6 hours at a time. Which is really difficult when you take into account trying to stay hydrated because of the heat.

All adds to the experience, I guess.

Actually, we were quite relieved when we arrived in Monteverde yesterday as the climate is much cooler here…since we are in a cloud rain forest, about 1800 feet above sea level.

Before going on the insane canopy tour this afternoon, we actually had another adventure this morning, a description of which I will end this email with…as it is already insane in its length. We got up at 5:30am (I know, I don´t know why I find it so easy on vacation!!) to catch the bus to the Biological Reserve in the Monteverde Cloud Forest National Park. We hired a naturalist to take us on a guided walk into the forest in search of the diverse wildlife of Costa Rica. Costa Rica, apparently, has more species per square kilometre than anywhere else on earth. By the end of our 3 hour hike, the number of species we saw (some up close and personal) was extremely impressive…and I´m so glad that we had the guide, as there is no way I would have spotted half of these birds-creatures had we just gone the route of many of the tourists there in taking a self guided walk. We saw:

At least 7 varieties of hummingbird
The VERY RARE Quetzal, both male and female (we were so lucky)
A Coati (like a cross between a raccoon and an anteater)
Howler Monkeys
Kapuchin Monkeys
A Tarantula (got a great pic!)
A baby sloth asleep in the canopy
A variety of Toucans
Countless other vibrantly colored birds including one called “Car Alarm” bird because of the sound it makes!!

It was beautiful. I was very impressed and also enjoyed learning about the plant life, especially the two almost identical plants with giant leaves…one of which is pleasantly scented and called “Toilet Paper” plant, and the other being a member of the stinging nettle family. I felt it might be important to be able to distinguish the difference!

Anyway…tomorrow we have a half travel day and are spending the night in La Fortuna. I will write again soon!.