Disaster Recap

Since coming home, my days have consisted of waking up, eating breakfast, then going back to bed while perusing Facebook on my laptop. Going through all the pictures of our travels, I'm thoroughly amazed that we accomplished so much and emerged virtually unscathed. Bowels and gastrointestinal tracts included. Which brings to mind our initial goals for the trip:

a) not dying
b) having a greater summer than any of you will ever experience
c) learning to eat spicy food
d) avoid getting explosive diarrhea
e) successfully communicating in Spanish

A) is a phenomal accomplishment, but we did have some close calls... During the run to the heights of Machu Picchu I gave up on relying on my cheap windup flashlight. Consequently, I tumbled down a set of stairs and rolled my ankle over a misplaced step, almost sending me over a cliff. Biking down the World's Most Dangerous Road - the entire 8 hour bike ride was a near death experience. In the beginning you speed past glaciers and mountain snow passes at 50 km/hr, and after descending into the jungle, it becomes a gravel road where your bike tires are literally inches from a 3300 ft drop to the left, with cascades pouring down on the right. It requires extreme concentration, and we had little mountain biking experience, save for the Banos expedition/day of hell (please see Banos post). After a challenging turn, I looked up from my handlebars for 2 seconds, which sent my bike straight towards the drop, and so, completely terrified, I swung back and forth, wildly overcompensating trying to right myself back into a straight line, while hurtling towards yet another gut-wrenching curve. To eliminate excessive disaster possibilities, we went with Gravity, the most expensive and most reputable of all the guiding companies. They said that only one person had ever died under their care while tackling the WMDR. He was in his 50s, and they supposed that he suffered a heart attack, because there were no cries and no brake marks before he went over the drop. Before they built a newer road several years ago, this road used to average a fatality every week.

Where the road started in La Cumbre, at 4700m

The road ended in Coroico, 1100m after biking like this for 4 hours

B) This one is tough to judge, especially after learning of the incredible places where our other friends were travelling - all over Europe, Egypt, Senegal, Costa Rica, Japan, etc. Except none of their travels were as thoroughly documented as ours and the only proof was their photos which could have been cleverly photoshopped, so we'll still take the honours. However, my younger sister (the biggest newborn, as described here) experienced Snoop Dogg live at Bluesfest, a secret dream of mine that will probably never be realized, so we'll call it a tie.

C) Surprisingly enough, spicy food is a rare commodity in the South American places that we travelled to. Most of their typical food is actually really boring, consisting mainly of soup, rice and potatoes. Cool fact: the Incans grew over 3,000 different types of potatoes. Anyways, we tried enough rediculous foods to last a lifetime, which we described in this fantastic post. Which leads to the next goal...

D) I don't want to get too detailed with this topic, but I will say that I got the loosey gooseys more than once. Meghan can speak for herself if she wants to. There are a number of possibilities - seasickness, high altitude, lack of sleep, drinking the water... but I think one episode could be attributed to the fried pig skins and raw onions that a bought for $1 from a street vendor in Banos. Immediately before horseback riding. Sometimes you have to learn lessons the hard way. Luckily it never got to the explosive level, so I still say this goal was successfully accomplished. For all you present and future travellers, I strongly recommend that you bring Ciprofloxacin, an anti-explosive diarrhea wonder drug.

E) This goal is still iffy, but you can't say it wasn't attained for lack of trying, as evidenced by this conversation and this one later on. Having a background in French helped immensely because the languages are so similar, but really all you need is a positive attitude and an open mind. I constantly made mistakes and so was constantly the laughingstock (I once claimed that I was a man, intending to say that I was hungry), but it's all in good fun. Once you explain that you speak muy poco Espanol but you're willing to learn and practise, everyone becomes very patient and helpful. Having a pocket dictionary is oh so very handy as well.

So it's been a full week since my plane touched down in Canada, and I'm actually really happy to be back. Not much has changed, except that my driving skills have significantly deteriorated, not that they were very stellar to begin with. My parents took me to Zehrs and I wandered into the cereal aisle where I stood, amazed, at all the varieties staring back at me. Our grocery bill has doubled since I've come home, I'm not even kidding.

Anyways I've given it 7 days, but I still have... the itch. It won't go away and I think about it constantly. The travelling itch, I mean! Two months just doesn't do justice to South America, and I'm envious of all our travelling companions that we met who went on to the salt flats in Bolivia, surfed in Venezuela and saw the Igazu falls in Brazil. I'm determined to go back there one day, but it won't stop at that continent. I want to do all the wonders of the world, especially the pyramids, as well as the Mayan and Aztec worlds. So I guess what I mean to say is that I hope this won't be the last post, because the future holds so many possibilities for disaster travelling. Anyone want to join?

-V

One last disaster

This is going to be a quick post.... thought we´d squeeze in one last disaster before heading home on the 10th. I´m fairly certain this will be the disaster to end all disasters. Has anyone ever heard of the World´s Most Dangerous Road? We´re going to be conquering in about 10 hours from now starting at 8 am Bolivian time, and you can all follow along as we race downhill on our mountainbikes at breakneck speed, descending 3600m in altitude within a span of 4 hours...



http://www.gravitybolivia.com/view?page=12

Wish us luck! Thanks for reading :)

So long, Peru!

We´re getting kicked out of Peru because we´re too big.

Just kidding, our 3 week whirlwind tour is coming to an end and tomorrow we head to La Paz, Bolivia for a couple of days. We´ve been travelling with an awesome group of people with Tucan Travel, the cheapest tour group that we could find, and it´s been one fantastic disaster after another. We´re all around the same age group, mostly Brits and Irish, and everyone shares our thirst for travel and adventure. Tom is the most British person we´ve ever met; tall and lanky, moans about mundane things like the butter being too hard to spread, can´t rap for the life of him and is a superstar on the football field. Aid has the strongest accent I´ve ever heard and half of our conversations our incomprehendable, but he´s a complete gentlemen. Sarah and Nicky are two very lovely English girls, and cracking dancers as well. Jesse and Joel are the youngest Brits and can drink everyone under the table.
Suse is our Australian tour guide and we suspect that she´s a superhero by night. She´s been travelling on every continent, used to be a 18-wheeler truck driver and qualified to be on the Australian olympics team for high jump, and she´s only 28 years old. She conducted an 8 month tour through Africa last year and managed to concoct a different menu for dinner each night. Needless to say, nobody has lost any weight on this tour. Our truck driver is a South African named Vess, and he´s especially great with us and pulls over whenever someone´s rough night out.
As Canadians, we´re obligated to represent our country in all aspects, whether it be through showing our football skills at an altitude of 4000 m or seeing who can dance on the bar until 5am. Being such an international group, we often have stimulating conversations where we´re fielded questions such as ´Why do you call it a washroom when you don´t go there to wash yourselves?´ or ´Why do you use the metric system but still measure height and weight in feet and pounds?´ and my personal favourite ´Why do you club baby seals?´ Because it makes them taste better.
We´ve been having a great time so far, with some of the highlights including sandboarding in the Huacachina desert, watching condors soar on the thermal currents of Colca Canyon and staying with a Peruvian family while wearing their traditional clothing at Lake Titicaca. Only a couple more days in Bolivia before we head home. Tomorrow we´ll explore the markets in La Paz. I hear they sell everything there from uranium to AK-47s, so some of you should expect some interesting souvenirs.

Cheers,
V

Machu Picchu - we did it!

Our group at the beginning of the Inca Trail

Hiking the Inca Trail to get to Machu Picchu was basically the premise for our entire trip to South America. Although nothing could have prepared us better for the gruelling trek than two months of disaster travelling, I was still nervous about how the whole trip would pan out. Two nights before the hike, I was struck with a horrible cold but nothing could have stopped me at this point. Here´s a rundown of the 4 most arduous but rewarding days of my life so far:

Day 1

The first day was hot, dusty, and long. After an overnight stay in the neighbouring town of Ollaytaytambo, our group of 7 was met by our guide, Julio César. We could not have asked for a more amazing guide - this was Julio´s 500th Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu in just 14 years, making him an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience. They let in 500 people per day, including civilians, guides and porters, and at this point in time the Inca Trail is booked solid through to November. We spent most of the day listening to Julio point out surrounding landscapes and Incan ruins, as well as getting used to the terrain and setting a comfortable walking pace. After walking from sun-up to sun-down, we finally arrived at our first campsite where we were greeted with cheers and applause from our porters. This is something that we´ve encountered throughout all of our travels in Peru and Ecuador - no matter where we go, the service and food are always beyond spectacular. Every night we´d be enthusiastically greeted by our crew, and they would have our tents and eating areas beautifully set up. There was even individual wash up stations with clean water and soap for all of us before our meals. Our cook, Carlitos, was phenomenal and somehow managed to make different delicious concoctions every day of our trek in the middle of the Andean mountains. Oh and every morning we were awoken with steaming mugs of delicious hot chocolate.

Day 2

The only way to describe the second day was god-awful. There was 7 km of constant uphill hiking needed to reach the dreaded Dead Woman´s Pass or Warmiwañusca and each step was more painstaking than the last. I now have calf muscles bigger than my waist to show for it. The worst part is that we were walking at an altitude of more than 4000m, making it difficult to fill our lungs with air. It was kind of like trying to climb uphill for six hours with a 10 pound weight sitting on your chest. As we meandered along the valleysides, we could hear Julio playing El Condor Pasa on his flute from a distance. It was encouraging, if not a bit insulting, that he had so much more energy than we did.

Us at the top of Dead Woman´s Pass - 4200 m above sea level

Julio encouraging (mocking?) us along the trail

Day 3
This was the best day ever! After reaching the highest point of the hike at the first pass, the hiking on day 3 was easy-peasy. As we began our descent, the pine forests and dusty rocks turned into lush rainforest vegetation, and on either side of the trail there were orchids, purple lupins, red mosses and hummingbirds. The way to the last campsite was almost entirely downhill, and by the end of the day we picked up the pace until we were almost running fullspeed down the trail. It´s amazing how much everyone´s strength and stamina improved. We were almost euphoric when the last campsite came into view, with everyone congratulating and high-fiving one another. Wiñay Wayna is the last stop for everyone before they leave for Machu Picchu the following day, and the entire town was buzzing with excitement. At dinner I was so pumped up that I couldn´t sit still - we had almost conquered the Incan trail, I could finally breathe without difficulty, and I didn´t need three pairs of socks to sleep that night - what more could you need from life?

Taking things easy on day 3

Day 4

We woke up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 am. Somehow we had convinced ourselves that we needed to be the first to reach Machu Picchu, to make Julio proud for his landmark 500th trip. By quarter past 4, we were the first ones to reach the control point, where we had to wait for the gates to open in the morning. Other groups had the same idea, and we sat there grinning in the dark, where the other groups found us and groaned with disappointment as they realized they were the second, third, forth, etc. to reach the gates. Julio warned us that every day groups were very competitive when it came to reaching the ruins first, and that often people were pushed off of the path when they got in the way. I thought it was a bad idea, but when the gates finally opened a surge of adrenaline rushed through me and suddenly I was ahead of the pack with Chris, a fellow Canadian. We realized it was very possible that we could be the first to reach the ruins, and so we sprinted the entire path under the cover of complete darkness while tumbling down rocks, heaving ourselves up the steps and pushing spiderwebs from our faces. As we reached the last leg of the trail, the sun began to peak over the ruins, revealing that we were indeed the first to reach the eastern gates of famous Incan ruins. Exhausted, sweating but exhilarated, what else would two triumphant Canadians do on Canada Day as the sun rises over Machu Picchu? Belt out Oh Canada to the rest of the world, of course!

Getting ready to burst through the gates at 5:30 am

Sprinting up ridiculous Incan steps to be the first at the sun gate

And Machu Picchu itself? It was incredible, but I wouldn´t do it any justice by writing about it. Plus you´re all going to hike the Inca Trail yourselves one day, right?

-V


Machu Picchu Stats:

• Total length of Inca Trail: 45 Km
  
• Altitude at Kilometre 82 (the starting point): 2600m
  
• Highest altitude at Warmiwañusca: 4200m
  
• Hours spent hiking/climbing/crawling: 25 hrs
  
• Record time for completing the Inca Trail: 3.5 hrs
  
• Number of times I felt like giving up: none
  
• Best meal during hike: Mashed potatoes stuffed with carrots and peas, chicken breast with rolled mozarella cheese and ham and pasta salad. Finished with a cinnamon and clove mulled wine.

p.s. we haven´t posted any photos of Machu Picchu itself for those of you out there who are like us and want to see it for yourself.

-meghan

Happy Canada Day!

While disaster travelling has its perks, there are a couple things we miss from home besides friends and family. On this day, we´d like you all to take a moment and appreciate the simple things our great nation has to offer:

• Being able to say ´eh´ without being mocked mercilessly
• Being able to sleep in past 6 on Sundays without being woken by firecrackers and religious processions
• Clean, pure, 100% drinkable water
• Peanut butter
• Toilets (how many of you have managed squatting over a hole in the ground?)
• Toilet seats
• Water pressure
• Walk/Don´t Walk signals
• Pedestrian right of way
• Long summer nights

Happy Birthday Canada!

Disaster Travels Loves Food

Many of you are probably under the impression that we´re always off on crazy, adrenaline-pumping adventures. But truth be told, most of our days are planned around food. Peru has something for everyone, and we´re determined to try it all. Here is a sampling below:

The best meal ever prepared in a hostel kitchen

Best fruit salad- Yajuu! in Cusco

Cutest ice cream- tie between Chinita Panda and Gatita

Most politically incorrect ice cream - Chinita Panda

Best ceviche (raw fish with lemon) - Punta Azul, Lima

The only cuy we´ll ever have - Baños

Best sangria- InkaCafé, Cusco

We´re halfway there!

Against all odds, Disaster Travels has managed to make it to the halfway mark and we´re now in the coastal city of Lima (sidenote: we are no longer in Lima, just slow at posting). To celebrate, here is a collage of pictures of our travels thus far.

Proof that we actually did work in the jungle

This was clearly a bad idea

This plant grows in Manu and imitates a snake so that it can grow across pathways without getting squished by people and animals walking by. It then grows up trees.

Raul after our ´hike´to the big waterfall

Our pet at the lodge

Us with Erik the other volunteer

Boats at Atalaya

At Sacsayhuaman looking over Cusco

Sidenote: I have now purchased an English-Spanish dictionary, which will accelerate my still-stilted conversational Spanish. Hopefully it will help prevent more embarassing situations from ocurring, such as last week when I was telling the cook about our pet ´carro´ at the lodge named Kaysar. Except that dog is actually ´perro´in Spanish and carro means car. Oops.





Enjoy!

Jungle Advice

We´re alive! Our volunteering stint at the Reserva Atalya was an eye-opening experience, where the days were filled with all different kinds of conservation projects and sporadic treks into the jungle. One such trek took place last Tuesday, after Raul our mentor/guide hyped up a big expedition to la Grande Cascada (big waterfall) that involved a two hour hike both there and back. I knew that 4 hours total of hiking would be strenuous, but what Raul failed to mention was that the torrential downhill waters of the cascades would form the hiking path itself. Needless to say, it was a tough climb. The closest analogy I can think of is when salmon struggle upstream for hundreds of kilometres every year before finally spawning and dying.


A few suggestions for the novice jungle trekker:

• Don´t sweat the small stuff. Killing one creepy crawler is an insignificant and momentary victory. One dead mosquito will easily be replaced by thousands of others.
  
• The words waterproof, water-repellent and water-resistant are meaningless here. Water is everywhere and will find a way to saturate your every belonging, where it will remain during your stay in the jungle.
  
• Watch your step. While scrambling over rocks and rapids is tiresome, each and every foothold needs to be carefully scrutinized. One false step could quickly lead to your demise.
  
• Save your energy. Conversation is useless and sometimes not even possible to conduct over the roar of the cascades. Also, at some point you may wonder how your travelling companions are faring and perhaps they need your help? Ignore these thoughts. There is no place for compassion in the jungle.
  
• Practise track and field sports such as running/standing long jump, high jump and hurdles before you go. If you excelled at these sports in high school, you will be able to overcome jungle obstacles such as rocks, overhanging branches and vine snakes (yes, really!) better and faster than your peers.
  
• And the one indispensable item for jungle trekking? As Captain Dan once put it... dry socks.
  

At the end of our stay at Manu, we went on a three-day trip further into the jungle. We stayed at a beautiful lodge at the edge of the Rio Alto Madre de Dios, where all the buildings are made from recycled or salvaged materials.

The owner, Dante, is a great guy who has been working in Manu for decades and is a great supporter of eco-tourism. He took us on a walk (or more like a taste-testing tour) of his organic farm in the reserve. There he grows fabulous varieties of pineapple, bananas, peppers, maize, yucca and mountain rice. We tried this delicious fruit called anonas, which look like pineapples, but the meat inside is soft and milky white and tastes exactly like rice pudding. Scientists have come to the farm to study anonas, and have found that they have anti-cancer properties. Apparently over a quarter of all human drugs are derived from tropical plants, yet only 1% of plants have been subject to scientific analysis.

We´re back in Cusco now, after an 8 hr bus ride through the mountains made all the more harrowing because it was at night and raining. Typical. Tomorrow morning we fly to Lima, where we´ll start our 3 week tour of Peru.

Cheers,

V

Welcome to the Jungle

We´re here in Manu National Park, for a two week volunteering stint in one of the best preserved tracts of rainforest in South America. The lodge here is run by an amazing and inspiring woman named Magda Ruiz. She´s hoping to turn the lodge into a model of sustainability for eco-tourism. There is no electricity and the cabins are very rustic, consisting of screened-in open air rooms with several beds.

The rainforest surrounds us on all sides, and a few steps away is the surging Rio Kcosñiapata. Everywhere you look are high forest canopies with lush foliage and brilliantly coloured butterflies fluttering around and sunning themselves. So why have I spent the last nights sleepless, tossing and turning?

It´s not because I´m worried about prowling pumas or boas lurking in the trees above. It´s not because I´m afraid that one of my 60-odd recently acquired mosquito bites might lead to malaria. And it´s not because the guides leave at night, leaving me, Meghan and Eric the other volunteer to fend for ourselves... it´s because of ghosts. Yes, ghosts.

A couple nights ago, in a very roundabout way Magda pretty told us that the lodge is haunted. She had a shaman come to visit to clear the air around the land, and we learned that crimes had taken place here in the pst. Mostly to make conversation, I asked Magda to go into detail, and she said that on different occasions she had seen the ghost of the man who used to own the land here. He led a very simple and solitary life, living off of the land with only his dog as a companion. He refused all creature comforts and didn´t even like using candlelight at night. One day he disappeared - then his dog disappeared several days later. The two used to be inseparable, which made it all the more strange. Magda said they searched for his body for weeks, but found no trace of him, not one single piece of clothing. Soon she began seeing his ghost at night, and others did too - people who had never even seen him before.

Magda believed he died a violent death, and so she brought in the shaman to rid the area of negative energy. He may have served his purpose, because that night she claimed that she saw his ghost departing as a white horse... a good sign, apparently. Which is of little comfort to me, because in the jungle, at night there are few distractions and lots of time. The perfect ingredients for an overactive imagination.

Tonight there are more tourists staying at the lodge, and hopefully they´ll provide a very welcome distraction.

-V

Galapagos!!!

Blue-footed boobies!

Sea tortoise

Hardened lava flow at Sullivan´s Bay

The view from Bartolomé Island

Galapagos Island crabs

VHo turtle in a halfshell

Pictures!! Quito and Baños

Steam baths in Baños - VHo and André

Our lunch (cuy)

Preparing to mountain bike down Tungurahua

´Horsebike´riding in Baños

Asian tourists

Meghan and VHo at the Panecillo in Quito

At the top of the world

I used to think that I was relatively fit. Yesterday started off with a relatively simple idea - to explore the Incan ruins surrounding the city of Cusco. A 2 km hike to the first site seemed very do-able, but little did we know it would be an entirely uphill climb, starting at a city with an elevation of 3300 m.

Saqsaywaman (prounounced 'sexy woman') turned out to be a pretty cool place. Cucsco is laid out in the shape of a puma, with Saqsaywaman at the head. It was built in the 1400s, but only a fifth of the original structure remains today due to the Spaniard invasion a century later. The site was designed to protect the city from earthquakes and volcanic activity, a mission that they successfully accomplished since the structure is still standing today. Huge black limestone blocks are arranged in three tiered layers in a jagged formation. These were transported from a nearby quarry by rolling logs underneath, a huge undertaking that took 5-10 years each. The biggest blocks are at the bottom layer, some weighing over 300 tonnes, and each block fits together seamlessly with the next. Within the block structures are tunnels and intricate carvings of alpacas, guinea pigs, snakes and pumas, all which are important in Incan mythology.

We set off for the next ruin, Q'uenqo (which means labyrinth) when we encountered another traveller, a british guy named Michael... or should I say Legolas! This guy was a seasoned hiker, travel guide, and probably had elfish origins. After scrambling around the Q'uenqo ruins, we decided to accompany him to Pukupukara and Tambomachay, two other archaeological sites that were supposed to be closeby. This is probably the worst decision I have made in recent memory. We decided to take the scenic route, meaning following the supposed path in our friend's guidebook. It turned out to be an entirely uphill hike, and while Meghan and I struggled slowly along, Legolas led the way in front of us, leaping from rock to rock and surveying the path ahead. Each step for me was sheer agony, and the air kept getting thinner. We were surrounded by the gorgeous scenery of the surrounding Andean mountains, but all I could think about was whether the tightness in my chest meant an impending heart attack.

Michael, our guide


After what seemed like hours, I asked how much longer, and our adopted guide consulted his guidebook and said he wasn't too sure ; the map didn't look very detailed. I looked at the map, and - no joke - it looked like a drawing of Middle Earth. There were x's and dotted lines and pictures of horses. We were doomed. The sunny skies turned cloudy, and many, many times I contemplated not going on. You know what stopped me? Shame. I couldn't have a British guy think that Canadians quit when the going gets tough, especially after he assumed we were Americans. Also, setting off back to town by myself would have lead to me tumbling downhill to my death.

So, as the sun was setting, we finally reached Tambomachay. I can't really remember what it looks like though because I blacked out from exhaustion. The only thing that I'll exert myself doing today is eating overpriced Honeynut Cornflakes.

-V

The Day after Yesterday

Have you ever had a day that started off terribly and you just knew it was going to get from bad to worse? It finally happened to me, the eternal optimist. After the Galapagos, we decided it would be a fine idea to save cash and bus the 1200 km from Guayaquil to Lima. We had to make a stopover in the town of Piura, and getting there was horrendous, including forcing everyone out of the bus in the middle of the night, not once but twice, to declare our border crossing to the Ecuadorian and Peruvian authorities.

At 5 in the morning, we were herded out of the bus when we reached Piura. I groggily looked around and saw that we were trapped in some type of horribly dank and filthy holding cell. I heard a clanging noise and saw that a 5 m high iron-barred gate had slammed shut, locking us in. And then I realized that the worst had happened - we were being rounded up to become prisoners at a Peruvian forced labour camp. Or, almost as bad, we were stranded in a subpar bus terminal in South America. I looked for the exit, and then a guard approached me and said ´No señorita, it´s too dangerous to go out.´ He also informed me that the next bus to Lima wasn´t leaving until 3pm. Dear god! 10 hours trapped in this hellhole!

Eventually we learned that there were other bus terminals in town, and took a taxi to Flores, which wasn`t so bad because it had windows and MTV. We stood around awkwardly with our huge packs, pondering our next move. I guess the security guard there took pity on us because he suggested that we sit down and rest, and explained that we could leave our bags behind if we wanted to walk around town. Wander around a possibly dangerous unknown city with basic Spanish or sit and wait for hours? The choice was clear.

So we set off along the dusty, deserted streets of Piura in search of something to do. It started raining, of course. Eventually we came across a bustling family restaurant that smelled delecious, so we sat down for what turned out to be a satisfying breakfast. When it doubt, eat where the locals eat. Then we walked around and found a tourist information booth where they actually spoke English! A guide explained how to get around town and what sights to see. We went to the Museo del Vicus, which displays Incan artifacts. Little did we know that we would be the most interesting exhibits there...

In the museum, I sat down to study the city map. Then I heard giggling and a schoolgirl came up to and asked ´Español?` I told her I was Canadian and she went back to friends. Within seconds she came back and brought ten others who surrounded me and started asking me questions. I looked around, terrified... what did they want? My money? My bags? Meghan came back from the washroom and they pressed in around us, asking our names, why we were here, where were we from? We realized that they were kids on a school trip, just curious about these two huge Canadians visiting their town. Even the teacher emerged and shook our hands, asking if we like Piura. The girls produced notebooks - apparently they all wanted our email addresses? We signed them like celebrities giving autographs. Someone said they wanted to take pictures with them, so we posed with the entire class multiple times. Then it was time for them to leave and they all kissed and hugged us goodbye.

As the day unfolded, we managed to book flights to Cusco and back, found a decent pharmacy to buy anti-explosive-diarrhea pills and exchanged money for Peruvian nuevo sols. Our greatest find was the local shopping mall. It turns out it isn´t so hard to get your bearings and kill a day in a small town in South America. The weather turned out to be pretty terrific, too.

Conquered: Peru border crossing. Next stop: the jungle.

Eternally optimistic,
V

More Galapagos

Vanessa forgot some important Galapagos details. I don´t have time to write a full post, but here´s the point-form version.

• swimming with sea lions
• being tourists and pretending to sleep on a beach with sea lions
  
• swimming with sharks. Yes, sharks
• swimming with sea turtles
• convincing the crew to take us on a pirate mission to the National Geographic cruise ship to get ice cream from them
• living in the smallest room ever together and not killing each other
• eating constantly... as per usual

-Meghan

Galapa-happy-gos!

This is our last night of a whirlwind tour of the Galapagos Islands, and each day has been more incredible than the next. The crew, passengers and ship are more amazing than I ever could have hoped for. How Carlos the cook could have whipped up a delicious farewell cake for us during heavy sea swells is beyond me. In the past week we´ve travelled to six different islands, and my favourite expedition was to Seymour Island.

As soon as we stepped ashore, we were surrounded by shrieks, screeches and cries of frigates, terns and blue-footed boobies. Do you know what those sounds are? Baby-making. It´s mating season here. Blue-footed boobies are very distinctive animals, not just because of their name, but due to their curious nature and signature aqua-blue webbed feet. Like most other animals in the Galapagos, they have never known predators and show no fear of humans. I felt a bit pervy about it, but our guide Alphonso was adamant that we see the booby mating ritual upclose. It goes a little something like this:

Act I
The male booby circles the sky in search of his ideal mate. Spotting one from afar, he lands... and the show begins. In his efforts to impress the female, he fluffs his wings and walks around proudly with his chest thrust out, emitting trumpeting calls. It´s kind of like being at CIF.

Act II
After several minutes of this, the female appears vaguely interested and somewhat responds to the ritual so far. Efforts to attract the female intensifies as the male presents her with a series of gifts ranging from small sticks, grasses and then graduating to bigger sticks.

Act III
While the female peruses through her inventory of presents, the male feigns disinterest and walks away. This time the female follows. The mating ritually becomes an apparent success, and the male finally closes the deal. The pair will remain together for the rest of the mating season.

I think it´s a nice story... I´d like to turn it into a movie, possibly narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Epilogue
Weeks, later, 2-3 eggs hatch in their ground-level nest. Soon one of the hatchlings will emerge as the strongest, and will eliminate their siblings, as the parents only have the resources to raise one offspring. If this happened to humans, my sister Victoria would definitely win out. She was the biggest newborn.

Tomorrow we leave for the coastal city of Guayaquil, and then we´ll make our way to Cusco, Peru. We´ve opted to take the scenic 30-hr bus route instead of flying so we´ll hopefully cross the border in one piece.

-V

Horseback riding disasters / amazing adventures

Vho, Isabelle and I thought it would be a great idea to go horseback riding in Baños for 4 hours with a random Ecuadorian guy who was recommended by a woman who owns a restaurant and harassed us to write good things in her guest book. It started out well when our only instructions were left, right, stop, and vamos. My horse first decided to stop walking in order to eat garbage and then decided to stop in the middle of the street when trucks were coming at me from both directions...but, you know, you can´t expect things to go smoothly in South America. Apparently my horse and Isabelle´s horse didn´t get along too well, because any time they got close to each other they tried to bite each other and throw us off in the process. We probably should have been given helmets and riding lessons or something. Then we got to ride by amazing waterfalls and ended our trip up the side of a volcano, literally climbing up the remnants of the last lava flow. It was amazing!

meghan

Ecuador summarized so far

I´m going to be testing everyone on what we´ve done on our trip so far, so here are some handy Coles notes on Ecuador. Weekends are a really big deal here. I mean like Canada Day combined with long weekend celebrations. We were eating at an Argentinian restaurant on Saturday night when suddenly the streets exploded with fireworks, smoke and firecrackers. I´m typically a calm and composed person, so I dealt with it really well while Meghan was easily startled. Gosh. There were parades, marching bands, and crazy floats and tram rides filling the streets as well. When I asked what they were celebrating, someone replied ´its the weekend!´ Which is the way it should be, really, because I´m usually just happy that Meghan can sleep off her Phils hangover for a little longer.

Sundays are another story as well. In the streets of Baños we saw a long procession of people led by a priest carrying an enormous cross, followed by a sombre band of saxophonists (sp?) that were playing some kind of a bluesy New Orleans funeral music, and crowds of people behind them, all filing into the local church. The population of Baños doubles on Sundays as people flow in from all around the countrysides.

The majority of Ecuadorians live in poverty and unemployment is high. So high that many of them can´t pay the price of $1US beers. Or maybe they just have their priorities straight. Nonetheless, they´re a very hardworking people. We didn´t see any homeless people at all begging in the streets of Quito and even the beggars work hard for their money. For example one child was selling candy on the bus by singing a capella, and just tonight we saw someone asking for money by doing some kind of robotic Michael Jackson impression while weaving through traffic. Speaking of traffic, I really thinking car honking has lost all meaning in Ecuador. I have come up with the following reasons that warrant honking (insert colon... stupid South American keyboards)

• Passing fellow taxi drivers/trucks/buses
• When someone is in their way
• When someone is about to get in their way
• Passing pretty girls
• Passing ugly girls
• Dogs
• Boredom

We´ll see if this pattern continues in Peru, because tomorrow we´re heading out for the Galapagos, and probably won´t have time to blog while sunning ourselves and snorkeling. Is it okay if I use this blog as a platform for bragging? I don´t really know blogging ettiquette...

Happy belated May 24!

-V

Bye Bye Baños

The rain finally stopped in Baños this morning. We were enjoying a morning coffee on the rooftop terrace of our hostel when Isabelle suggested that we stay an extra night. I had to think about for about half a second before agreeing. I went downstairs to book the night for Meghan and I, when who did I run into but two of my friends from UW, Shaz and Ryan! Of all the hostels in all the cities in South America...

We spent the afternoon mountain biking down the side of the Tungurahua Volcano on the outskirts of town. The biking company trucked us up the mountain and dropped us off at the base of the volcano. When we got out the guide asked if we could hear a rumbling in the distance. Apparently the rumbling was coming from the still active volcano. We stood in awed silence before I asked what was faster - lava flow or mountain biking. There are several suggestions I would make before you decide to go biking in Ecuador, or anywhere in general. First make sure that the biking path isn´t entirely cobblestones and rocks. Then make sure that the shock absorbers on the bike aren´t totally fake. Watch out for dogs and cows too - they´re pretty spry. When you´re flying down the mountain absorbing the shock of a thousand rocks per second, you can take your mind off the agony by seeing how long you can go without pressing the handle brakes. My personal record is 3.5 seconds.

To reward ourselves after finishing the bike ride, we sat down for a delicious lunch in el centro of Baños. We ate at a restaurant that makes an Ecuadorian specialty called ´cuy.´ Do you know what cuy is? Guinea pig. I´ll never look at them the same way again.

Tomorrow we leave for Quito, and the next day we´re flying to the Galapagos Islands.

Ciao!
-V

Near Death Experience #1

As Vanessa mentioned, we went rafting yesterday near Baños. Obviously there were many warning signs like truck they brought us there in that didn´t have walls, the extreme rain in the morning, and the fact that it was only $25...but we prefer to turn a blind eye to those. So everything is going well until we get to the very end of our trip. I see the safety kayaker signal our guide from ahead and then hear our guide mutter something under his breath in Spanish. He tells us to get ready to paddle fast and then we hit these huge waves. We´re almost through it when the back of our raft goes under and myself and the guy behind me get thrown over. Apparently my years and years of lifeguard training were worth it, because I actually managed to stay calm while getting spun around at the bottom of a river of murky brown water. I even managed to hold on to my paddle. It took a lot of effort to stop myself from trying to swim while under water and just letting the pfd bring me to the top. Our raft came to rescue me and our tiny guide (like 5´3¨... maybe) suddenly became super human and launched me out of the water and into the boat. The only evidence of this near disaster is a giant bruise on my right arm.


Side note: my favourite Vho quote thus far is ¨but we don´t have accents, do we?¨ hahah!

-meghan

Saludos de Baños

So it turns out that we´re such efficient tourists, we´ve done everything we wanted to do in Quito within the span of three days. Now we´re in the town of Baños, a 3 hr bus ride away. It´s a beautiful but touristy town high in the Ecuadorian Andes, and we´re staying in the hostel Plantos y Blancos. Last night we went out with the people we´re currently travelling with, Andre and Isabelle, and encountered pretty much every single person in our hostel at the same bar. They played terrific Ecuadorian music like Bon Jovi, the Cranberries and Bob Marley. Because the bar prices are cheaper than Phils, we felt obliged to have several rounds of Mojitos and extra long Long Islands. The alcohol here does strange things such as making your Spanish worse. When I returned to the hostel I asked the security guard to take me to my room but instead he kept showing me the exit. I thought he was kicking me out for coming back so inebriated, but it turns out that I kept saying ´salida´instead of ´room.´ Salida means exit. Now I know.

We chose a really great exercise for curing hangovers this morning. It consists of waking up at 7 in the morning, taking a terrifying bus ride through the mountains, and squeezing into really flattering wetsuits... to go white water rafting. We also picked a really great expedition company that didn´t ask us about our swimming ability or rafting experience. But they were really nice and it only cost $25. So we rafted the Rio Pastaza for 10-15 kilometers and it was absolutely terrifying. The ride would have been shorter if it wasn´t for Meghan getting washed overboard with another rider, and since we spent so much time fishing them out of the water we missed our exit. These disastrous events took a turn for the better when we finally reached the next meeting point, where we found a woman and child stranded in the middle of the river. Apparently they had gone for a morning walk, but the river became so swollen with heavy rains that they couldn´t find their way back. So our guides became heroes and brought them back across the raging rapids. You can´t buy this kind of entertainment.

So far I would give Baños a 6/10 disaster rating, and 10/10 for breathtaking scenery.

Dias Una

Today was a day of firsts:

• First meal in South America: spanish omelette, cafe con leche y frutas (unlimited(
  
• First bus ride through the streets of Quito: think Mariokart but with less bananas
• First time I've stood in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere at the same time: we went to el Mideo del Mundo or 'the middle of the world' at the equator in Ecuador

There was another Canadian travelling via Toronto-Miami-Quito with us yesterday who told us about a woman who had a guest visiting her in Quito for the first time. He went running through the streets with dogs without acclimatizing first, then collapsed and died. So we thought we would take it easy by navigating the streets of the city to reach the equator about 150 km away, with embarassingly little knowledge of Spanish. It helped a lot that we went with our hostel roommates; another Canadian, a Swiss and a German guy, all whom are seasoned travellers and fluent in Spanish. They pretty much took over in terms of acting as travel guides for us, and in turn we kept them up to date on Grey's anatomy and Desperate Housewives.

We're staying at a great hostel in Old Quito called The Secret Garden. It's a great atmosphere, everyone's super friendly and the accomodations are clean and cheerful. Yesterday we celebrated our disaster-free arrival by consuming enormous beers and chocolate menthe shots at the bar on the top-level terrace. When I inquired about the price he said he would just put it on my tab. This is going to be interesting...

Cheers!
-V

The Night Before Travels

It is 12:40 am on the eve of our South American Travels. We leave in 5 hours and our excitement is almost uncontrollable. Except that we need to get a decent amount of sleep so we'll have to find a way to harness the excitement.

Our goals for the trip are:
a) not dying
b) having a greater summer than any of you will ever experience
c) learning to eat spicy food
d) avoid getting explosive diarrhea
e) successfully communicating in Spanish

When asked why Meghan would be a great travelling partner, my first response was that 'she's a lifeguard, and knows CPR.' But also adding to that, she's probably one of my top three friends who are not crazy and I can get along with without having to fill the silences with nervous chatter. Also, she's probably taken care of me in more situations than I can count without complaints, and which will help accomplish our goals as listed above.

On my end, I think Vanessa will be an ideal travel-mate based primarily on the fact that she will keep me entertained. Otherwise, she's also one of my top non-crazy friends and is much more organized than I am. Yes, I realize that I have to make sure she doesn't die and bring me down with her, but that's a responsibility I'm willing to take on.

The goal of this journal is to keep everyone up to date on our travels, our disaster status and so on. So far we've managed to pick up Meghan from the train station, driving through treacherous rainstorms to reach Vanessa's house in Waterloo, so I think we're off to a great start. Tomorrow we'll have a delicious breakfast of cereals and apples - and after that, who knows?

We spoke of our lack of disasters too soon. Vanessa just dropped her camera.