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