Peru III, Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca sits at 3809m or a little over 12000 feet

I parted ways with my Danish friends as they went off to Bolivia and I went to Puno. The adventure to get to Puno was something not short of pure adventure. I’ve only told a few folks about it but the memories from that day will live with me forever. Things got really hairy since I left Cuzco. Cuzco, a beautiful city in looks, was manipulative and dirty in rip offs otherwise. Beggars and aggressive crap sellers lined the streets. And loads of untrustworthy tourist companies. You won’t be able to tell who is good, you just ask around. We sort of did that, but I went with a company because of their good English and kindness to answer all my questions without showing any annoyance like other places. My fault. I bought a bag from the same folks that holds a name of a very very good brand, only to find the bag was a fake and it began falling apart within 24 hours. They were responsible for some other things and it was like I was on a bad luck curse after leaving Cuzco… bad luck translated into getting ripped off money wise but always working out.

Anyway, thanks to my adventure getting to Puno I befriended to Italian girls and we met for dinner somewhere in Puno that was close to both of us. I had to get the hostel worker to walk me half way because he insisted I take a cab for the four block trip to the restaurant because I was alone. I was mad. Normally I wouldn’t care, I dare someone to try to hold me up, but after the day I had I was in no mood to face robbery also so I convinced him to walk me through the danger area. I had walked home without a problem alone though. One of the Italian girls, Claudia, was on the same tour as me so I got to see her again the next day. Our tour, which I wished there had been another way to go about this, was to see the islands of Lake Titicaca. That tour was the most stupid thing I had paid money for. The first island was the floating reed islands, which I had been excited for until I saw how touristy they turned the whole thing into. There were more gringos than natives, they were going in the native’s homes for pictures and the natives all had shops set up selling things that were really expensive. I wanted out of there so bad. The next island was Amantani where we were to stay the night with host families. Normally a cool thing to do, however, these folks host so much they are probably bored with it and do it solely for the money. I paired up with Claudia and we were assigned two Canadians. At first I was a bit annoyed because I was originally told I was going to stay alone with a host family, which is what I wanted, and now I was with three other people when all the other groups were in pairs: couples. It turned out to be cool though, the Canadians were really awesome and Claudia who speaks five languages translated conversations with the host family for us.

We all met at the school on the island, about 70 gringos all wearing native hats, which is part of the tourist thing. We’re lent them to feel like we’re at home there, but we just look like a bunch of idiots. I took it for what it was, not real and I wasn’t going to see what real life was on this trip. We walked up the trail up the gradual mountain, the trail built by stones that reminded me of Ireland, and the trails were all lined with tables of crap for us tourists. I saw Snickers and Twix for the first time in South America there, on an island on Lake Titicaca… Sour Skittles too. We got to the top where there was supposedly a coffee shop. It wasn’t a shop but walls without a roof and a stove that was making hot chocolate and the most amazing Andean doughnuts! I bought 8 or so of them… we were all in love. And we ate, watched the sun go down, and a beautiful storm in the distance which eventually made it our way but much later giving us the night to walk around without getting wet.

eating reed

reed boat

doning our locally made hats

small native child

We walked back to our homes and the host family women (in our case because we were all women) came with traditional dress and dressed us all up for a party. It was fun! Two skirts, a baggy top and a very tight belt that made it hard to breath. There was a shawl as well, and I think it took a special something to keep it on your head without bobby pins. We walked to the school again and we were joined by other gringos all dressed up too. The boys get ponchos and a hat. The gringos again out numbered the natives. The band was made up of were all boys about high school age. We danced, I loved it. The simple couple dance isn’t that interesting but every now and then we would all hold hands and spin in circles around the room, running at times (very hard when you can barely breath from the tight belt). I loved the music. They had a big drum with the fur of the animal still on the skin, a number of pan flutes, a ukulele, and two guitars that looked like they had been through hell. There were about 6 or 7 boys in the band and they took some incredibly long breaks. I didn’t want to leave because I loved the music so much, but I left when the other girls did.

In our traditional clothes
The band
Our host parents

The next day we got on a boat to Taquile, not to be confused with Tequila. This is the island people say is their least favorite, however, I decided to break away from my tour group and stay another night there. We walked through town, we ate at a restaurant that was to be the place where I was going to stay the night, and I walked them to the boat down billions of stairs. These islands aren’t flat, they are a like humps in the water, you’re always walking up or down something. This particular island had a tall hump (the peak of the island called Molusina is 4074 meters from the top)The level of altitude between the port and the town varies from 3.810 to 3.950 meters above the sea level)at the top was something… I didn’t know what, but I decided to find out. There are trails everywhere. These islands have no cars, they use donkeys to transport things. They have loads of sheep everywhere and every woman cares a spool and thread with her and spins the sheep wool as they go about things outside of their homes. They harvest mostly potatoes, eleven varieties on the island (over 400 types in all of Peru) and other things. The paths lead everywhere so I had to make sure I remembered how to get back to my home for the night. I was alone, I didn’t know how to really ask how to get back if I did get lost, and they may not be able to answer since they speak Quechua and not Spanish. That walk was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had in my life. That island was so incredibly beautiful and green, it was like the life style had stopped in time. There are terraces on the islands, and all throughout Peru that were built by the Incas and were kept in use throughout time. There were sheep everywhere, and these black bees and were so loud as they buzzed by you. I’ve never seen a bee like this. They would stop by you and hover there, float by you long enough to take close of picture of them (If I had a good camera those would be awesome pictures).

view of the island
An arch on Taquile
Walking up the path
When I made it to the top I was greeted with ruins of something. It was a place to worship Pachamama which is like the earth God. I met a guy later who would offer the first sip of his drink to the floor, or Pachamama in his mind, as a thanks for saving his life once. The shrine to Pachamama also had a cross there. It was a place of walls without a roof again. I sat inside one of the rooms and read my travel book and wrote in my journal and contemplated my life. I was up there for hours and only saw a few other people. There were other crazy gringos who had decided to stay but they were with other folks. I was the only one alone. It made me kind of proud since I know that many people would hate having to do all these things alone. It would have been nice to share these amazing experiences with someone, but it was just as amazing that I did it alone. I found the place alone, and I found my way back alone. Before heading back, to beat the sunset since I didn’t want to navigate the trails with my headlamp, I watched the storms in the distance again. It’s rainy season, but luckily the rain waits till well after nightfall to come to these islands.

view from the resaurant where I was staying

Back at the restaurant where I was staying I sat in my room and stared out my many windows. It was very scenic. I loved being here, but I was alone so to pass time I played solitaire before going to the kitchen to find my host mom where I was invited to come cook with them. I greeted the mother of the family in their kitchen around seven, it was pitch black by this time and the storm had rolled in. The mother was sitting on a log next to a stove fed by wood with two open holes at the top that you put the pots over. She made soup with potatoes and vegetables, and on very top a whole fish… eyes, fins, and all. I wasn’t sure how to eat it since I just had a spoon, and the father took his and showed me… well, he may have been joking, but he literally ate the face off his fish. I decided to pick mine apart with my fingers. The family had three kids, a 16 year old daughter, an 11 year old son, and a small little girl. They knew some Spanish, the father was the most active conversationalist, but I still didn’t talk much with them. They seemed to have a lot to say to each other, only in Quechua. It was interesting to observe though. We all went to bed after dinner, I was unsure of when to get up for breakfast, but it didn’t matter, I woke with the sun and waited till I saw activity.

I made my way to the dock to catch my boat home with the intentions of catching the first of two I was told would be coming round (with another tour). The first one wasn’t there, I asked every boat that came. No one knew where my boat company was. I waited for three hours before giving the boat master a hard time in Spanish. He said my tour boat was a crappy one and no one knew where it was, it may not show. Super. Then as I’m telling this woman whose little kid wanted to play with me about my disastrous trip so far (in Spanish) and was overheard by some guy who offered for me to come on board his private boat with his group of students. They were all from WI! Yay! I was saved and had a great conversation with the tour guide they had. I left the next day for Arequipa, my last stop.

Peru II, Machu Picchu

After our stint of fun in the desert my awesome Danish friends and I went to Cuzco, a grand 3326 meters (10,912 ft)high. I wasn’t sure if I would be one to get altitude sickness. Getting off the bus I noticed it was noticeably colder than the desert and it was hard to breath. The next day I had chills and was incredibly achy. I wrote it off as altitude sickness because I couldn’t walk very far without having to stop and sit. I even tried coca tea for the first time, a remedy for altitude sickness. However, I didn’t have altitude sickness, I had a bacterial infection which got worse as the day went on. I was a little worried because we already got our tickets for Machu Picchu before it got really bad and I wasn’t sure I would be able to hike up that mountain like this. I spent the whole night running to the bathroom. I vomited blood. It was a really special night for me, I got really intimate with the toilet and how long it took to get to it from my bed. The next day we were picked up by a bus to drive many hours to a train that would take us to Aguas Calientes, the starting point to walk up Machu Picchu. I hated that drive so much, the car was so tiny and we were smushed in there with a bunch of other people and I was hoping no urges to vomit or other would happen on the drive. I didn’t eat anything.
Cuzco!









Plaza de Armas, Cuzco

The train we took, which was only 20 minutes long, was a segregated train where tourists get the back car. Some obnoxious American remarks how this was like slavery days in the U.S. Only an American would say something stupid like that to a conductor, or so I thought. He wasn’t the last to put up a fuss, a German on the way back threw the biggest tantrum I have ever seen anyone throw in my life over it. His girlfriend was from Peru so they couldn’t sit together and she didn’t want to pay more to go in the tourist car with her boyfriend. He said the train workers were worse than Hitler and said other horrible things in German (his Spanish was incredible, so was his anger… he shook as he screamed). We were all relieved when the pair decided to walk. I am all for the split car situation. These folks live here and use that train to transport their goods that they sell. If they had to share cars they would have to fight for room with backpackers and their bags, have pictures taken of them because they all wear traditional clothing, and be around obnoxious tourists on their daily lives because tourists visit here in hordes every day! If I had to take public transportation every day and I had loud Argentineans there taking my picture and doing what they do best, be loud, I would go crazy. That’s just an example.

I ate for the first time that night after finally getting the appropriate medication. We only had yogurt for breakfast, and we started on our walk. We left at 4am and it was still night out. The sky was clear and we could see the starts. The moon wasn’t full but close so the moon helped light our way, and illuminate the mountains that were so incredibly close. The valley this town was built it is tiny and it is kind of scary to look up and see this huge mountain silhouette as you walk around. I was completely at peace at this moment, thinking about everything I had seen up to this point and finally am about to see one of my most anticipated locations of my life.

My peace disappeared as soon as the uphill started. I am not a fan of hiking up stairs. The stairs are tall and harder for short folks like me… but that wasn’t the biggest problem. I had only last night’s meal for energy after having not eaten much the two days before. We were 2400 meters (7,875 ft) high and I was dizzy from either lack of energy or lack of oxygen but my head hurt and I wanted to throw up the harder I pushed myself. It may be lower in elevation than Cuzco, but at a certain point it's all just pretty much high. It was quite possibly the hardest hike I had ever done in my life because I wasn’t yet over my infection. It wasn’t that amazing when we got to the top like I had hoped. We didn’t beat the first bus like we had meant to, and my first view of Machu Picchu was kind of like “okay, so here it is”. We got in line for Wanu Picchu, the other mountain you can climb up and be high in the clouds with a very bird’s eye view of the Lost City. We got our tickets and got a tour guide… but I told my friends I would probably not be able to do Wanu Picchu despite having planned to do it this whole time. I was too sick and had to sit ever 100 feet, usually because my stomach would cramp really bad. Ingunn started getting upset to her stomach as well and we decided with two folks down we couldn’t go up the awesome mountain.

Machu Picchu came to life on our tour and I became very fascinated on the lives of the people who lived here and built this city. They were smart and crafty, their architecture has continued to fascinate researchers for years. I touched everything, and breathed in everything. The sun was out, it was warm, the grass was impressively green since it was the beginning of the rainy season. Everything the guide said was fascinating. I absolutely loved being there. After our guide left us we ate some incredibly over priced food, paid for the toilets to relieve ourselves from our ailments (Jacob got it too) and went exploring more. First was to the llamas! Relatives to the camel, alpacas and llamas are common cuties of Peru. (I mention only them because I can’t remember the names of the other ones, but know there are many others like llamas with different length in hair, height, tails, and so on) They made for some great pictures because they were right where that classic view of Machu Picchu is, the one you see on postcards. After walking around some more my fun friends wanted to leave. I wanted to stay and soak up more of this place which I may never come back to. Ingunn said it would be fun to play hide and seek, which sounded like fun given all the fun nooks and crannies to hide in here. But we decided we were all too sick to try. We spent 20 minutes playing with the water in the water system built by the Incas. We even drank some just before we overheard a guide saying it wasn’t safe. The water source was a stream in the mountains, I already had a bacterial infection so what more can possibly happen?



Ingunn posing over the steps.

Ball court at Machu Picchu

It rained as we walked down the path, a task much easier for me than the up part. It rained as we walked down and I was so amazed that we had a whole day of amazing weather and that it rained after we left instead of while we were there. We got soaked on the walk down however, and we all bought matching pants since we didn’t bring a second pair of clothes. It rained through the next morning, so had we gone the day after like we had contemplated due to my illness, we’d be soaked walking and not seen nearly as much. So my torture was worth it. I’ve been leaving a lot of things up to fate lately. Usually when I think something isn’t going to work out ideally I would try to change it, but when you travel, not ideal can lead to great
things.

Local women in Cuzco and their baby goat.

Back in Cuzco I parted with my awesome friends to walk around the city alone. I found myself so far up the hill and away from tourists I was transported into another time period. No cars were able to drive that far up, the roads were narrow and walls high. At times you could see through a break in a wall where there weren’t houses and see a bird’s eye view of the city of red roofs below. It was beautiful. I met a girl from Fairbanks, Alaska up there. She had moved to Cuzco to open a school and a coffee shop. How random. This is one of my two solo explorations on foot that I had in Peru. The second was on an island on Lake Titicaca.

You will read about that one in next blog.

Peru I, The start of a beautiful journey

Peru is the last stop on my Latin adventure. I spent a whole month traveling a loop in the southern part of Peru and by the end I had slept 32 places since I started (not including over night buses) and have met people from 26 different countries. I only count people I’ve exchanged emails with and will exchange photos with in the future.

To give an idea of where the places I talk about are.


I flew into Lima from Bogota March 7th. When I arrived in Lima I wanted to avoid the overpriced taxis and walked right by the taxi booth. But I got duped when a guy in average clothes (expensive taxis they are all dressed up), and figured he was the medium taxi man (the street taxis are the cheapest and most dangerous since there is a major problem with kidnappings in Peru by taxis right now). This average looking man worked for the expensive company and I found myself in a posh car, an automatic with leather seats, cursing myself for not just saying “hell no!” and walking away. Then the guy gave me a lecture on my location. “It’s so dangerous! Why don’t you go to Mira Flores where everyone goes?” In Spanish of course, but it annoyed me. I hate that it’s assumed I want to do what everyone wants to do. They guy just wanted to take me to his hostel, where he gets paid to take me. He then got good and lost in the central area for a good half hour. He was asking for directions with the wrong questions! I figured out where we were before he did because I was actually using the map he refused to look at.

My hostel is a gorgeous old building with tall ceilings, old paintings I was trying to figure out if they were authentic, a thousand remakes of the sculpture David, and a few authentic skulls in a glass case. It was four or five floors high, I think, it was like a maze of stairs after the third floor which was also a terrace. I immediately met a guy who volunteered his free time to the hostel: Carlos and his nephew Sergei (he’s Peruvian with a Russian name). They were on their way to go surfing with Julie from Denmark so I join them. My first time surfing! I caught one good wave by accident and didn’t stand because it was so much fun to just ride it on my belly… but didn’t realize it was going to be the last one. The ocean was disgusting! There were many things floating in it, but there were many surfers with us ignoring the waste so we did too. We surfed past sunset before heading back.
The turtles at the hostel, there were parrots and a few cats too.











Surfing in Lima!


Later that night I found Julie sitting on the terrace with two other folks from Denmark. I joined them and became immediate friends. Ingunn and Jacob were heading to the same places as me so we decided to join forces and provide each other company for a while. They were so much fun! Ingunn has this amazing energy about her that makes me laugh and giggle like a school girl all the time. We went to Paracas and saw “poor man’s Galapagos islands” which was just a lot of penguins, sea lines, and boobies (those are birds for you folks who just snickered). We went to a national park of desert and picked up loads of shells, saw the damage of the earthquake the struck two years ago, and tried to identify day old carcasses along the ocean… and their cause of death since there were so many dead things. We then went to this oasis in the desert and stayed for days after discovering we were addicted to sand boarding.

In the national park of desert, Paracas, Peru with Ingunn and Jacob.






















The red beach in the national park

Sandboarding is basically snowboarding on sand, you can use the same board if you want, but I liked the ones you strapped into with Velcro. I tried standing a few times but it isn’t as much fun as laying down on your stomach and plummeting head first down these massively tall and steep sand dunes. I didn’t mention we took crazy buggies across the desert to get to these dunes and it’s awesome going up and down and taking big turns and being surprised the driver manages to avoid flipping the buggy. We went three days in a row, usually racing each other to see how far we can go, but Ingunn being tiny always won. You go so fast if you don’t keep your appendages in you loose some skin on the sand. Some people decided to stand on a lot of the tall dunes which I wrote off as incredibly stupid… especially when they ALL wiped out at some point. Many weeks later I met a guy who had just come from the sand dunes and a guy had died sandboarding, he fell, probably broke his neck, and no one took him to the hospital for a half hour and he died on the way.





















Sand boarding





















How I go down for fun

Just before going down the dune, first time standing






















Jumping off our sand buggy!

While we were in the desert we saw the Nazca lines and went to museums were there were mummies. We made friends with local artisans and bought their work and shared a beer. I became friends with the stray dogs, they liked me because I always saved my food for them. Our hostel had parrots that joined us on our tables for breakfast and ate our food… one kept drinking my coffee when I wasn’t looking. They liked when you played rough with them, pulling on their beak and such, and I would play with those parrots for hours!





















A child mummy





















pregnant female mummy, legend has it she wasn't supposed to be pregnant, and was killed and stuffed in an earn and buried. Glad that's the not custom today if you accidentally get knocked up.






















The cool parrot

The space man, my favorite of the Nazca lines because it really does look like an alien.

me gusta me gusta me gusta me gusta

The subject line is a song where the lyrics are just that... weird.

Since I wrote last here is what has happened:
I got scuba diving certified, visited Tyrona National Park in Northern Colombia and slept in a hammock, took the much advised to avoid overnight bus to San Gil, Colombia known for its adventures to stay there for a while. I had read about this place in National Geographic Adventure. The town was beautiful, set on the most dramatically vertical hill, with these trees that had grey strings growing out of it. (Hard to describe). While there I went paragliding off some cliff where the guide gave me the most thrills of anyone (spins, drops, swirls). I went rafting on a river that was class III through V. I cracked up inside that the guide only spoke Spanish except for the necessary rafting commands and that I was about to embark and a very dangerous river in Colombia! We practiced rescues before going. However, only one person fell out of the boat. I got knocked around pretty bad, those were some MASSIVE rapids. It was FANTASTIC! I went repelling down a waterfall that was HUGE. It had three parts to it, we went down the middle one right in the middle of the falls so I got good and wet. Again, the guide only spoke Spanish... but it was great. Then I went exploring in a cave. I have been in caves before, but this was something else. We all had helmets with lights on it and that was ALL the light we got. We waded through water, squeezed through incredibly tight spaces, and again the guide only spoke Spanish. At one point we had to grab a rope, hold our breath and go under the water as someone pulled the rope with you attached through a small hole. That was freakin´ scary! Cause it was a longer under water tow than I had expected. Another part we had to go through a passage only a two feet high. So a few of us rolled through it, some others crawled army style. I have never been so down and dirty in a cave before, it was awesome.

Then I sadly left San Gil and all the amazing people there to go back to the coast to Barranquilla for Carnaval. You all know of the big Carnaval in Brasil right? Barranquilla is 2nd behind Rio and I decided to couchsurf. What an idea that was. It turned into something like 30 couchsurfers all partying together for four days. However only me and three Chileans stayed with our host Dina. Now I can not party like these folks here, and the Colombians can party, nor do I want to. Caranval was full of foam fights, water tossing, colors, and everyone enjoying themselves. It started on a bad note when one of our couchsurfers was literally attacked with foam and had his video camera stolen. The parades were so long! 5 hours every day of dancing and music! Every day was different too. I spent most of my time with the Chilean boys. We had foam fights with kids at the parades, with each other, and at night during the dancing. The music was ridiculously loud all the time so I pretty much lived in my ear plugs. Everyone else had problems the following days with their ears. But that is the Caribbean for you, they are a different type of people here in Colombia. The difference between someone from the Caribbean and someone from Bogota is unreal.

I was very sad to part from my Chilean friends, one in particular, but that is the way of traveling. I took the, again highly unadvised only in the US because US is incredibly ignorant to what it is really like in Colombia, night bus to Bogota after Carnaval and stayed with another couchsurfer. By this time I was incredibly sick with a stupid cold. I had very little energy but managed to enjoy a little bit of the city and figured out the buses. I went to a Salt Cathedral in a nearby town. Basically there is this salt mine, a massive massive salt mine, and they decided to carve out a cathedral. So I am walking in this salt mine, the walls are salt, the crosses are carved into the salt, and things were lit up with blues and greens. There were neat sculptures in sandstone added and there was a lot of significant relgious overtones I was told about, though the cathedral is specifically for tourism and not a real cathedral. They had a balcony for a choir and apparently have concerts there often, classical concerts and the acoustics are supposed to be amazing because of the design of the actual cathedral. Though my pictures kind of suck because it was so dark in there, it was a pretty neat thing to see.

I was told at the beginning of Mr.and Mrs. Smith they showed a scene of a jungle and labeled in Bogota and that pissed of the president of Colombia a lot. Colombia is amazingly safe. I feel safer here than in Panama. Everyone likes that I am here and are more than willing to help (see story below). Bogota has some crime, but so does New York. The hostels are in a dangerous area so at night it is common for people to get robbed, but if you´re smart that won´t happen to you. I couchsurfed in Bogota and therefore didn´t have any problems. I stayed in a different area and was with locals the whole time. The only problem I had was not being able to afford some things. The beer was the same price as Alaska! They have very nice ritzy places to eat. There is poverty of course, but there is a lot of classy western culture here as well. And Bogota is HUGE! Not a jungle. I am annoyed that I actually cared about what I read about Colombia... it being unsafe, night buses are bad, bad things are likely to happen to me. Bad things happen in all countries, and Colombia still has problems, but it is unlikely I will ever meet anyone from the FARC, see a coke plantation, or have my bus hijacked. Peru maybe. I also met up with a friend I had studied abroad in Ghana with in Bogota. I hadn´t seen her since the program three years ago and she had just gotten to Bogota to teach English only a few days before me. Small world.

I am now in a place called Armenia, Colombia in a part called Zona Cafetera. It was a nine hour bus ride through mountains to get here, and a beautiful ride if I may say. I wanted to see a coffee plantation, the place where all you folks get your stuff. However, I didn´t know where to go. There is a place call the National Parque Del Cafe... this is where everyone expected me to go. This place is ridiculous. They have rollercoasters, theme park stuff, gondolas, just crap built around a small coffee plantation. So I go to this information area and was handed brochures and nothing was fitting to what I was looking for. I went to eat and just as I was leaving I came back to use the bathroom. The guy who works there and checked me out starts to talk to me in English. Suddenly two other gentlemen are talking to me in English too, all wanting to help me, curious to know where I am from and why the hell I am crazy enough to be traveling alone. The first guy was going to have me go to a town a hour away to see the plantations there, but another guy tells me its too far (everyone thinks everything is far... jeez, even my 20 hour overnight bus ride is too long for most folks in Bogota... for me its a simple, cheap way to get around. Didn´t have to pay for accommodations that night and woke up where I needed to be.) So I take the second guy´s advice to go to Montenegro.

I didn´t realize till I was almost to Montenegro on the bus that the second guy didn´t know I had no intentions in stepping foot in the Parque. And that is what was in Montenegro. I turn to the girl next to me to ask her if there was another plantation I could visit. She only spoke Spanish, suddenly I find myself following her to where her sister works, she takes me to her house which is a tomato farm, she feeds me, walks around with me for an hour and half to nearby farms, a coffee plantation asking the people to let me in and take pictures, walks to me back to town and helps me buy good coffee, and takes me to the bus. All our conversations were in Spanish (I need improvement, my ability to understand sucks, but never fails if they write it I understand it, but who wants to constantly write stuff down for someone?) She was fantastic with speaking slow and using simple words. By the time I got home I was kicking myself for not getting an email or some way to get a hold of her again. I mean she spent the WHOLE DAY with me just because.

The next day I went to a small town called Salento just to explore and be in a small colonial village. I walked up some hill to an overlook spot where there was a swing set so I sat there looking over the tiny little pueblo. I asked a guy to take my picture there and suddenly I have a friend for the day again. He only spoke Spanish, he took me on some unpaved trail (this place is full of mountains and hills, lots of country side) to see the valley behind the town better. I was thinking ¨this is crazy, I am following a strange guy on a back trail somewhere...¨ But all was okay. I played with some cows, enjoyed an amazing view, ate a fruit called lulu (very sour)and then he took me to the near by shops in town. I met his family, walked all over the town (which took only 20 minutes) and got on the bus and said goodbye with no problems. He may have had a hidden agenda but he never acted on it, but the girl didn´t so this is just a common thing of kindness I see. Not to mention the buys from the shop in Armenia who I shared breakfast with again this morning.

Because I took such a long time in Central America I only have a month left and I wanted that whole month for Peru. So I decided to cut out Ecuador all together and I am flying from Bogota to Lima on Saturday. I am sad to miss Ecuador, but I will be happier to not feel rushed in Peru. I mean, I should be spending three months in Peru with all the things I want to do, but I´ve narrowed it down to things I can fit in a month.

So far I have slept in 20 different places: beds, floors, where ever but not including over night buses. I have met people from 21 different countries (I counted last night). I have a pros and cons list to traveling alone. At times it is very very lonely, but I couldn´t have done a lot of the things I did with someone. I have a lot more freedom when meeting people and going places. But it is more expensive by far to travel alone. I take taxis alone, sometimes when there isn´t a hostel to stay in for dorm prices I have to take a whole room to myself which costs more than if shared. But I am doing just fine and still content to be traveling alone.

I hope everyone is well and sorry if this got a little long. Take care.

Canals, Boats, Colombia!

I have done so much since the last blog I don´t know how to cram everything in one blog. So I think I will give some delayed updates of my travels when I get home. Before I type a ton I have questions about gifts. I am just starting to buy stuff for your fine folks at home and I was wondering what people even want! There is most commonly jewelry from the street, its beautiful stuff, but do the ladies like that kind of thing? (my lady friends that is). I also bought these amazing Chinese ink sketches of scenes around Cartagena, Colombia. I buy things I like and think are amazing pieces of art, so hopefully you will too. Otherwise tell me what you want. My other ideas for gifts were hammocks if I can find decently priced, good quality ones. And of course Colombian coffee!!! Anyone want the same stuff you buy in the store only by passed the middle man of grocery stores? Anyone?? Seriously, email me on the things you may want from here or suggestions of things to look for. I am not buying things with anyone in mind, I figured it would just be divided up in the end by whoever wants want. If you want something, email me.

My latest experiences in the brief (it´s long but trust me, it is briefed):

I couchsurfed in Colon, Panama for a few days and then went back to Panama City to book a boat through a hostel there. The hostel was awesome, great atmosphere. I then got on a boat with five dudes and one captain and sailed for three days to San Blas islands off of the Panama coast where loads of Kunas, native people in the Carribean live. The islands were all small and some would have maybe one to four families on it. We would buy fish from people who rowed in long kayaks up to our sail boat. The water was something from a Corona commercial and I snorkeled in a school of fish so dense I couldn´t see through them. (like in Finding Nemo... the mob of fish that spoke as one and floated into designs). But the boy crew were stupid crew, they were inconsiderate, sometimes snotty to the captain, got loads of things dirty and wet (my things and the captain´s things) and didn´t seem to care much. Hernando, our captain, said it was the worst journey in his eight years and the dirtiest his boat had ever been. I didn´t like those boys at all. They were into partying late into the night, drinking lots, and had all kinds of stories of all the drugs they´ve done since they were 14. Not even hippy types, just impatient uptight folks. None of them except the two Canadians knew each other before hand either. I still seem them around because I am on what is called the Gringo trail but soon I will lose them.

After San Blas, and eating a 100 year old turtle that was inhumanly and illegal killed by the Kuna, we set sail for our two day, turned into three day, trek in open water to Cartagena, Colombia. I got a little sea sick but didn´t throw up. Hernando is a classic gentleman and paid special attention to me because I was a girl, and the only girl. In contrast to the insensitive men it was a godsend and it felt really nice. I was weirded out at first, but he was a wonderful man that I spent extra time with in Cartagena with his daughter and wife. Our sail broke from the strong wind we had, and then ironically the wind died away for 12 hours. We replaced the sail but sat not moving for a long time so my five day trek was now six.

In Colombia my passport was taken and not returned to me until the next day because of the immigration chaos here. No worries for me, I was happy to be on land after not having showered in six days, eaten in three days, and had remained wet so long I developed a rash on my bottom.

I went to the popular hostel in Cartagena alone, ditching the boys ASAP and it was full. However, some other nice folks (two from Alaska, one Brit, and one Canadian... and yes it was incredibly ironic to meet Alaskans here, the first ones!) literally walked me to another hotel for me, helping me carry my stuff which I had separated into two bags... wet and gross and still usable. I had a glorious shower there and washed my things and laid everything out everywhere since I was alone. It took two days before feeling like I was still on the boat to fade away.

I moved into the popular hostel the next day and then hung out with my new friends. I actually only continued to hang out with the Canadian, a girl... one of few I have met, traveling alone. There are more guys than girls traveling, few are alone, most are couples.

Colombia.... madly misrepresented. I am so pissed I listened to anyone who talked about Colombia negatively. Some people do know English, it isn´t that cheap anymore, I have felt safer here than I did in Panama, taxis don´t rip you off, people talk to you all the time, and I hear non stop music from everywhere! In the old city of Cartagena its a maze of colonial buildings that are so beautiful I think I took about a 100 pictures of just buildings. They have drumming and Afro Colombian dancing in the main plaza everyday!

While there I went to a mud volcano to have a mud bath. I met an incredibly friendly Swiss girl there and she was my buddy for the day. We sat in this muck you couldn´t sink in, had some guy rub the mud into your skin, which apparently is very good for your skin. Another guy has your camera and takes your picture, then you go to the ocean and people are there helping you wash the mud off. It was an interesting experience.

I went to Santa Marta next and stayed in a hotel I knew the gringos wouldn´t go to. I needed to get away from these people whose personalities seem alike to me. They LOVE drinking late into the night, sleeping half the day, their intentions here are vastly different from mine and most are cruising either from South America north or Central America south, so fast they breeze through countries spending just a few days at a time. Blows my mind. I am here to learn the culture and enjoy it, participate in it! So I met up with friends I made off of couchsurfing in Santa Marta and had an amazing squid dinner with them... we bought and cooked it ourselves. Yum. I moved to Taganga three days ago to get my scuba diving open water certificate. Most places you start in a pool, but here I started in the ocean and was diving my first day. I have done six dives and have seen so many amazing fish and coral, so many colors and bizarre things I can´t wait to look up later. I have a water housing for my camera but won´t risk taking it 60 feet under water so no underwater pictures of this.

Taganga is a small fishing village that is highly touristy for other Colombians and south Americans. I was the only American I knew of here until just an hour ago when I met a guy who stayed in my room last night and will go diving with us tomorrow... I didn´t actually get introduced until today though we talked all yesterday, he was from Wisconsin! ha. He didn´t seem to care too much that I was from there too.

So I wish I had more time to write interestingly, I am just spitting out things as I remember it as fast as possible to get back to studying for my exam tomorrow and to catch the music at the beach. One night I was sitting at a restaurant journaling and watching the life pass by me on the street and suddenly these amazing drumming sounds dominate all other sounds. They were on the balcony of the bar next to where I was. It was so cool, the percussion and the dancing of locals. It is a different type of music that sounds like African drumming... really fast paced rhythms, and a clarinet player being the only source of melody. The clarinet almost sounds middle eastern, but not quite. It´s so off on its own genre from here I had never heard anything like it to compare it to and describe it to someone who hasn´t heard it. Luckily I videoed some of it. Now I just need to not loose my camera again until I back that up.

That´s all for now. I changed my plans in Colombia to revolve around Carnival, same time as the Brazilian one, but there is one really big one here close to Santa Marta. I have to go, it´s the best way to see and experience this culture. I have some local friends to go with too which is nice. Some gringos as well. Email me about gifts!

It rains when it is sunny in Panama

Hola!

I am a bit tired to write you an immense story, but I will update you. After volunteering I went back to San Jose, Costa Rica and stayed with a friend of a friend (thanks Elise!) for a week because her family was so nice and wonderful and I fell in love with her five dogs. While I was with her I saw volcanoes and ruins of churches, etc. She lived closer to where the earthquake happened and her family have a farm in the area that was like a box of contents that was shook real hard. I didn't see it, just in pictures.

Then I bused to Panama, met a Japanese guy on the bus and stayed with him in a hotel due to booked up hostels. We traveled together for three days around Panama City, then we to Colon together to find a boat. I couchsurfed there were a local who spoke 11 languages!

Backing up, in Panama City while marveling over architecture that looked straight from the end of the movie "Great Expectations" I got my camera snatched from my hands. However, a mop of police showed up, I reported the incident and they found the camera because they pressured the people to give up his name and he dumped the camera. I was incredibly lucky. All the pictures were recovered, plus the one he took. The police were so much fun too, they drove me everywhere and tried to talk to me in Spanish, and I tried to respond. They stopped every time they saw a foreigner, talked to them and then said "they your friends?"

So in Colon I didn't really wander anywhere alone, it is a dangerous area. I was going to get a boat there but found one back in Panama City. So I travelled back here and am staying at a really awesome hostel and leaving tomorrow for the boat. I will sail for five days stopping at some islands (San Blas islands) for a day and a half.

Panama has very nice people here, very helpful. I am impressed by their helpfulness. Even when my camera was stolen, I shouldn't have been in that area to begin with but even the people of that street wanted to help me recover the camera. Taxis will try to cheat you but I know how to bargain now. The service in restaurants is horrible though. I found that most people in Colon prefer not to work, they are very lazy. My friend in Colon owns a hotel and was looking to hire someone. People called his phone constantly, but hung up after one ring and expected him to call them about the job. He never did, but it shows how little people know about professionalism.

I will do my best to keep on updating. Take care in the cold my friends.

Amanda

The Costa Rica Experience

Costa Rica is a hub of international travelers, backpackers, nomads of likes no different than Europe. I was blown away immediately by the prices and how easily I was being ripped off by taxis and hostel owners (being New Years and all). I have only been alone one night since I´ve arrived and that was more intentional than anything. I arrived in San Jose and took a bus and a taxi to a couchsurfer´s house to find two other couchsurfers already there. One from Czech Republic and the other from France. I spent New Years on a beach with the Czech girl and two random girls from Norway. I shared a cockroach ridden room that consisted of only three mattresses on the floor, no room for our stuff in the room with Czech girl and two Australians, no blankets or pillows and was charged $8. I was relieved to arrive at Rainsong Sanctuary and stay in one place for a while.

My intentions with the volunteering was to practice my Spanish and work with animals. I ended up doing more planting and gardening than anything and no other volunteers spoke much Spanish. However, it was fun in its own right. There were loads of problems with the place in which I won´t talk much about because it only means something to those of us who volunteered, but what I got out of it was meeting some interesting people from all of the states and Canada and an opportunity to literally play with exotic animals. There was a Kinkajou (a nocturnal creature that was utterly adorable) who had been electrocuted, a one armed white faced monkey that was in his sexual state of being and thus liked to affectionately bite the ladies, an ocelot which is a cheetah looking cat that is a bit bigger than a house cat but smaller than a cheetah who had been hit by a car and was missing an eye, 4 baby porcupines the size of a fat house cat, a baby anteater about the same size, two parrots, a toucan that can´t fly, a skunk, raccoons, two baby deer, loads of parakeets, 30 some red river turtles, and baby chickens and a guinea pig for the kitty to eat. There was a separate farm that had peacocks, birds, chickens, and god knows what else. When I was up there I was only working it plants.

During my week there I visited a three tiered waterfall, the last and tallest you could hang over the drop point and look straight down. People jumped off the middle one and there was a rope swing at the top pool. (Three pools below each fall). We had to hike in jungle like vegetation to get there which was fun. I snorkeled three times, twice with locals. The two times with locals was to go fishing with spear guns, homemade ones. Both guys got a fish but we only ate one that night. I don´t know the name of it but it was big and red and tasted more like chicken than fish and was very filling. Had loads of bond fires on the beach or at the hut on a hill, with a clear sky overhead every night.

It was so humid in Cabuya I was sticky all the time. It was also incredibly hot. There is a hole in the ozone layer here so I was constantly globed in sunscreen and seeking shade all day. However, days are short. The sun rises at 5am and sets around 5pm, so once its dark there´s suddenly nothing to do. Most volunteers went to bed at 8:30 or so. This is their summer as well, the dry season. Things in Cabuya and with Rainsong were spaced out so I walked a lot. The beach was very very very rocky, dangerous to swim in and shouldn´t be walked in without shoes so there weren´t many foreigners hanging around. The bugs were super cool. We had two places to stay, the long-termers stayed way up in a hut that was a haven for everything cool and weird. There were walking sticks, bugs that looked like leaves, crazy unidentifiable and terrifying ones, large harmless spiders that were kind of pretty, a boa constrictor, and just tons of stuff. There was also a national park that we walked through, took two hours or so to walk to the end of the trail to the beach there. We saw howler monkeys and white faced monkeys and things unidentifiable by us. However, this park, which is basically preserved rainforest, was the most humid part. It wasn´t a hike for the unfit either. I think I lost five pounds in sweat alone.

The worst part about being here is I am some how prone to mosquito and bed bug bites. Not just a few, but lots that swell and become excruciatingly itchy. My feet were attacked this time by both. I wore a smokey smelling top to bed that protected my upper body. No one else had problems and no one else had a mosquito net, go figure I actually was the one who had the problems. My feet were ravaged in bites to the point where shoes were incredibly uncomfortable to wear. I used an anti itch cream on them and it burned one into an open sore which never healed since I was constantly going in the ocean. They are healing now that I´m in San Jose and taking better care of my feet, but the bed bugs are still following me, even in clean places.

Cabuya was a really good time, and I almost didn´t go because I really didn´t like Costa Rica when I got here. All the backpackers and obnoxious travelers pissed me off and buses were so crowded I had to sit for hours at a time in the aisle. I did meet a bunch of awesome backpackers mind you, and bonding has happened on every bus ride it seems, but sometimes when I´m walking around and observing behaviors of these other tourists I hear ignorant comments constantly. Americans are really loud. You can hear them a mile away. But I am very glad I went to Rainsong despite its frustrations. I will remember Tarzan and Kinky for the rest of my life (the monkey and Kinkajou). The people were all incredibly amazing and from the most varied backgrounds. I learned a lot about the disrespect seen with wildlife and rainforest in Costa Rica, the governments lack of assistance to preserve or prevent tragedies, and the Costa Rican way of life which is laid back, without time frame, and chummy. Everyone is always greeting everyone else.

There was also an earthquake of 6.1 magnitude 20 miles outside San Jose that happened a few days ago. It WAS on cnn.com cause I read about it there on top of hearing the locals talk about it. People keep telling me they didn´t hear anything about it. 20 some people died and Costa Rica is in a state of emergency because of it, but you wouldnt´t notice being away from where it happened. People just go on with life mentioning it from time to time.

Aside from the volunteering not much has been done since days are wasted in travel and I am chilling with locals in San Jose. Saves money and allows me to see how every day people live. I am preparing to go to Panama soon and stay a night or two in David, then on to Panama City where I´ll try to find a boat to sail on to Colombia. I have to apologize for how boring I made all this sound, but its hard to sit and right out all the amazing things I´m seeing and experiencing. Computers are hard to sit yourself in front of for long periods of time due to price and just wanting to be out experiencing more. However, I´ll do my best to keep a log for you. I hope everyone had a happy new year and are finding ways to stay warm. Alaska is in the negative double digits right now and it doesn´t sound like Minnesota and Wisconsin are much better.