Merry Christmas! (San Pedro de Atacama, Chile)

Ok, first off, Merry Christmas!

I haven't written in a while, due to lack of time and internet access, and I've been on the move. Since I last wrote, I've effectively gone through Bolivia, from the north to the south. I took a 12 hour bus ride from Cuzco to Copacabana, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. I spent 3 days in Copacabana, including a night on the Isla del Sol in the center of the lake, and then head off to La Paz, 3 hours away. After a hectic 2 days in La Paz, I headed down on a 13 hour overnight public bus through the freezing altiplano to Uyuni, arriving at 8 in the morning and setting off on a 3 day jeep tour of the flamingo infested salt flats of Salar de Uyuni, before arriving across the border in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. I was rushing to get to Santiago for christmas, but the bus schedules were too squeezed, and I decided to spent the day with my friends that I've accumulated along the way.

And boy have I accumulated. I left Cuzco with a plan to go to San Pedro with Pauline(Scottish) who I met in Arequipa, and almost convinced to go to the jungle. Before we left, we bought a bus ticket with Rachael(Germany), and considered meeting up with her later. We crossed the Peru/Bolivia border with Lior(Israel) and Jose Luis(Born in La Paz, Lived in Buenos Aires). We began traveling with them and met up with Rachael and Kathleen(Canada) who she had met on the bus. All together we set off for La Paz, but not before spending Pauline's birthday with 3 english guys that we kept seeing along the way. In La Paz, we met, randomly, Amanda(Detroit), who I've bumped into 5 times going all the way back to Huacachina. Through in Illian(Israel), Lior's friend, and Alice(Australia), who I met back in Arequipa at the same salsoteca as Pauline,we left for Salar de Uyuni a massive party of 9 (2 boys, 7 girls). International too! Somehow I ended up doing a lot of organizing, guiding, and problem solving for the group, but thats ok. I started the salt tour feeling that I would never travel in a group again, but I found that I became good friends with these people over the next 3 bumpy and rustic days.

So... What did we do? In Copacabana, I spent my time playing with a Colombian guitarist named Jose who showed me that you CAN play a whole salsa rythem on a solo acoustic guitar. Jose Luis turned out to be a great friend of mine, I taught him english, he taught me spanish, we did all sorts of hikes and had long philosophical talks, and in general were just good buddies. We busted our butts looking for a birthday cake for Pauline all over the small town of Copacabana for several hours, eventually buying a plain cake, a packet of dulce de leche, and some chocolate covered peanuts. We made a smiley face and suprised her with the cake at dinner, and she loved it! She was thinking of not celebrating her birthday, but we made it special. I think we felt the good karma on that one.

As we were entering La Paz, I realized that this was a very different city. Sprawling up out of the canyon, the city was a sight to behold with the big city center in the basin of the valley. The next 2 days were spent arranging a tour for Uyuni, and exploring the myriad of markets over La Paz. I meandered through a food market spilling over with the largest watermelons I've ever seen, got lost in a Black Market full on knock off clothes, electornics, and well, everything, that sprawls over 6 city blocks, and checked out the witches market where I perused such goods as magical cures, special offerings, and dried llama fetuses. I visited the Coca museum where I found a new found respect for the plant and understanding of the war against cocaine and is effects on Bolivia. I also visited the folkloric musical instruments museum where I had a field day and decided I want to learn every string instrument, EVER. I'm already ok at Charango, a small 5 double stringed guitar. Bought one, a really nice one, for $80, professional quality. But it was too nice. I felt the burden of having to take care of it, something I don't do so well while traveling, so I returned it. It felt like cheating on my guitar anyway. I might pick one up before I come home, but traveling is just too much.

The bus ride to Uyuni wasn't actually all that bad, we played music in the bus, and drove all the Bolivians insane. I stayed up all night playing music and talking with Kathleen from Canada (She had bought a Charango). The sun rose to find us in one of the dryest and most barren place on earth. But absolutely awe inspiring in its stark beauty.

The Salar de Uyuni tour is the only thing I actually wanted to do on this trip before I left. I saw this picture in the lonely planet of the thin layer of water reflecting the sky, making it look like people were walking through the clouds, and I was like 'Wow, I want to see that'. Thats the only thing so far that has evoked that response and it did not disappoint. It was absolutely surreal, like living in the clouds, and I hope to post my friends pictures soon as soon as I get that together. In one moment, I couldn't control myself and had to run off into the endless horizon, feeling like I was flying while soaking myself in SALTY water, my shoes are still white.

That night, we stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt blocks, we even slept on salt. It sounds touristy, but it was magical, and we had a camp fire where Amanda showed off her fire dancing skills and I got some good guitar playing in. I just gotta say that it was a truly special night.

The next day was 7 hours back in our BUMPY jeep, I still feel like I'm rocking from it 5 days later. We stopped at lakes on our way to the Chile border. The high altitude salt lakes were like a combination of Sierra Nevadas and Tropical beach because they were strangely filled with Pink flamingos. The highest lake, where we stayed the night was around 5000m, and COLD! I fully utilized every piece of clothing I had, and now have confidence that I brought enough clothes.

The final day found us waking up at 4am and driving to a series of gysers, not water, but gas. A massive outgassing of the earth that left me speechless, if not recoiling from the heavy sulfur smell. We spent breakfast by a natural hotspring which was warmly recieved by my Mare-In County hot tubber bones. We were then rushed across the border by a very rude bus driver and suddenly in the middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile. We were immeadiately aware that we were in a different country due to the...paved roads! How wierd it felt after 5 days of flying up in down in our jeeps and buses. Also everything costs at least twice as much. This was a sad and sobering fact that turned a bunch of people off immeadiately.

The last 3 days have been spent in the company of my new found friends, but all must come to an end as I head off to Santiago tomorrow, to meet with some Ihouse friends in their home city.

Whew... I can't type anymore at the moment, fatigue has taken its toll, but suffice to say, the past week has been an intense whirlwind of experience that I won't forget. :)

Feliz Navidad to all!
Jesse

Welcome to the Jungle (Parque Manu)

Ok, so I´m cheating, I´m actually writing this from Copacabana, Bolivia which is on the coast of Lake Titicaca. So much has happened in the past week without internet access that I don´t know if I can do it justice, but I´ll sure try. In short, I went to the Amazon Jungle for 5 days and then hopped a bus to Bolivia where I now find myself.

My experience in the jungle was nothing short of amazing. After a week of searching in Cuzco, I put together a crew of 3 adventerous souls which included myself, Mark, a 40 year old welshman who carried a big knife and who was very clear that he was british and not english, and Johannah, a 19 year old girl from Berlin who´s been on the road for several months. This motley crew of 3 was led by William, 23 years old, having lived his whole life in the amazon where we visited, and Lourdes his 22 year old sister who did a damn good job of making sure we had our stomachs full of food.

The trip was 5 days and 4 nights and basically broke down like this. The first day was spent driving a dizzying and perilous 10 hours in a van over mountain passes and down 2000 meters, through cloud forest, to the town of Pilcopata, at the mouth of the Madre de Dios river which is a tributary of the Amazon. The ride was long, BUMPY, and just dangerous enough so that you didn´t want to think about it. We stopped in the cloud forest and from that point on, I knew it was going to be an amazing trip. Just walking through the high trees, we spotted several families of monkeys, flocks of tropical birds, and beautiful butterflies. Upon arriving in Pilcopata, we found ourselves right smack in the middle of a festival for the Imaculate Conception, which consisited of the entire town out in their parading best, playing marching music and dancing their druken butts off in what I can best describe as a sort of folkloric music played by 20 slightly out of tune horns. Of course I loved it!

The next day, we woke up early, drove down to the river, stopping in a Coca plantation, painting our faces with local fruit, and stealing away a bit of wild pinapple (Small but DELICIOUS!) from the side of the road. At the river, we found a long boat with an outboard motor waiting for us on a VERY quickly flowing river. To the bonanza reservation it was a 5 hour boat ride that was one of the most relaxing times I´ve yet to have on the trip. Wind blowing in my face, surrounded by the amazon rain forest, I even sat out front and took a chance to play my guitar, (Yes, I brought my guitar to the Amazon, of course!), along with half dome, europe, isreal, and india, I can add that to one of the real special times of playing that guitar for me. We stopped into a natural hotsprings where we covered ourselves with river mud, and indulged in what I acturately guessed was about 108deg farenheit water. Much fun was had jumping from the cold river to the hot pond and back and forth again. It also brought new meaning to the difficulty going to the bathroom in the woods, as every where I looked, there was a large meanicing spider hanging between a branch, or crawling in the grass. That´s where I first learned that the Jungle is all fine as long as you don´t look in detail, and the more detail you look in, the more you actually realize that you´re covered in bugs and insects all the time, whether you know it or not. We arrived to Bonanza to find a few wooden platforms for us to put up our tents for the night and meet Will and Lourdes´ parents. Charming and loving people, who only spoke Quechua (the Incan language) which reduced communication to smiles, laughs, and guitar playing :).

That night we went looking for insects. Luckily, we were in the jungle, so we found a whole lot of them. Wolf Spiders, Scorpion Spiders, Tarantulas, Translucent Butterflys, Millipedes and a host of other creepy crawlies. This was the start of my introduction to the jungle where I would find myself getting les reserved and more comfortable with each new experience that took me out of my comfort zone, until I found myself on the last day walking barefoot and in shorts through ankle deep amazonian mud and bullet ants (comfortable or just stupid, you decide).

The next day was one of the truly special experiences of my trip so far. We woke up early, ate a light breakfast, packed up our big backpacks with tents, put on rubber boots that went almost up to our knees (unfortunately they didn´t have boots quite big enough for me, like everything down here), and head off on an 8 hour hike into the jungle. Before the hike, we had to stop for a morning snack of course, which amounted to finding a rotting log, chopping it open and find some ´oil worm´grubs to much down. Mark happily chomped down 2, while Jo wasn´t anywhere near considering it. I had a rather puzzleing experience. While initialy disgusted by the little slimy guys, I held one in my hands for a few minutes, and in its desperate spasming and crawling around, I developed what I can only describe as a genuine empathy for the little critter, which I really wasn´t expecting. I was no longer disgusted by the thought of texture or taste, but by the thought of holding him by the head and physically killing him with my teeth. I was conflicted, feeling peer pressure to eat him just to have a story to tell, but I sided with this new feeling and convinced Will to stick him back in the log (saving him from Mark who wanted to eat him) (Sorry Will!). On the walk back to camp I tried to understand what just happened, did this mean that I really should be a vegetarian? I had extended my empathy that I value for other humans to a disgusting worthless worm, how could I ever eat another sentient animal again? I decided that in the very least, it made me want to excersice more, thinking of all the perfectly good animal protein that has gone to waste on me not making use of it. Either way, I felt good about my decision, if not a bit confused.

The hike itself was a gradual transition from walking on firm land, to taking off our boots and fjording a river, to wading through a bit of mud, to balancing on logs over rivers and swamps, supporting ourselves with bamboo sticks, to swinging across streams on high hanging vines, to outright dredging through miles of thick juicy mud and stagnant water. Each step in the process found me rolling up my sleeves a little bit more and more, getting less paranoid about bugs and mud, and just feeling at home in the jungle. All along the way we saw a bunch of wildlife, including bullet ants, giant ants (aprox an inch and a half), one of the most dangerous insects in the jungle. Speaking of ants, we saw all types, including swarms of army ants with nasty stings and herds of those entreprenurial leaf cutter ants.

Other highlights including trying to climb a 30m tree that had been eaten alive by a parasite tree and left hollow on the inside. We were supposed to climb down a vine from the top`(about 100 feet), and decided to try it out on the bottom first despite claims that ´it was perfectly safe´. I hopped on and did my best to pull it down, but found that yes indeed it was pretty strong. Then Mark, the everstrong welshman tried his turn. He lasted about a second and a half before we heard a huge ´SNNNAAAPPPP´and fled from the 100ft of vine falling down all around us. The next 5 minutes were spent sitting around looking up at the tall tree and realizing that if we hadn´t tried it out first, Mark would surely be dead right now. As if that weren´t motivation enough to stay on the ground, we still attempted to climb up, but both Mark and I found ourselfs either to lanky or too big to make it all the way to the top, it still was a lot of fun.

We stopped for lunch by a stream, where we ate rice out of banana leaves that William had been carrying for us. Jungleicious Delicious! We then found ourselves having to fjord a stream that very nearly hit our boot level. William eagerly showed us that we could avoid the fjord by just attempting a tarzan like vine swing across the river. We obviously didn´t learn our lesson as Mark lined up for the swing, took off, heard a ¨Snap!¨halfway across the river and found himself flying into the mud!

Not like it mattered very much, because the arduous last 2 hours of the hike were through a straight swamp. Trail is a very loose term, as at times, we found ourselves entirely surrounded by orange stagnent water(anaconda territory) navigating across the swamp on small logs that we had to feel out with our feet. It was at that point that I really felt like I was in the Jungle. When not swamp wading, the trail was composed of just a bunch of deep and watery mud. Suprisingly, insects didn´t really bother us (Go Deet!), although they haven´t apparently ever had any cases of Malaria in parque Manu, but whatever. What I did find, however, was that I started to get dizzy, and cranky, and totally lost track of any thoughts except taking each next step and getting to our damn campsite. Probably didn´t drink enough water, but the heat and humidity, it made me feel delierious with what I could only describe as a ´jungle fever´.

Anyways, my coordination lasted just long enough to get me to the campsite, a rock crop on the side of the river tributary where we would stay the night. I wasted no time in derobing and hopping in, washing off the filth of the day. I waited till afterwards to learn that the waters were home to piranha´s and caiymans. Then we got real setteled, set up some bamboo fires, tents, and cooked some spaghetti we had brought with us while will and mark went off for a short night hike. 2 hours later we started to worry. I joked, ´they better come back with a caiyman´, and sure enough a few minutes later they walked right up to the fire and plopped down a bloody aligator head in my lap. Will had caught the crock, blinding it with his flashlight, while Mark took out his oversize traveler´s knife and straight up cut off its head. We gutted the now placid looking krock and set up a few stick spits above our bamboo fire, and cooked it up. So what does alligator taste like you may ask? Delicious! Like a combination between chicken and fish.

I was ambivalent about all the killing, especially given my worm experience, but the interesting thing is that there was a lot of respect in it. Sure we didn´t NEED to eat it, we had spaghetti, but we ate everything (Eyes and Brains included, although Mark felt it the next day). It was a nice counterbalance to my worm experience, a lesson about primal urges for meat, and the killing you have to be ok with to get it.

Anyways, the next morning, we woke up early and walked the whole way back. We really hauled ass and got back in 5 hours [again I got delierious towards the end, but at least this time Jo did too :) ]. We only stopped for a herd of wild boars which we didn´t see but heard and I can only describe as sounding more gnarly and fierce than the worst creatures from the Lord of the Rings. We started walking off into the jungle, tracking their sounds. When we got close, and I could really hear them, I realized I might be in danger and I asked Will what I should do if they decide to charge us and he calmly tapped a thin tree trunk next to me and said ´you need to at least get a meter and a half up or they can get you´. Its things like this to remind you that no matter how safe I felt with the group, this was the real jungle and it Really was dangerous. He told me a story of how he once had a tour with some Danish girls, they had to climb tree trunks to escape the boars, but the boars sat there for hours. The girls just clung on and eventually had to go to the bathroom just clinging to the trunks.

The thing is, all this wildness, was Will´s backyard all his life, and his constant humor and good attitude made you feel like that too. By 2 hours into the hike on the way back, I almost even felt at home. I felt so at home that I decided to try a Jesse of the Jungle swing across the dubious stream. Ignoring the lessons of yesterday (will tryed it first!), I jumped off for a glorious second and a half before the all too familar ´Snap!´, signaled my return to earth. Muddy earth at that. But it was great! I sat there, covered in jungle mud, mosquitos buzzing around, and I couldn´t have felt more at home. It actually turned out to be my highlight of the trip, because from there on, nothing really worried me that much, the jungle had acquired me and I didn´t have to keep my guard up anymore.

Once we got back, I fell into a deep state of relaxation, so deep that I didn´t put back on my shoes or pants to go on a 20 min hike to see some birds. This found me squishing through the mud barefoot, which would make my big toe infected, and me a bit concerned, but you know what, it was ok! What a great experience to help give me confidence that it always finds a way to work out. The basic rules of the jungle that I put together over the course of the trip was this:

1) As opposed to not touching anything, Touch EVERYTHING! Get bit! Get
spiked! Get Muddy! Get Rashy!

2) Don´t worry! The bites go away, the mud washes off, the rashes
subside!

3) When it comes time to take things seriously, take things VERY seriously.
Infections, wild boars, deadly insects, you don´t mess around, but just do
everything you can to take of yourself.

And you know what, if that was all that I learned... it was worth every
penny.

I finish this from La Paz, tommorow I head off to Uyuni, on my way to
Santiago for christmas to spend with Juan Eduardo Justiano and his family, so
obviously a lot else has happend, but hopefully I´ll get time to catch up on the
rest of it soon.

Chau for now!

To the Jungle (Parque Manu)

Huzah! After 5 days of scouring hostal Loki, replacing a broken memory card, partying hard for my standards (I went to sleep at noon the other day), I'm finally headed to the jungle. I'll be going with the group Bonanza tours that Gaberiel recommended, led the extremely nice William, with Johanna from Berlin and Mark from Wales (not england he likes to remind me). Frankly, I think I derserve a cut of the profits since I worked my butt off to put this tour together, but I know they appreciate it and I have a real good feeling about the trip.

So thats the quick skinny on what I've been up to, just got to mention for my own memory's sake that I had a real rewarding talk the other day. I was hanging out in Loki around 10am after a night out at a club called uptown (Yes Ben, I did eventually make it to Bar7 too, and no, I've never seen anything like that before), and I was talking with an American from Mississippi named Carlos who works at Loki. We talked about music, which of course always finds its way into philosophy with me, and ended up talking about his two tours of duty (2 years) that he spent in Iraq. The best way that I can describe parts of the conversation is that it was sort of like the movie Freedomland in person. I really benefited from hearing his stories about the daily grind, the lack of action, the mischief and just utter humaness of all his experiences. I came away with a respect for how different some people's experiences of life are then mine, but more importantly, a realization of how similar they are, how everything in the war is just done by people, people who make mistakes, people who are nice and thoughtful, and those who aren't as well. He worked as a communications officer and spent a lot of time relaying information from all over the war front. Stories of note: his friend who was telling him about Abu Ghraib before the story broke and how his friend went from being concerned to utterly unsympathetic after one of their friends was killed by a roadside bomb. It demonstrated to me the power of violence to control one's mind and influence them to dehumanize others in response. Something he said that stuck with me was that the power of the army is that it

'exploits the enoumoursly strong bond that you have with the other members of
your team, that if someone was pointing a gun at them, you would kill that man
to protect them, to make sure that they get home to their new wife and kids,
even if the situation isn't even as clear as that.

We talked for a long time, and I found it to be the closet interaction I've had to the war my country is fighting. We also talked about the Jon Stewart effect, how the news can be so crazy, so overwhelming, that it can paralyze you, that you just have to sit there and go 'Whhhaaa???'. That all Jon Stewart does is point out how ridiculous these things that happen are. But that in the end of the day, these things don't feel like reality, they're just too hard to actually believe, so there's a disconect, but what I got from talking with Carlos is just how much of a reality these things are. That they're just real people, not always intellengent, honorable, or compassionate people either, just doing real things with other real people, in one seriously messed up situation.

(insert brilliant segway back to mundane things)

Just so everyone knows, after a little helpful prodding, Ben Lawson's finally got his act together and has started posting pictures and movies from our time in Ecuador/Cuzco. So head on over to his blog (Link is posted at the right) and check it out. I don't know why, but I really like this shot he took of me. Its got the whole 1000 words thing for me personally.


Ciao for now and wish me luck in the jungle!
Jesse

Back in Cuzco (Cuzco)

So, two days ago, I started thinking about the rest of my trip and decided it was time to leave Arequipa, and more importantly, if I didn´t leave Arequipa then I´d probably stay there for at least a month more. I got real comfortable, hanging out with Rebecca and her friends, taking guitar and spanish classes, having a hostel room that felt like home. But I felt the urge to move on, and so like that, I bought a $10 bus ticket to Cuzco, and hopped on the 10 hour overnight bus back to where I had started all this Peruvian business. I almost didn´t make my bus, showing up 10 minutes late, but thanks to ´Peruvian Time´, I had at least another 30 minutes before we left the station.

I sprang for the ´cama´ bed-seat hybrids but found that they had been built for, well, Peruvians, and not 6foot something tall, leggy, californians. I didn´t sleep much that night, crammed with me knees up in my face in what was ironically more uncomfortable than a normal seat. On that note, I think one of my biggest dangers I´ve faced so far in my 1 month of traveling is just low cielings, I feel like I´m walking in some wierd movieset where everything is built to 80% scale, big enough to look normal so that I smack my head into the cieling. On the plus side, the people have been very friendly at pointing this out, "Cuidate con la cabeza, (watch your head!)". The bus was also limited in terms of circulation and the windows soon turned into near waterfalls of collected sweat. Mmm, delicious.

Anyways, I stumbled out of the bus no worse for wear and I even met some musicians on the bus and we played a little guitar as we arived into Cuzco.

Ahhh... Cuzco.

Strange thing about Cuzco, it seems different from the last time I´ve been here. After two weeks in Arequipa, it seems strangely tourist centered, lacking in people going about their business, and expensive. Food etc seem to cost around 30% more here, and even hostal loki, which I used to think was cheap is actually close to twice as much as my hostal "La Reyna" in Arequipa.

But I´m here with one thought in mind. The Jungle! Upon the recommendation of Gabriel, one of Ilan´s gracious friends who have shared their experiences with me, I´m here to take a Jungle tour, 5 or 6 days, to Parque Manu in the amazon. I´ll be going with ´Bonanza tours´which is a small company comprised of 2 brothers and their friend, all of which have grown up in the park. What sets this tour apart is that they opt to teach you how they survive in the jungle, eating bugs, drinking from plants, climbing giant trees, catching alligators with your bare hands, using plants for medicine, etc. over just seeing animals. Its more than a bit out of my element, but thats the point I think. Subir los miedos!

One catch, I need at least 4 people for the tour. Thats where the 160 people in Loki come in. I´ve been actively recruiting people for the adventure and have managed to find 1 yes and 2 maybes. The other catch being that they´d like to go, but can´t go till saturday. So... the search continues, and if worse comes to worse, I have a few days to burn in Cuzco. The weather has taken a sudden turn wet since I arrived, and it even rained an hour ago. I´ve also started to look forward to Christmas, thinking it would be nice to spend it with my friends in Santiago, but that means that I¨m gonna have to speed up a bit through bolivia, and basically shoot south after the jungle tour. Sure I could get there 3 days in bus, but I think I´d like to still give Lake Titicaca and Salar de Uyuni their due so it might come in close. Plus I don´t like all those deadlines and what. Speaking of which, I still need to change my flight.... (Sorry Bay Area folks!)..... need.... more.... time....

Lots of love from the land of the Inca
Jesse

Trekking! (Colca Canyon, Peru)

Alrighty now! So, first things first, as you can see, I´ve decided to move the blog. I just had too much hassle with Ball of Dirt, and it didn´t let me post notes to facebook, and since I´m posting my pictures at facebook anyways, I just figured it was time for a change. This way you all can post comments too! You can still check on my progress by clicking the Ball of Dirt link to the right, I´ll keep the map updated just because it´s really neat for me to see where I´ve been.

So where have i been? After a solid week of sitting on my rear, playing guitar and what not, I finally got my stuff together and headed out on a 6 hour bus ride to Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world, second only to Cotahuasi which is just a few hours a way. I went with a group, recomended by Anival, the peruvian guide friend of my friend Rebekah, who lives next to me at the hostel and is from Boston of all places. She´s addicted to salsa dancing, and quite good at it, which means that she makes a lot of friends, most of which I´ve had the pleasure of getting to interact with too.

Anyways, my group was composed of 4 other people: Magnus, Beatrice, Rose, and Pill, from Sweden, Sweden, Australia, and England respectively (from Left to Right). Marcus, you should be proud to know that I told the Swedes the ´Biblio phi ket´joke, but of course they didn´t get it cause they´re not physics majors, but they appreciated the effort.

One of the best parts of the trip was hanging out and talking with our guide/leader Patricia. I was the only person on the trip who spoke spanish, and she only spoke so-so english, so it was nice to be able to talk to her in spanish. We just got along real great, she thought I was the wierdest tourist. She was really knowledgable and pointed out all the plants along the way. Ones that cure you, ones that make you blind or leave permenant scars, even a little bulb that is a strong hallucinagen. She was great at pointing out when I was being a conservative tourist, we had a joke that expressed it well,

¨¿Como se llama este? Miedo!¨

As for the hiking the walking was great, 3 days of going from villiage to village of locals who live inside the canyon. First day we dropped 1000m, second day we hiked across the canyon, and the third day we woke up at 2:30am and climbed 1000m up out of the canyon before breakfast. This is where I learned that 1000m is very different from 1000ft. Luckily I packed light and managed to fit everything I needed into the Peruvian daypack I bought in the market. The valley was beautiful and let my mind wander on all sorts of stuff from the type of music I´d play when I got back to the relationship between science and religion. Just try thinking about that for a while and you´ll find you´re up to the top of the canyon in no time.

I really enjoyed staying in a little town the first night. I was suprised to find a couple of Israelis staying in the hostel with us, more suprised that one of them had been to CAMP TAWONGA! 2 years ago, and he loved it, it was like an american movie for him, because they don´t have those types of summer camps in Israel. We spent some good time going down memory lane, trippy to be doing that in the middle of a canyon in Peru. Small world.

The hostel was owned and run by a really nice woman. I offered to help her cook and she was kind enough to offer to teach me. It all fell apart when I realized that I was hungry and that I would much rather have her cook my meal than have me masacre some Alpaca Saltado. She said I could cook the rice, but that if I messed it up, she was going to tell everyone it was my fault. We worked out a comprimise where I sat and played guitar while she cooked, better for everyone involved.

All around, it was a great trip. Now I´m back in Arequipa, resting for 3 days, taking spanish lessons (So that I can actually learn how to talk correctly, not just functionally), and looking towards a jungle trek in cusco (still working out the details on that). That and I´m spending time in Internet Cafes trying to convince Stephanie, Nick, and Marc to get their behinds down here so we can rock en español!

Ciao for Now!

Criollo and Taking it Slow (Arequipa, Peru)

Hey Folks! Happy Thanksgiving to you all! And a very special Happy Birthday to my Dad! Even if he does say that my entries are, and I quote, 'short, pithy and personal - and I believe intended for sharing' . Of couse They're for sharing! Come one, come all, and please write me comments if anything comes to mind!

My turkey day was spent 'sin pavo', but after much search I managed to find a killer mashed potatoes and rotiserrie chicken place, 'Pollo Real'to share a meal with my fellow American that's at my hostel, the salsa dancing Rebekah.

So you're still in Arequipa? What could you have possibly been doing for the past week?
Good question, I say. I think I've managed to settle in here a bit, found a nice hostel with a room that opens to a veiw of the city, and also, strangely enough, has a voyeuristic veiw down into the monestary right next to it. Well, with my daypack stolen while I was writing my last BOD entry, (I had it under my chair! Foolish!), I've had a lot of fun exploring the local economy for a replacement USB cable and charger for my camera. The interesting thing about latin america is that you can have 50 stores on the same block selling the EXACT same thing. I'm not quite sure how they manage to make an buisiness but I guess some things are just better left unknown. I found what I needed, as is evidenced by the new photo uploads.

So what have I been doing? Guitar lessons of course! I've been taking lessons from a good local player, the peruvian version of me (23 yrs old, playing for 8 years), in the emotional and clasically-flamencoy styled music known as musica Criolla. Check out Raul Garcia Zarate for a taste of the music. So I've pretty much found myself playing guitar 5 hours a day, shopping around in morning, and going out at night to either a local peruvian bar or a salsoteca.
Three Interesting things about Arequipeños:

1) In a bar, they all drink out of the same cup, taking turns in a sort of social, peer pressure kind of venue. They pour a little beer into a cup, down it like a shot, and then pour the runoff into another cup. Mmm... hygenic.

2) They, by comparison, don't really dance, and they definately don't dance salsa. From what I've seen, they prefer to sit around and drink, rather than get up and shake those hips. Which leads me to last night, where I went to Salsateca Munay's and found myself in the extremely rare situation of being one of the better salsa dancers in the club. Scary... but at the same time, very endearing, and makes feel very comfortable and at home.

3) Regarding social interaction, what I've now found on several situations, and from the mouths of Arequipeños, is that while everyone is sitting around, they're in little circles of friends. Guys are always seperate from girls, and if a guy wants to go talk to a girl, he can't just walk over and say 'Hey, how you doing', even if he is pretty hot stuff, he will be immeadiately shunned. People only talk to people who they have contact with, so you always have to be a friend, or a friend of a friend to bridge the gap between the different friend circles. Needless to say, this puts the foriegner in a strange position, something that a friend of mine at the salsateca last night, (from the north of Peru), found very frustrating and crazy. It seems to me though that its just being very safe, and I can understand it from that perspective.

Anyhoo, tomorrow I go trekking in the second largest canyon in the world (colca) and looking for Condors. I'll be out there for three days and then hopefully I will be going back up to Cuzco for a much recommended Jungle tour (Thanks Gabriel and Ilan!)

Ok, so Ciao for now!

The Earth Moves (Arequipa, Peru)

Yo yo, So after I dusted my boots free of sand, I sat back the next day and took yesterday just for me. I sat around the lagoon-resort of Huacachina and chatted with some newly met british friends who were taking a brake from teaching english in Lima.

Then I caught the first of what will surely be many long late night buses, 10 hours to Arequipa, second largest city in Peru, buildings made of vocanic rock, and surrounded by 5000-6000m volcanoes and the worlds deepest canyon. Arequipa has had some troubled history with earthquakes, and today was no exception. Not more than an hour after I arrived, I was eating breakfast, and all of sudden the whole building started doing the Jello Pudding Wiggle. It went for a suprising 5-6 seconds, not just a jolt like most Berkeley quakes. On the plus side, it provided a great ice breaker for everyone I meet, talking about my own experience with earthquakes.

Groggy from my comfortable yet not too comfortable drive, I passed out for a while, checked out the town, looked at some tours, and checked out a frozen mummy of a little girl who was sacrificed 500 years ago to please the gods. She was preserved in the ice atop a volcano and is just plain freaky to look in the face because everything from her hair to her internal organs are preserved. I've been getting busy uploading photos to facebook, (much faster than BOD, although not full quality), and I'll be making backup cds of my photos and sending them home for safekeeping.

Boobies and Sandboarding (Huacachina, Peru)

So I'm done with Paracas. I spent 3 days there. I hiked through the desert, from which I'm still quite burned. I watched my friend Tereza rock some serious Kitesurfing, the $100 lesson fee was a bit much for me. I was awoken each night by election parties held on the street below my hostel, elections being tomorrow...

Its worth noting that they really take their elections seriously here, and my criteria for seriously is that each candidate has their own song. Not just 'Don't stop thinking about tomorrow', but a song WRITTEN just for their campaign. This song is of course the basis of their canned recorded broadcasts which boom out of every speaker, from late night parties, to loadspeakers on roaming cars, to local boomboxes, in every small town from Aguas Calientes to Pisco.

Anyhoo.... Today I found myself alone again as Tereza head off to the Czchek Republic, and I decided it was time to be a tourist. First thing in the morning, I hopped on a boat to Isla Ballestas, The poor man's Galapagos, and got my full dose of birds and sea lions, around 10,000 and 500 of them respectfully. There were pelicans, penguins, cormarrants, Peruvian boobies, and even turkey vultures! There was also more bird droppings (guano) than I ever want to smell again in my life. Apparently its a major export, best fertilizer in the world, and they can only harvest every 5-7 years.

Afterwards, I hopped a bus to Ica, and a taxi to Huacachina just in time to catch a desert tour. Now, I normally don't like tours, but this one was great. Riding in a dunebuggy over the rollercoaster like dunes, we got to sandboard down several. For the taller ones, we would lie on our stomachs and go down head first, but the smaller ones we'd try standing up. I even made it all the way down a pretty steep one. 3 actually, although I fell HARD on my ass on the second one 'Cuidado con su culo!', but like any good inspìrational movie, I got up and nailed the next one like a pro. We watched the sunset from atop the desert and sat for a while in the most deafening silence I've ever heard, or not heard for that matter.

Anyways, that's the news from lake wobegon, tomorrow will decide whether or not I spend time in Nazca or just mozy on to Arequipa.

You´re not lost if its on purpose, (Paracas Peru)

So, totally on a whim, because it felt right, I decided not to join Ben on his flight to Santiago. Instead, I was going to go to Lake Titicaca, Puno to be specifc. What changed my mind? How have I ended up in the Desert/Beach hamlet that is Paracas?

Well, the simple answer is that I came to meet a girl, but that dosen't quite capture it. Last sunday, I was lucky enough to fall asleep on an Incan ruin (Temple of the Moon) and be left behind by Ben and the german guy we were walking around with. I found myself awakening alone, accept for this girl, similarly laid out in the sun. Lacking anything else to do, I went over to talk to her, and what followed was one of the truly special days of my life. Sure, there was the boy girl dynamic going, but that wasn't the point. We just sat and talked on that rock through most of the day, good honest, truthful conversation, the type of stuff that drastically effects your state of mind, and thats what it did. I didn't know where I was, I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know why I was there, and I was LOVING it. I got back after night fall, but before Ben sent out the search parties (It felt good to know he was concerned). In short, I saw a bit of what I wished my trip would be, accepting where I am, wherever it is, as opposed to being focused always on whatever greener grass is always over the horizon.

So... what was I supposed to do, she was only in the country for a few more days, and I had to go see whatever there is to see. Like life, my expectations have been met to various degrees, of course nothing could match that day, but I'm so glad I've made the trip. Today, we hiked 9km through the desert, (I'm VERY sunburned right now) to a beach reserve, desolate nature that I'm surprised I like so much. At first it was a bit hard, but now I feel like these couple of days will be the perfect transition to my solo travels.

Machu Machu Picchu

Well, we did it. We hopped on the train. We hopped on the bus. And there we were, shelling out $40 to see Machu Picchu. And you know what... it was worth it. I took a million photos (still forthcoming, sorry), We walked all around, to the 'sun gate' to the 'Inca Bridge', and despite all the tourists, I can still rate it along with the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal as something that actually lived up to the hype.

The next day we climbed the moutain across from MP, a true adventure, going up 2000 feet in just a few miles, including a 100 foot exposed wooden ladder climb and a grueling final exposed Inca Step series. A rainbow Inca flag (not to be confused with other rainbow flags) greeted us at teh top. I veiwed it as our penance for not having time to do the Inca trail.

Once again, its famous for a reason, and that reason's a good one

Cuzco, Peru

One small hour plane flight later and I find myself here in the magical land of Cuzco. The plane landed by circling in and doing a 180 on landing approach, dropping, more like squeezing into a canyon. What can I say, the cities beautiful. Built on Incan ruins, all redroofed shingled, its Uber touristy, but who cares. I'm writing from the mammoth Hostel Loki, an institution with 150 beds that sells shirts saying 'I survived Hostel Loki' and other such things.

The altitude got me at first, but a sudafed later and I'm doing fine. We've spent the day cruising the cozy coblestone walkways, checking out a bmx race through the city, visting a local soccer game, before it started raining, and seeing a music festival de caballeros. At the festival, I talked to a nice guitar cowboy who sat behind, his name was too long for me to remember, but was suprised to find that his costume wasn't a costume at all. He was a real cowboy, with cows and all. These conversations, all in spanish , have been the most rewarding part of the past few days. My spanish is improving rapidly and the people I've met have been so kind and forthcoming that they've enriched my life.

I almost forgot, the philosophy professor in the terminal in Lima. He stopped me to ask if I had found his ticket in the bathroom, but it turned out to be in his pocket all along. He was going to Cuzco to give a talk and was very interested in me and my studies, He teaches metaphysics and such. He even gave me some recomendations for Cuzco. Just a really nice guy.

Lima Wha? (Lima, Peru)

Well it feels too early, but we've been in Ecuador a week and we're back in El Centro del Mundo, Quito, preparing ourselves for our flight to Cuzco via Lima. We had to leave Chugchilán on a packed bus at 3 in the morning, on a big bumpy road, 500 foot cliffs on our left, speeding down the road, with our packs and a large tank of gas strapped to the top and bouncing loudly on the roof everytime we hit a big bump. Quite the bus ride. 6 hours later, via Latacunga, I'm back in Quito, waiting for our rooms to open up so that we can put our stuff in. Next, Laundry. Beautiful... Clean... Clothes....

And like that, with a puff of wind and one last night of salsa dancing, where we met our sala teacher from earlier in the evening, we were gone, and the Ecuador portion of our trip was over.
Quito didn't want to let go of us though, and just as we were taking off, a thunderstorm hit and we had to return to the terminal for an hour. The flight was bumpy the whole way, but I was kept good company by Julio, a 44 year old Argentinian oil driller who sat next to me. He taught me spanish and I taught him english. The highlight was where we looked up his hometown in the lonely planet and I had to translate to him that his home was 'not interesting to tourists', and then promptly explain why it would say such a thing and that it was written by a few people.

We arrived into Lima with me having a 9 hour layover and Ben having 12. We met a very talkitive taxi driver named Ibarra, who showed us around the city at night, the historic center, the beach. We logged into a hostel, me for just 4 hours of sleep, before Ibarra came back and picked me up. We parked outside the airport and entered through the back entrance so that we wouldn't have to pay taxes.

We didn't see much of Lima, but I feel from what I saw, that I'm quite pleased with what I got. A 3am tour around the colonial center, impecably preserved, is about all I would want. It was strange to be at sea level though.

Hostel Cloud Forest (Chugchilián, Ecuador)

Hot Showers! Hammocks! Water! (Did I mention we only brought one bottle of water and a few pieces of stale bread for the hike?) And this was the cheapest hostel in town.

Lets just say it was some good R&R, and we met a peacecore volunteer who had been there for a year and a half.

Oh yah, Nick, you should know that I met an Ecuadorian woman at the hostel who liked.... Country! I sang a basterdized version of 'one black night'and 'night riders lament'and had to explain what they meant in spanish. ( This is a song about a man who spends his time with cows instead of women and everyone asks why he does it if he dosen't make any money or get any women) She loved em'! Just goes to show...

Crater, valley, vally, mesa (Otavalo, Ecuador)

So, as planned we woke up at 7 in the morning and headed out of our hostel down the crater bottom. An amazing crater lake, I'll post a link as soon as Ben puts the pictures up. After our steep ascent, we got the crazy idea that instead of catching a bus to our next destination, Chugchilán, we'd just walk with our packs, and guitars. What followed was an amazing 5 hour hike that turned, well, just rough, in the last two hours as we found ourselves climbing a thousand feet out of a STEEP canyon we had just killed our legs decending. All said though, for a skinny, out of shape, tall guy whose spent the last 3 months away from any excercise of any kind, it felt like quite an accomplishment and really made me feel empowered. On top of that, it was great to just change our plans and follow a whim, the energy of which kept us going really for most of the journey.

A word about Quilotoa. Its the one place that I've felt most welcomed so far on this trip. A small village of a hundred or so people, we stayed in a 'hostel', but it really was just this family's home. It was Freezing outside and we were enveloped in clouds, so me, ben, 2 Canadians, 2 Danish Girls, a spanish couple and some late comer Germans, spent the afternoon, inside, huddled around the family's wood stove, playing with their four children, especially this amazing 3 year old who could break-dance, I kid you not, and introduced me to Cholo Juanito and Richard Douglas, a musical duo for South American children. I just felt so welcomed that it really made the day, and highlighted the trip so far.

Chicken Feet and Prostitutes (Latacunga, Ecuador)

The beginning of our journey on the Quilotoa loop. Not to give Latacunga a bad rap, but we only stopped here for the day becasue we missed the bus to Quilotoa. What we found was actually a nice little town with cobblestone streets and a few capital buildings.

It started pouring on us, so we ducked from overhang to overhang along with the other people, until we found ourselves in Pollo Jimmy's. A straightforward local joint where they give you a whole chicken. And when I say whole, I mean whole. The normal rottiserre is complimented with a chicken soup of what we decided to be heart, liver, neck, and feet. Makes for a good soup. Especially on a cold rainy day.

In a small victory, I finally found a pair of sandals that fit me(people have small feet here) and a pair of socks. We stayed in a cheap, smelly, but pleasant hostel. That we found is apparently worked pretty frequently by some local prostitutes from Pujili that we met in the morning. With a bit of quickness, we politefully gave our ´No Gracias´ s and were on our way to Quilotoa.

The Market (Otavalo, Ecuador)

Otavalo has been our first experience of Ecuador away from the big city of Quito. And I think we're unanimous in our love of the smaller towns over the big city. Famous for a saturday market, we arrived in Otavalo on friday and got to know the people the town the day before. We found a nice Peña named 'La Jampa' which served up a healthy dose of Reggaeton, Cumbia, and Salsa for us to dance as least akwardly as we could to.

One of the highlights for me was hanging out with some local folklorico musicians, Luis, Luis, and Luis, talking about Charangos and Quenas. Charango player Luis worked out a deal for him to pretend to buy a charango for me so that I could get a lower price, but I chickened out at the last second because I still have 2 months of travel ahead of me. A charango is a small guitar, origionally made out of armidillo shell, with 4 sets of 2 strings and its fast strumming is key to Andean Music. Maybe if I find one at the end of the trip.

For Dad, I just have to mention that above Otavalo, alone atop a hill surronded by volcanoes and a lake, is a beutiful tree that is said to have magic healing powers. Among the many things that make it beutiful is that it is a totally different species than any other in the region. When I touched it, it felt good, smooth to the touch, warm in all the wind. I thought of you Dad and your special tree up on the hill in Marin, and said to myself, yeah, that makes sense, if you're gonna have a special connection to something, why not a tree.

We then watched two Condors devour a pack of baby chickens at a bird park, and came back down for a cockfight where 2 chickens recieved instant death blows to the head. Contrasts...

Oh yeah, the market was nice

Journey to the Center of the Earth (Quito, Ecuador)

So, I'm here. Quito, Ecuador.

It's a Beautiful City. Old colonial buildings. Beautiful churches. Nice People. I spent yesterday just absorbing it all. And Walking... so much walking...

Around 5pm Ben (Lawson) and I decide to take a bus to 'La Mitad del Mundo', a very touristy monument/city all in celebration of the 0 Latitude line known as the Ecuator. We fell asleep on the bus there and ended up in the middle of the surrounding town, with the 2 girls in charge of the bus laughing their heads off at the clueless gringos who just want to see the big monument and have no idea where they were. They were nice enough to lead their 'Chicisitos' back to another bus and we finally made it.

I'm not sure what I'm doing here. I feel a bit like I'm just along for the ride, but I think thats why I'm here: to figure out why I'm here. I don't intend to fill this blog with every detail of my trip (Sorry Ben, No competition here), but I¨ll fill it with little drops of my ever changing world. I'm amazed at how much all the hostel folk seem just like I-housers, just looking for a good time, I guess this is what it feels like to be on the other end of the equation, for Me to be the one in a foriegn country. Today we head up North to Otavalo to check out the local markets there.

So for now, all the best from the center of the world.

Not quite left home (Marin, California)

Ok, so I know I'm not in Quito yet, but I'm all packed up, and I hate Ball of Dirt entries that start back home because the map is all zoomed out.

I can bearly contain myself and control my anxiousness and enthuiasim. I know it'll all work out, but/and I just can't wait to actually be in Quito and on my way. Midnight... Only 8 hours till my plane is ready for Houston.