Don't Smile at a Crocodile in Rurrenabaque

We were standing around with our tickets to Sucre in hand when I says to meself, ¨hey, self, why are you going to another city when you don't like cities all that much and you have spent the last week stuck in one?¨

A good question indeed, and with 15 hours we had sold the tickets to Sucre, and were on our way north to Rurrenabaque by boat. North of La Paz, Rurrenabaque is a horribly hot town that makes most of Panama look like a ski resort, but is on one of the many tributaries that eventually finds its way to the Amazon. The Madidi National Park has original primary forest still, and the pampas (think everglades - I'd imagine) is a highly dangerous tour where if the crocs, anacondas, and piranhas don't get you there are still plenty of mosquitoes, flesh eating diseases, and the every scary candiru that will track you down.

The three day boat trip took place on our luxury cruise liner (read glorified canoe) that I called the Sloop John B, and despite humming the Beach Boys song for three days the name never caught on. The passengers turned out to be quite the mix of galling French Canadians, cute German girls, a South African couple that were great storytellers, and a pair of hilarious English sisters of which one was so scared of everything it makes me wonder how she got started on the trip to South America to begin with.

The boat trip was fun, except that Dave and I were the only ones to actually bathe for the three days. As accustomed as I was to peeing in large bodies of water it was quite painful to have to hold it for fear of the candiru who's common name seems to be the penis fish. The candiru's brain is wired to swim against a given current, so if one is urinating in the river, you may get an unwelcome parasite to swim up your urethra and expand its spines into the inside of your... *OUCH* For those of you who don't believe me I am not smart enough to make this stuff up, so here is the wikipedia link for further research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru.

The boat trip would have been a lot more fun with a libation of choice and an innertube. Canoes are not exactly made for white water, and we spent most of the time avoiding all the fun parts of the river. Even this tributary which is probably 1000 miles away from the start of the Amazon river was huge, and pumped serious volume. I cannot imagine the size of the Amazon at the mouth of the ocean.

One afternoon we went piranha fishing which turned out to be anticlimactic. Before I could get a picture of the only one we caught as a group, the Canadian that caught it threw it back in. We also got to go on a jungle hike in the national preserve that was just like anything we saw in Panama, with the exception of the wild boars. The last day of our trip was Christmas Day, and because of the heat and jungle tour did not feel like Christmas at all. To compensate for the lost holiday we went out and had the traditional holiday meal, pizza.

Reason 327 why I love Bolivia... On a given day you find yourself in the middle of town with nothing to do, so you walk up to the motorcycle taxi stand on the street corner and say, ¨I want to borrow your motorcycle.¨ After assuring the owners that I knew how to ride a motorcycle (I didn't), and talking the price down, I took off my very own motorcycle, rented all afternoon for a mere $10. The crazy part is that I left no deposit or anything of value to insure I would return the bike. They just gave me the bike on good faith that I would not drive it back to La Paz to sell it, crash it, or run someone over. He didn't even ask for the name of the hotel we were staying in. I wish I had some jocular remark to make about the situation but to be honest I'm still dumbfounded.
We drove around town like bandits until we realized why they weren't worried. There wasn't exactly any place to go. After a picnic lunch, watching some lassos fly, and scaring at least one old woman out of three years of her life, we returned the motorcycles without a scratch, that the owners found anyway.

During our afternoon tour we took five minutes to get signed up for a tour of the Pampas. Upon arriving the next day in the swampy bog I immediately realize why I have never been to Mississippi. I imagine this place was similar to the quagmire of the bayou and I have seen leach field that look nicer to swim in. It was miserably hot, muggy, and filled with mosquitoes and toothless locals. The allure of the worlds largest snake, the most infamous carnivorous fish, and the age old question: is it safe to smile at a crocodile? were just too much; we had to investigate. The guide would say that we had a successful trip in that we swam with pink dolphins, fed bananas to monkeys, and saw some amazing birds. Blah-blah-blah, I say the guide is full of bull-pucky. In the one full day we had in the area we saw exactly nothing. I won't be sorry that we did not see an anaconda, but only piranha fishing for 30 minutes was just pathetic. Any fool could have driven the boat to a random spot had us throw lines in the water and claimed, "oops they're not biting today." Not to mention the guides total lack of enthusiasm and gregariousness. Make an effort!

All was forgotten when we got back and found that Oregon State showed why they are the number two rush defense in the nation holding Maryland to a mere 18 yards on the ground as they dominated their bowl game in the miserable San Fransisco rain. Oregon finally got a victory without Dixon so congrats to them, and my money is on a USC route of 21 points or more over the Fighting Illini.

Will someone please explain to me why three teams from the Big Ten which actually has 11 teams (idiots need to go to a better conference to actually learn something) got three BCS bids; including Michigan who finished 8-4 (with a loss to Appalachian State, a Div. 1 AA school), and the Pac Ten only got one bid. Any correct answer will include the phrase 'east coast bias'.

So with that as my final beef for this year, Happy New Years everyone! Even to those of you from the Big Ten, congrats on the strong bowl appearance. It's not your fault you live in the east and can't count. I just hope I never have to drive across a bridge in Pennsylvania that is suppose to be eleven meters long if engineers from Penn State helped to design/build it. To everyone else, I hope y'all go out and makes a new years resolution and then promptly break it. The only good thing about a new years resolution is when one discovers that resolutions are crap and forget about theirs. Thus my new years resolution shall be to find a job.

The Internet Wanderings of an Idle Traveler Still In La Paz

Picture this, Dave and I were running around town for a third day trying to put together the package of information to get our visas for Brazil. We had to show proof of the yellow fever vaccine again, but this time we needed the original. So we are up early on Monday morning to go to the Bolivian health center to get an original document (not a shot) with the same piece of paper that was denied the previous Friday. It didn't pass the Common Sense Test to me, and I had half a mind to tell her that. The most annoying part was that she was not going to keep the original, she only needed to see it. She knew that we had received the shot and could have overlooked the minor discrepancy, but had to be a jerk about the whole thing.

So we went back, ready to do battle the next day. Needless to say she found some other nit-picky things to send us scrabling to get done, so we fix that and went back, oh did I mention we were trying to catch a bus in the morning so that we could get out of La Paz? I ran 14 blocks in the high capital in the world to pay the processing fee, and had all my ducks in a row. I was looking at the clock realizing that the bus was leaving from the other side of town in five minutes. In my optimism I told myself the bus won't leave until 15 minutes late, we are totally fine. As I turn back to the same evil secretary she looks up and smiles in her unique way (uh, this can't be good) and says "I'm sorry but you don't have any pages left in your passport." From the euphoric look on her face I think she may have had an orgasm from the joy in providing such bad news.

¨What about the three pages at the end, there is nothing on them.¨ I reply in my ignorance of passports.

You could see the tingle of pleasure run down her spine as she turned my passport back to me and showed me the three pages, ¨It says right here that I can't put any visas on these pages, (euphoric shutter) you are going to have to go to your embassy first.¨

Bastards! Dave could get his passport processed, but he was going to need more pages as well. Between the two of us we needed to be in La Paz everyday for the next week (for maybe ten minutes). That meant that we were not going to make our bus that day or for the next week, and we were not able to go chasing after alligators, anacondas, and piranhas fishing in the Amazon Basin. Bastards!

The week off gave us an opportunity to do some good ol' fashion college style internet time killing. In the past two years the internet has improved greatly. It has gone far beyond Al Gore's expectations when he discovered it all those years ago. At least he finally got his credit for the discovery this year in the form of the Nobel Peace Prize. A couple of those discoveries I will share since I seem to have nothing better to do with myself than waste the reader's time.

First I started to YouTube (can YouTube be verbed?) the debates for our next presidential candidate. In the process I watched some of the participant's propaganda that they also leave up on the website. Based on one advertisement I have selected my dark horse, and because my candidate as lost every time I have voted for president I have no problem shamelessly plugging former Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson.




There is also a huge sub-culture based around everybody's favorite ass kicking Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris. At http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/ one can get a glimpse of why Chuck Norris is a better man than you. My personal favorite: ¨Every night the boogeyman checks his closet for Chuck Norris.¨

Not to send y'all away from my blog, but there is a button that automatically comes up on most blogs that are affiliated with this website. If you scroll to the top you will discover as I did the ¨Next Blog¨ button. This button will allow you to go to another blog by a random person somewhere in the world. After an hour of mindlessly pushing the button I realized that most blogs are absolute crap. Which begs the rhetorical question, do other people think my blog is as crap as I think their's is? It probably is. Blogs are crap.

The largest waste of time on the internet was done without Lane's knowedge, he would be very disappointed in me if he knew I was search for a... hold on... Ok, he's gone, in search of a (whispered) Jay-Oh-Bee. That's right, I have been reviewing his bank account balance, and by the time he is done with this South America thing he will be more broke than if Chuck Norris would have roundhouse kicked him in the face. That's right a job (gasp!), so if anyone out their is interested (or knows someone that might be) in giving this future-less engineer a job (preferably one that pays more than monopoly money and boild green bananas) let him know, but you didn't hear that from me.

With that I must leave in search of more garbage on the internet. If you have not burned enough time at work yet I recommend starting with the ¨Next Blog¨ button, I wonder how many times I would have to push it to randomly come across the blog of someone that I know? There is only one way to find out...

A Safe Biking Path to Corioco

I made the mistake of telling my mother about the most dangerous road in the world bike ride before even leaving Panama, but I promised I wouldn't tell her when I was actually going to go. Now that I have survived and have the T-shirt to prove it I can happy jump up and down, fist pumping, and talk about having played chicken with fate and lived to tell about it. Ignorance is bliss, right ma?

In all reality as a biking on the road is not all that dangerous. The infamous road was built in the 1930's by some POWs from Paraguay who put the POW in gun POWder as they blasted the road out of the side of the mountain. The new road that goes through another valley has made the Yungas road obsolete, thus leaving the wide gravel path to a throng of daily tourists. Most of the souls haunting the area are drivers who made the mistake of try to pass another large vehicle at an inopportune moment. It also claimed the lives of several politicians who made the mistake of trusting their political rivals when they said, ¨Hey Vinny, take our friend here fer a ride.¨

That is not to say that the rider can break concentration, and the crosses that line the cliffside are a constant reminder of that fact. The road is very wide for a cyclist even the poorest ones, but if one falls of the road there is no ditch to land it. You might find on the way down the 500 ft straight drop that the helmet is wearing you for protection in stead of the other way around.

Mistakes are also more common at high speed, and of the 60-odd km of the trail all but seven klicks are downhill. Usually the tour begins at the top of the 4700 m pass and ends in Corioco at 1700 meters above sea level which works out roughly to be a 1.5 mile vertical drop. It reminds me of a pearl of wisdom my father gave so many years ago: It's not so important how well it goes, but how well it stops.

The concept, difficulty, and beauty of the ride could be compared to what I did in Huaraz, Perú. That I did all by myself this I did as a part of a tour, and there is no comparing the two. As a part of the tour other people were getting mad at me for taking my time, taking pictures, and generally enjoying where I was. The other two guys in the group just bee-lined staight down the road with the guide leaving Dave and I happily in the dust. They didn't seem to realize that it was not about journey to the goal, but rather the journey is the goal. (insert momentary pause of witty philosphical banter while reader discovers that this may have a parallel to life in general.) So in the end I felt bad for being slow, but not too bad.

That night there was a huge party near our hotel in Corioco. We were going to go to bed early, but there is no such thing as noise pollution in Latin America and one might have thought that the speaker was actually in the room with us. So, for rudely keeping us up that night we did the only logical thing, we crashed the party. Initailly we thought it was a wedding and were wondering how we were going to get ourselves invited in to go bridesmaid hunting. Upon arriving we discovered that it was actually the high school end of year party. One might compare it to prom, only with your entire family, and drinking is allowed. That's right, cultural difference number 48379: it shall be socially acceptable to drink and get drunk at your child's 10th grade graduation party. When in Rome...

Forged Documents and a Bolivian Jail in La Paz

Beaurocracy is a nightmare. In response to the United States' policy on visas for bolivians, Evo Morales has enacted a policy that went into effect two weeks before Dave and I crossed into the country. In addition to $100 and an invitation from a host country national I needed proof of a yellow fever vaccination. I received the shot in Panama, and had brought a copy of the document knowing full well that I would need it eventually. At some point during the first six weeks of travel the papers grew a pair of legs and walked off to go tour South America by themselves. No problem though, a little work with a copy of Dave's vaccination record, a copy machine, and some white out, and we soon found ourselves on our way to La Paz, Bolivia.

It took only ten minutes of being in Bolivia me to turn to Dave and say, ¨I can already tell that I am going to like this country.¨ I can't say exactly what it was, it could have been the uncomfortable bus, the local music on the radio, the bumper stickers that lined the inside of the bus, the drunk guy wanting to wrestle, or the going into blind curves three cars abreast which turned into a well ochestrated symphony squealing breaks, screams, but no crunching of metal. I can't put my finger on it, but there was something about the creative and unsafe way things were done that just felt right.

Case in point. At one point we had to cross a 500 m section of Lake Titicaca. We grumbled about our seperate uncovered boat until we saw the ¨ferry¨ that carried the bus across the channel. It was made of plywood with a minimal support structure. Just long enough and wide enough for a full size bus to fit on with a foot of clearance all around. As the boat rocked on the wind tumbed water of the lake, I couldn't help but wish I had my camera for two reasons: one to take a picture of the craziness, and two to protect it from the icy water that seemed inevitably sure to tip the boat and consume our ride. I did find this picture on the internet. It is of the same crossing, but our bus was at least twice as big as the truck in the picture.

We arrived late into La Paz, and the next morning we go out to walk around the highest capital city in the world. How high is La Paz? La Paz is so high that FIFA World Cup does not allow world cup games to be played there. In the history of the world cup Bolivia has NEVER lost a game there! In addition to a perfect home record, La Paz is an amazing city.

When inquiring about Bolivia on our way south the response was almost universal, Bolivia is great. But when asked specifically what it is about Bolivia that makes it so geat there is rarely anyone that can come up with anything besides it is cheap. I now understand their problem with being able to describe it, because it is more of a vibe that one gets than specific list of things to do. In general, the major difference though is that we are not treated any differently than any local. We don't have to barter with taxi drivers, no one openly stares, and people have gone out of their way to be helpful and knowedgeable.

One of the attractions(?) to La Paz is the San Pedro Prison. It was popularized by the book Marching Powder about an English drug mule who got caught trafficing cocaine and was imprisioned. In order to survive in a Bolivian prision the inmates must make their own money usually though artisanry. So the intrepid Englishman began to run tours through the prision to buy dinner, and became such a big cult tour that the bolivian govenment has banned tourists from the premesis. Dave and I went and looked in because it is right in the center of town, and though, ¨It's crazy to bribe our way into a prision in Bolivia!¨ and ¨It's not the getting in I'm wrried about, it's the getting out.¨ So we chickened out, and didn't even try to get in which should bring my mother's blood pressure back down to normal levels.

But this might send it back up... I don't think it will surprise anyone to know that the most dangerous road in the world is located in Bolivia. Another strange tourist attraction is to ride bicycles down this road to a near by town.

Final Breakdown on Perú:

Country of Origin: Ecuador
Total time in country: 19 days
Music: Besides the noise that the locals seem to call music there are also full CDs in most tourist locations that are dedicated to the Andean Flute redition of Beatles songs and old 80's hits. Immagine hearing 'Sweet Child of Mine' without the guitar intro or 'Hey Jude' without Paul McCarney screaming at the end.
People: I think the genuine people are out there, we just didn't find very many of them.
Transport: Decentralized bus terminals suck.
Landscape: Lots of extremes... Extreme mountains, extremely dry desserts, and extremely pathetic looking mud houses, extremely cool reed houses on reed islands.
Food: Besides the cheapest food thus far (a full lunch with soup and plate of food for less than a dollar) the shining star was the Peruvian tradional dish, ceviche.
Safety: Northern Perú is the least safe I have felt, ever! Most of the touristy places have safe areas and non-safe areas. It's good to know where the lines are.
Gas prices: 14.70 Nuevo Soles per gallon (4.90 USD per gallon)
Surprised by: Despite a country that has tourists all year round I still feel like I was stared at, single out, and generally preyed on more than in other countries.
Final word: Perú has some really cool hiking, climbing, ruins, and history to do and see, but afterwards get out.
Next stop: Bolivia

A Lake so Nice They Named It Two Times Twice, Lake Titicaca

Note: After catching some flack for a historical fiction story on the Galapagos based on a bird species I will be refraining from making comments throughout this article on the name of a certain lake that may or may not be referred to as something that could be construed as hilarious. I will allow the reader to make the appropriate inappropriate joke him/herself.

Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. How high is it? At 3810 m, it's soooooo high that [editor deleted inappropriate joke]. I'm still not sure what make a lake navigable and others not, but I can tell you that this altitude does not allow for casual swimming. I am all about a good polar bear swim, but I got no where near the 'point of no return' when I went wading into the water (it is colder than Crater Lake). Because swimming and lazing in the cold atmosphere did not appeal to us we found ourselves in a pickle until we heard about other peculiarities to explore in the area.

Puno, the town where one stays when visiting the Peruvian side of the lake is NOT one of these peculiarities. It is an uninspiring parched city that does not deserve one red (or any other colored) tourist cent. After touring the inside of several Internet cafes we busted out on a two day tour of some of the nearby islands.

If the foolish man built his house upon the sand and the wise man built his house upon the rock what does that make the people who build their houses upon floating reed islands? That's right, these two meters thick and several thousand square feet islands float on Lake Titicaca made of reed. These people's entire livelihood is based on the large grass that they get from the lake. They use it as cooking fuel, make their houses, boats, artisan goods, eat it, sleep on it, oh and did I mention that their island is made out of it? I have to imagine that this is the most unique place I have ever seen anyone living.

It is assumed that the reason these people are living how they are was to avoid the Inca's as they took over South America. To escape capture, waterboarding (amongst other torture techniques), and an assimilation process that makes the Borg look friendly these people moved onto their boats to live. Eventually they started tying the boats together to make small islands. Today the spongy reed covers a large enough area for them to have a volleyball court complete with net and ball.

There are multiple floating islands and when I asked one of the locals about this phenomena he just smiled and looked at his well used saw. Can you imagine your neighbor inviting you over for a drink one day, and as you walk out of your house the next morning with a wicked hangover you discover that your neighbor is gone. In fact the entire island that you use to live on is gone except for the small portion that your house sat on which fortunately you discover still softly under your feet. Oh well, I guess you would just have to grab your reed paddle and go tie up with another island.

After the morning on the floating islands we went to an earthen island were we stayed with a local family. These host families speak no English, but are still kind enough to invite tourists into their house. I would imagine that the room we stayed in is nicer than theirs, but I didn't get the chance to verify. Dave and I sat in the kitchen very comfortable in the awkward silence between the races because it gave us flashbacks of our days in the Corps.

After dinner we went to a night club in the plaza (read: large spare room in a store) and danced with the host family in their traditional no-rhythm style, and I fit right in. After a while some of the locals who were looking for a laugh came in to watch the gringo dancing mayhem. The guide introduced us, and for the first time in three weeks in Perú we found some real people that like the same three jokes I told in Panama. Things were warming up to be a late night talking and joking around when hour hostesses came up and told us it was time to go. We had no flashlight and even less idea where the house was, so we had to leave. Figures.

The second time around in Puno was no better than the first, but we did go out for one last-ditch effort to find cuy. The little rodent is expensive by local standards, and is only consumed by them on special occasions. It has a dark turkey meat flavor with a hint of gizzard, but the big turn off is it comes in the skin. The skin is chewier than leather, and the fat on the inside is worse than boiled pig fat. In fairness it was not horrible, but I'd rather eat alpaca or lamb any day of the week. With this quest finally accomplished we could finally bit bon voyage to Perú and get into the budget friendly Bolivia.

¨De Thooper Mountan Haykerth¨ on the Inca Trail

The classic four day trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, is (not surprisingly) monumental! The majority of the hike was done on the original path build by the Incan Empire in the late 15th to early 16th Centuries. The ruins along the way teased the senses but do nothing to prepare the hiker for crossing the final pass at the Sun Gate early on the fourth day. December is considered to be the off season, but on the last day I found myself waiting in line to enter the final day with 199 other hikers (200 passes are issued daily). Thus the last day feels more like being herded than a peaceful sunrise walk in the Andes. During the walk down into Machu Picchu all the mooing was gone and there were nothing but smiles lining every face.

The guides took their time in the four day trek to give a prideful and comprehensive history of the Incan culture despite my doubts about their historical accuracy. They spoke English well, but the main guide always spoke with a smooth, sexy, Latin lisp (and a twinkle in his eye), and always called us, ¨the super mountain hikers,¨ which came out phonetically what I titled this blog. For all it's glory and international recognition the militant Incan Empire was only dominant over the Cuzco Valley for about a century, a historical blink of the eye.

Despite the empire's demise the locals are still proud to follow the three rules of the Incan Empire: don't lie, don't steal, and don't be lazy, 500 years after the fall. This was most evident in the porters. The porters on the trail at times would run in their shoes made from old car tires, passing the tourists who were generally struggling with the steep terrain and/or the altitude. Normally Latinos don't walk like they have somewhere to be, and they are generally content to get there when they get there. Being stuck behind a sauntering Latino on a narrow sidewalk was a frustrating experience until I learned how to walk like them. On the Inca Trail I found that the shoe was on the other foot. The 48 km (30ish miles) took us four days to finish, but the fastest porter ever completed it all in only 3 hours and 45 minutes. Note: this happened one year at the annual porter race, he wasn't carrying a pack.

Going up to the highest pass of 4200 m (13750 ft) I tried to pace what appeared to be one of the weaker porters. I kept up and probably could have passed him, but was not interested in getting into a battle of wills with him. Oh, i didn't mention that he was about half my size, his pack was at least twice as big as mine, and he was doing it in sandals. I was impressed, but am still trying to figure out how they still have any cartilage in their knees.

In our group of 13 tourists there were 17 porters. In a given day there are 200 permits for tourists and 300 for guides and porters. I am still trying to wrap my head around why one of them needed to carry a table and stools, another carrying a kitchen tent and mess tent, and yet another carrying three cups per person, full silverware, plates, bowls, napkin holders, and fake flowers for a table setting. My guess is the reason for all the extravagance is to give people jobs at the expense of tourists, but even most five-star hotel managers would be saying, ¨Geez, that's a little over the top.¨

One area where I was glad to have so many porters was when it came to the food. I have not eaten that well in a long time. There were five course meals three times per day, tea and popcorn at 5:00 pm, and daily trail snacks. I still think I was the most impressed by the pizza we ate on day three, but the hot coca tea in bed every morning to start the day was a close second.

On the first morning I was still enjoying my tea as my Irish roommate Eion was out preparing his bag for the hike. One of our Austrailian group members walked by and said, ¨Top of the morning to yeh.¨ (Note: According to Eoin no one actually says ¨Top of the morning to yeh¨ in Ireland. In fact it may be cause for punching someone in the face.) It was hard to watch his reaction while trying to not shower the tent with coca tea through my nose. He looked at me and turned a fire engine red that I did not think was humanly possible. After our hike was done and we were sharing a pint (in an Irish pub ironically enough) some of the others chimed in to get him to say, 'There always after me lucky charms.' Again Eoin turned his bright red and announced, ¨Noo, he'z (and points at me) bean tryin' ter get me to sey dat fer tree weeks nao. I doon't care how many paynts ye put in me I ain't gunna sey't. And we doon't sey, 'top o' de marnin' to yee,' eider.¨

During the hike though we all took turns faking all the accents to the delight of the rest of the group and evidently the Pachamama (Mother Earth) because she smiled fondly upon us all four days of the hike. The great weather meant there were great views. If at anytime the hikers would lift their eye off the shoes in front of them, they would be greeted with the panoramic sight in all 360 degrees. Everywhere you looked there was always another steep mountain or river valley. Therefore there was never a bad picture to be taken. All of the pictures I took came out great, but there is not one picture that can adequately do any justice when 'seeing in surround sound'.

This is most noticeably apparent in Machu Picchu itself. The ruins are situated in the saddle of a ridge line connecting Machu Picchu Mountain and Wayna Picchu Mountain. On both sides of the former religious center the cliffs drop straight away into the steep valley below. On a clear day one can see sheer rock faces and cloud forests that rival Yosemite and the Grand Canyon.

The quality of the stone work in Machu Picchu in mind boggling, and has to be experienced to be believed. Granite was used for to create everything from temples, to retaining walls, to bridges build in cliff faces. Despite not having steel tools to shape the stones the more important building, alters, and compasses were fit together better than most puzzle pieces. In area surrounding the Sun Temple it is claimed to be impossible to slip even a credit card between rocks. After careful exploration and testing I finally found one spot that permitted my credit card to enter. To my surprise a brand new 100 Sol note came out, a gift from the Pachitata (the father spirit) himself. But the god got the last laugh in the end, because when I tried to spend the bill, I was informed that it was counterfeit. It was a good thing I didn't trade real money for the fake currency.

After a morning tour with the guide we were released to do as much walking as our tired legs would permit us. A small group of us bit off a big bit as we attacked and climbed Wayna Picchu. We were going to try to run the steep and narrow assent to try and beat the record until we found out the current standing record for Wayna Picchu: 20 minutes up and 5 seconds down. The view from the top of the bullet shaped hill in the background of the classic Machu Picchu picture did not disappoint. Those who take the time find at the top a panoramic view in every direction. s impressive as the buildings are in Macchu Picchu, Wayna Picchu is that much more extraordinary because of its towering presence like Skeletor's lair on the top Snake Mountain. The rock work is not as fine as in Machu Picchu, but as one squints, focuses, and stares it is hard to tell when the sheer cliff face stops and the Incan rock foundation begins.

The only downer on the whole trip was the torturous four hour train ride home. AIt was like in the beginning of Office Space when Peter is sitting in his car in traffic and gets passed by a man using a walker. The train was painfully slow with no leg room, smelly neighbors, and no hope of getting off (insert maniacal laugh here). I would have rather walked home in four days than have spent the four hours on that train.

The bookends of our the Inca Trail was spent in the tourist staging town of Cuzco. This was the actual center of the Incan Empire and Spanish strong hold for so many years. This means that there are some interesting ruins and combinations of spanish churches on Incan retaining walls. It was here that Dave and I were reunited, and eventually ran into Matt and Drew from PC Panama. We spent a couple of days echando cuentas and reminiscing about the good ol' days. Once back from the trek I ran around doing all the touristy bits in town that I had missed before. The painting of the Last Supper in one of the Cathedral gave me pause. I never knew that Jesus ate chinchilla and mangos at the last supper! Where is that in the communion tradition? Someone has been holding out on me all these years.

Cuzco itself is overly touristy and it is impossible to even sit in the Plaza de Armas and eat breakfast in peace. I couldn't get more than 30 seconds of peace at a time before someone would show up and start bothering me about buying something, donating money, or taking a picture with them. It got old really fast, but there were benefits too. In the evening when wee were ready for dinner we would barter for a lower price, and then go club hopping and drink the one free drink at each place. The whole mood of Cuzco got old fast, it was time to move on.

Perú's litter box, Huacachina

After a few days up in the cold mountains and knowing that I was going to be hiking through the frigid heights of the Andes to get to Machu Picchu I decided to take a sabbatical to the hot arid desert of southern Perú. On the way south I spent a grand total of 107.24 minutes in Lima, and decided that it was at least 100 minutes too long. I have heard nothing good about the place and saw nothing from the bus or bus station to change my mind. After giving Lima the slip I rocked down to Ica.

I ended up in the little oasis town just outside of Ica called Huacachina. The small community is surrounded by sand dunes on all sides and in the center is a murky looking puddle of water with supposed curative properties. According to the taxi driver that took me out to town people from all over Perú go there to bathe in the water. He claimed that people with AIDS and cancer had both been cured by a quick dip. Fortunately I was in good heath and did not have even a stubbed toe to dip into the tonic water, not that I would have expected anything more than for it to have come out wet.

This is an interesting facet of the rural culture throughout all of Latin America. Because of limited medical support (especially in the rural areas) people have to believe in the holistic cures (i.e. non-medical related cures). I have no problem with the concept, but there is a huge problem when modern medicine and the non-traditional medicines clash. People will believe that their curandero grandmother knows more about medicine than a trained medical professional. There is a large problem with people not trusting doctors or hospitals. for them it ofent comes down to who are they going to believe: a doctor you can't understand because he speaks educated Spanish with words that are too big for the commoner, or a trusted relative and friend that has known you for life. Under those conditions it is easy to see why they often go with the more accessible, cheaper, and friendlier local cure from family.

I will admit having tried some of the local remedies. Most work on a limited basis. The anti-diarrhea worked like a charm for long enough to get me to the doctor's office 4 hours away. Most decongestants are good for a while. The anti-parasite medicine didn't work at all. My beef is when parents give their child non-traditional medicine and it doesn't work, and they still don't go to the doctor . I tried to convince a friend in my site that he had to go to the hospital one time because he was really sick. He looked at me and said that he would never go to a hospital because, "that is where people go to die." Unfortunately there is no way to argue and win (despite perfect logic) with some Latinos on this topic.

In any case, Huacachina was a great place to sit for a couple of days and do absolutely nothing. There was blue skies, comfortable dry heat, good ceviche, and a hammock that swallowed me for more than one afternoon. One of the days I borrowed a sandboard which is made to look like a ghetto snowboard that includes Velcro straps and no edges, and went out on the sand dunes for some action. It turns out that sand boarding is actually quite boring standing up, with little ability to turn or control the general direction. The speed issue was a non-issue because even on the steepest areas it was slow at best.

The last afternoon there I had the opportunity to go out on a dune buggy. This on the other hand was not boring. I had low expectations going in, expecting that some of the taxi/bus/chiva rides in Panama would reign supreme over a ride with a seatbelt in a dune buggy full of finicky tourists. The chiva rides still were scarier, but I have to hand it to our driver, it was brilliant and as fun as most rollercoasters. The sunset was epic and the stars over the never ending sand were impressively bright.

I felt a little bad about going to the area, especially since some may remember that back in August Perú experienced a rather large earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Ricketier Scale. The Ica was on the outer peripheral of the effected area, but due to cheap building materials the quake still had a devastating effect. Thousands died in Ica alone, and the memorial site constructed was rather impressive. In the end I told myself that the money that i was spending was helping people get back on their feet. In all, this time also helped me to relax and get back on my traveling feet as well. We had traveled hard to get down to Perú, and still had quite a ways to go to get to Cuzco. Relaxing on the oceanless beach turned out to be time well spent.

Head in the Clouds in Huaraz, Perú

Well Dave and I have separated again. I woke up in the bus to Lima to Dave standing over me with a knife I decided it was time for a break. I'm kidding of course, but Dave and I did parted ways as I jumped off in the middle of a town called Nowhere, Perú, clambered on to the next bus that came by, and ended up in Huaraz. Dave continued on to meet a friend who came to hike the Inka Trail with him. I will be meeting up with them in Cuzco in a few days.

Huaraz is the main jump off point for the Huaraz National Park. May-July is the high tourist season for climbing mountains and people from all over the world, especially Europeans, come to this area to take on the Andes. I had a great time wandering around town during local patron saint festival, bathing in hot springs, hiking around some pre-Inca ruins, and the highlight was a mountain bike ride though a glacier covered pass.

I woke up one morning a caught a bus up to the top of the pass headed east from Yungay over to the Amazon Basin. Before starting off on the decent, as is customary for every male, I had to pee on the other side of the pass so that I could race said urine to where the Amazon river meets the sea, where I hope to be in about ten weeks. After writing my name in the dirt (snow was too far away) it was just the gravel road guiding me back the way the bus had brought me. I had nothing but the Andes' glacier covered peaks to keep me company.

The road was all gravel and quite bad in parts. I was very glad to be going down for about 95% of the 45 km because at the top of the pass at 4767 m (15600 ft) just holding onto the bike was a hard enough work out. There was one section that required pedaling, and after three minutes of minimal work I couldn't buy a breath. In all my forearms burned to let go as my mind forced them to work. I was riding the brakes all the way through the 50-some-odd switchbacks, and by the end was ready to sit in the natural hot baths to soak away the pain, cold, and dirt that had collected on me all day.

The thing that was most curious to me about this area is how I was treated by the locals. I am used to being single out and looked at, over-charged whenever possible, asked for money, and generally put in the spotlight. In most tourist locations upon seeing a gringo generally a) don't stare as much or b) better disguise their looking. Not here! One might have thought that they had never before seen someone as white as I am (and I'm about as white as they come). I was asked several times to pose in a picture with random Peruvians, complimented for having blue eyes, yelled at, gawked at (different than staring), had my arm hair rubbed, and chased by kids while on the bike. Most of this stuff had happened to me before. The quantity of times it happened in a short period was what made me notice, because even in the depths of the Panama I was never followed so closely. I guess it is also different when you are familiar with the people staring -as in Panama, and when they are complete strangers -as in Perú. Basically it surprised me that a town with so much gringo tourism would be so shocked by my presence. Enough of me ranting, I'm off to Ica to see some sand.

Final Breakdown on Ecuador:

Country of Origin: Colombia
Total time in country: 14 days, but only 6 on the main land.
Music: We have now entered the land of Andean music. This means charangos (10 string guitar), reed flutes, and sheep skin drums that the natives play. They could raise the dead to dance with their lively beats.
People: Galapagos people are a little tourist jaded, country folk are the same in all countries, and I think the artisans in the market would have sold their own children at ¨an extra special price just for you¨ (after all the kids are their handy-work).
Transport: Efficient, safe, and comfortable to the point of being boring.
Food: Exotic fruit juices with every meal, grilled potatoes to make a Texan jealous, and a variety of maize, chocho (a bean like food that locals can't get enough of), and the baked goods like bread and desserts are probably not French quality but they beat most of western Europe for sure. Club beer is the best beer I've had in Latin America, and has won several awards in European tastings.
Landscape: Variety is the spice of life and Ecuador has got it.
Safety: People said Quito was not safe, but we had no problem running around town on public transport and taxis. Outside of town the only danger is the old man that will not let you get off at your stop because he wants to talk more. Zero danger on Galapagos.
Gas prices: 1.48 USD / gal (Ecuador uses the dollar)
Surprised by: We did not realize how much there was to do just in the greater Quito area til we got there. There turned out to be quite a bit that we could have done in country but did not get to. 25 roses cost $1, and when they are in season can be found 50 for $1.
Final word: The Galapagos are not cheap, but the rest of the country is. Ecuadorians are use to dealing with tourists, even those that don't speak a word of Spanish. Any biologist, pretend biologist, or person that thinks flowers and animals are ¨pretty¨ could find something to love about Ecuador.
Next stop: Perú

Ecuador, Ferris Bueller Style

Because the camera worked overtime in the Galapagos I gave it the Thanksgiving Weekend off so that it would not go on strike like the Writer's Guild. In the mean time, there are more Galapagos pictures interspersed throughout this article...

We didn't end up spending a whole lot of time in Ecuador. After the seven nights on the Galapagos we had to get through the rest of the main land in less than a week. This brings me back to an old hero of mine, Ferris Bueller. The guy who worked harder to not go to school than he would have in school would have been proud of what we accomplished in the short time we had. Trying to do Ecuador like Ferris had done to Chicago turned out to be a formidable, nay impossible tasks, but due to previously arranged engagements in Perú, it had to be done.

One of the details that was most striking to me was the variety of terrain in Ecuador. In a country the size of Nevada there is intolerably hot rain forest, active volcanoes, the Galapagos island, steep Andes mountains that collect snow, beautiful tropical beaches, cloud forest, national parks with the highest species density in the world, and all the land is fertile thus food variety is expansive. This is only the tip of the iceberg of the highlights. There are plenty of other places all over the country worth visiting. The following is the short list of the places that we did get to...

Otavalo: A picturesque town at the base of the northern Andes which has a remarkable artisan market. A hagglers paradise, this market literally takes over the town with people selling their goods. One of the refreshing things about this area was that most of the products are made by the artisans themselves. I was recently disappointed in a market (which shall remain nameless) to find tags with 'Made in China'. Otavalo market still seemed remarkably true to its indigenous roots.

Quito: I tend to be rather critical of cities, and Quito is no exception.
There was nothing spectacular about the city itself, with one very large exception. We were put in contact with a family, a friend of a friend, and accepted us into their house not once but twice. Dave and I used the house as a pre and post staging for the Galapagos, and these people gave us food, guidance, a bed, shower, and laundry facilities for no other reason than we share a common friend and they are exceptionally nice people. There is no way we could thank them enough. So as a way of trying I have posted a picture of some of them making funny faces (seems fair to me).

Upon returning to Quito we met up with our Irish friend from the Ciudad Perdida trip -recall if you will ¨tirty tree and a turd¨. He was staging to do the Galapagos and had some questions because we had just finished. After lunch we decided to wander down to the stadium to watch the Perú - Ecuador World Cup Qualifier. We had no tickets, but were not worried about getting in as Ecuador had lost its first three games. Needless to say, we could not get into the game because we were not willing to pay $25 for a scalped ticket (face value $8) to what was most likely a meaningless game. We thought we would just go watch the game at the pub. BUT, the game was not on in the pub! We found this to be a grave injustice and indicative of Latin American backwards thinking. So we spent the next two hours outside the stadium trying to understand why there were empty seats in the stadium, and we were still standing outside with a $20 bill and a beer each.

Saquisilí: After our failure at the game, we packed up early Thanksgiving morning and headed south, Our morning stop was at a market in Saquisilí, which was different to the Otavalo market because it was more centered around local buyers. There were still artisan goods. As I was still feeling the pinch from the last market, I roamed the streets asking about prices of llamas and sheep, and if they came properly documented so that I could send them back to the states (llamas $50, short-hair sheep $25, documentation? -I'm a jerk). We also made our first attempt to find what we wanted our Thanksgiving meal to be, roasted guinea pig (cuy). It is a true delicacy in the Andes, but after striking out we moved on in the afternoon to...

Baños: A popular tourist town for foreigners and paisanos alike. This mountain town is carved into the side of a hill and has natural hot spring baths at the base of a waterfall. It was described by someone in the following way, ¨Well I have been in uglier places,¨ which may be the understatement of the month. Everything about the place was charming to the point of being too perfect. There was not a scrap of garbage to be found, all stores were immaculately decorated, and even the parks and plazas had been nurtured and tended to perfection (for me to notice this is noteworthy, I normally could care less). We spent the afternoon soaking in the hot water, and asking around for our Thanksgiving cuy to no avail.

We move on to Riobamba as one final attempt at a guinea pig Thanksgiving. We also considered having Chinese food until we realize there would be no 'Thanksgiving Carols' for the waiters to butcher (Think: ¨Fa-ra-ra¨ from A Christmas Story). To make a short story shorter we had no luck there either we said, ¨To Hades with this country, we be out. Peace!¨ (We didn't actually say it, but it might have been funny if we did.) With that we jumped on an overnight bus and woke up at the border to bid a fond farewell to Ecuador despite the lack of local cuisine. With that we closed the book on Ecuador, and I on this article.

From the Land of Clockwise Flushing Toilets, The Galapagos Islands

Like Bevis and Butthead, I could have stood in Quito, Ecuador flushing the toilet for what could have been days just to watch it spin clockwise. After two years without a flush toilet (or water) the novelty of such an invention is breath-taking, not to mention actually watching the Coriolis Effect pull the water in the bowl in the clockwise direction. This opposed to counter-clockwise spin in the northern hemisphere where up to this point I had spent my entire life. Fortunately, Dave stopped me before too long and we swept away to the Galapagos Islands.

Arriving at the Galapagos by plane, and like a Sula Nebouxii plunging after a fish we dropped on to the tarmac of a desert but not deserted island 1000 km from the nearest continent. The Galapagos has been a lot of things to a lot of people over the years, from tortoise hunting ground for whalers, to Charles Darwin's biological wet dream, to WWII strong hold of the USA, to the former Ecuadorian penal colony (hey get your mind out of the gutter), and now is the cornerstone of the Ecuadorian tourism industry.

The biologist's Mecca has proven to be filled with animals (as advertised), but without a masters in biology or a guide who has such a degree (most don't) it can be rather hard to pick out endemic animals or plants. This has not stopped Dave and I from running around growing pretentious beards to fit in and calling each other professor. We kept ourselves busy spending so much time (and money) swimming with the sea turtles, riding bikes and horses through the arid desert countryside looking for tortoises that needed to be saved after wandering into the road (we actually had to carry it), eating cacti fruit, gunless flamingo hunting, carrying a cow skull through lava tubes, and watching boobies; the blue-footed kind... as apposed to the red-footed variety (I told you to keep your mind out of the gutter).

We discovered there is actually an bird species called boobies the genius/species being Sula Nebouxii. There are several different varieties, and are about as common as a seagull along the ocean. As Dave and I were walking along the beach on Isabella (the big island) we may have stumbled across a conversation that Darwin and the first mate of the ship would have had when they were on the island around 150 years ago. As we were walking along there was a whole flock, gaggle, legion, band, or whatever it is you call several hundred boobies in one spot. In any case, they were fishing near shore in a very entertaining way. They would take off from the water little by little, gather together 50 ft off the ground, all tuck wing, and as one unit would kamikaze head first into the water. Dave and I stood mesmerized by the aerobatics for several minutes. I kept thinking, Blue Angels eat your heart our. When Darwin and the first mate saw this the following conversation ensued...

First mate: Have you ever seen anything that cool?
Darwin: Maybe the Coriolis Effect?
First mate: No way man!
Darwin: well... Maybe, boobies.
First mate: Yeah, possibly
Darwin: These guys sure deserve a cooler name than just the trite Sula Nebouxii that they go by now. I think I shall call them boobies.

In all seriousness, the water life turned out to be far more interesting than the land life. The highlight was our trip to Bartolomé. We almost skipped the quintessential Galapagos day trip as over done, but ended up going. It is now easy to see why everyone does it. It's worth doing! There are many large schools of fish, sharks, penguins, the occasional turtle, and and sea lions that are not as jaded to tourists as the locals are. For as lumbering and inept as sea lions are on land they are the exact opposite in the water, and love to play with snorkelers. Their favorite game is chicken. They'd take a breath over 50 ft away and swim directly at someone only to discover at 15 ft that they were going to have to move because we humans are the oafish, ungraceful fools in the water. If someone was floating around it was also common for them to come up and nip at fingers, toes, or fins. It was always playful, like a dog, and it never hurt.

When we got to Galapagos Dave and I both thought it was rather unfortunate that neither one of us was certified to scuba-dive. We thought that being in the Galapagos with only a mask and snorkel was like driving a go cart in the Indy 500, playing the mouth harp in an orchestra, racing the Tour de France on a unicycle, performing a laser light show with a head lamp, sailing a Sunfish in the America's Cup, coming out of the gates at the Kentucky Derby on a rocking horse, or protecting a 'No Fly Zone' with a sling shot. Sorry about the Tom Robbins moment. As it turned out non-divers do miss out, but not much because of the high cost to scuba, also because there were still plenty of people that did not even get into the (albeit cold) water.

The biggest (and I do mean big) exception to that rule is the land tortoises. Decedents of the sea turtle millions of years ago, the land tortoise walked out of the water one day on a deserted island to never return. Whalers used to carry them back to their boats and put them in storage upside down where they could live, unable to flip back over, for over a year. It is speculated that they can live up to 400 years old (right-side up), but this is still a guess at this point. For as large and slow as they are they still get around quite well, and if they ever get tired, they can and do flop down and take a nap wherever.

One of the down sides to the Galapagos is because it is so famous, there are relatively few secrets left there to the casual observer (supposedly important discoveries are made there often, but again, interesting to the specialists in the field). This and the cost of the Galapagos are far higher than most backpackers are willing to pay. The park entrance fee is $100, and the rumor mill is putting out gossip saying that this cost may go up to $250 next year. As it is I spent around $900 to get there, lived for a week, and did something cool every day. Before getting to the Galapagos I had spend maybe $900 in the four weeks since leaving Panama. Darwin's theory of Natural Selection is also valid in economical situations. Many backpackers are selected not to go, and as costs go up the naturally selected are only going to become richer (read: whiter), and ironically not as able to share in all that the Galapagos has to offer as most of the older people were not scuba certified and did not spend much time in the water.

Galapagos is doubtlessly original, the Louvre of the biological world, its kind of ugly, and yet beautiful in its own way. The desert islands are surrounded on all sides by at least 100 km of water, the El Niño effect is just off shore of Ecuador yet the water is as cold as the Oregon Coast in places, penguins live here (on the equator!), animals are stuck on the hostile island terrain created by volcanoes. It is quite a set of contradictions and a dynamic history both before and since man has arrived. Despite no surprises, it should be a list of top five on the places to visit before dying.