Laura the Explora

Ok... now last post!

2007-03-21T14:35:00.000-04:00

Map of entire trip. Some destinations are missing due to lack of space.

The time has come

2007-01-11T13:37:00.000-05:00

This is just a quick closing post. I should have written it over the holidays, but at the time I was limited by the unending yet limiting limits of dial-up internet.

Well, I guess the first thing I should say is SURPRISE! I have known since sometime in November that I would be coming home on my scheduled flight the 15th of December. However, I decided that instead of sharing the news via blogger, I would hold back, only tell a few select people, and surprise everyone else. It was fun. Actually, if you look you will notice that the last few posts I made were actually from Canada.

Anyway, let's rewind shall we. On monday the 11th of December, I left Quito on a marathon bus trip to Lima where I would catch my flight on the 15th. The days leading up to this, I received emails every day from Mum saying "don't miss your flight, check your flight, don't miss your flight"... haha, oh she of little faith.

So, as I was saying, I got a bus monday at 5pm that would take me south again to Loja, where I would again catch a bus across the border. I had the times planned perfectly. Unfortunately, for some reason unknown to myself and everyone else awake on the bus, the route took us all the way to the southwest coast below Guayaquil, then turned back straight east to Loja. This is insane!! To give you a visual, Loja is basically located directly south of Quito near the Peruvian border.... no one wants to go this route! To complicate things further, in some little town just before the turn back east our driver decided that this bus would not be strong enough to scale the mountains ahead and we were left waiting for nearly an hour for a replacement bus. Eventually I made it to Loja, though about two hours later (9am) than I had calculated. Because I missed the morning bus across the border, I had to wait maybe 3 hours for the afternoon bus. This was fine, I still had plenty of time. The bus across the border was about 7 or 8 hours. In Peru there are always buses leaving at all hours of the day and night so I figured if I was arriving around 10pm there would definately be a direct bus to Lima. And, sure enough I was right. There was a 10 pm bus to Lima. The unfortunate thing is that I wasn't on it. Nope, as my luck would have it, the time it took to get my bag and find a taxi and get myself to the next bus station was just long enough that I arrived 12 minutes late. That was it. I lost my marathon. Anyway, I found a dodgy (it wasn't that bad, Mum) place to stay for the night and (since there were no day buses oddly enough) I would get the night bus the following night, Wednesday the 13th.

Now this is something that had me a bit confused, and its a good thing I looked into it. On the ticket the travel agent had printed out for me the day I bought the ticket it said that my return flight would be from Lima Thursday the 14th at 10:40. But then, when I checked the e-ticket she had emailed me, it said that my flight was Thursday 14th at 10:40 arriving in Toronto some 23 hrs later. AND THEN, when I checked online it said that my flight was Thursday at 02:00, and nothing more. So, if you can see my problem I had three possible flights. Let me just break it down.

(1) Thursday 14th at 10:40 pm.
(2) Thursday 14th at 10:40 pm, with no stops, yet arriving almost a full day later.
(3) Thursday at 2 am but do they mean Thursday morning (ie Wednesday night) or the night of Thursday (thus friday morning and only a few hours later than the original time). Since the other flights had all been late Thursday night. Are you following?

Anyway, I eventually called Air Canada from where I was staying in Piura (in the North of Peru, a 16hr bus ride to Lima) to clarify the issue. And the issue was clarified! The nice man who took my call told me that if I was not at the Lima airport by 11pm that very same night I would miss my flight home (thus making my flight 2am wednesday night, aka thursday 14th at 02:00).

In the end this kinda turned out nicely. I was able to book a 6pm flight from Piura that would take me to the Lima airport where I simply waited a few hours until my flight. I avoided all complications and possible dangers getting around Lima.

Anyway, after almost 3 full days in transit I arrived again in freezing cold Toronto (its all relative!). My Uncle Fergus picked me up and a few days later where I returned to Meaford to surprise Emily and Mary who I had successfully (or so they have led me to believe) tricked into thinking I was gone indefinately. It was good fun. Emily you were the best!

Anyway, I'm happy to be home. A little worried about the lack of winter, but it will come around.

So this is it. This is the last blog. Thanks for reading.

Ok, so I lied, it wasn't "quick". But when have I ever kept to that promise? You should know better.

Ta-ta
Laura.

The infamous San Agustin to Popayan drive.

2006-12-20T08:05:00.000-05:00

Here are some videos from my torturous drive between San Agustin and Popayan. The filming was intended to capture the stunning scenery, but I think it may have resulted more in the downward spiraling health of my poor camera. The second one gives you a better idea of the violent thrashing back and forth as the bus moved over the bumpy road. I think my head hit the window on more than one occasion.

Enjoy! Get some popcorn, the first is unnecessarily long, with a lot of trees, but pretty.

Ecuador update

2006-12-19T09:55:00.000-05:00

I am back in Ecuador now, and the weather is much nicer than it has been.

Anyway, I know I promised (and i know you've been DYING to hear) an update on the Ecuadorian elections. In the end, the left leaning Correa won out over the the filthy rich Noboa. Correa is now the new King of Ecuador, here is his castle:

In other news, Lucio (the former president who was removed from the position and banned from participating in this years elections, thus his brother faithfully stepped in) is showing himself as the good Latin American politician that he is through his already posted presidential candidate posters for 2010.

Don't you love Latin American politics?!

As far as my construction update goes (Brendan, i am truely less than impressed with your coverage), this is what I found when returning to my pretty pink building. Apparently the owners of my building intend to build a TALLER building beside ours (on the left)... my flatmates are not happy about this.

And last but not least, here is an intersting video from my return from Colombia. I thought I wrote about this before, but I don't see it posted anywhere. On my way back from Colombia there was a landslide that prevented our bus from leaving on time. I left my hostel at 5am and arrived in Quito at 12am... it was a long day. Anyway, the landslide was really interesting because, I guess due to the other few landslides I have seen here, I had expected it to be a rocky, dusty, and more or less dry landslide. However, when I arrived to the site I found that it was rather a huge mudslide. The road was covered in mud and water and tree branches and debris. There was no one killed but unfortunately a truck was driving past at the exact moment of the slide and was swept or bulldozed off the road and half buried in mud. You'll see that for ages before we actually reach the truck the road is still covered in mud, I guess from other mini mudslides. Here's my video as we drive through what was about an hour before a huge pile of mud.

Note: take note of the music the busdrivers take pleasure torturing us with. There is no choice either, the music is so loud you can't even drown it out with your own music, you just have to enjoy it.

I love it!

2006-12-17T11:20:00.000-05:00

This video is way too cute. Really has no relevance to my travels, but nice for the holiday season! Merry Christmas.

New Post 2 below.

2006-12-11T17:03:00.000-05:00

I´m working hard to get these bloody posts up for your entertainment, so you better enjoy them!!!!

love laura

Bye Bye Locombia

2006-12-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

Well, my wonderful time in Colombia has come to an end. Gotta keep moving. I believe my last actual post left off at my arrival to Bogota.... pronounced Bo-go-ta, not B-goat-ah. No, no, no, no.

Bogota, Bogota, Bogota... I didn't like you that much. Nope, not really! I think this might have been for a couple reasons. First of all, a few people had told me how much they enjoyed Bogota. I can't remember exactly what there reasons were, but I guess they felt pretty comfortable there. So I think my high expectations made the actual thing a little less than great. The other reason I didn't enjoy Bogota was the weather. It is bloody cold in Bogota, COLD! The hot showers were amazing, but the days were cold and grey, cloudy and often rainy too. A combination like that can bring a person down. One thing I did enjoy about Bogota were the Colombians I met. Fabio's friends in Bucamaranga had introduced me to some friends of theirs from Bogota and these friends were nice enough to take me in and show me around. So, I stayed in Bogota long enough to see the sights then I went on my merry way.

Bogota, what is there to see. Well, I think I actually started my stay in Bogota with a day trip out of the city! I went with an Israeli friend of mine to visit the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira. Wow, this was more spectacular than I had imagined. It just went on and on and on, deeper and farther into the earth. Its hard to describe, I will definately have to post pictures. Basically, you walk for a while through this dark tunel lit by black lights stopping every once in a while to appreciate the displays set up for each Station of the Cross (this one represents Jesus, his mother, and Mary Magdalene). Each display was a beautiful combination of crosses carved from stone, pews to kneel in, and dramatic lighting. Eventually, after continuing down farther you reach what is The Cathedral. Equipt with an alter, pews, and all, this Cathedral holds a mass every Sunday. It was really stunning.

Bogota has lots of little things one can do to keep themselves occupied. For example, museusms. While I was there I visited the Botero Museum, Colombia's most famous artist (he likes to draw things fat), where I saw his paintings and several other paitings from Picasso, Monet, Matisse. It was nice. I also visited the famous Gold Museum. And that is exactly what it was, a museum filled with gold artifacts found around Colombia and some dating back to before the Inca. Hey Mum, you don't like my nose ring? What do you think about this one?

What else did I do? Like Quito, Bogota also has a Teleferico (cable car) going up the side of the mountain with a great view of the city. So, I did that. I did a lot of wandering around. I found a really nice university, wandered around it and even tried to sit in on one of their classes to evaluate my own spanish abilities. The class was something about Conflict and Peace in Colombia, interesting. Unfortunately, the classes were over and the students were into exams.

Ooh, the craziest thing. I met a kinda hippy artisan girl staying at the hostel next to mine and got talking to her about travelling around selling jewellry. Then, I thought I'd ask her where she was from. She said Canada and I said, "oh, me too." Then she asked me what part. I gave my standard response, "Near Toronto". To which she replied, "Hey, me too! Actually, I grew up in Toronto, but I've spent the last 8 years living in Collingwood". Weird. Anyone know a gal named Dev MacDonald? She's only about late 20s. Anyway, it was such a funny coincidence I had to buy something from the Collingwood girl in Bogota (a good way of rationalizing, I think). I also ran into about 7 other people in Bogota whom I had met previously in other parts of Colombia.

Friday morning, I got a 7am bus and headed to the Colombian "desert". A 9 hr bus ride got me down to the city of Neiva. Holy Moses! Was it EVER hot there, I think hotter maybe than Cartagena, at least drier. From Neiva I was crammed into a little van with my huge pack on my lap and driven 45 minutes to the little town of Villavieja. The desert is really just a small area on the outskirts of this town where the earth is a deep red and has been seriously eroded. Oh, and there are cactuses (or cacti), the official sign of desertness and thus the qualifying factor. I hired a really weird guide (we don't need to get into that) and got up at 5am to beat the heat and began my hours walk out to the desert. It was a long day, about 6 hrs of walking in all. We were nearly finished the tour at 9am when we went to his cousin's house (she lives in the desert) to have breakfast: fatty, chewy goat meat, rice, plantain, and beans.. oh, and hot chocolate. Mmmmm. Ew, I hate goat meat. Goat should never be consumed in any way at all.

That afternoon,I got a bus to San Agustin. As usual, the drive was gorgeous and San Agustin was quite nice too. I stayed in a hostel about 1km outside of the town, situated at the top of a canyon looking down (way down) to the Magdalena river. It was really beautiful. Anyway, San Agustin is an archeological town known for the mysterious statues found around the area. There really isn't very much known about the civilization who carved these stones, but they have been well preserved and there are tons of them. I spent a day wandering around having a look at them.

After a couple days in San Agustin, I hopped on another bus that would (eventually) take me back to my beginning point, the lovely city of Popayan. Man, was this ever a bus ride I could do without. This road is notorious for being rough, but I had never imagined the extent. The distance between the two towns is really not that far, but the primativeness of the route makes the trip 6hrs. Ok, so this was the worst part, I had to go pee. I'm sorry if you don't want to hear about it, but it was torturous so I have to tell someone. There were honestly several points were I said to myself, "ok, go and ask the driver to pull over so you can just go on the side of the road....now! Go now!!". Of course I couldn't do it. I had gone a couple times before leaving, but the bumping, up and down, seriously almost being thrown from my seat, vertibrae-fracturing kind of bumping, was too much. I felt like a pregnant woman riding a horse. Then, THEN, it started to rain and little streams of rain water painted my window, making the problem that much unbearable. And then of course we had to pass this huge waterfall. It was ridiculous. Anyway, this story ended happily, the end.
In conclusion, Colombia was fantastic and I can't wait to get back to do it all over again and more.

Here is a wee map of my Colombian circuit. Click on the map to enlarge it so you can actually read the names of places.

The blue and red shaded area is the "demilitarized zone", which basically means that there is not Colombian military or police presence there, purely guerrilla, purely off limits.

The little red and yellow *bam* above Medellin is a bit of news that I neglected to report at the time. You can read about it here. I was in Medellin when it happend. Another incident happened in Bogota while I was in Cali. I guess 23 people were injured when a car was exploded in the parking lot of a military base. Other than that, it was a pretty quiet time while I was there.

Popayan, Cali, Salento, Chinchina, and Manizales

Medellin and Medellin pictures

Parque Tayrona

Cartagena

Mud Volcano and Playa Blanca

Dearest Emily

2006-12-04T21:19:00.000-05:00

Oh my sweet Emily, for your procrastinating pleasure I have posted below (I believe November 13th) a post that was meant to have been posted ages ago, but unfortunately due to poor technology and my own eight-months-of-travelling-laziness I have just now published it. I hope it suits your exam time distraction needs. In the next couple days I hope (not synonymous to will) to post anotha.

Lots of sloppy kisses,

Big sis Laura.

HOT SHOWERS!!!!!

2006-11-30T17:20:00.001-05:00

After a month of showers ranging from luke warm to freezing cold, there is nothing like a HOT and POWERFUL shower. Apart from the warm showers had during my week and a bit in Medellin, I don't think I've had a hot shower since leaving Quito. Isn't it a magical thing!

Anyway, I was thinking that I should really be posting something since I am about to leave Bogota and its been a while since I last posted. A lot has happened. Let me try to give you the abridged version. I think the last time I posted I was still in the Cartagena area.

On the 17th of November, I left Cartagena and travelled south down the coast to the quiet beach town of Tolu. Its supposed to be a nice beach, yet undiscovered by the average gringo. Well, I can say half of that statement is true - the latter. The beach was not nice. About 20 kms farther south in Coveñas was a somewhat nicer beach, but still not the splendor I was expecting. It was however void of foreigners which was nice. It was nice on the drive there, passing through beautiful countryside, and knowing that very few foreigners go this far. It wasn't however anything like what was to come.

After leaving the coast, I travelled inland to an spot even more off the gringo trail, to Mompos. Mompos was never one of my original destinations, but when I was told what a wonderful and well preserved little colonial town it was I thought it might be a nice little stop on my way to Bogota. Unfortunately, again I was not overly impressed. I had imagined a little riverside town, so deep in Colombia that it had changed little over the last 500 years. I guess that is the problem with travelling with high expectations. The town was ok, it had 7 churches and a nice waterfront, but nothing to write home about... so I stop here. Oh wait, I saw a sloth... there was a sloth in a tree! (Emily, are you interested in that??? Maybe you can tell us about the sloth!). It was so ugly, like a giant furball coughed up by an even bigger cat!! Ok, I stop now.

The greatest thing about Mompos was its remoteness. The reason most tourists don't get there is because it is so far inland and complicated to get to. Let me describe my arrival. I left Tolu at 6am and got a bus to the closest city of Sincelejo. From there I took a taxi for an hour with my friend Fabio, a man and his little daughter, and an old man sitting in the passenger seat. The taxi dropped us off at the side of a river where I took a "ferry" across the Magdalena river, zigzaging back and forth through the dense lily pads for another half hour. The boat dropped us in a little riverside town called El Bodega, from where I took another taxi with 6 other people to Mompos, about an hour drive. We arrived early enough in the day that we were able to visit the town and leave the following morning.

The drive from Mompos to Bucamaranga was similar to the drive there, but even more remote and thus more fun. We got up at 4:30 to get the 5 am truck. From Mompos, we (Fabio and I) drove about 4 hours in the back of a covered pick-up truck with 7 other people, it was a tight squeeze. The funniest part was for the first part of the drive when they had the mud flap at the back of the truck down to keep the dust out. It was dark and all you could do was look at the person sitting across from you; I felt like an illegal immigrant trying to sneak across a border in the middle of the night!

It was a spectacular drive though. Again, I felt like I was seeing things that no other tourists get to see. We drove down the dirtiest, roughest and muddiest roads. Roads blocked by great masses of cow resting and lined with donkeys and pigs grazing. Around 7 am we started to pass kids dressed in uniform biking to school, girls in skirts riding on the cross-bar a a boy's bike. We passed kids diving into the ditches, flooded by the high river, and mothers washing their little babies on the roadside. At one point we passed a guy working on his boat at the canoe at the side of the road. He turned, and with a huge smile, blew a great big arm sweeping kiss. Now, it could have been intended for any of the other men riding in the back of the truck, or perhaps for the old lady carrying the 1984 Crown´s TV on her lap, but I like to think it was for me! *sigh*

So anyway, this route went kinda like this: Truck, truck on ferry across river, truck, boat across river for 20 minutes, then bus for something like 5 hours. By the end of the trip I was completely exhausted.

Fabio knew a young Colombian couple in Bucamaranga, so I stayed two lovely nights with them. They were so hospitable and it was such a nice break from staying in hostels. I left Fabio with them for a week of spoiling and moseyed on my way.

From Bucamaranga I went to San Gil and Barichara, still about 8 hours north of Bogota. Barichara was a really cute white washed colonial town. From there I did a 2 hour walk down a trail to the little (even cuter) village of Guane. This was an interesting hike! I was told given a map of Barichara with an arrow in the top corner with a note saying "Guane". So, I made my way across town to this road. After walking some time I realized that I was walking down a road... like a proper paved road, not the "camino", or path, I was expecting. I waved down a truck and asked them about getting to the path. The driver told me I would have to walk down the road some more until I got to "las piedras", the rocks/stones. Well, as my luck goes, the side of the road was covered with rocks, big and small. Finally I came to a point with a stone fence and a small passage through it. Feeling uncertain, I surveyed the path below. I couldn't see the end of the path but I could see a dirt road a the bottom of the hill, so I passed through the fence and wandered down. Sure enough, when I got to the bottom of the hill I discovered (thankfully by footprints only) that this was not the correct path and that rather I was in the middle of a cow field and surrounded by barbed wire fences on all sides. I hurried back up the hill and continued down the road. FINALLY, after some time I came to the marked entrance to the path. The walk was nice, quiet, and scenic. I did however, come head to horn with some cattle at one point and had to come up with my own alternate route - climbing over the stone fence containing the path, throwing my half eaten mango at the cows, getting paranoid about snakes, grabbing a stick and hurrying down the path. In the end I made it to the wittle itty bitty town of Guane, really cute and oooh so tiny. I guess, being such a small place, the transport services aren't all that frequent. Since I had to make a connection in Barichara back to San Gil, and it was already 5:30 pm, I hired the son of the corner bar owner to give me a lift back on his motocycle for 5,000 pesos... it was good fun.

Oye... I did say abridged didn't I?

Ok, so at 8am the morning of the 23rd I got a bus to Villa de Leyva (or rather to Tunja, and then another bus from there). Unfortunately, I chose the bus that broke down the minute it pulled into the station (payed for the ticket before it arrived), then proceeded to break down 3 or 4 other times on the road. I guess, on the bright side, it did provide a great opportunity to get off the bus and stretch.

Villa de Leyva is another beautiful colonial town with, I think, the biggest main plaza in all of South America. It is a popular weekend destination for Bogateños so there aren't too many good deals to be found there. I only stayed one night. The following morning I got up early and went off on another walk. First, I walked 5 kms to a museum that holds an unmoved dinosaur fossil. The fossil is of a prehistoric sea creature. It was pretty cool, and supposedly the region is filled with sea fossils. From there I walked another 4 kms (the whole time questioning where I was going and how much farther I would walk while wondering this) to an archeological site dated 200 years B.C. named (by the good Catholic Spaniards) El Infernito, the little Hell. The site was scattered with these, oh so sinful, ... stones.

Ok, best leave it at that. I will write about Bogota later.

And for those of you who sat through it all, here are some pictures. I am having problems at the moment uploading pictures to the blog.

An exciting few days!

2006-11-16T11:21:00.000-05:00

Mum, you remember the time that Corene Taylor and I decided to play in the muddy vegetable garden one spring way back when and we got stuck and thought it would be a good idea to just lay Corene's coat out like an island and sit on it until help came? Well, I had similar experience just the other day, though I must say this mud time was much more fun and with fewer consequences.

This week I went to a mud volcano about 60 kms north of Cartagena. I wasn't sure exactly how this phenomenon works, so I have taken the liberty of finding someone else's definition online. According to this source, a mud volcano is

created by natural gases emitted by decaying organic matter underground. As the mud is pushed upwards by the gas, it deposits and hardens above ground. As more mud oozes out and spills over the edge it grows in size, gradually forming what you can see today - a miniature volcano with a rich, creamy mud crater at the top.

Well, I must say, when we arrived it certainly wasn't what I expected. As we came to the top of a hill, our taxi driver pointed to what, from that angle, looked like a gigantic ant hole at the end of the road. At the bottom of the hill were the usual kiosks and vendors selling everything to make a buck, even empty pop bottles filled with mud from the volcano for its curative purposes. After paying my 2,500 peso entry, I made my way up the wobbly looking stairs to the crater of the volcano. When I got to the top I found a crater of about 3 or 4 metres squared full of gooey grey mud, laughing Grey People, and screaming, SCREAMING babies who wanted to be anywhere but in this scary unidentifiable muck.

It's funny because I really had no idea what to expect when I arrived there. I hadn't really imagined what it might be like once inside the volcano. Well, first of all, something completely understandable but something I hadn't thought about at all is that because this IS a volcano of sort, it is also bottomless. Try as you might, you won't find a bottom. This may worry you, but sinking to the bottom is impossible. The consistence of the mud is such that you actually have to work quite hard to get yourself covered in it. Its actually easier to roll yourself in the mud than to submerge yourself. It has a kind of puddingy texture. You can float in it, but you can't swim. If you set out to 'swim' to the other side of the crater you will find yourself paddling with all your might and moving very little. I actually got into the pool in the most unorderly way, but very 'Laura' nonetheless. Apparently, along the edge of the crater there is a ledge. The guy told me to step there, which I did but unfortunately I only got the edge of the ledge and lost my grip. Well, you can imagine what happened next. That foot sunk into the mud, and I fell backwards with one foot deep in the mud, my face up to the sky, and the other leg still clean and sticking up and over the edge. Very lady-like. Myself, and my companions (Niamh, Fabio, Alicia, and Gabrielle) played around in the mud for around 2 hrs. The girls got massages from the guys working there and though they looked divine I have learnt from my last massage experience in Cusco and declined the offer... multiple times. haha.

After getting out of the mud you have the problem that you are now covered, quite literally, from head to toe in mud. Solution: down to the river. Now, this was an interesting experience. Upon arriving I realized that it was not so much a river, or a lake, or a pond, but rather a bog, wherein I was about to clean myself off in. Not being a huge fan of water I can't see through, and particularly, water with millions of little lily pads, I was a little reluctant to entre. Fortunately, there were some nice ladies standing by the edge and one of them led me safely in. When we got out far enough she told me to sit, and at that point I realized that these women were here to help us wash off. This was an extremely peculiar experience, I felt like a little baby all over again. This woman had a little bowl and she used it to pour the swampy water all over me, washing my hair, washing the mud off my back and shoulders, and even sticking her finders in my ears to get any stray mud out of there. Then, before I knew it ***WAM BAM RACK OF LAMB*** the lady had my bikini top off and was washing it clean in the swamp!!! Wow, talk about a shocker! And I couldn't stop laughing for the life of me. I tried to warn my friend Niamh who was a couple metres away being bathed by another woman, but couldn't easily since my lady kept pouring water over my head. Then, after replacing my top, she ordered me to take off my bottoms so she could wash them off too. This was ok though since the water I was sitting in came up high enough. Anyway, she got me quite clean and it was a really fun experience in all.

My second exciting trip was probably the most adventurous so far of my travels. A couple days ago Niamh, Fabio and I thought we might like to check out this famous Playa Blanca (White Beach). There are several ways of getting there, and I guess we took the most inconvenient. The easiest way to get there is to do a tour of some other islands and then on the way back to Cartagena they stop at the beach for lunch and a swim, but if you like you can just get off and stay a few days. Instead, because we weren't too keen on the island tour we thought we would just get there on our own. The easiest way to do this is to get a taxi down to the market (ew so dirty) and get a boat from there to the island where the beach is. This we did. However, after finding a boat and sitting on it for an hour waiting for it to leave, we eventually got off after several other locals because they didn't think it was going to leave. Probably better that way since the boat looked over capacity anyway. Unfortunately the boat left about 10 minutes after we got out.

We decided then that we would try the longer and more complicated voyage. This meant taking a bus (ours had excellent taste in decor!), then a ferry, then a jeep or some kind of transport, then walking. A total of up to 3 hours. By this point two other women we had met a few days earlier had joined us. So off we went. Everything went smoothly and at every changing point the local people were very helpful in getting us oriented, until we had crossed on the ferry (aka a big canoe with two men frantically paddling against the current to reach the right spot on the other side). Once across we found that it was too late to get a jeep and all that was left was a group of young men waiting with their motorcycles. This is what we here call a mototaxi. The walk to the beach would have been about 3 hours longer and after weighing out options we decided to take the mototaxis to the next town and from there we would walk the last hour and a half. I don't know that I have ever been on a motorcycle, I think I have but can't remember when, but this was more fun than anything yet. Here we were, this convoy of five mototaxistas and their gringo clients. In fact, it was so much fun that by the time we got to the next town I was more than willing to pay the price all the way to the beach, and so that is what we did. And it was a good thing too, because while I thought the roads were rough getting to the town, they got far worse the farther we got from the town. Puddle after puddle, and deep ones too! I even had to get off and walk around a couple because we weren't sure if we could make it through. And the mud!!! I had a great time playing in the mud a few days earlier, but I wasn't much looking forward to falling into it that day. Finally, after much difficulty we finally arrived to the beach with smiles on every ones faces. I think I would have been happy to turn around and go back again through it. After making our way through, the 10,000 pesos we were paying them for the ride really didn't seem as much as it did at the beginning. So, in good 'Laura' fashion I offered them each a banana (of which unfortunately weren't in particularly great condition after the ride!).

The beach was absolutely gorgeous. However, we arrived at about 1pm and were starving, so rather than hitting the beach we had some lunch..... great fish!! By the time we had eaten, relaxed, and swam for a while (ooh, the water was soooo warm and blue! I could actually see through it, just as I like it) the sun was going down and it was getting cooler. Unfortunately, after going though hell to get to the beach (a very amusing hell) the lovely electric storm we admired that night across the sea actually turned into a horrible storm that lasted from the middle of the night onto about 3pm the following afternoon. At that point we were thoroughly unimpressed and decided to return to Cartagena rather than spending another night. Although the weather is nice now, it rained again this morning so I don't regret the decision. Plus, had we stayed we would have had to either stay the night with the French religious fanatic Gilbert, or with the crazy pathological lying German, Raymondo. The German was definitely more entertaining.

Anyway, that's it for now. Onto new adventures!

A Parque National Tayrona review for those who don't like to read a long story unless it involves themselves...

2006-11-15T18:51:00.000-05:00

The location

The "hotel" and accomodation

The Backyard

The Neighbours

The Food

Ahoy!!

2006-11-13T14:43:00.001-05:00

I am writing now from the absolutely beautiful and enchanting city of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Of the colonial cities I have seen in my day this one is certainly on the top. I mean, I can't turn a bleedin' corner in this city without taking one, two, maybe even three pictures, often of the same wall. Its hopeless. Have a look at the pictures, the historic centre of the city is made up of narrow one-way streets lined with tall and colourful houses, each a different colour from the one beside. To add to it, many of the houses have these gorgeous balconies and wooden "bars" (I have no idea how to describe them) around the windows. Honestly, its impossible to refrain from taking pictures, it really is.

Not only is the city beautiful, but it has a really old colonial port city kind of feel to it - I feel like I am in a pirate movie or something.

You know, I have always wanted to be a pirate so this is the perfect place to live out that dream. What's even more perfect is that with the huge (I mean really wild) week long festival going on here, no one really notices a foreign gal running around the streets with a red bandana tied around her head, a cover over one eye, and an open bottle of rum in hand. Its completely acceptable!

Last night was the second last night of this huge bash (the Independence Day of Cartagena). The night started with a big parade passing my hostel. On my way back from the centre to view the parade I noticed that several people were throwing flour or pouring paint on each other, a couple guys thought they would like to get me with the paint, but I gave them a good look and they changed their minds....

After the parade a group of us went down to the plaza at the end of the road where the whole neighbourhood had gathered to dance and drink and throw mini fire crackers. So here I am, oh so cautiously making my way through the crowd trying to watch out for guys lighting these terrifying explosives when we came to a cross roads. It was kinda dark and we (myself and travelmates) weren't sure which road we should take. Finally, we came to a conclusion and just as I take the first step in our new direction I see this pair of hands coming for my face, blurring my vision. The next think I know, these wet hands are a being rubbed all over my face, in my eyes and in my mouth. I thought to myself, is this water all over my face? Wishful thinking I guess. I wipe my face with a finger and to my surprise I realized that my face (and shirt) was now covered in wet bright blue paint. Yup, everywhere. It was good fun though, I got a lot of impressed looks from the locals.

Here is a video of the entertainment that hop from bus to bus making money:

Anyway, here are some pictures of Cartagena.

More Medellin pictures

2006-11-04T18:07:00.000-05:00

Remember I was saying the Chiva bus in Ecuador was slightly inadequate? These are what real Chivas should look like!!

Another form of "Campesino" (farmer) transportation from Santa Fé de Antioquia.

The Metro and Metro-cable (pronounced: metro-cablay)

El Penol de Guadape. This is a huge bullet shaped rock the is just sticking out of the earth. The "GI" written on the side is actually the beginning of GUADAPE, started 3 years ago and never completed.. not sure why. When you get to the top there is an amazing view over what looks like a lake district but is actually an artificial recervoir, or in other words, the tops of mountains as opposed to individual islands.... and don't anyone give me any of that "...but islands are tops of mountains" crap!!

Famous Colombian artist Francisco Botero's Birds of Peace, Parque San Antonio, Medellin. The original one was once a bright, plump canary. Today, it sits charred with its body blasted open and jagged edges exposing its hollow core. The second bird, a perfect duplicate, stands tall (at Botero's request) beside the original as a statement against the guerrillas who bombed the first Bird of Peace statue in 1996.

Santa Fé de Antioquia, 1.5 hr drive from Medellin. Part of which is through a tunnel lasting 6 minutes!!! Not comfortable.

The long awaited (yeah, I'm sure!) Ecuador Update.

2006-11-02T20:16:00.000-05:00

For anyone interested in how the elections went in Ecuador this is what I have understood of the situation. Noboa (1) and Correa (2) won with the most votes. However, because neither had at least 40% of the votes there will be a run-off election between the two of them at the end of November. There were some problems which I don't really understand and haven't seen much reported on with the online voting system. I think the system didn't count the votes properly or completely messed up thus losing a large percentage of votes. As I say though, I am not exactly sure whether this is correct or not. In any case, there will be another election the end of November between Noboa and Correa.

Halloween in Medellin, Pablito, and more....

2006-11-02T08:39:00.002-05:00

Let me just start with how much I love Medellin. I have been here just over a week now and I am trying to brainstorm ideas that will allow me to stay which don't include being locked behind bars or dragged into the jungle. Why do I love Medellin, well that's a very good questions. Let's see.... (1) Its a nice size, not too big not too small; (2) It is a really clean city, which I think is partly due to all the abuse the city took in the 80s and 90s with the guerrillas and the drug cartel, the people here are really proud of their newly regained city and try to keep it as clean and comfortable as possible. The streets here are 100 times cleaner than the streets in Toronto. Also, the city is COVERED in green, green trees. I love it. The residencial neighbourhoods up on the hill are so green and fresh felling. (3) It is the most modern Latin American city I have been in, complete with a 3 metro/ sky train lines and a metro cable (like a ski lift) that goes up the side of a hill giving access to the poorer people who live there. (4) And last but not least, the people are lovely. Like I think I said before, because Colombia has so much fewer tourist than Peru and Ecuador the people here aren't tainted by foreigners' cash. They are far more genuinely interested in you as person than your money. Its nice. Also, for that reason its easier to make friends with local people. I found that in Ecuador it was really fun to have normal relationships with local people.

Halloween really snuck up on me here, I wasn't prepared and thus I had probably the worst costume ever. I cut two eye holes out of the new hair scarf I'd just bought, then ended up wearing the damn thing around my neck all night. In any case, it was a good night. I went with some friends from the hostel to a bar/club called Mangos. You've probably never heard of it but its supposed to be pretty renowned around South America and back in the day used to be frequented by the rich and powerful drug lords of Medellin with their plastic ladies. Man, I don't think I have ever been in a room with such a high volume of silicone. Unbelievable. However, despite the unnatural cup sizes that surrounded me, I was impressed with the costume selections. I hate that Halloween in Canada has become an opportunity for girls of all ages to dress in the skimpiest thing they can find, its so boring. Here, I don't know if its because Halloween is still a relatively new holiday, but girls here actually still wear stupid clown costumes, scary, witch outfits, and FARC guerrillas. There were the few token French maids and sexy devils, and such, but not as many as in Canada. Mangos is a pretty entertaining place with lots of hired entertainers, dancers, ect. On the 31st, there were tons of little princesses, super heroes and ninjas running around town going from store to store collecting candies. Its funny, unlike at home where bratty little kids are known to say things like "trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat", the kids here sing "Paz y amor, un dulce por favor". Translation: Peace and love, a candy please. Though I am sure there are a few smart asses who have created less innocent rhymes. We are supposed to be having a Halloween party at the hostel this weekend, so I will try to get pictures, though we travelers don't tend to be too creative.

This past Monday I thought I would take a wee trip to see the grave of Pablito (to some), otherwise known as Pablo Escobar. For those of you who (like I myself once was) are too innocent to recognize this name, Pablo Escobar was the drug lord (the 7th richest man in the world according to Forbes in '91) who ran Medellin for many years until he was eventually hunted down and killed by the police on a rooftop in 1993. I was hesitant at first to visit the site because I wasn't particularly keen on glorifying someone of his character, but in the end I decided to be the typical tourist and went on my way. Well, to my dismay, when I arrived at the site (with a Swedish friend Emil) I found that his grave stone had just been removed that week due to the death of his mother and probably won't be replaced for a month. So I guess its wasn't meant to be. We (or I) was frightened for a minute when all of a sudden a nipsy-rustle of soldiers climbed up out of seemingly no where and started walking towards us. My first reaction was "oh no, they think we are drug dealers because we are at the grave and they are coming to arrest us!!!" Little did I notice, not one of them was armed. They were there for the funeral of a fellow officer but a few wanted to check out the notorious Pablo's grave before the ceremony got started... how appropriate! haha. Anyway, an interesting fact, the reason some people here refer to him as Pablito (the -ito makes the name cute, like a term of endearment) is because Pablo actually did some good around Medellin. He apparently is responsible for the building of a hospital here in Medellin and several soccer stadiums and little-league soccer. But then, he was also accredited for the creation of what is known at the Colombian neck tie. Note, those with weak stomachs should stop reading.... Lieran, that means you. The Colombian neck tie is when you cut someone's throat, then pull the tongue through the gash. Sorry.. I know its gross. Anyway, if you want to read up in more detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Escobar#_note-0

That's all for now, here are some pics.

2006-10-23T20:48:00.000-04:00

Ok, so i have been in Colombia one month now and I must say I absolutely love it. It is the most beautiful country I've been to and the people are all very friendly. I guess because there are so few tourists that come through here, there are also fewer people who make a living off tourists and thus, people are more genuine and less interested in your money. So anyway, here is what I have done, bear with me (or just look at the pics).

I left Quito last Monday, or rather Tuesday morning at 5 am and bused it to the Ecuador-Colombia border. From there I got another smaller bus (20 passengers) to the little Colonial town of Popayán. The drive from the border is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in Colombia and it definately wasn't disappointing. Although, Michaelle, it did bring back some memories of that terrifying drive along the Peruvian coast, with the edge of the road dropping straight down several hundred feet. Popayán is a really nice little town. Its known as the Pearl of Colombia because of the town's white washed buildings. All the buildings in the centre of the city are (I assume) required to be painted white and business' signs or names must be written in gold lettering. What I liked most about Popayán was the central park. I think it rates second of my favourite parks - after Antigua (obviously first because of serious amount of time invested there) and before Arequipa, Peru.

The next destination was to Cali, the biggest city near the Paficic ocean. This is/was probably the route most susceptible to guerrilla attacks (from what I've been warned) but at this time the police have it pretty well monitored. Our bus was stopped 3 times on the 2.5 hr ride to Cali, once by military and twice by Police. The first and last stops we had to get off the bus and have our bags checked and the men were patted down. The second stop what so that the police could ride the bus for a kilometre or two to make sure the speedometre was set correctly (buses aren't allowed to exceed 80km/h). This part of the drive I thought was more beautiful than the last (and so this pattern seems to continue to where I am now!!). The landscape was more lush with banana trees and coffee bushes, but still defined by the rolling Andes. Anyway, Cali likes to call itself the Salsa capital of the world. Unfortunately for me (and my moves) I was there during the week when the night life is actually quite boring. However, I am considering going back before I return to Ecuador. The city was ok from what I saw - they have a Subway (sandwiches) and people actually rent movies here from Blockbuster! This was a shock to see since every other store in Quito is a pirated movie shop. While in Cali, Elia and I picked up another Canadian guy (Sam) from BC.

Having had enough of the city the three of us went off to the little coffee town of Salento, nestled in the mountains and surrounded by beautiful vistas and coffee fincas. Salento was such a nice little quiet town with only about 3-4 thousand inhabitants and a great country feel to it. There were lots of men with cowboy hats and white, yellow, blue, and red Colombian scarves wrapped around their necks prancing around on extremely well trained horses. Saturday morning we hired some horses to take us down to a river. As I described before, horseback riding is not my favourite mode of transportation. This experience was actually quite enjoyable though. The only part that made me worry about my bladder control (yeah, sorry) was when we decide to go off road and went down a steep, STEEP, narrow dirt path. In the end it was actually quite a lot of fun. That afternoon we walked miles and miles down another narrow dirt road to visit a coffee finca (farm). Thinking we were lost, we asked some nice young military along the way for directions. Wow, I wish I had takend a picture of these kids (seriously, very young). One of them was actually armed with one of those machine guns (or whatever) with the big round barrel thing in the middle. You know what I'm talking about? Anyway, they were very nice and helpful though. haha. Sunday we hiked 12 km into the Valle de Cocora. This is a really nice valley with a cloud forest, tons of humming birds, and tucans. Its also the home of the Wax Palms, I think some of the tallest trees in the world. Really nice.

Ok, trying to keep this short and not too boring.... yesterday we left Salento and bused it to the dirty shabby city of Chinchina, right in the heart of coffee country (Check the label on your coffee bag sometime, might have Chinchina on it if its Colombia). The two guys were put off by the unpleasantness of the city and continued on to Manizales, but myself and Niamh (an Irish girl) stayed to visit the coffee farm here. It was terrific. The guys really missed out. The farm was situated at the top of a very steep hill looking over the town. We walked part way and hung off the back of a jeep the rest of the way. It took about 45 mins. On the way up we chatted with some very nice workers picking the mature coffee pods. They weren't used to getting tourist attention so it was really nice talking with them and asking them questions. At the end of the tour we visited a plant where they process and roast the coffee beans, and the staff there let us flavour some freshly toasted beans and then made us the freshed coffee possible. It was great and everyone was SOOOO nice!

Anyway, now I am in the University city of Manizales. The city is quite cold and surrounded by snow capped mountains and volcanoes. Think tomorrow we will head on to Medellín, the former home of the infamous Pablo Escobar and once one of the most dangerous cities in the world with over 4000 murders a year. Today it has cleaned up though and is considered one of the safest cities in Latin America with lots to offer. Hope that wasn't too much information at once. I will report back again in a few days.

On the road again

2006-10-16T10:01:00.000-04:00

I have been in Quito now for about 4 months and frankly, I don't think I can take another second. The weather here has turned really gross - grey skies every day, cold, and rainy. So I have decided I need a change. I've decided I am going to the coast. Which coast? Where else? The Carribean coast - Colombia. I am really quite excited. The places I would like to hit include: Cartagena, Santa Marta, Bogota, Medellin, Cali, and the coffee region. I am so excited. My Swiss housemate, Elia, is going to come with me for the first 2 weeks or so and then I am sure I will hook up with other travellers too.

On a side note, I saw on the news last night that the preliminary results of the election were Noboa with 26%, Correa with 22%, Roldos next, then some other guy I don't know. The election is today so I will report back later with the results. Although, it is unlikely that anyone will win in this round.

xxoo

Some pre-election graffiti

2006-10-15T11:22:00.000-04:00

In refecence to the candidate Rafael Correa - "Supporters of Correa don't create democracy" Re: Voting - "Vote null, disobey"
This one is my favourite. There is no better way to deliver a serious insult. The "exponential insult". I mean, not only are you telling insulting Correa but you are insulting him squared! I think what the insult means is that Correa is really a dictator using democratic means.... squared. Way to drive an insult home!

The time when I spent a couple days in the jungle with Julie three months ago.

2006-10-13T20:16:00.000-04:00

Since Julie is offended that the construction workers outside my house are post-worthy and she isn't I am going to make (or finish a post) about the lovely 3 days I spent with Julie in the Jungle way back in July...

Alright, so following my living dangerously phase, I decided to take a wee trip to the Jungle.... or to the closest and cheapest "secondary jungle". My reason for going was to visit my friend Julie in the town of Tena, about 6 hrs from Quito to the east. While there I swam in a gorgeous emerald green river, got downpoured on (Paul Janz style), visited a place known as Monkey Town, helped build latrines (ok, I well took pictures), and all the while with Julie and two crazy Colombians. Here are some pics and with any luck a video clip too... for best effect turn the volume up on your speakers... and tilt your heat to the left (sorry, I will learn soon!). This is the tiny little deserted road we drove down for maybe 15 minutes to get to the river.

The beautiful river.

This is Juan Pablo and Mauricio as they alternate back and forth from the edge of the "cliff" trying to work up the courage to jump. Julie had to show them how it is done. JP eventually jumped.... Mauricio stood there for probably an hour while the rain poured down, eventually climbing down the way he got up. haha

Then it started to rain.... it POURED!

Mauricio, weighing his options, standing in the rain.

This is what happens when you let your town go to the monkeys. They drink and they smoke (and trust me... they are heavy smokes and not polite about it at all) and then they leave their garbage all over and smash their bottles. We visited a town on the side of a river called Misahuallí. Apparently some monkeys had been brought into the town 30 years ago or something and they never left.. now they rule. This is a video clip from while we were sitting in a restaurant on the edge of the plaza and a couple monkeys thought they would see what was going on.

Ok, now you are going to have to tilt your head. Sorry. Turn up your volume for the best effect.

Ecuador Votes 2006

2006-10-13T13:16:00.000-04:00

This Monday Emma is coming back to Ecuador.... Oh and also, Ecuador will hold their elections.

These elections are especially important since in the last decade Ecuador has had 7 presidents, many never completing their terms. It has been interesting learning about it because the process is quite different from our own in Canada. I will give you an overview of what I understand.

Ecuador is DRY

And I'm not talking about the geography, its actually quite wet here now. Raining, raining every day. What I mean is that starting today (Friday) the entire country is dry. Yes, dry. Meaning no alcohol can be sold nor consumed in public. This will continue I assume until Tuesday.

Voting

The voting process here is really interesting. First, everyone MUST vote. If you don't then you will be subjected to a fine. Apparenly here it is only $6 or something, compared to the $80 fine in Peru. However, should you not like any of the candidates you have other options than to simply not vote. For example, I have met several people (mostly students) who say they are going to vote null. This means on their voting card they are going to vote for everyone, thus nullifying their vote. That is one option. If, on the contrary, you are simply indifferent to the candidates then you can leave your voting card blank - an "I'm with the majority" vote. This means, if I understand correctly, all blank votes are awarded to the candidate who already has the majority of votes. Also, when voting here, its not a representative system like we have in Canada where you vote for a candidate in your area. From what I see on TV you can actually vote for every part of the government. You can select the President and the counsellors... I think.

Election Process

Different from Canada, but alike most of South America, a second round runoff election will be held in November if no candidate wins more than half the vote or at least 40 percent with a 10-percent advantage over the nearest challenger.

The Candidates

Here are my thoughts the main Presidential candidates:

(1) Name: Alvaro Noboa
Party: Institutional Renewal Party of National Action (PRIAN)
Age: 55
Hometown: Guayaquil
Education: He's a lawyer and as a youth went to a private school in Switzerland.
IQ: Well, let's just say that his success might be from a combination of luck and inheritance.
Now this is an interesting man. Basically, he owns Ecuador. Apparently he owns some 15 banana plantations, chocolate and coffee businesses, four shipping companies, one bank, two insurance companies, an airline, a magazine, and more. In 2002 he claimed to be the owner of over 100 companies based all over the world. He ran for president in 1998 and again in 2002.
Popular opinion: A lot of people think he could make a good president based on his success in the business world. Also, due to his immense wealth he may be less tempted to dip his hands in the National bank account.

(2) Name: Rafael Correa
Party: Movimiento Allianza Pais
Age: 43
Hometown: Guayaquil
Eduacation: PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois
Languages: English, French, and learning Quechua, indigenous language.
Political Stance: Radical, looking for the Socialism of the 21st century.
Campaign slogan : "Dale Correa". Translation: "Giv'er Correa", or in Meaford "Get'er done Correa!"
I think Correa is a pretty popular guy. In 2005, he acted as the country's Minister of Economy and Finances. There is graffiti all over the city thanking him for his promenent role in kicking the abusive oil company OXY out of Ecuador. Correa lost this job after he suggested the funnelling of foreign debt payments to instead fund urgent social programs. His idea was not well received by the international financial bodies, but apparently he still upholds it today. Obviously, he's not very favourable internationally, he has said that if he is elected, he will stop making debt payments if there is a substantial drop in oil prices, a main source of income for Ecuador. I'm putting my money on Correa.

(3) Name: Cynthia Viteri
Party: Right of centre, Social Christian Party
Presumed age: 29; True age: 40
Hometown: Guayaquil
Hair: Bleached blonde
Years in Politics: 9
Not sure what to think about gal like Cynthia. Cynthia, oh Cynthia. Well, she had a career in TV, reporting news and producing. Then she started to pursue politics. She was the first female vicepresident of the National Congress in 2005. She has also been a member or president of several different commissions. She enthusiastic and seems to be very confident and driven as the only female in the race. Goooo Cynthia!

(4) Name: Leon Roldos
Party: Ethical and Democratic Network (RED)
Age: 63
Hometown: Quito. Haha, no no... just kidding. Yeah, he's from Guayaquil. Tricked ya! Gotta stay on your toes!
Years in Politics: 27
Do I know anything about him?: Nope. He has grey hair. That's all. He's not going to win.

Actually, I've just learned that he is a former Vice-president and has a decent chance or winning. Well, what do I know!

Poll as of the beginning of October

Rafael Correa (AP) 25.5%
León Roldós (RED) 19.2%
Álvaro Noboa (PRIAN) 11.6%
Cynthia Viteri (PSC) 7.6%

The Quito construction up-date.

2006-10-10T13:18:00.000-04:00

Since Brendan is giving a summary of Japanese construction techniques I thought (seeing as they continuously disrupt my sleep) I would also give a wee description of construction here in Ecuador.

First of all, in contrast to construction in Japan where Brendan describes this as being very cramped, space is not an issue here in Quito. I don`t know if it is only because there is a lot more room, or if people just care less here about imposing on other people. They clearly aren`t very concerned about me sleeping well. I have been waken up twice now at 4:30 in the morning. Both times the sounds "beep, beep, beep" accompanied by a man yelling "dale, dale, dale" (lit= "giv'er, giv'er, giv'er") have worked themselves into my dreams. But then comes the reason for these sounds, a gigantic crashing noise as they dump the boulders from the dump-truck onto the work site right... RIGHT outside my window. Everytime I jump out of my skin thinking they are going to accidentally knock my building down or something. FOUR-THIRTY IN THE MORNING!!!!! I caught them on camera this morning. They were dumping the rocks on to a fire.
Here are some other pictures of the project. Word on the street is that they are building a grocery store. The original pile of dumped rocks. The holes in the picture were all dug by hand. All the metal things sticking up were cut and welded by hand, and were also erected by the workers. The workers. Building grates to place at the bottom of the wholes to anchor the tall metal post things. They will eventually cover the tall metal towers with cement. Some lady brings the men plates full of breakfast and lunch, the guys in the bottom left are eating lunch.

Sunday morning I was awoken to the sound of a radio blaring rather than hammers banging. The men weren't working Sunday but some how the women had managed to get a washing mashine back there in the corner and were doing their laundry. They then proceeded to hand the laundry on the ropes supporting the metal towers. There were more before I took this picture. While the women were doing the laundry the kids were chasing these cute little pups around the site, throwing them into the holes, then tying a measuring tape around them to pull them up again!!

Anyway, that's all for now. Here's Brendan's link: http://brendansboringblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/housing-in-japan.html

Some more familiar businesses.

2006-10-10T12:43:00.000-04:00

No one seemed to have any problems figuring out the Tim Hortons coffee shop logo I posted earlier, how about this one. Look familiar??
I think this one it the funniest. These people didn`t just steal a logo like the other, but they interpreted it. The funny part, I think, is the misplaced apostrophe. What is that doing there?? M`c Pollo. I mean, is it replacing an A making the name Mac Pollo?

Happy Thanksgiving.

2006-10-10T12:27:00.000-04:00

I actually pulled it off, I can`t believe it. You see, usually I am the designated table setter or salad maker or something when Thanksgiving rolls around, and Mum and Emily do most of the actual cooking. But, this year not having them around I had to take the situation into my own hands. I will admit, there were a few calls home asking for advise, but other than that it went quite smoothly. My friend Katty came over to help and then her boyfriend Kai, and my two housemates joined us for dinner. We had two different kinds of chicken, potatoes, two salads, stuffing, squash, gravy, and aji (hot pepper sauce). Yeah, I really can`t hide it, I`m pretty proud! When next year comes around though, I don`t mind being reassigned to dish duty.

Like Ooooomigod!! Its Axel....Eeeeeekkkkkkk!!!!!

2006-10-07T10:56:00.002-04:00

Last night in an unexpected stoke of luck my flatmate's girlfriend got sick and they couldn't go to the concert they had bought tickets to.... so I got them! I invited my teacher friend Dolores and off we went.

At first I didn't want to go, even with the free tickets, because I was excited about my plans to go salsa dancing. But when I figured out the the concert began at 7:30 I decided I could easily do both. Why did the concert start so early? Well I discovered that when I arrived and found that over half of the guests were under the age of 19. Yes, this was a concert for the super heart-throb Argentinian ballad singer, Axel. sigh.

Despite the incessant screaming (Brendan I imagined that this must be what Japan is like everyday) the concert was actually surprisingly good. Axel is quite the talented artist. He plays the guitar, the piano, and... the harmonica. Ahhh, I think I'm in love! haha. He's not a bad looking fellow either. Well, all except for the hair. It looks good from the front, and from the 1/4 side view. But a full on side view or a shot of the back.... wow, its mullet mania back there. You see, across the top he has this attractive faux-hawk, but as the cut reaches the top of his head and begins to decend down the "hawk" loses its form and fills out into a full on dirty dirty dirty dry poof mullet thing. Sick. It looks like something crawled up onto his head and died! (haha, I think that's your line Rachel).

When he came to his last song I suggested to Dolores that we watch it from the back so we can make a quick escape (oh, I forgot to tell you our FREE seats were in the 3rd road). When we got out to the lobby I saw that they were selling cds, so I asked how much they were. Only $5 what a bargain. After buying a cd, the guy selling them told me if I stick around Axel (sigh) is going to be signing them. Soooo being the first person out to get a cd (and because I am Canadian and the cd guy thought that was pretty cool) I was the first person to get my cd signed!!!! Well, only until a pregnant woman who apparently thought she had a decent excuse not to wait in line butted in front of me. Inconceivable! So anyway, my turn came soon enough and when I went through the doors to where Axel was the cd guy yells at him, "This girl is from CANADA!!!" haha. I think Axel thought that was pretty damn hot because not only did he sign my cd, but he kissed me twice. TWICE!!! And I definately don't think it was because that's what people do here when they meet. Nope, not at all. I think we might be in love! haha.

Can you read that??? It says:

"Dear Laura, I loved you from the moment I saw you, I will love you forever. Love forever and for always, Axel."

I had to translate it of course, because its written in Argentinian spanish.

All in all it was a pretty fun night. We later saw the band at the same bar we were at, but no Axel.

Here's a little sample of "the Axel". This is like, totally, his coolest song. Watch the crowd eat it up... Imagine me in there singing along like the good Latina-wannabe I am. There I am, did you hear that scream?? He's singing that he wants to be my Love for always. Did I tell you he kissed me? Totally!

When China takes over the world...

2006-10-07T10:43:00.000-04:00

Hey Sara and Melissa,

I didn't want to be the one to tell you this, but I think you should know. It seems that when China takes over the world they have plans to relocate Ottawa..... to New Liskard. I'm sorry! I know, its terrible! Something has to be done, they must be stopped. Quick, George Bush to the rescue!!!

Congrats Mark and Val

2006-10-06T10:42:00.000-04:00

I know this is a little late (almost a month) but I just got to see the pictures. So.... I want to send out a congratulations to my darling friends Mark and Val who were married in September. I wish I could have been there. Take care and have a fantastic trip!! xxoo

The Chiva bus at last.

2006-10-02T10:51:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I finally went on a Chiva bus ride. Living before in the busy Mariscal area, the Chiva bus was constantly driving me insane, going past my house with trumpets blowing and music blaring. But now it was my turn.

The Chiva bus is basically an opportunity to drink a lot while being driven around the city cheering and ducking for low hanging hydro lines. hahaha... Yeah, that's the funniest/most dangerous part about it. Ecuador's infrastructure isn't really made for the Chiva bus. The chiva bus is this double decker rickety truck thing where you have the choice to stand and dance on the top, where you might also potentially fall off to your death, or sit on the bottom half with all the conservative people. This is what a quality Chiva should look like: Packed full with lots of quality fun loving, beer drinking, good hat sporting folks. This is what our Chiva looked like, the German Chiva!
Well, it is clearly empty there, but it didn't get much fuller. The bottom part was entirely empty, except for the beer keg guy, and the top had just enough people for everyone to sit or stand comfortable... not the "man overboard" packed I had expected. And, there were NO trumpets! Not even a single trombone. All in all it was kinda disappointing. Instead of driving us around Quito where there are lots of people and nice sights to see, we drove around some town about 45 minutes from Quito where there were very few people in the streets. The one thing that pulled through though was the number of low hanging hydro lines! hahaha... I know it really isn't funny... but it was. How low were they? Here is a picture of the guys beside me ducking:

Yeah, they were pretty low some of them. Its amazing no one was "hydro-lined".

Anyway, at the end of the night we stopped at a restaurant where we were entertained by some amusing clowns and were fed some pretty delicious German food.... except the sauerkraut, gross!

There we go, Chiva Bus checked off my list of things to potentially kill me in South America. Haha... just kidding Mum. xxoo

If I was an English teacher....

2006-09-27T17:40:00.000-04:00

...these might be some of my students' answers to a test question asking them to compare Politicians and Priests:

Politicians are like priests, because they both lie.
Politicians are the same as priests, because they are corrupt.
Politicians are the same as priests, because they both steal money.

Hmmmm..... now I thought South America was supposed to be pretty devout Catholic. Well, I guess I was wrong.

But then, that's only if I was an English teacher...

I ATE ANTS!!!!!

2006-09-17T14:29:00.000-04:00

Sorry Teegan. That title was originally supposed to shout "TEEGAN'S HERE!!!" or something to that affect, but the second I put creepy crawly leggy living ants into my mouth...INTO MY MOUTH, the Teegan title got the boot.

So anyway, the end of August Teegan, my oldest...er, longest (seriously, she's like 5'10") friend, came to visit me for two weeks. We had such an amazing time. Because she was only here for a short wee while it was certainly an action packed visit. Here's how it went.... (on a side note its pouring rain here now.)

Teegan arrived on a Wednesday night. We went out that night for a couple hours to see a hip hopish concert in a plaza around the corner from my old house. There weren't any tables available cafes and bars around the plaza so, being from Meaford... and since its legal here, we went to the closest convenience store, bought a couple beers, and stood in the plaza and watched the show. It was nice.

The following morning I had booked a trip to Lake Quilotoa. The lake is about a 3 hr drive from Quito (due to the stops at Markets, ect along the way) and is a gorgeous emerald blue lake set in the crater of a several hundred year old volcano. After arriving it is customary to take about half an hour to walk the slippery, slidey trail down the sandy path to the edge of the lake. I nearly took a fall a few times, but luckily I kept it together! haha. Now, this is the fun/terrifying part. Once you've enjoyed your time admiring the lake from the bottom of the crater you have two options for returning to the top. You (a) drag yourself up with your own two feet, or (b) the more appealing option, you can hire a mule for $5 to carry your lazy ass up. Naturally, we went for option B.... because Teegan had just arrived in Quito the night before and was not yet accustomed to the altitude, of course! Ironically, this turned out to be the worst option. Ever since being thrown off Buffy the Pony when Grandpa scared her with the weird noises he was making, and since abandoning horse in France when the stupid thing decided to tear across the countryside against my wishes, I have not been very partial to horseback riding. I mean they are lovely creatures to look at, but if I can help it I would prefer to stay on the ground. Anyway, apparently I forgot about this fear.

Well low and behold, I got the mule who like to make up its own mind and also make up its own path. Yeah, it was not comfortable when half the time your transportation is stepping inches away from a 10-20 foot jagged drop, and then it decides its going to take an alternative route to the top! Teegan's was the same. It got tired of being at the end of the line, bit the horse in front's backside, got kicked in the face, and then tore up past the others to the front of the line, beating us all to the top by 5 minutes or so.

The next day, Friday, we stuck around in Quito. We went with my flatmate Michael (the Swiss) to visit his foundation which works with street children in the old part of the city. After visiting the project we took a wander of the historic centre admiring the nice architecture, colourful houses, and armed guards on every corner... pleasant!

Saturday Teegan and I made the trip that most tourists make on a Saturday in Ecuador. We took a bus two hours north to Otavalo. I have talked about this before, the huge artisan market. It was nice because we had a look around, did some shopping, and got out of there in under two hours. Pretty impressive.

On Sunday, we had a jungle tour planned. But, before heading off on a 6 hrs bus trip to the Oriente, we tended to some important business - Liga vs Barcelona. That's right, soccer. Quito against Guayaquil. It was beautiful. The stadium was absolutely packed. We ended up paying twice as much for the tickets and Teegan and Michael stood the whole game. Naturally, Liga played much better however they weren't able to pull through with a win and we were forced to accept a 1-1 tie. Anyway, right after the game we got the bus to Tena.

Welcome to the Jungle

Early Monday morning we were driven out to our "primary forest" jungle lodge. Despite the fact that Tena isn't too far into the jungle, the view was still absolutely amazing. The lodge is set on a.... geographical cliff thing... 300 metres above the jungle so that you can look out miles over absolutely gorgeous... secondary forest. haha. The other people staying at our lodge were, well tolerable. In fact, this guy was probably the most tolerable! No, the jungle was really great. We were only there a couple days but we did several hikes (one through actually primary forest), went tubing 15 km down a jungle river, visited an "indigenous village" (more like an impoverished, unsustainable and disadvantaged formerly indigenous community, but that's tourism unfortunately), and went canyoning up the crevices in the jungle floor. One of the coolest thing was went I ate ants. I ATE THEM! They were really delicious.... kinda like lemon meringue pie. Seriously, they are called Lemon Ants and come out of little pods growing on plants. You just shake a few out onto your hand then lick them up like they were Christmas sprinkles!!

Tuesday night, after a full day of jungling, we raced back to Quito to prepare ourselves for our early departure to the Galapagos Wednesday morning. On our way back Teegan had her first encounter with the Ecuadorian (Right to Kill, as Emma says) National Police. They have had a road stop set up for a while now trying to minimize the circulation of drugs and arms. We had neither but got searched anyway.

Galapagos

(Warning - Some of you may be concerned about the pictures I am about to show you. I am aware that in ALL my Galapagos pictures it looks like there has been some kind of wide scale massacre or something, but worry not, the animals are all just really lazy and sleeping... they are NOT dead!! Proceed with caution.)

Wednesday morning we got an early flight from Quito to the island of Baltra. I was really surprised when we landed in the Galapagos. The landscape was like nothing I had ever imagined. The earth was all volcanic rubble and red dirt. The trees were all grey and leafless and looked dead, and there were cacti everywhere. I thought it was completely barren and lifeless. But, to Teegan the tree-hugging, bird-calling, primate-loving nerd it was pretty fascinating. I came to this conclusion later. Apparently the trees weren't dead, but because it was dry season they were simply just without leaves.

I don't want to drag this out because it is already long, so I will make it short. We saw a ton of sea lions and their babies too, lots of birds (Teegan was going crazy! Calling them and chirping and stuff. It was sooooo embarrassing, gosh!), lizards and iguanas everywhere... even mar iguanas (hahaha). I swam with lots of tropical fish, sharks (wee ones), and even a sweet little penguin. Oh, and lots and lots of boobies.... boobies everywhere. Ok, ok, that's a Galapagos joke that is way too overused.

Anyway, after 5 days of smelling sea lion crap everywhere and showering in yellow boat water(and four nights of being nearly thrown from our beds by the violent waves) I was ready to return to the motherland.

All in all, I think we had a pretty fantastic time. It was so nice being able to show Teegan what I knew of Ecuador and to discover new places with her. I'm so lucky to have been able to travel with two great friends in the last 5 months. Next destination, Colombia. Who's joining me?? No, seriously I'm looking for a companion. I'll be accepting applications starting.... now. First come first served, the competition is gonna be tough.

Pictures: Our pictures can be viewed at this link. Teegs are the ones with comments... mine have not! I might post more as I get the time. Enjoy.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AZtm7Vu1Zs2LkY

Look familiar???

2006-08-22T20:28:00.000-04:00

I don't know, I have been out of the country for a while but I definately thought this looked pretty familiar. Am I wrong??

New Post

2006-08-20T11:01:00.000-04:00

I just posted a new post for August 14th. If I start writing something on a certain date it doesn't matter when I actually publish it, it will be ordered by the date that I started writing it. I don't know how to fix this, but I will let you know if I post something new but it is dated back a week ago.

Happy Sara Kassem Day!!!

2006-08-19T12:58:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Kassy Kass Kass!!!

Hope you have a huge party planned, I wish I could be there to help you celebrate. I will have a drink here for you!!

love laur.

Let's Play "Guess the subject of the random quote"!

2006-08-15T01:24:00.000-04:00

And ready???? Go!

''He's getting better, that's good,'' said a store clerk named Yanine. "But a lot of people wish he'd die.''

Glücklicher Happies

2006-08-15T00:33:00.000-04:00

Glücklicher Geburtstag Michaelle!!! Sie haben Hoffnung ein wunderbarer Tag.

Mit viel Liebe,

Laura

xxoo

Living la vida Quito

2006-08-14T15:52:00.000-04:00

Yup, so the "I am stuck in Quito phase" has turn into an indefinite "I am stuck in Quito". Thus, since I will be here for a while I thought I would maybe describe a bit about life here.

El Tiempo

The weather here is... well shitty to say the least. We had a few gorgeous days of fun in the sun but now it is back to the gloomy grey skies and temperatures of less than 20. I would like to know which one of my teachers it was who taught me that the closer you get to the equater the hotter the temperature is!! I have been straddling the equator for 3 months now and I can confidently say that under half of that times has been the weather has been nice. Yesterday the skies turned black and it poured rain for an hour or so.

Las Noticias

Well the big news from Ecuador now is the volcano Tunguragua which is currently erupting. Apparently the eruptions while I was there were pretty tame. This past week it erupted again. This time it was much worse, so far there is one death and about 60 people missing. Tons of farm animals were killed and houses, farms, and crops were lost. According to papers the ash created a cloud coverage of 742 kilometres. Its a pretty bad situation.

Los Precios
Well lets see, there is a pretty interesting range of costs here. Some things are super cheap and others are oddly expensive.
Gas is about $1.48 per gallon... that's right, GALLON.
Rent, well I pay $150 per month, but that is for a furnished room. An unfurnished shared apartment in a decent location could cost as low as $75 per person.
The other day I bought a litre of milk, 4 eggs, and a can of tomato paste and it came to $0.95.
A movie at the theatre is about $3, and the same movie already on DVD can be purchased for $2 across the street.
Burger King is oddly expensive. I don't eat there, out of my price range! haha. A meal at BK surprisingly costs about the same as at home, or more since it is in American dollars. I think $5 something. A milkshake at BK is $2.
Entry to bars is similar to at home, ranging from $0 to $10.
A beer is $1 at a cheap restaurant or $1.50 at a normal bar. That's for the National 19 ounce pilsner.
Internet ranges between $0.60 to $1.00.
Local buses are are cheap.... $0.25 cents per ride. BUT, that does mean that no transfers exist. If you have to transfer from one bus to another you are required to pay the fare again.
Laundry is $0.80 per kg. This is nice because it allows me to drop off as little as two pairs of pants and return in 6 hrs for clean, washed and dried clothes. Although the system also increases the likelihood that you might LOOSE your only pair of long underwear or might find someone else's underwear in your laundry.
Shawarma and coke on the street is $1.25 plus complimentary parasites if you are so unlucky.

La Comida
Like any country I guess Ecuador does somethings right and other things... well they would probably be best left to other countries. Cheeze for example is not a good time in Ecuador. Whereas delicious fresh fruits can be attained fairly easily. I bought milk the other day (something I have not bought before). Milk here is not like the kind we have at home. Everyday milk here is the kind that comes in a box and sits in your cupboard until you are ready to use it. To be honest, its the kind of milk that tastes like it has just come out of the cow, in fact I think I can smell the cow when I drink it. Mmmm Milk! I usually buy yogurt to put on my cereal. However, the trainer at the gym I USED to attend (sporatically) told me that most yogurts are not actually milk products at all, but rather are made from corn. He said that if you "splat" some on a hot frying pan some kind of strange effect happens. But then he also told me that my body fat percentage is 35 which according to the websites I frantically searched means I am... how do you say??? Ah yes, OBESE!!! So, we don't listen to anything he says anyway.

Ecuadorian hombres
Well, let's just say there aren't too many passing the criteria, that being, at least my height and not sore on the eyes. I'm not very hambre for Ecuadorian hombres.

La Musica
It seems that at any point in the day, if you are really quiet and listen very hard you can hear Marc Antony's song "Tu Amor Me Hace Bien" playing somewhere in the area.

On the hip hop side of things, the most popular song is probably Daddy Yankee's "Rompe". Looks like Puffy has got some serious competition!

Well that is all I can think of for now. ciao.

I ... just....can't.... STOP!!! The clicking is consuming my life!!

2006-07-25T23:15:00.000-04:00

I think its genetic, maybe coming from the O'Donnell side... somewhere in Toronto... wait, Etobicoke I think!

Yeah, I have apparently exceeded my photo album allowance and have been told to delete some picture. Because that is the most absurd thing I have ever heard I have decided to open a new photo account. I will add a link below the other one on the right side of the blog.

Snapfish Album

One album (Colombia and Otavalo) has been disected between the two sites. sorry.

This is a lot more complicated than the other photo thing, but we will see how it goes.

Danger.... Danger Bay!!

2006-07-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

So, I have been living such a tranquil life here in Quito the last couple months I decided a couple weeks ago that I should start living up to my middle name, Danger, .... and go on some WILD, potentially life-threatening adventures..... or misadventures..

Colombia Bumblia
My first excursion was to Colombia, about 12 whole kms across the border too! When I heard that some friends of mine were going to take a trip across the border to renew their visas I thought it looked like a perfect opportunity to get a Colombian stamp on my passport (p.s. apparently now they have resorted to terribly ugly computer printed 'stamps' as opposed to fancy, colourful, and UNIQUE stamps of the old days ... very disappointing).

Unfortunately, maybe because I am not a very good liar to begin with, I could not convince myself that I had actually been to Colombia. Really, in my very rational mind, crossing the border to renew a passport (even if you stay a few days as I did in the closest town) is essentially the same as having a stop-over in a different country but never leaving the airport. You can't, by law of rationalism, say that you have really been to that country. That's just a dirty deceiving LIE!

A note on traveling to Colombia: When people tell you that the Ecuadorian side of the border is wet and cold, don't be fooled by Colombia's tropical reputation that the Colombian side of the border won't also be frigid. Ipiales, which lies about 10kms across the border was rainy and cold... and I was not at all prepared to say the least. We sucked it up though and headed for the nearest pub. On our last day there we made a wee journey to frequent pilgrimage site of El Sanctuario de Las Lajas, an intriguing gothic style church. There were so many people there visiting, on the walk down to the church the walls are covered in plaques from donors or people who had experienced miracles. One of my favourite parts about visiting shrines like this is seeing the economic opportunities some people make out of it. Walking down to the church we passed vendor after vendor selling everything from religious paraphernalia to roasted cuy (aka guinea pig), and traumatizing eye flickering crucifix holograms.... among other things! (sorry I don't know how to rotate the video).

In the end, my trip to Colombia, the country with more kidnappings than the ENTIRE WORLD COMBINED (or so the rumour I am spreading goes) turned out to be pretty danger-free.

Evacuation Station
My next peligroso adventure was this weekend when I went on a volcano chasing excursion. You know how there are people who chase tornados, well I was chasing a volcano. Now, I realize that volcanoes are relatively immobile, but the task turned out to be much trickier than I had expected.

Presently, some 135 km south of Quito the Tungurahua Volcano is erupting. According to the papers, "Hot and dangerous lava was due to reach the town of Baños, which has 15,000 residents, on Monday". Well its nice to see that the Chinese online news were able predict (though incorrectly) the course of the eruptions, because due to some unexpected clouds I was hardly able to get a decentglimpses of Tungurahua at all. Friday night I stayed in the village of Pelileo, a little farther north of Baños where the view is supposed to be good. I actually set my alarm three times that night to get up to see if I could spot some explosions, but NOTHING!! The clouds were think all they into day. That day I went with two friends into Baños where we participated in a very relaxed and actually quite spirited mock evacuation. It was funny. Here we were, the whole town walking through the streets, the National Police in dust masks and the tourists running around trying to get pictures from every possible angle. Yes, really quite interesting. Anyway, on our way back to the town to have dinner... that's right, I said I was living dangerously didn't I, I caught a glimpse of a wee poof of smoke and dust rising into the sky above the clouds. So, with that I was as satisfied as I could be; the nasty weather foiled my plan once again. And off I went to catch the 45 minute late no explinations bus to the jungle.

Birthday Salute....

2006-07-20T23:27:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Mr. Ormsby. Hope you have a terrific day (and party night). If you see that crazy MacDaddy give him a big birthday kiss for me! Take care, wish I could be there.

Joyeux Anniversaire Maman!

2006-07-14T09:16:00.000-04:00

Have a spectacular bday in la Ville des Lumières!

New Photo Album

2006-07-10T19:28:00.000-04:00

Hi there. I have just started a new photo album on the "More Pictures" link that is dedicated entirely to interesting graffiti and propaganda. Everywhere you look here there are tons of subliminal messages, whether by the government or by the public. I find the ones sponsored by the government most interesting. Maybe we have messages like this at home and I just don't notice them, but the ones here seem to stick right out. For example, the messages frequently encourage the reader to take a greater role in his/her life. In Guatemala there used to be a huge billboard along the side of the highways that read (in spanish of course) "The Future is in Your Hands". Another genre of gov't propaganda here is health related. In Lima there were always signs hanging below street signs that read something about always remembering to wash your hands. Similarly, I often see signs encouraging people to mind the environment, keep public parks proper and water clean. Anyway, I will try to take pictures whenever I can. Hope you find this as interesting as I do.

Centro Historico Quito

2006-07-07T19:12:00.000-04:00

I just went on a wee day trip today down to the Old Quito City. I love it so much because the architecture is really gorgeous and so colourful.... one might even say stunning (Michaelle??).
Anyway, here are a few select pictures. I will post more in the Quito album on the more pictures link. Enjoy.

p.s. I am open to visitors if you like it enough.

The boys...... busy.

Anyone recognize??

2006-07-06T09:26:00.000-04:00

Closer look??

Mmmmm donuts...

Boogie Boarding rocks my world / kicks my ass (multiple times)

2006-07-03T13:22:00.000-04:00

I spent Canada Day 2006 on Ecuador's northern coast in the beach town of Atacames. No worries Sara, festivities were not forgotten. Thanks to Valeria, myself and 3 other friends (including one very cooperative American) were well decorated with Canadian flags and maple leaf tatoos. The weather wasn't that fantastic, pretty overcast, I guess due to the season here, but that didn't stop us from hitting the beach. Anyone who knows me will know that I am not one to dive into the water, but thankfully the water here was quite warm.

We started the weekend off with, surprise surprise, the England-Portugal game.... a little beach time, then the France-Brazil game in the afternoon. When we finally got the obligatory soccer watching out of the way we were really able to take advantage of the beach. I have never been surfing, nor do I really feel that comfortable in the ocean (I feel like I am going to be dragged away), so body surfing was a terrific place to start... and HECK was it fun!!

I don't know why, but saturdays waves were more gentle on me... I guess a kind introduction. The first wave was amazing. My friend Julie and I were both waiting to take it. Then all of a sudden I am up on top of the wave and I look down to see Julie looking up at me a metre and a half above her. Moments later I glide smoothly (though without control) into the beach while Julie got beaten down by the wave Blue Crush style (according to Julie)... it was really quite hilarious. The rest of the day went fairly well, in fact, zero salt water inhaled. Sunday however was a different story. I got worked by the waves time after time, my throat was burning I had inhaled so much dirty, salty (and probably petrol-y) water.

All in all it was a very fun Canada day weekend. Happy Canada day.

2006-06-29T22:11:00.000-04:00

World Refugee Day 2006

World Refugee Day 2006

2006-06-28T10:33:00.000-04:00

Last week I took a bus three hours north of Quito to the city of Ibarra. Ibarra is a pretty nice, quiet city, known as the "white city" due to its wealth of white colonial architecture. I went up there to view and participate in this year's World Refugee Day/ Dia Mundial del Refugiado. It was a pretty fun event and a very interesting weekend. Anyway, here are some pictures of the parade and with any luck one or two videos of the musical guests in the evening.

Catching up on my videos.

2006-06-26T14:00:00.000-04:00

So i've just discovered at last how to post videos. Here are a few from my travels. I apologize for the poor filming.

Islas de Ballestas sea lions, Peru ( you can hear them with volume)

Riobamba train ride, Ecuador

Go Ecuador.... I mean, Go Edmonton...err, Si se pueden!!

2006-06-15T14:04:00.000-04:00

My life is completely scheduled around sports these days; Edmonton win last night, followed by an Ecuadorian win this morning... which obviously was (and still is) followed with total craze in the city of Quito, much less the rest of the country. People are running down the streets, waving flags, singing, dancing, cheering, honking horns, ect. A tourist agent I saw just now following the game had to excuse himself for the huge bottle of beer he was drinking at his desk.... no one is working today, come on now let's get realistic!

Last night I watched the Edmonton-Carolina game with five other Canucks at our token Canadian-owned sports bar. It was a nice dose of home, but for obvious reasons was quickly bumped by the World Cup euphoria which is inescapable here...even at 5 a.m in the morning.

So now Ecuador is safe and into the second round... I guess I shouldn't plan on travelling anywhere in the next few weeks. ;)

Oh, you mean THAT June 13th 1984!!

2006-06-13T11:58:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Emily... thanks for the subtle reminder, although it was not needed!

Pop Quiz!

2006-06-10T20:13:00.000-04:00

Brendan, I think this is comparable to Japanese fashion.

10 Soles to whoever can identify the flag on this sweater... I'll give you a clue, its not the Canadian flag! haha...

Quito pictures - Centro Historico

2006-06-10T19:11:00.000-04:00

Here are some pics I took of Quito a couple days ago. The pictures from above are from the Panecillo, the angel statue up on a hill on the edge of the city.

From what I understand one of Ecuador's past "Miss Ecuadors" decided during her reign that she would like for a blue heart to be painted on the road on the spot of every fatal accident.... hmm.. nice, but not necessarily very comforting to see just after your bus driver decides at the last minute not to pass that car ahead as it approaches the sharp mountain-top blind right-hand turn and the huge Mack truck would-have-been-accident safely barrels around the bend past you. (This story is entirely fictional Mum. Muah!)

Mitad del Mundo

2006-06-10T17:51:00.000-04:00

This past thursday I did something most people probably would never aspire to do, but when the opportunity is there, its definately not something that can be passed up. I stood on the equator. Both actually, the wrong more touristy one and the proper but unfortunately less known line. Apparently this incorrect line was determined way back when (that's right, I'm tired of tours and pamphlet reading!) by some French guy, the actual line was determined by Ecuadorians, the indigenous I think, and is about 200 m away from the more recognized line.

The correct line has a museum on it where tourists can try lots of interesting 'only on the equator' types of experiments. One experiment was draining water through a sink on the equator and on either side. When the sink was placed directly over the line the water drained straight out the hole in the bottom of the bason. In contrast, in the southern and northern hemispheres the water visibly drained either clockwise or counter-clockwise. Another experiment we did was the act of balancing an egg on the head of a nail. Because the nail was hammered into the equator, balancing the egg is made possible (though not easy) because it is on a line of total equalibrium. Myself and another guy in our group were the only successful "Egg Balancers"... we got certificates! haha. The last experiment was a strength one where we found that it is harder to resist someone pulling your hands down from over your head when you are on the equator.

Because there is a museum on equator I also got to see the skin of a 10 ft anaconda and the shrunken head of a 12 boy (a ritual practiced by the local ancient civilizations).

Home on the Hacienda

2006-06-05T18:15:00.000-04:00

So, its been a week now that i have been in Quito and I really don't have any accomplishments to report, which is lovely. It has been really nice just hanging out here with no plans, no daily agenda, nothing. I have spent the last week squatting in my friends Emma and Alfredo's livingroom. I think I will stay in Quito though for a few weeks, so this weekend I am going to move into a room in the house where Emma's office is. The house is really nice with kitchen privileges and all, only $5/ day.

Like I said, I haven't been up to much this past week. Time spent in Quito has mostly involved visiting Emma at her office, checking emails, wandering the streets, and Salsarobics at the gym (a special treat Emma had planned for me the very night I arrived! haha). This past weekend I went with my Emma and Alfredo to Alfredo's home town of Mindo. It is about a 2.5 hr drive north of Quito across the equator (yeah, that's right, I drove across the equator. Soon I'm gonna go stand on it!) in to the mountains. Emma and Alfredo have invested in some land up there so we went up for the weekend to do some work on the lot, pulling grass and planting flowers. I was not prepared with mucking around clothes, so I didn't really do anything apart from transfering plants from the fencelines of unsuspecting neighbours to Emma and Alfredo's lot, shhhh!
I like the idea here. I think I might have posted a similar picture of the waste system in Aguas Calientes. I especially like the notice above the pails: "Para Turistas" = For Tourists. I guess the explanation is intended for us. Or maybe we're the only ones anal enough to worry about seperate bins.

Me working hard (Emma clearly taking a break in the background):

...and,

ooh... perdy butterfly!

Don't complain about the services!!!

2006-06-01T13:16:00.000-04:00

You know how at home (or where ever I guess) people warn you to not complain about your food at a restaurant or it will come back from the kitchen with spit or a hair in it. Well, apparently same goes for Lavanderias. I got in an argument (yeah, I was pretty proud of myself) with the laundry lady yesterday because I was supposed to be leaving for Quito around noon and my laundry (originally said to be ready by 11 am) was not done until 1:15 pm. The argument wasn't just because the laundry was late, but also because one of her staff had allowed me to call Quito to tell Emma that I would be late arriving and not to worry. When the owner saw that I had made the call she demanded that I pay her for the phone call as well as my late laundry. I argued that her staff had invited me to make the call because it was technically their fault that I would be arriving late.... and also that I should get a discount on the laundry because it was 2 hrs past its due date. haha. Anyway, in the end I didn't pay for the phone call and agreed to pay the price of the laundry minus 20 cents ($3.20). hahaa....

This morning, however, when I was getting dressed, I put-off and yet amused at the same time to find that in the end the Devil Laundry Lady had won the fight, as my bra that she had just washed and carefully folded was no longer in one piece, but cut down the centre in two.

Understanding South America - Lesson One: Things are not always as they seem to be...

2006-05-29T12:52:00.000-04:00

Example #1: So, your bus says it is taking you to... hmm, let's say Pisco, for example. Your ticket says you are going to Pisco. The schedule on the wall says the bus to Pisco is leaving in 10 minutes. These are all distortions of the truth. In reality you will be dumped 5 kms away from your destintion on the side of the PanAmerican highway as bait for the taxi voltures.

Example #2: It says Ketchup.... trust me, it is not the Ketchup you know and love. Don't eat it.

Example #3: This old lady. Look at her closely. To the untrained eye it would appear that she is only a little old indigenous lady chattering on a cell phone while leaning against a post. Nice try! That's what they want you to believe. She's soooo transparent, everyone knows little old indigenous ladies don't just chatter away on cell phones. Plus, she's not leaning against the post, she's hiding behind it. Yes, in reality she is actually an undercover CIA agent waiting to send instructions into Colombia should the impending results of yesterday's elections go... oh, I don't know... wrong.

Sunday May 28th, 2006... What a day, what a day.

2006-05-28T20:08:00.000-04:00

PART ONE: Choo choo, toot toot, whatever... We're ridin the Gringo Express!!

(Video 1; Video 2)

Ok, I have to breath... Today was such a long and eventful day I have to break it down into bits. This first part began this morning at 6:30 am when I boarded the train in Riobamba. Not just any train, oh no! This is the Gringo spectacle train. Yes, this train carried a hundred odd (no pun intended, but I'm certain this is the way the locals saw us) tourists 7 hrs on the top of a train, simply for the fun of it. The climax of the trip is supposed to be the Nariz Del Diablo switch-back decent down the cliffs. Now, I wasn't sure if this part was considered thrilling because of the height of the drop from the edge of the tracks or just because of the switch backs themselves? They aren't very scary on their own, but when you're looking straight down to the rocks a hundred feet below they certainly do a number on your nerves when you start thinking, "what if they didn't orchestrate the switch back properly and the train isn't 'buckled in' just right?". I must say, the best part of the trip was at the beginning when, as we crossed the countryside, people would come specially to their doors or turn from their fieldwork, and kids would come running, to wave at the passengers going by. I know it sounds silly, but it really was a nice feeling, all these strangers waving at each other.... and cue the "What a Wonderful World". hahaha.... no seriously, I was listening to my music and Louis Armstrong unexpectedly came on at the perfect time.... it touched my heart! haha. Until of course, I realized that the only reason all the adorable little kids were running down the hills to wave at the trains is because they are accustomed to having candy thrown at them by the tourists. Not so cute anymore. I did see some sheep and pigs travelling upper class! Anyway, the trip was great. The views were spectacular. The wind was frigid. And I was fully ready to be off by the end.

Welcome to Ecuador!

2006-05-25T14:37:00.000-04:00

I made it safely to Ecuador with no problems. From Mancora I got a bus at 4:45 in the morning that took me 4 hours to Piura from where I caught a bus that would take me right across the Ecuador-Peru border to the city of Loja, 4 hrs from Peru. From there.... almost there... I got a taxi to the village of Vilcabamba, in the Valley of Youth.

I guess I can say with enough truth that I made it to Ecuador without any problems. After crossing the border however my pleasant trip was rudely interupted by an obnoxious older man who decided the 2 seats he had to himself were not good enough for some unknown reason and asked to sit in the empty seat beside me. This puzzled me a little since for a bus equiped to seat approximately 40 plus people, there were only about 10 riders, thus many empty seats. Anyway, he didn't try to talk or flirt with me which was good, but he did proceed to fall asleep which led to his sprawling all over the seat in invading my space. It started off with his hand, fallen off his lap and nestled between my leg and his. As it annoyed me immensly I stared at it on and off a while as I squished myself closer and closer to the window. Finally I had enough of it an picked his arm up by the wrist and placed it on his lap. This woke him a bit and he straightend up. I took the opportunity to quickly reach for the arm rest that would seperate us and I pulled it down, quickly taking it for myself and exerting my dominance over MY seat. As he straightened up though, he moved his foot from his foot rest over to mine...ugh!

This continued for a while and some how he managed to gain dominance over the arm rest. The bus stopped a couple times and he would get off, but he always got on. Once the bus even drove a few metres, making me think he had gotten off for good, but then it stopped and he got back on. Finally I had had my fill with him. There was no reason for him to be sitting beside me since there were tons of empty full (2 seats) on the bus. So I tapped him on the leg (as he was again sprawling... I mean sleeping) and excused myself, moving to a seat behind. He stayed on the bus maybe 5 more minutes, then got off... at which point I moved back to MY seat.

Anyway, I met two very nice gals from Leeds on the bus and together we spent a couple days relaxing in Vilcabamba and are now in Cuenca. I like Ecuador quite alot so far. For some reason, although it is only separated from Peru by an invisible line, I felt that I liked it better the second we crossed the border. It seems to have a lot more wealth than Peru, although according to other travellers Peru is more expensive. The people here are better dressed, the houses are much nicer and more modern looking, and the cars are all new and shiny. I haven't yet seen a single 70s style VW Bettle, which were everywhere in Peru.

Some pictures:

The Jesus sticker that scared the crap out of me everytime I woke up from napping...never failed!

View of Ecuador just after crossing the border.

What I like to call a Poinsettia Tree. Not sure if that is exactly what it is, but the leaves look just like it.

Donkeys working hard in Vilcabamba.... Lucky Essau, he has such a luxurious life!

Trujillo

2006-05-21T17:44:00.000-04:00

No time, so I will just post a few pictures from my short stay in Trujillo. I did a day tour to the pre-inca ruins (yeah, Michaelle can you believe it, I managed 2 more tiresome historical sites, haha) of Chan Chan. I also visited the beach here to have a look at the reed fishing boats, also pre-inca. Enjoy.

She's Alive!!!

2006-05-21T16:56:00.000-04:00

I don´t know what I was thinking when I packed my Spanish-English dictionary. If I had been at all prepared I would have known to bring my French-English dictionary instead. I've just spent another weekend speaking mostly French. I arrived friday in Mancora after driving through the absolutely pungent smelling Chimbote and staying a lonely 2 days in the disappointing Trujillo. Mancora has been nice though. As I was saying, I spent much of the weekend with a group of 12 students from Quebec studying in Lima. It was nice, but I did find at some points that I could not, no matter how earnestly I tried, coax a single spanish word from my mouth. It was like they had gone on strike or something, jealous that I had ignored them for so long.

Since friday my days have been spent lying on the beach, reading my Bridget Jones Diary (hahaha.. definately a better read, Michaelle), drinking frothy drinks, and occassionally jumping in to the cold ocean.... yes, I forced myself in! Ah, but it is so tiring.. I think I have had my fill! ;)

I have a bus tomorrow early in the morning for Piura, where I will get another bus across the border into Ecuador. I'm going to stay a few days town hopping until I eventually end up in Quito to see my dear friend Emma. Happy Birthday Emma!

Anyway, I must go... I think its nap time. haha.

Hahaha... look at the nerdy tourists!

All by myself......

2006-05-16T10:04:00.000-04:00

Today is a sad day. My French friends left me yesterday and this morning and my expert travelling partner for the last month, Michaelle, leaves me today (although at this point it could be today at 9 pm or tomorrow at 3 am.... so maybe she won't leave after all!! [Cue evil laugh])

My plans are to stay another night here in Lima, make sure Michaelle safely makes her flight, then take a morning bus north up the coast of Peru to Trujillo. I'm not sure how long I want to stay there, maybe a day or two, then I plan to keep truckin' all the way north to Ecuador.

But for now I will just dwell in my sadness and loneliness....

Happies...

2006-05-14T11:29:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Mary, mi amor.

Happy Mother's Day, Mum.

love Laura

I am slowly going crazy. One, two, three, four, five, six, SWITCH!!

2006-05-10T23:59:00.000-04:00

I know that as a traveller and as a guest in another country you have to be somewhat accepting of that country's customs (right Brendan? haha), but honestly there are some things here in Peru that might honestly land me in a mental health centre pretty soon. A few I can think of:

The Incessants - This category includes what I consider to be constant and persistent invasions of my personal space. There seems to always be someone in my face wanting to sell me something. Postcard, finger puppets, paintings... "One sole, good price for you lady...where you from? I give you good price". Similarly, there are constantly people standing outside restaurants who will follow you half a block trying to convince you that you should eat at that restaurant even though you've just eaten somewhere else. Obnoxious Taxi drivers are always honking their horns in your face, as to ask if you want a ride... NO! If I wanted a ride I would flag you. Now, stop making that bloody unnecessary racket. Another one are the woman who sell food and ice cream on the streets. I don't know what their qualifications are for this job but the sounds (or perhaps more appropriately, screeches) that come out of their mouths are definate cause for a nervous breakdown: "Geletinas?? Heladosssss??? Geletinaaaaaasssssss????

The Horn Happiness - What is with this??? Like I described above, drivers in this country seem to think for some reason that laying it on your car horn will some how make things happen. Customers will want to ride in your cab if you blow their eardrums, a truck unloading goods on a oneway street will magically vanish if you and the cars behind you all constantly honk. Its like drivers here have some kind of road language that we just don't have in Canada. My bus driver from Puno to Cusco (the one who felt the need to use the opposite side of the road) also felt the need to honk the entire 8 hr ride. He honked everytime we passed someone, everytime we went through a town, hell...everytime a blade of grass flickered in the wind within a 2 metre proximity to the road. Its absolute madness!!

I think there must be some kind of sensitivity/irritability chart or something for travelling abroad. Like at first you probably think "oh, this is great service! Post cards, cigarettes, ice cream, all brought to ME!!" You are gracious and apologetic and always say "no thank you" and smile when you don't want the product. This is the first stage. From here the chart climbs to it climax where you no longer have the patience. You stop saying "no thank you", you stop smiling. You start to ignore people who approach you and the anger starts to bubble inside you for taxi drivers, horns, and over-eager restaurant hostesses. Then, I THINK... the chart levels out. At this point you reach your nirvana. You no longer need to ignore people, they just don't seem to exist. The sounds of horns seem to fade into the background and you can carry on your merry way.

Yup, I'm definately still in that climbing stage, close to the climax. Well except for taxi drivers, I've reached my limit with them! Anyway, I'm sure there were other things that were pushing me over the edge (hahaha) I just can't remember them now. I'll add them as they come to me.

Alright Laura, I command you to relax right now. DO IT!!

2006-05-10T16:59:00.000-04:00

So, as a reward for finishing the Inca trail Michaelle and I decided to "treat" ourselves to massages. Now honestly, if I knew myself at all I should have known that a massage was the last thing I needed. In fact, I might be the worst candidate ever for a massage. I am so ticklish I'm pretty sure I have come close to dying a few times in the past when people have taken advantage of that weakness. Don't touch my waist, don't even think about going near my neck... tickle my feet and I'll break your nose. And that's not a threat, just a warning. So anyway, because our bodies were so tired and sore from the Inca trail a full body massage sounded like a pretty appropriate solution. This it was not.

I literally lay there for the entire hour repeating over and over in my head: "relax Laura, go limp... just melt, reeeeeelax" and "This is neither the time nor place for giggling, this is serious you are relaxing, not laughing". I am not kidding I actually found myself at one point trying to imagine myself somewhere else, somewhere serious just so that I could make it through the hour. Let's see, serious... hmmm, school! School was serious. Ok, Guelph... think about the library, quiet, focused, researching, writing essays, serious.

I am pretty positive that I had either a huge smile/silent laugh on my face the entire time or a look of puzzlement, wondering what kind of bizzare massage technique she was performing at the moment. The funniest one was right at the beginning. She started the massage with a scalp massage. I LOVE head massages. I used to love when the headlice ladies came to school with their sticks and used to look through our hair. In fact, I used to get my Emily to check my head with pencils when we were little. So anyway, she's doing the standard rubbing around and then she stops and starts slapping my head... all over, with both hands. I thought this was kinda weird. I was listening to hear if Michaelle's girl was doing the same thing to her but didn't hear it. Is this because I talked you into giving us the massages for 1/3 less than you asked?? It is isn't it? This punishment.

So anyway, in the end my treat to myself turned out to be money well wasted, but at least I've learned that I should never pay anything but Monopoly money for a massage. Or better yet, stick to headlice checks.

Machu Picchu.

2006-05-08T11:58:00.000-04:00

Let's see, where to start? How about with our 4:30 wake up call. Yes, Michaelle and I woke up at 4:30 so that we could make it up to Machu Picchu to see the sun rise. This would have been a good plan, except for the fact that Machu Picchu is in the jungle and as such the mist didn't fully clear o' that glorious morning until about 10 in the morning. But it was pretty amazing nonetheless. Its hard to put it into words, so I will just post some pics.

Inca Trail mental journal (day 2)

2006-05-07T17:42:00.000-04:00

6:30 am - Amazing breakfast... toast, porridge, fruits and yogurt, and pancakes...Mmmm, ready to hit the road.

9:00 am - Mind over body, mind over body. I will live to see another day. Mind over body....

9:40 am- Oh God, why have you forsaken me???

10:00 am - Come on please, just a little oxygen!!

10:30 am - Ok, this is ok. The path seems to be flattening out ahead.

10:45 am - Ok, fine. I promise. I will toss my Da Vinci code as soon as this is over, just let me BREATHE!!! .... I'm never going to make it!

11:10 am - I am the CHAMPION!!! Wow, I'm amazing, what a piece of cake.

That was "Dead Woman's Pass". No, it didn´t get its name from the sheer number of people who just don´t make it, its named as it is because from the other side of the mountain you are supposed to be able to see what looks like a woman lying on her back with her feet in the air.

That was definately the most challenging part of the trek. The climb was not much, about a thousand metres up, but the top of the mountain was 4,200 metres above sea level... higher than I've ever lugged (yes, lugged probably describes it best) myself. That day we hiked 11 hrs. The first day was 5 and the third day was 6. Because of a landslide a couple weeks ago we were unable to do the traditional hike all the way to Machu Picchu, seeing the sun rise in the morning. Instead, on the 3rd day we hiked down from the mountains and followed the rail road tracks into "Machu Picchu Town", aka Aguas Calientes.

The landscapes were amazing. I have yet to go out west of Canada, so I haven't really seen mountains of this size. The most amazing part (besides the views) was probably the porters on the trail. These poor guys carry all our camping gear, food, and everything but our on personal things on their backs, usually in homemade packs. The amount can't exceed 20 kilos, but I'm sure they get as close as possible. Then these guys run the whole trail trying to get ahead of their groups to that they can have meals prepared for us when we arrive at camp. It is seriously unreal. Anyway, its hard to put too much into words, so I'll just post some pics.

Lake Titicaca.... come on now, act your age!

2006-04-30T23:32:00.000-04:00

Last week thursday Michaelle and I had the misfortune of booking a tour of the Lake Titicaca Islands. I shouldn´t say that, the 2 day trip was actually really great, but the morning of the trip we sat almost an hour in our hotel lobby only to find that someone had messed up and that we had been left behind. Another hour and a half and many unhappy words later we arrived at our first destination where we met up with our original group. The first stop was the floating islands. These are islands that have for years been constructed by indigenous peoples by pilling up reeds cut from the lake over and over. Honestly, I don´t really get it either. Nonetheless they manage to conduct their everyday lives on this islands (I think the guide said there were 40 or so). They have schools, hospitals, PONDS!! Its really crazy. I will post pictures when I find a better computer.
Our second destination was a 3 hour s-l-o-w and steady boat ride out into the lake to the island of Amanteni. Here we were greated by our new family for the night. Michaelle and I stayed with the family of Sr. Segundino. He was the nicest little island man with his pin stripped pants, wool vest, sandles and cowboy-ish hat. In the afternoon we had a communal soccer game, then climbed to the top of the island to see the sun set. That night we helped "la Senora" make dinner then Segundino helped Michaelle and I into everyday local dress before heading down to the community centre for a hip-hoppin´party of flutes and drumming. It was pretty interesting. The next morning we took another 1 hour boat ride to the next island, Taquile.

This island was gorgeous, we basically just walked in circles around the island gradually going higher and higher, then after a couple hours of hanging out in the main square we did the same thing back down again. Yeah, I´ll post pictures.

Now we are in Cusco and loving it. It is such a nice town with so much to see. Wednesday we begin our 4 day hike to Machu Picchu.

King of the road.

2006-04-29T22:47:00.000-04:00

I´ve decided that I am probably prepared to take my Peruvian drivers test. I´ve spent quite a few hours over the last 2 weeks observing driving patterns and it seems that basically the Right of Way in Peru is determined by size; the bigger you are the more worthy you are to be on the road. For example, some observations from the front of the bus:

I am a huge bus, I will drive on whichever side of the road I choose to, especially if my side is ladden with pot holes. I will go so far as to drive on the opposite shoulder to avoid all pot holes completely.
I am a huge bus, I will pass up a hill with a sharp left hand turn ahead because I am a bus and I am huge. I am able to do this because I have a horn and when I use it other vehicles barrelling in my direction (though blinded by the bend) will know I am coming, no matter how loud there music might be. (sorry, I wasn't prepared for that shot, but seriously, true story!)
I am a huge bus, if there are multiple cars ahead of me over the stretch of a mile and no oncoming traffic, I will remain in the passing lane until I have passed all of them. If another car should appear ahead of me (especially if it is a bike or motorcycle) and I have not yet passed all the cars I will run this car off the road, because I am the king of the road.

*** pictures to follow when i can find a computer that will take them...

Colca Canyon, Condors, and Coca

2006-04-25T19:15:00.000-04:00

We´ve just returned from a wonderful 2 day trip to the Colca Canyon. It is a far drive, about 5 hrs, but really beautiful. The drive begins around the mountains and volcanoes and through the low land, past the Vicuñas and down into the valley town of Chivay. We began the trip with a several hour hike up the mountain to some Incan tombs. Like most of the Incan and pre-Incan tombs in Peru they had already been broken into by grave robbers probably decades ago, who stole the ceramics. Thus, the graves we saw had human bones scattered everywhere, I really felt like I was impossing. Anyway, interesting fact: Incan tombs always face the east, because they worshiped the sun. Whereas pre-Incan tombs from different cultures would face north or south.

I think perhaps my favourite part of this trip was the landscape. Dad, you would have liked it. The region was entirely agricultural and it seemed that a lot of the locals working in the fields (especially the women) still wore traditional garments. Anyway, what was really spectacular about the landscape was that it was completely divided up into terraces. It was gorgeous looking out and seeing all the perfect lines dividing the land, and each little block was filled with a different colour. Also, because it was a farming region, it was not uncommon to come upon a cow, or sheep, or donkey just wondering down the road. In fact at one point we had to stop the car to allow a whole herd, or pack, or nipsyrussle or whatever of donkeys to pass by.

The last part of the trip was to Cruz del Condor, or Condor Cross. We were really lucky when we went because on that day we were able to see 8 condors, which according to our guide is quite unusual. The condor is the largest bird or the heaviest bird capable of flying. It was really spectacular, some of them flew down within a couple metres of our heads. Here are some pics.

Oh, and to fulfill the title of this post, Michaelle and I chewed our first coca leaves. We´ve had them before in teas but we´d never chewed them before... it is quite complicated. The process involves taking about ten leaves and wrapping them around a tiny chunk of some kind of lime stone. Then, you stick this big wad of leaves into the back of your mouth and between your molars, chew a minute then just hold it in your cheek chewing occassionally for the next 30 mins or so. In order to have any effect that cocain has you would have to chew something like 40kgs of the leaves at once. Our way you only feel a little numbness in your mouth and throat, but I still consider myself pretty bad anyway! hahaha. I guess I should also explain that we haven´t just been sporadically poppin´coca leaves, they are used by people here to combat altitude sickness and nausea, something we haven´t really been affected by. hahaha.

Bus Cama, Awesome!!!

2006-04-22T14:52:00.000-04:00

I am now safely in Arequipa, but it was quite a trip getting here. Michaelle and I got tickets for a Bus Cama, which basically means a bus with beds. However, this is again one of those areas where Latin America and I differ on our understandings of some things. A bus cama pretty much means that your seat maybe reclines a little more than usual and there is this padded foot rest thing that flips down so as to convince you you´re in a bed. I was not fooled. This was maybe the most uncomfortable ride I´ve been on. I can´t blame it all on the bus though. A huge contributer to the horridness of the ride was the route itself. The trip was about 9 hours total... well 10.5 if you factor in the fact that the bus was an hour and a half late... but, in here that is expected. The first 3 hours were along a super bumpy road. It was so rough that the windows and everything inside the bus rattled for a full 3 hours. When this part of the trip ended, the next horror began. The bus had at this point reached the coast, so for the next 4 or 5 hours the path taken was one of inceasant curving, in and out and back and forth and breaking and accelerating, all in order to follow the country´s uneven coast line. I couldn´t get any rest because every minute I would roll from one side of my seat to the other, nearly rolling off into the aisle. This however was not the most unsettling part. The bus was (as Lonely Planet so aptly describes) "clinging torturously to the sand dunes dropping down hundreds of feet to the sea". Yup, it was possibly the most terrifying thing I`ve ever experienced. But we arrived safely and have been enjoying the city of Arequipa. The weather is gorgeous. Monday we are going on a 2 day trip into the Colca Canyon, the world´s deepest canyon.

Tomorrow we are taking a full day excursion up to the 5 star hotel in town to lounge by the pool ... What an adventure!

Ta-ta
laura.

Nazca Lines

2006-04-22T14:22:00.000-04:00

Thursday morning of last week Michaelle and I took a trip to see the Nazca lines. There are a bunch of theories about the origin of these lines, but I think the basic understanding is that they were etched into the earth about 3000 years ago by the Nazca civilization. The mystery surrounding the lines lies largely in the fact that they can only really be appreciated from the sky, or from a viewing tower. So, how did the creators so accurately draw them from the ground? Also, many of the drawings don´t coincide with the settlement location of the Nazca peoples. The Nazca lived in the desert and one of their drawings is of a monkey and another is of a killer whale. Anyway, I had a great time. Michaelle hated it. We were advised not to eat anything before flying because many people get sick from the small plane´s twisting and turning to give tourists good photo ops. By the end of the flight Michaelle was staring forward, not at all interested in taking in any more lines. haha. The photo to the left is of an Astronaut or Alien and the one below is the whale.

Damn technology!!

2006-04-21T18:41:00.000-04:00

So I´ve posted some pictures, both on the blog and on the picture site, but there seems to be some miscommunication between myself, my digital camera, and the computer. I continue to select very specific pictures to post on the blog and when the picture posts it is a completely different picture. Likewise, uploading pictures to the website has resulted in the posting of pictures i never intended to post and the mysterious absence of some I actually requested to upload. Oh well, asì es. We are now in Arequipa, we took an over night bus last night... not a good time. I will have to explain later, my time is up.

Holy Guanisimo!!

2006-04-18T22:03:00.000-04:00

Wow, I don´t even know where to start. Michaelle and I have had a pretty action packed couple of days. I guess its easiest to start at the beginning. I will try to include only the most vital details, for those of you who have minute attention spans.

Lima - I guess the highlight of our short stay in Lima was the tour of the city. A friend of mine from Toronto has family in Lima and they met us at our hostel and took us on the most extensive tour we could have ever had. Ricardo and Lucy showed us everything from the central square w/ the National Palace and Cathedral, to the entire length of the city´s coast.

Pisco - Sunday afternoon we got a bus to the coastal town of Pisco 4 hours south of Lima. The drive there was really magnificent. As soon as we left Lima the landscape was littered with archeological digs that most locals didn´t seem to notice much. I didn´t realize it before, but apparently Lima is surrounded by desert. This sandy and hilly view continued most of the trip, with sand dunes on one side of the bus and cliffs down to the ocean on the other. The farther away we got the higher the sand dunes became. Our arrival in Pisco was... interesting to say the least. Our hostal in Lima had assured us that the bus we were taking was a direct bus into Pisco. Apparently the definition of "direct" was lost somewhere in translation. Rather than driving us into town (as was my impression) the bus dumped us on the side of the PanAmerican Highway and we had to hire a "taxi" (aka sketchy car with an eager driver) the remaining 5 kms into the actual town. The second you get off the train you are attacked by drivers each wanting to win your fare. Pisco is kinda a dump, not really what i was expecting. I also almost died though on a chunk of something really REALLY spicy in my Ceviche (raw fish marinated in Lemon juices w/ seasoning), a traditional food here.

Paracas - From Pisco we went to Paracas to take in the Islas de Ballestas and the Paracas National Park. The islands great. The boat ride out the the island is about a 20 minute ride through teal water like I´ve never seen before, it was gorgeous. On our way out we passed a mysterious figure etched into the sand called Candelabro (below). As we got closer to the islands we realized that the black colour a top of the islands was actually formed entirely by the birds covering the surface. Not surprisingly, this bird sanctuary produces an important export for Peru -- Guano. Yeah, you know what I´m talking about.... fertilizer and tons of it. Other than these guano producing birds, the islands were home to hundreds of penguins and even more sea lions. There were also dolphins, and flamingos in the summer season.

Huancachina - Last night we stayed in this really picturesque oasis of Huancachina (I´ll post pictures when i can, but try googling it for now). This was definately an experience. The village surrounds a lagoon which is surrounded by towering sand dunes. Not only were the dunes spectacular to look at, but we had a wild time tearing them up in our dune buggies and on our sand boards. These dune buggies are insane. They go up and down the steepest slopes and stop on a dime. Riding through them was like a natural rollercoaster ride. After a bit of driving around and playing "scare the tourists" we stopped to do some sand boarding. Basically the idea is like snowboarding but harder, my well refined snow boarding skills didn´t help me much. Its no surprise that there were a few classic wipe-outs.....haha. The hill we started on was really steep compared to anything i´ve seen skiing and they just continued to get steeper and longer. On the last hill they actually neglected to wax our boards because it was so long and steep it could definately seriously harm some over confident riders. It was a great day until our buggy died and the sun started to set. We had to push our ride down the hill on three different occations to start it up! haha. It was good fun though any way. Driving up and down the dunes was more fun in the dark. I permanently have sand in the tips of my shoes now from it entering through the material! Our dune buggy going straight down a vertical dune.

This was the longests and perhaps steepest hill we did... those are our tiny little dune buggies at the bottom.

Today I am in Nazca. The city is nice and inviting and our hostal is pretty comfortable. Tomorrow we will leave in the morning to see the Nazca lines (a collection of mysterious drawings etched into the earth that can only be seen from the sky) then we will grab another bus to Arequipa where we plan to stay a few days. I will try to get this picture uploading thing working.

Ta-ta
Laura

Oh, and I have the power...

2006-04-14T11:38:00.000-04:00

I just want to quickly clarify something about "comments". Like I said earlier, I would love to get your comments/hellos. But, I'll have you know, I control the power of which comments actually make the cut. So if they're not funny enough, forget it! haha.. no, seriously.

If you don't want your comment posted just say it. I think for the most part though I can judge whether it public or private or not. Likewise, if you are inclined to say something that is perhaps not family friendly (Kassie, I'm looking at you!) go ahead, I'd love to hear it, but I'll likely not post it. So, in conclusion, both comments and general hellos are very welcome. In fact, I think you should send one now! .... Ok, later is fine too.

ta-ta

22hrs and counting...

2006-04-13T23:49:00.000-04:00

My bags are packed, I'm ready to go. Yes, the content count of my backpack has soared from zero to something like 30 times my body weight... I can see this is going to get interesting. I'm going to be the most generous tourist ever pretty soon. I'll be the one giving away my clothes, bug spray, vitamins... peanut butter, whatever it takes to lighten the load.

So Michaelle and I leave tomorrow night from Toronto -- straight 8hr flight to Lima, arriving in the early hours of Saturday morning. Here's a preview of Laura and Michaelle in Peru: We have a month pretty well planned (I'll disclose our route as we go, I don't want any crazy terrorists who follow my blog to be able to intercept us on our way, because, you know, our route is definately NOT predictable.... Oh, "they" probably scan the internet for the word "terrorist(s)".. oh, i said it again!!). Ok, sooo anyway, after the month things get kinda blurry. Michaelle sadly abandons me and returns to Canada while I (if things go as planned and I don't fall in love and get married and settle down) will mosey on up to Ecuador.

Its so exciting, I love the unpredictability of it... the spontaneity, the exploring and discovery. Oh, I'm gonna be so wise when I get back! haha... On that note, I think I'll conclude this posting by taking a moment to reflect on a thought from the brilliant and always thinking Jack Handy... I think this quotation captures very well what lies before me. He says:

"Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery and that's why so is mankind."

goodnight.

Disclaimer:

2006-04-05T13:06:00.000-04:00

I can't bare to hear the sound of my own voice (don't even try to make a joke out of that... not funny) and I hate to see pictures of myself (though that is usually due to the fact that i'm probably the least photogenic person alive), so I can't imagine how this posting of my personal thoughts in a public space is going to go (I'm sure I won't ever be able to read it). I will try though, for the sake of my concerned friends and family at home, to post something here regularly.

There are a few links below if you have an interest in Peruvian weather or if you want to check out Brendan's adventures in Japan. I should say, the likelyhood of finding pictures at the "more pictures" link will rest on my patience and skill to upload pictures at the various internet cafes - whether high speed or developing country speed.

Anyway, that's it... that's my warning, I hold myself completely unaccountable if this blog does not keep you sufficiently distracted from what you're really supposed to be doing. I will try to keep it up and I hope to keep you entertained. Feel free to leave me comments too, I would really love to have them.

Ta-ta
laura.

Number of items packed: zero