Alive in Equador

and well, for now, in Equador.  We are in a small town, not in Guayaquil or Quito.  It´s safe, mountainous and gorgeous.  If you guys don´t know why we are posting this, it´s because you haven´t seen the news.  Apparently there is some civil unrest in Equador.  Here is a NYTimes article about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/world/americas/01ecuador.html?_r=1&hp.  The State department is recommending we stay where we are at and since Colombia and Peru have closed their borders and the International airport in Quito has been shut down by the air force, we figured that is a pretty good idea. We´ll be checkin the internets regularly, but any information you hear about this, we would love a forward.  Hope all is well back home and that civil unrest is kept to equatorial lines. 

(If some of you are confused that we are in Ecuador, it´s because we are, as always, behind on the blog.  We just got here a few days ago and just might be leaving as soon as possible.)

authentic arequipa

Authentic Arequipa
 
Authentic is generally a cut and dry type of word, if it's intended topic of discussion is not.  However, it's elongated brother, authenticity, in the world of traveling is hotly contested.  

Whether you are hiking the Andes, gorging on the provincial cuisines or riding buses with locals, we're all looking for that elusive unique and authentic experience.  The difference is between the experiences and what you find "authentic".  Plenty of those on our trail find sitting in a bar with gringos, speaking English and eating pizza and Italian food authetic enough. And admittedly, we occasionally do this, but find it authentic in the same way that Christmas is celebrated with Santa and fun-filled conifers.  Point being, authenticity, like everything else, tends toward relativity.

In our south American sojourn we've had plenty of authentic natural experiences, numerous authentic transportation experiences, but less of the authentic visually observed cultural experience (in part because of the innate paradox of being an outsider traveler trying to be an insider).  As a result, when we are lucky enough for them to arise, we find ourselves grateful for the opportunity and more entranced then normal of the offending locale.

Our first peru destination was Arequipa.  It is a big, beautiful colonial city.  White fascaded buildings adorn the steets.  Fountain laden centers decorate its plazas.  And western grade restaurants line the main steets.  It is a far cry from the general decrepitude that encapsulates Bolivia, which is to say the city had us at cleanliness.

But cleanliness isn't authentic, at least in most SA cities.  No, we also had chance shine its little light on us.  We arrived the week (sic) of the city's independence day.  More importantly though, we choose a good hostel.  As our second night rolled in we were beckoned to the new sister hostel by management.  Promises of free drinks and live music was just lurement enough to draw us from our few beers and the intrigue of a large crowd gathering downtown for the late night fireworks show (apparently not a uniquely American event).

We showed up to a bar full of Peruvians with ten gringos in tow.  We all sat at one table and had a nice 8th grade ethnic dance vibe going on.  But as the night gathered steam (and booze) and all but two other gringos headed off to the discotecas, a new, more comfortable vibe began to take shape.  The 6 Peruvian band members became more animated, the singing more lively and the laughter more contagious.  The remaing gringos were still seated together, but Peruvians spotted the table as well.  Chips were shared.  Looks, and smiles, exchanged.  Even the occasional question and answer requited.  It became a group of people sharing the music of Arequipa through a set of old men who clearly, and dearly, love their town.  Four singers and two guitarist were our conduits that evening as music took us to Arequipa that night, something we won't soon forget.

Notes:
- Arequipa is the 2nd largest town, but has arguably the best central plaza, in Peru.
- Independence day began with a parade and finished with a fireworks show that might rival any in the states; or so we would imagine based on the biggest and brightest burst, which is all we could see from our obstructed view atop the hostel.
- The men singing for everyone collectively had at least 375 years of experience.  The party didn't finish until past midnight and I'm sure some must have required some sort of prescription medication to have lasted that long.
- After every. Single. Song. The band would finish with a cheer, something like: "Arei-Arei-Areiiiiiiii-Quipaaaaaa!". It was a clear case of unbridled cityism.  An enjoyable contagion that night.        
- One style of song, I'm convinced, was an elongated joke.  It was spoken word and rhythmic and each time the man finished everyone burst into a combination of laughter and applause.  It was brilliant to watch, like Eddie Murphy live meets a Sunday sermon.  
 

Pisco sour

an improper pictogram of our homemade pisco sours.  We didn´t follow any specific proportions (1).  If it was too strong, we added sugar.  Too weak, pisco.  Too unlimey, lime.  Unfortunately the only picture I got was of the first pisco sour, which had too little egg white, thus too little froth.  The next attempt was a more proper 1/3 froth to 2/3 pisco sour ratio.  I should have followed the last rule.  Not frothy enough, add egg white.  (note the recipe calls for bitters on top, but we were fresh out.)

juicin´ the lime.  as you can see they only had mini-limes.  I recommend buying the biggest, juiciest suckers out there...or a juicer. 



That´s sugar-in-the-raw-in-the-freezer to get cold.  It´s called simple syrup.  dump a load of sugar in a pyrex and mix in water as needed to dissolve the sugar (not sure if there is a ratio here either, but that´s what I did).

crack, crack, crack the egg.  toss the yolk between the two shells getting all the egg white out.  do ten push-ups.  shoot the egg yolk...good protein.

mix the pisco, egg white, simple syrup and lime juice together.  if you don´t have one of those fancy bar mixers, or a blender, simply wash out your latest kola real bottle, dump all the ingredients in there and shake vigorously.  class.

voila.  finished pisco, though pathetically un-frothy.  (add a drop of bitters at the end, if you are so endowed.) 

¨I love Pisco sours.¨  -Beth sadler (witness)

Ratios from epicurious
1 egg white
2 1/2 ounces Pisco Capel (see note)
1/2 ounce simple syrup
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
Angostura Bitters (see note, below)
(This copied itself. for fear of legal ramifications, I´m leaving it up here) Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/drink/views/Pisco-Sour-234357#ixzz10KGIRVYr

Note. These things are dangerous if not measured out properly, but a lot more fun...
disclaimer. If you happened to receive an email from me on/around the 5th of september that was vaguely rambling, non-sensical, overly sentimental, or condemning, you might have been victim of the pisco sour. 

Canyon de Colca

No, that´s not the glow of happiness on my face, that´s the gleam of sweat.  We´re starting this post with us finishing our trek.

The Place
Not quite as exciting as 6 days, 7 nights and without the lesbian lead masquerading as a full-fledged hetero, but unbelievable, regardless. We've finally done it: our boots are deflowered, our packs more rugged and our legs made of pure, unadulterated muscle. We are officially trekkers.

It's taken us six and a half months to get on-board anything longer than a day hike, but I have a feeling we've caught ourselves a liking to this walking business. Luckily we started in style. Our first trek began with our first abstinence policy: no guides, DIY. It also started with the worlds second deepest canyon, meaning the worlds second longest ascent out of a canyon. A daunting prospect, but one easily shoved idly to the background when walking downhill.

Colca canyon is officially the world's second deepest canyon (Coatahuasi, right around the corner, measures in at 160+ feet deeper). It is a few hours outside of Peru's second largest city, Arequipa. It is also 2nd to the grand canyon of America in looks and in the overwhelming sense of largeness that enormous canyons evoke. It is beautiful, with steep, sheer cliffs dotting its ravine borders. And unlike the grand canyon with its flat arroyo bottom (in places) Colca canyon seems to have far less accessibility to open grazing area near its riverside, hence the reason our destination at the bottom, Sengali, is populated by no less than three hostals advertising their relations to "oasis'" (oasisis?). But we'll get to that. First DIY trekking.



This picture has nothing to do with ´the plan´, except that without the plan, we wouldn´t have seen the beautiful bottom of this canyon.



The Plan
Part of our hesitation regarding trekking was "the backpack(s)". Two 20 kilos packs (x2.2 for pounds) for three straight days sounded miserable, sweaty (for me), body-destroying, soul-wrenching and possibly relationship regressing. Not to mention we would be adding three days of water and food, maybe another 5 kilos each, who knows what that could incur. Instead we formed an alternate plan: one backpack, only necessities, well, mainly necessities, as follows:

- lights, head
- a change of clothes each
- swimwear (yes, oasis comes with pools)
- about 8 liters of water
- tent
- sleeping bags
- 2 books (God Delusion and something by Hesse, if you are the curious type)
- basic hygiene products, including sun block.
- and food: lightest, energy-filled as possible. Peanut butter, 6 homemade jerky sticks, jam in a plastic bag, a can of tuna salad, 4 tangerines (not light, but worth it), 6 pieces of cheese, 3 avocadoes and 13 pieces of bread (8 small-medium and tasty egg/sesame rolls; 4 large, hearty pieces; 1 baggete, of which half was eaten while the other half crumbled away.

We unloaded my bag, dumped it all into our recently purchased Bolivian souvenir pack and refilled it with the above goods. The result wasn't quite titanium bike frame light, but it wasn't a Maury Pauvich baby any longer either. Somewhere around 25 pounds sounds about right, maybe a bit more. Manageable.

Our last unplanned detail was navigation. We had no map, no idea where to go outside of the starting village. So, we asked questions to the tour agency at our hostel, who in fact was not a tour agent, but knew enough to give us info: "Colca canyon is easy, just follow the trail, the big one. The small are dangerous." Beth snapped a photo of a map she found on the Internet, for precautionary reasons, and we headed out the following morning.

Walking down this started our trek off right, with blisters.

The Execution, or how we brutalized our poor feet
After a short bus delay, 6 hours in a bus terminal and the resulting midnight stopover in a middling town, (1) we arrived a half day late to my favoritely coined city in SA, Cabanaconde.

We took advantage of a few bars handing out maps with directions in hopes of wooing post-hike drink purchases, we asked half the town where the trail head was located and eventually we guessed the correct direction to find our way to the beginning of the next three days.

You would expect the downhill portion, our descent into the canyon, to be simple, relaxing and even tranquil, not a difficult, harrowing journey, taxing not only on your body, but on your mind as well. Perhaps not as dramatic as that, the steepness, the added 25 pounds and the mid-day heat collectively joined together to make this the hardest portion of our journey.

We descended what, from the bottom, looked almost to be a sheer cliff. Though not explicitly fearful of heights, I don't love them. What is enchanting about this hike is that the fear helps to create a more surreal experience. 4 hours plunging away at the cliff, multiple blisters and an achey body was well worth the reward of landing at the bottom and having the pleasure of leering up at the massive peak (is it a peak, if you've went down a giant hole?), the unforgiving wall, beautiful in its austerity.

We camped that night under the cliff, devouring peanut butter sandwiches and a Coca Cola and relishing in our days work. Beauty incarnate.

The following day was a relative breeze. Another 4 hour hike, one initial climb with a following downhill, both about an hour or so. The highlight was arriving at Sengali, a quaint little oasis found at a widening of the riverbed. About three little camping/hospedajes habitate the base, with at least two shepherding us in with pools. Not just any pools, but waterfall pools found only in the playground of the rich...here, however, was free to camp. Not for the rich of heart, for the poor backpacker it beckons. We lounged, swam, indulged in a veggie dinner served by the campground and rested our feet for the last, and mist intimidating portion if our journey: the ascent.

Paraiso.  Paradise. 

As the canyon is at lower altitude and located in an arid, desert environment, the days can be painfully hot. The camp advised a group of older travelers to get up at 3am to start the 4 hour climb out. We took heed, waking up at 4am to pack up the tent, dawn or headlamps and get the hell outta dodge, or paradise.

Hiking in the dark is, I have decided, the best way to hike, in particular uphill. There is no way to judge your progress, there is no looking up nor down, there is simply one foot in front of another. It lulls you, like a mobile or a kid in a car seat, into something of what I'd imagine a medatative state to be. Your focus is drawn to your movement and breath, and in my case to sweat, as well (even in the predawn temperatures, sweat). By the time the sun began cresting over the surrounding "peaks"--a mess of oranges and reds shimmering across the normally colorless (colorless being brown) rock--we realized we were more than half way up the beast.

The rest of the hike, with the suns reception of perspective, was tough going. Steep and arduous and unrelenting compared to our first hour and a half, we reached the summit about an hour after daybreak. Two and a half hours of near non-stop, lack-of-switchback, climbing was exhausting. But the top was made all the more welcoming as a result. Triumph was trumped by our sense of accomplishment and then trumped again by the knowledge that we did it ourselves. With our pocketbooks thanking us, our legs hating us and our hearts content we walked out the last 30 minutes to our waiting bus and headed back to dorm beds and lockers that would once again take over our duties of caring for those burdensome packs.

The newest craze in the backpacking world, Gangsta-in-a-Hipster´s-outfit Hiking

(1) Beware, our con game is getting good. This town, Chivay, is known by Colca goers as a tariff trap. Once you stop there, you are almost sure to pay a "visitors" tax. The town is dusty, meager, touristy if touristy simply entailed lots of miserable lodgings and a few overpriced pizza places and NOTHING else. Essentially a place that reeks of death of the soul, seemingly the last place on earth that should try to charge you a fee to visit. Yet, it does. We were harangued, perpetually hounded and eventually pleaded with to pay. We claimed ignorance, feigned stupidity (much easier to do in broken Spanish than you might think) and stood our frugal ground...and won. No tax without representation for these two travelers.

Side note: We learned the tax goes only to the city, not the park, not other cities along the way. Just this soul bender. Hence our rationale--not to forget cheapness--for not paying. We encountered a guard on our exiting as well, but went with the tried and true "we can't find our ticket" method. He waved us on, we left 35 soles happier.

The Day Nature Called To Piss On Me

Today was a first for me, at least in the last 20 odd years.  I had a refreshingly youthful experience, or rather, I was refreshed by an experience particular to youths, I pissed myself.  No, it was not on purpose as some of you might imagine.  Or as others, of a more presumptuous nature might think, I was not under the influence of any booze, aka bringing to reality the term "piss drunk".  Nope, just a common old (not a depends reference) mistake.  You see, i'm a little more unexperienced than some might imagine.  Yes, I've painfully experienced the birds and the bees talk, powered thru my first drivers-Ed course and the following DMV debacle, not to mention seen the inside of a girls bedroom.  But, before a few days ago I'd never fully experienced, in the true coming-of-age, carnal type of way, Nature--nor it's beastly, near remorsless vengence.  No, I've only had pleasant to kind experiences with mother earth.  So, when trekking (this post is a few away , details to follow) through the wilderness for four days with nary a toilet in sight, what am I to do when "nature" calls, but to embrace it.  

To give you as many erroneous details as possible, I'll go through this with as much painstacking and first-person detail as possible, so you too can live five minutes in my underwe...shoes.

Im equating myself to a five year old child as I struggle through 4000m glacial peaked terrain.  It's like the first night after peeing the bed and actually being cognizant of doing something wrong.  The difference is I'm 28 and preparing to do something that is in fact more normal than any other time I've committed myself to performing the exact sane act I've performed thousands of times in thousands of places.  I cannot help to be uncomfortable, concerned, even slightly disgusted by what I'm about to do, it's do unaccustomarily natural.  At this point, however, I have no choice.  I must go through with it, my mind has already overpowered my body going on two days now and my intestinal fortitude being pressed as such, is about to burst.

I start reeling for information.  How does this work?  Where in this abandon land outside of a handful of other tenters, do I go?  On what?  Is it like yoga or football practice, or some weird ancient torture method?  Where have I seen this done before?  Movies? No.  Television? No.  Ahhh, yes, I've seen this done by Beth and at least a handful of other girls (no, this is not an indicator of some perverse enjoyment I get out of "watching", just a function of living in IV--inadvertent witness, that's my story).  Let me think.  First you unbuckle.  Then you squat.  Then you go.  Voilla.  Finito.  Back to work.  

Alright.  I'll need a good spot.  Not many people here, but enough that I don't want to be interupted during my "vulnerable time".  Some teepee.  And a good view.  It's no book, but it'll have to do.  [I inform Beth she'll have to take a load off for a few minutes, because that's what I'm about to do.  I also ask her to play lookout for me.  Maybe make a few deep dog barks if she hears any people getting close.  A throaty growl might work too.  Anything really to scare them off.  I then proceed to find a cute little nook overlooking a lake filled with glacial-melt that happens to be low enough in elevation to be surrounded by auburn-leaved trees.  It's actually a perfect location.  I feel like god, or at least an incredible real estate agent.  Back to the story...]. I'm ready.  My well thought out plans have come to fruition and though nervous, I fell prepared.  

Unbuckle.  Squat.  Lean part-way against toilet-level rock.  Go.  

Hmm, not so difficult.  The rock and the angle are a bit strange, but admittedly you might say this is even a bit enjoyable, if only for the contrast.  Wow, that's a nice little breeze. 

Wait a second.  What's that?  What's wet, why is it WET???  Oh god, i'm peeing.  Why am I peeing?  I'm not supposed to be peeing.  That's not why I stopped here.  Stop peeing.  Stop.  Now.

Shit (no really, that's what I said.  I understand, under these circumstances the irony, but at that point I wasn't thinking, just speaking..in shock).  Pull your pants down further.  Now finish.  

Ok.  You're going to have to litter more than expected here.  Vigorously wipe that spot.  You mean puddle Jason.  Yes, vigorously wipe that puddle, blot if necessary, until it's not soaking wet.  Good.  Drop toilet paper in prepared mini-hole.  Excellent.  Now.  Pull up pants.  God they are wet.  Suck it up.  It's cold.  Yea, but it's windy.  Just do it.  Then find a rock to cover up messes.  Done.  

Alright.  Now here is the most important part.  Turn around. Walk back up the hill to your growling girlfriend and make sure there isn't the slightest hitch in your step.  Walk like your pants are dry and your crotch smells like vanilla bean and tea leaf.  You do that a no one will ever know about mother nature's miscue.  Now go and keep quiet.

And that the day nature called to piss on me.       

3 Conversations: Copacabana. Lake Titicaca. Isla del Sol.

Dark Man and Beth.  Sunburned.  nose peeling.  Must. Hide. From. Sun.

Copacabana
A fat San Franciscan walks into a tour agency...in Copacabana, run by a Bolivian.
SF: What the hell is there to do in this town?
B: No entiendo.
SF: No entiende?  I asked you what's there to do here, not to speak gibberish.  
B: No entiendo.  Lo siento.
SF: I don't give a damn about your seat.  I've been here three hours.  There's souvenir shopping, which I had enough of after about twenty minutes.  There's about fifty places that serve the same variations of trout and half are lined up side-by-side in shacks along the shores of lake T, not to mention all the hype-people screaming gibberish at me as I walk by.  There's two plazas, a central market (that has the stink of rotted sea), and the most famous lake in South America, yet nothing to do?  This is America, isn't it?
B: Quieres ir a isla del Sol?
SF: Absolutamente, senor!  Porque no digame antes?        

Lake Titicaca
A conversation between BETH and jason. 
Beth: That's a big fucking lake.
Jason: Yes, the enormous size almost appears to create its own ocean-like influence upon the surrounding environment. Or, perhaps, something akin to the great lakes.
B:  that's what I said: 'that's a big fucking lake'.  Fucking dark blue too.
J: Yes, it's a deep, cobalt hue of blue.  Like fresh blueberries meeting indigo in spring.
B: You sappy pussy.  It's blue like opening day at Dodger Stadium, but with less Spanish speakers.
J: You have a point.  I wonder if it is the remains of an ancient inland sea and if so, if the water has a high salinity content?  
Beth: Shut up already, there's animals over there drinking the water, you think it's salty if animals drink it.  They ain't camels.  And of course it's an inland sea, it's enormous. But not that kind.  We are at 3800m, there are glaciers and rivers everywhere.  It's fed by them.  
J: Wow, that's amazing.  Such a large body of water fed just by glacial melt and rain.
B: What, you think god just took a hose and filled a giant hole he had dug by slave labor?  No.     
J: I love lake Titicaca.  
B: Quiet, please.  Just enjoy the sunset.


Isla del Sol
A conversation between a stone tablet journalist of pre-Incan Isla del Sol and a native.

"My name is Pachu Machu and I'm a pre-Incan native of Isla del Sol--though at this point I don't know I'm pre-Incan, because Incan doesn't exist."

And how long have you lived on this island?
"My friend Wiki Puma tells me that artifacts found here have been dated from 2200 BC and the ruins speckled throughout the island date to around the 15th century."     

How do you farm in such steep and rocky terrain?
"It's easy, we terrace most of the hills, leaving the land striarated with mini-farms of wheat, barley, maize and the protein-packed quinoa.  The effect created resembling an island of giant steps."
  
How do you defend yourself?
"Defending is not so easy, in fact, now that I think about it I have no idea how we ineffectually defended this island.  Being a figment of jasons imagination has its factual limitations, clearly.  As the island is one of the holliest of Incan [This is what the guidebook says at least] sites and the birth of Inca creation myth, it must be that the Incas attacked better than we defended."  

What exactly do you know then?
"The first thing that comes to mind is that i have long black hair, in a ponytail and wear a loincloth, though when I think about that it makes no sense seeing as we are located in the middle of the Andes at around 3800m.  Once again, I blame my creator for this lack of insight."

And what about the island itself?
"Physically, the island is about 12km long, it's the biggest, of many islands doting the surface of lake titicaca and it's a serene place to live when it isn't cold [LT has never frozen over, so it doesn't get that cold] and we aren't being attacked by the future Inca and/or their future enemies, the Spanish.  And perhaps, if one were visiting as a tourist, they might spend two days here hiking across the island, seeing our predecessors ruins and enjoying the peaceful demeanor of a modern tourist destination that has yet to be invaded by roads, tourist companies and fast good joints."   

If you zoom in, it looks as if the islands in the background are floating.  Lake Titicaca: great name, great views.

This hike, as in Sorata, was about 24km.  A long day, but filled with happiness, as you can see in Beth´s face...errr, mine.

A bit desolate, but yet had whole sections of preserved ruins.  This is prime time real estate for some ruins.

The land is dry and desolate, but the natives were able to manipulate this arid land into a habitable space.  Beautiful views out over the lake.  Not sure the balanced rocks are relics of the past.

Sorata

Notice the smile, kilometer 5, max.

24 kilometers, by foot.  Bolivian Independence day.  A failed hostel hike.  Rasta.  A new place to stay.   A Colombian.  Some wine in a box.  New moon (less pop-lit, more celestial).  Bats.  And a cave lake.  

Kilometer 1:
Talking.  Fresh: mind, body, soul and clothes.

Kilometer 2:
Downhill.  Easy, breezy, beautiful co...wait.

Kilometer 3:
Dreams dashed.  The promised book exchange/cafe/campground is full of M is for Murder [me] and an abundance of German pre-teen "literature" (which I imagine is a little like electronica, without the ecstasy).

Kilometer 4:
Getting hot.

Kilometer(s) 5-9:
Winding, dusty road peaks out over picturesque town sitting under 6000m high glacier.  Life sucks!

Kilometer10:
Lost.

Kilometer 11:
Found. (1)

Kilometer 12:
Civilization.  Kind of.  A cluster of shacks with a second cluster in the rear. Coca Cola signs beginning to distinguish their welcoming selves amongst the mountainous backdrop.

Kilometer 13:
Welcome to the grotto.  No, not home to a bunch of bunnies, but rather to a family of bats.  Avocado, tomato and pickled onion sandwiches for lunch, an underground cave-river, replete with underground cave-river paddle boats, and a well-lighted path greeted us in the depths of the grotto.  It was hot, humid and rocky.  It was a cave.  A pretty cave.

Welcome to the Bat Cave!

Kilometer 13.1
Coca Cola.  With real sugar!  We are becoming addicts.  Seriously.  We need an intervention.  Come down here and help us.  Quickly.

Kilometer(s) 13.2 - 15:
Uphill.  Mid-day.  Sunny day.  Shockingly rabid pace.  Key to success:  Played music trivia games.  Choose a word, then alternate turns with each person saying a song with the chosen word.  It was like 3 red bulls for a previously anemically lethargic Beth.  No stopping, just singing..."Save the AnnnnEeeeMals.".  Beth won, this time.

Kilometer 16/17:
No more games.  A bet.  Vickers' wager.  If Beth doesn't ask "how much longer" again, I'll piggy back her the last 50 yards.

Kilometer 18-20:
Five minute forced stops along the single lane road to watch all the buses with all the tourist--who infringed upon what was supposed to be our private grotto--get crated back to town, thus missing out on the beautiful self-inflicted dust-riddled (bus dust this time) walk.

Kilometer 21:
Getting closer.  Sore feet.  Nervous.  Piggy back rides are best in pools...with fresh legs.

Kilometer 22:
Beth getting anxious.  A big uphill to go.    No more games, just sun and sweat and tired legs.

Kilometer 23:
Winner!  2 minutes after pointing out that Beth hadn't asked 'how much longer' for at least 7km, she makes the fatal mistake.   Gloating.  Complaints of technicalities.  W-i-n-n-e-r!

Kilometer 24:
Nothing like finishing a hike by walking into a town in the midst of revelry.  Parades.  Flags.  Streamers.  Dancing.  Ice cream.  And Mexican food.  Sweet, Tex-mex fajitas.

Revelry.

The real winner: Bolivian Independence Day in Sorata.     

(1) the path is actually a road with the occasional taxi running through and filling our desolate trail with dusty ancient llama dung. Thank goodness because we hailed one of these dusters down to make sure the steep trail going off into the hills, which we bypassed for flatter ground, was not the correct path.

Index:
24 kilometers = Should be clear by now, but if not...a hike to a grotto beginning in the adventure town of Sorata, just 3 1/2 hours outside of La Paz.
Bolivian Independence day = I'll let wiki do the work here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivian_War_of_Independence?wasRedirected=true
A failed hostel hike = we walked about 1 1/2 kilometers outside of town only to find the hostel full.  An uphill battle back with our packs led us to...
Rasta = A new place to stay, Jamaican theme and the cheapest business in town.  No Bob Marley though.  I thought that was obligatory for all Rastas.
A Colombian and some wine in a box =  self-explanatory.
New moon (less pop-lit, more celestial) = a potential 2 day hike was derailed, in part, by the new moon.  Tourist are not supposed to hike up to a lake near Sorata the couple days proceeding a new moon as the natives are rumored to perform ceremonies during this time of the month, their time of the month.
Bats and a cave lake = there were bats and a cave lake in the grotto.  Perhaps I should call it a grotto lake, though it seemed more a cave than a grotto to me.

Eating Out in Bolivia: A Vegetarian's Perspective

By and large, South America on a whole has exceeded my meatless gastronomical expectations. In Argentina and Chile, that (happily) meant alot of cheese and potatoes and in Brazil,  who can complain about black beans and rice? Supplemented by the much-appreciated hostel kitchen, my body was balanced, happy, and relatively healthy.
   

 

 Not our pictures, but in case you needed help imagining the feasts.




Enter Bolivia. I'm not sure what happened, but I think the Spanish must have took all the chefs and recipe collections with them back to Spain in 1825.  And When Bolivians designed hostels, they left out the kitchen, perhaps wondering why anyone would want to eat something besides the white rice and fried chicken stands that fill tge streets at a 2:1 ratio to the amt of people in town. As a result, i was forced into a Bolivian love affair, becoming rather intimate with two simple but hardy men,  mr white rice and fried eggs.

It wasn't so much about love, or even passion, rather than necessity. They could give me what I needed: calories.

Our times together were simple. They almost always included no frills, like condiments or sauces and Mr. Fried Egg  had old habits that died hard: he pretty much refused to be scrambled or hard boiled,  let alone deviled or poached. We met several times a day, as a threesome for every lunch and dinner (although for breakfast I sometimes snuck around with Eggy alone in the form of a fried egg sandwich, but please keep this on the dl.)

Soon, it was really about habit more than anything else, so when the time came to call it quits at the Peruvian border, I put on a sad face to spare their feelings (after so much time together, I felt I owed them this courtesy), but on the inside i was beaming with the excitement of the unknown... A new woman with a newfound sense of freedom... Brimming with Fantasies of  what delectable little offerings Peru might hold...

If the American Heart Association recommends eating no more than three of four eggs a week, by my estimation, I should not eat any more eggs (or cholesterol) for 94 weeks.

See you in 2012,  Mr. McMuffin!

Crocs, and Piranhas, and Gringos! Oh My!

If her tornado had taken a different turn, Dorothy might have skipped Oz and ended up in the magical land of Rurrenabaque, a tourist-saturated town 20 hours northwest of La Paz. Rurre's unique landscape gives it prime time gringo-backpacker real estate: Emerald City (the green lush that is the Amazon jungle basin) accompanied by Munchkin Land (the pampas, inhabitated by possibly the cutest little creature we've yet to encounter outside of munchkins themselves,  the want-to-pinch-their-cheeks-cuties, the capybara.)

In fact, the commute to Rurre is much like Dorothy & Toto's own wild, swirling, twirling adventure.  Descending a couple of thousand meters over a relatively short distance along the famous deadliest road in the world (1), the Bolivian bus (read: worse- than -a- lemon, overly-booked, people- in -the -aisles, animals- under- the -seats, Chitti-Chitti-Bang-Bang of buses), traversed a side of a steep mountain road, whirling and twirling us around and continually giving us views of our potential death hundreds of meters down the canyon. Unlike lucky, little Dorothy's open sky commute, the road is also only one lane wide in several places, requiring the drivers to reverse, with a few only feet of land on each side on an unlit road on the side of a cliff, to allow another bus going the other direction to pass.  By the time we arrived, we were ten pounds lighter (water weight lost from the sweating in the sweltering heat, frostbitten (from the sweat freezing at night), and extremely happy to be alive.        

Upon arrival we merrily skipped and sang our way following the brown dirt road and (probably to no ones surprise) found the cheapest digs in town, family-run Residencial Jisilene, a cute little hospedaje  with hammocks overlooking the river and a friendly orphaned sheep to boot. After a little r&r, we went in search of the cheapest tour to take us to Munchkinland.


We ventured upon Munchkinland with our own little lollipop guild of 4 other gringos and a guide, 3 hours down a calm and beautiful river to Gringo Summer Camp.  Along the way, we spotted hundreds of crocodiles, dozens of species of exotic birds, turtles, and the star that stole the show, the golden munchkin himself, the capybara (if unfamiliar with this munckin relative, picture the cutest 130 pound guinea pig you can imagine. The capybara is in fact the world´s largest rodent.)

   

Little known to the outside world, the unoffical language of Rurre and it's surrounding tour areas is our familiar friend, English. At Summer Camp, we were told of our camp activities, including meal times and the organized "volleyball time". Although we hadn't seen a volleyball in our six months in South America, it somehow made sense (?) to include this activity, since it a well known fact all white people  love volleyball, even when in the pampas. We bunked up with 30 other pale people and enjoyed separate-but-equal facilities. (Gringo quarters vs Bolivian quarters, gringo dining table vs Bolivian dining table, etc. Seems Rosa Parks never made her way this far south.)
   

We spent the rest of our time in Pampa Munchkinland taking more trips out on the boat, spotting more crocs and caiman, birds and capybaras (who, like munchkins and gringos on this tour, hang out in groups of 10 to 30. although land animals, capycuties can miraculously stay underwater in croc infested waters for up to five minutes.)Additionally, we were introduced to the pink river dolphin, who is the uglier, less playful stepsister of our bottlenosed friends, but pretty thrilling to see in their own right.

Other gringo activities included watching two amazing sunsets on the pampas (flat grassland above the river and jungle-ly terrain below), monkey spotting, one beatiful sunrise, and "anaconda searching", which to our guide (who may have been working for the Wicked Witch of the West), inexplicably meant wearing wellies and trudging in a two feet deep thick mud pool for an hour. While all the other gringos and guides marvelled at an anaconda on the dry, sunny grass area nearby, our lollipop guild was stuck knee deep in mud, watching our more fortunate comrades on dryland finding anacondas. By the time we were out, we each had temporaily lost a shoe to the mud. Though I fell once, stuck in a crazy complicated yoga position to avoid being completely submerged in the goopy filth until someone could take the 5 minute, 4 ft journey to help me up, we made it out safely (and looking much more Bolivian with our new brown skin), but unfortunately not before the anaconda slithered away.  

Though we never found the Cowardly Lion or Scarecrow, there were several Tin Men missing a heart, who spent one afternoon (cut very short in order not to miss Gringo volleyball time) hunting and killing  (with a small, wallet sized piece of wood attached to fishing line and hook) pirahnas. Though our group only caught one (which was sneakily eaten at dinner to avoid being scene by the film crew of 2 from Colombia University documenting on the environmental impact of backpackers) (2), several small catfish were victims of collatoral damage.

After 3 days, we headed back to Rurre proper, still without any ruby slippers, and fretting over when our next opportunity to play volleyball would be.
Two days later, we were off again, this time to the Emerald City, located in Madidi National Park, accessible again only by boat.




After settling into camp at a gringo settlement of only ten,  we headed out to hike through the jungle with our new guild of 4 plus guide, Mario, who was also in cahoots with the Wicked Witch. After learning about the medicinal and practical uses of several varieties of plants we passed, Mario began banging his machete on a large, seemingly hollow tree. Unbeknowst to us, the purpose of this "parte de la adventura" (the south American guides favorite slogan when something on a tour goes against the gringo's liking) was to release 100s of this jungles version of oz's flying monkeys, angry black bees who had formed a nest there. Harmless but annoying and stinging little buggers, the bees nestle in your hair and clothing till they can make their way to your scalp, armpits, bellybutton, to stick to you, repeatedly stinging you. Not all members of our tour were amused.

Jane of the Jungle, twice. If you have the misfortune of zooming on the pic on the right, you will see that Jason is sporting a pony tail. 

After another 2 days of trekking through the forest, we discovered (unfortunately most of the time, with our noses first, a wild pig smells worse than Dickers after 4 days and no shower, which I also, unfortunately, know how that smells.) packs of 400+ wild pigs, macaws, monkeys, a puma footprint, seeds and plants used to make jewelry, and several new jokes about "Bat"s, since Mario, unable to fathom the "th" sound that does not exist in Spanish, really believed my parents named me after the night- loving creature.


Unfortunately,  we still hadnt found our ruby slippers by the time we left the Emerald City. With our original return date of September 7th quickly approaching and with no way to teleport ourselves back to Kansas, we had no other option but to extend our trip. Sometimes being a cheap little bastard has it's perks.... We'll see you all in the States for Christmas. Winterwonderland Volleyball, anyone?