~Mike
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Flying Quito to Columbia
Suzanne and I were hanging out in Quito dreading the next part of our trip, a 28 hour bus ride from Quito to Bogota. Not only would this be one of the longest bus rides we've taken but its also guaranteed to take us through the most dangerous part of a much-safer Columbia (the south). Of course we had checked out flights but a one way flight from Quito to Bogota was around $300 a person for a one-way! Strangely, if you make that a round trip, the price will sometimes drop! So obviously there is some sort of penalty for one way flights. I think I had heard of that before in the States but maybe with the rise of Southwest and the other discount airlines, its become a thing of the past. Not so down here, but the good news is we found a way around the penalty a multi-leg trip! I kind of stumbled upon it, but if you're considering a flight, try to consider two and make it a multi-leg trip and somehow you'll avoid the one-way penalty. For us, we decided first to go to Cartagena (on the Caribbean in Columbia) and then take a second leg to Bogota. I luckily just put it in as a multi-leg trip and it came up as around $350. So not only are we getting to Bogota but we're getting a very inexpensive leg thrown on for just a little more (the bus ride from Cartagena to Bogota is 20 hours each way). We calculated that we would save ourselves 70 hours in a bus! So if you're in a position like ours in South America, check out the multi-leg trip.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Whales and Surfing
In my last post, I talked about our new found freedom in not having to plan anything for the future for a couple of weeks. Well I'm glad to report that we still have managed to keep that freedom but its definitely a struggle! I have this nagging feeling that we shouldn't be here. That we should be looking up flights from Columbia to Brazil and planning what we want to do in Columbia while we're there. I think in large part the ability to avoid all this is where we are. We're currently on Ecuador's coast. Here in this location happens to be over 300 humpback whales who come here every year to mate and have their calves! Since that was one of Suzanne's goals for this trip, we decided to take a dreaded overnight bus to see them. Below is a couple of pictures of these huge but graceful creatures!
Suzanne's super-excited face: |
| From Whales |
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| From Starred Photos |
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| From Starred Photos |
Suzanne loved them so much that we went back the next day. Unfortunately, I happened to get sick that day and ended up barfing over the edge of the boat! But afterwords I felt much better and the tour continued!
While we were down here we decided to check the surrounding area and then we found out that just an hour away was the surfing village of Montanita Ecuador! Since I had been wanting to do surfing ever since my appetite was whetted in Peru, we put the rest of our plans on hold (yes!) and headed down. After getting some antibiotics from the 14 year old pharmacist in town for my stomach, I was feeling good enough to go surfing the next day! So today was the first surfing day and it was fantastic. Suzanne opted for just a body board since she thought she would enjoy that more. I felt like I improved considerably from the first time. I think the reasons for this was that the ocean floor was sand (instead of rocks) so I could walk my board up to the waves instead of paddling constantly. Next I think my shoulders are a bit stronger due to their previous beatings from last time. Anyway, I was getting up pretty consistently and now my goal for tomorrow is going to be learn how to turn the board and follow a wave. At least that's the plan.
So for now, that's where we are and what we're doing. We're liking this place so much we think we'll stay another day at least before heading back to Quito.
~Mike
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Ode to America
Throughout our journey we have been reminded of the many tourist destinations in America. Usually the conversation starts with us mentioning that we had last lived in Colorado. The first response to this statement is usually “Oh yes the Grand Canyon” since people associate Colorado with the Colorado river that flows through this famous place. It is at this point that Mike and I usually mention that neither of us have been to the Grand Canyon but hope to in the future. From Niagara Falls, Yosemite, Hawaii, Alaska, California, and the Florida Everglades we're developing quite a list of must see places in the US. The impression of most visitors is that the United States is a place of great cities and natural beauty. In our recent trip back to the United States I felt the same way. I experienced great awe seeing for the first-time the California coast near Monterrey and walking in the redwood forests. We had a great time in San Francisco seeing Mike's brothers Luke and Dane and our longtime friend Lance Johnson. Coming fresh from winter in Lima it was interesting to visit San Francisco and fast forward to the summer. Sea lions and surfers were common to both but the Spanish influences have been muted in San Francisco overshadowed by the magnificent bridges, state parks, skyscrapers, and subways. It was great to be back home.
The beauty of America continued as we traveled from Omaha to Chicago. I was glad that Mike also appreciated the drive across Iowa. Between the free wi-fi at rest stops, the paved roads, and the beautiful rolling hills I'm not sure what he enjoyed the most about Iowa. However, it definitely struck us how easy it is to travel in the United States and this is a more significant achievement than we had previously realized. Then we arrived in Chicago and the experience reinforced my belief that it is one of the greatest cities in the world. From the lakefront to the buildings, Chicago is such a beautiful city.
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| From Nicole and Dave's Wedding |
Then we had a brief stay in Omaha and got a chance to visit my favorite zoo!
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| From Omaha Summer 2010 |
Lastly we headed up to the Pacific northwest to visit friends in Bellingham and Seattle. The nature here reminded me of our time in Argentina and Chile. Here too are the glaciers, volcanoes, lakes, and thick forests that are a marvel to behold. The beauty truly takes your breadth away and it was great to have time to take it all in.
Northern Hemisphere Hospitality:
Seeing familiar faces, speaking the language, free water, free restrooms, and plenty of hope to go around it was easy to see how much we take for granted at home. Even the most downtrodden individuals seem fortunate by comparison. In America some people seem to be down on their luck. However, in their faces you can see that with some help they believe their situation could be quite different. By comparison some people we have encountered on our trip seem to have accepted their fate and don't even dare to dream of a different life. The American dream is unique in that anyone can hope to achieve it.
Our trip back gave me an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of hospitality. At Anne and Matt's wedding, the priest spoke about the importance of hospitality in marriage. He elaborated that hospitality is different than kindness because the goal of hospitality is to have people feel cared for and welcome. Maybe it is just because we have been traveling in a land of strangers but this message really resonated with me. I think my ideal society is not necessarily one focused on peace but rather one focused on hospitality. Conflict is bound to exist but if everyone feels welcome and cared for it is easier to focus on the issue instead of trying to discredit the individual. In our trip we were able to make it to two weddings (although if time travel was available we would have loved to be at four). I know a lot of people scoff at the effort and expense of a wedding. However, I think that a wedding is probably the best example of traditional hospitality. At a marriage ceremony all that is needed is two committed people and some witnesses to their willingness to enter into the covenant. The focus of a wedding seems to be sharing the couples' joy with all the family and friends that made them the people that they are today. I remember for our wedding discussing with Mike the merits of the wedding invitation. Mike was lobbying (jokingly he claims) for the far cheaper and more efficient e-vite option stating that everyone would love being able to see who else was coming, etc. It is true that if the purpose is simply informing people of the event the traditional invitation has serious competition from the e-vite. However, the reason the e-vite loses is on the hospitality scale. When people receive a wedding invitation that has been carefully selected, stamped, and addressed they feel personally invited and welcomed to the celebration. The wedding guest is expected to simply be present and celebrate. At both Anne and Matt's wedding and Nicole and Dave's wedding, I felt fortunate to be invited and be the recipient of such welcoming hospitality. After months of traveling it was fantastic to be surrounded by friends.
The hospitality continued throughout the trip. A special thanks to Luke, Betsy, William, my parents, Julie, Sarah, Nick, Jacob, Elaine, Larry, and Catherine for letting us invade your space and making us feel welcome. In addition to all the people we stayed with, thanks to all the people who we got to catch up and share a meal (this list would be much longer but you know who you are). I only hope that we can return the favor sometime in the future.
~Suzanne
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Doing nothing and loving it!
After a bad experience at a hostel in Lima as we were dropping off my mom from her visit, we just wanted to get out of Lima and Peru in general. We spent in total just under 60 days there and we were ready to move on. But where to? We now have an extraordinary experience of not having to be anywhere at anytime for several months! I know that sounds weird, we've been having one great adventure for the past 8 months right? But one thing we did since the beginning was place deadlines on ourselves that forced us to do some detailed planning out at least a month or two. At the start it was get south as soon as possible before bad weather set in at Patagonia, then we wanted to get to a cool celebration of Semana Santa up in Peru, then we wanted to get Galapagos done before Thomas arrived, then he was here, then we were in the US then Mom was here. But now, glorious now, we have nowhere to be and no deadline except the end of our trip! Our road is completely open once again. Our first act in our new freedom was to head up to Quito. We had thought about going along the coast of Ecuador because we had heard good things about it from an Australian surfer dude but we had an urge just to go to Quito where we had familiarity and take some more salsa lessons. So that is what we did! The past couple of days have been full of nothing except a dance lesson! The rest of the time we have spent catching up on our blog, our pictures and just reading books in our room. We have a nice little setup in our hostel which has a great guest kitchen so we've been cooking our own meals.
But can it last?
We're reveling in our new slothfulness but we know that it'll eventually have to end. After all, there is only so much of our trip left and there's still a ton to see. Our long range plan currently includes us heading up to Colombia where we will spend a couple of weeks. Then a big decision is before us. Do we continue north through Central America or do we stick to our original plan and head down through Brazil and end in Buenos Aires? A quick finance check says that while we'll definitely go over our budget for our trip, we have enough spare cash to experience Brazil and BA. So that's our decision. Here's the catch. Since Brazil is expensive and BA is at the end of our trip, we're going to have to book flights and that means long range planning again! But for now, we're just enjoying the moment.
Included are some more shots of Quito's old town both at day and night, plus one or two of some dancing people we saw at the archbishop's palace.
~Mike
Monday, August 16, 2010
Archeology and Surfing
Where we last left off, we had just taken an overnight bus to Trujillo. We decided to bed down in the beach resort town just outside the town named Huanchaco. We checked into a nice hostel right off the beach and reveled in the silence of this little surfing town in the off season. Most mornings began with an overcast sky with a cool breeze but we would often get a sunny sky in the afternoon. We liked it so much that we decided to make this a base for the remainder of Mom's trip outside of Lima. From this base we were able to explore three different archeological gems in the area.
There are three big archeological sites near Trujillo. The first we visited was Chan Chan. This place is the remains of a huge city completely made of adobe. Nowadays its in a pretty sad state, most of the walls have melted away due to rain (mostly El Nino effect rain since Trujillo is still a desert). However, archeologists have been able to discover a lot about the culture from what remains. The most interesting thing about the Chimu people was that every ruler built his own palace complex from scratch. When they died, they buried the king (and his whole court) inside and then shut the place up and moved to a new palace. Mom of course was in heaven. We hired a great guide and she pummeled him with questions during the whole tour.
The next big site was close by but of a different culture. It was called Huaca de la Luna and its culture was the Moche. These people were older and they preferred to rebuild their temples on top of each, rather than start from scratch. This is a boon to archeologists though because the newer temples on top keep the older temples very well preserved. The Huaca de la luna (translated means “temple of the moon”) was the religious center of the Moche people and was the place they would do their sacrifices (sometimes human) to ward off the El Nino floods. The current theory is that a particularly bad El Nino happened and the sacrifices didn't work to stop the floods and people got disillusioned with the rulers and they lost their power.
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| From Huaca de la Luna and Sol |
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| From Huaca de la Luna and Sol |
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| From Huaca de la Luna and Sol |
The third site was actually not that close but we opted instead for a day trip to see the famous Lord of Sipan. This place is a Moche site where they discovered a burial of a king in such opulence that it rivals that of the more famous King Tut in Egypt. Walking through the excellent museum translating all the signs for Mom (we were proud we could do this) was quite an experience. They set it up kind of like how they discovered the tomb layer by layer. We were blown away by the amount of gold and the amazing artifacts they found. Unfortunately we were unable to take any pictures with our camera so you'll just have to take our word that it was awesome. We do have pictures from a smaller museum and the actual site:
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| From Lord of Sipan |
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| From Lord of Sipan |
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| From Lord of Sipan |
The trip to see this site and museum was quite an adventure. First off, we forgot that we needed passports to get on a three hour bus ride up to the city of Chiclayo. So that set us back by an hour and a half on a very long day trip. Once we arrived we hired a taxi for going to the museum and the actual site outside the city and got going. Our deadline was 5pm when the site would close and the area around it would start getting dangerous. After spending longer than expected on the great museum, it was 2:30pm and we decided to skip lunch and head out to the actual site. Our taxi driver extracted a couple more dollars out of us since we were at the museum so long but we agreed on a new price and we began the trip out to the huaca. He took us east and of course within minutes we were on a dirt road bumping bumping inland. On either side of us rose up sugar cane plants from seemingly endless sugar-cane plantations. As the minutes ticked on and we could see nothing except more sugar-cane we started to get worried that our cab driver was taking us out in the middle of nowhere to rob and kill us. We managed to stay calm and keep telling ourselves that our guide book had told us it was about an hour outside the city but fear is definitely not that rational... After what seemed like ages though, we saw a bit pile of melted adobe rise out of the horizon and breathed a sigh of relief. We were going to live after all! We had only about 45 minutes at the site before we hit 5pm and it was time to get going. The taxi driver decided to try another road back to the city due to the previous road being very terrible (unmaintained pavement IS worse than just a dirt road). He then proceeded out and before we knew it we were back on the road, but something was wrong. We were headed south and east and the city was west and north. I kept asking him if he was sure we were going the right way and he kept saying yes, but when we definitely started heading east and the road went as far as the eye could see east, I convinced him to ask for directions from a (luckily) passing moto-taxi. The taxi confirmed we were going the wrong way and he generously told us to follow him and so we did and got back to the city just as the sun was setting and things got too dangerous. After a three hour bus ride back to Trujillo we were just glad to be alive and safe once again!
Surfing
With all our archeological sites done and visited we had the next couple of days to relax before heading back to Lima to drop Mom off at the airport. Since we were staying in a surfing village of course we had to try it out! I've always wanted to know how to surf and we had the time so I took my first surfing lesson. It was great! The place we went to guaranteed you'd stand up on your first lesson and that I did. It turns out that they make this guarantee because they end up giving you the proper push right when the wave is coming so all you have to do is stand up. Even though it felt a little like cheating, I have to admit that it was nice at first to just focus on standing on a moving board. I can understand the reason people like surfing because the rush you get on actually riding a wave towards shore is quite exhilarating. It is also a lot of exercise! You have to use your arms to paddle out to sea so every foot you travel on the wave that's a foot you have to paddle back. I did just fine for about 1.5 hours, but after that my shoulders were mush.
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| From Trujillo |
We waited one more day before trying again, this time I had convinced Suzanne that she also should take a lesson and so we went back. However, while Suzanne did great on her first lesson, my shoulders were still sore and quickly returned to their mush-like state. Since I was at the point of trying to catch my own wave I needed those muscles to respond but they just wouldn't! In the end though, it was a ton of fun.
Exhausted Mike: |
| From Trujillo |
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| From Trujillo |
Finally it was time to head back to Lima. One overnight bus trip later and we were there with a day or two to spare before Mom's flight. We used these days to hit some of the national museums that were located in Lima. Of these the most strange one was the exhibit of erotic pottery! It was really weird to see thousand year old pottery with people engaged in all sorts of sexual acts as well as pottery of venereal disease and the like. Then there was the very strange figures of skeletons engaged in acts with living people... Very weird. Consider this a disclaimer and warning for the pictures on my public albums!
Artifacts and gold! |
| From Lima Museum Day |
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| From Lima Museum Day |
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| From Lima Museum Day |
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| From Lima Museum Day |
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| From Lima Museum Day |
Finally we had to take Mom to the airport. We had a ton of fun with her and really enjoyed having her around to share some of her knowledge on all these sites. She is also the easiest person to travel with. She left all decision making up to us and told us that whatever we decided was fine with her. She didn't care when we wanted to eat pizza or just hang out a day reading in our room. Nor did she complain when we picked hotels that had all night parties going on next door. She just went with the flow and had a great time. So thanks Mom!
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| From Trujillo |
~Mike
ps. Since Mom wanted to remember a lot of information and use it for her class planning (she's a professor at Baylor) we took a ton of pictures of museums artifacts and information cards at the museums. So our public albums will hold a ton more pictures than we usually put up there. If you're interested in learning about these things too though, hopefully you'll find it interesting.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Back in Peru!
We entered Peru and passed through customs for the 4th time on our trip. This time, my mom was with us and we had come to see some of the big archeological sites of the country. We decided to ease her into Peru by staying in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima, which is the most western and upscale in Peru, but still has that unique Peruvian flavor. We walked in the main plaza area and visited a market which had some very unique and high-quality crafts. Among the people cutting stone and polishing it and people making cool souvenirs from olive wood on-site, we also saw a guy who would write whatever you wanted on a single grain of rice! Also in the plaza was a band with this amazing flute player, which we caught on video if you'd like to hear him:
The day we flew in happened to be Peruvian independence day, but we figured we would miss most festivities since we came in late at night and slept late the next day, but this was not the case. They decided to take the long weekend to celebrate! Since we arrived on Weds, this was quite a long desfile! This was both good and bad news for us. Good news cause we could also celebrate and witness the city in celebration mode, bad news because all the museums we wanted to go to were closed. So instead we just walked around the old city and the Plaza de Armas. Here's Suzanne and Mom at the plaza with the Peruvian flag:
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| From Lima |
Our plan was always to get out of Lima quickly and start seeing archeological sites so we quickly left Lima for Huaraz. The big site located near Huaraz was called Chavin de Huantar. The Chavin culture was highly spiritual and intellectual using soft power to extend their influence across modern day Peru. People would come on pilgrimages to hear an oracle tell them messages from the gods. The center of their culture was this site, which consisted of a very large temple and plaza where they would do their ceremonies. It was larger than I had imagined it would be and much more elaborate too. There were labyrinths and tunnels underground that would even go out of the site and under a nearby river. They would use water in interesting ways, using steam that they would push from under the ground to make the priests look more mystical. Mom was in heaven, she loved everything and quickly exhausted the battery on her camera taking pictures. Suzanne was the main translator, using her superior skills to translate for Mom and for me (I was filling in at taking pictures of everything). Finally, we had to bid adieu to Chavin and began the long trip back to Huaraz, which was only 100km away but the road was so bad it took hours. However it was such a beautiful drive over the mountains that we didn't mind it (that much). Picture of Chavin site followed by a couple of mountain shots:
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| From Chavin de Huantar |
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| From Chavin de Huantar |
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| From Huaraz |
Unless you're an archeologist, you don't come to Huaraz for Chavin though. You come for the amazing mountains that surround the city. The Cordierra Blanca and Cordierra Negra (which mean “White Range” and “Black Range”) are stunning ranges that frustrate attempts to describe. They have the highest peaks in Peru (most over 16,000 ft), are covered in snow (white range at least) and glaciers, and their peaks seem to shoot straight up out of the earth resulting in huge cliffs that just cause you to drop your jaw and wonder. We spent the two other days we had in Huaraz going on day hikes around these mountains. Most people who come though aren't really day-hikers so we found ourselves quite isolated up there. We had to take a taxi to get to a decent starting point but the road quickly got too rough for it and he had to drop us early. So we started in this little village up on the hill. We got to see a true rural Peruvian village. It was great; everyone looked at you and smiled and said “buenas tardes” or good afternoon and wanted to know where you were from. No one asked us for money or wanted money if you took their picture. Then throw in the scenery (rolling hills with wheat, cows, sheep and dogs with a brightly dressed shepherdess watching them graze with the mountains behind) and you get as close as you can to those romantic paintings you see in museums around the world. It wasn't perfectly ideal though. We had been warned that sometimes there is petty robbery up there so we had to leave behind Niko (my camera). Hopefully though we got some good ones with the other smaller camera we brought. Thankfully we never experienced any problems like that.
We ended up not being able to take a taxi back down and had to walk all the way down the mountain to Huaraz, a elevation drop from 13,566 to 10,178 (3,388 ft) over a distance of 5.5 miles (thanks to Google Earth). Mom really impressed us both. She had no problem with the elevation and often took the lead! By the end, we were exhausted and had an overnight bus to take so we showered in our hotel (thankfully our hotel was cool with this since we had already checked out) and ate way too much Chinese food and drank too much beer. But these factors all made us very sleepy and we ended up sleeping the best we've ever slept on an overnight bus!
Our next stop was Trujillo, more of that later...
~Mike
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