Back to Reality

My Cinderella time in South America has come to a close. I've returned to the U.S. and am now back in Seattle and back to reality. You can check out my adventures in the Pacific Northwest here, though I can't promise you larvae infested dogs and ancient civilizations. This area will bring about stories and adventures of their own kind.

The Sacred Valley

After such a crazy ordeal getting to Cuzco, once we finally arrived, it was like heaven on earth. The city has a charm and a culture that I hadn´t expected. Cobblestone streets, mountains all around, Quechua families wandering around in their colorful clothes and old buildings. Our hostel was one of the nicest hostels I had stayed at ever at and had views to die for.

After a good night sleep, we decided to take the local bus and head towards the Pisac market to do some shopping and to see another town. I wound up giving up my seat next to Ronald to an elderly Quechua lady who then moved over and gave me room to sit on the arm of the seat. It was totally not comfortable so I decided to brave standing as the crazy driver whipped around corners on switchbacks up mountains at speeds that would make even the adreneline junkies fear for their lives. After we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised that there really weren´t too many tourists, as Lonely Planet had forewarned, and proceeded to barter our way through the market. By the end we were getting pretty good except for the fact that a guy talked Ronald in to buying 2 statues that he hadn´t even picked out for himself. I think he had ¨Gringo Sucker¨stamped on his forehead in that guys eyes.

Visits to Urubamba and Ollaytatambo followed all leading up to our trek on part of the Incan Trail and Machu Pichu.

Lima Airport = Time Suckage

As most of you know, I´ve just spent an amazing time with Ronald in Peru, no thanks to the lovely Lima airport.

I arrived in Lima a day ahead of Ronald at midnight after a delayed flight and the longest time spent by any one person trying to get through customs. The illogical Peruvians only had 6 customs officials checking passports and had 4 full flights arriving around the same time. This is yet another example of the nonexistent logic that plagues South America. It didn´t help that I had the slowest stamper ever leading my line. After 2 hours of watching hordes of people arrive after me and leave before me in other lines, I finally made it out of there to collect my bag at 2:30am. Note: My stamper averaged 4 minutes per person where as ¨Speedy Man in line 8¨averaged only 1.5 minutes per person. Multiply that times the 35 people that were ahead of me and you can begin to feel my frustration.

After a 3 hour ordeal, it was then 3am and I was desperately clinging to the notion that my hostel airport pick-up would still be waiting for me two and a half hours later. I had read that the street cabs in Lima can get pretty sketchy and that you´ll be pounced on for help the second you walk out of baggage claim. And I soon found out that was an accurate description. ¨Taxi?¨¨Informacion?¨and ¨Chica¨were all I heard as I stared out in to the crowds hoping to see my name on a board as I had planned with the hostel. I saw my name and knew that all was well. Mariano, my lovely driver, had thought I ditched him and had other passengers in the taxi as well so we all took off together to drop the other guys off first at the bus station. There I sat shotgun with a Columbian and an Ecuadorian in the back seat as Mariano whipped through the streets. Driving in a taxi in Lima at any time is a bigger rush than most amusement parks. I´m not sure what driving regulations are applied in this country but it makes for some good fun.

Ronald arrived the next day at midnight and managed to get through customs with less pain that I had the previous day. I was sleeping when he arrived at the hostel and felt as if it were a dream when he walked in the room and woke me up. Man, was it good to see him.

There was no time to sleep because we had to fly out of Lima the next morning at 6am to get to Cuzco. We arrived in the airport a little groggy but excited to be about to embark on our Incan adventure and catch-up with each other again.

We boarded the plane and all seemed well. We both fell asleep before take-off only to awaken an hour later still on the runway in Lima. We were then asked to unboard the plane and proceed back to the terminal. Apparently the weather was really bad in Cuzco and all flights were on hold.

We sat for hours, still catching up and were listening to more and more flights to Cuzco get delayed and even cancelled. All flights wound up getting cancelled to Cuzco that day which meant that we wouldn´t be able to start our Incan Trail hike with the tour.

We thought through our options in a sleep deprived state to make it in to Cuzco by 5 am the following morning:

1.) Take a bus...that wouldn´t work because it´s 27 hours to Cuzco and in the rainy season you have to tack on a couple extra hours.
2.) Pay a crazy cabbie $200 bucks to get us to Cuzco by 5 the next day...Not the best option because we already hadn´t slept the night before and didn´t want to start the hike sleep deprived even more.
3.) Pay off someone on one of the later flights to take their place...Couldn´t work because we only tickets on TACA airline and the only remaining flights were from LAN Peru.

Finally we resolved ourselves to the fact that we´d have to scramble to find a way on to another tour (which you must book weeks in advance) in the timeframe that fit in to Ronald´s itinerary.

We wound up getting on to another tour but had to change our flights to Cuzco, back from Cuzco and out of Lima. All the while we managed to keep laughing at the situation and tried to keep telling ourselves that this chaos was happening for a reason.

Not exactly how I envisioned our first 24 hours together for the first time in months but definitely memorable moments were created from the Lima airport. At the very least, I got to be with Ronald for an extra couple days because of this. Not a bad deal.

`Tango´ El Caminito in the La Boca barrio

`Big Ice´ Perito Moreno Glaciar

`Maria Elsa´

Early Morning Meditation at Laguna Torre in the Fitz Roy range

`Sweet Dreams` Cheryl taking a well deserved catnap in Torres del Paine after a rugged hike up.

´Surging Water´Another one of the falls at Iguazu.

´Garganta del Diablo´ The power behind the falls is utterly amazing during the day and at night.

Worst Travel Nightmare Come True

Every traveller envisions being stranded with little or no money alone from time to time. I have been very lucky in my travels and have yet to experience anything that desperate...until I was leaving Iguazu for Buenos Aires.

I was packing up my belongings in Maria´s house with a nostalgic feeling when something dawned on me. Where was my debit card? After ransacking my money belt and not finding anything, I began to think about when I had used it last?

The last time I had used my debit card was when Cheryl and Lynn were visiting Iguazu. It´s then that I realized that I pulled the biggest ditzy move EVER. I left my card in the ATM because I was so excited at the prospect of going out to dinner in town and hanging out with the girls. I don´t know what is worse, having your card stolen or losing it yourself. I curse Argentinian ATMs for dolling out the cash before giving back the card.

So there it was a mere 3 hours before I was due to fly to Buenos Aires. I had no debit card and only the equivalent of $100 in pesos. I was trying to keep myself calm to think of a way out of the predicament that I had placed myself in but was getting more frantic by the minute. I thought through everything I would need money for. Hostels, meals, transport to the airport in both locations.

The good news was that I´m meeting Ronald in Lima to trek in Machu Pichu on Thursday and would be fine then. But I couldn´t figure out how I would survive 4 nights in Buenos Aires and 1 night in Miraflores before I got more cash.

Luckily, I always have a back-up plan due to my overactive mind that consistantly thinks of every possible situation before I leave for a trip. I left Ronald my other debit card in case of emergencies. This fell in to that category. He could bring it down and that would solve all of my problems for the rest of my time traveling. My own knight in shining armor. How appropriate.

But that still left me scratching my head as to how I was going to last until Peru. It was Saturday night and I knew that I wouldn´t have many options until Monday when Ronald could wire me some money to tide me over until we met up. He moved from being solely my knight in shining armor to a gift from God.

To top things off, I was planning on dropping off half of my stuff at Maria´s daughter´s flat in Buenos Aires so I didn´t have to lug an extra pack. So I hopped in a remise and told the driver to take me to the address that Maria had given me. Graciella, her daughter, was in the country for the weekend but had arranged it so that I could leave my pack with the doorman or her neighbor. When we arrived to the street, the building number was nowhere to be seen. Yes, to top off the no money situation, I had the wrong frickin´address.

Trying to keep from losing it, I asked the guy if this address was on the cross street that Maria Elsa had given me. Frustrated, he responded that this was where the apartment building number given to him should be, the cross street was about 10 minutes away and that it would cost more to get there. Just what I needed but what else could I do.

So we got to the cross street and I got out of the car to look around for the apartment. The number Maria Elsa gave me was definitely wrong because the numbers on the apartment buildings were about 1000 off. The remise driver was really pissed at this point but I shirkishly asked if I could run across the street to the locoturio to make a call to Graciella and/or Maria Elsa. He could see that I was on the brink of tears and said that he´d wait.

I dialed both numbers and got no one on the phone. The situation was looking bleaker by the minute. I walked back to the remise and told him that no one was there. With tears in my eyes, I could see his mood change from angry to sympathetic. I asked if he could take me to my hostel that was in the same neighborhood somewhere. He happily obliged and told me that I wouldn´t have to pay extra for any of the extra trips. Thank god he was a sucker for a damsal in distress.

I got to my hostel and spent a wrestless night sleeping and woke up Sunday vowing to myself to have a good day at the famous San Telmo market and Plaza Dorrego despite the fact that my stomach was in knots and I wouldn´t be able to clear my mind.

Luckily, this guy in the hostel approached me as I was staring at the map trying to figure out how to get to the neighborhood spending as little as possible. He asked if I´d like company and I immediately knew my day was looking up. It turns out Mike, the guy, is a South American travel guide from England and knows the city like the back of his hand. We spent a gloriuos day touring the San Telmo market, saw free tango in the Plaza Dorrego and walked along the riverfront in the posh Puerto Madryn. It was great to be led around from one location to the next, not having to think. It was an added bonus that I was surrounded by great conversation about traveling around south america.

I knew that the worst had passed and that it was time to enjoy Buenos Aires. Even better, I wouldn´t have to sustain myself solely on tuna sandwiches and yogurt for the remainder of my time here. Monday was only a day away and I had plans with Graciella to get rid of my pack and tour the city some more with her. After going through such a traumatic 2 days, I am now appreciative of a lot more and more importantly, I know the true value of a peso.

Carnival Iguazu = Samba + Butts + Fake Foam

Carnival is synonomous with fiestas, music, parades and excess. Carnival season has officially begun in South America and even the tiny town of Puerto Iguazu was celebrating. The festivities didn´t disappoint.

Christina, Lorena and I decided to head on up to the first night of the festivities not knowing what to expect. My experience can be summed up in three words: samba, butts and fake foam.

Walking up to the parade, we could hear the pounding of the rhythmic drums which immediately got me moving and groving. I´m a sucker for a good beat. We started weaving through the massive crowds to get a better look at the procession and were immediately sprayed with fake foam or ¨snow¨as they call it here. Unfortunately, no one had warned me that this was part of the fun and I wound up inhaling a mouth full of fake snow as I screamed at the shock of being sprayed by some pre-pubescent boy. For the rest of the night, I was covered in the stuff and loving every minute of the electric atmosphere that is Carnival.

The parade was more like some barbaric yet artsy ritual that resembled a continuous lap dance. The men were banging out their frustrations on the drums with a reckless abandon producing some serious rhythms while the women were gyrating around to the beats in sparkly-barely there-outfits that left little to the imagination. Butts were hanging out for all to see, dancing to the drums as if they had a life of their own. Seriously folks, it was darn impressive to see how these latin women could move. I had never felt so rhythmically challenged in all my life.

Equally baffling was the fact that woman of all ages took part in the tantallizing tease. This included little girls of no more than 3 sporting barely-there outfits attempting to mimic the movements of a lap dancer. I looked on in disbelief, perplexed that parents would let their young girls be oggled by hundreds of men like that. After the shock wore off, I became an observer in awe of a tradition full of life that seemed to embrace women and their bodies. I went back for the next two nights to take in more of the sights and sounds, butts and all.

Sounds of Iguazu

I have a little over a week left in my volunteer stint and have been reflecting on my time here. It´s been amazing but I´m also ready to move on and go exploring. I´ve officially extended my South American trip so I can backpack for a month and it feels great to start daydreaming and planning my future adventures away from Iguazu. In the meantime, here´s a quick glimpse in to more of my life down here.

Sounds of Iguazu
- Cucharas humming (think Cicadas only larger and louder)
- Local dogs howling in packs around the neighborhood at night. One dog starts and the next thing you know you have a chorus of dogs barking all over the town as if communicating in secret code to the rest of their packs.
- Frogs--every night I´m serenaded to sleep by what seems to be hundreds of frogs that have made their home in Maria Elsa´s unused pool.
- Motos (or Mopeds) speeding away on the bumpy unpaved roads
- Argentinian novellas (think soap operas but cheesier and faker, if at all possible) Maria Elsa is half deaf and LOVES watching these each night and insists on blasting the volume.
- The creak of my bedroom fan as it turns back and forth. If it wasn´t so darn hot and essential, the fan would drive me absolutely batty.
- The sound of a marching band practising for Carnival. Every night around 7 they start and jam out. I hope to see the end result this weekend to celebrate.
- Wind blowing in my face mixed with the hum of the El Practico bus every day. Think 1970´s yellow bus, often crammed with people, struggling to make it from gear to gear.