Bienvenidos a Colombia...again

Well here I am again, blogging within a week of the last one. I arrived into Leticia, Colombia after my 40 hour boat ride. I spent a night in Leticia, met some travelers from Sweden & Australia and got talked into walking to Brazil in the rain to go see the discotecs. That was an interesting night filled with men dressed as women and an intro into dealing with Portuguese. It reminds me that if I decide to drive into Brazil that I will be starting over with another language, not so sure about that quite yet as I'm still trying to work on my Spanish. After that night I woke up & decided, well it was decided for me as the hostal was full, that I would go up the Amazon. I was told I could go find a local community and would be welcomed to stay, so long as I brought food. SO I shopped for rice, potatoes, tomatoes, more veggies and even picked up some school supplies. It seemed like I had plenty of food. Little did I know the family I would land with has 7 kids and struggles feeding them on a daily basis. Anyways so I find a boat that will take me a couple of hours up the river & then get dropped off alone. I hike up the muddy bank and find some kids & one of which says that his dad isn't there but they would let me stay with them. The first thing he does as I arrive to their "house" is take my food. I knew they would take the food, the idea was they would take the food & then feed me with them. Now this is a hand made shack & not a craftsman. There is one 10x10 room and come to find out that 10 people live in this room & I'm still not really sure how. The family welcomes me to their house but I feel fairly strange as they're pretty much just staring at me and though I try to engage in conversation, it doesn't go far. I don't think they know how to react to my existence. The little ones are interested but the older ones not so much. I try speaking to the grandma but she doesn't even respond, to which I find out later she doesn't speak spanish just a local dialect. Later that day their dad comes home & he's really nice and actually engages me in conversation. He takes me around the town, tells me how part of the land collapsed into the river and they lost their homes and a few people died. So now they have rebuilt homes away from the river. And then back to the casa where I hang out & set up my hammock outside in their "living room" where I will be sleeping. It's time for dinner, they build a fire and begin to cook & I just kind of sit back and watch. We all eat a bowl of white rice for dinner. I feel bad for eating, they seem so starved, and I feel bad in general like I'm this rich white gringo rubbing it in by being there...it's hard to explain. I guess when I show up with 2 backpacks and it seems like I have more stuff than all 10 of them have in their house it makes you feel bad. Over the 3 days they were there, they hardly fed me. I never saw the food I brought, I got a bowl of rice the first night & a bowl of rice and potatoes the second day for lunch. They ate but certainly weren't concerned with me eating and at the same time I couldn't really care. I had a few snacks in my bag and even a snickers bar but I couldn't dare pull it out, I didn't have enough to share and I certainly would have felt bad. My appetite has been huge lately anyway so a good time to taper it back a bit, something I'm all familiar with from my old wrestling days. Now you think having 7 kids crammed into a room that they'd be fighting all the time, I know my brothers & I scraped plenty in our "small" townhouse, but that wasn't the case at all. The 9 yr old girl watched the baby and her 8 yr old brother helped. The teenage kids cooked the meals, dad was working in the jungle looking for fruits and such and the mom & Grandma hacked down some palm leaves to begin separating them into fibers so they could make necklaces, purses & such. The work the ladies put into making just a bracelet was insane to see, so much labor for one little item that they would in turn sell for 50 cents. There was never a cry or a fight from any kid, other than the baby. I slept on my hammock with a mosquito net while the 10 of them slept in the room, somehow. It was a very interesting experience but by day 3 and no food for me I was ready to leave. I decided to catch up a boat upriver more to another town, one that is a little bigger and has a few hotel like places & a couple of restaurants so I could control my own food destiny. This town is called Puerto Narino, it's a very cool eco friendly village. They happen to be having a day of sports, a decathalon of sorts. With all these kids competing in soccer, volleyball & basketball (which was funny to watch). This was all normal, they were solid soccer players at all ages and not so good at basketball. Then later on in the evening they, of course, had blowdart competitions. I watched 10 yr old girls compete with hand made jungle blow guns shot their hand made darts from nearly half court into a target. They were really good at it too. The next morning I rented a canoe & paddled myself up the Amazon which proved to be really tough as I was heading up current. This didn't last long though I did spot some girl wildlife along the way. After that I caught a boat back to Leticia which is where I am now. I fly from here to Bogota today....now that I think about it flying to Bogota, Colombia on Friday the 13th doesn't sound like the brightest idea. It was really good to have someone from home to share the crazy experiences that come about on this trip and I'm still having them. Off to surely have more as I navigate Colombia over towards the Caribbean coast.

planes, trains, automobiles...canoes and boats

Have you ever sat or laid in a hammock for 40 hours straight?? That is what I just did to get from Peru to Colombia via the amazon river. It might sound relaxing and granted it wasnt stressful but after a while being crammed like sardines with a million local people on their hammocks swinging into mine, I just wanted to get out and exercise or move or something. But as I was told a million times, I had to keep an eye on my things so I didnt really want to go do a titanic flight on the bow of the boat or anything. Right now I am typing this and every letter I type my body reacts like I stair Ive climbed, its 1 billion degrees and I´m sweating like nobody´s business. So since the last bloggio, I had my first visitor from home and who else would pull it off but my adventurous MOM!! We have traveled a bunch in the past and are good travel partners, easy going and low maintenance but this one started off a little slower. First off, mom picked up a cold-flu or something and then I got hit with my kidney stone probs (boo, old story). Add my pain to not being used to traveling "like a tourist" and head with an english speaker to the most touristy place in south america...Cusco. Cusco also brought some altitude sickness our way so along with suffering from other ailments, we were hit with headaches and tiredness. I also was a little snappy because Ive been training to travel "like a local" and not be treated or act like a tourist that doesnt know whats going on and then I started off putting an unrealistic expectation on mom to just be the same as me, which wasnt fair. It was actually a good thing for me to let go and enjoy the gringo trail for a change. It made me look at myself and check my ego. So after a couple of slow days and early nights to bed in Cusco, we started our trek to Machu Picchu. Day one consisted of mountain biking, all down hill, for 4 or 5 hours on constant switch backs that reminded me of the tour de france. It was really fun. At the end of this day we lucked into a "free" couple of hours of white water rafting on classIII/IV river called Rio Urumbamba. The white water rafting was so much fun, constant excitement and the guides were trying to make it fun. They are not worried about insurance liabilities or lawsuits, they are trying to get us out of the boat and tip the boat. Day 2 consisted of us treking on an Inka Messenger trail that huggled along the river with amazing views, tricky steps and lots of heat in the highlands jungle. We even got to cross the river on a cable car which was pretty cool & then we ended the day in some very nice natural hot springs. Day 3 we hiked along railroad track and that is when my kidney stone decided to paralyze me. I wasnt sure if I was going to make it or not but in the end I pushed through, at my own slow pace, and survived in hopes of being good for our day 4, Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu day started at 4am hiking up 1800 stairs, not an easy task really. Then we did our tour around the city and chose to do another sketchy tough climb up a peak called WaynaPicchu. This climb is straight vertical, consists of ropes/cables to help you not fall to your eminate death and even a climb through a cave to get to the top so you get an amazing view of the lost incan city. All in all a pretty amazing trip for us. That night we took the train back to Ollaytatambo and then took a crazy ´collectivo´ back to cusco which got us there late at night only to get up for our early flight the next day. We got to Lima and werent able to get on the flight to the amazon so we spent a day in Lima, sleeping thru the night at 5pm again, and then the next day off to Iquitos. We land in Iquitos in the jungle and the very first distinction is the insane HEAT. It´s like 95 degrees and humido! The sweat begins (and still hasnt stopped). We then land ourselves on a trip 240km downriver to a lodge starting the next day. We have our own guide and have lots of things they say we can see and do there. Our guide is a guy born in the jungle and he is a legit man vs wild guy. He climbed a tree for a sloth so we could hold him, jumped in the water for a caiman for us to hold, cut trees that had the freshest coolest water to drink from its branches and knew every sound and deadly creature to warn us about along the hikes, canoe paddles & boat rides. The one thing I really wanted to see was these alleged pink dolphins. Louis made sure we found them, knew how to lure them towards our boat by playing a game with them and I even managed to snap a few photos. Mom & I swam in the amazon with pink river dolphins, pricess part 1. We went out on adventures a few times a day, saw eagles, hawks, monkeys, toucans, woodpeckers and a billion other birds. Then he took us fishing on this little lagoon. We had our wooden sticks with a string and hook and some chicken meat. The piranhas were biting like crazy. Mom and I both caught about 4 piranhas each within the hour or so, even tossing back some little ones. The piranhas are just as aggressive as you think, they are snapping there teeth at you as you try to get your hook out. We caught them, kept them, fried them, ate them and then kept there teeth as souvenirs, owned!...priceless part 2. So because I am always looking for any solution for my ever nagging, coming and going kidney pains I decided to ask these people about any local natural medicines. So they say sure, there is a Shaman who knows many natural remedies from the jungle and so I say bring him on. The last night, this crazy Shaman arrives to give me a "cleansing". We are going to drink Ayahuasca which I have some sort of idea what might happen, you are going to clean out your body, possibly vomit, and then feel million times better the next day. Uh huh, right. So the ceremony begins with him whistling and then singing in local dialect and some spanish and then we take a shot of some bitter liquid. He is smoking hand rolled tobacco cigs, I am already doubtful of the entire thing but when in rome.... So its dark, I feel nothing other than my seat is shaking because we are on an elevated platform and he is dancing his feet to his whistle. Then the vomiting begins and more and more. And then the hallucinations begin and they are unwelcomed. I´m spinning like I´m on that ride in Kings Dominion (VA people know) that you spin and you stuck to the wall except this ride never ends and I just keep vomitting and when Im not vomiting, I am tripping like someone slipped me an overdose amount of LSD. I mean crazy visions, scary visions (no thanks to the book I happen to be reading), each ex girlfriend from my life flying at me, I am told some evil spirits by this loco shaman and all I keep thinking is, I PAID FOR THIS? Then the other thoughts I keep having is, I want to get up and go to my room but though my mind is going crazy, my body is a limp noodle. At this point I feel like the shaman is a demon and I want to get away but cant. And so eventually I get the attention of a guide who isnt doing this crazy drug and he drags me to my room and I spend the night awake staring into what I thought was outer space, aka my ceiling. And so do I feel great the next day you ask? uhm NO, I feel the opposite of great for the next 2 days...exhausted, weak, slightly still hallucinating and still wondering why anyone would ever suggest that as a "healthly cleansing". So yea, that was an experience I wont be doing again. Are my kidney stones gone you ask, I dont know but I dont that had anything to do with my kidney stones and more to do with my "evil spirits." So anyways, that was that and the next day we returned to Iquitos and got to visit a crazy local market which had unheard of things going on from a US standard which was the last crazy experience for mom before she flew back to Lima and then the states. It was really good for me to have someone with me from home, especially my mom. I hope someone else makes it for a visit!!! Now I am in Colombia and I am trying to figure out what else I can do in the Jungle before heading towards the caribean coast. Hope all is well on the homefront, stay away from Ayahuasca! Saludos!!! (pictures later when I have internet with my laptop)

Border Patrol

Hola my people. Hope this blog finds you all happy & healthy. As always, I have had quite a few adventures since the last blog. I made my way back up to Northern Peru where I left my car and had one big task to handle before heading south again. That dreadful task was to cross the border into Ecuador and (hopefully) renew my temporary car permission into Peru. Why? because with my upcoming plans it was necessary to have more time. So I got back to my temporary home in Lobitos and hit the road up north for Mancora. My friend in Lobitos was also in need of a renewed passport stamp so she came along & then also a new friend I made from Austria decided she would come up to Mancora and meet up with me as well. She had plans to go into Ecuador. SO the 3 of us spent a night in Mancora and then decided to make our way to the lonely planet labeled ¨worst border in south america´and why not show up mid day on a Saturday right? So first thing that happens is the road forks and I follow the motorcycle in front of me which stays to the left and leads me directly into oncoming traffic which was fun. Crisis averted and find a cut across the dirt to my side and continue on. THe girls have no clue what its like doing this in a car rather than on the bus. Next we arrive to the border and its absolute madness, with millions of people all trying to get my attention, markets and people walking everywhere making it hard to pass. We manage to get out of Peru, ourselves, but some guy hassling me about my car in street clothes I chose to ignore and continue on. THen I make it to Ecuador side, enter the country, exit the country and chose not to enter my car technically. So as we leave, the road has a median wall and I realize I cant drive forward because my car and us are actually not in the country. So what do I do, I see a gap a hundreds back and reverse outta ecuador and flip a u turn. Ofcourse with oncoming cars honking the entire time. Good fun. Now I cross the bridge, stop by aduanas which is who does the car things and they are furious at me. They start accusing me of being a drug trafficker and say I have already crossed into ecuador before they could look at my car and now I´m ¨frito´(fried). Over the course of the next 45 mins I am told I am frito over and over and that I am not allowed back in peru and that everyone is always innocent etc etc. Power trip for the customs agent. The girls are forced outside, I get the pleasure of arguiing inside for a very long time. Many words exchange, much discussion about the drugs i have left n Ecuador and somehow I manage to get the guy to relax and believe me...that and 10 soles helped as well which is like 3 dollars. FINALLY, after some worrying on my side that I wasnt getting my car back into Peru, they finally let me reenter. It was quite a nightmare but in the end I guess its all part of the experience. So we returned for anther night in the touristy twn of Mancora and then my austrian friend Andrea and I hopped a bus for Lima....a 17hour bus ride. Yea, I left my car in Lobitos again. We got to Lima and took another bus south to Hauncachina so I could get into some snowboarding. This very small town is surrounded by massive dunes so I spent the day today climbing up, which is extremely hard, and getting some time riding down. It was a bit like snowboarding and really fun. Tomorrow I hit some local wineries & then part ways with my travel partner to head back up to Lima to meet up with my next partner, MY MOM! Exciting. She gets in tomorrow night and then we are flying up to Cusco to acclimatize and get ready for our mountain bike and treking to arrive to the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu. good fun! I have gotta run. Hope all is well on the homefront. Saludos!

Solitude in the mountains

Hola people who still read this. This blog has been going on so long that it seems like I shouldn't keep writing, it's almost like this isn't a 'trip' anymore but just my life. So I made my way up to Huaraz here in Peru which is up in the mountains in a range of mountains called the Cordillera Blanca. This area is home to some amazing treking and there are loads of crazy people doing long mountaineering excursions on the glaciers and massively high peaks. I, on the other hand, did not want to mountaineer but went up there to give some rock climbing a go. So I arrived and the first day I went on a couple hour hike and ended up running into the strangest fiesta in the hills outside of town. There were guys in crazy masks, a band, local indian people and everyone was dancing. The guys in the masks were drunk, being crazy and it was like some alien world for me. They, of course, looked at me like an alien & I drew some attention from the drunken masked guys who came over to try to talk to me and....ask me for money! I took some photos & video and then the rain came so I bailed. The next day I finally got to go out & rock climb. It was my first time doing this and it was challenging & fun. I really like how you have to use your brain to figure out your route. I really want to do more of it. That night I met some more travelers in my hostal and one girl had signed up for a trek so I ended up signing onto the same one as it coincided perfectly with my travel plans. We would squeeze a 4 day trek into 3 days and get back to town hours before my overnight bus was leaving. So the next morning we were picked up at 6am and off on a few hour bus ride into the mountains to begin. I wasn't really prepared to go treking, I don't qiute have the gear but I figured I'd be okay. It turned out to be me & 3 girls on the trek together - one from Austria, one from England & one from the USA. We spent 3 days treking somewhere around 45 kilometers up to a glacier (first time for me) and even heard loud booming cracks until a slight avalanche came down. The scenery was amazing, especially as we got to the top at 4700 meters. Sweeping views of massive snow peaks and amazing remote solitude. Our group had fun making up games and Andrea, from Austria, kept with me the entire time so we pushed each other to make it through the tough climbs throughout the day. We had a 430 am start yesterday and hiked to our highest point & then down for hours on end only to end the 8 hour day with a steep hour long climb. Then our transportation never showed up so we had to take a local bus. I already had my bus ticket to travel overnight and time was really close. I was worried I wasn't going to get home to shower before leaving, which I desperately needed but those worries subsided quickly as I looked over the cliffside to my imminent death thru each hairpin on this crazy bus. We stopped for a bathroom break on the bus, me & 20 local men & women jumped out and claimed our territory in a funny fashion. We got back to Hauraz with just enough time to take a freezing cold shower & jump on the overnight bus. Now I am in Trujillo on my way back up north to my car. From there my plans continue to be tight for a change, no more just cruising at the moment. My mom comes in a week, i have to pass the border to hopefully obtain a new permission for my car & then head 20 hours south towards Lima. I hope everyone is healthy & happy. Salud

Change of pace

Hola buen dia! So as always a bunch of time has passed since the last blog. One reason for this is I've been staying in a place that has no electricity or water, much less internet access. So I left Lima on my last blog and I decided to head up north towards Lobitos/Mancora area. This particular area I missed on my way down and the family I met in Lima said I could stay in their house up there and there are supposed to be good waves. So I drove and drove and drove and got stopped by police after police all telling me I needed something and trying to get money. I did spent a few days in various towns & even spent a day hiking to some old pyramids which was pretty cool (well really HOT actually). Eventually I landed in Los Organos where this amazing house they own is and all I had to pay was for water to be brought & electricity. The only problem with this spot was there weren't any waves nor people so I would be hanging out in this lovely tahitian style house with a nice view solo and no surf nearby. So I spent one night there and decided to drive 30 mins north to Lobitos to check the surf. This area is really small and remote, all dirt roads leading to who knows where but I managed to navigate my way there. As soon as I drove into 'town' I drove right past a friend I had made 7 months earlier in Nicaragua. She was riding her bike & I passed her and we both couldn't believe it. Anyways she works for this local voluntoursim organization that works with local kids teaching them life skills, surf & water safety and English. I decided to rent a room in her shared house and stick around for a few days to see what this town was like. The surf in Lobitos is pretty epic really, though the local crowds don't use the world wide known surf "rules" in the water so the lack of respect is something you do have to adjust to. I wasn't really that excited about fighting for waves, I had been solo for a long time and getting aggressive for cold lefts wasn't really in my motivation. So I decided to dedicate my time to a new project that was starting up with my friends Organization. They were just beginning, the day after I arrived, to build a surf shack for the kids. One of the volunteers is an architect so he drew up some plans and they had already bought materials. Being that I could help in translating, as the lead architect has limited spanish, and I could be a helping hand I decided to help out on a daily basis. A lot of manual labor involved, digging holes, carrying cana, carrying rocks and carrying more rocks, sawing, hammering, etc. One day we hired a mule for 50 soles to do 6 trips to this spot we found nice large pieces of rock to be our floor. We found relentless winds on a daily basis and found it really difficult to work with kids in a foreign language when in reality you need skilled labor to build a shack that isn't going to fall over. And the kids weren't that exciting about collecting stones, the one thing they could do. They want to saw, hammer, paint and do all things they can destroy :) Beyond the project the house I have been staying in is very basic....VERY basic. There is no electricity which is alright but there is also a water problem in Lobitos. Meaning they have a busted pipe and water shows up twice a week in a truck to fill up tanks. So for our house one of my chores is to go into a tank in the backyard with buckets to fill and then transfer that into a trashcan inside our bathroom for "showers" and into the kitchen to wash dishes. The "shower" consists of a hanging plastic water bottle with holes on the bottom to act as a shower....so you pour water into the bottle and it drizzles out for 30 seconds at best. Challenging at times but for 4 dollars a night and a few of the point from the front porch, it's not that bad. It's been really nice for me to sit still, not spend money on gas or get hassled by police and do something with some meaning with the community. I've been invited into families houses for ceviche and rice and more rice. So after a week or so of working and surfing on the daily, I decided to pick up and go do something away from the beach and away from my car. One thing I learned upon arriving into South America is that it is a HUGE continent and I can't just drift aimlessly like I did in Central Am. I spent 7 months drifting planless through central america so if you look at that size in comparison to South America, I would be drifting for years. I mean, Brazil is basically the size of Australia. So with the LOOooong drives, expensive gas in Peru and wanting a different experience I ditched the car in Lobitos and took an overnight bus to Trujillo which is where I am right now. I'm headed up to Hauraz in the mountains which is supposed to have amazing rock climbing action, something I've always wanted to try. So this bus/back packer thing is totally new to me & is already bringing on a completely different experience to traveling. SO I am off now, with my heavy packs to go do some site seeing and going on my first 'tour' on this entire trip to pass time until I have another overnight bus to the Cordillera Blanca region! I have some other exciting plans coming in the near future as well but I'll wait for them to pass and blog about them. Hope everyone is doing well!!!