South America Adventures

Homeward Bound

2009-09-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

The sad day finally came and went where I had to say my farewells to the PSF family. To be honest, that new job I had wasn´t that much fun and made leaving only a little bit easier. Nevertheless, my last couple weeks in the Pisco area were fantastic with some good ol´ grunt work, a camping trip to the Paracas reserve and some final party nights with the gang at home and Pisco Disco.
From Pisco, I joined an English couple to Lima on Saturday and stayed in a hostel near the beach in an effort to enjoy some last days of Peruvian waves. Unfortunately the waves were little to none so there wasn´t much fun.
Last night I had my first day of travel, flying out of Lima at 11pm to Buenos Aires for a 25 hour layover. That is too much time to spend in an airport, so after the 4 hour flight I got a Republic of Argentina stamp in my passport, picked up my bag and hopped on a bus for 2 hours into the center of the hip capital.
I know a few people who are living here and made plans to meet up with them, but that seemed to have fallen through so far so I have resorted to hanging out on the internet in hopes to hear from them soon via facebook.
Well that is a quick update. Here is to hoping I meet up with either Rowan, from South Africa, who I met in Ecuador, and/or Victoria, who was a long term PSF volunteer.

Home Sweet Home in Peru

2009-08-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

Plaza de Armaz - Huaraz

Plaza de Armaz - Caraz

After the incredible Santa Cruz Trek and one last night in Huaraz, I enjoyed a tasty, grilled dinner with Dominique, Pierre-Luc, Saoia & Rocco, before hopping on my bus to Lima. It was time to make my way back to Pisco sin Fronteras, so 2 hours after arriving in the Peruvian capital, I was on another bus, this one bound for the southern pan-american. Because it was only Friday, I figured I would return to Pisco to start work on Monday, so decided to spend the weekend surfing Cerro Azul, a classic left break just north of Cañete.

I had a room on the beach for two nights and got to surf for 3 days. Though the waves were not the greatest, it was still a fun spot and I was able to observe sea otters, plenty of birds and dolphins while waiting between sets. At one point, dolphins were only 5m away from me and my board! Very neat.

The classic left at Cerro Azul.

After a morning session on Sunday, I gathered my gear and walked to the pan-am to hop another south-bound bus to Pisco. One and a half hours later, I was knocking on the PSF door; returning to my Peruvian home for the last month of my South American Adventures. I was lucky to have awesome room-mates save me a bed in the surfer dorm, despite my 2 week vacation having turned into 4 (2 Peruvian weeks I guess...).

Swimming in the Pacific after a roof pour.

So here I have been for nearly 3 weeks, volunteering and enjoying some more good times with the great people here. August 15th was the 2 year anniversary of the devastating earthquake that destroyed 80% of Pisco and killed 600 people. During the time coming up to the anniversary, PSF received some media recognition. There were interviews and even some coverage of PSF in action at a work site. After our moments of silence that day, we busied ourselves cleaning up the houses and preparing for the PSF one year anniversary (which happened to be the following day).

Sweet ride home, Felipe!

On Sunday the 16th, we were up early and gearing up for our day of celebrations. We headed to malecon on Pisco Playa to clean up garbage and set up chairs for a number of performances. People from the surrounding neighbourhood, intrigued by all the gringos in blue PSF shirts, joined in the festivities. With a live DJ we were treated to a BMX demo by the top two BMX bikers in Peru. Some of the volunteers did a dance of their own and some kids from the community also put on a performance.

BMX demo.

Following the performances and some touching speeches, the party began. There were soccer and volleyball matches, preparations for the burning man, and drinking of pisco, inca cola, wine and beers. This lasted until the afternoon, when many volunteers craved a ciesta to prepare for the after dark round of celebrations.
Sunset marked the highly anticipated PSF burning man, so the malecon attracted volunteers and community members again. By 6:30pm, the blonde, wooden PSF man was up in Flames and burning hot, thanks to burning man attandee, Jake of Michigan. It burned until about 8:30pm, which marked eat time.

Malecon park on the Pacific Ocean.

PSF anniversary face painting.

While many stayed up late drinking and looking forward to a Monday off work, I was in bed before midnight, stoked on a trip to Cerro Azul for some more wave riding. I was on a bus by 7:30 and in the surf/fish village by 9:30. The swell was MUCH bigger than my previous visit and a little daunting to be honest. In any case, I geared up and hopped into the water all on my own. The current was strong, so I only managed to get a few short rides before being nearly slammed into the pier. I went for three rounds, ate lunch, and caught a bus back to Pisco.

PSF Burning Man at sunset.

This past week I have been training to take over Dominics job as projects manager, since he is leaving tomorrow. I will do that for my last two weeks before TBC Dave makes his return. It is a really cool deal being the man who makes sure everyone has a job for the days to come.
So I will be here until the 6th of September, at which time I start my journey back to Canada. I leave Peru for Buenas Aires on the 8th, then to Sao Paulo on the 9th from where I fly back to North America, landing in Vancouver on te 10th.
That being said, this is likely one of my last blog posts of the Adventures. Maybe I will post some more pictures though. Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed! See you soon!

PSF burning man at sundown

Trek in the Cordillera Blanca

2009-07-30T11:12:00.001-07:00

The Paramount Pictures Peak.

Sunday the 26th of July was an early start. Up at 5:30 and at the MontTrek tour agency at 6am to meet with the trek group, which I thought was only going to be 5 people but ended up being 12! There were 4 couples, one from Eastern Canada, one from Belgium, one from Lima and one from Ireland (who were initially from Italy and Spain). The other 4 included some girls from California doing a documentary on South American women, Thomas from France, and myself. Most of us piled into a big van, but we could not all fit so another vehicle was taken too. We drove for 6 hours deep into the Andes, stopping at certain spots along the way for photos of the incredible views. Between Huaraz (3000m) and Portachuelo (4770m), we observed mountain farmlands, glaciers and glacier fed lakes, and snow!

Mules--these ones without massive loads.

We arrived the small mountain village of Vaqueria at noon, had a small lunch and began our first day of hiking by 1pm. The climb was only a few hundred meters within 4 hours. In that time we had it all from sunshine, to overcast, to drizzle and at the time we reached our first camp it was torrential down pour. We were assured that rain wouldn´t be encountered, but luckily most of us were prepared fo it all anyway. The unfortunate part is that our guide and assistants set the tents up during the rain so everything was soaking wet for our first night. Needless to say, we were a little cold and quite miserable. To add to our misery, our guide was being lazy and didn´t have our dinner ready until nearly 10pm! Some of the group memebers gave up waiting because they were cold and tired, but those of us who waited were treated to a delicious dinner consisting of soup, chicken, potatoes and of course rice. Immediately following the meal, bed was in order.

Our first camp, which was very wet.

The night of rest was a bit wet but more or less warm and day 2 started at 7am. Breakfast was a classic Peruvian one with coca tea, bread with jam and aveena. Perhaps not quite the fuel we needed for our big day; 6 hours of hiking with a the Punta Union pass. The weather was similar to the first day, with mostly overcast skies. However, because of the altiude we were gaining, the precipitation we got was in form of snow! Very neat, and made me miss snowboarding a bit. Anyway, it was cold and though the view from the pass was amazing, it was too cold to stay for much longer than 15 minutes. Furthermore, the next valley we were meant to descend into was sunny and not the gloomy like the one we spent our first night in.

Ascending on the second day from the dark and wet valley.

The pass.

The otherside of the pass.

Thomas and I were the first to reach our second camp of Taullipampa which was situated at just over 4000m. We were able to enjoy a couple ours of sunshine while we set up camp, before the sun went down and the cold wind picked up. As the sky cleared, we were able to enjoy a very starry sky accented with a half full moon. Dinner was an hour earlier this night, and we were able to crawl into our warm sleeping bags earlier to escape the 2ºC air.

A horse that didn´t quite make it to the second camp...

For the third day, the sky remained clear which enabled us to enjoy the views of severs magnificent peaks, including the Paramount pictures peak (though it was hard to recognize without the stars around it). After a 3 hour detour to visit Laguna Arhuaycocha, we descended for another 3 hours to our third camp. It was also convienently located by some high altitude shops which sold beer so we could celebrate a few things. It was our last night in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru´s independance day and also our guides birthday (which we later found out to be a lie so he could get free drinks from us...tsk tsk). So at 3800m, we drank, sang and danced (mostly to keep warm) under the starry sky.

Laguna Arhuaycocha.

With some fuzzy heads, we were up at 7:30 and on our way down to Cashapampa (2900m) by 8:30am. It was only a 4 hour descent and with the sky still clear and altitude much lower, it was toasty warm. We waited an hour for the mules to arrive with our supplies, crammed into a smaller van than we had the first day (this time ALL of us too), and drove for 2 hours back to Huaraz.

Laguna Jatuncocha.

Getting ready to leave our final camps view.

Apart from some problems with the company and our guide, it was a wonderful trek with awesome scenery. The night we returned e went to a grill house to get a good fix of meat, said good-byes (or see ya laters) and returned to our hostels for a good night sleep in a bed.

The End

Surfing Fix Acquired

2009-07-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Puerto Chicama surf: the longest left point break in the world.

Apart from some mild homesickness from all the solo time, my time on the coast was exactly what the doctor ordered. I ended up staying the the beautiful, though often overcat, Huanchaco for the better part of two weeks, surfing everyday except one. I took this past Wednesday off to rest my shoulders and body so I wouldn´t be too tired for the record long wave in Puerto Chicama. Luckily, Thursday the swell picked up and myself along with Frenchman, Simon, and Deutchman, Ruud, took a cab to the world famous surf spot. The town was crawling with surfers that day (including South African friend, Rowan, who we met in Quito back in April) because the waves were working wonderfully. It was a lot of paddling and walking, but well worth it since I managed to get my longest ride EVER! It was oh so sweet, that moment when it officially became my longest continual time working a wave. Perma smile for sure. The sky was even clear and the sun shone strong. The only down side was some foot injuries from being barefoot.

The one and only sunset I witnessed in Huanchaco.

After spending about 5 hours surfing, we returned to a bizarre scene of sunshine and blue sky in Huanchaco. We arrived just in time to grab some large beers and watch the sunset. It was my first time seeing the sunset in the coastal town in my whole time there, and what a wonderful way to end my stay there.

A favorite lunch: ceviche, cicharron & Inca Kola, all for 9 soles ($3.25)!

That night, I hopped on a bus from Trujillo into the Andean city of Huaraz. The sky is blue here, though a bit colder because of elevation. It is similar to Cuzco in the sense that it is crawling with tourists and tour companies in a mountain setting, though not quite as hectic. With that said, it was tough for me to find a hostel that had room for one person, so with surfboard in tow, I zig-zagged through the streets searching for a desirable accomodation with a desirable price. After a solid half hour of bouncing back and forth between hostels and hotels, I scored a private room on the main drag for 30 soles per night. However, the owner decided to jack the price up today to 100 soles because of the local holiday! I was very unimpressed and quickly went to search for another place. Fortunately, I didn´t have to look for as long as I had the previous day and though the room I found wasn´t quite as nice, the price sure was.

Some festive costumes in a parade on the main drag of Huaraz.

Anyway, here in Huaraz there are plenty of things to do from rock climbing to treking to mountain biking and mountaineering and of course admiring some ancient ruins. I am going to start a 4 day trek in the Cordillera Blanca tomorrow before heading back to Pisco for another month of volunteer work. It is said to be some of the most beautiful scenery of the Andes with several snow capped peaks over 5000m. Hope the weather holds up as it has so far.

Oh, and on another note, once I got the word from Matt that he got a trim on his goatee, I went ahead and got a trim on mine. 6 months of growth was getting out of control, so I trimmed it rather than taking it off completely.

Surf Trip

2009-07-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

Playa Makaja (near side) & Redondo (far side) seperated by the pier.

Playa Pampilla breaks right.

It was Monday, July 6th when I reluctantly left the home base of Pisco in search of waves. Sad to be away from the great volunteers there, but good news is that I found some great waves. Apparently the last weekend I spent in Pisco, a huge swell arrived to the coast of mid-southern Peru but I didn´t manage to get out for a paddle. However, since I arrived in Lima on Monday afternoon, I have managed to surf everyday apart from one when I had some stomach issues.
Lima has several beaches for surfing depending on swell conditions and direction. I didn´t venture out of Miraflores and surfed Makaja and Redondo this time. Last time I was in Lima I also tried the rights at Pampilla. Apart from the cost of staying and eating in Miraflores, there are always some waves.

Central Lima - Plaza de Armas

The day that I had a rotten gut, I tagged along with Riz (England), Clay (Wisconsin), and Sally and Leandra (Pennsylvania) to central Lima for some sight seeing. We went to China town for some grub, San Francisco Church to check out the extensive catacombs and some classic architecture.
On the night of Friday the 10th, I hopped on an overnight bus to Trujillo, where I then took a taxi to the nearby fishing village of Huanchaco. Like Lima, there are always some waves here, however I prefer it here for a few reasons. First of all, it is much cheaper; I pay 15 soles per night for a private room with hot water in my private bathroom, where I was paying 30 soles per night for a dorm room in Lima. Secondly, the shape of the beach favours left breaks and me being a goofy rider prefer riding with my frontside to the wave face.

Our guide playing the flute in the main Plaza of Chan Chan

Looking over traditional Huanchaco.

My life this past week and some has been very relaxing, consisting of surfing, reading, sleeping and of course plenty of eating. Here in Huanchacho, the hotel that I am staying at is only 2 blocks from the break so I usually go out twice a day. Between sessions, if I am not eating, sleeping or reading, I may be walking around checking out sites and such. On Tuesday, I checked out the nearby ruins of Chan Chan, the worlds largest adobe city. Most of the mud walls are eroding but restoration is ongoing and some of the main areas have been beautifully restored.
I am not sure when I shall return to Pisco. Originally it was meant to be this coming weekend, but the waves are so much fun that I want to get as much surf time in as possible before making my way to Brazil via Bolivia. So, I shall remain somewhere on the coast of Peru until I feel I have had my fix and find someone to adopt my surf equipment.

Holiday week at PSF

2009-07-07T04:42:00.000-07:00

Volunteers hanging out in the plaza on a Sunday.

PSF has been nothing short of amazing these last 5 weeks. We have been pouring a lot of concrete and digging a lot of trenches. Two weeks ago, there was a group of us that went to a part of Pisco called Centro Pablado to dig some trenches. It involved smashing concrete and digging meter and a half deep holes connected with 2 foot deep trenches. That was a 2 day mission, so on day 3 we poured concrete to fill the lovely holes that we worked so hard to dig.

Ivan looks at what jobs need to be filled for the day.

Some good looking trenches.

Ollie and I made a brick wall out of some good looking trenches.

Just last week, two of us went back to continue with the project that is to be a bathroom and kitchen when finished; so we poured a bit of concrete and built a brick wall. It is so neat to see a project come so far in such a short time and to be able to be part of the transformation. All of this hands on work has made me start to seriously consider going into trades when I get back to Canada.

The holiday week started last Monday. It was a local fisherman holiday, so in respect we did not work that day and instead went to a small town just sout of Pisco called San Andres. There they had pisco and wine tasting, plenty of street vendors with churros, unidentified meat, ceviche and more, and for the kids a mini fair. Also, there were dozens of foosball tables set up for un sol games.

Fishermans day in San Andres.

Felipe, Billy, Andy and Jake playing foos.

Last week was also the beginning of July, as you know, so there was a wee celebration for Canada day and a big party for the 4th of July. On July 1st, there were only myself and Dominic (who emigrated from Hungary 10 years ago), which was nothing compared to how many Americans were part of PSF. In any case, we sang our national anthem at breakfast, raised the flag to wave wonderfully in the wind, went to work and then proceeded to have a little shin dig in the evening. It was good times for sure.

Getting ready for work on Canada Day.

Beach soccer wraps up on Pisco Playa.

July 2nd was the unofficial Mexican day, so we celebrated by having delicious Mexican food. Friday we followed up with another wonderful meal of pizza (in a brick oven) and BBQ kabobs & chorizos. This was all just a warm up for Saturday to come.
Being the north american summer, we have been getting huge numbers of people coming through for a couple of days to a few weeks to help out. With the high turnover of volunteers, things can tend to get pretty dirty, especially with the kind of reconstruction we do in Pisco. Most Saturday jobs were cancelled not because of Independance Day, but because we were meant to do a mass clean of the PSF houses. In our "nice" dorm, we found mice poop, old moldy clothes, some unidentifiable food and to top it off a scorpion! When Jen (project mangager) found this out, she made sure we had properly cleaning equipment and went at it for the day.
Later that evening, a homemade American flag was hoisted, the national anthem was sung and the party started. There was plenty of delicious chocolate based food, beer, fruit cocktails and we even had a fireworks display. It was another good time to wrap up the holiday week at PSF.
Sunday was a lazy day for most, with some more clean up and hanging out. I was meant to leave for Lima that day, but the thing with PSF is that it is much easier to just not leave, so I didn´t...until Monday.
I came here for a few reasons. Number one was to get some surf time in. In addition to that, I felt I needed a break from all the people there and need to start sorting out my last 2 months. I will probably return to Pisco this weekend if I don´t end up heading back to Northern Peru for some serious surfing. Depends if I have someone to go with I think.
That is the update for now. Thanks for reading!

Pisco Sin Fronteras

2009-06-25T19:40:00.001-07:00

Arriving to a site by local transport.

Two weeks have passed since Matt and I have disjoined, and it has been 4 weeks that I have been volunteering with Pisco Sin Fronteras (click on the title to check out website). Though the weather is sunny only half the time (at best) and the surf is not right here in Pisco, the group here is filled with terrific people doing some amazing work.

In short, a massive earthquake hit the area in August of 2007 and caused immense damage. Like Matt mentioned, not a lot of funding reached Pisco. I heard that a lot of the international aid money went missing (aka was stolen) so funding for reconstruction is very limited and donations are crucial. Because there is such poverty, some of the reconstruction families are forced to do is not sustainable.

PSF is here to help communities and families however we can. We have people come to us to ask for a helping hand, or go wander communities assessing sites that we could do some work on. Most of the work needed is reconstruction, so we do everything from rubble removal and resurfacing to digging trenches and leveling ground to pouring concrete and building and/or moving houses. Also, some people go to play with high energy kids at a Unicef Play Centre. It is run by a lady as a place for children to play safely rather than in the streets or the rubble. Some Saturdays, local English teachers come to practice through conversation.

Brick laying

Andy, Dom, Dae and David moving walls of a modular house.

Putting the modular back-together again.

The turnover of volunteers is pretty freakin fast, but a few long term peeps keep it familiar and somewhat organized. It is a pretty laid back organization and I can honestly say I am not sure when I will leave. All in all, it has been one of the coolest things I have been involved with; great to help this community and great people to be around. Having said that, most of us are native english speakers, so my spanish hasn´t gotten much better, though I can understand most things quite well.

Dom, Andy, Felipe, Jake and Selene enjoying some icecream.

The school-yard hangout area.

Matt's Mission

2009-06-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Well I quickly learned that the greatest downfall of traveling alone is most palpable while waiting for buses. You can only play one player card games for so long before you lose your mind completely; so you can imagine my dismay when I discovered I was to spend 9 hours in Arica, Chile all by my lonesome. Lucky for me there was an internet cafe just across the street from the terminal and after some long chats with Robyn and my folks the nine hours didn't seem nearly as bad. I still played a great deal of one player card games though and departed some what lucid. However, this layover put some stress on me to reach Salta in time for my pick up on the 14th to head out to the Sayta Horse Ranch. I needed to quick departure from San Pedro, Chile, to Salta, Argentina, but of course, things do not always work out the way you need them to and the next bus to Salta was not until the next day. This actually was a fortunate turn of events in the end as I had no choice but to check out the cool little desert town of San Pedro and spend my first night in a bed in a few nights. San Pedro and the surrounding area is quite beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed its slendor on a mountain bike as I biked between rocky desert mountains, across mostly dried strems, and through a winding canyon with tight turns and low overhangs for 28KM. I loved every minute of it! Boy did my bum hurt afterwards though. Perhaps not the smartest activity just before heading to a horse ranch for three days, but well worth it.

As I did not have an alarm clock I hit the hay at 7:40 to ensure I would not sleep past my bus departure time. I was tired anyways, so it was an almost justifiable plan. After an amazing bus ride to Argentina filled with incredible flat expanses of desert, rocky protutions, salty, mostly frozen river beds, classic forking cacti, llamas, ducks, and small dear-like critters in which my eyes were glued to the window the entire ride, I arrived to Salta around 9:00PM and met up with my friend Cristina who is Ecuadorian but lives in Buenos Aires. We reminisced over Ecuadorian fun and then hit the hay to head out to the ranch bright and early.

Sayta Ranch was i n c r e d i b l e and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute there. The owner (Enrique) is a teenager trapped in a mid-fifty year old body who cracked a joke about sex every third sentence at least, the horses were well behaved and beautiful, the scenery and wildlife was amazing, the three resident dogs were great and definitely got a lot of attention from me, and I ate more steak of higher quality than I could have ever dreamed of eating. I think I ate more money in meat than I paid for my entire stay there. We also learned to gallop and post, jump on the horse without a saddle and ride bare back, and use a lasso. I told Enrique in two more days I would be a true gaucho (an Argentinian cowboy essentially) and he responded "tal vais dos mas vivas" which means maybe in two more lifetimes. A very fun man. It was definitely sad to leave the ranch after our short stay.

After three days on horse back we took out tender bums North with two other travelers from the ranch and headed to Permacarma where we hiked to view the Seven Coloured Mountains. I am not too sure how it happens, but apparently different compounds are compressed together in layers and upon exposure to the air they oxidize to form different colours. However it happens, it is very pretty. We then headed a little further north to Humahuacha where we hoped to see the White Mountains that our trusty Lonely Planet suggested... Not quite worth it. Sure they were a little white, but not very impressvie.

After our little hike Cris and I hopped on a bus to Buenos Aires (BA), or at least we thought it was to BA. Turns out the women who sold us the tickets decided to play a trick on us and lied to us to put us on a bus to Cordova. Needless to say we were unimpressed and made sure the bus company bought us our next tickets to BA like we were supposed to be traveling to. We arrived 6 hours later than we were supposed to, but we arrived! BA is gorgeous and full of opportunities. I am really looking forward to my couple weeks here. I'll keep you posted!

-Matt

The Oasis of Huacachina and Pisco Beyond

2009-06-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

Casa de Arenas. Where we stayed our first visit to the oasis.

Well after some great times in the high altitude of Cusco, we set out to the desert town of Huacachina. The small oasis is a five minute drive from the large city of Ica, but the rising dunes all around the lagoon make it feel all the more remote. There are probably about 40 buildings in the community and at least half have pools. Our hostel was no exception and had a definite resort hotel feel to it with a pool side bar and a open air bar at the back with pool and foozeball tables. The only disappointment with the hostel was the staff who were rude, rarely smiling and seemed to make a point of not being accomodating. Not the best idea when you are in the accomodation business, but who are we to judge? All we know is that we would never go there again nor recommend it to anyone.

High velocity sand sledding.

Sandboarding!

The surrounding dunes were nothing shy of incredible and Mitch and I could not get enough of them. There was not a single evening that the dunes were not covered with silhouettes of tourists hiking the dune for the sunset and we definitely opted to enjoy the sight a night or two as well. From the top of the dunes you can see vast expanses of rolling sand mountains that not only served as a breath taking, picture perfect view but as a giant playground for dune buggies and quads and most hostels offered a dune buggie experience combined with sand boarding. Such a good time! The dune buggie ride is like a roller coaster and then it makes various stops at the tops of giant dunes for you to try your luck on a sand board. Mitch was a pro from his snow boarding experience where as I was much more so the neophyte. After smacking my head on the much-less-forgiving-than-snow sand on the small hills, I opted to ride down on my stomach like a toboggan and got to some intense speeds which I definitely prefered to the head ache. While fun, I still think I prefer sledding on snow.

Our driver and buggy looking over Haucachina.

A little sand in the shoes...

After four great days in Huacachina we decided to head off to the city of Pisco where we hoped to volunteer with an organization devoted to helping those affected by an earthquake two years back. The drive into Pisco shocked both Mitch and I and was evidence enough that a lot of work was needed to help repair the damage done. We are not too sure as to why Pisco received such little funding, but we have a feeling that the larger cities like Ica may have gotten the majority while Pisco was left unnoticed. We checked into the first hostel we found and after a short nap set out to find the volunteer organization called Pisco Sin Fronteras or PSF (roughly, Pisco without borders). We ended up finding a tourist agency that played soccer with them that very night and were invited to play against our soon to be co-workers. PSF is super laid back and it was extremely easy to get signed on with them and we started the very next day. After working one and a half days, it turned out the whole PSF crew was heading to Huacachina for the birthday of the director, Harold. Well as it turned out it was Mitch's birthday the day before Harold's so we decided what better place to celebrate than a wonderous desert oasis. It also turned out the PSF crew loves our hated hostel, so we stuck to our guns and did not stay with them. Another bonus was meeting us with our friend Brad from the Lost City Trek and our friend Jake from Montañita. It was a great weekend of reminiscing, dancing and more dune buggying and sand boarding, then back to the grind stone.

Sandboarding, Take 2.

Two weeks of hard and extremely rewarding work in which we worked to repair a playground, pour concrete for building wall foundations or floors, remove garbage from beaches, digging trenches and removing old walls, participating in a parade, and more just flew by. It was particularly easy to work hard when you are removing glass from a playground as you watch the cute kids run in bare foot, or when you are digging a trench for a family's new house when they are living in a tent on the site. I had intentions of visiting a gym not far from our housing, but definitely did not need it with all the manual labour I was putting in each day. Sadly, I had to leave today to make my way down to Chile briefly and then Argentina. After a busy morning in which Mitch and I cooked breakfast for everyone (a french toast special), I said my many many many good-byes and then packed my bags. It was particularly sad and decidedly weird leaving Mitch behind. While it is exciting and new to be traveling on my own, I sure am going to miss traveling with my buddy. We traveled five months together to the day and had an amazing adventure. From here on out you will be reading two separate stories as he continues to do amazing work in Pisco and I make my way south to Buenos Aires. We'll keep you posted, thanks for reading!

Cuzco, Qosqo, Cusco!!!

2009-05-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

Monday, May 18th, we were done the Inca Trail and ready to just hang out for a bit. Made sense, especially because leaving the city to get to the coast meant at least 15 hours of bus riding. With that in mind, Matt got himself a week membership at Empire Gym, which entitled him to spin classes and boxing classes too. It was a good thing that we had decided not to rush out of Cuzco also because there was a transport strike for 48 hours (Tuesday and Wednesday) where large boulders were placed in the road to prevent entry or exit from the city via road. The airport was still in operation, which meant that Adele and Laura had to fork out some extra cash to make their departure flight from Lima on Thursday.
A beautiful city it is, which made us pretty stoked to spend at least an extra week there. While Matt spent plenty of time at the gym working out and enjoying some boxing lessons, Mitch opted for a much less healthy lifestyle for the week. I mostly hung out at the party hostel, occassionally venturing into the streets. It is unfortunate because the streets are not only flooded with tourists but also with people harrassing the tourists for their business, selling everything from paintings, to drugs to Inca massages and alpaca wool clothes. This made wandering the city a little less enjoyable then one would pressume from seeing pictures, but still an experience in its own.
We found a great restaurant called Jack´s Cafe. Apparently, so did all the other gringos because there was always a queue to get inside and it was worth the wait each of the 3 times. We also found a fabulous chicken place that had a free salad bar and dozens of rotisserie chickens on the go. One time we ordered a quarter chicken each, went to get some salad and returned to find our meal ready, fresh out of la brasa. It sure was swell.

The plaza by day...

The plaza by night.

More about the hostel: the mornings were a bit tricky, because the beds were so damn comfy and the morning air was pretty chilly that making that first leap from sheets to shower proved fairly difficult. Breakfast consisted of bread, jelly with tea or coffee. Fruit was extra cost and Matt and I brought our own peanut butter. During breakfast we would play pool in the vacant bar, often longer than we would like to admit, but it was all in good fun. The days were relaxing and great food was available all the time. The hostel was so great, it wasn´t even necessary to leave most of the time, but the city had plenty to offer. One morning after breakfast, we hiked to the northeast hill overlooking the city, where the Cristo Blanco statue was situated. A beautiful view and sunny day kept us gazing over the city for a little more than an hour. After that we paid a visit to Jack´s and then treated ourselves to a massage with hot stones. It was nice (and well priced), but my rocks were too hot. I thought they were meant to be hot, just not hot enough to burn my skin. A couple did and I had no luck getting a reimbursment. Meh.

The yard of the The Point hostel.

The nights at the hostel were consistently fun. Always new faces were coming and going during our stay there and the bar offered activities everynight, usually following happy hour. One night was strip twister, which Matt and I won because no other competitors were willing to take off more clothes (nobody got naked, just topless). Another had killer pool, which was very popular but we didn´t feel like our skills were up to par. Friday night was a Royal Army Party, where the staff led by example in getting properly blitzed and Saturday was Poker (as were many other nights). Sunday was the Drinking Olympics, but rather than representing Canada, we decided we had better make a split for it before we get stuck here like so many others.
With that as our idea, we hopped on a night bus headed to Ica. The bus departed at 6pm with an especially fast driver. The speedy swerving through the mountains made it a bit tricky to sleep, but eventually I got some sound shut eye. Waking up with the sun coming across the beautiful landscape made sleeping seem like a waste of time, so instead I played with my camera and got some better shots than I would have thought possible through a dirty bus window. Matt had trouble sleeping most of the night, but was out until about 7am when they decided to start blaring crappy Spanish music throughout the bus. Pretty brutal.
That wraps up the Cuzco blog but there is more coming soon...

Camino Inka-Inka Trail

2009-05-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Cuzco on the morning of the 12th, giving us a couple days to acclimatize prior to our trek to Machu Picchu. The dry season just began this month, so the weather was great when we arrived. When the sun is beating down in the day, it is warm enough to wander in shorts, tees and sandalls, but as soon as the sun sets, the temperature of this city situated at 3300m gets mighty chilly.

Hanging out at the Horny Llama Bar

We checked into the Point Hostel, which is a party hostel for backpackers, by backpackers. It is a pretty sweet set up with a bar on site, great food available and a lovely yard with hammocks. Also, the best showers in South America! It is a bit more expensive, but you get what you pay for and the parties are pretty crazy most nights. Being that we arrived to this mountain town from sea level, we rested up to get acclimatized and set for our trek. We even met up with Dotan from our apartment in Salvador, Brazil, and Karen and Steve from our time in Colombia.

Wednesday, I bought a new camera, Matt found a gym to work out at and I went to do some laps for the first time since January. Later that evening, we had our trek briefing with our guide Hipolito then proceeded to purchase some snacks for our trek. WE FOUND PEANUT BUTTER!!! It was a great find.
Thursday morning, we were up at 5:30am to be picked up at 6am and made our way to kilometer 82, where the inka trail trek began. Also, the copious amounts of photos to be taken started.

And it begins...

Day 1 was about 10 km of walking mainly flat terrain, with plenty of informative breaks regarding flora, fauna and Inka history. At 1pm, we had our first amazing meal of the trek. I didn´t think that it was possible to have such amazing food on a camping trek. The food was not only delicious, but it was more variable then the expected rice and beans with meat. During the 4 days we had everything from oatmeal, to omletes, to chicken wings, soup, stuffed peppers, potatoes, quinoa and llama. Also, we had coca tea about 5 times a day to help with the altitude and digestion.

Some fellow trail users.

Night 1 was spent at about 2800m under a super starry sky in tents. It got a little cold, but we slept pretty good anyway. After 8 hours of sleep, we woke up to coca tea in our tents then had breakfast, introduced ourselves to one another (trekkers, guides and porters), then began our first pass at 7am. We were to climb 1200 vertical meters up the ´Dead Womens Pass´ and then descend 600m to our 2nd camp. It was meant to be approximately a 5 hour ascent and 2 hour descent, but Matt, Travis of Golden and I held a quick pace and did the entire hike in 5 hours. We got to the summit in 3 and a half hours, where we stopped for a snack break. We were sweaty of course and had to bundle up while we enjoyed the fantastic view and ate some snacks in the cold air. An hour and a half of steady walking down steps, we arrived at our camp just after noon before most of our porters even.

Another amazing view could be observed from our camp site, as we did while we waited for the rest of our posse and as the porters set up the tents. Lunch was at about 2pm, followed by a nap by most only to get up at 5 for tea and popcorn. At 7 we had dinner, played some Yaniv (an awesome game) then bundled up for sleep. I didn´t have a sleeping bag, just a sheet and fleece blanket but I was able to borrow Travis´ bivi sack to add warmth and Matt helped me score the table cloths for even more.

In the midst of the 2nd day climb.

The view from our 2nd camp.

Day 3 started much like day 2, with 5am coca tea followed by breakfast and setting off by 7. This day was a cultural day, where we were to visit 4 Inca sites: Runkuracay, Sayacmarca, Phuyupatamarca and Wiñay Wanya. To show respect to the mountain, we were told to bring a rock from Runkuracay to the 2nd summit. Some grabbed small stones to fit in their pocket, or a stone the size of ones fist, but Lito suggested that Matt bring a small boulder up the mountain and being the champ that he is, he complied. At the top of the second summit, our tour group (team yan-$%*&) made a cairn out of all of our stones, with Matt´s as a great base.
In total, it was a 10 hour, moderate paced day with stops for tours, snacks and lunch. Matt, Travis (Golden), Josh (Calgary) and I stuck together most of the day, sharing riddles, jokes and taking shifts counting thousands of descending steps. The tours were very interesting and each site we visited had it`s own purpose, depicted in the way it was constructed.

Our group of trekkers and the amazing porters.

We reached our last camp at about 5pm, had some drinks and played cards before an amazing dinner, then said our thank-yous and good-byes to the porters. Because we had been trekking all day and the wake up call was at 4am on day 4, we pretty much went to bed asap. The next day was to be so early so we could be some of the firsts to get to Machu Picchu, because as many as 1000 people go there each day in the high season (think off all the pictures!). The control point didn't open til 5:30am, but we arrived to wait at 5am and still had 50 people in front of us! The last stretch to the sun gate, overlooking Machu Picchu, was narrow, fast paced and competitive. Most people are going at a fast pace but it is tricky to pass the sloweres on such a narrow path. I took a bale at one point, then almost took Matt out by stepping on his shoe lace, but apart from me getting some bloodied up fingers, all was good and we made it to the sun gate before the sun.

Yeah we beat the sun to Machu Picchu.

Now, we were extremely lucky with the weather. Apparently it was meant to rain for our 4 days, but the first day was sunny and windy, the second day was mostly clear to observe the incredible vistas, the long 3rd day was cool and cloudy with some spits of rain (great for the 10 hours of walking actually), and the day at Machu Picchu was clear & sunny. Unfortunately, Matt and I were pretty trigger happy on the cameras, thus Matt ran out of memory and I ran out of battery.

Within the lost Inca city on a sunny morning.

Hipolito led us to the Wayna Picchu ticket booth immediately after we checked in to the control and checked our bags for the day. It was before 8am and apparently we were still too late to buy tickets for the 10am climb. They only allow a couple hundred people at a time to climb the little extra for another beautiful view. Matt and I weren´t too torn; our legs were tired, we had seen plenty of nice views and we wanted to check out the Aguas Caliente hot springs.
Our tour guide for Machu Picchu was Hipolito with Matt and I as the only 2 in the group. It was two hours long and quite informative. We got to visit the temples, different sectors, house of the high priest and the dozens of agricultural terraces. At the end of the tour, we had some snacks involving peanut butter, grabbed our tickets for the bus to aguas caliente and made our way to the hotsprings. To get there meant more walking with our packs up from town a few minutes. The muscles appreciated the warm water but the water was luke warm and some pools reaked of urine.
After a dip at the baños termales, we made our way to a restaurant where we said good bye to our guides and fellow tourists before hopping on a train part-way back to Cuzco. In Ollantaytambo, we boarded a mini bus for the last portion of our return journey. Arrived at our hostel close to 7pm, got cleaned up and went to the Horny Llama Bar. It was Steve and Karens last night of their 12 month trip around the world. We enjoyed a fabulous bbq dinner at the Point Hostel and proceeded to party.
It is nice to have done that trip we booked back in February, because now we can just chill here in Cuzco. There is plenty to see and do, and Matt would love to take advantage of the great deal at Empire Gym.

Life on a Bus

2009-05-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

After a few days in Mancora, Matt, Kelly and I decided it was finally time to make up some ground to Cusco. First stop was to be the worlds longest left point breaking wave in the world, Puerto Chicama. Being new to the Peru bus system, we had a bit of trouble finding a bus with room heading south. Also, in most cities, there is no one main bus terminal but rather a number of companies with terminals in various places. After no luck finding a bus with 3 seats to Trujillo, we opted for a bus headed to Lima. We barely fit on the bus and didn´t even manage to get our bags and board under the bus.
The time to Trujillo was meant to be about 8 or 9 hours, but the bus was having some serious engine issues so it took closer to 10 or 11 hours. Also, being that the bus was headed to Lima, we managed to space out and stay on the bus right through Trujillo. The next town we hopped off and back tracked to the major city of Northern Peru where we ate and then bussed another 2 hours to Chicama.
Upon arrival, we could see the long beach with loooong waves and picked a cheap hostel with a great view of the break. There were a few other surfers at the hostel we chose, but they were on there way to Huanchaco for bigger waves. We had JUST missed the swell, so the surf was pretty flat. In addition to that, the water required 3.5mm full-body wet suits and was full of great big jelly fish. It wasn´t as much fun as we had anticipated and there is not much else to do in this town but surf. We mucked about in the waves a few times anyway but after two days and one night, we hopped on a bus to Trujillo where we would catch another bus to Lima.
We arrived in Lima at 4am, grabbed a cab to the Loki hostel in Miraflores and stored our bags. We killed a few hours then headed to McDs for some breakfast (it was too convienently close to the hostel). After some grub, I started my hunt for a new camera while Kelly and Matt rented some longboards and enjoyed a couple hours of surf. No luck finding a camera but the surf looked like fun.
At 1pm we took grabbed a cab to rush our way to the CIAL terminal for our 1:15 bus. Apparently there are more than one CIAL terminals in the city and our cab driver didn´t know where our particular one was. After some unorthodox driving, we got to the terminal at 1:30ish and JUST made it on our bus in time for departure. Phewf!
This 22 hour bus ride was pretty pleasant. I was sneezing heeps, so wasn´t as comfortable as some. However, they did give us blankets, snacks, drinks a dinner and showed us about 6 movies, with latin soundtracks between. The scenery was unbelievable as well. From Lima, we headed south on the PanAmerican wedged between the Pacific Ocean and desert sand dunes. Not much scenery was observed through the night apart from the full moon, but when dawn arrived we were weaving and winding up and down the Peruvian Andes. A handful of passengers ended up chacking too, probably due to a combination of the sharp corners and the altitude changes. One hour we would be at 2700m, the next 4100m. Despite the stench of some vomit, the view of deep valleys and snow capped mountains was phenomenal.

Me enjoying a nice sized brew on the beach in Mancorra.

Matt enjoying a nice cuba libre (rum and coke).

A fantastic Mancorra sunset.

Surfing in Montañita

2009-05-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

One of the many sunsets viewed from our hostel balcony.

Just as everyone who had been to Montañita before told us, it is a very hard city to leave but due to our need to rush down to Cusco for Machu Picchu we managed a departure. It was a small, quaint town consisting mostly of restaurants, bars and hostels and had so nçmany gringos it was hard to remember that we were still in Ecuador at times. The streets were either cobble stone or sand and the beach stretched for miles. On busy days there were no fewer than 75 surfers out on

the waves, but luckily the waves broke at so many spots that you could usually find a spot with just one or two other surfers to share the glories of the ocean with. Mitch and I nearly surfed everyday that we were with the exception of Mitch taking a couple days off to have a quick cold before jumping back on the board. Mitch managed to remember everything he learned in Brazil but I sadly was set back nearly square one. With some determination and a lot of patience I managed to get back to my Brazil surfing level and then some. We could have easily spent a month or more in Montañita.

My mosquitoe net, matress and trunk.
Our hostel was situated on the beach and was the
cheapest place we have stayed yet. Sure all we had was a matress on the ground, a mosquitoe net and a trunk for our belongings, but it was a great place to meet people and we had to walk all of ten steps to check out the waves. I did however find sn English guy who was supposed to be sleeping on the matress beside mine curled up in my bed, snuggling my pillow one night. It was quite a mission to get him out too as he really thought that was his space no matter how much I told him that that was in fact my pillow and matress.

So on top of great parties with live music, delicious food and a lot of surfing, we also were lucky enough to see hundreds of little song birds as they were on their migratory path to Peru. They would sit on the power lines in the middle of town to rest for the night before taking off in the morning. We saw about three different sets of them, which is a lot of little birdies!

Lots and lots of little migratory song birds on their way to Peru.

We are now in Mancora, Peru and enjoying the sunshine and beach. I have yet to surf but Mitch was up bright and early this morning to get in a session before the crowd. Soon off to Cusco for Machu Picchu!

Quito and the Journey to the Center of the Earth!!

2009-04-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

Well after a mostly rainy stay in the small beach town of Atacames we headed off to the capital of Ecuador, Quito (pronounced key-toe), to send off our friend Jay as his trip had come to an end. The bus ride to Quito involved a steady climb up the densely, dark-green forested mountain as we watched a raging river below slowly shrink smaller and smaller until we were encompassed in cloud. As we emerged from the cloud cover we were awe struck with the sheer magnitude of the city of Quito. We were driving on a populated mountain ridge that quickly and steeply dropped off on both sides to show us miles and miles of compact city spreading out in every direction. The ridge continued for a long time before we finally ascended to the bustling capital.

The hostel we stayed at was called the Secret Garden and was full of great people and fun staff. The reception was on the fifth floor where they had a roof top terrace with a phenomenal view of the city, a bar, and gourmet restaurant. When we found out our reservation apparently didn't go through properly they were super cool about it and gave us all a free drink and ended up upgrading our accomodations from dorms to private rooms for the first night to make up for their mistake. Very cool! We enjoyed a delicious meal on the rooftop and took part in a quiz night challenge for some great prizes but came dead last.... By a lot... Apparently we were lacking in our random tidbit knowledge like David Bowie's real name is David Jones. Who knew! Despite poorly representing Canada we had a lot of fun and the other nights were no different (with regards to fun that is). It was lucky we were in somewhat of a rush to head south for Machu Picchu or else I am not sure if we would have been able to leave Quito.

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the telling of our JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH! Well it was really only the Midad del Mundo (middle of the world) but that did not stop me from saying the aforementioned exciting journey at any and every given chance. We took a couple city buses for an hour and a half to a very impressive monument to the Equator. It was so neat to be able to jump from one hemisphere to the other and learn about all the different forces at work at the Equator and the indigenous peoples that lived around the area. The only thing that would have made it better would be if Brendan Fraser was there (he starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth if that reference seemed too obscure for you). The first monument we visited was founded by a team of French scientists who were sent out to measure the size of the Earth via tedious trigonometry but unfortunately, and much too late for the monument, were off by 200m as was later foundd using GPS. We later went to a much more humble equator monument where we were able to conduct a series of experiments to prove that it was indeed the "true" equator.

The grand but wrongly place monument to the equator.

So, things we learned: 1) water drops straight down at the equator because the opposing centripital forces of the two hemispheres created by the spinning of the earth cancel eachother out at the equator. We took the basin to either side and observed the opposing spirals created just feet away from the exact point of the equator. Sooo cool! Apparently this equalizing of forces also accounts for why there are no tornadoes or hurricanes at the Equator either. I was a little skeptical of that point but it could very well be true. 2) The sun dials are perpendicular at the equator with two faces: one for telling time while the sun is in the northern hemisphere and the other for while it is in the southern. 3) During the equinox days Quito is the closest possible community to the sun. 4) The indiginous people there believed in life after death and when you died you were buried in a pot in the fetal position to represent the womb. There were also tools and clothes buried too for use in the next life. The chief would not be buried alone so they would drug the wife with a hallucinogenic cactus and bury her alive! So not cool! They also shrunk heads of loved ones and enemies as it was believed the spirit was kept in the head. They would sow the mouth and eyes shut to make sure no spirit escaped during the process. Why not the nose you may ask, who knows! And finally, not the most interesting but still fun, 5) they were completely naked peoples and the males wore a string around their waste that found its place snugly under the head of the penis holding it flesh against their stomach (punny!) as they thought this was more comfortable. If anyone is interested in this new fashion trend let me know and I will see if I can pick you up some traditional penis string. Needless to say we had a blast even without Brendan Fraser and learned a lot.

Me walking on my hands in both hemisperes at once!

Mitch and I at the true equator site.

We are now in Montañita, a very popular surfing location with no less than 75 surfers out on the water on a busy day and are loving surfing and relaxing. More to come soon!

Good Roads, Crazy Drivers!

2009-04-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

After our trek, Matt came down with an illness and was bed ridden for a few days in Santa Marta. Forunately, our room had a great selection of movie channels, so for about 3 or 4 days Brad, Jayson, Matt and I chilled in Santa Marta.
On Sunday, we made the jump to Cartagena. We forgot to take into account that it was Easter Sunday, and we were in the most desired Colombian holiday destination. This being said, upon arrival to the bus terminal, getting a bus ticket looked grim with huge queues and copious amounts of peoples bum rushing the incoming busses. After a long wait in a queue, we managed to get some tickets. Matt and I sat in the VERY front of the bus, next to the driver, whereas Brad and Jayson sat in the VERY back.
After four hours of speeding and swerving around cars, trucks and motorcycles, we arrived in Cartagena and grabbed a taxi to an up-and-coming hotel. It was still under construction, but the brand new beds and pillows were so comfortable! The place also had a pool, restaurant, rooftop terrace with speakers and a bar (under constuction). It was a great place to hang out and most of the guests were from England.
We spent most of our time chilling at the hotel. One day, while I was bed ridden (too much ron), Matt, Jay, Brad and the posh English couple, Alex and Flo went to venture the city looking for a bar to watch the Manchester, Liverpool footy match. Instead, they ate some delicious lunch and proceeded to get lost on the way back home. Apparently no taxis had heard of this new hotel and none of them knew the street name it was on. After taking several taxis to find the hotel with some frustrated passengers, they arrived safe on the positive note that it was a nice way to see the city.
The old city is surrounded by big walls with canons on them, which were built in the 1600s to fend off the pilaging of pirates. It being an important port for South American treasures made it a big target and victim to several pirate attacks.

Yarrr!

Thursday, we decided was time to get out of Colombia. Unfortunate really, but we had to get a move on south. Next destination: Beach in Ecuador.
To get to the border took 48 hours, 3 busses and 3 taxis. We crossed the border by foot and hopped on a fourth taxi to the Tulcan bus terminal.
We decided to go to Atacames to chill on the beach for Jays last week of travel. Getting there took another 3 busses, 10 hours and only cost us 10 US dollars (that is the currency used here).
It is the dry season, but despite the little rain, the sky is often overcast. It is still warm though and the beach is beautiful, long and lined with bars. We have played some beach volleyball, tried some midnight surfing and enjoyed the cheap restaurants.
Right now, we are hunting for a surf shop to buy fins and a leash for the board we adopted. Unfortunately, all we have been able to find is wax. Soon, the surf town of Montañita!

Lost City Trek

2009-04-10T15:28:00.001-07:00

6 days of trekking in the Sierra Nevada, jungle of Colombia will beat you up. This is why we have spent the last couple of days lazing about being anything but productive. Matt picked up a stomach flu that hit him right after we got back from the treck, and all of us in our group of 8--two English couples & 4 BC boys--were sore and tired of walking in the heat with big backpacks. Nevertheless, it was an unforgettable and incredible experience.

Check stop before heading into the Sierra Nevada.

Our trek started last Friday. We met at the Hotel Miramar at 9 in the morning, but didn´t depart until closer to 10:30. Our group included Karen & Steve, the English couple we dove with; Alex and Flo, another, younger English couple; Brad and Jayson, from B.C.; and of course Matt G and Mitch B! Anyway, we started by taking a land cruiser from Santa Marta to a small village in the Sierra Nevada. After a basic but delicious lunch, we met one of our Guides. His name was Gabriel and the other guide who we were to meet later that day was Uriel. They are both tough Spanish speaking guys standing in at 5 foot 4 inches. Tiny but strong!
20 minutes into the trek, we made our first of many swimming stops at a pool in the river. Since we were hiking in the heat of the day, it was very good to cool off. Soon after we started a big ascent to gain 120 vertical meters. With the sun blazing down at over 30 degree celsius and large 30 pound backpacks, this was a very strenuous beginning. Fortunately, after 2 hours of climbing we were blessed with overcast to finish our final 2 hours to the first cabano.
Upon arriving to our accomodation, we got our hammocks ready and then proceeded to play some cards and enjoy a dinner. After the card game, we were all quick to go to bed.
The next morning, we were given our wake up call with the sun at about 6:30am. Coffee preceded breakfast and shortly after we fused with another group to make a quick walk to a terrific waterfall. Matt dubbed it his favorite place in the world, so I will leave a spot for him to describe the magic in better words than I could come up with.

{Matt} Well like Mitch indicated, I have found my own personal paradice. Just upstream from where the trail meets the stream is a water fall that empties into a deep pool with high, smooth rocks rising up on all sides that you can dive off. I entertained myself with back flips from the lower ledges which was such a blast, but many of the others ventured to the highest points for an exhilerating jump. Then, just down stream is the most beautiful spot I have ever seen in my life. The water splits initially into two falls, one major falling down to the bottom and the second that splits into many others forming a natural water slide park look as they wind and weave inbetween the rich green vegetation. Then, at the bottom you can climb up under the curtain of hammering water of the major fall where you are thoroughly showered by other strong streams that was nothing shy of magical. Once inside the waterfall I did not want to leave, it was so incredible. Oh how I loved it there... Ok, back to Mitch!

After enjoying the rejuvination of the falls, we had a lunch then geared up to make our next walk. This was another 4 hour trek, including frequent breaks. Views of the lush, tropical valleys were abundant and if we didn´t need to watch our footing so carefully, would´ve enjoyed gazing upon the greenery the entire time.

Not Matt's favourite spot, but one of the many beautiful sights along the way.

Near the end of this stint, we passed a Indigenous village where we handed treats and gifts to the children. It was wonderful to have them accept the gifts and smile for some photos.
By 5pm, we reached our next cabano, where again we could swim in a refreshing river. I managed to spend too long in the waters, because got a chill which left me stuffed up and unable to sleep soundly. The plan was to eat, go to bed and burn it out the next day of walking.

The final stretch to the lost city before 8 river crossings.

We got up at 6:30am again, ate breakfast and got geared to start our long 7 hour journey up to the lost city. We climbed a couple of ridges and had plenty of breaks before reaching a riverside for a sandwich lunch. After getting sufficiently fuelled, we started our final hour of the stretch to the Lost City. This meant crossing the river 8 times and then climbing nearly 1200 stone steps to our lodge within the city. Despite having a walking stick, my legs were still shot and rather than exploring the city, I just got my bed set up and layed about until dinner.

The final river crossing to the base of the stone step access point.

This brings us to Monday, where we enjoyed a sleep in til about 8am, got up for breakfast and then went on a tour in the hot, morning sun. Our guides were only Spanish speaking, as mentioned before, so we had most of the tour translated by a German fellow from the other group. Very interesting tale of the history and discovery of the city that you can check out on wikipedia I am sure.
Lunch proceeded the tour, and then we got ready to start our return trip. On our way down the steps, we passed an amalgamation of groups which must have consisted of 50 people! The site is really taking off as a popular trek, despite its difficulty. Because of the masses of tourists everyday, the route is well patrolled by the Colombian military, most of which consists of soldiers no older than 20 years.

The walk down was easier than it was going up, but still was hard work for the legs to help the backpacks down all those steps. In just over 5 hours of walking and riddle pondering, we made it to a cabano just passed the Indigenous village. Meals were becoming lower quality with the food running lower and getting older, but we enjoyed a basic dinner anyway before going to bed.
Originally we were meant to go to another city site, Alto Mira, but because the guides noted that we were becoming visibly beat from the first few days, the discouraged us and we opted to spend our 5th day just relaxing. This is exactly what we did. The group we had fused with was only a 5 day trek, so they had to end their Lost City adventure the day we got to relax at the beautiful waterfall. Before the relaxation time, however, we had a short but very hard stint to go between cabanos. In my mind, it was the hardest day of the trek. With a steep ascent that nearly matched the first one, legs extremely tired from 2 back to back big walking day and the morning heat, I was glad to not have another 3 hours to go like the other group. Infact, I was content to swing in my hammock the rest of the day, but glad that we made another trip to the cascades.
On the final day, we got up, ate and made the last bit of our return journey in great time. At the place we had started our trek 5 days earlier, we had another decent lunch and then caught our same 4x4 back to Santa Marta.
We have been lazing infront of the tv in our hotel between meals, and tomorrow we finally make a move out of Santa Marta and on to Cartagena.

Scuba Diving in Colombia

2009-03-29T18:14:00.001-07:00

After our jungle tour, we spent one more night at our hostel in Manaus before heading North to Peurto La Cruz, Venezuela on Saturday night. In the jungle, we met an English couple who were thinking of going to Colombia as well and we said they were more than welcome to come along with us through Venezuela. In addition, two other British travellers joined us, so our group was up to 6 for our epic bus journey to Santa Marta, Colombia.
Apart from dabbling in the black market to take advantage of the fantastic exchange rate ($1US=5bolivars, whereas the offical rate is 1 to 2.2), our Venezuelan experience was more expensive than anticipated, but we made it through safely. We left Manaus 6pm on Saturday and arrived in Santa Marta at 2pm on Tuesday. Epic it was!

Looking towards Taganga from the rooftop terrace of our Hotel in Santa Marta

After this huge journey, we were pretty keen on just relaxing for a couple of days and enjoying the Caribbean sea, sun and breeze. The breeze is more of a strong wind at night, and it is hard to keep drinks from blowing over whilst outdoors.

They bay where we spent our beach days.

We spent 3 nights in Santa Marta and two days in Taganga at the beach. Taganga is a little fishing town 5km north of Santa Marta where there are an abudance of cheap diving schools. We certainly wanted to take advantage of this, and luckily our group of 6 all had our open water diving certificates so we got a great price for our advance open water.

Our dive squad on the last day of fun dives.

The course included 5 skill dives: advance buoyancy control, drift/current dive, deep dive, navigation and night dive. These we did in the span of two days and than today celebrated with 2 fun dives just enjoying the scenery of fish and coral.

A tardé ser in Santa Marta Bay

On our first night in Santa Marta, we enjoyed a spectacular sunset and also met a local who I shall quote. "What are you doing in this dangerous country? If you don´t be careful, you might fall in love with Colombia." That about sums up how dangerous it really is. The major cities and highways are well monitored by the police. On the highway, the number of check stops is almost irritating, but really it is nice to know how well monitored everything is and helps us feel safe. Most of the people are very friendly and welcoming and we are looking forward to the rest of our time in this country.
Perhaps this week we will go on a 6 day trek to the Lost City of the Tayrona Indians. Would be a little Indiana Jonesish.

Amazing Amazon Adventure

2009-03-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

I am having a hard time deciding where to begin this tale, because it is one of epic porportions. For the mere 30 hours we spent in the Amazon Rain Forest, we saw a lot of wonderful things.
In the end, we decided to fly Manaus from Belem, and though it caused some minor headaches, the extra doh we spent was justified with the week we saved. Had we hopped on the boat, we would not be arriving in Manaus til Monday (at the earliest).
We arrived at 3am and proceeded to kill some hours in the airport until the busses started. During this time, we also were harassed by some persistent scammers regarding cheap accomodations and jungle tours. Fortunately, Lonely Planet gave us the heads up on these touters, so we told them off and boarded a bus at 7am.
Being that we hadn't slept much the night of travel, Tuesday was a write-off, where I chose to sleep and Matt chose to read. The next day was similar, though we managed to venture to the docks and make a brief appearance at the market. Bustling, of course, being an International Port. Also, that day we booked an overnight adventure into the Amazon, which starts a new chapter of this post...

We rose at 6:30am to eat some breakfast and get our overnight bags together quickly before departing from the hostel at 7am. From there we took a relatively nice bus on not such a nice road east of Manaus to a small village. From there, we boarded a boat and motored our way through the maze of rivers and flooded forests. We are in the midst of the rainy season right now, so the rivers are 8-10 meteres deeper than they are in August. This is makes accessing parts of the jungle easier by boat having flooded much of the forest. Unfortunately, many birds who have made their nests too low lose their homes, and often times their young. Rather depressing, I know.

Panaromic of Lodge from Tower

Same Lodge, minutes later during a down pour

Arriving to the jungle lodge, we set up our hammocks, ate a basic lunch and enjoyed the tranquillity for a couple hours. This included a stroll through the jungle on a trail not far from the lodge and some lazing in our hammocks.

Just before 2 in the afternoon, we set out by canoe into the flooded forest. The best word we can find to describe this is 'magical.' The only sounds that could be heard, were birds singing (including toucans, macaws and woodpeckers), our guide, Francisco, paddling and the occasional fruit plunging into the water from the treetops above. Sometimes red howler monkeys can be spotted, but we were not so fortunate. We did see plenty of large spiders though. Some seemed even too big for birds to enjoy.

As we bushwacked our way out of the magestic 'floating forest' we set some fish traps. We used the low branches as a secure anchor for the line, and used chicken as the bait. We would later return to find that 2 of our 6 traps had large fish on them, that we would enjoy that night with dinner.

Following the trap setting, we went out into a more open part of river and tied the boat down so we would not get taken with the slow current. Here we would fish for Piranhas using chicken as bait as well. These fish are vicious, and to fish for them you need to be not only aggressive, but timely too. As you feel them nibbling, you need to yank hard on the line in hopes of hooking them. Our boat managed to catch 10 piranhas, with one whole chicken. Matt and I seemed to feed them more than catch them, and only caught one each. Francisco caught 4 as did Simone (the German girl in our group).

The ripples in the water are from some grey river dolphins.

After tossing what remains of the chicken into the black waters, and seeing it vanish and a dance-like fashion, we collected our traps and fish and headed back to the lodge. We arrived just in time to climb the tower and watch the sunset. We manged to spot some grey river dolphins in the glassy water that reflected the colorful sky.
Dinner included the usual rice & beans, along with some fried fish that we had caught. Not a lot of meat on the piranhas, but tasty anyway.

(This story is so big that Mitch had to take a break and I will take over from here)

After a delicious Piranha dinner, we relaxed briefly in our hammocks until nightfall and then headed out in the same canoe with now a small motor on it to go alligator and caymen spotting. In the darkness of night we coasted along the water for about half an hour with only the glow from the distant Manaus and lightning on either side of us for light. When we reached our destination, Francisco pulled the motor in and paddled through the bushes flashing is light on and off for brief navigation, completely eliminating any night vision one might have achieved. All the while we are being brushed by branches and ducking under bushes that only hours ago we had seen covered in spiders (very hard for me, but I managed). Closer to land, he would leave his light on longer to look for the glow of eyes. I of course wanted to see a 23 foot long caymen swim by us, maybe touching the boat with its giant tail, but alas, he found a 3 foot caymen and barely failed to catch it.

Later, he did manage to catch two baby caymens which we were able to hold and inspect, all the while they emitted calls that Francisco indicated were for the mother which if it came around we would have to climb the tree next to us. Exciting maybe, but I got the feeling he was bluffing as there was no severity in his voice or urgency to return them. Later we saw more eyes on land which he whispered was a small species of jaguar, but I sadly only managed to glimpse the eyes. Still, a very neat experience!
We headed back and immediately fell asleep in our hammocks as we had a 5:30 morning for another boat trip,this time just in front of the camp to spot dolphins. We did indeed see a couple swimming up and down, and were close enough to hear them breath in and our and watch them jump slightly out of the water. These were gray dolphins and were of course very cute. We did not swim with them though and the rain began so we headed in for breakfast.

After breakfast, we took another short boat ride to the beginning of our hiking route. It was raining at the beginning but let up soon after. The jungle was again phenomenal. Within ten minutes we found a tree whose bark is used for malaria medicine and another whose is used for vicks vapour rub. Later we found another tree that when sliced with the machete leaked natural milk that was very sweet and the indians would feed it to children for a treat. We spotted two species of frog, one of which being the poisonous tree frog.

Later yet, Franscisco captured the Crab spider which is a ten legged tarantula and the largest spider in South America. The spider has fangs that can pierce sneakers and emits an itching-burning powder which our guide calmly ignored while showing off the fine specimen. No big deal but he held it two inches away from our faces for a photo opp... I did my best to pretend I was relaxed. Later we continued to find more tree bark that is used for scented candles, other that can be used for clove flavouring, and a thick vine that contains very filtered and drinkable water.

Later yet we found an incredibly large, brown mass on the side of a tree that when gently cut with the machete produced millions of ants covering the nest. Apparently these ants eat a poisonous vine and their insides act as a natural bug repellent. So you put your hand on the nest and within seconds it is covered in tiny ants, letting your entire hand be covered to the wrist, you then pull it away and squash the ants, rubbing them up and down your forearm for bug protection. NEAT!

After this point the rain really really really started. I was soaked right through to the bone and ever step was like I was walking in a puddle due to the amount of water that leaked down my jeans into my socks. An hour later we reached the boat and motored our soggy bodies back to the camp where we rested and pseudo dried before attempting another go at the flooded forest (as per my request) before we left as I still so badly wanted to see monkeys or a snake. Sadly, neither were present and we only managed a quick glimpse of tucans again and saw many many larger spiders.

On our way out from the lodge, the rain had subsided, so the lot of us were able to enjoy a near dusk boat ride along glassy waters. We managed to spot even more dolphins then in the morning, including one pink river dolphin!

Alright, that is the best we can do to share such an exciting and memorable experience. Thanks for reading!

Jericoacora and Beyond

2009-03-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

Well once Mitch and I were all rested up and recovered from our week of partying and consequential colds, we set out to explore the glories of Jericoacora. Turns out Jeri, being the isolated and touristy town that it is, is quite able to charge absolutely rediculous prices for most tourist attractions, so we (or rather our wallets) decided that we didn´t really need to rent quads or dune buggies or surf boards and that we could find plenty of entertainment without such things. We were quite right. After our first hike of the rolling grass hills that were rather reminiscent of Scotland, we decided to hike the wind-blown-smooth sand dunes adjacent to Jeri. Our first day turned out to be much more of a mission than we expected as the dunes were not large nor far apart but were however separated by very warm, stagnant waters and dense shrubbery. Not so ideal for flip-flops, but we trecked on with the top of our chosen sand dune set firmly in our minds and were very pleased we did. Our dune turned out to have a steep slope on its far side that was just begging to be leaped off, a request we couldn´t help to oblige to. After numerous jumps we sweatily battled out way through yet a thicker bog that did not look nearly as treacherous from the top of the dune and eventually made it to the glorious ocean that we thankfully and immediately jumped in to both clean and cool off.
Our next adventure involved renting horses from a group of horse handlers we had passed many times on our way to the beach. Being the second cheapest tourist experience aside from the free hiking we smugly rode off on our tiny mares with our thick and thrifty wallets and set off for the beach. Well neither Mitch nor I had been on a horse in years and it appeared the horses could sense this as they mostly did as they pleased. Each time I would try to get my cream-coloured mare to do more than a snail´s pace she would veere off to the left or just stubbornly continue at her snails pace. Mitches grey-spotted mare would give him a small run but his saddle could not stay on her sadly malnourished back, so it appeared we were to stick with walking and mostly to where the horses wanted to go. A little bewildered at the complicated nature of our horses and their inability to walk much faster than we could ourselves, we were still pleased with the great bargain we had found; that was until we saw a group of other riders heading the opposite direction. Their horses we magnificent and large and strong and fed and, best of all, running! Oh what fun they must have been having! We thought, perhaps our horses didn´t want to head away from the stall where we rented them, so back we head. I was indeed able to get some runs out of my horse and began to feel like quite the cowbow. She even went where I wanted! Mitch however could not stay on due to the wobbly saddle and we head back to trade in his horse so we could set off on a wild running horse adventure. He did manage another horse but the second saddle was also not quite up to par and our legs we beginning to feel the rubbing a little too much so after one run we went back to take a sabbatical from our cowboy careers after one hour.
The remainder of our days involved more sand dune jumping off of a far closer and bog-free dune, poker and partying with yet more Isrealie friends and beautiful ocean sun sets. To stay in shape Mitch continued the daily push-up and sit-up routine and added in some morning runs which apparently could not be early enough as he would come back quite overheated each day and in desperate need of a cold shower each time. Being the gym man I am myself, I opted to hit the gym for another fantastic four hour gym session. I had a great time representing Canada´s strength and thoroughly enjoyed teaching all my fellow gym mates how to properly do the exercises I was doing which had them all enthralled. I even had one 51 year old man who spoke English quite well ask if I was from Cirque du Soleil! A truly great time and I was sad to say goodbye to them all as we were leaving the next day.
6:00 we are half an hour early at our pick up destination. Well time passed and passed and no truck was in sight. Mitch opted to check the next block over just incase we had the pick up spot wrong but to no avail. Around 6:30 we caught the tail end of a truck leaving nearly full of passengers and thought the worst. We thought we had missed it and were fuming. We sat for an hour and a half in front for the company office where we bought the ticked just running through all the things we were to say. So very very angry. We were set that we were not to pay another penny and that they were going to pay for our next night to stay and so on and so forth because we were wronged! Luckily, before any store property has been set aflame, an emplyee arrived and explained the truck was delayed due to high tide. Turns out a 4x4 ride out of town can´t always be on time due to the changine tides. We were a little less disgruntled, but were not totally relieved until we were on the truck and on our way. The ride was beautiful and we were very glad we had not paid outrageous amounts for a dune buggy ride for the same seeing as how we got the identical experience through everyday transport. After two more two hour waits to transfer buses we arrived in Belem at 3:00 PM.
Our next mission is to find our way to Manaus. Boating up the river seems long and over crowded so we very well may fly. We´ll keep you posted!

Photos: Close up of Pedra Furada; Matt dune jumping; Blonde Zohan on a horse; Our road travelled from Jeri

Jericoacoara

2009-03-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

Alas, after so much partying during carnaval, Matt and I both came down with sickness for the past week. As much of a bummer as it is being ill, it made sense after 6 days of strange sleeping patterns and so many people around. On the positive tip, we haven't been spending much money as we spent the better part of last week sleeping, playing cards and relaxing to the max.
Our bus ride to Fortaleza was as pleasant as a 23 hour bus ride can be. Despite the sniffles and coughs, it passed fairly quickly and we were in a cheap Pousada before long. Fortaleza is the capital of the Ceará state, and it is a lovely place too. We only spent two nights, but from what we saw it was a very scenic metropolis stretched along the Atlantic coast. There, Matt was able to bargain himself a decent hammock and rope, and we were able to get funds for our time in Jeri.
We have been here in Jeri(coacoara) since Sunday night and it was quite a neat journey from Fortaleza to here. The first 5 hours of our trip were on a luxury coach to Jijoca. In Jijoca, we tranfered onto a 4x4 bus/jeep for the remainder of the journey. We drove along roads made of sand, parts of it flooded out, and along a pylon marked road on the beach to Jeri. Upon arrival, we were greeted with people trying to recruit people for their pousadas and/or apartments. After a bumpy ride, we both needed to void the bladders pretty badly, so just went with the first guy who got our attention. Turns out we got lucky! We scored an apartment for the two of us with a private bathroom and basically our own kitchen for the cheapest we have paid yet! We got a deal because we have planned to be here for at least a week, and probably will stay a few days longer even. This way we can actually enjoy some of the activities the beach town has to offer. The backdrop is sand dunes, which seem inviting for some sandboarding, and the waves on the north side seem surfable, but surf board rentals are seemingly scarce. Today was our first day actually being active again. After a hike to the lighthouse and Pedra Furada (Arched Rock), Matt went to the local gym for 4 hours!!! I think he was missing it a little. I went for a beach run last night, so opted for a nap.
But basically we have been in recovery mode after the madness in Salvador, so not much more to tell other than we are in our last week of brazil it seems. Soon we will be Peru bound, on a boat on Rio Amazonas.
Until next time...

Photos: Matt and I in Fortaleza; Our apartment in Jericoacoara; Pedra Furada down from the lighthouse

Carnaval! Bahia Folia!

2009-02-26T09:40:00.000-08:00

Well Carnaval has come and gone and Mitch and I now know what it is like to party with six million people; yet another big check for the to-do list. A party of pre-lent sinning where the booze is cheaper than water. I have never seen so much booze in my life, never mind in one city, or even one neighbourhood for that matter. The stores were stacked to the ceiling, people were loading their trucks and entire backseat compatments full and if all else fails we would see people carting wheel barrels full down the street to their party destination. As can be expected, this led to a level of debatchery I had never seen before. Men grabbing women as they passed by in hopes of the occational willing kiss. The women we equally forward and would grab my goatee or my hair or my ass as they walked by. While this was a little off-putting, I much preferred their attention to the gay men´s attention who were even more forward yet *shudder*. To be honest, carnaval seemed to be too much for me for the first few nights. A party of this magnitude was just a little overwhelming for me and I had a hard time relaxing. Fights were quite frequent and everytime it seemed I had relaxed after the last brawl had been quelched by the miliarty police and begin to dance to the next song, another fight would break out. I´m not a fan of violence (except for some good old controlled and regulated UFC) so this kind of wrecked my carnaval experience. The army of miliary police, patrolling and standing in posts with their billy-clubs ready, did a great job of keeping some fashion of order in such chaos, but it was still hard for me to really feel safe. The energy was intense though and it was quite an experience to be there even if I didn´t feel safe all the time. However, the last day and night proved to be a saving grace for me. We spent most of the daylight in the old city and got to witness some traditional costumes and drummers and the occational female dancer in not but festive paint. After heading back for some great home cooked pasta with our remaining roommates (some had left by this point for greatly reduced flight prices) we headed down to Barra for our final night. Mitch was pretty tired and not really feeling he had the energy until we found the best bloco we had seen all week. Shaped like a giant Skol beer can, this bloco rolled on by pumping some amazing electronica and house music that we could not resist dancing to if we wanted to! We followed the bloco for about 4KM until we reached the furthest end of Barra where all the blocos were parked and danced maybe ten more minutes until the sun rose above the horizon. Not only had we found the best music of the week, we had also met up with most of our friends from Itacare during the night and got to party away with each of them. To boot, the best part in my opinion, we didn´t witness a single brawl the entire day! I am really glad we were able to end carnaval on such a high note and can now leave Salvador satisfied. However, it turned out we could not leave fast enough as our druggie aparmtent owner decided to phone us up demanding more money for this and that and when we told him no, he yelled that he was coming over. Well after waiting all day he did not show and we left early this morning to avoid any other chances of seeing him. Spending 12 hours in the bus depot is well worth avoiding such an unstable man.
Next stop (after a 21 hour bus ride) is Fortaleza. Thanks for all the great comments guys, keep them coming!

Photos: A typical Bloco doing BOOMING sound tests outside of our apartment building (shakes the buidlings); Campo Grande circuit full of people; EVA's passing Bloco with people jumping for free stuff; 4 of the staples of Carnaval

Boa Carnaval!

2009-02-20T04:49:00.000-08:00

We made it to Salvador on an overnight bus that left Itacaré Sunday night. Monday morning, we met up with Shimon and Dotan in their hostel before we headed to our apartment to wait for the rest of the crew. We are 12 people in the apartment now and there is enough space for all of us to sleep, eat and hang out. It was a very good find compliments of Shimon and Dotan.

Carnaval began last night at about 8pm and will carry on until next Wednesday, when lent begins. Carnaval is basically the last time to sin sin sin before the 40 days without meat (Carne). Because we arrived on Monday, we had a few days to kill before the chaos started so we killed some time with walking the streets, checking out the preparations, hitting up the beach (it was okay, but it's no Itacaré) and checking out the old city, Pelorinho. It seems the most abundant people here are Israelli tourists. We are very good at spotting them out, since we are living with 8 of them currently. Very good people and a lot of fun to party with, though sometimes difficult to keep all of us together.

Last night, we wanted to head out at about 8pm, but that didn't happen. From our apartment, we could see the streets becoming crowded with hundreds of people and finally made it out to join the masses at about 9:30pm. The 12 of us stayed together for about one hour (maybe two) before the inevitable split up happened. Some people wanted to go to Barra, and some decided to stay and enjoy the Blocos of Campo Grande. In the end, we all met up at the apartment at 2 in the morning, while the party was far from being over. It was merely just the beginning, and the climax isn't until Saturday or later I imagine. With this in mind, it wasn't a big deal opting for sleep after scoping the scene.

I will certainly have more details about the Salvador Carnaval experience in about a week, but thought I would give a heads up as to what we are up to. No pictures yet, becuase I am a little reluctant to take my camera out into the streets. I shall buy a disposable and might try to scan them...we'll see.

Later!

Photos: Most of our roomates in Salvadors after a game of "Yaar!"; Some traditional costumes (filhos do Ghandy) in Pelourinho; Matt and I in the Upper Old City pre Carnaval

Illin' 'n' chillin' in Itacaré

2009-02-13T16:06:00.000-08:00

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Not a whole lot new stuff to report on for this extended stay in Itacaré. We have been here for 2 weeks today, and have loved it to pieces. The only reason we are leaving soon, is because our apartment rental for Carnival in Salvador starts on Monday. Should be a really good time, and reasonably priced compared to staying in a hostel. More on that later...
What we have done since last post: not a lot...

Life doesn't get much rougher than 5am surf sessions or hour long treks through the jungle to remote beaches. And we still work up a sweat cooking meals for ourselves (Matt mainly).
Last Friday, a group of Israellis and other people at the hostel all pitched in to have a bit of a BBQ party. It cost us R$8 (~$4.25) each for sausages, burgers, ribs, steaks, caprinhas and beer. The Englishman, James, manned the grill while the rest of us BS'd, waiting for course after course of meat. After that, we all headed to a local pub for some drinks and music as the hostel has quiet hours around 11:00PM. The pubs are all very laid back as even our dogs were allowed to come and hang out. At the pub we found a new way to make some friends, money and drinks: why through the bonding of arm wrestling of course! Matt would find one of the larger and friendlier looking guys in the pub and challenge them to an arm wrestle while I would bet some other friendly looking people that Matt could beat the guy. Five bucks in the plus thus far! After which, a handfull of us went to a beach party, but seeing as how Matt and I are fairly stingy post-Rio and pre-Carnival, we opted for sleep instead.
The next day we had to mission to Ilhéus, in search of working ATM's. Seeing as it is a city 60km away, we decided to make a day out of it. First, we wanted to rent a motorbike like a Canadian friend, Jesse, but that bike wasn't available and nor was any other for that good of a deal. With that established, we headed to the bus stop and caught the 10 o'clock into the city. We wandered the streets in search of the bank, and my little lonely planet map had us a little confused. On our trek we managed to catch a glimpse of a bustling Saturday market in Brazil, find a Ice Cream buffet, and stumble upon some resting circus grounds with an elephant, bear and other amusing animals. The ice cream buffet was certainly the highlight. They had 10 flavours of ice cream, along with toppings of sprinkles, cashews, raisins, various syrups and candies. Like most buffets, it is all priced by weight, so it's not like all you can eat. You grab a bowl and fill it with whatever your heart desires, throw it on the scale and pay the lady-R$1.23 per 100grams. That day we both spent over R$8.50 at the shop...
As we carried on our way along the shoreline, we could see a magnificent church looming high above the city on a hill, so we headed up it. After being so used to walking around in no more than a swim suit and sandalls, city trekking in shoes, socks, shirts and backpacks wasn't so pleasant (nor did we smell very pleasant at the end of the day).
Accompanying the church were some fabulous views of the peninsula city. On our walk down the hill towards centro, a local man stopped us for a chat. He had been to the West Coast of Canada, and was keen to speak english. He also offered to give us a tour in his car, which we regrettably turned down.
Finally down town, there were plenty of banks. The first one did not work for either of us but the second proved successful...for mine. Matt had to try 4 or 5 banks and multiple ATMs before he scored some cash. With that done, we made our way back to the bus terminal a mere 4km away. Of course we stopped at the ice cream place again.

The ensuing days in Itacaré have been very similar. Surfing at dawn and dusk and killing the mid day with very cheap activities. Two days in a row, we hiked an hour to the most beautiful beach we have seen here yet. It was called Praia Prainha and though a bit of a grunt to get to (1hour hike in the heat of the day), it was certainly worth it both times. ALMOST would've been worth it to bring the surf boards, but alas we did not.
The dogs from the hostel came along though. Pingo and Preta come everywhere with Matt and I: beach, shops, kitchen, dorm...It's like they are our own and we sure are going to miss eachother.

Today was our last day of surfing, and unfortunately not the greatest for both of us. Matt's preferred board wasn't available, so he had to try to wrestle with a 6'1", while I managed with a 6'3". It was certainly my best surfing, despite the shite waves. It may have been our last surf day until we reach the Pacific coast, but perhaps we will get to do some more in North Brazil.
Next time I come to Itacaré, I'll probably get an apartment for a few months and surf everyday. Loved it here and hopefully we will find places just as awesome.

Photos: James warming up the grill. Dorió warming up the limes for caprinhas. Overlooking Ilhéus. Two of five (three for Mitch, two for Matt) bowls of ice cream. Willie, Matt & I getting ready for some sunset surfing. Preta, Matt & I en route to Praia Prainha. Praia Prainha. Hostel kitchen/common area from our balcony.

Sunrise Surfing

2009-02-05T04:23:00.000-08:00

Our last day in Rio was a very lazy, money saving day. We did drop R$235 for a 23hour bus ride from Rio to Ilheus. While walking to catch the bus to the main Rio terminal (Rodovario), we caught a glimpse of some crazy acrobatics. A man shouting in the middle of the street was a sure way to catch ours and many others´ attention before he ran through an intercection into a round-off to a back handspring to a backflip over a man holding a plank with knives sticking out of it over his head. A surely impressive feet seeing as how he cleared the 6 foot high blades by a mere inch. We were going to miss Rio...
The bus ride was a long haul, but a big jump that we were glad to make. Plus, the bus was comfy and easy to nod off, do crosswords, sudoku, postcards and letters, and eat chocolate...LOTS of chocolate :)
We were anxious to get off the bus, because ended up getting off about half an hour too early when the bus stopped in Itabuna NOT Ilheus. Luckily we could catch the bus from there to Itacaré anyway, despite the extra 5 reais. We were told that the bus left at 8pm, so were in a mad rush since all of our time sources read 8:30pm. Who knew that in Brazil when you head north east, clocks go back an hour; a concept we still haven't wrapped our heads around.
We got into Itacaré 25 hours after leaving Rio, making it 10:30pm and a little worrisome for finding accomodations. As usual, it all worked out and we were led by a random "guide" to a beautiful hostel on the waterfront. We though we had best spend the night there that one night, and set out to search for a campsite the following day. However, for only 25 reais (about 13 dollars Canadian), we got a dorm room with 6 beds, bathroom, fan, big lockers and balcony. Camping may have saved us 15 reais, but the extra was worth the security, the fan and the aesthetically pleasing atmosphere.
Shortly after we arrived at the Hostel O Pharol, a couple guys we recognized from the bus arrived a little displeased that they paid R$10 for a taxi only to arrive after us. Jesse was from Winnipeg and Louie was from England, both of who were in Brazil for Caporeira mainly. It is a very interesting sub-culture said to have originated in the Bahia state of Brazil. Check the wikipedia link for more info if you'd like. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capoeira Matt and I think we will try to drop into a class or two.
Since here, we have met many fellow travellers from places such as Israel, Chile, Argentina, Sweden, France & England. Also, we have discovered how much money we can save by cooking for ourselves. We pay half as much as we would if we would go out to eat, and eat about twice the amount for some sufficient food babies. We have also got our chiselling back on track with swimming, surfing, push-ups, sit-ups and anything else we can think of.
We have also finally got around to renting some surf boards and hitting the waves. It has been a blast and we are slowly but surely improving. Managed to both ride some shorter boards than we are used to with our stylish rash guards (mainly for the UV protection). Despite the shirts, we still got fried on our first day out, so have decided the best time for us to go is at dawn and dusk. Not only do we avoid the scorching sun, but also the huge crowds.
We are sticking around here for probably another week at least before heading towards Salvador. We are supposed to meet up with our Australian friends from Rio and hopefully get some floor space in their apartment for carnival. If that doesn't happen, we will figure something out. Fatboy Slim performs there every carnival in the back of a semi trailer and though expensive, we might have to hit it up if we can.

A couple side notes before the closure of this post:
-beard wager is on: Matt won't shave his gautee if I don't shave my face and vice versa, so things should be getting pretty gross soon. We are nearing the 4 week mark.
-Jesse from Winnipeg decided to spontaneously rent a motorbike for a cheap thrill, and said he would meet us at 11am. As it started to get dark, he still hadn't made it back, but in the end was okay. Just managed to break the mirror by hitting a tree and have the maching break down on him about 15km out of town.
-We took a couple of Israeli friends out to give them a crash course in surfing, and Lilan managed to put a good gash in his lip as he was going in to take a break. A crashing wave threw the 8 foot board right into is face, and at the moment he is getting stiches.

Well, that is about all for now I suppose. Enjoy the tales and be in touch soon. Peace ya'll later!

Photos: Matt, Jesse & Louie (with Pingo) gettin' ready to hit the waves at 5:30am. Caporeira performance. Some of our hostel friends.

Rio de Janeiro

2009-01-29T10:06:00.000-08:00

Well, the tales of the awesome city are true. Apart from completely detatching ourselves from our desired budget in hopes to have more fun, everything has been an unbelievable experience here. It is a hard place to describe, but a must visit for anyone who will be in Brazil.
En route to the city, we had read that it´s not a very safe place and probably the most likely city ro run into trouble. With this in mind, we wanted to get a taxi as soon as we got off the bus. However, the bus dropped us off in a not so bad spot and we managed to catch another bus straight away heading to Ipenema, where our hostel pick was located. It´s three blocks north of the beach and everything from food, to banks, to shopping is within that radius. A very nice place.
The ´Girl from Ipanema Hostel´ is in an alley with 2 or 3 other hostels and is a very organized and happening place. The first evening we went out to a local pub with Ole and Mathius from Norway to have a relatively cheap night out. Friday we went to the beach where we got plenty of sun and experienced our first lobster-esque look. I think that is about all we did that day, and that night after some poker in the hostel, went out to another local bar.
Saturday, the Norweigans took off, and Matt and I invited ourselves to go for a walk with Karyn and Jane from Australia. We walked around the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, checking out the beautiful Jardim Botãnico (Botancial Gardens) on the way. 5 hours later, we had easily meandered 10km, and decided to go play in the waves at the beach. We ended up at the gay beach and Matt and I fit in with our matching speedos. One friendly guy even approached us inquiring, "I love your speedos; where did you get them?" with an on-fire accent and all. A safe beach despite the awkward display of male intimacy.
The Australians headed out that night, so Matt and I played some more poker with a Swiss girl, Titiana, a Frenchman and Sharon from California. After buying in twice, the Frenchman took it. Following that we read and went to sleep for our early Sunday morning.
Matt and I got up early to hit up the internet, where Matt and Robyn skyped. At around 8:30, Ricardo, a hang glider pilot came looking for 2 guys who had booked a flight, but they weren´t around, so we decided we would go. Very, very cool! The wind was good and steady and both the view and weather were amazing. Hang gliding is not really a huge rush that adrenaline junkies should chase after at every turn, but more of a peaceful ride. We soared above Rio at 520m and criss-crossed over rich residential areas, towering skyscrapers and the waves crashing into the beach. The ride only lasted approximately ten minutes, but it was well worth the cost. Yet another thing for us to check off our to do list.
After that, we hit up the beach again before going to Maracaña Soccer Stadium (the biggest soccer stadium in the world) to watch a high level friendly match between Rio Flamengão club and Northern rival, Fribuguense. In the end, the favorite Flamengão team one 1-0.
At this point it was nearly 8pm and we were pretty exhausted from the long day. Nevertheless, some drinks and poker were in order and we decided at the last minute to go to a Favela Funk party, which was definatley worthwhile. We got VIP passes into the club, and partied from midnight til 4 in the morning. Danced so much, my Canucks sandals had seen their last of South America. Apart from all having our turn getting lost in the crowd of two thousand plus, we had a great time and were ready for sleep. In the end, it was about a CAN$220 day...
Monday was a chill, inexpensive day. We went to the beach with a group of Californian girls (Sharon, Molly & Rashan) and Aaron, from Indiana. Playing in the waves was good fun, and when the rain started to pour we peaced out to find some food. Rio has been our first real experience of Brazillian cuisine, and we may just have to write an entire new blog on that alone.
After swimming, food, açai and chocolate, we headed back to the hostel and watched the 40 year old virgin. A nice cheap day indeed.
Tuesday, we had one mission: to get ourselves to Cristo overlooking Rio. We wanted to hike it earlier in the day, but the clouds were kind of detering, so we lazed about and finally decided to take the bus over and check it out. While we were searching for the proper bus to take, the sun came out and we could see Cristo from the streets below, so it had to be done. This was the first day time appearance he had made since we have been here. Finally found a bus and it dropped us off right in the hands of a helpful tour guide. He took us to a viewpoint before taking us right to the top. A lot of people taking pictures, so it was easy to fit in and got some incredible pics of the amazing city. After about an hour of enjoying the view, we headed down again and back to the hostel. Just as we were leaving, the clouds and rain came in, so it all worked out so nicely. That night we went to a club in Leblon where we were charged 10 reais for entry and 20 reais for drinks. However, from 10 til 12 they give out free caprinhas. It's about 80% cachaça, and 20% lime/sugar/ice. They tastes pretty good, but the hangover is deadly.
The next day, a good handfull of us weren't feeling so hot, so we made our way to copacobana beach to laze and play in the waves. Apart from getting power owned by a few giant waves, we were successful in feeling better. Still, Ipanema beach is preferred.
Today is our last time in Rio, and tonight we will head to the bus station and hop on one that is North bound, hopefully to make our way to Itacaré. Later!

Photos: 30m statue Cristo Redentor at 710m above Rio. Matt hang gliding over a Rio beach. Flamengao getting ready for a free kick against Friburguense. Crowd at Favela funk party.

Ilha Grande

2009-01-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

After a very sad goodbye to our wonderful hosts in Paraty we hopped on a bus to Angra Dos Reis where we caught a ferry to Ilha Grande, which from the name you may have been able to figure out it is a large island (Brazil's third largest in fact). However, as large as it is, we only read as the ferry was leaving the port that there were no banks on the island, so our stay was limited! I had enough cash on me to spot Mitch some and we made the best of our time for sure. The city we stayed at on Ilha Grande was called Abaraos and was quite compact. We would notice the same people over and over and even ran into some of our friends from the hostel in Paraty! Great times! We camped in what felt like a very shady camp ground with a grumpy and abbraisive owner, but the price was right. I didnt feel particularly safe there as there were not very many other campers, but the owner later warmed up to us and all was well.
Just our luck, we arrived just in time for the Islands celebration of Saint Sebastian, so during our stay there were plenty of fireworks and people celebrating. Early on Tuesday morning (6am), we even got up and caught a glimpse of the parade around the city, which is all of 3 streets. The island held a plethora of exciting things to see and we wasted no time before heading off on an epic hike. Apparently walking through the jungle in your flip flops and speedo was not out of place so we quickly followed suit...and then the first burns ensued! Nothing a little alovera couldnt handle though. At the end of our two hour hike we came across a beautiful waterfall and has the whole thing to ourselves. We were able to stand underneath the falling water of what we had only seen in post cards before. Amazing! Lucky for us too we left just as about thirty more people we making their way to the falls. We head back for a huge lunch which included my first beans (which I thoroughly enjoyed!) and then headed to the tent for a ciesta. Later on the beach we were told by an english woman that we could not leave the island without seeing Lopez Mendez, which is supposedly one of the top ten beaches in the world! We thanked her thoroughly and headed to bed so we could rise early and hike to the beach and still leave the next day as our funds were low. Then the rain ensued...and ensued....and ensued. The rain stopped for a few hours during which we began our hike to the beach, hiking a 2.5 hour stretch in one hour, but we were saturated with rain and decided the beach would not be so impressive in the rain anyways so we bargained with a local boater to take us back to Abaraos. It still wasn't the greatest price, but since we were done with hiking in the rain, it was our best option. We kind of thought of it as a cheaper, shorter, more adventurous boat tour. It all works out. Once back in Abraao, we packed up our drenched tent and headed to Mangaratiba.
The boat ride to Mangaratiba was an epic journey in its own as the captain agreed to tow a smaller boat behind. Choppy waters apparently made this quite a task as the rope pulling the boat snapped twice, braking some of the railing beside where we were sitting with it the second! Fun times I suppose...we spent the rest of the ride standing with a watchful eye on the (much thicker) rope. We stayed in a hotel in Mangaratiba for some luxury and then made our way to Rio de Janeiro! More to come soon!

Photos: Village of Abraao from a viewpoint on one of our hikes. Our taxi boat captain in the rain. The end of our waterfall hike.

Rough Life in Paraty

2009-01-18T14:48:00.001-08:00

It´s really not a rough life at all. Us two are staying in this wicked hostel called Auberge Aventure, which is owned by a fantastic couple. We´ve already met a good bunch of fellow travellers and exchanged contacts with.
These have been our first series of days just chilling in one spot for a while, and it has been awesome. Wake up when we want, have some breakfast, meander to the beach for some swimming, ciesta and drink some cheap liquor about sums it up. But to go into a bit more detail, the beach we have been going to is in a bay so there is no surf...just pretty muddy, bath-like water.
Friday we met some girls from Squamish who are nearing the end of their travels in South America, so we hung out with them and tried to score as much information as possible (which turned out to be too much to remember). Sounds like we have nothing but 8 months of good times ahead of us though. Friday night, a bunch of us from the hostel went to wander the bustling streets of Paraty to catch some live music, some late night beach time and entertainment in Praca Centro (Central Park/Square). It wasn´t much of a late night because like everyone else we had talked to, we had to save ourselves for the big show on the beaches of nearby Trinadade. We managed to squeeze onto one of the last busses there at 10pm. Upon arrival, we made our way to an electronica dance spot and killed it for a bit. Despite there being hundreds, or even thousands of other people there, we managed to meet up with our hostel friends from Buenas Aires, Mattieus & Maria-Jose. After we were techno´d out, we made our way to the main stage, where they played reggae. Somehow, our hostel friend from Norway (Ziggy) found us in the immense crowd and we danced until about 5:30am. At this point we were pretty bagged, so made our way to the beach and slept until the sun had come up. We must´ve been really tired because when we woke up, some locals had made a practical joke of use by building a sand frame around us and puttin flowers in it. It was hilarious....for them. We just up and left to go sleep in our Hostel which was a good drive away. We hitch hiked for half, and took a bus for the other half. Upon arrival to the hostel, we had breakfast then proceeded to sleep until 2 in the afternoon. Woke up, had a snack then headed to the beach. En route, we visited the Forte, a nice viewpoint. Like during the other afternoons, it started raining so we headed home. Before leaving the beach however, we saw a good place to so some chin ups and arm dips, so worked a little muscle beach action in our matching speedos. Definately drew a crowd, and not because of the speedos (they are normal here) because apparently we were doing more dips and ups than the average brazillian. Representing for Canada for real!
We pretty much layed low and played poker for centavos and drinks this afternoon. We´re still pretty bagged from last night so are going to hit up bed pretty soon. Just as we adjust ourselves after jet lag, we decide to pull an allnighter. Put our bodies out of wack, but it was worth it for sure!
Hope you enjoy the tales and be in touch soon! Tomorrow, we head to Ilha Grande.

Photos: Matt G in the Hostel Kitchen. Paraty from Forte. Reggae Show in Trinadade

And It Has Begun!

2009-01-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

Well we have made it to Brazil safe and sound after 34 hours of travel! Our longest layover was in Salt Lake City where we spent nine hours of wandering, playing crazy 8´s, and having the unbelivably/frustratingly lucky Mitch beat me in yatzee. Out of 9 games I managed to win one! After that stint we headed to Atlanta and watched the sun rise through the glass of the /´busiest airport in the world.´The name seems fitting as the airport was so large we had to take a train to get from one side to the other. We then took a 10 hour flight to Guaralhos, which is 25 km from Sau Paulo. We worked our broken portuguesen enough to gradually get a taxi to a hotel where we thankfully rested our heads if not our minds. Very exciting times! We have met a lot of nice people so far who have helped us out. Not a lot of english speaking people, so we are using our dictionary a lot. We are now waiting for a bus to head to Paraty (which to our embarrassment we later found out is pronounced Para-chi) which leaves in half and hour. In Six hours we will FINALLY be at the beach where we belong! That´s all for now!

Photos: Leaving Vancouver. Entering the Tropics

Getting Set for the South

2009-01-07T00:37:00.000-08:00

So I've got the blog up and running. I'll probably be updating it weekly with some adventure tales and pictures too! Weee!

So this time next week Matt and I will be somewhere between Salt Lake City and Atlanta (weather permitting) on our way to Sao Paulo, Brazil. :) That is merely our starting point and we fly back from there on September 9th. Between now and then we're not sure where we'll find ourselves going to or staying at; we can only hope for great times and great swells.

As for now, nothing too exciting to say apart from that. Hope you enjoy the blog!

Mitchell

Photo: Matt and I with our bags ready to leave the koots