SA

The Confessions of a Serial Motorcyclist - Life on the Road - Driving

2011-01-24T03:49:00.000-08:00

There are a few vague rules, garnered from my observations about safely traveling on a motorcycle. A different set of understandings other than just the basic when to yield, emergency stops and looking out ahead while negotiating curves. These observations if not considered can cause great harm, delay and of course, what you really hate, your brother gets your bike. Here are a few of these observations.

When you are stopped by the police in any number of Spanish speaking countries it can be of course somewhat alarming. Sometimes you can avoid stopping by simply waving back and speeding up. They really don't want to chase you. If you find that stopping is absolutely necessary, the reasons might be for money, to check out your bike or of course because the cop really hates you. When you are stopped by the money cop and in my travels I have never paid a bribe, you could be in for quite a lengthy process. In Peru and Bolivia where corruption is still the mainstay diet of the police force you could be stopped two or three times each day. Once you are informed as to what they have discovered is wrong with your driving, papers or your bike, just relax. They will eventually tell you the cost. It has ranged between 5 dollars and 175 dollars. Once they have given you the amount, inform them apologetically that you are more than willing to pay the bribe\ fine. Just not right there in the gully on the side of the road. Tell them you will follow them to the police station. This statement usually elicits any number of responses. That's not possible because it is to far, over three mountains or we don't have enough gas, etc. At this point if you are like me you just want to be done with this and get going again. Usually what works in this situation is a quick trip over to the bike to gather your pen, notebook and cell phone. Working or not, it doesn't matter it will have the same effect. Take your time and be noticed writing down their vehicles plate number. Ask them their names and if you can their superior officers name. When they ask why you want all this info. Just say you have to call the US embassy and verify the charges before you pay. It has never failed to get us out of the situation and you usually are back on the road in 10 minutes.

The other reason, dealing with the really bad cop has happened a couple of times and there is really nothing you can do. This is the cop who you would swear was on that last towns Wanted Dead or Alive poster or the guy whose had a fever all his life. Scars all over their bodies these guys are usually very well armed. A couple of pistolas, maybe some automatic weapons or sawed off shotgun and the proverbial knife sticking out of his neck. Don't worry he is not hurt its been there his whole life. Upon questioning I have found that when you don't completely understand what’s being said by these cops, as long as the question being asked doesn't contain the words drogas(drugs), pistolas( guns ), or sexo (sex) always first answer Si. Closely watch his expression, looking for any sign of disapproval, if none, you will quickly move to the next question. If disapproval is evident just change your answer to No. People do change their minds and after several rounds of this they figure you are just an idiot and are so glad that they are not like you, they usually are happy to just get rid of you and let you go. Don't try to speak too much Spanish, sometimes less is more. Just keep your gun ready and drugs well hidden.

Venezuela is filled with 70ish General Motors vehicles that have been rescued from the crusher and have seen better days. Cars that bob and weave, spewing smoke and dripping gas. These rides are referred to as maternity wards in the State of Wisconsin in the good old USA. The other day in the rain I followed what I would consider an expert driver, handling one of these beasts. I was ascending a 14,000 foot pass, came around one of many a turn and right in front of me, in my lane, I saw a pair of headlights. Funny, they weren't getting any closer. This guy was driving up the mountain, switchbacks and all, at a pretty decent speed, backwards. I was in awe watching him maneuver. There was no way he could be doing this, his head wasn't even out the window. Why get wet I guess if you don't have to. I followed him for several miles trying to figure out how to drive Coco backwards but couldn't come up with a way.

Driving on the narrow secondary roads in Venezuela can sometimes be quite a harrowing experience. Filled to the brim with what I like to call Pot Holes, Pot Strips(all the way across and so deep you can't even see the bottom), and of course Pot Mirages. We all know what those are. You will be just driving along maybe making a slight turn when suddenly in front of you is a old General Motors product coming right at you, in your lane. What would you do, brake? There are no shoulders to pull off onto. Switch to his side? Maybe he is British and just wants to feel at home. Accelerate to get it over with more quickly? Well, I have had to do all of the above. It took me awhile to comprehend why they were in my lane driving at breakneck speeds. Was this just some game of gringo pollo. It became my advance road condition warning system or ARCS. I finally came to the conclusion that they were telling me that my side of the road was in so much better shape than theirs, that I should be happy, content so to speak that I had the better lane. Don’t even waste your time flipping your middle finger. They just consider it your way of telling them they are number one or the direction you are pointing, is there way to heaven. Just relax, try to stay calm while you scream in your helmet.

Barbed wire is funny stuff. I always thought that it was meant to keep farmyard animals contained somewhere. A new use has been discovered in the Venezuelan Andes. You can actually use it instead of guardrails on the highest of cliffs. So tell me what would you rather do. #1. Ride right off an unprotected turn and land somewhere down below and wait a few weeks for the rescue team to find you. #2. Crash into the lightly strung barbed wire with you and the bike getting all twisted up in it and then plunge over the side and hang their in mid air, sitting upright, on the bike, maybe with the engine still running and wait two weeks for the rescue team to arrive. In the second scenario, my choice, you can see the logic involved. Shorter rescue time, the rescue man doesn’t have to go traipsing around down below searching for whatever went over. Just hoist up the wire and there you have your accident victim all wound up neatly like some psycho Christmas tree ornament.

Well that’s it for now! I hope some of these observations and comments will be applicable to your daily driving back home.

The Road To Georgetown, Guyana

2010-12-25T05:21:00.000-08:00

Bad roads always end and good roads are never long enough. That phrase kept popping into my mind as I had just completed the first 10 miles of my current Lethem, Guyana to Georgetown, Guyana 300 mile road trip. Describing it as a road would be generous as my map kept referring to it as a cattle trail.

Cattle trail or not, it is the only way to cross Guyana from south to north and Lethem is one of only two ways to arrive in Guyana by land. The other is from Suriname in the east. Guyana the only English speaking country in South America considers itself “Natures Gift to the World”. “Green Gold”, as they describe it here and well, it might just be the most green gifted country on the planet.

The first day on the road was a long 75 miles across an almost continuous washboard surface. The vibrations just about killed me and the bike. I am absolutely positive that each one of those small little ridges running across the road was thoughtfully placed by the Amerindian community to keep people like me out. The road crossed the open savannah, where the big sky surrounded me, then into marshlands that I could see would be impassable after a good rain. The entire area was teeming with birds of all types, butterflies would surround me and try to fly with me as I ventured along. Sometimes I would stop where there were maybe 1,000 of them and just watch them flutter. That day I met 1 minibus, 1 truck, 1 car and a guy pedaling a bicycle, god knows where he was going.

There are 30 or so small bridges to cross on the road in various states of disrepair. The entire area is without electricity, drinking water and of course that daily essential, petrol. Towards mid afternoom I arrived at Annai. A small Amerindian community that promotes eco-tourism. I was the only tourist and I did appreciate the warm meal and bed I was given. That night when the generator fell silent and all the lights went out the stars shone brighter than anywhere I have been. The night was filled with the cacophony of insects, frogs and the occasional small animal that became food for the next mammal up the food chain.

After a hearty breakfast it was back to the road. It was gradually shifting. Then almost abruptly I left the savannah and entered the rainforest. Guyana being the size of the state of Idaho is a small country but it has 85% of its land in virgin rainforest. More than all of Central America, it ranks in the top 4 throughout the rest of the world. One area alone the Iwokrama Forest which the road dissects is over a million acres grand. As I continued, the road narrowed and you could almost feel the jungle breathing next to you. I kept thinking, up ahead, another 75 miles was the ferry which I had to be at before 5 to catch the last boat of the day. All was going as planned until I arrived at that section of road where I said, “Not Now”. Little did I know that the stretch of sand ahead would last 15 miles but I had no choice. Suffering from the chronic condition of motorcyclus overweightus and despising sand even more than mud which is just up from crossing rivers, I went ahead. Four hours later and after several sand portages, with two hours being spent digging out of a sand trap, I emerged on the other side. Terra Firma, Sanda Loosa be gone.

Guyana has a population of only 750,000 with most living along the coasts and the rivers which are its main thoroughfares. The people are 50% East Indian, 40% African and the last 10% are Portuguese, Chinese, Amerindian (9 indigenous tribes) and European. The population figures have stayed the same for decades due to the continuing brain drain. This leaves a lower class, a very small middle class and the wealthy. New buildings and collapsing wood structures exist side by side. Open markets abound in the capital and the port is right in the middle of downtown. All of this creates a level of activity that makes Guyana feel more Caribbean than South American.

THE FERRY CROSSING

DOROTHY'S PLACE

Back to the road. So I stood waiting on the side of the river that the ferry wasn’t. It was a good distance away and I didn’t detect any movement on the other side. It finally came over for the last time and deposited me on the other side. There was a workers camp there and a fry fish place run by Dorothy who had lived there for 19 years. The fish and saltine crackers were excellent with a side of ketchup, the accommodations were a bit on the sparse side though. Yes, this would be a night sitting upright in a chair, outside with a kazillion skeetters. It was eerily quiet compared to the previous night. So quiet you could hear a mouse pissing on a cotton ball. The next morning I was one large wet welt. Things could always be worse; I could have been stuck on the other side of the river with the puma and jaguar stalking me.

Guyana is fabulously rich in its flora and fauna. Some of its prevalent animals are the Harpy Eagle with up to a 6 foot wingspan, freshwater otters, black caiman up to 15 feet, anacondas, jaguars, pumas, electric eels that can pack up to 500 volts, the Arapaimar (the world’s largest prehistoric scaled freshwater fish (up to 15 feet and weighing 440 lbs), 4 of the worlds 8 endangered turtle species, unusual birds, parrots, toucans, monkeys and giant anteaters, tapirs, armadillos, oversized rodents called capybara, herds of wild boars that can number in the hundreds, poisonous and constricting snakes, and last the infamous candiru that has been known to lodge itself in the urethras of urinating swimmers (removal requires surgery). So don’t pee while swimming. The current count is 225 species of mammals, 880 species of reptiles and amphibians, 815 species of birds, and 6500 species of plants. One of which the giant bromeliad can grow up to six feet in height. Saving its water it provides an aquatic habitat within its leaves for a tiny golden frog that spends its entire life in one plant.

Today the road started as hard packed clay with sharp jagged stones protruding from its surface. Occasionally a torn, ripped and shredded tire would be lying by the roads edge as a reminder of the sacrifices made to the tire god Gomo which we must all pay tribute to. I just prayed it wouldn’t be my day to make an offering. There was still just minimal traffic on the road and day two I had seen 5 vehicles. Then two things occurred almost simultaneously it started to rain and the battery light on CoCo came on. The clay became slick and occasionally the kilometer long mud pit would appear. Slipping and a sliding thru these areas was a joy. What do you call 500 potholes in a tropical rainstorm? A lake with holes in its bottom! The battery light was another matter and as past experience had shown could stop the bike in its tracks.

I had crazy thoughts of the bike dying in the middle of the forest no possible jumpstart in sight, me being food for some smaller mammal with pointy teeth. Dashing those thoughts aside, maybe I would just catch one of those 500 volt electric eels and only needing 12 volts from it, quite possibly just a quick look at the battery by the eel would be all it would take to get going again. Crazy thoughts, I didn’t even know how to catch an eel.

The road continued through the Mabura Hills area. An area where the Chinese have taken over management of the logging industry, along with bauxite and some sugar cane production. Marbura Hills is infamous for its red dust. It was everywhere and when it found you, the bike and everything else, it stuck like glue. The bike is still red and so am I.

Guyana has been fabled as the location of El Dorado for centuries. Sir Walter Raleigh searched tirelessly for Queen Elizabeth in the 15^th century and today gold is a large part of the economy. Illegal wildcat mining exists alongside legitimate conscientious concerns. On a separate trip to Kaieteur Falls (the largest single drop falls in the world, 2200 visitors per year) you could see the open scars in the forest from illegal mining operations. The use of cyanide a cheaper more dangerous method of gold processing is illegal. Still some wildcat operations use it and it can find its way into the rivers.

Guyana has taken the wise step to partner with Norway recently in the implementation of its Low Carbon Development strategy or LCDS. Guyana has offered to place its entire rainforest under internationally verifiable protection, provided that the rights of all Guyanese are not undermined and its national sovereignty is left intact. This will widen the crack for ecotourism to more fully develop and become a sustainable source of revenue for the country. Norway will provide Guyana with 50 million dollars over 40 years to offset their carbon footprint. Guyana has been recognized around the world for its efforts in preventing deforestation and through the LCDS plan Guyana will inevitably unlock the assets of their “Green Gold”.

There it was ahead of me, tar, as bumpy as you can imagine maybe 1000 years old but it was asphalt. After my usual ritual of kissing the pavement, I gave thanks for my safe passage and reluctantly looked forward to when I would leave Guyana following the same route back.

Angel Falls

2010-12-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

So there I was staring at Jimmy Angel's twin engined Flamingo type aircraft sitting in front of the Ciudad Bolivar's airport. Jimmy Angel back in 1937 while searching for that gold laden vein of ore rediscovered Angel Falls for the modern world. Of course the members of the Pemon the indigenous people living there always knew it was there. Jimmy tried to safely land atop the vast Auyantepui and was successful, but found after he nose dived his aircraft into the soft peat that takeoff was next to impossible. After the crash, he his wife and two companions began an 11 day odyssey with very limited supplies.

They had to scale down from the heights of Auyantepui. He and his companions made it, but his aircraft stayed atop until the 1970's and the falls were named after him.

Auyantepui is situated some 8600 feet above sea level, covers approximately 270 square miles and is the birthplace of Angel Falls. The term Tepui in Pemon means mountain and the Tepuis can harbor powerful mischievous entities or spirits that command respect and fear.

The entire area was designated as Canaima National Park in 1962. It comprises 30,000 square kilometers and is the size of Switzerland. Canaima is a word of Pemon origin and is typically associated with death or disease. When the indigenous Pemon die or become ill they say it is due to Canaima. The Tepuis provide the source of the many great rivers that flow through Venezuela.

The Orinoco (which has the largest delta in the world flowing into the Atlantic) and the Caroni River and its basin which supply Venezuela with 72% of its hydroelectric power. Many smaller rivers also flow from the Tepuis creating a vast network of watershed areas allowing Venezuela to be considered one of the worlds top bird watching destinations.

To visit Angel Falls you have to board a single engined Piper or Beech craft and fly for about an hour to reach the village of Canaima. There are no roads to this village and actually not much development either. Canaima is a Pemon village and they seem to have the rights for the business side of all tourist activities.

You spend your first night in Canaima and have a chance to see the beautiful lagoon that the village is situated on.

Facing the lagoon are 5 or 6 waterfalls that at the time we visited were flowing exuberantly to say the least. Your guides take you over and around a series of undeveloped trails pointing out flora, fauna and the marching venomous black ants underfoot. You only get a fever for 24 hours, so there really isn't anything to worry about. We stopped by a termite dwelling and our guide opened up the top with a stick, stuck his hand in and started eating them alive. I had told the other members of my group that I would also partake but when the time came I had really lost my appetite. Of course I was coerced into keeping my word and placed my hand into the hole and came out with 20 or so small frantic termites. I quickly got them into my mouth and began chewing before they could crawl out. They were absolutely delightful and had the flavor of mint.

On the side. The water in the rivers surrounding us is brown and laced with a high content of tannins that work as a natural mosquito larvae killer. There are three different colored rivers in South America. Clear and originating in the Andes, typically called young rivers, black which are heavily fortified with decaying organic material and the muddy brown ones that have sediment and also organic material. I even saw a red one recently flowing over a bed of Jasper.

So on we continued not really knowing what lay in store for us around the next turn. We began descending in between two of the waterfalls and came out along the bottom of one called Sapo Falls or Frog Falls. We were told at this point to change into our swim suits. Everyone drew a quick gasp when they saw my black speedo, which recently had been purchased used from a Venezuelan sailor. I took that as a sign of approval as we lined up on a trail abutting the side of the falls.

There was one rope to hold on to, lots of vines and roots and many boulders to work around. The path led directly behind the falls. At first the water came as a light mist changing to a spray, then it became a torrent and then it became dark, very dark, with water hitting you from all directions. You struggled to keep moving forward pulling yourself along with the rope. The rocks on your right and the torrent of water touching your left shoulder. The air was being sucked out by the force of the water all around us. Needless to say we made it but everyone said that not knowing where the middle was each had considered turning back at one point or another. Afterwards the best way I could think of describing it was a cross between being in a earthquake and a submarine when the hull bursts. It was a fabulous experience. Here is a short video of the falls from the front side.

The following day our group of ten, a family of 5 from France, 3 Brits and a woman from Switzerland all climbed to a point on the river above the falls we had explored the previous day. There waiting for us was an expertly hewn log boat boasting a 48 HP Yamaha outboard. Our bags were wrapped and stored and we set out on our four hour journey up the river Carao.

I was placed in the front I think because being the tallest they figured I could block the water from hitting the other passengers. Dutifully before leaving I stood and announced that no matter what happened up river, they all had my permission, if things took a turn for the worse, to eat me. After seeing me in that speedo the previous day several passengers commented that I didn't have a lot of meat on my bones. Well, anyhow I think some of the group were relieved that they now had an additional source of protein other than the few chickens we were bringing along.

We departed and didn't go far before we had a first portage. The rapids were too severe to allow us to travel this part of the trip in the boat. It was raining and we completed the half an hour portage without a problem. Up the river we went. The Tepuis rising majestically around us. The river snaked back and forth as the motorman expertly navigated us thru rapids and up cataracts, around hidden rocks all the while the boat slowly filled with water.

Angel Falls or Kerepakupai Meru as it is known to the Pemon was suddenly in view as we rounded one last bend.

The boat stopped on a rock pile in the middle of the river, we all got off and recrossed the river on foot. There an unmarked trail led off into the jungle. For one hour you climb up and up in one of the densest jungles I have walked in. I was beginning to appreciate more and more the daunting task that Jimmy Angel faced 73 years prior. Over roots, around boulders, thru small streams we climbed until finally the trail ended and you scampered on top of a rock viewpoint. No railings, no benches just about as natural as it could be. The ten of us were the only ones there and all of us fell silent.

Angel Falls at 980 meters (3215 feet) is the tallest multi drop waterfall in the world. Kaietur Falls in Guyana is the tallest single drop. Our visit was notable for the absence of any clouds and other visitors. The falls are so high that the water is a mist as it reaches the ground. We could feel it blowing onto us. All of us sat quietly and contemplated the sheer majesty of what we were seeing. It was incredible.

We returned to the river and found our encampment for the night.

We had toilets an outdoor shower and our choice of hammocks, all under a roof to protect us from the rain.

The next day we shot down the river at twice the speed and we actually had a wetter ride back. It was an incredible three days that I would love to repeat. So if you ever have a chance, for 300 or so bucks, including your flight, meals and accommodations you can spend a while exploring one of our planets most awe-inspiring places.

Venezuela and Hugo!

2010-11-24T13:40:00.000-08:00

The first thing I did of course before leaving Colombia for Venezuela was to knock off all of the tiles on the corner of the hotel I was staying in Maicao, Colombia. On the morning of my departure I was taking Coco out of her overnight storage area and cut the corner a little sharply. Maybe 16 or so tiles hit the sidewalk and boy did I feel like an idiot when her rear storage case caught the corner. Not only because so many people gathered to watch the aftermath all shaking their heads but because this hotel had been so nice to me with everything they had done. They even remembered me being from Minnesota. So I got on the bike and drove away as quickly as possible! Not really.

I told them that I would definitely pay for my mistake even though upon inspection I couldn't figure out what was really holding the tiles up to begin with. After about an hour of negotiation, which entailed several calls to the owner and the opinions of many of the Colombians on the street, the desk clerk looking rather apprehensive told me the charge would be $9.50. I paid the $9.50 enthusiastically, got on the bike, drove off while everybody waited to see what I was going to hit next. Ya! Like many things that corner came right out of nowhere.

I drove straight to the main plaza. Here amidst a market were the currency traders. By the way, this town Maicao has the reputation of being the smuggling capital of Colombia. Goods going back and forth to Venezuela and Central America, coming in by boat everything seemed to make their way here. Electronics, clothing, shoes and of my interest, currency trading. The town has a very rough physical presence with trash and garbage seemingly everywhere. I watched a semi pull up with its flat bed loaded with bags of cement. I estimated maybe 1000 bags all unloaded by two sweating guys. But I was here to do some serious money changing. I would be in Venezuela lets see, maybe 30 days. Gas is cheaper than water, so that's not an expense ( 28 cents my first 8 gallon tank full). So I estimated I would need 40 bucks a day, plus a little extra or $1500 dollars worth of Bolivars. Currently the official rate was around 4000 to the dollar or the amount you would get using your ATM card.

When we were here before Kristi managed to coerce almost 8200 Bolivars from the pockets of the traders. Me, well I only rated 7200. So after consulting with a half dozen of them I resigned myself to the fact I just wasn't quite as good looking. The deal was struck amidst a flurry of solar powered calculations and a number was shown to me. The number filled up the entire calculators screen and had to be recalculated several times before I was assured it was correct. It was so hot the sweat was pouring off my head and the calculators. Ten million Bolivars and some change were soon to be coming my way. I asked for big bills which I think he understood to mean a lot of bills.

The trader opened his table drawer and realizing he didn't have enough Bolivars started shouting around the plaza for more money. So much for the discreet money transfer I was hoping for. The bills started arriving from about 6 sources and when all were there the stack was a good 5 inches high if I pushed on it. Was anybody watching? Here I was going to trade 15 very clean Benjamin's concealed in my palm for 10 million Hugo's which were so worn they felt like thin cloth. I counted and counted, held every fifth bill up to the light to see the watermark, packed up and had a 13 scooter escort to the border. Bye, Bye Colombia.

Venezuela, you have to let it grow on you. Most tourists won't even venture a foot into the country. With all the reports of crime, especially in Caracas, a city of 6 million where last weekend there were 66 homicides, I too was somewhat apprehensive. There isn't much tourism infrastructure in place to help you along. Also Venezuelans are not as extroverted as Colombians so it takes a while to warm up to them or they to you. It is also hard because their Spanish is spoken so quickly its difficult to understand. Restaurants are few in some areas and more time has to be spent finding decent food. Most Venezuelans seem to be fairly unhappy with their current government. Hugo Chavez they say has made a noble effort in promoting his Bolivarian Missiones. The missiones promote social welfare through education (many new schools), health (new clinics and hospitals staffed with a cadre of Cuban doctors), and work cooperatives. There has been success with the first two. Access to health care and literacy rates have all improved.

The coops though have been plagued with corruption. Venezuela is an extremely wealthy country. Oil, gas, gold, cattle, diamonds make Venezuela one of the richest countries in South America. New cars, huge malls, sometimes you would think you were in Bloomington. The people I have spoken with say that's all great if only we had better management of our resources, a government with a clearer vision of the future and the ability to teach people new skills to get them off of welfare. Sound familiar? It seems that people everywhere want just about the same things.

Funny story! I am driving down the Autopista towards San Carlos at about 65 MPH and Hugo Chavez pulls up alongside me in a 1972 Impala. A 427, duel exhaust, triple deuces, flake metallic paint, slicks on the rear, four speed, in mint condition. He says to me, ¨Gringo welcome to my country, you are from the Estados Unidos, correcto? All i could answer at the speed we were going was Si! He glanced ahead at the road thought for a moment and said.¨How is Mister Bush?¨ I couldn´t answer before he said, ¨Tell Mr. Bush hello from his friend, who is Still President¨ With that he downshifted, laid a little rubber and was gone. Afterwards I thought, why didn´t I get his picture?

As I was traveling through Venezuela's Andes the roads in the mountains were very prone to mud and rock slides. Some old slides and some new. On one road that approached 15,000 feet a mud slide occurred up a few blocks as I was riding. It was a little unnerving. Water would be gushing over the roads trying to get to the other side. Sometimes carrying mud, rocks and small animals. I was trapped one day between a mud slide and a newly formed river. I had to wait until dark when the rains subsided to get through and cross the river. Here are a couple of photos.

On a different subject finding a restaurant with decent chairs is an entirely different matter. I have been struck in South America that the comfort of a chair is never a foregone conclusion. Ergonomically speaking maybe I just don't have the right body type. I always thought I had a number 8 head on a number 9 body. Well the designers of these chairs didn't take that type into consideration.

They protrude, contort and bend in the worst possible combinations. Once I pulled a chair up, thinking that's odd and when I sat down, my head just about touched the table. Another time I hurriedly finished my meal because the wire comprising my chair seat was lacerating my buttocks. It seems that the chair designer felt three wires forming the seat were enough.

I'm not complaining. I have learned to demand little and accept less. Right now I am sitting on a mile long stretch of palm strewn beach, surrounded by misty mountains all close to a small fishing village of 1500 people. Everybody already seems to know my name after 2 days. There is a lot of action around 5 AM when the fishing boats take off for several hours. Then they return and everything goes back to being quiet and sleepy.

There isn't even a restaurant here just peoples homes that you walk into. Flowers are blooming everywhere and you can hear the waves crashing all day and night. It is quite idyllic? I have only been to one other place quite like this and that was Varkala, India. You could sit and read or write here for a month.

It is called San Juan de Las Goldonas over on the Paria Peninsula in north eastern Venezuela. A little populated area of uncompromising beauty. Hiking trails and small forgotten villages are peppered throughout the peninsula. Small single lane roads snake their way around giving you gorgeous ocean and mountain views.

After leaving the northeast coast I began heading south towards Ciudad Bolivar. Along the way was a small mountain town called Caripe. Famous for coffee, oranges and cacao I stumbled onto their main attraction. The Cueva Del Guacharo. This cave in 1949 was declared Venezuela's first natural monument. The cave is 10.2 kilometers long but you are only allowed into the first 1200 meters. Unlit, the caverns are filled with up to 15,000 guacharos or oil birds. The oil birds are nocturnal and have enormous whiskers, a 3 foot wingspan, radar like navigation and a penchant for devouring fruit.

They fly out at dusk and return before dawn to the first chamber where their endless screeching creates an unsettling eerie atmosphere. The second chamber is called El Silencio because it suddenly becomes quiet and provides relief from the birds. I made a tape which you can listen to here.

I am waiting in Ciudad Bolivar to catch a small plane heading for Angel Falls. Will write more after that trip and a visit to Roraima in the Gran Sabana.

All the Best,

Todd

Kidnappings, Push-Up Bras and Little Horsies???

2010-11-13T16:08:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since we crossed into Colombia from Ecuador. I must say that initially it was with a bit of apprehension. Expecting all types of personal and physical calamities to befall us at any time. Murder and mayhem. Bullets to whiz by, random kidnappings three times each day and countless searches by the ever present military.

Well, none of that has happened fortunately and we continue riding from the south to the north and are currently approaching the Guajira Peninsula. The northern most peninsula in South America. Home to the Wayuus. A hot dry place where you can eat Iguana stew with coconut. The Wayuus are extremely independent and like to remove their road signs to stay that way. The children have string roadblocks and request candy to allow you to pass. How can you refuse!

We have discovered in Colombia one, if not the most beautiful countries in South America. The landscapes we have driven range from 15,000 foot Andean peaks, cloud rain forests, lower coastal mangrove wetlands, savannahs and deserted Caribbean beaches. Waterfalls, rivers, jungles are all present in great quantity. Flowers and butterflys line the roads. It has all been spectacular. I wish we could redrive many of our routes again and again. You wanted to get up each morning just to ride.

The people of Spanish, African and Indian descent are somewhat divided between the Andean areas of Bogota, Cali, Medellin and that of the northern Caribbean coast. Cartagena, Santa Marta and the small fishing village of Taganga, all beautiful places that are difficult to leave. Everywhere throughout these areas we have met a fun, friendly, family loving, industrious people who seem to live by one purpose in life, that life is about living to its fullest. Music, song and dance are everywhere.

The woman are beautiful in Colombia and lets just say the men are interesting. After Kristi left I found myself spending more than my normally allocated time gazing into the windows of the many lingerie shops. I would find myself asking, can you really do that with a piece of wire? or What could I carry home from the market with that one. Just honest red-blooded American male inquiries. Anyways my behavior had to end, I was being shooed away from the windows of some of the more upscale shops. So I decided I would crunch some numbers and do a little research. The original push-up bra company in Colombia called the Hold Em High LTD (roughly translated from Spanish) is sadly now out of business. Its demise was attributed to the lack of the proper gauge wire and competition from companies using more Frenchified names. But the industry still thrives. In just the last decade alone enough wire has been used in the manufacture of these bras to go back and forth thru the Panama Canal 1248 times. If that statistic doesn"t amaze you I have also found that a full 37% of the GDP in Colombia can be in some way attributed to push up bras. Believe me it shows!

Driving in Colombia though is another matter, especially in Bogota. I call this new style “Advantage Twitch Driving.” First off the city is going through a massive public transport redo called the Trans-Millenio. Double length buses zooming around in their own lanes in order to reduce congestion. And congestion there is. This is where the twitch driving happens predominately. You are in wall to wall traffic, stop and go maybe sometimes getting up to 25 miles an hour for a couple of blocks.

A small one half of a car space opens up in front of you and suddenly the driver on you left or right twitches his wheel and his car is now in front of you. This practice annoys the hell out of me. No blinkers, no can I please share your limited space just whop! Here I am. I find in reality you do not own any part of the lane except the exact space your tires are on. In the country driving is much better with the occasional pothole that you drive into and emerge from twenty minutes later.

So I have to tell you a little story. We left the town of Pijao that Kristi told you about and had a perfect drive to Salento and the Valle de Corcora. Kristi’s makeup looked perfect too! This valley is famous because it has striking vistas to the east of the Los Nevados mountains and is also home to the Palma de Cera or wax palm.

Not only is this tree the national tree of Colombia but with its natural setting it is breathtaking to behold. The trees sit in a mist shrouded valley reaching upwards of 60 meters or close to 200 feet. The entrance to the valley was lined with horse stables.

You know it was a beautiful day and Kristi loves to go horseback riding and to be truthful, I just love to watch horses go by! I really do prefer something with a motor between my legs that I can control. Well, Kristi wanted to ride.

I was hesitant at first, but as we do at times in life I consented and not so willingly got on top of “ Loco”. Name not to be confused with “ Poco “ which in hindsight I think would have been a whole lot better. The first thing that wasn’t quite right were the stirrups. The place where you try to get your extra wide motorcycle boots placed into, to help, I guess control the horse.

Mine just wouldn’t fit. No matter how hard myself, the guide and the other riders tried, the stirrups were to narrow. Well not knowing how important stirrups really are or even how you used them and not wanting to really look more stupid than I already felt, we left with ½ of an inch of my boot sole touching in the front of each stirrup.

The setting was absolutely stunning open meadows, cows grazing in the valleys with the wax palms higher up stretching into the mist. I was really getting into it. Then suddenly the terrain changed and so did Loco. We began an hour of straight forest climbing. The path all but disappeared, only now being sensed by the horses wanting to get us off their backs and return home. Back and forth straight up over stream boulders in piles like 2,000 watermelons all heaped together we rode.

“You have to be kidding“ I said. “I wouldn’t even climb these structures on foot“. The horses crossed the stream we were following maybe 30 times while trying to navigate these wet slippery boulders. At this point Loco knew there was a somewhat scared Gringo sitting on his back and must have decided it was now his turn to dole out the abuse and totally control the situation. He would jump extra hard over the streams, land on one foot, spin on top of the boulder, slip down the other side and run as hard as he could toward that tree branch a little lower than my head. Luckily at this point of the ride I was starting to keep my eyes open so I was able to duck in time. Well we finally made it to the top, maybe 30,000 feet up.

“Where are the oxygen tanks” I asked the guide as we were handed a cup of hot chocolate with cheese floating in it. Hummingbirds sucked the nectar from wild orchids all around us. After a short stay the guide said it was time to go down. Down!! Is that the same as going up? No, he said it is not, its a little harder. Can’t we go horizontal for awhile? Please! No! Well going down was harder and I will have to tell you about it another time!

So if you are ever in Salento and visit the Valle de Corcora and wish to participate in a new sport, I have one. It’s called “ Extreme Horseback Riding”. Just ask for Loco when you arrive for the time of your life.

P.S. What Kristi mentioned in her blog about my excessive consumption of Aquardientes one night in Pijao, Colombia. Well it just isn't true. Here is a photo to prove it!

Talkie Soon!

OH! , COLOMBIA

2010-10-05T06:20:00.000-07:00

During our 10 months of traveling, we have been meeting people traveling the opposite direction from us
( north to south ) and pretty much everyone was bragging about Colombia and how beautiful the country and its people are. I was looking forward to finding out myself.

To be honest, Todd and I were also slightly nervous about going there due to its reputation and the image I have had of the country. However, once I started to learn more about the country, I found out that many things have changed in Colombia, that the country is much safer than some other countries we have visited (such as Ecuador and Peru). This is all proven by its lower crime rate, and much higher military presence. The government is also implementing many social programs that empower farmers. For example, before their lives were very isolated and they were left with no other options to make an income then to became allies with the guerillas. Now the social programs help them start their own little businesses,(restaurants, hotels, lodges) and make a good income that way.

At first it took a little bit of adjusting to see so many soldiers and police with their fancy-schmancy humongous guns by the road or in towns. We have been stopped a few times by them. All of them were very friendly to us and liked by other civilians. We have been told that the guerilla’s are still present ( although on a much smaller scale) in the mountains, but far away from the cities. One does not need to be afraid that you would accidentally end up there. You would be stopped by the police and informed about it at every major road intersection that may lead you to that area. The people seemed to like the police presence and according to them it made them feel safe. They would like to see them gone at some point, but only after they would be assured that the guerrillas are totally immobilized.

When we got to Colombia, there was a presidential election and the military presence was even more noticeable. I kept scrutinizing these men for some reason. their huge guns just fascinated me. There is a bit of a contradiction I observed though: they are so young that some of them are holding their big guns in one hand and in the other, they are holding their Lolly pops.

It is hard to describe Colombia in general terms, we have visited big towns, small farm towns, little villages, the Caribbean coast and each has been very different.

Big cities such as Medellin, which became famous due to Mr. Escobar, the drug dealer who at one time offered to pay off the whole country’s debt (13 billion) in exchange for immunity, is just like any other big town. Big shopping malls, beautiful parks, lots of restaurants and millions of street fresh fruit vendors. All moving and dancing to the relentless sound of music.

The small towns however, are the ones I liked the most. Every one of them is just like a different version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez book “ A 100 Years of Solitude”. ( I would highly recommend it). They are magical, have their own characters, heroes, and so many great stories to tell.

For example in Pijao. We got to the town because we had a recommendation from a friend Paul we met on the road. Paul was the first tourist who ever visited that town and we learned later that he was a legend there. We decided to go there. We asked on the main square whether there was a hotel. A very nice men walked with us a few city blocks and took us right into “Senora Cista’s “ house. Right as we entered the house we were in her living room. She had transformed it into a quasi-restaurant that served the best food in town. Her four plastic tables seated 24 people and every-single chair was full. People from all over town, nurses, a doctor along with the policemen were eating ( the exact very same food) and watching the world cup game. They all greeted us as we entered and we immediately felt at home. She showed us a room upstairs and charged us 5 dollars each to stay.

Later that day I went with Todd to the pharmacy to buy some medication. A few hours later, the husband of senora Cista asked me if Todd was ok, because the nurse from the hospital rents a room from him too and she told him we went to the pharmacy. A few other people in town asked later if Todd was ok and if we needed anything. Everyone in town knew everything we had done that day.

At night as we were eating dinner and drinking great Colombian coffee for 10 cents a cup. We met several guys and they happily told Todd that he was the 2nd North American to visit, after Paul. I was happily welcomed as the first Slovak ever to put her feet in Pijao. (By this time people knew about ESLOVAQIA because of the world cup!) Two of the guys we met worked as butchers and told me that they saw me earlier that day entering the market from the side door and exiting it from the back door walking towards the river.

Anyway these two guys turned out to be sooo nice, and we listened to their interesting stories all through the night while drinking about 70 cups of coffee.

Later they decided that we had to try Aquardientes ( a typical Colombian anisette alcohol drink). I was little apprehensive about that since I am not much of a drinker, and there was also a 3 day alcohol sale and drinking prohibition due to the presidential election. The boys were so nice to tell me that they make Aquardientes without sugar for girls and diabetics…I still managed to politely refuse as the presence of 20 policemen around with their guns made me a little nervous. I guess I still have that respect for authority.

However Todd, is another story, his Spanish got so much better after few secret shots that he did not need me to translate anymore. The guys walked me home ( as I was again the only women in the bar) and off they went to talk about life in Colombia.

The next day, the whole village of Pijao was yelling “Good morning Tony, how is your head.” ( At some point Todd started to introduce himself as Tony, since no one could pronounce Todd ). Todd later told me that they went to someone’s house and pretty much every male from Pijao came to chat and to welcome him. Of course, with a toast of Aquardientes….He said I missed the fun, but I could not help but imagining the title in the newspaper: The Slovakian tourist, a psychology doctorate candidate arrested while doing shots during the prohibition in Colombia…

Anyway, we finally left Pijao, it was sad to leave especially Senora’s Cista’s house. I loved to wake up to the smell of food cooking in her kitchen and having lunch in her living room with the police officers and listening to their stories. For some reason they all thought I was a “Colombiana” and even the mayor of the city (in his 70’s) offered me a full blown residency in Pijao, when he learned that I was not a Colombian.

Another city worth mentioning is Cartagena, great people and beautiful architecture.
It reminded me of Dubrovnik, Croatia with the addition of music. There is a diagonal wall around the old town, and samba music is blasting from everywhere. It is hard to describe the atmosphere, because it is just so full of good, joyful energy. I was just walking by this club and looked in and it was full of people. The samba music was so loud, you could hardly talk. I met with eye contact a few older guys sitting by the door, they stood up automatically welcomed us in and offered us their chairs. We chatted with them a little bit and after a while we were just all moving to the beat, the music was like group hypnosis that takes all your worries away.

I really think I have talked way over my blog space limit
but I have so much to say. Once, I feel really blessed to be able to visit Colombia and experience this beautiful country, that has such a bad image outside its borders. Oh, and I did not really talk about the children yet. They are just soo beautiful. I would just have to tell you about them personally…

I will see you all soon!
Kristi

Along the North Coast of Peru

2010-06-12T18:44:00.000-07:00

So after 10 days in Iquitos, back in Lima, suffering from jungle withdrawal, getting blood transfusions from all the insect bites, ( I must have lost a quart) we thought what could possibly top that experience. Maybe we would see if Ceviche could. Peru is renowned for its ceviche! You can find it everywhere. The highly acidic small local limes perfectly transform raw fish into a meal for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Our map showed the Andes continuing to run in a northwesterly direction through the center of Peru. Many small colonial towns, shamanic centers, mountain lakes and plenty of archaeological sites were highlighted The map also showed the North Coast road. That road pretty much sticks to the Pacific for 1200 kilometers until you arrive at the border with Ecuador. Ocean or mountains, two routes north. We chose the latter for one reason. The entire coastline is peppered with the ruins of civilizations dating back almost 5,000 years. That’s about the same time period that the Chinese, Mesopotamians and Egyptians were having their heyday.

So we barreled out of Lima adding more kilometers to our increasing total of 25,500 (17,000 miles). The road was beautiful, meandering to and from the coast.

Small villages lined the road. Some interesting, some not. Bigger cities sat predominately in areas where development had occurred. Agricultural centers, transportation hubs, and Peru’s largest fishing fleet were here. We also crossed Peru’s northern desert. Filled with huge sand dunes, constantly changing shape we had an eerie four hour section of road that contained scrub bushes, mirages and dust storms. At the end of the desert I was talking to myself, at least a little more than usual! Closer to the border the desert gives way to coastal mangroves and inland waterways. A change that will stay with us into Columbia.

We stopped at three archaeological sites as we headed north. Caral, Chan Chan, Huacas (Temple) de la Luna. We also visited the museum for the Sipan site.

The site at Caral arose fantastically 5000 years ago. One of the oldest cities in the world. The Caral civilization were the original developers of the knotted rope accounting system latter perfected by the Incas. Traces of cocaine have been found indicating that Caral was possibly a growing and distribution center. It was a gentle society with no signs of weapons or warfare. At the site were six stone pyramids in various stages of excavation. At one time Caral was composed of 18 city states covering three different valleys. The valley here was beautiful with several streams we had to ford. Watch out for the Peruvian hairless dogs. They have a higher body temperature than a normal dog and are used as bed warmers for those cold winter nights. I would just hate to wake up next to one!

Chan Chan built by the Chimu people was a pre Columbian city. At one time it was the largest adobe city in the world. Inhabited between 850 AD and 1450 it had sixty thousand inhabitants with gold and silver everywhere. First the bricks were laid and then covered with a surface that many intricate designs could be carved into. Chan Chan is located very close to the Pacific hence the many carvings of sea life. Some real, some imaginary. A beautiful place comprising 14 different citadels, surrounded by 50 foot walls e to prevent the blowing sand from entering. First the Incas conquered Chan Chan and then we all know who came next. The Spanish, who left little or nothing.

Huacas de la Luna was a place that the Moche culture was famous for. Lots of polychrome friezes decorating the exterior of six flat topped pyramids. The friezes are in pretty good shape because the sands covered and protected them for hundreds of years. As I mentioned the site has six pyramids. What is interesting is that the pyramids are built on the top of each previous one. When a king would die, his tomb would be filled with all of those afterlife necessities. Gold, silver, ceramics, animals, and his entire family were sealed up in the pyramid. Then a new king would begin construction of a pyramid completely covering the old one and redecorated with new friezes. At certain points you can view cross sections of each pyramid and see the different friezes. Huaca del Sol next door is a larger complex but not as developed. It was constructed of 150 million adobe bricks. That’s a hell of a lot of bricks. Who did the counting?

We didn’t actually visit the site at Sipan but instead went to the Museo Tombes Reales de Sipan. Just maybe the nicest museum we have seen on the trip. The pride of Peru it is housed in a modern multi level pyramid. Starting at the top you descend until you actually see an exact reproduction of the Lord of Sipans tomb. The museum is filled with all the items found at Sipan. It has the most amazing gold and silver jewelry and other body ornaments. Collars of gold inlayed with turquoise and earrings that would make your ear lobes touch your shoulders, Sipan had perfected the lost wax process of casting metals. Which means they could exactly duplicate each item and make multiples of the originals. So the collar I mentioned would have 12 separate spiders trapped in a cage with small gold balls. It looked really heavy. The ceramics depicted human like people, gods and animals in the same level of detail. Sipan’s site was only discovered when artifacts were seen for sale on the black market. An observant archaeologist knew that a new site was being robbed. Huaceros or looters fought not to give up the site. After several gunfights involving the Peruvian authorities the near intact tombs were secured and many untouched tombs were discovered.

The Lord of Sipan was quite a guy. Part of his daily attire was a gold nose/mouth shield to conceal that he indeed also was human. He wouldn’t walk anywhere and was always carried on a chair like apparatus. After seeing this I asked for the same courtesy for my short museum visit, but was refused! Sorry I couldn’t take a single photo so I borrowed a few.

On we go! I hope you are not getting tired of reading our stories. If so come and join us for a while and experience it for yourself. Can’t join us? Please just send money!

Best,
Todd and Kristi

The Jungle

2010-05-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

We have spent 10 days in the Amazonian jungle town-Iquitos. Iquitos is one of the biggest cities in the world that is inaccessible by road. One can only fly there or take a god knows how long of a boat journey on the Amazon river to get there. I said god knows because it all depends on the boat, the weather, and all kinds of others variables that you can imagine. Actually, I learned in those short ten days that everything pretty much depends on something else and no matter how much education you have, Iquitos has its own rules for everything ( even for math).

At the beginning of this blog, I would like to write about unusual people we have met in Iquitos. It is not my intention to make fun of them at all, I just want to describe them the way I saw them or heard about them from others.

I liked the description of Iquitos, by the man "who was very hard to listen to". He, told me that Iquitos is like a rollercoaster that the authorities of the United States have declared unsafe.

Soon after arrival we found our favorite hang out, a place in town that served very good coffee and great meals. We heard tons of stories from the owner, "the Texas man." “The Texas man” had his baby picture on the wall of his restaurant. The picture was taken a few hours after he was born, the baby is smiling and visibly showing his middle finger to the camera man. The description under the picture reads "Jerry, born with a real Texas attitude." The next picture is of him, was taken a few years ago with a sign that reads" forget about the dog, be aware of the owner."

Not sure if I described the "Texas men" enough, but for now, you get the picture. At first I was a little afraid of this Texas attitude“ , but I learned to like Jerry a lot and admired him for his strong Texas personality, his ability to take nothing personally, and to be able to manage being honest in such a corrupt society. Even if it literally means to take to court just about every other person in Iquitos, having 25 % of Iquitos population arrested along with some of the judges.

As we were sitting in the Texas bar, or walking around the town we soon noticed a few other characters. The first one worth mentioning was definitely “the parrot man’. He walked the streets up and down bare foot and made a strange loud parrot noise. He would come close to you and start squawking as a parrot. We later observed a police officer talking to him, but yet again he was answering her in his parrot language. I suspect that he could not speak, but he was always happy and smiling while making his noises. Every other person seemed to understand him just fine, but I guess one has to be born in the jungle to decipher that tone.

Then there was a "hairy man". Hairy man, as the name suggests, had very long hair all over his body. Most of the time he would be hanging out on the sidewalk, wearing only shorts. What was interesting about this man, was that he would not move, he occupied an exact space on the street for the whole 10 days we were there ( 1 meter radius). Sometimes we saw him shave using the store window as a reflection. He would just shave random parts of his body, but for the most part he would just stay motionless in the same spot .

Then there was the walking man. Oh man, this guy could walk. He would just speed walk from sunset, until very, very late at night. Not much need to be said about this man, as there was nothing unusual about him expect his fast walk. He even ate while speed walking. He walked so fast that it seemed like he was always either in front of you, behind you or next to you. He was very easily spotted due to his colorful shirt.

Then there was "Johnny." We kind of liked Johnny, he would also walk a lot with his big sign that said that he can read your fortune from hands, cards, and cigarette ashes. We did not have him read our fortune, but he noticed that Todd was wearing a wrist brace, and switched his jobs from the fortune teller to a masseuse and immediately started to massage his arm. From that day on, every time he saw us he was ready to massage Todd’s arm. He was one of the hippies hanging out by the port, kind of an unusual character but nice in his own way. He told us that his house collapsed when the Amazon river rose . We have learned that the river fluctuates about 15 meters during the year. Therefore, he is trying to make living as a fortune teller, before he was a jewelry maker.

Then there was 'Johnny’s father". He had fathered 9 children, 8 daughters and Johnny. He was supposedly a well known Amazonian guide. He spoke very good English but his voice sounded machine like, and a little scary. I almost took a trip with him, as he promised me to see the real jungle, not only the "stupid shows for gringos". However, his offer to sleep in his house a day before somewhat freaked me out and I backed out of the deal. Don't take me wrong maybe this is totally normal by jungle standards.

Then there was a women called "Aura", I kind of liked her, she reminded me of a real gypsy. She was this cute little thing, wearing the brightest colors you can imagine. Wrapped tightly in a sarong highlighting all of her bulges. Not sure what her job was, but she turned out to be the only real estate agent in Iquitos. Todd was looking at some buildings so she went with us. She of course liked the brightest pinkish tiles you can imagine on the houses and strange little decorations , such as turquoise unicorns. Anyway, the Texas man called her “the Englishman ‘s sexcretary” and stated that he had her arrested too and that she will go to jail soon. He and the Texas man had a tense relationship and every time they passed each other on the streets they would show each other the finger. According to the Texas man, she practices witchcraft as he could see her everyday in the balcony with voodoo dolls cursing his business and his marriage.

Then there was the scooter lady. We came to her store to rent scooters to see the outskirts of Iquitos and she told us that the price is 8 soles per hour. We came back 9 hours later and she said that we owe her 46 soles. So I wanted to give her a couple more chances and said 8 times 9 is and she replied 46 again. I smiled at her , and she got little mad, she pulled her calculator out, enters the numbers right in front of my eyes- 9 times 8 and the calculator shows 46. I figure that must be some kind of new jungle math and I decided to pay her what she wanted as it worked just fine for us.

That's about it I can think of for the moment so I will turn the computer to Todd to add some more stuff I have forgotten about, and then I will write a little more about the jungle children. The kids out there are soooooooooo beautiful.

Hello everyone, Todd here, stuck in the middle again this time in Kristi's jungle blog. So Kristi has said a few words about some of the locals. check out this link to see why some of the tourists are here.
http://www.iquitostimes.com/nunu.htm

Oh Iquitos! what an amazing place. It seemed to be as someone mentioned, suspended in time 60 years ago. Wooden buses, tuk tuks everywhere and of course Gustave Eifels Casa di Hiero or iron building sits on the main plaza. It was made in Europe and like everything else brought up the river. Many of the other buildings have facades of imported tile brought in by the rubber barrons at the turn of the last century. One of the most famous barron, Fitzcaraldo called this place home also. In fact you can still have lunch in his old warehouse. Iquitos is like New York City for the jungle. It is the largest city in the world that can not be accesed by any road.

From the moment you prepare to leave and find out that because of the buzzards on the runway there are no flights between the hours of 9 am and 6 pm you realize this place is different. Five hundred thousand call this town home but there are only 100 kilometers of improved roads in the vicinity. It sits on a tributary of the Amazon river with traffic of all sorts motoring by. From large cargo, to longtail transport boats to small paddle from the front canoes. Anything that will float is used to move he, she or it up or downstream. People, produce and cargo move rythymically in and out of Iquitos ports.

The river itself moves up and down quite substantially. With 20 or 23 percent of the worlds freshwater this river has flow and flow she does. We heard vaious numbers but the level flucuates by 20 or so feet from the dry to the rainy season. We even heard that at times it has moved up 50 feet. So there is this phenomenom true only in the Amazon. That is where rivers that are feeding the Amazon can flow both directions once the volume of water in its basin reaches a certain level. Then as the water drains to the Atlantic the correct river flows are restored.

In the markets in Iquitos one can find just about anything that you would like. Maybe you wouldn't like it! Who knows! Common fruits (15 types of bananas, one tastes like a potatoe) to

fruits that look so unusual but taste so wonderfull , regular river fish alongside Piranha, meats from any and every type of mammal that ever made a footprint even jaguar, vegetables and yes 58 varieties of potatoes, aligator and monkey meat (how could you?), spices dry and wet, beans up the wing, wang, woo, amulets, medicinal treatments for " well what kind of problem are you having", hair loss, weight loss, girlfriend loss, torn this torn that, dysfunction of any internal part of the body and enlargement of some external parts also. I had to have another leg sewn onto my pants because I drank the wrong elixir! It said something about an elephant trunk. But my spanish is getting better.

In the middle of the main plaza in Iquitos, proudly stands their tallest building. All fifteen stories equipped with the latest digital and cellular towers atop. Built in the 70's she sits unfinished still. Seems that a drug dealer had it seized from him after his drug arrest and the current revenue from the communication towers goes to the police ,so there she sits. A pretty blue with trees growing out of it. No windows or doors, rain water washes in on the top floor to the bottom where a lonely guard trys to protect himself from the rain. One thousand years from now as they are pulling the jungle away from the blue building, one archaeoligist will say to the other. "do you think a drug lord used to live here?"

There is also the golf course. Dubbed as the only opportunity to play golf in the jungle anywhere in the world. A sign warns you that if your ball goes into the water "just forget about it''. Evidently one northern golfer tried retrieving his ball from a small school of piranna's. When he cries out fore today he is just counting his fingers.

Then of course there is the butterfly farm, the endangered manatee habitat and a great zoo. All mixed into a local color and beat that thrives at 95/90. That's 95 F. and 90% humidity. I sweat so much in Iquitos I was emptying my boots out three times a day.

While here we went upriver about 5 hours by boat/bus, dugout, to a small jungle lodge. The lodge was rustic but we ate the best fresh jungle food we have had. We fished, traipsed thru the jungle swatted at flying insects that I swear had air traffic control and wondering what was going to eat us that night. In the morning we visited a couple of villages where Kristi did as well with her dart/blow gun as the chief. Three out of three darts on target from 75 feet. The chief said she would make a good tapir killer. When I saw that I knew a marriage proposal was immienent. Kristi would have been number 8. She explained to the chief that many of the animals he hunted were pets or in a zoo in her country. The chief sadly relented at her lack of entusiasim. He just had never seen a chick use a blow gun like that before.

I have to go now. Not for the lack of stories but if I don't let Kristi finish we will never post this blog.

Ok, here I am again. The city of Belen a part of Iquitos is probably the most (not sure which word I should use) “oh my gosh” city we have ever visited. Just like I mentioned before the water fluctuates about 15 meters during a year so the houses are all built on stilts. Some are just built as floating houses on rafts and they rise and fall with the water. There is about 20,000 people living in Belem and it seems like 15,000 of them are children. There are children everywhere. There seems to be a certain pride for living in Belem. They said that Belem is like Venice, Italy.

When the water is low, there are sidewalks, a soccer field, basketball courts and street markets and vendors. When the water is high they use canoes, kids are playing on the boats or in the water. They use the water to wash their clothes in, to bathe, and to cook their meals with. Unfortunately, there is no canalization or sewer system so the waste from the bathrooms goes right to the water as well. The water moves by quickly though. However, they all were very nice, smiling at us and waving at us as we were passing by.

We were fortunate to help out a wonderful young women Natalie, who was a social worker andwe spent an afternoon with some children. We helped make mother’s day cards for their mothers. It was a lot of fun, hard work and by the end of the day we were so exhausted. Check the Jungle kids Picassa album to see how gorgeous they are, as the description does not do it justice.

We have also visited an orphanage in Iquitos called Santa Monica. They have this amazing system of “houses” that I have never seen anywhere else, except Slovakia. The kids live together in a house that simulates a family environment. The older ones are taught to take care of the younger ones just like in a regular family. Each house has one “mama” who works 6 days straight and has one day off. We met several mama’s and if you could embody an angel that is how I would describe them. The stories we heard were heartbreaking, but luckily at least for now the kids were in good hands. The children there gave me the biggest and the strongest hugs anyone ever gave me. That kind, you will always remember.

Even though we really had lot of fun in Iquitos, there was also a lot of sadness to see so many street kids, asking for food and money. We later learned that most of them are using the ‘base de coca’, which is like the byproduct from making cocaine from coca. Pasta de coca is even worse than crack cocaine. This base de coca is very very cheap $ 0.33 cents, but very, very damaging to children’s little brains.

La Restinga is a great organization who is doing their best to educate children about their human rights. If you ever go to Iquitos have a good meal in the Yellow Rose of Texas restaurant (you can even show Jerry your middle finger at your own risk) and check out some volunteering opportunities with La Restinga.

See y'all,

Kristi

Don't forget to watch the videos!!

Machu Picchu

2010-05-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

April 18, 2010

After many rain soaked delays Machu Pichu finally reopened. In January and February the rain soaked hills and mountains started to slide wiping out villages, railways and roads. Thousands of tourists were stranded in the town closest to MP, Aguas Calientes. Machu Pichu was closed for almost 2 months while they put the access routes back together. It is not totally functioning yet but pretty close according to what locals have told us.

Machu Picchu was kept from the eyes of the world for many hundreds of years until Mr. Bingham was shown its location by a shepherds son in the 1920's. Even the Spanish couldn't discover its location because their access was diverted and they were led to believe it was in another location. They had heard rumor but no one ever gave up its location. Can you only imagine the sensation Bingham had when he first laid eyes on it.

Today, that is hardly the case. Being one of the world's wonders has its costs. With up to 2500 people arriving daily the infrastructure is there to accomodate the backpacker hiking the Inca trail for 4 days or the wheeled tourist routing up the valley by train.

We of course were one of the 2500. Still, my feelings of awe, with all of its majestic sights remain with me. If I ever repeated a cliche, here goes, "the photos just do not do it justice". We arrrived at 6:00 AM hoping to see a fabulous sunrise. But instead we found ourselves sitting atop the clouds. Still a wonderfull view, it gradually cleared.

Since the Inca's did not have a written language not much is known about Machu Picchu. Most of the information that is historically accepted about the Inca's has come through the accounts from various Spanish historians that accompanied the explorers and conquistadors. Please check out more of the pictures with our Picassa link.

Chau!

Todd and Kristy

Colca Canyon, Peru

2010-05-10T21:45:00.002-07:00

April 25, 2010

Colca Canyon, Peru

Left Cusco today and stared toward Arequipa to meet up with Kristi and her parents who are visiting us for a couple of weeks. My destination was about 150 kilometers from Arequipa, the Colca Canyon. Colca definitely fits into my top 10 favorite places. Up until last year Colca canyon had the record of being the deepest canyon in the world. Then its sister canyon Cohaitsu was measured and it came in 450 feet deeper. It took me three days to get here via dirt and gravel roads crossing three passes at 4800 meters or a little over 15,000 feet. There were rivers to cross, roads that were totally washed out and packs of shepherd dogs that didn’t seem to like motorcycles but were very interested in my ankles.

The old GPS wasn’t working properly so every time I came to another unmarked road I would have to wait until another vehicle approached and ask for the correct way. It was slow but worked well.

The valley itself some 120 miles long was the illustration for me of how the Inca’s must have lived. Machu Pichu was all uncovered and reassembled neatly into its respective parts but shed very little light on how the society existed. Colca Canyon was a step back into these earlier times. Scattered throughout the canyon were a dozen or so towns and villages. Each focused on subsistence farming, animal raising and intricate irrigation systems. Fields were being harvested of potatoes, quinoa and maize. Quinoa the ancient grain contains 100 % protein. The fall colors were beautiful. Woman who were over 100 years old walked treacherous paths up and down the canyon. I would swear that these woman weren’t a day over 120. The highlight of the canyon was an area that 30 or so condors lived. I was fortunate in seeing two condors having close to an 8 feet wingspan, one eagle and many hawks and falcons. To get to the condor lookout you had to go thru a couple of tunnels. One short, one a half mile. Of course these were unlit one vehicle at a time tunnels made of sandstone with sand bottoms. Going up was a breeze. Just a little bout of claustrophobia but I made it through. Coming back down though I hadn’t noticed the large truck entering the opposite end. Meeting halfway in the tunnel was an experience I will never forget. I pulled over and stopped as tightly to the wall as I could as the truck roared by. Seemingly oblivious to my presence. Whew! Glad that’s over! Then the tunnel filled with the thickest dust and diesel exhaust you could imagine. The bike stalled it was totally dark and I coughed and coughed just about dropping the bike. After what seemed like 15 minutes and figuring this was not the time to cash in my cookies, I got the bike started and we inched to the other end. Believe it or not I still have those cookies.

Please check out Colca Canyons photos and let me know what you think.

Best,

Todd

La Paz

2010-05-10T21:39:00.000-07:00

April 5, 2010

Hello from La Paz, the highest something in the world. From El Alto down through the city to the bottom we traveled almost 12 miles all descending. We spent time here wandering the streets seeing all sorts of unusual things. The witches market was one of them. Here you could find potent remedies for all of your ailments and conditions. Unborn dry fetuses from many animals, herbs and spices. All were here to cure even the most stubborn cases of disease, malaise, money, and of course love. Of course even after you had manipulated yourself back into top notch shape you could begin working on all of your neighbors quirky traits. If you think you need a fetus or two, send me a line!

One of my favorite spots was the Ethnographic Museum which had amongst other displays one on Bolivan masks and head ornaments. Please see our pictures from La Paz to see all of them. I have included the best from the show. I hope you enjoy them!

Magical Bolivia

2010-05-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

March 10. 2010

Asphalto, Asphaltis, Asphaltodo

What’s in a name?

We entered Bolivia from northern L’Argentina after traveling the 5200 or so required kilometers from Ushuaia across the north to south length of the country. Of course we zigged and zagged and eventually drove twice that distance. The border with Bolivia was a scratchy place without the usual niceties we had grown accustomed to. Plain ordinary and not very efficient. Lots of people and many lines! Trying to exit, first we were questioned about our motorcycle entry papers into Argentina.

Evidently when we had re-entered Argentina from Chile something was not properly signed. So they made us sweat and sweat we did. The temperature was slowly climbing the further north we traveled and at this moment it had to be approaching 95 F After a few calls to the border crossing we had previously crossed the customs agent felt adequately assured and let us drive over the border. Arriving into Bolivia along with lines of Bolivians carry huge amounts of goods on their backs I proceeded to try and obtain my visa. It was very easy in a record 4 hours. Okay Dorothy, you are not in Kansas anymore! Bolivia was before us.

We checked our maps, realized that good road lay maybe 500 miles north of us.

By good road I mean ASPHALT. With only 5% of the roads in Bolivia being asphalt we left in a northerly direction. The asphalt seemed to be a mystical moving target for us. Whenever we would inquire where the beginning of the asphalt was we would receive varying responses. Some Bolivianos would just stare off into the distance euphorically and remember hearing of or seeing bits and pieces of it in the past. Others would be thinking if that was the name of their long last uncle, Asphalto. Wasn’t he the one that went to America in the 60’s. There are three kinds of asphalt in Bolivia. #1, perfect, newly laid, hardly trafficked, #2, Well used, changes texture every 100 feet with grooves worn into the surfaces where the wheels ride giving it the old up and over effect, # 3, Prehistoric, in the process of returning to sand, potholes that you drive into and emerge 45 minutes later.

All that being said, mile for mile Bolivia has the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen. Please check out some of the photos in folder number 34, Tupiza-Uyuni-Tupiza. We proceeded up the dirt road for 200 miles and came to a lovely town called Tupiza. We parked the bike for 5 days and four nights and embarked on a 4 wd tour with 14 other people from around the world. With four elderly Land cruisers with drivers, cooks and guides we left on a 1100 mile magical journey. We ascended to 16,500 feet several times, saw many extinct volcano’s, lakes of green, blue and red. Flamingo’s were abundant as were bubbling mud geysers. Stars like you wouldn’t believe. Llama’s, alpaca’s and ucuni’s were abundant. Ucuni’s are protected so of course we couldn’t eat them. We tasted our first llama meat though and saw local women hammering it prior to drying. We also visited the Salvador Dali desert. The Uyuni salt flats which are the largest in the world, were awaiting at the end of the trip. Some 14.000 square kilometers the desert is impressive. Salt hotels rim the desert providing basic accommodations and furniture made out of salt. The cold desert was full of illusions. Distances were very hard to calculate, giving us some unusual photo opp’s. Mario our driver knew the place like his own backyard. Following a unmarked route here and there. We stopped in the middle and

visited a cactus island where the cactus were 500 years old, growing out of coral. We returned to Tupiza to continue north to Cerro Rico in the town of Potosi. Look for Kristi’s story on the silver mines.

Chau!

Todd

Bolivian mine

2010-04-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

Hey there,
I know it has been ages since we last wrote. It is almost the end of April, which means I only have few months left on this wonderful trip of a lifetime. Anyway, in this blog I would like to write about our experience in Bolivia, which we both agreed was the most beautiful country we had driven through mile for mile.

The first day was the hardest, since it took about 5 hours to crossed the boarder. After long hours of waiting in the never-ending, chaotic lines to get my passport stamped, we made it through. I think we were about 4.500 meters above sea level, and at first it was difficult to adjust. However, as we were waiting in these lines, I noticed tons of people moving enormous bags of heavy cement on their backs. They were given few cents to bring the bags from the Argentina border into Bolivian, so they were running so quickly to move as many bags as possible. It sure made waiting in line in the heat for five hours with a horrible headache look like a piece of cake.

Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in the South America. The change from Argentina was sooo visible. But to me, it did not look poorer, it looked more indigenous, more traditional which of course meant less industrialized, less cosmopolitan. All women wear their famous skirts, hats and their hair is done into two very thick braided ponytails.

Roberto, one of a many great people we met told us a story about the creation of Bolivia. He said that when God created the world, he gave everything to Bolivia. He gave to Bolivia, enormous stocks of gold, copper, silver and other minerals. Chile came to him and complained. "God, how come you are giving everything to Bolivia. Bolivia has much more beautiful shore line than we do, plus it is full of copper". Brazil complained as well, about Bolivia having tons of rubber plantations and them not having any. Also Peru said to God, about Bolivia having enormous stock of Lithium, gold and silver in Cero Rico and them not having any. God smiled and said, "don't worry my loved ones, I have not distributed the governments yet."

Since Bolivia declared independence ( 180 years ago) it has had 190 governments. When we took a 4 day trip to the Salar Desert of Uyuni ( which Todd said he will write about) our driver Mario, told us about the times when Chile took the entire shore with copper mines from them. This eliminated all access Bolivia had to the ocean. Mario, told us that the Chilean army came to Bolivia during the carnival. When Bolivian president was informed about Chile declaring war on Bolivia, his reaction was to celebrate the carnival for few more days and deal with the Chileans later. By the time the carnival was over, the Chilean army was so far in Bolivia that Bolivia had no more military options. Mario said that ever since he grew up his community was motivating children to study hard so they can get the ocean back. Their relationships with Chile is a difficult one, since Chile charges them enormous amounts of taxes for porting fees. Chile is one of the most developed countries in SA thanks to copper that was taken from Bolivia.
Anyway, Bolivians are very resilient and a good hearted people.

Now, I would like to write about my experience in the silver mine Cerro Rico.
There was a time when the town of Potosi was one of the richest towns in the world. Never ending supplies of gold, silver and other minerals were brought to Europe and kept the Spanish empire going for 200 hundred YEARS!!!! Sadly enough very little money from Cerro Rico stayed in Bolivia. What remained from Potosi today was a sadness lingering in the air. The dirt roads through the town were full of garbage and some of the fancy buildings built back then, are falling apart today. At first the sound of what I thought was a constant, very loud gun fire made me a little uncomfortable. I learned later, that it was the sound of dynamite in Cerro Rico that one can hear even at night.

The tour of the mine started by stopping at the miners market to buy presents for the miners. Our guides told us to buy a bag of coca leaves, a bottle of 99% alcohol, pop, and hand made dynamite. The dynamites were sold for around $ 2 US dollars and bag of coca leaves for less then a $ 1 US dollars. Our guide told us to buy a bag of coca leaves for ourselves as well. According to her “ with coca you don’t feel no hunger, no tired, no altitude sick, no nothing.” I was already having a hard time breathing as we were about 4,300 meters above the sea level. So I figured I did not need to have my mouth full of leaves anyway. After the market we went to change into the yellow overalls, and huge rubber boots.

By the time we were reached Cerro Rico we were about 4, 500 meters above the sea level. We entered the mine through a little hole. Even though I was told that the tour would last about two hours, we spent about 4 hours underground and went about 3.5 kilometers in. There were areas where you could walk somewhat straight, but most of the time you have to climb on your knees or crawl on your belly. As we were going deeper in the temperatures reached about 42 degree Celsius or about 100 F. There was dust everywhere, the only light there was the small one on my helmet.

Since the Cerro Rico was opened, 8 000 000 people had died inside of it. Even without knowing the facts, the energy of Cerro Rico seemed somewhat spooky and haunted. At the time of slavery and the mine’s biggest glory, the workers (slaves) had to stay inside for 6 months straight and work 20 hours shifts. When they were allowed outside their eyes had a very hard time adjusting to the light and left them blind for several days.

Today the workers start working as early as 6:oo AM. Once they enter the mine they do not eat again until about 7 :00 Pm at night. This is because they do not want to eat inside the mine ( very dusty) as they believe it is not good for their stomach. The workers also do not want to waste any time eating since they are often paid by the amount of work they do. Lastly, there are no bathrooms inside. “The good miner eats a good breakfast and a good dinner. During the day he chews coca, four hours in one cheek and four hours in the other.” Our guide told us. The workers do not wear any face masks, ironically only tourists wear them. This is because the miners find it even harder to breath with masks. The life expectancy of the miner is mid 40’s, the most common cause of death is a lung disease from breathing particles of dust.

The workers of Cerro Rico worship their own god ‘Tio” (the devil) when they are underground. Tio is human size scary figure, that was created by Spanish supposedly in order to scare the slaves. As they were told by the Spanish that if they will not work hard the ‘underground God’ or the devil will punish them. According to our guide, the Bolivians speaking Quechua could not pronounce the letter D and started to call the devil like statue TIO instead of dio.

The workers believe that mine is a “hell’ since it is dark, hot and dangerous so they need to pray to another God when they are underground. Every morning the workers come to Tio and worship him. They ask him to give them good minerals. They gave him cigarets, coca leaves, and alcohol in return. The workers give Tio only pure alcohol, so he gives them pure minerals. ‘because if you give Tio mixed alcohol he will give you a weak mineral vein.’ Basically, the worker’s agenda is to be friendly with Tio, to give them as much coca as they can so he won’t get angry with them and start causing explosions. The workers seem to have an enormous respect for Tio, and believe that since he is the underground God, he is the only one who can protect them inside the mine. When outside, they are Christians, and attend the regular church.
There are few women working outside of the mine but none ever inside of the mine. The workers also believe that if there are women working inside Tio might became jealous and might cause some explosions in the mines.

As we were meeting the miners along our tour each of us would hand them a present. I was the only one to have some coca leaves left so out guide asked me to give them to Tio. Not sure what that meant but I sure gave the devil lots of coca leaves.

Today the mine is owned by independent miners. When I think about it I picture the inside of Cerro Rico as an enormous piece of Swiss cheese. Each hole has an owner (a manager) who usually hires 3 to 5 helpers each day according to the need. The owners of these ‘holes’ create a co-op and make decisions together (i.e. pay for the oxygen lines, etc). every Saturday the companies buying minerals come to Cerro Rico and the miners ‘owners of one hole’ try to sell them their minerals. There is always a lot of negotiation going on, as the prices vary because of the quality of the minerals as well as the market price. The helpers of the managers are sometimes as young as 10 years old and earn around $6. US dollars per 12 hour shift. The manager often works longer hours if he wants to earn more money and get more minerals.

The mine is 100% hand operated, there are no machines and everything is done by manpower. When I was inside, I had a hard time walking (crawling) those narrow walkways often full of water (or urine?) since the dust in the air was so overwhelming. However the workers were pushing wagons that weighed about 1 ton in front of them. At times, mostly when going up hill they were so exhausted that they were not able to hold the wagon anymore, and we (the tour) had to help them to hold it otherwise it would just roll over us.

It seemed to me that there were not many minerals left in Cerro Rico, however it seems that every miner, has a lot of hope in finding a good vein. I was little surprised to learn that there is another mountain behind Cerro Rio that has been untouched so far. Since the inhabitants of Potosi believe that unless Cerro Rico is completely collapsed they want to protect the other mountain for the next generation. So they have some work left for future generations. Since without the miners, the town of Potosi would have to be crossed off the map.

I am not sure, if my description of the mine experience did justice in explaining how hard these guys have to work. I can for sure say that our guide was trying to simulate the experience of the miners, she was constantly rushing us to walk, crawl faster. I was exhausted, hot and trying to grab for the little bit of oxygen left in that dusty air. It was definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Definitely hard enough that I promised myself never to complain again.

There is a movie called the Devil’s Miners if you interested in learning more about the lives of the miners.

love, kristina

Cantaloupes

2010-03-12T20:06:00.000-08:00

Hola Amigos,

I am so sorry that I was not able to write for so long. Lot of you were concerned when the earthquake hit in Chile. Thanks for all the emails, we are alive, happy and well.

Today is our last day in Mendoza, Argentina. We are hitting the road again after a 5 week break and will be heading to Bolivia. Leaving Mendoza is really sad, especially because we had spent enough time here to get to know the city very well, and make a lot of friends.

I have been taking Spanish classes here for last 5 weeks and loved the school. The classes were very small and often times I was the only one in the class. This allowed me to have many great conversations with beautiful young Argentine teachers, about their lives, their families, the politics and their culture. Often times, after they learned that I was in the psychology business I found my self hearing pretty intimate stuff, but I sure was glad not to have to worry about dual relationships and ethical dilemmas. I have made many great friends at school from all over the world, even from Slovakia!!!

In my first week of school one of my many teachers, who traveled the world and lived in different places, told me that she had to return home because it was way too hard to live anywhere else. When I asked her why she stated that because while abroad “nadie me da un beso, nadie me da un abrazo” (none gives me kiss and hug). Only little did I know about Mendoza’s affectionate culture then.

I have never seen a culture that is so loving, so affectionate, so family and community oriented as the people in Mendoza. By the end of the second week, I was kissing and hugging pretty much everyone : my teachers, the street vender from whom I was buying a newspaper, all the staff in the hotel, and of course the waitress at my favorite lunch place who always greeted my with “hola Corazon”. Todd took it little further and besides the kisses he was able to negotiate illegal beer sales ( beer sales are illegal after 11:00 PM) with pretty much all “tienda” owners within a 10 mile radius and during the Italian Days in Plaza Italia he even danced all night long with few of the tienda‘s owners. Staying in Mendoza for a while definitely made me reflect on values, and the importance of friendship and strong family relationships people in Mendoza have.

During our stay here, the Wine harvest “VENDEMIA” was going on. It is basically 5 weeks of various events- leading to the “queen” selection of the vineyard provinces. Mendoza has 5 main plazas ( kind of like the number five on a dice) with the Plaza Independencia in the middle, which is the biggest one. During the Vendemia, the stages are set up in every Plaza, and millions of glasses of wine are sold for .50 cents. People are dancing and singing just about everywhere. The posters of life size “queen candidates” are displayed all over the city and selecting the new queen seems to be the obsession of every Mendozino. It is their tradition since 1938. Even Todd got so into it he kept staring at posters of Paola from Lujan de Cuyo for hours.

The day’s before the selection begins there is this huge parade in which about 150 thousand people gather on the street waiting for carriages with the 12 queen candidates passing by and waving. I have never seen anything like that before. The “home made truck-like carriages” were huge and had tons of lights and loud music, every potential queen had one (12 total). The queen always stood at the highest point of the carriage and waved like there was no tomorrow. She had her 10 princess helpers with her on the truck and activities in the rest of the truck space varied from open fires and grilling steaks, to professional dance performances. Yes, this all took place on the truck. Here comes the best part, the ten princesses were not throwing candies at the crowd of people but grapes, pears, apples and cantaloupes. While people around me tried their best to catch some fruits, I was just hoping that a cantaloupe would not knock me down unconscious. I was kicking myself for not wearing my helmet that night.

We were very lucky to get tickets to see the grand finale of the queen selection . The show was spectacular, the dance, the singing , the costumes. Basically the story of the show was set up so it explained the history of Argentina ( times under Spanish rule until present). The open air theatre is only used once a year for this occasion. It is set in a boxed canyon in the foothills of the Andes and its beauty is way beyond description. It holds 30 thousand people and we were told that another 30 thousand were watching the performance from the mountains. Todd described the performance with 800 dancers like a Broadway show on steroids. It was amazing.

I was originally not going to write about this but it was a great lesson that I learned on this trip so here it comes. There was only one entrance to enter the theatre, which was operated by FIVE machines that were not working properly. We and other 29 994 people were standing in the line for over 2 hours. The theatre is very complicated to get to because of its Canyon location. You have to walk about two miles on a dirt road to find the “hidden entrance.” So the road was completely blocked by people who were touching pretty much all your body parts. It was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit that night. But it was actually lot of fun because the whole crowd was dancing and cheering for their favorite queen. However, with the lines not moving the frustration was more and more visible. By the time we made it to the entrance the show had already started, all the lights were off and we did not bother looking for our seat and just grabbed the 6 ones that were available. Of course about 30 minutes later someone came and wanted our seats so we just got up and left. We learned that we were in the wrong section and had to walk all the way back in the opposite direction of thousands other people coming towards us. By this time I was “starting to lose it” …

Anyway we came to our seats and there were of course people sitting in our places. I was just getting ready to scream and say like…Excuse me, these are OUR seats ..and Graciela Todd´s cousins wife, looked at me and smiled with the look that said “you are not going to make them go through what we just went through, are you?” She just smiled at the older couple and asked them to slide over a little and told the rest of our group to sit on the steps. She chatted with the women who was sitting in MY seat and they laugh a lot during the show. I realized how ridiculous my little burst of anger was and it really did not matter where I was sitting. The concept of MY seat did not enter Graciela’s mind at all, for her it was all about sharing the seat and enjoying ourselves. I have so much to learn about patience, sharing and unconditional love, I realized.

Anyway, while in Mendoza we visited lots of Bodegas and olive oil factories and learned the business of making wines and fancy schmancy olive oils. I was fortunate to meet people who were professors at the Universities and was able to get tours, spend time in both public and private Colleges and observe the whole education process . We also were fortunate to do some volunteer work at the Chilean Embassy helping to load trucks for the Eartquake victims which was really amazing.

Oh and I forget, we went to Chile and visited the island of Chiloe. People there believe in ghost ships, and dwarfs that cause unwanted pregnances in chosen women. So far so good for me, it would be a hard one to explain. We also visited Santiago de Chile, and Vailpraiso the city I liked very much. We were very lucky to leave a week before the earthquake hit. We also got to hang out in Pablo’s Neruda’s house which was pretty cool. At the same time one of our best friends Ronnie visited us and it was great to hang out with him and to show him Mendoza.

Which reminds me of a funny story. One night we went out and after few drinks Todd all of sudden wanted to go to see the transvestite show in a local bar, since we heard from our Spanish teachers that these are really fun in Mendoza. After I refused to talk to people on the street and ask them for directions due to my timid personality, we decided to go somewhere else. However, Todd decided to give it a shot and tried to ask the taxi driver in his broken Spanish what the word for Transvestite is. He said something about girls but not really girls but boys. Our 60 year old driver had no idea what Todd was talking about. While I was so embarrassed in the back of the car sitting quietly, Ronnie decided to come to Todd‘s rescue. Ronnies Spanish is pretty ok, except he mixes his tenses often. So what actually came out was “ can you please take us to the place were you used to wear women’s clothing”. The driver looked at him like he was a sick perv and Ronnie without knowing what he said just looked out the window as he got freaked out by the drivers look and dropped the subject. Oh gosh, we laugh so hard on this one.

I really have to go now,

Miss you all and I hope that spring will come to you soon.

To be continued,

Kristina.

Penguins, a rock moving dog, and Christmas with Dora

2010-01-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Since Todd have already described the Patagonian winds there is not much to add to that subject. Perhaps I would just change my previous statement in which I said that “Patagonia keeps taking my breath away” to “ Patagonia’s winds take pretty much everything away.”

I know that the holiday season is already over but I just wanted to describe with a few paragraphs how we spent it and then I will talk a little bit about the penguinos :)

As you all know we were heading to Ushuaia to spend Christmas. Many fellow travelers we kept bumping into along the way, were planning to spend Christmas in Ushuaia as well. Coming to Ushuaia was very exciting to me as, I connected it with a little reunion with our randomly encountered friends. For some of them, arriving in Ushuaia was rather bitter sweet since it meant the end of their journey ( many traveled from Alaska to Ushuaia). They had tons of cool stories to tell, and I am sure millions of memories to take home with them.

As far as Christmas goes, we spent it in little bed and breakfast place. There were 18 human beings: a French couple, 3 Italians, 2 British, 3 Americans, 2 Irish, 3 Germans,1 Slovak and the women who owned the house (lets call her Dora), her three visiting sons and wives, a rock moving dog ( little video attached otherwise you would not believe it), two cats, and an assortment of unusual and different workers.

This little B & B would definitely be an interesting place to have a little cross-cultural study on uneasy feelings and first impressions. Even though we were all different ages, race, and nationalities I very soon observed that we all had one common feeling and that was that Dora made us all just a tiny bit uncomfortable.

However, the common areas of the house were gorgeous, comfortable couches with spectaculars views towards the Beagle Channel. You could pretty much hang out on these cozy couches as long as you wanted unless Dora’s client scame . In that case the door of one room would close. Dora was a psychoanalyst. So if you were somewhat interested in psychoanalysis or just were curious what people in therapy talk about you could just hang out in the hall way and listen to the whole session. What may be a privacy concern in US is just an afterthought in Ushuaia.

However, I must admit that it was very nice of Dora to provide Christmas dinner for all of us and have a place where we could exchange stories and create new friendships. Everyone was ordered by Dora to bring a present, so we all did and exchanged them. It was quite nice, I put a bottle of wine in and got a notebook. I guess it was my way to tell someone to enjoy their trip even more and it was the universes way to tell me to study more and take a few more notes.

We stayed in Ushuaia for five days and toyed with the idea of going to Antarctica. It was neither of our dreams to go there, but we kept listening to other people that it is “a must.” They had some last minute deals that were 75 % off the regular price. We kept talking to the travel agents and could not make our minds up. Then this tourist agent finally told me: “Corazon, this is a Russian boat absolutely no good for girls.” That did it for me, I guess. I immediately flashbacked to my elementary school in which pictures of Russian boats along with comrad Lenin hung pretty much on every wall. From that point on I wanted to go. However, by that time it was too late and everything was sold out. I still wonder what the Russian boat would have been like.

We spent our New Years in el Calafate. We had dinner at a little family run Sushi restaurant that was open only until 11:30.PM. As we were walking back to the hotel ( 11:40 PM ) people started to gather on the main street. Waiters, and cooks ran out of their restaurants and were carrying buckets full of home made fireworks and granites. I felt a little uneasy when they started shooting them from right under the electric power lines, but everyone seemed to be pretty ok with that. Hey, we were in Patagonia not US, I reminded myself.

The truth is that it was a tiny bit hard to be away for the holidays, no family, no carps, no good friends to laugh with. Oh well, there is so many more to come…

Ok , lets talk about penguines now. We have the Magellan penguin colony in Punto Tombo. The penguins were everywhere, in the parking lot, in the restaurant, on the road. I thought they have a pretty good life. The live in these huge community ( 500 000) yet they can have as much personal freedom as they want to. I am sure that there is a lot of gossiping around, sometimes it turns bloody too. Mostly when the males fight over the females or a pretty good looking nest.

Otherwise it is very peaceful there. When we were there the little penguins were just entering the adolescent stage. They were so cute. So this is how Magellanic penguins spend their lives:
Males come to Valdez Peninsula around September and they made sure they pick the best looking and the most appropriate place for their nest. Most of the time there is plenty to choose from but I guess there is always one who thinks that the grass is always greener on the other side. In that case there is a fight over the nest. About one month later the female penguins come and start checking out the nests. The males are hanging out by the entrance and waiting. But it is really not about the males as much as it is about the nests the women are “shopping for.” Once they like the place they settle in and lay eggs. Always two.

Once the little penguins hatch the male and female take turns going to the Atlantic to get the food. Sometimes they are gone for up to 4 days. I guess there is not much questioning among couples where one exactly goes unless they bring some food back. When the babies get old enough they all leave to spend the winter in Brazil.

Then they all return. First males- usually to the same nest, then females- always to the same partner. They do it for about thirty years. So if you are ever faced with the question what would you like to be in your next life and you like monogamous relationships, the option to pick your own house, personal freedom to hang out on your own for a few days in the Atlantic- a female penguin is always a good option. Just be careful that you don’t sign up for the Antarctica ones, those guys have it much tougher.

I miss you all. Hope 2010 is good to you!

Love,
Kristina

Patagonian Winds

2010-01-09T17:47:00.000-08:00

Time certainly is flying by. We are now on a Chilean ferry traveling for 4 days up the Pacific side of Chile. t is a beautiful area filled with glaciers, mountains, volcano’s and fiords. Our shipmates number 120 hearty individuals from maybe 20 or so countries, 8 motorcycles and maybe 100 cows on their way to slaughter. The ship is decent, not luxury but it has an open bridge allowing you a different perspective on where you are going.

We started in Puerto Natales in Tierra del Fuego came up thru the straits of Magellan and north thru what seems to be an infinite labyrinth of canals and channels. Dolphins, whales and various flying birds follow us. Our destination is Puerto Montt. A little fishing port where the road begins again. We will try to visit Chiloe a small island accessible from Puerto Montt. They believe in a distinctive mythology based on forest gnomes, ghost ships and witchcraft all intertwined with a dab of Catholicism. It is also the king crab capital of the world.

We have been gone for nearly four months now. Driven 10,000 miles or approximately 16,000 kilometers. Visited 5 countries with more to come.

We have definitely spent the most time in Argentina which I now call Largentina. It is huge when you have to ride across it. From the southernmost city to the north is well over 5,000 k.

We put a more aggressive off road type tire to help us through the ripio or gravel roads. Other than the lack of vegetables it has been my favorite country overall. The meat is great I just can’t eat it everyday. You know what they say,” The first kilo of meat is kind of hard to digest but the next two are much easier“. Fruits are plentiful seasonally, the folks here smile and are extremely friendly. Except one night when we could have used a little more help.

The story starts with a road called Ruta 40, a road that cuts about 3,000 kilometers, north and south down Argentina’s western border with Chile. It joins many small towns some with attractions others with only sheep and cattle. It winds down through the lakes district following the Andes all the way to Tierra del Fuego and then onto Ushuaia the southernmost occupied city in the world.

It is good asphalt, bad asphalt, dirt, gravel(ripio), and everything in between. There are herds of wild guanaco’s alongside the road( a beautiful llama like animal), rhea’s ( Argentina’s version of the road runner) running as fast as us, and if you are really lucky condors and flamingos. You can ride for an hour or more without seeing another vehicle approaching you.
The scenery along Ruta 40 changes from snow capped alpine mountains, to dry Grand Canyon like vistas and lastly the forever Pampa. I say forever because you can ride on one for a day or so. Beautiful landscape!

The only problem we had were the winds.The winds constantly blow at 40k per hour(26mph) gusting to 80k(53mph), with speeds often recorded at 120k (80mph).

The day started as usual, 250 miles to do, no big deal. The winds were crossing the highway perpendicularly at between 40 and 60 k (26 to 40mph).Enough to keep your bike leaned 30 degrees, with the occasional gust blowing you into the oncoming lane. No big deal we had done this before and it really couldn’t get any worse, could it? We were about to change direction on the pampa or so the gps said and we were thirsty so we stopped for a beverage at the last gas station for the next 75 miles. Seventy five miles, its only 4:00 P.M. no problem!! A man we met at the station told us in his broken English just "to be happy" and that the winds were stronger when there was a black moon. Whatever that meant!

We started off following a custom car group that was heading our direction. Safety in numbers. We were soon left behind. The wind had temporarily changed direction and was coming at us head on. The bike could hardly muster more than 25 mph. I checked the gps and it was now 6:00 P.M. and soon the road would make a 90 degree turn.

That worried me a little not knowing what would happen with the wind when we made that turn. The turn came and miraculously as we headed up another 300 meters the wind stopped. We came out on top of our new pampa and got hit with the big Kahuna! It blew form the left, then it would switch to the right and once in awhile slap our backs. I couldn’t control the motorcycle and with the wind shifting so rapidly it would put the front end into a freaky shudder.

We stopped on the side of the road and struggled to speak to one another over the howling wind. Sunset was another hour away. Should we go on or prepare to spend the night in a ravine. The bike was sitting on its side stand with the two of us holding it up so it wouldn’t fall. The gusts were lifting the front wheel from the ground. The appeal of spending the cold night out in the open was not high on our list. After 30 minutes we decided to inch another 4 k to a cross road on the map.

When we arrived there appeared one light, a three table restaurant in the most god forsaken place. Just a cross road with one building and several trucks outside. We managed to park the bike in a semi protected area and went in. Three or four other people were inside so we ordered a couple of bowls of soup and mapped out a strategy. We would wait till closing and maybe one of two scenarios would play out. First the winds could die down, (wishful thinking) or second we would throw ourselves at the restaurant owners feet and beg him to allow us to sleep on the floor of the restaurant. The wind was howling outside, the soup was great and the terminator was on television. We felt safe, this was all going to work out. We would get up early the next morning and continue into Comodoro Rivadivia at a reasonable pace. Closing time came, the owner collected his money from us and we asked the big question. The answer was,” no way “ and his gestures suggested that he wanted us out of there. We suited back up and walked outside feeling pretty warm and fuzzy after the 12 bowls of soup we each had.

It is now 11:00 P.M. We immediately realize the wind or viento had not diminished at all. We could only try to make the last 40 k as sloooowly as possible. The idea was ominous, we started and managed to respectfully control the bike in second gear maybe even third at 20 kph. We couldn’t drive forward when a truck or bus would approach us since we would be blown right into their lane. Stopping and holding on was all we could do. As we approached the city we were relieved when we began a descent from the pampa towards the coast and the wind temporarily stopped. We can do this we both thought. Our minds turned to positive thoughts.

We arrive at the outskirts of the town and there is the same velocity of wind only this time it is moving half the Atlantic coastline with it. It was like being in a sand blaster. We inched our way towards the city center, small cats and dogs were flying across the road in front of us. The first hotel appeared, we stopped the bike nearly fell over and checked in for $200.00 a night. Way over budget but at 3:00 A.M. We just kissed the ground in the parking ramp, went upstairs, showered, fell into bed exhausted and wondered how lucky we had been that the other scenarios running through our minds hadn’t played out. The next morning we found out that the winds had been clocked at 120 kph (80 mph).

Check out this Patagonian babe trying to talk in the wind.

We are now almost to Puerto Montt in Chile and we are hoping that there are no winds in the Chilean Patagonia. After that night in the open it really can’t get any worse, can it.
All the Best,
Happy New Year

Rio's Favelas

2009-12-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

Hi there,
It has been a while again, hope you all are well. Since our last blog from Rio de Janiero, we have visited Natan in Ouro Preto, a beautiful organic coffee farm in the state of Sao Paulo, and Iguazu falls. We have also driven through Paraguay (spent some time in Asuncion), returned to Argentina and are currently trying to work our way down to say hi to the penguinos in Ushuaia, the most southern inhabited city in the world.

Seeing Natan was fun and those who know him, know that he has a lot going for him. Great heart, brains, and a handsome, tall Brazilian body:) . The coffee farm experience was probably the most enriching for me, personally. I won’t bore you with details, Todd will do that, but learning about the history of coffee plantations, its people, their hardships, the devastating impact of fertilizers and pesticides on coffee plants and farmers, as well as the change over to natural and organic farming was amazing. We had spent several days on Renata’s and Joao’s farm, listening to their philosophy of life and farming, drinking good Argentine wine and eating food produced by the farm. Anyway, you know how it is when you meet someone whose presence touches you so deeply that something inside of you changes for the better? Well that’s how it was for me when I met Renata and Joao, the guru of growing natural coffee (in the Brazilian coffee community).

Iguassu falls are way beyond description. They are so big and beautiful that one literarily needs to turn around 360 degrees to see it all. The pictures do not do it justice but check them out, we have also included a short video so you can hear how loud the water is.

Just a few words about Paraguay and then I will talk a little bit about Rio’s favelas just like I promised. Paraguay, hmm, very, very nice people, very cheap food ( they would not let me buy a loaf of bread in the grocery store I had to buy 3 because one does not cost anything!!!), and very, very hot and humid. However, it seemed to me that the difficult past times marked by wars and dictatorships were lingering in the air along with heavy smog.
What I found the most fascinating about Paraguay was learning about its women. In the Triple Alliance war, in which the “little puppy” Paraguay started a war against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, the country lost 3/4ths of its population. This war left Paraguay with around 200,000 people ( 3/ 4 of the population died, 2/3 in the war and 1/3 due to illnesses related to war) from which only 20,000 were adult men!!! So the women of Paraguay shared the men (resigned themselves to a polygamous society) in order to rebuild the country while the Catholic church (kind of sort of) looked the other way. WOOW!!!! ( the women had to do this one more time in the Chaco war in 1932!)

Ok Rio De Janeiro‘s favelas.
As you all know, Rio has this reputation for being very, very dangerous. So we set ourselves out to learn why. The next few paragraphs are very subjective and based only on my observations. It is not my intention to impose any personal opinions here I just want to describe it as I understood it. ( Does it sounds like a school paper? I must be missing school:).

Ok there are about 900 something favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Favelas are illegally built houses on the hills of big cities, by people who came mostly from the northern part of the Brazil to search for a better life in the city after they were either freed from slavery, or laid off from farms due to lack of work. We were told that the first “ faveleros” were promised housing by the government for their participation in the army. When the government did not fulfill their promise after the war, they were left with no option but to build their own houses in the hills of Rio.

So, this is how a favela gets built: 1, your friend or family member either gives you or sells you their roof ( its always flat). 2, you build your house on their roof with, of course, the help of the whole community. 3, you sell your roof and with the money you buy simple furniture and if you have some money leftover, you paint the bricks. We visited one called the Empire State Building which was13 stories high.

The 900 favelas in Rio differ in size. The biggest favela has about 200,000 people and the total population of favelas are still growing ( about 1 mil inhabitants total) as people continue to move in. There are three gangs in Rio de Janeiro that have control or rule these favelas ( 400 favelas belong to 1 gang and the remaining 500 are divided in between the other two gangs). Some of the favelas are free of the drug trade and the gangs have no interest in them. This is mostly due to having only one entrance to get inside the favela, which would make it very easy for the police to track the drug dealers down.

The gang hierarchy is as follows from the top to the bottom: *the (drug) Lord, *2 managers one for marijuana one for cocaine. We were told that the Lord is “looking out” for his costumers as he believes that from other drugs, such as crack, or heroin, his customers die faster. Therefore, only marijuana and cocaine are available. There are *15 soldiers ( guys with guns) for each manager, *the drug sellers hang out by the entrances of favelas. Each seller hires *kids to watch for the police.
The Lord gives the orders that are strict and simple, which basically means no crime inside the favelas ( no stealing, no assaults, no rapes, etc..) He does not want the police to come to favelas so ironically life in favelas is safer than outside the favelas. The Lord is seen as a “good guy” by faveleros since he provides protection and services for the community. People go to him with a variety of requests. He often tries to help them, gives them money for medicine, housing, protects them, keeps their neighborhood ‘s safe, and resolves any disputes. The Lord and managers throw huge parties for the favela’s residents and provide food and drinks.

So far so good, hm? But the danger comes when the gang fights over the drug territory. However, interestingly enough the inhabitants of the favelas are warned ahead of time about the upcoming fight and either stay home or leave until the fight is over. They do not notify police as they do not have much trust in them. Often due to their experience with the police coming to the favelas and shooting innocent people. A common misunderstanding is that everybody in the Favela is a “bad guy, while in fact only 1% of Faveleros are involved in the drug business, the other 99% have regular paying jobs. That happened a week before we came to Rio. The gangs were fighting over their territory, and the police wanted to gain control over the fight . The gang fights are the only occasion/ reason that police come to the favelas and during that attempt a helicopter was shot down.

The upper and the middle class never go to any favela unless they want to buy drugs ( only to the entrance and never up the hill ). However 99% of Faveleros go down to the city to work everyday. During the carnival Faveleros throw parties and the middle and the upper class watch the show. No integration of children in schools. Favelas kids go to favela’s schools. Recently, the biggest contradiction has been caused by the governments decision to build brick walls around the favelas. The favelas constant growing population is a concern for the government as well as the cutting the trees from forest to build their houses. However, this policy would create an even bigger gap between poor and rich.

The other attempt of the government was to build an alternative housing project called “ The City of God” and force the favela’s residents to leave their homes and move outside the city. It only worked with one favela though. The rest of the time the Favela’s residents moved right back, since they could not afford going to and from work due to expensive bus fares. The government is constantly trying to help the favela’s residents to improve their difficult living conditions and is setting up new street names so the residents can have a post address, setting electricity, water run off channels, building
schools, and medical centers. However, the government can only work in 40 favelas at a time. The completion time takes several years.

It was my experience when visiting the favelas, that people were very friendly, sticking together, trying to make the best of their lives, and looking happy and smiling. I am sure that they have their own crosses of huge social stigmas to bear and that the situation is very complex. However, I know for sure that from those hills, they are “looking down” on all of the rich peoples homes while having the best view of that beautiful city.

PS: a short note for people in the psychology business. I have became so obsessed with the idea of meeting the “LORD” of one of the most powerful gangs in Rio. I have heard that he is about 30 years old, and he has to move to a different location every 3 days ( we have something in commonJ ). Not many people have seen him as he has to constantly hide. I imagined all sorts of scenarios of how can I possibly get an interview with him. I would love to assess him. I was thinking a short narrative interview to hear his story, an IQ test, MMPI, and maybe Rorschach. Or I would just love to listen to what he has to say. Or, holy cow, what if I could be his therapist!!!!
Ok that’s enough for now,
Love,
Kristina

Rio the Beautiful

2009-11-15T15:30:00.000-08:00

Hi all,
It has been a while since our last blog. Just a quick few sentences about what had happened since we wrote last time and then I will write about Rio de Janeiro.

Last time I mentioned that our motorcycle was making funny noises and Todd was looking for a tool to get it fixed. We ended up stopping at the local repair shop and the three guys running it let us use all their tools. They were so nice and if we were missing a tool one of them would jump on his scooter, ride to the other repair shop and get it for us. It took us about 4 hours to adjust the valves, only to find out as we were driving away that the popping noise did not stop. Couple days later we were lucky and were able to buy the tool and so we adjusted them again, but the popping did not stop. We ended up going to the BMW dealer in Rio and they told us that the popping is caused by Brazilian gas that contains 30 % of pure sugar alcohol. My conclusion is that we all would make funny noises if our food intake contained 30 % of pure alcohol.

As far as Brazil goes it is really a beautiful country. Everyone I have met before I came to Brazil had always described it a paradise. People had their eyes closed, held their hand on their heart while they were speaking about the beaches, rain forest, food and people. So far that has been our experience.

The Road to Rio was probably the most spectacular I have ever seen, with the ocean on the right and the rain forest on the left. With each turn we took the view got even more gorgeous which one may have thought was not even possible. One day there were even 2000 turns.

Todd was very particular about taking the “right” road to enter Rio. This south road was supposed to give us the most spectacular view of the city. I was pretty happy to take just about any road that gets us to the hotel as quickly as possible so I can eat all the mangoes, bananas and papayas I picked from the trees. The news about the gangs shooting down the helicopter, the guide book telling that one wrong turn means getting robbed, kidnapped, and who knows what did not help either. However, our experience was very different than what the guide books had planned for us and we experienced nothing but the beauty, joyful energy and the enormous richness of the city.

I am not even sure how and where to start to begin describing the city. When I went for a walk tons of people were jogging and walking along the beach, kind of like around Lake Harriet, except they all look like they knew each other. They also take breaks to buy huge coconuts and drink the milk with straws, talk loud and laugh a lot. Most of them constanlty dance to samba music which you can hear just about everywhere you go. It all felt very rich and diverse, there were groups of elderly exercising together in circles, cute guys playing soccer, a TV station making an interview with some soccer player, Christ the Redeemer above it all, hugging the city and so much more.

In Rio, you can spot some kind of soccer game 24 hours a day pretty much any direction you look. The TV-s with the game on are everywhere and seem to have a crowd of about 20 people (minimum and as the day progresses as many as 100) around them. People surround the TV and cheer constantly for “their“ team. It seems like soccer connects Brazilians very much ,everyone is welcome to stop by at the bar or restaurant without ordering anything just to watch the game. Another neat thing I noticed is that the love for their president Lula, also seemed to connect Brazilian people together . Almost everyone we met liked him and according to the statistics he has about 79-90% approval rate here.

What I found very interesting about Rio is that it is full of contradictions mainly due to the enormous economic class differences. However, in spite these enormous differences they not only manage to live literarily next to each other, but also appear to have lots of joy and happiness. (I will talk little more about the differences between rich and poor in our next post as I will describe the experience of visiting Favelas in Rio). Another cool thing about Brazil is that literally everything one buys in Brazil is made in Brazil. It is really amazing. That is the way they support their economy and possibly one of the main reasons why Brazil was not affected as much by the economic meltdown.

We had spent about 7 days in Rio visited most of the tourist places, visited favelas and concluded that Rio has something for everyone. It is so fertile with flavors, colors, sounds that I was not even able to imagine one city having it all. It is so hard to describe , you guys just have to come and taste acai, listen to the samba music and see the beautiful Copacabana beach.

Here is a little samba song for you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD-UCbmjTs4

love,
Kristina

Pantano do Sul

2009-11-12T14:37:00.001-08:00

Hello Everyone,
It took a while to get here but I think we have found paradise! From the border with Uruguay up Devils Inferno road onto BR 101 which will take us all the way to Rio. There were small ferries, large ferries and sometimes no ferries and we had to backtrack. Each time the scenery was spectacular.

From the moment we got onto 101 though we knew something was wrong. Every bridge that day (maybe 60) was gone, vanished. All being rebuilt simultaneously. So all of the traffic had to move down two levels than back up two levels, around the bridge construction, then back onto the main road. All while trying to maintain speed. Sometimes it seems that the posted speed limits are actually the minimums.
It was getting dark so we took a right to the Island of Santa Catarina. That was 6 days ago. We are in Pantano do Sul a small fishing village at the southernmost point of the island. As close to heaven as I think I have ever been. Jungle and beach merge with small houses here and there. Fisherman push their boats from shore into the Atlantic on greased boards. From our deck you can see canaries, parakeets, toucans, parrots and many other birds I can’t identify. Flowers are springing up after each rain, wild orchids, bird of paradise and cyclamen all common plants.

The main city is Florianopolis about 400,000 people and yes it is the city of flowers. Also being the cultural capital of southern Brazil there are many options, from organic markets, to street Capoeira performances(begun by African slaves as a means of self-defense it combines fight, game and dance in a very fluid circular movement) there are performances and practices all over.

So the island along with the beautiful city I just mentioned has over 42 pristine
Beaches all more or less used for surfing. They even do a little sand dune surfing here. The story we have read is about the Pororoca Evidently at the mouths of some rivers when tidal conditions are just right powerful waves can form that push up these rivers. The waves can be 4 meters high and travel at 30 kilometers per hour temporarily overpowering the seaward rush of the rivers waters. There are national championships each year and the record goes to a guy who rode one of these waves for 37 minutes covering 13 kilometers. Wow!

There are also many lakes within the island, some fresh water and some connected to the ocean. Surrounded by hiking trails there are plenty of options for things to do. Nights get pretty cold, (of course no heat in any of the places we stay) so we around the flashlights at night for warmth! Check out the photos for Pantano do Sul.

When you go into a restaurant/bar they serve for free unlimited shots of Cachaca. This is a pure distillation of sugar cane coming in at about 120 proof.
You can see from this photo of me what happens to one after a few of these shots.

On another topic they recently discovered a cave in northern Brazil filled with cave art dating back 50,000 years. That makes it the oldest inhabited site in the Americas. What did the cave art depict? Lots of hunting, eating, dancing, drinking and of course sex!

One last item. I did find the valve adjustment tool at the 49th store. Not bad, they even had curbside service.
Miss you all,
Todd

The Road to Brazil

2009-10-13T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
Its Kristina. It is about 5 o’clock in the morning, the 11th of October, 2009. We have parked it in a wonderful little fishing village on a little island in Brazil because the road ended. Nothing but the ocean at the end of the road. The GPS does not work here so well anymore, and many times it showed us that there was road where it was not and other way around.

Sometimes we are able to take a ferry to the other side of the bay where the road continues, but not this time. We have decided to stay a couple days since the place is so mesmerizing. Just mountains and the ocean.

It is off season time in Brazil, there is no one except us, a few fishermen, and the best sea food buffet restaurant in the world. It is actually a very cool place called Arante that opened in 1958 by a women named Masmarina Maria Montero. She started cooking fried fish for fishermen that came into the bay. It eventually became a restaurant and in the 1970’s students and surfers started arriving. They began leaving little notes on the walls for friends to find them when they went camping into the mountains. Eventually this place became packed with these notes and the last estimate said that their were 70 000 of them. Here is the picture. There was also a book written about all the notes “ The notes of the world on Arantes walls” by Paolo Alves. There was a note in Czech I spotted as well.

Other then this restaurant not much going on in this town. Everyone goes to bed by 8:00 PM so we do as well, that’s why we are up by 3:15 AM.

The world really has changed since we got to Brazil. Uruguay was OK , beautiful in its own way, especially the coast road we took. Uruguay is 3/4 grassland and in the guidebooks they compared it to Switzerland (except I did not see any mountains). What I saw was , of course the back of Todd’s helmet in front of me, ocean on the right and thousands of cows, sheep, horses and birds (even flamingoes) around us (pretty cool!!!)

Now when it comes to Brazil, they are way more open to diversity. I first noticed it because they do not separate sheep, cows and horses by fences the way Argentineans and Uruguayans do. Brazilians just let them hang out together and be friends. The population is also way more mixed while in Argentina everyone seemed to be pretty much of European descent.

Another thing I noticed is that the language is soooooo different. After I got my Spanish going and was able to understand and communicate ( the beginnings were hard, I ordered a salad in the restaurant and I got a huge chunk of pork) by the time we left Uruguay. Portuguese first sounded like Spanish with a Russian accent to me, then more like French and now pretty much like nothing at all. Every time I am “talking” to someone I am trying to convince myself that it is very similar to Spanish, but holly cow it is not!

Another difference is that Brazilians are so friendly and they just keep talking to you, but we literarily do not understand a word they are saying. Then I say “no entiendo” and they don’t understand what I said because it is in Spanish so they just keep talking some more in Portuguese. I really forget how hard it is when one doesn’t speak the language. Other than that, even though I can’t understand a word I seem to be able to develop friendships with Silvios, Frederikos, Daniels, Eduardos, and Gustavos.

In Brazil food is spectacular, everything is so fresh and tastes great. Fruits, fish, home made pastries are all amazing. They have these “por kilo restaurants” which are usually huge rooms filled with sea food, fish stews, fruits, vegetables, deserts, cheeses, fruit juices(that I have never seen)and of course Brazilian coffee. You put anything you want on a plate and pay by its weight ( not how much you weigh after).

A few words about the culture:
I noticed the things that drive Todd crazy in south America, reminds me of my wonderful childhood and makes my heart itch from these lovely memories. For example, I spent exactly 49 minutes in a checkout line just to get a tweezers. It was wonderful. Huge queues are a part of life just like brushing your teeth. The cash register women takes her time since she has nowhere to be and chit chats with people since they all know each other. Or the little bakery store, you stay in the line to order what you want, they give you a ticket, then you stay in another line to pay for it, and then you go back to the line to get your stuff. Todd often asks me why you can’t just do all of it at once…I am not sure if I know the answer to that one. Also there are those little Fiat cars and old Volkswagens (filled with about 9 kids and three adults with no seatbelts). Just like all my 8 cousins and I in a little Trabant going with my Aunt Veronika to Duchunka lake.

Todd also gets a little frustrated when they don’t have the right motorcycle tool that he wants in the store. He has been looking for a little tool for COCO for about 4 days now. He managed to translate what he wanted in Portuguese but that does not make people have it. He has been in about 40 stores and they all talk to him a lot and tell him that their friends across the street have exactly what he needs. So far no luck. He says his limit is 80 stores then he might have one sent from home. It does not bother me at all, I learn my patience from growing up in a communist country.

We have been trying to connect with UNICEF but the offices are open usually only twice in week, always on the days we are not there. Hopefully soon, maybe at our next destination (Rio) we will be able to hook up with some other organizations\ and start doing some volunteer work.

Miss you all!
Love, Kristi

Buenos Aires

2009-10-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

It has been a month since we left home, and we are already sitting on the border of Uruguay and Brazil. Buenos Aires was a wonderful city. Even though we initially were faced with illness and some tooth problems, we managed to have a wonderful time in a very beautiful city.Buenos Aires reminded us so much of Italy for its cappuccinos, architecture, cafe society, pedestrian streetscapes, and beautiful people.

We spent the first few week just exploring the city and familiarizing ourselves with the culture. We stayed on the top floor of a beautiful 1925 Spanish tutor home, owned by a women named Cristina her two sons ( Tito and Pablo), and their maid Carmen. Carmen was from Peru and had a very hard time pronouncing my name ( just like many others here) and always called me OTT. She immediately adopted Kristina as her daughter and they became friends. While Kristina helped her with her English homework she definitely helped her improve her Spanish. She even made a huge chocolate cake for her. We definitely felt at home with Crstina´s family.

Once we heard that our motorcycle ( Coco) made it to Buenos Aires we decided to save a few pesos and took a bus instead of a taxi.Three hours later in the rain, we arrived at customs. It was very rainy and cold day and of course there was no heating on the bus. The bus dropped us off on the highway. After crossing 25 lanes of traffic we arrived at the security check point were you had to register to get through more security check points. Of course, we only had my passport with us so they would not let Kristina in ( since her passport was in the US. embassy awaiting a new visa). After an Internet passport copy retrieval they gave her a pass to get in.

Once we were in front of building # 5 we were faced with offices numbered 1,2, and 3. These offices were very small filled with many people speaking Spanish very rapidly. Little did we know at that time that we would be visiting each of those offices no fewer than 5 times each. A stamp here a signature there a hello baby there. But all and all it was very civilized and everyone was very nice and helpful. The entire process took four hours ( plus the 3 hour bus ride) of which only 10 minutes were needed to uncrate COCO and have her standing on her own two wheels. We got her all put together , battery connected and realized that the gas station was 6 blocks away. Faced with pushing the motorcycle to the gas station fully loaded we decided that Kristina´s charms would have to be tried to smuggle the gas into customs with no container in hand. So I sent her off to the gas station. She manged to come back with a container that she found in the garbage and was able to fill it full of bright green benzina. When I asked her what that green stuff was, she answered that it is "benzina ecologica". So the gas arrived to the amazement of the customs officials who I thought were going to applaud her arrival. The gas went in, the motorcycle started and off we went driving in Buenos Aires for the first time. It sure helps having GPS. That doesn´t stand for Great Prices on Steaks.

Just a word about dulce de leche, steaks, mosquitoes and bombons. If you don't know about dulce de leche it is a sweet caramel filling or sauce that you can find in just about everything. I even think i saw it in a toothpaste. Bonbons are indescribable chocolate candy filled with heavenly filing. Steaks range from 6 ounces to 2 pounds from parts of a cow that I never new existed (including its bowels) And last question, how do mosquitoes the size of your fist survive at 40 degree Fahrenheit? That´s it for now, see you next time.

P.S. Check out our spot links. It is our ok/help/emergency locator that positions us when we activate it.