Tico Country

While Peru may seem like Tico country due to the proliferation of cars there with the name Tico (made by Daewoo), Costa Rica is where the true ticos live. Tico is what they call themselves instead of using the more cumbersome costariccense. I'm not even sure I spelled that right. Those of us from the USA have a similar shorthand of calling ourselves American, even though everyone who lives in the Americas is an American. I last updated the blog on Wednesday, and it is now Saturday, so I'll quickly review the last few days. On Thursday, Mom and I took a boat tour of the Islas de las Ballestas. These islands are covered with birds, including penguins, and with guano (bird droppings) that has become an international export because it makes an excellent fertilizer. From there we traveled to Lima by bus. On Friday, I visited a very poor area of the Lima and met with some people from there and from the city planning office to discuss potential partnerships between them and the planning school at UBC. The major stumbling block, as always, is money to do partnership projects like this. Today Mom and I went our separate ways as I flew here to Costa Rica and she flew to Chicago. I fly to Chicago from here tomorrow. So far Costa Rica is everything they say it is: progressive, safe, friendly. My taxi driver was a woman, something you don't see often in many countries, including the States. I'm definitely adding Costa Rica to my already long list of places to visit, but it'll have to go after Ukraine, Colombia, Taiwan, Canada and other places where friends are. Friendship is most important after all.

More from the Desert

Or should it be dessert? Because pecans are in season here, and we tried a tasty treat called chocotejas (I think) that was like a pecan turtle. Delicious! Yesterday Mom's student Roberto and his family picked us up and took us on a tour of Ica. We visited a bodega where they make wine and pisco, then went to a local restaurant and ended up at the house where they live, which is in the countryside near Ica. The sand dunes stretch for miles around here, and Roberto and his uncle have climbed them for hours, even as far as the oasis where we are staying, which takes them almost three hours. We saw the highest dune in South America today (possibly in the Americas?) that was bigger than the mountains in front of it. We also flew over the Nasca lines and luckily I brought Dramamine (like Gravol for the Canadians) because otherwise I would've thrown up it was such a small plane. It's still difficult to understand how these goeglyphs were made because they were done before any type of flight was possible, as far as we know, yet can only be truly seen from the air.

The Beginning of Winter

While it may be the summer solstice up north where most of you are, it is the winter solstice down here, and we do feel it, but not as much as the locals. We are at least accustomed to quite a bit of cold weather. We found out that the night after we left Puno was one of the coldest they'd had, and about 30 people died of exposure, many of them children. Very sad. We are now in Ica in the desert. We are staying next to a laguna. It looks like an oasis in the Sahara because the laguna is surrounded by high sand dunes and palm trees--not something we expected to find here. One of mom's students spends the summers here in Ica, so we are going to try and see him and his family. We are also going to do tours of the Nasca lines and the Islas de las Ballestas from here. We decided to settle down in one place for awhile and tour from here. We arrived early this morning on a night bus from Arequipa. The service was almost like being on a plane, including an attendant and meal and reclining seats. We even left from the Terrapuerto which sounds to me like a play on words in Spanish, combining earth (tierra) and port (puerto), though it may just be a word in itself that I'd never heard before.

Juanita

Today I went to visit Juanita. She's not a living person (well, she was once), but a mummy that is hundreds of years old. She was found on the top of a mountain called Ampato that is near Arequipa, the town in Perú where we are now. She is supposed to be the most well-preserved mummy in the world. She was preserved by natural means, not artificial means like the mummies in Egypt. They found her about 10 years ago when a nearby volcano melted the snow on Ampato. It was the cold and snow that had preserved her all these years. Scientists think that she was a sacrifice to the gods from the Incas when the volcano was erupting hundreds of years ago. She was between 12 and 14 years old and probably of the Incan nobility. They found three other mummies on the same mountain and others have been found on other high mountains in South America. The museum where Juanita now resides and the food have been the two highlights of Arequipa. The food here is the best in Perú, at least that we've tried so far.

The Low Mountains

Wow, two entries in one day. Internet is free in the hotel we're at now, can you tell? The much anticipated decision is that we are going to stay in Perú and not go to Bolivia at all. One reason is the political unrest, but also we have heard many good things about Arequipa, Nasca and Ica--the cities in Perú that we are going to visit. It was a tough decision. Mom is going to have a Peace Corps reunion in Bolivia in two years, so there will be other opportunities to travel there. I did see Bolivia today when we were on Lake Titicaca. The Andes look like low hills because the lake is so high (12,500 feet), except for the snow-covered mountains off in the distance that are in Bolivia. We spent most of the day on the lake, visiting some of its islands. The first islands we visited were actually floating islands. People live on these islands that they make out of reeds cut from the lake. They anchor the islands to the lake bottom with long posts, but they do move them around the lake depending on the season. It's quite a feat of engineering. Then we visited a natural island and saw how the people lived there, much as they had lived for many centuries, except for tourists like us coming to visit. We had quite a hike around the island. Good thing we warmed up with walking and climbing around Machu Picchu.

From the Shores of Lake Titicaca

Sorry for keeping you in suspense about the luggage. Mom's luggage did arrive on Monday, almost five days after she checked it in with Northwest in Albuquerque. We had little access to Internet in Urubamba where we've been for the last four days. On Monday we went to the salineras--salt mines--and saw how they make pools to dry the salt from the earth then harvest it. Then we went to Moray where they have these sinkholes that the Incas terraced and used for testing different varieties of crops because the natural depressions create different microclimates. On Tuesday we met up with Karime and Danny at the market in Pisaq then visited the Inca ruins there with them. We saw the mother of all Inca ruins on Wednesday--Machu Picchu. The ruins are accessible only by a railroad or a 4-day walk through the mountains. We opted for the train trip and a scary bus ride to where Machu Picchu sits at the top of a high mountain. Again pictures would help this description, but I have despaired of being able to add them to the blog until I get home. Then you will get a photo essay of the journey. We saw Karime and Danny at Machu Picchu, unfortunately too briefly. It was a lot of fun spending time with them. Yesterday (Thursday) we took a bus from Cusco to Puno and are now here on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navegable lake in the world. Today we decide if our next step will be to continue through Peru or on to Bolivia. Everyone says that Bolivia is now tranquilo after the political unrest that caused the resignation of the President there. It is not such an unusual occurence for Bolivia, so no one is too excited about it.

Estamos en Urubamba

I have to take back the negative things I said about Taca. My luggage arrived only a day after I did thanks to my friend Francis in Taca who took good care of it for me. My mom is still waiting for her luggage from American Airlines. It is now 5 days and counting, but we're hopeful that today is the day. It has arrived in Lima, but we flew yesterday from Lima to Cuzco, then took a car from Cuzco to Urubamba (about an hour away). So mom's suitcase has to catch up with us here. Flying over the Andes then driving through them was spectacular. Urubamba is a small village nestled in a valley with a river running through it. Our hotel has a train station where we can take the train to Machu Picchu (the only way to arrive there). Yesterday we tried the comida típica of the area. Mom ordered the house special, and I was about to order something else when the waiter stopped us and said it's enough for two. For the price, we wondered how that was possible, but when the food came, it was a dish piled high with plátanos, potatoes, spaghetti, stuffed pepper, meat and cheese. We couldn't finish it all. I also tried chicha, the local corn brew, and later that evening a pisco sour. Pisco is a grape brandy distilled from grapes grown in Peru's desert near Ica. I enjoyed the pisco more than the chicha. I have yet to try the maté de coca, a tea made from coca leaves. It's good for altitude sickness and stomach problems, so they say. Tomorrow we will hopefully meet up with my friend Karime from Colombia who's also traveling in Perú por casualidad.

The Longest Day(s)

Who says there are only 24 hours in a day? For me, June 9 had 35 hours because I spent a lot of that time flying west, gaining 11 hours in total. I also spent much of June 10 traveling south to Lima, so no hours gained, but a lot of time in the air. Until I arrived at the hotel in Lima at midnight last night, I'd been awake for about 60 hours with a few naps on planes adding up to about 10 hours. Needless to say, I was a little loopy by that point. My friend Eli in New York had to bear the brunt of my tiredness. I spent the 13 hours of my layover in New York with him. We went to Coney Island to ride the wooden roller coaster, had dinner and went to a midnight movie. We were some of the first people in the country to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It was actually a decent movie, or what I remember of it was. I kept falling asleep, and Eli had to poke me awake. My mom and I arrived about the same time in Lima yesterday, even though I was supposed to arrive 2 hours earlier than her. Don't fly with Taca airlines if you can help it. If Emirates Air is the best airline in the world, Taca is the worst. although the delay this time was actually the fault of KLM. I was waiting for my connecting flight to Lima in Quito when a KLM flight had a difficult landing at the airport there. They closed the airport for almost 3 hours while they investigated the problem with the landing and moved the plane. Also, neither my luggage nor my mom's has yet arrived. Such is life in Latin America, and we are prepared to go with the flow in the land of mañana. Life gets more interesting tomorrow as we're off to Cuzco and to Bolivia potentially with only the clothes on our backs.

Wheels on the Bus

On Monday night, we walked with Russell and Laura to a restaurant called O2. We wished we'd have discovered the place earlier because it had excellent food and a great atmosphere. We sat in a loft area on pillows on the floor with short tables in front of us. After dinner, we said goodbye to the Brits who are spending the next few months traveling around the world. I am jealous! Tuesday was a travel day with a ferry and a bus back to Bangkok. We went to our usual places on Tuesday night--the Indian restaurant to smoke the water pipe (we tried rose-flavored tobacco) and then Lava nightclub for dancing. It's amazing how quickly you can become accustomed to a place. Of course, we know only a small part of Bangkok. Today (Wednesday) we met Peter, one of our professors from the University of British Columbia, for lunch. He happens to be here on business at the same time the rest of us are here, so it was a small UBC reunion in Bangkok. In only a few short hours, I'm off to the airport and bound for New York.

Here Comes the Sun

I think I've mentioned at least a couple times before that this is the rainy season, but that it only rains for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Well, it rained for almost a full 24 hours from Saturday night until yesterday afternoon. We didn't let the rain stop us, though. We decided to still go out dancing on Saturday night. We drove our motorbikes, but the rain got so heavy that we had to stop once on the way to the place where we were supposed to meet our friend Palm and wait until the rain lessened. The atmosphere of the bar was fun, and they had a free fire show (three guys on the beach twirling fire sticks), but we wanted to dance and the band wasn't playing good dance music. Also, Palm didn't meet us because of the rain. Sunday afternoon we met up again with our English friends Russell and Laura. Following a bit of Red Bull and Thai rum, we all had a midnight swim in the ocean. After all the rain, we were rewarded today (Monday) with a beautiful sunny day. This afternoon Russell and I paddled to one of the small islands near Ko Chang in a kayak. It was a little further away than we thought it was, so we were tired by the time we made it back to shore.

Motorcycle Diaries

Today we toured the island of Ko Chang on motorbikes. We had breakfast with the English couple we met last night, then rented the bikes and headed for a waterfall. The "waterfall" was only one meter high. (We were later told we missed the real one.) Since it's the rainy season, it rains daily in the afternoon. We were lucky to find shelter in someone's house. They were having a karaoke party, so we had to sing a couple songs. We sang Madonna's La Isla Bonita and You've Got It by Roy Orbison. Then they sang songs in Thai for us, and we learned some Thai dance moves. They offered us whisky and soda and lots of different fruits. I've tried more strange fruits today--lychee, mungkood and some prickly fruit with these giant seeds in the center that you eat. I don't even know the name, but it tasted like squash to me. After the rain stopped, we continued around the island. We were craving coffee, and Lisa spotted an espresso machine from the road, so we stopped. The barista was an interesting guy named Palm who acted as a DJ for us playing music we requested. He told us about a good place for dancing, so that is where we're going tonight, and he's going to meet us there. We like the motorbikes so much we're keeping them for another day. They only cost 200 baht a day to rent (about $5)--less than the cost of the pizza Arti and Lisa ate for dinner last night.

On the Waterfront

We finally made it to the beach. We're on Ko Chang after a long bus ride followed by a ferry ride to the island and then a ride in a group taxi. The bus and the ferry were quite nice, though the wind and rain started blowing so hard on the ferry that we had to move to the middle. The group taxi was a different story. It was a small truck with benches in the back. The luggage went on top and wasn't even strapped down. They crammed so many people on the benches that a couple guys had to stand on the tailgate and hang on. The one kept saying he hoped none of the luggage fell on his head as we were going up the hills. It's the rainy season in Thailand, so very few tourists are here. We're in a bungalow right on the beach. Everything is more expensive than in Bangkok, including Internet, so I'll sign off for now.

Okay, Three Nights in Bangkok

Arti didn't arrive until late at night, so we weren't able to make reservations for the island. She arrived at midnight, but Lisa and I didn't discover her arrival until 3 AM when we got back to the guesthouse. We danced until 1 AM when the bars and clubs here close, then we sat outside on carpets that people set up on the streets and had a beer. Sharing our carpet were three Canadians and one guy from the UK. It's probably just as well we didn't have to catch the bus at 8 AM this morning, but I am looking forward to getting out of the city! We've decided to go tomorrow to Ko Chang, an island not far from Cambodia that is also a national park.

Two Nights in Bangkok

I'm in Bangkok with my friend Lisa, and we are eagerly anticipating the arrival of our friend Arti. Last night we went to a movie with Lisa's Thai friend PK. He's a student in the electrical engineering department. Some of his textbooks are in English. I think studying engineering would be hard enough without having textbooks in a foreign language. The movie we saw (Sin City) was bizarre and bloody. Yuck! I should've waited until Bangkok to see Star Wars 3 because they're showing it in the bar at our hotel for free--from a pirated DVD. It's in English with poor English subtitles (Jedi Council = Cheddar Council). We were taken for a ride both literally and figuratively by a tuk tuk driver today. He took us around sightseeing, but we also had to stop at some shops that gave him a commission for taking us there. We knew it was going to happen, but it was frustrating in the end. Thai food is great, though very spicy. PK had us try his favorite dish yesterday, and it was too spicy even for him. Tonight we're going dancing!!! Then tomorrow we are getting out of Bangkok to a ko (island) for some swimming, snorkeling, hiking, etc.