The Road to Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is the most important archaeological site in South America. Its standard photo of the stone ruins surrounded by imposing mountain peaks is on everything from T-shirts to mousepads. Its the one most over-hyped tourist destination in Peru. And its every bit worth it.

Of coure no pilgrimige to Machu Picchu is complete without taking on the 4 day Inca trail to reach the sacred site. Of course the Inca trail is also overpriced and almost impossible to do unless you book months in advance. So we didn't. But we did do an 'alternative' Inca trail which still made us feel Inca-y and cost a hell of a lot less.

We started the first day by taking a 4 hour bus ride up a 4000m mountain (just like the Incas did) and then down halfway where we pulled our pristene mountain bikes off the roof of the bus and began our 5 hour descent. It was awsome. I have never downhill biked for that long through villages, waterfalls, rivers, jungle and cemetaries. We went from freshly paved road to joint-jittering rock paths. Our first casualty was SM, with her back brake not working she was flung over the front of the bike and into the abyss. So she scraped her arm, and got to trade bikes with the guide- who later threw her bike on the ground in disgust claiming that it wasnt a good bike. Really?

Next Monica's chain fell off a few times (not to mention some pant-wetting issues), an Irish guy fell off his bike and broke 2 gears off, William got 3 flat tires (giving up and carrying his bike for the last 100m), Charles hit a rock and broke is wheel, and a few more chains fell off. I was the only lucky one with no problems at all except for having the same back break as SM, but it didnt cause me any difficulties.

We arrived to our hostel in Sta. Maria tired, dirty and jolted, but thorroughly satisfied. It was the first time I'd slept at a gas station, and before going up we played deflated soccer with a ball-hungry dog.

The next day we hiked through the ghost town of old-Sta. Maria that had been destroyed (along with most of the train tracks) by the raging Urubamba river during '97's El Niño. We walked up a mountain through Coca plantations and onto an old path once used by Inca messangers.

The locals either chew the coca leaves or use them to make tea. They're supposed to give you energy to continue your manual labor and help with altitude sickness too. Here the growers mostly sell their leaves to cocain producers that give them good prices for their harvest. The Govt. has tried to subsidize farmers to grow other products but the fact that they still get better prices from cocaine producers and that its growth remains legal for cultural uses means that it hasn't made much progress.

On the old Inca trail our nature-friendly guide bent over a yuca tree to show us the leaves, breaking it in half in the process. Instead of destroying the evidence we decided to cameflauge ourselves in yuca leaves and blend in with the local surroundings. It worked so well. After descending to the river and walking along its rock-strewn edge (and through japanese gardens) we corssed the river in a DIY cable car, finally arriving at the blissful hot springs.

The huge pools, still under construction were hugged on one side by the granite mountain rocks, overlooking the river on the other. We steamed there for 2 hours, taking a twix (Twix!) break and being bitten to death by tiny bugs when we reluctantly dried off.

We spent the night at the little village of Sta. Teresa, being followed by 'Take on me' we watched a local soccer game before going to sleep in our roofless room (The roof was plastc tarp.). We woke up at 3:30am to some drunk guys haggling on top of our heads, but I was able to continue dreaming of being crowned king in a supermarket (yea...).

The final morning we bussed down to hydroelectroc city and spent the day walking down old railroad tracks and making train noises- another highlight of the trip. We finally arrived in Aguas Calientes, the town below Machu Picchu and settled into our hostel. By now we'd accumulated an array of interesting smells with our 3 day old socks, dusty pants, and disheveled hair. Just the way we like it.

Next morning's 4am wake up call had us marching (then huffing, and gasping) up the mountain to the site of Machu Picchu for what was the hardest walk of the trek so far. We reached the summit sweaty and out of breath, but proud for being the first visitors of the morning - that is until 2 minute later when we hear the hum of bus engines and the hiss of pneumatic doors opening to unleash 50 tourists onto the steps of the ruins. Bastards.

After entering the site we ran to the other end of the ruins to get our ticket that would allow us to climb Wayna Picchu (the peak looming over the ruins). We ran because our guide told us to and cuz they only let 200 people climb that mountain a day. The booth was closed. It would open at 7. What ensued was the running tour of Machu Picchu as we sprinted back to the guard house at the top (and opposite end) of the ruins where our guide would begin his tour. The tour begain. Halfway through the tour (and after 7am) our guide instructed us to return to the booth to get our tickets so we could climb it later. Again, we dashed to the booth only for them to tell us that we must climb the mountain right away. Not wanting to miss the end of our tour we ran back (again) through the now-familiar ruins and up the hill back to our guide. I was pissed. Later, at the end of our tour we got the opportunity again to try the booth, but in protest I decided not to climb it and spend an hour sleeping in the sun instead.

Machu Picchu is everything its said to be-and more. The ruins are massive, the stonework flawless, the surroundings breathtaking and tourists numerous. After out tour we spent some time wandering around the site and after losing each other one-by-one I spent an hour just laying in the grass and admiring the imposing site.

The afternoon we made our way back down the mountain with running bus-boys and took the 2:30 train back to Cuzco. We reached Cuzco tired, hungry, happy and badly needing a shower.

Cuzco plus 1

So after finding out that I'd had a 39.8º fever the whole day I spent that night writhing between shivering under 5 layers of blankets and sweating under a thin blue sheet. This continued until the wee hours of the morning when I finally was able to get some sleep. The next day was better, though still worrying as the thermomiter said I had 36º and then 35º and finally 34º...I'm now waiting for my blood to freeze and my body temp to drop below zero. Then everyone can have alex popsicles.

Apart from the family tradition of Cuzco sickness we like this place a lot. The city was the Inca empire's capital until the Spanish came and brutally buried all evidence of that by building cathedrals over temples and spanish houses over palaces. What remains is a curious mix of grand colonial architecture built on the sturdy remains of Inca fortresses. The regular houses are all of uniform whitewashed walls with red terracotta roof tiles while the city is spaced with fountained plazas and arched buildings resting on superb Incan masonry of rocks fitted so well together that it looks disneyland fake.

I decided to rest for a day to be 100% ready for our upcoming trek and spent the afternoon wandering the smooth cobblestoned streets of Cuzco. I don't think I've ever been to so many museums in one day, beginning with the Inka museum, then the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Regional History, the museum folk art, a monestary museum... etc. All very interesting and most very free.

I also stumbled upon the local market which had a great selection from ceviche to homemade chocolate, coca leaves to llama sweaters. All dirt cheap and full of chaos.

Inbetween sickness and museum hopping we went on a half-day walk through 3 Inca ruins near Cuzco, getting off the bus at the small water-themed Tambo Machay and then walking down to some site starting with a P and ending at the impressive Saqsaywaman with its jagged puma-teethed walls of huge rocks.

Lima

I woke up from a 10 hour sleep on what was probably the best bus ride of my life to some soothing latin music. I turned my torso to the right, leaning back on my padded seat-bed I opened the curtain and spent an hour watching the desert merge into the churning coastline of Peru. We passed beaches, cliffs, and wide expanses of nothingness, all of which the waves pummeled with an equal intensity. I ate my breakfast of chocolate bread and fruit juice, and layed back to watch a movie about the Tsunami, sporadically being interrupted by the undulating coastline.

I arrived in Lima very content and refreshed. The others had different opinions. We met a street performer on the bus and he showed us a great little suburb of Lima where we happily spent the next 3 days. Barranco is the bohemian/student area of the city, with little parks and churches spread out between funky colonial houses and cool bars. We decided to come back and live here. Either that or in the Miraflores suburb of Lima which was filled with modern apartment buildings perched on the clifftops overlooking the sea.

We walked around the area, oohing and aahing at everything, going into cool shops and art galleries. Since it was Monica's birthday we decided to take her out to Tony Roma's for some nostalgic ribs and lemon cake. Walking back home we met our street-performer friend, Richard, again and we sat around the plaza with him and a bunch of friends, watching them juggle, unicycle, and do all kinds of tricks. Later we went to a couple of bars, all with great live music, especially one with a Nirvana/Rage cover band that we headbanged to until 2 am.

The next day we looked around the colonial center (far, dusty, but still very imposing) and the city imbetween which was a worse version of Manila with smoggy buildings and neverending over and under-passes.

We had to change hotels (fumigation) to the lap-of-luxury 2 star hotel with cable and huge rooms. We hung around with some of Richard's friends the evening and saw another great live band at the Mochilero's bar, then went to sleep with the rare sounds of TV in our ears.

The next morning, as has been happening a lot lately, we got up at 7 (ready for panic and bus-catching) only to lay in our beds till noon with our room service tray perched on our nightstand and rugby games on TV. Aaah.

When we finally managed to wake up we took the 1:15 bus to Cuzco, which was an excrutiating 23 hours of freezing cold, jerky turns and gasping for breath (thats what you get for going from 0-4,000 meters in an afternoon). I was not satisfied. Plus, my iPod semi-broke on that trip (I'm still in denial as of its actual breakage) so that pissed me off some more. But we finally made it to sunny Cuzco, which is all cobblestone streets and tile roofs. A shower, lunch, and a great massage helped solve our tiredness, so much in fact that I'm heading for bed as soon as I finish this sentence.

Beach, Beach, Beach

Beach?

You bet. We'd been yearning for the beach since the last time we'd been to the beach so we decided to, yep, you got it, go to the beach.

Máncora is a laid back little beach town that we almost had to ourselves, since its still considered the winter season. We found a great resort on the main beach for, get ready for this, 5 USD a night. With cable, a swimming pool, umbrellas et all. We very quickly adapted to the beach, having a brunch of (good) coffee and (bad) banana bread. I don't know how brunches are beachy but I stand by my statement.

We spent the whole day laying on the beach with breaks for eating some ceviche (raw fish marinated in lemon) and surfing on the smalles waves in the world. Well, I spent the whole time sitting on the board paddling towards waves... Charles caught 1 and SM got 1/2. In 3 hrs of surfing. Yea.

We also got to watch dozens of kitesurfers fly around the beach in great style and got our tennis ball stolen by a dog and then eated by a pregnant lady.

We repeated the same thing the next day, walking to the extremes of the beach (and off the edge of the world) where I found my great thinking rock. But more about that later. We then caught our 5pm bus to Lima which was a hefty 19 hours of rolling desert hills and... uuh... rolling... desert...hills...

Cuenca & Border Madness

We passed almost a day in the very European colonial city of Cuenca, Which is Ecuador's 3rd largest. We arrived Sunday afternoon and the whole city was completely empty for the rest of our stay. Only lost looking tourists and churchgoers were mulling around, so we took the opportunity to bench and admire the huge cathedral of the old town. It seems like there is a church and plaza on every other block of this city, and after eating at the blue moon cafe (obsessed with evil not-allowed signs) we went to sleep in our little courtyarded hostel.

The morning after we were meant to panic and catch the early bus but we ended up going for the midday one due to late laundry and an excellent breakfast in the sun on our terrace. That wasn't exactly the smartest thing to do cuz we reached the amazingly sketchy border to Peru at dusk... where a bunch of things happened.

I have never seen a seedier, more chaotic place in my life. Ecuador and Peru aren't exactly the best of friends, as their president told us with a scalding speech against Peruvian ponchos... but I digress. They've fought over the southern border countless times and this has resulted in the very real non-existance of a border between the two.

Our bus to the border abruptly let us off in a desert stretch of road with a little white building saying 'police - immigration' so we got our exit papers stamped for ecuador and then we took a taxi 5 km to the perivuan border office, another small building in a desert expanse. There we did our thing and managed to get overcharged by the same taxi (its a long story, but basically he was an ass). Between the two we decided to change some dollars into Peruvian Soles, getting a great souvenier of a counterfiet 50 Soles (17USD) note.

By then it was night and we stopped at a deserted gas station where our great driver wanted the money up front. By then I had the sneaking suspicion that if we'd give it he'd leave us here and maybe behead us in the process, but everything was ok and we continued on to the town of Tumbles where we spent the night, dejected and disgruntled.

The next day, travelling to the beach resort of Mancora we passed the official Peruvian customs & immigration- 50 km from the previous day's border.

The Jungle.

So we did a bunch of stuff and went to a bunch of places in the jungle and it was fun.

We canoed in the rain, went night hiking, swam in a waterfall, made bracelets out of leaves and ate some seriously good food.

Due to laziness and other important factors I can't care to write more about what we did. But luckily I can steal SM's rendition of events and save me some precious time and brain cells. Enjoy.

Oh, and today during our 9 hours of travel our bus broke down forcing us to forage through the jungle until nightfall and finally cannibalize Sao Mai.

Ok so we just took a bus that showed up later. But my version is much more interesting.

Taken from SM's travelblog:

"Hidey ho, I'm so tired right now but I will try to recount the past few days as well as I can.
Thursday was jungle day. We had booked a 2-day jungle tour from Quito and spoken to Mowgli once we got to Baños (the guy who came from the jungle, remember?), yet the morning we were supposed to go, we found out that cycling was not included in our package. Charles and Monica had had similar problems on their trip to Cotopaxi, for which they used the same agency, so we were a little upset about this, but no go.

Instead, we had to bus down to the Hola Vida reservation with two American women who managed to talk about listening to songs on shuffle on mp3-players for about 20 minutes straight in ridiculous Valley-girl accents. Ok, they seemed very nice, but sitting in the bus for about 2 hours without being able to tune out their conversation took its toll on my sanity.

The first thing we did when we arrived at Hola Vida was to take a little walk through the jungle with a guide named Sebastian who came from an indigenous group in the area. He was an interesting guy, having run away from home at the age of 12 and gone to university in Germany among other things. Plus, he let us swing on a vine. The coolest thing he showed us, however, was the Hola Vida waterfall that we got to swim in, which is something I've always wanted to do, but never had the chance to. The water was perfect, and though letting the water pound your back was a bit harsher than the massage that Sebastian likened it to, it still felt pretty good.

The rest of our time at the reserve was spent with another guide, Clide. He let us try alcohol made from sugar cane (not rum), took us for a night walk in the forest, made bracelets from plant fibers, showed us natural pigments which we gladly drew all over ourselves with, took us canoing, walked with us to a lookout point where we could see different rivers that later join with the Amazon and, together with the other guides, made some of the best food we've had so far (which says a lot, because we've eaten a lot of good food in Ecuador). I loved the jungle, with its humidity, warmth, vegetation and most of all, its hammocks. Ok, so they're not a natural feature of the jungle, but they were very comfy.

One letdown during this tour though, was our visit to an indigenous community. Basically, we watched a woman make a clay pot while Clide explained the process to us, stared at the indigenous people who were also sitting there with us while they went on with their usual conversations and then we looked at some handicrafts and bought ourselves bracelets. The whole experience felt extremely intrusive and... weird.

We got back to Baños yesterday evening, very muddy and painted, but content. We were even more content after having spent another evening at the hot springs, even though it was a bit crowded this time. The town was full of people and music as it was Saturday night, but after having soaked in the warm water we were too tired to do anything else but go to bed.

This morning we took a bus to Ambato and from there boarded the bus that was to take us to Cuenca 7 hours later. However, about 3/4 of the way there, the bus broke down and we were stranded by the side of the road. Luckily, we got a ride on a pickup to a town on the way (by the way, riding on on the back of a pickup is THE way to travel) and from there took another bus to Cuenca (and as a side note, the transportation has proved to be really easy and efficient here in Ecuador).

Upon arrival, we were persuaded by a guy from a hostel to stay there for $4 a night and it looks like we got a pretty good deal. The hostel is not only fancier than the other places where we've been staying, but it's in the old town area which we've been walking around this evening and it really is lovely. It almost feels like Europe and the calmness of a Sunday evening has been very pleasant for a bit of sightseeing."

Quilotoa

We regrettingly left Quito in the morning and split up with me and SM going on the Quilotoa loop and Charles and Monica climbing the Cotopaxi Volcano. We took the bus high into the Andes through mountains, plains, canyons and farmland passing remote little villages and thatched roof huts. We arrived to the little pueblo of Quilotoa at 3 in the afternoon and right away found a place to stay with a Quichua family in a room full of dilapadated beds and a very cosy fireplace.

The reason we chose this village is because its perched on a huge volcano which has emploded leaving a large crater lake surrounded by jagged peaks. We really didnt expect it to be that beautiful and we sat around ooh-ing and aah-ing for a good 20 mintues before starting our descent into the crater.

30 minutes and 60 photos later we were face to face with the lake and a bunch of donkeys (one oh which got stuck in the lake while getting a shower making for a very dramatic lifesaving procedure).

The best thing about living there is that we were basically sharing the house of Manuel and his family and really got to see how they live. Himself and his 4 children all wore identical felt bowler hats and colofrul scarfs. The women all had knee-high white socks, matching tiny black shoes and skirts while the men wrapped themselves in jackets and woven llama wool (from their very own llama, of course).

We got a room for 5 USD each, including great home cooked dinners and breakfasts. These are probably the freshest meals I've ever had with everything coming from the land around them, from the fried eggs for breakfast to the carrot and potato soups. In the evenings we all huddled infront of a tiny woodfired boiler as it was 4 degrees outside, with the wind beating at the thin walls.

After sitting mezmerized infront of our fireplace we went to bed with our 6 layers of sheets and shivered until morning, when we decided to walk the mountaintops surrounding the crater. We perilously walked with the deep crater to our left and the vast Andean planes to the right scaling peak after peak before finally reaching back to our little village of 50 people for a nice tuna lunch. On the crater walk we walked from almost vertical cultivated fields to pine forests, sand plains and windswept sandstone formations, crossing llamas and Quichua women on the way.


That night we went to bed early as the next morning we had a 4am wake up call to catch the 5am bus (the only bus of the day). We stood in the freezing pitch-black wind-swept cold for a good 40 minutes before the bus finally arrived to give our numbing apendages a rest.

Since we had time we stopped by Saquisili to see the weekly local market where people from hundreds of rural villages would come to buy and sell produce from hens to potatoes, fish, bananas, leeks, and blocks of sugar.

We then continued on to Baños where we spent the rainy afternoon in the local hot springs, jumping from freezing watershoots to boiling pools, and generally doing nothing at all except for getting wrinkled beyond comprehension.

De Retour a Quito

That Otavalo evening we danced the night away to the beats of a colombian salsa band in the main square to the occasion of the festival de yamor (corn fesitval, yippee!). Its th best live music we've had so far on the trip and in no time we were dancing with some drunk locals and stepping to the salsa beat until well after midnight.

The next morning we took the bus back though the desert hills to Quito where we rushed to the sunday car market in the south. Its a huge lot of open land with hundreds of cars spread out for sale- from '70s hippiemobiles (my dream car) to rattling pickups and shiny new jeeps. We found a few cars we were interested in, including a really cheap VW Amazona which conveniently started without any keys (uuh...). In the end, we decided not to by a car cuz it would be too much trouble with the insurance and border crossings, but it was still lots of fun doing something untouristy for once.

Today we took the neverending bus to the Midad del Mundo (Middle of the world) where they have a huge toursit park which the equatorial line runs through. We took turns taking photos standing (and SM rolling) on either side of the equator in this vast people-devoid park which serves absolutely no purpose at all except for having a huge monument with a red line. After wasting some time there we went next door where they had another museum with another red line in a different place (hmm...) which was way better than the first one. This one had interactive exhibits from seeing the water drain in different directions in each hemisphere to balancing eggs (I even got an egg balancing certificate!!) and some history of the local people as well. Apparently the actual equator is 12km thick, but this was the very center of it.

Here we met our guide, Sophia, a tourism student who came with us to the free Jazz concert hosted in one of the many plazas of the old town. We listened to some superb jazz while eating crispy chicken wings and then returned home to prepare for the next week of travelling.

Car Shopping

We did some intense car shopping on Friday, seeing mostly old run-down cars whose buttons didnt work or whose engines were about to fall out of the hood, but, we did come across a nice one by chance while walking back to town. It is the Toyota Crown... which is 1 year older than me but is really well kept and really cheap. It even has spiffy electric windows!

We didnt do much other than that except for see an Andy Warhol exhibition in the evening complete with a campbell's soup disco.

Oh, and I almost forgot... we met up with Natasha, who apparently went to school with me & SM in vnam (uuuh...) and it was her going away party to China (uuuh...) so she rented an open-top bus and we drove around the city blowing our whistles and waving our Ecuadorian flags. We then went out clubbing with the Ecuadorian elite (Everybody was as white as we were) where some apparently famous Puerto Rican reggaeton singers put an end to our dancing with their baggy-panted efforts at singing.

This morning we woke up in our white hospital beds to the calling of a fruit truck that sent nostalgic memories through my brain of the Spotornese fruit trucks (meloni...meloni belli...) and we took the bus to Otavalo, the mountain town with the biggest Saturday market in Latin America.

Today the whole town was taken over by the flamboyant market, with it spilling over the sidewalks and into side streets. We walked around the market for most of the afternoon outfitting ourselves with ponchos, bowler hats, striped pants woven bags. We're now more local than the locals who, ironically have another section of the market catering to their interests in nike sweaters and puma caps.

South America

We have officially arrived in South America, taking the flight yesterday from San Jose, CR to Quito, Ecuado. At the airplane gate I reunited with Sao Mai and we took off towards South America in what was probably the most expensive flight of my life- at 5 USD a minute.

Its great seeing SM again after almost a year, she hasnt changed a bit, and now with her addition and that of Monica- SM's friend from Sweden - we feel more like a travelling circus. We were surprised to have Monica waiting for us outside our departure gate mostly because she was meant to arrive 5 hrs after us that day. It turns out that she arrived the day before we got there and had been waiting for us ever since.

Monica's half Chilean and half Uruguayan and is very cool as well, of course. Now the only problem is that when anybody asks us where we're from it takes us about 3 hours to explain- with more than 7 nationalities between the 4 of us.

So we found a great hotel in the middle of the old town of Quito that reminded me so much of Alpine rifugios, with the same dusty smell, the cold creaking floorboards and the little breakfast room with pine cones scattered around. The only difference is that this was in the center of the center of the massive 3 million inhabitant metropolis of Quito, which we have all been very pleasantly surprised by since it has a wonderfully colonial old town full of theatres and museums and little piazzas that are hidden throughout the mazes of cobblestone streets.

We already did a lot in our first afternoon- we ate a lunch of Morochos (warm sweetcorn porridge in a mug) and pan con queso at a screeming lady's street stall, we then walked around the old town where we ran into a protest in front of the president's house because the govt didnt give the soccer leage their funding, and there we got to see the Ecuadorian president come out on the balcony above the protests to wave and observe. We also saw 2 people get arrested infront of us (the city is teeming with policemen, it seems like theres more of them than actual inhabitants). We also met a girl that plays for the Ecuadorian national soccer team and ate a huge dinner of grilled pork with rice & beans at a hole in the wall that reminded me of the good old bun cha days of Hanoi.

We slept extremely well, me under 6 layers of heavy blankets, as Quito is almost 3000 m up (which also helped explain why we were short of breath after climbing the stairs). And today we are intenet to buy ourselves a car for the rest of our trip.

Cahuita and Puerto Viejo

Mmm... Watermelon. I had been craving that watermelon since the busride that morning, and I was only too happy to see it on sale at the streetcorner in Puerto Viejo... but first things first. After almost 3 weeks of incessant travelling and 4 days of rainforest adventures we decided to take it easy for the remainder of our time in Costa Rica and spend the last 4 nights doing nothing at all at the beach.

And that's exactly what we did. The End.

Except not. We first stopped at Cahuita, a sleepy beachside town where we found the crappiest place (Backpacker's Dream) to stay with a half-baked owner-José-in an old wooden house that was way past its demolishon date. We spent that afternoon on a white sand beach building sandcastles (or sand taj-mahals) which, as big 21 year olds that we are we then destroyed by a flotilla of flying sandballs and then razed to the ground with our bare feet- ending their short lived reign of the beach.

That evening we had a sumptuous meal of squished bread and spam (low budget? what makes you say that?) finished off with our faithful peanut butter for dessert. The next morning we walked down to the black-sand beach, ogling the wooden cabinas we might have stayed in were we only a few dollars richer- they had large rooms with porches and private kitchens, hammocks and swimming pools, all for just 30 USD a night. We then unhurridly took the bus down to another beach town of Puerto Viejo, just a half hour away.

At Pto. Viejo we found a Hammock Hotel called Rocking J's run by an American, of course. The photo below was where we slept, a open air roofed structure with neverending rows of hammocks. It was a huge place, with tents for camping above, plenty of picnic tables and open areas, and directly on the beach too. The whole place was covered in mosaic tiles, from the floor to the columns and even the bathrooms. Its such a cheap and easy idea, me and Charles were left wondering why they dont have more of these places around Latin America. We spent 3 nights here, the 1st of which I slept blisfully, and the 2 following ones a little less so, but still pretty well.

Well, the only downside of Pto. Viejo was that most of the food was more expensive that what we had paid to sleep. So we decided there an then that all our meals would be self-cooked, and that means pasta at night and tuna sandwiches for lunch. All except for the first, that is- we found an old rasta selling carribean food next to the road and we decided to go for it. It was probably the best food we've had since the 5 star hotel buffet in Cancun. A huge portion of rice & beans with sweet fried bananas and a fish cooked in coconut curry all topped off with the above-mentioned watermelon (and a beer, of course) all while sitting under a palm tree on the edge of the carribean sea. It was pure paradise. After finishing off our plate I took off my shirt and plunged into the water.

We spent the afternoon at the ugly black sand beach north of town where we covered ourselves head-to-toe in black sand, making very convincing black people, if it wasnt for our pale faces. The next day we had a leisurly breakfast and then rented bikes for the day. We biked down the somewhat paved road leading to 4 other beaches, past cacao plantations and carribean houses where we stopped at Punta Uva beach to take a look. There we met the 3 Tico ladies in the postcardish photo below, who were nice enough to let us take a photo of them so we could post it online and make all of you jelous. I hope its working.

We then broke our pact of homecooked meals and ate a repeat of the previous day at Maxis, at Manzanillo beach before making our way back to Punta Uva, where we swam, layed on the beach, and harnassed nature itself to build a massive sandcastle which withstood the attack of the tides (ok, so we're really 5 year olds in 20 year old bodies.).

The following day we woke up late again, had a great breakfast of fruit juice, PB & J and coffee, and then settled back into our hammocks to read the day's newspaper (and the story about a second hurricane that we just missed). We sitrred only to eat our tuna sandwich lunches and then decided to walk 10 minutes to a good whitesand beach that we'd seen the day before. Well, thanks to Hurricane Felix we got huge surf waves even out of surfing season, so we spent the whole afternoon battling the waves and relaxing on the beach.

Today we took the bus back to San José cuz tomorrow we fly to Ecuador, and there we meet Sao Mai and her friend Maria, Monica or Mariela...

Tortuguero

We had just finished one adventure and we went straight into another... waking up at 4 am we left San José early, making our way to Cariari, then Pavona where we took a river taxi to the town of Tortuguero. Tortuguero is a little tourist town nestled between the mini-amazon Tortuguero river and the carribean sea. It has a huge national park, and the beach is world-renound for the nesting site of 4 of the earth's 6 species of marine turtle.

When we got off the bus in Pavona we met a Tico from Tortuguero called Anthony who was about our age and just coming back from a vacation. We followed him through muddy fields to the watertaxi, while he busily picked magic mushrooms from the surrounding fields. We rinsed ourselves off in the river and then took off on the boat to town. This place is exactly like what I imagine the Amazon to be... its flanked on both sides by thick rainforest and all kinds of huge palms and overhanging trees. We zipped through the muddy waters spotting a huge crocodile laying on one of the riverbanks.

By now we had made friends with Anthony by offering him a peanutbutter sandwich, and he was to remain our unofficial guide for the rest of our stay in Tortuguero. When we got off the boat he helped us find a beachfront hotel with a kitchen and hammocks, he took us to a good place for lunch and helped us arrange our plans for the next day. That afternoon we just lazed around, cooked our own dinner and slept early.



The next day we took a canoe at 6 am with Anthony and went to explore the river by paddle. It was amazing. We didnt even go into the national park (mostly cuz of the 7 USD entrance fee), but we probly saw better things than what we would have seen in the park. Anthony was a superb free guide taking us into a tiny canal where we crept along, looking for alligators and spotting all kinds of birds and insects, including the tiny poisonous red frog and a baby cayman (croc) swimming around. We then got out and walked around the jungle to the house of a 90 year old guy who lives without electricity or anything, then got back in and paddled some more down the big river.

We stopped again along the side when we saw a colony of small cappuccino monkeys in the trees. We got out at a clearing and watched them for about half an hour- its as if they were completely oblivious of our existance. About 30 of them continued to jump from tree to tree, nibbling at fruits or trying to crack shells, some lazily just laying on branches, with their four apendeges hanging off the sides. We saw a mother carriying a baby one just a meter from us.



On our way back to the canoe Anthony picked a breadfruit that we would later fry for lunch (just add some salt, and Mmm... tastes just like french fries). We then went back to our hotel, fried that breadfruit and layed blissfully in our hammocks, drifting in and out of consciousness until 5pm that afternoon when we decided to splurge and take our once in a lifetime canopy zipline tour. Its basically a bunch of metal cords tied high up in tree canopies where you can zip from one tree to another. Well, it wasnt worth the 35 USD we paid for it, but it was still a fun experience.

We played some pool with the canopy tour people and then headed home to cook our spaghetti dinner and to sleep in our comfortable beds. The Anthony thing was weird... we were a bit suspicious that he'd want something from us... and he probably did get some comission from the things we did, but other than that it was just as if we had met an old friend who had shown us around his hometown.

Parque Nacional Rincon De La Vieja

We got up early that morning from our empty dorm room to spend the day hiking around the Rincon De la Vieja National Park. We took our daybags and our food and head off for an hour's bumpy journey to the national park entrance. As soon as we stepped out of the van we were met by a lemur/badger mix that almost ran away with one guys backpack.

We started hiking around the easy trail first and just as you enter the trail you already feel lost from the rest of the world. The rainforest is so thick that you can hardly see anything off the path itself. The walking trail is crisscrossed by flowing streams and lines of leafcutter ants, interrupted occasionally by huge trees and their mammoth roots. Walking a little further we came to a large waterfall and further still we began to see a series of sulphur springs, shown in the photo below, with boiling mud and plenty of steam. It reminded me a little of yellowstone park, except the tropical version. We passed some wild monkeys and a few more sulphurous thingys and we easily finished the first part of the trip.


Next, we headed to the longer hike to a huge waterfall on the other side of the park. We walked through more thick rainforest, past a swimming hole and then all of a sudden, for no reason at all, the rainforest turned into a cactused savannah with knee-high grass and small shrubberies (yay!) , and then again, without warning, it went back to rainforest. It repeated this a couple of more times, completely changing ecosystems within a couple of meters.

We finally got to our waterfall where we had planned to swim and have our lunch. We carefully took out our bottle of rosé wine and tucket it between two rocks in the stream to cool it down. And thats when the real adventure started. No sooner had we pulled out our bread and started to spread our peanut butter than a huge tropical downpour broke out, which naturally sent us running everywhere to try to get out of the rain, only to realize that there was nowhere to run.




We resigned ourselves to the wet, and taking off our shirts and hiding them under a rock we opened our bottle of wine and ate our sandwiches under the rain. I pulled out my tiny travel umbrella and me and Charles huddled under that, trembling, taking turns eating our sandwiches and drinking our excellent Chilean wine, all while cursing the deluge.

So we huddled and huddled until all the wine, sandwiches, and olives (mmm...olives) were gone. Then we decided to make our way back to the ranger station because our van back to the hotel was leaving soon... so we made a last futile attempt to remain dry by zipping ourselves in our kay-ways and heading off. So we trudged back half-drunk and wet to the bone (socks and underwear included) splashing our way through the mud tracks and wiping the raindrops from our eyes. Apparently alcohol helps hiking because we got back in half the time, and with hardly any effort at all.

We did take, however, the mandatory swimming break in a natural pool on the way back, with freezing water and waterfalls around us, it was exactly what we needed after a day of hiking. When we did get back to the ranger station the whole park had been engulfed by clouds, making it look surreal. An hour of wet van and we were back in our hotel, showered and ready to continue on to the capital, where we would arrive at midnight and leave at 4 am for the carribean coast.