After an epic 40 hour bus experience, we found ourselves back in Lima, Peru where each of us spent a summer studying. For Tori, it was exciting to finally come back to some place that felt familiar. We knew just where we wanted to go, how much it cost to get there, and all of the local delicacies. Score!
We stayed at an upscale hostel in downtown Miraflores, a ritzy neighborhood on Lima´s coast. We could walk to the cliffs overhanging the beach from our hostel...yes, we splurged. Hey, it was Christmas! Strolling about on Christamas eve, we discovered a small spa where Tori could get a manicure and pedicure and Stew could get a massage, all for under 30 bucks. Double score! We left feeling all jazzed up and ready to celebrate the holiday.
Our Christmas preparations included going to the grocery store: bacon, tropical fruits, and mimosas were in order. On Christams day, we slept in...quite the luxury, and also quite easy to do after 40 hours of bus travel. Luckily, Stew´s parents sent down a Christmas package (with express instructions to maintain closed until Christmas morning) with Tori´s parents. It might have been outrageously tempting to carry around for 2 weeks, but it was definitely worth the wait to have a package to tear apart on Christmas morning. We got some awesome goodies, too: earplugs!!, dino flashlight, headlamp, bottle-opening ring, plus some very cool National Geographic maps from Stew´s grandparents...it was a great Christmas!
We spent most of Christmas day eating fruit salad (if you ever come across something called a Pepino Melon, go for it) and bacon, drinking mimosas, and hanging out with some of the folks we met at our hostel. For Christmas dinner, we got to meet up with one of Stew´s friends from his studies at Lima, Jamie from Los Angeles (see earlier blog posts from our drive across the country). We had a great meal at a mediterreanean resteraunt that happened to be open...bizarrely enough, all the chinese places were closed. So much for a traditional Jewish Christmas.
The day after Christmas, we made for Huacachina, our favorite little oasis in the world. It´s an itty bitty town in the middle of the desert on a lake...a genuine oasis. We´ve been hanging out in the sunshine since we arrived. Not a bad way to spend Boxing Day.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Ecuador: stuck in the mitad with you!
Ecuador (all at once)
Sorry for the lack of updates in the last two weeks or so: we´ve been traveling willy nilly with Tori´s parents throughout Ecuador and haven´t had any time to post on the blog. Right now we´re about to leave Ecuador and go to Peru for Christmas, but there´s a lot that has happened since we last posted.
From Panama City, we flew to Colombia and then to Quito, Ecuador. This was momentous because it signified the end of Central America and the beginning of South America. Also, we got really good plane food and Stew talked his way into an extra meal. Plus, we tried all of Colombia´s beers on the plane for free, so it´s almost like we´ve been there.
We met up with Tori´s parents in the immigration line in Quito. It was pretty thrilling to see family after such a long time, plus we got to cut in line. It was probably the most joyous celebration to happen in a 30 minute immigration line at midnight. The next day we took a tour of Quito with the weirdest hippie-spiritual- new age- Incan hating -Ecuadorian ever. He also showed us the equator, and told us some weird hippie stuff about it. Still it was really fun and we loved Quito.
The next day we flew to the Amazon. We stayed in a lodge that was quite a trek from Quito: we flew, took a bus, took a boat, took a hike, and then took a final canoe. It was great, and secluded. From our lodge, we could see big rat like animals named agouti, caimans, tamarinds, pygmy marmosets, and lots of other cool stuff. Like birds, but who cares. Birders are lame-oids with pocket protectors. We went on daily excursions in which we saw anaconda tracks, river otter, big trees, giant smoked toads, tiny poison frogs, crazy lizards, sloths, a gajillion monkeys of a half dozen types, tarantulas, insects, whip snakes, and Austrians. It was a heckuva good time.
Next, we hit the Galapagos, because we hadn´t seen enough animals yet. We found them. More marine iguanas than you could in a stew, more sea lions than you could ever possibly cuddle, lots of land and sea turtles doing it, blue footed boobies (also doing it, but dancing better), frigate birds (trying to do it), penguins swimming cutely, fish doing their thing, flightless cormorants not flying, dolpins playing, and natural formations. These include lava, beaches, giant stone outcropppings, darwin´s toilets (places where the water rushes onto stone beaches and then flushes like a toilet), and others that instead of flushing, shoot up like a whale spout. Also, the cruise director chose our family to lead the Neptune Day celebration as we crossed the equator: Tori´s dad was King Neptune, God of the Sea, and Tori´s mom was Queen Neredia, his beautiful wife. We were pirates, along with Tori´s brother. We got free drinks. It was riotous. Stew, apparently, also knew the cruise director from his days as a sailor on the Pacific.
We returned to Quito, where we saw museums, an orchid farm run by a crazzzzzy senile old dude, the wonderful pool and spa at the hotel, and bar district known as Plaza Foch. It was fun and we recovered from our hectic travels and prepared for some more hectic shopping.
Early the next morning, we hit the road in our familiar van with our weirdo guide through the mountains to a town called Otavalo. Along the way, we met with some of the top weavers and leather makers from Ecuador. We did a lot of shopping and came away with some amazing deals on leather goods. Stew got new boots, Tori got a new jacket, and everyone got christmas presents. The next day we hit up the real market in Otavalo proper, and the shopping was taken to a new level. Anyone who didn´t get a present in leather, got one the second day. We bargained our pants off and got some new pants for 3 bucks a pop. Word.
On the way back, we stopped at a shaman and got rebalanced. There are, we suppose, some advantages to having a weirdo tour guide. Tori´s mom got a cleaning ritual, which entailed getting spit on and fire balls blown around her. She handled it like a champ, and came out smelling good if damp. Due to the snow storm, Tori´s family was stranded in Quito for an extra day, which we thought was great. We had a fantastic time with Tori´s family and miss them already. Stew can´t wait to see his parents in a couple of weeks in Chile. Anyone else want to come visit us, too???
Since they left, we flew to Cuenca where we stayed in a hotel room sick for two days. We did manage to get out and see a great museum run by a bank (sidenote: is the phenomena of great museums run by banks unique to Latin America or does it exist elsehwere?) situated next to huge incan ruins on a hill over the city. Today, we managed to get out of Cuenca (Ecuadorean Andes: lusher and quainter than a farmer´s daughter) and are now heading south to Lima. We´re six hours into our 30 hours bus tour and are taking a break at an internet café in a bus station until our next bus leaves at 11 p.m. Yay buses! Soon we´ll be in Lima and ready to celebrate Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, and maybe we´ll updated before the New Year!
Love,
Tori and Stew
Sorry for the lack of updates in the last two weeks or so: we´ve been traveling willy nilly with Tori´s parents throughout Ecuador and haven´t had any time to post on the blog. Right now we´re about to leave Ecuador and go to Peru for Christmas, but there´s a lot that has happened since we last posted.
From Panama City, we flew to Colombia and then to Quito, Ecuador. This was momentous because it signified the end of Central America and the beginning of South America. Also, we got really good plane food and Stew talked his way into an extra meal. Plus, we tried all of Colombia´s beers on the plane for free, so it´s almost like we´ve been there.
We met up with Tori´s parents in the immigration line in Quito. It was pretty thrilling to see family after such a long time, plus we got to cut in line. It was probably the most joyous celebration to happen in a 30 minute immigration line at midnight. The next day we took a tour of Quito with the weirdest hippie-spiritual- new age- Incan hating -Ecuadorian ever. He also showed us the equator, and told us some weird hippie stuff about it. Still it was really fun and we loved Quito.
The next day we flew to the Amazon. We stayed in a lodge that was quite a trek from Quito: we flew, took a bus, took a boat, took a hike, and then took a final canoe. It was great, and secluded. From our lodge, we could see big rat like animals named agouti, caimans, tamarinds, pygmy marmosets, and lots of other cool stuff. Like birds, but who cares. Birders are lame-oids with pocket protectors. We went on daily excursions in which we saw anaconda tracks, river otter, big trees, giant smoked toads, tiny poison frogs, crazy lizards, sloths, a gajillion monkeys of a half dozen types, tarantulas, insects, whip snakes, and Austrians. It was a heckuva good time.
Next, we hit the Galapagos, because we hadn´t seen enough animals yet. We found them. More marine iguanas than you could in a stew, more sea lions than you could ever possibly cuddle, lots of land and sea turtles doing it, blue footed boobies (also doing it, but dancing better), frigate birds (trying to do it), penguins swimming cutely, fish doing their thing, flightless cormorants not flying, dolpins playing, and natural formations. These include lava, beaches, giant stone outcropppings, darwin´s toilets (places where the water rushes onto stone beaches and then flushes like a toilet), and others that instead of flushing, shoot up like a whale spout. Also, the cruise director chose our family to lead the Neptune Day celebration as we crossed the equator: Tori´s dad was King Neptune, God of the Sea, and Tori´s mom was Queen Neredia, his beautiful wife. We were pirates, along with Tori´s brother. We got free drinks. It was riotous. Stew, apparently, also knew the cruise director from his days as a sailor on the Pacific.
We returned to Quito, where we saw museums, an orchid farm run by a crazzzzzy senile old dude, the wonderful pool and spa at the hotel, and bar district known as Plaza Foch. It was fun and we recovered from our hectic travels and prepared for some more hectic shopping.
Early the next morning, we hit the road in our familiar van with our weirdo guide through the mountains to a town called Otavalo. Along the way, we met with some of the top weavers and leather makers from Ecuador. We did a lot of shopping and came away with some amazing deals on leather goods. Stew got new boots, Tori got a new jacket, and everyone got christmas presents. The next day we hit up the real market in Otavalo proper, and the shopping was taken to a new level. Anyone who didn´t get a present in leather, got one the second day. We bargained our pants off and got some new pants for 3 bucks a pop. Word.
On the way back, we stopped at a shaman and got rebalanced. There are, we suppose, some advantages to having a weirdo tour guide. Tori´s mom got a cleaning ritual, which entailed getting spit on and fire balls blown around her. She handled it like a champ, and came out smelling good if damp. Due to the snow storm, Tori´s family was stranded in Quito for an extra day, which we thought was great. We had a fantastic time with Tori´s family and miss them already. Stew can´t wait to see his parents in a couple of weeks in Chile. Anyone else want to come visit us, too???
Since they left, we flew to Cuenca where we stayed in a hotel room sick for two days. We did manage to get out and see a great museum run by a bank (sidenote: is the phenomena of great museums run by banks unique to Latin America or does it exist elsehwere?) situated next to huge incan ruins on a hill over the city. Today, we managed to get out of Cuenca (Ecuadorean Andes: lusher and quainter than a farmer´s daughter) and are now heading south to Lima. We´re six hours into our 30 hours bus tour and are taking a break at an internet café in a bus station until our next bus leaves at 11 p.m. Yay buses! Soon we´ll be in Lima and ready to celebrate Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, and maybe we´ll updated before the New Year!
Love,
Tori and Stew
Friday, December 4, 2009
TAN BRONZEADOS (SOOO TANNED)
As the title to this entry suggets, we´ve been having a blast in the Panamanian sunshine for the past few days.
Since our last entry...We spent one more day in Boquete so we could enjoy some of the natural beauty in the surrounding mountains. Boquete is known as the land of rainbows, so we figured we´d try our chances at catching one. Success! The combination of strong sun and frequent drizzling rain is perfect for rainbows. From our hotel, we hiked up the road to a trail called Bajo Mono, which we translated as Short Monkey, for no apparent reason (we found no monkeys, and the trail was NOT short). It does, however, make a good nickname for Tori. There were interesting rock formations on the various cliffs overlooking a valley filled with trees, coffee plantations, gardens, and a rushing river. Further along, we came to a waterfall, too. If we had continued we would have come to a castle, but our guide book didn´t make it seem worth it and we had already walked a long ways. Plus, we really watned to go eat at one of the several strawberry themed restaurants we had passed along the way.
The owner of our hotel, Maky, arranged for us to go to San Blas Islands (an archipelago populated by the Kuna indians in the Carribbean between Panama and Colombia) the following morning, but we had to rush to get there in time. From Boquete (in the mountains of northern panama), we had to take a bus to david (1 hour), wait for a spot on a bus to Panama City (everyone was returning from the celebration for independence day) and eventually take an 8 hour over night ride. We arrived at 3 a.m. and waited until 6 a.m. for a guide to show up in his jeep. His jeep was overflowing and we were far from understanding, so we told him to eat it and got ourselves a bed instead. At that moment, neither of us were willing to go on a three hour ride through Panama´s backcontry jungles in makeshift seats in a Jeep´s trunk. It is hard to be patient after an overnight bus ride and the only sleep is what you get on the bus station floor. Plus, the driver was a jerk....we just weren´t having it.
After a day in Panama city, during which we saw pretty much everything we wanted to that wasn´t mysteriously closed, we were ready to try for San Blas again. This time, with a different travel agent, things worked much better. Instead of 8 people in a jeep, there were 4 in a super nice totally pimped out massive pickup truck. Score. Double score was that the only music the driver had were nineties hits (Britney, Destiny´s Child, etc) and Bob Marley. Stew was in heaven...anything is better than reggaeton. After the three hour truck ride through the wilderness, the pan american highway stops and one has to off road through Indian country, take a dug out canoe through another tribe´s territory, and eventually get into a larger dugout with an outboard motor that takes you way out into the sea.
Still, San Blas is more than worth whatever hassle is required to get there. One feels almost guilty witnessing such pristine and perfect beaches....we hope that hordes of tourists and resorts never discover these magical isalnds. Being that the Kuna indians restrict the number of people that visit each day, maybe they´ll remain pristine forever, but we´re hedging our bets.
There is no white whiter than the sand of San Blas. Even the ¨ugly¨ islands look like postcards. Most islands take less than 2-3 minutes to walk around, and only 90 of th 360 odd islands are inhabited by much more than palm trees. All the water is a perfect aqua marine with great visibility, coral reefs, sunken ships, and animal life. Turtles and lobsters can be caught (and released because turtles are only caught accidentally) right on the beach where we stayed. We stayed with a Kuna family that ran a teeny hotel of four rooms. Each rooms was an independent cabin with a thatched roof and planks laid above the sand beach. Apparantly, we chose the fancier hotel...most others in San Bas have only sand floors. The walls were made of a bamboo like grass and the windows were....just holes. Our cabin was decorated like Christmas. We also visited two Kuna villages and learned something of their history, though our guide was a bit of an idiot. He didn´t do much more than point out what different buildings were used for, so we had press him for more interesting
Typical cusine is fish, coconut rice, crab, lobster, pineapple, watermelon, and salads. Our last we had a huge feast and gorged ourselves on the abudance of the sea. Imagine -- a mountain of Caribbean lobster and crab, carrots and yucca, delicious salad, pineapple, watermelon...and a challenge from your hosts to eat it all. It seemed like the perfect way to encapsulate San Blas. The people there are so generous and so kind; the bounty of nature is overwhelming. It was definitely the place we found most difficult to leave.
Today we saw the Panama Canal. Stew was bored again...watching water move from one side to the other STILL isn´t interested. Tori was bored, too, but felt like it was necessary to see the canal. When people return from Panama, everyone tends to ask ¨how was the canal?¨without realizing that it is the least interesting thing in Panama. There are so many great things to do and see here...we´re sad to be leaving this country and all of Central America, but the time has come to move on to Ecuador, where we will meet up with Tori´s family! Whippee!
Since our last entry...We spent one more day in Boquete so we could enjoy some of the natural beauty in the surrounding mountains. Boquete is known as the land of rainbows, so we figured we´d try our chances at catching one. Success! The combination of strong sun and frequent drizzling rain is perfect for rainbows. From our hotel, we hiked up the road to a trail called Bajo Mono, which we translated as Short Monkey, for no apparent reason (we found no monkeys, and the trail was NOT short). It does, however, make a good nickname for Tori. There were interesting rock formations on the various cliffs overlooking a valley filled with trees, coffee plantations, gardens, and a rushing river. Further along, we came to a waterfall, too. If we had continued we would have come to a castle, but our guide book didn´t make it seem worth it and we had already walked a long ways. Plus, we really watned to go eat at one of the several strawberry themed restaurants we had passed along the way.
The owner of our hotel, Maky, arranged for us to go to San Blas Islands (an archipelago populated by the Kuna indians in the Carribbean between Panama and Colombia) the following morning, but we had to rush to get there in time. From Boquete (in the mountains of northern panama), we had to take a bus to david (1 hour), wait for a spot on a bus to Panama City (everyone was returning from the celebration for independence day) and eventually take an 8 hour over night ride. We arrived at 3 a.m. and waited until 6 a.m. for a guide to show up in his jeep. His jeep was overflowing and we were far from understanding, so we told him to eat it and got ourselves a bed instead. At that moment, neither of us were willing to go on a three hour ride through Panama´s backcontry jungles in makeshift seats in a Jeep´s trunk. It is hard to be patient after an overnight bus ride and the only sleep is what you get on the bus station floor. Plus, the driver was a jerk....we just weren´t having it.
After a day in Panama city, during which we saw pretty much everything we wanted to that wasn´t mysteriously closed, we were ready to try for San Blas again. This time, with a different travel agent, things worked much better. Instead of 8 people in a jeep, there were 4 in a super nice totally pimped out massive pickup truck. Score. Double score was that the only music the driver had were nineties hits (Britney, Destiny´s Child, etc) and Bob Marley. Stew was in heaven...anything is better than reggaeton. After the three hour truck ride through the wilderness, the pan american highway stops and one has to off road through Indian country, take a dug out canoe through another tribe´s territory, and eventually get into a larger dugout with an outboard motor that takes you way out into the sea.
Still, San Blas is more than worth whatever hassle is required to get there. One feels almost guilty witnessing such pristine and perfect beaches....we hope that hordes of tourists and resorts never discover these magical isalnds. Being that the Kuna indians restrict the number of people that visit each day, maybe they´ll remain pristine forever, but we´re hedging our bets.
There is no white whiter than the sand of San Blas. Even the ¨ugly¨ islands look like postcards. Most islands take less than 2-3 minutes to walk around, and only 90 of th 360 odd islands are inhabited by much more than palm trees. All the water is a perfect aqua marine with great visibility, coral reefs, sunken ships, and animal life. Turtles and lobsters can be caught (and released because turtles are only caught accidentally) right on the beach where we stayed. We stayed with a Kuna family that ran a teeny hotel of four rooms. Each rooms was an independent cabin with a thatched roof and planks laid above the sand beach. Apparantly, we chose the fancier hotel...most others in San Bas have only sand floors. The walls were made of a bamboo like grass and the windows were....just holes. Our cabin was decorated like Christmas. We also visited two Kuna villages and learned something of their history, though our guide was a bit of an idiot. He didn´t do much more than point out what different buildings were used for, so we had press him for more interesting
Typical cusine is fish, coconut rice, crab, lobster, pineapple, watermelon, and salads. Our last we had a huge feast and gorged ourselves on the abudance of the sea. Imagine -- a mountain of Caribbean lobster and crab, carrots and yucca, delicious salad, pineapple, watermelon...and a challenge from your hosts to eat it all. It seemed like the perfect way to encapsulate San Blas. The people there are so generous and so kind; the bounty of nature is overwhelming. It was definitely the place we found most difficult to leave.
Today we saw the Panama Canal. Stew was bored again...watching water move from one side to the other STILL isn´t interested. Tori was bored, too, but felt like it was necessary to see the canal. When people return from Panama, everyone tends to ask ¨how was the canal?¨without realizing that it is the least interesting thing in Panama. There are so many great things to do and see here...we´re sad to be leaving this country and all of Central America, but the time has come to move on to Ecuador, where we will meet up with Tori´s family! Whippee!
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