to quiet the mind, go down, then go high

what could possibly follow patagonia and the galapagos, but machu picchu of course!  my parents and i headed straight to cusco after dealing with that terrible, left-over rocking-back-and-forth sensation for a day in quito.  it was great fun returning to cusco and being able to show off my little city of love and parasites.  it really did feel a bit like coming home and i realized that i missed quite a bit about the place.  in the three days we spent there, i made sure to eat at all of my favorite spots for a final time and to get the most out of those butt-kicking hills.  

after cusco, we headed to a house outside of urubamba, where we would stay for three days in order to fully explore the sacred valley.  this girl can't get enough livin' in the sacred valley, that's fo sho.  it was wonderful having our very own little abode and we made our touring plans better than any guide could!  we visited the agricultural ruins (terraces) at moray and the salt flats of salinas.  we wandered around the markets of urubamba and hiked the ruins of pisac.  and finally, traveling at roughly the speed of light, swerving to barely miss random potholes, dogs and innocent peruvian pedestrians, the taxi came to a screeching halt in ollantaytambo, the departure point for the train to machu picchu.  (i'm not exactly sure how i came to survive the many taxi rides i had in peru, but i'm here to tell you those men need to make their way to nascar. i think it might pay a little better than the going rate between cusco and urubamba).

the train was fun, simply because i had yet to travel by train during my 2.5 months in south america.  the ride through the valley was lovely, alongside the roaring and very brown urubamba river, which eventually meets up with the amazon.  as we approached aguas calientes, the jumping-off point for machu picchu, i was surprised to watch the landscape go from green velour-covered mountains to dense jungle.  the mountains remain impressive, but the vines, moss, ferns, orchids and hummingbirds are everywhere.  totally unexpected.  

we had a beautiful sunny day for our arrival at machu picchu (we stayed up at the only hotel up at the ruins) and we were able to enjoy waynapicchu (the tall, steep mountain overlooks the ruins and is a great hike) in the afternoon sunlight from our back yard garden.  luckily we soaked up that sun because at 5 am when we awoke for our first-at-the-gates visit to machu picchu, it was totally cloudy and raining.  thorskie and i did the super early morning thing so that we would be one of the first up waynapicchu, a steep ass-kicking hike that they limit to 400 people per day.  we got to the bamboo gates of the trail a half hour before they opened and were second in line.  the rain stopped and we had brief glimpses of the valley as we trudged straight up the mountain.  it was worth the early start (even though the top was totally socked in) because we shared the entire mountain with only 6 other people.  absolutely divine...and so indiana jones!

our exploration of machu picchu itself was in keeping with our first glimpses - simply wonderful.  the sun came out in the afternoon and because we were staying at the hotel, we could escape to our rooms at the height of squawking, fanny-pack-laden group time and then return and remain in the ruins until closing time - hours after the bulk of the tourists had departed.  the evening sunlight across those structures and the distant valleys really is awe-inspiring and we all took our moments to gaze out and wonder at the magnitude of it all.  herds of tourists led by little raised flags can ruin a lot of things, and probably might have put a damper on the majesty of m.p., but eliminate two thirds of them and you've got yourself a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  i'm pretty sure on that day i figured out the meaning of life, my true purpose, how to achieve world peace and a cure for chafing, but of course i didn't have my notebook with me, got hungry and i forgot it all on the way down. 

so, i've had amazing interaction with local south americans, an on-location education of latin american spanish, a new york state of mind in buenos aires, tranquil and amplified-UV times in uruguay, mind-blowing (and i say that literally) communion with nature in patagonia, a privileged glimpse of evolution and marine-life-cavorting in the galapagos and enlightenment in temples on high of the greenest valleys you ever did see.  

not too shabby for a winter season (as minor payback, those of you who actually had a winter can still get a pang of jealousy out of me - however irrational - when you tell me about the killer skiing you have had the past three months) 

aaah, me falta sudamerica.  me falta mucho.  y es cierto que voy a regresar en el futuro. cierto. hasta luego, mi nuevo amor.

once upon a time...

...in a land far, far away, is a family of islands populated by marvelous and unimaginable creatures.  they scurry across even the most remote and illogical nooks and crannies and they look upon their tall two-legged visitors with either friendly curiosity or absolute indifference.  

the most notable thing about the galapagos for me, was the opportunity to witness a world without fear.  it's quite striking and it got me extrapolating to what it might be like to live in a land where most behavior is not driven by fear.  from what i saw on the islands, it would be pretty amazing, but alas, we're human and we are dangerous, so we must have our little bundles of trepidation to keep us alive and cruising intact.  (and not to say that the islands are 100% idyllic...not when i learned about how the blue footed boobies let their extra booby babies die right in front of them if they have more than one chick;  and when i had to avert my eyes when the frigate birds were circling, ready to pick up one of the exposed chicks for dinner...)  it's a pretty harsh landscape of desert and lava flows, so you don't forget that the living ain't easy out stranded in the middle of the pacific ocean.  

it was an amazing 10 days, only tarnished by the total ass-kicker of a bug that i caught on day 5 of the trip.  i was 5th to catch it (damn germ-trapping boats) and it was, to put it mildly, the worst couple days i've had in a long long time. figures that i make it through a month of living in parasite-ridden peru and a month of low-budget traveling in argentina, uruguay and chile only to get obliterated on a beautiful cruise in the galapagos! i missed one full day of action, but then pulled the biggest suck-it-up move i could muster so that i could partake in the following days of fun. once you taste the sweet nectar of swimming with sea lions, you're addicted and need more immediately (that should explain the tank i will be building in my seattle apartment to house the babies that i smuggled in.)

so, yes, it's amazing.  everything you've heard.  the down part of keeping a place amazing and pristine is that it is a highly, highly,  controlled environment.  you have to be on a boat with other tourists (luckily we got on one of the smaller boats out there) and you always, always have to be accompanied by a naturalist on land.  you have a three-foot wide trail that you must stay on at all times. and the routes of the boats are highly regulated, as are the visiting/snorkeling/kayaking sites, so it's common to have other boats at the same site, either leaving or waiting to follow.  that type of herding is far from my style, and it was sometimes a bit disappointing.  i can't complain too much because most everybody would prefer to have these islands to themselves and if they had their wish, nothing would be preserved.  and i was lucky enough to be with a company that is partnered with national geographic, so there was a great focus on education and conservation. 

snorkeling was my favorite time spent in the islands because that's when we had the most freedom.  experienced swimmers and divers could go off to deeper waters or around rocky points and there's no telling what you would get to experience.  i was swimming around a point and looked down to see a 6.5-ft white-tipped galapagos shark swim out of the darkness right underneath me.  (i always said i'd be totally cool if i saw a legitimate shark -i've seen the paltry 3-ft. reef sharks in hawaii- but let me tell you the actual experience is slightly breath-taking....maybe a little pee-making...  i'm not gonna lie...i had a tiny panic in my core.  that sucker was big!)

during my snorkeling time (we went out three different days) i saw a million different types of tropical fish, sea turtles foraging for food, penguins darting by me like torpedoes chasing fish, groups of juvenile sea lions playing with me and with each other (at one time they were batting around the fat trunk of broccoli that a boat must have dropped and i got to catch it and toss it back to them. it was just the three of them and me having a grand time), flightless cormorants swimming to catch fish, the cousin of the man of war jelly that floated by like an air bubble at the top of the water and the tiniest, most brilliant blue fish taking shelter in the stinging tentacles streaming long below it (that one was cool for about a minute until my mom got nailed on the arm and had to get out of the water).  we had one day that was pretty much all jellies all the time.  that, my friends, was not fun in the slightest.  my legs were covered in little red welts from all the stings.  the water was solid with little squishy, see-through jelly forms.  some of them were so tiny and so beautiful, but it was hard to focus on them as i was getting peppered by stings.  didn't stay too long in the water that day!

good stuff, those critters.  i found myself walking around peru the following week expecting to see iguanas at every turn.  life is rather boring without piles of iguanas.

ready for chapter 5?

back at one of the best internet cafes of the trip, here in punta arenas. we left our little home-away-from-home, erratic rock II hostel in puerto natales, at 7 a.m. (after enjoying our last bowls of frosted flakes there) and bussed back to punta arenas, the town perched at the straights of magellan.

kayaking amongst the glaciers was good fun, though sincerely over-priced for what we got. very expensive, not so much kayak time and of course, i had idealized visions of me paddling in a maze of icebergs, which was not to be. but it was cool...paddling next to a glacier in patagonia could never be less that pretty awesome.

now, i´m soaking in my last hours of patagonian wind-powered, rain-saturated fresh air. in the afternoon, we will go partake of the penguin colony nearby. very exciting. i´ve already been tickled by all of the birds i´ve spotted, including the black-necked swans, chilean flamingoes and andean condors, now i get to enjoy the little flightless bundles of joy.

i´ve got the most recent pics posted and hope to get los penguinos up before departing at the early hour of 5 tomorrow morning and making my long, long way up to ecuador...and thus, beginning chapter 5 of my south american adventure. so happy that my visit to the galapagos is next, because i can´t imagine very many destinations that could follow patagonia.

i have no idea what the internet world will be like up there, but when surrounded by the land of darwin´s creatures, who wants to be on one of those blasted computer machines??? i will update when i can though, and try to share the racy photos of me and the giant tortoises. i think the footage of me and the iguanas will be a little too graphic for this crowd, but if the people demand it, i can deliver.

let´s all raise a glass to the end of the world and, heck, let´s raise one more for evolution!!!

all about the elements

greetings once again from the little southern outpost known as puerto natales! i scripted a fabulous entry packed with amazing literary sensibility and titillating description and then the computer ate it. por lo eso, i had to retreat for a day, fatigued and slightly heartbroken, unable to re-concoct my thoughts for ya´ll. but i´m back, refreshed and ready to give a little picture of what it was to backpack through the torres del paine.

firstly, it would be impossible to capture the impact of this land simply with words. so, check out the photos and you can see what cannot be written.

the torres is a land of severe incongruities...the weather, the land, the people...we approached through the grassland desert with sun shining and brown grasses blowing gently. in the distance, you see the paine massif explode from the land and it is so immense and attractive that you are too caught up in awe to be befuddled about how and why these mountains landed in the middle of arid flatland.

they create their own weather, as all respectable mountains do, and the few peaks we could see coming in were encircled by grey clouds. the valleys were filled with shadows and snow.

the first views of every peak we came upon never ceased to be the best-moment-ever for me. i´m a sucker for craggy peaks, and these guys always took my breath away. just a simple change in the light or our proximity made them new and worthy of long gazes (and multiple shutter snaps - as is evident from what could be called exhaustive representation on my flicker page). but know that the photos don´t do these peaks justice. i could never quite put my finger on what was lacking in the photos, but every time i was depressed that the full majesty of the moment was never quite present in the pics.

so, you have the obvious awe. then you have the confusion.

confusion due to the fact that directly to your left could be a 5,000-ft. vertical wall of granite and slate with clinging glaciers and torrential glacial rivers wrapping around the base. and directly to your right is an endless vista of desert oranges, yellows and browns intermixed with the brightest turquoise lakes you ever did see.

sun and blue skies to your right. to your left, the angriest winds. the only ones that could carve a mountain majesty like this. they blow with a great white´s mouthful of teeth and with scary speed. typically from their source are the blackest clouds and the next storm waiting. there is always "a next storm".

i sat and watched the sky for an unknown amount of hours and i equate the weather to the tidal sets of the ocean. when you devote enough attention, the inherent rhythm reveals itself to you...and then you know exactly when the waves are going to come, how far apart they will be from each other and which will be the strongest. after watching one valley (and every valley had its own set of rules) i could see the storms lined up like airplanes. the wind would introduce them every time...with insane force and then there would be the snow and the rain.

then a little break...the best time to ascend a pass...a momentary view of peaks...and then the next one rolls on through.

even when it is sunny in patagonia, it´s raining. totally bizarre, but i guess it´s always raining somewhere here, so even if you´re in full sun, it´s so windy that you get rained on from the side or the back or some secret place that pitches rain.

and then...then there are the people. so many people. backpackers coming in high season, beware. they are not kidding. and nobody told me...not adequately enough...what the act of backpacking really resembles here. i thought my biggest enemy would be the weather, and while it provided some interesting challenges, i revise my earlier statement to say that the frickin´overpopulation of the park was my biggest enemy. such a tease to be in the most awe-inspiring lands i´ve walked in a long time...only to be surrounded by not what you would call your true outdoorsmen. no.

take yellowstone national park in the dead of summer, if you will. take every single one of those folks, but remove them from their RVs and road-trip vans and give them backpacks. but keep the jeans. and the cigarettes. lots of cigarettes. then drop them on the trail with me. trail etiquette is non-existent. i can count on one hand for 8 days of backpacking how many times i was thanked for letting teams and teams of people pass. i can also count on one hand how many times someone stopped for us. i cannot, however count on anything the amount of goddamn toilet paper i saw everywhere. when i find myself with that pile of disposable income i´m bound to have one of these days, i am getting educational signs made and i am donating them to this park. because, there actually is no magical forest fairy that picks up your toilet paper for you. and, despite popular belief, biodegradation is not a magic fairy either. i have this rage in the states as well, but here...here there is absolutely no attempt - no matter how feeble - to try and bury or hide the toilet paper. no, just dropped right there. on the trail? no problem. just drop it right there. scurried up to the most brilliant vista you´ve ever seen? yeah, drop it right there. lovely white squares everywhere. drop it there for the people. drop it for posterity.

the last of my people rant focuses on the sleeping part. yes. when they say "campground" a vision of a large plot of land with "camp sites" in it comes to mind. but here, they mean a swatch of land (differing in size depending where you´re at) where an unlimited number of people pitch their tents. it didn´t take us long to realize that we would not, for the entirety of our trip, be sleeping more than 5 inches from somebody else. make that 10 somebodies on every side. it was funny really. we caught on early to our curse, as well. somehow, we angered the torres gods because we were cursed with having the largest and loudest groups of hikers always pitch their tents on top of ours. and when i say loud...please understand that i cannot accurately describe the pitch and volume with which large groups of israelis and chileans feel the need to communicate with each other. it apparently doesn´t have anything to do with proximity...or, say, an obvious hearing impediment.

wrap them all up and this is the picture...

after an 8 mile climb to the top of a breath-taking granite outcropping you are being snowed on and blown over while the sun is shining about a mile away on the desert. you sit, careful to center yourself in between the two squares of toilet paper, to put on extra layers and enjoy some raisins while taking in the surrounding majesty. just then, the group of highly jocular chilean boys that encircled your tent the night before and stayed up until 3am take their last steps to the summit and light their cigarettes.

(don´t mean to sound too snarky, but people can be a real pain in the ass...most especially at the almost literal end of the world)

end of the world, anyone?

greetings from way down here in the wonderful world of patagonia. i don´t think i can explain to you the immensity of the terrain down here. the plane ride (which i captured on film and will post in 12 days or so) was jaw-dropping. i never removed my forehead (much to the dismay of the cleaning crew) from the window because the view was always different and dramatic. fields of volcanoes. crumpled mountain ranges. glaciers tumbling into valleys and massive lakes and rivers. huge rivers and wide open tundra. it´s all here. currently, i´m in the tundra part, right on the edge of the land of peaks, glaciers and fjords.

little puerto natales is a cute little city and i´m slightly enamored because it´s filled with my kind of tourists - adventure-seeking folks from all over the world. tomorrow, christine and i head into the Torres del Paine national park for 10 - 12 days of backpacking. we´ll return to puerto natales after that, unpack for a day and then embark on a two-day kayaking/camping trip in a fjord, amongst the glaciers. should be absolutely spectacular...if you don´t dwell on the ridiculous winds and rain they have here. perfect kayaking conditions. you can all comment on my arnold-sized biceps after this paddle.

the backpacking will be somewhat of a new experience for me because you must camp in campsites and there are refugios that have showers and some even with restaurants along the way, so i won´t have my ultimate wilderness experience that i usually strive for when backpacking. this spells disaster for my competitive side as the little european bastards, with their tiny backpacks, are going to fly right past us as we lumber along with our 10-days worth of food, tent, stove, and sleeping bags... but no copping out and taking shelter in refugios! we´re hard core. and we will love every single moment of hiking in the wind-driven rain and chilly temperatures. the mileage won´t be the main challenge here. it´s absolutely the weather conditions, which change instantly...they say...though since i got here, it hasn´t been anything but wind and rain :) maybe they mean it changes from wind to rain back to wind again...and then a little of both to make it interesting.

ok. off to enjoy night #1 of the banff film festival. nothing like some extreme-sporting movies to get you ready for the patagonian wilds!

back in a flash...

i spoke too soon

photos are up! get em while they´re hot!!!
on my defeated walk home, i found another internet cafe with actual USB capabilities! de-lux.
...and almost three hours later whitbob is still here. but i´m at 45% completion of the final batch and then i can be free to go home and sleep!

good airs

¡amigos! hola from this little spot they call buenos aires. it´s been a fine couple days settling in, but sadly my photos are held hostage. this might be the swankiest town this side o´ the equator, but hell if i can find a computer from later than 1990. i´ve captured my jaunts in uruguay as well as my little apartment, but alas, i cannot share them. i scour the big (and i´m not kidding when i say big) boulevards and all i find are these crappy little locutorios. fabulous for checking email on the fly, but no good for jumping on board the information super highway!

i have highlights from b.a., but first i must mention my revelation from uruguay...

many of you have enjoyed a sky bursting with stars that you never knew existed - while camping or traveling in remote lands with few people - but it took me a moment to figure out what was extra special about the billion stars that revealed themselves to me one night in punta del diablo. i´ve had the pleasure of seeing a pregnant night sky and appreciated all of those little bits of light that aren´t around the night skies of the city, but i had never, until last week, sat in awe of such a star harvest coupled with the soundtrack of crashing waves. the stars, all zillion of them, just tumble right into the ocean. and that, my friends, was cool. i´ve spent some pretty killer nights in my time star gazing on the beach, but there has always been some sort of a city relatively close by to keep some of the good stuff at bay. but not in uruguay. it´s so dark there and the skies so wide, that the stars of the milky way just pour directly into the ocean. amazing.

b.a....turn ons:

1. alfajores
chocolate-loving people of america, may i introduce you to the alfajor! a tasty delight that is the sweet of choice for the region. they are everywhere (instead of candy bars in the stores, they have these)... it´s basically a sweet sandwich made up of either two round chocolate cakes or two vanilla-ish cakes. then, in the middle, you find a layer of dulce de leche (also to appear on the turn-ons list). then you coat the whole shebang in chcolate, wrap it up and put it in whitney´s hand. even oreo and chips ahoy are in on the game...but yet they keep it from us. so unfair. i tried the oreo one. smashing. pretty much a big oreo (these things are a little smaller than a ding dong) coated in chocolate. not your classic alfajor, but i have to taste em all for my research. i´m not going to say they´re on the list of all-time favorite sweets, but fun to discover something i had never seen before.

2. dulce de leche
while i´m on the topic, might as well get this one over with. i´m not as nutzo over this stuff (on every table at breakfast and would be approached the same as nutella) as the entire country seems to be, but it is quite a treat on a sliced apple (they thought i was crazy for doing this. apparently they only put it on bread here. leave it to me to bring a revolution to the people.) and, i do love it swirled in some of their famous gelato.

3. straws
when you buy a bottle of anything...water or soda... from the mini marts they give you a straw. it´s a strange little behavior, but one i´ve come to appreciate. i think it´s because they´re used to sipping the maté from their metal straws. (still don´t get what´s so great about the maté that you´d be willing to haul around a thermos, a little ceramic pot, a metal straw and a tupperware of maté leaves everywhere you go.) but water and soda always through a bendy straw is tremendous fun!


b.a....turn offs:

1. dog shit
well, all the feral dogs of cusco are gone, but they´ve been replaced with more dog shit than i´ve ever seen in a city.
people actually own dogs here apparently.
and walk them all around the city.
and leave their shit, like little potent, slippery mines every five inches.
it´s unbelievable. for as fabulously european and sophisticated as porteños insist they are, someone needs to tell them that one of the steps to class would be not having a city (and shoes) covered in dog crap.

2. wet drops from above
picture yourself walking happily along the sidewalk - intensely focused on weaving your way safely through the poop bombs - and you feel a few wet drops of something land on your head and shoulder. once the surprise passes, you keep your pace steady and your head high, sincerely hoping that there´s not a huge smattering of bird dropping all over your head. luckily, the culprit usually is not poop from above. it´s currently 96 degrees here and all of the apartments have their air conditioners going, so you can´t walk a block without getting dripped on. i know about the a.c., i´ve been dripped on, but it still doesn´t alleviate that tense moment of prayer as you casually brush your hand through your hair and sneak a glance at your palm. the stress of simply making it safely down a block justifies the quick trip into one of their gelato places!

3. shhhh with the ¨sh¨
oh argentinians, why must you deny the existance of my friend "y" and its spanish cousin "ll"?? why must you deny their turn on the tongue? i say the "s" and "h" have plenty of time in the sun and need not be given even more power and popularity. i hold strong. i walk along a "calle" not a "cashe". i lost my first three layers of skin on the "playa" not the "plasha". i´d like a "botella" de agua, no "botesha".
and me "llamo", dammit, es whitney.... wheet-nee. si. como, whitney houston. si.