On the morning of Saturday, the 4th of December, we took a bus to Puno, on Lake Titicaca - the highest navigable lake in the world (about 3800 meters). Fiona, Sara and I hired a minivan just for ourselves and raced to the border. We got to the Bolivian border a bit before they closed and crossed over. A few minutes later we were in Copacabana, another lakeside town.
It being my birthday and all, we opted for the nice hotel. It was $22 per night, but worth it. We had a private bathroom with hot water and I even got to sleep up in a loft in a big bed.
On Sunday, we explored the town. The church was pretty nice, it had a bit of Moorish influence. They bless their cars with holy water by the church, but we missed that. By the time we got there, all we saw was a well decorated car already starting to dry.
In the afternoon we took a very slow boat out to Isla Del Sol, Island of the Sun. We had about an hour to look at a ruin and take a few photos.
Last Monday, we took the bus to the highest capital city in the world, La Paz, Bolivia. La Paz sits in a valley and has a few nice mountains on the horizon. One of them, Illampu, is very big and often visible in all of its glory from town. The city is surrounded by an incredible expanse of heavily eroded badlands, and I like badlands. I think La Paz is now my favorite Latin American capital city.
On Tuesday, Fiona and I went out to the nice suburb to shop in the Hipermercado - Hyper Market. In the afternoon I hung out with Shelly and Jodi, two other women from Melbourne, Australia. We went to the Coca Museum and I had a candy made from coca leaves. It made my tongue and cheeks go numb and my breathing increase. I also learned that Coca Cola imports several hundred tons of coca leaves each year for its soda. I think they are the only non-medical importer of coca leaves in the US.
We also went to the witch's market. When the locals build a house, they bury a llama fetus under it for good luck. The witch's market sells all different sizes of llama fetus, the biggest ones even have fur on them. They also sell pig fetus and various stuffed animals.
Fiona had been planning to join an organized tour for some time and on Wednesday morning she left for that. She is doing a Trek type tour for the next month and will end up in Tierra del Fuego, at the bottom of the continent.
I hopped on a local bus, for about 30 cents, and rode out of town to the end of the line, about an hour. My guidebook recommended a hike in the hills, but it took me a few hours to find the start of it. I never did their hike, but I enjoyed the one I did, and saw another promising hike across the valley. The only problem was a few dogs that were guarding a house I wanted to walk by. Luckily the old women and small children came out and kept the dogs under control until I passed.
On Thursday, I got organized for Friday. I organized a bike ride to Corioco and bought maps and food for a hike. That night I did not feel so well. My head hurt and I skipped dinner.
Friday morning, I was okay, but not quite up to a 50 mile bike ride. I postponed the ride and relaxed for the day. I felt fine after a while and did not skip any more meals.
Saturday I hung out, saw a movie and went on a small walk with a few people from the hotel.
Yesterday, after a late start, I took the bus back out to Apa and did the walk I saw last time I was there. I hiked up a canyon for about and hour and a half. At the top, I had planned to continue along and eventually find a snow covered mountain. Unfortunately, this was impossible. The top of the hill ended in an impassible expanse of badlands. The only way to go was back down. I walked down for an hour, stopped to watch a local soccer game in a village and then continued on back to La Paz.
Today I went to jail. A few of us walked over to the downtown jail. It was built a hundred years ago as a monastery for 800, but now it is a jail for 1400. There is an inmate there who has an American mother and has spent five years in a New York jail. For seven dollars he gives guided tours. It was not a visiting day, but one dollar for the guards got us in.
He showed us around and we learned a lot. When someone is sent to jail, it costs four dollars to get in. If they can not pay, they are locked in the kitchen for 30 days and must cook under slave like conditions. Then they are released into the jail proper. There are five sections in the jail and cost the inmates between five dollars and twenty dollars to enter. Once an inmate purchases the right to live in a certain section, he can then purchase a cell from the guards. Cells range in price from about $100 to over $5000.
The next order of business is to choose a business, one must eat after all. One guy runs a Nintendo shop. Other jobs include restaurant owner, carpenter, clothes washer, and shop owner. Our guide was also a drug dealer, telephone concession owner, liquor store owner and he had his hand in a few other things as well.
If a man can not continue to pay rent on his home while he is in jail, his family can join him. For this reason rapists are not very popular there and they must endure a rather painful sounding initiation. Many families live there and the women and children are free to come and go to school and work.
Except for the wall around the neighborhood, there was no real difference between jail and the rest of the city. They have plenty of private businesses and shops. Kids play in the street and drunk guys occasionally stagger by. The guards do not go in there and the inmates have a strict no violence rule between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. Once the day prostitutes and visitors leave, our guide tells us, it can get fairly violent in there, but violence during the day could effect business.
Our guide needs $25,000 by February to buy a judge and get out. I wish him the best of luck.
I am trying to organize a few activities, but it is the rainy season and not many tours are running. Hopefully, I will do the bike ride and hike soon.
Monday, December 13, 1999
Friday, December 3, 1999
3 DEC 99
A little while after my last update, I went to the municipal sports stadium to watch a soccer game. Melgar, the home team, played the Sport Boys. Sport Boys was their real name, not a translation. It took about five minutes for the first Sport Boys player to be ejected from the game. For the next seventy minutes of play neither team did much and the crowed booed whenever Melgar slowed the game down. Eventually, the home team scored a few goals. About ten minutes before the end of the game the Sport Boys got upset with Melgar and the referees. Some sort of free for all broke out and about fifty police in full riot gear with vests, helmets, shields and guns raced out and surrounded the referees in a see of dark green. Half of the Sport Boys were ejected and the game was over.
These teams lived up to the reputation of South American soccer. Occasional bursts of brilliant play, but mostly a lot of cheap shots and fake injuries. I think the two guys who got the most exercise the whole night were the ones who ran out with the stretcher and carted people off.
On the 21st of November, Fiona and I hung out around the central plaza of Arrequipa. It was a Sunday and some military bands were strutting their stuff. In the afternoon we went to see the Peruvian movie - Panteleon y las Visadadores. It was in Spanish and we did not understand much, but Luis had previously explained the story to us and it was fairly easy to follow. It was an interesting movie about a very proper and upstanding soldier who is put in charge of setting up a prostitution service for the poor soldiers who are stationed in the jungle. I would like to see it again someday with English subtitles, or when I can understand it in Spanish.
That night we took the night train to Juliaca. We got on the train and found our seats. It did not seem to bad, but then the train started to move. My seat broke and I found myself reclining into the lap of the person behind me. He took it well and with a bit of rope I carry for emergencies such as this, we fixed my seat back. The seats were not bolted down very securely and they slammed from side to side all night. Also, the track was pretty bumpy and we were thrown forward with great frequency. The heat was turned way up, but I was able to cover the vent with my jacket. At 6:00 in the morning we arrived in Juliaca and had a three hours to hang out before our next train arrived.
At 9:00 we left Juliaca and headed for Cuzco. This train did not feel as if it bounced as much, but it did. Eventually, the cars were bouncing so much that they separated. Our car broke off from those in front of us. We stopped and watched the first class continue onwards. Perhaps because we had the kitchen in our car, they came back for us and a whole team of mechanics appeared and re-attached the trains. The cars only came apart once or twice more and we arrived in Cuzco in the early evening. We were ready for a bed and headed straight for a hotel.
We spent the next two days poking around Cuzco and getting ready for our next trek. We have a great view over the central plaza (plaza de armas) from our hotel and Cuzco is a beautiful city. It is the kind of place that weary backpackers find and stay for weeks or months to relax. Our hotel is near the top of a street that is called Resbalosa, which means slippery and it really is, after a rain. Also, since we are at over 10,000 feet, by the time we make it up to our hotel, we have to stop to catch our breath.
On Thursday, we went to the train station at six in the morning and caught a train for the mountains. We were planning on getting off the train at Kilometer 88, but the train did not stop. We finally got them to stop a little after Kilometer 89 and we hopped off. We walked back to Kilometer 88. Fiona큦 foot was still a bit suspect so we found her a porter. We walked until mid-afternoon and found a camp site. The porter went home and returned the next morning at six. Fiona had the runs, but other than that we had a good night of camping.
After a reasonably early start, we headed up to the highest point on the trail. Around noon we came to the 4200 meter high pass. After a brief rest, we headed down into the next valley for lunch. After another high pass, we descended to our next camp site. Our porter was not registered, so he returned home. The next morning, we found another porter for Fiona and walked over the final high mountain pass of the Inca Trail.
In the early afternoon we arrived at Winy Winay and set up camp in a beautiful spot. I went to check out the ruins. The Incas sure knew how to build ruins. I spent a while poking around and then went back to camp. I watched a few satellites pass overhead as I brushed my teeth. We went to bed early because our alarms were set for four o'clock the next day.
Last Sunday, after an early start, we finished off the 40 something kilometer walk. We climbed up to the Sun Gate and got our first view of the end of the trail, our goal, the Inca ruins of Machu Pichu. We stared for about fifteen minutes and then pulled out our cameras. At this point a cloud covered the ruins, so we put our cameras away and continued walking. We arrived at Machu Pichu at around eight in the morning and set off to explore. I climbed up Winy Pichu to get a better view of the place. It was a very tough climb and not many people feel like doing it after a four day walk. There was a great view from the top and I took a picture.
The big groups of tourists start arriving around eleven. Machu Pichu got very crowded. We were glad we got our pictures before the crowds got there. After lunch, we took the thirty minute bus ride down the side of the mountain to the small town of Aguas Calientes. The road has many hairpin turns, but there is a path that runs straight down the mountain. A local kid ran down the path and shouted to us at every turn. At the bottom he hopped on the bus and I gave him sixty cents. He was not out of breath and had barely broken a sweat, but I liked his approach to begging much better than the kids who just sit there on the street and don't even move.
All of the nine dollar train tickets to Cuzco were sold out. We did not want to spend the nearly thirty dollars for the luxury tourist train so we went to the local train station. It was a holiday and all of the five dollar seats were sold out. We were told we could just hop on the train and stand. We had a few hours to wait, so I grabbed a menu from a local tout and convinced a few tourists to go eat in the restaurant that I was now representing.
Eventually, the train came and about 27 billion people tried to cram on. Fiona squeezed onto the first car, but the crowd expanded and she was expelled. We found another car, further back, and got on. The conductors were very efficient at finding every body and his large package a place to stand on the train. After thirty minutes, we were packed in like sardines and the train started moving. It was very crowded and hot and tempers started to flair. The men near me took turns punching some poor guy who would not defend himself. Luckily I was far enough away not to get sprayed with blood. I have never seen such a vicious group of grandpas before. Eventually, the punchee got off and staggered off into the wilds of Peru.
At Ollaytatambo, all the tour groups got off. They take buses back to Cuzco because it is quicker. Finally, after three hours, we had a bit of space in the train. I spoke with some school children, and after a five or so hour ride, we made it back to Cuzco. It was late and after dinner we went to bed.
Monday morning we showed up at the Excel Language school to start classes. We took five days of classes from nine in the morning until one in the afternoon every day. I was the only one to sign up for the Elementary level class and learned a lot from my teacher. She loves to talk and even if I spoke perfect Spanish, I do not think I would have been able to say much in our conversations. We did a lot of exercises from a work book and never spoke in English. By the end of the week I was understanding her pretty well. Besides covering a bit of grammar, she lectured me on religion, politics, local food, abortion, pet ownership, monetary policy, the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis, her efforts to buy a piano and many other things.
Yesterday, we went on a school field trip to some Huari ruins, which pre-date the Incas by 1000 years. It was nice to go on a school outing without having to forge my mother's signature on a permission slip.
Today was the last day of class and tomorrow we head for Copacabana, on Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.
At the school, they tell me that with six weeks of one-on-one lessons and living with a local family, I would be fluent in Spanish. It is tempting and I may return someday to do just that.
These teams lived up to the reputation of South American soccer. Occasional bursts of brilliant play, but mostly a lot of cheap shots and fake injuries. I think the two guys who got the most exercise the whole night were the ones who ran out with the stretcher and carted people off.
On the 21st of November, Fiona and I hung out around the central plaza of Arrequipa. It was a Sunday and some military bands were strutting their stuff. In the afternoon we went to see the Peruvian movie - Panteleon y las Visadadores. It was in Spanish and we did not understand much, but Luis had previously explained the story to us and it was fairly easy to follow. It was an interesting movie about a very proper and upstanding soldier who is put in charge of setting up a prostitution service for the poor soldiers who are stationed in the jungle. I would like to see it again someday with English subtitles, or when I can understand it in Spanish.
That night we took the night train to Juliaca. We got on the train and found our seats. It did not seem to bad, but then the train started to move. My seat broke and I found myself reclining into the lap of the person behind me. He took it well and with a bit of rope I carry for emergencies such as this, we fixed my seat back. The seats were not bolted down very securely and they slammed from side to side all night. Also, the track was pretty bumpy and we were thrown forward with great frequency. The heat was turned way up, but I was able to cover the vent with my jacket. At 6:00 in the morning we arrived in Juliaca and had a three hours to hang out before our next train arrived.
At 9:00 we left Juliaca and headed for Cuzco. This train did not feel as if it bounced as much, but it did. Eventually, the cars were bouncing so much that they separated. Our car broke off from those in front of us. We stopped and watched the first class continue onwards. Perhaps because we had the kitchen in our car, they came back for us and a whole team of mechanics appeared and re-attached the trains. The cars only came apart once or twice more and we arrived in Cuzco in the early evening. We were ready for a bed and headed straight for a hotel.
We spent the next two days poking around Cuzco and getting ready for our next trek. We have a great view over the central plaza (plaza de armas) from our hotel and Cuzco is a beautiful city. It is the kind of place that weary backpackers find and stay for weeks or months to relax. Our hotel is near the top of a street that is called Resbalosa, which means slippery and it really is, after a rain. Also, since we are at over 10,000 feet, by the time we make it up to our hotel, we have to stop to catch our breath.
On Thursday, we went to the train station at six in the morning and caught a train for the mountains. We were planning on getting off the train at Kilometer 88, but the train did not stop. We finally got them to stop a little after Kilometer 89 and we hopped off. We walked back to Kilometer 88. Fiona큦 foot was still a bit suspect so we found her a porter. We walked until mid-afternoon and found a camp site. The porter went home and returned the next morning at six. Fiona had the runs, but other than that we had a good night of camping.
After a reasonably early start, we headed up to the highest point on the trail. Around noon we came to the 4200 meter high pass. After a brief rest, we headed down into the next valley for lunch. After another high pass, we descended to our next camp site. Our porter was not registered, so he returned home. The next morning, we found another porter for Fiona and walked over the final high mountain pass of the Inca Trail.
In the early afternoon we arrived at Winy Winay and set up camp in a beautiful spot. I went to check out the ruins. The Incas sure knew how to build ruins. I spent a while poking around and then went back to camp. I watched a few satellites pass overhead as I brushed my teeth. We went to bed early because our alarms were set for four o'clock the next day.
Last Sunday, after an early start, we finished off the 40 something kilometer walk. We climbed up to the Sun Gate and got our first view of the end of the trail, our goal, the Inca ruins of Machu Pichu. We stared for about fifteen minutes and then pulled out our cameras. At this point a cloud covered the ruins, so we put our cameras away and continued walking. We arrived at Machu Pichu at around eight in the morning and set off to explore. I climbed up Winy Pichu to get a better view of the place. It was a very tough climb and not many people feel like doing it after a four day walk. There was a great view from the top and I took a picture.
The big groups of tourists start arriving around eleven. Machu Pichu got very crowded. We were glad we got our pictures before the crowds got there. After lunch, we took the thirty minute bus ride down the side of the mountain to the small town of Aguas Calientes. The road has many hairpin turns, but there is a path that runs straight down the mountain. A local kid ran down the path and shouted to us at every turn. At the bottom he hopped on the bus and I gave him sixty cents. He was not out of breath and had barely broken a sweat, but I liked his approach to begging much better than the kids who just sit there on the street and don't even move.
All of the nine dollar train tickets to Cuzco were sold out. We did not want to spend the nearly thirty dollars for the luxury tourist train so we went to the local train station. It was a holiday and all of the five dollar seats were sold out. We were told we could just hop on the train and stand. We had a few hours to wait, so I grabbed a menu from a local tout and convinced a few tourists to go eat in the restaurant that I was now representing.
Eventually, the train came and about 27 billion people tried to cram on. Fiona squeezed onto the first car, but the crowd expanded and she was expelled. We found another car, further back, and got on. The conductors were very efficient at finding every body and his large package a place to stand on the train. After thirty minutes, we were packed in like sardines and the train started moving. It was very crowded and hot and tempers started to flair. The men near me took turns punching some poor guy who would not defend himself. Luckily I was far enough away not to get sprayed with blood. I have never seen such a vicious group of grandpas before. Eventually, the punchee got off and staggered off into the wilds of Peru.
At Ollaytatambo, all the tour groups got off. They take buses back to Cuzco because it is quicker. Finally, after three hours, we had a bit of space in the train. I spoke with some school children, and after a five or so hour ride, we made it back to Cuzco. It was late and after dinner we went to bed.
Monday morning we showed up at the Excel Language school to start classes. We took five days of classes from nine in the morning until one in the afternoon every day. I was the only one to sign up for the Elementary level class and learned a lot from my teacher. She loves to talk and even if I spoke perfect Spanish, I do not think I would have been able to say much in our conversations. We did a lot of exercises from a work book and never spoke in English. By the end of the week I was understanding her pretty well. Besides covering a bit of grammar, she lectured me on religion, politics, local food, abortion, pet ownership, monetary policy, the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis, her efforts to buy a piano and many other things.
Yesterday, we went on a school field trip to some Huari ruins, which pre-date the Incas by 1000 years. It was nice to go on a school outing without having to forge my mother's signature on a permission slip.
Today was the last day of class and tomorrow we head for Copacabana, on Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.
At the school, they tell me that with six weeks of one-on-one lessons and living with a local family, I would be fluent in Spanish. It is tempting and I may return someday to do just that.
Saturday, November 20, 1999
20 NOV 99
Fiona and I spent about ten days Lima. We stayed with Luis and hung out with him and Karem, whenever they were not too busy working.
One day I went to Luis` mother`s birthday party. It was nice to see Luis` parents again. They had lots of good food and my favorite Peruvian drink, chicha morada.
One day Fiona and I went to the Catholic University where Luis was a student and Karem is an English teacher. We were guest speakers in two of Karem`s classes. The first class was older and more advanced. They asked us questions about life in our countries and our opinions on world political events. The second class was a beginning class full of people under twenty. The guys in this class mostly asked if Fiona was a model and if they could have her phone number. I asked the students a few questions myself and learned a some interesting things about life in Peru.
I also read a few of Luis` books and explored his neighborhood. He lives in a fancy suburb and his area is full of foreign consulates and embassies.
On the 13th of November we caught a bus south. We went about four hours to Ica and then took a taxi out to Huacachina. Huacachina is a small town. They have a little lake, a few hotels and places to eat and some huge sand dunes. After dinner, I headed out into the night to explore the sand dunes. I have never seen such a large area of sand dunes. I think they went for about 30 miles to the west and probably more than one hundred miles to the north and south. I wandered off into the night and eventually it got to dark to see very far. I knew there was nothing but sand around, but I could not really make out the hills and valleys. It was fun to stroll in the moonlight and walk in the sand. After about two hours, I put my clothes back on and went back to town.
The next morning I went back out to explore some more. I went for a four hour walk in the sand dunes. I decided it would be great to return with a backpack full of food and a G.P.S. device so that the satellites could tell me how to get back after a week of wandering aimlessly. I decided I would need a gelaba, one of those middle eastern desert dresses for men, with a reinforced back and shoulders and holes in the side to attach my backpack hipbelt through. By the end of my walk, the sand was very hot and was burning my feet whenever I sunk in past the bottom of my sandals. I had to sit down and raise my feet about every five minutes to let them cool off.
After a leisurely lunch by the lake, we caught a bus. A few hours later we were in the town of Nasca. Somehow a little local kid ended up on my shoulders as we explored the town and looked for a place to eat. He tried to charge me for his guiding services and I tried to charge him a carrying fee. In the end we called it even and went our separate ways.
The next morning we got up early and went out to the airport. We took a thirty minute flight over the plateau to look at the giant geoglyphs that the ancient locals made in the desert. Besides the Nasca lines, there were many figures built on the ground. My favorite ones were the astronaut and the monkey. From the air, the entire desert appeared to be covered with figures and lines. It was impressive.
Following a late breakfast, we joined a tour to see some of the other things Nasca has to offer. Our first stop was a pottery making place. The owner is an archaeologist and figured out how the locals made pottery two thousand years ago. They showed us how the clay was prepared and shaped and how the paints were produced from local rocks and how it was fired at the end. They also taught us the ancient secret for keeping the paint bright and shiny for thousands of years. After the mineral based paints are applied and before the pots are buried and heated up for a few days, they cover the pot with nose grease. They rub a rock on their nose and then rub the pot. For the hard to reach places, they rub their nose with a narrow bone and then coat the nooks and crannies of the pottery with the nose oil. It is an interesting system and I am hard pressed to figure out not only how the ancients figured it out, but how the modern archaeologist re-discovered it.
Our next stop was the cemetery. No matter who you were, in Nasca two thousand years ago, when you died, you were entitled to a decent burial. For them, this meant that they removed your internal organs and brain. Then they scrubbed you with salt and laid you out in the hot sun for a few weeks until you were pretty well mummified. Next, you were wrapped in a bunch of cloth and carried around to all the towns and places you used to go. This way every one you knew, knew you were dead. After a month or so of this, you were buried in a small clay room, perhaps with others of your family who were already dead. To help you in the next life they also gave you some jars of food and a few hair braids for good luck.
Early this century, most of the graves were dug up and looted. The mummies were left scattered around on the ground. Five years ago they put the mummies back in the holes and that is were they are sitting now.
The final stop of our day tour was the house were they extracted gold from rocks. This was pretty interesting. We learned how they went up into the hills and carried back a bunch of rock. Next, they put the rocks in a tumbler with iron balls until they had crushed rocks. Then they put the crushed rocks in a tub with some water. They had a big round stone with a board on top of it to put in the tub also. They stood on the board and rocked the stone back and forth for about six hours. Then they had fine rock powder, which they mixed with mercury and eventually extracted the gold.
On the 16th of November I went for a walk. I have gotten into this bad habit of waking up with the chickens and the sun. I am usually awake before six in the morning. Fiona can somehow sleep for several more hours, so I have taken to going for a morning walk.
I stopped for some orange juice and bread in town and then headed east. I went through the poor end of town and through the fields in the valley. I found some ancient aqueducts and some Nasca lines that were not part of the main group that I had flown over the previous day. Then I walked along a road that had almost no traffic and headed for the hills. By about 8:30 I had gone six miles and was next to the world's largest sand dune. I was able to see it from town, but now I was next to it. I turned off the road and walked about a mile up a dry river bed and was right below the 6,000 foot pile of sand.
I had been informed that nobody took tours to the sand dune anymore because some tourist had been buried up to his neck in the sand. Apparently the sand is a bit unstable and acts like quick sand on occasion. I decided to walk around the mountain of sand, instead of climbing it. I clambered my way up a dry river bed and made my way up the neighboring mountain. After three hours, I made it to the top of the mountain behind the sand mountain. I found a dirt road and it led to a bunch of gold mines dug into the hills. I had been walking for six hours straight in the desert heat and decided to stop for a rest.
I took a twenty minute lunch break and realized that I was never going to make it all the way around the sand dune and back to town in one day. I followed the nice dirt road back in the direction of the paved road I had started the day on. After a while, the dirt road turned into a well trodden path. A little while later the well trodden path turned into a faint, but obvious trail. Eventually, the trail turned into a barely perceptible marking on the mountain side. And of course, in the end the trail disappeared and I got to make my own. I made my way down a sharply angled rock fall to the dry river that I was going to follow back to the road.
Once I got to the river bed, I headed west. It was a fairly easy descent to begin with. And, in the easy parts there was one set of footprints headed the other direction. So, I knew that I must be able to get out of the mountain in this direction. Eventually, the easy descent turned into a series of small, dry waterfalls. As I progressed, the climbs down became more challenging. I noticed that whenever it was a difficult climb down the other persons footprints would disappear, only to reappear when the going got easy again. As you would expect, I eventually came to a twenty or thirty foot cliff that was clearly impossible for me to get down. On the mountain side next to me was a path. I followed it. It was quite exposed and eventually ended about four feet from were the river bed became flat again. So, I clung to the cliff face for a little while and then jumped to a steep section of mountain nearby. I did not slip off and made my way down.
From there it was easy going again and I made it back to the road, six miles from town after six hours of walking in the mountains. I was ready for a ride home, but there was no traffic and nothing to do but walk. After three miles, a taxi came by and I gladly paid the thirty cents for a ride back the last four miles. I walked for well over eleven hours in the hot sun and was good and tired.
It was good that I was tired, because instead of a bed this night, I had a night bus to Arrequipa. We paid for the Royal Class bus and it was worth it. At more than $17 for only ten hours it was not cheap, but it was comfortable. Besides the normal hostess and movie, it had very comfortable seats. They were extra wide and reclined an incredible distance. A foot board popped out of the bottom of the seat in front of me and I was able to sleep most of the night.
Shortly after sunrise, on the 17th, we arrived in Peru's second largest city, Arrequipa. We took a taxi to the hotel and relaxed on the roof until a room opened up. We slept the rest of the morning and organized our Colca Canyon trip in the afternoon.
Wednesday morning, we got on a tour bus and drove around the huge volcanoes that tower over the city. We stopped to watch some people shaving the wool off of a few vicuna. Vicuna, along with alpacas and llamas are related to camels and live in the high dry areas. The roads were very bad and it we did not get over the 15,000 foot pass and into Chivay until well after three in the afternoon. Before dinner, we went to the local hot springs pool and soaked. After sunset, I walked into the hills and found a seat. I looked at the sky for about two hours, but the promised meteor shower never materialized.
The next day we left the hotel at 6:30 am and drove out to the Condor Cross. We waited for an hour and a half, but the condors never showed up. Still, it was nice to sit around and look down into one of the deepest canyons in the world, Colca Canyon. The rest of the day was spent returning to Arrequipa and stopping at a few small villages.
Yesterday was spent wandering the streets of Arrequipa and doing not much. Tomorrow we plan on taking the train to Cuzco and getting ready to walk the Inca trail to Machu Pichu.
I have now been in Peru for a month and have a few observations to offer.
The U.S. dollar seems to be a close second as the national currency, after the Nuevo Sol. In all the commercial districts the streets are packed with people holding a great big wad of local money and a calculator. They are there to change money. The big supermarkets, most chain stores, and many local shops also accept U.S. dollars. This seems to be a normal part of the Peruvian economy and is not related to tourism. It seems to me that locals with money are just as likely to have a few Dollars in their wallets as Soles. The bank machines even offer the options of taking out your money in Dollars or Soles.
I have enjoyed the local food. My favorite drink is now Chicha Morada. It is a purple drink, made from purple corn and is heavily spiced. I tried cuy, which is guinea pig. It is a specialty of the people living in the Andes. It has dark meat and reminded me of duck. It was okay. My favorite food is ceviche. Rather than cook their fish, octopus, conch, squid and other seafoods with heat, they cook them chemically with some very acidic lemon. I like it. I have not yet tried anticuchos, but I will soon. I have to wait until Fiona is somewhere else, because she does not want to watch me eat grilled cow heart. The local way to prevent altitude sickness is with tea made of coca leaves. I don't think it has much more taste than hot water with sugar in it, but at least it is a warm drink in the high, cold mountains.
One day I went to Luis` mother`s birthday party. It was nice to see Luis` parents again. They had lots of good food and my favorite Peruvian drink, chicha morada.
One day Fiona and I went to the Catholic University where Luis was a student and Karem is an English teacher. We were guest speakers in two of Karem`s classes. The first class was older and more advanced. They asked us questions about life in our countries and our opinions on world political events. The second class was a beginning class full of people under twenty. The guys in this class mostly asked if Fiona was a model and if they could have her phone number. I asked the students a few questions myself and learned a some interesting things about life in Peru.
I also read a few of Luis` books and explored his neighborhood. He lives in a fancy suburb and his area is full of foreign consulates and embassies.
On the 13th of November we caught a bus south. We went about four hours to Ica and then took a taxi out to Huacachina. Huacachina is a small town. They have a little lake, a few hotels and places to eat and some huge sand dunes. After dinner, I headed out into the night to explore the sand dunes. I have never seen such a large area of sand dunes. I think they went for about 30 miles to the west and probably more than one hundred miles to the north and south. I wandered off into the night and eventually it got to dark to see very far. I knew there was nothing but sand around, but I could not really make out the hills and valleys. It was fun to stroll in the moonlight and walk in the sand. After about two hours, I put my clothes back on and went back to town.
The next morning I went back out to explore some more. I went for a four hour walk in the sand dunes. I decided it would be great to return with a backpack full of food and a G.P.S. device so that the satellites could tell me how to get back after a week of wandering aimlessly. I decided I would need a gelaba, one of those middle eastern desert dresses for men, with a reinforced back and shoulders and holes in the side to attach my backpack hipbelt through. By the end of my walk, the sand was very hot and was burning my feet whenever I sunk in past the bottom of my sandals. I had to sit down and raise my feet about every five minutes to let them cool off.
After a leisurely lunch by the lake, we caught a bus. A few hours later we were in the town of Nasca. Somehow a little local kid ended up on my shoulders as we explored the town and looked for a place to eat. He tried to charge me for his guiding services and I tried to charge him a carrying fee. In the end we called it even and went our separate ways.
The next morning we got up early and went out to the airport. We took a thirty minute flight over the plateau to look at the giant geoglyphs that the ancient locals made in the desert. Besides the Nasca lines, there were many figures built on the ground. My favorite ones were the astronaut and the monkey. From the air, the entire desert appeared to be covered with figures and lines. It was impressive.
Following a late breakfast, we joined a tour to see some of the other things Nasca has to offer. Our first stop was a pottery making place. The owner is an archaeologist and figured out how the locals made pottery two thousand years ago. They showed us how the clay was prepared and shaped and how the paints were produced from local rocks and how it was fired at the end. They also taught us the ancient secret for keeping the paint bright and shiny for thousands of years. After the mineral based paints are applied and before the pots are buried and heated up for a few days, they cover the pot with nose grease. They rub a rock on their nose and then rub the pot. For the hard to reach places, they rub their nose with a narrow bone and then coat the nooks and crannies of the pottery with the nose oil. It is an interesting system and I am hard pressed to figure out not only how the ancients figured it out, but how the modern archaeologist re-discovered it.
Our next stop was the cemetery. No matter who you were, in Nasca two thousand years ago, when you died, you were entitled to a decent burial. For them, this meant that they removed your internal organs and brain. Then they scrubbed you with salt and laid you out in the hot sun for a few weeks until you were pretty well mummified. Next, you were wrapped in a bunch of cloth and carried around to all the towns and places you used to go. This way every one you knew, knew you were dead. After a month or so of this, you were buried in a small clay room, perhaps with others of your family who were already dead. To help you in the next life they also gave you some jars of food and a few hair braids for good luck.
Early this century, most of the graves were dug up and looted. The mummies were left scattered around on the ground. Five years ago they put the mummies back in the holes and that is were they are sitting now.
The final stop of our day tour was the house were they extracted gold from rocks. This was pretty interesting. We learned how they went up into the hills and carried back a bunch of rock. Next, they put the rocks in a tumbler with iron balls until they had crushed rocks. Then they put the crushed rocks in a tub with some water. They had a big round stone with a board on top of it to put in the tub also. They stood on the board and rocked the stone back and forth for about six hours. Then they had fine rock powder, which they mixed with mercury and eventually extracted the gold.
On the 16th of November I went for a walk. I have gotten into this bad habit of waking up with the chickens and the sun. I am usually awake before six in the morning. Fiona can somehow sleep for several more hours, so I have taken to going for a morning walk.
I stopped for some orange juice and bread in town and then headed east. I went through the poor end of town and through the fields in the valley. I found some ancient aqueducts and some Nasca lines that were not part of the main group that I had flown over the previous day. Then I walked along a road that had almost no traffic and headed for the hills. By about 8:30 I had gone six miles and was next to the world's largest sand dune. I was able to see it from town, but now I was next to it. I turned off the road and walked about a mile up a dry river bed and was right below the 6,000 foot pile of sand.
I had been informed that nobody took tours to the sand dune anymore because some tourist had been buried up to his neck in the sand. Apparently the sand is a bit unstable and acts like quick sand on occasion. I decided to walk around the mountain of sand, instead of climbing it. I clambered my way up a dry river bed and made my way up the neighboring mountain. After three hours, I made it to the top of the mountain behind the sand mountain. I found a dirt road and it led to a bunch of gold mines dug into the hills. I had been walking for six hours straight in the desert heat and decided to stop for a rest.
I took a twenty minute lunch break and realized that I was never going to make it all the way around the sand dune and back to town in one day. I followed the nice dirt road back in the direction of the paved road I had started the day on. After a while, the dirt road turned into a well trodden path. A little while later the well trodden path turned into a faint, but obvious trail. Eventually, the trail turned into a barely perceptible marking on the mountain side. And of course, in the end the trail disappeared and I got to make my own. I made my way down a sharply angled rock fall to the dry river that I was going to follow back to the road.
Once I got to the river bed, I headed west. It was a fairly easy descent to begin with. And, in the easy parts there was one set of footprints headed the other direction. So, I knew that I must be able to get out of the mountain in this direction. Eventually, the easy descent turned into a series of small, dry waterfalls. As I progressed, the climbs down became more challenging. I noticed that whenever it was a difficult climb down the other persons footprints would disappear, only to reappear when the going got easy again. As you would expect, I eventually came to a twenty or thirty foot cliff that was clearly impossible for me to get down. On the mountain side next to me was a path. I followed it. It was quite exposed and eventually ended about four feet from were the river bed became flat again. So, I clung to the cliff face for a little while and then jumped to a steep section of mountain nearby. I did not slip off and made my way down.
From there it was easy going again and I made it back to the road, six miles from town after six hours of walking in the mountains. I was ready for a ride home, but there was no traffic and nothing to do but walk. After three miles, a taxi came by and I gladly paid the thirty cents for a ride back the last four miles. I walked for well over eleven hours in the hot sun and was good and tired.
It was good that I was tired, because instead of a bed this night, I had a night bus to Arrequipa. We paid for the Royal Class bus and it was worth it. At more than $17 for only ten hours it was not cheap, but it was comfortable. Besides the normal hostess and movie, it had very comfortable seats. They were extra wide and reclined an incredible distance. A foot board popped out of the bottom of the seat in front of me and I was able to sleep most of the night.
Shortly after sunrise, on the 17th, we arrived in Peru's second largest city, Arrequipa. We took a taxi to the hotel and relaxed on the roof until a room opened up. We slept the rest of the morning and organized our Colca Canyon trip in the afternoon.
Wednesday morning, we got on a tour bus and drove around the huge volcanoes that tower over the city. We stopped to watch some people shaving the wool off of a few vicuna. Vicuna, along with alpacas and llamas are related to camels and live in the high dry areas. The roads were very bad and it we did not get over the 15,000 foot pass and into Chivay until well after three in the afternoon. Before dinner, we went to the local hot springs pool and soaked. After sunset, I walked into the hills and found a seat. I looked at the sky for about two hours, but the promised meteor shower never materialized.
The next day we left the hotel at 6:30 am and drove out to the Condor Cross. We waited for an hour and a half, but the condors never showed up. Still, it was nice to sit around and look down into one of the deepest canyons in the world, Colca Canyon. The rest of the day was spent returning to Arrequipa and stopping at a few small villages.
Yesterday was spent wandering the streets of Arrequipa and doing not much. Tomorrow we plan on taking the train to Cuzco and getting ready to walk the Inca trail to Machu Pichu.
I have now been in Peru for a month and have a few observations to offer.
The U.S. dollar seems to be a close second as the national currency, after the Nuevo Sol. In all the commercial districts the streets are packed with people holding a great big wad of local money and a calculator. They are there to change money. The big supermarkets, most chain stores, and many local shops also accept U.S. dollars. This seems to be a normal part of the Peruvian economy and is not related to tourism. It seems to me that locals with money are just as likely to have a few Dollars in their wallets as Soles. The bank machines even offer the options of taking out your money in Dollars or Soles.
I have enjoyed the local food. My favorite drink is now Chicha Morada. It is a purple drink, made from purple corn and is heavily spiced. I tried cuy, which is guinea pig. It is a specialty of the people living in the Andes. It has dark meat and reminded me of duck. It was okay. My favorite food is ceviche. Rather than cook their fish, octopus, conch, squid and other seafoods with heat, they cook them chemically with some very acidic lemon. I like it. I have not yet tried anticuchos, but I will soon. I have to wait until Fiona is somewhere else, because she does not want to watch me eat grilled cow heart. The local way to prevent altitude sickness is with tea made of coca leaves. I don't think it has much more taste than hot water with sugar in it, but at least it is a warm drink in the high, cold mountains.
Friday, November 5, 1999
5 NOV 99
On the 28th of October, Fiona and I woke up early and took a local mini-bus to Yungi. After waiting an hour, our next bus filled up and we headed east, over the mountains. It took over three hours on the dirt road to cross a 4500 meter pass and come a little ways down the other side.
In Vaquera, we got off the combi/colectivo/mini-bus/van. It was early afternoon. We strapped on the packs and started walking. We went down a hill, crossed the river, went over the next rise, went down to the next river and started following it up to the mountains.
Before five, we made it to the first campground. This is were I learned how they make campgrounds in the mountains of Peru. If you want nice short grass in a flat place in Peru, you let your cows do the upkeep. This, of course, meant that every night we had to kick the cow patties out of the way before we could set up camp. We made a nice dinner and called it a day.
After a nice breakfast of oatmeal and milk, we packed up and started walking some more. We passed by a really tall mountain with some glaciers and then continued up, above the tree line.
After lunch the day started to get pretty long. We climbed and climbed and eventually we got to the lakes we were supposed to camp at. Unfortunately, they were not the lakes we were supposed to camp at. It turned out that we had another hour to climb. Then, finally, we really were at the right place to camp, at a cold 4500 meters above sea level.
The stove was frustratingly unreliable, but eventually we made our pasta and went to sleep. It was a very cold night and I found out that my tent is definitely a three-season tent and that the night was bordering on the fourth season.
After a not too early start on the morning of the 30th, we quickly made it to the top of the pass, Punto Un?n at 4700 meters. It was a nice day and we had great views of glacier covered mountains in several directions. We took a few photos and then started down into the Santa Cruz valley. We were now about 1800 vertical meters and 23 walking kilometers from the end, Cashapampa.
After about ten minutes of heading down, Fiona slipped and hurt her ankle. We continued on, had lunch and then made it to the nicest camping place on the whole trail. By this time Fiona could barely walk and was in definite pain.
We set up camp in a nice flat place, near a river and I made a very nice potato curry and rice dinner. That night it rained. This meant that the clouds kept the heat in the valley and blocked the moonlight. Between the sound of rain on the tent, the lack of light, our being at a lower altitude, and the warmer night, I got my best sleep in Peru so far.
In the morning, there was no question about us moving on. We propped Fiona up against a rock, with a view of our little stream and iced her foot. My lighter had broken and my matches proved very difficult, so we spent the morning waiting for trekkers to come by so we could bum a few matches. Two groups of two passed by and we ended up with a lighter with very little gas, a lighter with a lot of gas but no flint and three matches that allegedly burn underwater.
Our next concern was water. I grabbed the water bottle and looked at our nice mountain stream. It was no longer clear and inviting. The water level had risen a couple of feet and it was muddy. About then a local boy came and pointed out that the stream was flooding and our tent was nearby. He helped me move camp to a safer place. He was a good kid and I ended up giving him a pen and half a candy bar.
The stream ended up rising from about two feet deep to perhaps six feet deep. It covered the bridge and prevented the cows from leaving our area. After lunch, it started to drizzle, so we sought shelter in the tent. The sun was still shining so it got hot in the tent as we read.
By a little after four, I had too much energy and drizzle or no drizzle, I was going for a walk. I headed up the side valley with the intention of finding out where all the water was coming from. I ignored the drizzle and headed up. It soon stopped raining and I made it up into a high valley. There was not so much water up there, but there were a lot of cows and some great glaciers and tall mountains. On the way back to camp I ran down hill. It is always so much fun to run downhill at high altitude, you go so fast.
It was Halloween night, but we were the only ones around. I did not go trick-or-treating. Instead we had a good dinner and turned in.
Fiona's foot was still pretty suspect, but she declared herself ready to start walking. We walked nine kilometers before lunch and planned to do six after lunch. After lunch we saw a sign that said we still had nine kilometers to go, it was a bit depressing.
As we got to lower altitudes, it got warmer and the black flies started attacking. My legs still itch from their bites. Somehow Fiona kept going and, after passing through a narrow canyon, we made it to Cashapampa. We had walked 18 kilometers that day. Fiona did it with a bad ankle and I managed it with all of my stuff and much of her stuff on my back. I now know that I can walk long distances, at high altitudes, with a heavy pack on my back. This is a good thing to know.
From Cashapampa, we took a colectivo to Caray. Fiona and I both agreed that this was the scariest road we have ever been on. The narrow, windy mountain road was made of sand. The driver kept the speed moderate and this was not a problem. But, you could feel the van slide a bit on the turns. Where streams crossed the road, could see where the road had washed out and timbers were placed to shore it up. In Caray, we changed combis and returned to Huaraz. There were quite a few chickens on this bus.
Fiona spent the next day resting her ankle and I poked around town. We took the Cruz del Sur Imperial class bus back to Lima and I almost won the bingo game. Yesterday, Fiona rested her ankle again and we hung out in Luis's apartment. He has a lot of great books to read. In the evening we met Luis and Karem at the fancy mall type place and ate Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
Today we are doing research for the next part of our trip and taking it easy. The plan is to continue south and visit Nazca, Arrequipa and Cuzco this month, and eventually make our way to La Paz, in Bolivia.
Believe it or not, this was only my third backpacking trip in my life. Twice before, I have headed out with a tent, a sleeping bag, a partner, food and a stove for a two night trip and returned after one. These four nights in the mountains were my longest and most difficult backpacking trip ever. I enjoyed it.
Wednesday, October 27, 1999
27 OCT 99
I spent the night of 20 October on the plane to Peru. By my own rating scale for international flights, Delta scored very poorly. They never handed out any hot towels. On the morning of the 21st, I met Fiona in the Peru airport and we headed outside. My roommate from college, Luis, was there to meet us with his girlfriend, Karem. It was five o'clock in the morning and they went above and beyond the call of duty.
Fiona and I hung out with Luis and Karem for a few days. They are the best hosts and I highly recommend them if you are ever in the area. We went to the movies, hung out in the fashionable mall area and went on a nice city tour. Fiona and I also joined the South American Explorers Club and visited a church and a museum.
Last Monday, we took the bus up to Huaraz. It was an eight hour bus ride and cost about $15, but it was worth it. The bus was very clean, they served lunch, we watched two movies and even played bingo. I can handle this first class travel.
We are now at 10,000 feet above sea level and are spending a few days to acclimatize. Yesterday we went on a four hour walk into the hills for practice. Today we bought lots of food and are getting our things together for a walk in the mountains.
Tomorrow we will take a bus to Yungay and then another one east to a little town that starts with a V. Then we have planned four days of walking in the mountains. We will walk almost thirty miles and cross a really high mountain pass. I hope it goes well. It should be fun.
I have spent six of the last twelve months in Nepal and India, so I find myself comparing Peru to those countries. By Indian standards, Peru is quite rich, so far as I have seen. I have been impressed with how well the transportation works. Also, Lima is a reasonably clean city with some very nice areas.
I'll let you all know how the walk goes next week.
Internet access is well under two dollars an hour and not too uncommon, so feel free to e-mail me all you want.
Thursday, October 14, 1999
14 OCT 99
On the 29th of August, I met my new group and we headed north. We spent two days in Denali National Park. On the first day we took the shuttle bus really far into the park and on the second day we only went in a little way and then went for a nice hike up a valley and into the clouds. From the shuttle bus, we saw many grizzly bears, some wolves, ptarmigan, caribou, eagles, moose, mountain goats and sheep. This was probably my best trip into the park all summer for animal sightings.
Another amazing thing about my final visit to Denali, was the color changes that accompany Autumn. The mountain tops were all white with snow and the tundra was full of bright reds and yellows. I now think that the first two weeks of September are probably the most beautiful time of the year to visit Denali.
Then we continued north and went to Fairbanks for the day. From Fairbanks, we went south-east to McCarthy. From McCarthy, we drove out to Kennicott and then walked the rest of the way to the Root Glacier. It was a nice cloudy day with a bit of rain and drizzle. We put on crampons, picked up ice axes, tied onto ropes and spent the day learning to ice climb on the glacier. I have now added ice climbing to the list of really cool things I have done and would like to do again.
At first glance, the perfectly vertical wall of ice looked impossible to climb and the very steep wall looked extremely difficult. But, amazingly, after a little training, we were all making headway. The crampons had points on the front and we literally walked up the wall. We kicked the wall and stuck our toes into the ice. Then we reached up and stuck the ice axes into the ice above our heads. Then, one foot at a time, we walked up. I will definitely do that again someday.
At the end of the first week, we went back to Anchorage to drop off one passenger. We spent the night there and had a little night out. For most of the first week it had rained, but the weather cleared as we headed south to the Kenai Peninsula. On the 5th of September we drove to the end of the road, Homer, Alaska. We took a float plane across the Kachimak Bay to a tent and breakfast place. We spent two nights there. They made great meals for us and had a nice living room to relax in and play games and read.
While there, we also went on a kayak trip. We paddled out among the islands and had great views of the distant ice covered volcanoes. We saw some otters and had lunch on a remote beach. In the afternoon some of us went for a bike ride or fishing and I mostly relaxed. We spent the second morning in Seldovia. We looked around the small fishing/tourist village and then took a water taxi back to Homer. Along the way we stopped to look at some nearby whales.
We spent the night in Anchor Point. We rented a small cabin with a kitchen. The cabin was high on a cliff over looking the bay and looking across at the giant volcanoes. It was a perfectly clear night and we had great views of Jupiter and the Milky Way, after a nice sunset.
We took a small hike in the Kenai Peninsula Wildlife Refuge and then went to Seward for the last three nights of the trip. We took the eight hour Kenai Fjords boat trip. We stopped at Fox Island to eat some salmon and then went on to the Holgate Glacier. I took this trip last year and this was my favorite part. The boat parked near the end of the glacier and we spent nearly an hour just floating there and looking at the glacier. Some really big pieces fell off of it with great noise and fell into the ocean. On the way back to Seward some porpoises played in the wake of the boat and entertained us all.
On the 10th of September, we went out to Exit Glacier and took the trail up to the Harding Ice Field. It was a nice hike, but it got a bit cold and windy near the top. On the last day, we stopped at Portage Glacier, but it was not visible because of the rain. We had our last night dinner and that was the end of the trip
On the morning of the 12th, Carolyn (another tour leader) and I started the drive south. We each had our own vans and just met for meals and parked near each other each night. The first day we drove from Anchorage to the Canadian border. Now that it was late fall, the colors were amazing. The trees on each side of the road were an incredible bright yellow and further south there were some nice oranges and reds.
The second day of driving brought us almost to Watson Lake, Yukon. The Northern Lights were incredible and we had to pull over to watch. We spent a few hours watching the lights. We were lucky, they were pink and green and white. They were like nothing I have ever seen before and one of the highlights of my summer.
Two more days of non-stop driving brought us to Seattle. I spent three days there hanging out with Sue and cleaning all of my equipment. I eventually finished all of that and continued south. I went to Portland, Oregon and visited Michele. She lives in a nice neighborhood with lots parks and good places to eat. I then continued south and went to Oakland, near San Francisco. I had a good visit with Uncle Lenny, Aunt Charlene, and cousins Isaac, David, Josh and Marcus.
One more full day of driving brought me to Los Angeles. I went over to Marty's for a family visit and one of her always interesting holiday meals. On the 26th of September, I flew to Boston and spent a week hanging out with dad, Elizabeth and Emily. On the 2nd of October I flew to Florida and have been hanging out with my mother and Milo since then. I have had a few good visits with cousins Dori, Uri, and Taylor.
A few days ago, Fiona arrived and we have been doing research for South America and getting ready to leave on the 20th. We also went down to the Everglades for a few hours of canoeing in the swamps. We are now taking care of all the last minute details before we get to Lima, Peru.
Friday, August 27, 1999
27 AUG 99
On our last morning in Whitehorse, we looked for the time trials of the Yukon River Bathtub Race. They have a three day, 400+ mile race from Whitehorse to Dawson City in bathtubs. I guess the time trials were postponed due to rain. Instead, we went to Haines Junction and Silver City. Silver City is an abandoned mining town next to a lake. I took the opportunity to splash around in the lake. It was cold.
Luckily, on our hiking day, the weather cleared and we went for a nice walk into the mountains of Kluane National Park. We saw three grizzly bears on the other side of the valley and watched them for a while.
After the twelve hour drive back into Alaska and over to McCarthy in Wrangell-St.Elais National Park, we had a free day for hiking. I started up a mountain with a few passengers. We got to the bottom of the clouds, where the views ended and they turned around to go look at the foot of the glacier. I continued up to the Bonanza Copper Mine. The fog was pretty thick at the top of the mountain, but it did clear long enough for me to see the mine buildings for a few minutes. I read a bit of a book and then came back down the mountain.
On the way to Valdez, we had a pretty clear day and made a lot of photo stops. The next day, in Valdez, we wanted to go hiking up in the mountains, but it was too cloudy to see where the mountains were. Instead we took a small walk above the sound.
It is the middle of salmon season up here. We went down to the edge of the water and saw hundreds of dying salmon. Salmon are born in freshwater, eat the bacteria that live in their dead parents, swim to the ocean, return a few years later to lay eggs and then die. So, salmon season means hundreds of dead and dying fish lying around. The seagulls were able to pick and choose what to eat. They only ate the eyeballs.
We still had a few hours left in the day, so a few of us took a helicopter ride. We flew over the Columbia Glacier, landed next to the Shoup Glacier and saw a bear from the air. I have taken helicopter rides before, at the Grand Canyon, but there they are not allowed to go into the canyon, so it is pretty much the same as an airplane. Here, on the other hand, I got the full pleasure of cruising up mountainsides and back down the other side. Also, the Columbia Glacier is huge and incredibly impressive.
Very early the next morning, we got onto the ferry to go to Whittier. I was just getting into my book, when three very strange people sat down next to me. Ed, who was doing some doctoring in Alaska, his daughter Sally (whom I call 'That Girl', after the Sally in my favorite Gucci Crew II song by the same name), and her friend Kibbles and Bits started video taping me and being generally silly. I think they were not used to people being silly back to them and we spent most of the boat ride having a good time. Sally is a graphic artist and made a very nice drawing of me in the dirt on the side of the van.
From Whittier, I drove the van (fully loaded with passengers) onto the train. We sat in the van for the 40 minute train ride to Portage. It was cloudy and we did not see the glaciers. We spent that night in Kenai looking for Beluga whales, but did not see any.
We passed through Ninilchik and drove to the end of the road - Homer, Alaska. We camped at the end of the Homer Spit. It rained the entire next day and I read a book. After a stop at Portage Glacier, we went back to Anchorage and they did a bit of last minute shopping.
At times this trip was a bit difficult for me because my Spanish is not so good. Eventually, many of them learned which words I knew and spoke slowly enough that we were able to have conversations. I have enjoyed my last two special trips. Travelling with thirteen people from the same country is almost like visiting that country. I probably learned more about the daily life of people in Taiwan and Spain here, as a guide, than I would have as a tourist in their countries.
Between four and six in the morning, I shuttled them to the airport and the trip was over, except for taking down their tents. I spent the better part of last Sunday waiting for them to dry. Every three hours, just before they were dry, it would rain for about five minutes. On Monday, I got the tires changed on the van and ran into my friend Sue. She was having work done on her van at the same place and I hung out with her for a few hours.
The rest of this past week has been spent answering e-mail, reading books, cleaning equipment, planning my next trip and sleeping.
I meet my new group tonight. I also get my first hotel room since the third week of July.
Luckily, on our hiking day, the weather cleared and we went for a nice walk into the mountains of Kluane National Park. We saw three grizzly bears on the other side of the valley and watched them for a while.
After the twelve hour drive back into Alaska and over to McCarthy in Wrangell-St.Elais National Park, we had a free day for hiking. I started up a mountain with a few passengers. We got to the bottom of the clouds, where the views ended and they turned around to go look at the foot of the glacier. I continued up to the Bonanza Copper Mine. The fog was pretty thick at the top of the mountain, but it did clear long enough for me to see the mine buildings for a few minutes. I read a bit of a book and then came back down the mountain.
On the way to Valdez, we had a pretty clear day and made a lot of photo stops. The next day, in Valdez, we wanted to go hiking up in the mountains, but it was too cloudy to see where the mountains were. Instead we took a small walk above the sound.
It is the middle of salmon season up here. We went down to the edge of the water and saw hundreds of dying salmon. Salmon are born in freshwater, eat the bacteria that live in their dead parents, swim to the ocean, return a few years later to lay eggs and then die. So, salmon season means hundreds of dead and dying fish lying around. The seagulls were able to pick and choose what to eat. They only ate the eyeballs.
We still had a few hours left in the day, so a few of us took a helicopter ride. We flew over the Columbia Glacier, landed next to the Shoup Glacier and saw a bear from the air. I have taken helicopter rides before, at the Grand Canyon, but there they are not allowed to go into the canyon, so it is pretty much the same as an airplane. Here, on the other hand, I got the full pleasure of cruising up mountainsides and back down the other side. Also, the Columbia Glacier is huge and incredibly impressive.
Very early the next morning, we got onto the ferry to go to Whittier. I was just getting into my book, when three very strange people sat down next to me. Ed, who was doing some doctoring in Alaska, his daughter Sally (whom I call 'That Girl', after the Sally in my favorite Gucci Crew II song by the same name), and her friend Kibbles and Bits started video taping me and being generally silly. I think they were not used to people being silly back to them and we spent most of the boat ride having a good time. Sally is a graphic artist and made a very nice drawing of me in the dirt on the side of the van.
From Whittier, I drove the van (fully loaded with passengers) onto the train. We sat in the van for the 40 minute train ride to Portage. It was cloudy and we did not see the glaciers. We spent that night in Kenai looking for Beluga whales, but did not see any.
We passed through Ninilchik and drove to the end of the road - Homer, Alaska. We camped at the end of the Homer Spit. It rained the entire next day and I read a book. After a stop at Portage Glacier, we went back to Anchorage and they did a bit of last minute shopping.
At times this trip was a bit difficult for me because my Spanish is not so good. Eventually, many of them learned which words I knew and spoke slowly enough that we were able to have conversations. I have enjoyed my last two special trips. Travelling with thirteen people from the same country is almost like visiting that country. I probably learned more about the daily life of people in Taiwan and Spain here, as a guide, than I would have as a tourist in their countries.
Between four and six in the morning, I shuttled them to the airport and the trip was over, except for taking down their tents. I spent the better part of last Sunday waiting for them to dry. Every three hours, just before they were dry, it would rain for about five minutes. On Monday, I got the tires changed on the van and ran into my friend Sue. She was having work done on her van at the same place and I hung out with her for a few hours.
The rest of this past week has been spent answering e-mail, reading books, cleaning equipment, planning my next trip and sleeping.
I meet my new group tonight. I also get my first hotel room since the third week of July.
Thursday, August 12, 1999
12 AUG 99
Greetings from the Holodeck in Whitehorse (pop. 23,000), the capital of Canada's Yukon Territory and home to most of the territory's 34,000 people. The Holodeck is a computer place with a Star Trek theme. I like it.
After I said goodbye to my 13 Taiwanese friends, I headed back down to Girdwood to visit Sue and relax. We took a couple of saunas, went for a really steep hike and did not do too much else. I also got ready for my next trip.
On the 2nd of August, at 11:56 p.m., I picked up my new passengers, 13 people from Spain. I took them back to the campground and they fell asleep in the tents that I had spent all afternoon putting up. This group was the reason I got the Alaska trips. They booked through a Spanish agency and I am the Spanish speaking guide that was provided. I think they understand most of what I say, at least I do.
They are older than a normal Trek group, in their 30's, 40's and 50's. I prefer groups of this age. They don't get as bored when they have free time and show some initiative when it comes to helping out around camp.
When we all go up in the morning, I gave the Spanish version of my first day speech and then we headed downtown. We looked around Anchorage for a while and even saw the top of Mt. McKinley in the distance. That night we went back to camp. My friend Fiona arrived in Anchorage that night, but neither of us had phone numbers to contact each other. I knew she was getting a hotel room near the airport, so I did what anyone would do when they wanted to find a friend in a state's biggest city. I went from hotel to hotel asking for her and found her in a little over half an hour. It was nice to see her again, even for such a short time and I look forward to travelling with her in South America this winter. Fiona is doing a different Trek trip and, unfortunately, I won't see her again up here.
The next morning my new group and I headed north, to Denali National Park. We saw the dog sled demonstration. On our free day we took flights over the park and some went rafting. The next day we took the shuttle bus into the park to look for animals and hike. We saw a grizzly bear next to a river and the bus stopped so we could look. The bus refused to start and we spent well over two hours watching the bear until a new bus arrived. We continued on, saw some sheep, caribou and a few more bears. In the afternoon, I took 12 of my passengers on a hike up a hill and fun was had by all.
In Denali National Park, when you are done hiking, you have to stop a shuttle bus and ask for a ride. After our hike we stopped the next bus and it only had 12 seats available. My whole group got on and I found myself alone in the middle of one of America's largest National Parks. I started walking the 40 miles back, but after only about one mile another bus came and I got a ride. We had a good pizza dinner and called it a day.
From Denali, we headed up to Fairbanks and had a good salmon bake. We also looked around the city, the museum and the Large Animal Research Station, where they keep some muskox. We spent a night in Tok before taking the Top of the World Highway over to Dawson City. We went to the Downtown Saloon for Sourtoe Cocktails, but no one wanted one. Captain Bill has a preserved human toe that he puts in your drink. You are only supposed to touch it with your lips, but it does occasionally get swallowed.
The next day, we went to the gold mining dredge and a viewpoint before having a free afternoon to explore the goldrush town. I, of course, took advantage of some free time in a city with cheap Internet and updated my page a bit. After that we stopped at a few sights along the road and ended up here, in Whitehorse. This is a free day for them again and I am at the Holodeck, home of the four Canadian dollars per hour Internet place.
This brings us up to today. More some other day.
Tuesday, August 10, 1999
10 AUG 99
Hello from Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada. This has been a very busy summer. I have not had the time to update my page in quite some time. As always, sorry if it gets too long, it is just that I am having so much fun.
After my last update, I went into New York City and picked up three passengers. We went to look at the Statue of Liberty and then headed down to Washington D.C.
After the first night of this trip I over-slept. The light usually wakes me up at sunrise or around 6 a.m. But, this was my first night sleeping in the van in eight months. The van is what I consider my home. It is where I have spent about half of my nights since June, 1996. It is always nice to sleep in your own bed after a long absence. After this I did start waking up at sunrise again.
After a day of checking out camping stoves at R.E.I., I picked up two more passengers and we all went to eat in Georgetown. The six of us took a nice drive through Virginia and went rafting on the Ocoee River in Tennessee. Another long day of driving brought us almost to New Orleans. We did a little tour of the swamps in Mr. Denny's canoes and then headed down to the French Quarter. We toured an old plantation house and I had my drink for the year on Bourbon Street.
Another big day of driving brought us to San Antonio. Dirk, a passenger from Germany, had to leave us. He is in the German army and had to go get some extra training before being sent to Kosovo. I felt sorry for his girlfriend also, she had to stay with us, after being with him for only two weeks, after being apart for a year.
Karla came out from Houston and with Dion, one of my four remaining passengers, we went up to New Braunfels and spent a few hours floating in the river on inner tubes. There were even a few rapids to shake us up a bit.
Then we went over to Del Rio, had dinner in Mexico and then went up to Carlsbad Caverns. The bats were out in full force and gave us a good show. We had another night on the town in Santa Fe and then took a beautiful drive through the Navajo Indian Reservation to Canyon de Chelly before spending the night at Slim and Kody's Cowboy Camp in Mexican Hat, Utah. They have a new trampoline, so between ropin' and ridin' I bounced.
A nice tour of Monument Valley with an Indian was followed by a couple of days in the Grand Canyon. I did my favorite hike there and found a new spot I like even better. I walked down into the canyon for four miles, turned left, and walked another two miles. There is a small creek there. I followed the creek down a few small cliffs and found a place where the water had carved a shelf big enough for me to relax on and read my book for a few hours. Then, of course, two miles more, another left turn and up a different path to the top.
It was time to jump off the cliffs into Lake Powell and party at the Pariah Canyon Guest Ranch. I also climbed on a climbing wall for the first time there. Easton, the owner, wanted me to look good so he nearly pulled me up the wall with my safety rope. I got up pretty quickly. The next morning we rode quad-runners for a few hours before stopping at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes on the way to Zion National Park. There we took one of my favorite river hikes. We walked in the river into the canyon for a few hours and I spent a lot of time splashing in the river. I was having so much fun that I was running ahead of everyone and had to wait a lot. This also happened in Nepal, but I learned a trick there to slow me down. When my hiking partners are slower than me, I pick up a big rock and carry it. At times it was difficult to swim in the river with the rock, but I managed and did not get too far ahead of the rest of my group. That night, as on every night, Venus, Mercury and Mars were visible.
The following morning, my passengers impressed me by agreeing to wake up well before sun-rise and hike up Angel's Landing. This hike has some highly exposed sections and I am not sure everyone would have made it up if they could see how far the drop was on both sides of the trail. We got to the top well before sun-rise and could see Jupiter and Saturn in the sky.
From Zion we went over to the Lake Mead Recreational Area, swam in the lake, swam in a spring and went on into Las Vegas. We had our mandatory buffet at the Rio followed by a cruise down the strip in a Limo. On my free day in Vegas I went for a drive and explored the city.
A visit with Micky Mouse in Disneyland, and this trip was finished. It was a shame I only had four passengers, but it worked out pretty well. Each one had his or her own bench in the van. They could keep their things there and lie down for naps. They were very good at napping and, when I looked in my rear view mirror I usually did not see anyone and felt like I was driving alone.
I had only one day in the office and then met my new group that night. I went down to the lobby of the hotel to meet them at 7:30 and all twelve of them were there (one man and eleven women). This set the tone for the whole trip. They were always, with one exception, on time for all of our activities. Often I would tell them that I wanted to leave at 8:00 the next morning and they would say "No, we want to leave at 7:30" and then be ready by 7:15. We had plenty of time for extra activities and sights. I enjoyed it. Some people come on these trips and think they are on vacation and can sleep late. This group realized that they only had two weeks to see as much as they could and could sleep when they got home.
On our first day we headed north from Los Angeles, stopped to pee in the waterfall at the Madonna Inn and spent the first night camped under the giant redwood trees of the middle Californian coast. We even had time to go down to the beach to look for the sunset.
The next day we did a little tour of San Francisco and then took a sunset cruise in the bay, around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge. I finished my city tour the next morning and had a chance to eat some great Chinese food while they went to Alcatraz. We had a couple of nights out on the town and then went to Yosemite National Park.
Our first stop in the park was the Toulumne grove of giant sequoia trees. We took the walk down the hill, crawled through the hollow fallen tree and headed back up to the van. Near the end of the trail we saw two bears in the woods, they were busy making a baby bear and did not seem to mind us. The next day, a few of us enjoyed an eight mile hike in the Yosemite Valley before pizza and ice-cream.
On the way out of the park we stopped for a snowball fight at the high altitudes. Our next stop was at a lake. There was a pile of snow next to the lake, but once I got into the water it really was not that bad. We continued on to Mono Lake. Mono Lake is very salty and you can not sink in it. I pushed through the clouds of flies and joined the brine shrimp for a dip. That night in Bishop, we drove out to the end of town and sat in the free hot-springs. As far as swimming goes, this was an excellent day for me; ice water, mineral water and hot water.
The drive to Las Vegas took us through some beautiful desert. Our first stop was the bungee jumping place. They strapped on the cord and then I dove. I got half of myself into the pool below the crane before the bungee pulled me back up. This was the first time I have ever been dipped while bungee jumping, it was fun.
This time I decided to try the MGM Grand Hotel buffet and was not disappointed. They had shrimp already peeled. The buffet was followed by the night tour of the Strip with stops at all of the free shows along the way. The new Bellagio Hotel has a show of music, lights and giant fountains of water. It is now my favorite show on the strip.
I had the next day all to myself and went for a drive. I went for a walk in the 100+ heat of The Valley of Fire State Park and then took a dip in a natural spring on the way back to Vegas. This nights buffet was eaten at the Stratosphere, before heading up the tower to ride the roller coaster and the thing that shoots you up the tower with bungee cords, high above the city.
On the way to the Grand Canyon, we stopped in Seligman, Arizona for some ice-cream along the historic Route 66. We got up for sunrise and left at 4:50. We were supposed to leave five minutes earlier, but no group is perfect. I was not up to a hike for my free day at the Grand Canyon. I decided to drive off into the Kaibab National Forest and read a book. However, as normally happens when I head off with no particular destination, I was unable to stop. I ended up spending six hours bouncing down dirt roads and jeep trails before coming out the other end of the forest and going back up to the canyon to catch sun-set.
From the Grand Canyon, we headed south and stopped at White Castle National Monument. We looked at the old Indian dwellings and then went on down to Betty and Rusty's cowboy camp. As always, they made me feel like part of the family. We took a horse ride off into the hills and had a good dinner before the roping, bucking-barrel rides and line dancing.
At 9:30 the next morning (it is impossible to get an early start from a cowboy camp) we headed off to San Diego. We got five miles down the road, to the McDonald's and the van nearly died. I made a few calls and we headed back to the cowboy camp. We almost got back there before the van really did die. The transmission broke. We went and woke Betty and Rusty up from their naps and they cooked us an early dinner of enchiladas. We hung out for the day and played in the sprinklers.
At seven in the evening, Trevor arrived with our rescue van from Los Angeles. By 8:00 we were loaded and on the way. We had 440 miles to go, our longest drive of the trip, and we were starting at sunset. After several years of driving a lot, I have learned the secret to staying awake all night. For me, it works best to feel sick. So, with my Mountain Dew, Oreos and Jolly Rancher's candy, I stuffed myself, felt sick and never got tired on the drive to San Diego. Our gasoline stops were very short because most people did not wake up, and the rest did not feel like moving. We got to camp by 3 a.m. and were asleep by 4.
At nine the next morning we were off to see the sights. A few of us went down to Tijuana and tried to get stamps for the passports. The border guard was not in the mood to give out stamps that day so we just went for some lunch and shopping instead. For our last night's dinner we went downtown. Nobody felt like staying out late, so we went back to camp.
The last day we cleaned the equipment and went to Disneyland. After dinner at the Thai restaurant, the trip was over. It was a quick two weeks.
AmeriCan Adventures (AA), one of Trek America's competitors, went broke and was purchased by Trek's parent company. AA had some special group trips in Alaska that needed leaders and Trek decided to send me. Trek did not send me up here as one of their regular tour leaders, and several other people declined the trips I was offered, but never-the-less, here I am.
I spent the morning in the Trek office and the early afternoon in the AAA office. Then I started north. Two days later I got to Seattle and spent the afternoon getting some more equipment and organizing my next trip. On the 4th of July I met Dion, from my first trip this year, in Vancouver. Then I drove for a few more days through Canada and got to Anchorage, Alaska on the 9th of July. I had a good seven day / 3700 mile drive. I saw a bunch of bears and a few moose. This drive was the same as most of the 24 day trip I did last year from Seattle to Alaska.
I got to Alaska one day early and went down to Girdwood. My friend Sue is helping to run the hostel there. She fired up the sauna and by the time I left there I was nice and relaxed and ready to meet my new group.
My first group up here in the Northland was a group of 13 people from Taiwan. One of them, Jamie, is a travel agent and organized the group and was their translator. She has been on 15 AA trips before and most of her group had been on at least one. They new exactly what to expect and that made my job much easier. They had already divided themselves into groups. The older women cooked, the younger women cleaned and the men washed the van. They brought a lot of their own food, vegetable peelers, rags and brushes to clean the van, metal thermoses to keep their rice warm until lunch, chopsticks, wooden rice serving paddle and who knows what else.
They were mostly in their 50's and 60's with one 74 year old and a few in their 30's. They were about the nicest bunch of people ever and always made sure I had enough to eat. And the food, oh my. I had more than two weeks of authentic homemade Chinese food. I really hated to see them go, even though I gained a few pounds. Also, this was an all hostel and hotel tour. It was nice for a change to sleep in beds for a while and watch tv.
We headed straight down do the Kenai Peninsuala. Our first stop was at the supermarket to buy a wok and all the food in the Asian foods section. They also bought a bunch of vegetables and a little bit of meat. We went to Homer, at the end of the road and looked at the view. From there we checked out the Russian Orthodox Church in Ninilchik on the way to look at the most visited tourist site in the state, Portage Glacier.
They all took a 30 minute train ride and then a very long ferry ride to Valdez. There was no room for the van on the ferry, so I had to drive around. I picked up Sue in Girdwood and we drove from about 2 p.m. until 9 p.m. We got to Valdez about five minutes after the ferry.
The next day we took a walk up a valley and looked around the town. We went over the beautiful Thompson Pass on our way to McCarthy in the heart of the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park and Preserve (a park the size of West Virginia). We took nearly three hours to drive the 60 miles of really bad road to McCarthy.
From McCarthy, we went flightseeing and looked at the very large glaciers. Then we went up to Tok for the night before heading over the Top of the World Highway. We stopped in Chicken, Alaska and in a down town with only three buildings they displayed their incredible talent of turning every little stop into a really long shopping spree.
We continued on to Dawson City and spent the night. For the next two days we drove the un-paved Dempster Highway through Eagle Plains, Fort McPherson and up to Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. We then flew to Tuktoyuktuk. From Tuk we went up to the Arctic Ocean (the Beaufort Sea here) and I went in upto my knees. It was a bit chilly. We toured the very small hamlet of Tuk and went down into the community ice house. They dug a 35 foot deep hole into the permafrost and carved out a bunch of store rooms. The walls, ceiling and floor were all ice and it was here that my wet and sandaled feet finally got cold. I had to go back upto the tour bus and put my socks on for ten minutes.
After a little more time in Inuvik, we took the two days to head back below the Arctic Circle to Dawson City. We toured the gold dredge and gambled at Diamond Tooth Gertie's for two days before heading back over the Top of the World Highway to Fairbanks, Alaska. They were having a parade in the rain and we watched that. We also went to a salmon bake and pigged out.
Next, it was south to Denali National Park. We took the shuttle bus off into the wilderness, saw a few grizzlies and went for a hike.
After this, it was time to head back to Anchorage. I dropped most of them off at the airport at two in the morning and the rest at eight in the morning. It was an excellent trip.
This brings us to the 27th of July, but I am out of time right now. More when I get a chance.
After my last update, I went into New York City and picked up three passengers. We went to look at the Statue of Liberty and then headed down to Washington D.C.
After the first night of this trip I over-slept. The light usually wakes me up at sunrise or around 6 a.m. But, this was my first night sleeping in the van in eight months. The van is what I consider my home. It is where I have spent about half of my nights since June, 1996. It is always nice to sleep in your own bed after a long absence. After this I did start waking up at sunrise again.
After a day of checking out camping stoves at R.E.I., I picked up two more passengers and we all went to eat in Georgetown. The six of us took a nice drive through Virginia and went rafting on the Ocoee River in Tennessee. Another long day of driving brought us almost to New Orleans. We did a little tour of the swamps in Mr. Denny's canoes and then headed down to the French Quarter. We toured an old plantation house and I had my drink for the year on Bourbon Street.
Another big day of driving brought us to San Antonio. Dirk, a passenger from Germany, had to leave us. He is in the German army and had to go get some extra training before being sent to Kosovo. I felt sorry for his girlfriend also, she had to stay with us, after being with him for only two weeks, after being apart for a year.
Karla came out from Houston and with Dion, one of my four remaining passengers, we went up to New Braunfels and spent a few hours floating in the river on inner tubes. There were even a few rapids to shake us up a bit.
Then we went over to Del Rio, had dinner in Mexico and then went up to Carlsbad Caverns. The bats were out in full force and gave us a good show. We had another night on the town in Santa Fe and then took a beautiful drive through the Navajo Indian Reservation to Canyon de Chelly before spending the night at Slim and Kody's Cowboy Camp in Mexican Hat, Utah. They have a new trampoline, so between ropin' and ridin' I bounced.
A nice tour of Monument Valley with an Indian was followed by a couple of days in the Grand Canyon. I did my favorite hike there and found a new spot I like even better. I walked down into the canyon for four miles, turned left, and walked another two miles. There is a small creek there. I followed the creek down a few small cliffs and found a place where the water had carved a shelf big enough for me to relax on and read my book for a few hours. Then, of course, two miles more, another left turn and up a different path to the top.
It was time to jump off the cliffs into Lake Powell and party at the Pariah Canyon Guest Ranch. I also climbed on a climbing wall for the first time there. Easton, the owner, wanted me to look good so he nearly pulled me up the wall with my safety rope. I got up pretty quickly. The next morning we rode quad-runners for a few hours before stopping at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes on the way to Zion National Park. There we took one of my favorite river hikes. We walked in the river into the canyon for a few hours and I spent a lot of time splashing in the river. I was having so much fun that I was running ahead of everyone and had to wait a lot. This also happened in Nepal, but I learned a trick there to slow me down. When my hiking partners are slower than me, I pick up a big rock and carry it. At times it was difficult to swim in the river with the rock, but I managed and did not get too far ahead of the rest of my group. That night, as on every night, Venus, Mercury and Mars were visible.
The following morning, my passengers impressed me by agreeing to wake up well before sun-rise and hike up Angel's Landing. This hike has some highly exposed sections and I am not sure everyone would have made it up if they could see how far the drop was on both sides of the trail. We got to the top well before sun-rise and could see Jupiter and Saturn in the sky.
From Zion we went over to the Lake Mead Recreational Area, swam in the lake, swam in a spring and went on into Las Vegas. We had our mandatory buffet at the Rio followed by a cruise down the strip in a Limo. On my free day in Vegas I went for a drive and explored the city.
A visit with Micky Mouse in Disneyland, and this trip was finished. It was a shame I only had four passengers, but it worked out pretty well. Each one had his or her own bench in the van. They could keep their things there and lie down for naps. They were very good at napping and, when I looked in my rear view mirror I usually did not see anyone and felt like I was driving alone.
I had only one day in the office and then met my new group that night. I went down to the lobby of the hotel to meet them at 7:30 and all twelve of them were there (one man and eleven women). This set the tone for the whole trip. They were always, with one exception, on time for all of our activities. Often I would tell them that I wanted to leave at 8:00 the next morning and they would say "No, we want to leave at 7:30" and then be ready by 7:15. We had plenty of time for extra activities and sights. I enjoyed it. Some people come on these trips and think they are on vacation and can sleep late. This group realized that they only had two weeks to see as much as they could and could sleep when they got home.
On our first day we headed north from Los Angeles, stopped to pee in the waterfall at the Madonna Inn and spent the first night camped under the giant redwood trees of the middle Californian coast. We even had time to go down to the beach to look for the sunset.
The next day we did a little tour of San Francisco and then took a sunset cruise in the bay, around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge. I finished my city tour the next morning and had a chance to eat some great Chinese food while they went to Alcatraz. We had a couple of nights out on the town and then went to Yosemite National Park.
Our first stop in the park was the Toulumne grove of giant sequoia trees. We took the walk down the hill, crawled through the hollow fallen tree and headed back up to the van. Near the end of the trail we saw two bears in the woods, they were busy making a baby bear and did not seem to mind us. The next day, a few of us enjoyed an eight mile hike in the Yosemite Valley before pizza and ice-cream.
On the way out of the park we stopped for a snowball fight at the high altitudes. Our next stop was at a lake. There was a pile of snow next to the lake, but once I got into the water it really was not that bad. We continued on to Mono Lake. Mono Lake is very salty and you can not sink in it. I pushed through the clouds of flies and joined the brine shrimp for a dip. That night in Bishop, we drove out to the end of town and sat in the free hot-springs. As far as swimming goes, this was an excellent day for me; ice water, mineral water and hot water.
The drive to Las Vegas took us through some beautiful desert. Our first stop was the bungee jumping place. They strapped on the cord and then I dove. I got half of myself into the pool below the crane before the bungee pulled me back up. This was the first time I have ever been dipped while bungee jumping, it was fun.
This time I decided to try the MGM Grand Hotel buffet and was not disappointed. They had shrimp already peeled. The buffet was followed by the night tour of the Strip with stops at all of the free shows along the way. The new Bellagio Hotel has a show of music, lights and giant fountains of water. It is now my favorite show on the strip.
I had the next day all to myself and went for a drive. I went for a walk in the 100+ heat of The Valley of Fire State Park and then took a dip in a natural spring on the way back to Vegas. This nights buffet was eaten at the Stratosphere, before heading up the tower to ride the roller coaster and the thing that shoots you up the tower with bungee cords, high above the city.
On the way to the Grand Canyon, we stopped in Seligman, Arizona for some ice-cream along the historic Route 66. We got up for sunrise and left at 4:50. We were supposed to leave five minutes earlier, but no group is perfect. I was not up to a hike for my free day at the Grand Canyon. I decided to drive off into the Kaibab National Forest and read a book. However, as normally happens when I head off with no particular destination, I was unable to stop. I ended up spending six hours bouncing down dirt roads and jeep trails before coming out the other end of the forest and going back up to the canyon to catch sun-set.
From the Grand Canyon, we headed south and stopped at White Castle National Monument. We looked at the old Indian dwellings and then went on down to Betty and Rusty's cowboy camp. As always, they made me feel like part of the family. We took a horse ride off into the hills and had a good dinner before the roping, bucking-barrel rides and line dancing.
At 9:30 the next morning (it is impossible to get an early start from a cowboy camp) we headed off to San Diego. We got five miles down the road, to the McDonald's and the van nearly died. I made a few calls and we headed back to the cowboy camp. We almost got back there before the van really did die. The transmission broke. We went and woke Betty and Rusty up from their naps and they cooked us an early dinner of enchiladas. We hung out for the day and played in the sprinklers.
At seven in the evening, Trevor arrived with our rescue van from Los Angeles. By 8:00 we were loaded and on the way. We had 440 miles to go, our longest drive of the trip, and we were starting at sunset. After several years of driving a lot, I have learned the secret to staying awake all night. For me, it works best to feel sick. So, with my Mountain Dew, Oreos and Jolly Rancher's candy, I stuffed myself, felt sick and never got tired on the drive to San Diego. Our gasoline stops were very short because most people did not wake up, and the rest did not feel like moving. We got to camp by 3 a.m. and were asleep by 4.
At nine the next morning we were off to see the sights. A few of us went down to Tijuana and tried to get stamps for the passports. The border guard was not in the mood to give out stamps that day so we just went for some lunch and shopping instead. For our last night's dinner we went downtown. Nobody felt like staying out late, so we went back to camp.
The last day we cleaned the equipment and went to Disneyland. After dinner at the Thai restaurant, the trip was over. It was a quick two weeks.
AmeriCan Adventures (AA), one of Trek America's competitors, went broke and was purchased by Trek's parent company. AA had some special group trips in Alaska that needed leaders and Trek decided to send me. Trek did not send me up here as one of their regular tour leaders, and several other people declined the trips I was offered, but never-the-less, here I am.
I spent the morning in the Trek office and the early afternoon in the AAA office. Then I started north. Two days later I got to Seattle and spent the afternoon getting some more equipment and organizing my next trip. On the 4th of July I met Dion, from my first trip this year, in Vancouver. Then I drove for a few more days through Canada and got to Anchorage, Alaska on the 9th of July. I had a good seven day / 3700 mile drive. I saw a bunch of bears and a few moose. This drive was the same as most of the 24 day trip I did last year from Seattle to Alaska.
I got to Alaska one day early and went down to Girdwood. My friend Sue is helping to run the hostel there. She fired up the sauna and by the time I left there I was nice and relaxed and ready to meet my new group.
My first group up here in the Northland was a group of 13 people from Taiwan. One of them, Jamie, is a travel agent and organized the group and was their translator. She has been on 15 AA trips before and most of her group had been on at least one. They new exactly what to expect and that made my job much easier. They had already divided themselves into groups. The older women cooked, the younger women cleaned and the men washed the van. They brought a lot of their own food, vegetable peelers, rags and brushes to clean the van, metal thermoses to keep their rice warm until lunch, chopsticks, wooden rice serving paddle and who knows what else.
They were mostly in their 50's and 60's with one 74 year old and a few in their 30's. They were about the nicest bunch of people ever and always made sure I had enough to eat. And the food, oh my. I had more than two weeks of authentic homemade Chinese food. I really hated to see them go, even though I gained a few pounds. Also, this was an all hostel and hotel tour. It was nice for a change to sleep in beds for a while and watch tv.
We headed straight down do the Kenai Peninsuala. Our first stop was at the supermarket to buy a wok and all the food in the Asian foods section. They also bought a bunch of vegetables and a little bit of meat. We went to Homer, at the end of the road and looked at the view. From there we checked out the Russian Orthodox Church in Ninilchik on the way to look at the most visited tourist site in the state, Portage Glacier.
They all took a 30 minute train ride and then a very long ferry ride to Valdez. There was no room for the van on the ferry, so I had to drive around. I picked up Sue in Girdwood and we drove from about 2 p.m. until 9 p.m. We got to Valdez about five minutes after the ferry.
The next day we took a walk up a valley and looked around the town. We went over the beautiful Thompson Pass on our way to McCarthy in the heart of the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park and Preserve (a park the size of West Virginia). We took nearly three hours to drive the 60 miles of really bad road to McCarthy.
From McCarthy, we went flightseeing and looked at the very large glaciers. Then we went up to Tok for the night before heading over the Top of the World Highway. We stopped in Chicken, Alaska and in a down town with only three buildings they displayed their incredible talent of turning every little stop into a really long shopping spree.
We continued on to Dawson City and spent the night. For the next two days we drove the un-paved Dempster Highway through Eagle Plains, Fort McPherson and up to Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. We then flew to Tuktoyuktuk. From Tuk we went up to the Arctic Ocean (the Beaufort Sea here) and I went in upto my knees. It was a bit chilly. We toured the very small hamlet of Tuk and went down into the community ice house. They dug a 35 foot deep hole into the permafrost and carved out a bunch of store rooms. The walls, ceiling and floor were all ice and it was here that my wet and sandaled feet finally got cold. I had to go back upto the tour bus and put my socks on for ten minutes.
After a little more time in Inuvik, we took the two days to head back below the Arctic Circle to Dawson City. We toured the gold dredge and gambled at Diamond Tooth Gertie's for two days before heading back over the Top of the World Highway to Fairbanks, Alaska. They were having a parade in the rain and we watched that. We also went to a salmon bake and pigged out.
Next, it was south to Denali National Park. We took the shuttle bus off into the wilderness, saw a few grizzlies and went for a hike.
After this, it was time to head back to Anchorage. I dropped most of them off at the airport at two in the morning and the rest at eight in the morning. It was an excellent trip.
This brings us to the 27th of July, but I am out of time right now. More when I get a chance.
Wednesday, May 26, 1999
26 APR 99
On the 15th of April, I went to the Equator Expeditions river camp on the Bhote Kosi for six days of kayaking. I greatly enjoyed it and may have found a new hobby. The first day we took it easy and practiced a few basic skills. On the second day we did some slightly bigger rapids and I got to practice my roll occasionally.
On the third day we did some even bigger rapids and I got to swim quite a bit. On the fourth day we went on the biggest rapids on this section. In the biggest rapid I flipped over. I tried to roll back up and hurt my arm on a rock, so I took the afternoon off.
By the fifth day I could lift my arm again and I learned how to surf the waves and play in the rapids a bit more. On the sixth day we did all the big rapids again and I only had to swim twice. In the rest of the rapids, I either stayed upright the whole time or was able to roll back up.
Some of the sections we paddled nearly everyday and it was a great way to measure my progress. I really felt like I was learning how to kayak. The small rapid that knocked me over every time on the first day became a small playground for me by the end. I was able to go back up into the rapid and surf the waves and do rolls in the rapid. Also, the big class three rapids that ate me up the first few days were easily survivable by the end.
By the last day, my arm and knee were sore, both shins were badly bruised for their entire length, my chest and biceps were sore from exhaustion, and a few knuckles were a bit painful. Also, my head would have been broken had I not been wearing a helmet. On many occasions, I could feel the helmet absorbing the blows from the rocks while I was upside down in my kayak in a rapid, waiting for the waves to die down so I could roll back up.
This kayak trip was one the highlights of my trip and I really hope to do a lot more of it in the future.
On the 20th, I went back to Kathmandu and had dinner with Jenni and her husband, Chris. I met Jenni in Africa, in 1995, and visited her and Chris in New Zealand in 1997. It was nice to catch up with a couple of old friends.
The next day I flew to Singapore, spent one night, flew to Japan, spent two hours, and then flew to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami and on to Fort Lauderdale. I went to bed at five in the morning, woke at 9 am and have been pretty much on the East Coast time schedule ever since.
As of now, I expect to start back with Trek America on the 18th of May and do a three week trip from New York, along the south, to Los Angeles. I hope to be sent to Alaska after that.
My next trip is already in the planning stages - southern South America in October.
Monday, May 24, 1999
24 MAY 99
I spent the end of April and the beginning of May visiting my mama, brother, grandparents, Aunt Frances, many cousins and one of my new baby cousins, Taylor. Then I left Florida and flew up to Boston. I visited dad, Elizabeth and Emily. We did some good eating.
I flew to Houston to visit my friend Karla and her boyfriend, Daniel. Karla and I went mountain biking. Houston lacks big mountains, but more than made up for it with mud. We got very muddy and had a good time. We also did a bit of canoeing, kayaking, and walking in the woods. There was no white water to play in with the kayak, but it made me eager to go back to Nepal and get thrown around by a river again.
Daniel and Karla have the second best science fiction book collection I have ever seen. They were nice enough to lend me a pile of books. I have plenty to read this summer. Daniel is also interested in science fact and it was nice to be able to discuss space travel with someone else who thinks that people should be doing more of it.
We saw a number of movies and ate in some really good restaurants. After the weekend I flew back to Boston and spent a few more days at my father's. Last Wednesday I came down to New Jersey and visited my relatives in Edison. Josh and I played lots of video games. Nancy graduated college and went on a road trip to see Micky Mouse. Josh, Uncle Jim and I played Pitch and Putt golf. If you don't worry about how many times you hit the ball, golf can be kind of fun.
Today was my first day back at work. Everything went pretty smoothly. I am the only tour leader in the office at the moment and all was quiet. I should have no trouble finishing my start-up tomorrow. My first trip this year starts on Wednesday and is almost the same as my last trip last year.
I am glad to be back at work and am looking forward to an enjoyable summer. After a great eight month vacation, I am well rested and anxious for a full summer of work.
Wednesday, April 14, 1999
14 APR 99
On the 15th of March, I went to the airport to pick-up Julia and Ricarda. I took the sign from my hotel and wrote their names on it, so when they came out of the airport, they could see me standing there with the touts from dozens of other hotels. The next day I woke them up early and we got our trekking permits and did a little sight seeing. Plenty of bodies were being burned by the river and Julia and Ricarda got some good pictures.
After a very early start, we took a bus to Dumre and then another bus over the unpaved road to Besisahar. We were planning to do the Annapurna Circuit. This trek normally takes two to three weeks and the last third of which is the Jomsom Trek, which I did with Fiona in February. We walked a couple of hours in the afternoon and spend the night in Khudi. The next day, I felt sorry for my friends because I had woken them up so early for two days. I let them sleep late and they did not stir until after ten in the morning.
After a tough climb, we spent the night in Bahundanda and had our first showers of the trek. The next night we made it to Chamje and the following morning Julia and Ricarda amazed me again by sleeping very late. They acted as if they were on vacation or something. By this point I was glad I had two very good science fiction books with me. I spent the mornings reading and chatting with the other trekkers as they came by. Of course, once we started walking, every one else was always long gone and we had the trails all to ourselves.
On the 20th of March, we walked by a big landslide to the village of Karte. My two travelling companions were a little sick and it was a shame that the toilet was such a long walk away. After another good morning of reading, we made it to Tanchok. The dead rat put my friends off of the place, but I really liked it. It felt like the Rockies to me. There were plenty of pine trees and a nice river. I had a good morning reading by the river. I also played with the kids a little bit and learned some of their language. I would say things in Nepali and they would translate it into their own language for me.
The beginning of this trek was in a low, wide, fertile valley. By this point we were travelling up impossibly steep and tall canyons that saw plenty of landslide action. Every day we passed dozens of very tall waterfalls. After Tanchok the canyon widened out into a valley again. We spent one night in a small village and then made it to Lower Pisang. From Pisang I went on the first of my great solo hikes.
These late starts and short walking days had left me with a great surplus of energy. With Fiona, I had used this energy to go for a jog up the side of a mountain while we waited for lunch, but now I had even more time and energy. While Julia and Ricarda rested, I walked up a side valley. At first, the trail went by many pine trees that the locals had felled and cut up for lumber. Then I wanted to walk past the next hill, then past the next bend, then as far as the snow, then to the big rock, then up the hill, and finally, after my seventh goal/turn around point, to the very end of the valley. I ended up walking up the side of the end of the valley and overlooking a glacier spilling through a canyon. By the time I returned to the lodge, nearly four hours later, it was dark and I had had a great little walk.
From Lower Pisang, we actually got a fairly early start and decided to take the high route to Manang. We climbed from Lower Pisang (10,500 ft) up to Ghyaru (12,000 ft). The climb proved a bit difficult for Julia and Ricarda, so after carrying my pack and Ricarda's pack to the top, I ran back down to bring up Julia's pack. After lunch in Ghyaru, we continued for about twenty minutes. Julia and Ricarda had been taking turns all morning feeling sick and now it was Julia's turn to feel bad. It was two in the afternoon and we had barely walked a quarter of the way to Manang, so we decided to turn around and go back down to Lower Pisang.
The next morning I got up early and zipped up the hill to have breakfast in Ghyaru. I then took the high road to Ngawal, ate again, and then took the trail down to Ongre. I had a good lunch there and then started taking the low road back to Pisang. I soon ran into my friends coming up and we went back to Ongre for a break. We walked up the valley some more and stopped for a meal in Mungji. We ate at the Trekker's Bakery and Mount View Restaurant, the only place to eat in town. After the best meal ever, we continued up to Manang (11,600 ft).
After dinner (yes, my fifth meal of the day - it is important to dedicate some days to eating, occasionally), Ricarda lay in bed, clutching her stomach and moaning a lot. The Himalayan Rescue Association has a clinic staffed with several volunteer Western doctors in Manang. I went to ask if they do house calls and Dr. Paul said 'no'. So we dragged Ricarda the 100 yards down to the clinic. They gave her a shot, some pills and a diagnosis of 'Bowel Infection'.
The next day, Ricarda rested and Julia and I strolled by the lake and up to the bottom of the glacier. In the afternoon we went to the lecture at the clinic on Altitude sickness. Afterwards, Julia got diagnosed with giardia. I think the next day was a rest day for all of us, even though Julia went back to the doctor and got medicine for her urinary infection, and on our fourth day in Manang I went for a little stroll. Mungji was only about 45 minutes away and has my favorite restaurant in all of Nepal. I went back for Veg. Cheese Mushroom Au Gratin, Hot Lemon, Chocolate Cake and a Roll. The mushrooms were not the normal canned variety, but rather, big black things that are local and very tasty. The hot lemon was not too watery. The chocolate cake was the best on a trail lined with chocolate cake and the roll was fresh and delicious. The meal cost nearly four dollars, but it was more than worth it.
I strolled back up to Manang and went on a 1000 foot climb up the side of the valley with Ricarda. After four nights of rest, we went up to Gunsang (12,800 feet). At high altitudes it is important not to sleep much more than 1000 feet higher each night. We got to Gunsang by lunch time, even though Julia was still a little weak. I walked with Julia and Ricarda up another 1000 feet to get used to the altitude for the next day. They returned to our lodge in Gunsang and I went up the valley some more. I found a herd of about fifty Blue Sheep and watched them for a while. Then I went up the side of the valley and returned to the trail via a high ridge.
After a good morning of walking, we made it to Letdar at 13,800 feet. The three of us went up another 1000 feet to acclimatize for the next day and then they went back down to the lodge. I continued up the valley, onto the side of a glacier and followed it around to the end. I found a lake on the glacier and listened to my favorite music, rocks falling onto ice. By this time I was several thousand feet above Letdar and it got very cloudy. It was also near dark and I did not have a flashlight. When you have a long way to go and very little time, there is really only one choice. I ran. I got back a little after dark and had a good dinner.
Julia needed a rest and relaxation day now that she was feeling better. Also her foot hurt her a little. At around ten in the morning, Ricarda and I hiked up the several thousand feet to the lake on the glacier and sat there and watched it for an hour and a half. At around three, Ricarda went back down to Letdar. I found a trail the previous day and debated with myself for two days. I could not decide if it was a very steep trail or a landslide. I went to the bottom of it and decided it was a trail and followed it nearly straight up the end of the valley. At the top, I came to a pass and looked down onto a whole new valley/glacier and across at many peaks and high glaciers.
I also noticed another trail going up the side of a mountain to nearly 16,000 feet. I could have kicked myself when I found this trail, because I had not left enough time to climb it. It was late afternoon and I had to decide if I would return the way I came or follow the new valley down and make my way back in this manner. The new valley appeared to end in a giant cliff, but I wanted to go down and make sure. There also appeared to be an alternative way down to the left. It was getting late, so I ran down the valley. About half way down I decided that if there was no way down, it would take me too long to come back up and over and down. I turned around and re-traced my steps to the pass and then went back to Letdar. I arrived just after dark.
For no reason that we could discern, Julia's foot swelled up and got very tender. She could not walk. The airlines had been on strike and we could not count on flying out. We were also about half way through the circuit and if we were going to walk out the way we came we would have to move soon. Ricarda really wanted to finish the circuit so she continued up and Julia rode a horse back to Manang. If Ricarda was going to finish the circuit, she had to continue on this day.
In Manang, one doctor said Julia had Gout and the other one said it was not Gout, but that she should be evacuated by helicopter to a hospital in Kathmandu. Julia balked enough at the thirty-dollar doctor visits and was not about to pay $1000 to be flown out. She decided to just rest and see what happened. We found out that the pilot strike was over and we could fly out from one day back or five days forward. We would not finish the circuit, but we would wait and see which way we continued.
On the second day of our second visit to Manang, I hiked up a few thousand feet to Ice Lake, saw a bunch of yaks, looked down on a new valley, climbed over a ridge, and ended up in Mungji and had my favorite meal. I got back to Manang just before dark. On the third day, I read a book. On the fourth day, I climbed up a different valley, along a ridge, saw a bunch of Blue Sheep, got to a pretty high altitude, and came back to Manang via Gunsang, where we had stayed the previous week on the way up.
This morning, Julia was feeling very good. We walked up to Yak Kharka (13,000 feet). On our acclimatization hike Julia still felt well and at the point where she would normally turn back and I would continue, she continued as well. It started to snow pretty heavily and the yaks all turned white. We got to the top of the valley and I decided to continue into the next one and down the other side. Julia returned the way we had come and I explored the new valley. The clouds eventually cleared enough to let me realize that I was near Letdar, in the valley with the glacial lake. This had been Julia's best and healthiest day of the trek.
The next day she was feeling a little weak, but we continued up. I took my big side trip up the mountain and determined that I could have come down the valley I had turned around in the previous week. Julia took a little hike and then we finished the day in Thorong Phedi at 14,600 feet. Julia was tired and went to bed early. In the middle of the night she developed the unmistakable signs (smelly and frequent farts and burps) of another round of Giardia. I felt sorry for the rest of the people in our dorm room. In the morning she was in no condition to continue, so we declared a rest day.
Luckily, on these trails, doctors are a dime a dozen. We quickly found a couple of trekking doctors to give her the appropriate anti-biotics. I finished my book by lunch, so I went for a walk. I found a nice canyon and climbed over rocks, jumped across the river several times and made my way up river. Because of the rocks and ice, it was my most challenging day hike yet and it took me at least an hour to go the first 100 yards. Then it opened up and I ended up climbing up to about 17,000 feet. I mis-judged where the return trail was, found it too early, and got back a bit before sunset.
Julia was still not 100%, but we were running out of time. She took a horse up to the top of the 17,769 foot pass and I walked. Because we had spent so much time at high altitude, I was very well acclimatized. We had spent 15 days in an area most people zip through in five. For this reason, while most people took four or five hours to get to the top of the pass, I raced up in just over three hours and barely lost to Julia's horse. We walked down the other side and got to Muktinath by three, just before the snow started.
The next day, we went down to Jomsom and bought our flight ticket on Yeti Airlines. We also spent the night at a lodge where three of my fellow Trek America guides happened to be staying. It was nice to catch up on the company gossip for an evening. Then we flew back to Pokhara and found Ricarda. The two of them shopped and I relaxed. After a bus trip to Kathmandu, they shopped and I relaxed. We did a little more sightseeing and then they left on the evening of the 12th of April.
Tomorrow I go to the Equator Expeditions river camp on the Bhote Khosi (river) for a week of kayaking before I fly back to Florida.
One interesting note on my language ability. I have picked up a bit of Nepali and Hindi and a few words from three or four local languages, not to mention some more German from Julia and Ricarda. I can now exchange pleasantries in Nepali and Hindi and in English using Indian grammar and vocabulary. Also, there is a Kenyan family at my hotel, so I have brushed up on my few Swahili sentences as well. Languages can be so much fun sometimes.
I learned the Nepali words for 'what' and 'excuse me'. Now I can alternate between the two whenever someone speaks to me in Nepali. It can take a minute or two before they realize I will never have any idea what they keep repeating and they laugh instead. Also, if I have been giving some kid a hard time and he mumbles something in Nepali, I can say 'Excuse me' really loud and everyone laughs while he is worried that I understood him when he said bad things about me.
All in all, this was one of my favorite treks. I greatly enjoyed all of my various day hikes. I would like to come back and set up a tent as a home base and spend a few more weeks exploring many of the side valleys and villages.
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