Caribbean, you have been a delight

After being in the jungle I really thought it couldn’t get any hotter. Cartagena knocked every hot/humid place I’ve ever been way out of the water. Water, I’ve never been so thirsty either. I read something online before I got to Leticia that described the heat as “oppressive.” I cleverly “shift F7ed” oppressive so I could come up with my own, totally and completely original (hah) description for the Cartagena heat and found these: cruel, harsh, domineering, unfair, stifling, sticky, overwhelming, overpowering, crushing, uncomfortable and burdensome. Whew. I’m going to stick with sticky. Morning, noon especially and all night long, I was sticky. Other than that, Cartagena is a really cool town. There is old town that is still surrounded by the stone wall where they shot cannons at ships, and the new town is where all the high rises are. The one surprising thing about old town is that a lot of the shops are super fancy designers and the restaurants are pretty expensive. Though, I do prefer old town over new town because of the architecture and the history. I’m not a high rise kinda girl. I arrived in Cartagena on Sunday with one mission: find a non-alcoholic captain to sail me to Panama in less than 5 days. My hostel had a couple ads so I emailed the captains and I also talked to some people around the hostel. Someone suggested going down the street to another hostel where there was more information about sailing to Panama. I took their advice and came back with a phone number for Mauricio who had one space left on his boat leaving the next day, Monday. I would have liked one more day in Colombia, but I also didn’t have many days to wait around for another boat. I called Mauricio and he said he already filled the last space, damn, but he knew someone else, Felipe, who was leaving Tuesday which would give me an extra night in Cartagena, prefect. I went down to Club Nautico to meet Felipe and as I walked up I saw two older couples (how did I know they were couples? They swayed together as one, a unit, inseparable). My habitually swift stride became much slower as I let out a sigh and thought to myself, “not the group I was hoping for, but I have to get to Panama and sailing through the San Blas Islands is really the way I want to do it, so suck it up.” Mauricio introduced himself to me and said, “This is my group, go with Felipe and he will tell you about his boat and his group.” Yes! All those thoughts I had seconds before about really wanting to do this even if I have to sail with Romeo and Juliet, Aladdin and Jasmine..well..I was just being nice. I really wanted this trip to be amazing. After all, it was my birthday present to myself J Felipe and I took the dingy (a small motored boat) out to his sail boat and on the way he told me the group was 4 friends from England, 2 girls and 2 boys, and one other guy from England who was also traveling on his own. He told me he really prides himself on the fabulous food he makes on the boat and even though he doesn’t provide snacks, people are never able to finish the fruit he buys. Well, he hasn’t had ME on his boat yet, so I told him I would finish the fruit. After seeing the boat and talking to Felipe for a while, I felt really good about it and handed over my passport. He walked me the hostels where the rest of the crew were staying. I met Matt first, and then the group of friends, Haz (short for Harriet), David, Nicki and Hamish. Everyone was so nice and really excited. The next day we found out that even though Felipe told us he only takes 6 people max, he made an exception to let an older Aussie couple join us because they had a mix up earlier and blah blah, a lot of jibberish later, our boat was now 9 instead of 7. Not a huge deal, but boats have very limited space and now I had to share the fruit with two other people! Sailing trip on hold, on Monday night and my last night in South America, I went out to dinner with my roommate Emily, from Canada, and planned to just have a mellow night. A guy came up to Emily and asked if she wanted to get a group together to go on a party bus. She was super excited about it and after dinner went back to the hostel to round up some people. I was on the fence all throughout dinner, but after some strong convincing by Emily (she just didn’t want to be the only girl and I’m totally not okay with the pressure she put on me to go), I said “what the heck” and decided to go. I probably didn’t actually say “what the heck” out loud; I probably said something way cooler. So, our group was two guys from Croatia, two guys from Slovania, a German, an Aussie, a Brazilian, Emily the Canadian and me, the good ol’ USAer. The party buses were open air, mostly South American participants and a band on board. They gave each row (about 5 or 6 people) a tiny bottle of rum and huge bottle of coke. Well, when we finished the bottle of rum, which wasn’t hard between that many people, we just passed it to the front of the bus and they pass back a new one. Unfortunately, Emily took all the pictures and ended up getting her camera stolen, so I don’t have anything to show for that night L The bus stopped in old town and we hung out on top of the stone wall where there was more musical entertainment, a man with a sloth, a man with a snack and a couple people selling beer from ice chests. What kind of place is this!? I don’t think I mentioned that the ocean is on the other side of the stone wall, so it was really nice being up there at night. The moon was looking almost full which made me even more excited for the sailing trip. Someone asked me how old I was and I said, “well I’m 23 at midnight.” That got everyone going and when we got back on the party bus, one of the Croatians told the band to play happy birthday for me. Oh, what a song, especially when 2 out of 30 or so people know my name. But, I can’t complain, it was a fun night. The bus dropped us off at an outdoor discotec right on the water and we ended up walking back to the hostel via the beach.

Tuesday morning. Happy Birthday to me! I was really eager to get on boat Renegade and after meeting at the harbor we all went to the grocery store to get lunch and stock up on wine and beer. My first tropical storm experience happened while shopping and the streets became rivers in minutes. Felipe was getting the boat ready while we were shopping and when he came back to get us, he saw our overflowing cart and panicked. He did tell us we weren’t allowed to drink during the two sailing days, but I guess Matt misunderstood when Felipe said we can drink in moderation. They had a little war of words in front of the supermarket, with Matt saying he thought it was reasonable to have one beer with dinner and Felipe saying he meant we could drink in moderation once we got to the San Blas Islands and anchored. This was starting off well. We got everything loaded onto the boat and were ready for Renegade Training 101. Felipe showed us how to use the toilet (a LOT harder than it seems), where not to put our things, the shower (hose) off the back of the boat and that we were not allowed to a) take a shower until we got to the islands in two days and b) go below deck if our pinky toe touched the salty sea, told us the boat was non-smoking, but if we absolutely needed a cig then we must sit on the ladder hanging off the back of the boat and lastly, how to put towels down on the couches before we sit on them because it’s too hard for him to wash our body oils out of the cushions if we sit directly on them (oh my god). That was the moment we all realized we signed up for a trip with Captain Insanely Anal About Everything. Oh well, the Aussie couple ended up being really cool and the Brits were a delight. They surprised me with a cake so we had a little celebration before we set sail. The only thing missing was the champagne, but that could wait until Thursday. When Felipe served dinner that night, he followed all the “thank you’s” with, “where’s the captains beer?” Uh, what? Yes, you heard me correctly, after making a fuss about not being about to drink while sailing, he now wanted one of the beers that the guys bought and in return, they were allowed to have one with dinner. After he saw Nicki’s pack of cigarettes, he bummed at least two off of her a day. If you are a smoker and going sailing for 4 days, would you really count on one person having some or just bring your own pack? Baffling. When we got to the islands he saw the Aussie couple’s rum sitting on the table and asked if he could try some. He raved about how wonderful it was and asked for more. He then said, “Thanks, and I don’t have anything to repay you with.” This guy is charging us $400 each, he can afford to go buy his own cigarettes and booze and have as much of it as he wants! Maybe I’m overreacting, but I would never expect a pilot to come down the aisle asking for some of my peanuts and a sip of wine. I’ve actually never even had wine on an airplane and the lack of peanuts these days, that’s a whole separate issue. Anyway, Felipe was really starting to get on my nerves. One night he asked Carrie (the Aussie), if she just used the toilet, when she said no, he replied, “well someone did and it smells like shit down there!” Oh that’s nice Felipe, go call someone out on using the bathroom. That’s what they’re for weirdo. I will end this madness with one last rant. He asked us to clean the bottom of the dingy. Enough said.

The San Blas Islands were incredible. We snorkeled, had lunch, popped the champagne and relaxed on the beach all afternoon. The starfish were enormous, the sand was white, the water was clear turquoise blue and I was all smiles. I have always wanted to go somewhere tropical and that’s exactly how I imagined it. The people occupying the islands are called Kunas. There is one Kuna family per island, except for the main island which is really crowded. Families are sent out to one of the 365 islands for 2 months at a time to guard the coconuts. Since we don’t have islands like that in California, imagine San Francisco as the hub and you and your family are sent out to Nowheresville to live by yourselves for 2 months to protect the poppies and charge people one dollar when they pick one. Very interesting lifestyle, but the Kuna’s obviously don’t need much and they are so nice. The last morning on the boat, we were picked up by the Kuna’s and taken to the main island. It was mostly stick huts, with the occasional concrete building. We dropped our bags at the hotel (someone’s house with a few beds and some hammocks to sleep in), they fed us breakfast and showed us around the island. They said we could take a shower which consisted of this: a faucet filling up a large tub on the ground, and a coconut shell cut in half in order to splash yourself with the water. The toilet consisted of this: a wood shack built over the ocean (it was calm, no crashing waves) and a toilet looking structure also made out of wood. They don’t have plumbing on the island so it was just a hole, straight into the ocean. Lovely..) Everyone was going to stay an extra day on Kuna Island, but I had to get going since I still have to get to Panama City, catch a bus to San Jose and then to Nosara. I guess the group wasn’t ready to say goodbye because after a long indecisive conversation, they all decided to go with me to Panama City. Maybe it was because they were planning a road trip through Panama and couldn’t figure out how much time they needed, but I’ll just tell myself it was the former. So, bye bye Kuna Island and after a 10 minute boat ride to the mainland, we were ready for the supposedly dangerous jeep ride to Panama City. The road is mostly mud, so people either fly, take an 8 hour speed boat ride (yeah, I’ve heard that before) or take these 4 wheel drive jeeps. The Aussie couple, who I never gave names to..sorry, they are Carrie and Clous. Clous is German but they have been living in Australia for so long that he considers himself Australian. Well, I mentioned they were really cool, and I guess they thought the same of us because they wanted to go with us to Panama City. I couldn’t be happier with my sailing trip and the people I met. Anyway, we drove through a river, slid down mud hills, got stuck going up mud hills, spun the tires a lot, but made it to Panama City 4 hours later. I was planning on going to the canal, but we got a late start so we just checked into a hostel, took proper showers and I bought my bus ticket for the next morning. A couple of us walked to the market down the street and on the way back there were a dozen police officers standing snug up against different buildings with hand guns in..hand. The officer across the street from us started waving his hand telling us to get up against the walls. I just wanted to drink my milk, not get caught up in some drug fiasco. We slowly approached the corner and he said it was ok to cross and as we did, another officer brushed past us cocking his shotgun. Whooooa, ok get me back to the hostel! We never did find out what was happening, but when we wanted to go out to dinner an hour later the staff at the hostel said it was perfectly safe since there were so many police in the area. Sure, why not? We had a delightful dinner in a small square and it was the second time I was actually sad to be leaving the people I met. They have requested my presence in London, so that will be a fun reunion in a couple months.

Back to what I love doing best, a 14 hour bus ride to San Jose. Please, no one throw up and no one pee on the floor. This happened on the overnight bus from Bogota to Medellin, but I didn’t mention it because I felt like I complained enough about how it was supposed to be 9 hours and turned into 23. Well, I’ve been pretty positive in the last couple minutes so I thought it was time for some grumbling. Anyway, the bus ride went smoothly. We had to get off at the border, get our bags from under the bus so the drug dog, who is typically a German Shepard but we got a sweet looking Cocker Spaniel, so I wasn’t worried J What? Like you wouldn’t accept $10,000 to smuggle drugs into Costa Rica? PS – for undisclosed reasons, I am extending my vacation. So, other than spending two hours at the border, I made it to San Jose unscathed at 1 o’clock in the morning. I knew there were buses leaving for Nosara and Nicoya at 6am, but they were at different bus terminals. Jason and I decided to meet in Nicoya because he was flying into Liberia and there wasn’t a bus all the way to Nosara (where our Costa Rican party house is located, thanks to mom and pop). I asked a taxi driver to take me to the terminal for Nicoya and he asked me if I had a reservation. I didn’t, so he called and put me on the phone with the guy. He said I couldn’t go to Nicoya at 6 so I had a mini panic attack, but figured I could just go to Liberia and meet Jason at the airport. He said the Liberia terminal was closed. In South America, they are open 24 hours, so this seemed weird to me. I didn’t want to be cruising around with a taxi driver so I told him to just take me to the Nicoya terminal, where we had just talked to the guy over the phone, because maybe the 6am bus was full, but I could catch the 7am or something. He said that was closed to. Um, who were we just talking to then? My Spanish isn’t good enough to argue so I told him to take me to Tranquillo Backpacker’s Hostel because a guy I met from Virginia on the bus said he knew that was a good one. Well I wasn’t expecting any of this, so I didn’t have an address and the taxi driver just told me it’s closed. Is that your answer to everything!? Hostels don’t close. Again, my Spanish is not good enough and since I didn’t have an address, I was pretty much stuck, so I just had him take me to a nearby hotel. A nice woman opened the door and I paid way more than I’m used to, to sleep for 3 hours and wake up at 5am when the bus terminals opened. I asked the woman to call about a bus to Liberia and a bus to Nicoya so I could compare the times. I don’t think she understood, so Liberia it was. I left at 6am, got in around 10:30 and took a taxi to the airport. I talked to a rich, fat man from Texas and a couple from Canada. When the Canadians asked me about Colombia, I was about to say, “it was beautiful, I loved it and want to go back,” but fatty beat me to the punch and said, “really dangerous.” I usually don’t speak up, but I think Colombia just has a really bad reputation. It’s like when I would tell people I went to UCSB, and they would say, “oh, that’s a huge party school isn’t it?” Well, sure, but most colleges are. There are so many “dangerous” places in the world, but I don’t think that means we should avoid Colombia completely because there are dangerous parts of it. I gave my point of view, but his response was, “honey, you don’t know dangerous. You are a prime target and if they want you, they will get you, etc, etc.” I quickly started to dislike him. Go home to your retirement party from your amazing job that made you lots of money and a shitty, narrow outlook on life. So! Jason arrived at 11:30 and it was weird, but really exciting to have a visitor in my home of travel land. We took a bus to Nicoya to stay the night there and then bus to Nosara on Wednesday to get the house. Nicoya wasn’t anything impressive. The town fair was in town so we walked around that and found a corn booth. They had corn on the cob which I obviously like, but they were also making these corn pancake things and wrapping them up with natilla, like a crepe. I’ve never seen or heard of natilla until now, but it was kind of like creamier custard. We decided to go for the corn crepe and it was a good choice. The fair was pretty minimal and we needed water so we walked to the supermarket, thinking it might have more to offer. Boy were we right, check out these bags of cereal! I was in heaven. We were having really good food luck that day because dinner was also great. There was an entire crab on top of my pasta. And the salad we ordered to split was a huge plate of veggies. We ended up back at the fair after dark because we could hear live music. We felt some sprinkles, saw some lightening and within a minute there were massive drops of rain. We stood under one of the tents for a while and realized that no one was going home because they know that these storms only last a little while and then it’s back to the festivities. Well, we had enough fair time, so we decided to go back to the hotel. The next morning we walked to the bus terminal and took a school bus, turned city bus to Nosara over a rocky, dirt road. We kept seeing signs to all the different B&B’s, ours included and at one split in the road, Villa Mango was to the left and the bus went right, so we pulled the cord and got off. We were pretty much in the middle on nowhere, so taxis aren’t exactly a hot commodity. We started walking, and walking, and walking, uphill in the snow both ways, I mean, in the sticky heat, until we got to Villa Mango. We were welcomed by Agnes who drove us to our house. She told us the power was out and would be until late afternoon, but that probably means we will be lucky to see power in the next 24 hours. Jason and I took the monkey trail (really what they call it) down to the ocean, swam, had lunch, went to the market, walked back in the rain, watched the howler monkeys surround our house, got bit my mosquitoes and relaxed on the patio. Mom and dad arrive today and I’m really excited for them to be here. This is a perfect half way mark for my journey :)

Animales!

I started keeping track of how many hours I am in transit and I am up to 160 hours. I don`t know about you, but I am pretty surprised by that number. That`s almost 7 days worth of sitting! I am now in Colombia with a Costa Rican deadline of July 22nd. I spent the night in Bogota, just took an overnight bus (supposed to be 9 hours, turned into 23) to Medellin, I`ll overnight bus to Cartegena tomorrow, find a sailor (who hopefully isn`t an alcoholic) to get to Panama and bus straight to Costa Rica. Since I have my five year visas for Brazil and Bolivia, I am already planning my next trip back to South America to do more of Argentina (such as the wine region), Northern Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and more of Colombia. For anyone that hasn`t been to South America, don`t be scared! There are so many beautiful places here and Spanish is the only language you have to grasp, unlike Europe. Did you know that less than 20% of Americans own a passport? That`s insane! So many other cultures encourage young people to travel, but in the States I feel like there is so much pressure at the end of college to jump into a career or grad school. I guess I ignored that pressure :) but I`m not worried about when I do want to start thinking about a job because I think I will gain a lot from this trip. At the Cusco hostel, I overheard two guys from California talking to an Aussie girl saying that they could only travel for 2 weeks because it would be really hard to explain in interviews if they were traveling for months. Pish Posh, I think it`s definitely worth the explantion, but that`s me. Anyway, I love South America and I`m coming back. I arrived in Ica last week sometime and took a 5 minute taxi ride to Huacachina, the tiny oasis in the middle of all the sand dunes. This was the first time I really felt that I was on my own. I signed up for the buggie ride and sandboarding at 1:30 so I had some time to kill. I walked around the city which took about 10 minutes. Ok, what now? I walked around again to take some pictures and I met an old man sitting on one of the smaller dunes making sandboards. He started talking really fast and I told him in Spanish to slow down a bit. We were able to have a pretty basic conversation and basically what he was telling me was that there is Machu Picchu, but there is also this other really amazing place that is less touristy and his friend `right over there at Bamboo Restaurant` has all the information. He gave me a business card, I said thank you and was on my way. Everyone here is trying to sell you something. I didn`t go to Bamboo Restaurant, but it was fun trying to talk to the old man. The sun was having a hard time that day, but it was still pretty warm so I sat by the pool and read until the buggie pulled up. Over the first hill and all I could see was sand mountains for miles. I have seen dunes before, but never anything like that. They drive really fast and the downhills were pretty steep so that made for a good time. They stopped at the bunny hill and got the boards out. The first time, everyone went down on the boards on their stomachs. I was expecting a mouth full of sand, but I actually got my jeans full of sand. The buggie picked us up at the bottom and drove around for a bit to the next hill. Still bunnyish, so I tried standing and was successful. I was surprised because I was terrible at snowboarding. Though, I don`t think you gain as much speed going down on sand as you do on snow. They took us to about 5 more hills, all getting bigger each time so I decided it was more fun to just fly down on my stomach. The last hill was massive. As we all walked up to the edge, not knowing what to expect, it was pretty silent when we all looked down. The first thing I heard was `who`s going first?` It actually looked like the hill went concave at one point. People started going and I was close behind. At the bottom, waiting for everyone else, a girl noticed her hand was bleeding. It wasn`t bad, but at that moment we heard really loud thuds and turned to see a guy tumbling down the hill. It looked like he stopped, but no, he kept tumbling right to our feet. He stood up, but immediately collapsed into a heap, gasping for air. He obviously got the wind knocked out of him, but we noticed his nose was bleeding. It was dripping blood and he had a big scrape in between his eyes. After catching his breath a bit, he said, `that was f***ing fun.` It was funny, but he was still in a lot of pain. We got back in the buggie and rode around for a while until we went back. Good thing it was the last hill! Back in the oasis, I got some food and went straight to the bus station to go to Lima. Huacachina was cool but there was no way I was staying in a 10 minute town overnight. 5 hours later I was in Lima. I met some nice people at the hostel that night, walked around the Barranco district of Lima the next day and got a flight for Iquitos that afternoon. It was so nice to see the ocean again, if only for a short time. I had another attempt at a conversation with my taxi driver and it really enhances my desire to become bilingual. I know I will, just probably not this trip. There are too many things to do, I don`t have time to sit in class :)

I landed in Iquitos after the sun went down but the temperature was 86 degrees. Warm nights, I love it! Well, warm and humid are two very different things. I feel like I went to the absolute extreme of hotness. I really can`t complain though because I 100% prefer being hot over cold. I got a map from the information lady at the airport and asked her about the different hotels, in Spanish, and it was going pretty well until she said `English is fine.` I wish she wouldn`t have said that because if I think I have to speak Spanish I will try harder, but if I know the person speaks English, then it`s really easy to revert back to English. So I found the hotel for me and was on my way. The main sqaure was a block away so I walked around for a bit, but I was really tired so I called it a night. The next day I walked to the street where all the Amazon tour offices are and was bombarded by salesmen. It`s so hard to know who is legit because they just talk talk talk about how great their tour is. When I leave one office, another person is at my side asking me what I`m looking for since the last office must not have been it. I went to one where I was explaining that I needed to get to Leticia for a flight to Bogota, but he explained to me that Leticia is up river and not many people go that way for tours because down river has so much more flora and fauna. Well, this could have been total BS, but I went with it because he told me there were some people from New York already at the lodge I would be going to and that made me the most comfortable. I decided on a three day two night jungle adventure and left to go get cash. When I came back to pay, there were two guys from Mississippi paying for the same tour, except only staying one night. Again, I felt a lot better knowing that other people were going. So Sam, Brett and I headed out for a tour of the floating neighborhood and then to the Butterfly Preserve and Animal Rescue Center. The floating neighborhood was so much different than the floating islands in Puno. These houses are built on wood platforms so when the river rises and falls, they just float with it. Right now the river is falling so some of the houses are on the ground. It is so amazing how resourceful these people are and how little they really need to live and be happy. We got off the canoe and walked through an outdoor market full of fruit, fish, meat, clothes and baby animals. Really sad, but really cute for passersby. We saw a baby armadillo, a spider monkey, a sloth, a caiman and lots of little birds. I guess people buy the spider monkeys, drug them and put them in their pocket so they can get through security at the airport, and bring them back to the States. I don`t know how true that is, but I wouldn`t be surprised if it is. Our guide from the floating neighborhoods was still walking with us and he said that if people either stop buying the baby animals, or at least only agree to pay very little for them, maybe the sellers will realize there isn`t a high demand for them and they will stop selling them. That is the hope, but I honestly don`t see that happening :( We got in a mototaxi, a motorcycle with a covered bench attached to it for three people max, and went to another harbor where we took a boat to the Butterfly Preserve. He dropped us off and told us we had to walk for about 5 minutes. We started walking, but didn`t see any signs, except a young girl who clinged to Sam and a couple of stares that made us feel like we were in the wrong place. I just asked the girl where it was and she pointed to the trees in the distance. So, deep into the trees and across a bridge, we finally found it. The woman running the place sounded Kiwi and she showed us around. First the butterflies and then the monkeys who are running free and love attention. There were two that were following us around. Tony and Junior. Tony would catch me off guard by sliding down a branch and looking me straight in the eyes with this huge grin. I would laugh, but the woman told me that showing your teeth means aggression to the monkeys. Ooook, no more teeth. I did like holding them on my shoulders and I want one of my own, but I wouldn`t drug one and smuggle it back home. Next, we got to the jaguar and she fed him a huge piece of red meat. The story behind these animals is really sad and usually has to do with someone killing the mother and trying to raise the baby, but couldn`t and either dumped it somewhere or brought it to Rescue Center. Then we met the tapir, strange animals! You can`t tell by looking at him but they are really good swimmers. Like a hippo, I suppose. There was large, squirrel-like animal next to the tapir and when we asked what it was, the woman said `that`s food for the jaguar.` Ok then, moving on. We saw two howler monkeys that make the most incredible, yet annoying sound. It`s a really throaty howl. Then, she brought out the anteater and a man was feeding her milk in a bowl. They said she is only approachable while drinking milk. Anteaters have massive front claws and a girl died from a puncture to the jugular. After that delightful story, the woman said, `you can pet her if you like.` Um, no, I don`t like. We saw a caiman in the water, but only it`s head sticking out and it wouldn`t come near. We ended the animal tour with some sloths and headed back to town. I am so glad I went out there, it was so much more personal than a zoo. We had dinner that night at a place called The Yellow Rose of Texas where Gerald, the owner, is an ex-football star that got injured, moved to Iquitos where he was in the tourism business and then opened the restaurant. The waitresses wear shirts with the University of Texas Logo. Pretty crazy decor, but really good food. Early to bed that night because the next day started at 6am on our way to the lodge in the jungle.

We took a two hour taxi ride and a two hour boat ride to the lodge. I realize `lodge` sounds pretty luxurious, but basically we were in the middle of the jungle in a wood hut. On the way we saw pink dolphins jumping out of the river. Pink river dolphins..weird. There were three other people there, a couple from Canada and a guy from New York who I in fact met in Cusco. It`s a small world here too. Their guide went out in a canoe and 5 minutes later came back with a baby anacanda. It was a decent sized snake, but I wouldn`t have known it was an anaconda if they hadn`t told me. I was amazed at how calm it was. It wasn`t squirming and it opened it`s mouth a couple times but wasn`t hissing. I was hesitant during the pass from the guides hands to mine, but luckily it went smoothly and I still have all 9 fingers. 10 fingers, yeah, that`s what I meant. After we had lunch and fresh pineapple we put on rubber boots, grabbed some machettis and our guide led us into the jungle. I was hoping to see more snakes, but instead we found butterflies, termite nests and lots and lots of mosquitos. There were a lot of cools trees though! We walked for about 2 hours and when we got back to the lodge, we joined the other three and their guide on a canoe trip to the tower. The tower is made out of wood and it looks like the termites have made a nice home there. We climbed the tower despite the seemingly unstable ladders and ended up above the tree tops and looking out towards Brazil. The sun went down during our canoe ride back to the lodge and it was completely dark by the time we got there. We lit some candles and I took my first enjoyable cold shower. I went back to the main room and they had found a tarantula INside the lodge. It was crawling on one of the beams and someone just happened to see it in the candle light. Good thing! The guides were picking it up and letting it run around for a while, but finally took it outside. I said, `far away please.` We sat down to play some cards before dinner and someone saw another tarantula inside! I thought the point of having screens is to keep large insects out of where we eat and sleep. So, that was pretty comforting. They made us soup for dinner and I`m not really sure if they thought 4 boys would be full after that. Even I was still hungry. There was jam on the table from breakfast so we asked for some bread, and Brett had a jar of peanut butter with him. I think you know what that means..a PB&J had never tasted so good. After dinner we went on a night cruise down the river to look for caimans and snakes in the water. It was cool being on the river at night but unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in our search so it was back to the lodge for bedtime. There were no flat sheets to sleep under on the beds, just a fitted sheet. It was really hot so I`m sure most people don`t need the extra sheet, but I woke up in the middle of the night pretty cold. I know I`m weird. Anyway, I grabbed my sweat shirt, which was outside the mosquito net and pulled the fitted sheet off the bed to wrap myself in it. Of course I turned my flashlight on first to inspect my sweat shirt and the sheet for bugs, mostly looking for tarantulas that thought I might want to cuddle, because I definitely would say no way to that! We woke up the next morning at 6am for bird watching, again cruising down the river. We saw monkeys in the trees so we docked the canoe in some mud and went walking. We saw tons of monkeys, but none of them came close to us. We got to a big marsh area where our guide said he saw a jaguar drinking the water before. Ok, time to go! I actually think it would be really cool to see a jaguar in the wild, just really far away. We went back to the lodge for breakfast and then went fishing. Our guide speared two fish. I thought he was just throwing the spear on a whim because I couldn`t see anything, but sure enough, he threw the spear two times and each time got a fish. We had stick poles with pieces of raw chicken on the end and didn`t catch anything. Oh well. The guides told us that there was going to be a transportation strike on Wednesday and that`s the day I bought my speed boat ticket to Leticia. So, I decided to go back to Iquitos a day earlier than planned and change my boat ticket to Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Like I mentioned earlier, I`m on the fast track now to Costa Rica, so I couldn`t get stuck in Iquitos. The only bummer was that I paid for three days in the jungle and only spent two.

One more night in Iquitos and up at 5am for my speed boat to Leticia. Well, it wasn`t very speedy because it took over 10 hours. I was hoping to sleep, but I don`t think I did at all. My knees hit the seat in front of me so I was turning and twisting, but it was humid and the wind blowing on my face didn`t work well with sleeping. I read a bit, listened to my ipod and watched horrible peruvian music videos. They dropped us off In Santa Rosa, which was still Peru (and I was entering Colombia) so I had to go through immigration. There was only one lady behind the counter and no organized line so I just had to get my hand out there with my passport. She stamped the little white paper that you get every time you enter a new country saying that I`m leaving Peru and told me I had to go down to the police station. As if I know where that is, so I said `donde?` She pointed, but was busy with other people by then, so I started walking down the street. It wasn`t far but the guy behind the counter told me to go back to the place I was just at to get another piece of paper. What?? She told me to come here! So I went back to her, people still crowding the counter and told her he told me to come back here and get something. She rolled her eyes and stamped my passport which meant I was free to go. Glad I walked in circles. I then had to take another small boat to Leticia which was about 5 minutes away. The next day I had a flight to Bogota at 2:45 so I decided to walk to Brazil. 10 minutes down the road and besides the Brazilian flag, I knew I was walking into Brazil because of the endless racks of Havaianas flip flops. There is a 24 hour grace period so I didn`t have to go through immigration again. I guess after 24 hours they stop trusting you, who knows. It started to rain so I headed back to Colombia where it was sunny. I found `my` tropical oasis made of fruit. You can`t see behind this strong lady, but the wall of fruit goes on for about 2 blocks, mmm. Well, the sun didn`t last long, a thunder and lightening storm started after I got to the airport and our plane was late so my 2:45 plane turned into a 5:00 plane. I arrived in Bogota and was really amazed. For a place that has such a bad reputation for being dangerous, I pictured a city like La Paz, but instead I was surprised by the European feel of Bogota. I talked to someone who felt safer in Bogota than in parts of LA. The area near my hostel looked like a college campus. The streets are brick and separated by fountains. There is a really cool bus system that runs through town, like an above ground - on wheels subway. You have to buy a ticket, go through those spinning things (totally don`t know how to explain those) and wait behind glass doors until the bus pulls up and the glass doors open like subway doors. The buses are 2 bus lengths long with the accordion middle and VERY crowded. I took one of the buses to the fancy pants district called Zona Rosa where there are a bunch of classy shopping malls, a Hooters and a Hard Rock Cafe. I had to catch my bus to Medellin so I headed back during rush hour which was a huge mistake, but I got the feel for the city life I suppose. This picture is Simon Bolivar Square which was in walking distance from my hostel, doesn`t it look like I went to Europe? It was raining in the morning so no one was out yet. The end.

Rivers, Canyons and Condors!

After another cold, but not nearly as bad, adventure on an overnight bus to Arequipa, I arrived at the hostel at 6am and went back to sleep until 11:30am. I hope you can imagine how nice it is to get in a bed after trying to sleep on a bus for over 8 hours. When you are cold, stuck in a chair, with no more clothes to put on because you are wearing absolutley every bit of warmth you have, and your eyes are heavy but won´t agree with your brain to just sleep, well that´s when a bed looks like a tropical oasis. Anyway, I found out that at 1:30 that afternoon there was a white water rafting trip for a couple hours. This meant missing the final Euro Cup game and after being such a loyal fan of whatever team I chose during each game, I was a bit bummed. Oh well, rafting turned out to be a much better experience I´m sure! I filled the last spot and figured it was going to be other people from my hostel. That wasn´t the case as I was picked up by a rafting guide in a taxi and driven across town to the garage where the rafts were kept. I asked him in the car where the other people were and he said they were going to be where we were going. When we got to the garage, it was just two other guides. They had me help bag up the wetsuits and life jackets. I´m thinking, they are making me do their work for them and then they are going to kill me! I´m kidding, they were very nice people, and one of them even knew Ben, the owner of the hostel in Cusco. So I asked again where everyone else was and they told me they were arriving in a mini bus because they were all together. Great. An entire group of buddies and ME. So the mini bus pulled up and they told me to get in, but there wasn´t a seat for me so I rode in the taxi with the guides. Being typical guides, they started telling me all about the city and the surrounding mountains. One guide pointed in front of us and said there was a river in that direction that is really warm. He then pointed to the river that we were nearing and said ´this is Chili River where we will be rafting and it is VERY COLD.´ Fantastic! How did he know that I love being cold? I told him to give me a paddle and a raft, and just drop me off at River Caliente (that means hot and is not actually the name of the river, whereas Chili River is the real name, no pun intended). So I met the rest of the group, that ended up being two groups of friends so it wasn´t that bad. A group of 20 year old girls from England and a group of 40 year old guys from England. So I was obviously the outcast but they were really nice. There were three boats of 4 plus one guide each and I was with one of the girls and two of the guys. We were given our strict instrustions that consisted of, ´front paddle,´ ´back paddle,´ ´stop!´ a couple others, and we were on our way. There were a few fun slopes and rock dodging, but overall it was an easy stretch of the river with one acception. We slammed into a rock, which wouldn´t have been a bad thing because the rafts ar so strong, but there was a rather large branch sticking out that caught the man in front of me in the chest. As the raft kept drifting downstream, the man was trapped by the branch and pulled into the water. It looked pretty painful, but he took it okay! Of course if it had been me, I wouldn´t have enjoyed the ´Chili´ water filling my wetsuit. Everytime we got close to the other rafts a water fight would break out by splashing each other with the paddles. Well, I got a nice splash down my back and it was quite something! At the end of the journey, feet like pins and needles and hands so cold I couldn´t even unsnap my lifejacket, I would have done it again in a heart beat (once my hands could grip the paddle again).

I got back to the hostel, took an amazingly hot shower and found out that I was leaving that night at 1am for the Colca Canyon Trek. I left Cusco with my Aussie friend Dean and was meeting our English friend George in Arequipa to do the trek together. We picked up another English guy, Tim, from the Arequipa hostel and happily jumped back on a wonderful bus at 1am that night..uh, morning. We arrived in the small town of Cobaconde at 7am for breakfast followed by a never ending, slippery decent into the canyon. After that much downhill walking, I wished (at times) that I were walking uphill instead, but day 2 made me want to go downhill again. Classic `want what you can`t have.` That night we stayed at The Oasis, complete with swimming pool, waterfall, and bamboo huts to sleep in. We swam for a bit, but in the depths of the canyon the sun was quickly fading and since I was traveling sans towel I jumped out and ran up the side of the canyon to catch the last few minutes of sun. We sat by the pool and played cards until our delicious soup and spaghetti dinner. I love how good the food tastes after a long hike. I also enjoy no electricity because that means bed time is when the sun goes down and since we had been up since 1am the night before, I had no problem crashing. Woken up by a flashlight swirling through the hut, I told myself to keep dreaming. Unfortunately, it was our guide Antonio waking us up at 3:30am for the day 2 hike out of the canyon. Only 3 out of 5 of us had torches (flashlights for us Americans), one of them being our quick footed guide so count that one out and make that 2 torches for 4 people. Luckily, I was one of the torch holders, thanks to my pops :) Hiking straight up a canyon wall at 4am, empty stomach, dodging donkey droppings, body hot but skin freezing..was..awesome! That might be a bit of an overstatement. It was really hard but really cool and definitely rewarding once we got to the top 2 hours later. We had breakfast and caught a bus to go see the condors. They told us they get to be 3 meters long but I don`t think we saw any THAT big. They are really big birds though and not very attractive. It was really crowded, everyone with camera in hand, waiting like a hunter for the best shot. 17 naked people could have walked by and no one would have flinched. Why? Condors! Walking back to the bus I heard someone say, `Kelsey?` No way does someone know me here. Well, it was a girl with glasses and a beanie on so I was still pretty confused, but it turned out to be a girl from my rafting trip, small world. We had the option to take the bus to the hot springs, but it was hot enough so we passed and decided to go back to Arequipa.

That night we got some awesome Mexican food, which is pretty hard to come by around here, and said goodbye to George and Tim who were off to Chile. The next day Dean and I walked to the Plaza de Armas and ran into a guy who we met in Cusco. We got smoothies `para llevar` which means `to go.` I think, and hope you would agree, that when you order a smoothie to go, that typically means you want to drink it, just not in the store. Well they put our smoothies in plastic tupperware, with a lid. Interesting choice. I asked for a straw and enjoyed my smoothie bucket next to the pigeon lady in the square. We then headed to the bus station so I could buy my ticket to Ica and Dean bought his for Chile. That night, before our departure, we went with a group of 12 or so from the hostel to a go-kart course. I don`t remember the last time I drove a go-kart, but it was pretty fantastic! I am running out of time before my flight to Iquitos this afternoon so I will continue next time with the sand buggies in Huacachina, also pretty fantastic! I don`t know if I will have internet again since I am about to go play with anacondas and monkeys but I will write again when I can. Adios.