Across the Curtain

Easter Egg Island

2012-02-05T12:23:00.001-08:00

With a bit of luck, some timing, and a huge amount of generosity i found myself with a round trip ticket to Easter Island and the amazing oppurtunity to explore one of the most remote islands in the world.
Not going was not an option

I sat first class, my seat alone seemed to have enough buttons to control the entire airplane. I took advantage of my position..."yes, i'd like the lamb AND the tuna please. A glass of the high end Port would be nice too, oh and a Whiskey, a pisco sour, a glass of champange, and a glass of Shiraz once im done with the first 4 drinks too, please, and thank you" (Im not exaggerating). It was a 4 hour flight - i didn't get bored - i did get drunk!

I arrived on the island at 3am, it was raining and would continue to do so for the next 36 hours. The campground flooded, the power to the entire island shut off, many people were not having fun...I on the other hand had not felt warm tropical rain in years (the only rain i've known for the last 5 has been the 36 degree piss-drizzle of the PNW). I dawned my board shorts and was off to wade in the torrential downpours. So Good!

The weather eventually cleared and for next 5 days I dirt-bagged the island as well as any dirt-bagger could. I "found" an unused bike, ripped off the bent front derailleur, adjusted the back, derusted the chain, lost the rear brakes and dialed in the front. I "found" snorkeling equipment, i found free wifi, found free rides to the other side of the island, i brought all my food from mainland...it was good!

I met two younger Chilean guys who had brought their bikes and snorkeling equipment as well. We rallied together, they made the trip for me. I walked away with two great friends, a wild experience on a wild island and some amazing memories to boot.
The ocean is clearer than anything i have ever scene. The denuded landscape sits pocked with random Moai statues worshiping the ancestry of the island, volcanic craters crash out of the ground everywhere, thousand foot cliffs drop to cragged crusted lava shores. It was at once surreal and grounding. Stone relics of a civilization cast their shawdows across destroyed landscapes. Erosion tore away the top soil, invasive species filled in where endemics could no longer survive. Trees were sparse, shade non-existent, and where trees did grow they were Eucalypt brought over from Chile (where they had been brought over from Australia). It was a strange contrast to see such an ancient civilization, cherished by the locals, surrounded by the abuse and waste that is carried in by day-to-day tourism and supported by the day-to-day life of the locals.
Its an interesting point to argue...should there be more of an effort to return the island to is original form, to remove the wild horses and fenced in cattle who graze the land and stall its environmental recovery...or since the original cultures were the original destroyers of the landscape (cutting the last tree hundreds of years ago before seedlings could be produced) is the current island really just a natural progression that exists without the need to change....who knows. I cant say that the pleasure i took from the island in any way gave back or helped...in the end i was just another tourist as well - just a cheaper than usual one, so who am i to judge?

Here she is in all her glory...20 minutes to drive across, 90 to bike, 300 to walk. High point 511 meters. 2 volcanic crater lakes, 40 + volcanoes of varying size. No surface runoff (i.e. no streams). 400+ Moai. 2 Beaches. 1 international airport, 3 ATMs, no legal camping outside of town. Some of the best diving in the world, very friendly locals and Thousands of tourists.

Roads to no where

And once at the end of the road...views to no where!

The 3 musketeers, Me Pablo and Diego

Snorkeling the other side of the island - i'll have underwater pics and a movie up shortly once i get some computer issues sorted

Orongo Crater lake with Totora reeds - the native plant used for its fiber to make rafts and other such things...

Originally hostile with each other, the different clans on the island eventually eventually shifted towards competition as a means of determining which clan ruled the island. Each year a race was held that pitted the strongest from each clan against each other...Climb 1000 ft down the islands cliffs, swim 2 k's of open ocean out to Rotu Nui (this small island), survive the breaking swells on the island vertical cliffs, retrieve an egg from the Suti Tern and be the first to bring it back in one piece and you get crowned Birdman for the year. What do you win? The virgin kept in a cave on the other side of the island (i shit you not, in the cave to shield her skin from the sun and keep her pale and pure), reclusivity for half the year (living by yourself at a sacred site on the side of the crater) and your clan is the leading clan for the year...whoever came up with this kinda shit is awesome!

1 of 2 beaches on the island...Anakena

High rollers come to lounge under the palm frawns

Low rollers gorge themselves on deep fried tuna an cheese empanads ....mmmm mmm delish

Hitching across the island, easy!

Class V snorkeling

Raw and rugged coastlines

Sunrise at Tongariki

Rano Raraku, the volcano in the background, was the source stone for the 400+ Moai carved on the island

The top piece is called a top knot - supposed to be representative of their hair

Wild and crazy walking around these giants

Absolutely endless sunsets, we'd get a 90 minute show every night. My tent was 40 feet from the western edge of the island

Beach 2 of 2 on the island

Not many trees around here

Yours truely in the early morning light trying to get the climb to the islands highest point out of the way before the sun got too hot. She rose late, but she was high in the sky for 15 hours a day and she burrrrrned!

Hundreds of caves, mostly lava tubes, dot the island

Caves are some of the few places you can find water on the island, you can drink the streams pouring off the roofs

With the trees gone rainfall infiltrates easily into the porous volcanic soils and streams on the island no longer exists, luckily there is plenty of groundwater, unluckily there is also plenty of surface erosion.

Wild horses everywhere

A little guy fighting it out in the crater of the islands biggest volcano (511 m)

Mid jump shot, turned out to be spirit fingers - and a throwback to the month we spent on the grand canyon (thank you Kathy Young!)

Standing on the highest point, looking out to the farthest point - Easter Island in its entirety.

While trying to bike through this shit i invented a new sport...i call it Gnilwob (silent G). Its the exact opposite of bowling. There is only 1 pin (you and your bike) and many balls. You throw the pin at the balls and try to get it stay upright. High Score is 1. If you dont reach high-score, by default you've lost. Add flip-flops, board shorts, no helmet, needle sharp thistle and well, you've got yourself a true sport.

She musta been hurtin' for some action

This is the Moai with the erection, or that was erected, whatever...obviously a dose of viagra is needed to get round 2 going again

Wild backdrops

Rano Raraku - the Quarry where the Moai were carved an where hundred still lay around in all forms of completion. This was easily my favorite place on the island

Had it been completed this 20+ meter giant woulda been the largest Moai moved...too bad the civilization collapsed first!

Looking out from the Quarry onto Tongariki

How many partially completed Moai can you see in this pic - there's between 10 and 15 of them

Thats a stiff upper lip!

The backside of the Quarry (also a crater lake). You can see some partially finished Moai in the background. I took one of their reed rafts and swam out to the center of the pond. Was a crazy feeling being watched by all the statues, trying to visualize thousands of workers here chipping away night and day (and probably swimming in exact pond as well).

Horses, with Moai on the left flank of the volcano

Despite seeming exotic in some places the island is actually quite a destroyed landscape void of any real endemic vegetation and chalk full of soil erosion and poor land management

Cant find this one on the tourist map...Easter Island Quarry, take a look at the rocks on either side of the rock crusher, little ones on the left, big ones waiting to be little ones on the right...thats one bored dude!

Unfortunately I left the first day of the annual 2 week festival that pays homage to the ancestry and history of the island...Traditional dances are performed by different groups and they practice for months leading up to the event. Here's one group in the local gym putting finishing touches on their routine

Downtown Honga Roa...with a good break out front, good snorkeling, Moai in the center and a chilled atmosphere, this place is hard not to like

Downtown surfbreak, literally 100 m off shore of the town center

Training for the many races had during the 2 week festival

Most popular time of the year for the island, the population doubles, all ATM's are sucked dry, every car on the island is rented...its a massive tourist trap!

Sunrise over the campsite on my last day on the island...

The casual island lifestyle extends to the boarding of the jet...what a place

What a wild trip, nothing i would have thought i would be doing on my 6 month tour of SA! Thank you for the opportunity Jeff, it was unreal!

So now the Patagooch Adventure Begins...tomorrow i fly from Santiago to the southern tip of the continent, spend 5 days hiking around an island (Navarino), another 4 around another island (Tierra Del Fuego), hitch north to Torres del Paine for 2 weeks, then Fitz Roy and Los Galciars NP, then north again into the Austral Region - one of Patagonia's most remote and least visited...it'll be spotty on and off, and for the most part i'll be falling off the grid, but i will try to get some pics posted...Here's a quick map of the general plan for the next 4 to 6 weeks.

Life is getting tougher and tougher

2012-01-25T05:32:00.001-08:00

Santiago is a feeding frenzy on deep well lined pockets..its also a time suck. I hand plans for only a few nights but stayed for 7 days. There were no great adventures or epic mountains to report of but the hustle and bustle of a city of millions was an interesting change of pace from the 650 person township of San Pedro.

I slept in 4 different places in 6 nights, i went on a caffeine fueled bike frenzy through morning rush hour traffic on a loaner cruiser bike with (thankfully) good breaks but a poorly placed U-lock which liked to shift into the front wheel mid-turn and cause havoc on my well timed and well executed mid-traffic bus-lane manuevering.

I accidenitly left things at one hostal and upon trying to retrieve them one early morning i found the manager dead asleep, the doors locked and myself scaling the the second story balcony with nothing but free fall into sharpened metal fence posts below...when the balcony was locked i retreated to first floor windows finding the office window oddly left adjar, once easily in the office i was a bit peeved to find the door to the rest of the hostal locked from both directions and had to make a mad dash back out the window and to the front door when i heard the hostal manager finally get out of bed to investigate the noises...luckily she wasnt any the wiser and i stood on the front step claiming i had only been waiting for a few minutes, innocent!

I met up with Jack (who i met at Machu Picchu: he was back from Bolivia and his sisters from Chico were due to arrive in 2 days, they were bringing my climbing gear to me which i overnight shipped to the San Francisco airport for them to pick up at aFedex counter...huge thanks to both you ladies for that one and a massive thanks to Elina Peggy Sue Lin for breaking into my storage unit on a late night gear mission)
I met up with Carrie, a teacher at an international school in Santiago, a stranger to become friend, and the daughter of friends of the Parental Units back in the Granite State...she was fully stoked to help with my $30 a day budget and my mission to gain some weight - not only letting me use her metro pass (save me from spending money, walking and burning those precious calories) but also let me crash at her place, do laundry, fed me massive amounts of food and provided some fantastic conversation and some good remenising about NH (Thank you so much Carrie).

I went to a few museums, churches, cafes, tourist sites etc and then made a hitching sign "SOUTH - Chillian. I Have Chocolate" and gave my hand at getting around the region by thumb...it wasn´t perfect but it more or less worked and i was in Chillan (6 hours south) after 3 rides, a few shared cigarettes, 1 onion i picked up from the side of the highway which had fallen off an onion truck ('hey look a free onion, that´ll go well with dinner'), and a short 90 cent bus ride to get me the last 15 k´s. It was now late and as i was trying to get INTO the mountains and not stay in the valley, i walked to the local bus station and was lucky enough to meet the last bus of the night rolling out of the lot heading up into the mountains (chillan is like any town in the willamette valley, you go there first then you turn 90 degrees and head up into the hills)...It was now getting dark , i had no place to crash yet and my perfect bus was infact only going 1/3rd of the way to the mtns...i got dropped off and told to wait for another bus going another thrid of the way...the higher the better i figured, poaching camping spots would only get easier as i got closer to the mountains. After 30 minutes in the 2nd bus I asked the bus guy if he knew any good places to camp and 1 minute later the bus pulled over and he pointed into the darkness and said "Una Playita" (a little beech)...I Wandered down an embankment and sure enough found a little beach next to a little river with 2 people standing at its shores, given it was 11:30 at night i was hesitant on the nature of the folks but with some awkward manuevering they finally shouted to me and within 3 minutes i had a beer in hand and was being invited to join them to go to hotsprings the next morning up in the mountains! Does this shit really happen? apparently so. They were software engineers from Santiago, one of which had grown up in the valley we stood in and knew the ownwers of the hotspring resort. I crashed hard and was riding in the back of their pickup the next morning on my way to the moutnains...giddy up.

The end of the road is infact Chile´s largest ski resort with accompanying Grand Hotels and lodges and a perfect volcano as a backdrop. The hot springs were a bit, well, interesting. The resort ones were 3 pools filled with warm muddy waters and an hour walk brought us to the 'real' ones which were actually just 1 pool big enough for 4 people and 7 inches deep...yes, 7, maybe less. When sitting with legs outstreched my knees were not covered. The appeal apparently was the mud, and there was plenty of that...we covered ourselves with it and they even bagged some up and brought it home...

They took off after the day and left me to my own in the woods, happy and content with free camping, a small river and plans for a 3 day excursion up, over and around the volcano starting the next morning.

The day dawned perfectly and i made my way through the ski resort, up the ski runs and eventually beyond the bounds of the resort. I was joined by 5 ladies who were doing a 1 day up and back and we loosely walked together. 5000 feet of climbing puts you in a snowy saddle where you can drop your pack and make the final 600 foot dash up one of the two twin peaks. The winds were howling and more than once i nearly blown over but all told it was a dandy little place to stand with the crater still steaming sulpher fumes...I dashed off the summit and had a wild 3000 foot decent off the back side with nearly all of it being technical boot skiing...edging, turning, countouring all required...good fucking fun really.

As the water melts off the top of the mtn it infiltrates into the pourous rocks and thousands of feet later reemerges spontaneously out of the ground, creating wonderful green oaisises (sp? as you´ve noted im a horrible speller, bad typist, and spell check is in spanish so its useless to me). I found a particularlly nice one with flat green grass and called it a day. Rain was on the forecast and my high mountain route the next day would potentially be in the clouds so i walked, packless and thus free and fast, for another hour to take photos of tomorrows route incase i would be navigating by compass, photos, and the horrible 50 m internval map that i had a picture of in my camera...oh being too cheap to by a map (the lady at the map store in Santiago scowled at me after the 3rd map i took a picture of, refolded and then put back on the shelf...to my credit i did BUY 6 other maps).

Rain never came and although there was a 'trail' on my map, i never found it and decided not to go where it should have been, but instead do some overland travel higher up on the volcano. It was epic drainage crossing as i was contouring around the volcano and thus going against the grain of every drainage which fell off the volcanoes fall-line...scree running was the name of game and for 3 hours i whooped and holared down some seriously steep slopes and suffered back up their opposite sides...i was seriously rewarded though...

AGUAS CALIENTE. A little blip on my map, more hot springs, my camping spot for the night. I wasn´t hopeful when i saw it on the map tho, i fully expected it to be no more grand than the 7 inches of muddy water i found at the last one (which lay only a further 90 minutes beyond)...holy shit buckets was i wrong...This was no hot spring, no hot pools, no hot mud bath...this was a half mile...2000+ feet of HOT RIVER...hot waterfalls, hot rapids, hot eddies, hot pools, hot gorges, hot everything...i got there at noon, it took me an hour to explore its length, i found the perfect camping spot. i had the entire place to myself, i was on day 2 and had packed 4 days worth of food...i ate, bathed, explored, slept, read and repeated until the sun went down 10 hours later...i woke up with only half a days food the next morning and shipped out of dodge, of course i first spent another hour in the 'hot gorge'. I had stashed my non-mtn stuff in the woods at the trail head, retrieved it, poached a shower at a campsite and began my hitch hike off the mountain at noon, I got picked up by the 2nd car to pass me which was a team of paragliders sponsored by Peugot who had summited the volcano that morning and flown back to their car (Yes, flown), landing in the golf course (brilliant! they were on a 6 week mission around Chile climbing peaks and flying off them)...they were french and lived in the Pyranes and offered me a place to crash at their house when i find myself there in 5 months on my bike tour of Europe...they dropped me off at the bus station back in Chillan and within 3 minutes i was the last passenger boarding the bus to Concepcion where i sit now waiting to meet up with Jeff McDonnell, my Master´s Advisor for a few days of report writing!!
Yikes, this one got long...so it goes when you have coffee dripping through your system...After this PUCON to meet up with kayaking friends from the states, then either climb a week in Bariloche, Argentina or straight line it to Puerto Williams for a 7 day trek at the bottom of the world...im excited for this one...check it out! and then head back north slowly...

GIDDY UP!

Let the Merken Spread!

I have no witty caption for this but i was hoping for some combination between pony rides and donkey shows...it just seemed like an odd thing to carry to work in the morning!

Cafe Piernas...Coffee with Legs, the tame version (a coffee shop with long-legged hostesses) - the non-tame version has blacked out windows and you bring a lot of small denomination bills!!!

and of course after coffee with legs you have to go to Da Chruch

Central Church

Face of the Devil! Ive never seen an actual sculpture before

Stained

An 18th centure spanish jack-knife...With a hacksaw! amazing!

A very intricate scale

Who let that dirty shady character in? I can smell him from here! 80 cents for the natural history meseum...now thats something i can afford! Free Toilets too!

Amazing this came out in the picture ...what color are the circles between the squares on the right diagram? Green or Orange?

Santiago...boasting Chile´s largest flag

Santiago

Morning after the day of hitching..my little private beach..La Playita

My company and my ride...a fantastic chance encounter

Back of the pick-up on the way to the mtns

These beauties were in bloom EVERYWHERE...gorgeous

See, everywhere

Back into beautiful temperate beech forests...i love these woods

Old Mans Beard...just like Oregon!

There are always two sides to the story

Shady...yours truely, and finally with a haircut!

On the trial to the 'real' hot springs

Here we are, lots of stinky steam, little water, plenty of mud! The resort actually mines the heat, pumping cold groundwater and/or snowmelt from a local stream through pipes dug into the hot ground, they then pipe it to the pools down the valley...not eeeeeexactly hot springs, but i dont think the hotspring resort users really care

Yea no kidding! I was barefoot and walked away with more than a few blisters on my feet from accidentily stepping in the wrong spot!

Yes, that water is definitely boiling

Mud!

Fluids 101...on the way to the heat mine

Where the hot water ends up!

And where i ended up for the evening, a nice cozy little flat spot for free and my first fire of the trip...so nice!

The picture of the map i was going off of. Follow the red line to the saddle between the two peaks, drop off the back side, hook a right, walk back around...badda bing, badda boom.

Day 1...get through the ski resort, drop off trash, fill up on clean water, walk a vertical mile up.

Awesome clouds

The destination...peak on the left

The surroundings

up and upper

Finally at the summit 6 hours later, looking over at the shorter and snowless twin summit

The crater and nearby other volcano

Afternoon storms building and rolling in..the wind was somethign fierce and the temps were dropping

Time to get out of this barren landscape and drop down into some green! whats the best way to get down...?

BOOT SKIING!!! nearly 3000 feet of it too, tricky and technical on 30 degree pitches with a 40 pound pack, but fun...i ate shit hard a few times and there were a few precarious moments where my 'edges' weren´t quite grabbing enough and i was slidding towards some drop offs...the rest was just fun mogaul skiing!

Aim for the green spot

And the mountain said 'let there be water', And then there was water...lots of it, gushing out of the ground...it tasted gooood!

I found my green patch for the day and set up shop. You can sorta make out my tent near the top of the big green patch. I had my own stream which popped out of the ground only 10 feet from my tent...mmmm Peeeeerfect

The close up

Lots of Scree...epic scree running! the top layer was all pumice, soft and light and you could go as fast as your little legs could carry you!

Sunrise

Yep. More mmmm Perfect

Already above the clouds, how bout that

Making my way back round the hump...lots of good clean water to drink from!

It was truely amazing to see the little island of green...a bit of life in an otherwise empty landscape. Water is king out here

Life through the sunnies. the winds were strong and it was beautiful watching the clouds ride up the valleys and tear off the crests.

and old lava flow i presume

after crossing 27 drainages i got to Sulpher World and figured i was near my destination for the day...you could smell it and everythign was steaming

The colors of an active world!

Some very crazy landscapes

Awesome geology

Sulpher and steam spewing out!

Beautiful sulphur crystals

I dropped another thousand feet or so and then it started...out of now where (like how all the water emerges around here) but this time HOT and Steaming!!! I couldn´t believe it...Really? a hot cascading waterfall, no way, dreams are made of such things

Oh wait, another one?

Wait, what? The river is hot too...you gotta be fucking kidding me!!!

This was it! a half mile long strip of steaming river...100 degrees, mmm peerfect!

A hot river AND a horizen line? Horizen lines like this mean only one thing, waterfalls and gorges

Small as gorges go sure, but with a 20 footer at 30 cfs i was not about to complain - it was HOT! I really wanted to swim the little drop in the front but there was a fuck-you rock in the landing that i couldnt budge

Exit to the mini-hot-gorge and camp! Also the site of excessive eating, sleeping, and bathing

Morning dawned clear and i was outta there (after another hour of hot tubbing it though)

How could I leave this place without a jump shot?

Or two

Up and over to the ski resort

Indeed...thank you

Looking back on the hot valley

Out towards distant peaks

Two of these guys were catching thermals so close to me i could hear their wings cutting the air..they soared back and forth in front of me a dozen or so times

Right, that oughta do it for now...after this last pic it was all business getting back tot he ski resort, cleaning up, hitching rides and getting to concepcion 4 hours away...until the next adventure.

San Pedro De Atacama...BUTT first

2012-01-15T14:40:00.000-08:00

Holy crap, no seriously!!! I was still in Cusco, i had a 10 hour bus ride leaving that night at 8pm and i sat in a plaza mowing down on a burger. It was noon, the burger was pink. I looked at my watch...incubation for salmanella was about 6 hours. If i was lucky id be puking by 6pm, have it out of my system by 7 and be on my way at 8...done done and doner.

6 rolled by, i felt fine...it was a night of celebration for the group. We were fresh off the Salkantay and Machu Picchu. It was the last night for Tylan (he was heading home in the morning), i was leaving that night, and Jack and Russel were off to Bolivia in a day. We decided upon a massive feast and as we cooked some frozen hamburg i noted its pink hue (despite being fully cooked), maybe the pink i saw in my burger previously was just a pink thats in all of them...i hoped. I felt fine, i gorged, 3 plates of lentiles, rice, meat and veg (check out all the colors in that first pic!).
7:00 pm I felt fine, i left in a rush...
8:00 pm i got to the bus station, got my seat and shipped out, felt fine
8:30 pm...gurgle gurgle...I broke records with fart length, i was letting them rip for, i shit you not, 20 to 30 seconds at a time. i had never been in so much pain in my life from gas cramps. I knew i was fucked. i could literally hear the gas shifting around the liquid in my intentines...it was really only a matter of time.
I suffered in cold sweats for 2 hours, rolled from one side to the other, farted like i was supplying a power plant with its fuel to light a small city. It then hit and it hit quickly...i jumped up, i needed a bag, i was going to puke! oh shit...i was also going to shit...Thank god the bathroom was free.
You dont throw your toilet paper in the toilets here..you throw it in the trash. So while we hurtled down windy Peruvian roads at 100 k´s per hour i was getting tossed around the closet sized bathroom with my face burried in other peoples shit stained TP throwing up 3 plates worth of lentils and rice while i simultaneously unleashed one of the most violent gas fortified rounds of liquid shitting the world has ever seen...it was a seeeeeeerious mess!
The puking and shitting lasted for 6 more hours. apparently i had 2.5 days of food inside of me, i knew because i saw every single bit of it!

I landed in Arequipa Peru at 5am, wandered for an hour finding a hostal. I was ghoast white, exhuasted, dehydrated, destroyed. I slept for 4 hours and then took myself to the hospital. I got tested for giardia - they needed a sample. They gave me a 1 inch diameter test tube to get the sample in...it wasnt pretty...thats a hard shot to make! Im sure someone was wondering what the hell the gringo was laughing at in the waiting room bathroom. God it was comical!

Test results came back the next day....the lab and a pharmacist both said i had giardia and i was given a 1 week course of meds, the actual lab results (to the best of my knowledge) said i didn´t have giardia...who knows. i had salmanella, that was for sure!

SO anyways, i was in Arequipa to Climbs volcanoes...except it was pissing down rain and there would be no cilmbing. A day later i got on a 33 hour bus ride south to get of out the Northern Andes rainy season and landed in San Pedro De Atacama in the Chilean Atacama desert.

I met two amazing climbing girls from North Carolina and followed them to a crag, spent a night and then found a random volcano to climb. It was good. Here are the pictures!

The final super...i would soon be seeing this for a second time

You gotta leave one country to make it to another...Goodbye Peru, you are amazing, i will return with a kayak to make love to your rivers

Hi Chile, Well aren't you looking fine...well actually you're looking a bit dry and desolate to be honest

Not much of a visual greeting up in these parts, but given there's 4500 kilometers south of me, i'm sure i'll be able to find something good to feast my eyes upon over the next 3 months here.

yikes

Man, when i was in the store Cream Cheese, Tuna and Crackers sounded like an amazing mid voyage snack...i had looked forward to it for 16 hours sitting on the bus but when it finally produced itself, well, you can see what it looked like...The 'Cream Cheese' needed no help in spreading itself - it was already liquid for some reason. The 'Tuna' was of course the cheapest i can could find ('Grated' which obviously stands for 'Scraps leftover that only cheap people eat, bones and heads included, maybe an eyeball if you're lucky')and of course to make it more fatty since i've lost 15 pounds and I am on a mission to gain it back i picked Grated Tuna in Vegetable oil, it didn't add much to the presentation.

If the rivers are running on the desert coast, its definitely raining inland - these guys only run a few times a year

Ahhh Finally there... San Pedro De Atacama...you lovely artificial little tourist bubble in a sea of dry red desert...Its volcano hunting time!

Volcano Lascanbar...the most commonly climbed one around. And easy non-tech slog up, that is, from the Bolivian side. From the Chilean side you have an anti-tank and anti-personal mine field located along its entire flanks - but really you just have to worry about the anti-personal mines as i was told a person isnt heavy enough to set off a tank mine ...lucky me. The $150 reciprocity fee you have to pay to get into Bolivia kept me off the Bolivian side and for obvious reasons i also stayed off the Chilean side. Time to find a different Volcano to climb...

Ah, there you are my little beauty...mind if i walk up your flanks? Cerro (or Volcano) Miñiques, twin peaked at 5755 m and 5916 m, i would eventually find my way up the 'mostly' non-techincal shorter summit. But first, i had to get there.

lots and lots and lots of sand

Valle De La Luna just outside of San Pedro and a nice sunset walk after 33 hours on a bus

Everything here drips salt, its a literally just a huge salt lick

A ridge of Volcanoes stretching north and south, on average i believe this is the highest region of the Andes.

The moon?

No, just the desert

Its just like Utah

They have no topo maps for sale in town. There are 30 or 40 adventure outfitters trying to drag every gringo in site into their shop to sell them their special adventure tour. Every 'adventure ' is spoon fed to you by the tourist agency, why would you need a map of your own? My only strategy was to take a photo of this topo map which sat under glass on a desk at one of the guiding places...at 100 m resolution it left a lot to be desired, and as it turned out distances were hard to judge in this expansive land

With map in err, the camera, we were off hitch hiking to our destination...of course i let the ladies do the hard work of getting us a ride...and a terrific job they did!

I think the desolation, sun, heat, dryness and general hostal environment all play into the phyche of drivers...how can you honestly drive by someone on the side of the road in a place like this...ive heard stories of people waiting 3 days for a car to drive by on more desolate stretches with those poor souls nearly meeting death after their water runs out and there's no where to go...luckily this was a 'main' road with 1 car every 15 or 20 minutes...we had no issues.

Working hard to get the 3rd of 4 rides out to the crag...the ladies obviously picked up their game with some enticing strategies.

Hey look...do you see that? Nope. Yea me either...SO MUCH Nothingness

Desert heat waves over the salt flats

Nicole going a little crazy in the heat

We found the canyon!!!! but we walked the wrong direction down it...oops, just a 5 hour mistake

She was a real bueat though, a little oasis crack in the desert

Dove Eggs

After 3 hours of walking the crack we found water and...

....Went duck hunting! Quack Quack...Actually we were just filtering water

We finally looped back on ourselves and found the bolted crag and set up shop...not a bad campsite!

Miñiques...from camp the first night. i really had no idea if it was climbable, there was what looked like a high saddle at snow zone on the left - meaning a water source and flat ground. From there i would 'just see' if she had a route up

Down towards the salt.

Sunset from our crack

Full moon rise from our crack

The moon emerging

Morning at last and time to leave the ladies behind and take off on my own...the plan was to hitch to a touristy lake at the base of the mountain and walk from there. Turns out the first vehicle to drive by was a tour van packed with Brits heading to the lake. The didn't stop when they passed me but they had slowed down, it was obvious they were weighing their decision, the van was clearly hesitating, they were 200 ft past me and i did what seemed the right thing to do - i started running at them...it worked! I would later find out that they had made a group decision NOT to pick me up, but when they saw me full out sprinting at them with a heavy pack they changed their mind and rewarded me for a good effort...

Im climbing that one, i said to them...they seemed excited by the idea as much as i did...How, why, with who, i was momentarily in their spot light

They insisted they take a parting shot of me before i left them...me with two tomatoes in hand for dinner and the lakes behind me

Volcanoes everywhere!

through my sunnies

My mountain to the right and the obvious high elevation saddle just to its left...i would camp just to the right of that cloud essentially right at snow line (the only water source, the lake is saline. Around here it was a world run by water, you left a water source and you HAD to know where the next one one, and you had to make it there...meaning i also had to walk with 4 litres of water, more weight, hoof)

up and up...3500 ft to base camp which sat at 16,500 ft

I arrived at camp at 2:30 pm, the sun was still nearly straight up and i didn{t feel like waiting around allllll day to go to bed, so i figured, well i might as well try to summit today...baaaad idea

Poorly planned, badly executed!

free water in a rock bowl

Right, so the sun soaked snow was (of course) very soft so every step i post holed - sometimes ankle sometimes knee deep. Going was slow, i wasn´t allll that acclimated, i didn´t have alllll that much energy left in me...i started to bonk, the weather started to get worse - temps below freezing and 30 mph winds = not fun (but really not that bad i guess). I had a bad habbit of going from the slow bent over slog position quickly to the standing straight up to look what what above me, this lead to many occasions of the blood quickly draining from my head and me having to drop quickly to the snow to keep from blacking out...also not fun (well sorta fun)
Ha! what a gapper!

Bonk!

I hit the wall hard and decided to back off, the altitude was definitely getting to me..the mountain would be there in the morning.

I got back to ´camp´completely exhausted and with hardly enough energy to set up the tent or make dinner. Sleeping at 16,500ft doesn´t offer much in the way of recovery from altitude sickness and it was a long cold night.

Dinner in the dark

Morning...it was in the teens over night

So much for an Alpine start...despite leaving the tent at 8 am the snow was still hard and with strength in my legs and better lungs and thicker bloods i was covering the terrain quickly. I made my highpoint from the day before in half the time

Awesome crazy snow formations called Penitentes

The going was steep and i woulda been happier with axe and crampons but i was without. Instead it was just smart route finding. I stayed close to the Penitentes which where big and thick enough to catch and arrest a fall...it woulda been kinda like bowling, i used to bowl in highschool, i have trophies...i imagined i woulda been good at this kinda bowling too!

Summit...18,876 ft

The weather was perfect, no wind, no clouds, just me and the top. Although summits i find are strange places, not somewhere i care to linger, the joy is more in the climb and so after a few token and very cliche summit pics i was off to tent...Snow was now perfect, an inch of soft on top of crust meant boot skiing could be done down even the steapest bits...i dropped 2000 ft in 15 minutes...soooo much fun!

See those volcanoes to the right, see what looks like a tiny little drainage pulling away to the left at their base...thats the crack the ladies were climbing in and that was my destanation for the afternoon....little did i know it was A LOT further way than it looked!

Hi Bolivia, you and your stupid $140 reciprosity fee...(yes i know they charge us cause we charge them, but even still!)

The taller twin summit, also the more technical of the two...nothing i wanted anything to do with

I dropped off the summit, got to my tent, broke camp and ran off the mountain...only 3 hours from the summit i was 5,500 ft lower and 5 k´s away looking back at a morning well done!

It was a straight line from where i left to where i was going...i walked 7 hours in a straight line, god it was boring!

The scenary really didn´t change too quickly, if you hadn´t already gathered that from the pictures!

Still going in the same direction

Still

More straight line

Getting Closer!!!!!! So close to the drainage!

Looking down towards my drainage!

He didn´t like walking in a straight line

Finally water after 9 hours of walking

Dropping in, getting green, still going in the same direction though!

The great bend!!!!!! After 10 hours of walking in the same direction, i took a left!!!!

The canyon was spectacular and the setting sun lit up the 1000 ft red walls perfectly...

I found a patch of flat grass and called it a day, 11.5 hours after setting out for the summit. I had climbed 3000 ft and dropped 6,000 and walked about 25 k´s.

Morning jump shots for my favorite Kiwi couple shaun and Jaqs who were getting married in a few days!

The next morning saw an hour more of walking until i found the ladies...they had had a wonderful time in the crack over the previous 2 days...climbing, being fed by random tours who dropped in (steak and wine!) and made ´friends´with a random german who also found them. The sent me off with extra food they couldnt eat and i was stoked! a final jump shot and we parted ways with plans to meet back in San Pedro

Big holes, big enough to climb in

I then hitched a ride with another tour van who was going to the salt flats and let me join in, so i got a free tour and we went and saw flamingos in the desert...i had ti pinch myself

dersert worn

I left San Pedro a day later to a sand twister...it was a perfect way to go

And then i landed in Santiago, the land of Dong X-ing, or Dong Xing (´Zing´) whichever Dong you prefer!

Rio Urubamba with a healthy flow

2012-01-14T15:33:00.000-08:00

Speed dating, S&W, A new crew, Machu Picchu and of course, more vomiting

2012-01-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

Alright so this one has bee in the works for a while...bad internet, epic traveling, and epic purging has been to blame...so the story goes...

Speed dating...yes, lets start there. What a great idea eh, with everyone counting their precious minutes these days we all hate to waste time especially when it turns out fruitless, such as investing time into relationships that go no where, so to solve this we´ve invented speed dating, its perfect, its fast, its very faulty! In the world of solo traveling each interaction with another solo traveler ends of being a bit similar to speed dating...you meet someone in passing, you swap backgrounds, itineraries, similarities, and short anecdotes and in 5 minutes you have what seems to be enough information to make a judgement call to answer the question: Do we team up? often it works perfectly and you have a new best friend and partner in crime...the rest of the time, well, you meet people like Dora...

I finished 5 days solo on the trails in Huaraz Peru on Christmas day, waited 6 hours in a town for a 10 hour overnight bus ride, showed up in huaraz at 5 am, slept 4 hours, bought a bus ticket, attended cloths washing, showers, food and internet and left at 10 pm on a 10 hour bus ride to Lima, showed up at 8 am the next morning, bought a 2 pm 24 hour bus ride to Cusco (Machu Picchu area) and after a rough 24 hours the moving frenzie was finally over... AND i was now two, instead of 1. I met Dora during the lay over in Lima. She was from Portland OR, had heavy duty trekking boots, a tent, stove, water filter and the same exact itinerary and budget as me...the stars seemed to be aligning and it seemed only natural to pair up...and plus after 5 days of solo winterish trekking i was keen to share the weight/burden of tent, stove, filter, fuel and food...oh how things went sour!

i wanted to spend New Years in Cusco (they run around the central square in their underwear drinking all night - i mean honestely if that doesn´t have my name written all over it then i dont know what does), but Dora was keen to hit the trail - a 5 day alternative (to the inca trail) trek that left you at Machu Picchu, included a high mountain pass, and most importantly was free (not easy in an area spoon fed to you by tour companies)...after much deliberation on my part i decided having a buddy on the trail, especially one who seemed cool, would be better than going solo and i might as well just have at it...so off we went.
The night before we went out with some of her friends that were also randomly in town (but not trekkers) and i decided to have myself my own personal New Years Party, despite being 3 days early...i tied on a big one, poached free beers all night from an unattended stash behind an unattended bar and found myself zig zagging home at 1:45 am, roughly 2 hours from the 3;45am wake up we needed to make the first Combi (van ride) out to the trail head the next morning to start out 20K first day on the trail...oh boy was it rough, but very worth it!
Ill cut things short and leave most of the trail details to the pics...day one was shortend by 2 rides (the trail was a road to start) which was nice on my acheing and hungover body...night 1 was amazing and i poached a mountain resort hot tub and watched the moon rise over a 6000 m snow clad peak (Dora absent, claiming she didn´t want to get cold --in the hot tub Dora? i was confused on this one but if you´re not running to poach a free hot tub in the middle of the mountains after a big day of trekking then i´m not gonna twist your arm to join, you´re obviously crazy - which as it turned out, she was!!!)
So i´ll give you a quick taste of Dora: Grew up with a tough life, i´ll spare you the details, but she's had to fight her whole life through (Cash, 1967) and as such has developed a fiercly independent personality, she looks after number 1, does not let anyone in her bubble and even when "teaming up" she always has an escape route trailing close behind that VERY much influences her decisions within the group...essentially, even when in a group, she makes decisions only for herself, takes care of only herself, and more or less ignores the fact that her decisions affect others (that is, she's been ditched a lot in her life and has come to expect it and plans for and protects for it...get it? Got it¡ GOOD¡).
Right, so without any ability to make a decision within our little group i took advantage of the one power i did have...my opinion...Sure Dora, you make the decisions...i´ll just sit here and judge the fuck out of them...one of these days you´ll get tired of it, ask me what i actually want and then we can have both sides heard and meet in the middle...Dora didn´t budge though (seriously amazing) and my condensencion only grew thicker and deeper...yes i know, this is seriously imature but really, its also a lot of fun!
New years eve proper found us in a tiny little village (with beer, and thus with beer in us) and of course, following the great words of Richard Young - Sober thoughts make for drunk words - and me and Dora boiled over...it was clearly not working...i laid into her thick, she laid into me thick, it was really a great time all around and it was obvious the end was coming. Dora, who i now referred to as S&W (stove and water) because i had left behind my stove and water filter and we were sharing hers, and thus these were the two things which i relied on her for and which kept us tied together. SHe also brought her 1 man tent and insisted on using it, meaning i had to bring my 2 man tent and use it alone...so much for sharing the weight. Anyways, day 3 saw us on the other side of the pass and in a region with roads, meaning villages, meaning access to food and water, meaning Dora had an out..she could ditch me without leaving me high and dry in the backcountry with no way to cook or get clean water. The next section of trial dove back into the woods though so i was left with only one option, find rides out on the road to the end of the trail...so i did and in 2 hours i had driven what Dora would be spending the next 2 days walking.
The last section of the route is a 2 hour walk along rail road tracks which end in a town called Aguas Caliente, essentially the rallying place from which to visit Machu Picchu (the town sits 1000 ft below the ruins in a river valley)...To make a very long story short, i was running (walking fast) this section of trail trying to get to the Machu Picchu ticket office in Aguas Caliente before it closed so i could change the date of my Machu Picchu ticket to the following day, instead of 3 days from now (which would have left me sitting in Aguas for 2 fulls days twiddling my thumbs)...along the way i met three younger guys from Chico California. There were all in their 3rd year of Uni, were best friends from growing up and were all musicians of some sort (often randomly breaking out into a capella at any given time - awesome!)...the golden moment came when i was 15 seconds into explaining my story of the last 4 days, had only said "girl, oregon, crazy" and they pounced...."DORA, YOU´RE TALKING ABOUT A GIRL NAMED DORA"....i was fabergasted, they knew her!!!! whats more they knew her from 3 words! they had sat on the 24 hour bus with her from lima to cusco, she was unforgetable to them, she was crazy to them as well! Fuck Yea...i was so happy!
To continue making this long story short..these guys turned out to be awesome, we walked at the same pace, were on the same budget, shared the same humor, they took care of eachother, bickered with eachother but never took it beyond the incident at hand, shared everything together and whats more, they completely took me into their group at the drop of a hat...i cant tell you how much i enjoyed these times but for the next 4 days instead of them being 3 and me being 1, we were 4. We ate 2 or 3 dinners a night, played cards, drank, laughed a shit ton, RAN up the 1000 ft to machu picchu, falling only 8 minutes short of the 22 minute record and destroying the standard hour and a half it takes most people to do the walk. Essentially i was a pig in shit and had made some amazing friends and was grateful for Dora ditching me...so anyways...theres a lot of pictures of it all below...have a taste:

Lima...holy fucking coke batman

Cusco Plaza de Armas. Cusco turned out to be an amazing city, beyond the touristy bubble it had a lot of character and a great feel to it, and amazing architecture as it was the throne of the Inca Empire before the Spanish took it over and built their world on top of the stones of the Incans, often literally using the Incan foundations to build up from.

Ive got your nose...

Trying out wigs for when i've lost all my hair...pass on the poddle motif

Inca stones...this shit was tight, literally, water tight and all carved by hand¡

Tourist trap...suckers...you gotta pay if you take the picture from the front!

Day 1, crazy hangover day...beautiful lush mountains

The one and only smile shot with Dora...faked

Lush

Why walk on roads when you can ride on the back of a flatbed with locals...my hangover was happy at this moment

The long tedious trek in...

Day 1...done, in the valley between two beautiful mountains. the trek is named after the mtn on the right..Salkantay

Not much of a real back country experience when the local villagers build little shelters for the touro´s to camp in...oh well, it was free!

A snow capped beaut

The namesake of the trek: Nevado Salkantay

We camp for free, clients of the Salkantay mountain lodge dro 3G´s on the trek and lodging....as it turns out they have a very nice (and easily poached) hot tub

Camp!

Even though it was only a 1/3rd moon it shed enough light to light up the entire valley and i sat naked in the hot tub watching this guy do its nightly arch across the sky. I had of course set my sandals facing out into the darkness with cloths piled neatly next to them ready to bolt incase anyone came out and caught me...the image of someone yelling in spanish at a naked guy running off into the night with cloths in hand in the middle of the mountains kepts a smile on my face, i wasn´t caught though...well not until i had gotten out of the tub at least...The tub was so hot that after 30 minutes of sweating bullets i was done and escaped to a nearby glacial fed waterfall to shed some heat...still within the sights of the lodge but very much on free land i was spotted and very litterally spot-lighted...they had a massive spot light...still naked, in the center of their light, i did the only thing i could do...i waved hello. What a great night!

Dinner...this is before going eating...cheesy tuna pasta with peppers...one of my favorites!

Caught a shooting star on the right side of the pic...hard to see the mountains thought

Playing with the head lamp

cool dug out avi path

Day 2...on the appraoch to the pass

At the pass

Not much to see in the clouds

Waiting for Dora, bored, jump shots

Dropping out of alpine into jungle

So many rivers!

New years eve, camp two, site of the break down

Ok..landslide which blocked the river, caushed a small lake behind it, backed up sediment, created a beach of small fines, just upstream of the landslide on river left, and then the dame broke leaving just the clues behind.

you go first!

Landslides...everywhere

Jungle mist

Sans Dora now, walking the tracks to Machu Picchu

Just about to meet the guys...they´re just at the top of the pic and i had no idea when taking this pic how good our meeting up would be!

Amazing rivers...hot damn

Aguas Caliente

Entering Machu Picchu...5 am!

The Picchu shit show!

The classic Shot...Jack, Russel and Tylan
the rest of the Picchu pics kind speak for themselves

ingenious inca steps...i want some of these in my house one day

K to the Ankles...one of the finest specimens i have ever witnessed!

After a bit of walking on these stone paths you sort of forget that these massive blocks were cut and dragged into place a thousand years ago, and even today without much issue you can cruise right down them in flip flops

the 45 minute fog rotation

And we'll put our quinua and yams over here

i dont know which one it was, but one of these massive blocks killed 2000 people in its journey from bedrock form to cut and placed form...Dont see OSHA anywhere round here

Safe belaying

When you dont know a knot...tie a lot?

The sacraficial platter!

No hard edges around here...just curves

Sun dial

Terraces...always terraces

Awesome roof architecture

Big guy

Gable ends in the mist

Terraces...everywhere terraces

We got some rain and things got angry

look at the cuts on those blocks...amazing..and they´re huge!

Carved in waterways!

So much stone!

Class VI street-side, im sure someone has run it

Serious gear explosion after days on the trail but still nothing to wear but stinky poly pro

The tourist trap of Aguas Caliente - in the low season though you can tak advantage of this and haggle prices, get free drinks with meals, etc...you can imagine what kinda deals get thrown at you when the server sees 4 hungry dudes about to move on to the next place because the prices just dont seem low enough!

And finally the walk out of Machu Picchu...mission accomplished, now just 12 hours of transit back to Cusco...first though, some fun train tunnels. We Flattened Pesos on the tracks when the trains went by to keep as our own homemade souveneirs

More Rage!! yes i know there are a lot of pictures of random rivers and rapids, but serious, it just doesnt get old...loooooook at that thing!

Just your run of the mill landslide that triggered itself in the early morning heavy rain...they cleared most of the tracks with heavy machinary but did the final finishing touches by hand...in the States you wouldnt be allowed half a mile from something like that, here the workers actually stopped to let us walk on by (and gape and take photos!) Yea Mother Nature

Not sure why they decided the hydro diversion tunnel should emerge 150 feet above the river...but i'm glad they did!!!!!

Trying to convey the dodginess of a road via a photo is nearly impossible, but 1 lane, thousand foot drop, 2 way traffic, gravel, blind corners, fast drivers, bike tours with incompetent biking tourists and the occasional land slide or flooding side stream are all trying to be represented here...like i said, hard to do.

Pretty birdie....(whats that line from Dumb and Dumber)

For 2 hours we listened to this girl say...Uno, Dos, Diez...1, 2, 10 oh how we wanted to throw her out the window after the 736th time...we did try to teach her the numbers correctly tho to give us some credit, it obviously failed.

Pile O Mangos and a wait for our next leg of the trip back to Cusco

Red roofs of Cusco

That pretty much ends the Machu Picchu trip. I'll save the puking incident for the next write up, but ill tell ya now, i broke some records, had some firsts, and eventually ended up in the hospital trying to shit in a 1 inch diameter test tube...NOT easy to do my friends, not easy at all.

Christmas in the mountains

2011-12-26T11:15:00.000-08:00

The "Alpaymayo Basecamp Trek"
5 days
96 k´s
1 epic return bus ride
Christmas

Day 1:
Some days are hard, some days are worse. Without letting my feet heal from the last romp in the mountains i set forth on this 5 day. Two and half hours of transportation later saw me standing at the trailhead with 5000 vertical feet of climbing and a pack loaded with 7 days of food and fuel ahead of me. I los t count of switchbacks after 67 and after 6 continues hours of climbing i finally made it to "camp" - a tight little nook of land between two lakes. The ground was glacial mud - if anyof you know this stuff you know how nasty it is. You take one step and half an inch of it sticks to your boots, you take another, you get another half inch and before you know it your 3 inches taller.

The Dogs, Hurting!

Guinnea Pig in a bag anyone? Little piggy goes to the market

There are some epic rivers around here, Class 5 big water and Class 5 Creaking everywhere!

The Trailhead

Already in the clouds

Despite how pristine or amazing the stream in front of you may look, unless its coming straight out of the bottom of a glacier or falling a thousand feet straight down a cliff that starts at a glacier, then its going to have cow shit it in. Since i have a purifier and not a filter i get to drink all of the cow shit...you ask how does cow shit taste? Grassy.

The weather is always changing...it´ll snow, rain, and shine sun on you all at the same time. Tricky business when you´re trying to layer up for this stuff. The sun burns you in 10 minutes, the snow freezes you and the rain soaks you and if you walk with layers you overheat...oh the joy of the wet season.

Happy? maybe...only 25 more switchbacks to go!

Day 1 done. Brutal.

And then the real storm begins...It started as snow, went to rain, then switched to snow just as the sun went down. It snowed for 8 straight hours

And this was what i woke to.

I thought day two was going to be a breeze. A morning climbing, a decent, another climb, a massive 3000 ft decent, a 10 k walk up a valley...doesn´t sound too bad. 8 hours later and broken i arrived at camp. This was turning out to be a bit much of a suffer fest

Walking toward the first pass...into oblivian. The snow made trail finding nasty and the foot deep heavy wet snow wasn´t great for going up...down on the other hand was awesome!

The clouds broke just after carving over the pass...what lay around was nothing short of spectacular

The Cordillera Negra´s...even they got snow in this storm.

Sucker hole...i thought it was clearing...clearly i was wrong

Look at the size of that missing ice chunk! thats like 600 vertical feet! Bet that woulda been fun to watch drop 6000 feet into the valley below

Plenty of good whitewater down these valleys

Check out the scree slope on that one

Check out the Moraine on that one! Finally...8 hours later, at camp!

And not a bad camp if i do say so myself

Nevada Alpamayo...voted the worlds most beautiful mountain by the 1966 German mountaineering association...seems silly, but still, hard to disagree.

Sunset was spectacular!

The Good Morning Pass...a mere 2 grand in vert

No switch backs on this one...straight up:

The weather still wasn´t breaking but at least the clouds broke for a moment to reveal the torquise lake hidden behind the giant pile of Moraine i staired at from camp.

The weather closes in at the pass...20 degree, blowing snow, no visibility...Como Se says "what the fuck are you doing up here alone?"

Down into the next valley the weather still wasn´t good but the geology had changed and as had the climate...much wetter and much greener and much more rounded.

Walking in a wasteland

Lots of good folding and faulting for you geology buffs out there

The next pass of the day, strait on ho!

River crossings are always fun when the drainages are swollen, you have a 55lb pack on your back and no running room... i haven´t fallen in yet, but its gonna happen sooner or later

How can you NOT look at that whitewater?

First view over the pass...more clouds!

Wait for it, wait for it...JUST THE TIP!!! ha

I really cant help it...it might be runnable.

The sun cam out and i took the opurtunity to have lunch and let the dogs air out and rest a bit...my feet were killing me. I needed more fingers to count all my blisters.

Walking down the valley...3 families live a more or less isolated life out here herding alpaca, sheep and a few cow. The trail goes up the valley and to the right, behind the house.

I huffed it up the valley to where it flattened and called it a day...7 hours of walking. The sun came out, i showered in the stream next to my tent and noted how warm it felt. knowing there were hotsprings just 30 k´s away i wondered if maybe this little valley had something hiding in it. I was on a mission to find out.

Dressed for success and doing a goodluck jig I went sticking my finger in every spring i found to find the hot one...

Stuck my finger in it, but it wasn´t hot

Nope, not hot either

Or this one...

This little spring was huge...surely it was hot...i stuck my whole foot in...but nope..still cold

one last one for good luck? Nope, no such luck.

So green this time of year! My tent is in this picture right at the end of the valley...gives you an idea of the size of this place when you compare it to the other pic of my tent 5 pics up.

And of course, horeses and cows shitting in the water...why wouldn´t they?!?!

Made some friends...they were a bit weary at first:

But soon came a bit closer...she was seriously prego.

Not half bad...waiting for the rain to start!

I also spotted the elusive Chinquillit that only lives in the rare non-glaciated high elevation valleys on the east side of the Andes...They´re believed to be a mix breed. Half Chinchila, half Squirrel, Half Rabbit...

The rare and elusive Andes Condor...serious though this time, really.

The rare yellow bellied curly haired barking goat

The elusive Andes scrubby warthog...only seen in packs during hoggin and truffle season...musta been hoggin season

The headwall and pass i´d be climbing tomorrow: It looked a bit steep to really be the pass so i took out my compass, took a bearing and sure enough, the magnetics didn´t lie. I was in for a doosey.

This guy obviously couldn´t handle the doosey:

Seashells at 16,000ft...i really didn´t give a shit since i was currently in a state of hyperventilating as i fought up the pass but i figured it was worth the shot...who woulda guessed, all the way up here...crazy

First view over the pass...sure enough, more clouds blocking the mountains..but it was a nice view of the valley i´d be tromping out of.

Storms building in the distance...always building

2,000 ft down, looking back up at the pass

Found this little abandoned house and claimed it as my own...mine

3 more hours down the valley and i was finally spat out into a much bigger valley...not before an epic fail though. This is the valley i dropped out of. I failed to find the bridge crossing to river left where the trail led you down gently over the last 600 vertical feet of dropping. Instead i bushwhacked, lost my jacket, lost my tent, shredded myself and was bleeding from my head, neck, legs and arms...I popped out on a ridge with 300 ft too go, noticed 3 men on the nxt ridge over wildly thrashing their arms at me...i wildly thrashed my arms back at them and made it very clear there was nooooooo fucking way i was walking back up where i had come from...i found a little goat trail and disappeared back into the bush eventually making down to the bigger valley. whooof

A real beaut of a place though...i walked to the very end of the valley to the last flat spot...took up residence next to the glacial river pouring down the headwall and called it a day!

Structurally sound, i swear.

The sun came out which warrented a bit of an explore and i found this beauty of a waterfall and went for a bath

Do not bathe in this

Epiphytes if im not mistaken?

Then of course, the weather sealed in and i spent Christmas Eve in my tent...not before though, the local bull from the local farmer came running up the valley with the local farmer in tow. i popped my head out of the tent and he looked over, gave a few wild frustrated swings of his arms in the general direction of his running-away bull and i returned a few wild arm swings to let him know i understood his frustratioin "stupid bull" and decided to dawn my flip-flops, ford the knee deep braided river and go have a yarn with the guy...I hadn´t talked to anyone in 4 days an i was going crazy and who better to chat with than a friendly frustrated farmer...we chatted about the weather, the bull, christmas, his lack of english, my shitty spanish, our names...nothing really but it was a great X'mas eve for me cause of it...i even played a quick came a flashlight tag with his house later on when i was outside taking a piss...oh the little things!

Waterfalls everywhere!

Right, there´s the weather...

Day 5 was a short 3 hour 15k trek down the valley to the big town...lots of good whitewater to look at.

Given it was christmas there were all sorts of parades...mostly small, but each different. I took up shop in the central plaza and wathched them all go around while i waited for my 10 hour bus back to the other side of the mountains

Pomabomba

never figured out what this on meant..."Spikes ahead"? "Sharks in the water"? "Come splash in the waves, the water´s fine!"?

These guys had goats around their necks...i was waiting for the sacrafice...

The bus home, or back to Huaraz at least, took 10 hours, crossed the Cordillera Blanca on a pass at 16,000 ft. The road was dirt (mud) and the bus often skidded out...the road was only 2 feet wider than the bus on either side, often with 2000 ft of distance between the road and the bottom of the valley...i had the very front seat...i was awake for alllllll 10 hours. We only drove 200 or so K´s...thats 20 k´s per hour, thats 12 miles per hour for 10 straight hours...this was no highway, it was a glorified logging road with ruts and potholes and i´ll tell you what...i´d pay 6 dollars to do it again!
Not to mention that the 40 people who had seats were the long distance people, while the other 35 people in the eisles were just the local people who were using the long distance bus as their local bus...i shared my armrest with 2 women for the first two hours and only sat on the last 4 inches of my seat...they know how to pack people in here, thats for sure.
So that was last night...i left Pomabamba at 6:45 pm arrived here at 5 am. washed. did laundry and am leaving for a 30 hour bus ride tonight at 10:30 to Cusco - the general Machu Picchu area...let the good times roll!
Merry Christmas!

Cordillera Blanco: Like a kid in a candy shop

2011-12-20T09:46:00.000-08:00

Not much of a story here, but the pictures are fantastic.
I set off for my first true trek of this trip. Solo of course, it turns out im here in the off season - or more appropriate, the rainy season. Each day the mornings in town start with sun and by 11 its cloudy and by 2 its raining. In the mountains the storms back up against the 20,000 ft peaks and above 16,000ft precip falls as snow with rain at all elevations below.
It is a delicate balance to adventure alone into these mountains. There are a lot of factors to take into account. I am crossing passes at 17,000 feet where air is thin and footsteps are heavy. Being alone i have to carry everything, being winter in the mtns everything i carry has to be warm and strong - or in otherwords heavy. I am set up for winter, i have a 4 season tent, a cold weather bag, many layers, a puffy, full gortex and equipment for snow. My tent stows with its footprint and rainfly already attached - critcal as each afternoon i set up shop in the rain. Days begin with semi-alpine starts...i wake 1 hour before first light (3:45am) take an hour to eat, strech, and break camp...i walk by the weather, camping at the base of passes in the afternoons and only making the push up and over in the early morning before clouds roll in. This land is carved by glaciers and as such the valley walls are near vertical in most places. Passes generally only have 1 safe route and are cliffed out otherwise - what this means is i HAVE to cross passes in good weather. I start walking early and end by 2 or 3 pm when the storms begin to build strength. I cook from within my tent, dry things with the only warmth there is (body heat) and fall asleep by 7:30 or 8. The high altitude means cooking takes longer, meaning i have to carry more fuel, meaning my pack weighs even more. At between 55 and 70 lbs depending on how long i´m out for, i bruise under its weight on uphills and my knees feel like they shatter on downhills. I figure i burn 3 to 4 thousand calories a day, but i can only carry about 2,500/day due to weight and bulk. I also always carry extra days of food in case a large storm comes in and pins me down for days. Dont get me wrong though...im actually in heaven and i cant tell you how amazing this place is...maybe the pictures will help!?!?!

I got lucky and after 7 days of storms my first time in the mountains saw a relatively calm 2 day patch with clear (instead of cloudy) mornings and rain starting late (5 instead of 12, 1 or 2).
Times and days given for walking these trails are based off of the soft and slow (no offense to any of you out there). Most people come here and hire mules to carry their packs, walk for only 4 hours a day and labor for hours at 2000 ft passes. I walk fast, and when you´re up and walking at 4:45am you can get some serious hours in before noon. This first trek was listed as a 4 day, i did it without much hassel in 2, although i did "run" up the pass as i was being chased by fog and didn´t want to get trapped (when i say run though i mean my heart and body thought i was running, my feet however didn´t move more than a slow tromp due to the weight of my pack and the 17,000 feet of elevation) - you cant move fast in this thin air, your speed is actually dictated completely by heart rate and you find something that seems maintainable, although it is always exhausting...but again, this isn´t torture... i am in fact like a pig in shit up here...its so wonderful!
Let the pictures show:

Huaraz Peru from the roof of my Hostel

Where Parades happen everyday and everyone seems to despise them!

The local laundry room, toilet, dump and whitewater park

Just the tip!

The morning i pushed off for my first trek, and also the first day i had been able to see the mtns. They are....

Huge!!!

This is a Combi - like a taxi van, its how you get everywhere. They like to fill them up beyond capacity. This is smaller than a 12 passenger van, maybe 2/3rds the size. When i got in I was number 13, we picked up an old man with 3 huge sacs (14), a little girl dragging a puppy and a school bag (15), 2 other older women (16 and 17) and now that all seats were filled and beyond i swore we were done. it became comical when we then pulled over and loaded up 3 more, making it 20 in this tiny van - and much to my amusement after 10 minutes i looked outside at the passing shawdow of our van and noticed someone sitting on the room. They all laughed when i took this picture. I laughed in return!

Somehow managed to make friends with some of the van riders on the way up...they wanted my picture, i wanted theres. It worked out well!

And so it begins...into the mtns. Up one valley, over a pass, out another.

Lots of new snow!

My route is the one near number 3 on the left

Little Peruvian family at the mouth of the valley

Beautiful glacial carved valleys and easy walking to start (15,000 ft)

Sooo many waterfalls...hard to see them here but i must have passed 30 or 40 all falling thousands of feet to the valley floor

Steeeeeep!

There´s always a big mtn at the end of a valley!

Everything is wet and green (and muddy) this time of the year

My route took me up and to the left. I camped the night up in a basin near where that glacier in the center (that flows to the left) intercepts the green ridgeline.

Starting the climb up and looking back from where i came

Wet!

A scale of things...i think if you click this it gets bigger. You may be able to see my time. In the center of the picture is a whie streak (a cascade), my tent is directly to the left of that in the lighter green patch. this place was HUUUGE

I got lucky with the weather and had an hour to explore and take photos once i set up camp. 30 seconds after i took this picture i took the next one.

And the clouds never broke..by morning there was 2 inches of snow where i stood. I moved down hill quickly and got back to my tent before another "lost in the fog" adventure started.

About 1/3rd of the pass waiting to be climbed the next day...it was once false summit after another

Years ago during an earthquak a huge hunk of the glacier at the end of this lake broke off, created a tidal wave that broke through the moraine and flashed a all of rock, ice, water and mud downstream killing something like 20,000 people in the Huaraz...now they have a dam and control the water level.

What a green!

Paradise?

Beautiful morning weather!

I accidentily slept in til 5:30 and pushed off just before 7. By 8:30 i looked back and saw the fog in the bottom right of the picture moving up valley very very quickly...i still had a long way to to top of the pass and the fog was moving much quicker than i was...i this is when i began to run.

In 15 minutes it moved more than a kilometer up valley and more than a thousand feet up vertically...i was still running. I got lucky though and after reaching the spot i hand spent the night it lulled and never went further

Some dont make it

Another 30 minutes to the pass...stoked!

There she is...way up there

The first view into the next valley

and up the next valley

2,500 feet down and 15k`s out (i hope you´re all appreciating how i´m jumping back and forth with my units)

Looking back from where i came

1 pm and the storms begin this daily barage on the mountains...i luckily was out before they rolled in.

I leave tomorrow morning for a 6 day...i hope to do it in 4. We´ll see.

Lost and alone at 14,000 ft

2011-12-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

So it wasn´t quite that dramatic, and i was only lost for 60 minutes, but if you figure that each second one thought goes rushing through your head about being lost, spending the night out alone or never getting back then there were 3,600 thoughts to process before i found myself back striaght again. It weighs heavier than you can imagine.

I was in the Cordillera Negro, based out of Huaraz Peru but spending a night and 2 days at a mountain hut where some of Peru´s best sport climbing exists. i had met an Aussie chick at my hostal and couldn´t convince her to go trekking with me but she convinced me to join her at this climbing place. Without a good shoulder though i was stuck wandering the hills while she climbed with another random British girl and two german brothers. The place was gorgeous. The hut sits at 14,000 ft, the surrounding hills touch almost 16. This range sits west of and parallels the Cordillera Blanca (white mountains) which with more than 200 peaks over 20,000ft stand as the tallest range outside of the Himilayas and are also the reason i am in this region.

I had just finished up a 41 hour traveling stint with 33 of those 41 hours being spent on busses from Ecuador. I needed a good stretch of the legs and also needed some time to aclimatize before heading off to higher altitudes.
The Cordillera Negro (black mountains) aren´t high enough to catch much precip (hence their name) they do however, catch huge cloud banks that stretch out 200km to the ocean and peel up over their flanks. Its the wet season here, and as such the mornings are generally clear and then storms and clouds roll in each afternoon. This scenary is what i call Copy and Paste. There is nothing distinct, take a plot 10ft by 10ft or even 100ft by 100ft and copy it, now paste it all around you and you have the Cordillera Negro. Not a place to get caught out when the clouds roll in - and that is exactly what happened to me. I spent the first day with a half loaded pack, "training" if you will for multiday trips to come. I climbed the local highest peak, walked ridges for hours and generally explored. It was great. The night brought the most spectacular sunset i have ever seen (pics below) and in the morning i decided to ditch the weight, carry a light day bag and head off for a 6 to 7 hour roundtrip overland push to a much taller mtn in the distance...the climbing guides where surprised, slightly impressed, and encouraging, but also a bit weary and worried. They warned me of the fog, of others getting caught out for nights lost.
I crossed 3 valleys and made it to the base just in time for clouds to cover the peak, they often blow over and it was still early so i sat and waited...no luck though and no point in cilmbing this thing (which had many cliffed out sections) if i couldn´t see a thing. So i hoofed it up the next nearest peak that was still clear of clouds with intentions of ridge walking back to the hut. I dropped my hat somewhere along the way up which forced me back down off the ridge on a wild goose chase but somhow i managed to find it (luckily). I crossed one valley heading home, set out for the ridge again and then finally the clouds dropped, and they dropped quickly. I was in them with no visibility and I followed the ridge but at some point needed to drop off and countour around the side of the last valley to find the hut...i had 10 or 20 feet of visibility and the only thing i had to go on now was my mental map.
I find the psychology of being lost quite interesting. First comes the realization that your lost and from here you have two instant choices - panic or think. Although a sense of panic definitely crept up i first took stock (i.e. what do i have on me, whats my situation, where do i think i am?) I had a first aid kit, lighter, head lamp, water purifier, and enough peanut butter to survive the night, also a gortex jacket. It was only 1pm, thats 6 hours before sunset, 5 hours to wander and 1 hour of light to collect dry cow patties for an evening fire if it came to that...So i´d survive a night, mildly uncomfortable if it didn´t rain and miserable and hypothermic if it did, but i´d survive. I drew out my mental map on the ground, where i thought i was, how many more valleys to go, where i thought certain landscape features lay. I then made my move. I contoured for 30 minutes through nothingness, the landscape didn´t change, the aspect i was on felt constant, i hadn´t passd anything i could see or recognize...then i came across a big drainage - this was not on my mental map, fuck! - When you cant see anything and you dont know where you are and you´re only guiding yourself by a mental map and you come across a landsape feature that fits no where within the larger context of your understanding of the environment you in, well, thats when you really feel fucked. Your mental map is useless now, you no longer know where to place yourself, you are truelly lost.
I had a fail safe, a road that i knew existed some ways away. If i never went down and always walked with uphill to my right i could eventually cross this road which i could then take back to the hut (all this of course in theory as i stood alone, trapped in a pea soup bubble).
i crossed the drainage, found a 2nd one, also not on my mental map...little did i know that while countouring for 30 minutes instead of staying at the same elevation i had actually dropped 600 vertical feet. I had crossed these exact drainages earlier in the day, but so high up that they hadn´t formed yet. I was now much lower and the little canyons they had carved were completely foreign to me.
I got lucky. In the morning, on the hike out i had taken a picture behind me, of my route home, just in case i got clouded in. It ended up being my saving grace. I wandered for some time further until finally i came across rocks, large ones, identifiable ones...i pulled out my camera flipped through the picture and was able to vaguely guess at the area i was at...i guessed right, and keeping the rocks to my left and climbing uphill i eventually found my way back...what a relief.
The moment didn´t last long and i was never truely in serious danger (other than maybe spending a nasty night out) but it gave me a true humbling to the dangers of fog and clouds in this region...it remained my enemy during my last trek and will continue to remain my most feared enemy as adventures have unfold in the larger Cordillera Blanca mountains as i trek solo in these big mountain storms...

In the end the two days at the hut was spectacular... I got acclimated, met some great people, got my legs strong and experienced a place with 10,000 years of history, saw the life of traditional Peruvians and finally got myself into the mtns!

3 am boarder crossing into Peru! Giddy Up. You can get up to a 90 day toursit visa. The boarder agent asked how long i was staying - i said only 4 weeks or so. He then decided i only needed a 45 day visa. I asked if i could have 90 just in case. The number of days are hand written in your passport and apparently crossing them out is a big no no, so instead he just stuck a 1 next to the 45, giving me 145 days in Peru, in case i decide to stay here for the next 5 months!!!

The nothingness that is the northern Peru Coast. Sand wind and heat are all this land knows.

The hut (Refugio) with the "Rock Forest" in the background. Endless routes up sticky limstone. I wish i had a shoulder or two

The Rock Forest Proper

A general idea of the copy and paste landscape

Day 1 hiking the local mtn

And walking the ridges

Looking out to the Peruvian coast 200 km away

10,000 y.o. rock carvings in a cave in the Rock Forest...this was an enchanted place

Let the sunset begin...Amazing glowing rocks in the Rock Forest

Two 80 y.o. traditional Peruvians live here with 300 sheep, 30 cows and a couple of dogs.

The sunset lasted for 40 minutes and changed every 2.

The last sight of the sun from 14,000 ft as it sets over a cloud bank that streches to the ocean

Fire

Day 2 starting out beautiful

A Peruvian Cayote carrying a pup

Tons of ruins in this area, most around 1,000 years old...its hard to really make them out in the picture but the piles of rock, thats them.

Waiting, hoping, at the base of the mountain for the clouds to blow over. There is actually a very large mountain in the center of this picture...i swear.

What it finally came to. The fog that swarmed me and that i still fear.
I actually lost my hat a second time this day and was so distraught that after finding the hut and having a cup of tea i ventured back out (marking my way) and came across it 20 minutes out!!!
Paralyzing!

The picture that saved me...on the walk out i had contoured high up on the right of the picture, on the way back i found myself on the far left in the bottom of the drainage.

The making of San Pedro, a 2 day affair and an epic journey in and of itself, i did not partake, but maybe in the future.

Vomit and so much more

2011-12-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

So no shit, there I was, projectile vomiting a 5 foot streamer of beer and potato au gratin, with support streams coming out of each nostral, as I ran down the bustling vender lined streets of Montanita, a small but wild little surf town on the coast of Ecuador ( where by the way, no one ever runs). I swear the carbonation in beer gave it a little extra umph as it took a solid 30 minutes to get all the potato chunks out of my sinuses and it wasn't until 4 hrs later in the middle of the night as I lay in bed with the cold sweats that the last piece of potato dislodged itself and slid down the back of my throat. I mean honestly, how the fuck did I get myself into this kinda shit (again)?

Montanita from behind

Where all the puking action happend...

Its bad enough to evacuate your guts but doing at full jog down the middle of the street with plenty of eyes to watch seems to be a some kind if new standard I unknowingly strive for. What's more is the fact that literally 30 seconds before the trigger was pulled I was sitting at the dinner table with a local family two Swiss friends and Emma. One of the Swiss was doing a homestay with the fam and decided to cook them a traditional Swiss meal. Emma was invited and I had tagged along, met the whole family, drank beers, helped prepare the meal and then in good awkward fashion excused m

Montanita´s Beach

Montanita has been an interesting bag of tricks. The 13 hour night bus to get here from Quito went surprisingly smooth, although little sleep was had because obviously a passed out gringo on a bus is a gold mine to the right thieving ecuadorian who may or may not be on the bus as well. Your only fail safe is to put your absolute essentials in your pockets and accept that anything else left in your little day bag is possibly easy pickings depending on how deep you sleep or how good the thief is. I hate giving the impression that it's unsafe here, but the truth is that in some places it is, but mostly no one wants to hurt you they are simply opportunistic and if given the window will separate you from your material goods. The good ones don't need much of a window, that's the unnerving part so keeping ur wits about you most of the time is ur best defense, and is usually a quite good one.

Dont swim on, or for that matter even touch, this river!

From my hostal

Surpringly there were iguanas swimmng along with horses and herons

I spent 6 days in Montanita, went to a international surf comp, swam the big waves while Em surfed them (shit tons of fun btw), got horribly sick for 4 days, shat, puked and slept. My board shorts no longer fit and I'm doing what I can to gain weight back but I'm keeping it safe for a while with tomato avocado sandwhiches, fresh mango and yogurt - a diet I can't complain much about, in fact it's quite amazing.

the international surf comp. Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Venezuala and more...lots of countries, lots of people, very little waves!

Althugh it wasnt epic conditions the surfers did did what they could with the small waves and i was still impressive to watch. Ecuador took the womens comp.

Puerto Lopez

The international crew on the way to the international surf comp. We had a kiwi, two swiss, an argintine, 2 locals, and me

1 dollar 22´s - hard to pass up especially for a sunset on the beach

A new version of "beach comber" not exactly surf what the point of all this was, but knowing how many people drink beer from glass bottles around here, i figure they were sieving out the nasties.

Emma pulled the surfing card and with her heart set on the waves and mine on the mtns we had one final bash that saw us dancing in town until 4 am and enjoying the bounty of cocktail alley ( a road with endless venders selling cheap fresh fruit cocktails that are ALWAYS heavy on the rum). I was up at 7 packing and was on the bus 8 hours in transit to Cuenca to meet my swiss friends from my days at the language school.

Cuenca is ecuadors 3rd largest city. And my favorite by far. Cobble streets, stone buildings, markets, friendly safe people (or so they feel), cool architecture and best of all an amazing national park (Cajas) just 30k's away.
We spent a spectactular day hiking a section if it, most of which was above 13,000ft. Hot dam did my heart and head have a time with the rarefied air! Good times all around tho. These Andes highlands are called Paramo and resemble rounded tusicky scrubland like Grose Moorne NP in New foundland or many of the higher peaks of New Hampshire.

Hitching a rid from the park entrance to the trailhead.

My new Swiss friends, Barbara and Reto, who i will be seeing again in 7 short months when i head to Europe

Cajas NP proper

Holy wild horse dong...dude

Chillaxin at the pass

Obligatory group jump shot at the end of the day

Llama

Pissed off Llama

I bought a llama finger puppet, it gets boring traveling alone sometimes. "what is your name?" in spanish is "Como se llama?" so i named this guy "Come Se"

So much good fruit!!!

More meat than you could shake a stick at

Goodbye Ecuador - I will return in 4 months to see you again, but for now a mistriss with glaciated peaks is calling my name.

Hello Peru!

Type 2 fun - what doesnt kill you makes you stronger

2011-12-03T06:29:00.000-08:00

So theres some funky stuff going on with the formatting and i couldn't move pictures to their appropriate place in the text and there some spacing issues too...its all there, just not in logical order.

Cayambe...amazing!

Breakfast, one bite of biscuit 3 sips of tea, repeat
Where all the action happened

Laundry and Dishes

Beautiful area

Piggy Piggy Piggy

Cuerco

Beauty

Kitchen...we had meat, but no fridge, i didn't ask

The eating room, left with the flag-for-a-door is my room, foward and left is the parents and boys room, forward and right is the kitchen, right but not in the picture is the girls room. out that door is the bathroom

My Bedroom...quite enjoyable minus the 3 inch spiders

Backyard

These mangey guys HATED me...and most everyone else

Chicks

Intag Valley

The Intag Valley

Where's a good shoulder when you need one

Big and Scary

A nice little cascade on our guided walk

Flowers

Vaca

G Pigs, unfortunately i didn't get to taste them

Back Yard

Rita, in all her might
Working the pineapple crop, Pucara

Beautiful sunset in Pucara, this place was gorgeous

My homestay house in Pucara

Gringo Chris tries to save the day but really fucks this one up!

Sunset over Otavalo from roof of my hostel

Lake in the crater of Fuya Fuya

Lake waters had risen making this eire site

Lake in the middle of Fuya Fuya

Market in Otavalo

Pablo's Dad's go cart we took out for its test run...holy shit was this thing fun!

Cute, but unfortunately this guy was a tourist trap

There has been a growing trend amond us recognizing that simply calling something ¨fun¨doesn´t really capture the full extent of the experience. Out of this has come a ranking order of different types of fun to better convey the experience. I personally think it has gotten a bit out of control now, with some people claiming there are actually 4 or 5 types of fun, when it truth the movement really started with just 2 types. I think, most likely, while someone was having a bit too much type 2 fun they came up with the other types...Anyways,

Here´s the general lay out and examples to boot:

Middle of the World

Types of fun...
Type 1 fun: Fun while you´re doing it, fun afterwards. This is the standard fun we are all familiar with.
Type 2 fun: Not fun while you are doing it, but fun to remeniss about it afterwards. For example, running marathons, child birth, must run class 5+ sieved out walled in gorges.
Type 3 fun: Fun while you're doing it, not fun afterwards. Epic nights out on the piss. STDs.
Type 4 fun: NOT FUN ever. Dislocating shoulders, falling off cliffs, etc.

So i laid all of this out because i have seem to be finding toooons of type 2 fun down here, some of it is even boardering on type 4 fun...or not fun at all. Let the shit show begin.

I left off last time delayed by a day getting into the small village where i would be attending spansish school for 2 weeks and doing a homestay with a local fam. Things finally got kicked off and we made our way out into the boon docs, but not first without stopping for some necessary errands. This included collecting seeds off a highland tree to replant for a refroestation project.

The trees we found fruiting were right next to a 2 inch diameter water pipe that was bringing water from a high elevation lake down to a community or farm. It was leaking. Gringo Chris, fresh out of hydrology school, determined he could assist with the leak...Gring Chris really fucked this one up...upon "adjusting" the pipe i failed to realize the 300 feet of head (LOTS OF PRESSURE) was going to do its best to break free, and break free it did. My adjustment ended up catastrophically destroying the pipe and sending a wall of spray in a 30 foot radius...OOOPS. I got out of there quick and we notified the locals of a "leaky situation".

Next came my 2nd fatal mistake of the day...Salsa. Fresh Salsa that is. Ohhhh so delicious, oh so deadly. I added it to my rice during my pan-friend trout lunch and it made the food spectactular. 6 hours later though something was churning in my gut and it ended up being a 6 day affair with the toilet. I wont spare you any details.

So Ill paraphrase the 2 weeks (well 10 days, i bowed out early).

I arived, everything seemed chummy. I was expecting a low level housing situation and thats exactly what i got - no biggy. Seven of us in a a house a bit bigger than my attic bedroom. Cubical sytle walls that didn't reach te ceiling (there was no ceiling, just a roof). 2 younger boys, 9 and 11, two teenie girls, 14 and 16, the folks, 3 dogs, and 2 cats in the house! Tight. Outside, 25 guinea pig, 20 chickens, 3 pigs and a loooot of mud.

I got sick on night one and had to use the bathroom 25 times in less than 3 days. I shat myself on morning 3 while eating breakfast with the family at the table...ooops. that was awkward, and that was definitely not a fart. The family was hard to talk to, did not engage in conversation, but insisted on sitting with me at the table while i ate (regardless of if they were eating or not) they also liked to stare at me without talking - slightly awkward.

I ran a temp well into the triple digits, i was shaking and had the cold sweats for 2 days, my resting heart rate doubled to above 100 bpm...i wasn't doing so hot. The mother, however, thought it was just the sun, despite me trying to tell her otherwise, and despite having no appetite whatsoever, i was being fed 3 meals a day. Breakfast was death by biscuit - week old dry bread rolls that could be used as grenades and would easily break double pane glass if thrown with anything more than a toss (i received 2-3 of these daily, 1-2 of them got hidden in my pockets when no one was looking and later fed to the dogs, god they were hard to eat). Lunch was death by Hot Starch. A bowl of potato rice pasta soup with a large plate of rice with potatoes, pasta, and sometimes beans and sometimes a piece of fried meat (they had no fridge though and i never did figure out where the meat was kept) and dinner was soup again. The meals were the same, 10 days straight, and once my appetite was back i quite enjoyed it, but for 5 days the mother put huge portions in front of me and watched as i forced every spoonful down my gullet. With a temp, the chills and the shits, this was no small feat - on more than one occasion i threw up in my mouth and chewed it back down infront of her- type 2 fun.

Bedtime was 7:30-8:00, mornings started at 4:30 to 5.

They boiled the water for me to drink but something was still funky with it. On inspecting my day old water in my water bottle i noticed that after being shaken the bubbles did not rise to the surface, they remained suspended in the liquid for many minutes that that crazy drink back in the day with the suspended orbs- i call it liquid and not water because obviously this doesn't happen in water.

Spanish lessons were great. i learned tons, learned not to care as much about sucking and have more material to process than i covered in 4 years of spanish in highschool. That was a huge plus.

For 5 days there was a swiss couple also staying in the village, we became instant friends and swapped stories. They stayed with the regional cock-fighting champion and were given lessons on how to train your cock to win. Apparently placing it on a string, putting a weight around one of its ankles and then swaying the string helps build leg muscles and strength...he won 30 dollars at the weekends cock fight - a full weeks wage. not bad money.

We also partook in the weekly sugar cane processing, where they press the cane, boil down the syrup and make sugar...after boiling down the syrup for 6 hours they pour out the cramel like concoction onto sheets and then fold it over and over as it cools which folds air into it and makes it granual. At just the right moment they grab all the sugar and build a giant 10 inch sugar cock with it that sits erect on the table. After standing there and watching all of this we (me and the swiss) voted one of the guys as the sugar cock master after he erected 7 sugar cocks in 20 minutes...quite the feat, unfortunately i dont have pictures.

We took a guided tour down to one of the rivers and were very surprised to see that our guides were a 16 year old guy and two 14 year old girls...aftr much suspicsion we all had a fantastic day, especially when they realized we were pretty laid back and didn't care about much, including their guiding skills...a good day out though and it landed us in the town over during market day.

I also spent some time working a pineapple crop on the local organic eco farm...hard work and i didn't last long especially since i was still sick while trying to work and the sun down here is something brutal...heat stroke, fever, shits, and the chills dont go well with death by Hot Starch for lunch.

After 10 days i booked it out of there and i am off to the coast to team up with other Team Extreme member Emma P. Ought to be a good one and will report back with next adventures.

The Journey Begins

2011-11-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

The rough plan:
Fly to Quito Nov. 16th
-6 Weeks in Ecuador
-2.5 months in Patagonia
- 2 months Bolivia y Peru
Fly to Portlan May 7, buy a touring bike, ditch trekking gear and leave to Italy May 12.
- 2 weeks traveling through Italy and Slovenia with the family, they leave from Rome on May 26, i get on my bike. Cheney arrives.
- 2 months: Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, France
- Wedding South Coast of France last week of July
- Aug 1, fly to Istanbul meet up with Paris. Train to Samsun on Turkeys North Coast.
- Aug and Sept, bike Turkey´s north coast, bike the length of Georgia and into Azerbaijan, dip toe in Black sea, try to get into Armenia.
- Time and money allowing - head to India/Nepal/Mongolia, who knows really
- Arrive back in Oregon. Drive to New Hampshire, Shoulder Surgery, spend 3 months driving back west, find a job.

So currently i am 5 days into this master plan. I am sitting in Otavalo Ecuador waiting a day before i head to the Intag Valley for 2 weeks of Spanish lessons and volunteering in a small 300 person village. The shit show has surely begun and i will write more once more has happened, i have a better internet connection, and the keyboard doesn´t stick like someone dropped a few too many cups of coffee on it.
For now, a few pictures to start: OK, nevermind, after 10 minutes of trying to get 2 pictures to load there was no progress. For now, you just have to wait.

Dont Trust A Fart

2011-01-01T13:58:00.000-08:00

Don’t trust a Fart

Now this isn’t a topic that most people openly admit to or even openly chat about, but nevertheless it always seems to offer up a few good laughs so following that vein I continue:

I was maybe only 5 or 6 the last time I shat myself as a young’n (pushed too hard while peeing). I did it again as a full grown adult on the side of Clear Creek in Colorado just as I was about to put on the river to kayak (same pushing too hard problem), and then again as I sat in my room writing my master’s thesis thinking I was passing an innocent fart. These events went mostly unnoticed by the general public, mere quiet blips on the pooing-yourself radar screen and rightly so, they were not serious offenses and generally were not tied to any great deal of humor – shitting yourself can only become true public knowledge if it also carries a good bit of humor…so here it goes, my one publically recognizable story about shitting myself and really making sure I did it properly!

I was a junior at Virginia Tech and lived in one of those standard cookie cutter, mass-produced apartment complexes: Top floor with 3 other apartments on the level. We got lucky and had a group of 4 girls next to us, one of which I was highly interested in and had a good undergrad hornball crush on. She was a surf girl from the beaches of Virginia: Sun freckled cheeks, a beautiful smile and good fun all around.

It was winter break and I was back home in NH for the holiday. As it turned out, said girl was driving up with 4 other friends to Killington for a week of riding the Vermont powder (or ice). Of course being that it was practically my backyard I insisted I had to come join for at least a day or two – winter break in a ski condo with the girl I had a crush on – dreams are made of such things. So off I went in my little Honda accord tearing up the state highways between Concord and Killington with wild undergrad fantasies of the days to come spilling through my mind.

Something was funny though. Somewhere along the 4 hour journey north I began to feel a bit uneasy: a little warm, kinda nauseous, with that brewing sensation low down in my gut like there was trouble to come. What the fuck I thought – no way am I getting sick on the drive up to this perfect situation. I was determined to ignore it! It got worse though and when I stood up from my car outside the condo I knew it was bad, ga-glug-glug. Oh boy!!! That brewing sensation just turned into a straight on percolation and something sure seemed like it was going to bubble up…fuck, I didn’t know what to do. What was there to do? I put on the game face, convinced myself it was just some gas from holiday meals and knocked on the door. Inside I was introduced to the crew, none of which I knew except the girl but the lot seemed friendly enough and everyone was stoked for a good holiday trip. I pinched my cheeks tight and tried to roll with the scene.

I managed a quick remark about not feeling great but tried to play it off like it was just the upset stomach I had claimed. The crew was just getting off the hill and about to head into town to grab groceries for dinner – I was in for the ride since after being there for only 5 minutes I couldn’t justifiably claim I wanted to stay behind and destroy their bathroom.

The nausea associated with stomach bugs is as bad as it gets as far as im concerned…the spins, the cramps, the chills, the cold sweats… its nothing you wish upon anyone.

With 6 of us in the group it was necessary to take my car as well, yet things had gotten considerably worse and I was in no state to drive. Embarrassingly, I handed the keys over to said girl and curled up in the passenger seat of my own car. On a scale of 1 to 10 I had showed up at the condo on a 3 and now only 30 minutes later I was edging on a 7 or 8. The drive down into town didn’t help and despite wanting to go into the grocery store all I could do was remain in the fetal position in the car while the 5 others went in for supplies.

You know when shit hits a fan? You know how it often hits quick, hard, and definable – like falling through ice, one second all is good, the next you’re underwater in an ice bath, or like stepping in front of a train, or being at ground zero in a nuclear explosion – that’s where this was about to turn.

Oh god, oh god….huuuuuuuurrrrrrrrggggghhhhh – I fumbled for the seatbelt with one hand and the door handle with the other just in time to lean out past the car and empty my guts into the parking lot. A good solid spew, at least 2 feet across with solid identifiable chunks of my Subway sandwich now lay on the pavement beside my car – wow, I sure hope she doesn’t see that!! Right, how was she not going to see that!?!?!! But man, I did feel a bit better.

I returned to my fetal position and felt a bit of gas welling up inside of me – ah, the thought of relieving some pressure inside the ol’ gut – that sounds good! I eased the weight off of one cheek and let her rip – blurp!

Oh fuck – blurp? Farts don’t go blurp, they go, well you know what a fart sounds like, its not a blurp. A blurp means only one thing: That “gas” was now sitting as a giant pile of liquid shit in my pants!

Oh fuck, ohhhhhhh fuck, fuck, fuck….I sat for only a micro second in complete astonishment as the scene flashed in front of me: Winter Holiday, Ski Condo, Beautiful Girl, Partying, Hot tubs, skiing…oh and shitting yourself inside your car while she’s in a grocery store shopping for you. I sat idle but my brain was running on overdrive…Ok, Act quickly, make decisions, stay calm. What are my options? Ideally I just sit here and pretend it didn’t happen, get back to the condo and change my pants – ideally a dog bites off her nose on the way back to the car so she cant smell anything, ideally the liquid shit doesn’t leak through my boxers, my jeans, and into the car seat. Fuck, I’m so fucked! Ok, so I cant just sit here I HAVE TO GET OUT OF THE CAR! Ok… here I go… Fuck! there’s all my vomit!

The long step over my puddle of puke sent the liquid shit dribbling down my leg. Ok, calm, cool, collected – here we go. I had 80 feet to the front door to find a new walking style and come up with a plan: Find a bathroom! They’re either in the front or the back, pray they’re in the front. I walked as casual a college student could with a cup of shit soup smeared between their legs right through the automatic doors and into the store.

Fuck, no signs for the bathroom anywhere…Ok is anyone watching? Where’s the girl? Where’s her friends? Did they notice you come in? Stay cool, walk normally. I waddled up to a checkout clerk and asked for the bathroom – all the way in the back on the right – Salvation!!! But it was 60 feet away through the gauntlet. I gathered some odd looks as I paced back and forth at the front of the store looking for an open isle. It seemed every isle I looked down was occupied by someone from the group and I wasn’t about to go slurping past them. “Things” has slid down to my knees by now and times were getting desperate – I found an empty isle and made a mad stiff-legged penguin dash for the back. The bathroom way empty and I darted in, relief was mine to savor.

The clean up was ugly to say the least. I had to sacrifice my boxers and half a roll of hand towels. After 10 minutes I stepped out knowing that whoever had to take the bathroom trash out that day was going to be a very unhappy camper. I lucked out big time though and the bathroom was also equipped with a hot air hand drier – Also very convenient for drying pants as it turns out.

I was just about to say that all went as planned from there on out but I cant really claim that. I did manage to get out of the grocery store alive and made no mention of my pile of vomit next to the car – and neither did she. We got back to the condo and I found new underwear but the general misery continued. Fortunately the purging was over. What a site though, this random dude from New Hampshire laying in cold sweats on the floor of a condo while the girl he has a crush on and her 4 random friends from Virginia booze it up around him.

I woke up the next morning feeling completely fine – I was amazed at the whole ordeal – did it actually happen? The minus 1 count on the boxers was enough proof to me that it had indeed been a reality. I went skiing that day but decided to save face and head home after that, no need to stick around if round two decided to rear its head.

I found out later that I had managed to contaminate some of the girls friends who in turn proceeded to also get violently ill and spew their guts out. I bet they loved me for that one!

So in the end I shat my pants, didn’t get to party with the girl, got her friends sick and then left the whole scene – a true and complete success by some standards!

Round and Round

2010-06-12T21:22:00.001-07:00

Its been almost exactly a year since i came home from drilling in Mexico and currently i find myself once again on a drilling adventure - this time though i am on the other side of the world sitting under the southern sky.
FIRST though - i need to recap the last year. Sorry, i got lazy, it happens. Once back from Mexico i continued drilling at the HJ Andrews, saw my sister get married, flew directly to the Yukon and traveled with mates from NZ, OZ, and a stinky country called France...I returned to Oregon and drilled more wells and then took off to British Coumbia with more Kiwi's...finally i returned and went under the surgeons knife to fix an unstable and untrusty shoulder, school started immediately after that and the Fall term saw an amazing trip down the Rogue River and a Thanksgiving backcountry hut trip to Mount Bailey with 30 people, 3 turkeys, 1 deep fryer and 2 kegs - oh and also a shit ton of fun. Things calmed for the next many months as school became life. Spring showed was celebrated with a 10 day trip to DeathValley and then spring term saw a wild season of softball...
Its amazing what happens in a year and these pictures in no way capture it all - but they never do.
So here we go...
~Wedding
~Yukon/Alaska
~Drilling
~British Columbia
~Surgery
~Rogue River Rafting Trip
~Thanksgiving at Mount Bailey with 30 people, 2 kegs, and 3 deep fried turkey's
~10 Days in Death Valley
~Softball

The undefeated Monica's Merkins

The Softball Crew - sorta - after, well more like in the middle of, a long night!

Portland Urban Iditirod - Find a shopping cart, sort out a theme, drink, run (repeat)

Insert pictures of Death Valley here which i haven't gone through yet...

Home for Christmas

Mount bailey Thanksgiving Trip

Chicken Fucker and Sheep Fucker - the ultimate Halloween Duo

Me and Pony Saddling up for the Rogue

British Columbia

Cock-n-Balls

Alaska and the Yukon
The Yukon, Day 1: Nearly Midnight

A very proud crew

Denali

The Pipeline
The Duke
The legend

On the way to stewart BC/ Hyder Alaska

Salmon - we just got a net and started scooping!