Bandidos Yanquis

The Last Post

2006-07-13T18:36:00.000-05:00

Well, we're back. I'm sure half of our regular readers have quit checking by now. Our apologies for leaving it so long.
We left Torreon on the 29th of June, sadly, as we had made some good friends there. After spending four quick hours in Oklahoma City we boarded our LAST bus! I won't miss it. Three days in Tulsa with Piet's grandma and another four days in Nebraska with Piet's family meant we spent July 4th in small town US of A. That night was fun-filled with firecrackers, fireworks, and exploding toilet bowl cleaner.
The old '86 Corolla was less than ready to take us back to Canada. There were no brakes and in searching for the problem we broke two wheel studs and another brake line. After getting it out of the shop, we made it across the street before another brake line burst. It's interesting to think what might have happened had we driven it into the mountains. So, we left with Piet's dad's van, which still has the dent from when I "rear"ended it. We stayed five days with Kris and Tasha in Duluth, having Annika for ample entertainment.
Then we headed for our last border crossing. They searched our stuff for an hour, then kept us an hour more before deciding we actually could drive a US licensed vehicle into Canada. In 15 minutes we heard two Tragically Hip songs and a token tune from Neil Young, leaving no doubt that we were back in the Great White North.
It feels good to be on home soil. I can't figure why, it just does.
Six and a half months, 12 new countries, 49, 807 km (1.2 times around the earth), 817 hours of travelling (just over 34 days on a bus). Ironically there are no truly remarkable stories, meaning nothing extremely funny happened, there are no tales of escape from danger, in short nothing out of which we could write a book and get rich. That said, it was the most remarkable six months of my life, and I know Piet feels the same. What began a year and a half ago as an outrageous idea quickly grew into a dream, which became a reality, and it has left us with the sense that you can do anything you set your mind to. How can we possibly sum up the adventure? I'd like to say wait for the slideshow, because a picture is worth a thousand words, but even though we have eight hours of video and 6000 stills, the pictures don't rival the memories. I guess that's just the way it is. We all have special experiences and thoughts, stuff we have trouble describing or communicating. But that must be the reason they are so special to us, because they are, and can only be, ours, our thoughts, our experiences. It was our adventure, and even if I could, I wouldn't give it up for anything.

Here are some lists which you may or may not find interesting.

Memorable Experiences (impossible to rank)
Scuba Diving
Perito Moreno Glaciar
River Plate Game
Sunrise on the Salar
Tierra del Fuego
Potosi
Santa Maria
Barbeque at Butch and Sundance's place
Ferry in Chile
Hitchhiking
Torreon

Top Five
Torres del Paine
Puerto Madryn
Iguazu Falls
Death Road
Jungle

Numero Uno
Machu Picchu

Some Superlatives
Most beautiful women: #1 Costa Rica, #2 Buenos Aires
Most dogs: Chile
Most dog poop: Buenos Aires
Best food: Chile, Argentina, Mexico, the Baleada (Honduras)
Best coffee: Argentina
Cheapest food: Bolivia
Most diarrhea: Bolivia
Best country: Argentina
Friendliest people: Argentina
Most hospitable: Mexico
Rudest: Peru
Worst border: Peru-Ecuador
Least "westernized": Bolivia
Most "westernized": Ecuador
Windiest place: El Chalten, Argentina
Best Music: Bolivia
Best city: Buenos Aires
Best meal: Boliche de Dario (all you can eat meat)
Best fries: Salta, Argentina
Most gringos: Torres del Paine
Country from which the most tourists came: Israel
Worst busride: Uyuni to Potosi in Bolivia
Nicest buses: Argentina
Worst bus company: Greyhound (by far)
Longest busride: 38 hours from Quito to Lima
Biggest bus terminal: Panama City
Best donut: Costa Rica
Most overplayed song: Noviembre Sin Ti by Reik
Worst Spanish accent:Chile
Most expensive country: Chile
Most butterflies: Iguazu Falls
Most shotguns in the street: Guatemala
Best beach: Manuel Antonio National Park
Worst Beach: Valparaiso, Chile
Biggest dissapointment: Devil's Nose Train
Most fantastic display of nature: Iguazu Falls
Best sunrise: Salar
Best churches: Xela, Guatemala and Arequipa, Peru

Other Stuff:
Total number of Belgians spotted: 8
Major Arguments: 5
Points of homesickness: Ushuaia and Bolivia
Total weightloss: nil
Articles lost:
Clay: 5 towels, 1 pair of glasses, 1 pair of swimming trunks, pocket knife, watch
Pieter: 1 towel, 1 belt, 2 notebooks, 1 bankcard (found), Tim Horton's cup, countless pairs of socks, code to padlock, Central America guidebook

Lastly, it is hard to explain how exciting and strangely comforting it was to know that you were following along. It was kind of fun to have an audience of sorts. For that we want to thank you, and we hope that you've enjoyed it. Take care and God bless!

Sincerely, the Bandidos Yanquis

Butch: I got a great idea where we should go next.
Sundance: I don't want to hear it.
Butch: You'll change your mind when I tell ya.
Sundance: Shut up.
Butch: OK, OK.
Sundance: It's your great ideas that got us here.
Butch: Forget about it.
Sundance: I don't ever want to hear another one of your ideas. All right?
Butch: All right.
Sundance: OK.
Butch: Australia - I figured secretly you wanted to know, so I told ya. Australia.

Back in Torreon

2006-06-16T10:57:00.000-05:00

We apoligize for not posting anything for awhile. The truth is, the end of our trip is turning out to be kind of anti-climactic, and there's just not that much to write about. We've been in Torreon for the last week, enjoying three football games a day and the Mexican hospitality. We needed to be here by the 10th for the wedding of two friends, Monica and Nolan.
We left Flores, Guatemala, at 5:00 am, last Tuesday morning, and took a bus to the border with Mexico. We crossed the border, the Rio Usumacinta, with about 15 others in an outboard motorboat. After a 20 minute ride upstream we 'docked' (there was just a dirt road leading down to the river) on the Mexican side. We took a two-hour busride through the Chiapas countryside to Palenque, where we waited a few hours for the night bus to Mexico City, while trying to avoid the heat. We spent all day Wednesday in Mexico City checking out the main sights (like Azteca Stadium). By Thursday morning we were in Torreon. We are staying with Carlos and Erin, our roommates in Brandon for the last year and a half. After five months it's nice to just relax a little, and spend time with friends.
The wedding was a lot of fun, and quite different from a North American wedding. The bride, Monica, lived in the same house as us for four months in Brandon, and we went to school (and I played soccer) with Nolan for the last three years. The ceremony didn't start till 9:00 pm. It was held at a Catholic church on the top of a hill overlooking the city, and was really nice. The reception started around 10:30, and was held outside. It lasted till 4:00 am. There was dancing, marriachis, and tequila, three Mexican staples. Before the throwing of the garter belt, all the guys had to hold hands and run around in what is called 'the snake of the sea.' It got going pretty fast, and Clay and I, who were almost at the back, came close to falling, which is, as we found out later, the purpose of this game. Neither of us caught the garter belt, but that didn't deter us from trying to meet a few senioritas. We got home at 5:00, and I woke up at 8:00 for the Holland-Serbia game.
Sunday was a big day in Mexico, as Mexico was playing their first game of this year's World Cup. I'm a bit lost this year, because for the first time in my life Belgium isn't playing. Being here though, among die-hard fans, is at least some consolation, and I feel myself cheering for Mexico just a little bit. There were about 15 of Carlos' friends here. After it looked like Mexico might not win, they went crazy when Mexico scored their two go-ahead goals. We continued our sport-filled day by checking out a local baseball game.
On Tuesday, we went to Cuatrocienegas, with Carlos, Erin, Becky, and Fernanda (whom some of you might know from Western.) Cuatrocienegas is a series of pools in the middle of the desert which are fed by an underwater aquifer. The water is crystal clear, and is home to several species of fish and other animals which are found in no other place in the world. In some places you can see the water coming out of the ground at the bottom of the pond. If you have any old copies of National Geographic lying around, you should read the article on Cuatrocienegas in the October, 1995 issue. We spent most of our time in the water trying to keep cool in the 43°C heat. If we stood still the fish would come and bite our feet, a great example of a symbiotic relationship because they managed to bite off the scabs we got from using flippers last week. It would be interesting to know if they survived that.
We're back in Torreon. Both of us are making a last ditch effort to locate Etta Place. Which is why I have to go right now, cause I'm late. We might go to Mazatlan next week. After that we will be slowly making our way back home with a few stops in Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Minnesota. So we will see most of you soon. We'll keep you updated on how the last two weeks of our trip go.
Pieter

Utila and Tikal

2006-06-05T19:58:00.000-05:00

Time for a quick one, and it's Clayton here. Scuba diving was quite the rush. You must understand that I've had a general fear of water ever since I can remeber, and it has manifested itself in a phobia of sharks. I'll toot my own horn and say that I'm proud of myself for doing it. Definitely one thing I have learned, in part from this trip, is that you can pretty much do anything you set your mind to. It's an empowering feeling. Anyway, more about diving, once you become comfortable, it is an incredibly relaxing activity. Floating weightless, you marvel at the ability to breathe underwater, all the while observing every color and shape of sea creature imaginable, under you beside you and overhead. The best way I can think of to describe what we saw is to liken it to a Discovery channel program. Just one more thing on the list of recommendations.

Today we saw the Mayan ruins of Tikal, in northern Guatemala. We had been told the site was on par with Machu Picchu, so I guess my expectations were set a little too high. That said, it is still a remarkable place. Only 20% excavated, much of it remains covered by the jungle. In comparison to the Inca ruins of the 15th century, Tikal dates back to somewhere around 800BC, which I thought was quite impressive. Apparently, within the last five years, they have discovered a new Mayan site that is four times the size of Tikal (Tikal was thought to have been the capital of the Mayan civilization). A five day hike from here, it made us wish we had more time.

Always short on time so I will end here. Piet should have some pictures up. And we should mention that the last entry gave us a lot of problems. We ended up deleting the first two postings, which means we may have deleted any comments made, just in case you were wondering. See most of you soon!

In Nicaragua they play beisbol

2006-05-28T14:18:00.000-05:00

That has nothing to do with anything, but I feel bad that we just skipped over Nicaragua, so this way it at least gets mentioned. After crossing the border we drove into Rivas and saw a large baseball stadium on our right. Apparantly baseball is more popular than football here. I suppose that means we're getting closer to home. Speaking of borders, we went through five countries in two days. We flew out of Quito, Ecuador, Tuesday morning, to Panama, from where we immediately hopped on a bus for San Jose. After three hours, and an ill-fated search for a donut we had there 3 months ago, we caught the bus for Managua, Nicaragua. We spent the night there, and left for Honduras at 5:00am. We were on the north coast by Thursday night. It was a long ride, but worth it because we will be in paradise for the next week.

We had no problems at any of the borders the past three days, although at the Panama - Costa Rica border it took four hours to pass through immigration. We do want to tell you about the border between Peru and Ecuador last week. What a joke that was. Partly our own fault, but mostly not. We arrived at the border last Saturday morning. The bus dropped us off right at immigration, after which we needed to walk across the border, which runs through the hot and dusty town of Huaquillas, and catch the next bus. As always, a bunch of kids crowded around us, offering to carry our bags and help us through the formalities. We told them we didn't need their help, we were here in February. But they insisted, and got into the bicycle-taxi with us even though we told them not to. At this point we thought, okay, maybe we can use their help to find the bus, and then we'll tip them 5 soles (about$2) each. So they found our bus and told us they would be able to get us a discount. After we paid for the tickets (which we later found out were at regular price) they were ready to leave, and waited for their tip. We offered them the 10 soles and they just laughed. They wanted $10 each! We argued back and forth for about half an hour, saying we didn't even want or need their help in the first place. And they were saying they needed to buy milk for their children (they weren't even 18, like they had kids). We ended up paying them $15. They still weren't satisfied and wanted to change the rest of our soles (Peru's currency) to dollars (Ecuador's currency) at a ridiculous rate. They finally left, mad. But not not as mad as us, I guarantee you. The thing is, they were demanding $10 for a half hour's work. That's $20 an hour, more than I've ever made. And if you consider that the dollar goes about twice as far here, they were wanting $40 an hour, each. And why did we need two guys helping us anyway? Well, the lesson we learned was that we should have agreed on a price beforehand. Although, we heard from several other travellers that they had the same problem, and that tactic doesn't always work.

By the end of the day we had cooled off a bit, and were in Alausi, from where we would catch the famous Devil's Nose train. The train left Sunday morning at 11:00. There were quite a few other tourists. The ride took three hours and took us back to Alausi. It wasn't quite what we expected, but it was still cool. Everybody sat on a roof of one of the four wagons. What makes this train so special is that at one point it descends down the side of a mountain which is too steep for normal switchbacks, so they use 2 V-switchbacks. This means the train goes forward for a while then backs up for a section while descending, and then continues the descent going forward. It basically zig-zags down the side of the mountain. I hope I explained that well enough.

From Alausi we went to Quito, where we had a day to relax. We decided to go to the centre of the world. We weren't sure what would be there, besides the equator. When we got there, we found quite a large park with a monument with an orb on the top marking the equator, and several restaurants and craft stores. That evening we met up with Veronica, an Ecuadorian who goes to school in Brandon. She actually moved into our house after we left in January, and is now home for the summer. It was neat to hang out in her home country and meet her boyfriend, as well as catch up on how things were going at the house in Brandon. Ecuador gave us a good impression, and we wish we could have spent a little more time there.

Are you for scuba? We are now on the island of Utila, a few kilometres off the north coast of Honduras. The Caribbean is a totally different world from anywhere else we've been so far. We just got back from snorkeling. Tomorrow we are starting a diving course (thanks Bonnie and Charlie) which will take three days. I am very excited, but I don't think I'll feel nearly the adrenaline rush Clay will, if you know what I mean. He'll let you know how it went in a few days.

Thanks for reading,
Pieter

Lobo, the Jungle Wolf

2006-05-19T11:17:00.000-05:00

Clayton here. It's been two good weeks. We relaxed in Lima for a couple days, getting organized. Our last item on the checklist for Peru was the jungle. 26 hours on a bus took us to Tarapoto. From there we caught a "three" hour taxi to Yurimaguas, where we were to catch a riverboat at 2:00 in the afternoon. The taxi left late, but the driver assured us that the boat always leaves two hours late. Four hours later and of course we had missed the boat. Typical. No big deal as they leave daily. So we spent a free night on the next day's boat, sleeping in our newly purchased hammocks. Two more relaxing nights on the river and we were in Iquitos, a city the size of Winnipeg, situated at the beginning of the Amazon river. That afternoon we were on our way with Jungle Wolf Expeditions, one of the many tour operators in Iquitos. Lobo, which in spanish means "wolf", owned the company and was also our guide for four days (and four nights, all of which were spent in hammocks; they are more comfortable than I thought). We stayed that night at his house on the river, in the little village of Puerto Miguel, surrounded by the water of the Rio Yurapa (there wasn't much dry ground to be seen, as the rainy season ended only a month ago, though by the end of the week the level had dropped a half metre). Having grown up in the jungle, Lobo did not disappoint. We woke to a beautiful sunrise and immediately went fishing for breakfast. Using a bamboo spear with three prongs on the end, throwing from the front of the canoe, he speared about a dozen fish in less than an hour. Twice he skewered two fish at once. I couldn't even see them let alone hit anything. After a breakfast of fried fish and fried bananas, he informed us that he needed to make medicine for his sister, who apparently is dying of cancer (Lobo is also a bit of a shaman). So the rest of the day was spent with his brother Raul. We searched for wildlife along the river, cruising in a canoe. In the afternoon we watched the river dolphins. They were curious enough to come right under the boat, but when I got enough courage to jump in the water they stayed about fifty yards away (which was fine by me). That night we searched for cayman but were stymied. The next day we travelled two and a half hours by canoe into the jungle. We were joined there by Sebastian and Veronica, a Polish couple Lobo had brought along. Raul knew they were close long before they arrived. He and Lobo were calling to each other with an animal sound, deep and throaty. Normally, it seemed they were a very quiet people, almost speaking in whispers when passing by on the river, often quietly laughing. The campsite was just a clearing where we strung our hammocks, with mosquito nets. As far as the mosquitoes go, they were no worse than in Manitoba, and really only at night (still bad I guess). Apparently they are far worse in the wet season. Moving on: we went for a walk exploring the plants and searching for animals. We saw rubber flow from a tree (the base of the early economy of Iquitos), we ate some palm fruit, which he had to hack open with a machete, and we drank water from a vine, which tasted great. He taught us about the benefits of jungle garlic, tree resin and other plants, but we declined to try the hallucinogenic ayahuascar "medicine". We saw a host of birds, including parrots, scarlet macaws and a toucan. He was able to call monkeys close enough to where, if we ran we could catch a glimpse, and he caught a snake from a tree, which we all got to hold. That night we searched for cayman again. On the way Lobo caught a catfish with his hand (I think the croc hunter has nothing on this guy). We all got to hold the cayman he caught, and then Sebastian grabbed the next one, an impressive feat. The scenery was truly amazing; thousands of fireflies, the stars reflecting off the mirror like water and the exotic sounds of the jungle. Unforgettable. Our last day was the most memorable. We travelled back to Lobo's house then took a motorpowered canoe to search for more animals, the sloth in particular. After a couple of hours with no luck we headed back for lunch. Then Raul spotted one, far above in the tree top, thirty feet above the water. Raul is probably 40 years old, but he was up that tree in no time and soon enough we were holding a wild sloth. Their claws are extremely sharp and they move far quicker than I had thought, when they are stimulated. And the sound it made was mournful, it really made me feel bad. Eventually we had to put him back, and on the rest of the way we saw four different kinds of monkeys in the trees, all very close. We were lucky. The rest of the night we relaxed, woke to a breakfast of piranha in the morning (which can grow to 25 kg), and headed back to Iquitos. Lobo's daughter had a shirt on which read "Life is Good", and after a shower I couldn't have agreed more.
Now we are in Trujillo, travelling back to Quito, and our time in South America is nearly over. Time to start thinking about lessons learned I guess.

Machu Picchu ... just in time?

2006-05-06T22:09:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,

This has been one of the best weeks we´ve had, capped off yesterday by probably the most amazing thing either of us has ever seen. On Tuesday, our last day in Arequipa, we went to the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world. Our bus left at 2:00 am. It was a four hour ride on "el camino mas estupido del mundo." It seemed like the dips in the road were purposely designed to make people, especially those in the back row of a bus, bounce as high as possible. Needless to say we didn´t get much sleep, but we got breakfast and coffee as soon as we got to Chivay at 6:00 so we were okay. We left from here with a tourgroup on a 2 hour vanride to the canyon, stopping at a few places along the way. The canyon itself wasn´t as spectacular as we expected, but the main reason people come here is to see the condors, and that part was not dissapointing. We saw several condors, birds of prey with a wingspan of up to 4 metres, flying at eye-level, just 10 metres away from us. A couple times, two of them sat together on a ledge, posing for the 100-odd tourists. Question: Has anyone besides my brothers and I seen the movie Condorman?

We got back to Arequipa that evening and took the bus to Cusco where we arrived Wednesday morning. We played bingo on the bus and the winner won a free trip. Cusco is nice, and there´s good reason for its popularity. Besides being close to Machu Picchu, the city has remnants of Inca walls, nice churches, and some good museums. One of the museums we visited was the Temple of the Sun, which is a Dominican abbey built over an old Inca temple. The old Inca walls remain. They are built of huge carved stones perfectly shaped to fit together without mortar. Another wall in the city has stones of all imaginable shapes and sizes, yet they still fit together perfectly. The Spaniards used these existing walls and built them higher for their own buildings. Cusquenians like to say that the bottom walls were built buy the Incas and the top walls by the `incapables´. We also visited the Cathedral. It is actually the centre church of three churches attached to each other, the centre one being the biggest. Everything inside is covered in either gold or silver. The main altar is actually covered with a layer of silver overtop of a layer of gold, because the bishop decided he liked silver more. One of the weird things about the Catholic church in Cusco is that Rome turns a blind eye to local traditions that wouldn´t be accepted in any other part of the world. There are mirrors hanging up which represent the vanity of the Catholic church, there is an altar with a black Jesus, and a painting of the Last Supper with a roasted guinea pig, a local delicacy, on a platter in the middle of the table. Something we decided we had to try.

We left for Auguascalientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu, on Thursday evening, taking two busses and a train. (The town is only accesible by train.) During the first busride, the driver all of a sudden slammed on his brakes, and the people standing in the isles went flying to the front. It sounded like we hit something, and when we got off we saw a huge dent in the front. Probably a llama. In Auguascalientes we stepped off the train and got bombarded by hostel workers trying to get us to stay with them, shouting prices and things like "hot water", and "private bathroom." We always enjoy the position of power that puts us in, and drag it out as long as we can. Then we usually just choose the first one. So we had to try guinea pig, or cuy, for supper. I thought it was pretty good. And yes, it does taste like chicken. The problem is that it looks like a rat, a dead rat on your plate. I think Clay was convinced it really was a rat so he didn´t eat too much of it.

Friday morning we started hiking up the Inca stairs to Machu Picchu at 5:30. We got there, sweating and breathing hard, in time to see the clouds rolling over the ruins. There is no way to describe what we saw. It looks completely different than the pictures or movies. We took some more stairs to the top of Waynapicchu, that steep mountain in the background which also has ruins at the top, and realized the magnitude of what we were looking at. First of all, the setting itself is amazing, a lush green valley rising almost straight out of the Urubamba river, whose white water rapids are visible below. Parts of the valley are vertical, bare cliffs. And then, on top of a hill is a city, complete with a main square, walking streets, houses, temples, and surrounded by farming terraces which are built down the edge of the steep mountain. We had an unforgettable breakfast at the top. The rest of the day was spent walking around the ruins, which are just as amazing from close up as from a distance. Machu Picchu is huge, and it is impossible to see all of it in one day. The Inca stonework was similar to that in Cusco, but for some houses it looked like huge stones at the bottom were just carved straight out of the original boulders that were already there, the tops of which were shaped to fit more stones. There was alot more cool stuff, but it´s impossible to describe so I´m not even going to try. We both decided Machu Picchu is something no one can afford to miss. Unfortunately, one of Saturday´s newspaper headlines was that Machu Picchu was put on UNESCO´s list of world heritage sites most at risk of being damaged, so who knows how long people will have the chance to visit it. Do it before it´s too late.
Pieter

2006-05-02T17:17:00.000-05:00

This is a bit of a cut and paste job as we had some computer trouble. (third attempt now)

Clayton here. A few days ago we went for a bike ride. "El camino mas peligroso del mundo" roughly translates to: the most dangerous road in the world. The tour we joined was called "The Death Road". Piet tells me there was a National Geographic article on this road. The "road" starts just outside of La Paz at 4700m and soon becomes little more than a path, single track gravel, carved into the side of a green mountain. It ends 30kms later, just before Coroico, at 1200m, taking us five hours with stops. Ascending vehicles are given the right of way, so when they meet, the descending bus or truck must grind to a halt and reverse until finding a spot where they can squeeze by. We were able to travel much faster than the traffic, so we made several narrow passes, with school kids waving out the bus windows, close enough to touch. At times our bike tires were no more than four inches from the brink, allowing us to see straight down. You simply would not survive the fall. I have no official stats, but they told us the last tourist to meet his doom was in 2001. Piet was nearly run off the road by a cargo truck, but he came away smiling. My front tire popped, and going over the handle bars I managed to catch a tree to save myself from being the next statistic. Just kidding. I did blow a tire, but it's not quite as dangerous as we make it out to be. In fact it was the most fun we've had on the entire trip, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. The scenery was stunning, and trying to keep up to our guide reminded me of my childhood, trying to catch my big brother. Never could until he put on the brakes. Anyway, the tour ended with lunch and a three hour van ride back up, which I slept through. Now we are in Copacabana, on the shores of lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world (though I don't really know what that means). Yesterday we visited the Isla del Sol (island of the sun), said to be the birthplace of the Inca race. There were a couple of interesting ruins, like mazes of stone. One was a temple with blackened ceilings, presumably from ancient sacrifices. Also quite stunning was the staircase leading up the east side of the island.
That's about it for now. Kind of sad to be leaving Bolivia, but we know Peru holds some treasures for us too.

And the last few days have been pretty relaxing. We found a very friendly church yestreday, here in Arequipa, and the only thing of note today was the "Juanita" museum. Juanita is a frozen mummy. Found on top of a mountain in 1995, she was an Inca sacrifice over five hundred years ago. Apparently this was common practice. A volcano would erupt, melting the snow of the nearby mountain, and to appease the volcanic/mountain gods a troop of priests would trek to the 6000m summit, bringing with them the sacrificial child. Chosen from a noble family, he or she would be prepared from birth for this moment (should the need arise before they turned 18, at that time marrying and enjoying a normal life, while the next in line assumed the responsibility). The ceremony would begin with a fermented drink, rendering the child unconscious. It would end in death with a blow to the head. Buried with various offerings (such as gold and silver figurines, different crops from the regions of the empire, alpaca and vicuña textiles, even the umbilical cord and the first fingernail clippings of the child) she would soon be covered by fifty metres of ice and snow, immaculately preserved for us to find after a similar volcanic eruption. You can even see her eyelashes. Being the best preserved of 18 mummies found in Peru and Argentina, she is kept in a glass vault at minus 20 degrees, awaiting new technology to discover the secrets she still holds. Strange and interesting. As we were not permitted to take cameras into the museum you'll have to search for pictures on the net.
By Wednesday we should be in Cusco, ancient capital of the Inca empire, now the gringo capital of South America, and we should post again after visiting Machu Picchu. Until then.

2006-04-25T18:28:00.000-05:00

La Paz, Bolivia,
People told us that La Paz´ setting as a city is one of the most amazing in the world, but any physical description we got doesn´t match what our eyes woke up to yesterday morning in the bus. As we were parked along the street for an hour and a half, for no apparent reason, just two blocks from the terminal, we waited for daylight. This revealed two things, almost everyone else had already gotten off, and two sheer cliffs on either side of the city covered with houses which seem to be stacked upon each other. The city centre is located at the bottom of a 400m canyon. The views only got better as we walked around, revealing beyond one cliff the snowcapped Illimani at an altitude of 6402m.
We are in the world´s highest capital, but we spent the weekend in the world´s highest city, Potosi. After our last blog on Friday, we took what was by far the worst busride of this trip. And it´s not because we were spoiled in Argentina. I had to force myself to stay awake because any position I fell asleep in resulted in a sore neck. There was no legroom, the whole trip was on a gravel road over a distance of 200km which took seven hours. Being a recovering diarrhetic didn´t help either. But hey, it was only $2.
Potosi is a beautiful city, a UNESCO world heritage site, with over 2000 listed colonial buildings, reflecting its rich heritage. The copper coloured Cerro Rico (Rich Hill), can be seen in the background. Potosi was founded in 1544, after the Spanish found out from the natives that there was silver, and alot of it, inside Cerro Rico. 30 years later it had a population of 120, 000, the size of London, and bigger than Paris or Madrid. The expression ´vale un Potosi´ or ´worth a Potosi´ which Cervantes had Don Quixote quote in his book, is still used in Spain for anything very valuable. Things were awesome for the Spanish, but for the natives and imported slaves from Africa life was very bad. I´ll spare you the details, but it is said that 9 million workers died in these mines over a period of 200 years.
Our main reason for coming to Potosi was to visit one of these mines. Bolivians still mine them, but now for less lucrative metals like tin and copper. There is very little silver left. Our tourguide was Pedro, a former miner who spoke English perfectly, as well as four or five other languages. When visiting a mine it is a custom to buy dynamite, glycerine, fuses, and pop to give to the miners as a gift. There weren´t many miners, since it was Saturday, but we were able to visit with some, being greeted by an enthusiastic ´Hola, Gringitos´, every time we walked by. One of them was only 15 and had been working there for three years. Many miners only work for 20 years. Those who keep working usually die from lung disease between the age of 45 and 55. That´s not hard to understand. We spent two hours underground, at moments manouvering through a shaft just large enough for our bodies. There was a constant thick grey dust in the air, impossible to not breathe in. Somehow, the miners were all in good spirits, joking the whole time. Pedro told us that was the only way for them to forget about the conditions they were in. This was an eye-opening experience for us, but thankfully that also meant some things weren´t quite as bad as we thought. One guidebook said that miners die ten years after entering the mine. That´s not true. We were also told that, though some make very little, most miners make a decent living. I don´t mean to make it sound like a good job though, cause it´s not. It´s hard work, it´s dangerous, and it would take someone alot stronger than any North American or European that I know to be able to do it.
After the visit to the mine came the fun part. I got to stick a fuse into a stick of dynamite and hold it while it was lit. This was a milestone in my pyromania career. Then the guy ran with it, put it in the ground, and five seconds later it exploded. Just kidding, it was more like 5 minutes. The rest of our time in Potosi was spent eating, not going to a Bolivian wedding (Pedro invited us but didn¨t realize the groom was from a rich family, so we couldn´t get in even though we bought gifts and everything), and watching Real Potosi beat Aurora Cochabamba 2-0 on a perfect, hot Sunday afternoon.
Manana, vamos en bicicleta en el camino mas peligroso del mundo. Moms and sisters, I wrote that in Spanish for a reason, translate it at your own risk. I´m sorry, but we used up all our space on flickr so we won´t be able to put on more pictures till May 1.
Thanks for reading,
Pieter

San Vicente and the Salar

2006-04-21T16:04:00.000-05:00

Clayton here. We arrived in Tupiza, Bolivia on Sunday. First on the agenda was to find a way to San Vicente, this being the small town where Butch and Sundance met their doom, 1908. Five hours in a jeep, mesmerized by the flight of two condors, an interesting life story from our driver (a coke addict saved by Jesus Christ), and we arrived in San Vicente. If I have the story right, after their stay in Argentina, attempting to ranch but finding the time to rob a couple of banks too, they headed north to Bolivia. After less than a year, sometimes working as guards for the mine payroll, but mostly casing out new "jobs", they robbed a caravan of horses carrying money for the mines. Fleeing to nearby San Vicente, they were finally cornered by a group of four Bolivian law enforcers. The shootout went into the night. Eventually, the yankee bandits stopped firing, and in the morning they were found dead. There is some speculation that they may have ended their own lives, but in any case, it wasn't quite like the movie. After posing for a couple of pics as the heroic bandidos, we had to stand in the town square and shout, "Don Federico!" until the Don came to let us into the museum. This was the oddest museum in the world, I have no doubt: one small room, a couple of old typewriters, an old jackhammer and a couple of kerosene lamps from the mines, the official suitcase of Butch Cassidy (riddled with bullet holes), and a human skeleton, missing some bones and having duplicates in other places. Odd.
The next day we set out on a four day tour of the southwest corner of the country. Day one was almost a repeat of our trip to San Vicente. We enjoyed the people we were with, that being a good thing because four days in a jeep together wasn't easy. Day two involved seeing Lago Verde, a vibrantly green lake; flamingoes; swampy hot springs that we swam in; and geysers spewing sulphur at 150-200 degrees celsius. Day three started with laguna Colorada, the "red lake" (which wasn't really red in the morning light); rock formations that looked like trees sticking out of the sand; a smoking volcano on the border with Chile; and it ended with a hot shower and a warm bed, neither of which were included in the first two nights. The food was nothing to complain about though. Day four was the climax of the tour: the Salar de Uyuni, a salt flat measuring about 12,000 square kilometres. It is hard to describe but I will not forget that sunrise. Blazing white nearly as far as you could see, and some parts were covered in water that created a perfect mirror. We drove across the salt mesmerized, then stopped to help another jeep with a flat tire. We discovered we also had a flat. After a half hour of taking "pictures without perspective" (you'll have to see them), we were on our way again. Ten minutes later we had another flat. Every day of the tour averaged about three breakdowns, which we are growing accustomed to. The rest of the morning was spent driving across this lake of salt, and I would recommend it to anyone. An interesting fact: they export the salt, using shovels and small trucks, at a price of five Bolivianos for 50 kgs (that's about 70 cents). Not a great cost-benefit ratio, but that's life in Bolivia. So far this country is as cheap as it gets. One of the restaurants gave us a steaming skillet with steak, hot dogs, eggs, french fries, fried bananas and an incredibly tasty mix of onions and tomatoes, all for two dollars (there should be a picture). It fed us both. Besides that, the land is some of the most unique I have seen: varied coloured mountains, green hills, bleak desert, llama ranches, fields of quinoa, trees of rock, sulphurous geysers, hot springs, green and red lakes, flamingoes, and a lake of salt. Most of the tour was spent above 4000 metres in elevation, the highest point being just over 4900. You do need time to acclimatize: walking up stairs will take your breath away, the sun seems to burn a little more brightly, and it's cold up there. Something I did not anticipate was the dramatic increase in bodily gases. Amazing really. In any case, you come to realize that Bolivians are survivors, besides being some of the nicest.
What else... in an hour, we will leave for Potosi, a mining city with the distinction of being the highest city in the world. Then it's on to La Paz, after which we will probably update the blog again. Hope all is well, and thanks for reading.

Return to the Jungle

2006-04-15T17:47:00.000-05:00

After spending the last month and a half in an area that looks more or less like parts of North America, we´re back in unfamiliar territory. Right now we´re in Salta in NW Argentina, just waiting to catch a bus to Bolivia. It´s a nice city, the second oldest of Argentina, with a lot of colonial buildings still remaining. That´s one thing southern Argentina didn´t have. Also, there are many more native Americans here compared to the almost 100% European population of Buenos Aires and the south. There´s supposed to be a big street party here tonight. We´re catching the bus at midnight so we´ll see how much of it we can take in. By the way, we´re not in the jungle right now. We were there earlier in the week.
I´ll stop boring you and talk about the main event of the week: Iguazu Falls. Actually, there´s not much to say, you´ll just have to look at the pictures. We arrived there on Tuesday morning after another night bus. This time however, we went in Salon Cama instead of semi-cama; it was only $5 more. We have been wanting to try this. The main difference is that there are only three seats across instead of four, so they´re wider (to state the obvious). They´re supposed to have more legroom too, but there was a board blocking our feet from going under the seat in front so really there wasn´t more legroom. The service was decent, but we´ve had better, so all in all we prefer semi-cama. Like I said, we arrived in Puerto Iguazu Tuesday morning. We spent the day relaxing by the pool, and had steak (again) for supper. This time we cooked it ourselves. Puerto Iguazu, 20 minutes from the falls, is located in the narrow province of Missiones in Northeast Argentina, which is hugged by the Rio Parana and Rio Uruguay, across which are Paraguay and Brazil. You can actually see all three countries at the same time from one part of the city. I´m sorry, I´m still boring you. To the falls now.
We hadn´t heard about Iguazu Falls until we started planning this trip. The more we heard people talk, the more we realized we had to go there. And we weren´t dissapointed. They are located on the border with Brazil, from where they can also be seen. I don´t have any information on volume of water or anything, but I can´t imagine any falls being bigger. Upon seeing them, Eleanor Roosevelt said : ¨Poor Niagara.¨ It´s a series of 20 to 50 (I have no idea) individual falls which look like one continuous waterfall from a distance. All we could do was stare for hours. We walked all the circuits so we got several different viewpoints. At one point we were only about 50 yards from Brazil. That was pretty cool. At the end of the day we were right above the biggest falls under which is a perpetual cloud of spray. We got soaked a couple times.
We got this Uruguayan guy to take a couple pictures of us, mostly cause he had two hot daughters. Anyway, after they left, his wife came back and asked us if we knew Ryan Barton from Canada. It´s funnier when it really happens, than when you hear about it. We tried to contain ourselves, realizing the opportunity that was in front of us. No, we didn´t say: ¨Yes we know Ryan Barton.¨ We did however, manage to get the girls to sit down with us at the patio for something to drink. Then they left.
Thursday morning we left for San Ignacio Mini, to visit the Jesuit ruins, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was fairly impressive considering the story behind it. There was a large plaza surrounded by ruins of a church and several dwellings. The Jesuit Order came to this area in the early 1600s and founded several missions. They preached Christianity to the Guarani Indians and created these community housing projects where each family had a dwelling, and everybody shared the land, and shared the work. These communes became so powerful, about 30 towns with a total population of 140, 000, that the Spanish eventually had them expelled. The history behind the whole thing is amazing to me. Our whole trip has been somewhat of a history lesson. Here´s what I learned this week. The Spaniards used Christianity as a reason to invade South America. They imposed their European way of life onto the Indians, forcing them to work the fields and mines for coffee and silver which the Spaniards sent back home to reap all the profits from. In return, the Indians were given the right to be taught Christianity. The Jesuits, on the other hand, believed so strongly in the gospel that they risked their lives by coming into the jungle. They did all their teaching in the Guarani language, and taught them farming and domestic skill, all for the benefit of the Guarani themselves. The Jesuits gained nothing. Throughout the centuries they were repeatedly attacked by the Paraguayans and Portuguese, until their eventual expulsion by the Spanish in the early 1800s. I think they understood the meaning of faith.
At this time tomorrow we will be in Bolivia, if all goes well.
Happy Easter,
Pieter

A Time for Fasting, Now for the Feast

2006-04-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

Clayton here. Though we'd like you to feel sorry for us, thinking we are starving, we must tell you the truth. We have eaten better on this trip than ever before in our lives. In my father's earlier years, it is said that at the dinner table all the food would start on his left, and he would finish whatever remained when it came to him. Perhaps this runs in the family, for in high school I was once dubbed "The Garburetor". (The name never stuck and I must admit I've met bigger eaters than myself.) I tell you all this for the purpose of explaining how much food we ate at El Boliche de Dario, an all you can eat grill. It started with a basket of bread and four meat empanadas. Then came the real meat, half of which I didn't recognize: ribs, steak, some type of organ (I think), chewy tubular things, sausage, and some stuff that I will never try again. Also delectable cheese patties, and four plates of the "best fries outside of Belgium". They just kept bringing it. I've never been that full. I was so full my vision began to blur. Took us twenty minutes to walk the five blocks back to the hostel. The sad part is that Piet beat me by a half a steak. No, you simply cannot feel sorry for us.
Buenos Aires has been a delight. We've done a lot of walking, seen a lot of sights: Recoleta Cemetery, where people are buried under big mausoleums of different sizes and shapes (mini Taj-Mahals you might say); the Plaza de Canada, in the middle of which is a large totem pole, but that's all; in one of the main squares we watched a group of mothers march around the centre, each holding banners or photos of the loved ones that they had lost during the "Dirty War" of the 70's; we toured one of the top five opera houses in the world, Teatro Colon; a couple of different museums; a circus/art show; and the first ever world cup of horseball (I had never heard of it either). Lots of things that would take too long to write about. But we must mention the football game.
Piet has been saying all along that we would be going to a soccer game in Buenos Aires, hopefully between Boca Juniors and River Plate, one of the greatest rivalries of sport in the world. We were one week too late for that, and the tickets had been sold out for a year anyway. So we toured the Boca Junior museum and stadium, where Maradonna played. Then we caught the River Plate game yesterday afternoon. Waiting for the bus, we could hear it before we could see it. I would bet the rest of my bank account (which isn't a whole lot any more) to say there were 100 people on that city bus. Most were dressed in red and white, half of them were singing, the young guys were pounding the roof to keep time, and all the old ladies were smiling. I asked Piet if we were going to be able to sit with these fans, and he said, "what do you mean, 'sit'?" Sure enough, besides half time, we stood for the entire game, right in the very centre of the rowdy crowd. I've never experienced anything like it. My first NHL game, the crowd was silent and I was bored to tears. My first NBA game I actually fell asleep! But now... well, it's hard not to fall in love with soccer after that. We guess there were more than 50,000 fans. The singing never stopped, from the bus 'til a half hour after the game. Drums and cymbals were just below us, pounding out the carnival beat so you could feel it. Some guys didn't even watch the game, rather they stood on rails and took up the role of conductors, urging everyone else to join. I think we were the only two not singing, though we were doing our best to show support for the home team. (From the bus Piet had seen a Boca fan beating up a River fan on the street. They take it seriously.) Pretty hard to describe... sometimes I thought the concrete was shaking, and sometimes you could catch the echo from the rest of the crowd. Twice, a giant flag was unrolled from the top of the stadium to the bottom of our section, covering probably a fifth of the stadium. We missed the final goal because we were under the flag. It didn't matter because noone really stopped singing to cheer when there was a goal. When the other team scored, everyone sang louder. And not a drop of alcohol in sight. It was an amazing experience.
Anyway, today we leave for Iguazu falls, then to Bolivia, as we have decided to skip Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay (there is just too much, as we have been saying). Argentina will most likely occupy a special place in our minds, there has been so much, and yet there is still more we would like to do here. Someone told us, "a good traveller always leaves something to come back to". Maybe he's right. Until next time...

Buenos Aires

2006-04-03T20:18:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,
The last five days have been fairly laid back, although we´ve covered alot of miles in between a couple of sights. We´ve decided that we really like the busses in Argentina. The people here aren´t an average of one foot shorter than us so there´s plenty of legroom. Most are double deckers, they are never full, and some even have self-serve coffee. Last night we had steak and rice. It´s not often that we get served a hot meal. And we watched Cellular for the third time. I tried, but with the combination of a full stomach at 11 pm and already knowing the end to the movie, I wasn´t able to stay awake through the whole thing. By the way, we are really getting used to this eating very late thing. It´s after midnight now, and we still haven´t had supper.
Anyways, we left Comodoro Rivadavia, right after posting our last blog, on a night bus for Puerto Madryn. Our guidebook, and everybody else, says this is the place to see marine wildlife, and they were right. Upon arriving we decided to rent a car, rather than paying a tour company twice as much to tell us which ones are sealions and which ones are orcas. Plus, we get the car for 24 hours. It wasn´t going to be ready till 6 pm, so we spent the day reading, writing postcards, drinking coffee (which by the way is real coffee here, not instant like everywhere else in Latin America; it´s the Italian influence), buying groceries, and I think we even fit a nap in there somewhere.
Our car was a VW Golf Rally Edition (not really, but we treated it like one.) It would be pretty nice to have a car all the time. We dropped off our laundry, then tried to locate another confluence (it´s a gps thing, where you stand on the spot where whole number latitudes and longitudes meet.) It was already getting dark, and we got on the wrong gravel road, so we just raced the car through the Argentine countryside instead, before heading to Puerto Piramides, an hour away on Peninsula Valdez. The peninsula is protected as a marine wildlife refuge. We had rice and lentils for supper and camped overnight. We got up around 7:30, and drove one hour to Punta Norte. As we walked down the path we saw a colony of sealions, about 100 metres away, and then another a little further. Each colony had 100 to 200 sealions. It wasn´t long before we saw four orcas off in the distance. They started swimming in our direction, along the beach, at one point only 50 metres away, and then swam on towards the point. We stayed here about four hours, and figure we saw seven orcas in total who kept going back and forth, in groups of four, along the beach. Each time they passed the sealions they inched closer to the shore, literally at the edge of the water. It seemed like they were eyeing the sealions, planning an attack, but the attack we were all waiting for never came, even though on a couple occasions it looked like it might.
We drove another hour to the next point. On the way, while Clay was napping, I got out to check out the edge of the ocean, which I thought would be cliffs. Instead, there was a beach of little pebbles, about 200 m wide. In the distance I saw a lone penguin. I went closer, and got so close I could touch him (but didn´t, not sure if they bite.) He looked at me, then continued scratching an ithy spot with his beak. At the next point, we saw some more penguins, and two colonies of elephant seals, both with a male and his harem of40 females. Being satisfied with our day we drove back to our campsite, and had rice and beans for supper. (Notice a pattern? We´re trying to eat for $5/day between the two of us, so we eat a lot of rice. We actually bought too much food today for $4.) After playing fetch with a stray dog, we drove back to Puerto Madryn. We gave the car back to the Italian rent-a-car clerk, who sounded exactly like Mr. Bean in that movie "Rat Race". You know: "Itsa a race-ah."
We took the night bus to Esquel and watched the "Butterfly Effect", a weird movie. There was only one thing to do in Esquel, take a bus to Cholila, and visit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's cabins. Yes, they, along with Etta Place, lived here from 1901 to 1907 and farmed sheep and cattle. In front of the cabins a family of gauchos (cowboys) was cooking a huge piece of meat over a woodfire. We must have looked hungry cause they invited us to eat with them. They gave us each a piece of meat, some bread, and a knife. They kept bringing salads but we had no plates or forks, and looking around we couldn't figure out how they ate it so we just took whatever they offered us and put it on our meat and ate it with our hands. It was some of the best meat I've ever had. They had spent the morning branding cattle, and this was their annual cattle branding feast. We visited as much as we could considering the language barrier, and the children were eager to show us their bare-back horse riding skills. It was one of those unplanned things that will probably turn out to be one of the best memories of our trip.
We went to a tea house, because we thought they had pictures of Butch and Sundance, but that was a different tea house. We came in and sat down. They asked us if we wanted tea and we said yes, but didn´t order anything else. She brought out the tea along with some toast and crumpets. Then she brought out ten pieces of different cakes and tarts. I guess that´s what British tea time is all about. We realized this was going to cost alot, at least 30 pesos. It was 40, that´s $13. There went our daily budget. We had to hurry back to the road, a km away, to catch the bus, the only bus that day. We knew we were late but the busses are always late down here. Not this time. Part of the family was on their way home and informed us that the bus had already gone by. They offered us a ride to the next town, and thankfully the bus was still stopped there. We were pretty embarrassed. Back in Esquel we camped for the night, and had, you guessed it, rice, this time just rice, for supper. Yesterday we left for Buenos Aires, and arrived here this morning. Yesterday afternoon there was a roadblock on the highway for teachers´wages. I asked a guy if that was normal, he said yes.
Clay and I had an argument the other day, the first big one. Some kind of communication problem. What? Pieter and Clay, communication problems? It´s all good now.
It´s really good to hear all your comments, especially from people we don´t expect. We´re kinda flattered. Thanks for reading.
Pieter

Headed North...

2006-03-29T19:23:00.000-06:00

Clayton here. We're in a city called Comodoro Rivadavia, in Argentina on the Atlantic coast. We left Puerto Natales the day after we finished our hike, arriving in Punta Arenas. There our hopes of making a cheap trip to Antarctica were dashed. Two years ago (apparently just after our guide was written) all the tourist agencies decided to cancel cheap standby tickets. I guess everyone was standing by. There was still a chance to go with a naval supply ship but there were no more trips scheduled this summer. We knew it was a long shot anyway. Seeing the penguins that afternoon more than made up for our disappointment. Strange creatures, they are actually somwhat boring, though they make some pretty strange noises. Next morning we travelled as far south as we could, to Ushuaia. Our first night was on the floor of a hostel, under the stairs, as every place seemed to be booked up. But it was a free night with free breakfast. We had an impromptu tour of the fire hall, which you would have been interested in Daniel. Spying the golf course, we knew there was no way we could resist the temptation. The southernmost course in the world. Aficionados out there will be interested to know that, like the water in the toilet, the ball actually spins the opposite way. This could be the only reason for achieving my highest score ever, losing six balls in nine holes. Moving on, the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego was small but pretty, and it contained our furthest point south in our journey, which is logged on Piet's gps. Ruta 3 in Argentina, the last part of the Panamerican Highway, 17800kms from Alaska: the end of the road. For us it had been km 20020. We made it to Tierra del Fuego. Our goal has been reached. Yaayy!... I don't know what else to say. Somehow it was almost anticlimactic for me, but that's not quite the right word... just strange. After over three hundred hours on buses, with nothing to do but contemplate our goal of the furthest point south, all we could come up with was, "Well, we can only go up from here". The land was again beautiful. Mostly flat prairie, very reminiscent of home, until you reach the south end of the island, where you are in low mountains again. We could see the Beagle Canal from the shore of Ushuaia, where Darwin sailed past on his ship, "The Beagle". When it came time to start heading north we decided we'd try hitching. Our goal was Rio Grande, only 220 kms away. It took four hours and two Mitsubishi trucks. We kept dry under the tarp as it was raining most of the time (I knew I brought that thing for something). And Piet's radio picked up the last bit of the football game between Boca Juniors and River Plate, just in time to hear the announcer scream "Gooaalllll!". It was a memorable experience for me, the first time hitch-hiking. Our attempt the next day didn't go so well. We had intended to make it to a point of confluence about 40 kms away, but couldn't rent bikes, and after an hour and a half of walking without someone so much as slowing down we decided to turn back. The rest of the day was spent reading by the woodstove in the hostel, the first time we had spent really just relaxing since we began the trip. Felt good. Rejuvenating. Caught an early bus to Rio Gallegos, crossing back over the Magellan straight, leaving Tierra del Fuego behind. Then we took a succession of trips arriving at Sarmiento, where we observed a 70 million year old petrified forest. Apparently a catastrophic natural disaster of some sort, like a volcanic eruption or a hurricane (maybe a flood, as some would suggest), knocked the entire forest over, covering it with silica and water, which eventually replaces the material in the trees to form trunks of rock. Over time the wind and rain have exposed the broken pieces. Quite a sight. The "wood chips" sound like broken glass under your feet.
And now we are back on the coast, waiting for a bus to Puerto Madryn, where we hope to see some marine wildlife. It'll be two nights in a row on a bus, but at least we are going up again. Somedays I can't wait to be home, that feeling always returning but never lasting for too long. I guess we just wish you could be here too, then we'd have the best of both worlds.
P.S. We will try to keep more consistent updates. And Joel, our German is rusty. What did you say?

Parque Nacional Torres del Paine

2006-03-21T11:58:00.000-06:00

Hi,
I don´t know how far we are from Canada anymore ever since we travelled a few hundred kilometres on Route 40 in Argentina, a gravel highway. I do know, however, that we hiked about 80km in the last six days. We did what is known as the 'w' in Torres del Paine National Park, just outside Puerto Natales, Chile. This was to be one of the highlights of our trip. It almost wasn´t, but in the end it lived up to our expectations.
We arrived in Puerto Natales on Tuesday (hard to believe that was already a week ago), and spent that day stocking up on food, camping gas, and some much needed advice for two rookie trekkers. We actually hooked up with two Germans and a Korean. The one German was on our ferry and the other two we met in Calafate. The gringo trail is not a myth. We see the same people all the time, it´s crazy. Anyway, we all stayed in the same hostel. Alex and Lee only had two days to hike so we split up once we got to the park, but Birgit had six days so we let her hike with us.
Wednesday morning our bus picked us up promptly at 7:30. I was running a little behind because at 7:00 I went to the station of the previous day´s bus to see if they had found my Tim Horton`s cup, which I had left on that bus. It wasn´t there. Sorry Julie. Our first day in Torres we only hiked two hours. Our goal was to stay at free campsites the whole week, and the first night we stayed in the plain just south of the Torres and Cuernos (the most popular mountains of the park) which gave us a great view while walking towards them. On night one we encountered our first problem, mice. We hung up our food in the shelter, but that didn´t stop the mice from crawling around our tent, trying to get in. We were up till 2:30, swatting the side of the tent to get rid of them.
Day two was to be our hardest day, a seven hour hike to Glaciar Grey. The weather was cloudy and windy, but not too cold. During some parts of this hike we felt like we were in a wind tunnel. And at one point the bridge was missing part of it. Birgit and I walked through the water, which wasn´t deep, and Clay walked onto the bridge and used the parts that were there to replace the missing part. Nothing much exciting happened after that. We arrived at our campsite at 7:00, just as it was getting dark. The last hour was a grueling up and downhill climb. We set up our tents, checked out the glaciar at dusk, and ate noodles for supper. No mice at this campsite.
Day three was when things started going sour. It rained hard all night which meant we started late because we waited for the rain to stop to take down the tent. The hike was partly back to where we came from the previous day(you backtrack three times on this hike, which gives the trail the shape of a 'w'). It rained on and off, so we had to stop to put on and take off our ponchos, since they are necessary when it rains but very annoying when it´s not raining. We arrived at Campamento Italiano sometime before it got dark. Thankfully it wasn´t raining while we set up the tents. We had noodles again for supper. By the way, we bought a gas stove to use with our cooking set. We can use the water from any stream in the park, both for cooking and drinking. As we were getting into the tent we saw a mouse inside the tent. I put on a glove and was determined to catch it, and make it suffer very badly. I lost it somehow, so I took everything out of the tent and handed it to Clay who shook it out. No mouse anywhere. I t was a mistery until the next night Clay saw a hole in the bottom of the tent.
Saturday we had planned to walk up and down the Valley de Frances, but it was raining again so we opted for a two hour hike to Cuernos, a paid camping sight. We got very wet. At first we tried to avoid the water on the path, but when the path is a creek there´s not much you can do and once you`re feet are wet you might as well walk right through the creekpath. The timing of this rainy day could not have been better. The price of camping uncluded being able to use the lodge (where rooms cost $38), which meant we could cook and eat in a dry place, and dry ourselves and our clothes. Unfortunately, it was supposed to rain the next two days as well. We were all disappointed that day, with the rain, the mice, and the leaky tent. However, having grown up in Belgium, I automatically associate camping with rain, so maybe I was a little more prepared than the other two.
Sunday we couldn´t have asked for a better day. In fact, the reason the weather changed was probably due in no small part to asking. We had a long hike ahead of us but it was made much shorter by the sunshine, which made for spectacular views. We arrived at Campamento Las Torres (free again) early enough in the afternoon to take the 45 minute hike up to the Torres. This made our week. It´s pretty nice up there. The next night was quite cold, and Birgit and I got up a 5:30 to hike up to the Torres again and see them at sunrise. The reason I was able to get out of bed that early was knowing I would warm up by walking. Well, the view was pretty nice and definitely worth getting up for.
That was yesterday. We got back to Puerto Natales in the afternoon and had fries for snack and steak for supper. That´s all. Thanks for reading.
Pieter
By the way, we finally got those pictures of the Perito Moreno glacier posted.

El Calafate

2006-03-13T17:20:00.000-06:00

Clayton here. I'm still unsure about whether or not our last blog was actually posted. For some reason it won't let me see it. (I must admit to being a computer illiterate.) It was only a short update without any real substance.
Still don't know what km it is but we'll add all that when we figure it out. I believe we left you in Puerto Montt, just before we were to take the ferry to Puerto Chacabuco. That turned out to be the ride of my life. Perhaps the story will seem like nothing to some of you but for about five minutes on Thursday morning I thought I might possibly die. Wednesday's daylight gave us some superb views of the land and sea; we rode some really big waves, saw jumping dolphins, sea lions and even some whales as the sun was setting. Much more than I could have hoped for. But at five o'clock Thursday morning the boat collided... with something, something big. The crash lasted about five seconds, seeming like an eternity. Everyone (maybe 200 passengers) was instantly awakened by the shaking of the boat, accompanied by the horrible sound of scraping metal in deep, deep water. The boat was on an angle and the motors were shut off. The windows showed nothing but black: water or sky. Most are looking at each other, not knowing what to say. Ten seconds later, someone comes running into the cabin with a life jacket in each hand yelling, "Jackets! Jackets!". Once we were all suited and on the top of the boat, they began to separate men from women and children. Commotion but not quite panick. I cannot summarize the panic in my head. Trying to recollect all the thoughts is nearly impossible. But at this point we could also make out lights in the distance, the faint outline of a shore, and the boat was right again, reversing. I began to calm down thinking I could make it if I had to swim, but what about the cold? And what about the sharks? I had dreamt the previous night about sinking ships and sharks and I really did not want to be in the water. About 15 minutes later and everyone was back in the cabins, but no one was going back to sleep. The morning light showed a tree branch, with green leaves, lying on the front of the ship. How is that possible? It wasn't long until someone came out to throw all the evidence overboard, including a broken light cover from the front light of the ship. (That light must stand at least 20 feet above the water.) A coast guard escorted us for the last hour, right into port. We never did get a view of the very front, and we were never told for certain what had happened. Anyway, having a lifelong fear of sharks, which is transferred to water in general, I was scared. What more can I say? Chile has been the location of the angriest moment in my life (when my backpack was stolen), and now the most frightening.
I did get back on the horse, so to speak, with another ferry that took us across Lago General Carrera (the same day). By that night we were camping in Los Antiguos, Argentina. The next morning we caught the bus to El Chalten: 14 hours of ranch land basically, mostly on rough gravel road. We saw guanacos (a relative of the llama), road runners, horses and cattle in a land without fences. The winds in Chalten prevented us from camping as the poles in our tent were bending in the wrong direction.
El Calafate, the next day, and we arranged a bus ride to the glacier Perito Moreno. I had never heard of this before, but apparently it is one of the only advancing glaciers in the world, if not the only. It creeps over a narrow point in a river, eventually closing it off completely. The water is diverted around the glacier up onto the banks, but eventually the pressure builds enough to break a tunnel through the glacier, maybe 500 metres long, fifty metres wide (huge anyway). This phenomenon occurred in March of 2004 and before that in 1988. Many were saying that it would happen the next day. However, the rupture happened the night we arrived in Calafate, so we missed it. Still, the icebergs that separate from the glacier are massive and the sound of the crash into the river can actually be felt sometimes. We were hoping to witness the collapse of the tunnel, but it fell apart in chunks. Still one of the most impressive displays of nature I have ever seen. I would suggest finding pictures of it on the net as I'm guessing there are some.
Tomorrow we depart from Calafate for Puerto Natales. One more day of last minute preparations for our week of trekking in Torres del Paine. Things are going well, as always. I've already forgotten the name of the ferry company. We miss you all and hope that everything is going well. And sorry for such a long read. It may be more than a week 'til we write again but we hope you'll stay tuned. As always, thanks for your comments.
P.S. The broken bed was in Puerto Montt, after the 40h famine. Now you know that we're really eating well (or maybe it was just that Powerbar made of lead). We laughed pretty hard, but not the next two times it happened. Thought about asking for a discount, but decided not to as it would be the second request. Piet asked for 40 percent off before we decided to stay there, and they gave it. But now we know why. At least the showers were warm.

El Calafate

2006-03-13T16:03:00.000-06:00

Clayton here. I'm still unsure about whether or not our last blog was actually posted. For some reason it won't let me see it. (I must admit to being a computer illiterate.) It was only a short update without any real substance.
Still don't know what km it is but we'll add all that when we figure it out. I believe we left you in Puerto Montt, just before we were to take the ferry to Puerto Chacabuco. That turned out to be the ride of my life. Perhaps the story will seem like nothing to some of you but for about five minutes on Thursday morning I thought I might possibly die. Wednesday's daylight gave us some superb views of the land and sea; we rode some really big waves, saw jumping dolphins, sea lions and even some whales as the sun was setting. Much more than I could have hoped for. But at five o'clock Thursday morning the boat collided... with something, something big. The crash lasted about five seconds, seeming like an eternity. Everyone (maybe 200 passengers) was instantly awakened by the shaking of the boat, accompanied by the horrible sound of scraping metal in deep, deep water. The boat was on an angle and the motors were shut off. The windows showed nothing but black: water or sky. Most are looking at each other, not knowing what to say. Ten seconds later, someone comes running into the cabin with a life jacket in each hand yelling, "Jackets! Jackets!". Once we were all suited and on the top of the boat, they began to separate men from women and children. Commotion but not quite panick. I cannot summarize the panic in my head. Trying to recollect all the thoughts is nearly impossible. But at this point we could also make out lights in the distance, the faint outline of a shore, and the boat was right again, reversing. I began to calm down thinking I could make it if I had to swim, but what about the cold? And what about the sharks? I had dreamt the previous night about sinking ships and sharks and I really did not want to be in the water. About 15 minutes later and everyone was back in the cabins, but no one was going back to sleep. The morning light showed a tree branch, with green leaves, lying on the front of the ship. How is that possible? It wasn't long until someone came out to throw all the evidence overboard, including a broken light cover from the front light of the ship. (That light must stand at least 20 feet above the water.) We never did get a view of the very front, and we were never told for certain what had happened. Anyway, having a lifelong fear of sharks, which is transferred to water in general, I was scared. What more can I say? Chile has been the location of the angriest moment in my life (when my backpack was stolen), and now the most frightening.
I did get back on the horse, so to speak, with another ferry that took us across Lago General Carrera (the same day). By that night we were camping in Los Antiguos, Argentina. The next morning we caught the bus to El Chalten: 14 hours of ranch land basically, mostly on rough gravel road. We saw guanacos (a relative of the llama), road runners, horses and cattle in a land without fences. The winds in Chalten prevented us from camping as the poles in our tent were bending in the wrong direction.
El Calafate, the next day, and we arranged a bus ride to the glacier Perito Moreno. I had never heard of this before, but apparently it is one of the only advancing glaciers in the world, if not the only. It creeps over a narrow point in a river, eventually closing it off completely. The water is diverted around the glacier up onto the banks, but eventually the pressure builds enough to break a tunnel through the glacier, maybe 500 metres long, fifty metres wide (huge anyway). This phenomenon occurred in March of 2004 and before that in 1988. Many were saying that it would happen the next day. However, the rupture happened the night we arrived in Calafate, so we missed it. Still, the icebergs that separate from the glacier are massive and the sound of the crash into the river can actually be felt sometimes. We were hoping to witness the collapse of the tunnel, but it fell apart in chunks. Still one of the most impressive displays of nature I have ever seen. I would suggest finding pictures of it on the net as I'm guessing there are some.
Tomorrow we depart from Calafate for Puerto Natales. One more day of last minute preparations for our week of trekking in Torres del Paine. Things are going well, as always. I've already forgotten the name of the ferry company. We miss you all and hope that everything is going well. And sorry for such a long read. It may be more than a week 'til we write again but we hope you'll stay tuned. As always, thanks for your comments.

Tourist trap

2006-03-11T13:01:00.000-06:00

Clayton here. We're in El Chalten, paying exorbitantly for the use of the net. This will be a short one, as we must always email our families first. Don't have a clue what kilometer it is. On to El Calafate tonight where we hope to see the glacier Ventisquero Perito Moreno, which some seem to say is still advancing. Anyway, we have at least one good story to tell. It will take more time than we have to tell properly so you will have to wait with bated breath. The anticipation is horrible I know. Hope all is well with everyone.

40 Hour Famine and other stories

2006-03-07T12:49:00.000-06:00

It´s actually not as hard as it sounds, especially when you don´t have a choice. Everything was going according to plan Saturday. We went shopping for a new camera among other things, and ate our favourite new food (Lomito for Clay, Completo for Piet) at the mall foodcourt at 4:30 pm. We were tempted by Pizza Hut for about half a second till we came to our senses. Anyway, to make a long story short, this was to be our last meal until 8:30 Monday morning. Here´s the long version:
We took a bus to Puerto Varas, where we apparently caught the last bus to Petrohue, thanks to the unexpected help of some friendly Chileans. The driver dropped us off near some waterfalls in Vicente Perez Rosales National Park, and we camped for free next to the river. The new tent is awesome, by the way. We got there pretty late so we just went for a walk till it got dark, then went to bed. We planned to walk to Petrohue, 6km away, on Sunday. We made a little fire in the morning and had our instant coffee. Soon after that it started raining so we sat in the tent to wait it out. It stopped raining at 9:30 pm. At one point in the afternoon I thought we should try to make a break for it, but Clay convinced me otherwise thankfully. With no food, and only the little riverwater we had boiled in the morning to drink we had only one thing to do: think about food. Well, that and sleep, read, practice Spanish and listen to the radio. I actually listened to a newsbroadcast from Holland on shortwave. We did have my emergency Powerbar (don´t laugh) but we wanted to save it for the morning. We went to sleep at 10:30 but didn´t sleep well on the hard ground.
Monday morning we opened that Powerbar, and no, it still didn´t taste that good, but it gave us some form of sustenance for the walk to Petrohue. It seemed like we would never get there. For the first 45 minutes we saw four signpost, each saying Petrohue was 6km away. We did get there eventually though, and ate exactly what we wanted, a sandwich with ham, cheese, and tomato, and a coffee. Very good. We also bought groceries for supper, macaroni, peas, asparagus soup, and two chocolate bars. After a little boat tour on the lake we got dropped off at the other side at our campground. The lake is nice, but with the clouds we couldn´t see any of the three volcanoes which give it its apparant spectacular scenery. We hiked up the hill to gather firewood. Supper wasn´t that good, but filling, except for the chocolate bars.
This morning it was raining again, but we had no choice but to go since our ferry for Puerto Chacabuco leaves tonight. We packed our bags, and right when it was time to pack up the tent there was a 10 minute break in the rain. When we were ready to go, the fisherman who was going to boat us across couldn´t get his boat started. He told us to yell across to the men at the other side. It was pouring rain, and it took us about 5 minutes to get there attention. In the meantime, the bus back to Puerto Varas was on it way, but saw us yelling and waiving our arms, so he started honking and yelling to see if we needed a ride, so we started waiving at him too. Quite a scene, but maybe you had to be there. We got across, and made our way back to Puerto Montt, where we are now. Our ferry leaves at 8:00pm.
For those of you who are interested, we are now as far south of the equator as York, NE is north, and in one week we will be as far south as Dauphin, MB is north.
Pieter

Puerto Montt

2006-03-04T10:17:00.001-06:00

km 17365
Clayton here. Had some time, so we thought we'd put an update on even though there's not too much to say. We came from Pucon on lake Villarrica, a beautiful little tourist town. The lake was cold and clear, with an active volcano for a backdrop. Quite a sight at night.
Another first: we finally cooked our own meal. Piet found a good set of camping utensils in Santiago, so we had our first barbecue. Pretty good I might add. That night we had to sleep with our bags in the tent, so first thing in the morning we started looking for a bigger tent. Found a good one for almost half price and then we sold my old tent to the camp owner, so it worked out to be a pretty good deal.
Here in Puerto Montt, we have a few days to kill as our ferry does not leave until Tuesday night. In the time being we will go to Lagos Todos los Santos, which, according to our guidebook, is the most beautiful in the Lake District. It is rather pretty country down here, more and more beautiful forests the further we go. For that reason, among others, I am glad to finally be away from Santiago. Maybe it's just the big city aspect, but I can't see that I would want to go back there, speaking only for myself of course.
We should be in Torres del Paine by next Sunday at the latest, arriving in Ushuaia (just a little further south of Tierra del Fuego) by the end of March. It's all a little later than we had originally planned, but it's no problema.
I wish I had some evocative thoughts to share, maybe even spark some kind of debate, for interest's sake. I'll leave you with a quote from one of my esteemed uncles. "Life is like a roll of toilet paper: the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes." Until the next sheet of two-ply...
P.S. That reminds me of an interesting fact that you may not be aware of. Everywhere south of Mexico you are required to place the toilet paper in the garbage receptacle, as it will plug the sewer. There are many signs posted to remind you. After a couple of months it seems almost natural. Just thought you should know.

Santiago de Chile

2006-02-27T08:34:00.000-06:00

km 16326
We´ve had some unexpected time to kill here in Santiago, recovering lost paper, plastic, etc. But it´s been nice to relax a little. As with any large city there´s enough to do here, that´s if you like museums, parks, and old buildings.
You might think that after what happened last week we would be a little more careful with our stuff. I (Pieter) decided that I would never put my camera in the outside pocket of my bag. Of course, after a week I start letting my guard down and got lazy. Yesterday we were walking through the city. My camera was in the outside pocket of my bag, accessible by opening just one zipper, but I had my bag in front of me with my hand over the zipper. I thought I was pretty smart. Once we hit the main square, with less people, I put my bag over my back. While we were walking Clay noticed a silhouette walking right behind me. He turned around to see what she was doing. I checked my bag, the zipper was all the way open, but thankfully my camera was still there. I hadn´t felt a thing!
I (Clayton) am really glad that I looked back when I did, because she was putting her hand into his bag when I said something to her. She immediately tried to say that she was only warning us that his bag was open. Amazing how brave they are. Should say that we meet a lot of nice people here too, even some that don't want money for their kindness.
Other than that things are great. The food here is good. They eat a lot of avocado. They have something called Churasco which is beef with tomato, and either mayo or avocado on a bun. Even the quarterpounders at McD´s come that way. They also have Completo, a hot-dog with tomato, mayo and ketchup. And then there´s the Italiano, the same but with avocado.
On Friday we went to Valparaiso for the day. It´s 2 hours from here, on the coast. Most of the city is on a bunch of hills (cerros) around a bay. To access the cerros you take an accensor or funicular if you don´t want to take the stairs. There´s about 20 of them. Most of them are on rails at a 45 degree angle but one of them is an elevator that goes straight up which you access by walking 100 metres into a tunnel in the side of the hill.
In a few days we will start travelling south to the lake district and then to Torres del Paine. We want to say that we really enjoy reading all of your comments and are glad that you're enjoying following along.
Pieter and Clayton

Life is funny sometimes...

2006-02-22T17:52:00.000-06:00

Clayton here. In Arica, border town in northern Chile, we made a mistake on the time and missed our bus. No big deal. Sitting in the station, trying to figure out what to do next, and someone makes off with my little back pack. Most of the things I consider important were in there: all my books, journal, traveller's cheques, toiletries, flight ticket, and most notably my brand new video camera, with all the videos I had taken. I cannot describe how angry I was. The worst part being that it was a result of carelessness. The pack was less than five feet from me, but it was blocked from my sight by Piet's pack. Had I sat on the other side, nothing would have happened. Yes, life is funny... but sometimes you have to wait for the funny part, I guess. This adds to my list of things lost: my pocket knife and utensil set were taken by airport security (forgot to put them in checked baggage), my watch that Tyler gave me (in someone's taxi), and my glasses (lost to the pacific ocean; luckily I brought my spare pair, though they lessen my chances of finding Etta considerably). Thankfully I had my passport in my pocket. And to tell the truth, it's hard to stay angry when on such an adventure. There's too much to see and do. I just know I'll miss having the memories to watch and to show to others.
To update you, we are in Santiago, and will be spending a few days here. It is a big city, very modern, and a little more expensive than we are used to. But we are still managing to spend under 15 dollars a day, up from 10 previously. 7 dollars a night was the cheapest we could find for lodging (and you get what you pay for). The rest goes to food, buses, internet, phone and whatever we might need. The weather is still nice, however soon we will be in the far south and will expect some cool nights (I know, "boo-hoo"). What else... I don't recommend 60 hour bus trips. I hope Piet puts some pics of the desert on. For some reason it was strikingly beautiful. Apparently some areas have no record of rain in northern Chile, however, in the rare instance of precipitation, there are fields of flowers waiting to bloom. Unfortunately we didn't get to witness such an event. We did get to see three nights of Carnival celebrations while we waited in Arica, something we didn't anticipate. The music was addicting and the costumes very creative, quite a lively atmosphere. It's something not to miss if you ever get the chance.
That's about all for now. Until next time...

Arica, Chile

2006-02-18T18:15:00.000-06:00

km 14261
Sorry about that. We´ve been on the road for the last week so haven´t had time to write. We are in Arica, the most northerly town in Chile. We Arrived here on Friday. I´ll give you a quick rundown of where we´ve been in the last week first.
We went to the beach in Costa Rica last week Friday and went back to San Jose on Saturday. We left San Jose after church on Sunday for Panama City where we arrived Monday morning. That evening we flew to Quito, Ecuador. We took an overnight bus from Quito to Tumbes, Peru, on Tuesday, another one from Tumbes to Lima on Wednesday, and another overnight bus from Lima to Tacna where we arrived Friday morning. Then we took a cab to Arica. It´s been an interesting week, especially the last two days have been rough (more on that later).
The beach in Costa Rica was amazing. If I remember correctly that´s the first time I´ve been to a beach for my birthday. We went to Manual Antonio, just outside the national park of the same name. All we did Friday was swim and tan. Saturday we got up early and went to the park where we saw several kinds of monkeys, iguanas, a sloth, and something that we don´t know the name of. We went swimming at the beach inside the national park too. There were some big waves so we had a lot of fun.
On Monday, we spent the day in Panama City because our bus arrived there in the morning, and our flight didn´t leave till 7:oo pm. We heard about some big ditch there, so we thought we´d go check it out. I´m talking about the Panama Canal of course. We went to the Miraflores locks, the first set of locks on the Pacific side and saw two ships go through.
Sorry, this internet place is closing so we have to go. We´ll be in Santiago in a few days. Pics coming.
Pieter

San Jose, Costa Rica

2006-02-08T21:52:00.000-06:00

km 9300 (Piet just showed up. That's a handy little gps he's got)
Clayton here. I don't know what km it is, I just know it took us 19 hours on a bus with no legroom to get here. DVT, for the medics out there.
We survived San Salvador, obviously, nothing too extraordinary to speak of. We saw some cool country on the way to Eliu's house, and were very happy to meet his family. And we also met some very nice people, whom Piet introduced you to already. Viktor Linares, 43, is married with two kids, works full time, preaches at three different congregations, teaches at the bible school in San Salvador, and is also in the middle of a five year psychology degree. Stays up til 1 and rises before 5 to go to school before work. Our bus was to leave at 2:15am, Viktor dropped us off at 11pm, and thankfully he was still outside when we were told, by a guard with a shotgun, that we would not be allowed to wait for the bus in the lobby (seems like everybody's got a shotgun in Central America). Viktor seemed happy to take us all the way home again, only to make the same trip in the middle of the night. A nice guy.
Someone had said that El Salvador was a nation of thieves and prostitutes, stereotypically. We never felt in any danger at anytime, though we were warned by a stranger not to go downtown at night, "or you will be robbed" (sorry mom, but I gotta make this interesting to read, don't I?). Our first night, on the way home to the hotel, we were approached by a "friendly" lady. Something that could happen anywhere, I guess. Saw a lot of poor people, from those eating tortillas off the sidewalk, to the crippled, one of which shuffled down the middle of the street on his hands, asking motorists for what they could spare. I have little insight to offer in the light of such a mental picture, just thought you should know. How lucky are we, born healthy into a rich nation? You can draw your own lessons I guess.
Anyway, pupusa's are tortillas stuffed with cheese, beans or pork, or combinations of the three, which are then fried on a skillet. Quite tasty.
I'll leave Costa Rica for later, as we will be staying for another three full days. For now: it seems to be a rich country, prospering from a lengthy past of democracy. You can see it in the streets, the buildings, the parks, and it seems to have overflown into the female population. An explorable phenomenon perhaps...
Our plan is to arrive in Panama City by bus on Monday morning, then fly to Quito, Ecuador the same night. Looking forward to going to the beach in the meantime, though I am missing everyone back home. Hope to hear from you.
P.S. I didn't realize Piet had put those pictures up yet. In that awful one of me eating, I'm filling my face with pupusa's, for those interested. He tells me he will put on another of me eating a donut, hope these don't become a trend. (Those donuts were just what I needed however, a fantastic apple fritter, the sugar seeping all the way through, like a Robin's walnut crunch. And the regular old chocolate dip was filled to the brim with bavarian cream, delectible!) Check out the one of him drinking water from a bag, and don't miss the front of his shirt. He spilled on everybody in the bus too(ok maybe not everybody).

San Salvador, El Salvador

2006-02-05T19:46:00.000-06:00

km 8500
¨Hablamos un pocito Espanol.¨ We speak a little Spanish now, but we have a long way to go. We finished our week of classes on Friday. We feel like it gave us a pretty good foundation to keep learning. About 90% of what we learned was verb conjugation. It will take a lot of practice every day to actually be able to use what we learned.
Besides language class we also took a Salsa class. I hope my Spanish is better than my dancing. Clay and I stayed with different families and had different teachers. I actually left one family because there were two Americans there who spoke English, and I wanted to only speak Spanish. The family I stayed with had two kids, 12 and 7. The food was really good. One of the meals was called Pache. It´s mashed potatoes with different types of chillis, and tomatoes wrapped in a banana leaf. There was a supper with the rest of the students (about15) on Friday evening. I was sitting next to a girl whom I hadn´t met, so I introduced myself and asked in Spanish where she was from. She answered ¨Yo soy de Belgica.¨ So we spoke Flemish for the rest of the evening. We´ve met one other Belgian, tons of Dutch people, and many other Europeans, Americans, and Canadians.
We left Saturday morning at 6:30 for San Salvador. We spent the first night at a cheap hostel near the bus station. We had pupusas for breakfast Sunday morning on our way to church which was only 6 blocks away. We met a family who took us out for lunch (more pupusas), and invited us to stay with them. So that´s where we are staying now. Another family member, Mario, is showing us the city. Apparantly it´s dangerous. Some people say that if you´ve survived San Salvador you can survive anywhere.
Pieter

San Salvador

2006-02-04T19:24:00.000-06:00

Just to let you know that we arrived in San Salvador this afternoon. It´s an eerie feeling walking around in Central America´s most dangerous city after dark. It´s not that bad, really. We don´t have time to write much now so we will update you tomorrow on what all we´ve been up to.

Still in Xela

2006-01-31T15:34:00.000-06:00

km8001(still)
Clayton here.
I thought I had quit school. Every morning is five hours of intense spanish grammar and vocab. I'm actually tired by lunchtime. We do get a half hour break for some much needed coffee and pan(bread). It's actually a lot of fun. I even feel like I'm starting to understand a little. The teachers are great and it's been fun getting to know the other students.
They have an activity every afternoon. Yesterday we spent an hour in a natural sauna. Despite asking questions we weren't exactly able to determine how they actually worked. Basically the rocks emanate heat from the volcano, and little concrete rooms have been built for about two or three people to sit in. I could only last five minutes inside, but they have a cold shower outside the rooms so you can get ready to go in again. It's good for your circulation and your joints, at least "that's what they say".
Saturday's activity was the big enchilada. Woke up at 3:30 and began our trek up Santa Maria by the light of the moon and a few flashlights. At our first break Piet marked the elevation at 2308m. The four hour hike was more like a climb, especially towards the end. The path was winding, narrow, muddy and slippery, the grade ever increasing as you neared the top, climbing over and under fallen trees, grasping the wet rocks above; I don't hesitate to say that it was the most challenging thing I've done. But once you emerge from the tree line you can see the top, and that's the only thing that keeps your legs moving. Exhausted, sweaty, dehydrated, even a little disoriented, you stand on top of the highest rock fulfilled. It's hard to describe that sense of satisfaction. The summit measured 3776m, meaning we had climbed over 1.5 km straight up. And this was not all; looking down the south slope you observe a smaller grey peak, constantly emitting steam from vents in the cone. About every half hour the pressure builds until it sends out a plume of mushrooming steam and ash, really quite a sight. Unfortunately I had just put my video camera away when the biggest eruption took place. Maybe some things are meant only for the naked eye.
Pieter here. We were exhausted when we got back in the afternoon, but I forced Clay to go to a soccer game with me. Deep down I know he wanted to anyway. The team here is called Xelaju and they play in Guatemala´s Primera Division. They played versus Coban, and beat them 2-1. Two Coban players got red cards. The atmosphere is much different from Europe. More fire, and less singing. The fireworks went everywhere, including the stands, the lights and even the middle of the field. The fans gave us the opportunity to expand our Spanish vocabulary.
Clay again. My first soccer, er, football game, was pretty fun, I admit. Well, I don't want to bore anymore so I'll wrap this up. The family I'm staying with is more than I could ask for. The food is truly to die for, though today my stomach disagreed. Tonight we are going to Bible study at a Church of Christ that reminded us of home.
Once again, thanks for paying interest and sending us your messages. Muchas Gracias

Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

2006-01-27T20:13:00.000-06:00

km 8001
We arrived here yesterday evening after a 36 hour bus trip. Guatemala is different from anything I´ve ever seen. Mexico was different but it looked like what Mexico is supposed to look like. Guatemala is beyond what I expected.
After two days in Manzanillo we went to visit a friend whom we had met in Brandon. Her family was, once again, very friendly and hospitable. We had supper there, and went swimming in some natural hot springs. Some of her family was headed to the airport in Guadalajara at 3 am Wednesday morning and offered us a ride to the bus sation there. We took a bus to Mexico City where we had to change bus stations to catch another bus to Tapachula, Chiapas. Mexico City is not nearly as scary as everyone makes it out to be, then again, we were only on the subway. We bought a Mexican newspaper to see who won Canada´s election. That was a shock. I guess a lot can change in three weeks. We left for Tapachula at 7:30pm and arrived there at about 11:00 am. The busses are pretty nice in Mexico (twice as nice as a Greyhound bus), and we can usually get some sleep on the overnight ones. We exchanged some money and had lunch. Then we took a collectivo (van/taxi) to a town called Hidalgo where we thought the border was. However it was about 3km back (we had passed it in the van, just didn´t notice) so these guys drove us there on bicycle taxis and charged us $10 each. Rip-off. We crossed the border, a 1 km long bridge. It was about 3 km between the two immigration offices. It was hot, so we caught a ride for part of it. Once in Guatemala we took a bus to Retalhuleu. That bus was normal. The bus from there to Quetzaltenango was one of the infamous chicken busses. As soon as we got off the first bus, these guys asked us where we were going, took our bags out from underneath, and as the chicken bus (looks like a schoolbus) was already moving, they threw our bags on top and told us to run to the front and jump on. Never done that before. The bus was completely packed but we found two empty seats in the back. The ride itself wasn´t too bad. At one point there was a detour because of a 10 metre gap in the highway. We gained quite a bit of altitude, I think we are at about 2300m, which means it gets cool at night.
Quetzaltenango, which is better known by its Mayan name Xela (pronounced Shay-la) is beautiful. The plaza is surrounded by 19th century buildings, and the original facade of the colonial cathedral which was built in 1535. There are a lot of gringos here. We went to McDonald´s for Clay´s birthday. Tomorrow we are going to to climb the volcano, Santa Maria, from where we will be able to see another volcano, Santiaguito, which is considered one of the most active and dangerous volcanoes in the world. On Monday we will start a week of language class.
For those of you who are wondering, Clay is Butch, and I am Sundance. We hope to find Etta somewhere along the way.
Thanks for reading and thanks for all the comments.
Pieter

2006-01-23T20:07:00.000-06:00

Clayton here. Thought we should make that clear after it seemed that there might be some case of mistaken identity. All your comments are greatly appreciated, and looked forward to, by the way. We are now in Manzanillo, MX, a far nicer place than Puerto Vallarta, in my opinion. It's a little more spread out, not overcrowded, the beaches are more serene without crashing waves, and the whole place looks newer and cleaner. Not that Vallarta wasn't good. We spent most of the day on the beach, and I got burnt pretty good. Maybe I'll never learn. I guess we're kind of taking our time. We're planning on taking a week of Spanish classes in Guatemala, which start every Monday, so we have a few days to spend at leisure. It's been fun getting to know some of the locals, but otherwise there aren't any real adventures to speak of. Hope all is well at home.

2006-01-21T21:36:00.000-06:00

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
km 5529
We arrived here around 1:00 this afternoon after a 15 hour bus ride from Torreon, which was actually not bad at all. We´re officially on our own now. We spent our time in Torreon with Jorge who was our roommate in Brandon for four months. His family (parents, two aunts and an uncle) took very good care of us. Another former roommate, Monica, also lives in Torreon, so the four of us had an awesome time. Like Clay said before, the people here are incredibly friendly. Four families have told us ´Mi casa es su casa.' We´ve seen marriachis, and eaten real tacos and carne assada. For those of you who care about geography, Torreon is actually one of three cities which all border each other. The other two are Gomez Palacio and Ciudad Lerdo. Together they are known as Laguna, and have a population of about 1 million and a soccer team called Santos.

It´s exciting to be making our way farther South. We´re skipping alot of Mexico because we want to make it to southern Chile by the end of February before it starts getting cold, and we hope to make it up on the way back. Puerto Vallarta is beautiful. There are alot of tourists here though and hotels as far as the eye can see. But it´s still nice. We´ll probably only be here for a couple days. We spent the afternoon on the beach
I (Pieter) am computer illiterate so I´ve had problems posting pictures. The files were too big and I don´t know how to compress them. If you click on the picture (which I realize has very low resolution) it might take you to more pictures but if that doesn´t work go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11858693@N00/?saved=1 . That should do it I think. We might be in Guatemala next time we write something. Thanks for reading.

Better late than never

2006-01-19T12:15:00.000-06:00

Ola. I don´t know much more spanish than that, but it is coming slowly. This is my first entry, almost three weeks after we left Brandon. We spent a week with Kris and Tasha in Duluth, a week with Piet´s family in Nebraska, the weekend with his grandma in Oklahoma and then we spent a day and a half on the bus! It finally felt like we had started our trip. Some 4000 km from Brandon, in Torreon, MX, and I am having a great time. All you need here is a smile and a "buenas dias", with a little nod of the head for good measure. The people are very friendly. One of the most exciting things we´ve done is explore an abandoned gold and silver mine near the town of Mapimí. A 300m long, somewhat decrepit bridge spans a gorge 100m deep. We walked across and then took a zipline back to the other side. We also walked through the main shaft of the mine. In places there are 900m holes covered only by 2x6 planks. All we had for light were these ancient looking, open flame kerosene lanterns(I hope the video turns out). Anyway, wish I could describe our adventures with a bit more flare, but this is the best I can do. I know you all wish you were here. No? 'Til next time, adios.

Oklahoma City

2006-01-16T01:40:00.000-06:00

km 2748
We just want to write a short entry before we leave the US of A. We are in Oklahoma City right now. It's 1:51 am. At 2:50 we are getting on the bus for Neuvo Laredo, Mexico, so this is really the begining of our trip even though we have been on the road for two weeks. We have been to Duluth, Minnesota, York, Nebraska, and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Matthew Brazle, my (Pieter's) friend from Belgium, who is going to school here, picked us up at the bus station this afternoon and will be dropping us off again tonight. We will be in Nuevo Laredo at 6:40 pm and if there is a bus from there to Torreon we will take it. There will be more detailed updates once we get to Mexico.