Best of the Worst (and Best) Part I

December 24 was a landmark day for us - 25% of the way through our fantastic trip! To mark the occasion, we give you the first installment of our four part series entitled "Best of the Worst (and Best)".

Food (Lori´s favorite category)

Worst Meal

• Lori - Continental breakfast at hell-hole cafe in Panajachel with flys and army of children relentlessly buzzing around us. This one has blocked the name of the establishment from our memories.
• Dan - Free breakfast at San Francisco de Quito. Juice had added protein from not so normal sources

Best Breakfast

• Lori - Amazing 10-fruit salad in Quito below the Amazonas Inn.
• Dan - Yellow House Hostel in Antigua, Guatemala. The pancakes were to die for.

Most Phenomenal Baked Good (of all time)

• Lori - Sensational lemon iced doughnut from German Cafe, San Iganacio, Belize. I still dream about it...
• Dan - Best banana bread I think I´ve ever tasted in Antigua, Guatemala, and we don´t even remember the name of the place...sigh

Accomodation

Freakiest Creepy Crawly

• Lori - Face to face moment with humongous hairy spider on bathroom door in Panajachel. What the heck was the name of that place?
• Dan - Fist sized grasshoppers on the windows of the Jungle Lodge in Tikal, Guatemala...shiver...

Most Miserable Sleep

• Lori & Dan - Hands down, the Jungle Lodge, Tikal. The power goes off at 10pm and the couple next door goes to town. No fans, no light, noisy hanky-panky through the walls and lots of big things hitting the windows from the jungle. aaagh!

Best & Worst Shower

• Lori - Best: Amazonas Inn, Quito, the pressure will sand blast your flesh off, and the heat will scald whatever is left behind. Awesome. Worst: San Francisco de Quito, one pathetic trickle of water + a burning desire to wash my hair = no good.
• Dan - Best: Amazonas Inn, Quito, better than any shower I´ve had in NA. Worst: Yolita, Galapagos Islands boat tour, cold, rocky, small.....awful.

Hilite

• Lori - Norte Seymour Island in the Galapagos. Stark scenery, huge sea birds and the sensation that I was at Pacific Rim.
• Dan - Arriving in Antigua, Guatemala. We had been somewhat stressed by several travels through Guatemala country side and on the move for quite a while. Our overnight from Flores had left us exhausted. Antigua was incredibly beautiful and peaceful. Arriving there was a big release of nerves. Getting breakfast at our accomodations, the Yellow House, also helped.

Lowlite

• Lori - Observing Dan´s lowlites.
• Dan - Its a toss up between being ill and having to go to the bathroom so bad, but throwing up in the middle of the Central Square in Antigua was a bit of a rock bottom moment. The following 3 days of sickness wasn´t much fun either.

The Inca Trial

Season´s Greetings from Peru! Lori and I arrived in Cusco over a week ago where we spent several days adjusting to the height in preperation for the Inca Trail. (Trial) Our first few days were marked by a general height inflicted malaise and euphoria. The sinus colds we were shaking didn´t do much to aid the effect.

By about day 2 we were begining to feel normal and set about finding ways to kill our numerous days in Cusco. We bought the Boleta Touristica which we quickly determined was an overpriced ticket to see just about everything you don´t want to see in Cusco, and nothing you do want to see. It included the majestic Museo de Arte Contemporareo which contained approximately 12 paintings, all for sale, and not much else. Though in a glass encasement, there was a freaky doll dressed in traditional Peruvian clothes that looked eerily like Michael Jackson.

At first we were irritated and feeling a little ripped off by the purchase of our ticket which we should have taken the, what seems clear now, obvious cues from the lady who sold it to us reluctantly. But after museum 3 we decided we were going to throttle everything on the tourist ticket, which is noted on the ticket itself is a souvenir! So we set off now with a mission! Having successfully stamped every museum on the ticket in the Cusco area that left the ruins on the ticket for the next day.

Rising bright and early we hopped a bus to the farthest ruin in a string of 4 ruins along an 8km walk from Cusco. With little interpretive information, we decided to make up our own! I must say, it was much more fun that way. Ask Lori about Princess La-la-llama sometime. That night we had one more mission to accomplish as part of the tourist ticket and that was a cultural display of dance and outfits of the Cusco region.

I must say, this was probably the best part of the tourist ticket package. The show was in a theatre that reminded us of the Garneau in Edmonton and consisited of about an hour of different dances in different outfits accompanied by an orchestra/band of traditional Peruvian instruments. It was a fine way to finish off our Cusco experience.

On December 22 we left bright and early for the Inca Trail. The Inca trail is roughly a 42 Km, 3 day hike over 2 mountain passes and through lush high jungle to the massive ruins of Macchu Pichu in the Incan Sacred Valley. Starting at what is called Km 82 which is basically just a marker along the Macchu Pichu train line running from Cusco to just near the ruin site. The hike is dotted with Incan ruins along the way and covers elevations from 2400 m to 4200 m.

Our group consisted of 16 other hikers, a guide, assistant guide, and 20 odd porters. We carried all of our own gear excluding a tent and food. I would guess our packs were roughly 15-20 Kg. The porters however carried all the tents, chairs, propane tanks, food, etc. They were probably carrying 25-30 Kg. As we struggled up and down Incan steps and paths the porters would run by us along the trail having taken down the camp and cleaned up after us with huge packs to set up either a tea or our next evening camp site. Imagine seeing a short peruvian man running down foot high steps carrying a massive pack as our group struggled along with pained knees and calves.

Treatment of the porters used to in fact be way worse then it is now. They used to carry packs upwards of 50Kg including tourist gear, potentially getting little to no food, or even sleeping out in the rain. As little as 2-5 years ago legislations were passed not allowing porters to have to carry more than 25Kg. For all that though, some porters still do get the shaft by companies.

Our group was a lot of fun, Lori and I couldn´t think of a better way to spend a Christmas away from home. The guide was very knowledgeable and friendly. The porters themselves were quiet, but also were quite friendly. On Christmas eve, we joined them in song and fellowship. All in all it was a great experience.

The weather was mostly quiet good. The mornings were generally clear with some sun and some rain and cloud in the afternoon. All in all, considering it was the wet season we could have done much worse.

On Christmas day, we were up at 4am (EST) to arrive at the gates of the Sun overlooking Macchu Pichu nice and early. We even have the requested photo, Michelle! However, the weather was uncooperative, at the Sun Gate we were met with a lot of cloud. Continuing down to the ruins themselves we arrived just in time to see the entire set of Ruins emerge from the clouds. Dumping our bags we toured the ruins with our guide. Macchu Pichu is so rich in subtleties and is truly one of the wonders of the world!

We seperated from the group that evening and stayed the night in Aguas Calientes. We took a dip in one of the medicinal hot pools. Not quite the same as the Banff Hotsprings, but it was still awesome as the jungle came to life in the dark around us.

We returned to Cusco on Boxing day and now await a bus to Arequipa where we will head to the Grand Canyon scale Colca Canyon. We hope to see Condors! We leave Peru for Chile in the early part of the new Year where we look forward to amazing scenery in the Patagonia region!

Thanks for all your Christmas wishes! We hope you all had a safe and warm Christmas, and wish you a Happy New Year! Talk to you next year. (you know what I mean, Gil)

Planes, Trains, and Auto-mo-busses

¡Hola! Greetings from Ecuador on our second to last day. We´ve had a great time in Ecuador. It´s got just about everything. Jungle, highlands, mountains, ocean. You name it, it´s here. An incredibley beautiful country we´ll be sad to say goodbye to, but its time to explore some of Peru.

After our amazing Galapagos adventure we returned to Quito and hopped what was supposed to be a 4 hour bus ride to Baños but was more like 6 hours. It turned into a bit of a misadventure when about an hour and a half in I felt the results of too much water and juice.

After approximately 2 and a half hours of shuffling uncomfortably in my seat we stopped in Ambato to make a sudden and unexpected bus change. I thought this might be my moment, however, imagine my chagrin to get off the bus and watch one of our packs disappear in one direction on some doods back while the other disappeared in the other direction on some other doods back. Chasing one of them down for about 5 minutes they did luckily end up in the same place, that place being the compartment of a moving bus. My fear of losing our stuff combined with the chase to our departing transportation left me with no time and no place to relieve my...issues. I then made urgent gestures and related my trouble in awful Spanish to the driver. After 10 minutes I found myself jumping off the moving bus in the middle of nowhere Ambato, Ecuador to pee in front of a police officer for 30 seconds before leaping back on the moving bus to sit beside a very embarassed Lori. (A note, 30 seconds was only a stopgap...the guys out there will know what that means) Anyhow, we did make it to Baños without injuring anything. (I hope!)

Baños is situated at the foot of Tungurahua, one of the worlds (I believe) largest active volcanos. We saw a huge plume of smoke billowing from the crater as we came down the road. We even saw ash falling in town occasionally. The town is surrounded by ridges, but this hasn´t always helped the town survive eruptions. This however does mean that from town you can´t see the Volcano, and unfortunately, besides the clear day we arrived, we never got another clear day to get a picture. We spent several days hiking the area and concluded that Ecuador is horribley signed as we got lost several times and ended up doing hikes we weren´t planning. We also got to spend every day listening to kids from the local school practice their marching band presentation for Baños´ Dec 16 festival. (check the picture of them from our hostel room) The beat still echoes in my head days later.

We hopped another bus a few days later to Riobamba. The only reason, and I stress only, is to ride the train down ´Nariz del Diablo.´(Devil´s Nose) We arrived yesterday and rode it today. It was an interesting ride. The actual Nariz del Diablo lasts about 20-30 minutes and involves switchbacks down a very steep drop-off. You ride on the top of the train and at times, you don´t see the ground beside the train, just the canyon, far below. The rest of the ride is about 3 hours long through the Ecuador countryside, which as I said before, is quite stunning. The locals seem to get a kick out of a train full of Gringo´s hanging off the roof passing by and wave happily. Even the dogs join in the fun and chase the train as far as they can barking all the way. It is probably the longest, most uncomfortable, coldest, and beautiful train ride ever.

Anyhow, tomorrow we hop a bus back to Quito where we fly out to Lima at 8pm. We arrive at some point early in the morning where we have a layover until 7am. We then fly to Cusco, Peru where we will feel very very gross for a day. Lori has unfortunately come down with a cold which I hope she doesn´t give to me.

Thanks for all the Birthday wishes! Since this will be our last post until either after christmas or maybe until next year, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Keep warm!

Galapagone

Our Galapagos adventure has come and gone, leaving 4 billion picutres, 2 containers of Galapagos jam, a Charles Darwin Research Center hat and one horrendous knee burn in its wake. Sigh. It was a definite highlight of this trip and here are a few reasons why:

- BIRDS! Lots of simply incredible and super-sized birds including the wacky blue-footed booby, (our fave!) pelicans, flamingos, herons, egrets, albatross, and the fabulous frigate bird. Witnessing their mating dances (and then Dan trying to emulate the booby in his blue flippers) was unforgettable.

- AQUATIC WILDLIFE! Besides the ridiculous number of curious sealions, we did a lot of snorkeling and saw stingrays, white tipped and hammerhead sharks, giant turtles, marine iguanas and tonnes of fish (including my fave - the BLOWFISH!)

- OTHER FAUNA! Impossible to forget the giant tortoises that wander freely over many of the islands and the broad range of iguanas everywhere. Here´s a tip if you are freaked out by iguanas/sealions/birds avoid these islands at all costs.

- OTHER FLORA! What a weird and wacky set of landscapes in the Galapagos. One island will be lush sub-tropical, the next will be bleak, with occasional cacti or ground cover like something you´d see on a very northern island in Canada. (minus the cacti) All beautiful all worthy of at least 1.85 million pictures.

- FOOD! We had really good food on the boat. Dan refused to upload the picture of the banana peach cake that the chef made for day 7 on the boat. It even had flamingos on it! What a party pooper! (Dan, not the chef)

At last, here is our boat, the Yolita. It doesn´t make the list of highlights, but it got us from A to B. Our Yolita companions (with the exception of the creepy crawly variety) were great, and who could complain about the daily highs of fabulous weather, outstanding views and diesel fumes to take your breath away? We´d love to go back, who wants to help us rent out one of those luxury Catamarans??

CONTEST: Count the crazy number of iguanas in this picture and post your guess in the comments section - first correct wins a lame prize!