Summer in Patagonia

From Patagonia

Trying to find inspiration to write after several weeks' absence from the internet is difficult. It would be easy to continue coasting along without looking at emails or blogging but, as with getting out of bed on the weekend, what's good for me sometimes requires effort.

We ended up spending 9 days on the Paine circuit. The terrain ranged from the famous Torres to the immense Glaciar Grey, the weather from rain to snow to the occasional bit of sun to extremely windy, as this entry from the minimal diary I kept describes:

Day 3: Crossed a pass. Wind so strong it blew the spit out of my mouth and the snot out of my nose.

With gusts that literally pushed me backwards several steps, this was no exaggeration. The first half of the trail was relatively isolated and provided a chance to meet some of the other trekkers whose trip coincided with mine and Anne's. Among others was the group we ended up joining at the end of every day, the retired Alaskan couple on their fifth trip to Torres del Paine and whose hiking abilities far surpassed mine, and a woman from New York who commented on the second day that she could have seen the same scenery in New Hampshire. Anne restrained herself from suggesting she go back and finish her hike there.

Apart from the shared conversations while warming ourselves round wood-fired stoves, some of them expanded my knowledge of the English language. Memorably, I learnt the phrase "fuck this shit" can be used not only when you are tired of many days hiking and camping without a shower, but also as a concise way of signifying your desire to leave the dinner table.

The second half of the trail was more accessible to buses and ferries from the nearest town, which brought many day hikers staying in comfy lodges. They breezed past with tiny backpacks by day, and at night as I pitched tent and huddled over my camping stove to cook dinner, I consoled myself by feeling smugly superior.

Speaking of dinner, food figured prominently in the 4-5 sentences I wrote to my diary each day. It's no surprise that when spending hours every day trekking to the next campsite while staring at a spot on the ground roughly 2 meters in front of you, fantasizing about food becomes a regular pastime. I went from imagining what I'd like to eat, to telling Anne in tantalising detail how I would prepare the food (heat up the pan with olive oil, tip in chopped onions, listen to them sizzle, add salt and fresh ground black pepper while you smell the aroma of the onions beginning to caramelise, etc.), to writing diary entries such as this:

Day 5: Leftovers @ breakfast. 2 women who paid for a meal at the hut couldn't finish their food. Excellent start. Too bad we won't see them again.

All this despite eating very well considering Anne and I carried our supplies for the entire trek. Maybe my body is starting to notice the 6kgs I've lost since the start of my travels several months ago and wants them back.

The second hike was a much shorter and easier 4-day affair in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares in Argentinian Patagonia. Christmas day brought views of 2 beautiful ice cold lakes at the base of the Fitzroy peak, along with a lunch where the friend we hiked with excitedly exclaimed, "It's Christmas! What do you normally do to celebrate?" to a trio of Israelis.

Despite the short days, Anne and I, together with a couple others, rewarded ourselves with a large home-cooked steak and vegetable stir-fry dinner at the end. After 3 bottles of wine between the 4 of us, we decided to check out the only bar in town. We stopped en route to convince some renovation workers in the supermarket to open the doors at 1am and let us buy 2 more bottles, which the bar let us bring inside - a sure sign of a friendly small town. We realised the next day on the 15 hour bus ride over unpaved bumpy road just how bad this seemingly good idea was.

The next couple weeks will be a journey north, recrossing into Chile to travel part of the scenic Carretera Austral up the Andes. I'm hoping to make it to Argentina's winemaking region before heading to Buenos Aires. I've been wanting to do a bike tour of wineries - a combination, like chocolate fondue with strawberries, that has the potential to fantastically exceed the already enjoyable sum of its parts.

Out of Contact

Summer has ended temporarily as I'm now far south in windy Patagonia. Boarded a plane at midnight last night, and 3 hours later I was on the runway in Punta Arenas. I managed to drift off during the flight, but sleep was cut short by extremely intense turbulent patches, complete with a woman who screamed with every jolt and drop (which meant there was a lot of screaming).

Anne and I will be hiking around Patagonia for the next 20 days without internet access, starting with the 8 day "Paine Circuit". No, I'm not joking about the name. Yes, this is my idea of a vacation.

Hope everyone has nice end-of-the-year holidays!

Snatch! Dash! Crash!

On the way to Valparaiso, a seaside city an hour and a half northwest of Santiago, I thought to myself, "self, you've been getting too serious with your posts. What with all the dour political news of voting problems and passports. It's time to liven things up a bit. Start travelling. Put some action in there!" Which is why I ended up going to the hospital again. All to give you some excitement. A rush of adrenaline. Something worthwhile to read when you check my blog.

OK, maybe it didn't quite happen like that. Maybe it even involved a certain level of foolishness, but I can pretend it was otherwise.

After arriving in Valparaiso yesterday and having one of the best meals I've had in months (thanks for the cafe recommendation Jess), Anne and I checked our map and decided to following one of the short routes marked as a walking tour. The city reminded me a little of San Francisco, being set on a bay with colourful houses covering the surrounding steep hills. We rode a couple of the ascensors that are dotted around the city on the way to the start of the walk. They're sort of like elevators on extremely steep train tracks which you can take to avoid climbing stairs up some of the hills. Built in the 1880s, the originals are still running today, complete with creaking wood sounds.

Shortly after starting the walk, we began to see some shifty-looking people lazing around. Stopping to look at a local fish market, someone tried to open Anne's backpack without us noticing. But we did and he walked away quickly. In hindsight this may have been the obvious point to turn around, but theft is always a danger when you look like a tourist and it didn't seem unusual.

After walking on a bit further, we found ourselves in an area with a nice view out over some of the hills, empty save for what looked like a young university student who had been walking ahead of us. If you've noticed the lack of pictures so far, you may have guessed where this is headed. Anne got her camera out, took a couple pictures, and just afterwards had it snatched from her hand by the ex-student/newly revealed thief who then made a dash for it.

Reacting instead of thinking, I ran full speed after him only to find his friend throw a large rock at me, then another. After the first hit me on the arm and I dodged the second, it occurred to me that now was the time to stop chasing, and they ran off.

No major damage done, only bruises and cuts. In hindsight there were a lot of obvious clues we should have taken to turn back, but before it happened I had unfortunately not yet developed hindsight. I'm left wondering why the makers of our map plotted a walk through what we later found from the police is one of the more dangerous areas of town, especially so in the daytime.

Luckily as we are in Chile, the police were very helpful. Three of them accompanied Anne and me in a police car to the hospital, where I got my cuts cleaned. They waited for us and afterwards gave us a ride back to our hostel.

In the end, I lost a couple pages full of resume revisions I was in the process of making (left behind at some point in the confusion), and the thieves got a camera half broken due to the previously mentioned manufacturing defect. Good thing Anne has insurance.

Sunshine managed to break through at the end of the day, when Anne and I discovered "completos". Take a hot dog, load it with onions, tomatoes, avocado, mayonnaise and ketchup, sell it for $1, and you have a completo. Dinner was good.

If the lack of pictures has decreased your level of interest in this blog, feel free to chime in in the comments to suggest more fun antics I can get up to in order to keep the excitement level of my posts up.

Passports (and e-Voting Update)

Several days ago I got up early and went to the US embassy to get a new passport. It has 3 years until it expires, but I wanted to get mine replaced before they start manufacturing RFID-enabled ones. This would give me 10 years of RFID-free travelling, which would hopefully be enough time for the government to sort out the mess the new passports are shaping up to be:

"The whole passport design is totally brain damaged. [...] They're not increasing security at all." Grunwald says it took him only two weeks to figure out how to clone the passport chip. Most of that time he spent reading the standards for e-passports that are posted on a website for the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations body that developed the standard.

Unfortunately I would have to wait 2 weeks for the new passport to arrive, and by that time I won't be in Santiago. It might be just as well, because the lady at the US services desk couldn't guarantee that the new passport wouldn't contain an RFID chip. She did give me a strange look, as if to say, "you must be one of those wacky conspiracy theorists." She couldn't understand why I wanted to replace my passport before it expired.

I'm starting to wonder how long it will take before the US gets a significant number of people in government who grasp technology. Money seems to be pouring into worthless IT projects all the time.

In some slightly positive related news, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has recommended that e-voting machines be decertified for future elections. It's up to states to decide whether or not to follow the guidelines, but after millions of dollars wasted and many voting problems, it's a step in the right direction.

Still for a Few Days

It's been a bit over a month since Anne and I were last staying in a home. Here in Santiago, Carlos kindly put us in touch with friends and family who are housing us. Little things I am now appreciating:

• Showering barefoot. Not being afraid to touch the surrounding surfaces that 10 other people already left hair on that day.
• Kitchens. None of the hostels in Ecuador or Peru were equipped with them. First meal cooked: spaghetti the way I like it, i.e. covered with half a block of grated cheese. Eating cereal is a rediscovered pleasure too. Though I may have overdone it when I consumed close to half a kilo in less than 24 hours.
• Music. In my normal life I get a hit of new music every day or two. The last two months' withdrawal has seen me build a list over 60 entries long of albums to check out when I end my travels. So the surprise presence of a Mac in our current place, in other words, a lifeline to put new music on my iPod, has seen me return to my addiction as if I was just out of rehab. There's so much to listen to it's hard to know where to begin.
• Flushing toilet paper down the toilet instead of putting it in the trash can. No further explanation needed.

Hitchhiking

From Chile

For hitchhiking, Chile rates somewhere between New Zealand (never waited more than 5 minutes) and Australia (stood by the side of the road for an hour, got a bottle thrown at us). It took us 20 minutes before we were picked up, but when we did, we got to ride in this. Which is where I'm sitting now, with a commanding view of the road. It's a nice way to travel, if a little shaky for writing. It's just as well you're reading the transcribed version otherwise you'd have to decipher my handwriting.

After crossing the border some days back, we took a bus from Arica, a border town in the north, to La Serena, a vacation spot 6 hours north of Santiago. The good part of the trip was that, being in Chile, the roads were good and the bus was comfortable.¹ The bad part was it was still 22 hours on a bus. We passed through terrain containing nothing other than rocks and sand. Fascinating to look at out of a moving bus. Less so, I would imagine, if we were to suffer a breakdown.

A lot of the world's astronomical observatories are scattered in the area around La Serena, due to its lack of rainfall and exceptionally clean and clear skies. There's also a small amateur observatory where tourists can observe the stars. We toured this on our second night there, and the sky was beautiful. If Anne's digital camera hadn't started acting up because of a CCD manufacturing defect, I would have been able to post some photos.

We went on a tour of nearby Elqui Valley the next day. On the way out of town, we pulled up at a stoplight to see two very angry looking men get out of their cars. I couldn't see any sign of a major crash, but from the looks on their faces you would think one had cheated with the other's wife. It didn't take long for a fight to break out. Not a small shoving match, but full on throwing punches. After the first hit, one guy appeared to make a dash for it, but it soon turned out he was heading for a nearby pile of rubble. He returned with a large rock in his hand and a fight-to-the-death look on his face. Then the light turned green and our front row seats were whisked away, leaving behind the sounds of a police siren and screaming women trying to break them apart.

Welcome to Chile.

I'm assuming that's the rare exception rather than then rule. Our hitchhiking driver is so nice he bought Anne and I a bag filled with manjar pastries and insisted on paying.

Our tour of the valley continued with an extended explanation of why Pisco wine is of Chilean, and not Peruvian, origin. Something a bartender in Peru had argued exactly the opposite of when we were in Cusco. Why exactly this is an issue remains a mystery to me. Apparently some people have managed to attach national pride to it, and as with most things to do with nationalism, logic has now left the party.

Our tour ended at a pretty little winery. Although Chile in general is much more expensive than other South American countries, it's hard not to be cheerful when a good bottle of wine is $5, and a very nice one is $8.

Looks like there's a couple hours left before we reach Santiago. I think I'll relax and watch the afternoon scenery roll by.

1. In general the country is much more developed than others in South America, and there is very little corruption. After a 17 year dictatorship, I'm curious as to how this came to be. I'm not aware of other countries progressing so well after a relatively recent political situation such as that.↩

Third Time's a Charm

It became clear last night that my continuing lack of appetite and energy was not a holdover effect from the latest bout of fun with high altitude. After several trips to the bathroom produced unfortunate results, I realised my body had entered a competition to get sick as many times as possible on this vacation without first asking me what I thought of the idea.

So today, heading past living phone boxes - men and women charging by the minute to use the cellphones chained to their wrists - I went to the hospital to find out why my stomach was making life difficult. Tacna, being the southernmost city in Peru, is where "Chileans come for cheap medical and dental treatment," Anne's guide book informed me. "Perfect," I thought, "there's sure to be lots of high quality medical care available." I was happily ignorant that most of this was bound to be found in private clinics, rather than the general hospital I went to.

It's not easy for me to understand rapid Spanish, even less so when the goal is decoding a hospital bureaucracy where the first step is knowing to flag down a busy nurse who gives you a piece of paper to hand to a cashier in a separate part of the building, a place I discovered after stopping at 3 separate desks along the way.

However, as if someone on high was mocking me, one of the few words I did understand was "muestra". Knowing that "mostrar" means "to show", "muestra" struck fear into my heart. Sure enough, after a consultation with my dictionary, the English word "sample" materialised before my eyes. They needed me to collect a sample of what was causing my stomach so much difficulty, one of the least appealing things you can ask someone in a bad mood cause by lack of food to do. A mood enhanced after waiting outside the closed door of the testing lab, only to see a doctor open the door and walk in, revealing a lab technician behind the desk happily ignoring my repeated knocks.

I spent many subsequent hours bouncing between the consultation office, testing lab, cashier, and hospital pharmacy, where you must buy the relevant supplies and medication for the medical staff to administer you with. I also visited several pharmacies out front of the hospital, because obviously the hospital pharmacy itself shouldn't be expected to stock something so esoteric as a syringe.

Seeing my sour expression, the lady across the counter in one nearby pharmacy decided what I needed was cheering up, so she happily returned my syringe prescription with a needle, the size of which is commonly found in children's nightmares. I lugged it back to the hospital and gave it to a nurse who filled it with the medical fluids I had purchased and proceeded to inject me with it.

Over the course of the 5 or so minutes it took to expel the liquid into my arm, she told me how she hoped to visit the US one day, and how the US embassy had refused her visa request on a previous attempt. I listened sympathetically, while simultaneously hoping she wouldn't break the needle in anger at my country's refusal to let her in its borders.

I left the hospital with pills to take for 5 days, and a large drink meant to replenish lost vitamins and minerals. It tastes like a cross between liquorice and Gatorade, and I've taken to calling it "devil's brew".

The injection must have done some good as I have already regained the ability to eat more than a few bites of food, the disappearance of which handily undid in several days what took many months of sweat and toil in the gym to gain.

I topped the day off with a 1-2 knockout that started with a celebratory trip to the hairdresser's. I was asked to pick my haircut out of a magazine showing a multitude of hairstyles for men, all with so much oil they could have been sponsored by the Bush administration. As usual, my hair came out looking nothing like any of them, and for once I was glad.

I concluded with a wash at the hostel. The shower stall was the latest in a long line of whose designers omitted any kind of shelf, thereby assuming the washer possesses the abilities of a master circus juggler. As always, I opted to store soap and razor outside on the sink, in the process making the floor soaking wet. It's a technique guaranteed to make yourself known, if not popular, amongst fellow patrons. Other entries in this category include donning a dress for a pub quiz in the first year of university and clapping loudly at what I mistakenly thought was the end of a live classical concert.

Now feeling better, tomorrow's plan is to cross the border to Chile in the morning. Then I'll prepare to traverse the northern region, alternately described to me as containing "nothing", "desert", and "absolutely nothing".

Film Developed

From SLR Colour Fi...

So far all the pictures I put up have been from Anne's compact digital camera. I've been shooting some pictures on an SLR, but mostly in B&W, which I won't get developed until I find somewhere I'm confident won't ruin my film when developing it. However I did just finish a colour roll, and you can see some of the results here. Nothing spectacular this time round (fingers crossed for the next roll, as always), but wanted to link it for those of you who may be interested.

Earthquake

I was sitting at a cafe this morning, waiting for my breakfast of scrambled eggs to arrive, when I heard screams, the ground started wobbling, and plaster dust started falling from the walls. Earthquakes are a startling experience. I heard later this one was a 5.something on the Richter scale.

(I know, 4 posts in a day is a bit of an overload. Unfortunately that's the price you pay for subscribing to what is not only my communication with the world while travelling, but my diary too.)

Update: A news piece on the Spanish web informed me it was a 5.8, with the epicentre being a bit south of Arequipa.

A Change of Plans

Two days ago Anne and I spent 7 hours on a bus getting to Lake Titicaca. At 3,800m, it's the highest navigable lake in the world. If that's ringing alarm bells, there's a good reason for it. Yes, I got altitude sickness. And I did what I do best in that situation. Spent the night throwing up.

We took the first bus out the next morning, back to Arequipa and a comfortable 2,300m altitude. I'm not sure what caused the problems at Titicaca as I haven't had problems since the Cotopaxi adventure, even in places where others have had headaches. But for now we've decided to leave the mysteries of altitude sickness for others to explore. We're crossing Bolivia off the agenda since most of the places we planned to visit are higher than 4,000m. Tomorrow we had south and into Chile.

Elections

Elections in Peru were held yesterday, and just like in Ecuador they were preceded by weeks of parades in the streets and cars driving around blaring music at incomprehensibly distorted levels out of megaphones. I can't say I'm sorry the noisy shows are over.

I read a little about the results of the US elections, but didn't see the electronic voting machine problems being mentioned. When it's possible to vote multiple times on some machines by using post-it notes, or by holding down a yellow button on the back of other machines, the situation is serious. That's just the tip of the iceberg, as electronic voting machines are susceptible to problems at every stage of their use - from set up, to people casting multiple votes, to results being indetectably modified by viruses, to being unable to verify if votes were correctly recorded. Despite being happy with the election results, I think the lack of attention given to this issue is a shame.

This article summarises the results of two independent studies commissioned by the board of elections after e-voting machines used in Ohio earlier this year caused problems. The same machines that were used in many places in the mid-terms. The results are fairly devestating.

This article talks about some of the gathering evidence of voting problems in the mid-term elections. The author ends by stating:

On election day, a major piece of the mystery of "how did we let things get this bad?" became very clear to me. People that used the touchscreen voting machines, including my wife, who'd read my report and was duly skeptical of the DREs, raved about the experience. The touchscreen machines make fantastic demo units that really sell you on the idea of e-voting. So it's no wonder that states and counties across the country went gaga over these machines and just opened up their wallets when a vendor rep showed them a product demo.

[...]

DREs are awfully pleasant to use, in spite of the fact that they're not worth much as actual voting machines. Ultimately, the story of the triumph of the touchscreen DRE is really a story of the triumph of style over substance [...].

The most basic requirement for a voting machine is that it should be able to accurately record votes. The ones currently in widespread use can't do that. What does an election mean when the voting machines can't record votes accurately?

Inca Ruins

From Machu Picchu

Anne and I reached Machu Picchu at the end of last week after a 4 day biking/hiking trip. It's a beautiful place, in large part due to its surroundings. And although it's impressive, I think a lot of the hype is due to the mythology surrounding it. What was it used for? Why did the Incans build a retreat in the mountains? How could it have been lost - to the rest of the world, if not locals - for 400 years? But in the end, villages on terraced mountainsides exist worldwide, and the stonework is far from the most impressive that the Incans constructed (more on that later).

I actually found Huayna Picchu the more worthwhile part of the trip. It's a set of terraces and temples built on a nearby peak - an optional 1 hour climb that starts from within the grounds of Machu Picchu. The structure is so steep that when descending the shallow stairs you have to lean against them to stop from falling. How the Incas ever managed to construct the buildings on that peak I don't know.

It's unfortunate that Peru has a monopoly on Machu Picchu sites worldwide because they price it accordingly. Want to hike the 4 day Inca trail? You're looking at $300/person. Maybe you just want to see Machu Picchu. Train + entrance runs around $90/person. Our trek was somewhere between those numbers. I'm glad to have been, but the cost makes a return visit highly unlikely.

During the hike Anne and I were attacked by mosquitoes which left the itchiest bites (warning - ugly foot picture) I've ever had. I've often wondered in summertime if wiping out mosquitoes would damage some part of the world's ecosystem, or simply provide a huge relief to humanity in general, and me in particular.

After returning to Cusco, Anne and I visited Sacsayhuamán, Q'enqo, and Pukapukara, all sites within 15 minutes drive of Cusco. Out of all the sites I saw, Sacsayhuamán is easily the most impressive. It's an amazing example of the expertise Incans had with stone. Constructed out of enormous blocks, fit perfectly together, no one today yet understands how the Incas worked the stone. And with evidence suggesting they didn't use the wheel, nobody has a compelling suggestion of how they moved the huge pieces either. It's incomprehensible to me how a stone like this ever could have been shifted without the use of modern machinery.

Now I Can Ride a Bike

From Cusco

Other countries require months of classes, practice and a license. Peru requires $25 and a face. That's how I learnt to ride a motorbike. I spent 4 hours terrorising the roads and dirt tracks around Cusco today. Beautiful scenery and great fun. And now, if I ever find myself on the set of an action movie, I can jump on a bike and make a high-speed getaway with screeching tires. I'm adding "motorbiking" to my list of half-skills, which also currently includes horseback riding and singing.


Oh, and when I'm wearing it, the colour of the helmet is officially known as "danger yellow".

Painful Steps

From Colca Canyon

I'm walking with slightly achy legs from yesterday's final day of a 3-day hike in Colca Canyon. The "Canyon" is more of a cross between a valley and a canyon, but suffice it to say it's steep. And deep - about 3200m, versus 1600m for the Grand Canyon. The first day was the toughest - we descended 1.4km in altitude and followed that by a 400m climb. By the end of the day we didn't have the energy to eat dinner, just crawl into our tent and sleep.

The hike took us through some small villages where the only access is by foot or donkey on steep rocky paths. One of the more amazing parts of the hike was being passed by locals literally jogging down these paths in nothing more than sandals. Even without a backpack there's no way my legs would be strong enough, nor my feet accurate enough, to do that.


The second day ended in Oasis, a small tourist spot where entrepreneurs set up channels fed by nearby waterfalls to irrigate grass and fill swimming pools. No need for chlorine - with an unlimited supply of water they could empty, clean, and refill the pools every day.

The last day was a nearly 4 hour straight climb, ascending approximately 1km in the hot sun. The 7 hour bus ride back to Arequipa was uneventful, though for some reason it was missing a salesman, an inseparable part of most bus journeys (along with reggaeton music and Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" - a song I can't wait to never hear again). They stand at the front in the aisle and talk for 20 minutes, extolling the virtues of the fantastic product they're selling. Then they hand out samples to everyone on the bus, finish with a round-up of all the benefits, and see if anyone is interested in buying. At first, I was baffled as to what they could talk about for so long. Now, with limited Spanish, I know that most of the time they have in their hand seeds of an amazing medicinal plant that can reduce ulcers improve your sight help aching joints stop runny noses soothe sore throats cure cancer! Although one man managed to talk for 20 minutes about the Jolly Rancher sweets he was selling.

Joking aside, it seems like a tough job and has raised questions, like who decides which salesman gets to take which bus? Do they have to pay fare? After riding for half an hour, how do they get back home?

Tonight we'll take an overnight bus to Cusco. It used to be a central Incan city - I hear now it's gringo central. Machu Picchu and other Incan ruins are next on the agenda.

Southern Peru

(Forgot to post this after writing it a week ago.)

I hadn't expected much from Peru. Before going all I heard was horror stories from other travellers about the dire state of the economy, the corruption, and the danger of getting mugged on the street or threatened in a taxi. Luckily for me, so far so good.

Anne and I decided to bypass Lima completely. Our overnight bus arrived at 11am, and we caught a 5pm bus south to Arequipa. Sometimes it pays not to be overly suspicious and hostile of strangers, which was proved when we met a very friendly Peruvian in our stopover time. Anne and I ended up spending a pleasant few hours practising our Spanish and walking around Lima with him.

As far as Lima itself, it seems to have some nice areas but my 5 hour impression doesn't make me regret bypassing it. Arequipa itself has a very nice center, equally as nice to walk around as Cuenca.t was the deepest).

Nighthawks at the Diner

After the bad Jean-Claude Van Damme action movie ended and the subsequent bad Chinese action movie finished, I was reclined in my seat travelling on the darkened bus southbound in Peru, not feeling very sleepy. The type of situation that random on an iPod is perfect for. After a few songs, one of the tracks from Tom Waits' "Nighthawks at the Diner" came on, and I knew I had found the music to fit my mood.

I don't often listen to this album, but it's one of the handful that I haven't erased any tracks from. I can count on one hand the number of albums I've given that honour to.

I remember when I first heard the album. I walked into a record store without much of a purpose other than killing time. I saw the album cover, with Tom Waits sitting in the window of a diner, on a listening stand. I put the headphones on and in the first 30 seconds I was hooked. The sound immediately put me in a smoke-filled room, people sitting around small tables, some talking, some drinking. The music starts, a mixture of jazz and blues - an upright bass, piano, saxophone, drums. Tom Waits' voice comes through like a bar singer in a detective film-noir. His stories are a depressed Garrison Keillor, with tales of the down and out, diners with bad food, Warm Beer and Cold Women, and the fantastic closing storytelling of Big Joe and Phantom 309. His delivery is sometimes spoken, sometimes singing, possibly tipsy.

When travelling around, I'm always stuck when people ask about traditions where I come from. The US doesn't have much in the way of history or traditions compared to other countries. But it has innumerable different types of pop culture. As far as I'm concerned, "Nighthawks at the Diner" captures one piece of Americana perfectly. It's not for everyone. A lot of people I've shown it to just don't take to it. Maybe because it's not catchy pop music, but more like a moody audiobook with jazz backup. I like listening to it start-to-finish.

Into Peru

From Peru

Last Friday I finished my 4 weeks of language school. I am supposedly at an intermediate Spanish level now, but locals would probably argue with that. Have successfully crossed the border into Peru and spent a couple days at the beach in Mancora. Tried surfing for the first time, but didn't get too far. Though I did manage to hit my funny bone hard enough that it bruised. Such is the price of this tough life.

In an hour will be catching a bus to Lima, and then on to either Cusco or Arequipa, depending which route works out best. It's a long way. 16 hours for the first bus. 18 or 22 hours for the next one, depending where we go. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's a lot cheaper than a flight.

3 minutes left on this computer, so I have to head out. Next entry will either be from Colca Canyon or Machu Picchu.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

When the prairie is on fire you see animals surrounded by the fire; you see them run and try to hide themselves so that they will not burn. That is the way we are here.

-Surrounded

I picked up this book at a hostel in Quito and couldn't put it down. I finished it shortly after getting to Cuenca. It details the American expansion westward from 1850-1900 from the perspective of Native Americans. If it was fiction, I'd consider it one of the saddest books I've read. That it's non-fiction makes it disturbing and heartbreaking. It filled a gap in my knowledge that I only had vague ideas about beforehand.

My idea is that, unless removed by the government, they [the Indians] must necessarily be exterminated. ... The advantages that would accrue from the throwing open of 12,000,000 acres of land to miners and settlers would more than compensate all the expenses incurred.

-Frederick Pitkin, former miner and then-Governor of Colorado (which contained the Indian territory he wanted to "open")

Of the 3,700,000 buffalo destroyed from 1872 through 1874, only 150,000 were killed by Indians. When a group of concerned Texans asked General Sheridan if something should not be done to stop the white hunters' wholesale slaughter, he replied: 'Let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to advance.'

-Another tactic designed to destroy the Indians' livelihood

"From down the creek a large body of troops was advancing at a rapid trot... I looked toward the chief's lodge and saw that Black Kettle had a large American flag tied to the end of a long lodgepole and was standing in front of his lodge, holding the pole, with the flag fluttering in the gray light of the winter dawn. I heard him call to the people not to be afraid, that the soldiers would not hurt them; then the troops opened fire from two sides of the camp." ... By this time hundreds of Cheyenne women and children were gathering around Black Kettle's flag. Up the dry creek bed, more were coming form White Antelope's camp. After all, had not Colonel Greenwood told Black Kettle that as long as the United States flag flew above him no soldier would fire upon him? White Antelope, an old man of seventy-five, unarmed, his dark face seamed from sun and weather, strode toward the soldiers... "He came running out to meet the command holding up his hands and saying 'Stop! stop!' He spoke it in as plain English as I can. He stopped and folded his arms until shot down." ... When Left Hand saw the troops, he stood with his arms folded, saying he would not fight the white men because they were his friends. He was shot down.

-Beginning of the description of the Sand Creek Massacre, only a small glimpse of the horrors soon to occur

So documents Dee Brown the various ways millions of Indians were removed from their land and/or exterminated, otherwise known as genocide in today's language. Whether it was through brute military force, elimination of their food supply, agitating and organising armed settlers, or forcing them onto barren reservations, one by one all the tribes of Indians were pushed out to make way for the expanding nation of America.

We have sat and watched them pass here to get gold out and have said nothing... My friends, when I went to Washington I went into your money-house and I had some young men with me, but none of them took any money out of that house while I was with them. At the same time, when your Great Father's people come into my country, they go into my money-house [the Black Hills] and take money out.

-Long Mandan

Miners wanted gold, settlers wanted the best pieces of property, and a combination of racism and Manifest Destiny made stealing Native American land an easy sell. In remarkably short periods of time, areas once declared to be Indian property "forever" and "permanently" were soon overrun, and one by one, each treaty made between the Native Americans and the United States government proved to be worth nothing more than pieces of paper.

Apart from the fascinating history, it's amazing how Dee Brown managed to turn archival records into a gripping narrative as good as any novel. I can only imagine the amount of research that went into the making of the book.

When I was at Washington the Great White Father told me that all the Comanche land was ours, and that no one should hinder us in living upon it. So, why do you ask us to leave the rivers, and the sun, and the wind, and live in houses? Do not ask us to give up the buffalo for the sheep.

-Ten Bears of the Yamparika Comanches

"It is only six years since we came to live on this stream where we are living now," Red Dog said... Another chief remembered that since the Great Father promised them that they would never be moved they had been moved five times. "I think you had better put the Indians on wheels," he said sardonically, "and you can run them about whenever you wish."

-Indians talking to a commission sent to take away their land

My friends, if you took me away from this land it would be very hard for me. I wish to die in this land, I wish to be an old man here... I have not wished to give even a part of it to the Great Father. Though he were to give me a million dollars I would not give him this land... When people want to slaughter cattle they drive them along until they get them to a corral, and then they slaughter them. So it was with us.

-Standing Bear of the Poncas

Recommended.

Stealing an Election

Sometimes the almost always high quality tech news coverage at ArsTechnica crosses over into more general interest subjects. They're currently running a feature article about how to hack an election. The entire article might not hold your interest, but the first page is worth reading.

Excerpt:

What if I told you that it would take only one person—one highly motivated, but only moderately skilled bad apple, with either authorized or unauthorized access to the right company's internal computer network—to steal a statewide election? You might think I was crazy, or alarmist, or just talking about something that's only a remote, highly theoretical possibility. You also probably would think I was being really over-the-top if I told you that, without sweeping and very costly changes to the American electoral process, this scenario is almost certain to play out at some point in the future in some county or state in America, and that after it happens not only will we not have a clue as to what has taken place, but if we do get suspicious there will be no way to prove anything. You certainly wouldn't want to believe me, and I don't blame you.

I'm not sure why problems with voting, a cornerstone of our current society, have flown under the radar of the mainstream press for so long. Serious problems with e-voting machines have been documented for years, and in that time I haven't seen a general awareness of it. Given that this article details how to go about stealing an election (information which is already available), maybe it will serve as a wake up call for a slightly larger number of people and we will see the companies, politicians, and shady practices responsible for putting the current e-voting systems in place put under some scrutiny. I can always dream...

Full article here.

Trouble-Free Weekend

From Cuenca

Went hiking in Cajas national park on Saturday, only 30-40 minutes outside of Cuenca. Stunning scenery. Like Yosemite in the US and Milford Sound in NZ, the landscape was created by receding glaciers carving away rock faces. They left behind lakes everywhere. Went on a hike that lasted 5-6 hours. It was a very relaxed pace, although the altitude (3,400m-3,800m) made me short of breath fairly easily. For once, no disasters to report. Some of the others had minor headaches, likely due to the altitude.

After the hike we got tired of waiting for the bus back and eventually hitched a ride. One of the best decisions of the day. Riding in the back of a pickup with the sun shining and the wind in my face was the best way to admire the landscape.

Guitars

From Cuenca

Last Friday our Spanish teacher, Fausto, took us to see Luis Uyapuari, an excellent guitar maker. Fausto knows Luis through working with his brother at a language school. Very nice person, and makes beautiful guitars totally by hand. I wish I had taken some closeups of the guitars, but unfortunately all I have is this picture.

From Cuenca

If you click on it, then click the magnifying glass, you can make out some of the design work. If I was a guitarist with money to spend, I'd have ordered one right there. The guitar in the picture cost a chunk of money, but it was cheap compared to the equivalent work bought in Europe or the US. If anyone has a passion for custom-made guitars, I can put you in touch.

Photos Galore

Lots more photos online.

Mascotas por Almuerzo

From Cuenca

The other excitement yesterday was trying a typical Ecuadorian dish, cuy. That's guinea pig in English. You can see them being sold at the market - cute little furry pets that they pay $10-$15 apiece for, drop into a sack, take home, break their necks, pop out the eyes, hold upside down to drain the blood, dunk in boiling water to remove the fur, then roast over a fire for 30-45 minutes.

Tastes similar to chicken, but more salty. There's not a lot of meat on each one, and it takes some work to eat it. Here it is on a plate:

From Cuenca

The lobster claw-looking part is actually the rear legs.

Salsa

From Cuenca

Before you jump to conclusions, no, I'm not imitating Nelly. This is the result of my latest slightly worrying adventure. Wednesday night there are salsa lessons at my language school, and afterwards some of us go to a little salsa club called La Mesa. Last week was a lot of fun - I've never seen a dancefloor where people move so well. Some people are just incredible to watch, spinning in all directions, pushing off the walls, all the while making it look so stylish.

This week I planned to go back again and try and practice the latest basic moves I learnt in class. I got there with a bit of a stomach ache, but after sitting down it seemed to disappear. I went to the bar with Anne to get a drink, and my stomach started hurting again so I decided to go back and sit some more while I watched other people. My stomach ache suddenly got very bad and then my vision clouded over. The next thing I knew I was being woken from a dream, feeling extremely sleepy and confused as to why I was waking up to people crowded all around me instead of a bedroom.

The bandage is covering the nice bump on my head that I got from falling forward off my stool. I was lucky once again to have a medical student there to give advice, and everyone around was extremely helpful. Today I feel fine. I went to a clinic this morning to get checked out, and the doctor's opinion was that passing out was probably caused by my stomach ache, not anything related to a more serious condition or the altitude. If it happens again I'll go back and have more extensive tests done. Fingers crossed that won't be necessary. For now I'm spending the day resting and will go back to classes tomorrow.

I don't know if I've ever passed out in my life before, but it seems I'm almost making a sport of it on this trip.

Call Me Nacho

That's what I tell some people my name is because when I say "Nigel", they end up pronouncing it nacho anyway. It's possibly my favourite nickname so far.

Ecuador has elections tomorrow (Sunday). Alcohol ceased to be served or sold everywhere starting at noon on Friday. Everyone of voting age is required to vote. According to my shakey understanding of Spanish, if you don't vote you face some type of fines.

It's getting on for 2 weeks that I've been in Cuenca. Ahora yo peudo hablar un poco español. Learning the language has been more fun than I ever imagined. Frustrating, when I realise how much I don't know how to say, and how much I don't understand, but fun all the same. It's so immediately rewarding because as soon as you learn something, you get the feedback of people understanding you. The host family that Anne and I are staying with are very friendly, and Ruth (the mother) has a great way of explaining things with her hands and simple words when we don't understand.

Anne and I spent our first weekend camping at Ingapirca, a small set of old Incan ruins. Apparently the Cañari people, who were there before the Incans conquered the area, had a society where the men cooked and washed and the women worked the fields. When we packed up and headed out after one night, a dog informed us by way of chasing us off the land that the place we camped on belonged to a farmer.

Today I went horseback riding for the first time in my life. It was good fun - got to ride in some hills which gave great views of the countryside. At a couple points we had the horses break out into a full on gallop. They go amazingly fast. I'm not used to having an animal carry me at high speed, and when I went around a corner I had to remind myself that I wasn't in a car that would spin out of control because of the deep bumps in the dirt path. After 4 hours of riding I'm feeling somewhat bruised.

We had a great guide (Fernando), which made a nice change from our Cotopaxi experience. He was very knowledgeable, and has started a farming cooperative that aims to be 80% self sufficient in a few years. They sell some nice dried fruit & meat which will go well on a hiking trip next weekend.

Fernando told us about a trip he made during the past week. He had a horse which wasn't doing so well in the high mountain altitudes, so decided to take it to his friend's ranch on the coast. Him and his friend made the 4 day journey on horseback, sleeping a couple nights under the stars. Sounded fantastic, and also made me realise that there probably aren't many areas in the US or Europe where you can still do that.

That's all for now. Pictures to follow in a few days. For some reason the computer at my host family's house won't let me upload any.

Arrived in Cuenca

Got to Cuenca after an all-day journey yesterday. Took a train from Rio Bamba where everyone sits on the roof for the entire 7 hour journey. Beautiful mountains and countryside everywhere. Arrived in Alausi in the early afternoon and took a 5 hour bus ride to Cuenca.

First Spanish lesson was this morning. Intense, helpful, fun, hope it stays this way. Not sure how much I'll be able to retain; so much to learn.

Had a papaya for breakfast. Always confuse the name with pomegranate. Made the mistake of trying to eat the seeds. Definitely not the same thing. Will probably remember from now on.

Climbing Cotopaxi: A Final Note

Yesterday Anne and I met up with the two hikers who had helped us in the hut on Cotopaxi. We talked a bit about what had happened and I found out some more information. The guide who had taken me down from the hut to the car (different person from Anne and my guide) had gone back up afterwards to do the climb with them. Apparently while we were on the way down I passed out.

It really unnerved me to find this out. Partly because I felt very aware during the entire ordeal. Nothing was hazy, I could think clearly, and I was very much conscious. Or at least I thought I was. It's scary to realise I passed out and had no idea.

Even more scary was finding out that 60% of people who pass out in altitude situations like that don't make it. Food for thought.

On a more cheerful note, I'm completely fine, so M&D there's nothing to worry about. I'm leaving Quito today to head south to Cuenca. Tomorrow Anne and I will meet our host family, and on Monday we start Spanish lessons.

A Question about Film

I'm looking for advice - I mistakenly shot an entire roll of 100 ISO black and white film at 400. I took it to a B&W developing place in Quito, but all my limited understanding of Spanish allowed me to decipher, through fast talking and handwaving by the guy on the other side of the counter, is that I'm screwed. Is there anything I can do, whether it involves something special when developing the film into negatives, or when making prints, that will save some of the pictures? I know that all of the pictures will be hugely underexposed but I'm hoping there's some way not to lose the roll.

How to End Up in Hospital in Less Than a Week

So maybe you're wondering what I was doing standing by the side of the road eating cookies at 11 at night, some 50 miles outside Quito in the middle of nowhere. Maybe not, but I'll tell you anyway. Let me rewind a bit, past the taxi ride, the rush down the mountain, the headache, back to a couple days ago when Anne and I were walking around town figuring out how to spend our last few days before heading to Cuenca.

We were thinking of doing a jungle tour - a few days seeing wildlife, taking canoe trips, visiting villages - which looked interesting enough. But then we found out we could hike up Cotopaxi, a volcano a couple hours from Quito. Definitely the better option. A good hike, amazing views, and an elevation of 5,896m, which meant using mountaineering boots, crampons, and ice picks. Who can resist a good challenge?

Yesterday morning we set off. A newly-married Italian couple joined us. They were doing a 1 day trip, up to the base of the glacier and back, whereas our trip was two days. The itinerary involved a short hike to a hut at 4,800m (15,748 feet), lunch, another short hike to the glacier at 5,100m (16,732 feet) where we would have crampon and ice pick training. We'd sleep for a bit, then at 1:00am set off for the peak, a 6-7 hour trek, to reach it at dawn. We'd be back at the hut at midday, and back in Quito in the afternoon.

Before climbing to the hut we made a couple stops. At one we saw a canyon carved by floodwater rushing down the mountain after the last eruption. At another, we saw a small beautiful lake. Once at the trailhead, we packed our gear in the wind and flying dirt and began the hike to the hut. We started at what seemed like a ridiculously slow and easy pace, but it soon became clear that at that altitude it was necessary. The 300m climb was tough and took an hour. After lunch we climbed another 300m to the base of a glacier and learnt the proper use of crampons and ice picks.

It was during this part of the trip that I began to feel funny. At first I thought I was just tired from the hiking at high altitude. By the time we got back to the hut, I needed to lie down. I was hoping that I could sleep for 7 hours and be OK by the time I got up at midnight. An hour later, I had a bad headache, and after another half hour it was pounding. I knew I wouldn't be able to climb the peak, but was hoping it would die down and I could sleep until it was time to go down the next day.

Anne asked some of the other people at the hut what to do. Thankfully she had no problems with the altitude and took care of me the entire time. The advice was to take two advil and drink lots of water. By this point I had the worst headache I'd ever experienced. I kept trying to shift my head and somehow rest it so that it didn't feel like I was getting stabbed. The advil and water didn't succeed in getting rid of my headache, but it did succeed in making me throw up a couple times. Bad news. Even worse news was that our guide was taking the Italian day-hikers back down the mountain, so no one was there to take Anne and me down.

A little while later, after pills provided by two experienced hikers who thankfully came to help, I was throwing up again. Anne started packing my things so we could leave as soon as our guide showed up.

It was dark by that point and the air had chilled, so the two hikers and another guide helped me into layers of warm clothes and my boots. When our guide showed up, we started down immediately. The hour climb to the hut took 5 minutes in reverse. The others helped me into the front seat of the car, reclined almost flat, and we set off for the hospital.

It took over an hour to drive back down the mountain and out of the park, a bouncy ride over twisting dirt roads (more vomitting), and then finally we were on blissfully smooth paved roads. My headache got better and better as we descended, and I was doing fine when we got to the hospital. I was hooked up to oxygen through nose tubes, then lay there while the nurse apparently went to watch the soap opera I could hear coming from a TV nearby. I lay there enjoying what people in New York and Tokyo pay top dollar for at hipster bars. After a little while a doctor came by and checked out my lungs, breathing, pulse, and temperature and said I was OK. I was given a prescription, and that was that.

The guide set Anne and I up with a taxi for the 1.5 hour ride back to Quito. I felt completely normal again, and hungry too because of my newly-emptied stomach. Since we hadn't done the summit climb, we still had some of the cookies and chocolate we took along as snacks. We had just broken out a pack of Chips Ahoy when we felt two thuds - BAM! BAM! - and then heard a squealing eeee-eeee-eeeeeee as the driver pulled the taxi to the side of the road. We hit something, whether it was a rock or an animal I don't know, but it managed to take out two tires on the right side of the car. The driver radioed for help, and Anne and I got out of the car, eating our snacks as we watched the driver jack up the car and start changing one of the tires.

Soon another taxi pulled up, lent the driver his spare, and we got in and left in the second car. Our new driver liked his music loud and 80s. Although he made exceptions for essential newer hits like Blue by Eiffel 65. The rest of the ride passed by uneventfully, and by the time we reached our hostel in Quito at 1 in the morning I felt like I had lived 4 days in the space of one.

The question now is how to top this experience. It can't be all downhill after the first week. Maybe we'll try being dropped out of a helicopter and skiing down a mountain. Maybe we should go back to Cotopaxi and do it there.

Lunch in Translation

Ate lunch at a restaurant which had helpfully provided English translations of each item on the menu. Included were such delicacies as:

* Chop with potato
* Noodle with meat
* Broth of leg
* Wadding

Anne was adventurous and chose the last option, which turned out to be cow stomach. Nice and chewy. Maybe it´s a real term I´m not familiar with, due to the lack of cow stomach in the restaurants I usually go to. In any case, bring on the Spanish lessons!

Arrived Safely in Quito

Got up at 5am in Germany, made my way through a long check-in line, two sets of security checks in Frankfurt, terrible airport organisation, and a cancelled flight in Miami. By 5am (German time) the following morning I was in Quito. Slept well.

My expectations upon arriving at the Quito airport, one part based on India, two parts based on ignorance - mess, dirt, crowds, noise, more dirt, cars honking horns, people everywhere. The reality, a normally functioning city, relatively clean, and a taxi ride more civilised than ones given by drivers in San Francisco (who seem to take special joy showing off the roller coaster nature of the roads). Given, it was nighttime so things may well be more hectic in the day, but it was different than I expected.

First day out and about and the altitude hasn´t made me feel at all sick, but I get short of breath very easily. Strange effect. That´s all for now!

Finland, Germany, and Onwards

One day to go before leaving for Ecuador. I spent a very relaxing couple of weeks in Finland with Eero and Jenni. We took a weekend boat trip to Stockholm a week ago. One night on a cruise there, a day in Stockholm, and one night back. It's a beautiful city, much more picturesque than I had imagined. There's an old section, on an island in the river that runs through the city, that has narrow streets and buildings that look like Italy. The rest of the city had beautiful stone buildings and shopping streets. I only saw a small part of it but it struck me as very nice place to live.

I arrived in Germany a few days ago to meet up with Anne. We're currently in Heidelberg (another gorgeous city - I think I need a job that shifts me to a new city every year, so many great places to live!) visiting André and his girlfriend Katrin. Tomorrow morning we catch flights to Quito. Original plan was to go to language school in Quito but we got lots of recommendations to go to Cuenca instead. We now are booked into a hostel for our first days in Quito, and have enrolled in a language school for four weeks in Cuenca beginning on the 4th of October. The bus ride from Quito to Cuenca is about 10 hours, which I imagine will be tiring but will let us see lots of the countryside. We'll need a couple days to acclimatise to Quito's ~3000 meter elevation, then we'll see what the area has to offer. Will probaby take the bus to Cuenca a couple days before beginning the course.

It's strange to be sitting in familiar surroundings, knowing that a day from now I'll be in a completely new place far from here. I've had the idea of this trip for so long that it's odd to think tomorrow it actually begins.

Tubing

Have been spending a relaxed weekend in Hanko, a town an hour or so outside Helsinki where many people have summer homes. Although it's getting a bit late in the year, the Finnish summer was apparently unusually hot so it's still relatively warm.

Went out yesterday with Eero & Jenni on Eero's motorboat, towing an innertube behind us. My memory of this from last year involved choppy waters, hanging onto the tube for dear life as it swept in a wide arc when the boat turned, and getting thrown off after hitting waves which tossed the tube a few feet in the air. Great fun. This year we went on a day without much wind so the ride was smoother. The water was also colder, but it was worth braving it.

Iceland Suggestions

If anyone is thinking of taking a short trip to Iceland, here's my suggestion, for what it's worth. Fly in on Saturday or Sunday. Rent a car and drive to a few different places around the island. Spend 5 or 6 days hiking and camping, there is some spectacular scenery to be found. (I saw some glaciers, as well as canyons formed by them, around the south coast and Thorsmork. See pics.) Make it back to Reykjavik for the following weekend and enjoy the wild nightlife on Friday and Saturday.

If I go back again that's what I'll do. On this short trip I was happy to spend some time relaxing in Reykjavik, which felt fairly empty during the week.

Reykjavik

Arrived in Reykjavik in the early hours of Sunday morning to an overcast sky. Took the 45 minute bus ride from the airport to the city. Amazing how good Sigur Ros sounds passing through the empty but very striking landscape.

Found an abandoned bicycle near where the bus dropped me off. Rear tire completely flat. Rode it into the city in the drizzling rain wearing a large hiking backpack. Swerving slightly because of the lack of rear wheel. City was deserted. I later found out the Reykjavik is a huge party hotspot, with a huge number of bars/clubs per capita. Who would have guessed? People stay out until the morning, so no surprise it was deserted early Sunday.

Plan to visit hot springs and get out of the city for a walk in a glacier area. Two days to go.

The Start of Something Small

I'm planning to keep those of you who are interested in my travels updated through this blog. Since I'm new to blogging, I can't promise that this will be well written, interesting, or updated frequently. But I will try. Now that I've set your expectations suitably low, feel free to either ignore or subscribe to it. I'd love to hear from any of you through either the comments or email. And if anyone happens to be in some part of the world the same time I am, please let me know!

I expect to be fairly quiet until my travels in South America begin. Until next time...