Syd and Petes Excellent Adventure

So here’s how it goes… Basically to sum it all up… Half assed and not at all how we’d like to do it… What have we been doing with outselves, well you'll see...
We crossed into Peru, met Pete’s mom for a spectacular time, travelled quickly to Santiago and met up with Syd’s mom and aunt Jane for another amazing experience (tough for us to have so many people we love and care about coming and going). Can’t leave out the week at Jon Bacon’s apartment in Santiago and meeting his crazy friends and getting Pete kicked out of La Piojera. “Getting down to business” in Argentina but still travelling like we’re on vacation (only without the drinks, the so many drinks). And suddenly and violently thrust into Bolivia with another first world-to-third world shock leaving Argentina behind with its drinkable tap water and paved roads…
What did we get ourselves into when we signed up for a four day Jeep tour through the damn coldest place in the world (or acknowledging weather climatologist types, the coldest of our trip so far)? Well let us tell you…
We climbed into the jeep with a very nice Swiss couple and headed up into the mountains. Perhaps we didn´t quite realize that we would spending the four days almost entirely in the car, driving on nonexistent roads at altitudes of 5,000+ meters. It was damn cold! So, aside from the obvious physical discomforts we did see some really incredible scenery: lakes of all colors, colored mountains, geysers (smelling bad), volcanoes, and lots of animals (flamingos, foxes, vincuñas, llamas, etc). It was all very impressive. The lodging was also noteworthy, spending the first night in a campesino house in a really small town that had llama fetuses out to dry right outside of our bedroom door. One night we stayed at a hotel made entirely of salt, which was right outside the salt flat of Uyuni, very very cool but eerie place.
After the tour we went, unknowingly, to the highest city in the world, Potosí, a famous place for students of the evils of colonialism, like ourselves, where over 8 million people have died extracting silver from the mines. Naturally, we decided it would be a good idea to actually pay money to go down into the mines and spend a day experiencing the hell-like conditions that the miners work in. It was unforgettable, but not enjoyable. After freezing our asses off for two nights in Potosi´we decided to head down the mountain, anywhere warm!
We ended up here in Sucre for the fiesta del bicentenario (two hundred years of freedom), still doesn´t compare to a good Colombian fiesta, but not bad. Bands play and march almost 24 hours a day. You fall asleep to marching and then wake up to matching and forget about trying to walk around. We see tomorrow what these parade loving party people are made of after two hundred years…

We volunteered for two weeks with a group of five women making jewelry and crafts and working in their garden.

I'm too tired to get much into it or express how awesomely small the town was but just to give you an idea, the houses had dirt front porches and since the "beer guy" didn't show on Wednesday, there was no beer until Saturday when the two local stores made a trip to Nenegal fifteen minutes away. We met another volunteer there named Will from Texas, a glassblower travelling for two weeks.


We left last Sunday on a milk truck after milking some cows with one of the Colibri women and caught the next subsequent buses to Mindo, famous for its hummingbirds and butterflies (yeah, it sounds like a nine year old girl's dream town).
We hung out for a couple days eating pizza and drinking vodka and beers and then when Will left, Syd and I decided to ask Cecilia of the hostel Casa de Cecilia if we could have our room for free if we clean and cook breakfast for the other guests. The first few days were a little rough but we "powered through" until yesterday when a group of thirteen students from the US set up reservations, then a group of seven Danish girls reserved and then another party of three to round out all the rooms... Last night the kids from the US talked all night and this morning, we cooked breakfast for twenty people hence my tired approach to this entry... Yawn, thanks for reading this. I'm going to take a nap now...

Sorry we've been out of blouch (blog+touch= blouch). We've missed everybody so much and those of you who we've called, please, there's no need to tell everybody and brag about it. It might hurt someone's feelings and then when we call them, they'll be all like "Why did you call so-and-so first and now 3 months after you left, you're calling me." This will only cost us more with the complaint and explanation which is the very reason we haven't called. That and I read in Cosmo that it'll increase out brand image, you know scarcity equals big pay off!!!

Here it is! What amounts to a big payoff after such a lazy, long wait for something, anything to appear on this lazy, long blog page... Merry Christmas and Happy New Years, from the slackers in SA...

Otavalo, Ecuador
01 Dec 2008 to 03 Dec 2008
Spent a couple days dicking around and signed up for some spanish classes for the following Monday. Ate some crappy, overpriced, mexican food which we all better knew better than to eat.
Had our regular awesome Tuesday night fiesta with plenty of cards and beers and expensive pizza but with real pepperonis!
Ben ended up buying tons of stuff at the craft market (a hammock, sweater w/ alpacas, pants, ect...) and Pete bought a sweet new pair of indigenous pants! He hearts indigenous pants!

Quito, Ecuador
03 Dec 2008 to 07 Dec 2008
We came for the big annual fiesta and got a little tippy on cheap rum and cokes and danced as much as our wobbly legs could take at that altitude.
Stayed at Casa Bamboo and made a big spaghetti dinner before Ben said goodbye and took off to the bus station, leaving us waving through every window in the place...
Pete played Ben in ping pong as much as possible but Ben, alas, is the champion that he is and won the most significant ping pong tournament this hemisphere has ever seen!!!

Otavalo, Ecuador
07 Dec 2008 to 14 Dec 2008
Ahh, the home stay was great! We studied spanish for a week and hung out with some locals, and my (Pete) brain was freaking out with all the new spanish words and I could barely sleep with "mientras" and "despues de" flying around...
At the end of the week, after being kicked out by the kind home stay folks, we got a fancy hotel ($14/day) and went to the animal market and the craft market...
The next day, we rented some mountain bikes to ride around the beautiful lake... but the lake and the sky had other ideas, not to mention what the damn mountain between town and the lake was thinking.
We rode to a fabulous waterfall (Yes, Kristen Holt, fabulous!) and then halfway up the damn mountain, it started to rain and rain and rain and ended only as we walked our bikes down the PanAmerican Highway back to town, cold, tired, and crying with frustration But then we got coffees and cake at the nice bakery!

Baños, Ecuador
14 Dec 2008 to 18 Dec 2008
Famous for it's baths and the bathrooms and service were adequate... We went for the party, ended up missing the fiesta but we did get a chance to trade our books, and take some hot baths... We met this crazy guy, Jorge, who was pretty cool but never stopped talking, found some happy hour, gin and tonics! Pete made a delicious PB&J picnic and we climbed up a damn mountian!

Riobamba, Ecuador
18 Dec 2008 to 19 Dec 2008
Stayed the night and hung out with John and Tom the Irish guys we met when we got off the bus. The morning, we took the freezing top of the death train down the devil's nose (Nariz del Diablo)...Drank this wierd hot beverage made of aloe goo at the train stop. It was supposed to cure everything from prostates to ulcers but it was neither a beverage, nor drinkable.

Alausí, Ecuador
19 Dec 2008 to 19 Dec 2008
After the train down the nose of the devil (Nariz del Diablo!!!), we grabbed a bus to Cuenca for Christmas...
Not much going on here but it looked nice and we considered staying if that says anything.
The guy who sat in front of us on the bus smelled bad like BO and fried food.

Cuenca, Ecuador
19 Dec 2008 to 28 Dec 2008
Great Christmas! We made a tree out of shiny green wrapping paper and some crazy ornaments. Syd made Wine Stew (a real miracle considering the lack of any ingriedient you need for cooking anything!!!) and Pete made coffee cake for Christmas morning. Poor Syd had an enormous headache for two days, we called it mega-gitis and Pete played the nurse to the best of his ability but it was touch and go there for a while, didn't know if she was going to make it or if her head was going to explode all over the room...
We exchanged gifts though and got exactly what we wanted... only without any Christmas movies on the TV... We missed our homes and got all nastalgic (insert tear here)...
There was a little niños Christmas parade with hundreds of miserable little niños who'd walked all morning through the suburbs to the city caring baby jesus' and dressed as wise little niños and whatnot. It was kind of sad but then we remembered the Christmas spirit!

Guayaquil, Ecuador
28 Dec 2008 to 29 Dec 2008
The city was really cool despite all the warnings that it was dangerous and not worth going to see...Spent the night, saw Iguana park and the waterfront... Pete had a MacAttack so we got us some McYD's fries and hamburger but alas, that Big Mac is still to be eaten.
We walked up 444 stairs to this weird touristy lighthouse place with great views of the city and two heavy breathing smokers.

Puerto López, Ecuador
28 Dec 2008 to 29 Dec 2008
Stayed the night and decided that Puerto Lopez wasn't crazy enough to spend New Years, left the very next day... Only to return later to get out of the craziness and relax for a bit...

Montañita, Ecuador
29 Dec 2008 to 02 Jan 2009
Left to Montañita, barely got a hotel and when we did it was in a dirty, dirty place in the center of town where all the bars and discos play their music until 10am and the toilets were always broken or super gross. Needless to say, we didn't shower for the whole time and almost left with dreadlocks.
Met some Australians who drank Mango Colodas (us with our Long Islands) and a party on the beach, bonfires, fireworks, some drunk asses getting blowjobs not twenty feet from the party.
We went to "Private Beach Land (private beachsters only) in the morning and the invention of sand chairs revolutionized our hangovers with some help from a phat joint (or two)...

Ayampe, Ecuador
02 Jan 2008 to 05 Jan 2009
First night, after a $15 taxi ride from Montañita, we almost couldn't find a place to sleep but lucky us and thanks to the fantastic owner man, Iguana Hostel put us up on the balcony of his house. We got bitten horribly by mosquitoes but the bed was soft and the sheets clean, however only big enough for 1/2 a person. Syd graciously tried to sleep in the hammock but I woke up at 2am with her and her crumpled spine sleeping on top of me!
The next day, I (Pete) almost died but thanks to the help of a helpful surfer, I'm now fine and typing this message! Thanks surfer, where ever you are!
We built a sweet fort out of drift wood and tried to make a fire for later but ended up with a burn on my finger and an empty lighter...

Puerto Lopez, Ecuador
05 Jan 2009 to 07 Jan 2009
Back to Puerto Lopez and a boat trip to the "Poor Man's Galapagos" where we almost tripped over blue footed boobies on the path and snorkeled with green turtles and tropical fish until the turtles swam away and the fish started circling and circling us...
The bus was a very ellusive the first night but we spent the next day getting our lives together after New Years hang overs and my extended birthday... We hung out with our frnech friend Erick and drank some beers before jumping on the night bus to Quito and listening to Tom Robbins' "Villa Incognito" amd giggling our asses off.

Quito, Ecuador
08 Jan 2009 to 12 Jan 2009
Back in Quito! At least we made it to a museam this time, Oswaldo Guaysamín! A really good one, all about the suffering of man, right up my alley. And at the Capilla del Hombre, we got onboard a tour and it was awesome!
Pete took some more Spanish classes, he´s getting pretty good. And we went out for beers last night and a wasted guy, Homer, came over and talked to us for about 45 minutes, gave Pete about million high fives and then fell into the bushes! Pretty exciting stuff. Then we went for another pitcher at a British/American pub and ate Fish and Chips and Shepards Pie and you know what? Shepards pie is pretty good.

Santa Marta, Colombia
02 Nov 2008 - 06 Nov 2008
Watched the election and met a new friend, Ben from Atlanta, Georgia. Finally found out how to order the comida corriente (meal of the day) which is going to save us tons of money compared to whatwe've been doing. We drank a little too much Tuesday watching Obama cruise to victory and stayed up until 4am celebrating! Next day that hungover feeling crept up and we didn't get us on the road to Cartagena until Thursday which was fine because the city's celebration didn't start until Saturday...

Cartagena, Colombia
06 Nov 2008 - 14 Nov 2008
Ben is working on a sail boat in January shuttling travellers from Panama to Colombia and vice versa and we kinda hope'd/planned on going sailing with him on the nice boat but the timing was all wrong so we joined the festival instead! The city's Independence Day is a week long! Could you imagine a weeks worth of the Fourth of July... Yeah it'd be kind of like that but everybody still works then goes out dancing and drinking and wiping white, green, blue, red gross paint stuff on each others faces all wekk. In our case it was wipe it on the gringos in wigs. We cooked a big breakfast and drank a little before the parade and then got shot with waterguns full of red liquid and our faces wiped with that paint-that's-not-paint-and-is-really-hard-to-get-off-if-you-don't-wash-it-before-you-go-to-sleep...

Medellín, Colombia
15 Nov 2008 - 17 Nov 2008
Overnight bus to Medellin... After Cartagena, we planned a few days off from the fiesta lifestyle but it didn't turn out that way. OUr hostal was crazy, full of party animals . . .but we did get to eat some Thai food (or something like it). Medellin had some cool musuems and Botero statues, but mainly the rain, and rain, and rain. Thank god for their subway system!

Bogotá, Colombia
18 Nov 2008 - 25 Nov 2008
Overnight bus to Bogota... and plenty of True Blood episodes thanks to Ben's laptop and the rain. Saw some cool museums and ate a LOT of pizza. The highlight was probably trying to figure out how to say the word Fununcular (or whatever that is, a train that runs up one of the mountains to a church) but the view from the top of the mountain was cool too. And then we got to take the teleferico back down!

San Agustín, Colombia
26 Nov 2008 - 30 Nov 2008
We arrived and walked about 100 miles to the challet but it might have been only a few kilometers, that hill at the end really took the breath out of us... One day-night detox in the challet and duct tape foot remedy got us cleaned up for the early jeep tour through the mountains and over the rivers and through the woods. The Next day we decided to rough it and took horses! We saw a lot of rad statues and picked some hongos magicos! We also got to see how they make cocaine . . . kinda gross. Now we are suffering the sun burn . . . But we did celebrate Thanksgiving. Thanks to suzy homemaker, we were able to pull together quite the feast using only potatoes, bread, chicken boullion, and butter . . . nicely done.

Pasto, Colombia
30 Nov 2008 - 01 Dec 2008
After a full day of bus riding delight (and by delight I mean not-delight. Crammed legs, bruised knees, elbows flying around on bumpy unpaved road, bad music and the speaker directly above our heads kind of delightful) we jumped ship at Pasto, two hours from our final destination, Ipenas, we found a hostel and ate fried chicken and fries. Awoke fresh and early, ate breakfast and bolted to the border...

Ipiales, Colombia (Border Crossing)
01 Dec 2008
One quick stop in Ipiales for some border crossing business. No problems on the Colombian side but the computer system apparently crashed and needed restarting which caused a huge line and us with a delema: wait in the cold rain for hours or cut the line by waiting inside and getting a form from the customs officer as he let more people into the building. Don't think ill of us until you're in the same situation, we decided to cut the line and were out of there in less than an hour and on our way to the bus station via Colectivo (shared mini-bus) to the bus station and onto Otavalo...

Otavalo, Ecuador
01 Dec 2008 to 03 Dec 2008
We plan to stay awhile here so Pete (me) can learn Spanish (finally) and stay with an indigenous family, maybe even learn to tango or salsa dance...

As many of you know (and worry about maybe due to such disreputable associations with Pablo Escobar), we're in Colombia and it is by far the nicest, easiest place to travel so far. There are plenty of other backpackers, English, French, American, here that everyone's more accustomed to our awkward, um, not-so-sure-what's-going-on ways that they're very helpful and understanding and don't glare quite as much as in Venezuela.

[24 Oct 2008] Maracaibo, Venezuela
Quick stop in Maracaibo, Venezuela after a sweaty ride in a por puesto (def: a car, usually US made early 1980's gigantic model that fills up with 5 passengers, 1 driver and doesn't leave until everyone's successfully crammed in) which had to stop due to overheating. The driver walked to the closest military garrison (across the street) and procured some soda bottles full of water. Maracaibo was celebrating All Saints Day (local) and had off until Wednsday the next week to party. After arriving at the bus terminal and sweating our pants off, we dances through whatever shade was available, grabbed a bag of chips and headed to Macai, Colombia in another tightly packed por puesto.

[24 Oct 2008] Maicao, Colombia
The border crossing was a little stressful from Maracaibo, Venezuela to Maicao, Colombia with multiple police check points and times where we had to get out and walk to immigration offices for stamps and whatnot. We finally ended in the scary border town, Maicao! We got there with just, barely enough, money after paying a Venezuelan Police officer our 20 Bolivar emergency money to get over and a Columbian taxi guy the last $4 US for driving us from the border to the town. We grabbed a taxi to the bank (instead of the back of a motor bike) and grabbed the first bus leaving town.

[24 Oct 2008 - 25 Oct 2008] Santa Marta, Colombia
Got to town, stayed at the Hotel Miramar and met Eduard, a Columbian displaced to NY and Montreal and Miami during the 80s. He invited us over to his appartment, we smoked and drank rum and talked on the roof of his building. Then his Hare Krishna Friends showed up and he pulled out his tour guide material!!!

[25 Oct 2008 - 27 Oct 2008] Taganga, Colombia
Laid at the beach a couple days and stayed at an awesome hotel that was taller than all the other building so had a beautiful view of the town and a great breeze and two little nasty dogs and a great breakfast everyday made by this reall nice lady who made great breakfasts and made us sign our name in her book twice because we left once to El Cabo and then came back so we had to sign it twice. Then we headed to Parque Nacional Tayrona by Super Dork Tourist Bus...

[27 Oct 2008 - 29 Oct 2008] El Cabo, Colombia
Hippies, beers and cards, cards, cards. This is where we started playing Rummy and I (Pete) had my first horse ride back through all the mud. Did I mention the delicious veggie rice Syd ate two meals in a row.

Mud!! Muddy!!! Mud-ucking-unablievable! It rains daily here so despite the heat, it's always muddy on the paths, on the way to the bathroom, to the hammock house, even to the beach.

We climbed up this incredibly difficult rock mountain to visit El Pueblito, a remote Indian village. We climbed over rocks, under through, through rocks, around rocks. Rocks rock!

I was so impressed by the town and the hike that I considered turning into an Indian, The Mighty One Who Walks with Conch and Stick!

[29 Oct 2008 - 03 Nov 2008] Taganga, Colombia
Slept, ate, and showered. That's about all we did but after going hippy hammock camping and slopping through the mud, it was like heaven. Hung out on the roof witht he breeze and the dogs and had a blast!

Hope everything's well with everybody. Miss you! Write when you can and we'll do the same!