Indians And Pilgrims And Termites, Oh My!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday and did your part for the economy and went shopping on Friday.

When the opportunity came to spend Thanksgiving in the rainforest, Drew and I could not turn it down. Besides I was vaccinated for everything under the sun anyway so it seemed a waste not to put modern medicine to the test. Does it live up to the hype? Yes. The spiders are bigger than your hand, the piranas eat anything, and monkeys will throw things at you if you piss them off.

I knew that it would be hot, but I wasn´t prepared for the combination of upper 90´s and over 90% humidity. Drew and I asked for an air conditioned room at the lodge we westayed at. They just stared at us. Apparently they get that joke a lot.

Periodically you will hear someone mention the law of the jungle. As far as I can tell, these are the laws:

Law 1 - It is hot. You will stink. Get over it. And don´t raise your arms too high.

Law 2 - Don´t drink anything less than Black Label. Chances are something will kill you tomorrow so don´t let your last drink be cheap.

Law 3 - Parrots bite.

Law 4 - A third of the creatures out there want you dead. The other two-thirds really don´t care either way, so watch where you step.

We were the only Americans at the lodge on Thanksgiving, but everyone was wonderful and cooked us up a great Thanksgiving dinner - turkey, stuffing, termites... Just kidding about the turkey and stuffing. However, we did eat termites for Thanksgiving. Not surprisingly they taste like wood. This picture has nothing to do with dinner. We didn´t eat the frog.

A gigantic tarantula that lived about about 10 yards from where we slept.
















Parrots eating clay. The clay contains an enzyme that parrots need to help them digest some of the plants around the Amazon.

A Saddleback Tamarin trying to figure out if I am a threat or not. I was trying to figure out if he was dinner or not. He wasn´t.

Corrida de Torros

Note: This post is about bullfighting. If you are squeamish about animals being hurt or Frenchmen peeing on innocent Peruvians, please click here. Thanks.

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The drunk Frenchman next to me summed up bull fights perfectly. "It is exactly like a ballet," he said, "except you don´t know what the bull is going to do."

We were lucky. First, we actually got to catch a bull fight in Lima, which has the best fighting in South America. We were repeatedly told that it would be impossible to get tickets, but we did. Second, it was the final and best match of the entire bull fighting season. Third, we sat next to some very drunk Frenchmen and an old Peruvian woman who explained the whole thing to us. Well the Frenchies explained things to us. The old lady scolded the French for setting a bad example. The details of the sport are complicated, and there are all sorts of traditions that determine when a matador can do what and how he is judged. However, I will give you a quick description.

This bull fight consisted of three matadors each fighting two bulls. A typical match starts when the bull enters the ring and several banderilleros (A.K.A. junior matadors with the pink capes) get out and run the bull around a bit to see how it will react.

So after the junior matadors get their chance in the ring, then the picadors come out. Picadors sit on padded horses and stab the bull with a spear or lance. As you can image, the bull really doesn´t appreciate this and tends to go a bit nuts. Generally, this means it tries to gore the horse and rider, hence the padding on the horse. One lancer was completely embarrassed when a bull managed to flip his horse and unseat the rider. Shame is a big part of bull fighting and the crowd booed the guy for being flipped and threw cans and trash at him as he left the ring.

Now the bull has been stabbed, but unfortunately for him, his troubles are just beginning. After the guys on horseback get one good stab, then comes the ugly part. The banderilleros come back out with banderillas (sharp, barbed sticks) and jam them into the bull close to where the lance wound is. This is the most interesting and vicious part of the match. Each bull receives six banderillas, which hang out the the bull´s back. To stick the banderillas, each junior matador allows the bull to charge him and then he leaps out of the way, stabbing the bull in the same motion. After all of this, then you finally get to the part of the bullfight that we all know - the matador. Actually, the matador is involved in the entire process, but now he is the only one on the field, with the traditional red cape and sword in hand. The goal is for the matador to take the bull´s charges without moving his feet. A good matador will be able to take three or four passes without adjusting his position. The cape is waving, the bull is charging left and right, the crowd is going nuts, and then... The matador will put one hand out, place it on the bulls head, and stop the charge as if he was walking out into traffic. This really sends the crowd into hysterics and the whole dance begins again.

Finally, the bull begins to tire from exertion and loss of blood. His head drops slightly and the matador begins the final steps. The matador may encourage a few more passes from the bull, but suddenly, the cape drops and the sword flashes. That is all you see. The matador has stabbed the bull directly behind the head and, if he did it well, the bull will die quickly. Occasionally, the bull wins, but this is very rare. We saw one bull just about catch a junior matador, but the guy flung himself over a wall to avoid being gored.

It was one of the most interesting, bloody, and brutal events I have ever seen.

At the end of the night the crowd was exuberant at the great matches and well fueled on beer and pisco (grape brandy). Everyone streamed out of plaza and onto the streets below where makeshift restaurants and bars are set up at the base of the stadium walls. I stood on the top row of the stadium overlooking the plaza below. People were below drinking and enjoying some dinner. To my left I saw a bit of movement and turned just in time to see one of the drunk Frenchmen belly up to the top ledge of the stadium. He looked over the edge, unzipped his pants, and proceeded to piss on all the Peruvians below. We wisely thought this was a good opportunity to leave before the police came, but I looked over to see the poor, poor people below. Several put out their hands to see if it was raining and one poor guy just pulled up the hood on his jacket.

What Morgan Freeman Didn´t Tell You...

March of the Penguins is the gripping tale of penguin survival in the frozen wastelands. What our dear friend Morgan forgot to mention was that sometimes Penguins get lost. Then they end up in the desert hanging out with pelicans. I see the plot line to a Disney movie...

These are Humbolt Penguins and apparently they belong here. Who knew? Okay, actually I did, but I didn´t want to come off as a smarty pants. They pretty much hang around on the rocks all day and frolic with pelicans and sea lions. Here is the requisite cute sea lion picture.

Well after a day of exploring the desert by boat and taxi, Drew and I needed a well deserved rest. We headed south a bit and holed up in a little oasis town. The town is surrounded by huge sand dunes on every side. Some of these dunes are hundreds of feet high. Drew had the brilliant idea to walk up the dune and watch the sun set. Walking up a giant sand dune is exactly as much fun as it sounds. We were about two-thirds of the way up when the sun set. (Okay, I was two-thirds of the way up. Drew stopped at the half-way point tried to get the sand out of his shoes, pants, etc.) It produced a few good pictures.

A quick word about night time in the desert. It comes fast. We had a lovely (unexpected) time running (rolling) down the hill in a vain attempt to make it back to the hotel before it got pitch black. We exuded grace and style as we walked back into the hotel with trails of sand pouring out behind us. (The cleaning staff declared us mortal enemies.)

The next morning we grabbed a dune buggy and tore off into the desert again to try our hand at sand boarding. If you have never had the joy of taking a dune buggy let me explain the sensation to you. Imagine your self on a bucking bronco. Now try to shave with a sand blaster. That´s pretty much it.

The sand boarding was a great sport and I am terribly disappointed I will not be able to take it up full time when I return to DC. Sand boarding is like a cross between snow boarding and water boarding. You standing on the board like would a snow board or you can lay on it like a sled. Then you hop on down the hill and let gravity do the work. It is pretty easy.

Then you fall... You are in the desert so the sand just been laying there waiting for some idiot to come by. Sand left out in the desert sun takes on a nice skin searing temperature of about 300 degrees. This is the water boarding portion of the sport. It hurts!!! Bad! After laying in the sand for a minute or two would confess to pretty much anything.

American Imperialism

American economic might is everywhere in Lima. In the smaller towns in Lima it is not hard to walk down the street and sort of forget that the United States exists. Not in Lima.

This is using our powers for good:

This is using our power for evil:

By the way, South American hooters girls are even less attractive than their North American counterparts. Who saw that coming??

The Big City

Last night Drew and I went out for beers in Lima, Peru. We had a few pints and started walking back to our hostel. It wasn´t terribly late, but the nightlife was in full swing. As we rounded a corner, a strange man walked up to us with a suitcase in his hand. He looked at us and said, ¨Hamburgers, hamburgers, hamburgers!¨

I prayed. Lord, please let ¨hamburgers¨ be slang for cocaine. Yes, maybe he is selling drugs! Or prostitutes. Anything!!! Just please don´t tell me that a small Peruvian man is selling me hamburgers from his luggage. They weren´t drugs or prostitutes. Just plain, normal hamburgers. I just couldn´t bring myself to buy a burger kept under someones tighty-whities.

Other than the weird people, Lima is a great town. All the best people are here - Bush, Hu Jin Tao, and whoever is in charge of Japan this week. Apparently, the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation is in town this weekend. Since we didn´t really want to hang around for the protests (we can do that in DC), Drew and I are hanging out in the desert a few hours south of Lima. We have to head back by Sunday though since we have tickets to the bullfight.

Roads? Where We´re Going We Don´t Need Any Roads.

Peruvian travel is a study in contrasts. This morning I rode on a bus nicer than most trans-Atlantic flights I´ve taken. Lots of legroom, breakfast, and a rousing game of Bingo. Okay, I have never played Bingo on a plane before, but its pretty popular on buses in South America. This is one extreme. This is what you hope for when you get on a bus.

Generally, this isn´t what happens. A week ago, the bus Drew and I were on stopped because a landslide closed the mountain road we were on. It was a one lane, winding road so backing up or turning around was out of the question. I guessed we would have to wait for hours to pass by, so we watched the construction crew attempt to push the boulders (some the sizes of small trucks) off the road and down the mountain. During the ten minutes we watched, a front end loader was almost crushed and a keg-sized boulder nearly killed the head of the construction team. These setbacks forced our team of crack construction workers to develope a new strategy for dealing with the issue - cheating death.

The construction crews forced everyone off the bus, organized us into a small group, and then started shouting ¨Corra, Corra!¨ (Run!) So we did. Normally, the sight of old Peruvian women running through a landslide would be funny, but I was to busy trying not to die to really notice. Then the bus driver revved the engine, gathered some speed, and bumped along under the landslide sending rocks spinning in all directions. Safe? No. Efficient? Yes.

Since dodging rocks, the Peruvian bus system has stranded us in a town for 3 days because the only road was shut down by protesters. (Really!! Who protests all weekend. Don´t these people have reruns to watch like the rest of us?) When we were finally able to catch a bus to Lima, Drew had the distinct pleasure of sitting behind a guy who barked at every car that passed the bus. Yes, barked. It is hard to sleep on a bus when Mr. Crazy is barking.

By the time we had gotten to Lima, I was pretty tired of the bus system and we still faced a 25-hour ride from Lima to Cuzco. Twenty-five hours on a bus!! I broke down and forked out for plane tickets.

The Road Less Traveled

There is a road less traveled. Frost liked to idealize it. Trust me, there is nothing ideal about it. This road is nothing but a one lane, dirty track that winds and weaves through the jungle and then up over the Andes Mountains. Just when you think can´t take any more, it starts back through the jungle all over again.

Last Tuesday we began our push into Peru with the hope to make it all the way to Chachapoya in a single day. We didn´t think this would be too much of an issue since it is only about 400 kilometers. That is roughly the distance from DC to New York City. We even left at 5 AM to ensure that we would make it by the end of the evening; South American roads can be unpredictable so you need to allow for extra time. A bus, a flatbed truck, a four-wheel drive taxi, two military checkpoints, and several immigration offices later we finally crossed into Peru. It took us over fourteen hours to travel about 200 kilometers! Well short of our final destination.

So Tuesday night, we found ourselves (Drew, me, our friend George, and a random German tourist we picked up along the way) stuck in a small Peruvian town called San Ignacio. Daylight is long gone, there are no way to keep moving forward, and we are the only gringos in town. We were also a hundred miles from the nearest ATM and without any Soles (the Peruvian currency). This isn´t a section of Peru that receives many tourists. It sits right on the edge of the Amazon jungle and is loaded with untouched ruins for a variety of civilizations. These ruins are exactly what led us here, but there is little infrastructure to support any robust tourism. We people say ¨getting there is half the adventure,¨ this is the place they were talking about. Banks only exist in the largest towns, so we had to change dollars for Soles in an small appliance store. Luckily you can generally find someone who wants US dollars. These small towns often aren´t on any bus routes, so the only way to get around is to catch a cab to the next town. Cabs only go to the next major town, so you end up hopping in and out of cabs at every town.

Since we didn´t make it to Chachapoya on the first day, we decided not to take any chances on day two, and we left at 4 AM. We caught a small VW van to the next town and packed in with 15 of our new best friends. It is rather difficult to sleep when you are crammed in between a couple of Peruvians and a chicken. About four hours later we arrived in the next town of any note. We jumped out of one cab and into a couple of scooter pedi-cabs for the trip to the next taxi stand. It would make sense to put all the cabs together, but that would make it way too easy.

We dashed into an second taxi and pushed off for the next town. This next town was large enough to catch a bus to our final destination, Chachapoya, but we had to rush to make it in time. Two hours later we arrived at the bus station only to discover that the morning bus was gone, but there was an afternoon bus if we wanted to wait until 4 pm to catch it. Since it was now 10 AM, we decided to just hire another cabbie to take us to Chachapoya. It was only 2 hours away and if we made good time we could still see one of the ruins in the later afternoon. Foolish gringos.

The final taxi ride started uneventfully. Our driver was insane and never missed an opportunity to try to kill us, but this is normal. After about an hour and a half we rounded a bend for the final 30 kilometers of our trip. Parked in the road was a dump truck and a large sign that read ¨Road Closed! Open Daily from 4:30 pm to 8 AM.¨ This was the only road to Chachapoya and we were stuck. We got out of the car, calmed our new German friend, and assessed the situation. It turns out that this road construction had been ongoing for about a year and was well know to everyone in the region. So we yelled at our cabbie for not telling us. He decided it was a good time to take a nap and ignore us, so he got a pillow and blanket out of the car and spread out in some shade.

There was a single roadside restaurant nearby, so we decided to grab some lunch while we killed 4 and a half hours. Generally,in small restaurants there is no menu. You get whatever they cook that day. Our lunch consisted of soup, rice, and stomach. Yes, stomach. Not surprisingly, beef stomach tastes like fuzzy chicken.

So on day two of our trek we finally made it to Chachapoya. It only took 24 hours more than we anticipated. We has started this trip with rough schedule that culminated with a bullfight in Lima on Sunday afternoon. It was now Wednesday evening, so we planned to catch the ruins on Thursday, cut out some extra stuff we wanted to see, and take a 26 hours worth of bus rides on Friday and Saturday. With luck we would arrive in Lima on Saturday afternoon.

Our delays/adventures were just beginning.

Rascal the Guinea Pig

This is Rascal. He is a guinea pig. In Spanish they are called "Cuy" after the cute little sound they make. "Cuy, Cuy, Cuy" said Rascal. That means "hello" in guinea pig.

He is the cutest guinea pig we could find. He likes to nibble on lettuce and frolic with all his little guinea pig brothers and sisters.

If Rascal was a lucky guinea pig then he might have been born in the US. He could have been the mascot for some 4th grade class in a suburban elementry school. Every Christmas break the kids would fight over who got to take care of Rascal that break.

Poor Rascal. He wasn´t lucky. He was born in Ecuador. Now he is my dinner. Poor, poor guinea pig.

Tasty, tasty guinea pig.

Hey, if you thing that is bad, Drew wanted to turn all the baby guinea pigs into Cuy nuggets.

The Trek Begins in a Generally Southern Direction

We finally started the long trek south toward the bottom of the continent. Baños had the honor of being the first city along the way. While it is only a few hours south of Quito, it seems like an entirely different country. The setting is gorgeous and the town is nestled at the base of an active volcano. Cliffs rose for thousands of feet above the town and waterfalls poured right into town!






While the setting was perfect, the town failed to live up to its surroundings. The mountains unbelievable and largely unspoilt, the town, well... Picture Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Now give it a good shelling. Not destroy it, just drop in a few well placed artillery rounds. Now you have the town of Baños, Ecuador. However, Baños did have the best souvenir shop in the world. It is simply called "We Aren´t Chinese."







We still had fun and spent a day hiking and biking through the area. Drew and I spend a half a day biking 22 km through the mountains. Our guidebook assured us that it was all downhill. Okay, parts of it were downhill, the uphills were brutal, and I threw out the guidebook. We did see a bunch of waterfalls though, so many in fact that we just started skipping the smaller ones. Typically, tourists pedal out to see the falls and then pedal back to town. Forget that. We are Americans, we buy our way out of trouble. We hired a truck to take us back.





(NOTE: The next section is adapted from an email Drew sent out. I apologize if you already saw the email. If you didn´t and want to be included on Drew´s email list just make a note in the comments section.)

The next day we decided to take the trail south from Riobamba, Ecuador to a small town a few hours south. This is about the only functioning train in Ecuador and it runs down the side of the Andes Mountains. When we inquired about the train on Thursday night, the tracks were under repair, so they weren´t sure if the train was going to run on Friday or not. The station told us to come back at 6:15 the next morning. The picture to the right is the view from the train station.

The next morning the track still wasn´t completely repaired, but they assured us that a smaller train could make the trip. By smaller train they really mean a school bus jacked up onto the rails. On top were about 20 plastic seats bolted onto the roof. Everyone waiting at the station swarmed onto that bus and completely filled it. We were not sure if we would make it onto the train despite having a ticket, but a second small train(i.e. school bus) arrived. Our bus made the first one look like a Cadillac. Instead of plastic seats on top, we had a luggage rack. Well, the point of this trip was to ride on top of a train so up we went.

Our little train left first and we cruised right through downtown Riobamba on top of a train, freezing to death and waving at everyone we passed on the street. There is just something about gringos riding around on the top of things. Everyone stops, stares, and then waves. Right in the middle of waving to everyone we saw, it happened. We hit a truck. If Ecuadorians don´t stop for red lights there is no way they are going to stop for a train. Some moron in a pick up tried to speed in front of the train and BAM! Our driver rammed him. We heard the end of the truck crumple, saw glass flying up into the air, and looked down to see a white truck sliding across the street at a jaunty angle. Of course, this being Ecuador, we didn´t stop. The conductor didn´t even slow down.

An hour later, the next hiccup happened. We were just rounding a curve through some farming villages when we heard a screeching sound, and our train ground to a halt. The conductors hopped out and started poking at the wheels with a stick. How a stick is going to help a train I really don´t know, but we just assumed that the train derailed. That happens a lot in Ecuador, its normal. It turns out that our brake system failed. We waited for the second train to come along, hook up to ours, and then drag us back to the nearest farm town. The conductors maneuvered us onto a rail siding that last saw use in 1950, and we all climbed onto the other train. People were literally hanging off the roof now. Off we went.

Finally, we reached the town of Gromote, where we met up with the regular train. By regular we mean a bunch of boxcars attached to an engine. We threw our backpacks into a boxcar, grabbed a ladder, and climbed up on top Then we sat. And sat. And sat some more. The engine needed to be fueled. In any normal country they might hook up a fuel line and get to it. In Ecuador, you don´t use hoses. Apparently, its just easier to have a guy stand on top of the engine and another guy stand on top of a fuel truck. These two pass a 5-gallon bucket back and forth, filling it up and then pouring it into the engine. Then repeat about a thousand times. Very efficient.

Eventually, we take off. In the space of five or ten kilometers we stopped four times. First, somebody´s hat flew off. Stop the train, conductor gets out, walks back along the track to find it. Stopped time: 5 minutes. Three hundred meters later we stop again. The conductor gets out, finds an irrigation hose running alongside the track, and cracks it open. (Actually he did this twice. The first hose didn´t have enough water flow.) Then he filled the engine with water and reconnects the hose with what looks like duct tape. Stopped time: 10 minutes. Less than a mile later there is a man standing in the middle of the rails waving at the train to stop. We all stand up, and that´s when we see a crew of 8 guys working on the rails with pickaxes 30 feet in front of the stopped engine. The track is out. One guy is using a measuring tape to make sure the rail is the proper distance apart. He´s measuring every 2 feet. The conductors then unload what is apparently a temporary section of track, then decide they´d just rather wait it out. So we do. Finally they finish putting the rail back in place, and we continue on. Stopped time: 1 hour. The very next turn(less than 200 meters after starting again) we hear this awful grinding sound. The train stops and pitches slightly to the side. We have finally derailed. The crew gets out and holds a quick conference around a second of track. I don´t know what the accepted method of putting a train back on the tracks is in the US, but in Ecuador it is pretty simple. You just keep going. The conductor backed the engine up slightly until it was back into position, and then just took off. Apparently, you just go as fast as you can and hope that the engine drags all the other cars back onto the track. Amazingly it work!! Stopped time: 20 minutes.

Finally, we roll into the town of Alausi. We were supposed to be there at 11am, but we didn´t get there until about 2pm. There were a bunch of tourists waiting to get on for a trip down the Devil´s Nose, and they were really upset that the train was so late. Someone forget to tell them that they were traveling in South America. The Devil´s Nose is a series of steep switchbacks down the mountain, but it was a bit anti-climatic. The mountain is really steep so the train has to go down some of the switchbacks backwards. Fun, but the real fun was in the journey.

Election Views for the South

So Barack Obama is the next President of the United States. Ecuador is a little worried about this, but this is a little strange since Obama is relatively popular here. I guess it more accurate to say that Obama is popular and folks down here really want to like him, but they just don´t always know why. Ecuadorians have several rather odd concerns about an Obama administration that they like to talk about incessantly.

1) He is Black. Ecuadorians like Obama, but are a little concerned about him being black. When you really push, a few people will mention issues like race relations in the US, but none of them have any really understanding of what that means. In truth, their concern about race is mostly a reflections of the lingering racial issues here in Ecuador between indigenous groups, Latinos, and decedents of escaped slaves from the Caribbean.
2) He is a Muslim. Ecuadorians are really hung up on this issue. Numerous Ecuadorians tell me how shocked they are that America would let a Muslim run for the Presidency. Then I have to explain that he is Protestant, not Muslim. All that earns me is a blank look and then a wink and a nod. Then they launch right back into the Muslim thing. Somehow I am missing the joke.
3) The Neo-Nazi Assassination Plot. Seriously, Ecuadorians are really concerned about this. The papers down here have run several articles about various neo-nazi groups that are all arming against Obama.
4) The New Great Depression that is Destroying America. Ecuadorians seems to be really interested in the Great Depression and seem to think that they US has toppled over the abyss and finds itself right back in 1929. They average Ecuadorian doesn`t really know what caused the Depression or much about the US economic woes currently, but they are convinced that the US is on the verge of bankruptcy.

In the end, Ecuadorians are worried about stability. As one Ecuadorian mentioned to me, "When the US has problems, they rest of the world has them too." Most Ecuadorians that I speak with about politics just want a stable America.

As for Drew and I, we joined the ranks of expats and a smattering of Europeans who watched the election coverage from a small BBQ joint here in Quito. The beer was cheap, the cheers and boos were loud, and we got the distinct pleasure of explaining the Electoral College system over and over again.

Who Loves Ya Baby? Quito Does.

The first time Drew and I arrived in Quito , we were mobbed at the airport with cameras and reporters. It was a hero´s welcome. You get used to it after a while.

Yesterday, we unexpectedly returned to Quito. As we crested over the Andes and down into the valley where Quito sits, the city greeted us with rainbows and snow-capped mountains. The locals tell me this is a rare sight. Quito loves us. Unfortunately, the pictures didn´t come out very well so I can´t pass them on.

On Monday, Drew and I had to make a hasty departure from the beach. We had about 30 minutes to find all of our stuff, throw it in a bag, and get out the door. I shot the sheriff, but I didn´t shoot the deputy. Drew did. (That joke would probably work better in the Caribbean.) Actually, a Canadian we met offered us a lift back to Quito. I know that is can be a bit dangerous to accept rides through the jungle with people you don´t know real well, but in this topsy-turvy world if you can´t trust a Canuck then who can you trust? Besides, it beats taking an eight hour bus ride with a bunch of screaming kids at the end of a holiday weekend.

On the way back to Quito we drove through a large town and was met with an impromptu toll road. A guy with no legs was sitting in the middle of the road with a rope tied around his waist and the other end looped around a post on the far side of the road. Each time a car approached he raised the rope and demanded his fee. Apparently Canadians don´t pay tolls. Instead of stopping, we accelerated. Wisely, our Ecuadorian friend lowered the rope.

Drew and I will only be in Quito for a day to resupply, do some laundry, and relax. The city is a cooler and it is nice to enjoy a bit of fall weather after a month of 80 degrees. There are lots more police on the streets right now, so the government seems to be taking this crime wave seriously. Tomorrow, we hop a bus to Baños to check out the hot springs and volcano there.