Bill and Wendy's ickcillint adventures

Dear Children, It is fortunate that you live in Canada and that your mother was away for Mother's Day, travelling in Peru.  It is Mother's Day in Peru today as well.  If you were a Peruvian son or daughter, it seems there are some expectations placed upon you on Mother's Day. In the morning of Mother's Day, go out and buy a huge bouquet of flowers.  Not to worry about finding some flowers as flowers are sold on every street corner.  You will need to buy a very large bunch and oh, while you are at it, pick up one of those red balloons tied to straws that say Feliz Madre Dia.  Well, actually, get three of four.  Boxes of chocolates and galletas (cookies) usually accompany the flowers and balloons. Then, take a crowded city bus to the city where your mother dwells, find your mother, board another bus and take her to a giant restaurant, festooned with balloons, tables laid with white linen and event tents scattered on the lawn.  Purchase a cuy (guinea pig) plato, broi

I guess I had never really seen a desert. I know, we talk about Kamloops as being semi-desert and I guess I thought that the desert was just a little drier.  I also know, I have seen pictures of the Sahara Desert and camel's being jockeyed across them, but it is not the same as seeing it for the first time.  Seeing an actual desert is  a realization. We think of sand as being inviting, relaxing, and soft.  However, the scene of a real desert is something quite extraordinary and absolutely opposite. It is barren, bleak, unadulterated, not a single bit of growth, not a pebble or a twig. As we travelled from Arequipa north to PIsco and Lima, the Peruvian Desert announced it's advent by an increasingly dry, lunar type landscape of lava rocks and sand.  Finally, the landscape changed.  There was just desert sand.  We travelled through hundreds of miles of sand, just sand.  I guess I imagined roads through deserts as being flat and straight, like Prairie roads. Instead, the hig

Sent from my iPad I might as well tell of our our Colca Canyon hike. After a 6 hour bus ride from Arequipa we arrived at the small village of Cabanaconde in  the afternoon. The plan was we would leave the next morning and in preparation for the hike we spoke to locals about the different ways down the canyon from Cabanaconde and the ways back up. Although there appears to be 3 trails realisically we were told there were only 2. There is a steep trail which some choose to take to go down and to come back up. It is called the more dangerous of the 2 trails and I was not certain if that was going down or coming up.  Although the canyon is described as the highest or second highest in the world that does not accurately describe the hike. Cabanaconde is located at about 3250 metres and the Oasis at the bottom of the trail is at about 1150 metres. Therefore the elevation change is about 1100 metres but the canyon rim is well above the village.  At any rate, It is steep and caution is

Well it seems that way. I am a vegetable hound. I love vegetables.  At a buffet, I eschew all the other things like main courses, desserts and other things for a load of fresh vegetables.  As a person with a gluten intolerance, I don't/can't eat breads, pastas or desserts. Bill, on the other hand, hates vegetables and loves bread,  desserts and pastas.  He eats bread all three meals.  He cannot pass a McDonalds without buying a cono. He cannot pass a helado (ice cream) stand without sampling the fresa (strawberry) ice cream.  He indulges in pie and ice-cream, butter and jam.  He regularly has pasta and pizza. Bill has lost a lot of weight. I have not. I rest my case.  Vegetables are fattening.

We have only two weeks left in South America.  We grieve. We have only two weeks left in South America.  Yahoo! The human condition is always in flux between two realities.  We are caught in the flux. It is torture.

Lake TItikaka is amazing.  It is over 8000 sq kilometres, so large that when we first saw it, we were discombobulated - it looks like the ocean.  It is the highest fresh water navigable lake in the world, situated at 3800 meters above sea level.  Jacques Coustea studied this lake in the 1970's, looking for the lost city of the Incas. He never did find it, but he did find toads (1 billion of them) that  were no longer amphibious, but had grown breathing sacks and lived up to 400 feet deep. What is even more fascinating about the lake is the way the Peruvian people have managed to use the reeds that grow along the shores of the lake.  They have built floating islands and constructed sturdy reed homes and boats from the reeds.  It is really something to behold - like visiting the floating boats in Vietnam.  Hard to believe that this is America. Several islands dot the lake and are populated by the Quechua People.  As part of our tour of the lake, we arranged to do a home stay wi

Stuck in the Mud On the way out of the jungle, we encountered a mudslide that covered the road.  I demanded to be let out as the mudslide was at the edge of a deep cliff.  Our guide, Jose, agreed it was a good idea for all to leave the vehicle while the driver drove through the mud. Low and behold, the van driver, dug the axle deep into the mud that was firm, but spongy.   We had to use a machete and a rock pick to dig out the vehicle.  Finally, we pushed the vehicle backwards only to find that a root had punctured the oil pan. We filled the ruts in the mud with rock and branches and the with Bill sitting inside the van for weight, the van crossed to the other side of the slide.  Now we had a repair job to handle as black oil seeped out into the mud. Then, as we were repairing the oil pan, along came a public transportation bus loaded with Andean men, women and children.  The bus driver ordered them all out and he tackled the road with a shovel. He then drove across the very un

 In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle Amazonia.  The Amazon Jungle.  I felt it seeping into my blood, leaving me never the same. Some years ago, my mother made a trip to Alaska.  It had such an effect on her that when she returned and tried to describe it, she said, "It was as if I was born there." I had a similar experience. The journey into the heart of the Amazon Jungle took four days.  Six touristas, a family group of four from Australia and Bill and I left Cuscos by collectivo early Monday morning.  We drove along highway for about four hours and then left the main paved road to travel along a very treacherous gravel road that snaked into the Andean Rain Forest.  The treachery of the road was exacerbated by the recent months of rainy season.  We are in the shoulder season now, but the roads are soft and heavy rain still predominate the region causing massive landslides of red muddy clay.  We managed to cross the Acjanacu Pass at 3,500 meters above sea level descendin

Wendy and I just completed our hike of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. She has blogged about our experience and I am going to blog about more personal stuff. I have had a problem with both knees, the left more than the right, since we did the hike to Ciudad Perdida. I have been hobbling around hoping, and then confident,  I could do the hike. I started to take Ibuprofen to ease the pain or whatever it is supposed to do. I felt ready to go - sort of. I/We bought a knee brace/support in Quenca. In fact we bought two which gave me more confidence that I could do the hike. Then in Chiclayo, Peru after showering in the morning, I walked on the tile floor from the bathroom to the bedroom, likely with wet feet, slipped on the floor crashing down in the entrance to the bathroom. Peru is one of those countries where the floor in the bathroom is elevated about 15 cm from the floor in the rest of the room. I came crashing down bruising quite extensively my left forearm, scraping my back on the ri

Survivors on the Inca Trail We made it!  We survived the Inca Trail and were rewarded with the splendour that took our breathe away at the site of the Sacred City of Machu Picchu. We and eleven other fellow hikers from New Zealand, Australia and two other Canadians from Calgary began this 44 km sojourn on April 2, leaving Cuscos by bus in the morning and staying in a homestay in Ollantaytambo after a nice dinner in this bustling tourist town.  Ollantaytambo is the site of another magnificent Inca site where huge rocks in the temple are seamed perfectly without the use of mortar. It is mind boggling to see this and to try and sort out, how on earth the Inca stone workers perfectly seamed rock.  One of the rocks at Machu Picchu (MP) has 32 perfectly seamed sides! On April 3 , we began our hike from Ollantaytambo (2720 metres above sea level) and began a 7 hour trek along the "Peruvian trail" undulating along and up and down over a completely stone pathway.  Asce

We arrived in Cusco from Chiclayo via Lima yesterday and what a beautiful city up in the hills.  It is situated at 3,400 meters or 11,150 feet if you prefer. Elevation sickness is a concern and they suggest you leave Cusco to a place of a little lower elevation nearby upon your arrival for a few days and of course we didn't. We are taking medication to deal with altitude sickness and have been quite lucky. We may have some minor symptoms but we are doing fine. We aren't even sure they are symptoms but we aren't taking any chances. We are taking it slow as recommended. Tomorrow we will likely go out for a small hike-nothing too strenuous. Cusco is worth seeing and there are lots of things to do and see in a very old and clean city. We aren't able to compare prices here to other places in Peru but accept that prices are higher but not extremely so, we think. As you probably all know in Medellin I lost my merino wool top I planned to use as a middle layer when hiking. We w

Today, we flew out of the Galapagos. On our way to the airport, the driver and I are conversing in Spanish. He asked us what our professions were.  I told the cab driver   that Bill was a retired judge and I was a retired clinical social worker. "Me espouso es a retired jueve" I said with confidence. (My husband is a retired judge). Hector, the cab driver looked puzzled.  Bill turned to me and said, "What did you say to him?" I repeated myself. "Me espouso es jueve." Bill said, "No, it is not jueve, it is Juez.  I think you just told him that I was an egg" Any of you that know me well know that I can be prone to fits of uncontrollable laughter.  Well this was one of those moments where my funny bone got tickled and I howled and snorted and cried for a good ten minutes. The cab driver was amused by all this and told Bill, "this is going to be a good day." Then again,on the plane I remembered that I had called Bill an

Bill and I are excited.  Read his account here: We went diving again today in this heavenly place called the Galapagos. We had two dives today at Gordon's Rock. And yes, we saw so many fish. We saw white and black tipped reef sharks (8-10 feet long) and we saw a couple of Hammerhead sharks. BUT WE ALSO  SAW MOLA MOLA (s) and up close. Fantastic! We have seen it all! We can now retire from diving because everything now will seem so boring. Well, we better keep at it a little longer. But Hammerheads and Mola Mola on one day! How can you beat that? We saw about 4 Mola Mola and about the same number of Hammerheads. We also saw quite a few Mola Mola at the surface, that is their iddy biddy little fins could be seen out of the water and they were visible in the water. At first it was thought they were sharks. We are very contented and happy.

Ciudad Perdida was more than a hike and more than a place where I nearly lost Bill. It was also our first encounter with indigenous groups of people who have had very little contact with the outside world for about 600 years.  Persecuted by the Spaniards, they fled into the hills of the Sierra Madre Mountains. Remember, the only way to their villages are three days of heavy mountain trekking or on horse back or mule. I will try and describe the Tayrona People in two ways: objectively and subjectively. Objectively, their stature is on the small side, about five feet in height and both male and females wear their black hair long and rather ragged.  They have brown skin, a bit darker than our own indigenous people in Canada, and have more pronounced hooked noses.  Men, women and children all dress the same; white heavy cotton smocks and white pants and gumboots. Both sexes and including children wear a hemp bag. The only thing differentiating males from females is that women wear

While preparing for our trip to Colombia I came across an article on Ciudad Perdida but thought it was not feasible to hike there as we already had planned to climb to Machu Pichu. But as our trip developed we decided to give it a go. Ciudad Perdida means lost city. It clearly is not the name given to it by the indigenous population. Trip starts from Santa Marta, an area in north east Colombia.  We began, first by highway travel of about  11/2  hours then 1/2 hour or so up a  4 wheel drive road  to a place called Machete.  Ciudad Perdida was built around 500 to 700 AD. We were told a little history of the people and the area but they had no written language and any biological building materials have long disappeared. It was the Tayrona capital and at its height 2000 people lived in the city. They traded with the Spaniards in the 1500s especially for their gold and other precious metal objects. The Spaniards were not happy with what the indigenous people had traded the Spaniards and cam

We arrived beat up and exhausted back in Santa Marta after Ciudad Perdida.  (Bill will be blogging on that experience). We showered the grime from under our toes and finger nails and hand washed the red mud from our clothes. Our new hiking boots look a hundred years old. Then, refreshed from a shower, we caught the rickety collectivo over the hill to Rododero (10 minute ride).  We had a dinner date there with Mark and Diane, a couple from Tacoma we had met in Zipaquiera at the Salt Cathedral. As fellow Norte Americano travellers, we had invited them to our little place for dinner in Santa Marta.  They returned the favour by inviting us out to their rented apartmento in Rododero. We all had a swim on the busy beach and then a feasted on a yummy supper they had prepapred for us. We had a good visit. They patiently listened as we processed our experiences in Ciudad Perdida and they amused us by telling us all about the antics at Carnival in Barrenquilla. We left Santa Marta on Monda

Remember how I gloated about Bill losing his fleece and me still having mine? Well, the table has turned on me. I broke my IPAD screen.  Now, I am looking enviously at his whole, complete and unbroken IPAD screen and his lily like fingers.  My screen is in shards and my fingers ragged from swiping across broken glass.  My eyes are crooked trying to peer around and through the thousands of spider veins spreading across my screen.  Bill is calling it Justice.

Nosotros estudiamos espanol es terminal.  Nosotros estudiamos espanol en Santa Marta, Colombia for dos semanas.   Nostoros hablamous en present tense seulemente. Our lessons were really quite wonderful. Our teacher, Elsa was an excellent teacher and was always well prepared for her lessons with us. We sat each morming at her table on her leafy patio, where the breeze blew in to soften the heat of the day as we conjugated verbos.  We learned so much from her. Her husband, Sven, a man from Sweden, often popped in to teach some difficult concepts such as how mucho means so much more than to like. For instance, in English, we say, I like the plants. The person speaking is the object.   In espanol, you are really saying, the plants give me pleasure.  It changes who the object of the sentence is.  The plants are the object.  Es muy interesante. We can actually carry on a simple conversation in Spanish, although it seems very easy to regress to nouns and pointing to make ourselves under

What on earth could 72 and 200 have in common on February 23rd? Two things happened on February 23, 2014.  The first, is obvious - it is Bill's 72 Birthday! The 200, you say?  Well today was also Bill's 200th Dive. What a birthday present! The dive master, Fernando sang him Happy Birthday in Spanish and then hugged him at the end of his dive, congratulating him for his 200th dive and wishing him a long life. The water was rough, but manageable and the coral and fish were wonderful with excellent visibility.  Bill may be 72 but when he is diving, he is a young man. I dug out the Valentine Card I had brought with me to give him on Valentines Day, but could not, for the life of me find on Valentines Day.  However, I did find it and I simply crossed out the Valentine part and inserted the words Birthday.  The sentiments were all the same, so it was a good substitute. Tonight, I have made a curry and we met Mark and Diane from Seattle at the very beginning of our trip at

Well, first blog on this new and already promising ickcillint adventure Currently, we are in Cartagena, Colombo, sweltering in the tiny Casa Iguana, a backpacker hostel room with tinier ants crawling all over the end of my bed. Despite the fan that is pressed to my face, it is sticky and hot.  We are enjoying a bit of a siesta before going out to celebrate with my lover, Bill Blair for Valentines Day.  We are going to try Cafe Havana for some dining and nightlife. We learned today that Cartagena, in the 1600's, was a major African Slave Market and evidence of this period remain as many black people are locals here, and have retained much of their African roots in their attire and music.  Saint Pedro Claver was a Jesuit missionary who spent his entire adult life trying to improve the conditions of the slaves in Cartagena. His remains can be see in the chapel built in his memory inside the church within the walled city. We had a couple of exciting incidents in Medellin (Mey-Dey