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South American Roundup

So, how was South America, in ten words or less?
Although an eternity for a vacation, two months and ten days is a short time to be in one continent.  We’ve met people who are spending a year in one country down here, working, leaning the language and getting to know the people.  Sometimes I envy those travellers who can pick a country and see the shit out of it.  I’m a bit too ADD to spend so much time in one place, and this constant changing of surroundings is heaven to me.  Although I’ve been to Peru before – and thought I was somewhat prepared for South America – I’ve seen places, landscapes and people I would never have imagined.  I can’t wait to get to those places that I never thought I would visit, like Africa and India.  Even out next stops in

Spain and France will be incredible new experiences.

Was that ten words?

Not really, but I’ll talk to the editor and see if we can’t clean it up.
Right on.  Make me sound smart, if you can.

I’ll do what I can.  So what were the high and low points of South America?
Do you mean literally or figuratively?

Um, both?
Okay, well literally, the high point was Aconcagua, Argentina the highest mountain outside the Andes.
Figuratively, the high point would probably be, of all things, the bus ride from Copacabana to La Paz, Bolivia during our first month of travel (which was not an overnight, by the way).  I don’t know if I can explain why - the scenery, while picturesque, was easily trumped by countless other landscapes.  The bus wasn’t particularly comfortable.  If I had to guess, it was probably just the first moment on the trip when I felt at ease, and started to get into the groove of traveling.  I had the love of my life at my side, a jar of Pringles, and all my belongings in a bag under the bus, and that was all I needed.  This feeling has come and gone many times since, but that first time was special.

Wow, deep, bro.  And the lows?
Well, the literal low point was probably doing yoga on the beach one morning on Iha Grande, Brazil – looking out into the Atlantic and keeping an eye on the forest behind me in case any pumas decided I looked tasty.
And the figurative low was eating the bad chicken on Ilha Des Sol in Bolivia, and staying in a hotel room with no heat.

How about your fellow travellers, how have they been?
Great.  I’d say the best travel friend we’ve made remains Simon the dog in Bolivia.  But the people are good company too.  I’m particularly impressed with the old folks trekking along down here.  Mom, Dad (not that you’re “old”, of course) take heed: you can travel anywhere, do it!

And how many Canadians have you met?
Only about four groups, two of whom were from Quebec.  C’mon Canucks, start representing in South America!  Tough it out in Peru and Bolivia.  Party it up in Brazil.  And eat steak with a spoon for $10 in Argentina (oh, the steak is sooooo good here).  And do it now because already prices are starting to go up.  Argentina has doubled in the last two or three years (but still cheep) and Brazil is already ridiculously overpriced.  Bolivia and Peru are still cheep like chips, but not for long.

What’s been your biggest complaint about the trip so far?
Well, in Peru and Bolivia, it was “Why don’t they just charge a little bit more for tourism and do it right!”  This was in response to shoddy tour operators and hostels that were only concerned with getting the most tourists through as quickly as possible.  However, Argentina has erased that complaint completely.  For just a few more pesos, you get a fantastic tourist experience.

Will you be back?
I’d love to go back to Bolivia and Argentina.  Bolivia was a great growing country, and I’d jump at the chance to go back and help in some way.  Argentina needs to be visited again with the luxury of taking K shopping.

For shoes?
Yes, for shoes.  The poor thing has to survive the whole ten months with only three pairs of shoes – none of which make her taller than me, or have sparkles.

Sounds like you’re really roughing it.
You bet!

D.

Surviving the long haul

Overnight bus rides are a simple, unavoidable reality of travel.  In countries like Argentina, whose "distance between population" index is highest in the world; in Africa, where even a 300 kilometre trip can take three days; and in India, where you'll probably get stuck on a train for a week before a space in the crowd appears for you to escape through, you need to be prepared deal with and thrive during these adventures.

Focusing on recent experiences in South America (because that's as far as I've been so far), I will hereby enlighten and inform about the best methods for conquering the overnight.

Words of warning

In case it isn't immediately obvious, overnights are evil because they involve sitting in one uncomfortable bus seat for anywhere between twelve and thirty hours.  Your feel swell, your knees hurt, your bowels ache, you thirst and you starve, and your brain goes numb from either squinting at too many English subtitled movies or reading too many bouncy pages.

And you can forget getting any natural, comfortable sleep.  Rough roads, crying children and livestock will dash any hopes of that.

Remedies and consequences

The best way to conquer the overnight is through unconsciousness, which many travelers achieve through sleeping pills.  While guaranteed, in the right doses, to knock you out for the desired amount of time, they are not ideal.  First off, they are addictive.  Secondly, they don't actually give you natural sleep, so you will wake up groggy and confused.  And lastly, being comatose for the duration of a bus ride leaves you prone to banditos (on sketchy rides), vandalism (when traveling with ass-holes carrying permanent markers), and missed all-important pit stops and smoke breaks.

Now, speaking from experience, some of the best nights sleep I've had have been caused by late nights in the bar.  Recreating that experience on a bus is tricky, especially if your idea of a "night out" differs from a few brews at the pub.  I strongly recommend against hard drugs, especially any amphetamines, on overnight bus rides.  No one wants to sit beside someone who just swallowed two happy blue pills for twenty hours.

After extensive testing, the best mixology to follow is two to three cans of beer, one of which should be a tall can, or sharing a small bottle of whiskey.  Be careful to avoid dark beers (too meal-y), as well as very light ones (too quick to get through the system), as well as rye (too anger inducing), tequila (too party animal-ish, unless traveling in Brazil - see geographical indicators below), and absinthe (too hallucinogenic).  A two to three beer range ensures grogginess, without excessive drunkenness, minimizes potentially nasty visits to the loo, and reduces the hangover threat.  It also allows for a comfortable sleep that is easily interrupted by dangers.

The final coping strategy is a technological one.  An iPod, or other inferior music-listening device, should be listened too the whole distance of the trip, with noise-cancelling inner-ear headphones.  The key to this is to have a good selection of music - which should include nothing by Yanni, or any boy/girl band whatsoever - so that songs may be listened to at random throughout the night.  If trying to learn the local language, a few language lessons are also good to throw into the mix (¿done hay lugares gay?). 

A shout-out is in order to all those whose play-lists enriched my iPod before we left.  Thanks to you, and the extraordinary battery-life of my iPod Touch, I once listened to 264 songs straight over a 27 hour trip, without having to skip a single one.

Geographical indicators

Now, whichever method of dealing with the long-haul bus trip you choose, the shock of an unfortunate wake-up in the middle of the night can be disorienting.  Here is a short guide to a few South American countries, should you ever find yourself busing through the continent.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and the DVD intro screen to a bootlegged version of John Rambo is playing, and has been paying for the last three hours, at top volume, you are probable in Peru.

If are woken up at a rest stop that has no washrooms, no resting places, and only one small wooden booth last seen being used by Lucy to give psychiatric advice at 5 cents a pop, and is staffed by someone very closely resembling the bus driver, or maybe the bus driver himself, and at which pop is, coincidently 5 cents, you are probable in Bolivia.

If you are awoken by a lively fiesta on wheels consisting of any two of the following elements, you might be in Brazil: music from cellphones, small battery powered radios, or the buses speakers; food, both cold and barbecued somehow; dancing; disco balls, strobe lights, or black-lights.

If it is two am, and you are woken up by the stewardess and offered a tray of dinner, or a friendly game of bus bingo, you might be in Argentina.

Recovery

Your best chance at recovery lies in finding the nearest ex-pat pub run by either Dutch, British, or American hippies, eating something woefully unhealthy, and drinking too much beer.  Only at this point with the shaking stop, and will you be able to shake off the weariness, and residual wariness of the overnight bus trip.

D.

Achieving La Paz

The short four hour bus ride from Copacabana to La Paz had me in a great mood for daydreaming.  I can't tell if it was the finally perfect weather, or the rush of endorphins that my body was releasing as I recovered from another short bought of the stomach-rumbles.

Maybe it was just the scenery.

I mean, busing along the quiet highway (if you deign to call any road in South America a "highway") through the Altiplano - the high, fertile plains of the region - I just couldn't help myself.

We passed little idyllic villages, so loose in their housing clusters that it was hard to tell where one ended and the next began.  Keep in mind, however, that these aren't the "idyllic little villages" that you might see in Europe, or even elsewhere in rustic corners of the world.  These were clay-brick, stray dog, minimum electricity, basic plumbing, nothing paved little villages.  Livestock, the only visible measure of wealth besides land, roamed the muddy streets. 

But, somehow, the essence of life emanating from these little towns reel me in from the safety of the bus window, and I dreamt.

I could move here, if K decided to leave me for some taller, darker, and more handsome drink of water.  I would be the strange Gringo of the neighbourhood.  I would spring for the fancy wireless internet for only one year so I could learn to work the land with my own two hands, eventually becoming so proficient as to eschew the need for wikipedia to help me. 

I would plant enough food to live on, own a few chickens, pigs, and a donkey (which I'm sure is somehow necessary here).  Then, as my skill and wealth grew, I would begin hiring local help and expand my cocoa, potato, and corn patches into an eventual cooperative enterprise benefiting the whole area, which would lead to my becoming the mayor, or local magistrate. 

I would own a horse, and a small sailboat, and take solitary treks into the foothills, mountains and islands around Lake Titicaca.

Then, some dozen years down the road, the newly elected president - an extreme socialist and idea man - would visit on a regular tour and become fascinated by this Gringo-farmer.  We would get to talking and he would hire me as his speech writer. 

In this post, and using my newly gained knowledge of the average Bolivian, I would become his closest adviser, until the day, no more than a year later, we would both be killed in a bloody military coup, no doubt backed by the American pig-dogs.

Well, I guy can dream can't he?

D.

Picking Up Strays

Travellers are a strange bunch at the best of times, and even this early on into our voyage, we’ve learned which to avoid, which to plug for information, and which to follow to the local hot-spots.

Whether they be French, American, Japanese, local or, uh, canine, you can always find the use in a fellow traveller on the road. 

Americans are ubiquitous.  In a tour group, especially one that was booked through your two-star hotel, you can bet that there will be at least one pair of old ladies, who are fantastic cover for the inevitable tourist traps and scams along the way.  They are always more than happy to buy bags full of crap so you can wander off to take photos or chat up the locals free of the guilt of not supporting the local tourist economy.

Of course, regionalisms must apply.  In Bolivia, where the US is fighting on this perceived front of their “war on drugs”, Americans are few and far between, and the ones who opt to visit pay the $100 for their visa (for a point of reference, on the budget that K and I are on, $100 will last one person about five days here).  By and large, every Yankee we’ve come across in Bolivia has been a delight (and all bias aside, most of the others are a-ok too!).

The ones who arrive at the border without this forewarning of this expense are great fodder for their pride, which refuses them to acknowledge that this is simply retaliatory.  I seriously heard one justify it as “must be because of 9-11…”.

Oddly enough, the French seem to be most in tune with our goals and ideals while we travel.  The two groups we’ve met have been fountains of knowledge, advice, and warning.  They seem to have a knack for getting the inside scoop, at least in South America.

They are also one of those countries who encourage taking a year off like us.  The Brits and Aussies tend to take a year to work or do something productive before allowing themselves the luxury of touring.  Not so the Frenchies, who are more than happy to just go.

But, by far the most cooperative, helpful, and enjoyable comrade we’ve found has been a stray dog we met on the walk from Copacabana to Yampupata, who we dubbed Simon, because he was, after all, “de Bolivar”.  I’m not sure if the locals would appreciate naming a stray after their national hero, but we allowed ourselves this little inside joke along the hike.

For two hours, Simon bravely warded off any stray cats, birds and butterflies that may have crossed our path.  He kept us on the trail, and kept our pace up.  He allowed us to make fast friends with local schoolchildren walking the dusty road home from their daily lessons, and all without asking anything for return.  Hygiene forbade a pat or a scratch, and a lack of supplies did not allow for a shared morsel of food or water.  We wanted to give him his shots, a good warm bath, and maybe some discipline training, and take him home.

D.

Slightly freaked

So, we are officially 38 days away from leaving.  On paper, cutting-and-running seems like an easy thing to do.

Step One:  Give away all your furniture
Step Two:  Buy a plane ticket, a backpack, sunscreen and some water purification pills
Step Three:  Fly away

However, reality has a way of getting all caught up in practicalities, so we’re mired in a slew of paperwork, research, and logistics.  Luckily, K is a logistics Queen.  And, after a few cracks of the whip, it turns out I’m at least a Prince, maybe a Duke, or a local Magistrate?  Something less officious and powerful than Queen, anyway.

But, as she said, by focusing on one thing at a time we’ll get through the list in no time.  This can be tougher than it seems.  Boo-urns to those who say “getting there is half the fun” because this stage, this pre-planning, is not “getting there” in the traditional sense of the term.  The trip is one whole year of “getting there”, where the actual destinations are secondary to the experience.

I can’t wait for the real “getting there” to start, because it will be more than half the fun.

Today, for example, I can only focus on the event horizon, when the pull of the unknown is far too great to turn back. 

When the paperwork is all done, and the goodbyes have all been said. 

When our accumulated junk has been safely stowed in my parent’s basement, our cats safely lodged in a townhouse in Bowmanville, and all of our remaining worldly possessions safely checked at the Pearson Airport. 

When she sips her first airport Caesar (her travel drink of choice – a great combination of veggies and alcohol) and I sip my first whiskey (my travel drink of choice - sophisticated and concentrated), and we are the only two people left in the world.

That, my friends, is when the real journey begins.

D.

That’s it – I’m outta here!

(or: an ode to my bikes)

The best way to learn the tough lessons of downtown bike ownership is by never actually buying a bike.  I’ve gone through three since first moving to Ottawa, and poor Kimu has also had a loss.

Bike number one is by far the best story.  About seven years ago, my good friend M borrowed his parents’ Buick station wagon (complete with beaver-panels) to help me move up here for university. 

At about two a.m., we were driving through Perth when an eighteen-wheeler, driving the other way, knocked my bike clear off the roof-rack.  In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that said bike was initially being held on by a complex series of bungee-cords and a thick length of rope. 

However, when the car’s fan belt snapped – at about one a.m. – M did some McGuyver-esque maintenance with the thick rope. 

Lesson learned: four bungee cords will not hold a bike on the roof of a car traveling at 100km/h when faced with the oncoming turbulence of a truck traveling at 120 km/h.

Bike number two was bitter.  I bought this one at the Stittsville Flea Market for about $20.  It was too small, and too rusted out for me to care too much about, so I rode it into the ground for a year. 

When I moved from my high-rise apartment (at which I safely stowed my bike on the balcony) into a brownstone in the dodgy end of the student slum, I didn’t have a lock, so I left the bike outside. 

After one night, the bike was still there, so I didn’t bother getting a lock.  By day three, the bike was gone.  The lesson here was an easy one: lock you shitty bike to something, dumbass.

Bike number three was the worst loss yet.  I bought this one from a friend who had it sitting in her apartment for about a year.  She bought it from a friend who “found” it, slightly dented and with one warped tire, somewhere in town. 

By this point, I had learned my lesson.  I locked it up every night and never tied it to any vehicle’s roof.  I only paid $10 for it, but I spent about $100 each year on repairs and maintenance, and it paid off. 

Then, in November, a snap snowstorm iced it to the “no parking” sign it was chained to in front of our house.  No problem, I figured, I’d be leaving town before the spring anyway.  I’ll just leave the key for someone else in need of a bike, and they can unlock in with the spring thaw. 

I hadn’t planned on having my bike, and the sign, be chewed up by a sidewalk clearing machine.  After the attack, the bike was still salvageable, but when the city came to repair the sign, thus freeing my bike, they ran off with it. 

Of course, I blame this one on our “Rock Star” mayor.  The lesson learned: don’t trust the city to preserve your property, especially if it is “illegally” locked to a street sign, and is almost bent in half.

D.

‘Twas the season

Growing up, the lure of all those mysterious presents under the tree made me the sort of kid who got up at 5:00 a.m. on Christmas morning.  My poor little brain just couldn’t handle the excitement.  For those who know me as cool-as-a-cucumber, this may come as a surprise, but it won’t be for those who know me as an overgrown child.

With the exception of the one Christmas I spent working in a hotel in the Swiss Alps, this was the only year I spent away from my parents, but that year in Switzerland remains the only one I’ve spent away from family.  I know, I know - it’s tough to deal with for the loved ones who weren’t woken up absurdly early.  But rest assured I’ll always remember Christmas morning as a child.

I remember the huge fir trees we decorated in our basement, and trying to find my presents in my Dad’s office.  I never did find my Mom’s secret stash.  I remember the vain efforts my parents made to try to get me to sleep in on Christmas morning – keeping me up late, having everyone open a present the night before.  They never worked.  At least I was always allowed to wake up my sister, who fought through the grogginess and was always a good sport.  We would sneak to the basement, turn on the Raffi Christmas album, and open our stockings and presents from Saint Nick. 

And I remember the traditions as well.  Brunch and dinner on Christmas morning were always special.  They were one of the few occasions that my Dad, the chef, would dust off his fancy tools, don an apron, and cook a family meal.  For a while, we went to church on Christmas Eve, but that fizzled as we grew, and that evening became one for the family to gather and watch a movie – never a festive one – or play a game.  We would drop off a box of food at the food bank and feel like good citizens.

Extended family was never near at hand, and we never had the stress of visiting multiple houses.  In fact, this year’s trip to W&J’s house for dinner was the second time I had ever left my house on Christmas day.

My recently minted family, including my still-blushing bride and our two kitties, started the long road of building our own traditions and rituals this year.  K, who lives for this time of year, had the apartment decorated within the first week of December, and quickly set to work on her yearly Christmas banner.  We put the Santa hats on the cats for about thirty seconds, and giggled at their displeasure.  Sufjan Stevens’ “Songs for Christmas” collection magically appeared on our iPod.  And we hung our new stockings.

Christmas morning, we woke up and curled up on the couch in our un-insulated sun-room, and opened the presents under our glowing tree.  We laughed, and awed, and gave our cats their catnip toys, and glowed ourselves in the love and happiness of the season.  I felt that this was the start of many traditions, some new to me and some old.

And while I did wake up at 5:00 a.m., the lure of presents under the tree wasn’t quite enough to force me out of our warm bed this year – not with a beautiful Christmas angel lying beside me.  No sir, this year, I made it to 7:00.

D.

Mmm…. Cupcakes…

Following the ongoing theme that is being explored in recent posts, here’s another story about why K is an awesome wife.

I found out last Monday that I would need to bring food in for our office Halloween Party, or our “Fright-oriented non-specific, and certainly not satanic, gathering” – for the sensitive.  With every intention of baking, I emailed K at work to ask her for the recipe for this great pumpkin loaf she made a few weeks ago.  I like to don an apron and shmush my hands in floury dough every so often.

So, I get home after work to find her in the middle of cooking up a storm which included puff-pastry topped chicken-pot-pie. Upon further inspection, I noticed that she had cupcakes in the oven, and her mom’s famous home-made icing in the mix-master.

The end result was cupcakes topped with orange-coloured icing and green icing stems sticking out from the centre – little cupcake pumpkins.

“This kicks-ass, K,” I told her.

“Oh, it wasn’t anything special.  The icing was so simple and the cupcakes are routine.  And I really wanted to eat one, so it was a bit selfish of me.”  As it turns out I married a woman for whom making two-dozen cupcakes for my co-workers is a selfish act.

“But they’re soooo good!” I pushed on.  “The icing especially.”

“It’s nothing, I just mixed in a bit of vanilla, lemon, and cinnamon.  You know, regular home-made icing…”

Of course, the first empty tray at the “Fright-oriented non-specific, and certainly not satanic, gathering” held her cupcakes.

D.

A long, long time ago, in a small village far away…

Well, now that the full effect and meaning of the best day of my life has sunk in, there is nothing left to do but look at the photos and reflect.

I remember the moment before the ceremony, waiting in the back room of the restaurant with my parents, K’s parents, and my soon-to-be little sister-in-law, dolling out last-minute instruction and having lovingly hand-made corsages pinned on our garments.  I knew she had arrived – I could hear the media scrum in the main floor below us – and tried to catch a glimpse of her dress, her hair, maybe even her eye.  The minstrel was ready, the bride was here, and everyone was seated with quiet anticipation, getting their tissues ready.

I walked down the isle, following my parents, and followed by K’s.  It was a quick walk, but the seconds stretched as I ran through the memories I shared with each guest I passed.  I savoured it, as I savoured the anticipation of waiting for K to come up the stairs.  There was no stress, no worries, only giddy nerves jumping around in my gut, hoping I would remember my vows amidst K’s radiance. 

I saw the back of her head first, then her dress, and not until she turned the corner, and I had time to take in all of her wedding pageantry, did I see my wife.  We stared at each other, me giving her strength and support as she tried to hold herself together, and her granting me the fortitude to do so.

She is always the most beautiful woman in any room, and I only have eyes for her.  That day, however, she might as well have been the only woman who ever existed.  Her dress was perfect for her, for the day, for the venue.  Her “wedding hair” was a beautiful, natural display.  And her eyes shone with love and elation for the event that had finally, after much planning and toil, come.

Then, after the ceremony, and forever after that, we were husband and wife. 

K, in her eternal eloquence, has already summed up the day to a tee – although she could have gone into a bit more detail about how great she looked.  Her account, including photos from our fabulous photographer, is more detailed and better written.  Whether you were a guest or not, it is essential reading.

Thanks to all who made the day special.

D.

Coming down

In my pre-wedding blog-abstinence, I actually started about a dozen wedding related posts.  Most were deemed too gushy, too cutesy, or too close to the things I wanted to say to K on the wedding day itself and were scrapped, or chopped up and used in this post…

One of them was about a comment that K made in the week leading up to the wedding about how she was “Christmas excited” about it.  The significance of this is that K lives for the yuletide.  If you’ve been to one of her Christmas dinners, you’ve had a taste of this.  Since she worked at Christmas stores over the holidays as a student, and grew up in a house that was a Christmas store for at least three months of the year, I can understand where this comes from.  And I’m thrilled that the idea of getting married to little ol’ me can solicit the same level of feelings. 

Just call me Santa.

K has been in tireless and unstoppable party-planning mode for the last year.  In fact, it started exactly one year before the wedding date as we sat in what would become our venue and made a guest list, which hasn’t changed much since.

A casual observer would only guess at the amount of effort she’s poured into the day since that starting gun went off – but I’m well beyond being a casual observer.  I know how much she cared about it, and that her mind has been writing lists, checking things off, and planning for every single contingency, non-stop.

Now, granted I had only a limited vantage point on the wedding day itself, but I would have to say that it paid off.  The day went off without a hitch – unless you count us getting hitched (haw-haw). 

As we know, after all the presents are unwrapped, and the stockings removed from the chimney, the post-Christmas blues start to set in.  Sadly, this is where my little holiday season metaphor starts to fall apart.  Despite stubborn jet-lag and coming back to work after two glorious weeks off, I’ve never felt better, and K is more relaxed that I’ve seen her in months.

And in case you need more good news, Christmas is already just around the corner!  In fact, the malls already have their hideously early decorations and displays up and running.  Ah, ‘tis the season, ‘round and ‘round we go.

D.