Pictures of Things!

Finally! I found an internet place where I can directly plug in my camera card! Here are some pictures relating to the new blog entry below. I have also downloaded the majority of my pictures onto facebook in different albums: Machu Picchu Trek, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. I have several hundred Galapagos pictures which I didn´t feel like sorting through at the moment, so those will come later. Enjoy...

Lucila and her daughter (Otavalo)

Otavalo Market

Secret Garden Cotopaxi Refuge

Cotopaxi

Fresh pineapple on a stick

Cutting plantain leaves into strips used to weave bags

Sugarcane processing - no corn syrup here (Colombia)

San Augustin Park

Beautiful flowers everywhere

Near San Augustin

I wonder what our culture will leave behind...

Otavalo, Cotopaxi and San Augustin, Colombia

¨Colombia: The only danger is that you won´t want to leave.¨ I saw this slogan in a commercial for the country when I was back in Peru, but I didn´t realize how true it was. Fellow travelers confirmed its appeal and quelled the fear that had been instilled in me by basically everyone back home due to stereotypes. In the short time that I have been here I have fallen in love with this beautiful country and its people. In fact, since I have less than two months left of my journey (I want to be back in Juneau by Folk Fest) it´s possible I may spend the rest of my time exploring Colombia. It´s huge, and with all kinds of different climates and things to see I could definitely keep myself busy.

I crossed the border last Wednesday after saying goodbye to Angela, with whom I had met up with again to travel together to Otavalo and Cotopaxi. In Otavalo we met up with a family who supplies sweaters for an import store I worked at for quite a few summers in Juneau, Invisible World. Lucila, an absolutely gorgeous lady and the boss of the whole business, was super hospitable even though I showed up unexpectedly with only a letter from Stuart (my former boss) as introduction. She invited us into her house for dinner and walked us around town and was generally one of the nicest people I´ve ever met. Her son was also great, and took me to see various waterfalls and a lake in the crater of a volcano (which has bubbles coming up from the bottom because the volcano is still active). The Saturday market in Otavalo is the best in Ecuador and Angela and I had a great time scoping everything out. There are so many artisans around it´s ridiculous.

A few days later we found ourselves at a reserve an hour from Cotopaxi, one of the highest active volcanoes in the world (19,347 ft. / 5,897 m). Although we didn´t attempt to summit, simply being in its presence was impressive. One of the guys working at the reserve had tried to summit the week before but got cerebral edema 100 meters from the top and had to turn around. Someday I´d like to climb it but at this juncture I just used the two days we were there to hike and lay around in a hammock reading. It was great to only use candles and a fire at night instead of electricity, a theme I´ve continued to enjoy while staying in my current bamboo hut in a rustic hostel / organic farm in San Augustin, Colombia. I find that I enjoy the simple life.

Crossing the border took me all of about ten minutes. I got my passport stamped in Ecuador, walked across a bridge, got my passport stamped in Colombia. There was no questions asked, no looking in my bags, no nothing - very anticlimactic. The biggest difference I´ve noticed so far is the presence of young men in army fatigues with semi-automatics - but they´re there for protection. Everyone I´ve talked to says that the latest president has done a good job of stamping out FARC and that the country is the safest its been in years. There is a lot of poverty, which I´ve confronted in every country, but at least it is safer.

On Valentine´s day evening I participated in a spontaneous dance party at my hostel which consisted of myself, a bunch of Argentinian travelers, the fifty-something hippie dueña of my hostel and some Colombians. For the past week I´ve been speaking nothing but Spanish which is refreshing after speaking English in most hostels. The previous two days myself and two Argentinian girls visited a bunch of places together, including the archaeological park which is on the World Heritage List of UNESCO and has sculptures from indigenous cultures which flourished between 6th century B.C and 12th A.D.

Oh man - I could go on and on about all kinds of stuff that I´ve been thinking and experiencing, especially in regards to human kindness. In Quito, the night before she was to get on the plane, Angela left her backpack in a taxi which contained her passport, camera, ipod and money. Unbelievably, the driver tracked down the hostel in which we were staying based on an old receipt he found inside and returned everything four hours later. In my travels I constantly meet people who amaze me with their friendliness, philosophies and non-materialistic way of life. Everyday I am thankful for what I have and what I have experienced.

Alright, I´m heading out of this rainy but charming pueblo mañana. Next stop? Bogotá.

A disappointing insight into myself

I am sad to admit that I am not a badass. For years I have had this notion that I am - or better put - would be, if put in the right situation. I have been grooming myself with what I consider to be badass-appropriate activities: longboarding down steep hills, kickboxing, the Polar Bear Dip, rock climbing and once I shot guns in Indiana (it was awesome). So when I climbed over the fence of a bridge overlooking a river 100 meters below, 30 meters of which I would be free falling, I pictured myself fearlessly leaping off at the count of three. This was my chance to take it to the next level. I would channel Angelina Jolie.


Instead I stood on the platform for a few minutes before deciding I wouldn´t be able to force myself to jump. Defeated, I climbed back down and got out of my harness to watch another friend try their luck. Thankfully the desire to live out my fantasy of being a full-fledged adrenaline-seeking bridge-jumping badass chick eventually won out over my (somewhat rational) fear, and I found myself back on the edge. I had decided I should jump off immediately to get it over with.

Two minutes later and I still haven´t jumped. Everyone is shouting at me about how easy it is. "Don't think!" I ask myself, ¨Why is this so difficult? Just do it!¨ I knew I would be forever shamed if I backed down again. And so, in a moment of clarity, I stepped off. I immediately regretted the decision, but by then I was free falling. When I landed, I thought I had thrown out my back, but at that point was so ecstatic at what I had just done I didn´t care. Turns out I messed up my neck - but I paid $15 two days later for a chiropractor from California to (literally) snap it back into place.


Welcome to Baños, Ecuador, where the tourism activities are all rugged and outdoors. In my week here I´ve toured waterfalls, done a bunch of hiking, seen a (smoking) volcano, biked 40km (in one go), gone four wheeling and of course - jumped off a bridge. I have also had the pleasure of soaking in the town´s namesake - thermal baths full of minerals which alternate between scorching hot and feezing cold. I guess going back and forth between the two is good for your body (even though it feels a bit like being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles). There´s also a lot of massage places around, so I treated myself to an hour´s worth after the bike ride.

Hard to believe that only last week I was lying on the beach and now I´m back in the mountains. I know there´s probably a lot more I could share about the Galapagos, but I´ve been in Baños for a week so that´s what´s on my mind. I´ve realized I´m a very slow traveler, not at all good at getting in and getting out. It seems like the majority of people I meet are always packing in the activities and then moving right along while I just tend to chill and not even necessarily do a whole lot. There´s also just too many places one can visit. I have decided not to feel guilty about the things I´m skipping, because hey, this is all my priority.

A few days ago I watched The Motorcycle Diaries for the first time - the film about the road trip Che Guevara took through South America when he was about my age. It was odd to see him in the same places I had been, witnessing injustices against the indigenous populations that are still occurring today. The difference is that while I too am saddened by the poverty and pain that exists here and throughout the world, I´ve yet to do anything about it. In the movie, a couple who had lost everything and were traveling looking for work asked Che why he was traveling - was he looking for work too? When he said he was traveling just to travel you could see how ridiculous the notion suddenly seemed...That´s how I feel sometimes.

But hey, onwards to Quito then Otavalo then Colombia. I don´t have all the answers and I expect I never will. Some days I feel like I´ve almost reached Nirvana and other days I am completely lost. But such is the nature of my journeys...

PS: I do have a few hundred pictures of the Galapagos which I really want to share, but it´s just such a hassle to download them at the moment that it´ll

have to wait. I know, I´m sorry! I want you to see them as much you to do.