I´m Standing Up to Write This

Seth and I have just finished Day 2 of our 120 mile bike ride around Lake Llanquihue in southern Chile. The rolling hills are occaisionally occupied by dairy cows and are always incredibly green. The lake is dominated by 3 snowcapped volcanos, even in the summer.

We didn´t know this before we arrived in the town of Frutillar 3 days ago, but Chile is one of the most developed countries in Latin America. Most people have at least one car, and the family we´re staying with tonight has a giant flat screen TV with cable from America. All that to say, this part of Chile is very touristy for Chileans--I don´t think we´ve run into any foreign tourists.

These beautiful green hills are our nemisis. They just never end. Our ride yesterday was up and down the entire time, often on gravel roads with bone-jarring bumps.

Our legs hurt, but the worst parts are our bottoms. Every time we mount up after a break, we wince in pain from the hours of sitting on a fairly hard seat. It gets better as the ride goes on, but the ache is always there. At this point, Seth and I are labeling scenic bike tours on gravel roads with hills as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We both plan on sleeping on our stomachs and being less sore for the last 76 kilometers ... however far that is

The Virgin Mary watches over Santiago

Jim and I are now in Santiago, Chile. We arrived here after a 22 hour bus ride to the south of Peru, and then a 30 hour bus ride to Santiago. Whenever we got off the bus to stretch our legs we feared that we had finally gone south enough where the air was cool. But no, we are still basking in 80 degree weather in our shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. My dad send me the weather link for NY and it appears snow is still falling there. I wouldn´t know from first hand knowledge.

Yesterday we took the metro (yes! Santiago has a metro) to a park. The park is actually a really big hill (or a small mountain by NY standards) in the middle of the city. On the top of the hill is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Since we both have a fascination with posing in the same position as a statue, Jim got to pose with the Virgin Mary. I posed last time with Jesus. Jim definately got the bitter end of that deal. On the way up the hill we stopped to drink a Chilean drink: two canned peaches in peach nector with a type of grain at the bottom. Although it looked almost deadly, it was remarkably enjoyable. After descending the hill we walked through downtown Santiago. The city is beautiful with wide widewalks, many older buildings with colonnades, and of course, palm trees! We spent a while sitting at the plaza where the Spanish soldiers use to drill. It doesn´t get dark until 9 pm, so just before 9 we ate some Chilean sandwiches by a fountain in the gathering dusk.

According to the locals, it is possible to see the Andes from Santiago. While all the pictures on the postcards prove this, we cannot see the Andes yet because of the smog. Tonight we leave for a region called the Lake District in southern Chile on an overnight bus.

Sweaty Onions

Day 1 in Lima is drawing to a close. Seth and I are definitely beginning our trips a bit differently than last time. There were no late night walks around town, and no random accosting of strangers for directions. We haggle properly with taxi´s and use the drivers as unofficial Spanish tutors.

Most spectacularly, for the first time, we found a restaurant using a guidebook. We never owned one in Central America, so the option of taking one with us when we explored the Miraflores neighborhood was a new experience. We decided to take it, ostensibly as a reference for our dinner discussion about the next leg of our journey. I confess I felt we were channeling a little bit of the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing-SLR-toting tourist, but we only pulled it out on deserted street corners when we were sure no one was watching.

We decided to go with the Lonely Planet editor´s choice for dinner: Hot ´n Cool--a sandwich shop purportedly bursting with personality and hot sauce. The pork-pineapple-and-banana chip sub was not a disappointment, along with a glass of pomegranate juice, nor was Seth´s Iberia--a sausage and pepper sub

According to the English translation on the menu, both were served with sweaty onions. One can only hope this a reflection of poor English as opposed to poor food service standards.

On a completely unrelated note, we showed up unannounced at a Peruvian think tank, hoping to learn about their work for property rights in developing countries. The secretary was quite apologetic: it seems that the boss, the economist Hernando de Soto, was in town and everybody was in a meeting with him. She didn´t want to disappoint, so she arranged for us to spend a few minutes with someone. It was the librarian, whose only spoken English was ¨"librarian"!  We didn´t do too badly for our first day back speaking Spanish, but to be honest, it was a little rough.

We´re headed to a Wycliffe Bible Conference, hoping to meet a few translators. Do you know there are over 2,000 languages that don´t have a Bible translation? Neither did we.

From Snow to Palm Trees

Jim and I arrived in Lima, Peru tonight. Outside my open window the palm trees are rustling in the balmy breeze. Once we arrived at our guest house from the airport, both Jim and I traded our jeans, sweaters, and coats for shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. Coming to Peru while New York is covered in snow was definitely a quality life decision.

Rewinding back to Monday night, Jim and I boarded a bus to NYC. We then took two trains to JFK airport, where we spent the night. Since we knew we had 12 hours to spend in the airport we rode the airport train past all the terminals to see which one we liked the best. Terminal 1 fit our fancy, so we hung out there until midnight, when we were asked to move to Terminal 4 because the guards wanted to close Terminal 1. Jim and I took turns sleeping on a bench that had pads while the other one read, ate, and watched our baggage. Morning came and we saw precipitation through the windows. We, however, took off at 10:45 am and have no more knowledge of the weather in NY. Nor do we really care as we sit beside our open window and listen to the palm trees rustling in the wind.

Hiking to Nowhere

Jim and I spent five days last week hiking to El Mirador, the oldest and largest Mayan ruin in the world. Because the site is in the middle of nowhere, one has to hike two days to get there. And since one does not want to live there, one also must hike two days back to catch a bus to the real world. That left us with one day of exploring the ruins, which was enough because not much is excavated. What we did see were the tops of several temples. The temples each have three stories; usually only the highest story is excavated. Since the land around the ruins is flat, we had amazing views on all sides once we climbed to the top.

Getting to the site caused us much pain and suffering. First we had to buy food for the five days. Our guide wanted seven bags of rice and six rolls of toilet paper. Hmmmmm. After some respectful complaining (since we were paying after all), we ended up with six bags of rice and four rolls of toilet paper. We only used two bags of rice and one roll of toilet paper. There was also pasta, canned sausages, tomato sauce, eggs, and tortillas. We bought all those items within reason so we had very little or none remaining. Considering we were in the middle of nowhere, we ate very well! And to our guide's credit, he made some marvelous meals over the camp fire.

Thankfully, a mule carried all our food and bedding, so Jim and I only had to carry our packs. That was good since we had to wear rain boots because the ground was so muddy. Of course, the boots had terrible support and killed the feet. Half-way through the first day of hiking and only 10 miles into the 38 mile trip (one way), Jim and I would make comments like, "I can't feel my legs any more," I can't wait to sit on a bus--even that chicken bus--because I will be sitting down," and "I am considering breaking my own legs so I have to ride on the mule." The return trip was less painful, or maybe we were just more tolerant of the pain.

One of the bright sides was that Jim loves to have access to ample snacks for any trying situation. I managed to carry most of the snacks in my pack, and since I had no fear of gaining weight after hiking 80 miles round trip, I had no problem with lightening my backpack along the way!

Off Into the Great Blue Yonder

We are about to begin the last, and probably craziest, stop on the tour--a place called El Mirador. El Mirador, or ¨the big M¨ is the largest city built by the Mayans and is a circular city 26 km in diameter. It is only partially excavated, so many of the ruins are under 1800 years of dirt, rock, and vegetation. Under normal circumstances, one must find the one or two daily buses that make the trip to Carmelita, the northernmost town in Guatemala, to begin a 5-day hike to El Mirador


In order to get there from diving in Honduras we needed to do the following:

-catch the 6:20am boat from Utila to the Honduran mainland
-ride the 8:30 bus to San Pedro Sula, purportedly the drug capital of Central America
-wander around the mall and happen upon the 12:30 bus to Puerto Cortes, the largest Caribbean port in Honduras
-have a 3-course meal at the dining palace that is Pizza Hut abroad.
-barely make the 3:30 bus that actually left at 3:15 for the border. After crawling through the dirt roads of two surprisingly large towns, arrive a quarter of a mile from the border.In ironic tribute to the Texas-Mexico border, two Americans walked the Honduras-Guatemala border as it was getting dark.
-after a bit of negociating in Spanish, hire a private shuttle to the main road.
-around 6:15, catch a collectivo full of children for Morales and get dropped off at a rest stop
-hang out at the rest stop and eat Magnum ice cream bars until the7:30 bus to Flores shows up. We sweet-talk the driver into giving us a ride.
-catch a midnight taxi in Flores to an ATM and then a hotel. On the brightside, the hotel was $6 for both of us. On the dark side, we definitely received what we paid for. Seth guarantees he felt 4 distinct springs in the matress.
-woke up at 4am to start walking to bus station. Fortunately a taxi picked us up to relieve some absurd sketchiness.
-waited until 5:15 to find that the 5am bus was broken and was not going to Carmelita--the town closest to El Mirador
-after buying mud boots and lots of snacks we are waiting for the 12:45 bus. Wish us luck!

In the Jungle, the mighty Jungle

One of the ups of spending a week in the jungle was the wildlife we saw and heard. Okay, seeing the wildlife was amazing, hearing them was not so great.

Every morning the monkeys woke us up with their howling. Not the howling of a screaming baby, but deep, full-throated yells that echoed through the jungle. And of course the monkeys wanted to see who could make the most noise. During the day, however, the monkeys were usually quiet. We often saw them sitting in trees watching us.

One day Jim and I saw parrots flying around a clearing. They were not very close, but we could see the bright, flashy green as they zipped by. At the foot of the mountain some of the residents have parrots that repeat "Hola" and "Buenas Dias" over and over. That sounds annoying, so thankfully that is something I have only been told.

While working one day, I saw blue butterflys several times over the course of the afternoon. I am use to the orange and black butterflys of New York, so these deep, rich blue ones were enough excitment for me to make Jim look too!

We have seen the biggest caterpillars ever here too. They are thick, have stripes, and about four inches long. When you look at them you think, "Wow! You are big!"

Of course, there are lots of bugs and spiders. One of the other workers has bites all over. Her lower back is currently covered with little red mountains. She is also afraid of all creatures that crawl. One evening a spider plopped down in front of me. I was tired and didn´t react right away. If fact, the spider and I stared at each other, and then, without moving, I said, "Look at this spider in front of me." Barely had the words left my mouth before the other girl bolted up in her chair and yelled with fright. The spider did no more harm and Jim flicked it away.