Dear Colombia, I will come back!

Bogotá, Colombia Wednesday March 19 6:30pm

This pic is the road leading to the coffee tour I received. Those are coffee trees and banana trees (for shade-grown coffee). How exciting!!!

Wow, it´s been a while since I blogged. I don´t have too many crazy stories outside of Merrill and I getting involved in our third landslide. This one was the worst, in fact the worst in four years in Colombia. The nine hour busride from Bogotá to Medellín should have taken 9 hours. It ended up taking 32. No problem, just 24 hours extra. Let´s just say by the end of it, we had made some friends on the bus! (Actually a lot happened, but seeing how the last several blogs were about stuff like that, I´m not going to blog about it.)

So we arrived in Medellín and went out on the town! And let me tell you something, Medellín is gorgeous. The town, the parks, the trees, the river that runs through the city, and the people. Everyone is gorgeous! I´ve never been in a city where every guy, girl, old person, everyone is just beautiful. Needless to say I enjoyed it. Merrill and I went there mainly for the nightlife. We had heard it has one of the best nightlifes in South America. I am now of that opinion as well. You can imagine how much flirting, dancing, and romancing goes on in a city full of hotties with great night clubs and bars. About three days worth for me.

Then I headed to a small town of a couple of thousand called Salento. I must say, as much as I enjoyed Medellín, my heart lies with Salento. Salento is a coffee town with national parks surrounding it. Go figure why I love it so much. I don´t think there is a street in the entire town without a great view of the surrounding mountains. The air is fresh, there is a river at the bottom of the town, it´s a good crisp/cool temperature all year round, plenty of hiking, plenty of cows, and most importantly plenty of coffee.

I stayed at a hostal which gives free coffee to its tenants. Seeing how much coffee I drank and how much the room cost, $8, I´d say I won. I´ve never had more fresh coffee in my life. I mean, there´s no more to say, it was just so fresh, aromatic, stimulating, black, delicious, slightly acidic, and hot. It was just perfect. Simply perfect.

I went on a tour of an organic coffee farm as well. The farmer, our guide, was named Don Elias. I really think that´s a cover up. I actually think his name is Juan Valdez. Look at the picture and you can decide. I think Don actually is just trying to get out of the spotlight, so he made up this alias. Unfortunately his looks give him away, for he is no Don Juan. (That is officially the worst joke I´ve made on this blog. If you can find a worse one, please post it.)

Well, ole Don Juan Valdez showed us all around his farm. I´ve attached some pics for yall´s entertainment. At the end of the tour he took us to where he washes and dries the beans. He had some beans ready, been drying for 8 days, so he took them to his cast iron skillet and roasted them for us on the spot. After hand grinding them, I had a cup of the purest and smoothest coffee I´ve ever tasted in my life. And I´ve had a lot of coffee.

How much did this tour cost? $1.50 God I love backpacking.

So I´m probably not going to blog again until Panamá. I just arrived in Bogotá and only have like 48 hours here. So I´m not going to spend it in front of the computer if possible.

chao,

stewart

Blog Point:
1. Colombia exports tons of flowers. If you´ve gifted flowers to your sugar-darling they were likely from Colombia and you didn´t know it. Here, the flower boquets that you see above cost about a dollar. So what do you think it takes to make an impression with flowers to a girl? I mean, do you have to fill her room?

44 Hours

Quito, Ecuador Wednesday March 12th 10am

Up until the other day the most time I have ever spent continually traveling was 36 hours. We took a bus to Colorado, and we had rigged up the back of the bus where we could play the N64 James Bond Goldeneye the whole way there. (Side note, that is still the greatest videogame ever invented.) Now I must say it is 44 hours.

3:30 am Saturday: We rise early knowing that we are about to ride two hours out of Chacapoyas in a car. We are sharing the car with two more people. One traveler and one guy who decided it would be easier to spend the nite drinking and just leave at 4 am. This guy was smashed and thankfully sitting next to Merrill, who later in the trip smelt like this guys breath. I would have puked had I been Merrill.

5:30 am Saturday: We arrive in some tiny town and trade cars. Now we are seven in a station wagon and ride like that for about an hour to Baguas Grandes.

6:30 am Saturday: We take another car, this time we are only six to Jaén.

8:00 am Saturday: We take a car from Jaén to San Ignacio. In the process this girl sits next to me and just keeps staring at me. I´m pretty accustomed to this by now, but this girl was attractive and looked educated, so it caught me by surprise. I start talking to her, and apparently I´m the fist Gringo she has ever met. So I told her we are really scary people and made a bugglie wugglie face at her as well as shared my popcorn with her. I´m not sure if sharing popcorn is a sign of engagement or interest because within like two minutes of meeting her and sharing popcorn with her she immediately asks for my number so we can call each other. I tell her I don´t have a cell phone, so she decides email would be best. Whatev, I gave it. (Sidenote, don´t share your popcorn with someone unless you´re interested in them.)

11:00 am Saturday: We hop another car to the border town. Keep in mind none of these roads are paved so now our rears are a bit sore and stomachs are a bit enthused. On the way we get a flat tire. Merrill and I really aren´t that surprised seeing how there is more tread on a baby´s bottom. We are thankful that now we get to ride on the spare.

2:30 pm Saturday: We arrive at the border. And boy was it small. A simple bridge a few restaurants and a couple of huts for customs. We cross the bridge after signing out of Perú and see the migration officers in Ecuador drinking a beer.They say the next transport up the mountain leaves at 5pm, so we are not working until around 4:30ish. Sounds good, so we go back to Perú because they have a better restaurant and then back to Ecuador to have a beer with these guys. Later, around 4:30 I walk into the migration office beer in hand to get my passport stamped. Yes, that´s right, I entered Ecuador officially while drinking a beer. I´ll probably never get to do that again in my life.

5:00 pm Saturday: We take a two hour ¨chiva¨ ride up the mountain. This road is super rocky. We bounced the entire way up the mountain. At one point my fanny was 8 inches off the seat. Even my feet were off the floor, totally airborne.

10:45 pm Saturday: We leave Zumba for Loja, Ecuador. There were no problems on this busride and I slept most of the way. It was still bumpy as always, but I was dog tired.

6:30 am Sunday: We arrive in Loja and go to the coffee shop in the bus terminal. We look ridiculous and tired, but know we still have a ways to go. The coffee was stale and warm, but it was black and good for ya.

8:00 am Sunday: We leave for Quito. At last, we are on the final leg of the journey. It is supposed to take fourteen hours to get to Quito, so that´s all we have left! Two hours into the trip we get stuck. Bad stuck in some mud. The complete back tire is under the mud, so we think we are going nowhere.Thankfully a bulldozer was nearby and it literally cut a new wall in the side of the mountain to get in front of the bus. Then it yanked the bus out. Raw power. I felt like I needed to pay more for my ticket after seeing this bulldozer work.

10:00 am Sunday: We travel for like four hours without any problems and at some point we finally got on a paved road. First paved road we had traveled on in like five days. God Bless it! But it was too good and before we knew it we heard a loud bang from underneath and sure enough we had another flat. The second in two days. We stopped for like thirty minutes changing the tire and then headed on.

6:00 pm Sunday: We round the turn on this mountain and notice there is a ton of rocks in the road. Seeing how our bus was the first bus on the scene, the landslide must have happened like a minute or two before. These were not rocks actually. They were boulders, and we had no way to move them. Now we are thinking, yeah, we´re definitely stuck now. But no. Merrill and I got off the bus along with a bunch of other guys and starting moving these rocks. It took like twenty men using big steel rods as levers to move these boulders. All of us were passengers. It was great. I was also taking thick rocks and hurling them at the boulders like a Highlander in order to split the boulders we we could then move them. After about an hour of work in the rain we had a passage way and went on. The whole time Merrill and I are thinking this is great, but is it out of the ordinary? No way.

12:00 am Monday: We arrive in Quito at last. We hit the hostal and were starving, so we went for some late nite schwarma (kinda like a gyro) then hit the bed exhausted!

Since then we´ve been relaxing, catching up with old friends in Quito. Tomorrow we head to Colombia, so I´m oober oober excited!!!

Blog Point:

1.

Beetle, Llamas, and Kuélap

Chacapoyas, Perú Friday March 7th noon

All right, so I´m updating the blog often because I can, and I have fun stuff to say. If you haven´t been here in a while, check below as I blogged twice yesterday because I finally got computer access.

After spending the nite at a nice hostal in Leimembamba, we took a car (taxi) to Tingo, the town at the base of Kuélap. There were no trucks to hitchike with, thus the car. Arriving after a pleasant 2 hour car ride we were in Tingo. Not 30 seconds after getting out of the car a blue Toyota truck passes, and we thumb it to ride up the mountain. So lucky!!! I think we had the luck because I had changed my underwear that day.

So we hop in the bed of the truck and ride up the mountain. Well we rode until the road stopped due to another landslide! This one was huge! I´m talking boulders in the road! Look at the pic above. (Later that nite we heard and saw them using dynamite on the road) Well we crossed the landslide by foot and then hopped in a taxi on the other side to María.

In María we just chilled and ate well. We did go to the town square where we saw the local kids playing with BEETLES! They were big, with bodies the size of large walnuts, and then long legs and wings to accompany. Well these beetles didn´t sting at all, but they wrestled each other. The kids had collected probably sixty, and they were all in a big wrestling match. Royal Rumble or WWF Smackdown couldn´t hold a candle to this match of beetles. Well then a kid goes to throwing a beetle at another kid, which stuck to his shirt. This escalated into a full out beetle fight. Kids throwing them everywhere! There were no casualties, but I did get hit in the face and had like 5 or 6 stuck to me at one point. It was hilarious! Such a good time!

So there were two reasons we have taken this incredible adventure over the past week. One is for the adventure. The second is to see Kuélap. Kuélap is a huge pre-Incan ruin. City to 3,500 people back in 500-600 AD, it was conquered by both the Incas and the Spanish. No one travels there except backpackers because of the difficult route to get there and because all foreigners just go to MachuPicchu to see their ruins. They average 10-15 tourists a day.

Let me say that the mountains surrounding MachuPicchu are far more impressive, but I can honestly say I prefer the ruins of Kuélap to the ruins of MachuPicchu.

Well we wake up in María and start hiking at 6:30 am towards Kuélap. After a two hour uphill yet easy hike, we arrive atop the mountain only to be greeted by about 15 wild llamas. Gorgeous creaturs, and different from the planted llamas of MachuPicchu. These were huge and muscular. At one point two started scuffling and it was just incredible. They were beautiful with their different color markings and faces.

Well after they got out of our path we headed up to the ruins to find a man who looked like he worked there. Turns out he was the only one working there that day. He asked if we wanted a guide and we said yes. So he left the ticket office, walked to a hill and literally yodeled, ¨Rigoberto!!! Guía!!!¨ like 4 or 5 times. Eventually Rigoberto, who looked like an ant half a mile down the mountain looks up and waves his arms. So we got a guide.

Well once Rigoberto arrived he took us on probably the best tour of my life. All in Spanish, he was an excellent guide. Kuélap. The pre-Incan city has hardly been restored. I feel only pictures can do it justice. With the trees, tunnels, stones, everything about it made me feel like Indiana Jones. At one point we pulled a rock out of a wall only to find a chamber full of human bones. On top of it all, throughout the entire city there were only three people present, Merrill, Rigoberto, and me! It was surreal. The ruins are gorgeous and seeing how over half of them have never been touched it just felt so authentic. Contrasted with the manicured MachuPicchu ruins, these made me feel more like an explorer than a tourist.

Leaving the ruins, we had two options to get to Chacapoyas. One, hope a car could carry us from Kuélap or two, hike down the mountain and hitchhike from Tingo. We saw a mini-bus arrive to Kuélap but it was carrying several backpackers who had rented it. They still had to tour Kuélap so we decided to hike down the mountain.

It was steep! And it was hot! Two and a half hours with a 40 pound pack on you back is no way to go STRAIGHT down a mountain. But we did it. Crossing people´s farms, meeting horses along the way, we went to the bottom. By the time we arrived in Tingo, with my legs feeling like spaghetti, we threw our packs against the wall of a general store and sat down exhuasted leaning against them. The people outside the general store couldn´t help but notice how hot and sweaty we were, and they simply started laughing since they knew the feeling.

We sat there for about an hour until a station wagon passed by and we hopped in the way back with our packs. Now this was easily the worst car ride I´ve ever taken. We were so tight back there it hurt. Coupled with the dirt roads, and the cardboard covering the metal bottom, it was just awful, miserable! We rode for about an hour, the trip supposed to take and hour and twenty minutes, when the car broke down. I almost rejoiced seeing how I could now get out of the car. Who rejoices when a car breaks down? We tipped the driver and started walking/hitching. Eventually we see a minibus coming up the mountain and they pull over to let us in. Who is it? None other than the same minibus in Kuélap. I laughed myself into stitches when I got on that bus knowing how hard we had worked to get to where they had comfortably rode. 10 minutes later we were relaxing in Chachapoyas. It was a beautiful day, full of memories!

Won´t ever do this again...

María, Perú Wednesday March 5th 7pm

Check below, as I have blogged twice back to back. This is because internet is scarce right now. I would read the one below first. There´s so much more I want to blog about that I´ve journaled about, but just don´t have time right now.

First off, Mom I won´t ever do this again. Don´t worry. So after we arrived in Balsas we started looking for another truck. Balsas, home to probably some 400, is certainly not what you call a metropolis. We asked every single truck that passed if they were going to Leimembamba and not a single one was headed that way. Well it was about 3 oclock and we finally found a car that would make the 5 hour journey.

There is no highwasy between Balsas and Leimembamba. I would go to say there is no road, but rather a wide dirt path, note the pic above. We drove up said path into these mountains for three and a half hours! I actually don´t think I´ve ever been on a higher mountain in my life, and we drove over it! Magnificent views that you see above in the picture, but that´s not what I´m writing this blog.

I´ve bungee jumped off the second highest jump in the world, not as scary as that ride, I´ve jumped out of a plane, not as frightening. Riding a bull might be the only thing I´ve done as frightening as that ride. The bull lasted 3.5 seconds, this 3.5 hours.

I mean we were on the sides of these mountains in a car with cliffs that dropped 300 yards on the other side. Then we would see an old landslide, those were especially tricky because he would drive over them and we would be on a bit of a tilt! A tilt! I don´t even like thinking about it!

Well I was nervous going up, butterflies and all that, but when we reached about 8,000 feet is when I got freaked. I didn´t show it, but I had unlocked the door and noticed my hand was on the handle of the car door ready to jump out if the car slipped. Why? Because there was fog. Actually fog is the wrong word, we were in the clouds. We couldn´t see anything! I´m talking you could see 10-15 feet in front of the car, but that´s it. In the dark, in the rain, 12,000 feet up, scary as hell.

I´m glad to say that when we finished the ascent and started going down the mountain, there were no more clouds. Thankfully the clouds were rolling up the side we were ascending and then blowing over us on the way down. Our driver in Spanish said, ¨Phew, thanks goodness the danger is over. There´s no more fog!¨ Aside from legitimizing the fear, this relieved me because I didn´t want to feel like a wuss, and now I didn´t have to because even he was scared! We then drove down the hill for an hour and a half and thankfully arrived in Leimembamba!

Blog Point:

1. I stayed at the nicest hostel in Celendín. The picture above is the ring they have in the center of the hostel for gallos? What are gallos? That´s right. The ring is for cock fighting.

2. They are currently playing Total Eclipse of the Heart in this internet cafe.

Pregnant Cow? What?

Leimembamba, Perú Wednesday March 5th 10am

Where to begin in describing yesterday´s adventures? Well, I guess I could say there is a minibus that travels from Celendín to Balsas to Leimembamba to Chachapoyas on Sundays and Thursdays. Yesterday was Tuesday. So we resorted to using the good ole thumb which is available seven days a week!

We went to the city center where all the trucks and cars pass, asking any truck if they were headed to Leimembamba because it´s easy to find a ride from there to Chacapoyas. Eventually we found a truck, the size of a dumptruck, that was headed to Balsas. He said from there we would find a truck to Leimembamba.

I started climbing the side of the truck and looked down inside and noticed hay. Then I saw what he was transporting. Looking me in the eye while licking its lips was a huge and very pregnant cow. I knew then we had chose the right truck.

We drop our luggage in the bottom with the cow and go sit on the top with the 4-5 other passengers. I´m sitting on a bamboo pole lengthwise in the middle but at the top of the truck, 15 feet. I´ve got a good stance with my feet though, so it was safe. Don´t worry Mom.

We start the ascent up the mountain and literally the road is more like a gravel path barely wide enough for this truck to fit. Occasionally there were places that were wider so if trucks met, one could back into one of these places while the other one passes.

And we are going up! Way up! It was getting cold, but the views were like nothing I´ve ever seen. The mountains of MachuPicchu were a bit more impressive, but these mountains had huge valleys! I´ve never seen so much land in my life, never seen such wide and farfetching landscapes.

By this point we are a bit nervous because we are literally on the side of this mountain 12,000 feet high! Pike´s peak is 14,000 feet high, only we aren´t skiing but riding in a mac truck with a pregnant cow. So we put on some jackets and just enjoyed the ride. What else was to be done? And I´d have to say it is easily in the top three as far as rides go in my lifetime. The combination of the wind in my face, the bamboo seat, astonishing views, and the smell of cattle, all while knowing that I´m in rural rural Perú was simply breathtaking. Exactly the kind of travelling I´m looking for. And though it wasn´t a truck full of chickens, hitchhiking with a pregnant cow has its own merit.

The trip took about 4-5 hours and coming down the mountain was interesting. We started in the gray cloud covered forests in the top of the mountain and descended into a pleasant lush green forest. Continuing the descent we ended up in desert with cactuses, sand, hot sun, and jack-rabbits. Just kidding about the jack-rabbits, but don´t think I wasn´t looking for them. We we finally arrived in Balsas we were back in T-shirts getting sunburns.

Blog Points:

1. Apparently Collective Soul played in Lima a couple of weeks ago. The sold out a stadium and had an autograph line 30 BLOCKS LONG!!! They signed autographs from 2-7 pm!!! So if you´re dating a peruvian around Christmas, think the Dosage album.

Chachapoyas or Bust!

Cajamarca, Perú Monday March 3rd 11am

I´d put some pics up, the computer won´t let me right now. Sorry!

Aight, so I´m sort of forcing a blog here due to time, but it´s because I´m about to embark on an adventure! We are traveling in rural Perú right now and will probably be without internet for several days. We are trying to get to Chacapoyas, which is another Inca ruin, but unpopular because it´s very hard to get to and it´s not MachuPicchu. We are taking a little bus along a dirt road in about an hour for five hours. We´ll find a town of 10,000 there and stay the night. Then hopefully we can find a truck that should take us through the Andes for about ten hours to Chacapoyas. Chacapoyas is a decent sized town and you can get there easily by another route, but we´re adventurous and gonna see what happens. I´m really excited about this! If you care to google map us, we´ll be at Celendín, Perú. Check it!

Blog Points:
1. In Iquitos I saw a patient who had an obvious run of the mill virus. I mean fever for a day, not a big one, aching joints, stuffy nose, cough, but didn´t feel too bad. Obvious virus, come back in a few days if it persists. Well I tell her not to worry you only have a virus. It should be gone in a couple days. Well she gets white faced with panic. I´m like, what did I say? I look at my friend Teresa over there and she quickly starts telling her she doesn´t have a virus but rather just ¨agripe¨ or ¨resfrio¨ which are words for the common cold. Apparenly the word virus translates to HIV or Hepatitis. OOPS!

Who doesn´t like a top ten?

Iquitos Perú Friday, February 29th noon

Okay, so I didn´t like blogging my journal entries everyday. A bunch of them are just boring, and no one would be interested in reading them. So instead, I´m going to only post the ones that people might find interesting. So expect blog entries about 2 to 3 times a week. This will make it easier for people to keep up with the blog as well, if they desire.

On the eve of the adventure I might as well come up with a top ten list of things I wish to do. It´ll be interesting to see how this list will stand up to the actual best ten things I do. Here goes:

10. Zipline through a rainforest.
9. Watch the sunrise on the Atlantic and set over the Pacific on the same day.
8. Visit the Mayan ruins.
7. Celebrate Cinco de Mayo in Mexico while wearing a sombrero.
6. See a jaguar, panther, or puma in the wild.
5. Do more hiking throughout the Andes.
4. Take a Greyhound bus from Texas to Alabama.
3. Learn to surf.
2. Relax in a Columbian coffee plantation while sipping on their finest.
1. Hitchhike in the back of a truck full of chickens.

Hopefully they´ll all get done, especially the top 5! Make sure to vote on which of the top ten you would prefer most! It´s to the right.

Iquitos, Perú Wednesday February, 27th 3pm

3 more days until the adventure! 3 more days. I just read my first journal entry from January 7th. I wrote it while on the plane to Lima, somewhere over the Caribbean. Aside from the horrible writing and penmanship, it discussed my goals for coming down here. Listed were: learning Spanish, traveling, learning tropical medicine, enjoying this culture, volunteering, eating healthy and getting into shape, journaling, and maybe learning to play a musical instrument. So far all but two of these have been met. Learning tropical medicine and playing an instrument.

So I´ve been volunteering here, but I don´t think I´m learning tropical medicine. That takes studying, and I don´t wish to do that now. I´ve decided that I´m very likely not going to live anywhere near here, so what´s the point? I can scratch that goal.

As far as learning an instrument...I CANNOT scratch that goal. In fact, this is currently the only regret I have in life. I wish I knew how to play an instrument! I could buy a cheap guitar down here ($50), but I´m not sure about lugging it around. As far as piano, that´s out of the question. Maybe harmonica? I´ve always loved the harmonica and actually bought a harp and book to learn back in high school. But that was back before I had any discipline. Who knows? Maybe I´ll buy one, or else I´ll have to prolong this goal until the States.

Blog Point:
1. In case anyone was wondering, post office lines in Perú are just as if not slower than in the United States.

Iquitos, Perú Tuesday, February 26th 9pm

Picture: This is just a cool picture, but I definitely look like a drug lord. For the record, I´m not a drug lord.

Countdown until the adventure begins: 4 days!

So the past couple of days I have been back studying Pediatrics. Back to the grind, not fully, but studying like 5 hours a day. And to speak honestly, it has been very refreshing! I´ve loved it! I love medicine and cannot wait to get back working hard in the hospital.

I just count this blessing as one that carries much weight. I love what I do, and that is so fortunate! I may be cursing these words later, but I´m looking forward to residency. How fortunate to have a chance to work hard and learn a trade that you love. Bring on that challenge, it´s not a challenge but an opportunity.

It´s been a while since I´ve done actual hard work. Not that studying pediatrics for 5 hours a day for three days is hard work, or anything close to it, but it has reminded me that I enjoy hard work. That´s the weirdest thing, but I do enjoy working hard. It´s part of me.

Blog Point:
1. So that date the other nite? We went out to eat at a respectable burger joint, as opposed to street burgers which might taste better. Well my friend Rhett came as well to eat, and as he bought my previous meal, I bought his that nite. So there were three of us sitting down for burgers, fries, and drinks. I picked up the whole bill. It was all of six dollars and a quarter. God bless the dollar!

2. So it´s hard to find bourbon or a good whiskey down here. When you do it´s normally Grants or something just terrible. Well I was shell-shocked the otherday when I walked into a cornerstore called Marthita´s. It´s a little grocery store that if you saw it in the States you would think, DO NOT GO THERE. Here it´s normal. Sure enough, Martha sells the nasty normal bourbon as well as Johnny Walker Blue Label!!! For those that don´t know, it´s like $150 a bottle wholesale! It blew my mind. The bottle retailed for $200. It is probably the most aged whiskey in South America as no one here will ever be able to afford that, much less go to Marthita´s in search of good whiskey.

Iquitos, Perú Sunday February 24th, Noon

Am I a bad person for going on dates to practice my Spanish? No, I´m kidding, but it is funny to me because there is a hint of truth in that comment. Any couple who speak different languages will tell you the quickest way to learn a language is to date somebody in that language. I can see how that´s true.

Several days ago I met this girl in a lab next to Eva´s lab. She is a friends with Eva´s coworkers, and they told me I should ask her out as she wanted to go out with me. Well me, being the person never to turn down a date, asked her out for Friday nite. Now we had a great time! We went out to eat, hung out in the Plaza (central square), and just had a great time. She´s smart, sexy, fun everything I would want in a girlfriend, but I know it will go nowhere because I leave in six days. She knows that too, which is obviously important. But nonetheless we went out again last nite, had a great time, and she wants to go out dancing tonite!

Well of course I´m not going to pass up a good nite dancing, especially in South America! So we are going out again tonite. And all the while I get to practice my Spanish for 4-5 hours a day when we hang out. Which begs the original question, Am I a bad person for going on dates to practice my Spanish? I don´t think so.

I do have one funny/interesting thing to say about our date last nite. I don´t mean to generalize, but I´m about to. As I´ve said before, I feel women in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru are much more romantic than women in the United States. Now, by no means am I knocking on women in the U.S., but rather showing a cultural difference. Here´s what happened yesterday. We are hanging out in a hammock having as what she described ¨momentos lindos¨, when she looks me in the eyes and starts singing to me. She has a beautiful voice, and the song was a Shakira song that I recognized. A romantic but not cheesy song. Now at the time it was really nice and as she said a ¨beautiful moment¨. All was well and it made for a great date.

But contrast that with America. If on a second date a girl stopped what she was doing, looked me in the eye, and started singing to me? ¨Woah babe, you´re trying a little bit too hard.¨ I don´t know, maybe I´m being unfair to American women, but I´ve been on a lot of second dates, never have I been sung to, and I would say I´m thankful for that. I think the word ¨cheeseball¨ might pop into my head, or maybe just the word ¨trouble¨. I just thought that was funny and wanted to write about it. With that said, I would kill to date a girl who has a good folk voice. So go figure :)

Iquitos, Perú Saturday Mom´s Birthday 11am

Well last nite my family celebrated my mom´s birthday! They of course went to Pablo´s, which is not only the only restaurant our family goes out to eat to, but also the restaurant we always go to for birthdays. I´m excited about becoming a regular at their bar when I return. Alcoholic? Just kidding, a regular so I can keep up my Spanish

I do wish I was at the party last nite! One major reason I took a year off was to find out if I could live apart from Alabama, apart from my family and friends. I have always had these dreams of living in exotic places. Whether they are in the United States like Boston, San Diego, Montana, or New York, or international places like Perú, Zambia, India, or China. I am also at a point in my life where I am going to have to choose if I wish to live in a different city within the US with residency coming soon. And after residency I will need to choose a place to live whether it be international or stateside.

With this said, I feel I have traveled more than the average American my age. I spent a summer (3 months) living in Zambia, South Africa and Rwanda. I spent two months traveling Europe, and now I have spent six months living in South America. I have also traveled extensively within the United States, seeing Boston, D.C., Chicago, San Fran, New York, the list goes on and on. And with that said, I love Alabama! I have spent 25 years developing an incredible family, more friends than I can handle, and several friends that mean the world to me! That´s a third of my life! Developing this wonderful life! Now I know if I moved away I would not be throwing away these relationships, they would always be there for me because they are good people. But why not enjoy them? Why not suck every bit of life and goodness out of these relationships? Is that not what life is about in the end?

So I was not intending to write all this, but it sort of came out. I am more and more thankful everyday that I have taken this year off because it has taught me that I need Alabama! I need my family and friends! And that, Lord willing, I will live in Alabama in the future. I can believe I´m even saying this, but it´s the truth!

I should be in Alabama now celebrating my mom´s birthday! I guess I´ll restart with my sister´s. :)

Blog Points:
1. I´m sorry the video didn´t work yesterday. Truly, it´s amazing. I´ll show anyone when I get home.

2. Saw some kids the other day. They were roller blading. Where? In the mud. Think about it.

Iquitos, Peru Thursday February 21st, 7pm

I just studied vocabulary for probably two hours and I feel my mind is fried. Anyone who has ever learned another language probably hates to study vocabulary. I know I don´t like it! It´s like the mail, it just never ends. You can never feel like you accomplished a lot when studying vocab. I guess I would never make it as a postal worker. I really have no news for today. I ended up not watching a movie the other nite, so I´m going tonite! Just counting down the days till we leave, which is eight!

Blog Point: 1. I have been waiting for an uninteresting journal entry to publish this blog point. It marks not only the first video blog point, but also the blog´s first ever posted video! Very exciting! I´m not going to explain it more than to say this is the greatest firework ever created. 25 feet of Bamboo and fireworks. That´s all it takes. Make sure to watch it till the end.

Iquitos, Peru Wednesday February 20th, 11pm

Well today came and went pretty fast. Part of that was due to the great teaching session I had this afternoon and another part was due to Tom Sawyer. The teaching session was about three hours today with a student Marianella. it´s obvious that she really wants to learn English, so I am glad to teach her. It´s funny because she works in a lab so she knows words like incubator and centrifuge, but I had to teach her words like ¨also¨. Couldn´t you just imagine a child learning the word centrifuge before the word also? I don´t know, but I would think the word ¨also¨ should come around age 4. If I had a 4 year old throwing around words like ¨malaria strains¨ I would be a bit nervous!

Well Tom Sawyer passed the day with me today as well. I´m sad he´s gone because that marks the last of the books in English! But boy what a good taste he has left. I simply love Mark Twain and rereading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is kin to watching Forrest Gump. It´s just goodness and more endearing everytime. I say it is my last book in English, but I still have The People´s History of the United States on Sundays, and I can always buy others, but having already read 5 books in English this trip, it is time to start the Spanish! Lord knows my Spanish needs to improve, and books are good for that. I´m half way done with a translated Twain´s Prince and Pauper, then I´m going to read Robin Hood in Spanish. Then on to Cien Años en Soledad by Gabriel García Marquez! I´ve always wished to read that book in English, so the Spanish should only make it better!

Well, I didn´t see the eclipse tonite. It was too cloudy here. I hear the next one will come in 2010. I´ll have to see that one! I´ve seen shooting stars, comet showers, and nearly been struck by lightning (it knocked me down), but I´ve NEVER seen an eclipse! I guess it will just be all the sweeter when I see one someday.

Iquitos, Peru Tuesday February 19th 7pm

Picture: The is me and a llama. Which in my opinion rocks. I put this picture up though because it shows my backpack. Granted it´s not full, but it´s the backpack that I´ve written about below.

Wow! I´m so ready to start my adventure! Iquitos is this great city and offers me so much, but all I can think about is what lies ahead. These next eleven days are probably going to pass slowly. I just talked with somebody today who spent more than a month in Columbia and just fell in love with the country. I hear that time and time again about Columbia. I´m really damn excited to get there!

I packed my pack today to see if everything would fit. Worth noting, I am only taking one backpack! It´s amazing how much ¨stuff¨ we accumulate back home, that we don´t need. I re-realize this when packing for a three month adventure and all I have is a backpack a little larger than the one I wore to high school. I do want to note what I am carrying as I imagine I would be inclined to read this later in life:

-5 pairs of underwear -my chaco´s -1 pair of jeans -1 lock and chain
-4 pairs of socks -my tenis shoes -2 pairs of shorts -1 travel pillow
-4 t-shirts -3 books -1 head lamp -half a towel
-2 button down shirts -1 dopp kit -1 journal -1 pair of swimtrunks
-1 deck of cards -1 pullover -1 Auburn ball cap

And last but most importantly, one hammock! Granted I am hitching the travel pillow and chaco´s to the outer part of the bag, but I´m still impressed that everything else fits! It´s not a big backpack! Anyway, writing about this is only making me more excited! I´m going to see a movie tonight at the cines, likely in Spanish, surely for a dollar and a quarter! Let me know if I´ve forgotten anything!

Iquitos, Peru Monday February 18th, 7pm

Today has been pretty chill. I worked this morning as I do every morning, save Sundays, at the Health Center. There is a nice doctor, Emerson, that lets me shadow him every morning from 7-11. It´s nothing exciting, but I do get to listen and speak in Spanish for four hours a day. And that is what I was looking for.

I´ve also decided to tutor English for the last two weeks that I´m here. I´m giving lessons to about 4-5 friends/employees of Eva´s lab from 4-8 in the afternoon everyday until I leave. We just made a schedule and already I´m practically full! It´s great seeing people wanting to learn English! So that should be fun and rewarding. Hopefully I can teach them some good English as well as give them a southern accent!

Blog Points:
1. Women here dress differently. I´m not sure if it´s just the lack of jobs, so when people get a job they dress well, or if women just want to look really sexy all the time. Two examples. One, the lady who pumped our gas the other day was sure enough wearing a MINI-MINI skirt. Two, we stopped into a different gas station the other day to buy a drink. The woman behind the counter running the gas station was really cute and was wearing this 1970´s airline stewardess outfit. It even included that thing that went around their necks. Can you imagine that in the States? I can´t.

Iquitos, Peru Sunday February 17th 3pm

So it´s Sunday and with Sunday comes The People´s History to The United States, which I read every Sunday. I wish every single American could read this book as it will open your eyes to a different telling of our nation´s history. This week I read about The Mexican War. I was quite ignorant as to the excessive brutality of that war. Though Mexico drew blood first, we were already stationed on their land provoking war. It seems the war was only fought to expand our land and destiny.

I was surprised to read the strong feelings of manifest destiny that our country had to help justify the Mexican War. Many teachers, politicians, and pastors believed in the war to be able to spread the superior white culture. This was also expressed when we slaughtered the Native Americans and is still expressed today. I think it is important to see how this idea of a superior culture was embedded in our ancestors and is still with us today. I have seen time after time where the white Western European or American still believes that their way is the correct way. It is practiced in business everyday, in medicine, in almost any field. It is also interesting to think how that was not the case of the Mexicans or Native Americans, as they accepted many or our practices. Reading about this crusade during the 1840´s seems brutal and vulgar in ways that could never occur today. Yet today we are still forcing our culture on others, whether through killing or not. It was just surprising to read how much killing we had done in the past for this cause.

Last night was more than I could handle! At 3:30 I was falling asleep in my chair waiting for my burger to come. Just call me a mamita!

Iquitos, Peru February 16th 8pm

Picture: I slept here for four days. Literally people six inches to both sides of me and people sleeping on the floor below me. It was nuts.

I guess I´ll try out my journal entry from yesterday. The journal entries should get more interesting once I leave Iquitos in two weeks.

Today was a day of sentiment. It started off by Trey, my brother, being online for a gchat. We chatted for about an hour, and it was just great catching up with him. He is one who my admiration runs incredibly high, so anyone who knows me, knows that was a great way to start my day. Then Eva told me I could find a phone at her office where I could call the U.S. for free! So with my mom´s bday being only a week away, I called my folks for about twenty minutes! It´s always good to hear their voices.

This afternoon I sat with three students who are trying to learn English. We practiced my conversational Spanish for about an hour and then I helped them with their basic English for about an hour and a half. They are very polite and definitely want to learn English so it is a good co-op. I´m looking forward to doing it again!

Tonight we are going out! I´m excited because it should be more than I can handle. Dancing down here is completely different than the States. Full sweats, not the pants, but sweating, and such good rythym. It should a damn good time!

The New Blog!

Well I have some exciting news! I was debating on waiting two weeks before posting it, but I´ve decided to go ahead and do it. My cousin Merrill, who lived with me last semester in Quito, is coming to Peru in two weeks. I like to say that he is coming to pick me up to go back to Alabama. Only catch is that we are headed back to Alabama by land! Traveling through 11 countries in what I hope to be 13 weeks, we are traveling by bus, boat, train, and foot until we get to Alabama!

So as you can see the blog has changed a lot already. What I think I´m planning on doing, or at least I´m going to start out doing, is just publishing my journal entries. I´ve been keeping a journal ever since I left in January 7th, and I´ve written in it everyday but one. This should be easier for me and more informative for whoever wants to keep up with the journey! If there isn´t a computer around, I´m just going to type my journal entries from days past in the blog whenever time allows. I´m excited about this. We will see how it works.

Plus I might try to add a picture or two everyday. Just random pics to make this blog more exciting. Oh, and the blog points won´t go anywhere!

As far as my journeys to Pantoja, Peru and traveling by boat from Pantoja to Iquitos, yall will just have to get those stories over a beer. They´d be better over a beer anyway.

The picture above is from the boat. They didn´t tell us we needed to bring silverware so I widdled that spoon and used it for four days!

Blog Points:
1. Apparently Rey Misterio is very popular here. Or at least the baseball caps express that opinion. Awesome.

2. I´m sitting next to a friend whose name is Odelio Perfecto. No lie. Kid is bound to succeed.

Enfermedades

So I´m not sure what kind of immune system I´ve got. Good? Bad? Militant? Prankful? Just not sure. Obviously it is a mix of my mom´s and dad´s, but I really just can´t figure out why it does what it does. I know that sounds kind of funny to open a blog up with, but see I´ve been sick for the past five days. And for that reason, I haven´t blogged like I said I was going to. For four of those days I had fever of about 100.5-101.5. Not like part of the day either, but for 96 hours straight. I did not feel good. I checked my email and such, but if I had written something I feel only Sylvia Plath may have enjoyed reading it before she sticking her head in the oven, or was that the Wolfe girl.

But now I´m feeling much better. This whole day I have felt back in my usual spirits. So I decided to go to work this morning with a doctor that I´ve been introduced to here in Iquitos, Peru. Well we are seeing patients and all and one comes in complaining of headache, muscle cramps, fever, abdominal pain, lack of energy, and paleness since Saturday. Now I am almost laughing out loud because those were all my symptoms! Then the doctor says to her, you probably have Dengue Fever. Now that thought had definitely crossed my mind because it is endemic here, but it is still rare. I was looking at the charts and it was like 5-10 people each week get it at this clinic that sees, what? over 1000 patients a week?

So I take the girl to the lab and she starts testing for Dengue. The test for Dengue is they put a blood pressure cuff on your arm, inflate it to more than half of your average blood pressure, then they keep it there for five minutes to build pressure, and then they take it off, if you have more than 20 petechiae (little bits of blood under your skin) you have Dengue. While we are waiting I ask the nurse about this test because we don´t see Dengue in The States. The nurse tells me that it´s an excellent test but you have to be between days 5 and 7 of the illness. And I´m thinking, ¨My fever started Saturday making this 1,2,3,4, dangit the 5th day. But I´m all right now, I feel good, can´t have Dengue.¨ Well she does it and her test turns out negative. I then tell the nurse what happened to me thinking it was funny it was the same as this patient, and she tells me to sit down cause we´re checking for it. (Apparently they have a Dengue study going on and need all the samples they can it.) Well so they inflate the cuff and after what seemed like an eon but turned out to be 35 seconds, my hand was fast asleep, and after what seemed like forever but turned out to be five minutes, she took off the cuff. I look down and see what could have been an army of at least 50 petechiae! Diagnosis: ¨+¨

Well now what I said about my immune system earlier being a prankster is because I feel this is all a joke. Here I am in my last year of medical school learning about these rare infections of sorts but treating all the common colds, bugs, and diarrheas of the world. I am a healthy person. At one point I went seven years without throwing up. Yes all of high school and three years of college without throwing up one time! Sometimes during that stretch I wanted to throw up just to remember what it felt like. (Probably on the list of worst desires ever.) I never get the commmon cold, I never take ¨sick days.¨ It just doesn´t happen unless something rare happens. I got a Urinary Tract Infection my senior year of college. Sounds simple right? Wrong, UTIs in 20 year old healthy males are almost unheard of. I´ve had four since starting medical school. What else have I had? Shingles. The same shingles you get if you are over 65 or have late HIV. So weird. What else since medical school started? Malaria. (Which I might add hear that Dengue is like a 10k compared to Brad Denney and I´s Malaria marathon.) And now Dengue Fever.

Maybe the med students who read this post will enjoy it more, maybe you enjoyed it, but it was on my mind, and I felt I needed to explain why I hadn´t written in a while.

I have a new plan for the blog that I´m excited about! I´ll show yall tomorrow or the next day!

Blog Points:
1. Riding down the river that we spent nearly 6 days on boats riding down, we passed what looked like a hotel on a boat. Someone pretty witty must have painted the name of it´s front, as it read ¨Floatel¨.

2. I called home a few weeks ago to talk with the folks, and when I dialed the number I dialed the following 0012059675859. (Now that is my mom and dad´s number. No Prank Calls!) After dialing the 001 a light popped up saying United States, and I thought, wow what a smart phone. After dialing 205 another word popped up. Was it Alabama? No. Apparently phones can spell well or are a bit confused on geography because it came up as United States: Alejandria. Though Alejandria does have a good ring to it...

3. This is good. I saw a brand of children´s underwear the other day. They were wrapped and packaged about like you would see Fruit of the Loom or Hanes in the States. There was a picture of this kid, a little bit chubby, probably 12 years old, wearing nothing but his briefs on the front of the package. What was the name of this underwear brand? I think Poot of the Doom or Stains, anything would have been cuter than what it was. The brandname was Stripper.

Nuevo Rocafuerte

Wow, I just have so much to tell, and I simply cannot do it in one
blog entry. The reason I haven´t blogged in a while is because for
the past two weeks I have been in a place where there has not been any
internet. In the middle of the rainforest. How I got there and more
importantly how I got here, Iquitos Peru, has simply been one of the
best adventures of my life. So I´m planning on blogging like three or
four times this week in hopes to catch up. We will have a blog about
Nuevo Rocafuerte, Pantoja, the boat ride, and finally Iquitos, so
yeah, I guess four blogs in four or five days. Pictures are to come
soon, maybe later today.

Well, so we went all through Ecuador to a town called Coca, where I
blogged last. Then from Coca we took a 12 hour boat ride (a simple
skip down the river in comparison to later) to a town called Nuevo
Rocafuerte. I had been planning on working in Nuevo Rocafuerte for
like a month, as I had a contact in the little hospital they have
there. The town is a lot like Mayberry on first impression. There
are about 300 people that live there, one restaurant, one bar, one
police station, one health center, and about 300 canoes. In
Switzerland I think the people get issued a knife when they turn 16 or
something like that. In Nuevo Rocafuerte they probably have a similar
tradition except with canoes made out of trees. There are no cars, as
there is nowhere to drive, but plenty of canoes.

I would liken Nuevo Rocafuerte to the American Frontier back in the
day. Now I know I wasn´t around for the 1849 gold rush, but I have
seen the movie Lonesome Dove, Dances with Wolves, and more importantly
put in countless hours into the legendary game, Oregon Trail. The
family I lived with had a farm that grew bananas and rice. In their
backyard they had tons of chickens, ducks, hogs, banana trees, mango
trees, coconut trees, papaya trees, and a dog. I mean, they really
lived off the land. The father, Cesar, also had a tool shed about
back where I am sure the hospital probably does its neurosurgery. If
your motor to your canoe breaks down, it´s not like you can take it to
the shop, you´ve gotta fix it. Also, you can´t just go to the grocery
store or the market, because there isn´t one. I mean this place was
amazing.

Well I got there and after five days of working in the hospital I
realized we were averaging like five or six patients a day. There
just wasn´t a lot going on in the hospital. I asked if this was
normal and found out that they are just a really slow hospital. Now
six people a day in the hospital would be a dream come true if I was
on call at Children´s in Birmingham. But here where I need to practice
my Spanish (learn my medical Spanish), it is just unacceptable for me.
That coupled with it being painstakingly boring in that town led me
to go ahead and go to Iquitos, Peru where I knew I could see many
patients. (In fact my first day is tomorrow and I think I´m seeing
like 20 some odd in the morning.) I thought the trip to Iquitos would
take something like four days. I was wrong. More later.

And some Blog Points:

1. While in route to Nuevo Rocafuerte this person stops at a house in
the middle of nowhere and takes his luggage off the boat with him.
Two suitcases, one he is carrying, the other on his back. He sets the
first one down and unzips it after he gets off and a puppies head
sticks out of the bag. It was oh so cute. Well it climbs out, then
another, then another, then another. I can´t remember, but I think
six puppies crawl out of that suitcase. So, if you are planning on
taking your dog with you to South America, no need buying a crate.
Just put it in your suitcase.

2. While working in the hospital, I worked with this one girl who
added ¨ita¨ and ¨ito¨ to every single word she said. Adding ito and
ita to the ends of words is a way to make a word smaller and more
affectionate. Instead of saying Hola amigo (hey friend) you might say
Hola amigito (Hey friend (younger or smaller) and buddy). It´s
endearing and I love that aspect of the language. But the other day
we were talking with this mother and infant. Well she says Por favor,
saque la rop¨ita¨ de el. Please take off his ¨little cute clothes¨.
Then keeps saying it and then we get to his diarrhea, well she says
Como es su cacita? That is basically like saying What is his little
cute poopoo like? No. Nothing affectionate about that.

3. The other day my friend Bjorn was taking a bus and had his luggage
underneath the bus. When he arrived at his destination he feels like
his luggage smells a bit. When he questions the driver, it turns out
that a pig peed on it while both the pig and bag were riding under the
bus. Only in South America.

chao,

stewart

Sepeltura

I´m not sure how to put pictures in places yet, so the following pics will explain themselves below.

Goodness gracious a lot has passed since I last wrote. I went to the desert in Lima and stayed a night, went to a Peruvian beach called Mancora, crossed the border into Ecuador in the craziest town I have ever seen, passed probably 45-50 hours in buses, spent a couple of nights in a very colonial town, Cuenca, Ecuador. My friend Eva had her passport stolen, so we have been in Quito getting her a new one, and honestly I have not had any time to rest. Nonetheless, it has been great. Everyday is great.

I have to tell you about this one afternoon evening that happened. We have stayed in hostals in MachuPicchu, family houses in Peru, bed and breakfasts in Cuenca, and huge colonial buildings in Quito, but nothing compares to where we stayed in Agua Verdes, Peru. In my opinion, the following is what traveling is all about.

So right now I am traveling with a friend, Eva, and a friend of hers from the United States, Amy. Eva works with malaria in Iquitos, Peru and has a bunch of Peruvian friends. So we were also traveling with them. Well, one of them, Juan Carlos, a doctor that works in the jungle says that instead of staying at the beach in Mancora, he has a friend we could all stay with just north of here in Aguas Verde. We stay that is cool and head out.

Now "just north of here" really translated to more than an hour car rides away. So I figure in my head that this must be some place to stay to drive out of the way for so long. We finally get to Aguas Verdes and pull over in this gas station when Juan Carlos tells us to get our bags out because we are here.

So now I am thinking, well thats nice, his friend is going to pick us up at this gas station. Meanwhile Juan Carlos starts heading for the baños (bathrooms), which makes good sense only he is still carrying his luggage. Well, I thought that makes sense too because you never want to leave your luggage lying around, especially in South America where it will get stolen. Only by now he has turned his head around and beckoned for us to come along.

So we head with him only to find out that his friend Koya works at the gas station and lives behind it, and so we have reached where we are going to stay. So we walk in and I notice it has two rooms and two double beds, everything else is concrete. Before I could count how many people were there, Koya asks me if I want to go get some food with him.

Now I´m hailing a mototaxi with Koya. A mototaxi is a motorcycle that has been rigged to have four wheels total, with the back two wheels carrying a cart in which Koya and I are going to ride. I look over at Koya, and think if the mototaxi is the best idea becuase he is HUGE. I´m not sure what the guy does at the gas station, but it probably has something to do with lifting engines with his hands. We hop in and ride to the restaurant and thankfully don´t tip over.

We get back to the station with the food and eat. I meet Koya´s son, Fauviano, who is climbing our mountain of luggage and playing with his pet turtle. Then Koya turns on the television, and puts on a DVD. I´m hoping for the latest Johnny Depp or maybe Shrek 4 in English, but it turns out to be a music DVD of none other than Def Leppard. And its loud. So now as we are ¨pouring some sugar¨ Koya pops open the Cristál. Yes Perú has a beer named Cristál. Awesome.

I´ve known for a while now that it is very rude to turn down in gift in South America. Especially food or drink. What I learned that night is that it is Peruvian tradition to keep passing a liter sized beer around until it is finished. Then you get another one. Then another one.

While all this is going on Koya keeps playing different music for us to enjoy. Starting with Def Leppard we then went to White Snake, and Nirvana. Then we go on to AC/DC and Judas Priest. Next it was Iron Maiden and Motorhead. And I swear Koya, whose email address is Koyametal@something.com (no joke), and Juan Carlos are just in Heaven listening to this. Meanwhile I´m sitting next to them with a turtle crawling all over me just mesmerized that they know all this music.

We keep drinking more beer when Koya puts on this last DVD and tells me I will like it. Well I really haven´t liked any of these bands minus Nirvana, but I´ve had an incredible time watching them, so I tell him I´m excited. Now this is the first band of the night I hadn´t heard of, if any of you have, may God have mercy on your soul. The band is called Sepeltura and they are from Brasil but sing in English. We listened to one of their best songs, which might have one of the better song titles of all time. Sorry Mom, but the song was called The Orgasmatron. Watching Sepeltura play The Orgasmatron I was thinking that at any minute that Devil from Guitar Hero was going to jump out the television and rock me until I became dust. Thankfully that didn´t happen.

Well now it was time for bed and I counted eight people. Remember two double beds. But also remember the Cristál. The concrete floor treated me nice that night.

All this said, I don´t think Koya and his wife Mercedes could have been better hosts. They paid for all the food and beer, and I hope someday to return there and enjoy some more time with that family.

So now we are in El Coca, Ecuador. I just bought some tickets to Nuevo Rocafuerte that leaves in the morning. 12 hours of canoe-boat tomorrow, then a couple nights there, then a few more nights in boats until we get to Iquitos, Peru. We are officially in the rain forest, so after we leave El Coca, I won´t have any internet for a while. So don´t expect updates until February. The reason we are taking boats for the next several nights is because there are no roads. That´s a reality check. Love it.

stewdog

MachuPicchu

Hello all. I´m sorry for not blogging, but I just didn´t really care to blog in the United States. I figured yall probably wouldn´t have wanted to read it. I should have though because by me not blogging, yall couldn´t follow Gonzo Wilson´s blog, as his is dependent on mine. Jason, how do you feel being my dependent? Una Mamita!!!

Oh, also go to my pictures as I have uploaded a bunch. I haven´t labeled them yet.

So I have ALWAYS wanted to go to MachuPicchu. So I did. This past week!!! It was awesome? beautiful? awe inspiring? breath taking? thought provoking? I´m not really sure how to describe it. You need to go. I got to Cusco and found a tour with a bunch of people from Argentina, Chile, Brasil, Peru, Canada, The United States. It was a 3 night four day trip with one day of mountain biking, two days hiking along the Inca Trail, and one day at MachuPicchu. Food and all for $190!

So I could go on forever about all these adventures, but I don´t have the time nor do yall probably have the patience. I´m recording everything everyday in a journal, so if you need more info, holla. So instead, I´ll just talk about the Andes.

I´ve lived in the Andes all last semester, but no mountain last semester was like these mountains. Imagine just these huge mountains, thousands of feet tall, all completely green. It doesn´t matter if there was a 100 yard rock wall, it was covered in green. And not just one type of green, hundreds of shades of green. I mean an artist could take months painting a painting of one of these mountains and still not mix enough greens to do it justice.

Another thing that you couldn´t help but notice is how small you felt. These mountains were huge, and we hiked on trails that were not but a few feet wide with thousands of feet of mountain to fall below you and thousands of feet above you as well. You could see farmers some half a mile away on a different mountain and they just looked like ants. Seeing how small they looked in addition with being in a place with so much beauty just made you realize the power of our Creator. I mean I´m sure he´s interested in us and all, but he´s got other things going on as well.

They have a saying here, well not a saying but a toast. Your first few sips of beer have to be poured on the ground and dedicated to Mama Pacha (Mother Earth). At first I thought it was fun but silly. After hiking and seeing how small you are in comparison to Nature, I take the toast more seriously now. I mean it´s still fun and all, but there´s a real hint of truth in it. I guess I could explain my thoughts like this. In America I feel like everything is for me or my friends. For people. I mean day to day it´s all about education, working, movies, music, reading, playing sports, yada yada yada. But those days in the Andes, it wasn´t like I was trying to think about Nature, I was forced to. There was no avoiding it, and it was such a separate entity than myself that I was practically praising nature. It was awesome.

As far as MachuPicchu goes, it was amazing. I didn´t realize until I got there that it sits on top of a grand mountain in the midst of some many more. All I can say is go. And hike there. Don´t do the whole touristy go to Aguas Calientes and then take the bus up and all. Hike it. Something interesting though, was as amazing as MachuPicchu was, I kept looking away from MachuPicchu towards all the mountains. As if the mountains were far more beautiful and interesting than the ruins.

I feel funny having a bit of a serious Blog. But it´s not like MachuPicchu is funny. I do have some great stories from the trip though, but I won´t go into them now. I´ll blog again in a couple of more days. That blog will be dedicated to Robby Brumberg, and if you don´t know Robby, expect a blog that is as random as it is funny. And now for some Blog Points.

1. I´ve been traveling with this doctor who must be popular because of all the calls he receives. I may be bias in saying this being in medical school, but would you be surprised if his ringtone for a day was hardcore Metallica? Because I was.

2. Keeping with music, when I was getting off the plane in Lima I had to wait for everyone to get their luggage as I was in the back. So some overhead came on. What would be normal would be to play some traditional Latina music, or some soft jazz, maybe even some stuff from Los Estados Unidos. But no, it was definitely some loud Italian Catholic Hymns probably recorded in St. Peters in the Vatican. Only in S.A.

3. The ice cream brands continue to amaze me. In Venezuela it was Uncle Rico, in Ecuador it was Penguin. Here they have ice cream carts that they pedal like bicycles with the cart in the front. But what brand is this ice cream and what sticker is on the side of these bicycle carts? Lamborgini.

4. No one has change in South America. Maybe it´s different in some place like Argentina, but in Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru, you just can´t find it. I bought a coffee on a train and it cost 3 soles (1 dollar). She had this cart she was pushing to sell stuff. I give her a 5 sol coin and she says, sorry, don´t have change. I go to big restaurants and try to by a coke with the equivalent of $7 bill and they say, sorry don´t have change. BUT NOW I KNOW WHERE TO FIND CHANGE. The homeless. This guy tried to sell me a pack of gum and I didn´t have a single sol on me. After going to the ATM I run into this same guy trying to sell me a pack a gum or some cigarettes. I say I would love a pack of gum, but I only have this 50 sol bill ($17) He says no problem and whips out a WAD of cash and gives me 48 soles of change. So you travelers out there, if you need to make change, look to the street pedalers.

Until later,
stewdog