Around the World with Karen and Kevin

Strait of Magellan

2008-01-09T07:47:00.000Z

This isn't really a post. I just wanted to upload pics of the Strait of Magellan in southern Chile to show a friend.

Sgin, sgin, everywhere a sgin - Oz and NZ edition

2007-11-01T21:47:00.000Z

Beside my love of license plates, you might know of my love of entertaining signs. I especially love signs with bad English translations, but the following signs come from two English speaking countries - Australia and New Zealand.

It's been a while since I've included photos, so hopefully this will make the blog look more exciting again.

First up, we have this food stand outside the Sydney Opera House. I took this picture for two reasons: 1) it features two of Karen's absolute favorite foods and 2) these foods don't particularly go together.

Next up is a very Australian sign we saw on Fraser Island. Nothing amusing about it, but definitely not a sign you usually come across.

Well, I guess that's it for Australia. Now New Zealand is where I really hit the goldmine.

I now realize that we didn't actually post that many pictures from New Zealand. I think it's because we were staying in the van and so weren't spending the nights in towns with internet cafes. And then after New Zealand we went to Tahiti and Easter Island for about a week and internet access on the islands is slow, hard to find and expensive. So New Zealand got left behind.

First up are pictures from Dunedin on the South Island. Dunedin is a very quaint college town. It features the steepest street in the world. Every year they do a race up the hill and back down. There have also been a few people who have done it on a unicycle and via other strange methods.

Now the first of the funny signs. In case you were wondering, Tuesay comes between Monay and Wednesay.

If you ever find yourself in Te Anau, New Zealand, just make sure you don't go down the Wong Way!

This upside down sign was supposed to be impressive, but frankly the lake wasn't the best one we saw.

The Fat Duck is one of the most expensive and highly rated restaurants in the UK. However, this one in Te Anau wasn't on the same level. This duck seems to have pancake batter all over his wing. Poor thing.

In Queenstown, I liked this sign for Cemetery Road (No Exit). Clever.

Queenstown gets a lot of foreign tourists. And obviously there are sometimes cultural differences. Good thing there are signs to ease the transition for foreigners.

Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world. Only when I was looking at these pictures this month did I realize that Karen and I managed to mix up the sexes for the head shots.

And speaking of bungee (although these pics have nothing to do with signs), you can do the big gorge jump.

First, take the cable car out to the middle of the gorge.

Then look down (or not).

And then head out to the ledge, and jump!

On the west coast of the South Island, there are two major glaciers, the Fox Glacier and the Franz Joseph Glacier.

Watch out, Karen! There's a glacier behind you!

Actually, up close, you can see the glacier melting (you might be able to see the water dripping off in the picture). And during high melt periods or after heavy rains, there can be flooding. As the ice melts, ice balls and rocks of various sizes also come tumbling off the face.

Now you might be wondering about my poor spelling in the post title. In the US, there used to be a commercial for Snickers candy bars showing workers having a long day. Two of the commercials featured guys who messed up some painting jobs - one featured a street painter who managed to spell "STOP" on the ground as "SOTP" and another guy painting an American football end zone who was supposed to paint "CHIEFS" but wound up painting "CHEFS".

Anyway, in Hokitika, we went to a restaurant where we ate outside. In the back, there was a little work area where they were painting a new sign for the restaurant. Or, I guess I should say "restu...".

The next day we were driving past this scenic lookout. I guess the scenic lookouts in New Zealand have to market themselves well.

Finally, on our last day in New Zealand we were in Christchurch and Karen and I were hungry. Karen was very excited when she spotted this "bread shop" across the road. Needless to say, she was a bit disappointed after crossing the street only to discover there was no food on offer at the "bead shop".

Old England vs. New England

2007-10-29T04:17:00.000Z

As a sports fan, I'm clearly living in the wrong England. In the past 2 weeks we've seen the England soccer team lose in Russia and are now in serious danger of not qualifying for the Euro championships next summer. We saw a not very good England rugby team get very lucky and make it to the World Cup final and lose to South Africa. And then the English rookie driver in Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton, had the season championship wrapped up with 2 races left to go, only to lose it on the last race of the season and lose by 1 point (yet strangely, the English didn't really care and still thought he did really well).

In the meantime, on the other side of the pond in New England, we have:

- The New England Patriots, who play American football, have run their record to 8 wins and 0 losses and are averaging over 40 points a game. They are already the team of the decade, having won 3 Super Bowl championships since 2001.

- Boston College football who are the only real top division college team in New England are ranked as the second best college football team in the country. They are also 8-0.

- The University of Massachusetts football team, who are 7-1, their only loss coming at Boston College. They play in the second tier of college football and are ranked 4th in the country at that level.

- Karen's and my alma mater, Yale, is 7-0 in football. They also play in the second tier and are ranked 13th in the country at that level.

- Although I have to admit that I don't really follow soccer in the U.S., for completeness sake I should point out that the New England Revolution who play in Major League Soccer took home the U.S. Open trophy in early October.

- The Boston Celtics, who are the best team in NBA history but have been not very good for about 20 years, finally have a great team again and are favorites this year to win the Eastern Conference.

Hmmm, I think I'm forgetting one more team. Which one is it? Oh yeah, of course it's everyone's beloved Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox finally broke the Yankees' 9 year reign at the top of the American League East division. Then they swept the Angels 3-0 in the first round of the playoffs. Then a dramatic 7 game win against Cleveland. And then tonight, they complete the sweep of the Colorado Rockies in the World Series for their second championship in 4 years.

After waiting 86 years from 1918 until 2004, Red Sox Nation now has two championships in 4 years with two 4-0 sweeps.

I have to say I'm very excited by the sweep, as the World Series games are shown between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. over here, so now I don't have to stay up for Games 5, 6 and 7. Time to go and get some sleep!

A GINORMOUS thank you!

2007-10-21T00:30:00.000+01:00

Oh yes, ginormous now appears in some dictionaries. Apparently English speakers decided that 87 words that mean "big" weren't sufficient enough so we've decided to combine two words that already mean "big" and make another word that means exactly the same thing. "Ginormous" either comes from "giant" or "gigantic" and "enormous". I thought it was a recent creation but apparently it dates back to circa 1950. Who knew.

Anyway, on to the real point of my post. Since today (October 20) marks the 1 year anniversary of our initial flight from London to Beijing and the start of our trip of a lifetime, I wanted to give a big thank you to a lot of different people. Not going in any particular order, I wanted to thank:

- all the family and friends we had the chance to meet up with over our 10 and a half month hiatus from real life. Especially those who opened their homes to us (including Gwen and Ludo in Beijing and Steve and Anna in Sydney who let us stay at their houses without ever having met us before!! We come with good references. :) ). As noted in my last post, getting the chance to stay with friends and family was a welcome respite from the hotel grind.

- those of you who showed us your cities, took us out to dinner, shared highlights of your towns with us, etc. It's always best to explore a new place (or familiar places) with those with insider knowledge.

- all the new friends we made along the way. From whitewater rafting in Nepal, to our multiweek tour of India, to Australia, to Antarctica, to the Salt Flats of Bolivia, to Atacama Desert in Chile, to Galapagos, we met some great new people along the way. Heading out on a big trip with just each other to talk to for so long is a daunting prospect - making great new friends along the way is a must to keep sanity!

- even though none of them are reading this blog, the large majority of our tour guides and adventure guides were absolutely fantastic and opened up new perspectives on the places we were visiting.

- all those who supported us along the way with communications from home and abroad letting us know what was going on back in the real world.

- all our loyal readers of this blog! We loved writing this blog, which helps us to remember all the places we went. We're just glad so many people were able to enjoy the trip along with us through the blog. Hopefully we kept you entertained. And thanks for all your comments.

- finally, my wife Karen. She did a heck of a lot of the planning and organizing for this trip, both before we headed out and once we were on the road. At the end of the day, there's no better person to spend every day of 10 and a half months with than Karen. :)

While we're here on our 1 year anniversary, I might as well post an updated version of my "places visited" maps. Here was what my world map looked like pre-trip:

create your own visited countries map

36 countries visited and nothing in South America or Oceania (except French Polynesia), only 4 continents and nothing south of the equator.

Here's what it looks like post-trip:

(I really like this map from www.travbuddy.com that shows country borders and includes Antarctica, but it seems to be a bit funny and may or may not load properly, so I've included the same map from the old site as well):

create your own visited countries map

On this trip I visited 2 new countries in Asia (Nepal and India), 2 new ones in Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and 7 new ones in South America (Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador), for a new total of 47. I'll have to plan something special for when I reach 50. All 7 continents are now covered as well.

We also did that big road trip in the US and travelling back east along I-40 added 5 mores states (New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee) which brings me up to 36 total.

New map:

create your own visited states map

As you can see, it looks like I need to start planning my next year long holiday to include sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Plus my next American adventure should take in the Pacific Northwest, upper Rockies, the deep South, Appalachia, Alaska and Hawaii and, I suppose if I have to - North Dakota. I've still got a lot of ground to cover!

And you thought Hollywood stars slept around a lot

2007-10-18T23:48:00.000+01:00

Still a few more things to mention about our trip. Along the way, you could say we slept in quite a variety of places, usually changing places almost every night. Places where we slept ranged from planes to buses to airports to boats to tents to actual hotels. I thought it would be interesting to track the different places we slept on our trip. So, here are the stats:

Overall we spent a total of 322 nights in 143 different locations (some visited more than once). We slept in what I classify as at least 16 different types of accommodation. Here's the breakdown:

151 nights in 92 different hotels or hostels (mostly hotels)
60 nights at 7 different extended family homes (in Thailand, Philippines and the US)
29 nights at 9 different friends' houses (in China, Australia and the US)
17 nights on 2 different boats (Antarctica and Galapagos)
15 nights at 8 different B&Bs (North Island, New Zealand; Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile; Lima and Trujillo, Peru; and Quito, Ecuador)
10 nights in 5 different lodges (mostly in Peruvian rainforest and Patagonia)
9 nights living in 1 van on the South Island, New Zealand
7 nights in one rental apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina
5 long nights spent on 5 different overnight buses in South America
5 wonderful nights spent in 2 resorts (El Nido, Philippines and Mancora, Peru)
4 nights on 4 different planes (London-Beijing, Manila-Sydney, Papeete-Easter Island, Boston-London)
3 nights on 2 trains (2 nights Shanghai, China to Lhasa, Tibet and 1 night Varanasi to Delhi, India)
2 nights in a relaxing bungalow on Moorea, French Polynesia
2 nights in 2 different covered tents (1 while whitewater rafting in Nepal and the other in the Rajasthan desert, India)
2 nights in a regular tent (while whitewater rafting in Peru - sad to admit, but this was my first time ever sleeping in a tent)
and finally 1 long night sleeping at the airport in Mumbai, India waiting for a 5 am flight to Bangkok, Thailand (although the Mumbai airport is designed for odd-hour flights and provides a large number of reclining seats for people to rest in)

I took a very liberal interpretation of the hotel/hostel category. This was basically anything that didn't qualify as one of the other categories. This includes the grimmest places we ever stayed in Tibet which were basically thin walls to attempt to block the wind and cold and plywood beds with foam mattresses. I'm not really sure what classification to give these types of places.

As for best places to stay, we occasionally got to stay in decent places. But I still think the overall best value for money goes to the place we stayed in Sucre, Bolivia where we got a huge room, huge beds, hot water, great cable TV, etc. for $12 a night and stayed 3 nights. Great stuff.

Besides people's houses, the longest time we spent in one place was in Cusco, Peru, where we used the same hotel 3 different times for a total of 11 nights. Of course they also gave away our room reservation the 4th time we tried to stay there, so that's loyalty for you.

And finally, I have to give a huge thank you to all the friends and family members who allowed us to stay at their houses. Over 25% of our nights on the road were spent at 16 different friends' and family's homes. Most of these were in the US, but we also benefited from such kindness in China, Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia. Not only did these stays allow us to save some cash, but they also provided us with some very welcome breaks from finding a hotel every night. And of course gave us the opportunity to spend some great quality time with the people we care about. So to everyone who hosted us on our journey, thank you so much.

Parla Lei genovese?

2007-10-09T12:26:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was Columbus Day in the US, when most people get the day off. Columbus Day sometimes riles up Native Americans, but usually it's a non-event. I was going to write about Columbus anyway before I realized it was Columbus Day. Namely what I was going to ask is why doesn't everyone in the New World speak Genovese (or Ligurian), the Italian dialect from Genoa (Genova) in northwestern Italy?

As everyone knows, Columbus sailed for the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. Hence, Spain was able to lay claim eventually to the largest part of the New World. Columbus had spent almost 10 years in Portugal trying to convince the Portuguese king that he should sail for them, but Portugal wasn't interested. Despite this, Portugal still managed to get the Pope a few years later to give them Brazil.

But Columbus, or Cristoforo Colombo, was from Genoa, an independent city-state (Italy wouldn't be created for another 400 years). Genoa was the richest city in the western Mediterranean at the time, so I wonder why Columbus never sailed for them. In fact, Ferdinand and Isabella were poor in 1492 and couldn't fund the whole trip so Columbus lined up private backers from the Italian states, but they were only interested in any profits he made, rather than land claims.

But now I read in the New York Times that there's an air of mystery around Columbus's origins. Different theories abound that he was either the result of an illicit dalliance of a Portuguese prince, a Catalan from northeast Iberia, from one of the Balearic Islands like Majorca, or a Jew from anywhere in Iberia. Here's the New York Times article and another article concerning his origins. Anyway, I'm still going with the assumption that he was Genoese.

But the reason I was going to write about Columbus anyway is because of John Cabot, born as Giovanni Caboto in ... Genoa. John Cabot seems to be a forgotten man in the history of exploration but had a major impact. Cabot, like Columbus, went to both the Portuguese and Spanish monarchs to convince them that he could get to Asia by sailing west. The Portuguese were still focused with getting to Asia by sailing around Africa. The Spanish backed Columbus instead of Cabot. So Cabot took his idea to England and convinced the king there to back him. He sailed from Bristol in 1497 and "discovered" Canada (most likely landing in Newfoundland). Of course the Vikings had been there centuries before, but like Columbus in the tropics, Cabot was the first of the new wave of European explorers that opened up the New World permanently to Europeans. So, having been rejected by the Portuguese and Spanish, Cabot helped to lay the English claims to North America. A successful claim, given the ethnic and linguistic heritage of Canada and the United States today. And, for full disclosure, there is some evidence that the Basque people from northern Spain were fishing off of North America for decades before the 1490s, but there has been no evidence of Basque settlements in North America.

Both Cabot (who was jealous of Columbus having beaten him with his discoveries) and Columbus went to their graves (Cabot in 1499, Columbus in 1506) 100% convinced that the lands they sailed to were part of Asia and still had no clue when they died that they had discovered the Americas.

So, the whole point of this post is that I found it massively interesting that besides the megapopulation of Brazil speaking Portuguese and a few scattered French and Dutch (yes, Dutch) speaking enclaves in the New World, the Western Hemisphere is almost exclusively either Spanish or English speaking. Yet, if you think about it, this part of the world could have all been speaking the same language from the start over 500 years ago, and that language could have been Genovese/Ligurian.

What a flake

2007-10-03T15:00:00.000+01:00

Well, we're still waiting for internet at home, but we still want to post a few more pictures to our blog once we're set up at home. In the meantime, Karen and I have been running around town looking for jobs, attending interviews, etc. In between interviews, I've managed to spend some time at various museums around town. Fortunately, a lot of the museums in London are free.

After working in the financial district of London (the City) for 6 years and not having visited before, I finally got the chance to visit the Bank of England Museum. The Bank of England has been around since 1694 so there was lots to see, including lots of old notes (the Royal Mint issues coins while the Bank of England issues notes; in Scotland and Northern Ireland (but not Wales), individual banks are allowed to issue their own notes) and tracing the history of modern money. You even get the opportunity to lift a solid gold bar (13 kilograms).

One of the more interesting things was the list of former governors of the Bank of England. A favorite was the governor from 1918-1920, Sir Brien Ibrican Cokayne. Sure, you can try to hide your addicition in a fancy spelling, but we all know he got knighted for providing charlie to the king. Actually, looking into it, it was his father, George, who changed the family name from Adams to Cokayne. Hmmm, nothing suspicious about that at all, is there? George actually had some sweet jobs during his life, including the rather glamorously titled Rouge Dragon Pursuivant. Now that's the title I'm going to demand from my next job. One previous holder of the position in the 1500s was a guy named Fulk ap Howell. Now I'm sure his colleagues never made fun of his name when he made a mistake.

Getting back to Bank of England governors, my other favorite names (and there are a lot to chose from) were: Delillers Carbonnel, who was succeeded by Stamp Brooksbank; there's also Sheffield Neave followed by Bonamy Dobree.

Frustration

2007-09-26T19:09:00.000+01:00

Well, today was supposed to be our "go-live" date for internet at home. So I was hoping to post a few more pics, etc. once we were online at home. Well, for some reason we decided to go with the worst service provider in the UK and, of course, they failed to deliver. Our order was put in on September 7 and we were supposed to be all set for today. We even called 3 times in the last week to make sure all was going ahead. Well, today, they finally tell us there was a problem with the line and they couldn't do anything with it. OK, enough is enough so I asked to be put through to the cancellation department. When I spoke to them, there was no problem at all cancelling - because they had cancelled the order on their side when they started running into problems ... on September 11th, over 2 weeks ago!!! So, no one could bear to tell us the truth over the past 2 weeks when we called and absolutely nothing was happening and we still would have been waiting forever for nothing to happen. It was as if our order was never even placed. Simply ridiculous. So, we're back to square 1 in terms of getting home phone service and home internet service is probably still 2-3 weeks away. Grrrr....

Still more to come

2007-09-16T16:28:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the sporadic updating since we've come back to London. We haven't totally abandoned our blog just yet - we still have lots more to post about and some great pics that still haven't been shown. We're currently waiting for our internet service to be turned on at home (probably about 2 weeks away, if we're lucky). So we've been parked down at the internet cafe since we've been back. But it's a pain to do the picture thing, so hence no good updates recently.

We do promise to have some new material on here, but it might be a few weeks. Probably best to check back towards the end of September to see what we've managed to do.

Thanks for your continued loyal readership!

We're Baaaaaack!

2007-09-07T18:36:00.000+01:00

We arrived on the 6th of September, a gorgeously sunny English morning allowing us a clear view of the London Eye, the Thames, and Hyde and Regent's Park as we landed. Ahhhh, it's good to be home. Of course, our arrival home wasn't without a hitch. The night before our flight I tried to check-in online only to find that not only could I NOT check-in early, but that we were booked for a flight on September 25, not the 5th of September as we thought all along! Needless to say, we had a minor heart attack but luckily our round-the-world ticket which has been relatively trouble-free for all these months was easy to change with a quick phone call to British Airways. Also, because it was our LAST LEG of the flight, the check-in lady at Logan Aiport told us she was getting us "special" seats. I was psyched--she must mean we were getting upgraded! Sadly, this was not to be. What she meant was that on an almost full flight from Boston to London she gave us a row of 3 to ourselves while most of the other Economy class members were smooshed to the core. Kevin was thankful for any extra leg room at all. Overall, though, our ticket was wonderful...we were never charged extra to change dates, all the airlines on the OneWorld alliance we travelled with were safe and mostly efficient, and we NEVER lost a piece of luggage! Thank you for the memories BA and the rest of the OneWorld Alliance members!

Now that we are back and dealing with all the nitty gritty details of getting our London lives up and running (such as Internet, I sit in an Internet cafe as I write this and think back to those third world internet cafes we spent so much time in), I thought I should share a recent story about travelling on buses. I really enjoyed travelling by bus in South America. Kevin and I reckon we travelled around 3,000 miles throughout the South American continent and for the most part the buses were comfortable, on-time and smooth. Now, flashforward to the New York city Port Authority just one week ago. What a different story! I went to Greyhound bus with a ticket I pre-booked in order to attend a wedding in Providence, Rhode Island. Little did I know that my bus would also pay a visit to America's favourite pasttime...CASINOS. I was standing in line, waiting to board my bus when the ticket attendant said "Priority to all Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods ticket holders". A huge stampeded went PAST me and got to board the bus first, then she allowed people headed to Providence to board. Now, you have to picture the craziness which is the New York Port Authority. Not a pretty sight on any day, the place was a giant noisy, smelly and unfriendly place on Labor Day weekend. There was about 5 seats left after all the gambling people got on board meaning only the woman and her family who had been waiting 2 hrs for a bus got on board and all the rest of us were left behind! The only option would be to take a bus one hour later that would arrive 3 hrs late because it was a local bus that stopped everywhere. No sirree! I overheard from all the disgruntled passengers left behind that there was a bus by Bonanza leaving in 10 minute that was direct so I leapt on to it and got to Providence on time. But that whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth because a) I wasted $30 on Greyhound b) They won't give me a refund (and that argument with a screaming Greyhound employee is worth another story in itself) and c)Most American buses are tight and uncomfortable (if you can afford it, go by train!) and Greyhound has probably never heard of a semi-cama (a half bed)

Anyway, it was an eye-opening experience that proved, yet again, that the first world has some things to learn from the third world.

Get your kicks on Route 66

2007-09-05T08:22:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure how familiar Route 66 is to our non-American readers, but in the American lexicon it has now achieved almost mythical status. Although it is no longer officially a US Route, it has now been revived as a National Scenic Byway and many parts of the old route have revived the Route 66 branding. Old Route 66 went from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California and was instrumental in the early part of the 20th century to opening up the West Coast to new settlers. Eventually it was mostly replaced by quicker, wider, better maintained interstate highways and fell into disuse and was decommissioned in 1985. A lot of the towns on the route became ghost towns, as they were no longer stopping points along people's itineraries. The recent Disney/Pixar movie "Cars", is based in one of these ghost towns that fell into decline when the interstate opened up a few miles away from the old route. The town in the movie is representative of many of the towns along the route that met the same fate.

When driving through New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, we covered a decent amount of Route 66, including some of it that runs with Interstate 40. Santa Fe and Albuquerque are both on Route 66, along with Amarillo, Texas, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and many other places we passed through. We did visit the eastern end of Route 66 in Chicago when we were there. Here are some pictures from the route.

A sign in Santa Fe.

We don't have pictures from around Albuquerque, but when you are driving out of that city, there is a vast store of old Route 66 hotels, shops, restaurants, etc. That was actually the best part of Albuquerque - 1) driving out of there and 2) seeing all the old hotels from the mid-20th century. Definitely felt like we were in a time warp.

Here are pictures from Tucumcari, New Mexico, on the old route and just off the interstate. Definitely has lost most of its former glory. Very close to being a ghost town.

Here you can see all the empty signposts from closed down businesses. We stopped in Tucumcari to get some ice cream in the 105 degree Fahrenheit heat.

And then we came to Amarillo, Texas. Our British readers will remember the Peter Kay remake of Tony Christie's song "Is this the way to Amarillo".

Here are some local cattle brands etched into the sidewalk.

If you can eat the 72 ounce (four and a half pounds) steak in less than an hour, it's yours for free. In Memphis, Tennessee, we ate at a restaurant called the Big Foot Lodge that had the same deal for a 72 ounce hamburger with bun and all the fixin's called The Sasquatch. In Memphis, over 700 people had tried it in 2 years and failed, until a professional competitive eater (yes, there is such a thing, just check out this website), came along and polished one off in less than 12 minutes. He didn't have the 18 scoop ice cream sundae for dessert. If you're looking for other similar deals across America (or want to be appalled by gluttony that's encouraged), check out this website.

Karen looks mighty small next to this heifer.

Oh yeah, Texans love everything about Texas, including replicating the shape of their state and/or putting their state flag on everything. Even better if you can mix the two.

This sign is true. Everything also includes the people.

Karen's new family. I think Karen might be able to put away 72 ounces of steak - in an entire month.

Some more Route 66 kitsch:

In Elk City, Oklahoma, we spent a night and had some "American Chinese" food (Karen asked a customer in the parking lot if there were real Chinese people working there. She was later impressed to see the Chinese cook driving a Harley motorcycle.). Next door to the restaurant was the National Route 66 Museum (here's the sign lit up by a brilliant sunset). There are actually quite a number of Route 66 museums spread out along the route, so I have no idea which ones are actually good. You can check out a list of the museums here: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/66-museums.html

Santa Fe, New Mexico

2007-09-04T06:30:00.001+01:00

From Taos, we drove down south to the state capital, Santa Fe. Santa Fe is one of the oldest cities in the American West and has a lot of history to it.

Just south of Taos, in Rancho de Taos, we visited this church (San Francisco de Asis) that has some distinctive American Southwest architecture.

The church is home to a famous painting of Christ that you pay to see. The custodian lets you view it in the light first and then turns out the light. When the lights are turned out, a mysterious cross appears on Christ's shoulder that isn't there when the lights are on. This mystery has baffled thousands of people for over a century. They are very strict about photography around the painting. I managed to find this picture on the internet of the painting in light, but I couldn't find one of the painting in the dark.

If you're interested in more info, here are two interesting articles pertaining to the painting:

http://www.visionsofjesuschrist.com/weeping80.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_1_29/ai_n8642070

Then it was onto Santa Fe. One of the best things to see in Santa Fe is the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (we also recommend the cafe attached to the museum). It has one of the best collections of O'Keeffe's works, as she lived most of her adult life in and absolutely loved New Mexico. If you are unfamiliar with her work, this site has a great gallery displaying her stuff: http://www.artst.org/okeefe/.

One of the lasting images of the southwest is the ubiquitous chili pepper. Here you can see many strings of them hung on a restaurant balcony downtown. These strings of chili peppers are called "ristras" and are used for decoration. Some claim they bring good luck. You can see variations of the chili pepper decoration throughout many parts of Latin America (Mexico, Central and South America, etc.).

Although we've now seen this in a few other American cities, Santa Fe was the first place we saw a US Postal Service mailbox designed like R2D2 from the Star Wars films. The Postal Service launched these mailboxes this year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars films, first launched in 1977.

Here's the old Governor's mansion in downtown Santa Fe, now the site of a Native American market. Frankly, the market and the people working there reminded us both a lot of the markets we saw in South America.

One of the hotels downtown, showing typical Southwestern architecture.

Santa Fe is also a main stop on the Old Santa Fe Trail, recognized by the National Park Service as an historic trail. The old trail helped connect the Midwest with the new lands in the Southwest gained in the mid-1800s and was instrumental in opening up the new lands to new settlers.

Even the cathedral in town had ristras hanging from the church candles. I think that's the first time I've seen chili peppers in a church.

Ristras for sale! Get your red hot ristras!

I didn't actually go in this store (I wasn't in the market for a new hat), but I thought this store front was great. The historic center of Santa Fe had a great sense of its history and the urban planning was quite good. Very pedestrian friendly and had lots of independent stores that were quirky, but also paid attention to the city's heritage.

Ah yes, more food pictures. Although this one wasn't as gross as the one in South Dakota, I'm including this one to show the mega-buffet that we got in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We didn't particularly want to eat here as we knew it wasn't going to be good, but we got to our hotel late and it was the only thing close by. And, a mere $7.50 for all-you-can-eat buffet was very tempting, no matter how good it was. If you really want to know why so many Americans are so fat, stop looking at McDonald's and the like and start visiting the mega-buffets that are way too common in the US, particularly in the Midwest and the South.

That buffet was next to our hotel in Albuquerque, which is the largest city in New Mexico. We highly recommend taking the scenic drive between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, as the scenery is beautiful. This means avoiding the interstate and driving through a few real ghost towns. But the drive is only an hour and a half so it's not a big detour. We did a quick drive by of Albuquerque and have to say that it's mighty disappointing, especially once you've seen beautiful Santa Fe. We were told it was a bit sad, but it wasn't too far out of the way, so we decided to do a quick tour, but it wasn't even worth a slight detour. So, here's the grand total of 3 pictures I took in Albuquerque.

Lampposts against the classic Southwestern stucco wall:

And a traditional Southwestern image - native blankets, a dried up animal head and, yup, more ristras.

New Mexico

2007-09-04T04:41:00.000+01:00

We're now back from New York and back in New England. Hard to believe, but we are flying from Boston to London in less than 2 days!!! Our permanent summer is almost over. We somehow managed to be in the southern hemisphere almost perfectly for the 6 months of southern summer and autumn and then return to the northern hemisphere for northern summer. Now that Labor Day (the unofficial end to summer in the US) is over, it's time to start getting back to reality ... almost. A couple of days of freedom left to post some more blog entries.

It's been a while since we were in New Mexico in late July, but we have some beautiful pictures to post. We first visited Taos, which is a ski resort town in the northern part of the state. The modern town is missable (strip-mall city!), but it does feature historic Taos Pueblo, home to some local Native Americans. We couldn't take pictures in the pueblo. The pueblo is somewhat interesting but at the end of the day, it was basically us paying 10 bucks each to go shop at some Native American stores and not take pictures. Some of the craftsmanship was pretty good, so we did buy a few things there.

Outside of Taos, there is a beautiful gorge which is crossed by a nice looking steel bridge. You can park your car and walk across the bridge, which isn't recommended for those with a fear of heights.

For some reason, a lot of my pictures on the day had some weird exposure to them. So here's a picture of Karen in front of a psychedelic ice cream bus.

Karen on the bridge overlooking the gorge.

The gorge:

This following picture was not staged at all. This is simply a picture of teenagers up to no good, dropping things off the bridge. Young people these days!!!

And who knew that there were beauty contests for bridges too? This one was "most beautiful steel bridge" for 1966. Its parents must be so proud.

A view of the bridge from the side. Note the rain clouds rolling in on the right.

Bridge and rain clouds:

Seeing the rain clouds approach from across the plain was a very cool sight indeed.

Karen and I thought this bridge would be perfect for bungee jumping.

Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 video

2007-08-26T06:32:00.001+01:00

Here's the video from the pageant mentioned in my last post.

More travel ahead

2007-08-26T05:53:00.000+01:00

I was hoping to add a few more posts this week but, well, a bit of shopping got in the way. The bargains to be had at all the stores in Framingham are just too good to pass up. On Sunday we are heading down to New York City for the week to meet up with Karen's parents and some other people. When we first arrived in NYC in late June, we realized that getting online in the city without your own computer is 1) very difficult and 2) extremely expensive. Karen is bringing her new laptop with her this time around, so hopefully we can get on to update at least once, but we have a very busy week ahead of us. Less than 2 weeks to go until our trip really comes to an end and we fly back to London!!! Where has all the time gone???

On Friday night we went to a concert in Rhode Island (Collective Soul, Live, and Counting Crows; yes, I know all these bands haven't been popular since 1994, but they still played a lot of songs we like and the show was good), which brought our total of states visited on this trip to 25. Yep, that's right, a full one-half of the fifty states! In case you're wondering, they are New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island. And we also paid D.C. a visit.

We didn't hit South Carolina on this trip, but you might enjoy this video from the Miss Teen USA pageant. I think the video speaks for itself. I'm going to try a separate entry to see if posting the video directly in the blog works.

And not to perpetuate the stereotypes about Southerners, but I just have to share this picture from our hotel room in Arkansas.

Now, why would I take a picture of some not-so-good hotel "artwork"? Only because it was hanging upside down.

Well, I might as well exhaust my whole collection of pictures from Arkansas, so here's the other one (I only took two in the day it took to cross the state).

We did swing by the state capital, Little Rock, and saw the outside of the President Clinton Presidential Library, but it was already closed. We also missed one of the key attractions in Arkansas, Crater of Diamonds State Park. It's the only diamond-producing site in the world open to the public and you get to keep what you find!

Fun in the sandbox

2007-08-20T23:10:00.000+01:00

So, where do you think the tallest sand dunes in North America are? Somewhere in Mexico? Maybe California, or Texas, or Florida? How about Cape Cod? In fact, the tallest sand dunes in North America are located at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in southern Colorado. Pretty surprising considering Colorado is famous for its mountains and not a place you'd expect sand dunes. This is a part of Colorado that most people don't get to, but if you happen to be in the area, it's well worth a visit. We hit this place on our drive from Boulder, Colorado to Taos, New Mexico.

The dunes in the park rise up to 750 feet from the floor of the valley and are surrounded by mountains in the Sangre de Cristo Range, with many mountains above 13,000 feet. A pretty dramatic setting all around.

You can bring your own sled, snowboard, skis etc. and have some fun. The national park website even gives you some tips about the best methods (e.g. cardboard does not work). We were actually pretty fortunate when we visited because it was overcast and had just rained before we got there. That meant it wasn't too hot, the sand was cool, and the sand wasn't being whipped around and blowing in our faces.

I climbed to the top of some of the dunes while Karen took a nap at the base. Knowing how difficult it is to walk on a flat beach, you can only imagine how difficult it was to climb a couple hundred feet up these sand dunes. Hard work, but I was rewarded with some great views.

One interesting aspect of the park was the stream flowing through. As it gets a lot of sand deposited in it, it forms little sand dams. After a while, these mini dams break, creating a mini wave in the water. The combination of many of these breaking dams creates larger waves, leading the stream to be permanently choppy. Interesting to watch up close.

Here are pics from various vantage points.

And I liked this picture from the park's website so I'll include this one too.

Frank Lloyd Wright

2007-08-20T21:56:00.000+01:00

Frank Lloyd Wright is one of America's most famous architects. While in the Chicago area, we made a trip to Oak Park, Illinois, the hub of all things relating to Frank Lloyd Wright, including his primary home and studio. Wright designed over 300 buildings across the USA (and a few overseas, I think). His most famous work is the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Wright also had quite an interesting personal life, having married three times and having some scandalous affairs along the way. In 1914, one of Wright's servants set fire to Wright's home in Wisconsin and axed 7 people, including Wright's mistress, to death while the fire burned.

Chicago is probably America's premier city for architecture, so if you visit Chicago, be sure to take an architecture tour (there are many available). And if architecture is your thing, you should definitely spend half a day making a side trip to Oak Park (also the birthplace and boyhood home of Ernest Hemingway), which is only about 10 miles from downtown Chicago.

In Oak Park, you can take a tour of Wright's home and studio (no pictures inside, so I don't have any to show you). A lot of fascinating stuff to see. He also designed many of the houses in the immediate neighborhood, so you can take an audio guide tour around a few of the blocks and see some of his designs executed. Wright hated the prevailing Victorian style of architecture that favored tall, vertically oriented houses. He was one of the leading proponents of the Prairie School of architecture which promotes a wide, flat style, which you can see in some of the pictures below.

Here are pictures from our walking tour of the neighborhood. Please note that most, but not all, of these houses are designed by Wright. I can't remember which ones are which, but you can see that the neighborhood has a lot of beautifully designed houses, whether they were Wright designed or not.

Aww, isn't that cute

2007-08-18T05:18:00.000+01:00

Since it's my duty to keep you informed about various polls from around the world, it is my pleasure to inform you that the World Wildlife Fund is running a survey to find the world's cutest animal. Online voting is currently open to whittle 40 animals down to 5 semifinalists. This round of voting goes until the end of August, with the finals being voted on September 1 through 20. You can vote for your 5 favorite now at:

http://wwf.worldwildlife.org/site/PageNavigator/WCA2007_Phase1

Of the 40, the ones we saw on our trip (in the wild) included: bison, blue-footed booby, iguana, penguin, sea lion, sea turtle, seal, tortoise and whale. We missed seeing the nocturnal black-footed ferret in South Dakota. We also saw a few more (notably panda) in various zoos we visited.

Of course, like most lists, this one is also heavily biased, as the WWF seems to give major extra points for being endangered and basically the poll is designed to raise awareness of endangered species. I mean, where are the alpacas and llamas? Just be aware that by voting, your email address might be added to WWF mailing lists.

My five were panda, blue-footed booby, tortoise, sea turtle and, of course, penguin. There were at least 5 more animals I could have included if I had had more votes.

Well, since the secret's out already ...

2007-08-18T04:31:00.000+01:00

... about my love of license plates, I thought I'd share one more that I saw today that I really liked. Today Karen and I drove up to Maine, the easternmost state in the US (if you don't get technical about the Aleutian Islands in Alaska being further east). Maine is famous for its seafood, especially its lobster (read: lobstah), which is probably the best in the country (but their clam chowder (read: chowdah) comes a distant second behind Boston's). One of the license plates offered in Maine is this one:

It doesn't say "save the lobsters" or "enjoy Maine lobster" or "support lobster research" (which the license fee goes toward), it just says "Lobster". I love it.

By the way, when the Pilgrims first landed in Massachusetts, lobsters were so plentiful that they were literally crawling on the beaches. The Pilgrims, however, were fairly unadventurous eaters and, despite the natives showing them how to eat them and how good they were, they shunned everyone's favorite crustacean. The Pilgrims simply preferred their grain based diet. They considered lobster tasteless, were embarrassed to be forced by hungriness to eat it and considered it peasant's food. In fact, the most likely use for a lobster in the early days was to ground it up and use it as fertilizer for corn. Some claim it was even fed to the pigs. And there is at least one account of indentured servants ensuring in their contract that they would only be served lobster a maximum of twice a week. The fact is that today's delicacy was shunned by Americans until at least the 1880s.

If you want to read more about "homarus americanus", this book: "The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean", seems to be getting very good reviews.

Colorado Dreaming

2007-08-18T03:50:00.000+01:00

This isn't in order (Kevin just wrote a post about Memphis but we went to Colorado much earlier than that) but I haven't posted in awhile so here I am. Plus, I've just bought a fast new computer and we couldn't skip writing about gorgeous Colorado on our blog. We spent almost a week in Boulder and Vail and loved the healthy atmosphere and gracious hospitality we experience. Colorado is a mecca for Suburus (as is Maine where we went today), hikers, skiiers, and crunchy granola types. It is also on the cutting edge of eco-friendliness. I never saw so many Prius per capita and the lovely people we stayed with, the Wonsiewiczs, had a cute blue one. Here they are with me on the top of one of the ski trails at Vail.

They also survive on solar panel energy so we pretty impressed. And when we bumped into 2 other cute blue Priuses on one street and we all started caravanning together, I thought I had died and woken up in some eco-friendliness gone mad advert. Bud Wonsiewicz is a frat buddy of my dad's from MIT. He and his wife Marie are really into their skiing and hiking, so we were happy to have them bring us to a particularly beautiful spot in Vail, the Missouri Lakes walk.

These photos show what a beautiful day we had and come close to capturing the amazing alpine scenery we saw. I can't wait to come back in the Winter!

On our way to visit our friend Vicky in her slightly remote mountain home outside of Boulder, we bumped into this little guy (see the deer in the background?)

We hadn't seen Vicky since she attended our wedding in 2004, so it was good to see her so happy (she had just done a triathalon the day before). She's doing her PhD at University of Colorado and graduated from Yale a year ahead of us.

Finally, just because I don't know when I'll have the opportunity to fit this photo in, I just had to post a photo of Kevin cleaning our car window on a particularly windy day during our road trip. Luckily, Kevin didn't blow away!

Le roi est mort, vive le roi

2007-08-17T04:03:00.000+01:00

Since today (August 16) is the 30th anniversary of the death of The King, Elvis Presley, I figured it was appropriate to post some pictures of our pilgrimage to his home in Memphis, Tennessee - Graceland.

We hit Graceland in late July while driving back east from New Mexico along I-40. Karen was a bit bummed we missed out on Elvis Week (held every year around August 16th). Although it might have been fun to see some of the die-hard Elvis fanatics (some of whom still can't believe he's actually dead), I was more than happy to avoid the big crowds.

Graceland was interesting to see and worth a visit if you're in the area, but probably not worth a special trip to Memphis. We also walked around downtown a bit, but Memphis seemed fairly poor to us, with a lot of beggars around Beale Street, the spiritual home of the blues. You might know Beale Street from Marc Cohn's song, "Walking in Memphis" (and for our Belgian readers, you might be familiar with Belgian Idol 2004 runner-up Wouter De Clerck's version). Some Marc Cohn trivia: he won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist of 1991, he was shot in the head during an attempted carjacking in 2005, and he's married to Emmy Award winning television journalist Elizabeth Vargas (Andre Agassi introduced them). And Elizabeth Vargas spent part of her childhood with her army dad in Belgium. I'm thinking of catering to our audience and making this a blog about Belgium.

I thought this street sign in Memphis was great:

A few pictures from Beale Street:

Unfortunately the mechanical bull wasn't operating during the daytime or else we might have taken it for a ride.

And we knew we were in a foreign country when one of the establishments on Beale Street had rules stating that "pant legs must be worn correctly".

We missed the twice-daily march of the ducks at the famous Peabody Hotel but we did see the ducks frolicking in this beautiful fountain in the ornate hotel lobby.

After finishing our visit to downtown, it was onto Graceland, which is actually in a rundown part of the city.

A mural of the gates:

The front of the mansion:

Proving that our trip is full of places of historical significance:

Now, onto the interior.

Living room:

The kitchen (as you can see, like the rest of the house it is stuck in a 1970s time warp from when Elvis died):

The famous "jungle room":

A bed that everyone should have in their home:

Karen in front of some of Elvis' numerous gold records:

Another room full of gold records and other memorabilia:

Two of Elvis' famous outfits. You can buy some top-end replicas for about $2,000 in one of the numerous gift shops on site.

Some more of his outfits:

Elvis was actually a twin, but his twin brother was stillborn.

Elvis' grave in the Meditation Garden, a pilgrimage site for many devotees, especially on August 16th.

As for the debate about the correct spelling of Elvis' middle name (Elvis was his dad's middle name), here's an entry from wikipedia:

Presley's genuine birth certificate does actually say "Elvis Aaron Presley" (as written by a doctor). There is also a souvenir birth certificate that reads "Elvis Aron Presley." When Presley did sign his middle name, he used Aron. It says 'Aron' on his marriage certificate and on his army duffel bag. Aron was apparently the spelling the Presleys used to make it similar to the middle name of Elvis's stillborn twin, Jesse Garon. Elvis later sought to change the name's spelling to the traditional and biblical Aaron. In the process he learned that official state records had always listed it as Aaron. Therefore, he always was, officially, Elvis Aaron Presley. Knowing Presley's plans for his middle name, Aaron is the spelling his father chose for Elvis' tombstone, and it is the spelling his estate has designated as the official spelling whenever the middle name is used today. Interestingly, his death certificate says "Elvis Aron Presley". This quirk has helped inflame the "Elvis is not dead" conspiracy theories. Elvis' stillborn brother's first name is given as Jesse in many sources. However, according to a memorial marker in the grounds of "Graceland", the correct spelling is Jessie.

That clears that right up, eh?

You can see some of Elvis' many cars on site. In 1971, Memphis changed the name of road where Graceland is to Elvis Presley Boulevard, so on some of the car registration certificates you see in the museum, that is his address. Pretty cool to have the street you live on named after you while you're still alive.

You can also visit two of Elvis' private planes.

Elvis' personal symbol was a lightning bolt with the letters TCB, which means "taking care of business (in a flash)".

Elvis is the only musician to be inducted into 4 different music Hall of Fames (Rock and Roll, Rockabilly, Country Music and Gospel Music). Elvis only won 3 Grammy Awards in his lifetime, all for gospel performances. In 1993, the US Postal Service introduced an Elvis stamp which to this day is far and away the best selling postal stamp in US history. From 2001 to 2005, Elvis was the top-grossing dead celebrity, until the top spot was taken over by Nirvana's Kurt Cobain.

Hallo, België / Bonjour, Belgique!

2007-08-11T17:36:00.000+01:00

I was just checking out the Google Analytics for our blog. I love seeing the geographical overview. Over the last month, Belgium has stormed into second place (behind the US) as the country with the most visitors to our site. I'm very happy to attract such a diverse audience. Canada is in third place, just ahead of the UK (where have all of our British readers gone???). And in the city race, Brussels has just pipped Boston to FIRST place for the title. Washington and Ottawa are in third and fourth place with London in sixth. Hmmm, maybe the international governments are getting suspicious of all of our international activity and are checking up on us.

Tine and Wouter (this is the Belgian couple we met in Nepal), are you responsible for our popularity in Belgium?

Chicago

2007-08-08T00:49:00.000+01:00

As Karen has mentioned in previous posts, we spent 10 days in Chicago while attending my brother Brian's wedding to Shannon. We really enjoyed ourselves in America's third largest city. Hard to believe that it was only founded in 1837. Even though we were there for quite some time, we still didn't get to see everything we wanted to (I think it was mainly due to sleeping in late - same thing happened to us over the last few days in D.C.).

Chicago is the original home of the skyscraper (the world's first generally agreed to be in 1884-5) and the modern city is dominated by them. The wedding reception was held on the 56th floor of the Chase Tower, which permitted great 360 degree views of all of Chicago. In town, we took an architectural boat tour along the river, which allowed a different perspective of the buildings.

Here are a few pictures from our boat tour as well as from some other vantage points around the city.

Karen on the Chicago River. I think this is the one they dye green for St. Patrick's Day. If you've seen the movie "The Fugitive" with Harrison Ford, you might have seen this.

A view of downtown from a peninsula, with Lake Michigan in the foreground.

America's tallest building, the Sears Tower:

A view of downtown from Lincoln Park (near the free zoo). The John Hancock building (not the Sears Tower) is on the left.

For some reason, I just liked the look of this parking lot built into the bottom few floors of a skyscraper. I like the way the cars back up right to the edge.

I also liked the way these American flags blew in the strong breeze.

Here's the famous Field Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately this was one of the places we didn't have time to visit properly. It's one of the premier museums of natural history in the world.

Buckingham Fountain:

The fantastic Art Institute of Chicago, which has a tremendous collection, especially of the Impressionists. Karen and I took advantage of the free Thursday and Friday evenings in the summer and visited twice.

And a few samples of the works inside.

Georges Seurat's famous "Sunday Morning on La Grande Jatte", with a few close up shots, including the mysterious monkey being taken for a walk by his owner.

A close up shot from Henri de Toulose-Lautrec's "At the Moulin Rouge":

René Magritte's "Time Transfixed":

And finally, Grant Wood's much-celebrated, often-imitated "American Gothic":

We were lucky enough to take in a Cubs baseball game at historic Wrigley Field in the North Side of Chicago. The Cubs are everyone's favorite perennial losers, having not won a World Series championship since ... 1908!!! That puts the Boston Red Sox' drought from 1918 to 2004 to shame. Chicago's other baseball team, the White Sox (aka the Southsiders, as they play in south Chicago), was basically as futile as the Red Sox. Their last championship was in 1917 until they followed up the Red Sox' improbable title in 2004 with their own World Series win in 2005. But no one in Chicago actually cares about the White Sox. The Cubs are said to be as cursed as the Red Sox were and have not even made it to World Series since 1945!

Wrigley Field was built in 1914 and is the second oldest baseball park in the major leagues, behind Fenway Park in Boston. It is basically as ill-designed as its Boston counterpart, with many of the seats facing toward the outfield rather than toward the batting area. Still, it provides a great view of the surrounding neighborhood and probably used to provide a view all the way to Lake Michigan before the tall buildings obstructed the view. It also has a hand-operated scoreboard like Fenway and ... no jumbotron!

Now is a good time to mention Wrigley in that it was the last park in the major leagues to install lights. The lights finally went on on 8/8/88, a mere 19 years ago. Up until then, then played every game during the daytime, even the weekday games. The Cubs still play more day games than any other team in the majors.

South Dakota

2007-08-07T16:20:00.000+01:00

South Dakota is far from both coasts and so is a place that few foreign visitors to the US get to. But it actually has a decent amount of stuff to see (and a heck of a lot more than North Dakota does).

Outside the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota (the only Corn Palace in the World!!), Karen managed to make a new friend with one of her favorite things about the US - hot dogs.

We also saw this interesting piece near the Corn Palace. Not surprisingly, the Corn Palace is surrounded by "tacky" items and shops.

I really enjoy the Badlands National Park. It's full of strange rock formations caused by erosion and the colors are quite magical. It's great to see it at different times of the day to see the way the sunlight hits differently.

We also managed to get a great sunset our first night there.

I really liked the colors on these hills. I thought they looked like snow cones with grape and lemon flavors. Upon closer inspection, they tasted nothing like grape and lemon. I guess that's what you get when you use natural flavors rather than artificial flavors.

And here's a sign you don't see everyday:

And if you drive through South Dakota, you're sure to see hundreds of advertisements for Wall Drug for hundreds of miles before you get there. It's worth stopping to see this mecca of tackiness, including the roaring T. Rex that goes into action every 12 minutes.

And our final destination in South Dakota was, of course, Mount Rushmore, featuring four of the US Presidents. Unfortunately it was very overcast and foggy the day we were there, so here's Karen enjoying the view from the "Grand View Terrace". Hmmmm, not much of a view.

The clouds finally blew away to some extent and we at least managed to get some sense of them. It really is quite an achievement.

Nearby they are also working on a monumental carving in the mountains to Chief Crazy Horse. I think they've bitten off a bit more than they can chew, as all of Mount Rushmore will fit in Crazy Horse's head and then they are trying to show him mounted on a horse. They've been carving away at it for 50 years already and still have loads more to do. Estimated completion date? The year 2050.

Silly picture time

2007-08-05T17:55:00.000+01:00

The day before the wedding in Chicago, we took in a Cubs baseball game at historic Wrigley Field. Here's a few silly pictures of my very cute niece and nephew. First there's sleepy Colin with doting big sister Alison and dad Shaun.

Then Colin got his hands on some yummy blue colored cotton candy (candy floss). Mmmm, finger licking good.

And it looks like sister Alison also partook of the blue colored stuff. She also really enjoyed taking some silly photos. Hmmm, looks to me that mature auntie Karen might have had a hand in encouraging her 4 year old niece to act silly. What do you think?

Fourth of July, American style

2007-08-05T17:39:00.001+01:00

Karen and I were very excited to spend our first Fourth of July in the US in many, many years (last one was in 2000, I think). My brother Brian's new in-laws were very kind and invited us to stay with them in Dixon, Illinois (boyhood home of Ronald Reagan), where we got to partake in a BIG Fourth of July feast. Rain threatened for part of the day, but mostly held off. Driving back into Chicago on the night of the 4th, we got to enjoy some great firework shows being put on by towns all along the highway. A great ride back in.

Here's Karen and I and my brother Brian and his soon-to-be-wife Shannon, 10 days before the wedding.

Here's Karen and Brian's new mother-in-law trying to avoid the raindrops.

And, my oh my, would you look at all of that food (all absolutely delicious)!!!

Somewhere in Illinois we stopped by a strip mall and found the Chinese store. I still haven't figured out what they are selling here, but it's only a dollar eighty-nine a pound (what a bargain)! And it shows you don't have to go all the way to China to find amusing signage.

Also, Karen was very excited about the prospect of visiting Dairy Queen while back in the US. So excited that she couldn't even wait to go to the front of the building to check out the menu so she checked out the drive-through menu.

That is, until the worker came on the speaker and said "Can I help you?", much to Karen's shock!

Alfred P. Murrah

2007-08-05T16:54:00.000+01:00

Does that name ring any bells? It probably means more to Americans than most of our other readers.

On April 19, 1995, the worst terrorist attack to that point took place in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma when 168 people (including children who were at a daycare inside the building) died as a result of domestic terrorism when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was blown up by Timothy McVeigh and his cohorts. Interesting to note that McVeigh was put to death just 3 months before 9/11. I wonder what he would have made of being "upstaged" like that.

While driving back east from New Mexico, we stopped by Oklahoma City (OKC), which is not usually a place most tourists get to. We saw the very moving memorial to the victims which is very well designed and very poignant.

If you're ever in the OKC area, it's definitely worth stopping by to see the memorial.

The chairs at the memorial represent the 168 people killed and represent the empty seats they left behind at work, at the dinner table, etc.

If you want to learn more about the OKC National Memorial, the official website is here. Unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the extensive museum on the site, which is supposed to be fairly good and is very comprehensive.

This was part of the fence around the demolition site where people have been putting up momentos ever since 1995.

Anorak alert!

2007-08-03T22:42:00.000+01:00

OK, now I know this post might get me in trouble by finally confirming my status as an anorak, but I'll go ahead with it anyway.

For those of you who don't speak British and don't know what an anorak is, wikipedia has a good summary here. By the way, the word anorak comes from the Inuit (Eskimo) language. A highlight from the article:

slang, an anorak is a person, typically a man, who has an unfathomable interest in arcane, detailed information regarded as boring by the rest of the population - and who feels compelled to spout said detailed information to anyone within earshot.

(The closest American slang is nerd which is applied to bookish students. Anorak is not generally applied to students; and the anorak is more of a trivia freak than an overly-studious worker. A geek is a person typically expert at, and intensely focussed on, technical equipment, particularly computers; again this is not really an anorak - the anorak offers us overly-detailed discussion and arcane trivia on "hobbyist" topics.)

The word can be qualified by the area in which the person takes an excessive interest.

As you can see, there doesn't appear to be any American equivalent to the British usage of "anorak".

So, I'm now exposing myself fully as a license plate anorak.

When in New Mexico, you'll see that all the license plates show "New Mexico USA". The USA part was added so that geographically-impaired Americans (approximately 95-99% of the population) who don't know the 50 states would know that New Mexico is part of the US and not part of Mexico.

I remember a good story of how during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, a few people from New Mexico were denied buying tickets reserved for Americans. One sample story:

Wade Miller of Santa Fe, New Mexico, called the office for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta to get tickets for the volleyball event. When Miller gave his address as New Mexico, the agent told him that they couldn't sell tickets outside the United States. Miller explained to the agent that New Mexico is part of the United States. Then he tried to explain this to her supervisor. The supervisor told him he'd have to try the Mexican Olympic Committee, or maybe the Puerto Rican committee--whichever his home country was.

So, I guess it's only right for New Mexico and New Mexicans to do all they can to convince their countrymen that they are indeed Americans and not Mexicans. I wonder why New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York aren't forced to do the same.

I really like the New Mexico state flag. Very simple and elegant.

The symbol on the flag, which also is on the license plates, is the "zia", which is the sun symbol of the Zia people. The symbol now appears on a hot air balloon on the current license plate, as New Mexico is famous for its hot air ballooning (which we unfortunately did not have time to check out).

Four is the special number of the Zia and so there are four lines pointing in all four directions. Each of the group of four lines represent:

- the four points of the compass (north, south, east, and west);
- the four seasons of the year (spring, summer, autumn and winter);
- the four periods of each day (morning, noon, evening and night);
- the four seasons of life (childhood, youth, adulthood and old age);

And getting back to my favorite topic of license plates, I'm also struck by how many of the US states now put their state government or state tourist board websites on the license plate. Just by travelling around the country, we saw no fewer than 6 states with websites on their plates (Pennsylvania, Indiana, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska). And there's sure to be a few more as well.

I found this article where a few designers rated the best and worst designed license plates in the country. Their favorite was Colorado, which I also like.

The worst? Kentucky (the one with Mr. Smiley Face that looks like it was done by a 4 year old), and I have to 100% agree with them. Apparently the people of Kentucky were so appalled by the design that it only lasted for two years before it was recently replaced.

The most random post you'll see on this blog

2007-07-27T23:40:00.000+01:00

Karen and I are still travelling around the U.S. and are currently in New Mexico. Karen is also catching up on watching E! television in the hotel rooms. We caught the True Hollywood Story of "Rock Star Wives". And while watching it, both Karen and I were struck by the same thing: how much Steve Carell (from "The Office") looks like shock rocker Alice Cooper. The whole time Alice Cooper was talking, we kept thinking it was just Steve Carell dressed up as Alice Cooper. Even their mannerisms and way of speaking are hypnotically similar. Strange stuff. Judge for yourself.

Steve Carell:

Alice Cooper:

OK, now I know that this entry has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with our travels, but I thought this "story" was too good to pass up and not bring to the attention of a wider audience.

What have we been up to?

2007-07-24T20:50:00.001+01:00

So after Chicago, what did we do? We went to Oak Brook, Illinois where we stayed with David and Mary Sabo. Dave is an MIT fraternity friend of my dad's and they kindly stored our car for us and gave us a place to stay. We also went to Oak Park, which is the home of the great architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. His home and the surrounding homes in Oak Park which he designed, are really worth seeing. Wright developed the Prairie style of architecture so his houses occupy a lot of lateral space, rather than the vertical space (so many storied houses) the Victorians preferred.

We then went on to Mitchell, South Dakota, the home of the FAMOUS Corn Palace. Well, we didn't know how famous it was but everyone seemed to stop there when driving through the state. Here's a picture of Kevin at the corn palace...enjoying, of all things, an ice cream cone!

That night we stayed in the Badlands national park in South Dakota. It was incredibly hot but there are some awesome formations of nature there, especially the pink rocks that form little peaks throughout the park. There are so many beautiful things to see in this part of the country, though we've decided we will have to just rent a camper van and take 6 months to do it all someday.

Of course, you cannot go to South Dakota without seeing Mount Rushmore. We hit some bad weather when we got there so at first I thought we would not see any of the presidents' faces. But luck prevailed and slowly the fog lifted. Here is a rather eerie scene of the four presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln.

And finally, here is a clearer view (with a few posers underneath the presidents)

On the road, we were reminded that despite its big cities having many culinary delights, America has its fair share of extremely dire cooking. Here is a lunch I had in South Dakota. Kevin now says he didn't like the look of the place, but frankly we had hardly any options outside of fastfood. But this looks pretty grim, huh? It's supposed to be a hot turkey sandwich... Needless to say, I left most of it on my plate (oh, and American customer service isn't all it's reputed to be as the waitress refused to exchange it for anything else and said we would have to pay extra if she got me something else).

We have now been in Boulder, Colorado for the past few days and spent 2 days in the beautiful Vail resort area. Colorado is a must for nature lovers and we have some awesome pics from a day's hike that we did. We have enjoyed the great hospitality here of another of my dad's fraternity buddies, Bud Wonsiewicz. He and his wife Marie have been great hosts and though we are sad to leave tomorrow, we need to make our way to New Mexico tomorrow so that we have ample time to get back to the east coast.

A Windy City Wedding

2007-07-24T19:30:00.000+01:00

I thought the USA portion of our trip would be all about vegging out, but it seems like our road trip ambitions have truly taken over. So, in the past month we've been in the US, we've gone from New York City to New Jersey, then borrowed my mom's car (thanks Mom!) to travel to Ohio to visit my childhood friend in Columbus, then went on to arrive in Chicago where we stayed for 10 days. We really enjoyed our time in the Windy City, especially seeing our niece and nephew play at Millenium Park's awesome fountains of water and visiting the Impressionist and Miniature rooms in the Art Institute of Chicago. Despite the 10 days, we still ran out of time. But if you do get to the Windy City don't miss the great lake and river architectural tours.

However, the main highlight of the trip was Kevin's brother Brian's wedding to Shannon Ames. It seems like we've come full circle by starting our journey with my brother's wedding in Shanghai and ending with Kevin's brother's. Is it just a great coincidence that both our brothers are named Brian? Here are some pics of the sunny day we had on July 14th. Brian and Shannon are now enjoying themselves on their honeymoon in Hawaii. And speaking of good news, Kevin and I are about to be Auntie and Uncle again when my brother and his wife Jackie have their little one in December!

Here is a picture of the happy couple.

Kevin and his two brothers Shaun and Brian.

My niece Alison looking very pretty in her flowergirl outfit.

Copa America results

2007-07-24T19:07:00.000+01:00

In an earlier post I mentioned that Copa America was kicking off in Venezuela and I predicted Argentina to win it all (mainly because a couple of Brazil's main stars decided not to show up). Well, in the final, Brazil prevailed 3-0 over Argentina to win their 8th Copa America. Sadly, the good old US of A finished dead last, 12th place, losing all 3 of its group games (to Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia). Although Ecuador also finished with 3 losses and 0 wins, the US's goal difference was a pathetic -6 vs. Ecuador's -3. It's obvious why the US doesn't show up to particpate in this event too often. It had only participated twice before, in 1993 when it also finished 12th and in 1995 when it amazingly finished 4th. I couldn't find out why it didn't participate in the 4 other ones between 1995 and 2007.

Results can be seen at www.copaamerica.com

New 7 Wonders announced

2007-07-24T18:46:00.001+01:00

I know I'm a bit late in posting about the winners of the New 7 Wonders competition. Getting online in the US isn't very easy when you don't have your own computer.

The New 7 Wonders were announced in Lisbon on 7/7/07. The winners are:

The Great Wall of China
Petra, Jordan
Christ the Redeemer Statue, Brazil
Machu Picchu, Peru
Chichen Itza, Mexico
The Colosseum, Italy
The Taj Mahal, India

Overall I'm somewhat pleased with the results. Karen and I are both disappointed that one of our favorites, Easter Island, didn't make the cut. I think that's because only a very small number of people have seen them in person. Angkor Wat not being a winner is also disappointing. The biggest disappointment is that Christ the Redeemer won. This was due to a last-minute massive campaign in Brazil, led from the front by the president of Brazil. The fact is that if the US really wanted to put the Statue of Liberty in the top 7, they could have easily done so with an organized campaign. The fact that Christ the Redeemer was able to win through a vote shows that Homer Simpson was right: When will people learn? Democracy doesn't work!

You can check out the results at http://www.new7wonders.com/. At the same site, they have now launched a new competition to find the 7 natural wonders of the world. You can go directly to that website at http://www.natural7wonders.com/. They are now taking nominations through 8/8/08 when the nominations will be whittled down to the 21 finalists. Top of our list? The Galapagos.

Current Affairs

2007-07-12T06:14:00.000+01:00

(earliest known image of the Galapagos Islands showing up on a map - from the mid 1500s)

OK, here's the caveat: this one isn't about politics, etc., but it is long and it is a bit science-y (with a bit of history and geography thrown in), so feel free to skip!

I still have to upload my Galapagos pictures and videos, but I do have some other points to make about the Galapagos before we leave this magical place fully behind us.

The Galapagos were discovered in 1535 by the Bishop of Panama who was sailing to Peru and was blown off course and the currents took him to the Galapagos. Like many who came after him, he thought the Galapagos were hell on Earth due to the strange creatures he saw and, more importantly, due to how difficult it was to obtain clean fresh water to drink on any of the islands. Most people still agree that the Bishop and his party were the first people (not just the first Europeans) to set foot on the Galapagos. A very small minority argue that native South Americans arrived there at some point prior to the Spanish, but there has been no conclusive proof of this. By the way, the Bishop eventually did manage to leave the Galapagos, hence the knowledge of their existence and their mysteries spread. The word Galapagos comes from the Spanish word "galapago" which is an old word for a type of saddle. The giant land tortoises looked like saddles to the Spanish. They were also known as "the enchanted isles" for centuries.

But one of the wonders of the Galapagos, at least for me, is how in the world they weren't discovered long long ago, particularly by South American natives. If we take a look at ocean currents in the area, you can see what I mean. I couldn't find one particular one that I liked, so here's a couple graphics that show the story.

As you can see from the graphics, there are FIVE ocean currents, big and small, that lead directly (or almost directly) to the Galapagos Islands. These currents come from north, south (2 of them), east and west. According to my little theory, if you were blown off course anywhere off the west coast of southern Central America or almost anywhere off the west coast of South America, you were almost guaranteed to have the currents take you straight to the Galapagos (assuming you had enough supplies to survive). So why does it seem that no one wound up there prior to some unfortunate Spanish bishop in 1535? The coastal waters off Peru and Ecuador are extremely rich in seafood and hence have been fished for millenia. True, the boats would only be kitted out for day trips out to sea, but a fisherman getting caught in the current might possibly survive the 5 days it took to drift to the islands. Of course then it would be nigh impossible for him to get back to the mainland. But as far as anyone can tell, there is absolutely no solid evidence of anyone ever arriving on the Galapagos prior to 1535. I just find that simply amazing.

The currents have a major influence on the Galapagos climate as well as on South America as a whole. Considering the islands lie smack on the equator, they are not as hot as might be expected. The climate is more sub-tropical rather than tropical. The major current is the Peru or Humboldt current which comes up the South American coast all the way from Antarctica to the equator. As it's a cold water current, it is full of vital nutrients which leads to an abundance of organisms at all levels of the food chain. This is the current that almost assuredly brought sea lions and penguins from Antarctica and Patagonia to the Galapagos. The Panama current (also known as the El Niño current due to its role in causing El Niño) is a warm current that comes from the north (this brought the Bishop to the islands). For the most part, the cold southern currents dominate, but when the warm northern current is allowed to remain too long (due to weak winds), El Niño phenomena occur, leading to variable results in the Galapagos, South America and elsewhere. The currents are very noticeable, as the water in the northern part of the islands is much warmer than in the south, even though it's only a few tens of kilometers apart (as we found out when we went snorkeling).

It's no surprise that these powerful ocean currents managed to bring such a wide variety of animals and plants to the Galapagos. But it still confuses me how generations of humans never managed to ride these same currents there until less than 500 years ago. But actually, that's very good news indeed as it allowed the animals to evolve unimpeded for a very long time, leading to the unique varities that exist today. And overall the human impact on the Galapagos to date has been relatively mild, as probably over 95% of all species that ever existed on the Galapagos are still found today. Probably the main victim of humans over the years was the land tortoise. Seafarers absolutely loved it, as the meat was pretty good, but more importantly, those things are pretty juicy on the inside and provided sailors with all important liquids to drink. Most of the islands developed unique species of tortoise and humans wiped out the populations on a couple of islands, but there are still a wide variety of species to be found on the different islands.

One last interesting point to make. When these animals first arrived to the Galapagos, either by air or by water, that obviously wasn't the end of their journey. The next bit required reproduction to survive. So it was no good to show up by yourself. In fact it was almost no good to show up with a partner of the opposite sex, as inbreeding would almost surely lead to extinction anyway. A bare minimum for survival of the species on the islands is probably 10 breeding pairs, or at least 20 animals. That takes a lot of luck for such a group to be taken there all at the same time and survive the journey. Who knows how many other small groups of animals made their way there over time, only to peter out into extinction.

Penguins Part Deux

2007-07-08T04:47:00.000+01:00

Remember these guys? Well, the Galapagos is the only place where you can see penguins north of the equator. These penguins had many similar characteristics to our little friends from Antarctica, but they are a bit smaller (like a bowling pin in size). The one thing you can do in the Galapagos, that you really can't do in Antarctica is to swim with the penguins. Kevin and I loved swimming with them...and as they're not scared of humans, one was swimming around me and then hid behind me, snuck up from behind me, and brushed past my cheek giving me a little "kiss" along the way. Man, I love penguins. Like in the new cartoon "Surf's Up", penguins do indeed excel in water. To see them gliding and swimming around in water is a beautiful thing.

(thank you to Lizzie for these underwater pix!)

And the little guys above water...

The reason the penguins can live at the equator is that the water around the islands is surprisingly cold. We always had to wear wet suits and temps averaged around 12-15 celsius. Brrrrr!

And thanks to Frank and Kendal (who were on our trip) for these two pictures of the penguins above water. These were the little guys we swam with who decided to go to shore for a little break.

Luckily, we had a lot of avid photographers with awesome cameras on board our ship so we are looking forward to even more Galapagos pictures taken by keen photography enthusiasts.

Now, moving on to a less unique but pretty cute bird--the pelican. Pelicans are surprisingly light creatures that can sit atop trees for hours. Despite standing still, they were surprisingly adept at sweeping down into water to grab themselves a fishy little snack.

So Ugly They're Cute

2007-07-08T04:24:00.000+01:00

So, here we are in Chicago, a world away from the Galapagos. Did you know that a reporter coined the term "the Windy City" to describe Chicago because Chicagoans brag so much about their city? However, the weather can get pretty windy as well! But right now, it's just hot, hot and more hot. It feels so strange to be in a big city when just a few weeks ago we were in the remote Galapagos surrounded by some of the weirdest looking creatures on earth. Now, the only weird creatures we've seen are of the human variety! This blog entry is about 2 creatures that are not typically considered cute--the iguana and the giant tortoise. These creatures have been on the Galapagos for a very long time and each island has a different variety of tortoise. On some islands, the iguanas swim (marine iguanas, the darker coloured ones) and on others the land iguanas (yellow in colour) just lay all around all day baking in the sunshine.

We met this group of marine iguanas on our first day on the islands. They were hissing and spitting at us so we were slightly concerned. Kevin and I thought we had angered them by entering their territory, but we later found out that they need to emit the salt in order to balance their bodies...so no, they weren't mad at us.

I thought this was a cheeky little fellow. His tongue looks quite human, no?

These two iguanas seem to be very good mates.

Home sweet home for the land iguana.

As you will recall, I mentioned my deep devotion for Lonesome George, the last tortoise of his kind. Well, when we visited George for the second time we learned from our guide Juan why George never became interested in the two "girlfriends" the park rangers had put in his pen. By the way, here is our guide Juan in a tortoise shell.

George, unfortunately, loves food more than he loves women...to the point that when his two girlfriends come close to his food, he chases them away! Here's a picture of all three of them. Obviously, George is the one chomping away. He's no Hugh Heffner...that's for sure!

But then there is Diego, a tortoise from the San Diego zoo who was brought to the Galapagos in order to impregnate a few female tortoises who were the last of their species. The Galapagos National Park is going to retire George soon and Diego is going to be their next champion. Why are they so proud of him? Because Diego has managed to father numerous babies! He's such a stud that while at the park we caught him with this fine lady...if you look carefully you will see that Diego is on top of a female tortoise and her head is barely peeking out.

And here are their faces up close. Turtles, slow moving creatures that they are, take several hours to have sex. This was very true from what we saw...they could teach Sting and his wife a thing or two about tantric sex. :)

I think, by the end of our time at the turtle reserve, Kevin had also fallen in love with the turtles as you can see by this picture.

Ces Américains fous

2007-07-06T20:13:00.000+01:00

Less than two weeks ago, I wrote on an entry about the lack of a good name for people from the United States of America. Well, it looks like the French must be reading our blog, because what should appear in the New York Times today than an opinion piece about how the French can't come up with a good name for Americans either. Although, to be fair, if you link to their French blog, they seem to have written their original piece in French on or before June 4. On the comments on the French blog, one reader does mention the same fact I did that Mexico is also officially known as Estados Unidos Mexicanos, or United Mexican States.

I guess one option is to follow the lead of Macedonia. International recognition of the country's split from Yugoslavia in 1991 was held up over Greek fears that its name implied territorial ambitions toward the northern Greek region of Macedonia. So in international diplomacy, the new country had to be referred to as "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", which is not only a bit of a mouthful, but also fairly insulting to a newly independent country to have to be referred to by its former association. It can be shortened to FYROM. In international organizations like the UN etc., it is still referred to with the long title. So, should we change the USA to "The Former British Colonies of America"? But I guess that still doesn't solve the "Americans" problem. How does FBCOA sound instead of USA?

Errata

2007-07-05T19:00:00.000+01:00

I have recently been informed by our in-house team of American historians that I inadvertently posted some erroneous information on my previous post. I would like to clear up any confusion.

- Apparently it was George Washington and not Abraham Lincoln who helped secure our nation's independence. Unfortunately this also means that I've been confusing the one and five dollar bills at the stores for the last week. ;)

- The United States won its independence from Britain, not Germany. Who would have guessed that a mere 231 years we were fighting those peace-loving Brits? If I knew that we were old enemies, I might never have moved there.

- And the war is known as either the Revolutionary War or the War of Independence. Both names make infinitely more sense than the Spanish-American War, considering we weren't even fighting the Spanish at the time.

The editorial board of Continental Drifters sincerely regrets these errors and will endeavor in the future to carry out more thorough fact checking.

Happy Fourth of July!

2007-07-04T04:50:00.000+01:00

Happy Fourth of July to all of our American readers out there. After a whirlwind 3 days in New York, we visited Karen's family in New Jersey on Sunday, drove to Columbus, Ohio to visit a friend on Monday, and are now in the Chicago area, staying with my future sister-in-law's family in Dixon, Illinois, boyhood home of Ronald Reagan. My brother Brian is getting married in Chicago in 10 days.

No major new developments and we still promise to upload Galapagos pictures soon.

By the way, do you think when Lincoln was fighting for American independence from Germany in the Spanish-American War that he had time to fire up a barbecue and cook some nice hamburgers and hot dogs? Something to ponder ... ;) Have a great holiday.

And Karen and I celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary on the 5th.

U-S-A!! U-S-A!! U-S-A!!

2007-06-28T22:12:00.000+01:00

Well, after many months of travelling around the world, we have finally arrived back in one of our home countries, the US of A. It was a bit treacherous landing at JFK in New York last night as there was a major lightning storm causing trouble. After many delays we finally got into the city at 11 p.m. after a long day of travelling.

We spent almost exactly 6 months in the southern hemisphere, but it's good to time our arrival in the northern hemisphere with summertime! Although it's a bit too hot right now in New York.

So, after four and a half months in South America, it's a bit difficult to adjust back to first world living. For example, now I can:

- take a taxi cab with a meter, rather than agreeing a price beforehand
- receive change in a store and not have to inspect every bill looking for fakes
- not worry so much about catching rare and exotic diseases
- flush my used toilet paper down the toilet rather than throw it in a trash can next to the toilet
- walk down the street after 10 p.m.
- not have to speak Spanish at least once a day (although during our layover in Miami airport, I thought I was still in South America)
- drink the tap water! This is very helpful and also saves us money when we eat out

And speaking of the USA and South America, the USA men's soccer team kicks off their Copa America tournament in Venezuela today against Argentina. The Copa America is like the European Championships. It features all of the South American countries except the Guyanas and first Mexico muscled their way in and the US joined them in the 1990s. My money is on Argentina to win it this year. By the way, Mexico beat Brazil 2-0 last night. More information here (although the site is in Spanish): http://www.copaamerica.com/

And also speaking of the USA, it might be time for the oldest country in the Americas (apparently Haiti is the second oldest) to get a name change. In Latin America they didn't like it when we called ourselves "americanos", insisting that South Americans were also "americanos". So, instead to refer to Americans as "norteamericanos", although I'm not sure how the Canadians (or Mexicans) feel about that. The other option is to say "estadounidense", but that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. But then again, Mexico is officially known as "Los Estados Unidos de Mexico" so technically they could also be "estadounidense". Any suggestions for a new name for the USA?

The Galapa-WOW! Islands

2007-06-28T21:09:00.000+01:00

Karen and I have just returned from the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and they are just simply amazing! Definitely one of the highlights of our 8 month trip. There's only one word to describe the Galapagos: amazing, fantastic, incredible, awesome, stunning, beautiful, surprising, unique, breathtaking, inspiring ... Oh wait, is that more than one? OK, just choose any of the above words to describe them.

We won't post any pictures just yet, as we're in New York City right now and it's difficult to find internet cafes here (everyone has their own computers) and the connection fee is expensive. So we might just wait until next week when we're in Chicago crashing with my brother and I can take over his computer for hours at a time. Although we got some great pictures, it is really difficult to truly capture the essence of the Galapagos. Plus, a lot of the cool stuff we saw was under the water and we don't have a waterproof camera.

The weather for the week was fantastic (although the water temp was slightly chilly at times). The boat and crew and our fellow passengers (only 13 on the boat) were all great and our guide, Juan, was extremely enthusiastic, knowledgeable and excited for everything, despite guiding almost every week.

The amount of animals we saw and got close to was impressive. Plus many of them are found nowhere else on the planet. Gigantic land tortoises, sea turtles, land and marine iguanas (iguanas that swim with their tails - unique to the Galapagos), dolphins, reef sharks, tons of birds (blue-footed and Nazca boobies, albatross, cormorants, finches, etc.), lava lizards, sea lions, etc. etc. etc.

Overall, Galapagos and Antarctica were equally amazing experiences, but in Galapagos we could do what we could never do in Antarctica - swim with the penguins!!! Yes, those birds can't fly - in the air, but underwater, there's no other word for what they do but to use the word "fly". And we were swimming right next to them, along with sea lions, sea turtles, flightless cormorants, sharks! and tons of fish. As the Australians on our boat said, usually when someone yells "shark!" when swimming, everybody panics and swims the other way. But in the Galapagos, that was a call for everyone to come to you to check out the harmless sharks.

Although we saw them just a few kilometers south of the equator, the Galapagos penguin is the only northern hemisphere penguin, as they can be found just slightly north of the equator as well.

We also got quite an education about the basics of life. That is, we saw sea lions, boobies, iguanas, tortoises, hawks and a couple of other animals in the act of, um, copulation. I think it's the heat that makes them all so frisky!

On board the ship we watched a great BBC documentary on the Galapagos. You can purchase it here:

http://www.bbcamericashop.com/default.asp?cpa=product&id=4080&ctl=81&cc=21249&tt=

They have some absolutely fantastic footage.

We'll try to upload some pictures from the Galapagos next week when we have better access to the internet.

We would highly recommend a trip to the Galapagos, but go sooner rather than later, as the UN and the Ecuadorian government are getting worried about the massive influx of tourists and permanent new locals moving to the islands to support them, so they might eventually have to start putting tighter restrictions on the islands. The easy money to be had now is very tempting for poor countries like Ecuador, but they also don't want to kill their golden goose either.

Lonesome George

2007-06-19T01:28:00.000+01:00

I have fallen in love with a tortoise called Lonesome George here in the Galapagos (Kevin's just a ta bit jealous). George is the last remaining tortoise of Pinta island (but has been brought to the Darwin Center here on Santa Cruz island). Problem is, he just refuses to breed with any tortoise (even though he has 2 cute looking female tortoises in his pen who closely match his genetic makeup). So, when George dies (who is in his 80s), his species will end as well. It's so sad! That said, he's a minor celebrity around the world and a major one here on the islands.

So we are now on Santa Cruz island, where we have been for the last 2 days. It's a great island with some good beaches and most importantly the Charles Darwin center, where it's possible to see rare breeds of tortoises and iguanas. Kevin and I agree that it's as if we walked right into Jurassic Park here. The birds, especially the giant ones, look as if they existed during the time of dinosaurs. But amidst this paradise, we got a shock of reality. We were swimming in this gorgeous gorge yesterday when we noticed a couple of the local boys spray painting graffiti on the rock face! That was pretty depressing. But in a country like Ecuador, where the poverty level is depressingly high, it's not surprising that young boys get bored and do this kind of thing. Otherwise, though, this place is like a wildlife paradise. Since the animals aren't scared of humans, you can get so close and take great pictures without a powerful zoom lens. Pictures to follow a week or so!

Never take rides from strangers!

2007-06-16T04:20:00.000+01:00

Karen has already posted an entry on Chan Chan, one of the many archaeological sites near Trujillo, in northern Peru.

We visited some other sights like Huaca de la Luna, which was quite impressive. Some of the color that remains on the walls is really striking. Here are some various views around Huaca de la Luna.

And across the way you can see Huaca del Sol, which was the largest structure in all of the Americas before the Spanish arrived. One third of it has washed away, but you can still see its impressive size. It is currently off limits to visitors. You can also see how excavation work continues around both huacas.

Another sight in the Trujillo area is El Brujo, a sight similar to Huaca de la Luna. El Brujo was only discovered in the past 20 years and is still undergoing excavation. As of now it is fairly difficult to reach and attracts very few visitors (very few visitors make it to all the amazing sights in northern Peru, instead concentrating their efforts in southern Peru). In the visitor logbook at El Brujo, it looked like they went days without receiving a single visitor! When we were there, we had the place to ourselves, along with our local guide (our hotel owner) and two German ladies from our hotel.

It was quite interesting to visit the site, as with the local guide you could go almost anywhere you wanted, as long as you paid the armed guards a bit at the end. At first they seemed concerned with you taking photos etc., but once they knew there was money in it for them, they were less concerned and opened locked parts of the site for us. Their main concern was for the other workers down below not to see us and know that they were taking bribes and letting in tourists to restricted areas. Interestingly, the restricted areas were the best parts of the site, so if you didn´t get to go in there, you´d be disappointed. The restricted parts had walls with amazing colors on them remaining after centuries. Another cool aspect of visiting the site was the fact that textiles and broken ceramics absolutely littered the site and were everywhere you walked. If you were so inclined, you could take home lots of thousand year old souvenirs and no one would be the wiser.

I won´t try to explain all the imagery (because frankly I´ve forgotten most of the explanations), but I think most of them are amazing enough without any descriptions.

Getting to El Brujo is quite an ordeal and originally we weren´t going to go because it´s very expensive to arrange a tour. But two German ladies staying at our hotel had shipped their car from Germany and are spending two years driving around South and North America. They mentioned they were going to El Brujo and then driving north to our next stop, Chiclayo, so we asked them for a ride, as it would allow us to visit the site and also get to Chiclayo without taking another bus.

Well, just leaving Trujillo was an ordeal as the car was making noises so we stopped by a mechanic, jumped the queue, had the wheels re-aligned and air pumped in the tires. The cost? Absolutely free! The lady tipped the guys 10 soles (3 dollars) and they were more than pleased. Amazing.

Anyway, we did manage to see the amazing El Brujo site 60 kms north of Trujillo and then dropped off our guide to take the bus back to town. Five minutes after dropping off the guide, the German ladies turn to us and say "so, where you guys headed?". Huh? "Um, we´re headed to Chiclayo with you". "Oh, we´re not going to Chiclayo, we´re heading inland a bit". Hmmm... they never mentioned any of this in the preceding 24 hours. Well, in the end after lots of asking around with various locals we managed to find a small town before the turn off inland where the ladies could drop us off and we took a bus to Chiclayo. A bit of unnecessary drama, but we made it where we wanted to go in the end. But it turns out that your mother was right as usual: you should never take rides from strangers! We weren´t worried about two 60-something year old ladies causing problems, but they did provide us with unnecessary headache. It would have been simpler just for us to take the bus from Trujillo to Chiclayo and skip El Brujo.

Finally, here´s a picture of the famous hairless Peruvian dog. Man, are these things ugly! But apparently they have a higher body temp than most other dogs, so apparently they are good to sleep with on cold Andean nights. No thanks!!

Down Time at the Beach!

2007-06-16T03:44:00.000+01:00

So after lots of bus trips and sightseeing in Norther Peru, we thought we needed a little break. Our friends Ali and David (who we first met in Chile and went to the Uyuni Salt Flats with) have been meeting up with us from time to time for the last 6 weeks. They were also with us to celebrate my birthday. So it was great to meet up with them in Mancora, a beautiful beach near the Ecuador / Peru border. We also happen to have a date to meet with them at the Gramercy Tavern (David booked us in for a super lunch deal) in New York City on the 28th of June when they stopover for 3 days on their way to the UK.

Kevin has some great pictures of the beach. This was the view from our room.

Kevin chilled out in the hammock, though I think it was slightly too small for him. Love the haircut Kev!

The waves were pretty good at the beach so people were windsurfing...something I've never done but would love to do.

And this is sort of unrelated...but this is the view of a cloud forest from our our bus window, while we were on our way to Quito, Ecuador. I've decided I really love cloud forests.

Chan Chan

2007-06-16T03:09:00.000+01:00

Chan Chan is a massive adobe structure near the town of Trujillo in northern Peru. It's the largest adobe city in the world, but because of exposure to rain some parts of it are rapidly deteriorating. Basically, the city consists of 9 palaces where each successive ruler built his own private quarters. But each one of these 9 quarters is huge and takes a lot of time to walk around, so only one is open to the public in order to preserve the other 8. It's been estimated that more than 30,000 people lived in this city made of clay that sits right next to the Pacific Ocean. The beauty of Chan Chan lies in its delicate and very sophisticated carvings. Unlike its ancestors, the Chimu people used very uniform, highly organised carvings as a source of artistic expression. Kevin writes about the Huacas (pyramids) we visited and if you compare the images, the Moche people's art work is much more "modern" looking and very sophisticated.

The Chimu people mostly used forms from marine life, which is quite different to earlier civilizations which preferred to use feline or more ambigious forms. The carvings at Chan Chan depict fish, pelicans, and nets for catching various sea creatures.

Some pelicans created with a graphic, stylised formation.

This image is not from Chan Chan but rather from Huaca Arco Iris which was also built by the Chimu people. In English, Arco Iris means rainbow and from the carving you can see why it's called that. On each side of the rainbow are 2 dragons that are supposed to represent duality, male and female. However, to me lots of the dragons looked quite similar and not actually different genders!

The thing about all these sites in Peru is that much of what the guides tell you is guess work and conjecture. The truth is, there is no written language to fall back on which retells the history of the early Peruvians. However, through the remaining imagery, archeologists have tried to piece together a story of the past that, though not necessarily all factual, tell a compelling story of the ancients in Peru. So in a way, Peru is like the Egypt of the Americas, but at the same time it's a much younger culture and doesn't have the benefit of having a written language like the Egyptians did with their hieroglyphs.

Máncora: just what the doctor ordered

2007-06-15T22:35:00.000+01:00

Before we left Perú, we spent the last two nights there lounging on the beach in Máncora. Our hotel was quite nice, although slightly overpriced. But 2 days of R&R was just what the doctor ordered for both of us. The water of the Pacific Ocean crashes pretty consistently along the shore, but it´s still great for swimming, with decently warm water temps. The hotel pool was also nice after bundling up for weeks in the chilly Andean weather in the mountains.

The Gringo Trail in South America is narrow indeed. Two months ago we piled into a 4x4 in northern Chile with two other British couples on our way into southwest Bolivia. One couple, Ali and David, we have been travelling on and off with ever since and made plans to meet up again in Máncora, so we stayed at the same hotel as them. They got there a few hours ahead of us and as they walked down the beach in the morning, who should they run into than the other couple from our 4x4, Laura and Alistair, who we hadn´t seen for the past 2 months. The 6 of us had a nice dinner that night. Always nice to run into people hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from where you last saw them. Here´s the 6 of us from 2 months ago, at much higher altitude.

You can ride horses on the beach if you want, but we decided to give it a pass. Here´s Karen posing with them in the background all the same.

And a sign that you don´t normally see outside most hotels: It is prohibited to stop with horses in front of the hotel.

Another nice bit was that we essentially had the great beach to ourselves.

Although ... on closer inspection, we realized we were not alone!

Some vultures:

The beach was crowded with small crabs that would dart in their holes when you approached and then pop back out after you had walked past them. Real tough. But this poor fellow had a defective leg or something and was a bit slow. We could have caught him with our hands if we wanted. Instead we just opted for some great close up photos.

And you thought you were feeling bloated??? How about this poor fellow?

A great setting on the Pacific Ocean provided spectacular sunsets both nights we were there. Karen says I always include too many pictures of the same thing, but I just couldn´t help myself. So here are a decent collection of sunset pictures. The first night was slightly cloudier than the second night, so the sunlight had more clouds to dance on.

From the first night:

And from the second night:

Off to the Galapagos with Sadly Only 2 weeks to Go!

2007-06-15T02:58:00.001+01:00

Well, our trip isn't ending yet. We still have 2 months in the US, but somehow, as our time in South America comes to a close, it does feel like our trip is ending. We're ending it with a bang. On Sunday, we head to the Galapagos for 10 days...2 days on the main island of Santa Cruz and 8 days on a cruise on a small yacht (14 passengers). The day after we return from the Galapagos, we're going to New York. We are now in Quito, Ecuador and we have travelled on buses for a lot of the last 2 weeks covering about 1200 miles but on windy, bumpy roads (about 40 hrs on buses total). 20 hrs were done in the last 30 hrs so Kevin and I are slightly dilapidated. We'll write more about what we saw in Northern Peru soon.

Choquequirao

2007-06-15T02:58:00.000+01:00

A few of our loyal readers in the New York area have tipped us off about a recent article in the New York Times about Choquequirao, the "alternative Machu Picchu". You can read the article here:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/travel/03inca.html?pagewanted=all

We hadn´t heard much about Choquequirao before getting to Cusco. While there, we looked into going there but were quickly convinced against it. The main reason is that it is currently a two day hike to get there and once you´re there you either have to hike the same trail back the same way for 2 days or take 3 days to hike out the other side. At the time, we weren´t really in the mood for such a hike. Plus, after seeing so many Inca sites in the area, you get a bit overloaded after a while.

Having said all of that, as the article makes clear, it is indeed quite cool to see such an archaeological wonder and basically have the place to yourself. Only 6800 people visited it in 2006, which works out to less than 20 people per day. I heard that Machu Picchu gets about 1000 a day, but this article makes it out to be more like 2000 a day. When we were at Machu Picchu, we felt it actually wasn´t overly crowded and you could still enjoy it and find hidden parts that you had all to yourself.

The Peruvian government is supposedly ramping up the infrastructure around Choquequirao so that it will be easier for tourists to get to. But as with most things in Peru and South America in general, I´ll believe it when I see it. Maybe 20 years from now you´ll be able to visit it without doing major trekking.

Here are a few pictures of Choquequirao I´ve nicked off the internet. Copyright: other people. The NYT article also has a decent slideshow of pictures.

Adiós, PE!

2007-06-14T01:24:00.000+01:00

Well, after about 6 weeks in the country, we have now left the magical country of Perú behind. We´ll spend a few days in Ecuador (only around the Quito area) before flying to the Galápagos Islands on Sunday the 17th. We´re flying back to Quito from the islands on the 26th before heading to New York City on the 27th. I can´t believe the main part of our trip is almost over! We´ll spend about 2 months in the US before heading back to London, but it´s quite sad to be saying goodbye to our foreign adventures so soon.

But before we left Perú too far behind I wanted to share two things with you. First, I know how much you all loved my post on boring New Zealand license plates (you did love that post, right?). Well, in South America, all of the countries we visited had the country name printed on their plates, including Chile, which still resorted to boring black printing on a white background. In South America, though, it´s very difficult to bring vehicles across some borders. For example, Bolivia refuses to allow Chilean tour operators to bring vehicles over the border (we don´t need to get into why Bolivians hate Chile again), so we had to change vehicles at the border.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you the Peruvian license plate. Strangely, Peru, which is tied for the shortest country name in the world with all of four letters, has decided to abbreviate its short name from four letters to two on its license plate. It looks like this policy has been going on for decades. I can´t imagine how abbreviating the name saves any time, money, or effort, but there you go. Most of the current Peruvian license plates also use the boring black print on white, although you do see some with yellow backgrounds.

The other final thing I wanted to share about Perú was a bit of trivia. In the northeast part of Perú, deep in the Amazon rain forest, is found the city of Iquitos, home to anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000 people. We didn´t visit this part of Perú, but what is interesting about Iquitos is that it is generally regarded as the largest city in the world that cannot be reached by road. It can only be reached by boat or plane. I just found it quite remarkable that hundreds of thousands of people can live in a city that can´t be driven to. And I thought the small communities of hundreds of people that we saw in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco that were a mere few miles from the nearest road were crazy.

New Seven Wonders

2007-06-08T00:42:00.000+01:00

Here´s a topic I´ve been wanting to write about for a while, but just haven´t gotten around to it. But with less than a month to go, I have to write about it sooner rather than later.

I´m not sure how much publicity this website has received in various countries, but a Swiss entrepreneur has set up a website to help choose the New Seven Wonders of the World. Considering only 1 (the pyramids of Egypt) of the 7 Ancient Wonders still exists, I think this is a great idea and fully support it.

The website can be accessed at either www.n7w.com or www.new7wonders.com.

In Peru, let me tell you that the publicity for this is insane. I´m not sure who´s behind the campaign, but they are very determined to have Machu Picchu named among the new 7 wonders. I´m guessing that´s so they can raise the ticket prices even more! ;) There´s a very determined campaign spread throughout the country using all types of media - posters, articles, print ads, billboards, radio ads and TV ads. A very well organized campaign.

The Swiss man in charge of the show has been travelling the world visiting the 21 finalists and we actually saw him speak when we were in Easter Island.

Here are the 21 finalists:

The Acropolis, Athens, Greece
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey
The Kremlin/St. Basil´s, Moscow, Russia
The Colosseum, Rome, Italy
Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany
The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
Stonehenge, England
The Alhambra, Granada, Spain
The Great Wall of China, China
Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan
Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Taj Mahal, Agra, India
Timbuktu, Mali
Petra, Jordan
Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
Christ the Redeemer Statue, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Easter Island Statues, Chile
Machu Picchu, Peru
Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
The Statue of Liberty, New York City, USA

Karen has been to 18 of the 21 finalists (hasn´t seen Neuschwanstein, Petra or Timbuktu) and I´ve been to 16 (haven´t seen those 3 plus Kiyomizu or Kremlin), so I think we´re well placed to weigh in on the finalists.

First off, I have to say the final list of 21 sights is a bit political. The selection committee was very smart to pick at least 1 finalist from the countries with the largest populations and those countries most connected to the internet. Hence finalists like the Statue of Liberty, Christ the Redeemer, Neuschwanstein, and Sydney Opera House. I think the organizers were very keen to get at least one representative from the major countries to increase interest in the endeavor. I think it was also political, for example, why Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet is not a finalist (it was on the shortlist of 77, though). I think it was a bit too controversial to have somewhere in Tibet. I think there´s probably a few candidates in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia as well as in Iran that probably should have made the final list.

It´s also interesting to note that each culture was only entitled to one entry, so some entries actually represent an entire culture. For example, I think some of the temples in southern Egypt (e.g. around Luxor) are actually much better than the pyramids, but I think the pyramids are there to represent Egyptian culture as a whole. The same goes for Machu Picchu which is supposed to stand for all the myriad of cultures that have inhabited Peru and the surrounding areas for millenia. The Inca culture only lasted for about a century before the Spanish showed up. There were many other cultures lasting for centuries long before the Incas came on the scene.

Now, when looking at the finalists, I gave much more weight to those finalists that had an air of mystery surrounding them, especially those built by lost or mysterious civilizations. I also had a strong bias towards those things that have been around centuries and millenia rather than just merely decades. I think having permanence is a big thing.

I voted for my 7 a few months ago. Now looking at the website, I´m a bit confused (I must say that the website is not the best designed website, so it´s sometimes confusing navigating around). It now appears that the decision has been taken to make the Pyramids of Giza an automatic honorary choice and then another 7 will be chosen. Which, in my opinion, would make 8 Wonders. I think you´re no longer allowed to vote for the pyramids. It´s a bit unclear why this decision was made, but apparently it was made in conjunction with Egyptian authorities.

Having said all of this, here is my list of the top 8 choices:

Pyramids of Giza
Machu Picchu
Angkor Wat
Easter Island Statues
The Great Wall of China
Petra
Taj Mahal
Stonehenge

If you can´t vote for the Pyramids anymore, then I think the remaining 7 on my list make fine choices.

My second tier would include The Alhambra, Acropolis, Colosseum, Chichen Itza and Hagia Sophia (I think any of those could reasonably replace either the Taj Mahal and/or Stonehenge). The ones I´m not sure about either way are the Kremlin, Timbuktu, and Kiyomizu Temple. The ones I definitely wouldn´t vote for are Neuschwanstein Castle (there are many similar castles in Europe, like in Sintra, Portugal), Statue of Liberty (frankly I think Mount Rushmore is more impressive), Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House and Christ the Redeemer Statue. And no, I´m not excluding the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty or Christ the Redeemer Statue just because they were all designed and built by Frenchmen. ;)

Anyway, I highly encourage to check out the website and put in a vote. The winners will be announced on 7/7/07 (appropriately enough) in Lisbon, Portugal. That gives you less than a month to make your vote heard, so get voting!

The Mystery and Artistry of the Nazca Lines

2007-06-07T23:00:00.000+01:00

Above are two pictures of the pretty incredible site of the Nazca lines. After seeing so much green in Peru, it was a bit of a shock to the system to see the desert and these dry, sandy mountains and craters. The Nazca lines are a must-see for any traveller to Peru, a highlight in a country that already has so many great things to see. I might be looking a bit ill in these pictures...because I was ill! I have been nursing a throat infection and was quite under the weather when we went on our Nazca flight, but during the time we were in the air, I could actually forget how miserable I was feeling due to the amazing views from the sky. Now almost finished with a round of antibiotics, I'm feeling much better and we head north to Trujillo tonight. Trujillo is near the site of the biggest pre-columbian city, Chan Chan.

Here we are getting into the tiny Cessna that held 6 of us (including the pilot). I've never been in a plane that small and most helicopters are bigger. But the flight was surprisingly smooth, only, in order to see the lines the pilot take very sharp turns which, in turn, turn the stomach!

This triangle was cut into the sand by the Nazca people. Was it an alien landing platform like some wacky scientists have conjectured? Or was it part of a ritual worshipping water (which seems more realistic since this is the desert after all). What makes the lines so mysterious is that no one really knows why the Nazca people created these lines, the geometrical shapes and the animal figures. Nevertheless, because of the arid climate here, the lines have remained deeply ingrained into the sand for thousands of years (they date back to between 200 BC and 700 AD).

I haven't photoshopped any of these images, so I do hope you can see the lines on your screens. Also, though it might not be apparent from these pictures, these figures are large, most spanning 100-200 meters and some sites are even the size of 3 football fields. This is a picture of a tree and two hands to its right. As you can see, the lines run continously and have no breaks in it. Some conjecture that the Nazca people walked these lines and traced the images with their footsteps in some kind of ritual. The reason this theory is backed up is that the images are often interesected with seemingly random lines that lead to areas where ceremonies took place (there's a lot of pottery remains and other religiously tied objects found on sites close to the images).

These are the hands up close. Notice that there are only 9 fingers? Also notice the road running on top of the image? That's part of the Pan-American highway which runs across the lines, but fortunately didn't destory any specific images.

A stylised hummingbird:

The mighty, mighty condor (which some say is another Peruvian bird since the beak is too long):

These are both images of the same spider...one up close and the other further away. See the line that intersect it?

The dog, upside down. Sorry about that...I forgot to reverse it before I placed it on the blog!

I think my favourite figure of all was this monkey, though unfortunately this photo doesn't do it justice. This monkey proves that the Nazca people, living in an area that doesn't have monkeys, had contact with people and animals of the jungle.

This man is called the spaceman, though most people now agree he just represents a wise man whose arms point up and down. There is a lot of disagreement about whether the lines are meant to indicate water sources or astronomical sites, but perhaps the answer lies in the spaceman who points to both the heavens and the earth.

Most interestingly, the lines weren't "discovered" until about 1939, when a pilot reported spotting figures in the sand from the sky. The biggest mystery, perhaps, is why the Nazca people would create images such as these, that could only be viewed from the sky, when there wasn't any forseeable way that they could fly themselves? Or could they...

Sky Appreciation

2007-06-07T22:21:00.000+01:00

Until we went on this trip around the world, I never really appreciated the sky, clouds, rainbows or even stars. Kevin has always loved stars, but only when I saw all those southern hemisphere stars lit up in the Bolivian night sky did I really start to appreciate them. And you've seen all Kevin's photos of pretty amazing rainbows. Well, this entry is just to show you that I've really come around. We observed the full moon in Nazca through a great telescope and these are the cool photos we took of that night. I could swear I saw Nazca lines on the moon!

In Arequipa, I wasn't convinced about the majestic qualities of the condor. I thought...well, this is just a bird. Well, I am a total condor convert having seen several of them in Colca Canyon. How does that huge bird fly for so long with hardly a flap of its wings? Amazing...

World famous! ... in Peru

2007-06-06T01:34:00.000+01:00

Today, Karen and I hit the big time: getting our pictures published in the best newspaper in all of Peru!

While we were in the jungle, Manu National Park, there were two journalists, a writer and a photographer, from El Comercio newspaper in Lima on our tour. Today, the article was published in the newspaper with a decent number of pictures. And lo and behold, there was a picture of our backs as we stood on the catamaran trawling along the lake.

Unfortunately the pictures didn´t make the online version of the newspaper, but if you read Spanish and want to read more about our trip to the jungle, here´s the link:

http://www.elcomercioperu.com.pe/EdicionImpresa/Html/2007-06-05/Vamos0734124.html

And if your local newsagent happens to carry Peruvian newspapers, be sure to look out for today´s issue of El Comercio.

I´m just hoping this helps me in my nascent modeling career and helps me break into the all-important Latin American market! ;)

It´s just not FIFAir!

2007-06-04T00:49:00.000+01:00

Trouble´s a-brewing in the Andean nations of South America after FIFA, the world governing body for football/soccer announced last Saturday that they were going to ban international games taking place above 2,500 meters. This news did not go down very well in the Andean nations of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, which often play their international home games above 2,500 meters, giving them a large home field advantage.

Bolivia is the nation most affected, as many of their cities are above the limit, especially the capital La Paz, located at 3,600 meters. The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, has been holding crisis meetings with his cabinet and sports ministers to figure out appropriate action. He has also been playing in showcase games at higher and higher altitudes to show that there´s no problem with playing at altitude. He plans to play in a game above 6,000 meters to prove his point.

The Andean nations believe it was mostly Brazil and maybe Argentina that led the call for this rule change. Despite having some of the best players in the world, the Brazilians especially seem to suffer when they pay visits to La Paz, Cusco or Quito in Ecuador.

The main countries to suffer from this ruling are Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico. Colombia´s response was "if you don´t want to come to high Bogotá to play, then we´ll take you to the hot, steamy jungle to play international matches".

The Andean nations have a fair point when rebutting FIFA´s stated reasons of health grounds and ask how it is healthy to play in hot, steamy conditions like in Sao Paolo or like at World Cup 2006 in Germany.

It looks like this issue is not going to resolve itself anytime soon and it also looks like FIFA might already be backtracking somewhat. To be continued...

Colca Canyon; or, know your camelids!

2007-06-03T23:46:00.001+01:00

From Arequipa we took a two day trip to the beautiful region of Colca Canyon. For many years, Colca was believed to be the deepest canyon in the world at over 3,269 meters (over twice as deep as the Grand Canyon). But recently it has been discovered that neighboring Cotahuasi Canyon is deeper, at 3,500 meters.

On the trip, we saw some more amazing scenery.

In this photo you can see extensive terracing that dates back centuries. You can also see Karen, who dates back three decades.

A stunningly beautiful sunrise over the mountains:

High up on the mountainsides are numerous graves from various eras. The graverobbers throughout the centuries took all the valuable stuff, but left the skulls and bones behind.

On the way, there is the reserve zone for vicuñas. Vicuñas are one of four of the camelid varieties in South America. All four - llamas, alpacas, vicuñas and guanacos - provide very soft fiber for clothing and textiles. While there are millions of llamas and alpacas in South America (mostly in the Andean nations), there are probably less than 200,000 each of vicuñas and guanacos.

Here´s a vicuña mother with child:

And here´s a cheeky alpaca at the roadside restaurant:

And another cute alpaca at a rustic looking hotel:

One of the highlights of a trip to the canyon is seeing the majestic Andean condor. There is one site where many gather to float gently on the warm updrafts. The condor is probably the largest flying bird in the world, with a wingspan going upwards of 3 meters or possibly more. Seeing them in flight is a majestic sight.

Arequipa

2007-06-03T23:14:00.001+01:00

We have now left the beautiful city of Arequipa behind. As noted previously, Arequipa is surrounded by towering mountains and volcanoes.

Here is a view of the Monastery of Santa Catalina with mountains in the background.

And the looming volcano of El Misti:

The two main sights to see are the museum which houses Juanita, the ice mummy and the Convent of Santa Catalina.

Juanita was a young girl of around 14 years of age who was sacrificed by the Incas in the 1400s and whose almost perfectly preserved mummified body was found in 1995. It is on display in a museum in Arequipa. No photos allowed, so if you want to see pictures, you have to check out this website and click on the link for La Momia Juanita. If you want to read more about her, I could only find good information in Spanish, like this article.

Juanita:

The other main sight to see is the Monastery (actually a convent) of Santa Catalina, which was founded in 1580 and was shut to the outside world until 1970. It has a fascinating history. The Lonely Planet guidebook for Peru has a great writeup about the monastery. Unfortunately I can´t get the article from the LP website, but fortunately someone has lifted it almost word for word and put the article on Wikipedia. You can read all about it here.

Strangely, the history on the convent´s own website differs markedly from what is in LP and the history the convent itself displays on site. The convent was filled with the daughters (usually the second daughter) of rich Spanish families who could provide generous dowries. The nuns lived in luxury for centuries, most of them employing slaves. In 1871 the pope finally decided to end the lavishness of this convent and sent a stern woman to clean things up. In 1970, the mayor of Arequipa forced the convent to open up to the outside world and to tourism.

Strangely, the official website says that "the ladies who entered as nuns were Creole, half-bred and even daughters of curacas (Indian chieftains). In 1964 the first Spanish nuns entered." I´m still very confused why the website says that, as displays at the convent itself shows that it was a convent for rich Spanish girls for centuries.

Whatever the true story, the convent is massive, taking up a very large city block. You can tell that the nuns lived very well indeed. The site takes a few hours to explore properly and some parts of it are quite beautiful.

Ciao, Cusco!

2007-05-31T00:11:00.001+01:00

I don´t know how it happened, but we wound up spending lots more time in the Cusco area than we had planned. Considering we already had mixed feelings about the place already (pretty nice city, but the harassment on the street is very tiresome), our last 24 hours in Cusco really sealed a very negative view for us.

On Sunday, we left the jungle at 6 in the morning and travelled all day to arrive in Cusco around 7:30 p.m. Karen already mentioned how terrible our meals were all week in the jungle (I´m still trying to regain my appetite). In Cusco we had a very so-so Chinese meal and then headed "home" to the hotel that we had stayed at on 3 different occasions for a total of 11 nights and we wanted to stay just one final night. So we show up at the hotel at 9 p.m. only to find out that the hotel is full and they gave our room away! Talk about loyalty. We had confirmed 3 times before we left for the jungle that we wanted one more night and that we might be late arriving. What happened is that other people arrived wanting to stay 5 nights which clearly trumped our 1 night stay so it was easy for them to give our room away. Of course, no one would take responsibility for erasing our names and a mysterious "new boy who works on the weekends" was blamed. Well, after travelling all day we were tired and irritable and just wanted a room. Fortunately they found us a room just down the block that wound up being just as good and saved us some money as well, but still. Very annoying for us to stay at one hotel 3 times and then get dumped so easily. Oh, did I also mention that this hotel charged us for requesting extra pillows on a previous checkout? They didn´t tell us when we asked for the pillows, only when checking out.

But worse was yet to come...

The new hotel had a good breakfast which was just as well because our final lunch and dinner in Cusco were both fairly terrible.

On Monday, we had a bus to Arequipa (where we are now) at 8:45 p.m. Since our clothes smelled like jungle, we needed a wash and were debating whether to do the laundry in Cusco or wait until Arequipa. Well, we had used one lavanderia twice already with no problems so we decided to go with them again (despite Lonely Planet´s recommendation to never trust your laundry on the last day in any town). We dropped off at 10 a.m. and they said it would be ready by 6 p.m. (like the previous two times). We go back at 6 and they say "no, we said 7". OK, a lie, but still 7 was no problem for us. At 7 I go back to get the laundry and it´s not there and now the story emerges that some machine broke or something and they had to wait for someone to fix it. OK, but why did no one mention this at 6? Anyway, I stress to her that we have a bus to catch at 8:45 and have to be at the bus station at 8:30. She absolutely 100% guarantees me that the clothes will be there at 8 on the dot. I tell her I don´t care if the clothes are wet, dry, not clean, whatever, we just need the clothes at 8.

At 8, we go back. No clothes, no lady. I talk to some other lady who says the other lady went to the laundry place (it wasn´t done on site) at 7:15 and it´s supposedly only 15 minutes away. But no one can tell me where this lady is or where our clothes are. 8:15, still no sign. Now we go back to the hotel and do some crisis calls to the bus company and the tour company we bought our bus tickets from to see if we can hold the bus for a few minutes and to at least let them know we were still coming. Now it´s getting down to crunch time and we have to decide between leaving all our laundry behind (not really an option) or forgoing our $60 bus tickets to Arequipa and leaving the next night. Neither an appealing option. 8:30, still no sign. Finally, at 8:45 the lady shows with our laundry. She looked like I should treat her as some sort of savior for delivering the clothes! Although frankly, I still don´t know what we would have done if she didn´t show up at just that moment. I didn´t have time to get the story from her as to what happened (it would have just been more lies anyway) so I just grabbed the bags of laundry, gave her a piece of my mind, and then ran back to the hotel. Jumped in the next taxi and threw all our bags in and gave the classic line "bus station, and step on it. Extra tip if you get us there in 5 minutes or less". Well, fortunately we managed to make it but with, oh, just a wee bit of stress and much headache. At the bus station we were a bit out of sorts so Karen´s backpack almost got left behind and she also dropped her money belt which fortunately someone spotted. Fun times all around.

We didn´t have time to check our laundry when we got it as we had to get to the bus station. So when we arrived in Arequipa the next day and finally checked we realized we were missing: my quick-dry towel, Karen´s swimsuit, and HALF of all the underwear that Karen brought on this trip. So we must have lost well over $60 worth of stuff due to the lavanderia´s mess-up. In return, though, we did manage to get someone else´s t-shirt and a lonely sock that isn´t ours. Fair trade?

So, as you can see, we were more than happy to finally say ciao to Cusco. It was very disappointing and just sheer bad luck that the hotel we used 3 times previously and the lavanderia we used twice previously both managed to let us down (the lavanderia more spectacularly).

Unfortunately Karen and I are both feeling under the weather now (I think I have mild flu). I was already feeling a bit ill on Sunday, so running up and down hill between the hotel and lavanderia multiple times didn´t help me much.

We are now in Arequipa, which is the second largest city in Peru and is a lovely city. And the harassment on the streets is only about 1/10th of Cusco. Karen says it reminds her a lot of Salta in Argentina. Like Salta, though, it has the problem of not being pedestrian friendly even though it´s a big walking city. Cars always think they have right of way versus the pedestrians. I don´t know why they paint crosswalks on the streets because there are very few stoplights and the cars never stop for pedestrians.

Anyway, Arequipa has one of the loveliest climates anywhere, with temps almost always in the 20s Celsius year round and some of the lowest rainfall anywhere. Supposedly it´s sunny 350 days a year. The main problem it has, though, is that it´s located in one of the worst locations in the world for natural disasters. It suffers about 2 major earthquakes each century (last one in 2001) and is surrounded by more than a few volcanoes. The volcanoes provide a brilliant backdrop to the city, but it´s also not the most comforting sight.

Into the Amazon or the Best Unintentional Diet Plan Ever

2007-05-28T22:33:00.000+01:00

What do diets have to do with the Amazon you might say? Well, Kevin and I have just gotten back from our 8 day trip into the Manu Biosphere Reserve, which is part of the Amazon, and lost a combined total of about 15 pounds. Why? Well, our cook on the trip was pretty crappy and at times his meals were rather inedible. We just lost all interest in food--which, if you know us, takes a heck of a lot! On our last night, Kevin stared at his sad tuna fish patty and almost lost the will to live right there. Luckily, we had gloopy but edible chocolate pudding for dessert.

That said, the rest of our trip to the Amazon was really interesting and as we hadn't spent much time in the jungle before, we learned a lot about the pros and cons of doing a jungle trip. Also, a trip like that takes a toll on the body and now Kevin and I have caught colds probably due to the fact our guide had a cold and the weather fluctuated a lot. However, looking back at the pictures we took, I also realize now that we saw an incredible contrast of cloud forests, dense jungles and serene lakes against the amazing backdrop of the Andes.

Gorgeous cloud forest....

The lakes (where we spotted giant otters and loads of birds and monkeys) at sunrise and sunset:

And, this is us after 3 days of not taking a shower. Not too bad, eh?

Our trip took 2 days in and out, so we had about 4 days in the Manu Reserve. But even outside of the reserve there was a lot to see. And since Kevin and I have suddenly become extreme sports / adventure buffs (who knew?), we had to do the jungle trip where we mountain bike down 1000 meters in 3 hoursb through rough terrain, white water raft, and take a wild canopy tour. With all this activity (and recent bouts with bacterial infections), I sometimes feel like we need a vacation from our vacation!

In the jungle, you learn to be patient because the animals rarely come to you. You're lucky if you see three mammals within a week...but there are loads of birds to see. I think we saw over 30 kinds (though they're gone in a blink so no pictures!) and observed parrots feasting on a clay lick (a giant clay wall). As for mammals, my favourite one was the capybaras, the largest rodents in the world! We saw a family of five feeding away by the river. They were so adorable and looked like giant hamsters (about the size of a big dog)!

We also got to see cute giant otters, swimming as a family and chomping on some juicy fish, and the other half of our group even saw a jaguar though we just missed it (out boat was behind theirs). And we saw so many black and white caimans (like crocodiles) I lost count.

There is a lot of waiting time though, lots of time on the water (the best place to see animals from as you can scope the jungle out with a wider field of vision) and without a good guide, you miss a lot of things. We spent about 35 hours total on this boat!

Even the small things are pretty amazing. Kevin took a huge fancy to these leaf cutter ants carrying this incredible load on their backs. Amazingly, we seemed to observe that the ants worked from 9 to 5! Maybe they're in a union?

And walking around the forest, we observed so many kinds of plant and tree life which were pretty amazing. We encountered this giant kapok tree which alone holds hundreds of ecosystems. (That's our guide explaining it all to us)

Our most exciting encounter was when we walked through the forest and then, as if we were in an episode of the TV show "LOST", we heard a crazy melee of grunting and teeth gnashing! We had almost run into loads of peccaries (wild pigs) who are known to attack humans, but luckily ran away when they heard our footsteps. We just saw back shadows making their way into the deep forest. But we had gotten a great scare and everyone's hearts were thumping big time. What we had heard was them galloping away...lucky for us, since our guide said that sometimes he and his group have had to climb trees to escape these creatures.

We also got a small glimpse into the way of life for the local villagers within the Amazon, but we wished we could have seen more. I think many jungle enthusiasts have to spend at least 2 weeks in the jungle but 1 week was certainly plenty for me and Kevin! Here is Kevin playing with the local village game of (I kid you not): Spear- the-turtle-skull-through-the-stick.

Beware the might of the Bolivian Navy!

2007-05-28T16:58:00.000+01:00

What? Bolivia has a navy? But isn´t Bolivia land-locked you ask? OK, well maybe you didn´t ask that, but anyway.

Yes, it´s true, land-locked Bolivia does indeed have a navy (you can even check out the offical site), based at Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian-Peruvian border. The navy patrols the lakes and rivers to prevent smuggling, etc., ever since those darn Chileans stole their coastline back in the 1880s. Actually, Bolivia has a very sad history, as it has lost OVER HALF of its territory since independence from Spain to its neighbors. Every single one of its neighbors (Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and Peru) has stolen land from Bolivia. Poor thing. Besides the main War of the Pacific in the 1880s where they lost their coastline, Bolivia has gone to war with Paraguay in the Chaco War in the 1930s. The Chaco War is interesting because the region fought over was thought to be rich in oil so the American oil companies were heavily involved, with Standard Oil (later Exxon/Mobil, Chevron, BP/Amoco) backing Bolivia and Shell Oil backing Paraguay. Hmmm, major oil companies getting involved in foreign politics/wars? Who would have thunk it? ;) I´m glad we´ve moved on from those darker days of the past. An earlier dispute with Brazil in the early 1900s left the rubber-producing state of Acre leaving Bolivia to join Brazil.

Anyway, enough of Bolivia´s sad, sordid history. I know Karen has already written about the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, with the floating islands and I know I´m going back a bit, but I wanted to write about the Bolivian side. Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world, at about 3800 meters or so above sea level.

Our base on the Bolivian side was Copacabana, which is situated on a peninsula that can only be reached by going by boat or via Peru. The Peruvian-Bolivian border cutting through Lake Titicaca is a very strange line indeed, as you can see from the map.

On the way to Titicaca we passed by some ladies dressed traditionally on the roadside.

To get to Copacabana, we had to cross the narrow Straight of Tiquina between the Bolivian mainland and the peninsula. The bus is transported on one boat while passengers are transported on another (due to a fatal capsizing a few years ago with people still on the bus). Pretty interesting to see the bus cross on these small platform boats.

I tried to sneak a picture of this family (many Bolivian ladies don´t like their pictures being taken), but it looks like I was caught in the act.

As you can see from this sign, Bolivia is still pretty determined to get their coastline back from Chile and demands the international community to pay attention. I have a better chance of winning an Oscar than of Chile giving up what they got from Bolivia, as 40% of Chile´s wealth comes from the copper and nitrate rich northern regions.

Copacabana itself is beautifully situated on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Unfortunately I got some of the worst food poisoning (or call it what you want) of the entire trip there (as did 2 others we were dining with) and was very ill for the next 3 days.

I liked the look of this cloud looming large over the surrounding countryside.

Trucha, trucha, trucha (trout, trout, trout) is all you can get in the Titicaca region (and neither Karen nor I particularly like it). This restaurant was actually fairly limited as we went to some restaurants with 15 or 20 different preparations for trout. In inland Bolivia and Peru we realized that going to Japanese restaurants was almost pointless, as the only fish on offer was trout (trout sushi, anyone?). Seriously, a Japanese restaurant with neither salmon nor tuna is not a Japanese restaurant at all.

And here´s the legendary Bolivian Armada itself. Now, considering most of the buses we saw in Bolivia were old castoffs from China, Japan, and Korea, I guess it should have come as no surprise to see that the Bolivian navy was supplied with old castoffs of the Boston Swan Boats. Well, I don´t think that was their actual armada, but I thought the juxtaposition of swan boats next to a military post was just way too funny.

From Copacabana we went to Isla del Sol, which is very important in Incan creation myths. It´s a beautiful island. Unfortunately I was well under the weather so the traverse of the island that should have taken 2-3 hours took me over 5 hours to complete. It was well worth it for the beautiful scenery, though.

Karen even managed to find the local Wal-Mart megastore and bought a nice hat.

The island has a decent amount of Incan ruins which were fun to explore. And the scenery all over the island was amazing.

One of the funniest bits was when a traditionally dressed farmer girl was walking on the path in front of us and was afraid we were taking pictures of her and so she essentially played "1-2-3 redlight" (hopefully you know that game) with us for about 20 minutes, turning around intermittently to try to catch us taking a picture of her. She even did some fancy twirls while trying to catch us out.

The island provided brilliant sunset views over the mountains on the mainland.

Here´s Karen at sunrise.

Some more locals down at the pier.

OK, that´s it for our wonderful trip to Lake Titicaca. But before I deleted some photos from my memory card, I wanted to share a few random ones.

First, some pictures of some beautiful alpacas we found near Titicaca. You might recall that when we were in New Zealand Karen mistaked an alpaca farm for a farm with really tall sheep. Alpacas have some of the softest natural fibers and make great sweaters.

A random restaurant sign in Puno, Peru. I´m not really sure what "great full food" is supposed to be.

And not to be gross, but I was intrigued by this shop sign in Puno. I assume these businesses exist elsewhere but are a bit more subtle with their advertising. I don´t think I need to translate what services they are offering. Not the sign I expected to see on a street full of restaurants.

Some locals on the roadside charging for pictures with their baby and baby alpacas.

More local color.

That´s me checking out an elaborate carnival mask.

And to end on a completely random note, we couldn´t figure out if this was a sign for one restaurant with three names or multiple restaurants. I especially like the one called "THE" Restaurant.

The Death Road

2007-05-19T23:29:00.000+01:00

In Bolivia there exists what is known as "the most dangerous road in the world". For decades this was the main road from the capital, La Paz, to the north and into the jungle. Apparently it was built by Paraguayan prisoners of war who didn´t really care about how good the road was. And for years, about 200-300 people died per year on this road. This road is essentially a one-lane road that was used as a two-lane road. It´s a dirt and rocks road that clings precariously to the mountainside with tons of blind curves and with sheer drop offs of 500 to 1000 meters, and with almost no guardrails to speak of. Lore has it that truck drivers would be so scared to drive through the thick fog that they would stop on the road, only for another car or truck to hit them or for a landslide to drop them off the cliff. Also, instead of having both hands on the wheel, the drivers would often make the sign of the cross to protect themselves, only to lose control and careen over the cliff (ironic, eh?).

Well, finally, in the last two years or so, they have opened the new modern road which has now made the "death road" redundant and it has now been taken over by mountain bike adventurers. Karen and I were very keen to check this "death road" out. Now that the cars and trucks have mostly abandoned it (some local traffic still uses it), it´s actually not too bad. But while cycling down it you can look over the cliff side for hundreds of meters, so it still packs a significant thrill factor. And the best part is that it´s over 90% downhill, as you go from about 4000 meters above sea level to about 1200 meters above sea level.

After riding it, I have to say that it´s reputation as "the most dangerous road in the world" is probably well deserved (or was, at least). But I also have to say that I would also call it "the prettiest road in the world" as the scenery is just absolutely fantastic from start to finish. It´s a good thing we were travelling in a group, because otherwise I probably would have stopped every 10 meters to take pictures of the breathtaking scenery. Simply amazing views.

I´m a bit annoyed because the BBC website had a fantastic article on this road featured just last November. I tried to find it but it has now disappeared off the website (strangely the first paragraph shows up but not the rest of it). If it reappears, I´ll try to remember to post a link to it.

Here´s Karen at the start of our trip (in the cold mountain tops).

And here are just a few of some of the amazing views.

Although there´s a decent amount of cyclists on the road now, while cycling it was almost never crowded. Here´s another group taking a break on the roadside.

And here´s Karen powering her way up the top of one of the small uphills we had to do.

The first part of the trip was actually on the newly paved road before we hit the dirt and rocks "death road" proper. When we first hit the top of the death road, it was shrouded in a thick fog, which got us a bit worried. Fortunately it lifted quickly after just a small descent.

And then it opened up into some more spectacular vistas.

On some parts we had to pedal through some small streams, which was quite fun as well.

At the bottom we got to take some nice showers and enjoy the pool at a hotel before heading back to La Paz. Frankly, the ride back to La Paz, even though it´s on the new road, was 10 times scarier than the ride down the death road on a bike. By evening, the thick fog had rolled back in, allowing the driver to only see about 25 feet in front of him. Scary stuff. The ride back, though, did provide us with one of the prettiest nighttime scenes we have ever seen, as we rose above the fog and saw the fog-enshrouded valley bathed by the light of a full moon. Indescribable beauty.

All in all, it was a fantastic day and well worth the price. We also got to try out full-suspension bikes for the first time, so the ride wasn´t as painful on the hard road as we thought it might be. The ride itself is not too scary while still giving you the sense of what drivers on this road must have gone through for decades. An unforgettable experience.

White Water Rafting

2007-05-19T22:23:00.000+01:00

(that's me and Kevin on the left side of the boat...I'm in front of Kevin)

We just got back from a 3 day white water rafting trip on the Apurimac River, a class 3-5 river that is only run 6 months of the year (after the rainy season). It was truly exhilarating experience with loads of heartstopping rapids. In addition to the thrilling rapids, the location was also truly splendorous with huge canyon walls on both sides.

We shared our boat with another American, a Canadian and two Swedes. We rotated places on the boat so we all got loads of excitement and spray. I have to say, the back of the boat is usually the safer part but not really on these kinds of rapids. Every spot on the boat is pretty precarious. Luckily, our team was really responsible and lots of fun to raft with. Kevin and I both popped out of the boat and were left with one leg dangling inside the boat at different stages. But luckily our great guide Eduardo (in purple) and our team helped pull us in. We also didn't tip over though we had a couple close calls!

We camped out on the side of the river for 2 nights in tents. Unbelievably, this was our first time to properly camp with sleeping bags this entire trip! And even more surprisingly, it wasn't too bad and we slept pretty well. The food the guides cooked with rafting was also pretty good.

The only bad thing was not being able to take a shower for a few days. But, we were getting drenched every day (as these pictures show) so maybe that counts towards a shower?

We were pretty exhausted by the end of it. Also, we had to keep ourselves covered most of the time because the sand flies were atrocious. But the fun quotient outweighed the itchy one.

Well, where are we off next? We're heading to the Manu Biosphere Reserve tomorrow. As part of the Amazon jungle (but located very near Cusco, Peru), the reserve is one of the best areas for seeing wildlife and has some of the greatest biodiversity in the world. That said, it's all about luck and your guide so I hope we get lucky and see some cool things! Despite being geographically close to Cusco, it'll still take us 2 whole days to get there and 2 days back (lots of unpaved roads and sailing on a river). Since we are taking the bus there and back we will be in the jungle for about 5 days total. So more from us when we get back from that... By the way, thanks for all the belated birthday messages. I can't think of a better way to celebrate my 30th year on this planet than to be travelling!

Machu Picchu

2007-05-15T23:59:00.000+01:00

Karen and I went earlier this week to visit Machu Picchu, the famous Lost City of the Incas. It evaded the notice of the Spanish for centuries (which is why it wasn´t destroyed by them, like most of the other sights in South America), and only a few local farmers even knew it existed. That was until 1911 when Hiram Bingham and a team from Yale "discovered" it (although at first he thought it was an entirely different Incan city, Vilcabamba, which was the last holdout of the Incas). After many years and a few different trips, the Yale team eventually uncovered most of the site, which was completely overgrown with centuries of thick forest cover. What they found is amazing, even though scholars still can´t agree what it was used for (many theories abound). The Yale team also "borrowed" a few thousand artifacts from the site, which the Peruvian government has made a few half-hearted attempts to get back. They can be viewed on your next trip to New Haven, Connecticut.

Continuing with the "let´s rip off the gringos" theme that is so prevalent in the Cusco area, entrance to Machu Picchu is a rather hefty US$40 (compared to only $20 a mere 4 years ago) plus another $12 roundtrip for the 25 minute bus ride plus $73 roundtrip for the train (100 kms each way) from Cusco to Machu Picchu town (aka Aguas Calientes). There´s no road to Aguas Calientes, so you´re forced to take the train or do the 4 day Inca Trail hike (which we missed out on as we didn´t sign up in time). But the Peruvians know they have a significant cash cow to milk and they sure aren´t going to miss out. No one is going to come to Peru and then not go to Machu Picchu no matter what the price. Having said all that, it´s still an amazing experience and definitely a highlight of our trip.

We stayed overnight in Aguas Calientes (AC) town so we could get an early start. During our afternoon in AC I went for a very hearty hike up Putukusi mountain. It was an hour and a half of extremely hard trekking, but the reward is a great view of the surrounding valleys, and, more importantly, a view from afar of Machu Picchu (MP) itself. Plus it was sort of a free adventure playground, as you have to climb numerous ladders up sheer rock faces to reach the top. Amazingly, on the way up I had the entire path to myself (no one going up or down) and then I had 45 very peaceful minutes at the top all to myself looking at MP. An amazing experience. On my way down, I ran into about 20 people all heading up the hill for sundown.

One of the many wooden ladders attached to the rock face one must climb to get up Putukusi - definitely not recommended in the rainy season.

A view of the beautiful Urubamba Valley.

A view of Aguas Calientes town nestled among the towering mountains.

A view (no cost!) of MP from the top of Putukusi mountain.

More of the beautiful surrounding landscape.

To go to MP itself, we got up very early and took the bus at 5:30 a.m. 25 minutes up the hill (the "Hiram Bingham highway") so we could be at MP in time for sunrise. Despite the early hour, there was still a decent amount of people, but even mid-day, MP is never completely overrun that you can´t enjoy it.

Here´s sunrise over the surrounding mountain peaks.

After watching the sun come up over the ruins, our next adventure was to climb the mountain overlooking MP, Huayna Picchu. This is by no means an easy hike. At the top of this mountain there are further ruins. Upon seeing them, one can only make one simple conclusion - these Incas were absolutely loco! They really built stuff in the craziest locations. Just check out some of their stairways.

The only way to climb this wall is to climb up these stepping stones coming out of the wall. And this wall is located many hundreds of meters above the valley floor.

But climbing Huayna Picchu is well worth the effort as you´re rewarded with a great overview of MP.

After climbing the main part of Huayna, we then decided to take the very long way down the back of the mountain, which required some more jungle gym acrobatics. The reason was to view some other Incan ruins that are very rarely visited. And after doing the arduous trek, we know why they are very rarely visited!

Here´s the classic view of MP. The tall peak in the back is Huayna Picchu.

And some other views of MP including some closer views of the buildings themselves.

There are many llamas roaming free around the ruins of MP. They help to trim the grass. They are very docile and friendly to the tourists. Here´s Karen with a young one.

And finally, after seeing my first circumhorizontal arc (the non-rainbow rainbow) in the skies above Patagonia, I was very keen to see another occurrence of one. And what better place to see one than at one of the wonders of the world, MP. This one lasted less than a minute (unlike the other one I saw which lasted for about 10 minutes), but this one was just as stunning. Plus this time, Karen got to see it for herself.

Send us some comments!

2007-05-15T17:25:00.000+01:00

As bloggers, it's nice to know when people like what you're saying or that they're finding it interesting. So we have been sad to see that we have had nary a comment in weeks! Now, through Google analytics we know we average over 50 readers a week...so why aren't any of you sending us some LOVE??? So write to us, gossip, tell us what you think, or whether you disagree with us. Let's get the communication lines up and running again! Send it as an anonymous comment or sign it, whatever you do it will be appreciated (unless you slag us off of course)!

An appeal from two comment-deprived bloggers

Cusco, Peru

2007-05-12T01:34:00.000+01:00

Right now we´re in Cusco, Peru, ancient capital of the Incas. Cusco itself has lots of charm, but frankly the city is starting to annoy us a lot. First of all, it´s much more expensive for food and hotels here than many of the other places in South America. Even more annoying is the price inflation. Our 4 year old guidebook is hopelessly out of date for prices. And the sights in town have jacked up their prices, including many churches that used to be free to see that now charge over $3 to get into just to see 1 or 2 nice things they have. And finally, as this is tourist/gringo central, you seriously can not walk down the street/stop in the street/sit on a park bench without getting harrassed 3 times a minute by people trying to sell you something. Even westerners that have been here for months or years still get this treatment. There´s no escaping it.

Having said all that, the reason to come to Cusco is to see all the wonderful archaeological sights in the area. We haven´t even made it to the granddaddy of them all, Machu Picchu, yet, but we´ve still seen plenty in the area. Today we walked over 10 kms to see a few sights in the surrounding area around Cusco. The level of sophistication in stonework that the Incas achieved is massively impressive. These stones weigh tons and the Incas were able to sculpt them precisely to fit perfectly together. Considering Peru is in a serious earthquake zone, these stone edifices had to be perfect to last for centuries. It´s sad that the Spanish conquistadors destroyed most of the buildings and/or used the stones as their personal quarries to build churches, etc. But what is left is still very interesting and exciting to behold.

Here´s Karen celebrating her 30th with friends. The restaurant was kind enough to give us a free cake.

Cusco has lots of hilly and windy streets that are quite charming.

As Cusco is set among the hills, you can see some dramatic scenery while walking around town.

Here´s an overview of the central square, La Plaza de Armas. That is La Compañía church, which has a beautiful façade.

A very strange sign to be seen in Cusco. The literal translation: "It´s prohibited to effectuate your physiological needs and paint on the walls under penalty of fine and arrest".

The archeological sights around Cusco also provide great views of the surrounding hills and valleys.

Impressive Incan stonework.

And who might this "sexy woman" be? Saqsaywaman is one of the key Inca sights near Cusco. A very large sight with lots to see and extremely significant during Inca times.

Some of the most impressive of Incan stonework is to be seen at Saqsaywaman.

A great view over the city of 250,000 people.

Her age might be catching up with her: Karen being very confused by conflicting signage.

The main temple area at Saqsaywaman.

An close up look at the intricate stonework.

Sillustani, A Pre-Incan Cemetery

2007-05-11T01:32:00.000+01:00

We've been in Peru for almost 2 weeks now and there is just such an abundance to see here that we fear we won't have enough time (we've allocated about 6 weeks here in Peru). These are images of Silustani, an Incan cemetery situated very close to Puno, Peru. The interesting thing about the cemetery, other than its gorgeous setting near a lake, is that it as example of how burial customs changed over time. The round towers are called challpas, which were burial places for the Colla people (who were Aymaran) who were later absorbed into the Incan Empire. This first chamber is where the Collas kept their mummies within these small stone piles. Their stonework looks so simple compared to what they were able to do just a few hundred years later.

These challpas date to Incan times. By this time, the Collas (like the Incans) had developed very sophisticated stonework to construct these monolithic burial towers. This one was hit by lightening, so only about half of it remains.

Here is the same chamber closer up. Sometimes, whole families were all buried together including all the servants. They were also buried with a lot of their riches, but of course these have been looted long ago (many of the looters were the Spanish conquistadors who brought back the gold to Spain to melt down).

And right next to this cemetery is the majestic lake Umayo where we were particularly captivated by the table island situated in the middle of it. They raise alpacas and vicuñas on it.

Around Sillustani, you can still see how simply some people still live in these agricultural communities.

Reed This! Uros Islands, Lake Titicaca

2007-05-09T10:00:00.000+01:00

If you ever get to Bolivia and Peru, do make sure you go to Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. The lake is so huge and has such amazing scenery that you feel like you are in another world. We loved the Bolivian side of Titicaca and spent a night on Isla del Sol there. But we wanted to show you a bit of the Peruvian side because of the very unique Islas Flotantes (Floating Islands), which are entirely made of reed (see above pic). The Uros people, who continue to live on these islands, pre-date and outlasted the Incans. Not bad for a group of people who live by the reed. Their transport, food, houses, and anything else that can be are made of reed. It's pretty amazing that such a simple crop can produce so much. Below is a picture of the reed houses the Uros live in. Some of these houses are pretty hi-tech with solar panels to provide energy to the Uros.

We got a demonstration of how they use and replace reeds continually to keep their homes and islands fresh.

Then, we got a chance to eat the reed. Tasted like tough asparagus to us!

And then we got quite a big farewell as we went to explore some of the other islands. We have to note that the Peruvians are much friendlier than the Bolivians...however, they are also much more tourist savvy. A connection?

This lovely lady rowed us to the other island on a reed boat. I loved her outfit and her long braided hair as well.

This is the reed boat we travelled in. Though it floated well, it was very slow getting to an island only 200 meters away.

One thing I haven't mentioned about Kevin that everyone should know. He LOVES heights. If there is a ladder, mountain, hill, temple, steeple or anything that requires stairs or climbing, he immediately runs to it in order to conquer it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAREN!!!

2007-05-09T01:15:00.000+01:00

HAPPY 21st* BIRTHDAY TO THE MOST FABULOUS WOMAN I KNOW!

Yes, it´s true - May 9th is when Karen hits the big ... well, you know. I don´t need to tell you how old she really is, do I?

She doesn´t look a day over 20, does she?

Belly button lint

2007-05-08T01:05:00.000+01:00

We have now arrived in the heartland of the Incas - Cusco, Peru. We´re a bit daunted by all the archaeological sites we want to see in the area over the next week, but we´re looking forward to seeing it all.

The official name of Cusco has now been changed back to the Quechua (the language of the Incas and still spoken by millions in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador) name of Qosq´o. Either way, the name means "the navel of the world", as Cusco was the seat of power for the wide-ranging Incan empire.

Strangely enough, this is the second "navel of the world" that we´ve been to in the past 3 months. Easter Island is also known as "Rapa Nui" in the local Polynesian language. However, it was originally known as "Te Pito O Te Henua", which also means "the navel of the world", as the original settlers believed that they were at the center of the world. Considering Easter Island is a tiny island set adrift in the ocean thousands of miles from any other land, we could see where they came up with this idea. And even though New Yorkers still believe that New York is the center of everything, the name "New York" sadly does not mean "the navel of the world". (I think "New York" is originally French or something ;) )

Unfortunately, though, we won´t make it to the original "navel", the omphalos at the Temple of Delphi in Greece.

Now this leaves us with two key questions. First, if the earth is always referred to as "Mother Earth" or "Pachamama" as she´s known in these parts, then why would it have a navel, let alone two?

And, of course, the more important second question: who´s the daddy?

Tiwanaku...Seems a lot like Easter Island

2007-05-06T01:04:00.000+01:00

Okay, so Tihuanaco (or Tiwanaku) isn't Easter Island, but when we first saw these statues we were immediately struck by how similar they were to the Easter Island monoliths we saw. On closer examination, though, they are quite different, especially with the kind of carving the statues had on them.

Both male and female statues have braids on the back so it is very difficult for archaeologists to decipher the gender of these statues.

Tihuanaco is a pre-columbian site situated about 44 miles west of La Paz. It is one of the most significant pre-cursors to the Incan empire, and unlike the Incans, they didn't use any kind of sacrifices. Their civilisation was highly dependent and devoted to agriculture so many of their significant images are from nature.

The Sun Gate is one of the most important sites recovered from the buried city. It graces so many posters promoting Bolivia, yet we were so surprised to see that it was quite small in size.

So much of this culture still remains a mystery... especially when it came to this temple of heads. We were told by the guide that the heads were meant to represent the various chieftains in the area. But we have also heard the hypothesis that this is proof that the Tiwanakans knew of other civilisations because some people interpret the heads to signify different cultures including the Chinese! (Kevin and I looked as hard as we could at the supposed "Chinese" face and were not convinced!)

And then our guide suggested that the Tiwanakans were assisted in building these sites by aliens, just because of these kind of images found in the temple walls! (And at this point we decided to call it a day with our guide)

La Paz, Take My Breath Away

2007-05-06T00:29:00.000+01:00

At 3,600 meters, La Paz literally took our breath away. It's a pretty crazy city full of the hustle and bustle of daily life. But with 1.2 million inhabitants, it's not surprising that we were constantly crowded in and gasping for air. Despite its reputation as not the safest city, we found that walking around during the day allowed us to see the real La Paz and not once did we feel ill at ease. At night, though, we always took a taxi...and at $1 to get across town that didn't really break the budget. The city is a contrasting mixture of beautiful squares, stoic colonial buildings, and gritty sidewalks full of sellers of every kind. We just sat in the square and saw how the locals, "Paceños" as those from La Paz are called, enjoyed their weekends, got married, and played with their kids.

One of the most interesting things we saw constantly in Bolivia was women wearing the bowler hat. At first, when we walked into a huge crowd of women wearing these hats we thought we had hit a Magritte convention gone wild! In Bolivia, it is common to see people, particularly women, in traditional dress. What they wear and how they wear it is a clear indication of social standing and their pride about who they are. The indigenous population of Bolivia, like Peru, is made up mainly by the Quechua and Aymara ethnic groups. I read that the Aymara women are given their bowler hats at birth and hold on to them all their lives, so the hat is far more significant than just a way to ward off the sun. In fact, given the size of the hats in comparison to their heads, we doubt that it added much shade. The Aymara women who wear the bowler hat upright are married women, while single women wear their bowlers slightly tilted. Here are a few pictures of some older women with their upright bowlers.

These Quechua girls, on the other hand, wear either canvas or straw hats and unlike the Aymara, the hats really do seem to have a practical purpose. Considering how powerful the sun is in Bolivia, it seems like a wise idea to make the hat an essential part of the wardrobe!

Presidente G. Busch

2007-05-04T19:21:00.000+01:00

We have now left Bolivia for Peru, but while in La Paz, I noticed a building and an avenue named after a Presidente Busch. I had to check this one out.

Well, if you read this article about President Germán Busch, you might see some similarities with another President G. Bush.

A few highlights:

"Known for his torrid, fearless, and reckless temperament"

"Always tempestuous and volatile, Busch was filled with grand ideas that he seemed unable to bring to fruition"

"Later still, he tired of the "political game" and, totally untrained in the art of compromise, declared himself Dictator"

"Bogged down for most of his presidency in the procedural aspects of enacting a new political framework ... he was not able to pass many meanigful reforms"

Potosí, Bolivia - Welcome to H-E-double hockey sticks

2007-04-30T20:12:00.000+01:00

After spending one night in Uyuni, we took a 6 hour bus to Potosí. We rather stupidly went on the cheapest bus we could get (4 USD) and we paid for it. It was terrible. Uncomfortable seats, people standing everywhere in the aisles, bad smells, boy racer at the wheel along the clifftops. You get the picture. It didn´t help matters that there was a completely bonkers German lady on board who almost got in a fight with a French couple along with everybody else. Apparently, though, it was still better than some of the other options from the stories we heard. I won´t go into those, though!

Along the way, though, we did see some wonderful sights.

Upon arrival in Potosí we booked a very cheap hotel. It wasn´t all that bad, except the ceilings were about 6 foot 8 inches. The doorways significantly lower. Just check out me (6 foot 3) and our new friend David (6 foot 5) in the hallway. Fortunately we only stayed one night.

Potosí did provide a mystical sunset for us.

Potosí itself was actually a decent city, with some nice architecture. Some of the service people were a bit grumpy (like when they didn´t like it when we sent back their bloody raw chicken!), but we blamed that on the altitude, Potosí being the highest city in the world, at just over 4,000 meters.

Potosí was once the biggest city in the Americas and bigger than London, Paris or Madrid. Potosí was where Imperial Spain gained most of its wealth, despite French, Dutch and English pirates in the Caribbean trying to prevent it getting there. The city of Potosí sits at around 4,000 meters above sea level, below the all imposing Cerro Rico ("rich mountain" in Spanish). In the Spanish language, there is a saying "to be worth a Potosí" which means to be worth a fortune. Potosí has had a very long and sad history. Best guesses say that about 8 million indigenous and black slaves died during the colonial era making Spain wealthy. If they didn´t die in the terrible conditions in the mines due to poor air or cave-ins, they would die from the mercury used in separating the silver. The hill in Potosí might possibly be the world´s biggest graveyard (that´s just my guess). Even today, the locals still risk their lives mining deep underground. Many of them don´t live past 40. In a town of just over 100,000, about 15,000 men still continue to work in the mine (mostly mining tin rather than silver nowadays). A survey of the workers showed that over 90% do it just because there is no other option (how sad). Only about 4% do it because they like it (mainly 18-24 year olds who still think the risky element is cool). And another 4% do it based on family tradition. Very few of the workers can still strike it rich in the mines, but only a limited number. However you slice it, it´s a miserable experience.

Many tourists come to Potosí to go on tours into the mine. Believe me, 2 hours underground is more than enough to convince you that this is a miserable place to work.

Here´s Karen and me with our gear on:

Before heading to the mines, you stop at the mine stores to buy presents for the workers. Since all the work inside the mines is done by co-operatives, the workers have to buy all their own equipment. Here´s our tour guide demonstrating the benefits of buying Bolivian dynamite rather than inferior Argentinean or Peruvian. We bought some dynamite and drinks for the workers inside.

The Bolivians, especially those living at high altitudes and miners in particular, are absolutely addicted to chewing coca leaves. So we bought a bag of coca leaves for them as well. We tried the coca, but it didn´t do much for us. Hmmm, buying dynamite and coca leaves, please don´t tell the American authorities on us!!!

And here´s the mighty Cerro Rico itself. It´s actually quite beautiful, despite all the heartache it has caused over 5 centuries. I reckon that this one mountain has had more influence in world history than any other mountain.

Some of the co-operatives are richer than others. This one, for example, can afford electric trains to go around in the mines. Here they are heading in.

Here´s Karen and I about to head into the underworld for 2 hours.

This semi-well off co-operative is able to afford winches to hoist their loads. The poorer groups haul 40-50 kgs on their back up and out of the mine.

Karen heading into the lower realms.

A great picture of miners on their break. The guy lounging next to me was absolutely covered in coca leaf stems and his cigarette ash covered his trousers. This is one job where you don´t have to look good.

We had to slide down some shafts to go down lower.

Here are some workers from a poorer co-operative without an electric train having to pull carts with well over a ton of weight.

We felt bad for them, so our group decided to help them shovel their dirt and rocks into baskets that were then winched up.

Finally, light at the end of the tunnel!

Afterwards, we were rewarded by being able to blow up some extra dynamite that others had bought. A complete waste of a useful resource, but still somewhat fun (although very, very loud at close distance).