Southern Hemisphere tour 2010

BTW for the last month, I spent 2 weeks in Sydney, a city that will eat you alive and has all the expense of other big cities but not the charm to make up for it.  Not that it was all bad, I saw lots of art, bands, films, indie shows, indie theater, the opera house, the harbor, tons of vintage shops, record shops, cafes, good restaurants, used bookstores, took lots of photographs, video, made drawings, wrote, created, walked and walked wand walked…  Suburban life was great, but Sydney does have this weird vibe that I just can’t put my finger on that makes it kind of…nauseating.  I know New York is like this insane swirl of craziness and energy that takes hold of you and runs you ragged, but it’s a different kind of crazy, kind of like being in love.  Where as Sydney is crazy like an underpaid hectic job.  That’s the best I can describe it.

Oh and during my stay in Sydney I journeyed to the Wildlife rescue and saw kangaroos and koalas and wombats!!!! IT WAS SO AWESOME!

After my 2 weeks in Sydney I went to this amazing backpacker/surf camp called Surfaris, where I spent another 2 weeks working for accomodation.  This was definitely a highlight of my trip, I absolutely loved this place and everyone who worked there or surfed there.  I swam in a tea-tree river, laid out by the pool, ate amazing food, got to experience true small-town camaradarie, attempted to surf(really it was more practising falling off the board gracefully), and took long walks and bike-rides to the beach (once at nighttime which was much more terrifying than I thought it would be, I could hear all the nocturnal animals rummaging around in the bush around me and had visions of every single scary movie I’ve ever seen.  It was worth it in the end to see the blanket of stars over the ocean on the other side of the world).  I also painted rooms, had great conversations, and got to do some sign painting and art making, which was really awesome.  I did get sick for a few days, which was a bit of a bummer, but I will only ever think of that time with fondness in my heart.

So that’s the jist of Australia, the short-hand if you will.  It was great, but I got to say New Zealand trumps it.  Actually, New Zealand trumps everywhere, and anyone who has known me for a while might remeber a time when all I would talk about was how I was going to move to New Zealand to a city named Wellington (a place I just happened to find on the internet).  Well, I’ve been there now, and that spark has been reignited.  It’s my 2nd favorite city I’ve been to in my life.  There was a part of me that thought “”I have a work visa thats good for an entire year, I could get a job at that awesome bar, become friends with that cute guy at that awesome cafe, and work my way into the Wellington film industry starting with the Hobbit that’s already in pre-production.  Then I could get a roommate and just never leave”.  But don’t worry, I’m coming home, at least for a little while.  I miss everyone too much not to, and I still think about New York every single day, but I will be back to Wellington some day. Oh yes. I will be.

Well, It’s been over a month since I’ve lost my travelling partner, and I must say it is vastly different to travel by yourself.  Even though this experience has changed the core of my being, traveling alone is hard, and can be very lonely despite all the wonderful people I’ve met along the way.

The problem is you meet plenty of people, create an awesome connection, and then part ways within a day or 2, maybe a couple of weeks if your lucky.  That’s the plight of the traveler: you’re always moving on.  Or if you’re not then the travelers you meet are, either way it has become quite a bummer having “goodbye” be a much more frequent occurance in my vocabulary than ever before.  But when you spend so much time with yourself, and have to rely on yourself for everything, you definitely get a new perspective on life and learn things you may not have expected.  I, for example, have learned how fortunate I have been at all points in my life that I’ve had someone else around to share experiences with.  It’s one of those things we take for granted, something that I won’t take for granted ever again (and hot showers, that one will last a lifetime).

And I miss Bama so much it hurts to even type this sentence.  She was there through every sickness and freak out I’ve ever had in my adult life, and I wish she could be here with me, she would love it.  There was a homeless guy in Sydney I passed by every day and he had a Brindle Pit-bull who was always right by his side, usually laying in his lap.  I would think about how that guy had more of a home than I did at the moment, he had his best friend with him always at his side.

Anyway, don’t get me wrong, this has been the most amazing experience of my life so far, and I’m taking every experience back with me ready to conquer New York!  I just never thought I would be homesick, which is actually a good thing to realize, it feels really good to know that I have people I love to come home to and that I’m actually excited to be coming back.  3 more weeks in the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in my entire life… guess I should stop focusing on lonliness and go absorb mountains, rivers, lakes, glaciers, and SHEEP!

The first thing I remember is the ride there.  It was a freezing, fume-filled bus and I had slept maybe 2 hours the night before.  I had my ipod blaring, jamming out with myself in my little bus seat.  As we got closer to our destination, everything started looking different-greener, and surprisingly void of trash on the side of the road (an eyesore everywhere else in Central America, the plastic bag epidemic is a world-wide disease.  I don’t know why they would destroy their beautiful country like that…).  At any rate, I remember thinking to myself that just because I had been traveling for so long, I still didn’t know what was ahead of us, and I had to let myself be surprised by what my travels had in store for me.  And that’s the best way I could have prefaced our next destination, because Playa Venao blew me away.

Its one of those things that has become so special to me, it’s hard to put into words.  I cried when I left, and I still feel a pang when I think about it.  Here’s an excerpt from one of my travelogues: “Today we are in Playa Venao, possibly my favorite place yet.  The beach is unlike any I’ve seen so far-black sand that sometimes looks like gold paint, unyielding storm-colored waves, places right under our feet that look like entire worlds seen from an airplane.  I could stare at the sea forever, get lost in it and lose all pre-conceived notions of time and living.  It’s been raining all day, just now starting to let up, soon we’ll go sink our feet into the earth and let our pulses become in sync with the tide…”

And let’s see, there were blankets of stars at night that we watched from the best seat in the house (lying flat on our backs in the middle of the completely dark road), fireflies, surfers, river hikes where monkeys were passing by right over our heads, a trampoline, sweet cats who cuddled in hammocks with us, a plethora of good food and smoothies, yoga every morning (not that I went every morning, but I could have), parties on the weekends….. I think the thing that best sums up the entire time for me was my afternoon jogs, where it was just me, my ipod, and the cows, and I would dance in the middle of the road with the biggest smile on my face that has ever existed.

Oh, and by the way this place is super cheap and awesome, and in 5 years the whole area is probably going to be overrun with hotels and condos, so I would suggest to anyone that they should see this awesome place before they die, or before it’s ruined.  Oh, and I surfed!  I was actually better at it than I thought I would be, but that still didn’t change the fact that it was pretty much 98% a wrestling match between me and the ocean, and 2% “surfing”.  But that one wave……..totally worth it 🙂

Yes I have missed the point of a blog, but its not that I haven’t been writing.  My travel books are probably my 2nd favorite items I carry around with me(ipod is the first).  I keep a very good record of everything, actually-scraps, writings, drawings, daily accounts of things I’ve been doing.  I just hate sitting in front of a computer in general, but especially while I’m in some exciting part of the world where there are things I want to do and see…But I digress

SO, I’m in Australia!!!!!  and it’s EXPENSIVE!!!!!  holy hell is it expensive (coming from someone who’s obsessed with New York).  But at least in New York there’s cheap food, here the food is absolutely INSANE!  I paid 2 dollars for an APPLE at the GROCERY STORE… But there’s really good deals on clothes, what kind of sick twisted irony is that?  I can afford something I really want but don’t need, but when it comes to basic elements for survival (food and Shelter) I’m scraping the barrel!

But as far as the last 4 months of my life, they were…..Amazing.  This is why I’m no good at the blog thing, I just can’t do justice in writing to the experiences I’ve been having. I almost feel like it waters down the actual events and what I’ve been experiencing.  I’ll give a brief run through: PANAMA! -City of David is hot and terrible, there’s nothing to do, the men make me want to snap into crazy mode, and the people in the shops follow you around like a foot behind (I was so bothered by it I started weaving in and out of the clothes and erratically changing directions.  It was pretty funny because they just kept following me, but it was so irritating I walked out of the stores) Then we went to Panama City, which I LOVED.  We stayed in this awesome hostel called Hospedaje Casco Viejo, where the beds were like clouds.  We would walk everyday around the neighborhood, which was old French-Colonial style and right on the shore.  You could see the skyline of the city from across the bay, and anyone who knows me knows I love my skylines.  So we walked around the city for a few days, indulged in some amazing cafe and homemade icecream,  and started getting antsy for the beach, so we headed to the Carribean Coast, to a WUNDERFUL little Hostel called “Wunderbar”

Wunderbar’s website told us all these lies about internet, restaurant, low rates, hot water, free coffee….all lies!  We get there and it’s the most ghetto outdoor-kitchen-crawling-with-crabs,giant spiders, and huge toads-run by this crazy German lady and her 3-year-old-spoiled-daughter dump we stayed at the entire trip.  The worst part was when we asked the lady about all the amenities the website told us about, she was just kind of like “oh, no we don’t have that right now”…At any rate, besides almost getting our faces bitten off by the biggest spider I’ve ever seen, it definitely made for a memory.

The only good thing about Wunderbar was that it was right next to Isla Grande, where we spent the next week or so basking on glorious Caribbean beaches with cristal-clear  turquoise water, 10$ Lobster dinners, lavender and fuchsia skies every night, and lazing in hammocks in our spare time….One night the electricity went out and we still couldn’t have had a better time. blah blah blah Panama is amazing blah blah blah back to the city blah blah on to Playa Venao (this is my favorite place so I feel like I should dedicate a blog specifically to it)

*this one I started back when we first were in Panama, that’s as far as my blogging went :)*

Ok, its hard to keep the blog updated, I must say, so sorry to all of you who I know are just waiting with held breath to read about my journeys.

But we’re doing great and we’re in Panama

So the Ranch didn’t exactly pan out the way we originally planned.  We thought we would be there for 4 weeks, and we ended up leaving 2 weeks early.  Long story but I’ll just say there were too many bruises, unfair procedures, and non-truths for us to stay.  So we made the decision to leave, which was unfortunate, but we knew as soon as we did that we had made the right choice.

Since then we’ve been biding our time in an awesome little town called Santa Barbara, staying with our new and dear friend Richard, who let us crash at his place and showed us around the area.  We loved it so much we stayed for like a week and a half (or something like that, days are irrelevant to me now) and came down to Panama a couple days ago.  The bus ride took about 11 hours total, and we got to experience our first border crossing.  They were going to look through our bags, but apparently we didn’t seem too threatening, so they let us pass after a brief comment about how I look prettier now than in my passport photo, and barely opening the top of my pack.  Good thing, too, because I’ve gotten packing everything into my bag down to a fine science, and it might have been hard to try to explain in spanish the bag of cocaine stashed amonst my underwear (just kidding Mom and Dad :))

Anyway, Panama so far is awesome.  The differences are subtle but noticable, for one thing the guys down here are much more horn-honking and whistle happy, walking down the street is like a cat wandering through a dog pound.  Its really disheartening, actually, and it makes everyday activities like going to the park a cringing, jaw clinching experience.  We try our best to ignore it, but when men come right up to us while passing and “PSSSSSSSST” or “hey baby I love you” right in our ears, its really hard.  What we see as disrespectful and unwelcome, they see as harmless flattery or a funny pasttime.

*now I will try my best to give the abridged version of the rest of our trip, and get up to date with where I am now*

Five days ago we had some vague idea of what our lives would be like for the next four weeks.  We knew we were going to be working for our keep, we knew we’d be taking cold showers for the next month of our lives, and we knew we were completely stoked.  We woke up early on Monday, had the best free hostel breakfast ever (Sleepers sleep cheaper is the best deal in Costa Rica), and rushed to stuff our packs as the taxi van arrived.

We settled in close in the back of the van, hooked up the headphone splitter to my ipod, and back-seat danced our way through the green mountains with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” kick-starting us on our journey (couldn’t tell if the guy sitting next to me thought it was as awesome as we did).  About an hour’s worth of sweet tunes later, we arrived at Lake Arenal. First my gaze shot upward to stare at the monstrous volcano that loomed above the other side of the lake, then it came back down to see that Angie had just as big of a shit-eating grin on her face as I did.  We watched as a ferry across the lake made its way to the shore where we stood.

The boat ride was awesome, open water surrounded by rolling hills and vegetation.  It was unlike any view you could ever get in Florida (no obscenely huge houses and condos lining the shore).  As we neared the other side, the attendant tells something about getting on “el bote poquito” and that we needed to wait on the ferry.  So we watched as everyone else left the ferry and disappeared up the mountain, until it was just the 2 of us and the driver left.  He tells us to “esperar uno momento” and pulls around this tiny little speed boat that looked like a kid’s bathtub toy.  On the side of it were 2 words: No Fear.  Helll yea! We climb aboard and our driver starts the engine. He asks me a question in Spanish and even though I hadn’t heard the word before I knew what he asked.

“Do you like to go FAST?”

“Si!!”

So we did, all the way across, wind forcing tears out of my eyes and my mouth smiling the whole way.  On the bank stood a Latino couple, a man with graying hair and a kind face and his adorable Tica wife.  We pulled up to shore, the man gave us his hand, helped us off the boat, and said,”Welcome to Rancho Margot”.

The rest of this story is like I walked out of my life and straight into Harry Potter world.  We take this crazy journey to another land, where plants we’ve never seen are flourishing everywhere, people speak a language we don’t know, life is carried out in unfamiliar ways, and it’s completely obvious that we’re the newcomers who don’t know what the hell we’re walking into.  We meet one of the managers who tells us we’re just in time for lunch, after which we’ll be “placed in our specific areas”.  Straight up Harry Potter.  I was waiting for them to pull out a magical talking hat and throw it down on my head.

As it turned out, after having some fairly philosophical conversation with the guy who decides where people would best be fitted,  Angie was put in the garden and I was put behind the bar.  Which is great, but I was a bit disappointed that I wouldn’t be getting down and dirty with the Earth and helping with the sustainability of the ranch.

But that was 5 days ago, and now we are much more comfortable with everything and able to feel out our schedules much better.  So I have plenty of time when I’m not working to help wherever I want.  I go see the horses everyday, and have befriended a black stallion named Gladiador.  I feed him bananas every day and he nuzzles my hands.  I haven’t ridden him yet, but soon.  I also helped with the pigs today, cutting sugar cane with a machete and playing with the little piglets, who are soooo cute.  Shame they will be someone’s lunch someday.  I have plans to help in other parts of the garden as well, do some intensive labor in the fields, learn to make soap, milk some cows, and help with the rehabilitation of a couple monkeys and an ocelot that the ranch has rescued

Otherwise I spend my time making art, writing songs, doing yoga, learning to Salsa and Meringue, and getting to know all the other workers and volunteers.  My life has definitely taken a different turn, and I fully intend on utilizing this time the best I can and getting the most out of it as possible.  Maybe while I’m at it I’ll end up leaving behind something beneficial for the ranch and the people here. Or at least a memory of the “Bartender Macha” 🙂

I haven’t had this much to say for a while, but a long entry was definitely merited. Hopefully will be updating again soon.  BTW, internet is slow here, there’s no phone, and its difficult to Skype, so it may be a while before I can make a phone call.

Pura Vida

And it was sweeeeet.

But really, cold showers are the only thing I´m dreading about the next 4 weeks of my life, and honestly, I expect it will give me a new appreciation for everything in my day to day life that I take for granted.  We´re leaving Monteverde early in the morning, and I am a bit sad to say goodbye to this little gem town we´ve called home for the last week or so.  But I feel like the ranch experience is going to be once in a lifetime, and I´m super stoked to go work for my keep, and maybe learn a thing or two about growing things and sustainability.

Today is 4th of July, and I haven´t drunk a cheap beer, turned maroon in the sun, or played with explosives… weird.  Also the weather is perfect, definitely doesn´t feel like July.

8am Jeep-boat-jeep ride to Rancho Margot, check it out: http://www.ranchomargot.org/blog/

still miss you all!!!!

Ive been obsessed with flying since I was a little girl.  I love plane rides, and Im more envious of birds than any other living thing.  Today I flew over the hills in Costa Rica, and it was amazing.  Coffee at the hostel is free where we are, but nothing wakes you up like attaching yourself to a cable high up in the air and flllyyyyyiiiiiiinnnnnnng.  New Trip Highlight!!!  The entire experience lasted at least 3 hours, and we did maybe 12 ziplines, rapelled straight down a rope, did a tarzan swing (AWESOME), and finished it off with a 2km long cable SUPERMAN STYLE.  Totally worth the 40 bucks, even though we will be living off a few scroungy groceries for the next couple of days.

Monteverde has done us well.  Weve been here since Friday, stayed in the same room, and have made ourselves quite at home.  The hostel is on a hill (the entire town is either extreme uphill or down), and every afternoon fog rolls in and turns everything silver for a little while.  Across the street is a great bookstore/art supply store, where I go to everyday (iced coffee tofee, mmmmm), and there are about 10 dogs that come in and out and sleep in all the chairs (I love them all, of course).  A few days ago we went on a 14km hiiiiiike, and it took us 2 days for every muscle in our bodies to stop protesting with every step (good thing, too, because with ziplining also comes intense hiking).  We went to the cloud forest on an ironically clear day, but it was gorgeous.

My spanish is improving (learning all the cuss words and slang, what else do you need to know?) which is good because we just found out today that on Monday we will be able to do a 4week work exchange at an organic ranch in Arenal, working at the bar.  Its going to be intense: 4 weeks, 6 days a week, 6 hours a day, cold showers….but the experience will totally be worth it.  Besides, if I wasnt a little crazy, I wouldnt be here in the first place :).  The good news is we get free rooms, free food, free yoga, free horsebackriding, 20 percent off at the bar, and an experience to last a lifetime.  I cant wait to be thrown into another situation that is going to completely turn my world around….

The clock is telling me that Ive been staring at a screen for tooooo long

Hasta Luego

So not even 2 hours after writing a post about losing everything, I somehow deleted all the pictures off my camera…. I don’t know HOW the word “FORMAT” equates to “DELETE ALL PICTURES” which is also right above the option “DELETE ALL” but APPARENTLY this camera wants to give you SEVERAL DIFFERENT WAYS TO DELETE ALL YOUR PICTURES….. So, I’m going to cope with this by describing what pictures were on there, in hopes of being able to picture them in my mind forever: bus rides in San Jose, University of Costa Rica Campus, A Giant green drink called a Mafalda (gross), self pics in hostel beds, a stop motion series that encompassed a panoramic of San Jose, foggy mountains, Long Tunnels, An open Area with about 40 hammocks that we called home for a few nights, chilling in hammocks with new friends, all the mozaic artwork that encompassed Rockin J’s, Monkeys crawling over us, the cutest baby sloths you’ve ever seen holding my hand, Horses, Iguanas, Beaches, Surfers, night out at the bar in San Jose, Mountain Town, Mamones Chinas…..

PICHA PICHA PICHA!!!!!!!!!!

Before I left I got some wise advice: Dont bring anything you dont mind losing.  I took it seriously (laptop is safe at home), but didnt really realize how true it is.  Weve been traveling for 12 days and Ive already lost several things that Im way more sad about than I should be.  My life recently has really given me new insight to items and my connections with the things I own.  Before leaving, I got rid of EVERYTHING, in fact I just gave my cell phone away to this sweet housekeeper at a hostel in San Jose.  Getting rid of things was an amazing feeling, its letting go of things Ive held onto for such a long time, and the abitility to just let it all go was liberating.  Once I told someone “I think it would be cool if my house got robbed and I lost everything”, and he said “uhh, no that would suck.  I think you’re kinda crazy”…Probably true, but maybe in a good way.

But after narrowing everything I owned down to a couple suitcases, my laptop, keyboard, guitar, and the pack that I’ll be living out of for the next 6 months, the few things I own are much more important to me than before, and now when I lose things its a harsher blow.  I’m still mourning the theft of my camera right before I left (That person is soooo gonna have shitty luck), but I’ve already lost a few things along the way that may not be important, but they’re all I have.  Really makes me think about value and worth, and what those words meant back home vs what they mean now.  Even making my hostel bed everyday has its own importance (back home it was like once a week maybe), because while I’m here it’s the only bit of space that’s designated mine, so taking care of the very few things I have means something…..This is the kind of thought process I’ve been searching for, this is why I needed to venture….

Hopefully I wont lose my travel books, they are probably most important to me out of everything…then maybe my passport and money, haha.  I also need to post pictures soon before I lose my camera..next on the list

Right now we are in this awesome Mountain Town right outside of MonteVerde and the rain is steadily hitting the roof.  This is my favorite place so far, hard to believe it just keeps getting better, makes me even more excited for the rest of the trip.  All the animals have decided it’s siesta time, I think I’m in agreement

Hasta pronto