Wanderlust

Gina. Petaluma, California.

Steve and I are back in the states for a few days of seeing family and friends and doing some chores like applying to graduate school (for Gina), buying books for China, and repacking our bags. We’re making some changes on the packing front– we’ve gotten rid of almost all of our first aid stuff. We never used it, and if we would’ve needed it there were pharmacies everywhere and I’m sure it’ll be the same where ever we go. People get hurt and get sick no matter where they live. We’re also ditching our sleeping bags. We always sort of knew that they might not be necessary, but we camp a lot anyway, so buying them wasn’t a waste. We’re still taking our sleep sheets which were incredibly useful (thanks Nana!) and we’re going to take a couple of travel fleece blankets that are much smaller and lighter than the sleeping bags and we wouldn’t feel so bad about leaving them behind somewhere if we never use them. I’m taking more clothes. I didn’t really think through the whole two pants thing–the downside is that when you do laundry you still have to wear one pair of pants, so one pair would be clean and the other would be very, very dirty. I’m also taking more and different shirts. I tied to follow all of the packing rules I read about only taking two shirts, but I want to be comfortable and to not smell bad. These things are important to me. And while washing undies was quick and easy in sinks, washing pants and shirts was not so quick or so easy so we didn’t do it (socks were impossible to dry, so I’m taking some more of those, too).

Steve and I are both really excited about China. We’ve bought a lot of books. Whatever we’re losing in weight from getting rid of stuff I think we’re making up for in books! We ended up with the Rough Guide to China book. It was a hard decision between the Lonely Planet version and this one. The deciding factors were that we were familiar and happy with the Rough Guide’s style since we used them for Ecuador and we did a fake trial run with each book pretending that we’d just arrived in a city and trying to figure out how to get around, where to sleep, and where to eat and looking at the maps to see if we could navigate with them. The plus for the Lonely Planet guide was that they had some of the street names on the maps in Chinese characters, but oddly not all of them. The Rough Guides book has characters for restaurants, lodging, sites, and other important things but not the street names on the map. But the maps are much easier to read and where they do have characters they’re in a larger, clearer font than in the Lonely Planet guide, so they would be easier to point out to someone in order to communicate. We also bought: a Chinese Phrasebook and dictionary, “China Survival Guide: how to avoid travel troubles and mortifying mishaps,” “The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters,” and a basic Chinese characters for travelers book which will hopefully come in the mail today since the book store in Berkeley we had holding it for us didn’t actually hold it for us! Already we’ve learned the symbols for rice, noodles, chicken, pork, stir-fry and a few others from the food book. I’m glad we got this one since we love food and being able to order confidently and not be afraid of getting served dog will be fantastic. We also bought two non-fiction books about Chinese history. One is actually banned in China, so we’re going to have to cover it somehow (it’s called “Wild Swans” by Jung Chang). And the other book is by an American who lived in China and it’s called “Oracle Bones” and is by Peter Hessler. So we’re loaded up on reading material and helpful guides and hopefully it’ll all help make China a more enjoyable experience.

While I’m glad we went to South America, in the end it wasn’t my favorite place. I think if we would’ve spent less time over all and more time in Ecuador instead of Peru I would have enjoyed it more. I’ve been trying to figure out why I didn’t like Peru, and I think some of it was concrete reasons and some of it was just a gut feeling.  Here are some things I didn’t like:

• There are taxis everywhere and they all beep at foreigners and yell “Taxi, taxi, taxi!” At first it was sort of funny, but after a while it just really got to me. It’s not very enjoyable to be walking around either to a tourist place or just to the grocery store and constantly being yelled and beeped at.
• The food was not that good. Every meal would consist of potatoes AND rice (and sometimes plantains, too!) and then some sort of fried or gravy-ed meat. Sometimes you’d get a fried egg thrown on top which would add a little variety, but I need veggies and flavor. There’s a reason you don’t see very many Peruvian restaurants around.
• Long distance buses, our mode of transportation, were a pain in the butt. Usually the different bus companies were spread around town so you had to take a taxi or walk around to compare prices. The prices were always vastly different and sometimes it reflected in the quality and swiftness of the bus and sometimes it didn’t, so you never knew what you were getting. It was very stressful.
• There were lots of people on the street trying to sell us stuff. Whether it was very whiney little kids with their chichlet gum “Senior, por favor!” or women with cell phones yelling “llamada, llamada, llamada!” Steve does a great impression of them both, which unfortunately can’t be reproduced in writing.

Some of these things were in Ecuador as well, but all combined together in Peru just made things worse. I would definitely recommend anyone and everyone to visit Ecuador as it’s easy to get around, cheap, and absolutely beautiful. Every bus ride (during the day) was filled with gorgeous scenery and it all changes so quickly from coast to mountains to rainforest. It was awesome seeing all the different ecosystems.

I was going to write more about just random things we saw and thought about while traveling in South America but never wrote about, but my mind is all filled with excitement for China and nerves about graduate school applications and I just can’t think about it right now. I’m still working on uploading photos and I should have those all up before we leave for China, which is in two days… crazy!

Gina. Mancora, Peru.

Beach life just isn´t my thing. We left Huanchaco a couple of days ago for another night bus farther up the  coast to Mancora. Mancora is about 1 1/2 hours from the Ecuador border and an 8 hour bus trip from Huanchaco. It seemed like a good place to stop and break up the bus ride. And it´s very nice, but I´m just not into beaches. Well, they´re okay. I don´t particularly like sand (I sort of hate it) and I don´t really like salt water (it irritates my skin. I know, I´m weird). But we´ve had a pretty good time here anyway just relaxing and watching people surf (and a couple of people try to kite surf which looks terrifying). We were going to try to take a surf lesson here, but the water isn´t that warm and while it´s pretty humid it´s also really windy on the beach so chilly. Since we´re heading farther up the coast to Ecuador anyway, we decided just to wait for warmer water and weather to try to get out there.

We had a nice last day in Huanchaco. We tried cebiche at this fancy restaurant that overlooked the ocean. It was pretty tasty–you could really taste the lime. And the raw fish texture was nice. We also got a plate that had a giant piece of lightly breaded fish and a pile of mixed deep fried shellfish. It was damn tasty. We even got to eat some baby octopus which was nothing like I thought it would be. I was expecting it to be chewy, but it really tender. It was a very nice lunch. I like eating seafood while looking at the ocean.

The bus ride was uneventful. I slept, Steve watched a cheesey movie in Spanish. We arrived in Mancora at 6 in the morning. It was dark. I was sleepy and grumpy and we didn´t know where we were going since we´d forgotton to write down possible Mancora hostels. But our taxi driver (Taxi! It was really a motorbike with a little back seat shell thing around it… it´s hard to explain) was very nice and patient and took us to three different places before we picked one. The first place was really cheep but also really grungy. The sink and bathtub were full of giant crickets. The second place was way more than we wanted to spend, but the first place was more our style. It was close enough to walk to the beach and was pretty clean. It´s very humid here so there are a lot of bugs. Our room had ants and our bed was a 24-hour buffet for some termites, there was mouse evidence in our room (and the teenager who ran the place–I guess–had seen a mouse and set traps recently) , and we had a nice lizard friend in our room (who was very welcome since they eat bugs), but whatever. I´m surprised all of our rooms haven´t been crawling in bugs since they´ve been so cheap. We´ve really only seen one or two other insects the whole trip (a spider and a giant, giant bee), but I´m sure the time for bugs has come since we´re planning on staying near the coast and just getting closer and closer to the ecuator all of the time

There were some pretty noisy Brits staying in our hostel as well (I think the walls were literally made of paper) who had some horror stories to tell. Two of them had all of their stuff stolen right in front of them while they were in Bolivia. They had just gotten into the mountains and put down their bags when they were snatched. I guess they made chase but the altitude is so hard on you that they didn´t have a chance. If someone would´ve grabbed our bags when we first got to Cusco they would be long gone–even though Steve ran track in college. Another couple had left Mancora the night before but instead of getting on their bus to Quito (North in Ecuador) they accidentally got on a bus to Lima (South)! They got all the way to Lima, and turned around and bought a ticket back to Mancora! Poor guys. I think the horror stories both made me feel bad for the poor suckers and also relieved that we´ve had very good luck. But really I think we´re just more careful in a lot of ways. These group of kids, specifically, were a bit crazy (a prime example is that we could hear them doing coke last night through the paper walls. Doing cocaine (period) let alone buying it in Peru is, in my opinion, completely nutso). Which doesn´t mean that you can´t be completely diligent and very careful and not get stuff stolen. It happens. I´m just glad we have all of our stuff still, except for a couple of little things that we lost on our own.

So off to Ecuador where we´ll catch another bus to Puerto Lopez which is on the coast and is the launching point for a National Park that has mangrove forests, whale watching, and an island with blue-footed boobies (boobies!). I´m very excited. We´re planning on staying there a few days before going up to Bahia de Caraquez where Steve is going to volunteer with an organization called Planet Drum and where I am going to look for somewhere to volunteer. They´re graciously going to allow me to stay with Steve in their volunteer apartment and help me find something else as they´re doing reforestation of a hillside, which means carrying buckets of water up hills all day, and that´s not really up my alley. I´m glad this is working out as it´s been pretty tough finding places to volunteer that we were both interested in and that didn´t cost a huge amount of money (this one is something like $15 a month a piece for food). So we can save money, do some good work, maybe take Spanish lessons, and still have weekends free to explore.

Gina. Huanchaco, Peru. Since we´re now on the coast we decided that today would be a good day to try ceviche, a Peruvian dish that´s basically raw fish in lime juice and the lime juice supposedly kills all any bacteria or ... [Continue reading this entry]

Gina. Huanchaco, Peru.  We arrived very early this morning in Trujillo (around 5:30) where we discovered that another traveling couple of gringos had their cameras swiped on the bus during the night. Only one passenger had gotten off of the bus ... [Continue reading this entry]

Gina. Lima, Peru. We´re already sick of Lima again. It´s just not our town. We´ve been staying in Miraflores this time around (instead of the center) and while it´s nicer and calmer it´s still just not really our kind of place. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Gina. Lima, Peru. Something about this trip is inspiring me to do things I wouldn´t normally do. Running down the steps on the Inka trail is a good example. Another excellent example is that Steve and went white water rafting on ... [Continue reading this entry]

Gina. Arequipa, Peru. I have a parasite (or hopefully, had). I´m not sure what kind, but the doctor I saw was pretty convinced that since I´d been sick for almost three weeks and didn´t have a fever or any other sign ... [Continue reading this entry]

Gina. Arequipa, Peru. The last day of the trek started out very early. 4 a.m. I have a newfound respect for my Uncle Ron for waking up at 4 a.m. every day to go to work. Steve and I were both ... [Continue reading this entry]

Gina. Cusco, Peru.  The first day of the trek was by far the easiest. The second day hell on earth. The third day was really very nice. I was so exhausted from day 2 that I slept like a rock that ... [Continue reading this entry]

Gina. Cusco, Peru. Day 2 of the Machu Picchu trek... What can I say about you? You suck. I went into this trek knowing full well that the second day was the hardest. You climb over a mountain, there are stone steps, etc, ... [Continue reading this entry]