Vagabonding RTW

Japan 2 of 2. Northbound

2010-01-19T02:17:00.002-03:00

In front of mighty Himeji, one of Japan's most beautiful (and preserved) castles

Lots of pics for this post:
All my pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/
Japan 1:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/JapanTipToTip#
Japan 2:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/JapanNorthernHokkaido#

After I left Chiiori, the small organic farm in Shikoku, I headed for Kyoto. On the way, I stopped at Himeji for a couple hours just to see its famous castle (see above). Most of Japan's castles have long since been destroyed (as they are made out of wood, they don't last long), but Himeji prevails. I didn't stay long. Once I arrived in Kyoto, I didn't stay long either, I hopped on a train, to another train, to a tram, to a bus, to finally arrive at my destination for the day, Koya-san.

Koyasan, Kyoto, Tokyo

Before re-entering the more frequently traveled tourist destinations of central Honshu (the mainland of Japan), I decided to check out one of the holiest and secluded areas of all of Japan. Koyasan is a small mountain where Kobo Daishi (remember from last update? the guy who made his pilgrimage around the island of Shikoku, the founder of Shingon Buddhism) is buried (actually, not buried, supposedly he's simply meditating - since the year 835 AD - and is expected to return from his retreat sometime soon). Kobo Daishi had established mount Koya as a "retreat from worldly affairs", and almost 100 temples were created there. A few of these temples accept guests for a small nightly contribution, and I was lucky enough to spend two days there.

(Panorama) The beginning of the enormous cemetery where Kobo Daishi is resting

The cemetery on Koyasan is awesome. Not 'duuuude, that wave was totally awesome!!!' awesome, but rather it truly inspired awe in me. I entered it just before dusk, not concerned with it getting dark because it never closes, and I had my headlamp with me. The light seemed to go from plentiful to absolute black in only a few minutes, and before I knew it I was wandering in one of the most humbling, creepy, fantastic graveyards I had ever thought possible.

Instead of graves, there were buddhas, pillars, and human-sized chunks of stone that looked like enlarged pawns, rooks, and bishops from a chess table. On more than one occasion I ventured off the main path and quickly found myself among hundreds of smaller, completely neglected stone figures that had become half covered in moss and seemed to melt into the gentle hills and tall trees. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in anything supernatural, but the creeks and cracks of the swaying trees, the wind through the leaves, and the presence of an army of life-size chess pieces made for an extraordinary experience. Not scary per se, but certainly intimidating and humbling, and the occasional bat flying overhead gave me some serious goosebumps.

For about an hour I didn't see any other people, but on my way back, I saw six or seven figures walking slowly in a line coming in my direction. It was nice to know I was probably in one of the safest places in the entire world, because otherwise I would have been terrified. I stopped for a second to listen to them, and heard the distinct sound of jingling monk bells. I broke the silence and said good evening (in Japanese) to them, and they all immediately stopped, faced me, bowed, and returned the greeting simultaneously in an almost harmonic tune, and then continued on their way. It was one of those subtle and brief memories that somehow managed to have a phenomenal impact on my entire trip. As I mentioned in my last post, many of my memories of my exciting and/or exotic adventures have begun to atrophy a bit, but this encounter left me with such an impression that I remember every millisecond of it.

My room at the temple on Koyasan

I found my way back to my temple, enjoyed a delicious vegetarian dinner in my room, and got to sleep early so that I could awake at 4:30 to observe the daily morning prayer. The prayer was interesting, but not as engaging as my wandering the previous day. Afterward, I made my way back to Kyoto.

Kyoto train station (panorama)

I spent only a couple days in Kyoto and was able to fit in a bunch of sightseeing. Unfortunately, I was exhausted and wasn't able to get in the swing of things. I saw some of the must-see's, but didn't venture out much more than that.

Kiyomizu-dera, the water temple overlooking Kyoto

The Philosopher's path - my favorite bit of Kyoto. So named for a Kyoto University professor that walked it every day for meditation. It's a relaxing stroll along one of the canals.

I left Kyoto to head back to Tokyo, but my world of Japan had completely changed. Somehow cities take on personalities, and when I first met Tokyo, I just had the first-impression of her. Now that I had seen more of Japan and learned more about her history and context, I returned to Tokyo as if I heard dozens of rumors, some good and some bad, about her that made me suspicious, excited, confused, and curious. Regardless of it all though, it was nice to get back to familiar ground. I didn't have much time this time, and I had timed it just right to catch some SUMO!!!!!!

Early in the tournament, the less experienced wrestlers had their matches. Most spectators don't come until the real pro's come on later in the day, which leaves front-row seats vacant. They allow these seats to be filled by anyone until their real owner shows up, which let me see things up close.

It was the last day of the two-week long tournament, and it was completely sold out. However, with a little research I had done before my return, I knew there were a few same-day tickets available at a first-come first-served basis. So, I was up early again before dawn to get in line, and I was lucky enough to get one of them.

(Panorama) The very back row. Or as I like to call it, the penthouse! If you want to see more,
follow the link at the top of the post to Japan 1 pictures.

After only about 36 hours in Tokyo, I was on my way north again, leaving Honshu, and entering Hokkaido, the northernmost island.

Beautiful Hokkaido

I arrived at what would be my home-base for Hokkaido, Sapporo, and checked into my hostel. I noticed very quickly how different the overall vibe of the area was compared to the rest of Japan. I did a bit of reading and chatting with the hostel owners about Hokkaido, and learned it had a much stronger Western influence due to Japan seeking consultation from the United States on how to secure it before the Russians took it. In addition, I also learned that just as we have Native Americans, Australia has Aborigines, and New Zealand has Mauri, so Japan has the Ainu, who have been discriminated against brutally. The number of people that currently have Ainu ancestors in them is not known, because most people have completely hidden or erased it from their record because of the discrimination.

As negative as Hokkaido's history may sound at first glance, the island is also by far the most beautiful, and takes pride in its national parks and sports which give it a festive atmosphere. After checking out the Sapporo brewery and seeing the city, I rented some gear and decided it was time to finish the journey north and get to the island of Rebun, off the northern coast of Hokkaido.

On the ferry to Rebun, we passed its sister island Rishiri, which is
known for it's amazing figure and for its hiking and even ice climbing

(Panorama). I set up my tent here by the lake (my tent is the little green thing in the middle.
Note off to the right - the intimidating Rishiri stands tall)

No idea what this guy is for. Thought it looked funny though!

A pleasant walk to the northern point, seen here at the tip of the penninsula on the left

The somewhat underwhelming northern-most point of Japan!

Typical small fishing village on Rebun (I'd call it small-industrial rather than small-quaint)

And just like that, I started heading back south. I hungered for something a bit more adventurous before I called it quits on Japan though, so I got in touch with a New Zealander ex-pat who was free to take me on a three-day hike into the heart of Japan's biggest national park, Daisetzusan. The guide (coincidentally named Leon) was nice enough to let me stay in his guest-room at his house so we could get an early departure the next morning. After reviewing the map and itinerary and some equipment prep, we were on our way. Instead of walking you guys step-by-step through the hike, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (well, along with my captions!):

Daisetzusan Hike

Day 1: Beautiful weather. Up a steady snowy climb to the top of the ridge of an
enormous bowl of an ancient volcano "Asahikawa" that had blown a long time ago

Panorama of a small bit of Daisetzusan

My guide Leon and I at the top of the ridge - behind us is the giant crater of Asahikawa
that we would hike around and descend down the opposite side

Our cabin for the first night, inside the bowl. We had to descend into it through the winter
entrance, since the front door was snowed in. We were the only ones there.

Day two: Long. Cold. Wet. Also apparently my lense cover didn't open all the way.

I was very relieved to finally see the rough outline of our cabin
for night two in the fog (you can barely see it here above my head). We encountered a group
of students along the way that also stayed at the cabin for that night.

Day three: a short climb out of the bowl and then a long descent down the other
side of it. Behind me you can see some of the still-active gas
spouts reflective of some underground activity.

After the hike, it was a long high-speed train back to Tokyo, and then before I knew it I was on a plane to Helsinki.

My six weeks in Japan were exhausting and incredible. I went into it knowing so little about the country, and left knowing tons more, but still feeling bewildered. It's such a complicated place with such a complicated history and is so drastically different from what we're used to that as a tourist you can't help but feel overwhelmed. I began with such a naive idolized view of the place that I was doomed to be disappointed by what I discovered, but even after it all I still love it and though I no longer would consider living there for a long period of time, I can't wait to go back.

Next update will cover my brief stint in Finland, a week in Sweden, and my solo bike trip from Vienna to Prague.

Until next week,

Noah

Happy New Year! Exploring Japan, post 1/2.

2010-01-11T02:53:00.006-03:00

With my return to Japan, I am greeted by the familiar sights and scents of Tokyo at night

To say this update is overdue is an extreme understatement. I've been busy. I've been lazy. Maybe deep down there's a tiny bit of fear that making the 'final update' will admit that it's all finally over. Well, even if that's true of this specific RTW trip, I am certain I have a lot of travel left in me. I've learned a lot about travel style and rhythm, and am confident that next time I hit the skies/roads/ocean, I'll be better prepared, and will have an even better time.

There's a lot of ground to cover, so I'll be brief. I'll admit my memory has atrophied a bit, even only a few months after I've returned. Despite feeling touristy and superficial during some of my picture-taking, I'm very glad I did so, because reviewing my photos brings it all surging back.

I've tried to limit the pictures I've posted in the blog itself for space considerations. If you like what you see, I recommend you check out my online galleries that are a quick browse, and you'll probably get just as much out of them as you do reading this blog.

The galleries relevant to this post:
All my pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n
Return to Tokyo, time with Leon: http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/JapanTokyo2
More Tokyo, also Okinawa and Yakushima: http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/JapanTokyoOkinawaYakushima
Riding the rail from the south to the north: http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/JapanTipToTip

I returned to Tokyo just as Leon was leaving. We had a few days of overlap, so we explored the city together, and he gave me his impressions of the country, and tips for how to fit in (including how to eat sushi properly). He had mixed feelings about Japan which surprised me. I had been so excited to explore it that I was dubious at first of his seemingly-pessimistic perspective, but I decided to withhold judgment for the time being, and try to explore the country without any preconceptions.

After Leon left, I connected up with an English couch-surfer Keval, and we explored some of the local festivities.

Keval and I pose with the local youth

The hustle and bustle of Shibuya. Note the rooftop soccer field also.

Tuna for sale at the busiest fish market in the world, Tsukiji

Tokyo has years (lifetimes, actually) of exploring to be done. It's absolutely beautiful in some areas, and hideously ugly in others. To call it a city doesn't even do it justice. It's more like a small country in and of itself. It seems never to end - there is no high point from which you can see a city limit. It just goes on, and on, and on.

Not sure if this will work, but here is a google map of my route:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=
110707339051668795017.00047cdea4bb851fed1a7

I had allotted about 6 weeks for my exploration of Japan. I had already used one of them in Tokyo, so I knew I had to get moving. First stop: the southern islands of Okinawa!

Two other divers and I after a long day submerged

I had a week to enjoy Okinawa, and what a bizarre place it is. It certainly earns its title of 'The Hawaii of Japan' because of its climate and beautiful crystal clear water. In addition, it practically feels like it's a part of the USA, because, well, part of it is. The American military base there shapes the downtown culture of the biggest city in Okinawa, Naha. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - the Americans spend a lot of money there and create a lot of opportunity in terms of jobs - but something felt very wrong seeing a Walmart in the middle of 'America Town' on the beautiful island of Okinawa. The Japanese sentiment about this is very mixed, as I quickly realized when I landed. I spoke briefly with a clearly very nervous (and very young) American recruit with a thick southern accent. He said he had requested to be transferred here from his domestic base after he saw the pictures, but at the time I spoke with him, only five minutes after we landed, he said he had been getting only dirty looks from the locals.

The dive company I signed up with was run by an American ex-pat who used to be stationed in the military base there. He was a very funny, but very intense guy, who had some stories from the military that, on more than one occasion, left me completely at a loss for words from shock and horror.

The diving was absolutely spectacular. No sharks like in Australia, but lots of big and exotic fish, and I really was able to take my diving to the next level by participating in some seriously challenging dives (as opposed to the normal float around and look). After the 5 days of diving, I rented a car for the one spare day I had to explore the island.

The exterior and interior of one of a seemingly infinite number of limestone
caves used as a last-stand home base during WWII.

The Battle of Okinawa was a horrific siege in the middle of 1945, towards the end of World War Two. The Japanese generals had a goal during this battle: even if the allied forces won it, they would have to endure such a brutal, long fight, that an invasion of the mainland would seem nightmarish. They achieved this goal. Over 100,000 Japanese troops were killed in Okinawa, and over 50,000 allied troops were killed. All these troops dead on an island only about 450 square miles large, and over almost three months. I am very much against Nuclear warfare - the idea of it is repulsive and terrifying - but I can begin to understand why the allies felt it necessary to use it when confronted with the prospect of several (maybe even hundreds) more Battles of Okinawa on the mainland.

After Okinawa, I hopped on a plane bound for Kagoshima, the southern-most city of the Japanese mainland. However, once I landed, I didn't even leave the airport - I got on a puddle jumper headed back south, to the small, green, wet island of Yakushima.

Yakushima is one of the rainiest places in the world. Because of this, it is overgrown with vegetation and is spectacularly green. I chose to go out of my way to visit this place because I wanted to see Jomon-Sugi.

Jomon-Sugi is a tree. But it's not any ordinary tree. It's a giant, old cedar, that along with its buddies (several other ancient cedars), rallied a movement to stop logging there and had the island declared a UNESCO world heritage site. Jomon-Sugi is estimated to be between 2,500 and 7,200 years old, and the only way to reach it is by a full day hike into the jungle.

A panorama of the interior of the island (this is pretty much the entire island)

Moss covers everything, and streams are everywhere

These were jumbo-sized trees

I planned the hike speaking with a woman at the only information booth on the island. Well, speaking was actually not involved at all except for 'Hi (yes)' and 'Ie (no)'. It was more like an elaborate game of charades where I actually physically demonstrated 'Ok so I'll book this inn for tonight with provided breakfast at 6 AM please, get supplies at that supermarket tonight for my hike, take the bus to the hiking trail, hike to Jomon-Sugi, sleep at the cement hut near the tree, wake up at 3:30 AM and hike back down in the dark in time to catch the first ferry back to Kagoshima!'. It took about an hour to figure that all out.

The only hiccup in the plan was when, at about 3:45 AM on my return-descent from Jomon-Sugi in the pitch black, I rounded a corner to see four eyes straight ahead of me reflect my headlamp at about waist-height. To say that it got my adrenaline flowing is about as much as an understatement as it was to say that this blog update is a bit late. My brilliant plan when confronted with the unknown beasts (there were many baboons on the island, these were probably a couple of them, but I didn't know what else lurked)? Grab a rock, back up, and make noise. After a couple minutes of waiting, I looked around the corner again and saw the eyes slowly shuffling off the path. I waited another minute, prayed they weren't setting up some sort of ambush a-la velociraptors in Jurrasic Park 1, and walked onwards. I made the ferry on time.

Kagoshima was unremarkable except for its neighbor - the active volcano Sakurajima. I found it amusing their fuming, deadly (no joke, next time this baby goes all of Kagoshima is toast), lava-prone giant is named 'Spring flower volcano'. I decided to go for a closer look, and stayed my one night in the area in a hostel located at the base of it.

My Hostel in front of Sakurajima

I connected up with an English teacher along the way and went to the most beautiful onsen (natural hot-water bath) I stayed at my entire time in Japan (not my picture, I forgot my camera, but this was it http://www.worldreviewer.com/_images/ae/00/ae00ded509776e8453638568af83a739/450x288.jpg).

After Kagoshima, I hopped on what would be my ride for most of Japan:

And went to my first stop, Nagasaki. I don't have too much to say specifically. I loved the city (small, manageable, good trams take you everywhere). People were extremely friendly. Food was delicious. Museums were powerful and had strong nuclear disarmament sentiments.

Panorama of the busy ship-making harbor (why it was on the list of potential targets for the bomb)

The hypocenter. Sobering.

I continued on to Hiroshima afterwards. Hiroshima is a bigger city, and naturally comes with the pros and cons of one. I also took a quick ferry ride to the nearby island of Miyajima, famous for its shrine in the water, and enjoyed the shrine and a day hike providing great views of Japan's inland sea.

This picture of the immediate destruction of the blast, taken from the A-bomb museum, still amazes me. I can't even comprehend the destructive potential of the newer nuclear bombs that are far more powerful than the one used here.

The water shrine Itsukushima, looking towards Hiroshima in the background

After Hiroshima, I hopped on a series of trains and buses to head to Chiiori (http://www.chiiori.org/), a small (very small) organic farm in the region of Shikoku. Shikoku is a seriously underrated area of Japan that's nearly saturated with sanctuaries of spirituality. It was here that Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, made his famous pilgrimage that many Japanese followers recreate.

Nestled in the hills of the Iya Valley, Chiiori greeted me and was an ideal place to get some R&R for a couple days.

Chiiori

Chiiori was a highlight of Japan for me. It was looked after by an American ex-pat Paul, and a Japanese student Toru, but was started by American Alex Kerr in an attempt to preserve a small piece of Japanese tradition in an area wrought with rampant development and pointless construction (makes the 'Bridge to Nowhere' and the 'Big Dig' look brilliant). It was here I started to learn of the fraud and ugliness of the Japanese construction market. I began to understand why Leon had been disappointed with what he had learned of Japan. What I learned and began to see, was that what I had naively interpreted as the incorporation of nature into its cities, was really the taming of nature. This was done by cementing rivers and hillsides (creating a cement bed for rivers with walls, and literally covering hills in cement), and building seawalls around the entire country. Despite it being a bit of a rude awakening, Chiiori was eye-opening, and I enjoyed every minute I spent there.

At dinner on my second night at Chiiori, a new Japanese student, about my age, had just arrived to stay the night. We had a brief conversation that I found somewhat symbolic of Japanese culture in an extremely oversimplified way. I started talking with him (he spoke broken English), and asked him if he had traveled outside of Japan. He said he had, around Asia and some of Europe. I asked him what was his favorite place he had ever traveled to, and he responded "Ah...I think...Okinawa". I said "Ok, well what about outside Japan?". He responded "Ah...that is a...difficult question...", as if he was going to finish his thought, but eventually we just settled into the silence.

This post is getting long enough. I'll post the conclusion of Japan next week, and then give two more updates, one each week, summarizing the end of my trip (I'm getting organized now. Honest! I'll post them on each Sunday coming up. You don't have reason to doubt me, do you?).

Noah

Mighty China and 48 hours in Tokyo

2009-05-05T02:56:00.003-03:00

From Beijing With Nan

Sweet hair style, right?

Pictures for this post:

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/BeijingWithNan#

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/ChinaWithLeonAndChris#

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/Tokyo#

Beijing with Nan

China had been a bit of a wildcard on my itinerary. I had no idea what to expect. After spending about four weeks there, I still don't know how I feel about the place. I wish I had ventured out of the big cities further, because I didn't get a chance to explore the rural face of it. All in all, it was a tiring but great four weeks.

My first impression of every place I've been is, of course, the airport. And wow - Beijing's international airport is immense. As you leave the gate you are immediately miniaturized in response to the football stadium-dwarfing terminal. In some ways this was a common theme throughout my stay in China - the sheer number of people in some areas of the city completely overwhelms you. This fluctuated quite a bit though - as we explored the Hutongs (small alleyways of the city) it was easy to say to yourself 'this is the capital city in a country of a billion people?' when, in the evenings, the crowds had cleared out.

Beijing is the first place I went, and where I spent the overwhelming majority of my time, so I will start with some of the highlights there.

My aunt Nan (whom I met at the airport) and I did lots of sightseeing together. One of the most beautiful places we went was the Summer Palace.

From Beijing With Nan

An enormous former resort for the royalty, the Summer Palace is a town-sized establishment on the coast of an enormous lake. The number of guided tours (it was a holiday, and many families from the country had come in) was almost absurd; all of them color coded and huddling together. At one point Nan and I were a bit disoriented, and an elderly woman approached us, speaking in Mandarin. We didn't quite know what to think, because we made it very obvious that we didn't understand a word she was saying. She pointed to our map, and directed us which way we should go, still speaking non-stop. I wondered why she kept on speaking to us in Mandarin, but realized I would probably do the same in English - there's something about intonation and inflection that you hope still gets across to the person, even if they don't understand the words.

The Forbidden City was another highlight. In the center of downtown, and near our hotel, it was impossible to miss.

From Beijing With Nan
Outside the Forbidden Palace

Nan, her former student Katherine, and I had some amazing meals while we were there (the food, as has been a common theme on this trip, was one of the highlights of China). Some things about the food I loved - there was a no-nonsense approach to dining out. You got the restaurant, you were seated, the waiter stands there while you awkwardly fumble through the menu and point to a few dishes, and they are brought out within five minutes. Sure, this probably means they are not cooked-to-order, but that's fine with me. Typical meals would include an eggplant or tofu dish, a chicken dish, and a stir-fry, and they'd all be good. The one thing about the food that wasn't so pleasant was whenever you got chicken, it would be served with the bone in and skin on. I usually wouldn't mind this, but the skin was always a disconcerting yellow color (not crispy) with a thick layer of fat under it, and the bone would somehow comprise 75% of the stuff on your plate.

One of my favorite restaurants was a one called the 'Red Capital Club' was especially appealing. It was in an old Hutong, with no signs or conspicuous lighting. Inside it was a small courtyard and dining room, covered in Mao-era artifacts.

Nan and I saw a handful of other amazing places - including the olympic venus (Bird's nest and Aquatic cube), and the great wall. The bird's nest was very cool - the architecture was hard not to admire even from a naive standpoint, and the great wall was incredible. The pictures don't do it much justice as to the immensity of the thing, and my descriptions wouldn't do any better. Check out the pictures to get a taste.

Leon and Chris Arrive

As Nan left, Leon arrived, and the next day, Chris joined from NYC. I left them to their own devices for a bit to sightsee some of the things I had already seen, but we had some other great adventures.

From China with Leon and Chris
Chris, Leon, and some other friends pose on the Great Wall

Katherine invited us out with a dozen of her friends to a dark restaurant called The Elephant Inside. If you haven't heard of this recent fad of dark restaurants, they are what they sound like. You place your order at the front counter before being led into a completely pitch-black dining room by your waiters who, of course, wear night-vision. Let me say right off the bat that the whole dark-restaurant thing is a ridiculous gimmick. They probably charge five times what the food should cost, and cut costs elsewhere (like food quality, presentation, service). However, I must say, it was a fun experience. The food was awful, and they didn't really take advantage of their gimmick (why not use cool tables with slots or indentations to guide where your plate or glass is, instead of fumbling around for it with no idea where it is, or why not make food that is actually conducive to eating with your hands, instead of digging your hands into a sloppy stir fry, or why not...the list goes on). But, it really did bring other things to your attention. As I said, unfortunately, one of those things is actually the taste of the food, but it also makes you hyper-aware of who is around you, and what they are (or are not) saying. It forces you to speak up, lest you be forgotten in the darkness, only to start talking later and be replied to with '...have you been there this whole time?'.

Anyways, other highlights were another trip to the great wall, meeting Leon's friend's friends, getting shirts and suits tailored for ridiculously cheap, and the insane Pearl Market.

From China with Leon and Chris
Us with Feifei, the great tailor

From China with Leon and Chris
Outside the Pearl Market (obviously)

I had been to the pearl market with Nan and Katherine to accompany them to buy some pearls, but when I went back with Chris and Leon, we decided to brose their other 'of-questionable-quality immitation' goods. What ensued was particularly hilarious. The bargaining there is out of another world, completely outrageous and laden with guilt-tripping, deceiving, and pressuring. On multiple occasions we were grabbed and had to literally struggle free from vendors trying to sell us shoes and ties. At one point Chris saw a pair of 'Adidas' he liked, and asked how much they were. The dialogue went something like this:

Chris: 'How much for the shoes?'

Lady: 'For you I give special price! Very special price. You see sticker say $120? I give to you for $105' as she punched that number into a calculator and showed it to us, as if that made it official.

Chris: 'That's more than the real pair cost!' I'll pay $10. As he punches in the 1-0, aware of how absurd the role of the calculator is.

Lady: '$10? You crazy! Tell you what, I give you special discount' she cleared the calculator and typed in 95. This went back and forth, her lowering her price incrementally down to about $70, until we said that was crazy and started to walk away. 'OK OK!! Here special price' as she cleared it again and typed in $20. We told her $15 and she had a deal, to which she put on a really tortured sad face, tried once more to settle on 20, but gave in and sold it for $15. The best part was as we were leaving, I complimented Chris's new shoes, which she overheard, and she came running over to me (right in front of chris) and said 'You want shoes??? I give to you for $10!!' to which we all burst into laughter realizing Chris overpaid.

From China with Leon and Chris
The insane Pearl Market

In general I am not in favor of bargaining extremely hard while traveling. If you're buying something originally made by the street vendor/performer/artist, then obviously don't pay more than what you think it's worth, but too many travelers I've seen just by default go for the 'offer 1/4 of the price and don't settle for less than 1/2', which I think is blind. The pearl market though, is a beast totally different than ordinary shopping though. A churned-out factory scarf they first offered it to me for a 'very special price, just for you' for US$80, was brought down to US$2, and they probably still returned 400%.

We had arranged to take an overnight train to Shanghai, and by the time we got to the Beijing Central Railway station, it was clear we were no longer in the English zone. Everything was in characters, and despite some difficulty finding which track was ours, we made it an enjoyed a very comfortable ride down the coast.

From China with Leon and Chris
The quirky/cool Shanghai Skyline

I had been told Shanghai had a different feel than Beijing, but I wasn't anticipating the degree of difference. It's also an enormous city (17 million, the biggest in China), but the number of cars is a fraction of what the counterpart is in Beijing. The bike traffic was incredibly dense, and my comment of 'I can't believe they don't get into accidents all the time' was withdrawn when indeed, on each of the three days we were there, we saw the immediate aftermath of bike-car collisions.

The city itself though was great. We met up with a fellow poker player who was kind enough to show us around and introduce us to a big ex-pat community. We were only in Shanghai for the weekend, but managed to fit in a fair amount of sightseeing and nightlife. The highlight of the sightseeing was probably the French Concession District which is a cafe and art gallery packed few square blocks.

Before we knew it we were on a plane back to Beijing, and soon after, Chris hopped on a plane for JFK, I hopped on a plane for Tokyo, and Leon stayed behind to spend some more time around Beijing.

Tokyo (Round 1 of 5)

This would be my first entrance to Tokyo, of what will be five eventually (I am currently in my second). I had just two days and two nights before I left for LA, so I tried to fit in some worthwhile sightseeing.

Tokyo is really a city where you can just hop on the subway, go anywhere, and wander around for a full day. It truly immense (13 million), and is more of a conglomeration of dozens of mini-cities (each designated by a subway stop) than one big one. Because I only had a couple days at this point, I decided to prioritize. First, I would indulge my inner geek, and check out Akihabara (the electronic district), then I would embrace my social side, and meet up with some meetup.com activities.

From Tokyo
The buzzing Akihabara

Akihabara is like a different world. I spent most of the four hours I had there inside of one, six-story arcade. The arcades have a completely different feel than what we have in the states, though. The first couple floors are completely dominated by silly claw-drop games (you know, the annoying ones that you try to drop a claw on a gift and bring it back to your box), which have all sorts of themes. Above that, you reach the soccer floor (where people sit in rows at high-tech soccer games, playing together), the fantasy floor, the mech-battle floor (filled with person-sized pods with Omnimax-style screens that you enter to control your character), and an old-school game floor. The demographic is diverse, ranging from 12 to 60, and it's fairly evenly spread. Smoking is also allowed, and it was clear many of the mid-40's crowd there had just finished work, and was sitting down to a cigarette (or 10) and a game (or 10) of 'Wheel of Eternity'.

Found this clip on youtube, it's not my own:

From Tokyo
A group of guys play soccer, Akihabara-style

The next day I met up with about a dozen people (half american ex-pats, half other ex-pats) who rented out a small Mongolian restaurant. The highlight of the night was a surprise performance by a Mongolian Morin Khuur player and throat-singer. Throat singing is the skill where you are able to create overtones with your vocal cords to produce two notes, one base tone and one shifting overtone. It is mindboggling.

From Tokyo
The Mongolian performance

The next day I joined a few of the other ex-pats in a Hanami celebration which is where, to celebrate the bloom of the cherry blossoms, people gather in parks and have a picnic (usually drinking to excess). This was pretty tame though, and was a nice "See you later Japan" Before I left for LA that afternoon for the month of April.

From Tokyo
Our group at Hanami in Yoyogi Park

Forgot to mention in the previous post, but I'm in Tokyo now. I'm headed to Okinawa tomorrow morning to begin my south to north, tip-to-tip, 4-week bullet train journey of Japan which I am really looking forward to.

I'm not sure how my internet access will be when I get to Okinawa, and I won't be updating my blog tonight (cinco de mayo!), but I'll post soon describing my month in LA, and what I've been up to since I got back to Tokyo.

I hope everyone is doing well! Comments/Questions encouraged!

Noah

Let's catch up 1/3

2009-05-01T08:48:00.006-03:00

The mighty skyline of Hong Kong and Kowloon behind (Panorama, click for full effect)

OK! So - it's been a little while. I hope everyone has been doing well. I have a chunk of time to myself now and have no excuse not to update this blog. A quick note: the previous post had some HTML technical difficulties, but it should be fixed now (that was the post that started with Leon and my road trip on the south island of NZ, and ended with the rooftop cinema in Melbourne, Australia).

Last we left off I was headed to Hong Kong. This post will describe my time there (and Macau), then part 2/3 will describe Beijing and Shanghai (will be posted tomorrow). Finally, part 3/3 will describe my little time in Tokyo, and my month in LA (will be posted in 2 days)! Right now I'm back in Tokyo - I'll be here for about a week, then I'm headed on a south tip to north tip 3 week trip of Japan.

Pics for this post:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/HongKong#

Note for this post - not sure why - but Blogspot isn't letting me resize my images in the post. Sorry for the obnoxiously large pics.

My expectations weren't very high for Hong Kong. I had heard from a bunch of people that it was cramped, noisy, smelled bad, and overdeveloped, and they were right. But despite all that, it has a charm to it, and I wound up really loving my week there.

Things got off to a great start in the city. Just the train from the airport to downtown was immaculate and fast, albeit a bit pricey. I won't go through play-by-play of what I did in Hong Kong, but I'll try to convey a general feel of the place.

One thing I can admit is that I got pretty lucky. Right away I connected with a few couchsurfers who made my stay infinitely more enjoyable. Olivia, a nonprofit film maker, Lane, a hedge fund programmer and traveler, Sapriti, a professional classical musician, and I met up for dinner and all hit it off quite well. Later that night I also met Carlos, a Guatemalan student studying in Taipei, and Jeff, a pilot living in HK. They all had amazing stories, and wound up guiding my stay quite a bit. Plus, they all spoke more Cantonese than I did (I didn't speak a word), so it was very helpful having them around. The food took some getting used to - everything is either really spicy or really fishy or both - but it was a learning experience.

I explored several of the city's neighborhoods on my own, and was really fascinated by their unique feel. The way small shrines have been preserved for hundreds of years, and are now tucked away in between massive skyscrapers and highways is sad and admirable at the same time. Each of the shrines I visited all had handfuls of people visiting them with a very tangible sense of respect and humility.

Huge incense swirls hanging from the roof in one of Hong Kong's many shrines

While the apartment complexes (absolutely enormous sprawling cement monstrosities) are ugly, much of the island's skyline is incredibly beautiful. They are so obviously proud of their architecture, and they have a right to be - some of the buildings are jaw-dropping. At one point I took the tram up to 'The Peak', looking over HK island's skyline, as well as Kowloon's (across the bay), and it is a really impressive view (if only it were less foggy).

I think part of what gives HK its attitude is just how cramped everything is. Hong Kong island is not big. In fact, most of it is hardly developed at all. It's just one small area of it that is built up to an outrageous degree that makes it seem almost absurd, like it is out of a sci-fi movie. The old fishermen boats on the harbor supplement this feeling, with their loud dirty 'putt-putt' engines rumbling next to high speed jet ferries to Macau and the other islands.

One of Hong Kong's shrines tucked away between skyscrapers

I did an all-day trip to Macau, which left me with mixed feelings. It had a cool historic district, but it was a bit too much turned into a shopping mall. The casinos were absurdly huge, and the residential areas seemed pretty miserable. However, the history was pretty fascinating, and it will be interesting to see how the area fares in the next decade.

Me in front of the facade of a destroyed church in Macau

Carlos and I took a ferry ride to a small island about an hour away from Hong Kong and rented bikes which was a lot of fun. It was a small enough island that we rode the circumference in a few hours. It was interesting to talk with him about Guatemala, Taipei, and photography. Apparently Guatemala was one of the first countries to recognize Taipei's independence, so an exchange program was set up for their students, which is how he happened to be there. He took a few pictures (I forgot my camera) that you can see here http://gallery.me.com/carlos.a.pascual#100636 Pictures 5149-5232 were from the island.

Besides those things, I managed to fit in a hike (45 minutes out on the subway and you're in the mostly undeveloped hills of Kowloon) with a number of other expat locals, and explored the night markets of Kowloon on my own. Overall I was really happy with my time in Hong Kong - it would be a place I'd consider living for a few months, maybe even a year - but I'm sure I would grow tired of the city and the culture past that.

Before I knew it, I had my concierge-prepared China visa ready, and I was headed to Beijing, where I would meet Nan at the airport.

I'll have part 2/3 up tomorrow!

Noah

One month later...

2009-02-25T04:42:00.005-02:00

Frodo, Sam, and Gollum hike to Mount Doom

Disclaimer: this post is long. Too long.

First up, pics:

3 new albums! Some of the pictures are awesome, if you have time I recommend checking them out!

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/SouthIslandRoadtrip #

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/NorthIslandWithIan #

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/MelbourneAustralia #

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n (all albums)

Sorry for the delay! From now on expect weekly updates so my posts don't have to be so absurdly long. We've had a few busy weeks. Let me jump right in.

Road Trip!

Our roadtrip. If you're observant you can get a sneak peak into what else I browse on the web in my spare time...

Because our road trip was to be so short with a large proportion of the trip as driving, we opted for the car that would give us the most enjoyable driving experience:

The trunk didn't fit much, but it was a short trip, so with laptops, a couple changes of clothes, and plenty of snacks for the road, Leon and I set off for Fox Glacier

The glacier itself was much smaller than El Calafate in Argentina, but it was just as much fun to walk on it, and equally impressive in other ways. A bit frightening was that two young backpackers were quickly and mercilessly crushed by a chunk of falling ice the size of a garage off the terminal face, where they wanted to get a photo of themselves in front of the glacier. I was surprised there weren't more signs warning of the danger – the guides frequently took it upon themselves to yell at people touching the face of the glacier, telling them to get away.

Yes, my pants are tucked into my socks

That afternoon we had our longest drive, so we had just a quick lunch and set off for the other side of the island – to Christchurch!

Christchurch, being the biggest city on the south island, was, well, actually not very big. We checked into our hostel (an old converted prison) and the neighborhood reminded us of the neighborhoods around Boston – Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Framingham – it was a lot different from Queenstown and Fiordland. We happened to arrive during the Busking festival – so the city was very much alive with amazing street performers and curious locals. We spent a full day watching the best of the acts, and were woken up early the next morning by a phone call from Kaikoura dolphin encounters. There was availability for the 12:30 tour – it was 9:30 when they called, and it was a two and a half hour drive. We were very tired, but knew it was not frequent that you could swim with dolphins in the wild, so we decided to make the drive (in the opposite direction of where we were going later) to try to make it on time. We did, just barely, and it was worth it!

After a quick briefing video on how to get the dolphins to interact with you (tips included spinning around, making eye contact, surface diving, and making ridiculous sounds), we set off to find some dolphins. I was nervous about getting seasick – I have in the past – but the ride out was perfectly fine. Perhaps this was the beginning of me getting over my seasickness? WRONG! The combination of thick wetsuit gear, spinning around underwater, and increasing sea swells proved to be too much for me to handle. Lets just say...the ride back wasn't pretty. Leon was a champ though, and got some great pictures and videos of the pod of ~200 dolphins while I was paralyzed in the corner.

The dolphins following us as we leave

We were pretty drained from the excursion and got carried away eating lunch and going online at the local internet cafe – before we knew it it was 5:30 and we had a 6 hour drive ahead of us to get to the base of Mt. Cook. In a way it worked out well though, because when it got to be close to midnight, we pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and had a terrific view of the stars – among the best I've ever seen.

Me in front of the base of Mt.Cook. The picture doesn't do the immensity of the mountain justice. Those glaciers spoke to me 'If you try to climb me, I will try to kill you'

By the end of the next day we had to be back in Queenstown, but we were determined to fit in a day hike at the base of Mt. Cook, so we made the short drive over to it through its beautiful valley and stopped in at the department of conservation to get tips on where to go. We did a short two hour hike which was beautiful, and were back in good time to make it back to Henrick's place to relax before heading up to Auckland the next day! Our road trip lasted about 96 hours and we covered just over 1800km.

Up to the north island!

Leon and I spent our first day in Auckland walking around and taking it easy. Auckland is a nice city but it gets a bad rep because it is the only real city in New Zealand. Everyone told us that it wasn't even worth going there – I agree it does not 'feel' like New Zealand, because the rest of the country is so amazing in its landscape and feel. Nonetheless, Auckland is nice, and I wish we had had more time to see its suburbs and beaches.

We picked up Ian in our new rental car at the airport the next day. It was great to see him – unexpected, but welcome! Alicia's apartment in Mt. Maunganui was our next destination – she had been living there for a few months and invited us to meet up with her, so of course we took her up on the offer. Driving through the rolling hills of the north island was such a contrast to the south island trip. The south island sits on the meeting point of two continental shelves colliding with one another, while the north island sits on two that are separating. Nowhere else would I say that geology is cool – but I might make an exception for New Zealand!

During the few days at Alicia's we were able to fit a lot in – renting a couple hobie cats (accidentally sailed one into a race going on, that was embarrassing), driving to see the Rotarua mud pits/hot baths, and going to secluded waterfalls with some of her local friends.

We picked up a brochure in her apartment about the 'Tongariro Crossing' which is where some of Mordor was filmed in LoTR, so we reached a consensus in about five seconds that we had to do it. We drove to Taupo (smack in the middle of the north island), booked the hike (we decided to do the longer version – 'the northern circuit'), spent a couple hours trying to find LotR costumes but couldn't find any (I'll leave it to you to decide if that was a joke...), got food to make for the trip, and watched most of 'The Two Towers' to pump us up for our hike the next morning. And so it was, at 5:30AM the next morning, Gollum (Leon), Sam (Ian), and Frodo (I) departed for their journey.

The trek was short in terms of time, but long in terms of distance. We were disappointed at first by the crowds. The more popular day hike, the Tongariro Crossing, advertised as 'The best day hike in the world', attracted crowds of people. We had more time to play with, though, so we added the side trips up to the summit cone of Mt. Doom (Mt. Ngaurahoe, and no I don't know how to pronounce that), and to the summit of Mt. Tongariro.

Deep red rocks all around - great scenery

Mt. Doom was brutal – it was steep, extremely foggy, and there was no path. The ground was made up entirely of loose rock so for every two feet you stepped forward you slid back one and a half. The most unsettling part was hearing 'ROCKS!!!!' up ahead of you in the fog and having to wait, ready to jump to either side to dodge the sometimes basketball-sized rocks potentially plummeting towards you. Thankfully we had no close calls, but saw someone on the way down who did.

Panorama of the cone - click for full effect!

The cone at the summit was very impressive. At first we couldn't see the opposite side of it, but after a few minutes the fog cleared and we were rewarded with an amazing view. We wished we had brought a ring to throw into the cone.

We rest at the beautiful 'Emerald Lakes'

We arrived at Oturere hut at around half past five, and after claiming the last three bunks I headed straight for the nearby stream to get clean. The other guys were too hungry, so they offered to start cooking dinner (pasta, canned tuna, pre-chopped garlic+mushrooms, and red pepper sauce) while I went to the stream which I immediately took them up on! We spent the rest of the evening eating, relaxing, and talking with the hut warden, a girl from Oregon.

We had to be on the trail by 7AM the next morning to meet our pickup at 3PM, so we called it an early night. Ian was sound asleep by 8:30, Leon at ten, and I soon after him (I was too engaged in my new Crichton novel). I had my alarm set at 2AM to get up to stargaze with Gollum and Sam, but I woke up at 12:30 and looked out the window and saw it was completely overcast. Again I woke up at 1:30 and it was still, so I just turned my alarm off. But then I woke up at 4 and looked out the window and almost had to squint the stars were so bright! We got up (and managed to wake pretty much everyone else up when I slammed my head into one of the beams above my bunk) and headed outside for about fifteen minutes to take it all in.

The twenty kilometers of hiking on the second day were not too spectacular. It was nice, and the view of Mt. Doom and Mt. Ruapehu (the active volcano nearby) was great, but it was unchanging for the whole day, so there wasn't much variety – just the desert. We got a quick celebration lunch of Lamb wraps, and were back in Taupo 36 hours after we had first departed. We covered about 40k over the two days though, so it was a good and challenging circuit.

Panorama of the valley at the end of the hike - click for full effect!

We spent a day back at Alicia's recovering, doing laundry, and planning out or next adventure – more scuba! We took another one-way rental from her town to up past Auckland to our first dive destination – the Poor Knights.

We were very excited to dive the Poor Knights because Jacques Cousteau had rated them one of the top ten dive sites in the world. Leon and I did two dives there (Ian did one as his introductory dive which he enjoyed) that were really spectacular. Our first was along a wall with a max depth of about 18 meters. Leon and I split off from the guided group so we could stay down longer (in a group you have to surface all together when the most air-hungry person reaches the turn-around point). We saw a few stingrays, plenty of triplefins, a few small morays, and my favorite, a nudibranch (sea slug). Our second dive was through 'Blue maomao arch' which was a really fun dive through an arch (the top of the arch was out of water, so it wasn't a cave) that was packed with, you guessed it, blue maomao – schools of hundreds. Leon and I made it a fun dive rather than a serious dive and spent most of it playing around in the arch, swimming upside-down into the schools of fish.

Leon and I get ready to hop in to the Poor Knights

After the dives, we made our way up the coast almost to the northern-most point of the north island, at the Bay of Islands. We spent the night at a very chill hostel in Paihia. In the morning, Leon and I got picked up for scuba while Ian went in search of renting a hobie cat and finding a dolphin-swimming tour.

Our first dive was probably the best of the six we did on the north island. It was on the sunken Rainbow Warrior in 27 meters of water. I really like diving wrecks because as you descend you just see blue until the boat appears as a huge dark figure – very cool feeling. We swam the full length of the boat with a few small swims into it. It was still very intact but ocean life thrived on it. It was covered in coral and whenever you poked your head into a window or door of the boat you could see enormous schools of fish just hanging out inside. You can read up on the boat's history here.

The second dive wasn't quite as spectacular but was still fun. It was a shallower dive that we spent most of pulling ourselves through a meter-high kelp forest. It was fun to see the little fish and critters run away when you pushed their kelp roof off to the side.

Part of the reason these dives were so fun was the group – a group of three young guys that clearly were having just as much fun as we were. In the poor knights it was a group of about 15, but here there was only one other diver – an older creepy/awkward woman that didn't wind up diving for reasons unknown to us. So then it was just the guides, Leon, and me. After the trip we met up with Ian and headed to our third and last destination of this mini-road trip – Goat Island.

We spent the night at a very cool converted sawmill (now a brewery/hostel) – their fresh red snapper was probably the most delicious fish I've ever had. The next morning we headed to the dive shop next door and found out our dive site had been rescheduled from the Goat Island Marine Preserve to a different site. We took their word for it that it was just as good (it wasn't). It was a small group – Leon, Ian, a Spanish guy I forget the name of, our one guide, and me. It was a well run excursion, but the dive site was not very exciting. It was still fun though, and it was good practice for navigating underwater (I got our group a bit lost on the first dive). On the second dive towards the end, Leon pointed excitedly toward some coral on the ground – I was confused at first, but quickly realized that it was not coral, but an old weight belt that had been overgrown with sea plants! The two of us tried to lift it – but that required filling our BCD's (the things that control your buoyancy) with air, which meant if either of us dropped the heavy weight belt, he would shoot up to the surface which is very dangerous – so we decided it wasn't that important. After those two dives we were done with our activities for the trip, and returned to Auckland to prepare for Melbourne.

For my birthday, Ian and Leon generously took me out on one of the America's Cup racing yachts with a group which was really amazing. The weather wasn't great, but it didn't really matter because higher winds meant the boat could really get going. I was very surprised to hear that no customer had ever fallen overboard, because the boat was leaning a HUGE amount and there was little preventing you from falling. We had three amazing dinners for our last three nights together there, and then Ian was off on his long trip from Auckland to Sydney to London to Boston to Toronto! Leon and I spent our last day seeing a David Byrne concert which was awesome – he played his old classics as well as his excellent latest album – before heading off to Melbourne.

Melbourne

Melbourne has been amazing – up until this point, I wouldn't have considered living in any of the places I had visited, but Melbourne is really different. It's a combination of things, but it all comes together nicely and just feels like a great relaxed but fun place to live. The public transit is excellent (dedicated tram lines that don't compete with traffic), the downtown is great (small at about five by ten blocks, but clean, and is filled with hole-in-the-wall restaurants), and the people are relaxed and friendly.

A downtown Melbourne intersection

I would give long descriptions to the things we've done here, but this blog update has been delayed so long that it has gotten obnoxiously long. So, I will just glaze over what we've done, which is a shame because some of the activities here have been by far the most influential of the trip, but necessary I think.

Our first few days were laid back in South Yarra (neighborhood) – very cool cafes and trendy fashion shops. It reminded me a lot of a clean, happy, updated Palermo in Buenos Aires. After that we moved to a couple hostels in the CBD and spent most of our time at the sustainable living festival (which was amazing), as well as going to the largest short film festival in the world (hosted in the botanical gardens of Melbourne), going to two outdoor cinemas (one on the roof of a 6 story building with the Melbourne skyline behind it), and getting to know some locals through meetup.com and couchsurfing.com, the two most useful sites for any traveler. Today we volunteered for an environmental conservation group, picking weeds and mulching in part of the botanical gardens, and now I am getting ready to go to Hong Kong!

Panorama of Tropfest in Melbourne - click for full effect!

Panorama of the rooftop cinema - click for full effect!

Leon is hanging back a week or so to see more of Melbourne and will catch up with me in a few weeks in Beijing.

Sorry this took so absurdly long to update! I will try to update as a weekly thing now, so a)you don't have to wait so long and b)so the post doesn't have to cover so much ground!

I hope everyone is well, comments questions and criticisms encouraged!

Noah

Routeburn, Kepler, Milford

2009-01-25T09:03:00.003-02:00

Not a bad view!

First things first...
Pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/Queenstown# (A few new shots in Queenstown)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/RouteburnTrek# (Pics from our first walk)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/TeAnauKeplerWalkAndMilfordSoundNewZealand# (Pics of our second walk as well as in Milford Sound)

Vids:
http://www.youtube.com/llamallama781 (finally a couple new additions)

I am going to try to keep this one short because if I start recounting too many details this post could be a full-blown novel. Things have been going well - we've been up to some cool stuff, as well as laying low in Queenstown in Henrik's awesome apartment. Highlights of the past few weeks have included hiking the Routeburn track, hiking the Kepler track, going hang gliding in Queenstown, and kayaking and diving in Milford Sound.

Before I start telling you about those fun adventures, first a brief amusing dialogue I had while I was trying to buy some new gloves.

Me: "Excuse me, what does MS mean on the size tag?"
Employee: "Means small"
Me: "It means small? Then what's the M for?"
Employee: "No it's means small"
Me: "What? It's the average size of all smalls or something?"
The employee started laughing at me, and said:
Employee: "No no no. A little boy grows up into a...?"
Me: "Man?"
Employee: "Yes, now plural..."

Clearly I am not used to the kiwi accent yet. All the 'eh' sounds like in men, ten, lend, etc are all pronounced as "ee".

I'm going to be brief with the Routeburn and Kepler descriptions - for a better walkthrough, I recommend going to my picasa album and check out the pictures and captions!

Routeburn Track

Our first 'Great Walk' was the Routeburn. It was an awesome track, and with better gear and prep than Ian and my Torres Del Paine trip, Leon and I were able to have a great time despite the huge amounts of rain.

We chose the Routeburn because it is one of the shorter walks at about 35km over 3 days. This was Leon's first major expedition since his knee surgery, so we wanted to take it easy to make sure it would hold up alright before we did the Kepler track.

Leon takes the lead as we start the Routeburn Track

The Routeburn track was unique in its contrasting habitats. We started in a thick, humid, foggy forest completely drenched in moss. The limbs of trees stuck out at bizzare angles, looking like hands with badly broken fingers. Of course it immediately reminded Leon and I of the Lord of the Rings - it's no wonder why they chose to film it in this country!

Day two we awoke to powerful rain on our tent, and as tempted as we were to try to wait it out, we knew that could take hours, so we got up and had breakfast in the comfort of a shelter next to the campsite (the campsites here are beautiful and well organized). We got out into the alpine zone which was beautiful with the rain because across the valley was an enormous stone mountain face with waterfalls pouring all over it.

At the highest point there was a shelter, and just as we got there the rain cleared up. We stopped for lunch and were lucky to see a helicopter bring in a few propane tanks to resupply the shelter which was quite cool. I took advantage of our brief break to take off my shoes as they had been thoroughly soaked due to the path being completely flooded. The rain returned on our descent, though, and the sharp sedimentary rocks took their toll on me when I slipped and landed with the full weight of my backpack and I on my hand. A quick rain water rinse and a couple bandaids later, however, and I was as good as knew. At the end of day two we descended back into the tree line and set up camp in one of the most gorgeous campsites I have ever seen.

Leon sets up the clothesline to dry out gear

Day three took us back through some similar forests as day one, and by two o'clock that afternoon we were headed back to Queenstown!

After a brief intermission there lasting a few nights, we were off to Te Anau.

Te Anau and the Kepler Track

Te Anau is a tiny little town southwest of Queenstown, in Fiordland. Leon and I got there at 7:15pm, and had 45 minutes before we had to be at the lake for our tour of the Glowworm Caves. In that 45 minutes we had to check in at our hotel, rent gear, and buy food for the trek - it was extremely hectic and involved sprinting around with shopping carts and looking like fools. We made it though, enjoyed the glow worms, and had just enough time to make half a dozen sandwiches and get a little sleep before catching the bus to our launching point.

For the Kepler Track we had huts booked for our two nights, because the campsites were sold out. It's amazing what a different feel the trek had doing it this way. There are positives and negatives to doing it this way, and while I'd say in general I prefer camping, huts are a good alternative - especially if the weather looks dubious. Since Leon's knee had no problems on the Routeburn, we were confident the 60km Kepler wouldn't be much worse.

Leon turns on his headlamp as we enter the caves

We had a nice long first day getting up and out of the tree line. After dropping our stuff off at the Luxmore hut we went to explore a nearby cave system. When we got there, though, we hit what we thought was a dead end pretty quickly, so we turned around. I heard from the hut warden that the forecast was bad for the next day, so I decided to do a quick hike to Luxmore peak to take in the view while it was still there. Afterwards, Leon and I devoured some Back-country Cuisine (dehydrated meals, not bad!) and relaxed for a bit.

I enjoy the view on day 1, because I knew the next day it wouldn't be so nice

As I was heading outside in the evening to hang out, a girl asked me if I was heading to the caves. I told her no, but that I wanted to go again - so Karna and I went back and explored much further into the caves. I had never been caving before, but it was a really cool experience. The pitch black combined with the rush of running water (the 2km of caves were carved by water through limestone) and cool damp air, along with having to squeeze through tight rocky openings made it an exhilerating physical adventure. After an hour and a half we still hadn't reached the end of the system, but decided it would be best if we turned around, as it was already 11PM and we had a long day ahead of us.

Day two was a lot of fun. Leon and I made it up Luxmore peak in the 90kph winds, and then on through a long alpine path along ridges between peaks. At the end of the alpine region we got to the switch-backs that the hut warden had told us about. I thought she had said there were 19 of them, Leon thought she said 91. Unfortunately, he was right, and by the time we finally arrived at the bottom at our next hut, our knees were ready for a break. We checked out a nearby waterfall, devoured more Back-country Cuisine, and went to sleep.

Click on this one for full effect

Day three was our longest day, but also the easiest, as there wasn't an elevation change. Not much to remark on - before we knew it we were back in Te Anau kicking our feet up, prepping for Milford Sound.

Milford Sound

New Zealand tourism clearly puts a big effort into publisizing Milford Sound as 'one of the most beautiful places in the world' and they're right! It's an amazing place - tall peaks 2km tall shooting vertically down and plunging right into the water, surrounded by waterfalls.

We dropped our stuff off at the Milford Lodge (the only place to stay in Milford), and went out for our kayak expedition which was great. Unfortunately, in our zeal to 'defeat' one of the waterfalls by charging as far as we could into it, we capsized (big surprise) in the 48' water. No big deal though, because the guide had spare fleeces into which we changed when we took a break at a rocky beach, and warmed up with a cup of hot cider.

Unfortunately the style and size of the spare fleece weren't exactly mine

The next day we went diving with a very small group (one British girl and two guides) which was awesome. The aquatic environment is totally unique there. It's one of the rainiest places in the world at 8 meters per year! That combined with snowmelt provides a layer 1-4 meters deep of cold fresh water on top of the denser salt water. The fresh water, which is stained with the tannin of the plants it flowed through to get there, absorbs light and leaves the salt water in the dark. This allows for life that normal can only be seen at 50+ meters of depth, at 10-20 meters. That doesn't mean it's not a deep place though - the average depth was over 200 meters! We did two dives which were cold (brutal to jump into the cold fresh water, but once you descend into the salt it was much warmer), but we saw cool things like lots of black coral, bizzare sea-stars, and a big octopus which interacted with us quite a bit before we left it alone.

Besides their extremely lame, extremely un-funny joke of telling us to jump into a 'thermal pool' which was actually just freezing cold water, our Egytpian guide and Kiwi driver were a lot of fun and had a wealth of knowledge to give us about the area.

We made it back to Henrik's apartment just in time to catch the Obama inauguration that night (we stayed up all night to see it) which was fun.

Obama emerges from the darkness

Ok! I think that about covers it. Except for hang gliding (which was totally awesome), the three of us have just been hanging out in Queenstown. I saw my second movie of the trip (in theatres) yesterday - 'Seven Pounds' with will Smith - which I liked. I'd say 8.2/10.

Tomorrow we are going to do some sort of activity on the Shotover river here in Queenstown, and then get a rental car to do a quick tour of the Southern island. Our brief itinerary is:
Day 1 (tomorrow, after the river excursion): Drive to Fox Glacier
Day 2:Do quick tour on Fox Glacier, then drive to Kaikoura
Day 3:Wake up early to do a dolphin tour + swim, then drive down to Christchurch and spend the day there
Day 4:Morning in Christchurch, drive to Mt.Cook Village, do a short day hike there
Day 5:Do another day hike maybe? Then back to Queenstown.

By the 1st of February we'll be off to Auckland. We're taking things one step at a time and haven't planned much past that.

I hope everyone has been well! Comments, questions, criticisms, you know what to do.

-Noah

Is there an 'Old Zealand'?

2009-01-07T11:38:00.002-02:00

Yes, I was screaming at the top of my lungs at this moment

Pics 'n Vids:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/Sydney # (bunch of new pictures)

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/Queenstown # (17 new pics from NZ)

http://www.youtube.com/llamallama781 (2 vids, one from way back, and one recent one of me trying to play the didgeridoo)

Sydney revisited, and the start to my kiwi adventure!

Leon and I kicked off our return to Sydney successfully by attending a couchsurfing picnic on Balmoral beach. For those who aren't familiar with couchsurfing, it's an online community (almost a million strong worldwide) of worldly, friendly people. As a member, while traveling, you can find local members that have a couch free that you can crash on for a night or two, free of charge. In return, when you are home and want to be nice or meet some new people, you can list your own couch as empty, and people can message you to request your couch. That's only the beginning of couchsurfing though. Members understand that hotels and hostels don't give you a local's perspective of the city, so hosts frequently invite surfers out to hang out with them and their friends, or see the city.

Couchsurfing picnic on Balmoral Beach

The first thing that concerns everyone when they hear about couchsurfing is safety, and that's understandable. Besides a rather thorough verification process to confirm your identity and a vouching process by other members, there are also couchsurfing events (hosted by any member) where surfers can meet other surfers and hosts to get to know them better before one requests a couch to crash on. At the picnic we met a number of travelers and locals that we wound up spending a lot of time with for the rest of our stay in Sydney. A number of them had completed three-month+ trips all around the world exclusively using couchsurfing as accommodation.

Waiting in line for the botanical gardens

Before we knew it new year's eve had arrived! We met up with Paula, a friend from the CS picnic, and two of her friends to go wait in line to get into the botanical gardens next to the opera house. Without a doubt, this was the longest line I have ever waited in – it took 5 hours to get into the gardens, where we had the pleasure of...waiting for another 9 hours (for the fireworks)! It was a fun afternoon though – twenty thousand people all happy and socializing the time away until the new year. All together there were 1.5 million people around the harbor – Sydney is very proud of its fireworks, and I must admit it was a very impressive show.

Swarms of people looking forward to a new year

2009!

We had a few days before we were off to New Zealand, so we did two things that were left on the list: Renting & sailing a hobiecat, and walking the 10k 'Manly beach scenic walk'.

It had been too long since I last went out on a hobiecat

Sailing the hobiecat was tons of fun. I have sailed them a bunch and it was certainly the choppiest water and strongest winds I have endured. I also showed Leon how to sail and he is now obsessed with it – we are hoping to do it again many times in NZ.

Looking back and out during the Manly Beach Scenic Walk

The Manly beach scenic walk was also a great way to spend a day. Along the way we stopped for a quick swim in one of Sydney's salt-water pools which was one of my things-to-do while in Sydney. It left me with a great impression of Sydney – downtown and the surrounding suburbs all seemed so beautiful. I wish I had had more time to visit the Blue Mountains and other countryside, but I guess that's something to leave for next time!

Off to the land of the kiwi

We were up early to catch out flight but we just barely made it in time (we underestimated the amount of air traffic that goes out of sydney after new year's). I wanted to stay awake for the flight to see the New Zealand coast approaching, but I was asleep about 15 seconds after takeoff. I think I'm getting better at sleeping on planes now that I'm getting lots of practice – but my neck is paying the price (a chronic neck pain finally came back that I had over the summer). It was very cool waking up and opening the window to see huge jagged white-tipped peaks on the horizon, though (see my photo album for more).

I was greeted at customs with a mandatory shoe cleaning! Leon's boots passed inspection but mine were housing some dirt in the nooks of my treads, so they insisted on cleaning them. On our way out, I was happy to discover an icebreaker store right in the airport so I could replace some of the clothing I have lost (the list is rather long). I picked up a new T shirt, long sleeve shirt, and sweater which are all awesome (you can judge for yourself in the pictures).

Queenstown is great. We were warned that it is touristy – and it is – but that's ok as long as I'm not living there. It's a ski town in the winter, but still gets lots of tourism during the summer because it's fairly cool there, and there are many adventure/adrenaline oriented things to do. It's not big – 15,000 people in the low season, 60,000 in the high – but is surrounded by a beautiful glacial lake and a mountain chain appropriately named 'The Remarkables'.

We've only been here a couple days but have managed to have a great time. The first evening, after exploring the area on our own, we met up with Henrik – a 26 year old poker player/traveler that ditches Sweden during their long winters and travels to warmer, brighter destinations. He's been here a couple months now and told us many valuable tips about where to go and what to see. The three of us grabbed dinner, and have since spent a lot of time hanging out with him (any excuse to go to his awesome apartment overlooking Queenstown and the lake).

I'm the black thing plummeting towards the ground...

If Queenstown is most famous for one summer activity, it's for the bungy jumping (where it all started). I had been skydiving once and loved it, but had been sketched out about bungy jumping. Well, I was bored and in need of a rush, so I went ahead and booked the biggest jump they have here and it was completely mind-blowing. It was a 134 meter fall, and the first few seconds of it (before the cord tenses) felt like they lasted milliseconds and hours at the same time. As long as the company is reputable, I highly recommend it for anyone seeking a rush!

Today we met up with Henrik in the morning and hiked the Ben Lomond trail behind Queenstown. We had been told to allow 7-8 hours for it so we were a bit intimidated, especially when we saw the peak. However, it turned out to be a demanding but short hike. With a couple water breaks and a lunch break at the top, we were back to the gondola that returned to Queenstown after three and a half hours. The hike was a great way to warm up for Leon and my first trek ('Routeburn' trek, one of NZ's 'Great Walks') that we start on the eighth.

Panorama looking down to Queenstown from the summit of Ben Lomond

Leon, me, and Henrik, at the peak

We have a lot of things planned in the near future besides the treks. Before we leave the area we plan on spending a couple days at Milford Sound. It's supposed to be amazing there and we are hoping to fit in some kayaking and diving. After that, we'll explore the rest of the south island by car (or campervan!) before heading north and doing the same.

I hope all has been well with you guys – drop me a message letting me know what's new and how your new year's went!

Super quick update – it's 2:30 AM and we are getting up at 6 to catch the bus to start our trek so I have to get to sleep – today we spent nearly all of the day getting our rental gear, buying some new gear, arranging transport, and packing for the trek. Things are going well – I'll be back on the afternoon of the 10^th (evening of the 9^th for most of you) – talk to you guys then!

Noah

A glimpse of Sydney and a week on (and around) the Great Barrier Reef

2008-12-25T06:22:00.003-02:00

Always good to maintain a sense of humor, no matter where you are

Tons of great pics not posted in this blog! Check out the most recent additions:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/Sydney# (Sydney, 19 new pics)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/CairnsAndTheGreatBarrierReef# (Cairns, the rainforest, and the reef!)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/ (All my photo albums)
http://www.youtube.com/llamallama781 Tomorrow morning (Christmas night for most of you) I will upload a short funny video of me trying to play the didgeridoo! Check that link later for it...

It's nice to be back on land - although my sea legs are persistent so I am still feeling the room rock back and forth a bit. It's been a busy 9 days since I last updated so let me fill you guys in...

First a note (inserted after the rest of this was written) - this post is a bit scattered, and there are a lot of events and topics I could have described in more detail - but it's long enough as it is! If you have any more questions about some of the activities, or my opinions on them, let me know via email or comment at the end of the post and I'd be happy to describe more.

Pacing

It was a bit of culture shock arriving in Sydney - everything was beautiful, clean, modern, and in English! I wasn't sure how I would react to returning to the 1st world after experiencing Peru. Part of me thought I would somehow be changed by South America - as if my time there might absorb me and make me reevaluate my perspective on the world, and in some ways it did, but it was different than that. It was enjoyable and interesting being in those new environments - but none struck me as a place I would want to stay very long. My perspective on the world certainly did change, but not in a way that changed my personality. In that way, while I loved different parts of South America for many different reasons, I was happy to return to the developed world.

I find myself repeating the phrase 'it was a great change of pace' and it makes me think about the concept of pace and what it means in terms of this trip, as well as life in general. It has been something I've been giving a lot of thought to and I think it's so important for everyone to change the pace of their life in one way or another fairly frequently. It's also something I think most people either ignore purposefully to stay in their comfort zone, are oblivious to, or are stuck in, unable to change it. I won't go on to bore you about that now, though, I have enough to talk about already!

Sydney

I only had about 48 hours in Sydney, but I knew I would be returning shortly, so I didn't feel rushed. I had been recommended to do the bridge climb in the harbor, so I signed up for that first thing. On my way to the bridge, I wandered around a bit before to see the aquarium and 'wilderness world' which were both fun, then I made my way to the company that led the climbs. I must say - the bridge climb was fun, and the views are outstanding - but the whole experience had a bad taste to it because of how much they dress it up and overcharge customers. The jumpsuit, fancy walkie-talkies, and harness were all 100% unnecessary. The climb was never dangerous or risky - it felt like the harness was more to keep us from jumping off than to keep us from falling. But because of all the gear they give you, it feels like your A$150 is going towards something. I wasn't fooled.

I return to the modern world!

The next day I had time to check out the Powerhouse museum (star wars exhibit!!! see my photo gallery for embarrassing pics of me & darth vader) which randomly turned out to be an extremely inspiring visit. The exhibit was called something like 'Star wars: science fiction and reality' and it focused on the movies and the paralleling research going on now. They had halls devoted to things like vestibular substitution, artificial retinas, bionic arms and wireless muscle stimulators, neural interfaces, cochlear implants, and all sorts of other neuro research going on that I had learned so much about during the end of Penn and my summer internship at NeuroSky. It definitely re-sparked my interest in the field, and I hope to get involved with that field of study as well as medicine to try to figure out what I want to do when I return to the States.

After that I spent the afternoon during the Coogee to Bondi beach walk - a walk that takes you along the coast to see a number of Sydney's beaches. I had heard so much about the beaches in Sydney - everyone has a favorite - so I was excited to see them finally. They were each certainly beautiful, but in comparison to California's beaches they were pretty small. Nonetheless, they are great places to spend an afternoon, and I will definitely be relaxing on them in the days leading up to New Year's.

Bondi beach in the background

That evening I went for a jog in the botanical gardens next to the opera house, and the next day I was off to Cairns!

Cairns

The first thing I noticed in Cairns was of course the heat & humidity. Thinking of Australia way down in the bottom right of the world map I hadn't realized just how tropical Cairns is.

I met up with Leon and we got some food and drinks and I heard all about his 17 dives which got me pumped to do some of my own. The next day we went to an aboriginal museum/themepark type place which was quite bizzare - a weird mixture of celebrating aboriginal lifestyle in a silly way and depressing stories reminiscent of the unfair treatment of Native Americans.

Later that day we took a rainforest tour which was terrific thanks to an eccentric slightly crazy guide named Bart. We met a bunch of other backpackers on the tour, enjoyed swimming in some waterfalls, and went to the local backpacker dinner joint for the rest of the evening. The next day I did three dives on a day trip to the outer reef which were fantastic (right along the continental shelf, so there were great reef walls) and got me ready for the 3 night live-aboard dive trip that departed the next day - Leon stayed behind because he had already gotten his fill of diving (and spent enough on it).

Leon and I in front of a 500 year old fig tree - the most awesome tree I have ever seen

Live-aboard Dive Trip

I was lucky to get the last spot on the boat at a huge discount (I bought it two days before it departed so they were desparate to sell the spot). The company I went with is known as one of the best in Cairns and I knew I would have a great time - but I was curious as to how the other divers in the group would be.

Good food, great company!

The group consisted of about 20 people - roughly a third were from the States, the rest were from a mix of Asia and Europe (no Australians). It was a really fun and friendly group of people coming from many different backgrounds. I pretty quickly became friends with two guys my age who just started grad school at Stanford, as well as a solo diver Annarieke from Holland (with whom I wound up buddying for most of the dives).

We took a small plane from Cairns to Lizard Island (where our boat was waiting) in the morning, and before we knew it we were at our first dive site ready to go. Most of the three following days you could bet I was doing one of three things - diving, eating, or sleeping.

Our perspective of the reef would soon change dramatically!

One of the dive maps during a dive brief

The diving was amazing. Especially after enduring the cold water in California getting my dry suit certification, this water felt like bath water. I wore a thin wetsuit, but mostly just for jellyfish protection rather than warmth. The wildlife was abundant and beautiful, and for the most part, peaceful. The one exception were the dreaded titan triggerfish. The females, when nesting, are extremely aggressive, and attacked a number of us (thankfully I was spared). Those teeth are nasty, and they bite hard enough to puncture the wetsuit. We learned to look out for them though, and avoid them. One of the guides - Alex - attracted one's attention and was able to fight it off with his fins - it was an amazing (and hilarious) sight seeing him fend it off.

The top deck was an excellent place to relax or nap in-between dives (here I am reading up on nitrox diving)

Later that evening we were all talking about how Alex fended off the triggerfish, and someone put on the video of him during the sharkfeed dive. Unfortunately I wasn't there for this (it was the previous trip) - but it showed him wrestling with the trash can filled with tuna heads, trying to get it open while dozens of sharks zipped by him. What I saw next made my jaw drop - when the sharks started getting really close and were running into him, he started to punch them. Yes, he punched the sharks in the face to fend them off while he got the can open so the guests could see the feed. It seemed like one of those things that is amazing, awesome, ridiculous, and probably very very stupid.

Time for a dip!

The highlight of the trip was probably the night dives - it was a little scary jumping into black water, but I got used to it. A dozen or more big bass followed us, as they have learned divers make excellent hunting partners - whenever I would illuminate an unfortunate small fish out in the open with my flashlight, they would zoom straight for it and devour it. It became a fun game searching for their prey, even though I felt a bit evil doing it.

I managed to fit in 12 dives in those three days, which I am really happy about. Annarieke and I got quite a bit lost on our first dive without a guide, which was scary at the time, to say the least. When we eventually decided to surface - it was the worst feeling in the world not seeing the boat in front of me - just open ocean. The two seconds it took to spin around to check 360' for it felt like an eternity - with an inner monologue saying, as I was turning 'no boat, no boat, no boat, BOAT!!!!' and of course we hadn't gone far - a hundred meters maybe - and we made it back to with no problems. From then on we were very careful to orient ourselves properly before descending. It was also a good excercize in general for keeping my head on straight in a stressful situation.

I was very relieved that I was (mostly) able to keep from getting seasick so I could enjoy the trip in the first place. The food was great, the people were great, the diving was great; there was nothing to complain about, so noone did. I was also able to fit in a nitrox course as well (a special gas that contains less nitrogen and more oxygen, so you can stay for longer at depth without getting decrompression sickness), so I learned alot and had a great time.

My two most frequent dive buddies - Annarieke and Mark

Now I'm hanging out with Leon, looking forward to our return to Sydney and New Year's. For Christmas we were trying to find a salvation army to volunteer at, but noone answered their phones, so it looks like we'll spend Christmas at the backpacker's hangout tonight. Tomorrow we'll most likely be back at the internet cafe waiting for our flight - so if you're online, feel free to say hi!

Once again, this post has become quite long - sorry about that. I hope all of you are well and are enjoying the holidays! Merry Christmas and enjoy the snow for me!

Comments, questions, suggestions, all encouraged!

Noah

About 20,000 miles later...

2008-12-16T11:14:00.002-02:00

Overlooking Machu Picchu

Pics 'n stuff:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/LATrip# (LA trip photos, not all up yet but most are there, 14 pics)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/Lima# (Lima pictures, 23)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/Cusco# (Cusco, trekking+Machu Picchu pictures, 99)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n (all my albums)

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/llamallama781 (No new additions)

Wow – sorry to everybody for not updating this thing in so long! Between hopping around destinations, embracing time to relax (which is surprisingly infrequent), and not being in the 'right mood' to update, it has been harder than I thought to keep this up to date. I was going to update it last weekend in BA, but a horrible nasty awful case of food poisoning made it hard for me to do anything but lie in bed watching movies and ted.org lectures. Now that I'm feeling better though, this 14 hour plane ride is the perfect excuse to catch you guys up a bit, so allow me to do just that.

LA Visit

Last I left off, I was about to head off to LA. Indeed I did, and I had an awesome time there. It had been too long since the last time I saw Kelly, so it was great to see her over Thanksgiving and we were able to fit in a lot of activities. To build up a hunger for Thanksgiving, Kelly and I went to a park near the Gorges that we were able to hike around for a while which was really nice. Hungry and excited for our first ever time cooking Thanksgiving, we headed back and got to work in the kitchen with her roommate Erika. I have to say, we did a damn good job. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, cranberry, green beans+almonds, and Argentinian wine – we were stuffed and had plenty of leftovers to last us a couple days (writing this is making me hungry).

Kelly and I work up a hunger before Thanksgiving by doing a short hike

Erika and Kelly have the honor of cutting the turkey

The next day, Kelly and I spent most of it getting fitted for our drysuit certification and starting to learn the basics in the instructor's pool (located right underneath the Hollywood sign). The instructor (very cool guy named Kareem who was half Egyptian, half Swiss) was great, and since it was just Kelly and me in the class we had lots of time and individual attention to understand the differences between drysuit diving and wetsuit diving (brief explanation: normally you dive with a wetsuit which traps a thin layer of water against your skin which is warmed via your body heat, but if you really want to be warm then a drysuit is best. Drysuits are baggier and have seals around your wrists, ankles, and neck that don't let water in. Thus, you have air between you and the drysuit, which keeps you way warmer (you don't get wet!). It is a bit trickier, though, because the air affects you buoyancy and if you don't learn how to control it it can be dangerous).

Kelly models the drysuit at my request

Nothing like enjoying a tasty rice cake under the Hollywood sign

Saturday we were up bright and early (not a problem for me because of jetlag!) to head to the long beach port to catch the early ferry to Catalina island where we would do our certification dives. Kelly and I had been to Catalina a couple times before, and we always have an amazing time there. It is really like a different universe when compared to downtown LA – besides weather, it really could be mistaken for a small island in the Caribbean. It took most of the day, but we got in a short snorkel and both of our certification dives with no problem, and wound up staying overnight there so we didn't have to be rushed getting back. Before we knew it though, it was Sunday – my last day in LA, which flew by and on Monday morning I was on a plane back to Buenos Aires.

I wasn't sure how it would feel being back in the States after traveling in South America for a while, but it was no problem at all. It took a minute to get used to everyone speaking English, and it was strange ordering food in English for the first time in 6 weeks, but besides that I had no trouble adjusting. LA is a really interesting place, and I know it gets a bad rep due to the traffic and smog (rightfully so), but every time I have visited I've had a great time. I think the key is having friends there and not being stuck downtown – I think a lot of people that don't like the city have only experienced conferences there downtown, which I'm sure can be miserable.

Back to BA

I got back to Argentina with no problems, and spent a few days there relaxing, playing poker, and enjoying the company of the friends I had met there before I left the region. Ian left for Japan (won't see him until summer!) and Leon left for Australia (I'll be meeting up with him in Cairns in a few days), and the next day I left for Peru!

Peru

I was looking forward to Peru as it would be the first bit of travel I would really do independently. Sure enough it was difficult, engaging, and a lot of fun. It's interesting how one's concept of geography is so skewed depending on what one is familiar with – I, for instance, didn't realize just how far Lima was from BA – almost as far as Boston-LA in fact. However, I am getting used to (and actually enjoying) these long flights so I didn't mind.

Lima

The downtown plazas of Lima were quite nice

I had heard nasty things about Lima – the usual big city, dirty, dangerous, etc. - but I must say that my 40 hours there were a lot of fun. The coast is beautiful (big bluffs overlooking dozens of surfers), and there is a lot to see and do. I spent my first day sightseeing on my own. The highlight had to be the catacombs underneath the Cathedral of San Francisco – normally I get bored of churches, but these catacombs were really amazing and creepy. There were enormous piles and pits full of human bones – apparently it was a popular burial ground because people thought they would go to heaven faster if buried there, but also many victims of the Spanish Inquisition who were tortured to death were also buried there.

'Love Park' on the coast - reminds me a bit of a more tame version of Venice Beach in LA

I met some people back in the hostel who were a lot of fun so we had dinner together and checked out some of the Lima nightlife. I told them that I was doing an island tour and swimming with sea lions the next day and they all enthusiastically wanted to join me. Unfortunately, we had terrible instructions on how to get there – so the next day we all missed the bus (separately), but I managed to get a cab to the port on time on my own.

The tour was outrageously long (the boat barely went faster than 2 or 3 knots, supposedly to save gas), but the time gave me an opportunity to meet some more people on the tour and relax. I enthusiastically volunteered when the crew asked who wanted to get in the water with the sea lions, but I had no idea what I was in for! When the island came nearer, I couldn't really see any individual sea lions – but it was easy to hear and smell them! It sounded like hundreds of them but I still couldn't pick them out. Then, I realized that the entire island was covered in them. Literally - they were piled on top of and next to each other covering the entire island. It was a steep rocky island too, and they are very awkward on land, so it was funny seeing them try to move around but accidentally slip down the side slowly into the water. I had been warned the water was cold, and I have been in cold water before so I wasn't worried, but this was without a doubt the coldest water I have EVER been in. I jumped in with the wetsuit on (I wish I had a drysuit there!) and feeling the water seep into the suit so quickly was brutal – one of those moments where you can barely breathe at first. Moving around a bit made it bearable though, and we swam right up to the island and mingled with the sea lions before heading back to the boat.

That's a lot of sea lions!

That night I went to the 'Magical water show' that I had heard good things about from Leon and Ian and it did not disappoint! The park was swamped with families and couples wandering through the dozen or so amazing fountains. Some were interactive and some were enormous – without a doubt they were on par or maybe even more impressive than the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas. The best display was a group of fountains that danced to classical music while lasers were projected onto them.

Kids enjoy the interactive fountains. I must admit I was tempted to join in...

The next morning I said my goodbyes to the hostel staff that I had become friendly with (hostel employees have been some of the most interesting people I have met so far on the trip), and I was off to Cuzco!

Cuzco

Typical view into a courtyard area of Cuzco

Traveling from BA to Lima was not a big adjustment – both big industrial cities – but getting to Cuzco was a great change of pace. Even towards the end of the flight I could tell things were going to be different – enormous jagged peaks reminiscent of Yosemite covered in dark green jungle presented themselves and I remember smiling, happy to be out of the city.

I made my way to the hostel recommended by Ian and Leon and checked into my room. The hostel itself was really cool in a dark, creepy kind of way – it was one of those big houses that felt and sounded alive with every step you took and door you opened. First thing I wanted to do after checking in was get to the main square 'Plaza de Armas' and get lunch with some coca tea! Coca tea is very simple, just hot water with some coca leaves in it, and it is known to help with altitude sickness as well as digestion. Yes, cocaine is made from coca leaves, but only after being processed with many other chemicals and concentrated – coca leaves are perfectly safe, not addictive, and not as stimulating.

A nice hot cup of coca tea

Cuzco itself was bigger than I was anticipating – but not in a bad way. I never saw a building more than 2 stories tall (besides churches), and the streets were all cobblestone and free of any bad traffic. I would say Cuzco reminded me of one of those old European cobblestone cities, but dirtier and a lot (LOT) cheaper. The only frustrating bit were the beggars – but even they weren't pushy – a simple 'no gracias' was all it took to direct their attention elsewhere.

Many of you know I am not big on planning ahead for non-essential things, and Cuzco was no exception, but thankfully things worked out fine anyways because I needed a couple days to adjust to the altitude before setting off on any adventures. I did feel the affects of the altitude, especially when climbing stairs or jogging, but I don't think I had any sort of altitude sickness. Sunday was spent sightseeing in the city, and that night I got some food at a restaurant where a local band was playing some traditional music. When the guy who played a little mandolin-like guitar came around to sell CD's I asked him if he could give me a lesson the next morning. Sure enough he was free, and it was great getting to know him a bit, and the lesson was one of the highlights of my Peru trip. I took videos of us playing a few songs and will try to get them online soon. Monday I was determined to get out a bit so I booked a horseback tour that afternoon, and a 4 day/3night trek to Machu Picchu that departed the next day.

The horseback riding tour was ridiculous and hilarious, even though at the start I was a bit overwhelmed. I had just booked it and the guide said 'ok hurry the truck is waiting!' so I went outside and saw a truck jam-packed with a lot of 15-16 year old Peruvian kids. I thought I was going to be with just a few other tourists – but I was wrong. A highschool class from another region of Peru had won some sort of lottery to visit Cuzco, and they would be my company. We stopped at a 'tourist' restaurant on the way to the ranch that clearly only catered to those on a budget – it was 5 soles (US$1.50 ) for a full lunch – and was fun to practice my spanish with the kids. I mostly spoke with the guide and his friend because they had more to say (we spoke about spirituality and alternative medicine for a while). The girls of the class mostly just giggled and took pictures of me when I tried to talk to them so I didn't learn much from them... The tour itself was interesting and relaxing, which I cherished because I knew I was gonna be hurting soon from the trek.

Enjoying lunch with the kids

The next morning I was supposed to be picked up between 7-7:30 so I was up at quarter to seven with everything ready to go, but then it became 7:30 and I hadn't heard anything. 7:45...8...8:15 I called the agency but they just hung up on me promptly...8:30...I started to get in a legitimately really awful mood and the hostel staff could tell. It usually takes a lot to piss me off but if I wasn't able to leave that day then I would have to forfeit the opportunity to hike to Machu Picchu because there weren't any shorter treks, and I had to be back on Friday night. But then, at 9, the van finally showed up! It made its way (very very dangerously and terrifyingly) up and around windy foggy mountain roads to our launch point via mountain bikes. The group turned out to be comprised only of a girl studying abroad from USC, and a late 20's Irish guy (James) on vacation, two guides, and me. In talking with James, I found out he had hired his guide separately to do what was supposed to be the 4 day hike in 3 days. This idea appealed to me very much, because I wanted another day to do something more around Cuzco, so I decided to join him and his guide (which ended up being a great decision).

Not gonna deny it. This was a terrifying drive.

We spent that afternoon and evening mountain biking from an altitude of 4.2k down to 1k – that is a big drop!!! It was a ton of fun despite shoddy equipment (at one point my pedal leg – not just the foot pedal, the whole leg – completely fell off the bike) – and by evening my butt, back and arms had taken quite a beating. As tiring as the biking was, though, it didn't even compare to how tired I got playing soccer with James, our guide, and a bunch of little kids that night before dinner. While I was trying to pull some fancy moves defending against some little kid on a breakaway I could feel myself pull some groin muscle and I said to myself 'ohhhh sh*t tomorrow is going to really hurt now' (thankfully I felt better in the morning though.) We had a great home-cooked meal of Lomo Saltado (I would have preferred to do a camping trip, but there were none available in my time-frame, so this one was split between one night in a home and one night in a hostel), and we fell asleep by 10 for our 4:30 A.M. wake-up (that early because we were squeezing 2 days of hiking into one – 40k worth of hiking!).

Biking through the clouds near Cuzco

Originally Angela (the USC girl) also expressed interest in joining our faster trip, but after we waited 15 minutes for her to get ready, and after I realized how much makeup she put on that morning, I realized she might not be able to keep up with us. Sure enough, half an hour in, James, our guide, and I had hiked far ahead of her and her guide, so we decided to continue on our own. The hike was beautiful and brutal. What I especially liked about it was that the trails we hiked on weren't trails designed for hiking. Instead, they were trails used to connect small villages that we would hike through on our way to Aguas Calientes (the town below Machu Picchu). The villages clearly were not frequented by tourists, so it was a nice way to get off the beaten path. A couple of them did have stands to sell water and food which were a great treat during our 14 hour hike.

The red stuff was natural repellent from a pepper plant the guide pointed out to us

The friendly monkey 'Martin' at one of the villages

I had heard terrible things about the bugs in the jungle there, and it's all true. Thankfully with toxic bug spray and a brisk hiking pace, they didn't bug me much (pun not intended), but we saw lots of nasty critters. At one point I saw a huge wasp-like fly buzzing around on the ground and I stopped to ask our guide about it. He said 'Ah yes, this has very dangerous poison. What do you call what you use when you get bit by poisonous spider?' I replied 'An antidote?' He said 'Haha yes, there is no for this'. My eyes widened a bit, then decided to keep on moving.

The best part of that day, without question, was our stop in Santa Teresa at the hot springs. It was about 11 AM, so we had been hiking for a long time, and it was the perfect way to relax for a bit before continuing on our long day. For a short time after the springs we shared a cab with some locals (not much of a point to hiking along a road for a few k), and then finished the trek along the seemingly never-ending train tracks to Aguas Calientes.

The wonderful halfway-point of hot springs on the way to Machu Picchu

Aguas Calientes was actually a pretty cool place – of course it solely exists to house people on their way to Machu Picchu – but it had a nice feel, kind of like Whistler Village below the ski resort (but obviously not as big or fancy). We had dinner at a restaurant in the town and were asleep by 9, exhausted by such a long day of hiking, ready to wake up at 4:30 again to make our way up to Machu Picchu.

Near Aguas Calientes - one of many conspicuous bridges we had to cross

The Inca stairs up the mountain were totally brutal, especially at such an early hour after such a long day of hiking. It was about a half kilometer rise in elevation, and it took a little over an hour. The incentive to keep a good pace was the sun – I really wanted to get up to Machu Picchu to see the sunrise over the mountains – and thankfully I barely made it on time.

Is it just me, or is this llama actually smiling for the picture?

I was anticipating Machu Picchu to be heavily micromanaged and swamped with tourists that were shuttled around from point A to B to back outside, but for the first few hours there were hardly more than 100 people there. It was a great feeling being there so early because it was practically deserted and felt much more inspiring without the buzz of the hordes. We had a scheduled tour at 8 which lasted until 10, when we started to climb Wayna Picchu (the tall mountain overlooking Machu Picchu in most of the pictures). Our tour guide annoyingly joked relentlessly that it only took 15 minutes to get up Wayna Picchu 'at Inca speed', but an hour 'at tourist speed'. Well James and I were happy to make it up at half Inca speed, because we had to be back at Aguas Calientes at 2 to get our train tickets for that night. Overlooking Machu Picchu was very cool – but we were more happy to reach the top of Wayna just because it meant the end of climbing steep steps! I had a victory snickers bar at the top, relaxed for a bit in the beautiful weather (which we were very lucky to have), then began our descent back to Aguas Calientes, and from there, took the train back to Cusco.

I should say a bit about Machu Picchu before I go on. Everyone has seen the pictures, but I was amazed at just how big the place really was. It was interesting to learn the history about how it was discovered, but even more interesting to hear about how much mystery still surrounds it. Hiram Bingham was directed to it by two farmer families it in the early 20th century on his search for the lost Inca treasure, but was disappointed to only find some ruins. He came back, sponsored by Yale University to explore it more (apparently many artifacts were taken back to Yale), but not only was there no treasure to be found, there was nothing besides empty ruins. Not even bodies or anything – it had been abandoned, and no one knows why. There have been other ruins discovered elsewhere around Cusco, but none have quite the amazing setting as Machu Picchu, on the top of a mountain surrounded by beautiful vistas. If I had more time, I would have loved to take the trek to the most recently discovered ruins that were only found 20 years ago. They are still being uncovered, so there are no roads going there – it requires an 8 day trek to get there.

Sweet victory atop Wayna Picchu overlooking Machu Picchu

That night I went out with James and his 4 Irish friends that met us at Macchu Picchu (they had just finished hiking the Inca Trail) at Paddy's bar, 'The highest Irish-owned pub in the world'. It was a lot of fun meeting them, and lets just say they lived up to some Irish stereotypes. I didn't have a hostel reservation for that night because I had originally planned on returning the next day, but they were nice enough to give me their extra bed at their hostel, which was really cool of them. I was hoping to catch up on sleep a bit, but of course that didn't happen, as I had to be up early the next day for a tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

I'll be brief about that tour. While it was nice to see a bunch of ruins, by far the most interesting part of it was meeting and talking with a couple on the tour. I forget how the subject even came up, but the guy and I started talking about our different perspectives on meditation, consciousness, and life after death. It turned out his father is a retired Buddhist Monk (who now 'only' meditates for eight hours every day), and he grew up in North India along the Himalayas. We had a great constructive conversation providing our differing perspectives on those topics, and I think we both learned a lot. When I asked him what he did in NYC, I almost laughed when he said he was an investment banker, but then I realized he wasn't joking! I asked him how that came about, and he said he was fascinated by the concept of capitalism and it always drew him in. I thought that was interesting, and it provided a bit of a different light in which to view our conversation. He recommended I get some books describing a dialog between the Dali Lama and a group of neuroscientists which sounded fascinating. I will look up when I get to Australia.

I was looking forward to getting back to BA in time to enjoy a barbeque some poker friends were having – and I was able to enjoy about an hour of it – but then, like I said at the beginning, the food poisoning kicked in, and I was out of commission for the next 36 hours. I did have long enough to meet a few more players I hadn't met before, which was cool (one of them had previously played the card game 'Magic the Gathering' at a competitive level and was ranked 1st in the world!). I said my farewells this morning which was sad, but not too sad because I will see a lot of them this summer in Europe, as most of them are traveling as well, and with facebook nowadays, it is impossible to lose touch with travel buddies.

I'm looking forward to getting to Sydney, and especially Cairns to meet up with Leon and do some serious diving. Apparently Google has a new feature that you can use to 'dive in' from satellite view right into the great barrier reef that I am pumped to check out when I land. Right now though, We are passing near the south pole, and I can't do much except watch the in-flight TV (Bear Grylls in Man vs Wild – the Australia episode!), and maybe sleep a bit before I land.

Comments questions and suggestions encouraged!

Noah

Glaciers, Mountains, Waterfalls and Whales - Part 4 of 4: Whales

2008-11-24T15:03:00.004-02:00

It was nice to get to the coast

Pics 'n stuff:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/20081119Madryn# (pics for this post, 43, including a random pic of me in the internet cafe while I make this very post!)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n (all my albums)

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/llamallama781 (No new additions)

We had heard plenty about the whales in Puerto Madryn, but something about being so close to such an enormous makes you feel like you never knew what a 'whale' was in the first place. It felt like we had been transported back in time or to another world. Because whales are things that everyone knows about and sees on TV, they become lumped into that category of those animals you hear about but never (or rarely, as a splash of water a mile away from some big ocean liner) see. Even other exotic animals like lions, elephants, and sharks can be seen in zoos and aquariums. Seeing the whales close-up though gave me that hard-to-describe feeling not completely different from seeing Iguazu falls at night – the sights and sounds are incredible, but there's that element of unknown that can't be revealed.

Leon and I got off the 18+ hour bus ride in Puerto Madryn a little achy, but not too tired, as the 160' reclining seats were quite comfortable to sleep in. Despite the loser in front of me that stole my headphones while I was sleeping (and gave them back when I asked for them in the morning), and the absolutely revolting bus food (you thought airline food was bad...), the bus ride was actually enjoyable.

We had a rough idea of what we wanted to do, which was: see the whales, dive with the seals, and chill with the penguins. We were able to do all of them more less (due to strong northerly winds, visibility was about 12 inches underwater, so we snorkeled instead of diving with the seals).

Seeing the Whales:

Southern Right Whale - so named because they were the 'right' whale to hunt because they were slow and floated when killed

We hopped on the early bus to Peninsula Valdez so that we could be one of the first boats out in the harbor. The whales come up to the bay to reproduce, as it is a protected environment from the open ocean. It was late in the season, so the calves were already huge and getting ready to leave with their moms. It didn't take long to find a mom-calf that were hanging out, so the captain of the boat killed the engine, and sure enough the whales came right up close. In the not-so-far distance it was easy to see huge whale flukes rise out of the water, as well as many whales doing that move where they rush straight up from underwater like they're trying to jump up out of the water, but are too fat so they only make it about half-way and come crashing down on their side. I guess the consensus is that it's some type of long-range communication.

Kinda looks like she's smiling, no?

The tour bus took us almost around the entire circumference of the peninsula, so we were able to see some seals, sea lions (I finally learned the difference!), and a few penguins. The peninsula itself was...not very exciting – it's considered a 'semi-desert', getting 300mm of rainfall a year.

The not so exciting land-fauna of the peninsula...sheep

Snorkeling with Seals:

Can't help but wonder what goes through these guys' heads... (note this pic was taken during the dolphin-watching. pics of us w/the seals will be up next week)

Despite the frustrating monopoly of dive-shops that banded together to keep prices way high, Leon and I gave in and paid the 450 pesos for the opportunity to snorkel with some seals. It was only an Israeli girl, Leon & me, and the guide, so we were looking forward to having plenty of seals to ourselves. Francisco, our guide, waited until we were already under way to mention that it was possible no seals would play with us, and 'ALSO GUYS (writing in caps because he always seemed to half speak/yell), IF THE MALES SHOW AGGRESSION I WILL TELL YOU TO GET OUT OF THE WATER' – nerves acting up a bit and a tad seasick, my expectations dropped and worries rose. However, my mood quickly changed when we pulled up and killed the engine, because we could see a dozen or so seals split off from the huge group on the beach and come head straight for us.

Seals are probably the most hilarious animal I've ever seen – they swim around with their huge adorable eyes looking right at you, then pop their head up and let out a surprisingly loud burp-gargle-scream-howl (don't really know how else to describe it) either right at you, back to the group on the beach, or just at nothing.

We hopped in the water and they were not reserved at all. They came right up in your face, nibbled on your hands or flippers in a similar way that dogs do (but seeing their 2+” canines was quite unsettling), and bumped up against you (one actually went underwater and held my knees together for a few seconds with its flippers which I found hilarious). They seemed to enjoy being tickled and scratched, but not held, for understandable reasons. Leon and I picked up a 27 exposure underwater camera and used all the shots during the swim – I really hope a few came out well. I will develop, scan and upload them later this week.

At one point a MASSIVE male seal came out to join us, and despite it being terrifying at first, it became clear it just wanted to play rather than tear us limb from limb (which it could have done very very easily).

Chilling with Penguins:

Human thinks 'what a weird creature'
Penguin thinks ' what a weird creature'

Penguins probably take a close 2^nd to seals when it comes to hilarious animals. Punta Tombo, about 3 hours south of Puerto Madryn, is a large penguin breeding colony where half a million penguins come every year when it's warm (kind of like penguin spring break – but instead of getting drunk off of margaritas, they just eat tons of anchovies). Apparently the males come first and return to the same nest they made the previous year and make it all tidy and nice, then the females come a week later to either find the same male as before (if their baby penguins survived from the year before), or find a new male (if they didn't).

Nap-time in the sun for the happy couple

On the way to Punta Tombo, we stopped halfway to do a dolphin-watching tour. It was fun and we saw a good number of small white+black dolphins (kind of looked like mini killer whales), but it paled in comparison to the whale watching.

If you had asked me if I would support building a tourist facility in the penguin breeding grounds, and creating paths through it, I probably would have said no way, but I must admit they put a lot of effort into not intruding on the penguins. The breeding ground is absolutely massive (everywhere you look there are little holes in the ground, maybe a few square feet in size, that each house a couple penguins and their chicks. This place was unique in that while there were some fences keeping people confined to a large area, we were able to roam around freely with the penguins. However, we were warned to not to try to touch them, as their sharp hooked beak (that is strong enough to pierce fingernail) usually houses decaying fish flesh that is guaranteed to give you a horrible infection.

Look closely and you'll see a guanaco and penguin facing off at the high point

Our driver (it was a small group – just a middle aged couple, leon&me, and the driver) recently graduated from some sort of tourism school in Puerto Madryn and this was his first season running his own tours. He was young – maybe 25 – and said he worked 7 days a week, frequently from 6am to 2am. Lets just say it showed, as he was clearly very tired driving us back from Punta Tombo. When he mentioned something about the weather, I tried to continue the conversation for a while to keep him up.

Puerto Madryn:

In general, it's a cool little city. The beach is nice and things are calm. The two big things it's got going for it are tourism and a huge aluminum factory which together employ the city's 60k people. Leon and I took a couple bike rides – one to the EcoCentro, which had a lot of information about the flora and fauna of Peninsula Valdez, and one longer less pleasant (hot sun, gravel roads, strong winds against us, and an overwhelming makes-you-not-want-to-breath fish-stench from the nearby fishery) ride up north where we found a really nice bluff away from the fishery over the ocean that we had all to ourselves (not many people venture out of the city without guides, and this place was pretty remote). The restaurants, hostels, and people were all quite nice, and I would recommend it if you have some free time in the area. If only it didn't require such a long bus ride to get there.

There's something I like about tall bluffs in front of the ocean

Back in BA:

I've got some time to kill now. I leave tomorrow night to go to LA for a bit, and I will update on future plans (Up next: Peru!) when they become more clear. I hope everyone has been well.

Again – comments, questions and suggestions are encouraged!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Noah

Glaciers, Mountains, Waterfalls and Whales - Part 3 of 4: Waterfalls

2008-11-22T16:07:00.004-02:00

Me enjoying a nice shower

Ok so I've got a lot to catch up on here...

Photo Albums:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/20081114Iguazu# (31 pics, all new)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n (all other albums, no new pics)

New: VIDEOS! Ok...Video, singular. Uploading to youtube takes hours because it has to upload the entire file (6mb/second thanks to my high-res camera), then shrink it, so don't expect a lot of these. I will try to get a few more up soon though. This is on Day 1 of Ian & My trek in TDP. If you have decent internet, I recommend clicking the 'watch in high quality' link to the bottom right of the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=492H5bbaqfQ

So on only a few hours of sleep we headed off to the airport to catch our flight to Iguazu! The flight was over quickly, as I snoozed right through it, and after a short shuttle ride we arrived at our awesome, awesome hostel:

A converted casino, our hostel was more like a resort

We had more time to play with than most people do in the area, so we relaxed that whole afternoon and headed for the falls that evening to parttake in the 'full-moon tour' of the falls, which sounded like an awesome way to see the falls. We hurridly cooked up some dinner and then caught the shuttle to the falls by 8pm. Unfortunately, when we got there we found out the tour was cancelled due to overcast skies. We grumpily made our way back, but later realized it was for the best, as it thunderstormed for the rest of the night.

The next day on the way to the falls we met up with an Australian girl Alex who had been traveling on her own, so she joined us for the rest of the day touring the falls. I must say I really liked the organization of the boardwalks and tours of the falls. Although they clearly rip off tourists (60 pesos for us, versus 20 for ARG citizens), the place is clean, well kept, and is easy to navigate.

Leon, me, Ian, and Alex. Now if only you could see the falls behind us...

We bought a boat tour that everyone said was a must-do (but again, a rip off at 150 pesos for about 20 minutes of fun). It took us in a inflateable speedboat right up to the falls - the mist absolutely drenched us and the sound was overwhelming. Of course we couldn't actually go into the falls themselves, or else we would have been demolished. It was a fun ride nonetheless, and we spent the rest of the day covering just about every inch of the Argentine side of the falls.

Hard to believe that this is only part of the whole falls area

That evening we again hurridly cooked up dinner and headed out for the full-moon tour. This time we met up with a former exxon-mobile contract negotiator (I withheld judgment...) named Jimmy who was actually a pretty cool guy. He was laid-back and also backpacking, but only for a couple weeks, as he had to get back to DC for work.

The falls were incredible to see at night - because we had the early-evening full-moon tour, we saw them just as the moon was rising, so the reflection of the moon across the river and falls was really spectacular. The pictures, of course, don't do it justice (it was night, after all), but being out at 'the devil's throat' with only moonlight was amazing.

Ian and I cautiously approaching Macuco falls

Over the next couple days we spent more time doing side excursions: 1) to a nearby Christian mission/sanctuary that housed students that couldn't afford the hostel which was a neat place, and also had a path down to the Iguazu river that finally allowed us to see the jungle and river away from other tourists, 2)to Macuco falls, which is down a long path through the jungle near the other falls - highlights include swimming under the falls and seeing wild monkeys on the way there, and 3)to Guiraoga bird sanctuary, where hundreds of amazing exotic birds and animals are housed when they are injured. Our guide, Fernando, was born in Argentina but had served in the US military. He lived off of payments from the US government from when he was injured in the service, and now spends his time riding his motorcycle, being with his family, and volunteering at Guiraoga. He mentioned that Puerto Madryn was beautiful and that he wanted to move there, so Leon and I got excited for our upcoming trip there.

The meeting area for the Christian Sanctuary. I like how they let the vegetation grow into it

Finally a nice area away from other tourists, by the river Iguazu

We caught a flight back on Saturday, and did not have much time to clean up the apartment for checkout on Sunday. This is not particularly blog-worthy, but we had a long frustrating argument with our landlord on the way out about the leg of our dining-room table that had fallen off a couple weeks beforehand. I don't blame them for thinking we had put excessive wear&tear on it (we are 3 guys just out of college, after all), but the fact was that we didn't do anything, it just fell off during dinner, and now they could rip us off for US$600 which is what they claimed the table was worth. We will see how this turns out in the days to come...

That evening, Leon and I caught our 18-hour bus ride to Puerto Madryn - to be continued in chapter 4! Will update it tomorrow (Sunday Nov 23). Comments questions and criticisms encouraged!

Hope you're ready for whales, seals, and penguins! lots of penguins...

Noah

Glaciers, Mountains, Waterfalls and Whales - Part 2 of 4: Mountains

2008-11-12T01:30:00.003-02:00

Sorry this post might be a bit messy - it's late though and I need to get a bit of sleep before my flight!

Beautiful vistas everywhere you look (weather permitting...)

Once again - links to pics with descriptions of any new additions:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/SouthAmerica# (8 new pictures at the end of Colonia)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/CalafateAndTorresDelPaine# (no new since last post, tons of other great pictures relating to this post though)

So, on to part 2 - a description of the 4 night/5 day trek Ian and I took in Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile.

Last I left off I had taken the bus across the border and into Puerto Natales, Chile. The bus ride itself was fine - comfy seats, bathroom, ipod, etc. The scenery wasn't much to look at...just empty fields, but as we got closer we could tell mountains in the distance were approaching.

The border was a little annoying, we had bought some fruit to bring on the trek but it wasn't allowed into Chile, so Ian and I devoured some bananas and threw away the rest. As has been a theme in Argentina, everything is made too complicated and burdensome. Instead of having one place to deal with immigration, there were two separate buildings, way too many lines, and way too few staff. Anyways, it wasn't a big deal and an hour later we were in Puerto Natales.

I had no idea what to expect or how to get around - all we had was a card for the hostel that was recommended to us by our hostel in Calafate - so we proceeded to get ripped off by a taxi, but made it to the hostel without much trouble. The town itself was not very impressive, mostly run-down touristy shops, a couple supermarkets and restaurants, and a big statue of a giant sloth that lived there some thousands of years ago that they're very proud of.

Gotta love the hostel sense of humor

The hostel (Erratic Rock - the name for a rock picked up by a glacier and deposited far away in a foreign area), while not particularly impressive in furnishings, had an awesome vibe and was filled with friendly people. The owner, Bill from Oregon, was a late 30's early 40's guy who had been living in the hostel for the last TEN YEARS! The thought of that makes me cringe, but he seemed to be fine with it and is one of the most outgoing friendly and helpful guys I've met in a long time. He gave a short briefing (which he has done almost every day for the last ten years) at 3 PM about what to bring and how to go about doing various treks through the park which was critical. After stocking up on food, talking with some of the other trekkers, and getting some sleep, we hopped on the bus to Torres Del Paine and began our journey around noon on Monday.

Our route, the "W" starts at Refugio Pehoe, goes up to Glacier Grey, back down and over and up to Valle Frances, back down and over and up to Base Torres, then down to Hosteria Las Torres.

Day One
This sums up a fair amount of how the trek went

The group of other trekkers also beginning their hike maybe amounted to a dozen people. The high season doesn't really start until December, so we were glad to have more of the trail to ourselves. After a short catamaran ride through a huge glacial lake (which was actually really choppy thanks to strong winds - waves in a glacier lake were not something I was expecting), we got to our launching point at refugio Pehoe. Unfortunately, I realized I had forgotten my hat at the hostel, so I went inside to see if I could buy a hat off anyone. I found some employees eating lunch and asked them in broken spanish if any of them had a hat I could buy. It took a minute, but one sent a friend to go fetch one. My bargaining skills are clearly flawless, because when he asked me how much I wanted to pay for it, he accepted my first offer without hesitation (for C$14,000, about US$20 - I definitely overpaid for what I realized later was probably a hat from the lost&found). Donning my new hat, we started hiking up the western-most valley up to Glacier Grey, where we would spend night one.

We were greeted with brutally strong ice-cold winds that came from over the glacier, freezing rain, and hail. While this sounds pretty awful, because we were finally out in the park and starting our trek, we viewed it as part of the fun (our outlook would soon change). About five hours later we reached Refugio Grey, which had a paid camping site right next to it. We had heard the best place to camp was up past the refugio though, in a spot overlooking the glacier, so we decided to push on a bit, despite our soaked gear and sinking spirits. Well, all we eventually ran into was an enormous waterfall and a disassembled bridge needed to cross it, so we turned back around and sucked it up and set up camp next to the refugio. It turned out not to be such a bad thing to be near the refugio though, because we desperately needed to go warm up for a bit and maybe try to dry some equipment out.

Ian and I had been getting grumpy due to the weather and our ice-cold fingers (our gloves SUCKED) so we hadn't been in the most talkative mood. When we sat down in front of the wood-stove Ian broke the silence, asking me if my socks were dry. I responded simply 'nope', and after a few seconds passed, we were both hysterically laughing for a few minutes. No reason in particular, I guess you had to be there, but I think we both realized that this kind of pain and discomfort was one of the reasons why we came in the first place, and even though it sucked, we might as well laugh about it and press on. As we were getting ready to go back outside to run to our tent, a guy we had been sharing our crackers and dulce de leche with looked at me, looked outside, looked at me again, and just burst into laughter. I smiled and laughed with him a bit, as it was pretty ridiculous that we were being so stubborn as to insist on camping through the crap weather when we could shell out the US$30 for a bed in the refugio. Our pride won though, and we made it through the night in cold, wet sleeping bags. If it had been maybe 15% colder, I probably would have thrown in the towel rather than risk hypothermia, but I could tell we'd be ok - just uncomfortable (very uncomfortable) - so we decided to tough it out.Pasta with a can of tuna did wonders for our spirits

Day Two

Waking up in freezing weather in a wet sleeping bag is probably one of the worst feelings ever. You know that you are cold and miserable right then, but if you get out of your sleeping bag to pack up your camp, it's going to mean 15-20 minutes of even colder conditions. Well, around 8 AM we finally went for it and packed up as quickly as possible. Thankfully we had the drill down from setting up and taking down camp before at the hostel to practice, so we were efficient about it, and back on the trail not long after.

So happy to have made it through the night - morning by the glacial river

Nicer weather on the way back down the valley, glacier grey in the background

We backtracked and made our way east to Campamento Italiano, in the middle valley of the W. The weather was great and we warmed up very quickly once we started moving, so our spirits and bodies were rejuvinated. After we set up camp we got really cold again, so we boiled some water and made some cocoa which we shared with a German guy we met who was trekking on his own, Max. He reciprocated by giving us some dried fruit which was a nice treat, and after chatting with him for a bit we quickly fell asleep by 9PM, just as it was starting to get dark. As we were falling asleep we heard a really loud rumble - it sounded like fierce thunder, but it lasted for 10, 20, 30 seconds. We eventually realized it was an avalanche, and I must admit for a brief moment I thought "oh shit, what if it's a huge friggin avalanche and it comes and buries us right here in 5 seconds", but thinking about where we were located (nowhere even near a slope or snow), my worries dissapeared. The avalanches continued, and I soon learned to enjoy the sound of them as they put me to sleep.

Our camp at Italiano - note the hanging sleeping bags, trying to get them dry

At some point Ian or I crushed my sunglasses which I had foolishly left outside on the ground, which was a bummer. I blame Ian.

Day ThreeDay-hiking up and back to the lookout point in Valle Frances

Panorama from near the top of Valle Frances

Day three definitely had the best weather and views of the whole trip. We left our camp up and took our day packs up to the lookout point of the valley we had began to enter the day before, Valle Frances. At one point hiking up, I saw the towers (torres del paine) off to the east (they separated the valley we were in at the time from the next valley we were headed to), and it was a great sight. I made sure to get some pictures of them then, because we knew the weather might change and we could be unable to see them from the other side. Four hours and dozens of pictures later, we were back at the campsite dissasembling, preparing to head east about half-way to the next and last valley.

Ian on the right - on the way up Valle Frances

On the way out of Valle Frances

There's always time for a quick boulder break

On the way there we came upon a really beautiful beach by the big glacial lake and we decided to take a break there. It was there our friend Felicia (from the hostel) crossed paths with us (she was going the opposite direction, east to west) and let us knew Obama had won! Ian and I celebrated briefly by throwing a couple stones in the lake in his honor (don't really know why). After hanging out there for upwards of two hours we continued on to our 3rd campsite "Camping Los Cuernos". It was here I set the alarm on my clock for 2AM so I could try to spend a bit of time stargazing, but when I awoke it was freezing cold, and a quick look out the zipper of the tent showed completely overcast skies. I grumbled something tiredly to myself, half annoyed because I couldn't see any stars, and half because it was bad news for the weather the following day.

Ian and I taking a break by the glacial beach

Day Four
At last! Our last campsite is in the background under the tree cover

We were up early and hiking by 9AM, and sure enough the weather only held out until late morning, when some light rain started. Even though we knew the rain might dissapear quickly, we had to take a break to put on our rain gear, because our stuff would otherwise get wet. We made it up into the last valley, and after a delicious ramen lunch we pushed on to our last campsite, "Campamento Torres". The weather had improved, and after we set up camp we pushed on the extra hour to make it to the final lookout "Base Torres". It was a tough climb over steep rocks, and by the point we could see the top, a few snowflakes started to fall. I shouted back an overly dramatic "NOOOOOOOOO" back to Ian, and sure enough, by the time we got to the top the entire area was grey and the snow was pouring down.

The view was still actually really nice, but the torres were completely shrouded in snow and clouds. I wasn't really bummed, it was a great feeling just making it up there, and I also knew that maybe the next morning would be better (we had been suggested to get up before dawn and hike up again to catch the sunrise in front of the Torres). So, we made the slippery descent back to camp and cooked up some dinner in a little shelter.

Do you see the 3 big beautiful majestic Torres in the background? Neither did we. Oh well.

It was during dinner we met two interesting duo's. One was a American guy and a French guy, both early twenties, who were in light jogging sneakers. When I first saw them I could barely hold back from laughing, because we had been through such awful cold that the thought of trekking through mud slush and snow in those shoes was incomprehensible. Sure enough, they had just started their trek with massive packs full of food, but no rain gear, and no boots. They were really nice guys and fun to talk with, but there is no way they lasted more than a day or two before giving up. His plan, he said, was to sleep in dry socks and hike in wet ones, which is a great equation for destroying and mangling one's feet beyond recognition. They openly admitted that they had dont no prep for the trek and were just trying to 'wing it'. I wished them the best of luck.

The other couple was an Israeli guy and girl, also low 20's, that were better prepared, but seemed miserable. They had just started the W, going east to west. They were very nice and fun to talk with, and I felt bad for them when I saw them back at the lodge the next day on the bus back to Puerto Natales.

That night Ian, the sneaky bastard, talked up my sleeping bag a lot and convinced me to lend him my sleeping pad for the night, because he hadn't got one because he didn't think he'd need it. As soon as he had it, I realized my mistake - the sleeping bag did nothing to prevent the ice-cold ground from sucking the warmth out of you at all points of contact. I was surprised he hadn't said something earlier in the trek, because damn, that night sucked. I considered trying to steal it back from him during the night, but decided a)I guess it was fair that I had a turn without the sleeping pad and b)things would have gotten ugly, so I tried to tough it out. I had the alarm set for 4:30 so if the weather was better I could catch the sunrise over the Torres, but it felt like an absolute eternity before that alarm finally went off. I'm not sure if I slept more than a half hour due to constant shifting and attempts to warm myself up.

Day Five

To drop my morale even more, the weather was even worse at 4:30, so I tried to go back to sleep and eventually we got up around 6, both of us freezing our asses off. I guess his sleeping bag was indeed worse than mine, because in the morning we were both writhing around in our sleeping bags trying to warm up. I eventually said "fuck it lets do this" and we both got up as fast as possible and took down the tent. The snow in the campsite wasn't too deep because we had a thick tree canopy sheltering us, but by the time we got outside of it we saw just how much had come down. Despite being cold and sleepless, it was nice being out in the silent snow-covered mountains before anyone else had woken up, making fresh tracks for our return to the lodge.

Lots of snow (compare with the picture taken from the same location the day before, posted above)

On our way out, we made our way through many wooded portions where as the sun melted the snow on the canopy, it would give way and snow would come crashing down onto us. I chuckled to myself thinking that this was the mountain's attempt to keep us from leaving. When we exited the wooded area, the weather drastically improved, again almost as if the mountain was trying to sucker us back into turning around for one more attempt at seeing the Torres. We continued on through the awful steep muddy trails that were impossible not to slip on. At one point I heard Ian behind me let out a curse and I asked him if he was alright. He responded "Yeah, I'm just so fucking pissed". I looked away quickly before bursting into laughter. Again, I guess you had to be there... Soon after though I lost my balance and fell backwards into a massive mud pile - karma I guess.

After four or five hours we got to Hosteria Las Torres. After a MUCH needed hot shower and change of clothes (gross and hilarious factoid - during the whole five days, my long underwear top+bottom, long sleeve shirt, and fleece, had NEVER come off my body), we celebrated with a beef sandwich and hot cocoa with Bailey's.

So. Delicious.

We caught the bus back to Puerto Natales, stuffed ourselves at our favorite restaurant "Afrigonia" (worst stomach ache EVER afterwards), watched Cliffhanger in the hostel with some buddies, and treasured our sleep in our bunks which felt like heavenly clouds. We caught an early bus back to Calafate, and a flight later on the same day to Buenos Aires.

Since then we have been taking it easy mostly - Ian and I took a short trip to Colonia, Uruguay today which was pleasant, and in...5 hours we are leaving for the airport to head to Iguazu Falls where part 3 will take place - so I should get some sleep.

Hope you enjoyed, comments encouraged, see you guys later!

Noah

Glaciers, Mountains, Waterfalls and Whales - Part 1 of 4: Glaciers

2008-11-10T18:46:00.005-02:00

Ian and I take a seat on Perito Moreno

First things first - since my South America album has been getting cluttered with too many pics, I will make separate albums for each excursion. You can reach any of them by navigating from any of them, by clicking on something like "Noah" in the upper left corner. Here are the direct links:

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/SouthAmerica# (2 new pictures at the end)
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/CalafateAndTorresDelPaine# (New album, 131 pictures)

This and the next 3 posts will describe some excursions I am doing in the area. Last week Ian and I checked out a huge glacier "Perito Moreno", and went on a 5-day trek in Chilean Patagonia. On Wednesday, Ian Leon and I leave for Iguazu falls for 3 nights - then on Sunday or Monday Leon and I head to Puerto Madryn to scuba with seals, kayak with whales, and chill with some penguins (Ian is heading to Bariloche for that time)! I will post Part 2 (Torres Del Paine National Park) later tonight or tomorrow. Part 3 I will do this weekend, and Part 4 will be the following weekend.

Ahh the warmth back in Buenos Aires is very welcoming! Hard to believe just a few days ago Ian and I were huddled in our sleeping bags frantically trying warm ourselves up in the bitter cold.

Last I left off, we (Leon, Ian, Daniel, Caitlin, and I) were treating ourselves to a delicious 13 (maybe 14?) course tasting menu at a small restaurant in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. 4 Bottles of wine and dessert wine, about US$65 and 4.5 hours later, we were stuffed and ready to log some sleep hours before the next day, where we knew we would be staying up all night to catch our 5:45 AM flight to El Calafate, Argentina. I know all of you already know where El Calafate is on the world map because it's such an overwhelmingly famous place, but in case you have forgotten, it is here:

El Calafate, Argentina

We arrived in the mid morning and were immediatly caught off guard by how cold it was. That, and the murky wet weather was a bit intimidating. We made our way from the 1-airstrip airport to our hostel and quickly signed up for that morning's glacier tour. Unfortunately the bus was already full, but we were able to call our cab driver back and hire him for the day to shuttle us around (Leo, a Buenos Aires native, moved to Calafate 8 years ago to get away from the city. It made me curious to think about how and why he made the move. When he got here, there were 3,000 residents. Now there are about 25,000). When he told us that Torres Del Paine (where we were headed the next day) was colder than Calafate, we were not happy.

Disembarking the boat to the glacier

We caught the short boat-ride over to the glacier "Perito Moreno" (not what you may think translated as 'little brown dog' but instead named after the explorer Francisco Moreno. 'Perito' means 'Expert') and started the 'minitrek' after getting fitted with crampons. Walking up to the glacier it was hard not to marvel at it. It seemed alive, and you could actually hear how dynamic it was. I would say it sounded like a disorderly construction site: there would be a loud crack a big crash, a few minutes of silence, and then another crash. Seeing huge chunks fall off the end of the glacier and into the turquoise glacier water was amazing, and the sound had such a bold texture to it. A ripple was created each time through the water, and there were signs warning us not to get too close or else the wave could hit us (or worse, knock us over - instant hypothermia!). It's hard to convey just how massive this thing is

The short hike on the glacier was a lot of fun and very humbling thinking about just how massive this glacier is. When we were shown a map of the glacier and the enormous ice shelf behind it, it made the glacier look like the size of a thumb, where the ice shelf was the rest of a body - truly amazing.

My first time wearing crampons

Cool thing about this ice shelf is that it is one of the few places you can see trees by a glacier. Because of it's abundant water supply coming from offshore near antarctica, it can survive in such low altitudes. It also is one of the few glaciers in the world that is not receding, due to that same supply of wind+water.

We met a Canadian couple that was finishing up their RTW trip and it was fun getting their perspective on it. While I had been thinking my trip was a bit too hectic and fast-paced, theirs made mine look like a turtle's (they did something like 20 European countries in 2 months). Ian and I talked with them for a bit while we had lunch in a little lodge to the side of the glacier, but I got up and went outside on my own and had some one-on-one time with the glacier! Since everyone else was inside, it was a cool feeling being outside in the cold in front of the glacier on my own.

Soon enough we were boarding the boat to head back, and Leo was there waiting for us to take us to the boardwalk (a raised platform in front of the glacier that provided great views. It gave us a new perspective on the glacier, seeing it from above, and made it easier to comprehend the size of it. We could also see how the front of the glacier was approaching (at 3 meters every day!) the land in front of it. Once it makes contact, it acts as a dam and the water rises on one side of the glacier. After enough water pressure builds up, the glacier breaks and it is supposed to be an amazing event. Leo explained to me that the last two times it happened (2002 and 2004, I think), he had come every day for a week before it happened, but had missed it each time by a few hours. That sucks.

We made it back to the hostel in time for their BBQ, where we met some other travellers and booked our hostel and bus tickets for the following day to go to our launching point for Torres Del Paine National Park - Puerto Natales, Chile! We got up pretty early, had a quick bite to eat, and boarded the 5-hour bus.

Stretching my legs at a rest stop

Next up - The greatest hostel ever, Ian and my 5-day trek where we endured some serious brutality from the weather, and some funny anecdotes.

Comments encouraged, talk to you guys soon!

Noah

Time flies

2008-10-30T18:59:00.018-02:00

Group shot of the volunteers and my injured right middle finger (described later on)!

Comprehensive pics:http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/SouthAmerica#

Quick Recap/Additions

2 weeks down already. I remember the first night I got here I couldn't believe I had only arrived in the morning, because it felt like I had been there two weeks! Well now two weeks have passed, and it barely feels like I've spent a day here. I apologize for not updating sooner - a combination of some personal issues, being busy, and being lazy were responsible for the delay.

Random events I forgot to describe (inserted after the rest of this post was done): We hosted a parilla BBQ last week which was tons of fun! Lots of poker players and their friends came, and our make-your-own skewer style was a bit hit. Later on Daphne, an adorable dog belonging to our friend John joined the party and she was quite the hit. We cooked around 4pm, then took a nap and relaxed...then cooked again around 10! Double-whammy.

Nice day out for a BBQ

Daphne is watching you!

The spit bubble on her left jowel makes this picture an 11/10

Also - we went to a River Plate vs Boca Juniors soccer game. Timing was hugely fortuitous, as this is the game of the year to go to in BA. It also qualifies as the most dangerous thing I have done yet on the trip, as our cab driver kindly dropped us off into a mob of Boca fans while we had River Plate's colors painted on our faces! People hadn't gotten too rowdy yet though, and we got out of there before enough of them realized we were there, or else we honestly probably would have been beaten to a pulp (not joking). Check out my webshots for more pictures!River Plate stadium (colors are red+white, obviously) The fenced/barbed wire/riot policed separate area to the left was the visitor's section

The City and Touristy Events

The reality of the city has set in to some extent - the terrible air quality is aggravating my asthma, and it is impossible to find a peaceful area undisturbed by the perpetual racket on the street. While these things come across as ugly, I know there are plenty of great things about this city, and I am trying not to impose any of my opinions or judgments on it. These things became especially apparent to me when I took a bike tour of the city recently.

In the far back you can see 'The Women's Bridge' - the cool white bridge I explored previously on my own in my Picasa album

All in all, the tour was a lot of fun. I had been cooped up for a few days, only venturing outside the apartment to go to the gym or to get meals. Thus it was nice to do something more active and engaging. I met some cool people - two couples from England, and two girls here teaching English and learning Spanish. Because it's not a high-season for tourism, it seems like most of the foreigners here are a part of a study abroad program, or are hoping to learn Spanish while working teaching English.

As I said, the tour was great - but the closest thing to a 'bike path' that existed was...well...the side of the road. I detailed before about the insanity that is BA driving, so this was a bit unsettling. Nonetheless, it turned it into something of a thrill-ride so I didn't mind too much. The guides were very informative, and while I was tempted to listen to the Spanish guide, I decided to go with the one speaking in English so I could actually learn something about the city instead of catching half of what the other one was saying and trying to fill in the gaps with educated guesses. It also deserves mention that this was the first time in two weeks I had heard anyone mention anything about 'los desaparecidos' and 'la guerra sucia'. I was relieved in a way that people did acknowledge their existence. I was hoping to make it over to the ESMA building where >5,000 people were tortured and killed during that period, but it is closed for renovation.

San Telmo Antique far on Calle Defensa, mobbed with people!

Last Sunday I also visited the San Telmo antique fair, which was quite the event. It was swamped with people and the vibe was good, but many of the things I came across at vendors' blankets that I thought 'oh man that's so unique and cool!' turned out to be some mass-produced trinket to sell to tourists. That said, there were some incredible artists and performers in the street that I was seriously humbled by. The one that struck me the most was the 'Orquesta Tipica' which was almost a dozen musicians - 1 piano, 4 violins, 4 accordian-like instruments, a cello, an upright bass, and a vocalist. The sound they were able to produce in the middle of a packed street with people yelling all over the place was remarkable, and they managed to play expertly despite ragged appearances and old instruments. I asked them 'donde puedo oir mas musica como esta?' - where can I hear more music like this? to which they replied 'como esta? por ningun parte' - like this? Nowhere. I smiled, but realized that hearing traditional tango was probably pretty rare except for touristy tango joints nowadays in BA, which is pretty sad. They did tell me about one of their upcoming gigs though, which I plan on attending if I'm still in the city.

La Orquesta Tipica in San Telmo

Speaking of the city, I finally got out of it for about...2 hours! I had heard La Tigre was a great day trip, so I decided to go check it out on my own. It was easy to get to Retiro train station (the big hub for busses and trains in BA), and the round-trip ticket to Tigre cost a grand total of 2.20 pesos (I am proud of this fact, because foreigners usually pay a higher price, so I must have appeared like a local! Or...he just felt bad for me), and about 45 minutes later I arrived. I must say...as nice as it was to be out of the city, La Tigre was pretty lame. I'd compare it to a far more touristy, dirty, crowded Concord river (ironically it has a similar historical significance as the Concord river as well). I took a short boat tour of the area, but couldn't hear anything the guide was saying due to a shoddy sound system. The (relatively) fresh air was a nice change, but I didn't spend long there because there wasn't much to do.

The not-so-spectacular Tigre

Volunteering
Note: All pics during volunteering were taken by the group organizer, Elena.
I know there isn't any real difference in privacy, but because I don't feel right posting picture of the kids directly in this blog, they are in my picasa album, which is linked elsewhere in this blog.

Today, without a doubt, has been my most engaging and mentally exhausting day of the trip so far. The volunteer group I had been approached by while roaming downtown that I mentioned in the last post sent me an email saying they would be doing their thing at the children's hospital today and that I should come, so I decided 'why not'? I must admit I was a bit nervous, as my Spanish is decent but not great, and they told me I should bring my guitar, but I didn't have any music prepared. I arrived outside and was greeted by Johnny, an incredibly funny nice guy my age who was also volunteering (he was from BA), and told him I'd be right back because I needed to get some money from an ATM. Unfortunately, on my way out of the phone-booth style ATM I smashed my right middle finger in the door which ripped off a good 1/3 of the fingernail off along with a chunk of skin underneath it and immediately started to bleed profusely. I had no idea my finger could bleed that much, but thankfully I was in fact right next to the hospital, so they fixed me right up and despite my finger being completely wrapped in gauze, I could still play the guitar so I wasn't worried.

The Volunteer Group for 'Mundo Mejor'

The volunteer group turned out to be an incredibly talented, friendly group (all roughly my age, and all from Buenos Aires except for one girl from Germany who was also volunteering for her first time). I changed into the ridiculous outfit they gave me once I realized the others were also doing so, and we quickly ran over what we'd be doing for the kids which involved playing/singing some songs, and a comedy sketch of 'the boy who cried wolf'. I played one of the townspeople that repremanded the boy after he misled me many times! One example of the spontaneous nature of the whole thing, was, just before the wolf came creeping out, he quickly ran up to me and whispered 'When I come out, play wolf music!!!'. I would have laughed if I wasn't so busy trying to think of what 'wolf music' was exactly. Thankfully, I think I was able to pull it off.

The room itself that we performed in must have been some sort of children's ICU. There were about 15 beds along the walls, all with extremely ill or injured children. I hadn't known what to expect, and believe me when I say that dancing, singing, and playing guitar while entering that room felt incredibly wrong (well, wrong isn't the right word...but it didn't feel natural). These kids were not in good shape, and it was an interesting challenge acting happy and funny while surrounded by such misery. We played our songs, did our skit, and then spent some time one-on-one with the kids just chatting and making them balloons. Seeing the kids laugh and smile was extremely moving, given the circumstances. The child I talked with, Rodrigo, seemed to be in a happy mindset despite being completely bedridden. When I asked him how he wanted me to make his balloon, I was beyond relieved to hear sim say 'simple normal'. The only thing I knew how to make was a sword, and the few I had practiced looked more like bizzare sporks. I made him a few balloons and we talked briefly about what he liked to do and what music he liked. Then, as we were about to leave, we were informed there was a particularly sick child in a separate room that wanted attention, so we spent some time with him. After some introductions, the organizer Elena thrust my guitar into my hands and told me to play a song. To say I was caught off-guard would be quite the understatement, but I managed to play a broken version of Hotel California with probably 50% 'creative' words. Thankfully everyone liked it, and a little while later, I was back in my normal clothes and back home. Before I left, though, Elena mentioned they have a volunteer's house where they occasionally have big dinners, and invited me to one which I look forward to greatly after I get back from Patagonia.

Upcoming Trip!

What's this about Patagonia you say? Yes, finally! Ian and I have a 5:45 AM flight out of Buenos Aires on Saturday, heading to El Calafate. We will jump right into the action with a boat ride to, and a short day hike on, the Perito Moreno glacier! I am extremely excited for this - especially the celebratory brandy + glacier ice drink we receive after we hike a ways on top of it. That night or the next morning we head to Puerto Natales (~6 hour bus ride), where we will prepare and depart for Torres del Paine national park in Chile on a 4 night/5 day trek on 'The W'. This area is supposed to be one of the best in the world for these hikes, and thankfully is very well organized and set-up. We are not joining with a tour group or anything, which makes it much more exciting I think, but we will be taking extra precautions for safety's sake.

The Perito Moreno glacier - 'awesome' in the true sense of the word

Torres del Paine national park in Chile - where I'll be trekking

The trek itself (The 'W') is a shortened version of the full circuit, which usually takes at least 8 days to complete. There are many 'refugios' cabins that we might hop between, or we might rent camping gear. We will base our decision on what the locals suggest - maybe we'll do some sort of combo. Wildlife is harmless thankfully - except for pumas - but they are incredibly rare (farrrr more rare and reclusive than bears in Yosemite, for example). Thankfully no parts of the hike are considered dangerous, and our main obstacles will be outrageously strong winds and the cold (but it's summer, so it's not that cold). Mom, don't worry, we're being very careful and dliberate with our preparation!

'The W'

Earlier today we went to 'Fugate' hiking store (recommended by south american explorers club) to get the gear we didn't have and couldn't rent. Unfortunately it was closed when we got there, but when I told the owner we needed gear for El Calafate y Torres del Paine, he opened the store for us because he could probably tell we were gonna be buying a lot. He was extremely helpful, and when I told him he had been recommended to us by something we read at South American Explorers Club, he gave us an addition 10% off the already very inexpensive equipment. I asked him about his products, and all of it is made domestically. I was happy that I could support a local gear store while getting great quality equipment for not much money. In total we purchased:
1 Long underwear pants
1 Long underwear top
4 pairs sock liners
1 pair hiking socks
2 pairs gloves
2 fleece hats
4 meters of rope

for only 488 pesos (under $150 US!). He gave us his card if we had any questions, we thanked him, and left satisfied. I sitll need to pick up a few things (emergency whistle, food, etc.), but the rest can be rented in Puerto Natales for very cheap.

Tonight we're splurging and hitting up some fine dining with buddies, tomorrow is designated for some more prep, relaxation, and then of course...halloween! Not sure if Ian and I will be calling it an early night or just stay up, because our bedtime has rarely been before 3AM the last 2 weeks straight (not because we're party animals, only because normal dinner doesn't end before midnight), and we will have to leave for the airport by 3:30.

Wow that was an incredibly long blog post - hope you guys enjoyed it. As always - comments encouraged!!! I will do my best to respond to them quickly now, so check back for answers to any questions (I have responded to previous questions in the earlier post as well).

-Noah

Down-time soon to be over

2008-10-27T00:31:00.000-02:00

Hey all - sorry I haven't updated again yet. Things in general have turned to a more relaxed pace, but I am looking to pick things up again starting this week. There has been a lot going on though, and while I am too tired to write them up right now, I just wanted to let you guys know I posted some more pics at my picasa site which is linked in the previous post. I will make a real post soon to keep you guys up to date. Hope everyone has been well!

Noah

Welcome to Buenos Aires

2008-10-20T13:46:00.000-02:00

Leon Enters our first OneWorld flight

Newly added: for clarity, here is the link to my photo album with more pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/SouthAmerica#
Includes not-described-below pictures of a boca-river soccer game worth looking at, I'll describe them next blog update.

The trip got off to a great start. About 5 minutes after take-off I was attempting to explain to Leon when to write accents in Spanish, and the guy sitting next to us offered to help. Pablo, an Argentine businessman (about 35 y.o.) was returning home from his four day vacation in NYC where he was meeting two of his high school friends. Him and his friends made this annual vacation to a new spot each year, as they had separated since school and wanted to stay in touch. Despite his trip only being four days long, and our trip being a year long, I saw a sort of similarity between his situation and ours. We talked with him for hours on the flight (in Spanish of course), and what I thought was going to be an eternity which I would fill with reading guidebooks, watching in-flight movies, and sleeping, flew by (pun not intended), and before I knew it we were landing 5,000 miles away.Before we even got to the apartment - we met up with Ian and Daniel, a poker
player from Sweden that we have been hanging out with frequently, at 'Cafe Seis'

Customs was a breeze and Leon and I soon discovered just how insane Argentine drivers are. I wondered to myself how it was possible that there weren't accidents all the time, both car-car and car-pedestrian. Soon enough I realized that yes, these accidents did happen all the time! Yesterday I was walking to a music store to buy a small guitar when I heard a sound like an empty soda can being stomped on. I looked up in time to see a jeep flipping over on it's side after it had been hit in the side by a minivan). A small crowd gathered, but the driver hopped out of the topside door and acted like nothing unusual had really happened.

Chilling on our favorite patio in the world

I have been exploring a fair amount locally (our neighborhood, Palermo, is an awesome mix of an old-city feel with trendy cafes and plazas). One recurring theme I have seen in my short time here is the contrast of clean and filth, new and abandoned. There is trash strewn about all over the place, thanks to an absurd system of recycling where the city leaves it to homeless people to rip open and dig through trash bags to find recyclables, which they can turn in for a small paycheck, instead of promoting an easy to use public recycling system. On the other hand, the city has clearly put an enormous effort into making the city more green by having every single street completely lined with enormous, gorgeous trees. It reminds me of memorial drive in Cambridge, but everywhere, more colorful, and on smaller streets. There is the strongest dog-culture I have seen anywhere here, with happy dogs running around all over the place. For every four or five people I come upon, I see a dog. However, there are mangy strays roaming around as well, and the sidewalks are covered with dog crap. There are well-maintained historic buildings in much of Palermo as well as downtown (beautiful 8-10 story castle-like apartment buildings), as well as a new influx of reflective mirror-covered office buildings (which I don't really like, but some people do), but they are countered by an abundant supply of completely abandoned or neglected construction sites that stick out like nasty pimples on an otherwise beautiful face.

This picture sums it up - Nice new and old buildings on one side, Old abandoned ones on the other, ample beautiful green space, and me stuck in the middle of all of it not knowing what to think.

Me in front of the Casa Rosada, the main government building in the city

A typical cheapo lunch - 'el bife', y agua con gas. In front of the eco preserve (more pictures in the web album linked at the bottom)

The people here have been extremely nice so far, and I think that being confident with my Spanish has had an enormous influence on how I am perceived in the area. I was approached while I was wandering alone downtown and asked for money to support a volunteer group, but instead I started a conversation with them asking about what they did, and was invited to come join them on Thursday, which I plan on doing. I am trying to strike up mini-conversations where there would otherwise be a two-sentence exchange like at a restaurant or in a taxi. I have to say that I have probably been a little lucky so far with my social encounters, as one of the guys we went to a soccer game with yesterday was robbed twice on his first day here!

Maybe a banzi tree to spice up our apartment?

The poker players and their friends have been a huge part of our social life here, and I'm definitely thankful to Ian for connecting us with them. They are all really nice people (unlike many other poker players, the ones that are happy to travel to faraway countries tend to be of a different mindset), and I expect to spend a good amount of time with them in the area here. I'm hoping to branch out on my own though as well to explore other areas of the city, and of Argentina as a whole. At a party hosted by a poker player, I spoke with two Australian guys from Perth that absolutely raved about their city and insisted that I go there. I was struck by how enthusiastic they were about their city, because as much as I love Boston, if asked about it by a stranger, I would certainly recommend visiting it, but I wouldn't have done it with the fervor that these guys did. Anyways, they convinced me, and I will add it into my own itinerary.

Leon, Me, Daniel, Ian, Brant, Will, at one of the many great restaurants in our neighborhood

For local trips, I am hoping to fit in many places, and what I thought was going to be a laid-back, relaxed month in Buenos Aires is becoming significantly more dynamic. Because the three weeks after our lease expires is already half-committed with a Macchu Pichu trip, I will probably be venturing out during our lease as well to fit in a number of stops:
-Puerto Madryn, a long bus ride or short flight away to the south, is supposedly the best scuba diving spot in Argentina. Only a few dozen meters off shore is a deep trench that Orca whales use like a superhighway. I am hoping to do some whale-watching and seal diving (hoping to dive with a whale as well, one of the things on my 'must-do before dying' list) for a few days there.
-Bariloche, also a very long bus ride or 2-3 hour flight, is southwest of BA near the border of Chile and is supposed to have extraordinary hikes and treks. It is right on the mountains, and is normally visited for ski vacations, but summer activities also thrive there.
-Ushaia, near the southern tip of South America, is supposed to be an place like no other, with an incredible landscape and coast. It is the launching point for many ferries to the Antarctic, but I probably don't have time for that.
-Iguazu falls is an absolute must, and Ian and I are planning our trip there probably as soon as next week. Don't need to say a whole lot about that, as it is one of the 'travel wonders of the world' according to wikipedia, but we expect to spend at least 3 days there to experience it.
-Colonia and Punto del Este are two spots in Uruguay that I really want to visit. It's an easy ferry to get to the country, and from there it's not too hard to get to either. Colonia will probably just be a day trip since it's so close, and Punto del Este will be at least a couple days.

Mendoza and Bahia Blanca are also on the list, but I probably can't fit everything in with only 7 weeks in the continent, and I don't want this to turn into a travel-frenzy or get burnt out this soon into the trip.

Today Leon and I are heading to see the Recoleta cemetary and pay our respects to Evita. Other plans are a poker dinner tomorrow, a cookout on Wednesday we are hosting thanks to our awesome patio+parilla grill, and drinks at one of Ian's favorite bars.

I finally set up my web album that I will post all my pictures at, it is:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.n/SouthAmerica#

Check it out for more fun pictures
I will try to update the blog at the end of the week.

Comments and questions are encouraged!

-Noah

It begins!

2008-10-15T14:04:00.000-03:00

Leon and I, Posting in NYC
Vagabonding Definition From http://vagabonding.net/

The trip has begun! For those of you I haven't already told, I'm traveling for a while now that school is done. At the moment it seems like most of it will be done with my two high school friends, Leon and Ian. Depending on how things go, we will likely split up and meet back together at various points throughout the trip. We booked a round-the-world ticket through the OneWorld alliance. Although it's a little more expensive than other rtw tickets, it allows us significant flexibility for timing (most of these flights are open-dated) and route (for a small fee the entire trip can be changed). The itinerary is roughly as follows (and will no doubt change significantly):

Oct 14th (yesterday) Boston > NYC via boltbus
Oct 15th (today) NYC > Buenos Aires, Argentina (Oneworld)
Late October?: Local trips to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Montevideo, Uruguay. Maybe southern Argentina too.
November 15th?: BA > Lima, Peru (Oneworld)
November 17th?: Lima > Cuzco, Peru (to see Machu Picchu)
November 22th?: Cuzco > Lima
November 23rd?: Lima > BA, Argentina (Oneworld)
November 24th?: Iguacu falls, Argentina/Brazil border
December 1st?: Iguacu > BA
December 6th: BA > Sydney, Australia (Oneworld)
December 17th: Sydney > Queenstown, New Zealand( Oneworld)
January 3rd?: Queenstown > Auckland, NZ (Oneworld)
January 17th?: Auckland > Melbourne, Australia (Oneworld)
February 16th?: Melbourne > Hong Kong, China (Oneworld)
February 23rd?: HK > Kunming, China (w/trip to Lixiang)
March 4th?: Kunming > HK
March 5th?: HK > Beijing, China (Oneworld)
March 19th?: Beijing > Shanghai via train
March 31st?: Shanghai > Beijing
April 2nd?: Beijing > Tokyo (Oneworld)
May 1st?: Tokyo > Bangkok, Thailand (Oneworld)
Late May?: Local trips to Laos, Vietnam
June 1st?: Bangkok > Mumbai, India (Oneworld)
Mid June?: Local trips around India
June 15th?: Mumbai > Helsinki, Finland (Oneworld)
Late June/Early July?: Local trips to Stockholm, Sweden, and St.Petersburg, Russia
July 15th?: Helsinki > Budapest, Hungary (Oneworld)
Late July/Early August?: Local trips around Eastern Europe
August 15th?: Budapest > Zurich, Switzerland (Oneworld)
Late August/September/October: Local trips around central Europe
Latest return date possible, October 15th, 2009: Zurich > NYC.

The above dates are outrageous estimations and as the trip progresses they will undoubtedly change. Also, these are my dates - Leon and Ian may have very different ideas of where to spend time. Ian also has an earlier last possible return date (in August) because he left earlier than Leon and me.

In an attempt to get started on the right foot, Leon and I (after saying hi to my former housemates and dropping off our backpacks) went out to a popular Jazz club last night (Dizzy's club) and heard some great music and got a couple drinks. Got back around 2 and fell asleep instantly despite being really excited for the beginning of the trip. I woke up around 6 when my housemates were getting up to work so I could say hi before I left, since I will be gone when they get back.

I won't post too much about my expectations or predictions for the trip, because a)I want to get outside for a jog before we leave for JFK and don't have much time and b)They probably won't make any sense at this time anyways because honestly, I don't really know what to expect or predict. I'll type something sensible on the upcoming 12-hour flight to post here when I get in Buenos Aires. No doubt I'll also have some pictures to show by that point as well.

I will try to keep this blog filled with observations, commentary, and anecdotes, as opposed to a recounting of daily activities. If anyone notices it starts to turn into dull mumbling, please yell at me in the comments.

Next post will be from the southern hemisphere.

-Noah