All posts by ~j

Peru, South America

Tired Much?

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We have made it to the airport in Lima. We have 2 more hours to wait until we board the final flight of the day to Arequipa. On Friday the 21st night we left for Vancouver at 10pm. It is now 12:20am BC time on the 23rd. I am one tired gal.

I was security screened in Vancouver 100% and had to be wanded and put through the new xray machine. Then in LA, I got the red light and had to be screened again. THEN when we got to customs in Lima I got the red light again! Seriously, you wait in line to press a button. If you get the red light you get searched. If you get the green light you go on your merry way. I must look sketchy today. I suppose that is what 30+ hours in transit will do to someone.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

 

Peru, South America

Update

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Hey everyone…So, the updates have been written, but most of the places we’ve been staying don’t support my phone for doing ANYTHING! We’re having a lot of fun. Today we were out on Lake Titicaca and visited the floating Uros islands and the island of Taquile. There was quite a climb to the top of the island, and 550 stone steps back to to the port to meet the boat. The little kids are super cute. They crack me up with their little faces when they say “Buenos Dias”. Everyone here is trying to sell something or make money from something. We are basically being 2 soles to death. It is like living in a Walmart and being 2 dollared to death. So bizarre.

We’re doing well. Super tired, but everything has worked out so far. Will update again when the internet isn’t painfully slow.

Update

Obsessed much?

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unesco bookFor some reason, I’m obsessed with UNESCO sites. I want to see them, I want to know about them, I want to visit them. It is an odd little phase I’m going through. FYI: There are 890 UNESCO World Heritage Sites as of 2010. Jon thinks that our apartment might as well be a UNESCO site, everything else is, so why not is his view point. Really, the dust balls and smudgy windows are hardly an attraction.

Because I’m a total nerd, and also slightly addicted to Chapters, I bought this book. I’m sure as we continue to travel (IF we’re fortunate enough to be able to travel), we’ll select sites that we’re interested in, and if I’m lucky enough, that’ll have one more site to cross off the humongous list.

So, if we’re keeping tally, and I am, I have been to 10 sites so far. The Palace and Park of Versailles, The Historic Centre of Rome & the Properties of the Holy See, Vatican City, Venice and its Lagoon, Westminster Palace & Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Banks of the Seine France, Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Archeological Areas of Pompei & Herculaneum, and the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks.

After Peru, if everything goes according to plan, the count will be 17. Cusco, Machu Picchu, Chan Chan, Historic Centre of Lima, Historic Centre of Arequipa, Historic Centre of Mexico City, and Teotihuacan.

Too bad if I finally went to the Dinosaur Museum in Alberta and visited Dinosaur Provincial Park, I’d get another site crossed off the list.
Peru, Update

Esto es mi hermano Roberto.

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My Spanish Coach NDSI’m doing my best to learn some useful Spanish to decrease the language barrier. In France, people spoke French and English, often saying the same thing in both languages one after the other. In Italy, most people spoke some English or we were able to get by with rudimentary Italian.  Fortunately it was easy enough for me to pick up during the short time we were there.  Ordering meals, buying train tickets and making small talk were all o.k. by the end of the trip.   If I know enough to chat with a taxi-cab driver by the end of a trip, I’ll be satisfied.

I flat out refuse to be one of the people who knows nothing of a country’s language. It is disgusting to hear tourists yelling their questions to someone who doesn’t speak English. Pretty sure the person isn’t deaf, they don’t speak your language, and rightfully so; buck up and learn a few simple phrases!

How is it possible that with all the trillions of language courses I’ve taken over the past 2 decades, that I have never taken one in Spanish? Surprisingly, “My Spanish Coach” is actually a useful program. I’m working through the vocab lessons at the end of the “game”. Pretty sure my Spanish is better than my Italian, so I’m not too worried. But, I can tell you I know zero Quechua, and zero Aymara.  I will be learning phrases at the airport when we’re wasting 4 hours in LAX. Could be fun times.

ps: I’m loving the Linguistics review with the chart. Ahhhh, flashbacks to Sentence Trees in university.

IPA_consonants_2005

 

 

 

Update

Coconutty Goodness

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sunscreenYou might know that during the summer months, I’m in love with coconut scented stuff–shampoo, sunscreen, lotion, hair goo etc. (Just don’t try to make me eat coconut, that’s sick!) We had to go shopping for a few travel supplies tonight, and sunscreen was on the list. (Along with 92 dollars of other crap!)

You’d think that the higher you get the colder it is, so there would be less sun, but temperature doesn’t always relate to sunlight, but really the higher you are, the closer you are to the sun, so that’s all confusing. Apparently, it is all about the altitude when it comes to sun burn. It is easier to get sunburned at altitude as there is less of the earth’s atmosphere to block the sunlight. For every 305m (1000 feet) UV exposure increases 4%. I’m no mathematician, but that’s about 40% higher chance of burning for where we’re going.

Most of the pictures I’ve seen of little Peruvian kids show badly sunburned cheeks. Some captions say their cheeks are perpetually sunburned or even stained from sun damage. I usually scorch in the sun, so I’ll be wearing sun screen. Unfortunately, the coconut is out, don’t want to attract bugs, so we opted for some SPF 60 Ombrelle.

NB: The only time I strayed away from the coconut smell was the Body Shop sunscreen stick. That thing smelled like watermelon, and would probably make me gag now, but it was hot at the time!
Update

Just checkin’

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A while ago I set things up so that I could email in blog entries from my phone. I don’t really want things to look all wonky or have a silly “sent from my blackberry” message at the bottom. So, we’ll just have to see how the entry turns out and see what improvements can be made before we actually leave.

Ah, all in the name of keeping readers happy…all 3.5 of you out there!

Next I will have to figure out how to include photos. Oh technology you give me a headache.

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Peru, South America

Thanks Magellan!

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Peru_mapI’m not a traveler who can picture where I’m going to be or what I’m going to do until I see it on paper. There’s gotta be a daily itinerary or a play by play and a map to get sorted out. We’re gonna cover a lot of the North, West and South of Peru. That’s lots of country to see in not too many days, but we’ll get it done. The previous post was done basically from memory, which the only reason I know is because Jon has told me the plans about a hundred times over the past year….not kidding!

I still had to ask where we were going in Mexico–apparently Teotihuacan is not the same a Chichen Itza. Good thing he likes me!

 

Peru, South America

30 More Days!

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It almost doesn’t seem real yet because Jon’s been the one doing all the research and planning for this trip. I can’t even picture the complete itinerary, but he could tell you times and numbers for all the flights and busses we’ve got to take.

We’re pretty organized this time around as we’ve already got the bulk of our travel supplies. We’ve gone to get the appropriate vaccines and pills, and now just have to wait. (ps: my arm hurt like a mofo for more than 2 weeks after the travel shots!)So here’s the major attractions that I can remember from the plans we’ve got:

We fly from Vancouver to Lima and then to Arequipa. Then there is a tour of Colca Canyon, which thanks to Wikipedia I now know Colca Canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, but not as vertical. This is where we hope to ease into the altitude while we see the Andean Condor. Nothing like jumping to 3300m right away. (FYI: We live at 377m, and people start feeling altitude sickness above 2400m)After Colca Canyon, we’re off to Puno and Lake Titicaca. At 3800m,

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. It looks bloody cold, yet all warnings say wear loads of sun screen to prevent sun burn. Apparently high altitude = no sun protection from the atmosphere. I suppose I should add sunscreen to the list of stuff we still need.From Puno we’re flying to Cusco. Cusco looks amazing. I’m looking forward to just wandering around and taking tons of pictures and checking out all the beautiful buildings. Cusco is at 3310m altitude. Let’s just hope we’re acclimatized by now and not feeling like death.

The next obvious place to visit from Cusco is Machu Picchu. You can’t really go to Peru and not visit Machu Picchu. That’d be like going to Paris and skipping the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower. After all the turmoil Peru has been going through from horrific mudslides this winter, I’m relieved that we’re able to get to Machu Picchu at all. We’re not doing the 4-day Inca Trail trek as we only have 16 days for the entire trip.  Once we’ve finished our tour of Machu Picchu and Cusco, we fly back to Lima for 2 more crazy days packed full of plans. They’re going to be insane, but we’re going to try to visit Islas Ballestas and the next day Chan Chan. (Bonus: Cusco, Machu Picchu and Chan Chan are 3 more UNESCO World Heritage Site to cross off my list!)

The tour of Islas Ballestas will take us along the coast on a boat. Hopefully we’ll see all sorts of birds (penguins, pelicans, flamingos) and dolphins, sea lions etc. Most of the travel books warn that it is stinky and that we’ll probably get pooped on.

From Islas Ballestas it is back to Lima for a flight to Trujillo which is adjacent to Chan Chan. I’ve read a bit about Chan Chan, and it seems like it’ll be worth the visit.We had a choice of flying the Nazca Lines or visiting Chan Chan. It was a tough decision, but ultimately, I didn’t really want to fly over Nazca and feel like vomiting for the entire flight. (Almost every review, blog, article about the flying the Nazca lines includes vomiting.)

So that’s a little recap of the Peruvian leg of the journey. We’ll have 2 days in Mexico City visiting Teotihuacan. And then home.

 

Update

Time flies…

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It’s hard to believe that it has been almost a year since we went to Europe. We’ve been working through photos bit by bit and selecting a few from the thousands to put up in frames. (Taking too many photos is a double edged sword!)

Eight months have passed since the last update, and a lot of stuff has happened since then. I’ll get you caught up in 250 words or less! July and August were typical Summer months–Jon had more road trips than I did as he was off work for a couple of months. In August my littlest brother got married.

In September WE got married. It was a simple no frills affair–the witnesses found out the night before and no one else was invited. We managed to keep it a secret for several months which is pretty amazing. October, November and December are a blur as work was insanity. January was great–my cousin had a beautiful little baby! I had a weekend trip to Seattle for some shopping and touristy stuff. And here we are now in February, which means I’m back to tell you that we’re going on another adventure.

For a couple of weeks in May & June we’re headed to Peru. We were talking about a potential Peru trip last year when we were waiting to leave for London during the whole passport fiasco at the airport. Jon found a Peruvian coin on the floor which pretty much sealed the deal. (Let’s hope there is some Yen on the floor while we’re waiting this time–but without the passport fiasco– because Japan is my next intended destination.)

Peruvian Centimo
            Peruvian Centimo

 

Europe, Italy

Journalista!

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First, let me start by saying Napoli Centrale was sketchville! That train station was the creepiest place we visited anywhere during the entire Europe trip!

From Rome, we travelled by train to Naples to visit Pompeii (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and climb Mount Vesuvius. Thanks to Wikipedia I know that Vesuvius is the only volcano in Europe that has erupted in the past 100 years. It had a lot of steam vents at the crater, so it is still doing something down below the Earth’s crust (or cruth if you’re so inclined. Ah, I kill me.)

Wikipedia also says that Vesuvius “is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions.” (Love that I’m quoting from Wikipedia. We all know it is such a reliable source. User generated content=100% accurate.)

Vesuvius Pompei Italy
View of Naples from Vesuvius

It is unbelievable how well Pompeii is preserved given the site was completely wiped out by volcanic eruption. The casts of the people and pets found at the site were kinda creepy and sad. The eruption lasted 2 days and buried Pompeii under 5 or 6 meters of ash. That said, I certainly wasn’t expecting a fully organized town to have been excavated. The site was re-discovered by accident in the 18th century. All of the work that is has taken to get the site to the condition it is in now is just craziness.

Jon tells me that the archaeologists are still looking for one main site or town square that hasn’t been found yet. It is kind of unbelieveable that there is a full amphitheatre that has been excavated, let alone something more significant that they are still searching for.

Pompeii Italy
Mosaic floor Pompeii Italy
Theatre Pompeii Italy
Columns Pompeii Italy

All in all, a good day away from Rome, and one of the funniest days of the trip due to our bizarre travel companions on the train ride home. The 2 dudes that spoke Neapolitan more than Italian, and the poor Journalista who had to translate for them when they were asking me how much I like Italian men. We’ll just leave it at that…

~j

ps: Pompei vs Pompeii is all very confusing.  Pompei refers to the modern city whereas Pompeii refers to the ruins.  Thanks Google.