Off to the monkeys

We are doing great!!

Our 4 day trip through the desert was otherworldly. We chose a great tour company, the staff were great and there was abundant food.

Natalia making lunch.

Desert and mountains in shades of ochre as far as the eye could see, dotted with ethereal mineral lagoons in striking colours like bright orange, electric yellow, pale green, and thousands of flamingos. Active smoking volcanoes, stinky sulphurous geisers at 5000m, and a salt flat 10 000 square kilometers, blinding white hexagonal tiles in every direction. Goofy looking ostriches sprinting through the desert. Dorky looking llamas and alpacas and their wild cousin, the far more elegant endangered vicuña. I can't understand camelids, grazing on sand with no water source in any direction for dozens of kilometers. Adorable vizcachàs, which sort of look like a giant bunny with a long bushy tail and a tendency to stand on their haunches like a squirrel. Rusty-blond foxes. A bunch of new human friends that hail from South Africa and France, with whom we'd play cards and share travel stories in the evenings in our remote little guesthouses in the desert, lit by a dim bulb powered by a sole solar panel.

the striking red Lago Colorado, a red mineral lake with a big black storm blowing in.

Times that made us wonder if we were dreaming...sitting in a hot spring at 4800m, nothing except for sand as far as we could see, the tall peaks devoid of any green of any kind at all. A few meters from us the blue-green mineral lagoon's shore was crusted with white minerals that looked liked waves caught frozen in time mid-break, and the lake was covered with hundreds of flamingos.

Our land cruiser racing across the salar at 5am, white as far as we could see, the sun just starting to blush the horizon, we arrive at an island that was once a massive coral formation in the ancient inland sea. It's covered in giant cacti estimated at around a thousand years old. We hike to the top of that island, and the confusion of the beaches around island that are not liquid. That the white is not snow.

A gigantic lake the color of canned tomato soup, with a white crusty shore, dotted with flamingos. A hot sun and a fierce wind with a huge black storm system blowing in before our eyes.

one of the many mineral lagoons.

A valley surrounded by mossy hills that appear to be in a strange quilted pattern...vaguely reminiscent of the way hills are terraced for farming in Asia, but strategically different. Upon inquiry I was thrilled to learn it's leftover land division from the Incas. Still intact. The valley floor is covered in large clumps of the ancient fossilized coral, unmistakeably coral shaped, and between these stone masses, the present; endless fields of quinoa, which requires no irrigation. So many layers of history.

the hot spring

Nate is all better, I'm still coughing but it's nowhere near as violent as it was a week ago. What we're surprised at is that we're still struggling with the elevation, we've been between 3500-5000m for the last 8 days. Even Nate with superhuman cardio health struggles to catch his breath. Evidence that altitude sickness has nothing to do with fitness at all. We just arrived in a city called Cochabamba last night and feel noticeably better at 2558m. The first night of our trek our entire group had headaches and insomnia at 3800m.

Our trip ended in a little grim town called Uyuni, and we got right out of there. Took an 8 hour bone-rattling night bus ride on a wretched highway that may have been unpaved the entire way and arrived in Oruro (3700m). The 4 day trek was amazing, and we were exhausted, from lots of very early mornings and a lot of stimuli, and treated ourself to our first hotel room. We needed to do a thorough re-organize of our packs, purge some clutter, sleep in a quiet room without 6 other travelers. We watched mindless television, took overly long showers, slept SO well and we were refreshed. The grandmotherly matriarch of the family that owned the little hotel spoke the best English we'd encountered in quite some time. She told me her best friend moved to Montreal years ago. Upon asking when we needed to check out she kindly told me that it wasn't busy, to take my time, stay til 2 or 3 o'clock. When she tucked us into our cab to go to the bus she squeezed my arms in the most motherly way and told us to come back some day. It was $30 well spent.

We are having little pangs for Christmas and will do our best to call family tonight...Bolivia is really into Christmas and it may be hard to find a place open to make a call from.

Cochabamba, where we are now, is the biggest city we've been to in Bolivia so far. It's bustling and efficient. The outskirts of the cities are very sad slums...Bolivia is the closest thing I've experienced to the poverty I witnessed in India. We really liked Oruro, too. The markets are amazing. Bolivians, especially the indigenous Quechua do NOT want their photo taken, and you either need to be really sly or miss out on many cool photo op's. I tend to chicken out and respect their wish not to be photographed.

Bolivians are jolly. Once again I'm struck by how people in the countries I've visited who possess the least material wealth, seem more generally cheerful and easygoing that the counterpart.

I really enjoy the folk music of Bolivia, the most of any latin American country I've visited thus far. The food is boring, but the fruit is incredible. We're so close to Brazil we're getting amazing mangos, now. Yesterday in the market a jolly plump Quechua woman bullied Nate, to the point that instead of getting the two mangos we wanted, we walked away with 4 gigantic mangos and 6 grenadillas. Grenadillas are in the passion fruit family and I absolutely love them. Her reasoning was that she couldn't give us change for our 20 Boliviano note, and so we simply had to leave with 20 Bolivianos worth of fruit. ($3) We really miss the tasty, (safe) tap water of Argentina and feel acutely aware of the dozens of plastic bottles we are consuming.

There are no backpackers in either city that we've seen thus far, and the backpacker hostels don't exist. We're in modest little "hostales". Our decision to spend two weeks at Parque Machia means we will miss out on a couple of very interesting cities (Potosi and Sucre) but it feels great to be noticeably OFF the gringo trail, and doing something different. Not a single backpacker had heard of the NGO we'll be working with, or even the national park where the refuge is located. We're both excited to do somehing totally new and unfamiliar, and that contributes. At Machia there is a puma who is undersize for a full grown puma. He has malformed legs from being struck repeatedly as an evil circus attempted to train him to jump through flaming rings. He's an example of one of the resident animals that was confiscated from a bad situation and will live out his life in their care as he will never be able to survive in the wild. Apparently he loves women. There are 700 animals there.

Off we go to Villa Tunari shortly, and to Parque Machia tomorrow, to start our two week stay on the refuge.

I wish you all Merry Christmas, Festivus, etc, and a happy new year.

First taste of Bolivia

So we left Jujuy, not feeling awesome but feeling somewhat better, and caught a five hour bus up to the dusty, windy, chilly border town of La Quiaca, altitude 3,442m. The bus ride was BEAUTIFUL, wild desert and canyons, with mountains striated in completely surreal colors from mineral deposits. I have never seen pastel mountains before. The highway cut through the Quebrada de Humahuaca national park and wove through passes of startling color and beauty and we loved it. The bus ride was even more enjoyable because a couple sitting next to us with their six year old daughter were so excited about how excited WE were, watching us snapping photos out the window. I loved how proud they were of their country....if we had returned our attention to our books and something especially cool was around a bend they would get our attention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebrada_de_Humahuaca

Nate was still really unwell, and barely ate any dinner, and we went to sleep early and slept well in our cold hostel room with ample heavy blankets. After breakfast we walked the couple kilometers to the border.

What an easy border crossing! Lots of weary Bolivians with heavy loads, it looks like people cross the border back and forth between Argentina and Bolivia a lot, and it seemed like maybe people shop for things in Argentina that are difficult to obtain, or expensive, in Bolivia. It took about an hour and a half in a lineup to cross.

Our first impressions of Bolivia are awesome. It's the first time in my life I've encountered friendly and cheerful border staff. The border town on the Bolivian side of the border, Villazon, is chaotic and poor. We waited a few hours for a train to take us to Tupiza, where we are now.The three hour train in the lowest class of car cost us about $2.50. The train was mainly filled with Quechua people, bogged down with heavy loads, lots of colorful clothing, tons of kids. Quechuas wear hats with so much style. It was a pleasant ride. I always like riding trains.

Our hostel in La Quiaca had called ahead to reserve a room for us in Tupiza. Hostels in the Hostelling International network tend to be very helpful. We were pleasantly surprised to get off our train in the darkness, people and chaos everywhere, and there was a girl of about twenty and a teenage boy in a vest with our hostel name on it looking for us. She must have scoped out the assorted backpackers and taken a guess cause she asked if my name was Jessica. It felt nice to be met at our train!

Today is kind of practical stuff, banking and laundry, communication, and tomorrow we depart on a four day tour of the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. The trip is in a 4x4, and is costing us about $180. We'll see smoking volcanoes, geisers, mineral lakes in bizarre colors, Andean flamingos...Jon did the same tour last week and gushed and gushed about it. It's one of the bigger splurges of the trip but we're really pumped.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salar_de_Uyuni

We finish in the town of Uyuni and then make our way to the animal refuge, to start a fifteen day volunteer stint. The organization has three different refuges, and they're all appealing in different ways, and they all need help, and they aren't even remotely near to each other, so we're still trying to choose which one we'll go to...although I think it will be Parque Machia. It looks like we'll be on the refuge for Christmas and New Years.
http://www.intiwarayassi.org/articles/volunteer_animal_refuge/volunteer_parque_machia.html

feeling low in Jujuy

So what is with us getting sick?! Not cool.

After Salta we headed to this quiet town called Jujuy about 300km south of the Bolivian border. It's a beautiful place and historically important to Argentina so we thought we'd make a quick stop on our way to Bolivia. The day we left Salta Nate woke up with a really sore throat and felt generally crappy, and once we arrived in Jujuy (it was only a three hour bus ride) he went straight to bed and slept for the rest of the day, got up to eat a little dinner, and then went back to bed and slept for seventeen hours straight.

We're in a very quiet hostel which is good, since now Nate is quite sick. He's been sleeping a lot for three days and has an ongoing bad headache. This is the first time I've seen him sick, the guy has a great immune system. We went to emergency today to get looked at, the both of us. Nate was rather reluctant but after I checked out his throat with a headlamp I was rather bossy about it cause it looked like an infection...and sure enough he's been put on a round of amoxicillin.

I continue to cough and cough and cough, it's especially bad at night, and she prescribed diphenhydramine, which surprised me. While the quick exams in this very ghetto ancient hospital inspired less confidence than the one I went to in El Bolson we picked up our medicine and we're giving it a shot. She seems sure I don't have an infection in my lungs, but rather some congestion and inflammation.

Morale isn't awesome, I'm not going to lie. We're both looking forward to Bolivia and want to get better. The weather is really grey and bland and we've got cabin fever. I'm just burning through books to pass time mostly. We're bored. None of the WWOOF farms up here worked out, either full for volunteers or we got no reply, so we're ready to move on to Bolivia. Regardless of how we're doing tomorrow we're going to move on in the morning. It's a five hour bus, and then we walk over the border and get another bus to a town about three hours further.

I'm sorry it sounds whiny...oh boo hoo, poor Jess and Nate are having a tough week traveling in a foreign country and not working the winter in Canada...but it's not fun to be sick when you're not at home. It's still beautiful, we still feel so fortunate to be able to be away for so long, but we want to get back at'er. It feels like we're stuck in a rut.

There are only three WWOOF farms in Bolivia but we found something else we'd like to do. It's a paid volunteer situation (I understand that's a paradox, but there's lots of volunteer stuff out there that costs money) but it's really not very much money, and the rewards are high. We're quite excited. It's the rainy season in Bolivia and apparently they're DESPERATE for volunteers at this time of year. We don't need to apply, we can just show up.

http://www.intiwarayassi.org/articles/volunteer_animal_refuge/home.html

I haven't mentioned the national pastime of daily naps here. People take siestas every day, and the majority of business close from 2-5pm. You can't find anything much of anything that's not an official office or essential service open in that time slot. The occasional ice cream shop or fast food joint, but they're far and few between. It's actually quite surreal, anywhere other than Buenos Aires becomes a ghost town. Yesterday afternoon I wanted to pick up some bread and I had to walk fifteen blocks to find some. I could have been doing naked cartwheels down the middle of the street and no one would have noticed. It's kind of annoying cause we're not accustomed to it. Sundays are also closed, there is no one on the streets.

People are really pumped for Christmas but it feels so weird to not be a part of it. I admit to having pangs of longing for home and seeing everyone. It happened last year too.

I've read a streak since leaving home.

The Help (loved it)

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (sad, dark story, but worth the time)

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See (reminded me a little of Joy Luck Club)

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (so good)

Bossypants (fun, light read, by Tina Fey formerly of SNL)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (amazing)

The Cookbook Collector (meh)

Little Bee (very good also)

and I'm about halfway through Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, and loving it.

We have crossed into the land of beautiful wools..there are lots of shops selling exquisite alpaca and llama wools and I want to pick up some needles and make some scarves. Good way to pass the long bus rides. It's pretty expensive here, like what it costs back home, so I'll wait and get some alpaca stuff in Bolivia.

That's all folks! I'm going to pick up some empanadas and humitas and head back to the hostel to see how my sick boyfriend is doing.

Now we´re in Salta!

We loved Cordoba. As Argentina´s second biggest city, of 3 million people, you might think it would be kind of draining but in the same way Buenos Aires is leafy and walkable, Cordoba is really pleasant too...but with a grittiness I rather liked. The beautiful architecture, colonial era buildings, cobblestone streets, but without the glossy veneer of B.A.

There were more things that I associate with places that aren´t home- Buenos Aires had no street food, but here there are lots of street stands selling roasted and/or candied nuts (nuts are a big crop in Argentina), fruit, and these delicious sandwiches called choripan - big crunchy bread rolls with a barbecued chorizo and a bunch of chimichurri sauce and occasionally some veggies. Lots of elderly ladies sitting on sidewalks with big baskets of produce. They grow beautiful garlic here, big fat heads with a few massive cloves instead of many tiny ones. The skin has a purply tinge and it has excellent flavour. Cherries are in season and we ate lots. The peaches are extraordinary, too. Down in patagonia the green veggies were gorgeous but the fruit was boring, local red delicious apples (not my favorite variety at all) oranges, grapefruit and bananas...but up here the stone fruit is all in season and it´s very good.

The museum in Che Guevara´s childhood home was a huge learning experience and I feel like I understand his life so much more now. It´s located in a tiny town called Alta Gracia, about an hour from Cordoba. Che´s severe childhood asthma led their family doctor to recommend a move from Buenos Aires to Alta Gracia and the family home is now a musem. The extensive texts mounted around the museum were beautifully translated into binders in the language of your choice and we spent quite some time there. Lots of museums don´t have any translations available so this was a treat.

There also happened to be a tattoo convention in town while we were there and it was a fun evening going to that. There was some fantastic music, and unsurprisingly a lot of very talented tattooists from around the country.

The Quebrada del Condorito national park was wild and beautiful, so unlike any mountains in Canada, and it´s a sanctuary for condors. It turned out to be a rather intense day for us... Despite the fact that we know perfectly well never to trust the weather in the mountains, we left Cordoba without raincoats...it was a dazzling bluebird day. The bus to the park was about an hour and a half or so, and we were about 10km into the 20km+ hike when we got pummeled and soaked to the core by a really scary thunderstorm, complete with hail. The temperature dropped like crazy and we got much too cold and wet.

We rushed back to the visitors center, and the soonest bus back the the city was 2.5 hours later, with nowhere close to the park to go, in any direction for many kilometers. The visitors center is no Le Relais...nowhere to sit and get comfortable, and totally indifferent staff. We were wringing out our clothes in the bathroom with teeth literally chattering. All my merino layers were sopping wet. There were 2 nice Spaniards in the same boat as us and were quite the comical sight, all in our underwear rolling out layers of toilet paper onto the counters to attempt to dry our clothes. The visitor center closed but we could at least continue to access part of the building with the bathrooms and we were just miserable, so cold, until the storm broke and the sun came out. The four of us draped our clothes all over the fences and hung them on random things and sat out in the sun to dry a little. It was quite funny. Eventually we had to put our wet clothes back on to catch the bus and I was way way way too cold on the airconditioned bus back, and I can´t help but wonder if it was a factor in my cough coming back. We didn´t see any condors, they aren´t so into storms either. We felt really stupid for not being prepared for weather. Looking back, it was an adventure, and it was still a really gorgeous hike until we got drenched.

That´s right, I´m sick again. I was 90% better when it turned around and decided to take another go at me. This time I have no fevers, no sinus issues, but my awful hacking cough is making me crazy. Nate is being amazing.

So overall, we think Cordoba was our favorite big city so far, not including El Bolson.

We just arrived in Salta yesterday. We´re settled into a slightly lame city campground...it´s not so bad but it´s a big developed city campground, with plenty of pavement and cars. It´s so cheap though...instead of paying the equivalent of about $60 in hostel fees for two days, it´s $10.

Salta is really cool. Salta and Jujuy provinces have the most indigenous presence of the whole country, and while we started to see hints of it in Cordoba, on the bus here we must have passed an invisible border because it´s totally different here. There´s a bunch of cool new regional foods to eat, and the market was the first crazy chaotic market I´ve seen and we loved it. It reminded me a lot of the San Jose central market in Costa Rica. People look noticeably different too, darker skin and the beautiful wide Incan faces of Bolivia and Peru. People are really nice here. They´re very welcoming of tourists.

These are the only two provinces in Argentina where selling and chewing coca leaves is legal, and in the same way you see the red streaks of paan all over sidewalks in India you see big clumps of
green chewed up leaves on sidewalks here. It´s got lots of health benefits before it´s refined into the monster that is cocaine, and it´s for sale everywhere. It´s about as stimulating as a big cup of tea or mate, and is a powerful antioxidant. All over the Andes it´s used both in whole leaf form, chewed, and as tea to combat altitude sickness. Our travel books advise consuming coca leaf tea when we arrive in high altitude places to help us adapt.

Salta has some incredible museums, and Nate and I were dazzled by the exquisite MAAM museum this afternoon. I was stunned, I had no idea about the high altitude Incan sanctuaries on about two hundred Andean summits. The child mummies that reside at the MAAM were removed from the summit of Llullaillaco, a peak on the border of Chile and Argentina, and it´s the highest altitude archaelogical site in the world. The mummy on display that we saw today was the Lightning Girl. The cold temperature, thinner air and lack of bacteria has kept the mummies extremely well preserved. There was plenty of controversy about the decision to remove the mummies from the site. They're stored at -20 degrees, and the museum itself is kept cool and dim to preserve all the artifacts that were found in the tomb with them.

I had an expected emotional response to seeing her...if you wish to see photos there's lots in google images.

The mountaineering footage of the dig on the summit was fascinating, as was the extensive information to read about Incan rituals.
http://maam.culturasalta.gov.ar/index.php?lang=english

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llullaillaco

Yikes, 3 minutes left on this computer. Gotta run!

Leaving El Bolson, headed north

El Bolson, where we´re leaving from now, is a very lovable place. The mountains are beautiful, it´s extremely safe and the people are kind. Pciture a quaint, cozy little town, lots of hippies and families, flanked by mountains and rolling hills of farmland. There are lots of things I will miss about the farm, Reko, and El Bolson.

We´ve left the farm two weeks earlier than planned and are headed north to Cordoba where were applying to some more farms for more wwoofing work. We´re camping in the same campground as before and leave on a 26 hour bus ride tomorrow morning.

We are at peace with our decision not to go to southern Argentina to the really wild part of Patagonia. We just can´t afford the cost of getting there and doing stuff and to do so would make us risk coming home early. Recent acquaintances arriving from there confirm it´s expensive and still very cold down there, so we´ll just have to come back another time.

The community of El Bolson is in a terrible state of alarm. Less than 30km out of town, Cerro (Mt) Perito Moreno ski hill is on the cusp of major transformation. Currently it´s a modest little ski hill, nothing to it really, but massive development is imminent. Reko is down the hill from the ski hill, about an hour´s hike away. All their water comes from an underground spring on the mountain, as does the rest of the homes and farms in the immediate hamlets of Mallin Ahogado and Wharton. The plans are a massive golf course, and extensive gated community for the ultra-wealthy, complete with private helicopter pads. Projected water usage would be six times what the town of El Bolson uses, population 27k, for the golf course and gated community combined. Public opinion is that the development will impact the identity, spirit and atmosphere of El Bolson, and compromise the abundance and purity of its (delicious, prisitine) water. Of course the people in favor are using the tired refrain that "the hippies don´t want progress".

There have been numerous demonstrations against it and today the town council has begun the voting process to be concluded at the end of the week. We swung by the demonstration at the town hall today. There is an occupation in place, with several tents and a bunch of tethered sheep and about a hundred people. It broke my heart, I teared up with empathy for the people around me. As we were leaving to come use this internet cafe pesos were being gathered by someone towards the preparation of food for the occupants.

A fervent discussion was volleying around the crowd, but peaceful. Beautiful raven haired men and women, with the lined and healthy faces of people who spend lots of time outside. Plenty of dreadlocks, tattoos and drums, children and pets. The omnipresent yerba mate being consumed all around, thermoses of hot water and mate gourds in people hands. It is evident that in addition to being consumed throughout the day as is tea and coffee, it´s soothing. To quote my new from Kierian, a wwoofer at the farm, Mate isn´t a beverage, it´s a lifestyle.

I will be checking back to find out what the outcome will be, to build or not to build, because I´ve become very attached to the area.

As for Reko, after my grumpy blog entry last week...Our experience improved a lot. I´m finally healthy, after three weeks of a nasty cold. I´m sure it impacted my experience at the farm, as my favorite days there were the last few that we were there. Reko is a massive property, there´s lots to do, but not enough organization and structure to how and when it´s getting done, and we both craved order to the madness. Initially they were going to buy a few acres but it was so cheap that they bought 250. Lots of houses in various states of construction to work on, and the garden are the main tasks at hand.

Things I will miss, in no particular order.

Our fellow WWOOF volunteers, we all became good friends. Kierian, Alex, Miriam, Emma and Karin. The girls came into town to eat last night so we got have some pitchers of local artisanal beer (not bad, but nowhere near as good as our Canadian craft beers) and some nice food with them.

The magnificent garden that needs a lot of attention at this stage...I have reaffirmed for myself that I love to tend a garden and have no trouble weeding, organizing and maintaining for days on end.

The lovely dogs, Princessa, Chiquita and Benga. They reminded me of Meadow, for those of you who knew her. Princessa the mom, Chiquita and Benga from the same litter. Mostly a lab-shepherd mix of mutt, I believe. Super affectionate, smart and disciplined, they were only outdoor dogs and it broke our heart that we couldn´t bring them in to sleep on our bed!

Paula´s incandescent smile.

The view of the mountains and the delicious water.

The velvety raw organic milk we´d obtain from a tiny German dairy farm 2km away on Tuesdays.

I admit I continued to have a lot of trouble with those children. 1.5 year old Rio biting my legs under the table when I´m eating, giving hard pinches at random moments because he´s just learned that he can. He is quite sick with a perpetually runny nose of green slime and terrible cough and moderately infected eyes, and is usually covered in dirt from playing outside, and has realized that an efficient means of cleaning his face is to walk up to people and smear his face all over your pants leaving a revolting scab of slime and dirt all over your shin. He can be sweet at times, but he´s usually rather gross, and no one seems to mind that he´s quite ill.

The middle son, Lao is a little tyrant and can be hysterical to watch. He usually is out of his clothes within a few hours. He´s fearless anf funny and vicious to his brothers. Aside from snooping in other people´s stuff he´s not so bad. The eldest, Apolo, is awesome whenever he´s not around his brothers. Inquisitive and nice, he transforms into a horrendous heartless bully around his brothers, and beats the crap out of both of them. He also undergoes quite the Jeckyll and Hyde transformation when his parents are not around. When the three of them are together there is a constant soundtrack of howling and crying that got to be really tedious. They all have really scary sounding coughs.

Our laundry is done, our bus is booked. WWOOF emails sent to a few farms in Northern Argentina. We´re both mostly healthy, Nate´s minor version of my cold is mostly gone, too. We´re going to get some tasty chorizo sausages and barbecue them at our campsite later, and pack a bunch of food for our big bus ride. Our bus is at 11am tomorrow.

It´s Eryn´s birthday! Call her and give her the love!

Reko

Settled in at the farm!

At the moment we´re in El Bolson for our weekend and quick reunion in a campground with Jon, Lis, Sarah and now Angus McPhail, too. I love that we all managed to reconnect again.

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day and we walked the 4km to where the local rural transport bus (el Colectivo) picked us up and brought us to town. We tracked everyone down at the campground and cooked dinner and hung out around our fire and had a fantastic time. It´s great to see everyone again. Today is windy and cold and we´ll head back to the farm this evening sometime.

The farm is crazy. We´re living in a house with a bunch of WWOOFers and getting into some sort of rhythm. There is not a lot of structure to our days and there is a fair bit of chaos as part of the house is under renovation, the shower room. The people running the farm are Paula and Gerard, wild happy hippies with three out-of-control boys Apollo (age 10, Lao (age 4) and Rio (age 1.5) Gerard´s two brothers are in Italy and Leo should arrive sometime this week and Gabriel near the end of our stay.

We have a nice eclectic group of people living with us. Kierian and Alex are fresh out of high school, small town Colorado boys and are hilarious and hardworking and fun. Miriam is from Bologna, Italy, and Karen and Emma are from Stockholm, Sweden. More people are arriving continuously. This isn´t a farm that brings anything to market, just a collective of people living as sustainably as possible and bringing in volunteers for the last few years to help develop the 250 acre property. We do things like cut down brush and trees, work on the buildings, weed the massive vegetable garden, and naturally Nate and I have been relegated to much kitchen duty to feed the crowd.

Our kitchen is cozy and cluttered, with no refrigeration and our only oven is a beautiful brick wood fired oven outside, which we are learning to use. What a learning curve! It´s so hard to read its temperature. We have a living roof on the building, solar panels, and straw and mud insulated walls and it´s cozy warm inside. Outhouse and to shower we heat water with a fire under a water tank.

My lack of spanish is a handicap, I really wish I was further along... the others have fairly workable spanish and Nate´s is significantly better than mine but Paula´s english is limited and we struggle to understand each other.

So far my impression of the farm is so-so...and I´m trying to give it a proper chance. It´s a beautiful place, and there´s lots of nice people, but we wish there was a little more structure and clarity about what needs doing. After Sarah Delong´s glowing stories of her 10 days on another farm nearby, one where they do not ask for any financial contribution (we´re paying 80 pesos a week, the equivalent of about $20 dollars, towards food) I´m feeling kind of lukewarm. A factor is the kids, who I feel need some disciplining and limits and maybe some chores, they drive me pretty crazy. They´re underfoot a lot and seem to use tormenting the volunteers as a primary source of entertainment. I´m sure my health is a factor in my general experience there, but if I don´t like it more after another week I´m temped to bail early.

I went to the doctor here in El Bolson yesterday to address the gross cold I´ve had for 10 days that won´t leave. My cough just doesn´t seem to be changing. My experience in emergency at this tiny hospital was excellent and I was astonished it was free, I didn´t need to file an insurance claim. Anyway, she was confident that it´s still just a bad viral cold, that it hasn´t progressed to bronchitis and that it´s nearing its end. I´m just to take medicine for my symptoms and be patient but that if I develop a fever to come back.

Hopefully when I´m healthier my patience will improve and I´ll like the experience on the farm more... it´s hard to explain what doesn´t feel right, Nate is more enthusiastic but also not totally happy. It has nothing to do with living conditions, I can deal with roughing it just fine, but the chaos and confusion are tedious. I think the kids driving me nuts.

We are concerned we can´t afford to go to the deep south of Patagonia. It´s well documented that the prices just increase the further south we go, and we´ve already pretty much blown our budget for Argentina already. This is not due to extravagance at all, quite the contrary -we buy nothing but necessities, stay in the cheapest hostels we can find and do most of our own cooking. Backpackers around us are in the same boat, overwhelmed by the costs of being here. I´m told it´s comparable to Europe. This seems to be recent, Argentina has had 30% inflation in the last year. Prices are much, much higher than our guidebooks, and although we are both disappointed at the prospect of skipping the south it might be the most realistic choice. It will always be there and we´ll just have to come back another time, with more money. There are lots of good times to be had in Peru, Bolivia and maybe Colombia where our daily costs will be less than half of what they are here. So a tentative plan is to head north to Bolivia as soon as we´re done at the farm.

OH I´m seconds from being out of time on this computer. I´ll write again when I can. No time to proofread, hope it´s not a mess!

El Bolson

My first impressions of El Bolson are very favourable.

Using Canadian cities as examples, it´s perhaps how I imagine Canmore, Alberta was 75 years ago, fused with Saltspring Island, BC. Nestled between two bands of mountains in a wide valley, there are peaks on all sides. Outside of the mellow town, winding country roads are peppered with adorable family farms, little hippy hobby farms, no big industrial production farms at all. Plenty of gates made from foraged treefall, cluttered gardens with random rocking chairs in the middle of them, dogs everywhere. The town has lots of artisanal breweries and incredible ice cream. Nate´s ice cream cone yesterday was cinnamon ice cream with a ribbon of crushed raspberries that had been macerated in malbec wine. I chose passionfruit and raspberry.

We were just wandering the weekly craft fair and it was the spitting image of the Ganges Saturday market. Lots of hippy jewelry, pottery, soaps, jam, knitted stuff, wooden crafts, food. We bought a jar of delicious pine mushroom compote from mushrooms foraged nearby. Instead of chopping the onions and mushrooms finely there´s tasty ribbons of caramelized onions and big chunks of mushrooms. I also ate the best empanadas I´ve had so far on this trip.

The last few days the air and sky have been dazzling crystal clear, but today the wind has shifted and there is a thick haze of particulate. We´ve just been told that this is a common occurence lately due to remaining airborne ash from the volcanic eruption at Mount Hudson in Chile on October 28th.

Yesterday Nate and I went on a hike up one of the mountains to see a waterfall, which turned out to be spectacular. Our hike was just shy of 20km and we had a great day together. Our trail came out on a boring gravel road and we were still a solid four or five kilometers from town so we hitchhiked and a lovely woman picked us up in her battered farmtruck. Plump and glowing with a deep leathery tan and a wide smile, I´d say she looked about sixty. She spoke no English and our Spanish is minimal but we chatted and she took us to the edge of town. The back of her truck was full of wooden trays of honeycomb evidently being taken somewhere for processing.

For the moment we are hanging out at our hostel, Refugio Patagonico, waiting to hear back from our farm with the directions to get there...they are expecting us today or tomorrow. If ever we don´t make it to the farm today we´ll camp another night. The climate is ideal for me - the days are hot and sunny, in the upper 20 degrees, and the nights cool, around 4-6 degrees. I felt a huge wave of relief to be out of big cities, it´s so nice here. We´re both really excited to meet the Barrio family. We´ll be living with three brothers, one of whom is married to a woman named Paula, their two children, four dogs and four cats. We´ll be living with up to four other WWOOF volunteers in an adobe house.

And contact has just been made! A taxi to the farm will cost us less than $10, so off we go.

Mendoza done, heading down south!

Why, hello!

So after a few days of exploring Buenos Aires we boarded a 16 hour night bus to the city of Mendoza. We´ve spent four nights in Mendoza and today we´re killing time to catch another night bus tonight. This 20 hour ride down south will take us into Patagonia, Rio Negro province. Jon is headed to Bariloche, and Nate and I are going a few hours further south to El Bolson. El Bolson is the city nearest to the farm where we´ll be living for the next month. We´re expected at the farm on the 15th or 16th so we´ll go explore the area for a couple days before we settle in at the farm.

To recap the last few days...

Mendoza province produces 70% of Argentina´s wine and is known for its olives and honey. Our main objectives here were exploring wineries, drinking wine and visiting Aconcagua Provincial Park to hike in the vicinity of Aconcagua, the tallest peak in the world outside the Himalayas at topping out at 6962m.

Our bus ride to Mendoza from BA was totally comfortable - bus travel is the main mode of intercity travel in South America so the quality is generally excellent. We only paid about an extra $15 to get executive class...we were on the top level of a two-tier bus in the front row, and the view was fantastic. Two meals were served, wine, a nice liqueur and a movie. The seats recline to nearly flat, and you get a pillow and a blanket and we slept well.

Our hostel is comfy and it was a really nice place to stay for the 4 nights we were in Mendoza. It has a wine theme, and in addition to a free glass of malbec every day there´s been free activities we´ve enjoyed, inlcuding a proper initiation to Yerba Mate. How it´s prepared, the social customs surrounding it, the different styles. Mate is all around us, and it´s to understand it now.

Despite the fact that it´s very hot here, and it feels like summer to us, it gets much, much hotter in January and February. It´s actually only early spring. Despite knowing this we were disappointed to learn that Aconcagua park isn´t open at all until mid-December. Completely closed. So we did not get to see this famous mountain. Guided expeditions are easily hired to climb it, it´s considered a very approachable non-technical climb that usually takes 15-18 days, to the tune of $2500 or so, but people don´t go near it for a while yet. We had hoped to go on a day hike in the park to get a glimpse. This was disappointing, but we just had to roll with it and there wasn´t too much pouting because we know there will be lots of really exciting mountain fun in the months to come.

We took a trip to the township of Maipu about 45 minutes out of town to explore wineries on bikes. There´s lots of bike rental companies and it´s the best way to visit wineries and all the wineries are set up for informal tastings throughout the day. We drank a lot of nice wine that day, but the most memorable wine for me of the day was a malbec rose from Tempus Alba. Don´t get me wrong, there are countless excellent malbecs, syrahs and cab sauvs around here, but that rose just blew me away.

The city of Mendoza is really mellow for a city of 2.5 million. As with Buenos Aires it´s very green and completely walkable and we´ve spent days just meandering, eating food, reading books, visiting markets and drinking wine. To keep costs under control as best we can we´ve been cooking most meals in our hostel, which has a very pleasant airy kitchen to cook in. While transportation is not cheap, groceries aren´t bad at all and you can get a perfectly respectable bottle of wine for under $5. We also haven´t had a whole lot of time to cook for enjoyment alone in the last little while and it´s been really nice to shop in the local market and cook in the hostel.

We did splurge on a traditional Argentinean asado (BBQ). Roberto the asado chef comes to this hostel twice a week and does a huge spread of beef and chorizo sausage on a massive charcoal asado grill and we loved it. Everything is served family style. He served really simple accompaniments - empanadas to start, and potatoes, salad, chimichurri sauce (his has tomato added) and plenty of wine. I haven´t been eating a lot of red meat in the last couple years, but Argentinean grass-fed beef is delicious and it´s hard to avoid in this highly carnivourous country.

When we were in Buenos Aires we went to a traditional family parilla restaurant when we were still with Sarah and Lis. These are quintessential to eating out in this country, and we had to experience a good one together. El Desnivel was recommended by our hostel and it was everything I hoped for - bright and jolly and loud, with lots of big tables and cheerful service. We really didn´t know what to order, it was kind of baffling, but when the (completely patient) server explained that a whole beef tenderloin can be ordered for a group with salad and potatoes we had to do it. If I weren´t writing from such a painfully slow connection I would upload some photos, including this magnificent giant steak. It came to 320 pesos, so close to $80. Served uncarved on a giant platter surrounded by simple potatoes, roasted peppers and onions, and a big mess of salad. (lettuce, beets and carrots). Without question the best steak-eating experience of my life.

We´ve had our fill of Mendoza and are excited to see the mountains. El Bolson is known as the hippie enclave of Argentina, surrounded by the mountains and known for beautiful fruit and vegetable farms, trout and good local beer. The farm is 24 km from town so we´ll camp in town, get a sense of the area and then head to the farm!

Day 3 in Buenos Aires!

We are here, and we love it! We thought we were arriving in spring but we´re pleasantly surprised that it´s HOT! Our 3 flights to get here were unremarkable and we were surprisingly rested and ready to get out there when we arrived in the morning a on Thursday.

Buenos Aires is a seriously cool city, and so big. The streets are wide and leafy, and the architecture very beautiful. It´s surprisingly pleasant and walkable for a bustling city of 10 million people. Easy to navigate, clean and shady. It feels how I imagine Havana would be if it had never been left to decay, crossed with NYC. It also feels very safe- as with any big city there are neighbourhoods to avoid and our hostel staff explained where to avoid right when we arrived. So far we´ve really just been exploring and getting our bearings. We took a big touristy double decker bus tour which was actually really helpful to get a sense of geography here. It´s a 48 hour hop on/hop off-style ticket so today we´re going to get back on and visit the famous cemetery, and search out the big central city market for some culinary loveliness, and the five of us will make a big feast for dinner in our hostel kitchen.

Our hostel is an 1850s mansion opened and run by a collective of artists. It´s big and spacious and organized, clean and comfortable and every single wall is covered in paintings and murals. There´s a big comfortable rooftop terrace. They put out a really nice breakfast spread every morning that´s included in our stay.
www.artfactoryba.com.ar

The timing fell into place that Nate and I arrived here at the same time as our Lake O´hara friends Jon Brandt (with whom I went to Asia with last year), Lis Trotter and Sarah Delong. We´re all headed in different directions, various treks and different WWOOF farms in a few days, but it´s been really fun to arrive and explore BA together. We´re hoping to reconnect and cross paths again periodically.

Buenos Aires is a little expensive for our backpacker budgets, and as we all have long trips ahead of us we´re cooking at least one meal a day in the cute hostel kitchen. To put it in perspective you can still get a beautiful bottle of wine for under $5, and groceries are cheap, but eating out adds up quickly. The standard snack of an empanada is about a dollar. This is an AMAZING city to shop in, so it´s a good thing my backpack is too full to buy anything!!

We are NOT on the Buenos Aires schedule yet. Locals commonly eat dinner between 9 and 11pm, and going out to a concert, going dancing or seeing a tango show usually starts well after midnight. A really fantastic band played at our hostel last night and we´re going to their show at a jazz bar tonight, and as they are scheduled to play around 1am we´ll have a few cafe con leches before we go!

We plan to leave BA on Monday and our next destination is Mendoza, the main winery province where 70% of Argentinas wine is produced. Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the world outside the Himalayas is also there. After a few days of winery tours and hiking we continue to the farm we will be living and working at for a month. The farm is 24km out of El Bolson, well into the region of Patagonia!

Home to Vancouver

It's been a week that we've been home now, and in some ways it feels like far longer, and in other ways I am still there, living out of my backpack and taking it day by day. It took about a week for my soul to catch up with my body, the jet lag was lame. Coming back 16 hours meant I was groggy by day, perky at night. Usually I'd wake up, hopelessly awake, at about 3 or 4am, and then just not really sleep again, and crash mid-afternoon.

Well, in some ways there are some similarities to the last few months. In a mere week I've moved around a lot, I've stayed at my mom's and my girlfriend Maya's, where I'll be living for the next few months, and now I'm at Brian and Rumi's on Saltspring Island for a few days. I have a few clothes and supplies but most of my winter wardrobe is still in storage so I'm getting by with what fits in a big backpack.

I was feeling a little frazzled and disoriented in Vancouver. Thought it might be a little easier to adjust to being home to BC winter by walking through muddy streams in rainy cedar forests, rather than grey puddles on wet sidewalks. ...and it was the right call, this feels good.

Before heading out here for a few days of photo editing and reflection I secured a new job at a cozy, tiny Franco-German restaurant called La Brasserie. I requested lunches, and they were pleased - the shifts that classically most cooks don't want because they need to get up earlier than their nocturnal cohorts, and they are less exciting to some degree than dinners. A girl who is good and ready to move to dinners will get to switch to evenings after I settle in. My motivation is that I want my evenings free so I can see the people in my life that don't work restaurant night shifts for these three months. I head back to the Lake O'hara Lodge for another season in the mountains starting June 1st. Wednesday I will be in Victoria for the day for a lunch with Daryle Lechinsky (one on one! what a treat!) and hopefully connect with some O'hara friends that live there. Back to Vancouver on Thursday, and a 35th birthday to celebrate on Friday.

Looking back at the trip I have to say there isn't much I'd do differently. In a way I wish I'd spent more time in Laos and less in Vietnam, with the time I had to work with, but there's no way I could have known that. There are such golden memories from everywhere I went.

I'm going to write a few separate entries on the food, and another last entry about our final few days on Railay and our last couple days in Bangkok.

Sunny days, sweaty nights

We are seriously diggin' being on the beach!

We successfully met up with our friends Sean Gorman and Jordan Kalinchuk from Alberta, friends from Lake O'hara. After meeting up in Bangkok we headed straight south to the islands.

It's beautiful, and hot, and we've just been soaking it up. The only occasionally frustrating thing is that it's absolute high season, so accommodation is hard to come by and rather expensive compared to what we're accustomed to... We've had a few stressful moments trying to find places we can afford to stay, because the little humble places we can afford tend not to advertise or take any advance bookings.

Jon and I have 9 days until we need to make our way back up to Bangkok to fly home, so we're doing a little bit of island hopping. We're on Ko Lanta right now, and next maybe Ko Phi Phi, and then back to Railay for some climbing after Sean and Jordie's friend Cody comes down to meet up with us. He's going to bring a bunch of Sean's climbing gear from home so that we can save some money on rentals.

Phranang beach on Railay was probably the most amazing beach I've ever seen. It's flanked by towering limestone cliffs covered in climbers, the water is warm and crystal clear, the sand silky and white, and there's all these fun cliffs to scramble about on and jump into the water. We could have just stayed, but there's a lot of cool places to see so we're island hopping and we'll just go back.

Today on Ko Lanta we got scooters (of the slightly temperamental semi-functional variety) and scooted around the island exploring various beaches, and stopping periodically for snacks. There were some utterly magical deserted beaches, I had had my doubts that such a thing still existed in Thailand until we saw them today. Ko Lanta is the largest population of muslim Thais in Thailand, but we're finding them moderate and tolerant of the tourists. Largely accustomed to and seemingly non judgemental of bikini clad and beer drinking backpackers.

Southern Thailand is such a saturated tourist destination that we don't feel like we get as much as a sense of "real" Thailand here - there are almost as many foreigners as there are Thais. We all knew what we were getting into, and the beaches and jungle are certainly worth the time down here. It's just that our time in rural Laos, northern Thailand and urban Hanoi felt a lot more authentic than this environment.

I admit that on some levels I'm having trouble being in the moment these days. My impending return home has me preoccupied with things like jobs, places to live, finances. I am dreading saying goodbye to Carina. In some ways I look forward to getting home, but the cold dreary Vancouver winter will be hard to face. Conflicted emotions.

Eryn is scoping out jobs for me, and Maya is going to take me in as a roommate for a few months before I return for O'hara 2011, so that's falling into place. I'm trying my best to remain in the present, where I am right NOW, and enjoy the last two weeks of this adventure.

So here's a few snap shots. That's me jumping off a little cliff. I swear it looked waaay higher when I was standing on it. The water was really deep, it was so much fun.

That's a snap of Sean and Jon on the train so you can see what the inside of a second class sleeper train car looks like before they convert the seats into sleeper bunks. The train cars are old and gritty and have a lot of charm, cool staff and bedbugs, unfortunately.

Carina buying some noodles from one of the mobile beach restaurants that move from beach to beach selling food.

Sean playing his guitar while we waited for the long tail to take us from Ao Nang to Railay.

...and I couldn't resist the gratuitous shot of everyone walking out of the water. That's Carina, Emily, Sean, Jon and Jordan.

Walking on sunshine

Hi!

So we got our new Thai visas without incident in Vientiane, and we've arrived in Bangkok after a comfortable sleeper train down from Vientiane. Thai sleeper cars are very comfortable, and the 12 hour ride passed quickly and we all got a good night sleep. The sleeper cars fill up fast and we were lucky to get the booking - they have linen and a pillow, and the bunks are long enough that even Jon, at 6'2", can stretch out properly and sleep well. The 12 hour trip cost just over $20. Crossing the Laos-Thai border was also a breeze, there is the adorably named Thailand-Laos Friendship Bridge across the Mekong river (one side of the river is Laos, the opposite sideThailand) and it's such a popular tourist border crossing that they just shuffle you through in a moment's time.

We're here in Bangkok just for a day and a half, we're meeting up with our friend Sean Gorman from Lake O'hara and his buddy Jordie who are flying in from Kathmandu today. We all get on another sleeper train to Krabi, southern Thailand tomorrow.

It was chilly up north and it feels divine to be in sweaty warm Thailand again. We weren't really equipped for the cool nights, I was often wishing I had a down vest with me!

I'm walking on sunshine because Carina announced early this morning that she has decided to head south with us, and we can put off our goodbyes for a few more weeks. She has options - she's in Thailand for 4-6 weeks and then on to Malaysia, so she's doing the south with us, working her way north and then flying to Malaysia. There's certain safety in this choice - the extreme south of Thailand is somewhat rough, there can be violence and the Thai-Malay border there isn't so peaceful. It's intermittent, but it's probably wise to avoid crossing there. She's been secretly working out the pros and cons of her various route options through Thailand, and wants our company for more time too, and made her choice this morning. So at 6am this morning I was doing a happy victory dance through the Bangkok train station because I was so excited.

Had a blazing hot chicken green curry for breakfast. I loved the food in Laos, but I like it even better in Thailand.

Hope you're all well!

Laos...and some comments about Vietnam

Holy smokes, do I ever wish I knew what I was in for when planning this trip. Three weeks for Laos wasn't nearly enough, and Carina and Jon and I are already wincing about leaving.

Laos is landlocked, it's a high risk zone for malaria, we thought we'd just breeze through...I mean how good can it be? There's no beaches! How wrong we were.

This is without question my favorite country I've visited yet, possibly ever. The national psyche is unlike anything I've ever encountered - a winning combination of dignity, playfulness, humour, warmth, generosity, cheer. People are so friendly, rivaled only by India amongst the countries I have been to. For a country that remains in the top twenty poorest countries in the world, people really know how to live here. It's so social, kids are beautiful and happy, people so tender with each other, and so welcoming of all us "falang", foreigners.

It's also extremely relaxed - people joke for a reason that Lao PDR actually stands for Please Don't Rush. Even Vientiane, the cosmopolitan national capital feels like a quiet small town.

The nature of Laos is dazzling, our long tedious bus rides are soothed by staggeringly beautiful views.

Aside from our travel path I haven't commented much on Vietnam, so it's important to remember that my opinion of Laos was formed right leaving there.

There was a lot about our time in Vietnam that was challenging and frustrating, and I'm afraid I don't really recommend traveling there. While of course I can't speak in absolutes, because we did meet some lovely people, they were outnumbered by aloof and sometimes outright hostile folks who are definitely resentful towards foreigners, despite my best efforts to win them over. While it's a beautiful country, its tourism industry is being mismanaged, it's forests abused and depleted and as ecotourism is as yet barely developed there I fear that the beauty that is there will not last. I saw some beautiful things in Vietnam, but we were often distracted by money hungry swindlers, the rip off factor was high, and we had to look at a lot of garbage.

By contrast Thailand and Laos are much more aware about litter. Vietnamese don't realize what they're doing....the garbage situation is bad, although there seems to be good garbage collection infrastructure. People litter freely everywhere. Laos and Thailand were a lot tidier. It's hard to be on a hike in a beautiful place and not be bummed that you've lost count of the plastic water bottles tossed off the trail.

The high points of Vietnam were often because of the company, we met some great new friends. Locations that pleased me most were Ha Long Bay, and Hoi An.

Four Thousand Islands is an area of the Mekong river where there are....many little islands. The one we went to, Dondet, was only electrified a few years ago and it was a sleepy, idyllic farming and fishing island until it started its baby steps into tourism. I hope hope hope it doesn't get spoiled. Dotted with bungalows and relaxed riverside restaurants, there aren't that many tourists yet, mostly because it's isolated and hard to get to. Our trip from Vientiane was a combination of bus, minibus and ferry, and it took 26 hours. There are no ATMs, no hotels, and most of island is car free - one end has a few trucks and scooters and tuk tuks, but mostly it's bicycles.

We explored on bikes, dipped in the river, read a lot, met some nice people, played a lot of cards, and just soaked it up. We even got to see a pod of the critically endangered and extremely rare Irrawaddy freshwater dolphins. I've been fixated with these dolphins for a little while and it was so cool to be taken into a wide part of the river where generations of this pod has lived for over a hundred years. They're always there, and they're smart - apparently only one in ten years has been accidentally caught in a fisherman's net, and it was a juvenile. They were all around us, the closest within about 10 metres, surfacing, breathing, spitting water, circling around.

A week flew by there, and we were NOT ready to leave when it was time to go. but with only a twenty one day visa for Laos we had a lot more ground to cover.

We made our way up north on another exhausting series of buses to meet up with Jon and our friend Drew in Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is known as a backpacker party town - it's evolved to cater to this, and we didn't stay long, it's not really our scene. We did some wild caving in a gigantic limestone cave, and swam in an exquisite cold clear lagoon outside the cave, and partook in the rather legendary river innertubing extravaganza that Vang Vieng is known for. It was fun, two days was more than enough there, and we continued up to this lovely city of Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang is fantastic - great markets, the most lovely waterfall I've seen this trip, some very special temples, and of course lots more of the lovable Lao people.

Today we walked to the top of Phousi hill to the temple and saw the full 360 degree view of Luang Prabang, it was great. There is a really cute custom here...there are ladies selling tiny brown finches in tiny bamboo cages for about a dollar, proceeds for temple maintenance. You take it to the top, tell it your worries and send them away when you release the bird. I couldn't resist.

Something very surreal and kind of painful happened outside the temple and has left me reflecting on it all day. As I was sending my finch to freedom I noticed a very frail, ill black cat slowly and methodically cleaning it's paws. He was bony. He had no fur around his neck, and clearly had some serious metabolic issues going on. This was a dying, possibly very old black cat. He was hard to look at. He wasn't feral at all, he was friendly.

He looked at me with interest, and strolled over awkwardly just as Carina and Jon walked up to where I was sitting. He circled Jon's big water bottle with interest, it was apparent he knew it was water, and he really really wanted some. We had nothing to put it in, so for about 15 minutes we sat there and refilled the cap to the water bottle and he drank A LOT. When he had his fill, we think about 200ml, he very slowly and kind of nonchalantly sidled up to where I was sitting next to me and decided he really needed so sit on my lap. We were all stunned, this was clearly a cat needing to be soothed. Despite my obvious intuition that you shouldn't touch sick kitties I let him. All three of us were very moved by this cat, and he slowly but confidently settled into my lap and curled up. I couldn't control tears that were streaming down my face. Eventually we had to leave. We bought some crackers and crumbled them up and he ate them, enthusiastically. We don't think he will live much longer, but it left us all feeling really odd for a few hours. It was very intense.

Luang Prabang is gorgeous, and mellow, and I think I could even live here. ...but we're here for a few more days and then we start the long process of making our way down to Bangkok to wrap our trip with a couple weeks in southern Thailand on the islands. Our return date is suddenly coming up, we come home on February 6th.

Carina has become a dear friend, in a lot of ways she reminds me of Jinny, and makes me miss her painfully. We just clicked right away, one of those friendships that hits you like a lightning bolt. We're supposed to know each other, and it will be hard to say goodbye soon after a month of traveling together. She lives in Oslo, and has three more months of traveling before she returns to Norway.

This time has flown by, and while in many ways I'm reluctant to come home, I'm also excited. It gives one great perspective on your life to be away in such a different place from where you live. I miss working, I can't wait to get cooking again. I miss Nate. I am so excited for another season of Lake O'hara. I miss my family and friends. It will be good to come home.

I can't figure out how to make that extra waterfall (that's the one from today) go away so I will leave it for the moment.