Back by popular demand

OK, so I was going to leave off with Guatemala but it seems there's interest in the rest of the journey that followed, so I guess I'll go ahead and fill you all in.

After Guatemala (and my ankle the size of a freaking cantaloupe), I took it easy for a day or so. That wasn't hard to do as I had a decent book (Time Traveler's Wife, OMG I *loved* it!) and since The Kid was not at all interested in my company because after all who's interested in mom when there are *friends* in the world.

Our first day back on the ship was a class day and the next as well. Ricardo was beyond happy to be done with classes despite the mountains of grading that awaited him. (As an aside, one should not sit on a vinyl desk chair in one's underwear in late August in Charlottesville, since one will be inclined to slide off said chair). The students were eager for the end as well and we were all antsy about starting to pack and get ready for re-entry.

Reading day was quiet on the MV Explorer. It was a little disconcerting, really. Everywhere you went people were writing, studying, reading. It was actually like a college! Which begs the question of why it wasn't like that more often on board, but whatever.

The 19th was finals and all work was due. Ricardo spent the day grading furiously and I spent the day packing furiously. We'd shipped plenty of boxes and despite losing clothing to laundry mishaps, wildlife refuges, and generalized traveling, as well as using up medicines, cosmetics, etc we had purchased an alarming amount of items. In the auction we'd bought a duffel bag but I was still concerned about getting everything to fit. In the end we still ended up taking a bunch of stuff to UPS and sending it in an additional box. End total: 8 boxes, 3 duffel bags, 3 large backpacks, 3 small backpacks, one Ecuadorian bag, a DVD player, and a purse. Whew!

Having finished the packing, and having finally seen the sun, The Kid and I went up to the pool. For the first time that voyage it was full, literally full of students. There was no room around the edge of the pool and you had to step over lithe thighs to even find the stairs. Not that the pool is large to begin with, but it was so full of students, that finding space to stand and not have my ankle messed with was a challenge. The students were cutting loose by flipping each other and doing belly flops (it is a miracle that no one died, frankly). When told they could no longer do this, they made a whirlpool. The kids loved it! Jaime took The Kid and Paul (two of the most beloved students of the faculty's kids) took The Kid's Friend and they began to spin the pool water. They played sharks and minnows, did relay races, and made sure the kids were included in what they were doing.

The night of the 19th was the Ambassador's Ball. This was a huge fancy dinner, served in the main dining room of the ship. Everyone dressed up and it really was a ball. Dinner was, for once, delicious. And after we took pictures of one another, we all went to the Union to dance. Later that night, after The Kid had gone to bed, Ricardo and I went to the Faculty/Staff Lounge for some drinks and to talk. We've made tentative plans to head to Bali next summer, finances permitting, with some of the other faculty.

The 20, the last day on the ship was very subdued. The pool had been drained, and there were no classes. People had packed and the accounts had been closed. It was not unlike waiting for a bus all day. We just waited. The seas were very calm and the captain took that opportunity to kick the Explorer up to full throttle. For a 1/2 hour that day we cooked along at 33 knots. Most people came out to see the rooster tail created by the speed, and enjoyed the sun. That afternoon, there was a commencement and Ricardo gave a hilarious speech (check out his blog for it) which helped us laugh despite our sadness that the time was coming to a close.


Despite being up until about 1 am, we still managed to wake the next morning for the sunrise, breakfast and to pull into San Diego. We shared the deck with many crying, laughing, hugging students, and we watched as the pilot came on, steered us into the bay and then into our berth in the Port of San Diego.

We cleared customs easily although the customs agent mentioned she wanted to try the chocolate we'd bought as gifts (it was sealed in boxes to be shipped). Then we waited for the permission to leave the ship. Once off we could not come back on. And here again we were eager and also reluctant. We were waiting with anticipation, and dreading the departure. We continued to say good bye and to hug and to talk and to plan our reunions.

The thing about Semester at Sea is that it creates this intense, focused, academical village where as faculty you live, travel and work with students. But even as family, the life on the ship is one of extension. We ate with students daily. We traveled with them. We cared for them when they were sick. They babysat for us, played with our kids, found us in remote places, asked our advice and told us their stories. They cheered our children in the Sea Olympics, at the Talent Show, and in their play. They played soccer with them non-stop, taught them things, read to them and treated them as people. We complained about the food together, plotted ways of getting extra desert, and took each other's pictures. We talked endlessly about the voyage, the program, and Latin America today. We danced together, drank together, shared and lived.

It's almost impossible now to be home and not to see everyone. I know that many are close by and we're actually having a huge number to our house the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend. But it's not the same. Getting up this morning and making my own breakfast I was struck by the quiet, the lack of laughing, the calm and the peace (as well as how freaking delicious my own goddamn coffee is, AMEN!). I am both happy to be home in my own, fabulous, comfortable bed, with my electric toothbrush, my excellent water, and my delicious smelling laundry which does not eat my clothes and send them back to me torn, yellowed, and otherwise ratty, but also lonely without the ship.

And despite how many people are near by, there are many who are not. Many are in California, or Chicago, or Pittsburgh, or Colorado. Some are in New Mexico, Arizona, and Ecuador. Others are in Germany, Paris, and soon China. And I feel that loss as much as I feel the relief that I am home.

When we first got on the ship, Rebecca told us that by the time we'd left, we'd be plotting about how to get back on it for the next go around.

Wheels are in motion.

Guatebueno

It’s completely impossible to wrap my brain around the idea that this Guatemala was our last port. In some ways it feels like we’ve been traveling forever and in other ways it seems like the summer jut began and we left home yesterday. In he last 10 weeks we’ve been in 8 countries. It’s mind-boggling.

In the end, I’m happy Guatemala was our last port. Of all the places we were going to go to it was the one I was most looking forward to. My memory of it was that it was like no place on earth, a living rainbow of people, places, land and ruins. While I was worried that it might not hold up to my memories, I was also eager to see it again.

In 1994, Ricardo and I had been in the Western Highlands of Guatemala while working on Let’s Go Mexico and Central America. At that time there was a fairly serious State Department warning against going to Guatemala. There had been some very unfortunate incidents against Americans involving mobs and suspicions about adoptions, etc. Sadly this has not changed. Several of the S@S trips left with armed guards accompanying them on their trips.

But while the safety hasn’t changed, neither has the beauty of the country. And even though we’d planned a very aggressive 5 days, it was worth every minute.

We started with a trip to Chichicastenango, which to this day remains the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. Despite the rather hellacious 8 hour drive (construction in Guatemala I hellish with hour to two hour delays common when they close the road to blast the rock), the company on the drive was great and we had a terrific time visiting with everyone while we drove.

Chichi (for short) is a small town in the Western Highlands that has the largest indigenous market in Central America. What’s more remarkable about it though is its tiny church, Santo Tomas.

The church of Santo Tomas was built over a cave sacred to the Maya Quiche of the region. As a result the stairs of the church are believed to house the spirits of the ancestors of the people of the region. They are sacred and cannot be walked upon except by the indigenous people of Chichi and the surrounding area.

The big market is on Sundays and so people come from all over the highlands to pay their respects to their ancestors’ spirits. The stairs become covered with flowers, berries, cloth, nuts, mushrooms and incense all to be purchased and given to the spirits. Daykeepers, the Mayan Quiche shamans whose job it is to know all the days of the very complex calendars of the Maya, the sacrifices, rituals and observances, chant on the stairs and in the church.

Inside the church are 12 low altars for the people. They run the length of the main aisle of the church and on them people light candles, sprinkle alcohol, and leave petals for their offerings. They do this while the Catholic mass is going on around them. The color of the candles and the petals indicate what they are hoping their ancestors will do to intercede on their behalf. White candles are for adults, yellow for children, red for love, pink for pregnancy. Black candles are to ward off evil or to cause it to others. And all of this takes place in the Catholic church and with the permission and blessing of the priests.

It was in Chichicastenango and because of this kind of tolerated syncretism, that the Daykeepers of the town revealed to the Catholic priest the Popul Vuh, the sacred mythological text of the Maya which had been hidden from the Spanish for 100s of years. Mayan religion, myth, culture and traditions continue to live on in Chichi and the area around it.

We spent some time shopping (which is to die for there) and some time in the market, but most of our time was spent in the church and at another sacred site called Pascal Abaj which is on a hill just above the town. We hiked up with some friends after touring the mask museum at the entrance.

The mask museum is a history of the masks of a particular family and of the celebrations and traditions the Spanish introduced to Guatemala. We have two of them in our house (for those who have been there) hanging in our entry hall. The masks are used during posadas to act out various stories from the mixed cultures of Spain and Central America.

At the top of Pascal Abaj were both a wedding and various other ceremonies in progress. Like the church, the Daykeepers perform the ceremonies for people. Daykeepers can be male or female and generally have apprenticed for more than twenty years. We stayed and watched for a while and then headed down so we could meet people for lunch and head on to Antigua Guatemala.

Another 4 hour bus ride has us at our hotel in Antigua. Antigua Guatemala is the old capital of Guatemala (really the old Guatemala City), which was destroyed by volcanoes and by earthquakes over the years. It’s now the old colonial heart of the country (the capital has moved to what is now Guatemala City).

We stayed in the most beautiful hotel of our entire trip, La Quinta de las Flores. It is a grand, huge courtyarded place full of fountains, flowers, plants and hammocks. The food was amazing, the room lovely, the people kind and helpful. Our first night we met up with some ship friends and had dinner together and then headed back to the hotel.

The next day we slept in late and then made a mad dash around the town. We shopped for gorgeous artesenia, some of the most beautiful of the entire summer. We walked through the main square, saw the old destroyed cathedral, visited the tomb of Pedro de Alvarado, the conquistador who defeated the Maya and wandered the catacombs. Then we headed to the Mercado where we managed to get The Kid a soccer jersey before grabbing a tuk tuk (a motorized cycle pulling rickshaw affair) to the museum of the music of Indigenous Guatemala.

We had a marvelous tour of the museum replete with demonstrations, explanations and videos of the various musical instruments of Guatemala. The national instrument is the marimba, which is like a xylophone but significantly cooler. The Kid bought a small one to round out his extensive collection of musical instruments from the summer.

By the time we’d finished, it was much later than we’d intended and we needed to catch our bus back to the ship at 3:45. It was now 3 pm and we’d not eaten since breakfast. We decided to go back to our hotel and eat so that we’d be there when the bus came. So we hurriedly headed back. In the process of the rushing, I managed to trip on the paving stones on my way to the bathroom and sprain my ankle.

We made the bus after eating the best potatoes I have ever had (salted and seasoned and then grilled and served with guacamole, fire roasted tomato salsa and delicious churrasco). I went to see the ship’s doctor who told me that I had sprained my ankle and I should stay off it. He then asked what I was doing the next day. Going to Tikal, I replied. He told me I wouldn’t hurt it further but I definitely wouldn’t be healing if I didn’t stay off it. Then he gave me a brace and told me to have fun. I love Doctor Milt!

The next morning we woke at the ungodly hour of 4 am to catch our chartered flight to Tikal. The view from the plane was astounding. One of the volcanoes here, Pacaya is very active right now and we could see it smoking as we flew northwards.

We reached Tikal mid morning and proceeded to hike all around and up the temples. You can no longer climb the limestone stairs of the temples the way you could when Ricardo and I were there in 1994, but there are wooden staircases to go up and the views continue to be spectacular. We found our way to the North Acropolis where Ricardo proposed to me in 1994 when we were last there. The real spot is gone now and the excavations under it have revealed a huge head of the god Chac, rain god of the Maya. I managed to do everything but climb Temple 4, which the guys did without me so that The Kid could see the “Star Wars view.” It was very magical to be back there and to share it with The Kid.

Later that evening we had a nice swim at the pool (and some pain killers for me. Maybe it wasn’t a nice swim but by the time I felt no more pain everything felt pretty nice). We went out to dinner with some friends to a place that served “typical” food. We ate agouti, which is a large rodent, as well as tapir, armadillo and wild turkey (which was the best of the lot). It was adventuresome, if not tasty.

The next day we took a launcha, a small boat, over to the zoo on the island. We got to see some birds, lots of monkeys, and most impressively a puma and a jaguar. I’d never seen a real jaguar before (just pictures) and they are incredibly impressive. No wonder the Maya considered them sacred.

We left the zoo for a swim in the lake which was very refreshing and which was a palliative against the crushing heat of the Petén. I sweat so much at that zoo I felt like I was a faucet. It was unbelievable. The water wasn’t cold, but it did the business.

We got back to the hotel at 12:15. And that was when the fun started. We tried to order lunch. Breakfast should have been a sign that we should have eaten elsewhere but even though it took us 40 minutes to order that morning, we had our food in another 25. Not so lunch. We ordered no problem. But it took then 30 minutes to bring our drinks. Then nothing. Nada. Zilch. I decided to go back to the room and shower, thinking that that would be the sign to bring lunch. Like brining a umbrella and then it doesn’t rain. But noooooo. I showered and dressed, and still no lunch. Finally after an hour and a half of waiting we got our food. Ice cold. We yelled at them. We got some bread. The people we were eating with got nothing. Finally they got fries but no sandwiches. Then only one sandwich. We gave up and ate our Pringles and butter cookies. It was a dining disaster to say the least.

We left the hotel, went to the airport and boarded our flight back to the port. On our flight back, we not only got to see the volcanoes, but there was a gorgeous rainbow, the second of our summer. Terribly fitting since Guatemala is a place I think of as being a living rainbow.

And now we are back on board the MV Explorer. We have about three more days of sailing before we reach San Diego. And then it’s back to Charlottesville. I can’t believe the summer we’ve had. It’s been remarkable, something I will never forget. I can’t wait to sign up to do it again. And I can’t believe I was lucky enough to do it even once.

Not ready for prime time Nicaragua

Thanks to all those who have commented. I feel so “followed!” Yeah!

This is a hard one for me folks. So bear with me as I make my way through this post. Here’s the thing about Nicaragua. I laughed, I cried, I laughed until I cried. I burned, I composted, I scratched. It was unbelievable, but here goes.

Ricardo had plans for Nicaragua for his literature class and this made me think this was the perfect time for me to travel with The Kid on our own. So looking through the handy dandy SAS Field Program Guide, The Kid and I chose what looked like a fabulous trip to an EcoLodge on a private wildlife refuge. The trip involved a visit to petroglyphs (something The Kid loves) a boat ride, wildlife, and a city tour. Sounded great!

It turns out that we didn’t really get the code words clearly enough. You see “low impact environmentalism” actually meant “compost toilet.” A compost toilet is a bucket with compost in it that you crap in and then add more compost on top of. “Enjoy a candlelit dinner” meant “no electricity.” Basically what we had was four walls, two plank beds with pallets on them, mosquito netting, and a pipe that delivered water to a spider-infested shower.

I will interrupt my story here to make a few side comments about Nicaragua. Nicaragua is a stunningly beautiful place. It is full of rich, dense jungle, lakes and volcanoes. The food is to die for, the people could not be nicer, and it is in fact true that there is nothing in Costa Rica that compares to Nicaragua. That is except the tourist infrastructure. That is in its infancy here. More on that to come.

We ate lunch in the palapa overhang of the so-called dining room. This consisted of “red bean soup” which tasted not unlike the stone soup of childhood as was pointed out by one of the students who were with us. Basically it was water, three red beans, and dirt. The star fruit juice was fabulous however and we sucked down several glasses of that eagerly and happily, while we took in the site of chickens pecking around a spider monkey chained to a tree called Fabio. Fabio’s main activity was standing up and playing with himself and then throwing things at the chickens.

After lunch we took a two hour hike through the property of Domitila. Domitila is a dry forest, so it’s tropical in so far as it has some palms and plenty of acacia trees and a whole lot of bugs. But it lacks the beautiful heliconians, the ginger, the bromeliads and the other epiphytes. What it does have is monkeys. In fact we saw over 20 monkeys, all howlers, and all quite dramatically howling. The Kid was thrilled. It almost made up for having to get a “peon” to come in to dispatch the big, hairy spider that was in our shower upon our return. We had dinner at the “lodge” (also not so fab) and were treated to a very dramatic and moving (for her) story of the proprietress’ foray into the Realm of Ecotourism.

After dinner there was literally nothing to do since there was no light to speak of (kerosene lanterns) and there were a bazillion mosquitoes who seemed to find the taste of deet delectable. So the kid and I retired to our “room” and hid under our mosquito nets where he read with the flashlight and I sweated myself into a pool of salt and waited for the benedryl to kick on so that I no longer wanted to claw my own ankles to shreds.

We were awakened the next morning at 4:59am by the sounds of howler monkeys. If you’ve never heard a howler monkey, it’s hard to imagine both the volume and the horror it can elicit in you. They are a cross between a roaring lion, a screaming banshee, and a homicidal maniac. And they live in the tree behind The Kid’s bed. This was fine since we had been told by Doña Maria (the proprietress and the doppelganger of my mother-in-law) we needed to be up by 5 am so we could have breakfast by 5:30 and load the ox carts by 6am for our Lake Nicaragua voyage.

Yes. You read that right. Ox carts. More on that to come.

The Kid and I threw on our bathing suits, put on sunscreen and packed our backpack to be ready to go. The guide had told us it was not necessary to wear jeans so we fished out shorts and were ready to depart. More on that to come.

Our chariots awaited us. These were three different ox carts loaded with folding chairs, coolers with lunch items, and various other picnicking supplies. The 18 of us, the Belgian entymologist, and the park ranger, climbed into the various carts and began our lurching ride to the shores of Lake Nicaragua.

Within 10 minutes, ours had a flat. Doña Maria came stalking past us with her energizer bunny walk screaming, “Ya, Vengo!” and we sat on the motionless cart. A few minutes later we hear the roar of an engine followed by incessant honking of a car horn. I turned to The Kid and said, “I bet you 1 million dollars that that is Doña Maria.” I won the bet.

She pulled up in a 500 year old Suzuki 4 wheel drive, jerked to a stop and threw up the hood of the car. She pulled an air compressor pump from the front seat threw it at the peon who had eliminated our spider the night before and told us the walk was 10 minutes, the cart had a flat and would catch up.

We jumped down, grabbed our stuff and started walking. 10 minutes became 15, became 30 became 50. Doña Maria came marching up and said the cart was right behind us. We never did see it until the afternoon. More on that later.

After an hour long hike, we were told we needed to get into one of the other ox carts, because the “pangas,” the local boats could not pull up to the shore. So we hopped up onto a different ox cart and began our journey across the marsh and into the lake. Words cannot describe the bizarreness of this. So I will refer you to the picture of the oxcart level with the side of our panga and surrounded by water.

Once on the boats (which leaked in a fairly intimidating way) we motored on out to a river so we could see birds. The birds we saw were chickens. Eventually we did see some egrets, but mostly what there was to see was cows, chickens and laundry hanging out. Eventually we turned around (several people were bothered by the intense, 7th circle of hell heat). We were then motored to Zapatera Island where we were to take a short, 10 minute hike to a volcanic crater which had become a lagoon and where we would see birds. We pulled up in front of a house where there were chickens and laundry hanging. We jumped off the boat and began the trek. Except there wasn’t really a path. And there was poison ivy everywhere. And we didn’t have jeans on because the guide said we didn’t need them. After 15 minutes, The Kid decided the trek was too hard and we went back to the boat. When we got there, he decided we were missing out and we should turn around. So we did. We rushed on trying to catch back up, assuming that since it was a nature walk, people would be stopping to see the nature. Wrong! They were basically double timing it to the lagoon.

Pretty soon though, we were overtaken by a guy in shorts and flip flops, smoking a cigarette and carrying a machete. He halfheartedly hacked at the path ahead of us and told us that the lagoon was very nearby. The path was steep. The day was hot. My head was pounding and we kept on. Finally we reached the downhill which was so steep that we slid down parts of it and The Kid fell several times. But we made it.

As soon as we were reunited with the group, the guide announced it was time to return. By then I really didn’t feel well. I drank about a liter of water and poured the rest over The Kid and myself. I was lightheaded, dizzy and beginning to feel nauseated. It was 90 degrees, humid beyond belief and only 10 am. I insisted they wait until I could catch my breath.

The “lagoon” was the mankiest, nastiest, rankest pond of green sludge I have ever seen. When the students threw rocks in it, geysers of verdant slime erupted from its surface. It smelled like feet and the air was so still it was hard to breathe. Eventually I gave up trying to feel better and we began to hike back. Oh yeah. And there were no birds.

We met the pangas on the beach and by then I knew I really didn’t feel well. I had stopped sweating and began to feel tingly. I thought it was probably some dehydration so I began to drink more water. But apparently the issue was not water but salt. Luckily for me, one of the life-long learners realized that I was not so good. She leant me her hat and hooked my up with some electrolytes and suggested I get straight into the water when we got to the beach.

The beach (described in the book as white sand) was made of black volcanic sand. The Kid and I walked up to the tables, put down our things and stripped to our bathing suit. We left our shoes and socks. MISTAKE! Halfway across the sand, I realized it was hot. And that’s when The Kid began to scream “HOT! HOT! HOT!!!!!!!!!!!” We were burning the soles of our feet on the volcanic sand. I began to run and so did he. We slid our way into the murky water and sank to our necks, rubbing sand on the poison ivy oils on our skin and cooling our feet. I was brought electrolytes and in a half our began to feel much, much better.

But then we had to get out. I figured it would be better because our feet were wet. Wrong again! We burned ourselves all the way back until we made it to the cool sand under a beautiful tree infested with gnats. It was 11:30am.

We ate lunch (our major protein was the gnats we inhaled and swallowed since the chicken kebabs were not cooked through and I wouldn’t let The Kid eat them). After we ate we wore our socks to get back into the water. As all the students and we lay in the water cooling our burned, bitten, and heat exhausted bodies, we were told that it was time to climb to the petroglyphs, a short 10 minute walk.

I’d heard that before.

We stayed in the water while the first group went. When we got the report that it actually was only a 10 minute hike, The Kid, the photographer (who is the nicest person and was a fantastic trip leader!) and I went with the park ranger and the entymologist to see them.

They were spectacular! It was a huge basalt table, which had been carved with many glyphs and basins. And it was not fenced in or anything so you could really see them up close. They dated from between 800-1200 BCE and the ranger said they were pre-classic Mayan (although the book had said tolteca). We stayed up there for about 30 minutes or so looking at them and talking with the guides who were really knowledgeable and also very, very patient with all The Kid’s questions. And since we had them to ourselves it was especially magical.

After we hiked back down, we were told we had another 2 hours left to our stay there. What the heck were we going to do? Basically we sat in the water until I was so burned I needed to get out. Then we sat under the tree and inhaled gnats and talked. At 3:30 we left the island in the pangas and returned to the ox carts.

And this is where the fun began!

The first two carts were loaded with people and supplies. We were the last cart and so we had the garbage, the coolers and the folding chairs. And the “burros” which were the legs of the tables and which Doña Maria was demanding the boys hand to her personally to put into the cart. We loaded ourselves into the cart. The Belgian entymologist, The Kid, a student who was allergic to everything on earth but who had not brought her meds with her, a photographer and his partner, Karla (more on her, she is the bomb, to come), a lifelong learner, and I crowded ourselves into the cart amidst garbage bags of dubious funk. As soon as we cleared the marsh, the entymologist bailed on us.

And then there were 6.

The Kid was sitting in the very front of the cart and Karla and I were behind him. We’d decided since we’d been cheated of our ox cart ride out there, we were going to stay on the whole way back. Pretty soon after Karla’s partner jumped off, deciding he’d prefer to walk.

And then there were 5.

Our oxen were the two kids in school who hate each other so much the teachers recommend that they be placed in entirely different wings of the school to prevent fights. And their heads were lashed together. These were not the beginner, easy oxen. These two punk assed oxen kept their butts so far apart from one another that the driver was constantly whacking them to make them move ahead.

And so the journey began. The boy with the machete, he couldn’t have been more than 12 was sent on ahead to get an older peon to come and help with these oxen. Our driver drove them by jabbing a sharpened stick into their butts and screaming at them. This made them go ahead but they tended to veer towards the left. This mean that we kept hitting trees with the left hand side of the cart. So we’d run forward about 10 paces and then whunk! We’d hit a tree. Stop, back up, forward, run, whunk! When we weren’t hitting trees though, the Kid and Karla were leaning into our laps because there isn’t much on the ride except acacia trees. These are lovely trees with ginormous thorns and which are infested by fire ants.

By this time, Karla and The Kid and I were laughing hysterically because this is the most ridiculous thing we have ever done and it is clearly absolutely absurd. After the 50th tree hit (we were down to a mere 3 bolts left in the wheel and a strange clanging noise when it turned) we lost the lifelong learner.

And then there were 4.

By this point it was dark and it had begun to rain. We were rank with sweat and muck from the lake. Our butts were bruised. Our necks were rattled. Our throats hurt from laughing and everyone on every other cart was certain we’d lost our minds. And Karla let out a scream the likes of which I’d never heard. So I looked at her pointing and there on the back of our driver is a beetle the size of an ipod mini. So I began to scream. And we were ducking the thorns, and pointing at the bug, and screaming and laughing and crying. The driver looked at his shoulder and reached over. Squash! It’s dead. So that set us howling again.

By now we'd hit several trees and should be quite used to it. But then we hit the mother of all trees, and The Kid let's fly with the f-bomb equivalent in Spanish. I gasped and chastised him. Karla asked what it means and I whisper the translation. She howled with laughter and gasped for breath which just set the two of us off even further.

Apparently in the other carts they were quite upset with us because they were miserable and whining and didn’t understand how we could laugh at this. I ask you. How the hell could we not!

We headed down a steep hill, Karla and I grabbing The Kid by the shorts and t-shirt to keep him from falling off and then we headed up where we ended up prone from the force. The oxen began to poo which sent The Kid into further gales.

When we finally made it to the lodge, it was 4:30, nearly dark, and raining. We were burnt, bruised, tired, and bitten. The Kid and I went to our “room” and showered (a pipe with a valve you turned on, no hot water, but none needed).

At 5 pm we were told we would eat at 7. What the heck would we do until then? We were some of the only ones with a flash light and there were no lanterns yet. It was pitch black. So we asked Doña Maria for a lantern and we cracked out our Uno cards. We played several games (I lost all of them, some to The Kid and some to the student who played with us). We played by passing the flashlight so that you could see the difference between the blue and green cards.

Finally we ate and it was the best food I’d ever eaten (Really? Asked Karen, one of the TAs on the ship. No but we were so tired and hungry we’d have eaten more gnats). At 8pm, The Kid and I got into our mosquito nets. I drugged myself into oblivion with benedryl and knew no more until the howler monkeys started up at 4:30 in the morning. The Kid announced he was going out with Karla to record the sounds of the monkeys and I said fine. At 6am I awoke to find him still asleep in his bed with no clothes on and the mosquito netting twisted around his feet. I took a shower, which made me feel immediately filthy again and began to pack. At 6:30 I shook him awake and we went for breakfast.

By 8 am we had hiked to the bus (it couldn’t get to the lodge) and left in air conditioned comfort for the lovely city of Granada. We went to a cigar factory, a museum with statuary from the petroglyph site, and wandered the streets of the city a bit. There, having been bullied and rushed through everything but we were able to escape briefly to walk about the square and take a very nice although short horse cart ride through town with the photographer, Kris who led our trip. We ate a fabulous lunch at La Gran Francia, which was named for a French nobleman who’d murdered his wife and escaped to Nicaragua by getting Louis-Phillipe to help him fake his death. No matter, the Churrasco was outstanding. Just when we’d given up hope, we ran into Ricardo who took the bus back to Corinto with us, a 4 hour drive. Just as we arrived at port, we saw a rainbow, like a beacon guiding us to the air conditioning, electricity, and running water of the boat.

And for this trip The Kid and I paid near to $700 dolars. But it was an experience. That is for sure!

It’s a Nature Wonderland and Theme Park!

Costa Rica, home of ecotourism, rain forest, volcanoes, cloud forest and unremarkable food. And our home away from ship for the last few days.

Having suffered from some fairly serious trip planning fatigue, Ricardo and I decided to just sign up for a S@S trip for this particular leg. It’s Costa Rica, so what you should do is take advantage of the environment and all it has to offer. And this we did. And then some.

On our first day we left the ship with seven students, two lifelong learners and the world’s greatest guide, Alex. Our first stop was the Poas Volcano which was at 11,000 feet and quite active. We hiked (strolled is perhaps the better word, but the brochure most definitely said hiked) to an area where we could see down into the crater. We had a surprisingly clear day for it and that allowed us to see the small sulphuric eruption that is featured in the photo.

From there we headed to the Waterfall Gardens which were really just a hellacious number of stairs which took you to see some fairly spectacular cascades, cool and refreshing. Before the Eco-Stairmaster, we headed to the butterfly gardens, the aviary, the hummingbird garden and the orchidarium (interesting to me only). The aviary was something. We saw several toucans up close and there were a somewhat disturbing number of macaws who were not in the least shy. One of them landed on one of our student’s heads. She was quite good natured about it but I think I would have let out a fairly girly scream. I did manage to contain myself when I got crapped on by a bird though. Go me.

After a couple more hours in the bus we arrived at La Selva Biological Reserve. This is a rainforest research center, the largest and oldest in Latin America. It is home to more than 100 species of snakes, 400 species of ants (some the size of hotwheels, I kid you not!) and 200 species of birds. It’s also the home of secondary and primary forest as well as research on the forest.

It was a lot like summer camp. There was a mess hall with extremely boring food (although today’s Yucca Pie was quite delish!) and cabins in which we slept. We had bunk beds (note to self, do not share a bed with The Kid, AKA, Squirmy McSquirm) and a rotating fan, which almost cooled us down. We fell asleep to the sounds of howler monkeys, cicadas, frogs, and parrots. It was incredibly rustic, and also very, very cool (while being unbearably hot and humid).

On our first full day at the station, we joined the “scientist for a day” group. This meant they suited us up in rubber boots (snakes and all) which chafed the crap out of my extra wide, fat calves, and brought us out into the primary growth forest. There we had to use a compass to lay a transept. This is a straight line that reaches into the forest for 50 meters. Our job was to measure all the trees larger than 10cm in width. We had to describe them, take pictures of them, and count the number of them two meters wide along the transept. We also had to take samples, label them, and then present the information to the group. Using the online database we then identified the trees and compared our transept to the other group’s so we could draw connections about the forest. We had a great time, although not everyone involved was near as dorky as we.

That night we slept like the dead.

The next day was the adventure wonderland part. We headed to a place called Pozo Azul where we had our choice of horseback riding, zip lining, or white water rafting. The Kid chose rafting, and it was a blast! Just our pace, with class 2 & 3, a snack of organic pineapple, and swimming in the river. Unfortunately, when one is, how shall we say, ample in girth, as I am, one gets bruised to hell when the river guide pulls one into the raft. The rich purple bruising on my arms, compliments the aubergine bruise on my thigh from trying to get into a top bunk to have more fan on me. This in turn is decorated with a variety of insect bites, some oozy, some not, as well as the rose colored raw flesh of my boot burns. Delightful!

On our last day (today) we had a two hour natural history walk in the forest with another of the La Selva guides. She talked to us about the secondary forest they had there. Originally it was a cocoa plantation. There are still both white and red cocoa pods growing there. We also saw more of the poison dart frogs, peccaries, coatis, birds and more.

And that has been our time here. We’ve got a one day sail until Nicaragua. And there we will part company. Ricardo has a program for his students with an author (a former vice-president of Nicaragua under the Sandanistas), so The Kid and I will be headed to a dry forest in Nicaragua called the Domitila Wildlife Refuge. Wish us luck!

Peru – Where tourism, history, and hippies collide

First up, let me just say that I hear I have a following out there. Where do I hear this from? Ricardo’s blog. Um, hello out there?! Where is the love?! I only ever get posts from Leslie (thanks Leslie!) and Elena and my mom. Katy? Kassia? Anyone? I have all kinds of pictures of Ricardo…

Back to the narrative. We’ve just come back to the ship after four days in the Cusco/Machu Picchu region of Peru. It was phenomenal. I laughed, I cried, I got scalded, I was rank, and I was weirded out.

Let’s begin with the journey. Trip planning was a difficult process for this leg. First off, it’s the national holiday. Which day you ask? Every day my friends. This is not a single Bastile Day, Guy Fox Day, Independence Day kind of thing. We arrived on July 24, the holiday was technically July 28, but who’d know since every single day there was a parade, celebration, or festivity. But because of this national week of celebration, hotels, buses, and trains were booked way in advance. What did this mean for us? It meant that this trip was far from luxe despite it still being fabulous. What else, you may ask? The surrealist level was far, far higher than normal.

We spent our first day in Lima where we allowed Night Guy to completely screw Day Guy. We went on a trip of Colonial Lima, which was lovely and then out to a wonderful dinner with 15 people at a fabulous restaurant in Lima called Huaca Pucllana. We brought a couple students along with us who were lovely and fun and sweet but we didn’t get back to the ship until about 11pm. This would have been fine but we had to wake up at 3:30 am the next morning. Suffice it to say, we were really tired and really not sweet. Also we learned very much the hard way that coca leaf candy and tired 8 year olds do not mix. But more about that to come.

We flew from Lima to Cusco where we met our driver who took us to a town called Ollantaytambo. From there we planned to catch the train to Aguascalientes, the town at the base of the mountains of Machu Picchu. But before we left from there we had some time to kill. We did a little shopping (The Kid began to collect instruments seriously there) and had some lunch. Then we decided to go check out the Inca ruins there in town. And that is where we learned that the Kid really did have vertigo. He’d been wigged out in Chile but we didn’t realize it was a big thing until we’d climbed up the stairs of the ruins in Olla and found that he could not with ease, climb back down. So after coaxing, begging and yelling we got him down, grabbed our stuff and headed to the train. He was tired, weepy, and angry. When we got to the station they were selling coca leaf candy. So we bought some, popped it in our mouths and offered The Kid a piece. MISTAKE! BIG MISTAKE. The candy proceeded to launch him into a series of near hysterical carryings on. Everything upset him, all the way into Aguascalientes. Crying, yelling, anger, remonstrations, and all at the same time, spewed forth from him. Thankfully, by the time we got to the town, he was just limply upset and we vowed to check in, get dinner and a shower and then get to bed.

Little did we know the many flaws in that plan.

We checked into our so-called four star hotel in Aguascalientes. It was clean and that was the best we can say for it. It was damp and dark and loud. But it was just for a couple nights, so no biggie right? We hadn’t showered that day and were looking forward to washing the travel grime from ourselves.

We went on out for dinner on the recommendation of a friend to a restaurant called Indo Feliz. They were, of course booked. So we ended up with some perfectly adequate pizza and The Kid had a cream of mushroom soup. It was overpriced for what it was and it wasn’t great, but it was dinner.

It wasn’t until we got back to the hotel when the fun really started. We piled into the bathroom to get the kid into the shower. It was an odd shower. You basically had to get into it to turn it on, so wetness ensued. It was then we realized that there was no cold water. No biggie right? Better to have hot than cold? Not really because the hot was so hot that it scalded the hell out of us. So I went down to explain we needed cold water. Thus began the saga of the Hotel El Santuario. They guy came up, toggled a switch and left. He came back, opened a tap and then left. He came, checked the tap, and then left. We decided to just put the Kid to bed and worry about his shower the next day. For the next hour and a half the guy came and went and cold water did not appear. Finally we decide to suck it up, go to sleep and worry about it the next morning.

The next morning, Machu Picchu day, we went down for breakfast and were told we could use another room to shower in. We asked to just move to that room and that was greeted with stares. After about 10 minutes we had them convinced, we grabbed our stuff and moved. A shower would be ours! But not until after the ruins.

Of course, it was pouring down rain and we had no ponchos. So on our way to get our tickets, we bought some ponchos for about $1 each which would serve us well for much of the day. We got the bus tickets, got the ruins tickets, and got in line. By then Semester @ Sea had appeared and we were no longer looking at a quiet day of ruins (were we ever? What fools are we?!). It wasn’t until we were ½ way to the ruins that Ricardo realized his glasses were no longer on his face. We scrambled and looked all around. I offered to go back. He said no, we decided to carry on and get the glasses on our way back. I can end this chapter of the story by saying that they have never been recovered.

The ruins were incredible. We got there and powered up to the Gate House and then made our way back down. The stairs were incredible and the site was a complete otherworldly experience. Ricardo has described it quite elegantly on his blog so please refer to him for the appropriate descriptions. And please enjoy the pictures throughout here. We did manage to make it to a rather sheltered, private area of the ruins which left us and the vizcachas (picture here, description in Chile) to sit and muse in peace.

Now to the hippies. Machu Picchu is the Mecca of the hippy trail. There were old hippies cum boomers in their Columbia gear and Gore-Tex. There were young hippies in dreadlocks and cotton drawstring pants. There were Brazilian hippies, German hippies, American hippies, French hippies and Latin hippies. They kissed walls. They lay their faces on the stones and cooed at the “power” of them. They stroked doorways, they sat on steps, they ignored the no food in the park rules, and they ate their fruit and drank their coca tea. They were more or less harmless compared to the huge number of Peruvians and Argentineans who were trying to prove the “Can you hear me now?” campaign of their Movistar and Claro phones by screaming at the tops of their lungs about their being on top of the ruins of Machu Picchu. Some places, phones should not go.

Now to the surreal. It seems that there are llamas who are all over this place. While the tourists struggle with the stairs, these camel cousins hop lightly from place to place. We did see one stupid American who separated a young llama from it’s parent and watched with a certain glee as the Mama Llama came up, spat at her, and then charged her. Get your pictures while you can folks. Don’t try to pose the llamas.

That night we did indeed get a shower and a decent meal. Which was good because the next morning we were headed back to Cusco.

On the train on the way to Cusco we paused at one point. It seems there was someone who needed to board. We’d been offered drinks and The Kid was happily reading his book, when the mystical sound of pan pipes began to crackle over the loudspeaker. I looked up to see a person in traditional dress with a mask on and a stuffed llama in his arms. This sort of thing would have caused the CIA and he FBI to have a conniption fit in the US. But not here. You see here, on the train, this was but a prelude. Prelude to what? An alpaca fashion show my friends! The weird guy danced through the aisles, patting his llama while the train attendants modeled high-end alpaca sweaters to the strains of “Are You Going to San Francisco” sung in French. The Kid looked up and asked what was going on. I explained it was a fashion show to sell sweaters on the train. He shrugged, said “Latin America,” and went back to his book. I think that says it all.

We got to Cusco by around 11:00 am and tried to check into the next hotel. I’d booked it (and paid for it) through Orbitz. But they had no record of us. WTF? So we sat huffing and puffing and scarfing coca tea (it’s 12000 feet elevation in Cusco) while they figured out what to do with us. They finally gave us a room right above reception. It was spacious and clean. Little could we foresee what this one would hold.

With but a few hours in Cusco we hit the town with gusto. We went to the cathedral. OMFG is all I can say. Gold and silver dripped from altars and sanctuaries. Gilt frames surrounded pictures the size of my living room. Awe was the word for it. It left me spellbound and the pinnacle for us was being in the crypt (clean, plastered, no bones) with El Inca Garcilaso’s grave and watching Ricardo be moved to tears by it.

Then we headed for the Qoricancha, a Dominican monastery built on the ruins of an Inca temple. Amazingly cool as well.

But from there we headed to the Center for Indigenous Textiles. And this proved to be the highpoint of the Cusco leg. This is a center run by the indigenous weavers of the area. All textiles are woven on backstrap looms and are made with alpaca, wool, and natural dyes. The Kid was fascinated and spoke with several of the Indians about how they worked, how long it took and their designs. The museum there was amazing and the textiles divine. Many will see them since we splurged on several.

We ran into some friends there and decided, despite it being 7pm (Oh that Night Guy!!) that we’d hit the Pre-Columbian Art museum. This we did and the silver, gold and shell rooms stood out with their delicate and intricate work. At 8pm, The Kid finally tanked and we headed across the square to a restaurant called “Fallen Angel.” This was a tremendously fabulous place with delicious food. It can only be described as a Gay Funhouse. We loved it!

Back to the hotel where the flaw of this stay revealed itself. You see this hotel offers live music in the evenings for their clientele. Where? Right below our fraking room. No sleep for me until the end of the concert. The Kid? Fell asleep like he was dead. The Mom? With earplugs I didn’t sleep till about 11 pm.

Overall, despite the complaining I know is in this, Peru was incredible. The art, the ruins, the Pre-Columbian culture, the textiles, the food, it was absolutely, massively great.

Next stop: Costa Rica!