Unfortunately, we were not able to complete the update before the internet café closed. It is now January 31, and we are finally getting back to the update.
Although it rained for at least half of the hike, Chris and Rob had a blast hiking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. They were joined by a great tour group of other Americans and Brits, including Sarah (Montana), Madeleine (California), Nickie (Utah), and Catherine, Beth (trench-foot), Fiona, Crispen, Roland and Jonathan (all from the UK), and of course our fearless and charismatic leader, Ruben. Over the course of the four-day hike we saw many of the Inca ruins that were uncovered in the early 1900s, including messenger centers, an astrological center and a meditation center. On the fourth and final morning we all awoke at 4 am to trek two hours to the final ruins in time for sunrise. The Inca ruins at Machu Picchu were amazing - one of the single most impressive sights we've seen so far this trip. In addition to seeing some great ruins and hanging out with some great people over the course of the four days, Chris and Rob also left the hike with many new British words that they can't wait to use back in the states, including "bloody hell", "fancy", "bloke" and "gorgeous, splendid or brilliant" to describe food. Thanks, Brits!
While Chris and Rob were learning new “British” words for their vocabulary, Bill was off exploring the Amazon jungle. Bill flew into the town of Iquitos, Peru. Iquitos is right on the Amazon river and it has no roads connecting it to any other cities. The only way to get to iquitos is to fly or take a boat. Shortly after landing, Bill booked a jungle tour including 3 days and 2 nights out in a jungle lodge. The days were filled with things like, piranha fishing, pink dolphin watching, boat tours, village tours, and jungle hikes (more on the hike in a minute). The jungle lodge was on a tributary of the Amazon about 5 miles up the river from Iquitos. The lodge had running water (pumped straight out of the Amazon and tasted ok), but no electricity. The walls of the lodge were screen and the roof was thatch. At night it felt as if there was nothing between you and sounds of the jungle (or the creatures making the sounds). The activities were great fun, but one was particularly memorable. Though the pink dolphins that swim in the Amazon were amazing and hard to believe, the jungle hike proved to be more exciting. The hike began with an hour boat ride to an even more remote spot on another tributary. There were a total six people (2 honeymooning couples, Bill and the guide) that started hiking into the jungle to find the “Arboles Giganticas” or Giant Trees. In theory, the hike would consist of an hour of jungle walking, seeing the giant trees, and then hiking back to the boat. That is not exactly how it happened.
After an hour and 15 minutes of hiking on a trail, the trail vanished. Kind of a magical thing, the path was there and then it wasn’t. The group spent the next hour looking for the trail before the guide admitted that he was lost. This was when the group began to fear that sleeping in the jungle was a distinct possibility. This, however, was not an attractive possibility. The jungle was not very conducive to sleeping without the comforts a lodge. The temperature, the humidity, and the number of bugs per cubic foot had one thing in common…the number 95. Things quickly went from bad to worse. The guide was using the sun to navigate until some massive rain clouds moved in, blocked the sun, and promptly began to deliver their load. To make things more interesting, it was getting dark. By now, the hikers had been in the jungle for 5 hours with no apparent exit. In the end, everyone emerged safely from the jungle but not without a price…about 200 mosquito bites, 2 fire ant bites, 1 bottle of insect repellant, one guide stripping, one guide swimming across a dangerous river (anacondas, alligators, piranhas etc), and one guide losing his job. It was an experience that will never be forgotten by Bill, the honeymooners or the guide.
After the fun in the jungle and the fun on the Inca Trail, the crew met back up in Lima. It was great to be back together and there were many stories to be exchanged. The next morning Bill, Chris and Rob were flying to Caracas Venezuela. The flight was at 11 am. The standard practice is to confirm an international flight 72 hours before take off and to get to the airport 2 hours before take off. We got to the airport at about 9 am and the line to check in was very long and moving very slowly. During our time in line, we experienced several set backs. The first was one that we had been suffering since we landed in South America, we termed it “The South American Line”. The South American Line appears, at first glance, to resemble its cousin “The North American Line”, but there is one aspect that sets it apart. In the South American Line, it is fair to jump places in line if the people in front of you are A) not paying attention or B) are not as aggressive. Through this aspect and the lack of ticket agents, our plane took off before we ever got to the ticket counter to check in. This did not make us very happy, but our frustration was quickly put to rest. The airline attempted to buy us off…and it worked!!!! They gave us a hotel, transportation, food, a travel voucher and confirmation on the next day’s flight. The hotel turned out to be a 5-star (with live dolphins in the lobby), the transportation was a bus full of about 20 “South American Line” Victims, the food was 5-star hotel food, and the travel voucher ended up jumping from $100 to $200 per person when we offered the person behind the ticket counter a Coke for his efforts. We decided to use the voucher to go to Costa Rica and an island in the Caribbean (more on that in a minute).
So after spending an extra day in Lima, Peru, we were off to Costa Rica. Since we only had four days to spend in Costa Rica we decided to immediately rent a car and see as much as possible. Our first stop was the Monteverde National Park, about a three-hour car ride from the airport in San Jose. Because of the ruggedness of some of the roads, we were told we should rent a truck with four-wheel drive. Coming from the States, we were taught from a young age that "Rental Car" = "4X4". They explained that there would be a few rocks in the road to avoid......whatever. Since we are backpacking on a budget we decided to go for the cheapest car they could find - the Toyota Tercel. The first two hours on the trans-American highway were great, but then came the turnoff to Monteverde. The rocks WERE the road. Our poor little Tercel with its wopping 3.2 inches of ground clearance struggled along for hours on one of the rockiest roads that we've ever encountered. It took us 2.5 hours to cover the 41 kilometers to Monteverde. It didn't help that Bill and Rob, who had international drivers permits, hadn't driven a car in close to four months. We made it alive and spent the night in one of the smallest towns we've stayed in to date.
The next morning we awoke and decided to spend the morning doing a "skytrek". It is basically a tour of the canopy of the nearby rainforest by rope and zip-line. It turned out to be much like an amusement park ride. There were 11 zip-lines on the tour, which transferred us from tree-top to tree-top. The last one was over 1/4 mile long and 40 stories off the ground. At the canopy level, we observed several species of hummingbird, insects, and different foliage. The trip was an amazing experience. After a quick tour at the local "butterfly ranch", we packed into our Tercel with our new friend from the States, Cary, and headed for a town called Jaco for a little surf and sun. Jaco is a small beach town 3 hours west of San Jose on the Pacific Ocean. Bill and Rob found some nice long boards and spend the two days in Jaco surfing 2'-3' waves in 75F water. It was a nice vacation from our vacation.
Next stop was an island in the Caribbean. We decided that it would not be right to travel around the world without even visiting an island in the Caribbean. The Island was amazing! It was full of culture including, music, cigars, baseball and old cars. We spent five days exploring this island and really wish we had more time. Nothing exciting happened here, but there was plenty to see and experience. Check out the pictures, they are worth a thousand words.
On January 26th we flew back to the states for “Half Time”. Bill went to St. Louis, Rob to LA and Chris to NY. Chris plans to do a little skiing, and then visit his sister in San Fransisco. Rob plans to keep himself busy writing and talking. Bill will spend 5 days at his parents’ house and then 5 days in San Diego visiting friends and surfing. On Feb 7th Bill flies to the Cook Islands (near Fiji) for about a week and then to New Zealand for 5 days before joining up with the guys in Melbourne Australia on the 19th. We are looking forward to having Chris’ sister is join us for our journey through Oz. Maybe we will have her write the next update. J
The first half was fantastic and we can’t wait to start the second half. Stay tuned for more info…
