We visited Iguazu Falls, which was absolutely beautiful. It’s 275 falls over 2.7 kms. You cross on walkways over little rivers that lead up to the falls and the place was practically empty during high season. Bliss.
The height of the biggest drop is 82 meters. It’s pictured below and is called the Devil’s Throat. Niagara Falls, you ain’t got shit on this.
It was a real pleasure coming here straight after walking through Machu Picchu. To see old, man-made in Nature and then just Nature untouched.
We stayed in Buenos Aires for three days, where I put back on all the weight I lost on the Inca Trail. The food there is delish, never had a bad meal. And I ate completely vegetarian on the first day and ate practically only meat on the last. Best. Steak. Ever. I’m sorry to say that it was better than what I had in Brasil. And the desserts, oh, the desserts.
This was a brief affair. A couple of days in Rio but enough to watch Brasil vs Netherlands in the World Cup.
Wendell got a an injured left knee a week after the Inca Trail, which was quite odd. I realised that Portugese has nothing in common with Spanish and even less so with English. There was a lot of quizzical looks.
A big shout out to our tour guide for the Inca Trail, Alfredo Fisher. I highly recommend him after he dealt with my swearing and general unfit state. He knew everything and anything, from Inca culture to my decoy to catch my breath; “Hey, what’s that plant?”. He even ran to catch me when I fell on my ass in the dark. Hoorah for bruises.
In Brazil now, you have no idea how much I’m enjoying sea level ground.
Colca canyon was dusty and rough. Like many places in Peru, lifestyles and wildlife are preserved for tourists. As a voyeur, I am grateful but I’m also saddened by these people frozen in time.
The roads are full of pockets. As our van tumbles over rocks, I try to comb out my emotions and memories. It doesn’t work. I get out of the bus and the dry wind tangles my hair and all of my mental work.
The sun beats down and leaves it’s mark on ruddy cheeks and wrinkled faces.
I sleep in between leg cramps.
The only people that flat out ask me for money are two giggling girls that are coaxed by their mother. They don’t remember me from yesterday, when I gave them a sol for their photo.
I’m always cautious of making a photo of someone I met ten seconds ago, I feel like I’m sucking out their energy, using them for my memories and picture books.
As it is, I don’t like being photographed, I can’t imagine being a novelty to a stream of different cameras, day in, day out.
I see lambs skipping around their mothers and I stare into a cow’s eyes and now I’m sticking to spaghetti and boiled vegetables in a country that serves guinea pig and alpaca. I don’t want to be a full time vegetarian.
In the night, the high altitude makes me take shallow breaths and I dream of my office. I think it’s my brain’s way of calming down. The Larry Towell black and white on my wall and the towers of now archived photos.
The act of travelling brings up a lot of things in my head that gets avoided when I’m “busy” with being in one place; cooking, yoga, friends, working, photographing. Now I’m just being.
It’s such an interesting feeling, this longing for stillness and some lesser version of sadness. I think it will dissipate but don’t know what’s next. Honestly, I’ll have to be a pretty lame bitch to keep this fear of the unknown stop me from having fun.
It´s the second day of the four month adventure. And I fucking miss the internet. I’ve been using my smart phone as a distraction, as a form of entertainment and as a comfort blanket whenever I’m nervous or stressed. And when it´s gone, I’m frustrated. Bit of a hot mess, actually.
Which brings me to waking up an hour earlier than needed to google the lifespan of a crab on a slow computer in the hotel’s business center.
Um, what?
Well, I’m so used to having instant information gratification that when it´s gone (a.k.a paying $20 per megabyte) I go a little crazy.
I tried to check my email three times yesterday, facebook and twitter once and the temperature twice. I missed Yelp when we had to pick a place for dinner.
There was crab on the menu for dinner and I wasn´t sure if they were being over-fished. And I just needed to know, right then and there, the population of crabs in the ocean. It stayed in my head like an itch so here I am, some 12 hours later, googling in Spanish. Turns out they’re not completely over-fished but like anything else in the ocean, levels are generally low.
- Rant over, holiday stuff starts here. -
I was a bit (ok, devestatingly) sad to be leaving the States. It’s funny as fuck, really. I spent the first year wishing I would leave and moaning about and then in the last three months I find the best friends in the world and it was this big rush to spend as much time with them as possible.
A handful of people changed my whole perspective on a country, amazing isn’t it?
So the first half of my trip there was plenty of sad faces and long sighs on my end. And then I did some yoga, tried to stay present and it’s getting better, although there’s still things that make me laugh/get sad: exaggerated fist bites, people asking what the time is (1962!) and drinking beer.
Spent the majority of yesterday travelling down to Peru. The in-laws surprised us at the stop over in Panama City, was a blast to see them a little bit earlier than planned.
Lima was quite gloomy but we walked around a little. I spotted all of these old cameras in a market and almost died with excitement but I couldn’t go ape shit on the purchases one day in! Dinner was ok, it was a hotel recommendation and quite frankly, I’ve had better Peruvian food in Maryland.
Off to Arequipa in a couple of hours. But I just had to visit you, internet, and make sure you’re ok since our recent seperation. I miss you, you look good. Now can we kiss and make up?
I love how my friends have all whole-heartedly embraced my quest for American novelties. I’ve been given peeps and attended keg parties (video coming soon). Love, love, love my mates; I say it here because I’m emotionally awkward when I’m face to face.
The above is funnel cake, which is this thick standard flour/milk/egg batter that’s deep fried and then covered in icing sugar. Got it with Stacey and Todd. The funnel part is pretty simple, the batter is poured through a funnel into the hot oil to create the interlace pattern. I loved the oily goodness but can’t imagine eating a huge one, the monotone flavour is a bit much. But hey, at least I can replicate the carnival food later on!
Check out my New York pizza slice! The one in the picture is called a “magic square” and I had it at Nonna Apa in the Lower East side of New York. Side note: I hated the touristy spots of NYC but loved Lower East side. It really changed my perception of the city. A good Chinatown will make me swoon. Most people buy tshirts in New York, I left with baby bok choy, scallions and aloe vera juice.
I was slightly disappointed about the pizza. New Yorkers keep on banging on about how unique the pizza is up there (down here meaning D.C) so I expected different flavours to jump around in my mouth but when I took my first bite, there was nothing…I liked it, it was crispy and the sauce was good but I’ve had better.
T’was my birthday last Saturday and Wendell surprised me with a trip to the shooting range. At first he told me we were going sky diving and I was so shattered and disappointed (see: rolling around in bed with a sad face) that he confessed to what I knew all along. I was going shooting, bitches.
I act all tough in retrospect but the truth is, I wore my skull and crossbones belt to the range but felt so intimidated by all the pro shooters that I quickly put my cardigan over my “hardcore” accessory.
We were only in the range for an hour but that was enough. I bet if I was shooting at moving things it would have been more exciting but then I wouldn’t have felt nearly as good afterwards – my hit rate would have been lowered. The gun was heavy! I was looking forward to having the gun recoil when I fired a shot but no such luck. I’m all into bruises that I can show off but it’s all good.
And to top it all off, we went to Komi for dinner. Hmm. I can still taste some of the courses and plan on at a minimum, mastering the goat shoulder recipe.
This was my first go at collecting audio and photos. I plan on buying Soundslide, the demo below worked like a treat.
