16.5.09
Even though I woke up with the sorest pelvic bones in the world from biking almost 30km, I agreed to go look for a place to go horseback riding with Andrea because she´d been wanting to go since we got to peru. We were about to leave our hostel to go check out the town when some guy asked us if we were waiting for a tour. When we said no he was like ¨Oh did you want to ride horses?¨ which we thought was hilarious and too convenient to pass up, so we said yes. Because everyone here has a friend who has a friend, this guy called someone who said they would be there in 5 minutos to pick us up. We eventually agreed on an hour later, and surprisingly a guy came to meet us right on time at our hostel. From there we took a colectivo minibus for about 30 minutes which dropped us off on the side of the road in Carhuaz. We walked with this guy down a small path to his house where 3 horses were grazing outside and where he introduced us to his 10 year old son Resbel who was apparently going to be guiding us up the mountain.
The guy told us in three sentences how to steer or change speeds on the horse and then said ciao and left us. For the most part our horses wanted to walk at an incredibly slow pace, unless one of them started running a little, and then all of them would take off galloping until we frantically pulled on the ¨brakes¨. My horse always wanted to bite Andrea´s horses tail and then would get all excited and start galloping, which surprised me so much the first time that I really almost flew off the saddle and straight over his head onto the ground. The boy also wouldnt really talk to us, and was so bored that he was sometimes sleeping on his horse, so we didnt know how to make them go trotting instead of crawling along or sprinting. Nevertheless, the views were absolutely beauuutiful.
We went for a total of 2 hours and eventually we succeeded in getting them to trot, I even got comfortable enough to snap pictures while we were moving along!
martes, 19 de mayo de 2009
lunes, 18 de mayo de 2009
Viernes Huaraz
15.5.09
Last Thursday Andrea, Max and I got on a bus at 10:30pm and arrived in Huaraz (north of Lima in the Andes) around 6 in the morning on Friday. The sky was perfectly clear blue and the whole town is surrounded by gorgeous snow capped mountains with the greenest green pastures below them - the view of the this from the 4th floor of our hostel was absolutely incredible, although I was out of breath walking up there at the altitude of 3000m. We went looking for something to do and found this company that brings you and mountain bikes 3 hours up to 4500m in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range and leaves you there to bike back down.
I didnt think about the fact that I had less than zero experience biking on anything besides smooth pavement, but quickly realized that its not easy to maneuver a bike through winding dirt roads covered in a variety of big and small rocks, mud, holes, and grazing cow families. After getting stuck in a few gutters and slamming into rocks too big for my tires about 4 times I managed to at least avoid getting pitched off my bike for the rest of the ride. We ended up biking the most ridiculous route back down through Huaraz and into Monterrey where there are baños termales, like hot pools from volcanoes. The 26 km down included about an hour of really rocky ´road,´fairly smooth sand for another hour, a stop to eat lunch near some ruins, cutting through side streets of mountain towns, then literally flying down a long flight of stairs (which I was less than prepared for) into a huge cow pasture, over a river, through more herds of various animals, then barreling down another hill only to brake suddenly to squeeze into a 50 foot alley that was so narrow we had to wiggle the handle bars back and forth to emerge onto a highway which we took all the way to the pools, which were a curious poop color, supposedly due to minerals.
Because I literally would have done anything to avoid getting back on my bike, we looked for a taxi and managed to find one who agreed to take the 4 of us, our guide, AND 5 mountain bikes in his normal sized station wagon. This involved flattening the back seat down, completely disassembling all 5 bikes, putting our guide Carlos in the front with a pile of tires and the 4 of us crammed around frames, wheels, seats, and helmets in the back. After one minute the police stopped us to make sure that the taxi driver had a valid license and was sober, and because he was licensed and not drunk, it was perfectly fine for us to continue driving.
Last Thursday Andrea, Max and I got on a bus at 10:30pm and arrived in Huaraz (north of Lima in the Andes) around 6 in the morning on Friday. The sky was perfectly clear blue and the whole town is surrounded by gorgeous snow capped mountains with the greenest green pastures below them - the view of the this from the 4th floor of our hostel was absolutely incredible, although I was out of breath walking up there at the altitude of 3000m. We went looking for something to do and found this company that brings you and mountain bikes 3 hours up to 4500m in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range and leaves you there to bike back down.
I didnt think about the fact that I had less than zero experience biking on anything besides smooth pavement, but quickly realized that its not easy to maneuver a bike through winding dirt roads covered in a variety of big and small rocks, mud, holes, and grazing cow families. After getting stuck in a few gutters and slamming into rocks too big for my tires about 4 times I managed to at least avoid getting pitched off my bike for the rest of the ride. We ended up biking the most ridiculous route back down through Huaraz and into Monterrey where there are baños termales, like hot pools from volcanoes. The 26 km down included about an hour of really rocky ´road,´fairly smooth sand for another hour, a stop to eat lunch near some ruins, cutting through side streets of mountain towns, then literally flying down a long flight of stairs (which I was less than prepared for) into a huge cow pasture, over a river, through more herds of various animals, then barreling down another hill only to brake suddenly to squeeze into a 50 foot alley that was so narrow we had to wiggle the handle bars back and forth to emerge onto a highway which we took all the way to the pools, which were a curious poop color, supposedly due to minerals.
Because I literally would have done anything to avoid getting back on my bike, we looked for a taxi and managed to find one who agreed to take the 4 of us, our guide, AND 5 mountain bikes in his normal sized station wagon. This involved flattening the back seat down, completely disassembling all 5 bikes, putting our guide Carlos in the front with a pile of tires and the 4 of us crammed around frames, wheels, seats, and helmets in the back. After one minute the police stopped us to make sure that the taxi driver had a valid license and was sober, and because he was licensed and not drunk, it was perfectly fine for us to continue driving.
lunes, 13 de abril de 2009
border crossing!
04-03-09
This weekend I had to leave the country for 72 hours to renew my visa for costa rica, so 4 friends and I went to Nicaragua! My friend Jacque´s host brother picked me up at 2am to drop us off at the bus which left at 3. I had no idea what the border crossing would be like and envisioned myself running down a dirt road but I think because we took a direct bus it was ridiculously easy. We gave them our passports, got out of the bus, waited for it to drive to the other side of the border, and got on again. We arrived in Managua around 12pm and Im not sure if the city itself felt more dangerous or if it was just the fact that it was the first place we went and I didnt know what to expect, but I felt really uneasy walking around there. It didnt help that everywhere we asked for directions they advised us to get in a cab, avoid a certain neighborhood, or walk completely out of the way because the straightest path wasnt safe.
We ended up having a very authentic first experience eating Subway in a huge 3 story mall while planning what to do. Originally we thought we´d go to Leon, which is 2 hours west of the capital on the coast, which is why we took a direct bus from San Jose to Managua.
Long story short, we ended up deciding we wanted to go the island of Ometepe on lake nicaragua instead of Leon, so after 40 minutes in Managua we took a taxi to the bus station to head back on the exact same road we had come on. In Costa Rica taxistas usually refuse to take more than 4 people, but none of the drivers we encountered had any problem smushing the 5 of us and all of our backpacks into their cabs. Whenever we stopped we were offered through the windows literally anything you could want to buy from street vendors, the best was two live parakeets on a stick. I thought this was hilarious because I just imagined us at customs answering, "is there anything you need to declare?"
Anyway, the taxi left us in a small, hectic market where there were some minibuses full of people. We eventually squished into one headed towards Masaya. We spent the night walking around Masaya and tasting street food, which included lots of huge pieces of strong cheese.
04-04-09
Fitting with the themse of using every type of nicaraguan transportation service, we got up early to catch another tiny bus that barely stopped to let us climb in to take us to the "bus station" which was a big dirt piece of land full of what seemed like 100s of people selling fruits, nike shoes, vegetables, sun glasses, chickens, etc. It was ridiculously hot and there was dust flying everywhere due to all the horses, donkeys, bicycles, wagons, cars, and buses passing through the middle of the crowds of people with no particular system. I sadly dont have any pictures because I thought it was asking for trouble to take out my camera! To spare you from all the transportation details, we took that bus to Granada, then had to search out another from Granada to Rivas, then find a cab from Rivas to San Jorge, then get on a small boat from there to la Isla de Ometepe. The island was formed by two volcanoes, Maderas and Concepcion, that came out of Lake Nicaragua. They make up the second biggest fresh water island in the world, so I was told, and the view from the boat of the two of them was absolutely incredible. We had been told there were restaurants and hostels right in the port, but when we got there there was only a 4x6 foot building where they sold water and cigarettes. Since we obviously couldnt stay there, we joined up with 3 guys in the peace corps living in nicaragua who had a friend on the island to get some insider advice on where to stay. While we waited for the bus we walked down to playa Santa Marta, a really pretty little black sand beach, and played frisbee! When we heard the bus horns all of us literally sprinted from the beach back up to the road (about 400 meters!) and squished into the passing bus, which lasted another hour and a half until we arrived at the recommended hostel. If nothing else I can definitely say I know the Nicaraguan bus system very well.
We ventured out of the hostel to try to find a hippie commune that served pizza on saturdays, which we found about a kilometer off the road and included squeezing through two holes in barbed wire fences that were supposedly doors, and hiking up hill with a ¨path¨ of rocks and roots and small bridges through a nature reserve in the complete darkness and resulted in some serious wounds on my toes - but the pizza was definitely worth it. I dont know how we would have found any of this is we hadnt met the peace corp guys, because after we ate we went to look for a bar they had told us about, which also could only be found through a tiny hole in a fence, hidden on the other side of a field about a half kilometer downhill from the ¨road.¨
The next day we went on a sort of tour of the island with a guy that worked at our hostel Porvenir, but actually we just hopped in the back of his friend´s truck with a dog and another friend, and the three of them showed us around for the day.
We saw the main port of Moyagalpa, punta Jesus Maria, a museum (i Hate pottery), a couple beaches, a nature reserve, a bunch of congo monkeys, medicinal herb gardens, among other stuff. La punta jesus maria used to be a 2km stretch of land from the island out into the lake that you can walk out on and see the view of the whole island and the two volcanoes. Although its much shorter now because of erosion, it was still an amaaazing view. While we were driving back from there I was telling one of the guys I wanted to try some fruits native to the island, and literally 3 seconds later he spotted a tree in someones yard, pulled over, and was asking the lady if she had a stick we could use to knock down the fruit, jocote. after we collected everything he knocked down, we washed them in this bucket of water on the ground, and surrounded by dogs, chicken, and kids, we ate a whole bucket of jocote out on the side of their house (which im pretty sure is the reason we were all sick the next day), and the lady yelled from inside the house ¨and you dont want any salt??¨ But just try to imagine this happening in the US... you would probably get fined for theft, sued for trespassing, etc.
Anyway, we arranged with this same guy, Emilio, to drive us to the ferry the next morning. Since he was planning on going out to a party, we were sure we would be dragging him out of bed at 5:45 to catch our 7am ferry an hours drive away from the hostel. but ironically, at 6 oclock the 5 of us woke up to Emilio outside our door. We got ready and were inside the truck in literally 3 minutes - which I think is a record time for 5 girls and one bathroom. One of my friends, Andrea, had spent the better part of the night in the bathroom throwing up, and had to brave 45 minutes in the truck, 2 hours on a ferry to the mainland, then 3 hours of old, stuffy school buses on bumpy roads to get to Granada. Because we wanted to get on the bus right away after getting off the ferry, we got ushered onto a bus going to Managua but the guy who solicits passengers through the back door of the bus told us he would let us know when to switch buses. So, we spent an hour on that bus, then jumped out the back door when it briefly stopped in the middle of a three lane highway and ran onto another bus that had miraculously stopped right behind us going to Granada - what an amazing system!
This weekend I had to leave the country for 72 hours to renew my visa for costa rica, so 4 friends and I went to Nicaragua! My friend Jacque´s host brother picked me up at 2am to drop us off at the bus which left at 3. I had no idea what the border crossing would be like and envisioned myself running down a dirt road but I think because we took a direct bus it was ridiculously easy. We gave them our passports, got out of the bus, waited for it to drive to the other side of the border, and got on again. We arrived in Managua around 12pm and Im not sure if the city itself felt more dangerous or if it was just the fact that it was the first place we went and I didnt know what to expect, but I felt really uneasy walking around there. It didnt help that everywhere we asked for directions they advised us to get in a cab, avoid a certain neighborhood, or walk completely out of the way because the straightest path wasnt safe.
We ended up having a very authentic first experience eating Subway in a huge 3 story mall while planning what to do. Originally we thought we´d go to Leon, which is 2 hours west of the capital on the coast, which is why we took a direct bus from San Jose to Managua.
Long story short, we ended up deciding we wanted to go the island of Ometepe on lake nicaragua instead of Leon, so after 40 minutes in Managua we took a taxi to the bus station to head back on the exact same road we had come on. In Costa Rica taxistas usually refuse to take more than 4 people, but none of the drivers we encountered had any problem smushing the 5 of us and all of our backpacks into their cabs. Whenever we stopped we were offered through the windows literally anything you could want to buy from street vendors, the best was two live parakeets on a stick. I thought this was hilarious because I just imagined us at customs answering, "is there anything you need to declare?"
Anyway, the taxi left us in a small, hectic market where there were some minibuses full of people. We eventually squished into one headed towards Masaya. We spent the night walking around Masaya and tasting street food, which included lots of huge pieces of strong cheese.
04-04-09
Fitting with the themse of using every type of nicaraguan transportation service, we got up early to catch another tiny bus that barely stopped to let us climb in to take us to the "bus station" which was a big dirt piece of land full of what seemed like 100s of people selling fruits, nike shoes, vegetables, sun glasses, chickens, etc. It was ridiculously hot and there was dust flying everywhere due to all the horses, donkeys, bicycles, wagons, cars, and buses passing through the middle of the crowds of people with no particular system. I sadly dont have any pictures because I thought it was asking for trouble to take out my camera! To spare you from all the transportation details, we took that bus to Granada, then had to search out another from Granada to Rivas, then find a cab from Rivas to San Jorge, then get on a small boat from there to la Isla de Ometepe. The island was formed by two volcanoes, Maderas and Concepcion, that came out of Lake Nicaragua. They make up the second biggest fresh water island in the world, so I was told, and the view from the boat of the two of them was absolutely incredible. We had been told there were restaurants and hostels right in the port, but when we got there there was only a 4x6 foot building where they sold water and cigarettes. Since we obviously couldnt stay there, we joined up with 3 guys in the peace corps living in nicaragua who had a friend on the island to get some insider advice on where to stay. While we waited for the bus we walked down to playa Santa Marta, a really pretty little black sand beach, and played frisbee! When we heard the bus horns all of us literally sprinted from the beach back up to the road (about 400 meters!) and squished into the passing bus, which lasted another hour and a half until we arrived at the recommended hostel. If nothing else I can definitely say I know the Nicaraguan bus system very well.
We ventured out of the hostel to try to find a hippie commune that served pizza on saturdays, which we found about a kilometer off the road and included squeezing through two holes in barbed wire fences that were supposedly doors, and hiking up hill with a ¨path¨ of rocks and roots and small bridges through a nature reserve in the complete darkness and resulted in some serious wounds on my toes - but the pizza was definitely worth it. I dont know how we would have found any of this is we hadnt met the peace corp guys, because after we ate we went to look for a bar they had told us about, which also could only be found through a tiny hole in a fence, hidden on the other side of a field about a half kilometer downhill from the ¨road.¨
The next day we went on a sort of tour of the island with a guy that worked at our hostel Porvenir, but actually we just hopped in the back of his friend´s truck with a dog and another friend, and the three of them showed us around for the day.
We saw the main port of Moyagalpa, punta Jesus Maria, a museum (i Hate pottery), a couple beaches, a nature reserve, a bunch of congo monkeys, medicinal herb gardens, among other stuff. La punta jesus maria used to be a 2km stretch of land from the island out into the lake that you can walk out on and see the view of the whole island and the two volcanoes. Although its much shorter now because of erosion, it was still an amaaazing view. While we were driving back from there I was telling one of the guys I wanted to try some fruits native to the island, and literally 3 seconds later he spotted a tree in someones yard, pulled over, and was asking the lady if she had a stick we could use to knock down the fruit, jocote. after we collected everything he knocked down, we washed them in this bucket of water on the ground, and surrounded by dogs, chicken, and kids, we ate a whole bucket of jocote out on the side of their house (which im pretty sure is the reason we were all sick the next day), and the lady yelled from inside the house ¨and you dont want any salt??¨ But just try to imagine this happening in the US... you would probably get fined for theft, sued for trespassing, etc.
Anyway, we arranged with this same guy, Emilio, to drive us to the ferry the next morning. Since he was planning on going out to a party, we were sure we would be dragging him out of bed at 5:45 to catch our 7am ferry an hours drive away from the hostel. but ironically, at 6 oclock the 5 of us woke up to Emilio outside our door. We got ready and were inside the truck in literally 3 minutes - which I think is a record time for 5 girls and one bathroom. One of my friends, Andrea, had spent the better part of the night in the bathroom throwing up, and had to brave 45 minutes in the truck, 2 hours on a ferry to the mainland, then 3 hours of old, stuffy school buses on bumpy roads to get to Granada. Because we wanted to get on the bus right away after getting off the ferry, we got ushered onto a bus going to Managua but the guy who solicits passengers through the back door of the bus told us he would let us know when to switch buses. So, we spent an hour on that bus, then jumped out the back door when it briefly stopped in the middle of a three lane highway and ran onto another bus that had miraculously stopped right behind us going to Granada - what an amazing system!
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