Home again

Holy cow! Once again, it's been two long weeks since I posted. My apologies. Life's been crazy. In brief:

A matter of hours after I said so long to Pops, I set out on a four-day trek that turned out to be pretty much the most awesome thing I did in my three and a half months of South American wanderings. Watch for a post on that. For now, just let me say that if you ever go to Peru you'd darned well better visit Machu Picchu, preferable by way of the Inca Trail.

So, after various adventures, I'm now back in the US. I stopped in at GFU (the college I graduated from last spring) and hung around for a couple of days, chatting with friends and generally pretending I was still a college student. I caught a ride home to northern california, and 48 hours later headed back up to Portland to look for a job. Which I now have.

And thus, after 4 years of studing chemistry (at a mere $28,000 per year), I find myself serving coffee, earning minimum wage. (Plus tips!!) I like to think of it as furthering my chemistry experience by way of a real-world internship. I mean, baristas are basically chemists... they spend the day mixing things together in precise combinations in order to achieve the desired product. We even get to use crazy machines that shoot out steam through metal pipes and squeeze hot solvents through special powders. Sounds like chemistry to me.

That's really just my side job, though... the one that pays the bills. My real job (the one I'm excited about) is teaching science. Through a really cool program at GFU, college-aged science students get to teach science to home-schoolers, ranging in age from kindergarten to 12th grade. Last year I taught a chemistry class to home-schooled high-schoolers.... this fall is a genetics class, also for high-schoolers. The highlight of my work week, though, is going to be the Star Lab. It's this huge, inflatable planetarium I get to take around to elementary schools. I'll teach them about the stars and constellations, planetary motion, etc. Totally rad stuff. At least, I think so, anyway. ;O)

But both of these are temporary... next fall I'm headed to Boulder, Colorado for chemistry grad school. Four to six more years of chemistry await me. In the meantime, I get to work at GFU, hang out with cool Fox people, and basically enjoy all the benefits of living with/near all my college friends, without the bother of classes or homework. Not a bad deal, really.

For example... yesterday I went to the beach with a few friends (Mark, Dave, Pat) to enjoy the 80-degree weather at the coast instead of the 90-degree weather here in Newberg. On the way we visited the largest glacial rock in Oregon (thrilling!), crossed the shortest river in the US (equally thrilling!), and bought a box of 24 Scooby-Doo push-pops for three dollars at Grocery Outlet.

Oh yeah, and the beach was cool, too. Great tidepools.

A shot of an anemone, taken with my spiffy waterproof digital camera. You can actually stick it underwater. A bit scary at first, but you can get some great shots.

Pat and Mark, debating whose rear end is larger. Just one example of the intellectually stimulating conversations I've been having with my fellow college graduates. Life is great.

So long, Pops...

After two frenzied weeks, three countries, and several hundred (thousand, maybe?) miles of travel, Dad´s time down here finally ran out. Besides some quick sightseeing in a few Peruvian cities and a ridiculous amount of souvenir shopping, all that remained was a visit to some Incan ruins near Cusco.

You might recognize this sacrificial chamber from an earlier post (June 24).... It was in this very spot that I ceremonially offed Nic with the sacred Incan banana, shortly after we tamed the fearsome Incan Guard Beast. Incidentally, this time Dad and I encountered the same IGB... I´m happy to report he was as tame as ever.

The stonework at some of these ruins is pretty phenomenal... somehow the Incan engineers, with just hand tools and lots of labor, managed to chisel the stones so that they´d fit together perfectly, like a massive (a very massive) 3D jigsaw puzzle.

In most places, the seams between the rocks are so tight you can´t fit a piece of paper between them... In a few places, though, you can fit significantly larger objects.

At the Incan wall, with a handmade traditional native cap, I felt I could pass as an average Incan citizen. Just ignore the red beard and pasty white complexion.

Dad, though, was adamant that the modern t-shirt just didn´t fit, and insisted on a more authentic shot.

Nic left me, my own father left me... now who will I take crazy photos with?

Colca Canyon

Ever been to the Grand Canyon? In places, it´s a mile deep. Impressive, right? You aint seen nothin´ yet. Try two-mile deep canyons. When it comes to canyons, Colca Canyon is the head honcho, the big cheese, the whole enchilada, the top dog. It´s the deepest canyon in the world... depending on who you ask. Some say another nearby canyon is a bit deeper, others say Colca wins. I´m voting for Colca. Mostly so I can say I´ve been to the deepest canyon.

As you recall from the last post, we arrived at Colca Canyon at 6 AM, after 60-ish hours of travel. (If you haven´t read the last post, shame on you. Go back and catch up. Don´t worry, it´s short. I´ll wait.)

The spot we got dumped off at is known as the Cruz del Condor... a lookout point that has a family of condors nesting nearby. We, and several busloads of other tourists, were entertained for a while by the huge birds soaring above us, below us, in front of us....

...and, occasionally, even among us.

Eventually the birds floated off in search of roadkill, and we wandered along the rim of the canyon for a while, enjoying the view, enjoying the sunshine, and enjoying not sitting after 60 hours of buses.

Where we were, the canyon was ¨only¨ about a mile deep, but the views were still spectacular.

We also discovered that it is extremely difficult to take pictures of the deepest canyon in the world. Especially if you want to also be in the pictures. Below are some of our best attempts...

My feet, with the river a mile down.

Some of our clothes had gotten wet on the volcano hike, and had been sitting in plastic bags in our packs for the last 60 hours... so, with a hot sun and no one around, we took the opportunity to do a little laundry.

After several hours of wandering (and after our clothes had finished drying), we decided to head back into town. Unfortunately, the busloads of tourists, and, more importantly, the buses, were nowhere to be found. We wandered along the road back to the Cruz del Condor (the most popular tourist stop) and waited for a while. Eventually some park rangers came along in a van and told us that a bus would be coming by... in about 5 hours. Then they were kind enough to give us a lift back to town. Ah, the life of a south american backpacker... sometimes things work out great. Not always, but sometimes.

What´s that smell?

After our volcano adventure, Dad and I returned to our lodgings, tired and very, very sweaty. But it was getting late, and we had some emails we needed to send... so, instead of showering, we just changed clothes quickly and headed into town before the internet cafes closed. A fateful decision.

After finishing with internet, we decided to stop and investigate bus schedules. Our next move was going to be to head up to Peru.... it turned out the perfect bus was leaving in roughly 45 minutes. We rushed back, packed, grabbed a takeout pizza for dinner, and made our bus. No time for a shower, though.

Check out a map of Chile. It´s really, really long. And we taking a bus all the way to Peru. Incidentally, the entire northern section of Chile is occupied by the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world. In this desert, there are placed where rainfall has never been recorded. Ever. After our bus ride, it´s not hard to imagine.

Our volcano trip was on a Tuesday. We caught our bus that evening, and rode the bus all night. In the morning we changed buses. We rode the same bus all day Wednesday, wednesday night, and most of Thursday. Then we got a taxi across the Chile-Peru border. Time for a break? Nope. We caught an 8-hour bus that pulled into Arequipa, Peru at midnight. Rather than calling it quits and getting a hostel, like any sane travelers would, we decided to catch the 1 AM bus for Colca Canyon, our real destination.

And so, at 6 AM on Friday, we arrived at the fabled Colca Canyon. We had been in a bus, taxi, or bus terminal for almost 60 hours. Most of our bus ride had been through a baking desert. Immediately prior to our bus ride, we had climbed a mountain. Where we had bathed ourselves in toxic fumes. The moral of the story? We really, really needed a shower. Really.

Fire and Ice... very nice.

And... I´m back, after yet another long hiatus. Hey, my time is short down here. So much to see... so much to do.... so little time for blogging.

This, my friends, is Volcan Villarrica, seen at sunset. It´s an active volcano, constantly spouting smoke and burping up magma.

And this is myself and my intrepid father, in the act of climbing said volcano.

Crazy? Probably. Fun? Absolutely.

After a full day of slogging uphill, we made it to the smoking, steaming crater at the top (the caldera, for all you budding volcanologists out there). We even climbed down into the caldera, for a better view of the red-hot lava that kept spurting up.

We didn´t stay too long, though... there really were a ton of toxic fumes up there. Every so often you´d get a strong whiff of hot gases belching up from the crater... I´m pretty sure every breath of that stuff took a month or so off of my lifespan.

Going down was great, too... we donned helmets and tough waterproof pants, packed all our loose gear into our packs, and slid down the mountain on our butts. Not quite as awesome as snowboarding, but a heck of a lot better than walking.

Shiver me timbers

After several days of enduring the brutal Patagonian winter, we felt we deserved a luxurious cruise to thaw out. Unfortunately, the best we could afford was hitching a ride for a few days on a freight ferry:

We were able to thaw out, though, thanks in part to the copious quantities of methane gas emanating from the boxcars of cattle at the back of the boat:

It was a pretty cool trip, though. There was plenty of action to keep us entertained...

We got to invade the bridge and bug the skipper with lots of questions... where are we, where are we going next, how fast are we getting there, are we going to hit that other ship, when do we get to see dolphins.... and most importantly... when´s lunch?

I climbed up to the crow´s nest to check out the view. I´m not really sure I was supposed to be up there, but hey, it wasn´t locked or anything. I was tempted to replace the Chilean flag with the Jolly Roger (you know... the skull and crossbones pirate flag), but I couldn´t figure out how to make one. Besides, I´d had enough fun with the Argentinian authorities... no need to get the Chileans involved.

The best part of the trip was the coffee-in-bed room service... delivered with a smile by Mr. Early Riser himself: dear old Dad. He saw more sunrises that trip than anyone else on board. I saw them too... for a few seconds. Out the porthole. From my bunk. Right after Mr. Cheerful woke me up to see them. Then I went back to sleep for another couple of hours. Hey, we were recovering from the brutal Patagonian winter, remember?

We also had fun with Dad´s GPS unit... for example, we figured out exactly which heading to take if we felt like a 6,873-mile swim north to Crescent City.

And of course, the main attraction was the pictures-don´t-do-it-justice scenery:

Lots of rugged mountains, snow-capped peaks, and cool islands...

...and plenty of spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate´s life for me.

We´re baaaaack...

So... we´ve been slacking a bit lately on the blogging. It´s been what... 12 days now since we posted? Hey, Dad´s only got 17 days down here... who´s got time for sitting in an internet cafe when we´ve got world-class scenery to enjoy? But it´s time to bring our faithful readers up to speed...

We spent some time in Torres del Paine National Park, in Chile... about as close to Antarctica as we could get on this trip.

The weather was less than perfect... actually, it was pretty frigid.

Cloudy, too, which interfered with some of our sightseeing... there were still plenty of spectacular views, though.

And there was loads of wildlife... guanacos (wild llamas) and rheas (ostriches in patagonia?!), plus foxes, condors, lots of other birds, and fossilized remains of a prehistoric teddy bear.

In fact, there was so much to be seen, and so little time, we weren´t sure which way to go....

Dad´s new GPS wasn´t much help in deciding our course, as you can see. (Too cold to swim.)

In the end, we decided to just chill:

Up next: our tropical cruise.

Except... we were nowhere near the tropics. And our boat wasn´t exactly a cruise ship... in fact, we shared it with several boxcars crammed full of cattle.

Ice, Ice, Baby

We´ve made it... We are now in Patagonia. In the winter. Yes, it´s very chilly... as in, 5 degrees below zero. In Celsius, though, which is around 25 degrees Fahrenheit. But 5 below sounds colder.

Our first excursion, upon arrival, was to visit none other than the Perito Moreno glacier... another one of those top-ten, don´t-miss-it spots in South America. And it´s true... you don´t want to miss it. Absolutely stunning... I´ll let the photos speak for themselves:

The pictures don´t do it justice... keep in mind that these towering ice spires are over 150 feet tall. And they occasionally came crashing down. Pretty cool.

Like father, like son... my beard´s just not grey yet. And my hat´s cooler.

After my previous run-in with Argentinian law enforcement, I was understandably hesitant to circumvent any more official barriers, especially ones with ¨Don´t Pass¨ written all over them...

But my old man is a rebel at heart, and nothing could hold him back (I guess that´s where I get it from).

Properly inspired by dear old dad´s example, I pushed the envelope even further... (gasp!). Somebody call the cops... this is getting out of hand.

The Big (Argentinian) Apple... and Family.

Buenos Aires, I´ve discovered, is the New York of South America. Of course, I´ve never actually been to New York. Just seen it in lots of movies. But I´m sure that if I´d been to the Big Apple, I´d be reminded of it right now.

Buenos Aires has everything a big city should. Bright city lights, old buildings, a confusing subway system, its own Broadway... and lots of traffic moving by very quickly. Watch your step... pedestrians definitely don´t have the right of way down here.

The music and theatre scene, though, offers a nearly endless options for evening entertainment.... In five days, I managed to see three jazz shows, a Broadway musical (The Producers... in Spanish), a magician, a tap dance presentation, two tango shows, a dozen street bands, and a Catholic mass. Plus those hot summer hits, Superman Returns and Pirates of the Caribbean 2. (In English. I wimped out.)

Buenos Aires loves its tango... Here´s some street dancers, complete with live accompaniment.

In Buenos Aires, the street performers definitely don`t travel light... this tango troupe just wouldn´t be complete without their pianist. Not to mention the accordian section.

As I was heading out of Buenos Aires, I ran into a deranged, homeless sandwich salesman, who begged me to take him to Patagonia with me. In return, he said he could supply all the ham and cheese sandwiches I could ever eat. Being a huge fan of ham, I couldn´t bring myself to turn him down (after all, free food is free food).

(For those who don´t know... the grizzled nut case you see before you is, in reality, my father. He has joined me for the next seventeen days. Wish me luck...)