One of the many white colored peaks of the cordillera.

The Cordillera Blanca mountain range runs parallel to the Cordillera Negra range, its drier cousin that separates it from the ocean. The range is a mere 70 km (about 44 miles) from the Pacific Ocean, but thanks to it’s cousin the Cordillera Negra which protects the blancas from the warm tropical currents of the Pacific, it is the highest tropical ice covered mountain range in the world. Within a relatively small amount of space, there are 33 peaks over 5,500 meters (18,044 feet), with 16 of them over 6,000 meters (19,685 feet). Thanks to these dazzling heights nestled amongst the peaks you find beautiful glaciers and bright turquoise glacier lakes. This combination makes for some pretty impressive scenery.

A glacier fed lake near the Llanganuco Lodge.

The main highway leads through the middle of the valley between the two mountain ranges, with dirt roads leading up into the mountains. We headed up to Laguna Paron, located 30 km up a bumpy dirt road from the town of Caraz. The road goes up through another beautiful valley and the village of Paron with picturesque tile roofed adobe houses with corn hanging to dry from the rafters in the front yard. The locals, dressed in colorful traditional clothes wonder the road and work the fields of corn, potatoes and quinoa, along with little hairy pigs, cows, sheep, and donkeys.

This house has corn drying on the cob hanging from the rafters and more corn that has been removed from the cob drying in the yard.

Laguna Paron sits at the top of a steep narrow valley with one of the rocks reminiscent of El Capitan in Yosemite. The lake is the beautiful turquoise blue color of glacier lakes and sits at the bottom of Nevada Piramide, a snow covered triangular peak of 19,300 feet. On a clear day, a walk around the lake will give you views of snow covered mountains in every direction. We found a little dirt track that took us down to the edge of the lake and a perfect flat spot in the sand for camping. The sun was shining and the views were great so we decided to camp for the night.

Laguna Paron with Nivada Piramide in the background.

Since we had just come from 3+ months on the coast and the lake sits at almost 14,000 feet, it probably wasn’t the brightest idea we’ve ever had, but hey it’s hard to find a more stunning campsite. We knew we were in for a cold night, but I don’t think we imagined how cold. In the afternoon the clouds came in taking away the warm sun and bringing the cold and rain. By late afternoon it was rainy and we were bundled up in all our winter clothes, freezing and wet. By 6:00, we had eaten a cold and soggy dinner and were in our tent trying to warm up. It was a long night of little sleep and terrible headaches for both of us. (Word to the wise: going up to almost 14,000 feet to sleep after spending months at or near sea level in one day is NOT smart. You should take at least a few days to go up in altitude in order to avoid the mind numbing headaches and shortness of breath that we experienced).

Our cold and rainy yet beautiful camp by the lake.

The next day the clouds, wind and rain were still hanging around, so we decided to head back down to the valley. The night before we had met a French traveler named Ronan. He had hiked up to the lake from the village below and slept in a little hut by the lake. He wasn’t really feeling up to hiking back down, so asked if he could catch a ride with us. Since we don’t have a back seat there really wasn’t much room for him, so he decided he’d take a ride on the roof. The whole way down we kept asking if he was alright up there, and he kept telling us to speed up (with a big grin on his face of course ).

Ronan hitching a ride.

A little ways down the valley road, we caught another dirt road to take us back up into the mountains, this time heading to the Llanganuco Lodge. The lodge sits at the base of snow covered peaks and near another beautiful glacier fed lake. The ruins of Keashu sit along side the lake and are actually partially submerged this time of the year. The first morning we were there, the sun rose in a clear blue sky, so we decided to take advantage and went for a hike around the lake and up the gorge toward the ice covered peak of Huandoy. It felt good to get out and be hiking again. As we hiked up and around the lake the views of both the lake below and the beautiful glacier above were spectacular. The warm fresh air with hints of pine and wild flowers was a welcome change from the smoggy cities and warm beach we’ve been used to.

We couldn't resist the photo op that this beautiful view up the canyon provided .

After a few days enjoying the scenery and hiking, we decided we were ready to move on. The problem we were facing is that we were in the middle of Semana Santa, the holy week leading up to Easter that is a BIG deal here in Latin America. Almost everybody has at least the later part of the week off and heads for the beach and the mountains. Charlie, the owner of the lodge, told us Huaraz, the biggest town in the Cordilleras would probably be pretty crazy but luckily his brother owns another lodge in the mountains outside of Huaraz where we surely could find a place to camp. So we said goodbye to our nice mountain retreat and headed back to down the valley.

The Way Inn, didn’t disappoint. The main building is stone and grass roofed and looks like it belongs in the mountains of Europe somewhere. The mountains that march along behind the lodge help reinforce this as well. They also have a great home built sauna, with a barrel out the side where you can stoke the fire and enjoy the heat for as long as you want. It was worth the visit just for the wonderful sauna every night .

Sunset over the Cordillera Negras and the Way Inn Lodge.

We spent almost 2 weeks here in the Cordillera, camping in the high mountains, enjoying the clean fresh air and the beautiful views of steep rugged snow capped mountains. The whole time we were off the grid with no internet and only enough electricity to recharge our cameras and of course our trusty Kindles when needed. It had been awhile since we went off grid and actually, it felt really nice. With out the distraction of internet we were able to really enjoy the area and get lots of hikes in. All our food came from the municipal markets in the little towns we would stop in. Most people might think that we are living far from the conveniences of the modern world, but the truth is a lot of the time we aren’t too far from a fairly big grocery store with mostly similar goods as you would find back home, and we are never too far from an internet connection (albeit maybe not as fast as we would like). Sometimes though, as in our few weeks here in the mountains, it’s nice to just get away from it all and truly live in the moment.

Enjoying the view of the Cordilleras.

Coming out of one of the many tunnels.

We are driving through the Cañon del Pato, where the Cordillera Negra comes within kissing distance of the Cordillera Blanca. It is a steep sheer rock canyon with the only thing separating the two mountain ranges is at this time of year, a raging chocolate colored river. The road winds along the side of the river, cut into the side of the canyon and is narrow and single laned with pullouts every so often in case you meet another car coming from the other direction. The whole area is fairly drab, consisting mostly in a range of brown colors, including the layer of dust from the road, but still manages to be beautiful. The sheer rock faces of the canyon are deep brown and dark red and create a beautiful background of colors. The canyon itself is an arresting site, but it is the tunnels that make is such an amazing drive.

Beautiful canyon! The geological formations are amazing.

Luis and I keep discussing when and why these tunnels were built. The only explanation we can come up with is either mining or hydro power companies built it; which seem to be the dominant reason roads are built in such inhospitable terrain anywhere in the world-resource extraction. Our guide book says there are around 30 tunnels through the canyon. I have become so caught up in the beauty of the drive I have forgotten to count. I can say that there are quite a lot…

Driving into more tunnels...

The Cañon del Pato is the northern entrance to the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. It is has been a much anticipated drive for us here in Peru, with many overlanders telling us it was one of their favorite drives. We had actually tried to come in through this route a month and a half before on our way to Lima the first time. Unfortunately, the road was blocked by multiple landslides due to rain. Then we got a major flat tire on the way out and ended up having to buy all new tires in Lima (after nearly 3 years and countless miles, it was time for new shoes). We had actually based our decision to head back north to the Ecuador border instead of going south to Chile when we needed to renew our truck visa on wanting to see the canyon and the cordillera Blanca. 1,200 kilometers of backtracking, was it worth it? As we were driving through this beautiful place, we decided that all the trouble of dealing with Ecuador again and having to buy new tires was worth it. What a drive! We’ve had some amazing drives on our journey (remember the Copper Canyon in Mexico), and Peru is turning out to have quite a few gems.

Our first night in we were looking to camp on the side of the road somewhere. We had some GPS points from PanAmNotes where they camped and had read lots of accounts saying you can just find somewhere to pull out. Unfortunately, when we got to the GPS spot, there had been a landslide in the area and the road down to the river was now buried. We could see the nice perfect flat spot, but no way to get there. We drove along for awhile trying to find another good spot. We finally found a little road and followed it down. The spot wasn’t perfect, but we thought it just might do. The problem was that although you couldn’t see the car from the road right above us, you could still see it from a little ways down. After hanging out for a few minutes, still debating if we should stay, a truck pulled down the same road as us and stopped a little ways up and started dumping yard waste. I guess we were camping near the dump. Luis decided to go talk to the drivers of the truck and see what they had to say. He came back and said they didn’t recommend us staying there, but we were to follow them to a municipal soccer field that had guards all night long. We followed them up the road, and sure enough, found a nice place to camp next to the stands. It wasn’t the most breathtaking place but at least we were up off the road, had some lights nearby, and even had our very own guards looking out for us!

Camping next to a soccer field. One thing you can be sure of in Latin America, even in the middle of nowhere you can always find a soccer field!

Lighthouse park in Miraflores.

Our first week in Lima we stayed in the upscale neighborhood of Miraflores, where many of the cities’ tourist hostels are located. We actually found a hostel that has a large walled courtyard where they allow us folks in vehicles to camp. It is actually quite a nice place, and we met lot’s of other overlanders and made some new friends.

It is kind of weird to be camping on concrete in the middle of a giant metropolis, but it is comforting to sleep in our bed, in our tent

The whole gang in front of Hitchhikers Hostel. From L to R, Dirk and Maria of 2Nomads, yours truly, Michael and Delphine of Surfing Around the World, Alice and Flo and Caos the dog, and Martin one half of Amerika en Kombi.

Miraflores is kind of like a mini city within a city. Just a few blocks from our hostel, you find yourself at the seaside, looking down on the ocean from cliffs lined with beautiful parks and high end high rise apartments.

Our own fountain impersonation. Lost World Expedition and Surfing Round the World (http://surfingrtw.com) living la vida loca!

The firework tower in progress.

More pieces waiting to be added.

The firework towers were being put up all over town, paid for by different restaurants as an offering to the virgin. The guys working on the tower told us the celebration would take place that night, so Lacey was left to impatiently wait out the rest of the day for the big show. After sunset we were walking around wondering when the “celebration” was going to start and what exactly was going to take place. Finally we stopped to ask a lady who was setting up an altar in front of her restaurant when it would start and what was going to happen. Actually it was more like, “when are they going to start the fireworks?”, as we still didn’t understand what exactly the celebration was all about. The lady informed us the fireworks would be after dark but that the virgin was going to be coming down the street first. We were slowly walking down the beach trying to figure out what the lady meant by “the virgin coming down the street,” when up ahead we saw a procession come around the corner with a band, a bunch of people, and a big statue of the virgin covered in flowers. Aha, this is what she meant!

The virgin in all her glory being carried through the streets of Huanchaco.

It turns out that Huanchaco is home to the second oldest church in Peru, the Santuario de la Virgen del Socorro. The church’s statue of the Holy Virgin, the Virgen de la Candeleria, was made in Spain. The statue is believed to have floated ashore from a shipwreck, spawning a cult of worship among the town’s fishermen. Our understanding from talking to local townsfolk is that the festival consisting of the procession with the virgin around town is intended for the local businesses to give offerings to the virgin in hopes of receiving good luck and fortune in the coming year. Many business owners all over town had set up altars in front of their business with flowers, candles and such.

One of the altars. The straw boats on either side are replicas of the "caballitos de totoro", the traditional fishing boats still in use by fisherman in Haunchaco.

The procession, including the virgin, being carried by a bunch of people (it looked quite heavy), marched around and stopped at each altar. The business owner would give a short speech and give some flowers to the virgin as an offering in the hopes of receiving good luck and fortune in the coming year. Sometimes there was a traditional dance performed by children, who were actually quite good.

Performing a traditional "marinera" dance.

After watching the procession for awhile, we decided to go wait at the firework towers for the next part of the show. After what seemed like hours of the procession marching along to the business on the north end of town (we had time to enjoy a beer and hang out on the side of the road forEVER), the procession finally arrived to the first firework tower where we were waiting. It was a quite a show! Having never seen a firework tower before, I have to say I was quite impressed. The fireworks were all set up on different fuses so they would go off at different times. We got to see spinning wheel of fire, fountains of fire, cascading fire almost like a waterfall, and even the name of the sponsoring restaurant lit up with fireworks. Also the fact that they were lighting the fireworks (and we are talking quite a bit of firepower here) off within 20 feet of a huge crowd of people made it all  a little crazy and added to the show.

The finished tower in the twilight just before the show.

Spinning wheels of fireworks.

More fun fireworks. Let's just say Lacey was in heaven .

At the end of the show, the procession moved on to the next altar and we decided we had had enough. As we started walking away not 5 minutes after the show we were totally amazed to look up and see that they already had most of the tower dismantled and packed away. Quite efficient! We headed back to camp feeling lucky we got this small glimpse into the customs of this small town.

Here are a few more pictures to enjoy:

The boring food ends with our drive into Peru, a food lovers paradise. There will definitely be multiple food posts while in Peru. We love Peruvian food. The “local” food has influences from all over the globe and the original local dishes are delicious and most are elegantly simple yet complex in flavors. I would say the main draw back is the heavy handed use of mayonnaise, but I happen to like mayo especially if it is homemade.

As some of you may remember I like to take cooking classes whenever possible (such as our amazing Oaxaca experience), so following our tradition I decided to try a cooking class. Lucky for us the owners of the B&B we are staying at (PeruRoadtrip.com) in Lima are friends with Danilo, a great cook, and voila an impromptu tour of the local market and all day cooking class followed by an insane feast of food.

We have been to many markets during our travels and we love them all, they have a lot of character and they are a great way to learn a lot about locals, their food and culture. The visit to Minka market in Lima was extraordinary due to the variety and quality of foods and the sheer size of the place. If you want an item you will most probably find it here, you name it they will have it.

You can buy 1 or a thousand plates

An interesting thing about Minka is that you could think of it as a wholesale type store such as Costco, but they sell you as little or as much of an item as you want. If you desire paprika you can get as little as a thimble or a gallon size bucket. No predetermined package sizes here.

You truly can find anything you like, as little or as much as you like.

I love the bulk bags, don’t ask me why…

Olives are very popular in Peru. They have a great mayonnaise based black olive sauce that is great. The black olives are very similar to kalamata.

There is also a lot of prepped goods, nice and fresh

Please take a minute to look at the photos of the amazing selection of truly high quality, fresh fruits and veggies. Fruits you don’t really see imported into the U.S., dozens of different potato varieties just a wonderful place for anyone who loves food

Of course for a true omnivore who leans towards mostly carnivore a wonderful meat section as well:

One thing I had never encountered (or at least never noticed) is the use of hens in some cuisines. Hen in this case meaning a mature chicken… in case you do not know: when you buy a chicken in the supermarket in the U.S. it is usually a very young bird. Here they sell old laying hens, some people we have spoken to here in Peru say the older birds though tougher are much tastier. We’ve had a couple of hen dishes, hen soup and hen salad and I must say they are indeed much better than their chicken counterparts. Check out a laying hen hanging at the butcher (warning: could bother some)

Yep, a little gruesome for some but to me it looks like great food waiting to happen.

For Lunch at the market we stopped at the everything is fried place and washed it down with a lightly fermented corn drink

We called this the fried everything stand. We ordered a mix of fried green plantains, fried sweet potato chips, fried corn (like corn nuts) and some fried squid or calamari all smothered in an extremely tasty hot sauce... it was absolutely delicious!

The very unfriendly looking vendor and her tasty fermented and non refrigerated corn drink, quite good believe it or not.

After a wonderful visit to the Minka market it we hit the kitchen and got our hands dirty so to speak. The menu as follows (I appologize for the photos… they do not look tasty, but they are):

Causa de cangrejo (causa of crab meat), basically a three layer dish top and bottom layer are made from a mashed yellow grainy potato and the filling is crab meat with very little mayo, spices and lime.

Danilo also made a wonderful “Causa Tekka” sort of a take on Tekka Maki or a roll of mashed potato and crab, awesome

Danilo making a Causa Tekka

The wonderful Tekka Causa

Papas a la Huancaina (Lit. Huancayo potatoes). Normally this dish consists of slices of waxy potato topped with Huancaina sauce, but since we were making mashed potatoes for the Causa we opted to make a non-traditional dish with a very traditional sauce. The Huancaina sauce is made with queso fresco (a plain farmers cheese), olive oil, aji amarillo (yellow mildly spicy Peruvian pepper which is actually orange), evaporated milk blended with saltines.

Cebiche de Ojo de Uva (Cebiche of (lit) grape eye fish). Lets talk about cebiche for a spell, this is probably the most famous dish from Peru (at least in my mind) and there is some debate as to wether it should be spelled with a “v” or a “b” my iPhone autocorrects with a v… everyone I ask here in Peru seems to think either is fine, so I may use both just cause I can. Ceviche has 4 ingredients and requires no heat, it is fish “cooked” in the acid of lime juice, a little spice from a pepper, and the flavor and crunch of thin slices of red onion. Cebiche is so simple and delicious I am surprised we did not eat it in California after catching some halibut and maybe even ling cod.

Ojo de Uva ceviche, amazing (even if it does not look that tasty in this image)

Tiradito de Ojo de Uva: sort of a sashimi with a sauce made with cebiche juice and a blended aji amarillo, the sauce is added last minute so the acid really does not cook the fish much.

Sashimi of Ojo de Uva!

Add the proper sauce to the sashimi and you have a tiradito.... hmmmm, tasty

Lomo Saltado (beef stir fried with tomato, onions, and french fries) Considered a very traditional national dish although it has an obvious Asian influence. The addition of the french fries are in the actual stir fry, not as a side and it is delicious.

The obviously Asian inspired "Lomo Saltado"

Our wonderful spread:

Danilo, our great instructor and the spread he cooked for us

The point of this little diatribe is that one can’t help but be impressed with the Incan Empire, and coming to Peru, you find bits of their history everywhere. Fortunately, in Peru, you also find remnants of Pre-Incan civilizations as well; such as the Chachapoyan ruins at Kuelap. The next stop on our journey: Cajamarca. Cajamarca is a nice blend of Pre-Incan, Incan, and Spanish cultures. After spending 2 days driving through the mountains on a winding little dirt road, we arrived in a beautiful old city in the mountains with a rich history beginning before the Incans came along and continuing through present day as the center of Peruvians battle against outside interest’s desire to extract their resources. In this case a foreign national company (with a US company as the majority owner) wants to put in a new gold mine, near the location of an already existing gold mine (also owned by foreign interests) that has already done untold damage to the environment and local culture. In the past few months, the people of the area have been standing against the mine with demonstrations and picketing. You can’t go anywhere in the area without seeing signs stating: CONGA NO VA! (or NO TO CONGA), Conga being the proposed location of the mine. All in all, in made Cajamarca an interesting place for a visit.

The view of the Cathedral from the Plaza de Armas

Upon our arrival in Cjamarca, after taking a day to stroll around the town and enjoy the huge plaza de armas and the small streets, markets and colonial buildings, we headed out to Cumbe Mayo the site of pre-Incan water canal system, built by the Chachapoyas to divert water from the Atlantic watershed towards the pacific. The area is surrounded by tall rock monoliths giving the area the name of Los Frailones or stone monks. We took a short hike through the frailones and checked out the water canals. We couldn’t help but be impressed by the engineering of the canals that in some places go straight through huge rocks that have been carved out.

Los Frailones

The present day city of Cajamarca was built by the Spanish after conquering the Incans in the area. The conquistadors mostly tore apart the Inca city and used the stones to build on top of what was there. There is one remaining Inca building here, which while not impressive to look at it does have some impressive history. Atahualpa, the Inca emperor when the Spanish conquistadors arrived was enjoying the famous Inca baths, hot springs located in the outskirts of Cajamarca. The Spanish captured Atahualpa and held him prisoner in this last surviving Inca structure. As the story goes Atahualpa offered the Spanish a ransom of enough gold and silver to fill the room he was being held prisoner to a height of his fully extended arm over his head in exchange for his release.

A painting at the entrance to the ransom room depicting the height to which Atahualpa promised to fill the room with silver and gold

Naturally, the Spanish accepted the deal and got a boat load of gold and silver. Naturally, the Spanish didn’t uphold their end of the deal and instead kept Atahualpa prisoner for another nine months before killing him in the town square, effectively ending the Inca Empire’s reign.

The entrance to the “ransom room” is only 5 soles (less than 2 bucks) and includes entrance to a museum around the corner in an old hospital attached to the Iglesia Belen. The museum isn’t anything spectacular but worth checking out. The interesting part of it is the “cubbies” set into the walls that are the former sick rooms. If you think spending time in a modern hospital is bad, these rooms would be a whole lot worse.

A recreation of a "hospital room". Not somewhere I would want to spend a lot of time.

By far our favorite place in Cajamarca was Usha Usha bar. Not necessarily for the reason you are probably thinking of. Don’t get me wrong, the drinks were excellent (in fact we enoyed our first Pisco Sour at Usha Usha), but the atmosphere, the owner, and the music were amazing! The place is a tiny hole in the wall, with just a few tables, a tiny bar, and walls covered with writing left by visitors. The owner, Cesar, has lived in the area his whole life and offers his visitors great conversation on the history and politics of Cajamarca and Peru. He is also a very talented musician. He and his band (which includes any one who can play an instrument and/or sing) play Peruvian folk songs all night, while the patrons sing and clap along. By the end of the night (morning really), the place is packed with people, all singing and joining in the music. We didn’t know any of the words to the songs, so instead we just sat back and let the wonderful atmosphere dance around us.

The amazingly friendly and talented host of the Usha Usha bar.

We had never heard of Kuelap before we started planning our trip to Peru, but once we started looking into we realized it is  a very special place. Some go as far as comparing it to Machu Picchu. We will reserve judgement, but I must say it is an impressive place.

Let’s share some background on the place, the educational aspect of Lost World Expedition if you will. Lacey briefly spoke of the Chachapoyas on the last post, so we know they were a pre-Inca civilization that thrived in Northern Peru. Sadly the Chachapoyas were conquered by the Inca Empire around 1475AD not long before the Spanish Conquistadores came to Peru, which means a lot of their history is lost. All we know of them comes from their conquerors the Inca and the Conquistadores so I am sure there is a little bias…

As far as fortresses go Kuelap is impressive, it was built at approximately 9,800 feet above sea level on a ridge overlooking the Utcubamba Valley. The stone walls of the fortress are 60 feet in height and at its widest the fortress is about 360 feet. The entrances that remain are very narrow and provide very easy means to regulate entry to the fortress. If this place was indeed conquered there must have been a very long siege.

Kuelap, a view from the opposite ridge. Most of the ridge you can see here are what is left of Kuelap

Lacey leaning on the tiny wall of Kuelap

Kuelap Exterior Wall Panoramic shot, hard to show how large it is

Within the fortress there are as many as 400 dwellings(?) of cylindrical shape, sadly only the bases of the structures remain; however, one structure was rebuilt in order to give visitors an idea of what the “houses” looked like.

A typical structure from Kuelap restored. We were told that there is some debate as to the actual degree of slope o the roof

A Kuelap cylindrical home or what is left of it

A cluster of homes on the edge of one of the entrances to Kuelap

One thing both Lacey and I found quite fascinating was a small structure that remains inside most of the cylindrical houses at Kuelap.  In order to save myself and the reader a very bad description, see the photo below. We asked our guide and he informed us that these were “cuyeras” or cuy (guinea pig) housing.  It seems to make sense to have fresh food at all times, to grow your own cuy inside the house and feed them all your scraps just like we saw in a current rural abode (on last post).

I must say we were thoroughly impressed by Kuelap. The location, the size of the walls, the views from the top it is all beautiful and seems very well thought out.  It has been a while since we visited ruins so we came with a fresh disposition (unlike our 10th ruin visit in Mexico). Kuelap seems a lot more pragmatic than the giant ruins of pyramids we saw in Mexico and Guatemala. Why? Because it is a more usable place. There is very little space used for anything other than homes and gathering places, and it is a very easy place to defend which meant a lot then. Pyramids although beautiful, seem like a waste of manpower to build. The Chachapoyas built a big fort and a ton of houses… “simple” and to the point. They did take the time to choose a beautiful spot to build and decorated with some neat images and architecture

“25,000 miles . . . That’s not so far, certainly we could make it to Ushuaia in five months, nine months at a leisurely pace.” This is what we told ourselves back home, staring at the maps laid out on the kitchen table. Maps should have a warning like side view mirrors, this country is larger than it appears.

The PanAmNotes Rig doing its thing

Realizing this didn’t take long.  We spent hours ogling the trip reports of past PanAm journeys. We craved the surf in central America, offroading in Bolivia, and mountain climbing in Peru. We recognized the necessity of driving to a place, rather than through it. Before even shifting the truck out of park we decided nine months wasn’t going to cut it. We were still in the process of saving money and dug deeper shooting for 12 months.
We hit Mexico at our planned 12 month pace. Driving aggressively, averaging too many hours in the truck each day, we watched the country fly past. We spent over a month in Mexico and while we look back fondly on it, we know we missed damn near all of it with our exhaustive schedule.  After Mexico, we seemed to downshift a little bit more with each country, lingering longer, absorbing more, and living better.

Brianna "downshifting" to the proper speed

We maxed out our three month visas in Peru and had to admit it was a major part of the reason this country topped the list of our favorites. Peru had become familiar, a culture we could grasp, foreign not at all.  It was here we made yet another extension to the journey. The logistics behind the decision were still forthcoming.  Financially we were in the same spot as our previous January end date.  We didn’t have the money but we had a plan.  Living slowly makes life more affordable. Rather than arriving in town after an eight hour drive and embarking upon the executive two day see-it-all affair, you can spend a week or two wandering around soaking it all in. With less driving the gas costs diminish and the need for luxury and convenience become unnecessary.

We have found a happy middle ground in between the overstuffed tour bus takers and the long term apartment leasers (SprinterLife we’re looking at you). We stick around long enough to meet folks, hear the local gossip, and engage in arguments over the best brand of mate (without a doubt, it’s Amanda).

There seems to be a growing popularity of speedy efficiency among travelers, especially Americans. If I have a week I can see a country, if I have a month I can see a continent, if I have three months, I can see the world!

Driving the PanAm is a malleable journey, it can be whatever you want it to be. Whether you’re seeking immersion, volunteering to better other lives, or just looking for a period of introspective extroversion, there’s just nothing fast about it.

Logan peak baggin'

Alas, Luis woke up in the middle of the night before we were leaving with a bad stomach and ended up spending the rest of the night in the bathroom with a visit from Montezuma (second time in 2.5 years, not bad really). Thinking this would not be a good way to spend the 4 day trek, Lacey went down to the tour office and explained the situation. “No problem, you can leave tomorrow,” was the reply. Since we were already committed to the idea, we agreed, never once thinking maybe this was an omen that we shouldn’t be going at all, or at least Luis shouldn’t.

The first day of the tour was more like bussing than trekking. We first went out to the Ciudad de Los Muertos (city of the dead), where we hiked along impossibly narrow shelves built by the Chachapoyas in the middle of impossibly steep cliffs to check out sarcophagi and the remains of what appear to be small houses built along a shelf running the length of the cliff. The sarcophagi are too far to get a good look, but they look like egg shaped mounds of clay that contain mummies. Some of them have what appear to be faces on the top of them.

The sarcaphagi mounds set into the recess of the cliff.

Our next stop was at Karajia where some more impressive sarcophagi are found. These sarcophagi are made out of wood and stand almost 10 feet tall. They have some vaguely human shape to them, and are pretty amazing to look at. Like the less refined sarcophagi at the Ciudad de Los Muertos, these are also set into recess in the middle of cliffs. One has to wonder how the hell they got these things up there.

The end of the first day found us winding down into Valle Huaylla Belen slightly reminiscent to the Valle de Cocora in Colombia and one of the most beautiful and picturesque valleys I’ve seen. The valley bottom is covered in green grass with a little river snaking through the middle and surrounded by jagged mountains on all sides. The valley is now protected in a type of land trust, but our guide told us it has always been considered sacred among the people living here, which is how the valley has escaped being split up into plots of agriculture by the locals.

The view of the valley from above.

The morning of the second day arrived cold, cloudy and drizzly, but we were exited anyways because we would be hiking all the way to our next destination for the night. As we started walking out of the valley, the clouds broke and the sun came out making it a very pleasant hike. Leaving the valley behind we started walking through the mountains following a pre-Incan path of laid rock that connected the different cities of the Chachapoyas people. The really cool part is that the path is still used by the campesinos in the area. It was pretty amazing to think about how many generations of people had passed through these same paths in the over 1,000 years since the rocks had been laid. In the afternoon, we arrived at the ruins of one of the towns, just as the sky opened up and began to pour rain. One of the unique and interesting things about the Chachapoyas people is the architecture which is characterized by circular stone houses.

Luis walking the trail of the Chachapoyas.

From the ruins, it was all down hill to the town way in the valley below where we were staying the night. Unfortunately the rain wasn’t helping the already treacherous and slippery trail get any easier to walk down. About half way down, Luis slipped on some rocks and went down. Everybody let out a collective gasp as they saw the angle of his foot and leg that he fell on. There was a few minutes of panicked discussion as our guide told us we were still a good hour from town. Luckily, after a few minutes and some attention from his personal nurses (the two girls, Amy and Romney, we were on the hike with had taken wilderness first responder courses) he was able to get up and continue to walk. It was a very painful walk into town, as Luis’ injured ankle didn’t deal well with the slippery, rocky path. As we relaxed at the place we were staying, and watched the cuy running around in the kitchen where our food was prepared, we discussed what Luis was going to do. In the end, at the urging of our guide (who no doubt didn’t want to have to deal with anymore falling Luis) it was decided that Luis would return to Chachapoyas in the morning and sit out the day while the rest of us continued on. He could catch a bus the following morning (the 4th day of our trip) and meet us for the grand finale of the trip: the ruins of Kuelap.

The kitchen at our bunk house. If you look closely you can see a bunch of guinea pigs huddled under the stove.

Our third day started out with more rain, surprise, surprise! It had rained all night, so we weren’t too excited at the condition of our trail for the day. Today we were spending most the time on horses, with some hiking in between when the trail was too bad for the horses. What our guide failed to tell us was that our horses were actually part mountain goat, and the trail was going to be INSANE! The ride started out mellow enough, but soon went from mellow to white knuckled hold on for your life crazy. We were traversing straight up mountain sides, in some places feet deep in water and mud, and climbing over wet, muddy, slippery rocks. Yes, all while riding horseback! I have never been on a ride like this before, and probably won’t ever again. The first hour or so, I was riding in terror, thinking as we approached each new crazy slope that there was no way these poor horses were going to make it up, and planning my no doubt ungraceful departure from the horse. After about an hour or so, however, of still finding myself in place on the horses back after each leap and scramble, I started to trust my horse and relax a bit to enjoy the ride. Our horses were really quite impressive, taking each leap and bound in stride. While there was a bit of slipping and sliding on their part, not one of the three horses ever came close to going down in the entire 5 hours of our ride. By the end I was convinced that they really were part mountain goat. The other amazing part of this ride was the horse guide. He scrambled along with us the entire time, wearing shorts and sandles in the pouring rain, while furiously chewing his bag of coca leaves. No matter how steep and slippery the slope was, he was always right there along side the horses and never once appeared to get tired or out of breath. I for one was totally impressed by this, as the few times we had to hike up a hill I was floundering along out of breath within minutes.

Riding horses on the muddy trail. This is actually the better part of the trail. Unfortunately, I was either to scared or it was pouring down rain to get pictures of the "better" part of the trail.

Our fourth day of the trip we were picked up by a bus and drove up to the ruins of Kuelap. Kuelap is said to be the Machu Pichu of northern peru, with the advantage of having way less visitors. We will save our opinion on the matter for after our visit to Machu, but Kuelap was indeed well worth it. It is a huge fortress, perched at an elevation of 3,000 meters (almost 10,000 feet) on a mountain top, with amazing views of the surrounding mountains in all directions. For more on the Kuelap ruins see the separate post soon  We had so many great photos we decided to post them separately. But as an enticement to check it out here is a small preview.

On days that we spend more than a few hours in the car, we usually end up grumpy and on a mission to get where we are going. For some reason, maybe the beautiful scenery or maybe just the fact that we knew it was going to be a long drive and had prepared for it, we actually took our time and enjoyed the drive. We even stopped after a few hours on the road and made some coffee having missed our morning caffeine intake in an effort to get started early.

Once we hit the mountains, the landscape turned a lot more scenic, with lush green mountains covered in clouds in all directions. There is something about the Andes, with the exceptionally high peaks dropping into steep narrow valleys that make you feel how small we truly are. We saw lots of goats scattered all over the hillsides as we wound our way around the hairpin turns. We even saw this little guy (picture below), giving a new meaning to the joke: “why did the tarantula cross the road.” It is hard to tell in the picture just how big he is, but the fact that we were able to spot him crossing the road as we were driving might give some indication.

The road is dotted with memorials along the roadside every 500 meters or so as a testament to all those who have come before and a good reminder to drive safe and keep your eyes on the road. These are the type of roads that always make us especially appreciative to be in our own vehicle. It is scary enough without having to put your life into the hands of some maniac bus driver that goes barreling around the corners, while looking at the steep hillside as it drops off the road so far below.

Almost every big truck we passed had a biker hanging on the back. Smart bike riders, we wouldn't want to have to peddle up these hills either.

After what seemed like hours, oh yeah it was, we finally dropped out of the mountains into the Amazon region, and what a change in both temperature and landscape! It is hard to explain the difference in the greenness and vegetation between the lush mountains and the even lusher tropical region. Here, the hills are more rolling and even greener if that makes any sense. All of the trees and cliffs have vines growing all over, and the valleys are terraced and full of growing rice. The air is thicker and more humid and the temperature warmer.

After a while we climbed back out of the topical area into more mountains although not quite as high this time. By the time we arrived in Chachapoyas we had come to a happy medium. Nestled in the mountains, it is high enough to be out of the hot humidity of the lower tropical region, but not high enough to reach the coldness of the high andes. As it was New Year’s Eve, we made it just in time to stroll the plaza enjoying all the families and kids letting off fireworks. Our nightcap for the evening was watching a very drunk Peruvian who pulled up to the plaza right at midnight with his girlfriend. He proceeded to get out of his truck with the radio blasting the Bee Gees, light an incredibly long roman candle (it had to be at least 4 feet long) and do a strip dance (he managed to keep his clothes on, but you get the idea:) ) while shooting colored lights into the sky. Unfortunately we had forgotten our camera at the hotel when we had gone out (I know bad travelers), but you get the picture. We couldn’t help cracking up while enjoying the show and toasting to midnight. Any new year that starts with this much comic relief is bound to be a good one! In true Lost World Expedition style, we are a bit late with this post, but we want to wish everybody a Happy and Blessed New Year.

After hearing how busy this particular border crossing was, imagine our surprise when we arrived and found we were the only ones there! The place was completely empty. Ecuador was easy to check out of, the immigration guy even kindly offered to give us another 3 months in Ecuador if we so desired (at a small fee I’m sure). We thanked him kindly but said no it wasn’t necessary and were on our way out of the country. Even with nobody else around to make us invisible, the customs office for the truck is a good 4 km from the border so nobody noticed. Crossing the bridge into Peru, we were the only ones on the huge 4 lane road. It felt a little weird.

The Peruvian side of the border was just as easy and deserted as the Ecuadorian side. The plus side of this was no long lines to stand in. We just walked right up and got taken care of. Everybody was even really nice and friendly. Within a half hour we were all set and on our way. So far the easiest and most pleasant border crossing experience we’ve had. I guess we should note that the virtual desertedness of the border isn’t really normal. One of the border guys on the Peru side told us a few days before it was so busy, a woman who had arrived at 8 in the morning didn’t get out of there until 2 in the afternoon due to the long lines. I guess we had a bit of luck on our side!

We knew that our fellow overlanders Tree and Stevie of Sprinterlife were somewhere near the border so we kept our eyes peeled and sure enough, in true travelin’ mojo, not an hour down the road we spotted their sprinter on the side of the road in the town of Zorritos. We pulled over and after talking with them decided to spend a few days hanging out. We stayed at a place right on a nice beach, relaxed, and tried to get used to the heat. So far a great start to our 11th country on the road! If you want to see more about Zorritos, you should check out the BodesWell blog. These guys stayed here for quite a bit longer than us and do justice to the area in their posts.

The four of us squeezed into the back of a tuk-tuk on the way to dinner.

Oh, we almost forgot the most important picture of the post. In Zorritos, we got our first opportunity to try the famous Peruvian ceviche. Without a doubt it lived up to its reputation!

The Andean paramo is in my opinion (Lacey) one of the most beautiful sites to be found in Ecuador. The grasslands are found at altitudes above the tree line and below the permanent snow line. As you look across the landscape you see mostly bunch grasses that give the area its name. The grasses are varied in color from light brown to deep greens and everything in between. Once you start walking through the park you find that the ecosystem is much more complex than originally meets the eye. There are different types of lichens growing in little clumps that look like miniature versions of the hobbit house, small bunches of moss, and tons of different little tiny flowers and some big spiny cacti as well growing in between the grass.

Since we hadn’t been at altitude for a while, we were not exactly up for a lot of high altitude hiking, but the scenery from the visitor’s center was so stunning we decided we at least had to make an attempt. There is a large lake right in front of the visitors center, so we took off for a little hike around the lake to see if we could get some different views. On every hilltop we got to, we found more lakes and little streams feeding into even more lakes. After about an hour of hiking, Lacey was starting to get a headache and Luis’ head hurt soo bad he had tunnel vision, so we decided it was time to turn around. Good thing too, because it started to rain just as we reached our truck. As a reward for our good timing we got to see this cute little bunny rabbit hanging out in the grass .

The sanctuary is actually in the outskirts of Puyo, and as it turns out there is other rehabilitating wildlife there not just monkeys. The sanctuary consists of a few acres of fenced in property where most monkeys can roam freely. There are a few very large cages for some of the monkeys that are less socialized and more likely to hurt human visitors or other monkeys. The place is run by Fundacion los Monos, Selva y Vida and they keep funded by donations and from the entrance fees to the sanctuary. There are several volunteers from all nationalities living in the premises, which is kinda cool until you find out there are very few spots on the premises (including the house) that don’t have monkey dung and urine.

The place is awesome! Most of the monkeys are curious and super friendly. In fact Lacey had a female cling on to her for most of our tour of the facility and the only way to get her off was offering her food.

Lacey's adopted "daughter" Paola, she loved Lacey!

Sweet Paola

We opted to do the self guided tour of the facility and whilst walking by a creek we picked up another friend! A river otter that fancied itself a puppy dog. As soon as the otter saw us he swam to shore, ran up to us and started “barking” non-stop and rubbing up on our feet. It was awesome! He followed us for most of the walk around the place “barking” most of the way. Due to his incessant barking and true to our cheesy nature we named the otter Sir Barks a Lot (I know we are cheesemeisters).

Our faithful wanna be canine companion: Sir Barks a Lot

Sir Barks a Lot rubbing up on Luis' foot

A stroll through the woods with a monkey and a river otter from Lost World Expedition on Vimeo.

It was a great experience. We were visited by all the different monkeys at the sanctuary and Luis even had a Coatimundi and a spider monkey jump on his lap. Amazing day! Enjoy the photos

So the story goes as follows: We spent a week in Reserva Cuyabeno a National Park that is part of the Ecuadorian Amazon (more about this wonderful place in another post). On one of our daily canoe day trips we went fishing, not for food, but for the tourist practice of fishing for piranha (the Amazon’s Deadliest Catch?). Touristy, but fun.

Armed with “fishing poles” (sticks with a mono line and a rusty hook) and some raw beef, we find a good spot and start casting. It doesn’t take long for us to start bringing in piranha. They are ruthless eaters and a feeding frenzy ensues.  Luis catches one…

And proceeds to unhook, this is a catch and release fishery after all…

The problem comes when Luis attempts to place the tiny piranha on his hand in order to allow Lacey a good view for a photo… piranhas are quick and vicious and have razor sharp teeth… This tiny fellow proceeds to bounce of Luis’ hand an take a chunk off his thumb!!!

Lesson learned. Don’t mess with piranhas, no matter how small Our guide brought up the good side of the event: “Can we keep the photos, so that we can show other tourists exactly what not to do?” Yes ladies and gentlemen, Luis took one for the team so that others could learn from his mistakes (as usual).

The other thing we realized today is that we are still thinking in terms of the US and are a little rusty with this travel thing. We were headed to Riobamba which is only 150 km south. As we started driving we thought, “Oh that won’t take long at all.” Well, after getting lost in Quito, finally getting on the panamerican and having to take 2 different detours one of which took us out to the middle of nowhere, we realized this might take a bit longer than we thought. Then, after stopping for fuel, we noticed a very strong smell of diesel in the car and a large amount of people looking at our car kinda funny as they pulled up next to us at stop lights (very nice people that they were, they didn’t bother to say anything).  It turns out a hose on the fuel tank had come off and we had lost a bit of that fuel we had just bought. So after a little stop on the side of the road, and about 5 hours after leaving Quito we made it to our destination. 5 hours to go 150 kms? Welcome back to South America. In a few months none of this is going to seem crazy to us anymore, but for now, the adventure continues!

The city/town of Machachi is the nearest population to SGC (a 45 minute drive), it is also the home to some of Secret Garden’s employees including the main transport man and general Mensch: Don Arturo. Don Arturo invited us to a shindig at his house and insisted we attend, we accepted and even changed our departure date from SGC for this event.

The night of the event we donned our best party clothes (very slim pickins’) and crammed into the LandCruiser for the 45 minute drive to Machachi. When we arrived at Arturo’s the party was already hopping, there was a large party tent in the backyard and a DJ set up inside the house. Arturo received us with great big hugs and a small gift commemorating his sons first communion (apparently the party had two-fold meaning; in honor of the communion of his son and a house warming party, we were informed of neither until we arrived at the party).

We were quickly shuffled into the house and sat on the dining room table, where we quickly received our dinner which included a wonderful chicken soup and as a main plate a big juicy BBQ’d Cuy (Guinea pig). Let me (Luis) take a minute to say that even though I am extremely open minded about food and you could even say I am adventurous about eating (bugs do not bother me and offal is always a treat), but Cuy is definitely not my cup o’ tea. I have tried it on 4 different occasions, cooked 3 different ways and no go. Surprisingly enough Lacey, the timid eater who a few years ago did not like beets, enjoys the tiny rodent! Well, enough sidenotes…

While enjoying our dinner we where sort of the center of attention because we were next to the dance floor and the only ones at the dinner table and the only ones with big fat Cuy on their plate… every one else was enjoying chicken while standing or at party chairs spread around the house. It was awkward, but we lived. Before I even finished my dinner an older (than me) lady grabbed my hand and pulled me to the dance floor… now to some reading this that may mean little, but folks who know me realize that for me to dance there usually is a blue moon and lots of alcohol involved. It was quite enjoyable and very awkward. I did not do much dancing, just a few songs, but Lacey definitely shuffled for a while.

We did discover one interesting thing about drinking alcoholic beverages in this region. Nobody at the party had a drink in their hand, but several people had bottles and a small glass on their hands. They go around and when they feel you need a drink they pour you one and you must drink it (as a straight gulp) in front of them. Let me tell you, being the oddity at a party does not pay over here (unless you like a never-ending parade of shots). Within 20 minutes I had probably had 10 shots of random alcoholic treats… whisky, rum, moonshine, and best of all an Ecuadorian spirit called Zhumir (ethilic alcohol with artificial flavorings horrible stuff). Arturo’s dad was particularly fond of us and delivered shots every few minutes! How could I say no?

It was a wonderful evening that we will never forget. Gracias Don Arturo.

These guys are all dressed and ready for some rodeo action.

The judge who sat his horse and followed the riders in the ring, calling out the disqualifications was probably the most entertaining person of the day. He had a big bottle of whiskey in a pocket of his chaps, and in between every team, he would ride over to the announcers, pull out his bottle of whiskey, pour himself a great big shot, then share it around with everybody else.

By the end of the day, we wondered how he was still sitting his horse. Then he rode out into the middle of the arena, dismounted and proceed to take a VERY long piss up against his horse. If this wasn’t funny enough, when he went to get back on the horse, the horse wouldn’t stand still and the judge kept falling off. Finally, after five minutes of watching him try to mount the horse only to stumble back down, somebody had to come out and help him back on. Then he rode back to the announcers for a celebratory shot of whiskey.

In the afternoon, the dancers in traditional dress came out in a procession with the young ladies dancing in front and the men following behind playing guitars and flutes and singing. The procession made quite a site as they circled the arena. As we looked on, Cotopaxi came out for a view with a great big rainbow standing over the dancers. It was one of the most arresting sites I’ve ever seen.

When an old woman came up to me at the end of the day and told me the mountains of Ecuador where one of the most beautiful places in the world, I could only agree.

The view from the front of the hostel at sunset: Volcan Cotopaxi and Volcan Rumiñahui.

One of our happiest discoveries upon our arrival here were the four hostel dogs that immediately won us over. Basil and Milo are Dalmatian mixes and Mash and Daisy are wiener dogs. They all have great loving personalities. Basil and Mash are the tough guys who go everywhere with us including the 6 hour horseback rides and all 4 of them come on walks to the waterfall and around the area. Milo and Daisy are the lovey dovey dogs who are always down for a snuggle on the couch.

These dogs have about as rough a life as we do

One of the other wonderful things about being here has been all of the awesome people we have met. Besides all of the awesome travelers that have come through here (some of whom we didn’t want to leave), the people that work at secret garden are all wonderful people and we feel like we have become part of a big family. Getting to know the people here has been a great pleasure, with the added bonus that Lacey can actually say for the first time on this whole trip that she is actually learning spanish! (Yes, I know how sad it is that after 2 years on the road this is just now actually happening).

For the past two months, we have been relaxing in the beautiful scenery, guiding hikes to a beautiful waterfall an hour away, and riding horses as much as possible. After a full day of activity, we relax in the evenings with a glass of wine, and enjoy the sunset over the mountains and the amazing colors of the clouds. In the beginning the lack of internet and availabality of the outside world was hard to get used to, but in the end we didn’t even have a desire to go to town or know what is going on in the world. We became hermits, and it was actually a wonderful feeling. Of course when you have amazing scenery and great hikes or horseback rides to enjoy it is easy to forget about anything else . At the risk of letting out the secret and sending the masses flocking to Cotopaxi, we can say that this area and the hostel truly is paradise.

After a few days in Puerto Ayora we were fortunate enough to find some last minute spots on a boat for an 8 day cruise. We were even able to find 4 spots, so the longest ever double date with Tom and Jenny was able to continue. We booked our passage on the Daphne, and headed out to sea. The Daphne turned out to be a really nice boat and the crew and our fellow passengers were all really great. In fact, we were very spoiled while on the cruise, with nice bedrooms with AC, delicious breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks served at regular hours, and great places to relax on the boat while soaking some rays and the amazing views. We spent our nights sailing from island to island and our days walking around and snorkeling the different islands. The variety of land and vegetation on the islands was surprising. Since the islands were formed by volcanos at different times in history, some are very old and covered in vegetation while others are nothing more than barren hills of lava.

Our sweet ride for 8 glorious days.

Our first morning on the boat we woke up at the island of Genovesa where we were told if we were lucky we would get to see the magnificent frigate birds with red pouches inflated to look like big red heart shaped balloons attached to their neck.  They do this during the mating season to attract the females, the red balloon is usually accompanied by some cool gobbling sounds and a little dance with their wings. On the daphne we went up on deck in the morning to find ourselves in a big beautiful bay surrounded by rock walls on all sides. It was our first morning away from civilization and it was a spectacular place to welcome the day. We were all excited to be out on the cruise and to see some wildlife, so when Tom managed to spot a bit of red on the cliffs everyone got really excited to try to get a peak of the frigates. It turns out this was a pretty funny overreaction because by the end of the day we could walk right past a frigate with his pouch all puffed up and looking pretty for the ladies with out even stopping for a photo because we had seen so many. Nevertheless, no matter how many you see, they remain pretty spectacular. Genovesa turned out to be the bird island, with thousands of birds flying all around. This was also the only place we got to see the red footed booby, not quite as famous as its cousin the blue footed booby, but in our opinion, just as pretty.

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The island of Santiago was our first up close look at the marine iguanas (other than the fairly tame Puerto Ayora fish market residents). These iguanas hang out on the rocks and in the pools of water, but when it is feeding time they swim out to sea and dive under to feed on algae. They somehow manage to look very graceful and at home swimming in the ocean. When the iguanas come out of the water to resume their sun bathing on the rocks they blow saltwater out through their noses, like a mucous rich sneeze. There are hundreds of them laying all over the rocks and each other. We had to be really careful where we stepped because they wouldn’t bother to move out of our way, and they blend in with the lava rocks really well. We came really close to stepping on a few.

Our guide was the only complaint we had during our time on board the Daphne. He was a really nice guy, but he had been a guide for over 20 years, and he seemed to be pretty over it. He couldn’t quite find enthusiasm for any of the things we were seeing. He would deliver a quick emotionless mumble; “over here is the blah blah blah” and move on. The one exception to this lack of enthusiasm was on the island of Bartolomé. Bartolomé is basically a big volcano with little to no vegetation, just lava rocks. Bartolomé does however offer an amazing view from the top off its former active volcano, so up we climbed. At the top, we happened upon 6 Galapagos hawks who were soaring around and landing within arms distance of our gawking group. They would stay and pose long enough to get some great photos, then soar around the top and land next to somebody else. It was pretty incredible, and we knew it was a rare treat by the enthusiastic reaction of our guide. He even broke out his camera for some photos (first and only time we saw him use said camera during the 8 days).

North Seymour Island:

South Plaza Islet:

Santa Cruz Island:

We’ve heard a lot of tales of how the wildlife on the Galapagos is both abundant and fearless of humans, but we had taken this  information with a grain of salt, nothing prepared us for how true it was. At times we were practically stepping on iguanas and nesting birds and they didn’t even bat an eye at these crazy humans trying to get pictures. It really is quite unbelievable. We joked a lot about how the National Park must be paying the animals to pose for the tourists or perhaps they are all trained to stay clos to the tourists and pose. Even the sea lions -which we are quite used to on the coast of California- are more appealing in the Galapagos. They lay around on the beaches and rocks and somehow give a whole new definition to relaxation and lazing around in the sun. They also somehow manage to be a lot cuter than the ones we are used to in California, especially the little ones. When you start snorkeling around them, the young ones come right up to you and play in the water with you or for your amusement. It is an amazing experience. That is until the big daddy or momma sea lion gets in the water and decides to make sure you aren’t a threat to the little ones. Then it is time to get the hell out of dodge because they have some scary brown stinky sharp teeth.

Espanola Island:

On Isla Floriana we visited Post Office Bay. The area got its name, because in the old days, the sailors who were in the area would stop at this island and drop their letters for family back home at a big “post office box”. When a sailor who was heading home stopped at Post Office Bay, he would check the mailbox and if any addressee was in his route/destination he would take the letters with him to deliver. For example, a sailor who was returning to England would stop at Post Office Bay and see if there were any letters addressed to people in England. He would take those letters back with him and deliver them. This way, sailors would be able to get mail back home to their family. Nowadays, the post office box is still there, but instead of letters, it is full of post cards from tourists. We went through the stack of post cards and if one was found to be addressed to the same town as anybody on our boat, they took them with them to be delivered.

We got to do some snorkeling at pretty much every island we visited. Sometimes the water would be really clear with great visibility and other times it wouldn’t be so great. We still managed to see a lot of fish and swim with some animals that you usually only get to see in aquariums. We think the highlight was seeing the green sea turtles that didn’t seem to care about us swimming with them and the sea lions.

After our cruise we still had a few days left, so we took a “bus” to Isabella Island, the bus is nothing but a large speed boat, the only way to move between the populated islands. Isabella is the least developed of the 3 islands that have towns on them. It is a smallish town, with sand streets and lots of beautiful beach frontage. We stayed at the Casa Rosada, which is a great little place right on the beach. The marine iguanas all hang out on the corner of the hotel all day. We hooked up with a couple guys that were on the cruise with us and lazed around on the beach soaking up as much sun and sea time before we had to head back to cold and rainy Quito.

All in all, the Galapagos turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip so far. We don’t regret a single penny spent, and would tell anyone thinking of going, JUST DO IT!!!!!

In Puerto Ayora we also went to visit the tortoises living at the Charles Darwin Research Station. The most famous Giant Tortoise perhaps in the world, Lonesome George, is one of the residents here. He is the last surviving member of his particular species, being from Pinta Island. You see, seven of the islands are inhabited by tortoises, with each island having one or more distinct species that only live on that particular island. The tortoises of the different islands vary by size and shell shape according to the climate. We visited Lonesome George at the research station, but unfortunately, he was hanging at the back of his pen which meant no pictures of the most famous tortoise to show here. We did get to hang, up close and personal with some other less famous tortoises, who unlike their wild counter parts couldn’t care less how close you get. So while we didn’t get any hissing reactions, Lacey did get to pretend to sit on one.

For the first few hours after we arrived on the island of Santa Cruz and made our way to the town of Puerto Ayora, we couldn’t help exclaiming in wonder, “We’re on the Galapagos!” every few minutes. Eventually we settled down and made it to town. We were actually quite surprised at the size of the town we found here. It is much bigger and built up than we had expected and there are new buildings going up in all directions.  That isn’t to say the town is ugly. There is a nice pier looking out on the beautiful turquoise water and all the ships anchored in the bay and there is even free wi-fi internet on the pier.

The view of the Puerto Ayora bay.

The morning fish market in Puerto Ayora is probably the highlight of the town. If you go in the morning, the local fisherman are bringing in beautiful yellowfin tuna, wahu, and other fish that make your mouth start watering. The main entertainment of the place though is the mix of local wildlife that come for the bits of fish they get. The pelicans circle around fighting with each other and two sea lions make their daily appearance to beg for some food. The sea lions have been trained by the fisherman to not take any fish without it being handed to them, so they stand around and try to look cute enough for some handouts. We couldn’t help thinking of them like dogs the way they would give the puppy dog eyes to the fisherman cutting up the fish. One of the sea lions seems to be more in charge than the other one and every now and then he’ll go bark at the other sea lion and try to get him to leave. The other one just lays down and looks cute. You get the feeling that this happens every day. Once in a while a marine iguana will drop by and steal a few mouthfulls of fish before they get caught as well. The fisherman shoo them off, but as soon as their backs are turned again, the iguanas are back chowing down on the fish. All the while there is a big crowd of gawking tourists trying to get photos and laughing at the antics of the animals. It made for endless entertainment for us and we usually found ourselves there for a few hours each day.

One of our other favorite places in Puerto Ayora was the Calle de Los Kioskos, which is a street in town lined with food kiosks. The street is closed down in the evening and filled with tables and chairs, and immediately fills up with diners looking for a cheap meal. We could get huge plates of fresh fish and all the usual (rice, beans, plantains, and salad) for $6. It was definitely the place to be around dinner time.

Dinner at the kioskos. Note Tom's fantastic mustache.

A short boat ride from Puerto Ayora and a nice hike will take you out to Las Grietas, meaning cracks, which is literally a big crack in the lava where salt water from the ocean and fresh rain water mix (hence the name). The swimming hole is really deep and there are quite a few fish swimming around to see. Luis even got up the guts and jumped off the cliff (it only took him a few minutes to get up the nerve ).

Here are a few more pictures from Puerto Ayora:

Let us start by quickly introducing our cast for the night of our visit to Andres: Our great new friends Fico and his girlfriend Titi; in another post we will talk about how we met Fico, a local Bogotan that took Lacey and myself in and treated us like family for 3 weeks! For the visit there was also Paul, better known in some circles as “UK4X4 a Brit and fellow member of ExpeditionPortal.com forum, who happened to be in Bogota for a few days. And to round up the night Lacey and yours truly.

The truth is I think it would be near impossible for me to describe Andres Carne de Res with my lack of descriptive skills. The place is amazing! It is one of the most interesting and fun experiences I have ever had. I may sound like I am exaggerating after all this is just a restaurant, but I am not and this is a lot more than just a restaurant. It is a restaurant/live theater/dance your butt off place/ bar… and more.  Andres is probably about the size of a whole city block yet it is filled with an interesting cornucopia of random paraphernalia and crazy decorations with no real rhyme or reason. There are people of all ages and social stratta (granted the cost does keep it a little narrow), and everyone is in such a good mood and such a party mode that it is contagious. You cannot help to be giddy and happy to be there. By the way this is not a sponsored post, even Luis danced most of the night!!!

I will attempt to take you there by showing you the following fully annotated gallery, so please check it out (pardon the poor quality of the pics). If you ever visit Bogota do not miss Andres Carne de Res!

The beginning of our hike into the beautiful Valle de Cocora.

There are a few different lengths of trail you can hike in the valley, but we opted to see it all, thus hiking a big loop through the valley and back out. Due to all the rain lately, we had some muddy hiking through the valley, which gave plenty of time to enjoy the view of the palms. I especially like the palms that have air plants growing all the way up the trunk.

A lone wax palm. Notice all the air plants growing on the trunk.

Eventually we arrived at the mountains and the trail started to wind its way up through the trees. There was a lot of criss-crossing back and forth over the creek with log bridges to keep it interesting for us. Halfway up the mountain we took a detour to a hummingbird “farm,” which turned out to be a little house with a very nice couple and a few hummingbird feeders with sugar water. On the bright side, there were plenty of hummingbirds and it was a nice break from the climb.

Back on the trail, Luis and I thought we were going to die before we made it to the top of the hill where a mirador was waiting for us. This hike turned out to be a good reminder of how out of shape we’ve become! Finally just as we made it to the top, the clouds rolled in and covered the view before we could even catch our breath to snap a photo. So you are going to have to take our word for it that it was a beautiful view.

The clouds blocking our hard earned view.

From the mirador we had a pleasant 5 kms of walking back down the hill on a nice road. There were ample opportunities for more wax palm photos, and we could only be thankful we weren’t still going up hill. We made it back to the bottom just in time to catch a Jeep back into Salento, while we reflected on the amazing beauty of the valley and our poor aching feet

After waking up early from a not entirely comfortable night at Plantation house we decided to go get some breakfast and check out La Serrana. La Serrana had been recommended to us by a few people, and we knew Luis and Lacey were there, so we were planning on switching if it looked as nice as we had heard. Well Tom was actually ready to switch the night before as soon as we found out there was no WiFi at Plantation house, and I was ready to switch about 5 minutes before that; due the cold welcome we had received from the staff. ***Jenny: Hola! Tenemos una reservacion abajo del nombre Tomas. Super mean front desk girl: No acceptamos reservaciones despues de las seis en la tarde. Jenny: Oh. Lo siento, Yo mande una correo electronico sobre nuestra llegada a las siete…Tom: Ud. tiene habitaciones libres?Super mean front desk girl: Si. Tom: Luego, la reservacion no esta importa. Podemeos tener una cuarto?<Super mean front desk girl kind of rolls her eyes and walks out>Jenny: (whispers to Tom) Are we supposed to follow her? I don’t get it…Tom: I’m not sure. <Super mean front desk girl comes back and waves impatiently at us for us to follow her>***After we walk up the Hydrangea lined path to La Serrana, we come upon the office and ask the woman there if she has availale space. Its a bit early and everyone is sleeping so she tells us that we can check in later, but that she can’t show us the dorms or rooms because they are all occupied. I think it was only about 8am at this point. As we walk around the grounds (did i mention absolutely freaking stunning?) We run into Luis and Lacey, and all decide to go horse-back riding in a couple of hours.
We arrived back at La Serrana at 10:30ish and run into Lauren (the Californian we had met during our stint as hostel volunteers in Guatape) right at the entrance. Lauren, as it turns out is joining us for horsie riding, so we are all of a sudden rolling in a California posse 5 deep. Notes on horsies:Luis and Lacey both actually know how to ride so they were given the spirited horses. I may have died if I was on Luis’ horse. Lauren is seriously allergic to horses. Like no joke-seriously freaking allergic. We were all super impressed that she was down to go actually. My butt raised about 6 inches from the saddle and slammed back down with incredible force every 3 seconds or so, while Lacey’s shoulders just kinda jiggled while her butt maintained contact with the saddle the whole time. I don’t even get how that worked. Horse back riding in Salento is absolutely amazing and beautiful, and may be one of the highlights of the trip. It pretty much felt like we were on an awesome epic fantasy quest the whole time. We scaled steep ravines and galloped through emerald green countryside, and forded rivers. Horseback riding+our guide+ Salento=AWESOME.

After we all hobble back on our saddle sore legs, backs and butts to La Serrana we decide that later that evening we are all going to go “in town” to play a game of Tejo. Tejo is a pretty amazing game. It almost seems like too much of a Colombian stereotype to be true, but it’s totally real. Its almost like ski-ball (like at chuck-E-cheeses) but with drinking, mud and gunpowder. Basically there is a metal ring set into some mud with gunpowder folded into paper triangles at the 4 cardinal directions (if the circle was a compass). You throw metal pucks at the box of mud trying to land in the metal circle. The point breakdown is as follows:If you land right in the middle of the circle-6 points; If you make the gunpowder explode (bigger bang than you’d think)-3 points; If no one makes it in the circle or makes it explode than whoever is closest to the circle gets-1 point.
Add some beers and aguardiente and you gotta game! My favorite is when the paper triangles explode, and then flare up in flames while we all cheer. Explosions are good and all, but explosions plus a li’l bit of fire are even better.

Tejo from Lost World Expedition on Vimeo.

All in all a perfect day in Salento, Colombia!

We camped in Villa de Leyva for several days. “Several days!?” some have said, “in a year and half driving through Latin America haven’t you tired of Spanish colonial towns?” Well, no. At least not yet. Villa de Leyva is welcoming and beautiful and so far we cannot get enough of Spanish colonial architecture and its signature 3 foot thick walls and inner courtyards. During the work week there are very few visitors from Bogota and the town has a very relaxed, almost lazy feel to it that we can totally relate to

Other reasons to visit Villa de Leyva? Wonderful weather, great hiking, beautiful scenery,  waterfalls, weird mud house, a very beautiful monastery, wine tasting at a vineyard (albeit not that great), great farmers market (only Saturdays), great camping spot, an almost complete fossil of a Kronosaurus on display, an ostrich farm (if you are into that), Werner Herzog filmed here and last but not least there is El Infiernito (The Little Hell) a pre-columbian site full of phallic menhirs purportedly used as a rudimentary astronomical observatory of sorts. Need I say more?

How about some photos…

Villa de Leyva, a pictorial

The monastery of Ecce Homo. I won’t go all professor Lost World on ya, but “Ecce homo” or “Behold the man” was how Pontius Pilate presented Jesus Christ shortly before his crucifixion. Trivia for some essential for others. About the monastery: they claim four Dominican monks built this monastery in the 1600′s, the place is absolutely beautiful and many of the rocks used for the construction have amazing fossils of trilobites and other cool critters and plants. The cloister patio has 33 columns, which somehow  represent the years Jesus lived and a Passage of the Dead, under whose bricks abbots are buried. On that note…

La Periquera, a great hike through some private property that houses a wonderful series of waterfalls

The Mud House. A homeowner decided to get creative with his house and it has become a bit of an attraction due to its unusual design. We really liked some aspects of the design and if there were no houses around it the house could blend quite well with the landscape.

There is much more, but we are selfish… we keep some for ourselves Thanks.

We met a really cool Australian girl named Kate in San Gil, who shared some of the same images as I did. As with anything that scares us, facing it with two is always better than alone, so we decided to go together. After driving out of town a ways, we headed out a dirt road that climbed up to the top of the rolling hills, with beautiful views of the surrounding countryside. When we got out of the van the wind was blowing hard enough to almost blow us over, which I took as a good sign that just maybe our parachute really would catch the air after we threw ourselves off the cliff.

Getting strapped in and ready for my flight. It looks like I'm happy here, but actually I'm trying to tell myself that this really is a good idea!

Well as it usually goes with things we are afraid of, all that fear was for nothing because as it turns out, paragliding doesn’t involve throwing yourself off a cliff. Duh! The method of getting into the air is actually quite smooth. As I was being strapped in to all the equipment, and even after watching a few people take off, I still have to admit there was still a bit of fear sitting in the bottom of my stomach, but mostly excitement for the thrill of the ride. Once we were all strapped in, all it took was a quick flick of the parachute to get it up in the air, and literally two steps down the hill by the instructor (all the while I was already sitting in my little pouch, it looks a little funny but is actually quite comfortable) and next thing I knew we were airborn and drifting ever higher as I watched the ground recede below me. Once we were in the air and I had gotten over the fact that I was in the air, I was able to notice the sensations and what was going on around me. Paragliding is actually quite peaceful and relaxing. Well that is unless the instructor decides to take you on a tight dizzy making spiral in the air (I actually thought I might puke at one point after one of these spirals, but it was so fun I had to do it again!). It feels like floating in the sky more than anything else, and it is a lot more quite than I would ever have thought. In fact my instructor was so relaxed up in the air that when his phone rang, he answered it and proceeded to have a conversation while 300 feet in the air! From the air, we had great views of the surrounding countryside and the rim of the Canyon Chicamocha which is the largest canyon in Colombia and another great place for paragliding as my instructor told me. I can definitely say, if I have the chance I will do it again. Although, it did look pretty technical, so I might just stick with the tandem flights for a while longer, no matter what Luis says!

Big word, serendipity, but our meeting with Hernando truly was. As we drove out of Cartagena towards Santa Marta we pulled off to the side of the road to take some pics and some guy driving a LandCruiser pulled over next to us and proceeded to introduce himself. Hernando a fellow 4×4 enthusiast, a fellow member of ExpeditionPortal.com and admirer of the magazine Overland Journal! Not only did we have those things in common we also had friends in common back in the ole US of A. Small world indeed!

After some small talk Hernando invited us to stop by Iguana 4×4 his shop in Barranquilla and he also offered to accompany us on a trip to La Guajira! Needless to say we were ecstatic and we agreed to meet him. Hernando later explained that though a lot of the stories about La Guajira are true (smugglers abound, and apparently the Wayuu do have a bit of a bad rep) it is OK if you know where you are going and specially if you caravan. Feeling better about safety we planned, packed and a few days later we sailed forth on our big land yachts; Hernando and his lovely girlfriend Sophie in the Nissan Patrol and us in the trusty LandCruiser. The drive was amazing. Beautiful country (except for a few areas of Barranquilla and RioHacha).

This is our camping spot the first night, on our way to Cabo de la Vela, less than an hour east of Santa Marta

And this is our view from camp... that is the beach down there

We stopped in RioHacha for their "world famous" cebiche, and it was truly delicious. While there we met some great people... locals and an American couple.

The beginning of the seemingly endless dirt road or "destapado" this is by far the smoothest part of the road

Our original idea was a drive to Punta Gallina, but once again the extended rainy season foiled our plans. The “trocha” or off road trail was so bad that We had to “settle” for a wonderful time in Cabo de la Vela. Cabo de la Vela is a truly beautiful destination in itself and due to the bad roads we had it almost completely to ourselves!

We would really like to thank Hernando, Sophie and Hernando’s family for their friendship and hospitality we will forever cherish our time with them. Not to mention the help that Hernando’s shop Iguana 4×4 and Capi the shop chief wrencher did for the LandCruiser… muchisimas gracias.

Please enjoy the barrage of images:

The view of the "volcano" from afar. If you look closely you can see the crowd of people at the top.

However, people don’t come to Totumo for the sites. The volcano is known for its fantastic “pool” of mud at the top of the mound, where you can bathe to your hearts content and for a small tip, you can even get a nice rub down by the locals who hang out in the pool for just such a purpose. December and January is vacation time for Colombians, so when we arrived we were greeted to a huge crowd of people packed into the little space atop the “volcano”. After getting our tickets, we climbed to the top ready to get our bathing on.

The impressively small and pimple-ish volcano

The crowded pool of mud bathers.

At first our American since of personal space prevented us from diving on in with the rest of the bathers as the pool was jammed feet to shoulder with bathers. However, as the Colombians didn’t seem to mind sitting shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of strangers, and the mud bath was calling, we eventually gave up our reservations and jumped in with the rest.

It was quite cool considering the fact it was full of people...

Getting into the pool of mud causes some pretty interesting sensations. The mud is really thick and viscous, and some weird property of pressure from below the pool prevents you from sinking. In fact you have to actually push your feet down to get as submerged as much as you can. I would say this is the closest feeling to weightlessness we’ll get. Moving around the pool consisted of having people in front of you grab on to your arm and pull you along, because doing the doggy paddle to get around just doesn’t cut it! If given the room you can actually lay out and float on the mud. It is really quite comfortable; if you close your eyes and relax you can almost imagine your laying on a nice feather bed, that is until the mud starts seeping into your ears! Without really asking for it, we ended up geting a rub down by the locals. We have to admit, we enjoyed it quite a bit!

Luis looks like he is enjoying his soak!

Lacey relaxing in the mud

After a good long soaking which insured we were covered in mud from head to toe, we’d had enough. The conveniently located lake next to the volcano makes a great way to end the experience. We made our way down to the lake to go for a swim and wash off the mud. When we were all cleaned and refreshed (well at least as clean as we were going to get, there was still a bit of mud stuck in our ears!), we sat down for a beer and some fruit and enjoyed watching the other mud covered bathers.

We arrived by plane a few days before the Landcruiser, so we ended up at a hostel inside the old city walls. We spent a few days just exploring and checking out the old city. The old city within the walls seems to be split into two parts, the tourist section where most of the buildings have been restored and house nice restaurants, hotels, and upscale boutiques, and the market section where there are carts lining the roads and so many people bustling back and forth you have to keep a close watch on where you are going to avoid running into people. After a few days we realized one of things we liked about the old city is how much the atmosphere changes between day and night and even on Sundays, when most of the busy streets are empty except for the never ending string of tourists walking around. Walking down the same street during the day, then walking it at night, is like being in a completely different place. When it wasn’t raining the heat during the middle of the day would become so unbearable that walking anywhere just wasn’t an option. When this happened we’d find one of the numerous parks or plazas around town -our favorite was the centrally located Parque Bolivar- and buy a nice cold beer, water, or ice cream and sit down to people watch for a while.

One of the things we noticed our first night in Cartagena was the festive relaxed atmosphere that we hadn’t really seen since Mexico. It is really hard to describe this feeling; part of it comes from the loud music spilling into the streets from restaurants, bars and even houses or the people hanging out in the plazas and on the streets chatting, but it is really more than that, we just can’t put our finger on it. Another similarity to Mexico (and admittedly our favorite) is the street food vendors that we loved so much in Mexico are all over the place. You can get a whole variety of different arepas, little balls of mashed potatos filled with meat or hard boiled eggs battered and fried, empanadas filled with all kinds of different yummy fillings, chuzos (which are grilled meat on a stick with a little potato on each end), hotdogs with tasty french fried potato things, delicious ceviche, and so on. Then there were the beverage vendors who sell juices of all kinds of different fruits, and my favorite called chicha crema which is a thick tasty beverage made with a base of rice and milk and other ingredients and topped with sweeten condensed milk and chocolate sprinkles (at least that was how we had it). Obviously we were in paradise!

The old city is surrounded by big walls built out of coral and stones, and you can spend some time just walking around the tops of the walls, checking out the views of the ocean and the rest of the city. There are a few overpriced cafes on the walls where you can pay a ridiculous amount of money for a beer while you enjoy the view, but we went for the budget option of buying a nice cold beer off the street vendors for a much lower price and sitting on the edges of the walls to enjoy the view instead of a cushy chair. Still quite enjoyable though.

The old city walls are a hodgepodge of corals, shells, and bricks.

One of the overpriced restaurants on the wall from our cheap seat vantage point.

The Castillo De San Felipe,  is a huge stone fortress built on a hill over looking the town to protect it from pirates. It was started some time in the 1500s and wasn’t finished until the 1600s. It wasn’t exactly awe inspiring walking around the fortress, but was worth a trip up there. It did offer great views of the city, old and new. The coolest part (both descriptively and literally since it was the middle of the day) about the castle wasn’t what was on the outside, but the inside. The whole castle has tunnels running throughout. Some are short corridors, while others run all the way to the bottom of the hill with more tunnels branching off. Some of them go so deep, there was water covering the floors. Not all of them had lights lighting the way, and there were small dark alcoves off the tunnels on both sides every 20 feet or so. It was pretty creepy walking through the tunnels, some so low you have to stoop to walk through and sometimes not being able to see a thing. There were times I had to force myself to keep going, imagining somebody hiding in the dark spaces waiting for me. I definitely don’t envy the guys who had to stand guard down in the tunnels back in the day!

While Lacey was playing tourist, Luis set out to go through the tedious, patience trying process of getting the Landcruiser back. He had to go from port to customs and everywhere in between. In the end it took two whole days to get it back. We are working on getting a shipping “how to” written up to add to the one so graciously given to us by Marie and Pascal of Les Globetrotteurs, so we will save the details for that. Lets just say, it wasn’t that hard, just time consuming and frustrating. The only problem we had was that the port guys graciously stole some of Luis’ tools and melted our starter for us

One of the things about this trip that we talk about a lot, is the amazing amount of wonderful people we have been fortunate to meet. We’ve been very fortunate to have very little go wrong with the truck (knock on wood ), but when it does, we have found somebody pretty quickly to help us out. With the Landcruiser finally free of customs, but sitting at the parking place with a fried starter, we were trying to figure out what our next step would be. That night as we were walking around looking for a place to eat, we started talking to the host of a very tasty smelling Italian restaurant. Eventually our noses and the host talked us into eating there. It was probably the most we have spent on a meal in a really really long time, but the food was totally worth it. While we were eating dinner we started talking to the host about our trip and our problem with the Landcruiser.  Before we knew it, we were in the kitchen talking to the owner/chef. He just so happened to have a problem with his alternator on his truck and was taking it in the next morning and he offered to take us along to his trustworthy mechanic. Just like that, Luis was taken to a very capable mechanic who had the starter back in action in a day and the Landcruiser ready to see the sites of Colombia.

The plan now was to fly back to Costa Rica pick up our ride and drive to Panama where we could ship the Landcruiser to Colombia. The Landcruiser was waiting for us in Costa Rica right where we left it; stored at a mandatory government sponsored facility. We will spare you the details of the nightmare we went through to retrieve the truck from said facility. To add insult to injury there was a large colony of giant black ants that made every nook and cranny of the Landcruiser their home. After a two month hiatus there is no better way to get back into the swing of things than dealing with the bureaucracy that is customs, shipping a vehicle and battling giant ants.

The ants were eating(?) or using all the paper in the Landcruiser to make multiple nests.

That is not rice Those are the ant eggs and they had strategic reserves of eggs all over the Landcruiser

Look closely and you can see the pincers on the buggers

Shipping from Panama to Colombia involves stuffing your vehicle into 20 or 40foot container. We were hoping to find someone to share a 40 foot container with, in order to save some mullah. We lucked out thanks to the website drivetheamericas.com, where we found Debora and Patrick (D&P) who are driving a Toyota Tacoma around the Americas.
As we reorganized and repacked the Cruiser and fought off ants, D&P were already in Panama City checking out shipping companies. After a successful extermination (we hope) and without the fear of being attacked by man eating ants during our drive (seriously, they were that big), we set out for Panama City. After a long day of driving to make it across the Panama border we received an email from D&P stating that in order to be on the next ship out we would need to start inspections and paperwork the next morning in Panama City in order to make it. The only alternative was to wait another week, not the budget option. So at 10:00p.m. at night, in a moment of maybe not such clear thinking we hopped back on the truck for another 6 hours of driving to Panama City. We highly recommend staying away from Latin American roads at night and especially if you are tired. Luis claims to have hallucinated that night… He claims he saw a patronus and a vehicle from Tron (no drugs were involved).

Can you believe all of this and more fits into the Landcruiser?!

Yep, a well stocked kitchen... you should see our pots and pans

Stuffing a vehicle into a container and shipping it across the Darien Gap is something that all overland drivers who wish to see South America (or Central America if driving from the south) have to deal with. Of all the research we have done and all the blogs we have read, shipping around the Darien Gap seemed to be one of the biggest obstacles we would have to face (other than every single border crossing). On the bright side there is tons of information out there. On the negative side, one thing we have realized the last year is that dealing with any sort of bureaucratic situation, no two situations will ever be the same. It all depends on who is working, how their day is going, what other a-holes they have dealt with before you came along, and what they feel like doing at that moment. Therefore, no matter how much you research and prepare, you never know what you are going to get. True to form, our shipping experience turned out to be like this.
After our crazy all night drive to Panama City, and a quick bird bath at a McDonald’s bathroom (the only place open before 8 a.m.), we met up with P&D and headed over to the offices of Mario Patiño our shipping agent. I think it is worth pausing here and stating that in the interest of keeping this journal entry relatively “boring free” we will omit shipping specific info and post a separate document for folks that NEED said info.
So to the more interesting bits of our shipping experience… After picking up copies of our bill of lading, we rushed over to the police station for an inspection of the Landcruiser. We rushed because the inspection is only preformed between 10 and 11 a.m. In our case the cops basically look at the car, the VIN number, and your paperwork to make sure it all adds up. We have heard of thorough inspections, so we lucked out on this one.
While at the police station, we witnessed a blatant reminder of why it is imperative to be all smiles while dealing with any public official in Latin America. After smiling and nodding and sitting down to wait, a man in a BMW drove in for the inspection. Apparently he had already been there, and was quite rude to the inspection officers. The officers did not know Luis is fluent in spanish so they seemed jovial as he overheard as they discussed how they would not allow the Beemer driver to pass his inspection, because frankly, the guy had pissed them off. Luckily for us, our smiles and nods put us on their good side and after a quick look at the vehicles, we were on our way.
After the inspection we had a few hours off to go shower and try to catch a quick snooze, then made it back in time to take care of the rest of our paperwork on the Panama City end (shipping is from Colon, on the Caribbean side of Panama). Things went so smoothly we started to think that maybe this shipping thing wasn’t so bad. Which leads us to another rule while driving the Americas: never even think that things are going well or you are doing good time…
Another quick side note… December is traditionally the beginning of the dry season, but this year the dry season seems to be on sabbatical. The rain was so bad that the Panama Canal was closed for the third time in it’s history. End side note.
Thursday morning started bright and early and with our first snag; our tramitante was not only late, he needed to ride along with us… We had no space for passengers. He jumped in the back and laid on top of all our crap for the 45 minute drive to Colon, ouch. In the port of Colon we had to deal with an insane gauntlet of paperwork which included our favorite: customs. Snag number deux: the insane rain had flooded most of Colon and the port, we had to drive through some massive rivers. Because of the flooding there were amazing traffic jams of semis and cars. Panamanians lawless and at the best of times crazy driving, serves to complicate traffic jams even more, because inevitably a trucker looses his patience and decides to forge ahead in the oncoming traffic lane, until he meets with the traffic coming in the opposite direction, and a whole new über-traffic jam is started.

4 lanes in a 2 lane road... Panamanian style

It is obviously blocked ahead, but let's go for it anyway! Mindbogling behavior.

On our way to the customs office at the port, we found ourselves stuck on a two lane road with 4 lanes of traffic blocked in all directions. For the sake of time, we decided to pull off the road and park while Luis, Patrick, and our tramitante, took off on foot to finish our paperwork. The idea made sense until we realized that walking on water is not among Luis’ gifts. The flooding was as high as 3 feet in some places… Another snag: there was no power at customs, so they could not help us… Almost 4 hours later the wet and exhausted crew arrived at the trucks where we hurried on to the next stop.

Driving to the Port of Colon from Lost World Expedition on Vimeo.

A few minutes to 4:00 in the afternoon, exhausted, hungry, and hopeful we were almost done, we finally pulled our trucks into the security area of the port for the final inspection of our trucks the final step before loading in a container. The skinny drug dog allowed us to pass inspection and we were almost on our way, but our friend snag was here: the tramitante informed us we needed passes, vests, and hardhats in order to drive the trucks into the containers. Apparently our tramitante had forgotten about this small yet essential step. The snag here: office closed at 4 and it was now half past 4, so there were no passes to be had.

This cute, yet stinky "drug" dog was supposed to be the last obstacle between us and the container...

Our trucks were stuck in the security area and we wouldn’t be able to drive them into the container. After talking with the port security folks we were told our only option was to give our keys to them, and to trust them to load our cars for us. For many reasons the least of which was not that all our worldly possessions were within easy reach of anyone wanting to take a souvenir, this was not an option for us. Our tramitante basically seized up and for all intents and purposes abandoned us at that point. After some sweet-talking with a lady from port security, she took pity on us and told us she would make a call.
The four of us were sitting around our cars, totally dejected, and wondering what the hell we were going to do, when the lady told us she had wrangled two passes for the drivers! At this point she was there 40 minutes past her work hours… She rocks.

The view from the balcony of the hotel. Not a bad place to wake up.

According to locals and other travelers we talked to, the main break, which is only surf-able at high tide because of the rocks, is one of the best in someones book. The downfall of the break as we saw it was that it is a pretty small break and every morning there are 20 to 30 surfers out there waiting in line.

Santa Catalina's famous break

After a couple of nights in the hotel -after all the view is awesome, it was very cheap and we put a lot of work into cleaning the room- the weather finally decided to cooperate with us, so we found a great place to camp right on the beach at the Oasis Surf Camp. the nice thing about stayin a couple of days at “roach motel” was that it gave us a chance to scout the area for a good camping spot. There is one interesting drawback to the Oasis Surf Camp: you have to drive across a small river to get to it. The river is only a few inches deep at low tide, but impassable by vehicle at high tide, so you have to plan your entry/exit by the tide chart.

Wimpy crossing at low tide, don't even think about crossing at hight tide

We set up camp right on the edge of a nice long beach and hung out and enjoyed for a few days. We had only planned to stay here for a day or two, but found ourselves here for 5 or 6. The beach was great for walking and soaking up the sun, and had a nice mellow break for beginner surfers. We also enjoyed some fantastic sunsets here, and had some delicious dinners some made by Luis and some at a restaurant called Los Pibes, owned by two Argentinean brothers. Argentineans really know how to grill!

We where too "in the moment" to take pictures of some sunsets, but here is one of them

It felt great to be living in the Landcruiser and our Campinglab tent again. We had forgotten how comfortable we have become with our living set up after staying at the house for so long. There is something that feels right about staying outdoors in a beautiful place, sleeping in our own comfortable bed (even if it is on the roof of our truck) and waking up in the morning to enjoy coffee cooked out of the back of our truck. Life couldn’t get much better than this

Our Campsite among the nice bungalows of Oasis (photo taken from the low tide mark)

A great campsite with beach view is our favorite campsite.

On a nature loving note, we totally fell for all the local crabs. Hermits, ghosts, land, red sands. We even saw a large hermit climbing a tree! We had never seen that before.

This beautiful kingfisher came to the same spot everyday and spent hours "fishing"

We definitely recommend a visit to the sleepy town of Santa Catalina (well, maybe not the town itself). If you are in the area you do not need to be a surfer to enjoy this areas beauty, there is good fishing and definitely good beaches.

A question for one of our readers (all three of you ). What tree do these seeds come from? Please! We know in Venezuela they call them “pepa de samuro,” but what tree are they from.

Miles of beachcombing gave fruit to our collection of these seeds from an as of yet unkown (by us) tree. Help us find out what tree they come from.

And as a parting shot: an artsy photo we both like

The remnants of a conch in the creek

We could continue south, but the next step in our journey is to ship the Landcruiser (by boat) to Colombia and say goodbye to Central America. This step would be final, no coming back to visit Costa Rica or Nicaragua, no further exploration of Panama. Shipping is expensive and once in South America we are there for a long while.  Besides not being sure if we were ready to say goodbye to Central America, shipping the truck involves a lot of money and a lot of paperwork, a burden we are hoping to share with another traveler who may be shipping to Colombia as well. While in Panama City, we didn’t know of anyone else who was looking to ship to Colombia. The other option which we had discussed was to head back north to Nicaragua and explore a little more of that beautiful country. It is kind of a weird feeling to be clueless of what to do next, especially after the last couple of months in which guests arrivals and Luis’ wedding dictated our plans.
Rainy season in Central America is no joke, really. Due to the full swing arrival of rainy season in this area, we decided that maybe it was time for us to take a little break from living in the Landcruiser/tent and find someplace to sit the rain out. Our setup allows us to be pretty comfortable with a little rain, our tent does pretty well and we have some great awnings from CampingLab.com to keep us dry, but when it is raining cats and dogs for the better part of the day, the dampness starts to set in. We started looking at the website workaway.info a database which puts volunteers in touch with work in exchange for room and board. We found a man in the northern highlands of Panama who we exchanged some emails with and decided to head that way. He was leaving to go back to California for a month or so, so we ended up arranging to rent his house. So we set out and headed up north into the mountains to the little town of Paso Ancho, our home for the next month and a week.

Our house in Pancho Ancho.

Paso Ancho and the slightly bigger town of Volcan are located in the highlands of the State of Chiriqui at the foot of Volcan Baru, directly opposite from Boquete. This side of the volcano doesn’t have quite the population of expats as the Boquete side (although there are still plenty to be found) and the area still has a very remote, small town feel to it. The valley is surrounded by lush green mountains on all sides, with Volcan Baru towering above the others and a beautiful river flowing through. The hillsides are all covered in coffee plantations, some of which you can drive through. While there are plenty of cars here, there are still quite a few families whose main transportation method is by horseback.  Our neighbors have a horse to get around and every morning and afternoon we see grandpa riding by with the two little girls in the saddle on their way to and from school.

Taking a drive through a coffee plantation.

The valley is full of small farm plots where families grow corn, potatoes, onions, and cabbage to feed themselves and sell the rest to get by. The area turned out to be a little colder and a little rainier than we had expected, but for Luis it is a welcome respite from the heat in the lowlands. In fact the weather here is a lot like the weather in Arcata. We have joked a few times that we have spent a year fleeing the cold and rain of the Northern California coast only to find ourselves living in the same weather, thousands of miles away only with no good beer, no internet, no TV and no close friends. Thank god for books .

We have spent the last month or so relaxing and enjoying a roof over our heads, walking around and exploring the area and all of the dirt roads we can find, and getting to know our neighbors. We have found a little expat community here. Our neighbors, a couple from New Mexico, are busy building their new home here. We have spent many an afternoon enjoying their conversation and hospitality. We’ve also been taking the opportunity to try to catch up with our blog and organize our memories and photos from the last year on the road. Lacey has also doggedly gone back to Roseta Stone and is making a serious attempt to learn spanish (a feat for her that is sadly easier said than done, alas, poco a poco as they say).

One of our favorite places we found in the area is the Finca Dracula, which is a beautiful orchid nursery. The finca is set in a little valley north of Paso Ancho, and the beautifully landscaped grounds are worth a trip just to walk around. They have thousands of orchids growing in the grounds as well as in temperature controlled green houses. They specialize in the finca’s namesake, the dracula orchid, but they also have a huge variety of color and sizes. We decided after spending an afternoon walking the grounds and going in all of the green houses that we wanted to live there. It was a little paradise!

We really enjoyed getting to know the panama highlands, as well as having a roof over our heads for awhile. Honestly we don’t think we would have made it very long here without a roof during the rainy season, because it sure does rain! It is nice to settle down a bit every now and then, but still the road calls. It is time to move on to our next adventure.

One aspect of Panama City that is wholly unique to the city is its denizens atrocious driving. I know, we have been talking about the crazy driving all through Mexico and Central America. We should be used to it by now you say? Well the driving of the folks in Panama City make the drivers in the rest of Central America look like tame North American drivers. Luckily for us Luis is wholly adapted to be a Central American driver and rolls with the craziness with the best of the worst drivers. In fact I fear that Luis thrives in it and will never be able to drive in the US again, he would probably have his drivers license taken away almost immediately. There are traffic jams at all hours of the day, and every driver swings in and out of lanes passing (sometimes in the lane of oncoming traffic) whenever and however they feel like. It is utter chaos. Panamanian drivers love their horns. When I say love, I mean a wholly obsessive love. Even if traffic is stopped at a red light or traffic is stopped so far ahead that all you see is stopped cars for as far the eye can see, everybody starts laying on the horns. If you delay more than .0001 seconds after a light turns green before slamming the pedal to the medal and flying away, everybody lets you know by laying on the horns. To say “Hi,” they honk, cabs honk as they drive by to see if you need a ride. I don’t think I have ever heard such prodigious use of the horn ever before. The hostel we stayed at was just a block off one of the main thoroughfares of the city, and was surprisingly quiet most of the time, except that we were woken every morning by the sounds of non-stop horns for the next 3 hours or so and if not the traffic, the house parrot would definitely do the job. Ahh, morning rush hour traffic.

My (Lacey) mom and sister, Laura and Lechelle, finally arrived and the three of us set out to be tourists for the next 10 days. Despite the crazy drivers, Panama City is a beautiful city and well worth a few days of site seeing. The city in fact has quite an interesting history. The city’s central location between Central and South America, and the fact that the ports of the Caribbean at Colon are located so close to the Pacific, have always made it a convenient shipping port and the city prospered early on as the central port to send the riches of the Americas back to Spain. The Casco Viejo, is the oldest part of town, and the entire City of Panama once sat within its protected walls (this town is actually the second location for the city, having been moved here after the original town site located about 15 kilometers away was sacked by the infamous pirate Captain Morgan), which is located out on a point surrounded on three sides by the ocean. It was at one point surrounded by a big rock wall to protect the city from pirates. Today, the old town is slowly being restored. Many of the old buildings have already been restored, while the shells of old buildings next to them are the only thing left. It is an interesting contrast to walk around and see beautifully restored old buildings housing nice restaurants and hotels, standing right next to the crumbling facade of an empty, trash filled building with trees and vegetation growing out of the remaining walls and floors. Another interesting place to check out in the Casco Viejo is the old dungeon cells that were built into the sea wall in the time of the Spanish. The dungeons have now been restored into a fancy restaurant and fancy shops, but their proximity to the ocean waves below and the dark damp interior still provide enough for the imagination to picture how unpleasant a stint in the dungeons would have been.

Before my mom and sister could head back to the states, we had to make the requisite trip out to the canal. The history of the canal is such that a trip to Panama has to include a trip to the canal. We headed out to the Miraflores locks which is the most popular place to go. There is a nice museum and viewing platforms, where you can watch the big boats going through the locks on their way to the Pacific or the Caribean, depending on what time of day you are there. The whole process is pretty slow and not all that exciting to watch, but the museum and informational video are pretty interesting, as the history of the building of the canal stretches back farther than most people realize and the obstacles to overcome pretty great.

After a few days in Panama City, we took a very long, very cold (many people I talked to called the long distance bus rides “the coldest place in Panama”) overnight bus ride up to the Caribbean side for a trip out to the islands of Bocas Del Toro. My sister and I froze the whole way there, while my mom just sat back and relaxed and enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere . There are many islands in the archipelego of Bocas del Toro, with lodgings on different economic scales from all inclusive fancy, to laid back backpacker spread out amongst the islands. We headed to Isla Colon and stayed in Bocas Town which is the biggest town out there. We stayed at a great little B&B right on the water and within walking distance of all the restaurants around the town. The islands and the surrounding clear blue water offer up a little of everything for travelers.We spent a great few days relaxing on the beach of a deserted island, enjoying the beautiful views, snorkeling, and for Lechelle and I going on a horse back ride (needless to say we both paid for our great horseback ride for days afterwards with bruises and sore asses!).

From Bocas del Toro, we headed into the northern highlands for a welcome respite from the heat and humidity. The town of Boquete, is set in the middle of the highlands, surrounded by lush green forested mountains and coffee plantations in all directions. Standing out in this landscape is Volcan Baru, who seems to tower over the others. The beautiful surroundings, and almost year round spring like weather has made the Boquete area very popular for American and European retirees. In fact my sister declared this was her favorite place on our trip. It rained for a good part of the time we were here, but we did manage to get in a trip out to the forest for a zip line tour. For anybody that has never been on a zip line tour, flying through the air attached to cables strung among the treetops, is an awesome experience in itself.  The tour in Boquete was really enjoyable in that the site is located in the primary forest, where you zip along from giant tree top to giant tree top, looking down at waterfalls and the river. Another great thing was that the staff all know a lot about the plants and animals found here. During our hike up to the first platform we were treated to a little guided tour of many of the plants and birds found in the forest.

Sadly our 10 days together quickly went by, and way too soon, we were back in Panama City saying goodbye.

I searched high and low for a culinary academy that could teach me the way of the mole. All research pointed towards Oaxaca as the mecca for most mole lovers (mole Poblano is from Puebla). Shreesh Taskar of  “A Long Drive” fame attended a school in Oaxaca that called my attention, but upon further inspection it seemed a little watered down in the ‘authentic” department. I don’t mean the food they make, but the experience itself (and a little pricey). I realized my vision was that of an elderly Mexican grandma who learned how to cook from her mother and so on and so forth. After some more research I found Grace Meng and her great blog One Fork, One Spoon. Her blog and I am sure her upcoming book are not to be missed. In One Fork, One Spoon she relates her experiences in Oaxaca, amongst these experiences were two cooking classes. One class was at the home of a local lady, my ticket. I contacted Grace and she was kind enough to reply and in turn put me in touch with Soledad Ramirez Heras.

My vision could become reality. When I called Soledad, she was very excited to hear Grace had sent me and she added that a class was scheduled for the following day (2 people). I was a touch disappointed to learn that I would have to “share” the time and the class would focus on mole colorado which is very similar to mole negro, but without chocolate. I was thoroughly exhilarated nonetheless. The directions were: “meet us at the Zocalo at 7:30am.”

In the morning while on the bus ride to the Zocalo I realized I had never seen her before, but I told myself that an older lady with two tourists would be relatively easy to spot. I arrived at the Zocalo, ordered a galleta flavored atole and a pork tamal sat down to eat and wait. Sure enough, just as I finished my breakfast a little lady and two young tourists seemed to be looking for someone. Soledad is a little younger than the wrinkly lady in my vision, but perfect. After brief introductions we headed for the mercado libre to get our introduction to ingredients.

What a wonderful place, the market. Lacey and I frequent markets, from La Boqueria in Barcelona to the smallest town mercado in Mexico they are a wonderful place to see fresh ingredients and what the locals really use. Going to a market with a local is priceless. We could have spent the whole day talking about dried peppers alone and the uses for each one of them. Some even looked the same to my untrained eye, but upon grabbing one and rubbing it or ripping it open you could immediately distinguish them. Some are smoked some are air dried, some spicy, some sweet, worlds of flavors in big bags sitting on the ground.

Peppers are truly the most important ingredient in a mole, but there is a stunning list of supporting actors. We walked along the busy stalls and purchased garlic, fresh cheese, cinnamon, fresh pork lard, etc. On the bus ride to her house on the outskirts of town, she told me about her childhood and her house. How when they first bought their house and property there was absolutely nothing around them and the nearest neighbors where pretty far off. As we arrived I imagined seeing the transformation of her little hillside house from no neighboring houses to very tightly packed neighborhood.

As soon as we arrived Soledad served us a wonderful typical breakfast, cafe de olla and some sweet bread. After our breakfast we were assigned jobs. Peeling diminutive Mexican garlic, de-leafing thyme, oregano and most importantly de-seeding the chilis. While working I was a little sad that we where in a regular western kitchen, I was hoping for the kitchen of my vision: a comal over a wood fire, a stone metate and a molcajete. As if reading my mind she lead us outside and down a flight of stairs to the Mexican kitchen of my dreams. Not only was it a wood fire kitchen the comal was made of clay and there was a beautiful very old looking metate next to the fire. Really old school and just what I wanted.

Soledad’s husband started two fires, a wood fire for the comal and a hardwood charcoal fire in a small grill. The comal on its little pedestal over the fire was used to toast most ingredients, including the chilis. The little barbecue grill was used to roast tomatoes. Everything got its turn over the fire. “The heat brings out the flavor” is what Soledad told us with a flash of her big smile. The smells of each ingredient changed after just a few seconds over the fire, it was wonderful.

After everything had its proper level of toast it was time to grind. Everything is soaked in a hen stock Soledad’s daughter was cooking as we prepped. The soak is to rehydrate the dry ingredients and impart the flavor of the hen stock (a lot richer than chicken stock). I was ready for the arduous task of grinding and blending the ingredients on the metate, Rock on rock, but when I asked Soledad how long it would take she looked at me and smiled; “we do not use the metate anymore, we use the blender.” She added that it would take hours to get it to the proper consistency if we did it by hand, so modern appliances win. I can’t win ‘em all. Before adding the stock-tomato-rest of ingredients to the blender we added “pan de yema” (egg yolk bread) to the mixture and blended away until we got a very smooth consistency. Passed through a sieve the mixture was surprisingly liquidy and already had a great flavor, but no depth. The flavors were not “married” yet. So back to the fire.

Soledad placed a beautiful clay pot on the small grill we used for the tomatoes. The wonderfully silky pork lard finally came out to play, a big dollop in the surprisingly hot clay pot. All the ingredients went in and we stirred the pot continuously as we sat and enjoyed wonderful stories about Oaxaca from Soledad’s husband. The evolution of the flavors was nothing less than alchemy. Every ten minutes or so I would taste the mole and it was a completely different sauce each time. The flavors melded and a completely different, new flavor was born. After a little over an hour the mole was done and it was heaven, if I may say so myself. The ingredient’s individual flavors had merged into ONE flavor, no ingredient stood out any mother than another. It is hard for me to describe the very delicate flavor of this mole.

Soledad taught us how to make tamales with corn husk wrapping, and then let us make tamales with red mole and the hen that came from the aforementioned stock. We finished cooking sometime late afternoon and sat down for a wonderful meal: Red mole chicken tamales and steamed chicken and rice with red mole and Jamaica water and orange water as the perfect accompanying drinks.

I am forever grateful to Soledad and Grace Meng for this wonderful experience.

At the hotel, we sat around talking about our border experiences and our traveling experiences in general. After our day with the corrupt Hondurans, it was nice to see other travellers with similar experiences. On a funny side note, Luis was kind enough to lock the keys in our hotel room. He went to the manager and asked if she had a spare, in a very friendly way she said “No, but don’t worry.” She walked to the room, proceeded to remove the air conditioning unit from the wall, stuck her hand in and opened the door. We all looked at each other and in our exhaustion laughed heartily for a few minutes.

The next morning we all went our separate ways. We were the last to get on the road, and after driving for about an hour and half, we came upon two traffic cops who immediately waved us to the side of the road. As we were pulling over, we were surprised to see our Argentinean friends already pulled over, and they seemed to be in the middle of a heated argument with one of the cops. The other cop immediately came to our window and informed us that we had passed on a double line which is illegal and that we had to pay a fine. We got out of the car to see what was going on, and after talking with the other guys we soon found out that they were in the same boat. They had argued with the cop for a while before we had arrived over the same violation, and had insisted that the cop write them a ticket if they had to pay a fine rather than paying on the spot. The harassed cop was just then writing the ticket. Seeing that we knew the guys that were the object of his ire, the cop didn’t even bother talking to us about our situation, he just wrote us the same ticket and informed us that we would have to drive back to the town we had passed (about 20 minutes back the way we had come), go to the bank and pay the fine, then turn around and bring the receipt back to him, at which time he would return the drivers licenses which he was holding on to. It all made for a pretty hilarious situation, because after our experience at the border the day before we weren’t in the most lenient frame of mind towards cops, and as the cop was writing the tickets we all continued to harass him a bit, taking out our cameras and taking photos of them and pointing out to him every time a car passed on the double lane (which happens often). I don’t think the cops were very happy to be dealing with us.

The harassed cop writing out our ticket.

Once Luis and one of the Argentinians returned from paying the fine, we continued as a convoy to Granada. We made it there by early afternoon after only having one more run in with Nicaragua’s finest (this time we weren’t doing anything illegal, the cop just wanted money and we refused to give it so he let us go). We were on a tight schedule due to the fact that we had to meet friends in Costa Rica so we didn’t have time linger in this beautiful city. Granada is a very quaint city, located on Lake Nicaragua. There is a beautiful big park in the center of town, full of trees and plenty of benches to sit and take in the scene, which is surrounded by the old church and other colonial buildings. We walked around a bit in the evening and enjoyed the atmosphere of the old town. The next morning before we left we walked down to the lake. The lake is so big it looks more like the ocean and even has small waves like the ocean.

That day we headed south and out to the coast to the town of San Juan del Sur. We had read that this was a nice beach town and a popular surf spot. When we arrived in San Juan del Sur, we weren’t all that impressed. The town looked like it had been too developed for tourist standards and expat residences. We decided to head north along the coast to find a place to camp. We ended up driving about 15 miles or so north to Playa Matilda. It is a tiny area with no stores or big fancy hotels, but it has a beautiful beach and coastline, and around the point is a good surf break. We were able to camp across from a hostel right on the beach. That night was nature night at the beach, as we were treated to the sight of different size and kinds of crabs running around the beach and cicadas molting everywhere. The cicadas look like little aliens being born as they molt out of their skins, a little freaky looking. Apparently that night was cicada molting fest, because the next morning we found there discarded skins hanging everywhere, including the tires of the Landcruiser.

After only a couple of days in this beautiful country, we had to make a break for Costa Rica to meet our friends. So we found ourselves at yet another border crossing the next morning. The paper work for getting out of Nicaragua turned out to be pretty easy, but getting to the border in the first place was quite a challenge. Starting about 5 miles (yes you read that right, 5 miles) from the border, there were semis lined up and parked on the road blocking the lane to the border. We ended up driving the last 5 miles on the wrong lane, constantly diving in and out of the parked trucks to avoid oncoming traffic. I couldn’t believe how long the line of trucks was. Those poor truck drivers must have to sit there for days before they finally make it across the border. And we thought our 9 hours at the Honduran border was bad!

The line of semi trucks stretched out at the border waiting there turn.

Exactly one year ago today we got rid of anything that would not fit into The Landcruiser and moved out of our beautiful wreck of a house. One year ago we said farewell to our friends and neighbors. We have been living out of the Landcruiser for one year. Living on the road, driving around the United States, Mexico and all of Central America for the last year. 9 countries and 8 border crossings in one year. Redundant? Yes, I know, but we can hardly believe it has been that long, it seems like our going away party at Humboldt Brews was just yesterday.

When we left our home in Arcata, California on July 18th 2009 the plan was to drive to Ushuaia, Argentina and back “home” to Arcata in a year and a half. Plans change, or maybe they evolve. However you look at it, our plans are definitely changing as time goes by, almost daily.

In the last year we have visited some beautiful places, been amazed by different cultures (alive and extinct), we have met some amazing people, made new friends and some strangers, had some sublime meals and loved every minute of it (well almost every minute!). The truth is The Landcruiser has become “home” and we are still in Central America even though the original plan called for us to be headed back to California by now. Don’t get us wrong we have no intention of not finishing our  “Americas trip.” We have just decided to go a little slower. We have adopted the nomadic lifestyle, become vagabonds, or another way to put it is we have become the transients that so annoyed us in Arcata (well, maybe not that bad!).

What does this all mean? Who knows. At the very least it means our adventure towards Ushuaia has been extended at the very least another year and a half! Yes, December 2011 in Argentina. What happens between now and there, could be anyone’s guess. The only certainties we have are that we have some amazing countries left to visit and the fact that our plans will continue to evolve

This is by no means an accurate map or an accurate representation of our route, but it is not far from the truth...

To be perfectly honest until NOW (NOW meaning the border between El Salvador with Honduras) our border crossings have been slow, but harmless. Until NOW we have not met corruption at its finest, bordering on sadism. Yes, that bad. I guess it was time for us to get our dose of the BB’s. What are BB’s? Border bastards. We follow the adventures of Rick and Kathy Howe of the Travelin’ Tortuga. A couple of years ago Kathy started referring to border officials as Border Bastards. First time we read this term we thought it was rather harsh, but here we are wholeheartedly adopting the term.

Let’s start from the beginning of our BB experience. As we planned for this particular adventure we decided not to visit Honduras, not because we do not like the country (we had a wonderful time in Honduras a few years ago), but because Honduras has a bad reputation for being a corrupt gauntlet for international drivers. Avoiding corrupt cops seems reasonable to us. The issue at hand is that Honduras spans from the Caribbean to the Pacific; therefore, there is no way to drive through Central America without “visiting” Honduras. Keeping this un-avoidability in mind we decided to cross Honduras on the west coast where there is only a small sliver of Honduras.

After spending a few lovely days at the Azul Surf Club, in El Cuco, El Salvador, we decided it was time to head south to Nicaragua. We got up early-ish and headed for the border. Leaving El Salvador was relatively painless, less than a half hour and we were out of the country. Then we made our first mistake of the day. We hired a “helper” or “Tramitante.” A tramitante is a person that runs around and supposedly helps you run the gauntlet of paperwork at borders for a small fee or a tip. We have never done this before and we had at some point tacitly decided not to ever do it. However, having heard Honduras was particularly rough on vehicle crossings, and hearing the tramitantes tell us they could get us through in less than an hour, we went against our better judgement and hired one.  Strike One. With our helper in tow we crossed the bridge into Honduras where a young police officer pulled us over and demanded our paperwork (before arriving at customs). This is where the S#%T hit the fan. The smart young officer found a “discrepancy” on the title of our vehicle. For some reason California DMV has an expiration date on the title (the pink slip, not the registration, the title. The title is good for the life of the vehicle (or until it is sold). This detail was all this young entrepreneur needed to detain us and impound the Landcruiser unless we paid him $50, of course! Strike Two.

Within minutes the entire police force and the customs officials knew that there was a nice juicy loophole in the paperwork of a certain Gringo registered Landcruiser. The fine young cop must have spread the word via Text and perhaps our “friendly” helper spread the word as well. Needless to say, the rest of the day went down hill from that point on. It is really hard and irritating to remember and describe what happened this scorchingly hot and humid day at the border. 9 hours! That’s right 9 hours of frustration. At first we were trying to adhere to our “smile, be friendly and take it like a champ” attitude, but after 5 hours, 2 cab rides back to an ATM in El Salvador and by the end of a 2 hour lunch break of the customs officials I was loudly cursing at everybody and the thought crossed our minds that I might be lynched right here in Honduras. Lacey was trying to figure out how on earth she would tell my family

Our “helper” had suddenly turned into 2 helpers without us realizing what was going on. While one ran around pretending to help me, the other stayed with Lacey and the Landcruiser. Unbeknownst to me Lacey’s companion was a true creep. Lacey later informed me that he hit on her and harrased her for a while and after pretending not to understand him for the greater part of the afternoon, she finally cracked and loudly and profanely told him what she thought of him. He finally slithered away and left her in relative peace. Lacey decided that telling me at that point would not be wise in my current and seemingly permanent state of irascibility. After she told me the following day I agreed with her decision. I can just read the headlines: “U.S. citizen lynched at a small border town of Honduras after he shouted profanities at the entire police department and the customs officials in town… Oh, and he murdered a “tramitante” for hitting on his traveling companion.”

The reason our day stretched for so long boils down to the fact that we refused to dish out an inordinately high payola the customs official in charge wanted. We could have just paid and probably been through in a short amount of time, but they wanted too much. Greedy cheeky monkeys. We met a European couple driving a nice car that paid (in excess of $200) and were through in a matter of 45 minutes, but we could not bring ourselves to do that… well in the end we caved. I even called the U.S. Embassy, they kindly informed me there was nothing they could do. After more than hours of indignation I went, with my metaphoric tail between my legs, to our helper and told him I would pay. As if to keep some sense of honor I lowered the bribe about 10% whooopee-de-doo.

That was not the end of it. Oh no, how could it be. Our permit was not to enter Honduras, but to drive through the country. In order to make sure we complied we were mandated to take an escort with us. WITH us! Unless everything in the Landcruiser is carefully re-organized we have no backseat, just tons of stuff. How where we going to fit a passenger at this point I had no idea. To make things worse, we met our escort all 5’5″ and 325lbs of him! We incredulously looked at the customs official showed him the inside of the Landcruiser and asked him: “Where, pray tell, are we going to stuff this portly gentleman?” He replied without skipping a heartbeat by telling us “skinny” Lacey could fit somewhere in there if the escort sat in the front passenger seat. Lacey nearly had a conniption, it was awesome because that had been my state most of the afternoon. Needless to say, there is nothing better than a pissed off woman to grease some wheels. Within a few minutes a skinny young man was assigned as our escort. Lacey should have done all the paperwork!

Wait, you did not think that was the end of it, did you? We still had to drive the gauntlet through corruption highway. Let’s make this short and sweet. 7 times! We were pulled over 7 times in a 100 mile drive. Remember the young cop at the border, well he was kind enough to spread the word of our presence to the entire police force. Luckily, the escort vouched for us and we got away with minimal hassle at 6 of the 7 stops. What happened at the 7th stop? Well, the cherry on top of our banana split of a day. After 9 hours at the border and a couple of hours driving through the country night had arrived. Yes, night falls pretty early the closer you get to the Equator and yes we broke our “No Driving at Night” rule. What happened next was a result of my neglect of common maintenance and nearly 10 months of no night driving. The drivers side headlight of the Landcruiser was out, and a very happy Hondurean cop noticed it. After he pulled us over (for the 7th time that day and within sight of the Nicaraguan border) I wanted out of this god forsaken country. He wanted 50 bucks! I just could not handle it anymore. If a cop pulls me over with no reason other than I am a tourist I can be as righteous as I want, because in the end I know I am right. When I am actually breaking a law, things are different. So for the 3rd Strike of the day I buckled nearly immediately. I said 20 bucks and a flashlight. He said: “Gracias.”

At this point in the day we would have been happy to have any kind of encounter with border officials that cost us less than Honduras. We very happy to leave Honduras and pleasantly surprised after a very free, very cordial 10 minute border crossing into  Nicaragua.

Lessons learned:

• Agree with Travelin’ Tortuga and their BB term
• Never, ever, hire a tramitante
• Lacey needs to do paperwork and BB dealings from now on, she is a lot more intimidating than Luis (no matter how tattoed, military veteran or bearded he is)
• Have every single bit of paperwork in immaculate order, T’s crossed and I’s dotted.
• Check all required safety equipment and vehicle systems regularly, but especially before border crossings (headlights, turn signals, fire-extinguisher, safety triangles, etc.)
• Luis needs to attend anger control classes at some point

El Tunco is a laid back fishing and surfing community with beautiful black sand beaches, and according to the multitude of surfers hanging out there, some killer breaks. Upon our arrival at the beach we also met up with the melting heat/humidity that is to become our friend for a good portion of the trip. We found a place that would let us camp near the beach, but when we got out of the truck it was hot, humid and there was no breeze to speak of. We felt like at any minute we would look down to see our bodies becoming little puddles on the ground. We made a quick decision and decided to treat ourselves to some air conditioning, so yeah we wimped out . We are going to have to get used to this heat and humidity soon or else it will take a heavy toll on our budget.

El Salvador as we found out has some world class surf waves, and a growing population of surfers (tourists and local). We hung out for a few days, thought about taking up surfing a few times (but still haven’t taken the bait), tried in vain to get used to the heat, and checked out the beautiful black sand beaches. One night while having a few drinks with some friends we met, a storm rolled in and all of a sudden we felt like we were in a hurricane with wind whipping rain all over the place and the palm trees swaying away, horizontal rain defying gravity. Coming from the north coast of California, we like to think we know what rain is all about; however, tropical rain storms are a whole other breed. We were waiting for the news forecaster in a yellow poncho to show up any minute with a microphone in hand and the news crews to get some footage in the rain in front of the wind whipped palms and tell us about the oncoming hurricane.

The climate and geography in El Salvador make it a land of contrasts. Along the coast you’ll find hot and humid beaches, and within a short drive can climb up one of the country’s many volcanos and find yourself in a cool lush climate. Leaving the beach, we headed back up into the mountains to Parque Nacional Cerro Verde, headquarters of 3 of El Salvador’s many volcanos. We could feel the air getting cooler as we drove up the mountain, and by time we made it to the top, we found ourselves surrounded in thick fog and a lush green forest. It was so foggy we almost ran over the guy at the entrance station because we couldn’t see him standing in the middle of the road. It was an amazing change in weather going from melting humid heat to thick cool fog all within the space of a few hours. The Cerro Verde park is absolutely beautiful and the views of the volcanos were stunning. There is a tourist police headquarters at the park and we ended up talking with the second in command there for quite a while. He was a really cool guy, we talked about history, politics and he gave us tips on good places to go within El Salvador.

The next morning the fog was still laying thick around the tops of the volcanos, but we decided to hike one of the volcanos anyways. After a really long hike down the volcano we were camped on (the whole way thinking that is was going to be hell coming back up), we came out of the thick forest onto an old lava flow. Looming before us was the cinder cone we were going to climb: Volcan Izalco. The volcano was straight up, loose dirt and rocks. The climb almost killed Luis, and both of us had a heavy dose of reality of how not in shape we really are (despite trying to convince ourselves to the contrary on a daily basis). The views from the top are reportedly totally amazing; however, due to the fog we couldn’t see much. One cool thing about the Volcan Izalco is that there are spots where pure steam is blowing out of the mountain. You can sit up there and it is like sitting in a sauna, the typical sulfur odor present in most active volcanoes is simply not here. It probably would have been more appreciated if we weren’t already drenched in sweat from the hike up, but cool nonetheless. On the way down negotiating all the loose rock and steep incline, it was hard to stay on our feet. Luis ended up doing a long stretch sliding on his ass and when he finally recovered he realized he’d torn the ass out of his favorite pants!

After returning to camp we decided to follow the advice of our cop friend and moved to a small campground next to Cerro Verde at the base of Volcan Santa Ana, and were rewarded with a clear morning and a spectacular view of Volcan Izalco on one side and Volcan Santa Ana on the other.

Another recommendation from our cop friend at Cerro Verde was a visit to El Pital, which is the highest peak in El Salvador and is supposed to be a beautiful place to camp (we also liked the idea of staying at the higher elevations after our brief encounter with the heat in El Tunco). We made a stop in Suchitoto and parked at a balneario (a public pool) that let us camp and use their pool. We were back into the heat again so the pool was heaven on earth. That is until we jumped in and the water was the same temperature as the air! Oh well sometimes getting wet just to wash off the layer of sweat is worth it. The moon did not bring a break from the heat, but the darkness did bring one of the most wonderful sights we have had on the trip. Thousands of fireflies filled the night, no exaggeration. We have both seen many fireflies, but never this many. It was like looking at a very beautiful starry night but around the grass and trees. We wish we could have somehow taken a picture of this.

The road up to El Pital was insane! It wound straight up the hillside, so steep, we were lucky to get out of second gear. The last part of the road was pot holed and so steep we had to put the Landcruiser in 4 wheel drive low just to climb up. We finally made it to the top and what an amazing place it was. We found a nice little place to camp, overlooking the valley so far below. We are finding that we are here in the wrong time of year because all of the tall peaks and volcanos are perpetually shrouded in fog all day. From what everybody keeps saying, during the dry season (November through April) the views are amazing. From what little we could see through the fog, the views would’ve definitely been amazing.

El Salvador is turning out to be yet another wonderful country… do you see a trend here?

The park is run by a non-profit Salvadorean group called SalvaNatura. We got in contact with them because we had read that tickets need to be obtained in advance; however, this is not the case. You may purchase tickets at the park and camping, showers and toilets are available and quite nice. The SalvaNatura people are extremely friendly and helpful. They are fighting against all odds to save this small section of forest, which is the last remaining significant stand of tropical forest in northern El Salvador. They have to contend with poachers, coffee plantation owners and local tourists who are still getting used to a lower impact camping style.  It is very hard to implement a protected area when some locals see the area as a great hunting ground, fishing area and a source of good clean water for their fields. With salt water intrusion becoming a significant problem in all of the low lying coastal areas, protection of the watershed is becoming more important than ever. This large stand of forest is also very important in protecting all of the many species of birds, plants and animals that can be found here. SalvaNatura is doing a great job here at El Imposible, but there is a lot of work ahead of them.

The road that leads to the park is just south of the town of Cara Sucia (Dirty Face), it is a fairly steep and sometimes pretty rough dirt road. It can be done in a 2 wheel drive vehicle, but decent clearance is a must. If the road is wet it could get pretty nasty. The dirt road will take you to the town of San Benito and it ends at the park.  There is a small “Eco-Hostel” not far from the park in case you do not want to camp which is also run by Salvanatura.

The visitors center has a small museum that gives you some background on the history of the park, its significance and even some descriptions of the local flora and its medicinal uses.

Our camp set-up next to the visitors center at El Imposible

The view from the lookout tower right next to our campsite. Sadly it is very hazy and there is a lot of smoke from all the fires in the area, but in the distance you can see the surf and the ocean.

We fell in love with this place immediately. It feels like you are millions of miles away from civilization (and maybe we were). There are all kinds of birds, insects and animals that surround even the visitors center and just a few minutes walk away from the visitors center, you are immersed in jungle, surrounded by tons of big trees and vegetation. One plant that really intrigued us was the Strangler, it is a tree that envelops an existing tree until it basically kills it and takes over its place leaving a hollow area were the original tree stood. It is pretty amazing to see it taking down some of the huge trees in the forest.

The Strangler just grows around a tree and takes over, eventually killing its "host". It is an impressive sight.

We decided to do a day hike down to some petroglyph rocks and one of the many beautiful creeks that flow througth the preserve. We saw a ton of animals and insects we had never seen before and we even saw the famous Gibnut, remember that rodent that we had for lunch in Belize? They are pretty cute, and we even felt a little guilty for a few minutes, but it WAS tasty We even found the seeds and seed pods of most trees at El Imposible fascinating, just look at some of the photos below and you will hopefully understand.

There are many hikes at El Imposible, but if you only have time for one we recommend the Piedra Sellada trail. It should be a 4 and a half to five hour relatively strenuous hike, but well worth it… at the end of the hike you are rewarded by a wonderful rock formation covered in carvings done by an ancient culture, some say Mayan, but many disagree (including our guides). After examining the carvings there is a wonderful spring fed pool that is the perfect spot for a picnic and a relaxing break from the hike. There are some giant crawfish/dads in the water that are almost as large as a lobster (they are protected, otherwise they would have been our dinner). What a great hike!

We arrive at the border at 9:00AM to find a very long line of trucks driving into and leaving El Salvador, total chaos. Trucks passing trucks, trucks blocking the road and not a single cop in sight. Lacey stays in the car as I try to avoid the (very) insistent group of guys that offer to help me through the paperwork on the Guatemala side. After many “no, gracias” from me all but one guy leaves, and this one persistent s.o.b. never left my side. I even told him I had no money and would give him none for his troubles. He kept “helping” me anyways.  Let me walk you through our wonderful morning (especially for anybody planning  this particular border crossing). Immigration was a piece of cake, the gentleman looked at our passports, did who knows what on a computer, stamped the exit stamp, and handed the passports back and said thank you. The truck on the other hand… well not so simple. We keep several good quality color copies of all our papers (license, registration, passports, etc.), but you still need more copies of random things like the vehicle import paperwork (even though it comes in triplicate) and the passport page that has your vehicle info stamped on it. That is no big deal really, except when you go to the window and wait in line and watch 10 of these guys sitting in AC walking around acting busy, but doing nothing. It really starts to get on your nerves (definitely on my nerves). I saw one of the customs officers, inside the wonderfully cool office, checking out his Facebook page while we (me and a dozen truck drivers) waited in insane heat and humidity! After taking my paperwork, TWO agents stared at them for 20 minutes and had mini conferences with other agents. One of them finally asked me to meet him by the car.  I met him by the door and when he opened the door from his air conditioned office he cringed at the heat, looked at the car and asked: “Is that it?” Yes. “OK.” Another few conferences with the other agent and the stamps came out… ahhh, the sweet sound of a stamp full of ink on paperwork.  By the way, the guy who was “helping” me still expected money, I gave him none, but I thanked him for his kind help.

On to the El Salvador bureaucracy. The truck queue was even longer once across the border. We parked at the end of the line and stared in disbelief at its length. A truck driver smiled at us and said: “just drive on the oncoming traffic lane and cut, tourists are different than truckers.” I thanked him and followed his advice against my better judgment. In the middle of a two way bridge (in other words blocking oncoming traffic) a soldier stopped and told me to turn around and get my ass back to the end of the line. At least he was nice about it, but when I proceeded to turn around a friendly immigration officer told us to just go through and park at the immigration offices. Hoping the soldier would relent we went ahead into El Salvador and parked. Once again immigration for Lacey and myself was simple and fairly quick (even though I had to help the immigration officer find the Guatemalan intake stamp in our passports).  The truck import was once again the issue on this side of the border. It took nearly 3 hours for this one step, 3 hours! I have no idea how hot it was, but it was hot and humid. I mean Satan’s crotch hot and humid (not that I have ever been there). In the meantime I guess you could say I tried to go with the flow and enjoyed people watching in the heat. I got to hang out with a group of rowdy potty mouthed truck drivers that were actually quite funny. The ladies bathroom was right next to our line and I saw this one woman go into the bathroom followed a few seconds later by a man, after some time the man would come out and later the lady.  While I waited in line this happened no less than 3 times with the same woman yet different men. The world’s oldest profession? She was not the only one making money there, I saw quite a few officers making quick slick exchanges with truck drivers for what seemed to be more prompt processing of their paperwork. I can’t say I actually saw any cash being exchanged, maybe it was just dodgy looking handshakes.

The customs guys did a little of their sitting on our paperwork for a while and one of them finally came out and gave the Landcruiser the once over. Nothing thorough, more of a “hmmm, it is hot out here let’s make this snappy” kind of a deal. In the meantime poor Lacey was sitting and sweating by the Landcruiser reading her trusty Kindle, being stared at by all passersby for who knows what reason. An hour later we were finally on our way. I think we were lucky though because I saw the same officer order a family to completely empty their fully loaded pick up truck and he went through every item…

BTW for further and more detailed info on this border crossing, check Alisa’s post at MotoAdventureGal

This post we are dedicating to some of these places and some of the food we experienced throughout Mexico, but keep in mind we have so many experiences and photos of food in Mexico that we don’t have enough space to share them all. There are too many good places to talk about in one post, some are mentioned in earlier posts such as the tamales in the outskirts of Ensenada, in La Paz we enjoyed the best fish and shrimp tacos, the symphony that is the ceviche at Mariscos del Pacifico in Los Mochis, goat birria at Birrieria San Blas in Los Mochis as well, and so on and so forth. What we will try to do here is mention a few we did not mention in prior posts.

Let’s start with tacos. Tacos are perhaps the best known food of Mexico (in my humble opinion) and there are a thousand variations and not just the toppings, but the tortilla used as well. Toppings range from flying ants to any part of a beef’s head, really any protein you can think of can be a topping. Above the protein topping there can be just as many variations, but the most common one we saw included (but not limited to) onions and cilantro. We had good tacos almost everywhere in Mexico, but I must say my personal favorites were in San Miguel de Allende about 2 blocks from El Jardin at a stand that only opens at night.

The place is just a street cart that does not look like much and may scare a lot of non-street food addicts out there, but please if you are ever in San Miguel stop by and savor the goodness. The cart is about ten feet long maybe twelve and from opening to close there are four guys behind the “counter” pumping out food with a robotic efficiency that would impress Gordon Ramsey. These four guys each have a station, adobada station, asada and chorizo station, cabeza station, and assembly station. A well oiled machine, all four guys would take orders at the same time from dozens of customers and no order went ignored, it was amazing. The flavors of the toppings on these 4 to 5 inch tacos are rich and perfectly seasoned. I think my record was 8 or 9 tacos on one visit. God, I miss that place.

THE Taco stand. Yes it is that busy from opening 'til close.

Taco stand in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico from Lost World Expedition on Vimeo.

Carnitas… ahhhhh divine swine. I dig the swine, it sure ain’t kosher but I love it and carnitas is pork prepared in one of its tastiest (and unhealthiest) ways. Unhealthy you say? Well this ain’t your typical roasted pork. The traditional way to cook carnitas is in a copper pot. Lard is used to cook the pork. Once the lard is boiling lighlty, pork and spices are added. Next comes the simmering of the meat until tender over a very low heat. Once appropriate tenderness is achieved, the heat is turned up and the outside of the pork begins to crisp. The carnitas can then be shredded and served to its faithful followers. The town of Quiroga calls itself the Mexican Capital of Carnitas and after eating there we must agree.  If you do visit Quiroga prepare yourself for a spectacle, dozens of street vendors have mounds of cooked pork on display. These mounds may not look appetizing to some, but it is juicy and tender pork heaven. As you walk by all vendors will offer you big chunky samples of their carnitas and in fact you may have a completely full stomach by the time you come around to deciding which vendor to buy from. Being the gluttons we are we decided to eat after the rounds. We settled for Carmelo’s Carnita’s, in part due to Carmelo’s charismatic personality. You can order no fat at all called masizo (solid) or a mix of fat (skin and plain old fat), or a mix of fat and solid meat (surtida). I like the flavor of the skin so a mixta or surtida is my preffered choice. How I yearn for a big plate of carnitas with some corn tortillas.

The big mound of pork... I know it does not look all that appetizing, but the aroma and the taste will take you to a special place

Las Carnitas de Carmelo, quite possibly one of the best meals I had in all of Mexico. You can order by the pound or tacos.

Oaxaca. Oaxaca is perhaps the foremost mentioned state when Mexican food is discussed and by our experience this is well deserved. The food we enjoyed in Oaxaca City wether it be street food or avant-garde food with traditional ingredients was outstanding. In Oaxaca we found two restaurants that we especially enjoyed thanks to the wonderful website called OneForkOneSpoon written by Grace Meng(a must read for anyone that loves food, especially you Laura!). Two of her suggestions were: La Biznaga and La Olla.

Grace described La Biznaga simply as “perfection” and it really is. We had two meals at La Biznaga and they were delicious and in a wonderful setting with impeccable service. My favorite dish there included an ingredient I had never heard of: Huitlacoche. The word huitlacoche comes from the Nahuatl language and it translates to “ravens excrement.” Yep, it kinda looks like it as well, but it has a rich and complex flavor. Huitlacoche is actually a fungus that infects corn and it basically replaces the normal kernels of the cobs with large distorted tumors analogous to mushrooms. Does not sound that good, but it added lots of love to my dish. La Biznaga is good because it uses traditional ingredients with respect, but the dishes they present are modern,  elegant and tasty.

La Biznaga appettizers, the cone with the red top is filled with jamaica flowers (Hibiscus). They are lovely and bitter. The bottle of seasonal Noche Buena beer was quite good.

La Biznaga, filet mignon with goat cheese and huitlacoche. Does not look like much, but it was scrumptious

Lacey's dish: Smoked gouda stuffed chicken with a chili apple sauce.

At La Olla they stick to more traditional dishes and we really enjoyed it. Lacey and I were both introduced to the wonders of chapulines at La Olla. I ordered a sampler dish with some of the typical Oaxacan dishes and one of them was a ripe tomato cored and stuffed with petite chapulines. Chapulines are grasshoppers that are dried or fried, sometimes they are seasoned with tomato and chiles and they are infused with rich flavor. We really liked them.

Sample platter at La Olla. Soda water lemonade, cafe de olla, chicharron, and all kinds of other goodies including the famous and delicious Oaxaca cheese.

In Oaxaca I finally tried a mole negro that I truly liked. I have tried mole negro in many restaurants in the U.S. that generally did not impress, none of them were bad they just were not good (well some of them WERE bad).  At Tamales Mina we had Chicken Tamales with Mole Negro that were truly manna from Heaven. I was making semi orgasmic sounds the whole time I ate my tamal much to the discomfort of fellow customers (and readers I am sure). The texture, depth and  levels of flavors in a properly cooked mole negro are truly an art form that is hard to replicate. More power to you if you can. I am afraid to even try.

The famous Tamales de Mina stand has been opening evenings next to the Zocalo for generations.

The famous Tamales de Mina. One is the chicken with mole negro mentioned above and the other is a chicken with a very spicy but flavorful salsa verde (spicy enough to bring tears to Lacey's eyes). My words cannot begin to describe the savory sweet goodnes of these tamales.

But first, the story:  We hired a tuk-tuk to take us from our campsite on the outskirts of Panajachel (Pana), Lake Atitlan, Guatemala to take us into town. On the way photos were being snapped and upon arrival to Pana Luis set the camera down and reached into his pocket for the fare (20 Quetzales~$2.50), needless to say… the camera was on the seat as the tuk-tuk left us in town. A few minutes later Luis realized what he had done and ran back to the corner where we were left off as if the driver would be there patiently waiting for our return. Yeah right.  We sat at that corner cursing and lamenting the loss for a while when we had the incredibly pointless idea of sitting there checking all the tuk-tuks that drove by hoping to see our driver. We found out that Pana has 160 registered tuk-tuks and we kept a check list of all the numbers we saw. After a couple of hours (yes, you read that right) we had counted 135 tuk-tuks! Alas, none of them was our former ride. We then had another “great” idea: a public service announcement about a reward on the camera.  We went to the local radio station and they were more than happy to oblige. With our hopes not quite high we went back to our campsite and waited in vain for our camera to show up. No happy ending to this story. Luis has done it again. Sorry.

A tally of our losses this trip so far: Lacey’s beloved Chaco sandals, Luis’ pillow (yes his pillow sans pillowcase!) was stolen, Luis’ beloved Benchmade folding knive, and a towel Luis had appropriated from a hotel was stolen from us and now our very handy camera is now in the list.

Now back to our regular adventures:
We spent some time in Antigua, revisiting this wonderful town. Antigua is a very affluent and touristy historical town (historical as in post-spanish colonization) that somehow retains a lot of charm, much like San Miguel de Allende or San Cristobal de las Casas. The wonderfully preserved and restored houses are quite a sight and most of them have one of our favorite features in a house: the inner courtyard. While there we did our thing, what is our thing you ask? We get up in the morning drink coffee and then proceed to walk aimlessly around town for hours, sometimes all day. No particular destination just anywhere your feet may take you (or your nose and stomach if food may be involved). One day as we walked around we spotted a beautiful Nissan Patrol all decked out in “Expedition” gear. Luis approached the vehicle in the peculiar way most men would check out a beautiful woman. It is a nice rig he told the owner, John. It turns out John and his wife Anita were about to embark in an America’s drive as well. Small world and how nice to meet fellow “overlanders.”

John and Anita's droolworthy rig. Love this diesel Nissan Patrol ready for overland travel and adventure.

Meeting John led us to meet another John who owns a wonderful food establishment in Antigua “Epicure.”  Epicure has a deli and a restaurant that are amazingly good.  Everything is made in house; cheeses, salami, hams, breads, jams, preserves you name it, John and his folk at Epicure make it and they grow almost everything that is used in the establishment, how cool is that.  Where did that Saltimboca chicken come from, it is delicious?  “Oh, we raise the chicken.” The pork for that Coppa? “We raise the pork as well.”  The tuna surely, not the tuna? “No, we don’t raise the tuna, but it was delivered this morning from the coast!” Wow. This is our kind of place.  The dishes although not Guatemalan, where outstanding and the prices although not really in our budget, quite reasonable for what you got.  Are we taking to much space from this post for this you ask? It was that good.

The beautiful town of antigua from the top of the hill. The volcano looming in the distance.

Love the colonial architecture and colors

We love the inner courtyards in colonial style houses. All the rooms face the courtyard.

We like Antigua, even with its insane amount of tourists.  We camped for FREE at the tourist police station which is housed in the ruins of an old hospital. Pretty secure. We walked every day and took in the scenery and the fine food for a few days before moving on to Lake Atitlan. The beautiful lake surrounded by volcanoes. We have spent some time there in the past, but we enjoyed it immensely once again (even with our lost camera incident).

We had already been to Flores and Tikal on a previous trip so we decided to bypass the northern Peten and headed straight to Finca Ixobel near Poptun for a few days. Finca Ixobel is a long standing travelers’ stop in the area and really the only reason to be stopping in Poptun. They offer camping, rooms in little “treehouses” (more like little shacks on stilts), or dorm rooms, private rooms and even small cabanas. They also have a delicious restaurant/bakery and offer a nice place to relax for a few days or even take some of the tours they offer.

Our main reason for stopping at Finca Ixobel was more of a nostalgic one. We had stayed here for a few days three years ago while backpacking around Guatemala. During our stay we met a few couples that were driving the Americas in their own vehicles. After talking with these folks we decided that was what we should be doing and the roots of our idea for Lost World Expedition began to take hold. Three years of planning and here we are again, pretty excited to be back at Finca Ixobel, living the dream that had started here. The funny part is that it rained for a good part of our stay and it was raining the last time we were here as well. Maybe our memories of the place are destined to include the wet and rain!

From Poptun we headed over to Lanquin and Semuc Champey. It is a long drive on dirt roads the whole way there, but the surrounding countryside is quite beautiful. The road would wind up a steep hillside only to get to the top and drop back down to get ready to climb another. In every little village we drove through, little kids would come running out to the road and yell “Gringo, Gringo!” It was pretty funny and we couldn’t figure out if this was an insult or if they just didn’t see many gringos passing through very often. Whichever the case they were so cute we couldn’t take offense anyways.

Driving on the "highway" to Semuc Champey we were a little surprised when we passed this semi.

Another vehicle we passed on the way. The bus was soo full these guys had to ride on top!

We finally made our way to Semuc Champey and found a hostel right next door that let us camp in the front yard. The river that flows through the area is the same one that flows through Semuc Champey and there is a great little swimming hole.  We enjoyed a nice dip in the water to wash off all the road dust from our long drive.

When we woke up our first morning there, we discovered we had another flat tire. After a bit of investigation we determined that the leak was not from the tire but there was a crack on the side of the wheel. This is the second time this has happened to us after a long drive on dirt roads (each time has been with a different tire). When we looked at our money stores to try to figure out what to do, we also discovered that we had forgotten to stop at an ATM on our way here (not that we passed any anyways) and were now out of money. The nearest ATM was 60km away and we needed money to buy another wheel, no tire to repair. However, we had driven all this way and REALLY wanted to check out Semuc Champey. We had a little bit of money left, but not enough to pay for camping for the night ($5). Luckily we found some helpful guests at the hostel who were willing to buy some ice cold cervezas off us. Maybe we should make a business out of peddling ice cold beer to weary travelers? Nah, we would probably drink it all before we could sell it!

At Semuc Champey, the Cahabon River runs through a deep canyon in the middle of a lush green jungle, with steep rock walls climbing up on both sides. A natural limestone bridge runs across the river, with some of the water flowing over the bridge and forming a series of beautifully colored, clear water pools, that cascade down the bridge. The majority of the river flows through a tunnel under the bridge and you can go stand at the edge and watch the water rushing under. It is a little scary standing there because the water is flowing so fast if you fall in, you’d be lucky if they are able to find your body. On the other end of the bridge the water that flows over the bridge cascades back down to join the rushing river as it exits from the underground tunnel. There are some cool caves that you “can” climb up under the waterfall as long as the guards don’t catch you (apparently a few folks have been injured while exploring). Luis says it is pretty awesome in the caves, but Lacey wouldn’t know because she wussed out and didn’t go.

We climbed up the practically vertical trail to the mirador, and were rewarded  with an amazing view of the pools running through the jungle below. Afterwards we spent the rest of the day enjoying a swim in the beautiful pools and chatting with all the other travelers we met there and a few visiting Guatemalans.

We spent a couple of days in a campground just outside of San Ignacio called Inglewood Camping Grounds. We where in dire need of some electricity due to some technical issues relating to our solar charging system and this place was made to order for those needs. Inglewood is a very clean and well designed campground aimed directly at the RV crowd, but it worked out quite well for us. Comfortable and safe and with a very helpful owner (Greg).

The Actun Tunichil Muknal ATM caves are part natural wonder and part Mayan archeological site. The site consists of a large cave system with a river running through part of it. Throughout the cave system there are human remains as well as pottery from ancient Mayan times.  The most famous remains in the cave system are those of a young girl now known as “The Crystal Maiden.” The Maiden’s bones have been completely calcified  in a natural manner due to the environment of the cave, leaving them with a sparkling crystalized appearance.

The hike to the caves was was a great way to start out the tour, with river crossings through an amazing tropical forest.  On the way Lacey and I munched on termites using a stick as a tool just like monkeys (see the pics). Monkey see, monkey do.  We also know how to use tools To get into the caves you have to swim in, then you spend the rest of the time sometimes swimming, sometimes wading, and at some points completely out of the water. In order to preserve the site we had to use socks (no bare feet or sandals). Besides the Mayan remains and artifacts, the stalactite and stalagmite formations inside the cave are pretty amazing. We took some cool pictures, but the darkness and the wet environment made it hard to take “good” pics.

We had a wonderful Indian food dinner with Shana and  her husband whose name escapes us (sorry), a couple we met during the ATM cave tour. The meal took forever to be served, but it was fresh and outstanding. The conversation with this couple was great and it helped ease the hunger pains from the long wait.

During an outing in San Ignacio we ran into Jim. Jim and his family run the Barton Creek Outpost and after he gave us a brief description of his place and without having to twist our arms we decided to stay at his place for a day or two (or five).  Barton Creek is described by Lonely Planet guide books as: “Barton Creek is the sort of place you visit for a day and stay for a week” and this description could not be closer to the truth. It instantly feels like home and everyone staying there feels like an extended family. There are tons of hikes in the area, and a beautiful cave just a few minutes walk from the camping area. We happened to be here during Easter and were welcomed to a pig roast celebration complete with an easter egg hunt for the kids. All we can say is we REALLY enjoyed staying here!

Thanks to our stay at Barton Creek Outpost we met the owners of another place nearby: Mountain Equestrian Trails (MET) a place that caters to anyone with a love for riding horses. After a brief talk to our host Jim at Barton Creek, we were convinced we had to go on a nice long horseback ride to the Big Rock Waterfalls. Jim arranged everything and we were treated to an amazing day with the MET guys and their equine friends. As a disclaimer we will say that this was a rough rides for butts not used to riding regularly.  Lacey and I were in pain for several days after the six and a half hour ride, but it was well worth it!

The border crossing was fairly straightforward. There are always unsavory characters trying to swindle money from gullible tourists.  I must say some of them are very smooth and even seem trustworthy at first.  Our humble recommendation is to just avoid any non-uniform individuals and always demand a receipt when money will exchange hands. A guy on the Mexican side of the border tried to get 250 pesos (~$20 dollars) a piece out of us as an “exit fee.” When we told him we didn’t believe him and demanded a receipt from him, he immediately changed his mind. You have to wonder though how many people actually pay.

After the border crossing we hightailed it to the Crooked Tree Wilderness Sanctuary, considered by some to be one of the best birding destinations in Central America.  We are not birders, but we really enjoy being around wildlife and we have definitely developed a bit of a curiosity for birds… but we are not birders   We arrived at the small village of Crooked Tree and found the perfect accommodation for us at the Crooked Tree Lodge (their website has wonderful wildlife pics).  The Lodge is right on the shore of the Crooked Tree Lagoon, is very well designed and impeccably run by a local family (the father is a British expat).

The main house of the Crooked Tree Lodge

Our plan was to spend the night at the lodge and then head for the border with a quick stop at the Baboon Sanctuary near Belize City. A few minutes at the lodge and we knew that would not be the case, a few days later we had to peel ourselves from our camping spot.  We were hooked on Belize.

The Crooked Tree Lagoon is teeming with wildlife, especially  birds.  The tropical weather is not horribly hot (at least not while we were there) and it was a pleasure to walk around the village and all the Cashew (“crooked tree”) plantations. On our second, or maybe third day there was a big party in the village: The Tilapia Festival.  Tilapia is an invasive fish species that was accidentally introduced to the Belizean waterways. Tilapia is abundant in Crooked Tree Lagoon and for some reason they celebrate it with an annual party that includes dancing, eating, truck mud bogging and many other activities. There were a total of four tourists at the event (including us).  Among the many highlights of our day was lunch, which consisted of two plates. One had fried tilapia, bean stew and rice, the other was a little more offbeat and it consisted of freshwater turtle, gibnut (a large rodent that is also known as a “Paca” in the rest of Latin America) accompanied by rice and beans.  The food was outstanding and washed down with some ice cold beer.

Our food stand of choice, try to read the menu which includes iguana, turtle, gibnut, etc.

Lunch: rice and beanswith gibnut and turtle

Fried tilapia and a Guinness

Sadly we discovered that although neither the Gibnut nor the Turtle are listed as endangered species, some experts say their populations are definitely dwindling, so our footprint just got a lot bigger. Sorry.

We had a great time in Crooked Tree and we are very glad that it single handedly changed our mind about the length of our stay in Belize. Enjoy the pics.

A few hours down the windy mountain roads from San Cristobal we stopped in a small town to visit the ruins of Tonina. These are some of the quietest and most accessible ruins we’ve visited so far. There were maybe 5 other people there. In Tonina you can still actually climb all over and go inside the tombs. This isn’t something you find very often in Mexico anymore, due to high volume of visits and unscrupulous visitors that abuse the freedom.

Along some more narrow windy roads we made a stop off at Agua Azul just south of Palanque. There was a small blurb about this place in one of our guidebooks, but we weren’t prepared for the beautiful series of waterfalls, with turquoise blue water running through the middle of the jungle that we found. This place is amazing! The weather wasn’t exactly cooperating with us when we were there, but on a nice sunny day, an afternoon spent swimming in this beautiful location would be the highlight of any trip.

A little further north, we arrived at the Maya Bell campground just a short walk from the ruins of Palenque. Maya Bell is set at the edge of the jungle, and you are treated to the sounds of howler monkeys waking up with you every morning. Some folks at the campground told us the monkeys had been coming out into the campground for a show lately, but we didn’t get to see any during our stay. From the sounds of things, they weren’t too far away in the mornings. The ruins of Palenque have been among our favorites so far. It might be that the location of the ruins fits the classic picture of tall pyramids nestled into the jungle that we often imagine with Mayan ruins. As our fellow traveller Dan Grec mentioned:  you get a pang of Indiana Jones as you arrive to the ruins.  Whatever the case, it is a beautiful place and well worth a visit. We never hire guides, but we hired a guide that we met at the grocery store the night before. He was a very nice and knowledgeable man who treated us to a whole different take on the history of Palenque residents of pre-columbian times than we had heard before. We’re not sure how much of what he told us was accurate or even true but it made it very interesting to look at the ruins in a whole different light.  He is a bit of a conspiracy theorist with a very revised view of history.

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Leaving the jungle behind we headed up to the west coast of the Yucatan peninsula on the Gulf side. We visited a few towns here that were interesting, but we all had a hankering to enjoy the beautiful beaches of the Caribbean, so we made a straight shot across the peninsula from Merida to Cancun. We’ve been in some pretty touristy places in Mexico so far, but I don’t think anything could have prepared us for the Maya Riviera. Public beach access is almost non-existent, as the beaches have all been taken over by huge all inclusive resorts.  In Cancun, we ended up taking the ferry over to Isla Mujeres (12 bucks round trip), just off the coast of cancun and paying 50 pesos (4 bucks) a piece for a lounge chair on the beach, but at least we finally got our first day at a beautiful Caribbean beach enjoying the sunshine and warm water. We spent about a week with the girls driving down the coast of the Riviera Maya, enjoying the beautiful beaches, swimming in some cenotes (beautiful fresh water swimming holes, connected to underground river systems) and checking out the ruins at Tulum. It is hard to find a nice place to relax and enjoy the area without paying an exorbitant rate in this area, but if you look hard there are still some gems to be found.

After three weeks that went by way too fast we dropped the “Jenessa” twins off at the airport in Cancun. It was a little weird to be back to just the two of us again. After a few days of re-packing and re-supply in Cancun, we finished our journey through Mexico, making our way down to Chetumal and the border with Belize. It has been a little over 4 months since we came to Mexico. It is such a big country with so many different regions we could probably spend a lifetime exploring, but for now the south is calling.

From San Miguel de Allende we made our way to Mexico City, or as Mexicans call it, DF. One of the most common things we have been told on this trip is that what ever you do, don’t drive in Mexico City. The problem being that in order to try to cut down on air pollution, DF (and in fact the whole state of Mexico) has a policy called “Hoy No Circula.” It basically translates to: you can’t drive your vehicle at least one day a week, that day corresponding to the last digit or letter on your license plate. We were told by lot’s of people that if you attempt to drive in Mexico City or the surrounding area and have foreign plates, it doesn’t really matter what day of the week it is, you are going to feel the “mordida” (the bite or a bribe).

Keeping this in mind we decided to leave the Landcruiser in a campground outside of the city limits  and take a bus in.  We found two nice campgrounds located just north of the city, but they are still located within the “Hoy No Circula” zone. We decided to take our chances, so after checking the day of the week and our license plate, we headed to Teotihuacan just north of Mexico City. We found a nice little campground there with no problems from over zealous corrupt cops looking for extra income.  As an added benefit the campground is walking distance from the ruins of Teotihucan and only a $4 bus ride (for both of us) to the city.

We were very pleasantly surprised with Mexico City and instead of the dirty smog filled city we had heard about, we found a beautiful clear city with a great downtown area. In parts of the city we felt like we were walking through an old European city. One day we spent 6 hours walking through the Museum of Anthropology and didn’t even make it to the second floor. This really is a must see museum if you happen to be in the city.

Leaving Teotihuacan we made a straight shot for the city of Oaxaca, and arrived at a campground just outside of town just as it was getting dark. Oaxaca has been one of our favorite places in Mexico so far, we could have easily spent a few weeks there. Oaxaca is known as the state that produces some of the best food and crafts in all of Mexico and it definitely lived up to its reputation. Monte Alban is located just outside of the city and is one of the better archeological sites we visited. We were even treated to an early morning tour of a Mezcal factory owned by the owner of the campground. We both agree that some Mezcales take the cake over tequila anyday!

In Oaxaca we met an awesome couple, Catherine and Cale (The C’s). They are backpacking around Mexico and were staying at the same campground as us.  After enjoying their company in Oaxaca for a week, we made room in the Landcruiser for The C’s and headed to the beach for a few days.

We ended up at Zipolite, a nice bay with a nude beach on one end. A beautiful stretch of coastline on the Pacific. We were able to catch a great day of beach, sun and a little water (unfortunately there were big unruly waves and not the best swimming conditions) while trying to avert our gaze from all (or maybe some) of the nudists walking around. What is it with nudists and the insane idea of bending over right in front of other beachgoers? Can’t they at least bend at the knees ?   We bid our sad farewell to the C’s in Zipolite as they made their way back to THE Baja.