mattandjean.net

We woke up early on our first full day in San Ignacio, with high hopes of going to see some gray whales.  I took a cold shower that lost half of the already weak pressure when the guy coughing up a lung on the other side of the wall turned on his shower half way through mine.  It reminded me of some cheap-o hostels I’ve stayed at…

After we were all ready we drove into the small town of San Ignacio, and on the way in we stopped at a little brightly colored cinder block building that housed the office of El Padrino Tours.  As we turned off the paved road to the little building we couldn’t help but notice the middle aged Mexican fella facing our truck while taking a leak.  He zipped up his fly and headed over to greet us.  We didn’t shake hands, but Carlos was super friendly.  We explained that we wanted to go see the whales and he told us the cost.  The town of San Ignacio is in the center of the peninsula, but a dirt road leads west all the way to the Pacific and one of three lagoons where gray whales travel each spring to have their babies.  We had decided on San Ignacio because it supposedly had the most friendly whales and we wanted to get as close to them as possible.  Guerrero Negro has a lagoon about an hour and a half north (closer to the US), and it has supposedly the most whales in it, but they don’t come up to the boats as often.  The third lagoon is several hours further south and we didn’t want to drive any more.

We’d read that the cost of a whale tour in San Ignacio’s bay was about $40, but that means you have to take your own transportation over an hour and a half’s worth of Baja dirt roads.  I’ve spent several days on Baja’s backroads and knew that would be a considerable task.  El Padrino wanted $210 to drive the 3 of us to the bay and back, plus it included the 2.5 hours on the boat and lunch.  Since Dave brought his 4WD truck we asked if they could arrange just the boat tour and they said that would be $45 each.  We asked if we’d be alone on a boat and they couldn’t say.

The other thing we wanted to do was see some of the rock art in the area.  We’d read about everything from 3 day mule packing trips into the desert to see some way off the beaten path to 400 meter walks to see some that weren’t very impressive.  Carlos quoted $140 to go about an hour down the road and then hike for 15 minutes to a cave to see some, or we could pay a total of $150 and go see some better ones that were over two hours away by van and then an hour and a half hike into a canyon.  We decided to do the bigger and better option for an additional $10, and then try whale watching the next day.

We paid the $150 in US dollars and hopped in a van with Carlos, who not only sold us the tour but would be our driver for the rest of the day.  We took off towards La Cueva Pintada (”The Painted Cave”), which was about 45 minutes south on Hwy 1, where we turned off north on to a bumpy dirt road.  By the way, all the rock art in this area of Baja is actually part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  We road on the badly washboarded road for almost 2 hours, passing only 2 little homesteads with some goats and cattle; the few places we passed by were literally in the middle of nowhere.

Eventually we came to a clearing and right in front of us was a large fenced off area and about three dozen people partying!  They had Corona and Tecate beer canopies erected and everyone was really dressed up in a Mexican cowboy sorta way (vaquero style) – cowboy boots, nicely pressed jeans, gigantic bronze belt buckles, pressed flannel shirts and cowboy hats.  It was a rural wedding!

We pulled up to one of the 3 houses surrounding the party and we all hopped out of the van.  It was a little awkward.  Carlos led the way through a little plywood “gate” and we walked up to a family sitting around a table with a tiny chihuahua guard dog wearing a sweater.  We signed in on a little booklet they had laying on the table, and I noticed that the previous visitor to the site had been there on the 22nd of February, six days prior to our visit, and everyone on the two pages I saw was visiting from California.  This place doesn’t get many visitors because it is so far out of the way.  16-17 hours south of San Diego, then 2 hours on a bad dirt road, and still another hour and a half hike into the desert.

After we signed in Carlos told me (in Spanish of course) that we just had to wait for the guía (guide).  Apparently this tiny community out in the sticks has a list of about 15 “guides” on the wall of this home, and they rotate each time a visitor shows up so the wealth is spread amongst the community.  This is a great idea because I’m sure there isn’t much flow of currency to these people, and they have every reason to protect this UNESCO site that’s in their back yard.  After about 10 minutes these two little guys come walking up from out of the desert, and one of them was our guide, Guadalupe.  If you look on the sign near the door where we waited for Guadalupe, you’ll see a list of all the village’s guides, and there are only 3 last names between them all.  Also, the keys to the gate that surround the actual cave hang on the wall to the left of the door; Guadalupe grabbed the keys and hopped into the van as soon as he arrived.

We drove up towards the mountain for about 5 minutes and then stopped.  We jumped out, all of us took a pee break amongst the cacti beside the van and then we followed Guadalupe on a very rudimentary trail into a canyon.  Carlos stayed behind, Guadalupe led, I followed him, Dave’s grandson was behind me and Dave was in the rear.

I won’t bore you with details of the hike, but I will say that Guadalupe is a tough old bird.  He is a hell of a hiker.  He was wearing these homemade leather boots without socks and never slowed down during the entire hike.  I asked him at the end how often he does it and he said he’s been hiking up to the cave for over 30 years but takes visitors about twice a year (this would mean about 60 groups visit a year if the 15 guides rotate and each one takes about two trips in a year).  The only drawback to Guadalupe was that he was a bit funky.  I’m sure it was because he lives in the middle of a desert without any utilities, so if he showers it’s probably in a puddle during the couple of days a year that it rains.  Another main item about the hike was that I was good for the first hour, but the final 30 minutes kicked my butt.  You scramble almost straight up the mountainside, trying to get secure footing on patches of scree.  I had to stop to catch my breath almost every 30 feet, but eventually I made it to the top.

I won’t say it wasn’t worth it because $50 to go into the middle of the desert and meet people in this tiny community who survive on basically nothing, and to arrive on a wedding day, was awesome on its own.  It was cool to walk through the desert and see all the impressive cacti up close, and the paintings were mildly interesting.  I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m glad I did it once.  Guadalupe said the paintings are 5000 years old, and given the dry climate I can see how something like this would last forever.  I thought one of the drawings was a cow, but cattle hadn’t been introduced to North America 5000 years ago and Guadalupe told me it was a puma.  He said he’s seen puma in the mountains on several occasions.

We slid down the steep part on the way back down, then basically ran back to the waiting van.  We drove Guadalupe about 2 minutes closer to the village but he told Carlos to stop because he’d walk, and that was the last we saw of Guadalupe.  Oh yea, I drank about a liter and a half of water during the hike but Guadalupe opened his little canteen twice and each times only took a small sip.

After the LONG drive back to San Ignacio we went to dinner in town right on the square at a place Carlos recommended, then we checked out the 19th century mission that’s also on the main square.  Dinner was excellent (lemon buttered scallops and plenty of Tecate beer).  They were having a service at the church, but an older lady who was some kind of caretaker greeted me and told me some of the church’s history.  We also setup to meet at El Padrino in the morning and take their van to the lagoon based on the fact that instead of $210 it would cost us $150 since they found another 2 people to go and share the cost with us.

Dave and I sat in the gravel parking lot of the Baja Oasis Motel that night, drinking cold Tecates and telling stories.  We also went on a shopping spree to find cigarettes, but they were almost impossible to find after 8pm on a Sunday.  The 3 stores that sold them were either completely out or only had menthols.

Here are the pictures from our day of hiking:

Besides being back from Baja, we’ve had some other big news recently.  We canceled our contract to buy the home in Victorville.  We should get our entire deposit back within two weeks, and we may look for another home before the $8000 tax credit expires on April 30th, but we aren’t in too big of a hurry after this recent not-so-fun experience.

Baja was a lot of fun, but I think it would have been better if we’d come back one day earlier.  I met my buddy Dave and his grandson at our plant around 3am last Saturday morning. I moved my stuff (cooler, backpack, plastic crate with supplies, etc) over to his truck and we hit the road.  We stopped in Chula Vista, just north of the border and below San Diego, to top off the gas tank and grab a bite to eat, then we crossed over into Tijuana.  We pulled to the side and went into the immigration office to fill out the FMT forms.  If you’re traveling by road into Baja you don’t have to bother with the FMT as long as you stay north of Ensenada on the Pacific side and San Felipe on the Sea of Cortez side, but we were traveling all the way south to the southern state, BCS (Baja California Sur).

We signed the forms, went back to a little bank kiosk and paid the fee (something like $20), then went back to the immigration office for our stamps.  While Dave was paying for his FMT I went two windows down where a little bank kiosk had posted exchange rates (like $12.35 pesos per dollar) and noticed a guy asleep on the floor under a blanket.  I knocked on the window and pointed at the exchange rate sign and said “cambio” (change) and he looked at me, but then he flipped over and pulled his blanket over his head!  Lovely…  Welcome to Mexico.

We got back in the truck, jumped straight on to the 1-D (toll road to Ensenada) and headed south.  We left the border around 6am and didn’t hit any traffic on the toll road.  We passed straight through Ensenada without any problems and continued south along the transpeninsular highway, Mexico 1.  We went through the string of dusty towns like San Quintin (pronounced “San Kenteen”), Lazaro Cardenas and El Rosario.  We did stop in Camalu to put more gas in the tank, then we stopped at Mama Espinoza’s in El Rosario for lunch.  El Rosario was the end of the paved road for a long time, and has been a checkpoint for the famous Baja 1000 off road races since the 60’s.  I had some fish tacos and they were decent.

We continued on down the road, into the strange desert area surrounding Cataviña.  Dave was impressed by all the odd flora, like boojums, elephant trees, cardon cacti and cholla.  We passed through a total of 4 military checkpoints on the way down, plus the border crossing in TJ and an agricultural checkpoint when we crossed from the northern Baja state into BCS.  The agricultural checkpoint is right at the border, along the northern 28th parallel, and just north of the BCS town of Guerrero Negro.  You pull up under this shed and pay a guy 10 pesos ($0.81) and then roll up your windows and drive over this little sprayer thing on the ground that supposedly coats the underside of your vehicle in some sort of pesticide or insecticide.

We pulled through our final military checkpoint and into our hotel, the Baja Oasis Motel, about 30 minutes after it got dark (~6:30pm).  We checked into our room and then went into town to see what it looked like.  The town is called San Ignacio and it is almost in the center of the peninsula (both north-south and east-west wise).  The town is really nice and is as close to the picturesque Mexican village as I’ve ever seen.  Unlike all the dusty and depressing towns you pass going south, it actually has a lovely little town square with a park in the center and a huge old mission church right on the square.  A bunch of locals were out partying in the square, and we ended up going to another Baja 1000 staple for dinner, Rice and Beans.  The meal was pretty good but overpriced.

We headed back to our motel and hit the sack shortly after dinner.  Here are a couple of pictures taken at Mama Espinoza’s on the drive down:

It’s 1:35am on Saturday and I’m about an hour away from leaving for San Ignacio, in Mexico’s state of Baja.  I’m riding down with my buddy Dave and his grandson, Seth.  The drive will take around 15 hours.

We’re meeting in Fontana at 3am and should be at the border around 5am.  We’ll stop in TJ, just across the border, to pick up our FMT cards which allow us to travel south of Ensenada.  We’ll stop a few times for gas and maybe lunch at Mama Espinoza’s in El Rosario, but basically we’re trying to get to San Ignacio before the wild things come out after dark.

Tomorrow we’ll go whale watching in San Ignacio’s lagoon, then we’re planning on heading out into the desert’s mountains to search of ancient Indian petroglyphs.  We’re planning on staying in motels each night but one (desert tent camping on the last night).  We’ll be back on Wednesday night…

I had thought I’d update the blog from the road, but now I’m planning on jotting down some notes and taking plenty of pictures so I can write about it when I get home.

And to all a good night,

Mateo

The past two weeks, since my last blog posting, have been a blur.  I’ve been dealing with our new home a lot, and I’ve been busier at work than I’ve ever been.  More importantly, I’ve had some wonderful weekends…

Last weekend was special because it was Valentine’s Day and I had a 3-day weekend due to President’s Day.  I celebrated with Jean – she got some tulips and irises from me, and we had dinner together.  Last Saturday morning we got up really early and went to check out the messed up bolts that were installed to hold our new home’s frame to the concrete pad, then we rushed home so I could meet up with my dad and head into LA for the Travel and Adventure Show at the LA Convention Center.

I’ve had a clipping from the LA Times for that show on our refrigerator for about 3 months, and it was finally here.  My friend Noriko told me that she’d been to it before and it was a bit of a disappointment because it was basically a gigantic sales pitch from hundreds of travel agents.  She was right, it was absolutely what she said it would be.  About 90% of the show consisted of travel agents, 8% was odd activities (zip line, scuba diving tank, etc), but the remaining 2% was the main reason I went – seminars!

My dad and I sat through 3 seminars.  We listened to two of the most famous travel writers, Arthur Frommer and Rick Steves, and we also sat in on a talk by to a kid named Zac Sunderland, who is the youngest person to ever sail solo around the world.  I’m not a huge fan of Frommer’s books because they seem to focus on the highfalutin segment of the travel spectrum instead of the backpacker (or for those on a budget just above the backpacker, like myself).  I do, however, own a few Frommer books, and he’s one of the most recognizable names in the travel industry.  The second travel book that I purchased was actually Rick Steves’ Paris, so I’m very familiar with his style.  I’ve also watched several episodes of his European travel show on public television over the years.  He’s a dork, but he does cover every corner of Western Europe and he’s all about finding a good deal.

I wish Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the founders of Lonely Planet, had been there instead…  I read a ton more of their books than Frommer or Steves, but it was still really interesting to listen to what they had to say.  Frommer suggested the people use Momondo when looking for the cheapest flights; they’re an aggregate travel site that looks for the best flight from everyone, instead of the companies that pay them off.  Rick Steves talked about learning something about the place you visit before going there so you’ll appreciate it more.

Zac Sunderland has a really interesting story, but he wasn’t a very good speaker.  A 17 year old sailing around the world all alone is incredible, but when the kid describes every single event as “it was just crazy”, you don’t get the details that a better speaker could deliver.  I think that hour would have been a ton more awesome if they’d invited Steve Nakano or Matt Harding, but I enjoyed it anyways.

My dad and I did visit about 15% of the booths after our three seminars, but I’d had enough and was ready to call it a day after an hour of pushing through the crowd to gather pamphlets for overpriced tours.  I did decide that my next big trips will be to either Israel and Jordan, Mongolia or Greece.

This weekend Jean and I celebrated 10 years together, kinda.  We met at a party in Tuscaloosa back in February of 2000, and then started dating in April of 2000 and have been together ever since.  We celebrated on Friday evening, then my dad came up and spent the night on Saturday night because today we went into LA to see the Dalai Lama.  Oddly, this world renowned spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize winning Buddhist monk was appearing at Universal’s CityWalk near Burbank.

The Dalai Lama’s story is amazing.  If you have Netflix, watch a few documentaries on him.  He’s a freedom fighter who preaches non-violence, and backs it up with religion, similar to Gandhi and Hinduism, or Martin Luther King Jr and Christianity.  If Jean had gone she could have worn her “Free Tibet” t-shirt, but she decided to stay at home.  Sheryl Crow opened up with three songs, including Here Comes the Sun, then the Dalai Lama came out, kicked his sandals off and sat Indian style in a big chair in the center of the stage.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama covered a lot of topics, but mostly spoke about being compassionate and how that starts with loving and nurturing children.  He reminds me of my Bible teacher from high school, Mr Barnes.  They’re both the most sincere and happy people I’ve ever known.  They both have this aura that’s hard to describe…  I enjoyed it a lot and hope to read more about both Buddhism and the Dalai Lama in the coming months.

This next weekend I’ll be going out of town with my buddy Dave.  We’re heading down to Baja to see the California grey whales calving.

Here are some pictures from the travel show last weekend:

Yesterday Jean and I drove up through the pass to meet with our realtor so we could sign a big stack of papers.  It stormed over night down here, but was barely drizzling when we left on Saturday morning.  The roads were slick and most surface streets were flooded (I’ve mentioned before how poor the drainage systems are out here), and on our way up through the pass it looked strange because the clouds were really low and everything was dark and misty.  About half way up everyone came to a stop and we noticed some black smoke coming up from the center lane in front of us.  I told Jean to grab the camera and be ready to get some pictures just as a bunch of sparks shot way up in the air.

All the traffic was merging over to the far left, off the marked fast lane and into the shoulder against the concrete divider, or it was merging around to the right side on the soft shoulder.  As we got closer we saw a big Ford SUV engulfed in flames in the center lane of the 15.  A traffic guy in a yellow suit was standing way out in front of it and forcing traffic out of the way.  I was a little worried that it may explode, and Jean was trying (unsuccessfully) to get some good shots.  The entire front of the SUV was a huge fireball, and even though we were about 20 feet away when we passed by it, you could literally feel the heat.  We smelled burning tires for the next 2-3 minutes as we made our way up the hill.

We met with the realtor and then went over to see our home again.  I was a little concerned that our entire lot was flooded, so I took some pictures and plan on emailing them to the builder so they’re aware of our concerns.  We put on hard hats and walked through our framed home.  It was odd because our home is flipped the opposite direction of the model, so it was hard to envision how things would look after we’ve been checking out the model so many times.

On the way back to our car Jean sunk one of her legs about 8-10 inches down in the mud.  She was pretty upset and as usual, I was to blame…  Anyhow, we went to Sonics for lunch and then she was happy.  We came on back home and soon after that my dad came up to spend the night.  Jean went out to Redlands to shop for drape patterns at a fabric store, and I watched movies with my dad.  We stayed up pretty late.

Today Jean ran errands and I did some at home.  My dad stuck around to watch the Super Bowl, but Jean had to go to work this evening.  I was glad the Saints won, but I didn’t really care either way.

This week will hopefully be a little slower than last week because I was exhausted after two weeks of things being crazy at work and then dealing with the home purchase when I’d get home.  Next weekend should be cool though because a huge travel show is coming to the LA Convention Center, it’ll be Valentine’s Day, and I have Monday off for President’s Day.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Or at least the model of our home…  On Sunday morning Jean and I woke up and drove down to Santa Ana to meet my dad for brunch at the Orange County Mining Company.  The restaurant is perched up on this big hill, overlooking what appears to be a good chunk of Orange County.  The building looks like a runaway mine train ride at Disney World, with the whole country-western motif.  The worn wooden beams even smell like those faux wild west buildings in amusement parks.  We got there at 9:30am and waited in a little room with a bar for about 20 minutes to be seated.  They have a big deck that looks out over Orange County.

The brunch was good.  I liked the breaded pork chops and the chicken crepes.  Jean filled up on pancakes, bacon and chocolate cake, and my dad tried just about everything on the buffet.  He made a pretty decent mess with the crab legs and shrimp.  I saw this chocolate fountain thing, where you dip strawberries in it, but none of us tried it.

After lunch we drove back to our place and then the three of us drove up the hill so we could show my dad our home.  He walked around in our actual home (the framing is done and the windows were installed since the last time we were up there).  We also walked around the model and he said he thought it was beautiful, but way too big for us.  He kept going on about how far away it is, but it isn’t very far from my work compared to our current place.  It is further away from him though, but it shouldn’t take him more than an hour and a half to get there as long as he isn’t doing it on a Friday evening.  Plus, the next time he goes to Vegas with us we’ll be that much closer!

Here are some pictures from the weekend, including a show of Jean’s angel fish and a clown loach:

This past week was insane.  I was extremely busy at work; in fact, I was the busiest I’ve been in the 4 years I’ve been working out here.  I played racquetball several days at 5:30am with Jim, but I also ended up staying really late a few days too because I had so much work to do.  It looks like the economy has really taken a turn and is heading back up because we’re getting a lot of orders and that means new product inquiries that I need to help make sure we can produce.  I looked at gauge performance data for hours and hours, tried to get thermography images of coils while the Santa Ana winds were blowing, I ran lots of offline model setups to see what mill forces, tensions and motor loads were predicted to be, I did a housekeeping audit of the electrical shop, made lots of safety observations and that’s just on Thursday and Friday!

Each night when I got home I’d eat dinner and then spend my remaining hours awake scanning documents and sending them off to the mortgage banker we’re dealing with for our loan.  Tomorrow morning Jean and I are meeting my dad for brunch in Santa Ana, then we’re all three riding up to the High Desert so we can show him our home.  Hopefully we’ll be able to snap some shots of decent landscaping so we can have some ideas of what we want to do once we move in to our new home.

Today, Jean and I went to a few gigantic furniture stores, like Mathis Brothers, and we had a lot of fun thinking about all the stuff we’ll be buying to fill our new home.  We like the taller round tables with matching bar stools/chairs for our kitchen, and we’re looking at these Japanese inspired beds that are really flat and low to the ground and just have a mattress instead of a mattress and box springs.

This evening Jean told me that her fish tank is starting to show algae blooms in a few spots.  She showed me the numbers for the recent ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels and it looks like the tank has finally established the correct levels of “good bacteria” and can support more fish and plants.  She went to the big aquarium store down the road and boat a few different algae eaters, like plecos, and some Yoyo loaches because we love watching our clown loaches.

Any aquarium people out there have recommendations for the best way to successfully move our tank from the valley to the desert without losing our established water and keep our fish alive?

Within the next week or two I’ll be heading into San Bernardino to the Mexican consulate to get one of those FMT cards that allows you to travel south of San Felipe and Ensenada in Baja because I’ll be going south with my buddy and his grandson at the end of February to do some whale watching.

Jean went up the hill this morning and put down some “earnest money” on our new home.  We’re pretty excited about it.  We’re going to close escrow sometime in late April, just before the tax credit on new homes runs out.  Our home has just finished being framed, so Jean and I will need to head to the “design center” in about a week to pick out all the interior details, like the flooring, counter tops, cabinetry, etc.

Jean took some pictures of the model that our home is being built like while she was signing papers.  The model obviously has all the upgrades, like hard wood floors, white cabinets, built in shelves, etc.  Our home will look almost the same except that we’ll have brown cabinets, tile floors, no built in shelving, and solid doors over our pantry instead of the frosted glass ones.  Everything else should be pretty close – the garden tub with jets, dual sinks in the master bath with the little vanity seat in the middle, large granite topped island with sink, stainless steel appliances, etc.

Here are the pictures of the model:

We were supposed to go house hunting in Fontana this morning, but an hour before we left to meet our realtor she called and said we didn’t have anything to look at because the 7 homes we emailed her about during this past week were all gone.  Jean and I talked for a while and called her back to let her know that we’ve decided that we’d rather have a larger and nicer home in the high desert for significantly less money than a smaller, older and more expensive home down in Fontana.

We ended up driving back to Victorville to check out homes in some of the new developments, and we also went by one we really liked yesterday.  Unfortunately the one we liked yesterday already had an offer in.  We most likely would have put in our own offer on that one if it was still available.  In the end we went back to a new subdivision that we visited last weekend and looked for a second time at a home we loved.  We’ve decided that tomorrow morning if it’s still available we’ll be putting in an offer.  The house is gorgeous and without heavy commuting traffic it takes 30-35 minutes to get from my job to the house, so about 10-15 minutes further than my current drive.  With traffic it’ll take 50-55 minutes, so it’ll be a long ride if I leave work late on Fridays when everyone is heading up the hill to Vegas, but otherwise it shouldn’t be bad at all.

The home is 2,798 square feet and has 5 bedrooms and 3 full baths.  It’ll have a three car tandem garage, granite counter tops, a fenced in back yard for the dogs, a landscaped front yard (the back yard will need plenty of work), it’ll be the normal Socal stucco exterior, all bullnose drywall corners, a kitchen island with a sink, and a loft.  We’ve been renting for going on 3.5 years, and out of our last home for 4 years, so it’s time to own another home.  We’re excited about it and we’re looking forward to picking out all the different colors and styles as it’s built…  Pictures will follow soon.

Today we woke up early and headed “up the hill” to Victorville to go house shopping again.  The hill is also known as the “Cajon Pass”, or just “the pass”, but it’s actually I-15 leading up through the San Gabriel Mountains along the San Andreas fault line, into the high desert.

We got up there about 9:30am and met with our realtor before going out to look.  We ended up checking out 5 homes in Victorville and 1 in Hesperia.  Jean and I really liked 2 of the homes, but we’re planning on going to look in Fontana tomorrow.  After that we’ll know what area we’ll want to focus on and then we’ll buckle down and really look hard for something we want.

The rain that has pounded Socal for the past week finally ended last night.  I took some pictures on Thursday evening as I went down Mountain Avenue from Upland to Ontario.  A small river had taken over the far right southbound lane because the gutters were all full and the water was just rushing over them and further down the hill.  Mountain Ave leads all the way up to Mt Baldy, and down into Chino (a valley).  All the water from the mountains is channeled down the major north-south streets and they flood like crazy with heavy rains like what we had last week.  I didn’t want Jean out riding around because my trucks exhaust was underwater as I went through several intersections near our place.

The most amazing thing I saw during all the rain storms, besides the first lightning I’ve seen since moving to California, was the Liberty Insurance sign spinner out in the middle of this maelstrom.  The guy was dressed in his Statue of Liberty outfit, covered in a clear plastic poncho, and spinning his sign while he was being pounded by rain and splashed by passing cars, AND THIS WAS AT 6:45PM – IN THE DARK!  I hope he was making $65+/hour…  I tried to take a picture of him, but it came out pretty blurry.  Jean did see him too though, so I have confirmation on this story.

Once the rain stopped and the clouds drifted off towards Arizona over night, snow covered mountains were revealed.  I tried to take some pictures on our way through Rancho Cucamonga, and Jean took some on our way back down the hill later in the day.

Here are the pictures of the rain and snow:

I’ve been inundated with emails from the two realtors we talked to this past weekend.  They’re sending MLS listings for a bunch of properties, mostly in Victorville (in the High Desert) and Fontana (in the IE).  We’re supposed to go out tomorrow with the lady who showed us around when Jean and I came out for my second interview back around December 2005.  Unfortunately, it’s rained more in the past 48 hours than I can remember seeing in the entire past 4 years that we’ve lived here.  If this deluge continues I will be postponing our house hunting trip; I refuse to stand in this rain while a realtor fumbles with one of those key lock boxes…

It POURED down rain today and flooded most of the roads I had to drive home on.  Southern California isn’t prepared for tons of rain all at once because it’s a desert and the ground is too dry and hard for water to percolate down into, plus the gutter system in my area isn’t built to handle anything like this.  We have massive forest fires each summer, and now the local news keeps talking about mudslides, especially around Flintridge and La Cañada, because the roots from the trees that burnt down won’t be there to hold the sides of these mountains in place.

Well, that’s enough for now.  I’m going to try and update more regularly with smaller postings.  I’ve written some epic posts in the past 6 months and they wear me out as much as it does those who read them.

I was just in Palm Springs two weekends ago, picking Stephen up from the airport before the BCS Championship game, and then again to drop him off.  Besides stopping for a few minutes at the airport I had breakfast with Scott out there before coming back to the IE after we dropped Stephen off.

I returned to Palm Springs this past weekend, but this time it was for the Palm Springs Film Fest.  I had tried to convince my dad and Jean into going about a month ago, but my dad said he didn’t care anything about the 15 or so movies I suggested, and Jean pretty much hates foreign movies and documentaries.  To Jean’s credit, she did sit through one of my Netflix picks, Cargo 200, and even though it was in Russian (subtitled in English), she enjoyed it.

My dad actually left a voice mail on Wednesday last week saying, “So, what’s up with the Palm Springs Film Festival?”  Ahh, you told me three weeks prior that you refused to go because the movies sounded like stinkers.  I told him that night that I was going to buy my own tickets and go out there alone.  He called again Thursday (last week) asking if we were going, and I explained that he’d refused to buy tickets earlier and that I was going alone.

I had purchased tickets for two movies on Saturday.  Camino, a Spanish drama, and Sons of Cuba, a UK documentary that takes place in Cuba.  Both movies were in Spanish, but subtitled in English.  I mentioned that I was going alone to my buddy Dave, and he said he’d check out those two movies on Friday night and if he was interested in them he’d join me on Saturday.

I ended up picking up Dave around 9:45am, and we drove out into the desert.  It was a beautiful day – clear blue skies and 80F.  We picked up our tickets at the festival will call and then went to the high school to watch Camino.  Camino was about Opus Dei selecting this girl with a fatal disease, and basically using her as an example of selflessness.  They try to brainwash everyone around this sweet little girl into believing she should thank God for testing her so harshly, but the little girl is more interested in Cuco, the little boy in the local theater company that’s putting on a Cinderella play.  Opus Dei is a really strict sect of Catholics; they were represented by the albino that flogged himself in The Da Vinci Code.  Camino was incredibly sad, but a wonderful movie.  If you ever have a chance to see Camino, do it!

After the movie we went down the road for lunch at the same kosher deli where I’d eaten with my dad at the last film festival, Sherman’s.  I had a rare roast beef sandwich that was at least 6 inches tall.  It was pretty good, but much better once I got some freshly ground horseradish.

After our late lunch we drove over to the Annenberg Theater and waited in line until they started seating for Sons of Cuba.  The theater was really nice, but the movie was only fair, maybe even fair minus.  It was a documentary about a group of 12 year olds in Havana who train to become Olympic boxers.  I didn’t realize that Cuba has been winning more Olympic medals for boxing than any other country for the past 50 years, but the movie just wasn’t too interesting to me.

Yesterday, Sunday, Jean and I spent the entire day looking for a house.  We’re tired of renting and ready to buy a house again.  We looked at some new homes in Chino and then spent the rest of the day in the High Desert (Victorville and Hesperia) looking.  We found a home that we really liked, but we’re planning on looking in Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga on Wednesday, so maybe we’ll find another one we like that’s much closer to my job.  I may take the camera on Wednesday so I can post pictures of some of the homes we’re considering.

The day after Bama won the BCS NC, I took the group on a tour of just about the entire LA Basin.  We didn’t do anything in depth, but it was a long day that gave a decent big picture view of Los Angeles.

We drove into Hollywood for lunch at Pink’s, where we stood in line with 50+ other Bama fans.  I forgot the names of the different things we each ordered, but I did notice that they sell a Huell Howser dawg!  I thought the food was decent, the wait sucked and the atmosphere was better than average.  I’m glad I finally made it there for lunch.  The other two times I’ve attempted to go there the line was wrapped around the building and we just pressed on.

After lunch we drove around Hollywood (Hollywood Blvd, Sunset Blvd), Beverly Hills (more Bama fans on Rodeo Dr), Westwood (I almost ran a guy over) and on to the coast.  We stopped at the Santa Monica pier and had margaritas and beer at the Mexican joint on the end of the pier, again we were surrounded by Bama fans!  The sunset was beautiful.

After leaving Santa Monica we drove 75+ miles down to San Clemente in Orange County for dinner at the kickass place where we took Nancy and my dad when she was out here visiting Jean.  It was our second pier restaurant for the day.  We had the same thing we had the last time we went there, the salmon feast.  Before dinner we spent a little time in the bar across the pier; Stephen and I were entertained by a drunken 5′2″ limo driver/Bering Sea crabber.

After dinner we drove back to the IE and everyone passed out quickly from another long day…

Two for two!  Another great day, and the weather was perfect.

Here are the pictures from our site-seeing day:

Last week was one of the best on record for me…  The Tide rolled in the BCS National Championship!  Alabama beat Texas 37-21!

I was there and it was AWESOME!!  Uncle Mike, thanks again for getting us the tickets.  We all had a blast.

On Wednesday afternoon I drove down to John Wayne (the Santa Ana Airport) to pick up my friend Scott.  The airport had quite a few Texas fans standing outside to be picked up, and some longhorns honked and gave us the “Hook ‘Em” sign as we merged on to the freeway – I guess because they saw my Bama bumper sticker.

Jean and I took Scott to our favorite sushi joint for dinner, then we went out to Palm Springs to pick up my brother in law, Stephen, later in the evening.  Stephen had a close call in Phoenix when he had to change planes.  He sprinted from one concourse to another and just about missed his flight.  Luckily everyone made it in to Ontario just fine.

We woke up later than I’d originally thought we would but it was still early enough, like 8:30am.  My dad got here shortly afterwards and everyone got a shower and ready to go.  We watched a lot of pregame coverage before taking off for Pasadena around 11:30am for the 5:30pm BCS National Championship, being played in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl.  We stopped up the street at Claro’s to pick up some sandwiches and a cooler for our beer.  We weren’t sure what the parking situation was going to be like because the packet that came with the tickets said the golf course surrounding the stadium would be full before noon, and it suggested that you park nearby and take a shuttle.  We decided to take our chances and go for the gold course.

Traffic was almost at a stand still once we exited the 210, and as we started our slow descent into the valley where the Rose Bowl is we started seeing tons of crimson and burnt orange.  We yelled out a few Roll Tide’s until my dad pulled off his long sleeve shirt to reveal an orange t-shirt!!  The three of us who’d been yelling Roll Tide turned our yelling to him instead, but we ended up letting him stay in the car instead of forcing him to walk.  We came close to pulling into a $75 parking lot just outside of the Rose Bowl, but ended up continuing on and paying $40 for the golf course which was much better.

The only problem with the golf course was that we apparently were in a huge Texas section, but luckily a car full of Alabama fans was nearby and they came over and talked with us for a while.  We sat by the car and drank our beer for a while, then made the long trek from balloon #4 to the stadium.  Seriously, it felt like we parked 2 miles away, and in the middle of Austin because it was burnt orange in every direction.

We walked by the hot dogs wrapped in bacon vendors, some gigantic UT block party thing and then around the Rose Bowl so we could get pictures from the front of the stadium, particularly the famous sign.  We stopped to by some more beer, saw Batman and Robin, Elmo and Elvis, and all sorts of other oddities.  We finally made it back around to our gate and went into the stadium.  I stood in line and got another beer while everyone else went off to the bathroom or to look around.  Check out the bottom right picture to see a possible shot of The Snake my dad captured during this time…

We all made it to our seats and waited for the game to start.  A bunch of parachutists flew in with Bama, UT and American flags tied to them, the Million Dollar Band and UT’s band marched, Flea played base while Josh Groban sang the National Anthem, some good fireworks went off and then 4 loud jets flew above the stadium.  It was AWESOME!

The game finally started.  I won’t go into details from the game because it’s well documented all over the web, but I will say that it was the first football game I’ve ever been to where I stood up for the entire game.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, sat for more than a minute or two in the entire crowd of 94,906.  You probably didn’t see it at home, but a streaker got out on the field at one point.  Stephen had a brief encounter with a Texas fan after she mad-dogged him for questioning the referees, the Rose Bowl stops selling beer at half time for some reason, it’s hard to get shots of parachuters falling quickly through a dark sky, burnt orange is too close to Volunteer orange in my opinion, and the Rose Bowl is a really sweet venue to watch a football game in…

Yeah, yeah, Colt McCoy was knocked out early and he’s great, but he doesn’t play both sides and UT sure didn’t have much luck keeping Bama off the scoreboard.

After the Tide won, we stuck around for the ceremony where the crystal football was given to Saban.  Confetti was going everywhere, GameDay (along with “Cheaty Petey” Carroll) set up below us for coverage, and the crowd roared – except for the Texas half of the stadium that was empty by that point.  Once most of our area cleared out we made our way back to the car and went on home.

What an incredible day!

Here are the photos taken on January 7th:

I have pretty much finished posting about my RTW trip now.  The only thing left was that Phil and I woke up hungover, took a bus to Punta Arenas where we walked around forever looking for a hostel until we found one for me and I decided to crash with him at his hotel.  He left that evening on a flight back to Santiago and I checked out the next morning and sat in the lobby working on the blog until I caught a cab to the airport for my flight back to Santiago.  I got to the hotel that night and we went out to an Italian joint around the corner from our nice hotel.  I bumped my head several times on the ceiling in the stairway of the hotel because they were low, I drank more Chilean wine, Phil felt like crap the rest of the time, and we finally left the next evening.  The flight home was uneventful and I’ve already blogged about arriving back in Atlanta.

The trip was incredible.  I’ve already thanked everyone, but once again I’d like to thank Jean for being a wonderful wife and allowing me to be on the road alone for 9 weeks to see the world.  I am glad to be home though, sleeping in my own bed and riding in my truck instead of buses.

I also want to say Happy Birthday to my mom and Morgan because they both had one in the past few days.

The rest of this week is going to be exciting because in less than 48 hours the Alabama Crimson Tide will be playing for a National Championship in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, and I have tickets!  My Uncle Mike came through in a big way, and I’m really excited about it.  My brother-in-law arrives in Palm Springs tomorrow, my dad is coming up after work and I’m seeing an old high school buddy for the first time in about 10 years tomorrow too!  ROLL TIDE!

I’m relieved that the RTW blogs are now done.  I just need to post the pictures to the photo album, so be sure to check there soon since I’ll be posting pictures that weren’t put up in my blog posts.

11/5/09

I woke up early, around 5:40am, because I was going on a tour of Torres del Paine National Park.  Unfortunately, both of Casa Cecilia’s upstairs bathrooms were taken when I checked.  When I looked out from my door at the two bathrooms closest to me, I noticed another guy sticking his head out of a room to keep an eye on the doors too, so I grabbed my stuff and ran downstairs and got into the only open bathroom just as someone down there was coming out of their room with a towel.  One thing I don’t like about hostels: the early morning scrambles for an open shower.

I had breakfast (toast with a slice of cheese) at a table with a French couple who’d just finished a Torres del Paine 4 day trek.  They told me how their rental tent had been ripped to shreds by high winds as they set it up, so they spent the final night in a “refugio”.  They said a good sleeping bag is a necessity even in the refugios because the heat was only on from 6pm-10pm.  I would like to go back with Jean some day and do a 2-3 day mini trek, staying in refugios the entire time instead of tent camping.  I still have nightmares from a particularly windy night on a beach in Baja when I thought we were going to get blown out to sea…  I’d rather camp through rain or snow than wind.

My bus came and when I boarded there were only 2 women, the driver and a guide on it.  I sat in the front row but the guide told me to go back one row because he guides from that seat.  The guide’s name was Werner, just like Cecilia’s husband!  What are the odds that two Austrian guys named Werner would be living in the tiny Patagonian outpost of Puerto Natales?  We picked up another 15 or so people at 3-4 different hotels, including two women from the Hotel Charles Darwin.

My TdP (Torres del Paine – pronounced “Torrez del Pie-nay”) tour was excellent for several reasons.  First, Verner did everything in Spanish, then English and finally in German.  He said the same exact thing in all languages, which was a relief, and as a bonus he was facing backwards to the crowd and I was alone in the row behind him so he answered all my questions in perfect English – all day long!  Another reason the tour ruled was that I met some really cool people, including a mother-daughter group (the first ones on the bus when I was picked up), and sisters-in-law (from the Hotel Charles Darwin).  All four of those women were American (sorta), which meant I could understand their English perfectly and it was good to finally meet several Americans after running in to hardly any on the entire trip.

I forgot the mother’s name, but they are originally from Lake Forest, CA (only a few miles from my dad down in the OC).  The daughter’s name was Jamie and she works for the Smithsonian (in DC), and the mom lives in Seattle.  Jamie was wearing a UVA ballcap and when I mentioned that I had a cousin that used to swim for them she asked who she was.  It turns out that my cousin Katy and Jamie know each other and Jamie’s sorority sister was also a University of Virginia swimmer and Jamie sat next to Katy at that girl’s wedding recently.  She knew where Katy was originally from and where she works now, so it was verified.  What a small world!!

Rita and Larisa were the sisters-in-law (Rita married Larisa’s brother), and they’ve traveled the world together.  They’re from the Boston area and Larisa works for IBM.  They both speak Russian, and Larisa and I traded off and on all day taking pictures of one another.  Rita and I talked a lot too.  They were both really sweet and lots of fun to talk to.

Our first stop was at the Milodon cave.  A milodon is a prehistoric ground sloth that was like 12 feet tall.  We all went into a little building and each paid 3,000CLP ($6) for our tickets.  As we walked to cave Werner gave us trilingual descriptions of how cave was formed, how they’d found fur in the cave years ago but the Chileans and Argentinians didn’t know what it was so they shipped some of it to the UK and the Netherlands and it was found to be from a milodon.  Werner also described how some local caves have paintings from nomadic peoples that were milodon contemporaries but those are on private land these days so you can’t see them.  The cave was a huge open pocket, and I kept thinking about how crazy that would be to have been a caveman seeking shelter in there from a storm and about 6 hours later you’re all warmed up next to a fire with your family when this 1500 pound squirrel comes galloping in there.  I did the photo-taking-switcharoo with the mother-daughter group in front of a milodon statue.

After the cave we headed towards TdP, but we stopped by Cerro Castillo, which is the proper name for the border crossing into Argentina where I’d been just the day before during a “work stoppage”.  We weren’t crossing the border because TdP is in Chile, but since Patagonia only has a handfull of graded dirt roads, our’s happened to go by the border crossing.  We stopped and Werner told us that later in the day we’d be stopping for lunch at a nice resort in the park, but the food there was expensive.  I bought two ham and cheese sandwiches to go, plus a couple of bottled waters and a coke.

The road to Torres del Paine was all ripio and a little bumpy at times.  As we got close to the park we came up on some guanacos but the driver drove on past them.  I asked Werner if we could stop so I could take a picture, but he said we’d see some much closer to the bus later on.  The driver did slam on the brakes so we could watch 3 condors flying around.  I’d already seen several dozen condors in Glaciers National Park so I didn’t really care…

We stopped at a viewpoint of the Torres (”towers”) and Werner said we were really lucky because the weather was supposed to be bad that day, and he said it’s usually too cloudy in the spring and summer to see them, but we could see all three of the Torres.  The differences in colors were amazing!  The lake in front of the Torres was so blue…

We continued on to the park entrance where myself and two other people went inside a building to buy tickets (15,000 CLP – $30).  Everyone else paid for an all-inclusive tour, so their entrance fees were covered.  Again, I went the budget route.  We paused for a quick restroom break and then drove into the park, stopping once on the way in to take pictures of guanacos, but for whatever reason they wouldn’t allow us to open the doors to get a clear shot, and the driver ignored my request for him to pull up so I could get a good shot.  All of my guanaco pictures are through dirty windows and they mostly appear to be action shots.

As we wound our way up, down and around the little dirt road going through the park we stopped at several viewpoints for photos.  I took photos for the mother-daughter group and some for Larisa, and the three of them took some for me with my camera.  We got several different view of the Torres from all sorts of angles as we wound our way around the massif, we saw a waterfall off in the distance, and we saw what are known as the “cuernos” (horns).  One viewpoint was actually looking down on a lake with a tiny island in the middle that had a pedestrian bridge leading out to a hotel.  Werner said it was sad because the hotel has never been upgraded and is pretty old, but that it could be incredible if someone would fix it up.

After several hours of viewpoints we stopped at a hotel for lunch.  The hotel looked really nice, but it was depressing because it seemed like they were all expecting a crowd at any moment but the place was deserted except for a small staff.  We went upstairs and ate lunch.  Some people had the buffet (remember, all inclusive tour), but I sat with the Jamie and her mother and ate one of my sandwiches from Cerro Castillo.  Jamie and her mom brought groceries for sandwiches – good thinking.  We talked about travel the whole time and I had a wonderful lunch with them.  After we finished I went downstairs and talked to Rita until we all boarded the bus.  She told me about her trip to Iceland and how impressive the icebergs there were.

After lunch we drove to Grey Lake and walked about 25 minutes through a little forest and down a hill to a beach.  We crossed a huge pebble beach to view blue icebergs floating in the lake in front of the massive Grey Glacier way off in the distance, plus you could see the back side of the TdP.  IT WAS GORGEOUS, and the highlight of the trip.  The weather was fabulous by that point, no wind at all and sunny.  It had been freezing most of the day, so it was a wonderful way to end the tour.

Oh yea, we crossed this little suspension bridge that limited the number who could cross it at one time to like 4 or 5 (I forgot), but I jumped on it as I crossed and you can see Jamie taking a picture of her mother behind me in one of the pictures below (Rita was holding on in front of me while I bounced the bridge).

We drove back to Puerto Natales and I was dropped off next to last, right in front of Casa Cecilia.  I thanked Werner and tipped him, but I was supposed to meet Phil at 6:30pm in the main square and it was already 6:40pm, so I just walked straight there.  He was waiting.  We went to La Ultima Esperanza for dinner to try the king crab based on Werner’s recommendation.  He said that similar to the Alaskan coast, southern Chile has a massive colony of king crabs and they’re fresh, delicious and cheap in Patagonia.  Phil and I both ordered the king crab and it was a massive pile of crab meat, but I wasn’t crazy about the mayo that they squirted on it.  I ended up asking for some clarified butter and that was better.  The food was great, especially since the chunks of crab were enormous and there was no cracking involved, everything was already pulled out of the shell!  The service at the restaurant was pathetic, but that didn’t really matter because we ended up just sitting there and drinking after the meal.

Werner had given me the restaurant recommendation when half of the people on the bus were asleep as we drove back to town, but apparently some of the other people heard because Jamie and her mother showed up while we were eating, then a few minutes later Rita and Larisa showed up too.  Phil and I ended up drinking several bottles of wine, and once Rita and Larisa finished their dinner I invited the to join us, so the four of us drank Chilean wine for quite a while.

After we’d had enough wine and the girls had to get some sleep because they had an early tour (around 11:15pm), Phil and I went to his hotel and picked up a bottle of wine he’d purchased the night before.  We drank it in the lobby and then went to a lively pub down the street, just off from the main square.  We drank some beer and ate a plate of empanadas before posing for some photos.  Around 1:15am we called it a night and each stumbled back to our own places through the snow.  I could tell that I woke Werner up by ringing the doorbell to get into the hostel, but he was smiling as usual.

And now, the photos of my Torres del Paine tour, including some shots from the Milodon’s cave:

11/4/09

On Wednesday, November 4th, I woke up early because I had to leave Argentina and head back to Puerto Natales, Chile on an early bus.  After I showered and packed up my bags I checked out of the hostel and walked up to the Zaahj bus station.  The bus complex was up the hill from my hostel and I left early for my 8am bus ride back because the instructions for getting there given by the turd at the front desk were, “Go up the hill and take the stairs.”  I envisioned it taking me a while to find these stairs, but it was actually pretty easy because 2-3 different flights of stairs led up from the main drag to the hill behind it where the bus station was perched above El Calafate.

I felt like a true backpacker because I had both of my packs on and I was wandering around the empty streets in the freezing cold looking for a bus station.  No warm taxi, no bags with rollers, no airport or train – I was in a pure backpacker mode, finally. 

When I got to the bus station I tapped on the window outside the Zaahj (I never got the pronunciation correct) office because a little old lady was in there.  She motioned for me to go inside and come around to the other window.  This bus station was pretty big with 5 or 6 bays for buses and a large indoor complex with several different bus company offices and a cantina that was closed.  I dropped my packs in front of the window and stammered through some Spanish and she was really sweet and helpful.  She changed me assigned seat to an empty row with a window seat, which was perfect.  I asked if the bus would be on time and she said yes.  I went back outside and waited alone for the bus to pull up.  While I waited a German Shepherd came walking up and sat there with me for a while until some guy walked by and then he followed that guy down the hill.

Once an empty bus pulled up and changed the sign in the front to Puerto Natales, I checked my large pack and asked if I’d have time to get something to eat.  He told me to be quick because he’d be leaving on time (all in Spanish of course).  I quickly went down the hill and searched for an open grocery store but ended up settling for a little Circle K type convenience store where I used up most of my remaining Argentinean pesos to buy some sandwiches and drinks.  They clerk didn’t have any change so he sifted around in a little basket and handed me taffy instead of the change I had coming!  Interesting way to avoid loose change…

The long bus ride to the border was comfortable but uneventful.  When we got to the Argentinean border it was starting to snow and we all quickly hopped out and quickly got our exit stamps and loaded back on the bus.  The Chilean border was a different story entirely…

The Chilean border guards were on strike!  We were told in the 10 minute drive from the Argentina side to the Chile side that inspections to enter Chile were much more strict than they’d been for entering Argentina (told to the crowd in Spanish and translated by a passenger to all us non-native speakers).  The bus driver said they were super strict and always required every piece of luggage to be pulled out from under the bus and inspected completely.  I expected a line and some waiting, but when we pulled up the driver told us to hold on and ran up to the building, but when he came back he didn’t look so happy.  He told the group that the guards were on strike and we’d have to wait at least 4 hours to be processed.  Most of the bus let out a big sigh before the translator turned around and explained the deal in English.

It was snowing and really windy by that point, but all of us got off the bus and stood there in the cold for about 5 minutes before the driver told us to go ahead and get our bags and stick them in the immigration building so we’d be ready to go when they ended their strike.  I asked the translator if the strike could continue all day until the border closed and he said he didn’t think so, but it was possible and that’s what had our driver worried.  Our bus was parked behind another bus with all the passengers waiting, and two more large buses pulled up before we even stuffed our luggage in the building.  What a mess!  I guess strikes are pretty common since this was the second one I’d seen within a week.  Almost like Italy or France…

Luckily just beyond the border there’s a big building with a restaurant, restrooms and a souvenir shop.  We were told it was ok to cross the border and wait in there until they could process us, but before we started walking the 400-500 feet to the building we were told to come back because the guards agreed to process us but that we wouldn’t be allowed to continue on in the bus until the strike ended.  At least we could just go once the strike ended instead of having to stand in a massive line and wait to get processed with all the buses that had backed up along the border by the time they finished their strike.

All the people from our bus crowded into this small immigration station, with a huge pile of backpacks in the center.  I eventually made it around to the window and the guy flipped a couple of pages in my passport and did the stamp-stamp thing and then I grabbed my pack from the pile and threw it up on a table where a guy had me unzip it and he rummaged around for about 5 seconds and told me I was good to go.  I put my pack back under the bus and headed through the snow over to the cafeteria.

I bought two barros luco sandwiches and a sprite and went back to sit on bus.  On the way back to our bus I passed a cat who had snow stuck to him…

I sat there in the semi-warm bus and eat that tough ass sandwich.  Unbelievably, within within 45 minutes we were given the green light to cross, but by that point people were missing from our group!  We drove across border and spent 20+ minutes trying to collect everyone.  Our bus driver was frantic for a while until he found out some people took other buses on to Torres del Paine National Park.  We were still missing an older couple that had been sitting in the row beside me but he had decided they must have had other transportation arrangements.  Just as he started to pull away to head back to Puerto Natales the guy came running out of the cafe and jumped in front of the bus.  We all laughed and he motioned for his wife to pick up the speed and they both apologized to everyone as we left the border.

The last little bit of road from the border into Puerto Natales went by quickly.  When we pulled up to the Zaahj station near the town square I felt like a true mochilero.  Mochilero means “backpacker”.  Even more so than my morning walk in El Calafate, I finally felt like a real honest to God mochilero.  I jumped off the bus and quickly jumped into the scrum where the backpacks were being unloaded and snagged mine.  Unlike everyone else on the bus, I waived off the taxi drivers.  I walked with my big pack on back and day pack in front, alone through the heavy snow and wind to my cozy little hostel, Casa Cecilia, which was about 10 minutes away.

I checked into the hostel and was now in an upstairs room (#8).  I dropped my stuff off in the room and then went directly back to the square to meet Phil.  We’d planned earlier to meet up for dinner because he was heading back to Punta Arenas a day before me, and back to Santiago a day before me.

Phil joined me in looking for some stuff to keep me warm.  I was tired of freezing to death and knew that Torres del Paine would be even colder than the places I’d already been because it’s notorious for high winds.  We went to a couple of stores and I bought two wool toboggans (I’m from the South, so that’s a hat, not a sled!) and some wool gloves.  The Bama ballcap just wasn’t cutting it because my ears had been frozen for 60% of the past 3 days.

After I was all set with the hats and gloves, Phil told me he wanted to switch his itinerary around.  I helped him call his travel agent (Gonzalo) from his hotel’s front desk.  After he settled the hotel issues, we walked to the Buses Fernandez office and switched the date and time of his return bus ticket to Punta Arenas and switched my time from 18:30 to 13:00 so we’d take the same bus back together.  He paid for an extra hotel night in Puerto Natales because Punta Arenas sucks and he wanted another night in PN.

Next we walked around looking for a place to eat until we found some seafood restaurant.  This place was pretty swanky – white linen tablecloths, tons of silverware beside the plates, the whole nine yards.  I ate a seafood dish the waiter recommended – some local fish that was covered in shrimp, scallops and crab.  It was awesome!  We also had a delicious octopus appetizer.  I’ve had tako (octopus sushi) several times, but it’s usually pretty chewy.  The appetizer we had at this restaurant wasn’t chewy at all and it had some excellent olive oil on it – just delicious.  Obviously Chile has some great seafood, just look at all the coastline they have!

I didn’t join Phil in drinking the 2 bottles of Concha y Toro Merlot; Cacerillo del Diablo I think it may have been called.  I had an early tour to go on and Phil had the following day to do nothing but relax, so I wanted to get some rest and not have a hangover.

After dinner we walked back to Casa Cecilia so Phil could use the internet.  Soon after that he left and I went to bed because the bus leaving for Torres del Paine would be outside the hostel pretty early.

Photos of my room at the Calafate Hostel, some shots taken during the early morning hours in a sleepy El Calafate, and some taken at the snowy Chilean border crossing.  If you look closely at the Chilean immigration building, you’ll see white papers taped to the windows – they said “Work Stoppage” on them in English.

11/3/09

I got up, asked the new (but still rude) front desk clerk at the Calafate Hostel about a packed lunch for the boat trip I would be on all day, and he said it wasn’t possible.  I decided to just stick to the snacks I’d boat the night before at a little grocery store, so instead I had a coke and went outside in the cold, crisp air for a cigarette until the tour company came to get me.

I waited for a long time and they were about 30 minutes late, but eventually an enormous bus pulled up beside the hostel and I boarded.  I waited for a little bit and when the driver never returned from the hostel’s office I went inside and told him I was supposed to be picked up and he handed me a voucher slip and we left.  The bus was almost full…

We drove to Lago Argentino, which is the massive lake in the Glaciers National Park where Perito Moreno and several other glaciers melt to create the milky aquamarine color.  When we arrived at the docks, our bus driver parked in a long line of huge buses and yelled something out in Spanish and there was a stampede for the door.  Again, I was told the tour would be in English and it didn’t look good from the start.  I found a few other non-Spanish speaking people who looked as bewildered as I did and we decided the driver must have said everyone needed to hurry up and purchase their tickets for entrance into the national park (not included in the tour price).  We stood in line outside a little ticket shack, with buses driving within inches of us and forcing us further off the road and into the dirt.  It easily ranks in the top 10 coldest moments of my life.  It was Santa Ana windy and it couldn’t have been more than 35F, plus I was dressed up for Autumn in the South (t-shirt, windbreaker, hat, long underwear, pants).  At least I wasn’t in shorts and flip-flops like I was in Paris when it was freezing…

After we all got our tickets we got back on the bus and made our way to a parking lot and everyone boarded the boat, which was another catamaran.  I was disappointed that the boat was already packed when we got on.  The entire downstairs sitting area was packed so I went to the upstairs sitting area and all the window seats were taken, so I sat in one of the empty rows in the center section.  I was surrounded by obnoxiously loud older Europeans.  They were all screaming at each other and just generally being annoying.  I just sat there and warmed up, then pulled out some of my snacks and had a little breakfast as we pulled away from the landing and out into the lake.

I was happy to hear the announcements over the PA system were all done in Spanish and then English, and the time it took for each version was about the same instead of the 10 minute Spanish and 30 second English version I’d had on the Perito Moreno tour.  The boat’s staff included a guy and girl who were both bi-lingual and they walked around fielding questions, and both actually stopped and talked to me for probably a total of 40 minutes during my 7 hours on the lake (9am-4pm).  The tour was very professional, and even though the concessions were way overpriced, I had two hot cocoas and they were delicious!

Once we got out of the harbor area and into the center of the lake I went outside and stood on the top deck, which was in the rear of the boat.  The boat blocked most of the wind but it was still frigid.  I admired the beautiful landscape and took pictures for a while until the little deck was jam packed with chain smoking Europeans all yelling at each other and pushing people around to get photos.  I headed down to the lower deck where there was more space.

We tried to see the Upsala glacier but you can’t get close enough to see it because it has been retreating for several years and has a massive iceberg field floating in front of it.  We floated around in front of the icebergs for a while, and they were gorgeous.  White, blue, aquamarine – all with a combination of soft and jagged edges.  It was beautiful, and would have been incredibly serene if it weren’t for the catamaran’s thundering diesel engines and the raucous Europeans.  I still loved it, but I thought the tour agencies were a little misleading since they all advertise that you’ll see Upsala, but it’s impossible to see it and it isn’t like the 10 miles of icebergs fell off from the glacier the night before.  I was told that they haven’t been able to get close enough for a good view of the glacier in years, but they don’t tell you that until you’re on the boat.

Even though I never got a good look at Upsala, which is supposedly the biggest glacier in South America, I could see it way off in the distance and the iceberg field was amazing.  I wasn’t disappointed in missing out on glaciers though because Lago Argentino is full of them and that’s what we did for about 4 of the 7 hours on the lake – sat in front of different glaciers, taking pictures and waiting for icebergs to calve.  The boat had little LCD screens that showed maps and our GPS location, so it was cool to follow along whenever I’d come inside for 5-10 minutes to thaw.

I liked the Seco glacier, but it was pretty small.  The cool thing about it was that you could see where it ended on land instead of coming down to the water and having the same jagged wall up front where pieces continually break off.  The front of Seco was more rounded and smooth and looked like glue slowly making its way down a mountain.

We visited the Spegazzini Glacier after Seco, and it was probably my favorite one on the entire trip.  Perito Moreno was much more accessible because you can drive yourself to see it, but Spegazzini was more impressive.  Spegazzini is the highest glacier you can visit in the park with walls extending 250-440 feet above the water.  We pulled up what the guy on the PA system said was 100 meters from the face, but this one truly felt like it was towering over us.  I said in my post about Perito Moreno that it didn’t seem as tall as they said when you were down in front of it, but Spegazzini sure did seem tall.  I actually got a picture of an iceberg calving, so look closely in the shots below of water splashing at the water line against the glacial wall, taken from the crowded back of the boat.

It was cool to see other 3 story boat up close to the glacier when our boat would back off some because you could really tell how massive it was…

Since we were unable to view Upsala, the staff said we’d be going to Perito Moreno.  I hadn’t approached it from so far away the previous day, so it was cool to see it from a distance, but really I was burnt out by that point.  I’d been freezing for hours and had reached my glacier quota for the day.  The only part of the boat trip that sucked was how cold it was (especially alongside the boat when spray from the water splashed me a few times), and the obnoxious Europeans detracted a little bit from the experience, but as a whole it was worth the effort and I loved seeing all the natural beauty.  Glaciers are amazing…  The colors are hard to explain and the immensity of these things really hits home when a chunk the size of a house falls off and looks like a pebble compared to the rest of it.  Given global warming I don’t know how much longer these things will be around, but if you’re able, I’d recommend getting down to Patagonia and checking them out because they really were breathtaking.  Just make sure to bundle up more than I did!

I also saw a colony of Andean Condors living on the side of a mountain, and dozens soaring around.  Condors are gigantic, with the largest wingspan (10 feet!) of any flying bird.

By the time I got back to the hostel I was exhausted and starving.  I threw my pack down in the room, got my laundry back from the front desk and then went out to have a big dinner.  I went to the place my guide from the previous day had suggested, Rick’s Asador Parrilla Rick’s was similar to the place I went the previous night because it was an all you can eat joint with cordero.  The setup was a little different because they didn’t have as many items on the buffet and instead of walking up and the guy tending the grill just putting the meat you want on a plate, a server keeps coming by and asking what type of meat you want.  I tried the grilled lamb for a second time, and even though it was better than the other place it was still greasy.  The grilled beef and sausages were excellent though…  I ate lots of Argentinean grilled beef and drank plenty of beer, and it was a wonderful end to an incredible day.

After dinner I strolled around and checked out several of the souvenir shops before heading back to the hostel.  The weather was nice because the wind wasn’t blowing.  Also, whatever holiday had things shut down previously was over because the sidewalks were full of people and all the shops were open.  El Calafate is cool.

Here are the pictures from my boat trip on to Argentina Lake in Patagonia, an hour outside of El Calafate:

11/2/09

I got up early in the morning, but not early enough because I was barely able to get a shower.  Casa Cecilia has four small shared bathrooms, each with a sink, toilet and shower.  Two bathrooms on the ground floor and two directly above those on the second floor.  When I came out of the room with my towel I discovered that people were already in all four bathrooms, so I waited in my room.  When I heard a door open I started to head out there but missed out on my opportunity because one of the people coming out of the bathroom ran into their room and someone they were staying with sprinted by and beat me to it.  That didn’t happen a second time – I made it in and got a shower.

I organized my big pack and checked out of the hostel after eating a tiny breakfast (piece of bread with some butter and coffee), then I stood outside in the freezing cold to wait for my tour van.  I’d be taking a tour van from Puerto Natales across the border into Argentina, we’d pick up a tour guide in El Calafate and continue on to the Perito Moreno glacier.  Instead of coming back to Chile on the tour I’d just stay in El Calafate.

The van (more like a small bus) picked me up after about 20 minutes.  We picked up a few more passengers at different hostels and hotels in Puerto Natales and then were on our way.  The bus wasn’t packed so I had a row to myself.  It took us something like 1.5 hours to get to the border, where we all exited the bus and went into the customs/immigration building on the Chilean side.  Our passports were stamped and soon afterwards we went through the little gate into a no man’s land.  It takes about 10 minutes to drive from the Chilean border post to the Argentinean border post, so I’m not sure who the land in between them belongs to.  The roads are all “ripio”, which means the aren’t paved.  The roads are graded but covered in little pebbles and dirt.  They aren’t really bumpy and nasty like the stuff going up into Lesotho or the roads in Baja, but they are still a long way from being as comfortable as blacktop.

We all got out again at the Argentinean border post and stood in line to get our passports stamped.  Inside their building they had a ping pong table and they seemed much happier and friendlier than the guys on the Chilean side.  I had a French guy who was on vacation with his daughter take some photos of me in front of the signs outside the building, then while we were waiting for everyone to finish up I smoked a cigarette with some young German brothers who had taken a vomit-inducing boat ride down to Puerto Natales from Puerto Montt.  If I ever return to Patagonia I’d like to take that 3 day boat trip…

The ride from the border into El Calafate took about 2.5-3 hours.  I worked on my netbook some, but looked at the beautiful landscape passing by for a while too.  In El Calafate we stopped at a gas station and met up with our tour guide, Claudia.  She told us we’d have about 15 minutes to grab snacks, smoke and use the restrooms.  I bought a few little snacks and some bottled water, went to the nasty bathroom upstairs and smoked a cigarette.  When everyone was back we got on our bus again and headed out of El Calafate to Perito Moreno.

Perito Moreno is a glacier and any time you see a photo of a glacier in an ad for Patagonia, it’s of Perito Moreno.  I was disappointed that Claudia jilted the English speakers, but I was used to it by this point because nobody in Chile (and apparently Argentina) speaks English.  I was told the tour would be in English, but she’d go on and on about something in Spanish as we drove into the park, then she’d give a short description in English.  Something like this:

Is Spanish – “We are now entering Los Glaciares National Park, home of the Perito Moreno Glacier.  It was named after the explorer, Francisco Moreno.  Mr. Moreno was known in Argentina as ‘Perito’, which means expert.  The glacier is best known to locals for an event called ‘the rupture‘, which happens about every 2-3 years.  When water builds up the Brazo Rico side of Perito Moreno, it eventually bursts through the ice and drains until it matches the level on the Lago Argentino side.  Locals will wait for days when the event is about to take place, staying up all night in hopes to view the rupture.  We most recently had one in 2008, so most likely we’ll have another in 2010 or 2011.  Please look outside your windows at the large bird on our left, that’s an Andean condor and they …”

She’d continue on like that for another 5-10 minutes in Spanish and finally say in English, “We are now entering the national park that holds Perito Moreno.”  Then she’d go back to Spanish for another 10 minutes.  About 40-50% of the people on the bus were Spanish speaking and you could tell who they were because as she spoke they’d all turn their heads at the same time and point, then oooohhh and aaaaaahhh and whatever she just pointed out to them, while the rest of us sat there bewildered.  I understood enough of the Spanish to catch that there was something all the rupture, and I knew that they were looking at birds outside the bus, plus I heard something about Perito Moreno giving up land, but I couldn’t tell you much more than that.  But alas, I wasn’t in Patagonia for stories, I was there for breathtaking landscapes and glaciers!

After a little more than an hour of driving we got to the park.  Claudia said that we had the option of taking a boat tour in front of the glacier and took a poll to see who wanted to do that; everyone did.  There was no way I was going to miss this.  We paid something like $20 at a window in a little building near the pathway down to the dock and then everyone quickly headed down to the boat because our guide said this was the next to last boat for the day.  We were the only ones on the boat, so we had tons of room.  It was absolutely freezing, but the boat is a huge catamaran with an large indoor seating area and windows all around.  We sat inside while the boat drove over to within 200-300 feet of Perito Moreno’s face, then they announced that the outside decks were open and everyone high tailed it up to the top deck.

It was incredible!  The boats engines were load, so that took away from the serenity, but the colors were the most amazing thing I think I’ve ever seen.  I’m color blind, so I don’t see colors like most people down, especially red, brown and green, but that hasn’t ever been a big deal except when people admire fall foliage and I can’t see squat.  My favorite color has always been blue, and the blues in the face of the glacier were unbelievable.  The guide said the ice absorbs the other wavelengths in the light spectrum, but it allows blue to pass.  She also said it’s much bluer on cloudy days.  The water was aquamarine, which is like a strange blue-green color, and that’s caused when the silt scraped away from the mountains by the glacier is deposited into the water.  White ice with deep blue crevices and aquamarine waters…  It was like I was standing in the center of a National Geographic photo.

We floated around in front of the glacier with the boat spinning around so everyone hugging the rails and taking photos could take some pictures.  We saw two icebergs calving off the glacier and it is way louder than I ever imagined. The French guy and his daughter offered to take my picture several times, which I was grateful for, and the boat’s staff fished some millennial ice out of the water and offered whiskey over thousand year old glacial ice for a small fee.  I didn’t bother with that because I was too interested in taking in the massive glacier and the beautiful colors.  They kept saying that we were 100 meters from the face, which is about 300 feet, but it honestly felt like we were 50 or so feet away.  The walls of ice were massive, around 200 feet above the water, but they didn’t seem as tall when you were in front of them for some reason.  I suppose we had to stay that 100 meters away in case a huge chunk calved right in front of us because it could capsize the boat with a huge wave or maybe even hit the boat itself.

After a while we went back to the floating dock (it was hard to walk on), and then we hopped in the bus and went up the hill to a visitor’s center where a system of viewing decks start from.  We were given 45 minutes to check it out.  I walked down the wooden pathway for about 15 minutes and took pictures from above the glacier, and you could see both sides and the center part that ruptures when the pressure gets too high on the one side.  It was a breathtaking view – so expansive.  The visibility wasn’t the best I’ve ever seen, but the glacier went on and on as far as you could see.  Perito Moreno is one of only three glaciers in Patagonia that isn’t retreating.  Claudia did note that it isn’t advancing either, but staying in the same place because whatever is added in the rear by snow pack is melted off the front in equal volume.  If I ever return I plan on trying the min ice trek to actually walk on part of it, but it’s pretty expensive (~$200 for an hour).

Oh yea, Wikipedia says the glacier is 19 miles long and 3 miles wide.  That would explain why it looks so impressive…  It’s HUGE!

We finally met back at the bus and headed back to El Calafate.  The bus stopped for an hour in town but had to hit the road on time because the border closes and people wouldn’t be able to get back to Puerto Natales today if they missed it.  I grabbed my big pack and my day pack, thanked Claudia, said goodbye to the German brothers and French father/daughter and went off looking for my hostel, Calafate Hostel.  I did ask Claudia about what to do for dinner and she suggested that I try cordero at Rick’s, near the casino on the main drag.

I walked around for about 30 minutes until I found my hostel.  I checked in, and was put into the new building that’s out the back past the reception area.  The hostel is awesome, probably one of my favorites, but the staff were rude and borderline unfriendly.  The hostel is a huge log cabin with lots of open spaces where travelers were just chilling out: surfing the web on the free wifi, drinking beer, watching tv, talking, etc.  It was really laid back and cozy (warm) inside.  My room was great too.  My room in the new wing was huge and had a very clean private bathroom, a desktop with internet and a tv that actually worked, plus it had movie channels!

I threw down my bag, took a shower and headed back to the reception area where I asked the jackass working there where he’d recommend I go for some good cordero (lamb cooked using an open pit fire).  I wanted to try sea bass in Chile and cordero in Argentina because that’s what they’re both known for.  Patagonia is famous for their sheep; in fact, lots of Americans wear wool clothes from a label bearing the region’s name.  The locals don’t just sheer the sheep, they eat them too.  A baby sheep is called a lamb, and lamb asado is the regional dish.  The guy at the front grumbled something, amazingly it was in English!  I finally met a third person who spoke English but he was a jerk.

I walked around for over 45 minutes looking for the place Claudia recommended (Rick’s) and the little joint the hostel worker mentioned, but both were closed.  I think the holiday that had everything closed down in Chile was being celebrated in Argentina today.  I did finally walk by a place with a couple of lambs skewered on these big racks and leaning over a pit barbecue in the front window, but when I tried the door they were closed too!  I motioned for someone to come over to the door and was told they’d open in 15 minutes, so I walked to a few souvenir stores and bought a merino wool scarf for Jean and a gourd with a bombilla for my dad to drink yerba mate out of.

With souvenirs in hand I made it back to the cordero joint just as they opened the doors.  It was an all you can eat place, but when I went to get the cordero the cook told me it wouldn’t be ready for another 15 minutes so I got some other stuff he had on the grill and everything was excellent.  On my next trip up there he said the lamb was done and after I tossed $2 in his little tip tray he smiled and pulled the first lamb off the fire and swung a huge meat cleaver into the thing and chopped me off a huge chunk.  It was good, but way too greasy.  I liked the grilled beef and chicken much better.

After dinner I crossed the street and went to a little grocery store to purchase some sodas and snacks for tomorrow’s boat ride out on Lago Argentino since I knew I wouldn’t have time in the morning.  I went back to the hostel, dropped off a load of laundry at the front desk and went to my room where I worked on the blog and watched movies until I fell asleep.

El Calafate is by far the nicest of the three towns I visited in Patagonia.  Punta Arenas was probably the most bleak, Puerto Natales was a little scrubby, but had some charm, and El Calafate was wonderful.  El Calafate was like a little resort town in the US, similar to Breckenridge, Colorado or something.  Lots of really nice upscale stores, tons of swanky restaurants, clean streets and it felt very safe.  It was also a pedestrian village, where you could walk from one end to the other in 30 minutes.  If I ever visit Patagonia again for a longer visit I’ll make sure to base myself out of El Calafate.

Here are the pictures of my move from Puerto Natales, Chile to El Calafate, Argentina and a day trip to Perito Moreno:

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year’s.  We’ve had a wonderful holiday season and it’ll only get better in the next week when I go to Pasadena to watch the Crimson Tide roll over Texas in the BCS Championship!

Jean starts more photography classes this next week, so she’s pumped about that.  She got an aquarium for her birthday and so far she has 15 fish and a crab.  Originally she had 2 crabs, but one crab ended up being the first casualty.  We also ended up flushing two bettas, but they technically didn’t die in our care.

Charlie is itchy as usual, but her allergy results are in and the antigen serum is being made as I type this.

I’m getting close to being done with RTW blog entries and hopefully soon I’ll be able to start back just writing daily stuff…

11/1/09

Like I said in a previous entry, Phil was on a much more expensive tour with a very strict itinerary while I elected for the backpacker budgeted / fly by the seat of my pants approach with no deadlines or commitments whatsoever.  Once we got to Patagonia we would be splitting ways, but I’d planned on seeing two main things: Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina and Torres del Paine National Park in Chile.  I’d emailed Phil months before I left on my trip that I mainly wanted to see Perito Moreno but was open to anything after that.  His super-duper tour included basically the same things, so even though we wouldn’t be traveling together or even going to those places on the same days, our plans were similar.

On Sunday (November 1st) I checked out of the hostel really early and went downstairs to catch a taxi.  Phil wanted me to direct the taxi to his second hotel, so that’s what I did.  He’d told me the day before that a taxi he took from the Plaza de Armas back to his place couldn’t find it because it was down some little cobblestone alley, so I was a little skeptical about my driver actually finding it, but we had no problems.  Phil knew what time we’d be there to pick him up, but after the driver and I waited outside for 15 minutes and he never showed up I went into the lobby and asked the front desk lady to call him.  She tried and he didn’t answer and when I asked which room he was in she wouldn’t tell me.  I argued with her for a few minutes and she tried calling again, but eventually she told me and I ran upstairs.  I banged on Phil’s door and he’d overslept but was finally getting ready.

Phil had a few more drinks when he got back to his hotel after we’d called it a night just a few hours earlier, so he slept through his wake up calls.  I banged a few times and yelled for him to come on or I was heading on to the airport because I didn’t want to be late for the flight.  I ended up waiting outside with the taxi driver for another 15 minutes before he came out.

We went to the airport and got there with plenty of time because there were absolutely no other cars on the road and nobody was in line at the airline check-in counters.  We took the early flight from Santiago to a port city in Chilean Patagonia called Punta Arenas.  Patagonia is a region, not a state.  Patagonia is made up of the southern parts of both Chile and Argentina, with the major cities in Chilean Patagonia being Punta Arenas, Puerto Montt and Puerto Natales, and the Argentinean side has Ushuaia, El Calafate, Rio Gallegos and Bariloche.  Our flight down took something like 4-5 hours and we stopped briefly in Puerto Montt.

When we got to Punta Arenas Phil and I split up as soon as we grabbed our bags from the carousel.  His tour included all transfers, so he had someone meeting him at the airport.  I was on my own.  Punta Arenas has nothing, so the plan was to get out of there as quickly as possible.  Puerto Natales is the Chilean city (more like a village) that’s the gateway to Torres del Paine, and it’s about 3 hours north of Punta Arenas.  My best case scenario was to catch a bus to Puerto Natales, change buses and continue on into El Calafate in Argentina so I could see Perito Moreno the following day and slowly make my way back to Punta Arenas for my flight back to Santiago in several days.

Like I mentioned before, there is basically no English spoken in Chile, and Punta Arenas didn’t deviate from that…  I went to a little information kiosk and asked in my barely passable Spanish what I needed to do about getting a bus ride to Puerto Natales.  The lady and man behind the counter spoke way too fast and I realized that I’d need to call the main bus companies to ask about a ride.  The kiosk lady gave me the phone number for Buses Fernandez and another company (Bus Sur I think).

I luckily had some change so I went to a pay phone hanging on a nearby wall and called the first number and asked if I could get all the way to El Calafate today and they said no, but they had a bus leaving for Puerto Natales later in the afternoon.  The entire conversation was in Spanish.  I asked if they could pick me up at the airport and they said not unless I already had a ticket, otherwise I needed to go to their office.  I hung up and called Buses Fernandez and asked (again in Spanish because they “no habla” English) if I could take their bus to El Calafate and they said no, but I could get to Puerto Natales today and then go to El Calafate the following day.  They told me the price and schedule and that they don’t pick up from the airport.  Since Buses Fernandez left for Puerto Natales earlier than the other company I decided to go with them.

I walked outside and went to the combi ranks.  In Central and South America (just like in Africa and India) they have shared taxis that are usually just little vans.  In South America they usually call them “collectivos”.  A combi is just another word for a collectivo.  You pay a reduced fare, but are crammed in with 5-12 other people and you usually aren’t the first one to be dropped off.  Since I was trying to do the backpacker thing and save money, I told the guy controlling the combi rank where I wanted to go and he yelled to a driver who guided me to his van.  I was the last one to get in, so luckily I had the front passenger seat to myself.  It cost me about $6, much better than the $20+ for a private taxi.

We dropped off a few locals and some other tourists at a different bus company before making it to Buses Fernandez.  Similar to the bus companies in Guatemala and Honduras, each bus company has an office where the sell tickets and that’s the same place where the buses depart and arrive.

I grabbed my pack and ran inside before the other couple of people and went to the counter to figure out my tickets.  There were only 1-2 other passengers inside since the bus wouldn’t be leaving for Puerto Natales for another 2.5 hours.  In Spanish I asked again if I could make it to Argentina and was again told that wouldn’t be possible, so I purchased a round trip ticket to/from Puerto Natales.  After I paid I went to the side room and checked my big pack with an old man there and after he gave me my checked bag ticket I saw Phil coming in!  His tour had him on the same bus as me, leaving at the same time.  I don’t remember any more what I paid for my round trip bus ticket, but I think it was something like $17 each way.

We had some time to kill and it was lunch time, so Phil and I headed out into the streets of Punta Arenas to find something to eat.  Someone had mentioned that it was a holiday in Chile, and it was obvious something was up because none of the stores on the main street were open.  We walked around for a long time looking for an open restaurant.  I finally found a cozy little place and went on in.  I say “cozy” because it was windy and freezing cold outside, so the warmth of this place was excellent.  We each got a big sandwich, called something like “barros luca”, which is basically a gigantic ham and cheese sandwich (with mayo of course).

After lunch we exchanged some cash at a little cambio store and then went back to the Buses Fernandez office to wait for our bus.  The ride to Puerto Natales wasn’t bad at all.  The bus was really nice and comfortable and it wasn’t full so we both at two seats to ourselves.  I took around 3.5 hours to get to the Buses Fernandez station in Puerto Natales, which is another port city in Chilean Patagonia, but this one is a major tourist destination because it’s the gateway to Torres del Paine NP and the road to Argentinean Patagonia leads through Puerto Natales also.

Just like the airport in Punta Arenas, when we stopped in front of the station in Puerto Natales, Phil had a guy waiting to transfer him to his nice hotel and I was on my own.  Looking back on it I could have just walked around and found my hostel, but instead I grabbed my pack, told Phil I’d meet him in the town square around 6pm, and bargained with a taxi for a ride to a hostel I’d emailed the day before, Casa Cecilia.  I paid $3 for a taxi ride that took me about 7 blocks, but I guess it wasn’t too bad of a deal because I wasn’t sure where I was going if I’d decided to walk.

I’d emailed 3 different places about staying for 1 night just the day before from Santiago, and only Casa Cecilia had emailed me back almost immediately so I decided to check it out first.  The hostel was a little white building just a block from the central square.  I pressed the buzzer and a few moments later the front door opened.  The owner, Werner, showed me a room.  They didn’t have any private rooms available, but the rooms with shared baths weren’t bad at all.  Tiny, but clean and warm.  I also checked the shared bathrooms and they were tiny too, but very clean.  While I filled out the paperwork to stay there another couple who were on my bus up from Punta Arenas showed up.  Werner (Cecilia’s husband) gave me my room key and I threw my stuff down and checked email with my netbook, using their free wifi.  I ended up laying down and taking a nap for about an hour.

Around 5pm I left my room and went to my hostel’s front desk.  The reception area has a ton of posters, pamphlets and photos of all the tour packages available.  Behind the check-in counter they had lots of trekking equipment (tents, sleeping bags, etc) for rent.  I ended up talking to Werner for about 40 minutes in an effort to come up with a plan for me to see all the stuff I wanted to.  I told him Perito Moreno and Torres del Paine were the two things I was most interested in, and he also suggested a boat trip on Lago Argentino to see additional glaciers and icebergs.  We went over all the options and he was extremely helpful.  If you’re reading this blog and planning on doing a similar trip to what I’m describing, Werner at Casa Cecilia was enormously helpful in planning my tours.

Werner said that lots of people do a 1 day trip to Perito Moreno, but that you spend like 10-12 hours in a van and don’t get back to Puerto Natales until really late.  We decided that I’d take the tour but just stay in El Calafate, Argentina instead of taking the van back.  I’d spend two nights at a hostel in El Calafate that he recommended, doing the Perito Moreno tour the first day and the Lago Argentino boat tour the second day.  I’d take a bus back from El Calafate to Puerto Natales the next day, then stay at Casa Cecilia for two nights, doing the Torres del Paine day tour the second day.

When I was finally happy with the entire plan (hostel arrangements for both cities, Perito Moreno tour, Lago Argentino tour, Torres del Paine tour and transfer between Puerto Natales and El Calafate) I told him that my final request was that I be able to pay for everything on my credit card.  I wanted to hold on to my cash and I wanted some form of insurance in case the tours didn’t turn out to be the same as they were marketed as…  Werner said he needed to make some calls and arrange everything (the bus company’s phone was busy each time he tried).  I told him I was going out to meet my friend for dinner but that I’d pay when I returned if he had everything sorted out.

At 5:50pm I walked the block down to the central square and met Phil.  He’d already been out walking around for a little while.  We walked together down to the water and it was almost unbearably windy and cold.  It was probably in the mid-30’s and the winds were as strong as any Santa Ana winds I’ve ever felt – 40-50 mph.  We took some pictures down by the water, but it was really too windy and cold to enjoy it for any length of time.  One thing that was pretty cool was that a lot of the buildings are painted in really bright primary colors.  We tried to find an open restaurant but didn’t have much luck.  The Captain Eberhard hotel had a restaurant but it was closed, the swanky place up the hill from that had a party going on and wouldn’t be ready for us for another hour, and we tried to go into a little place that was having some birthday party for children but they told us to leave.

We finally went to a little seafood place on the same street as Phil’s hotel.  The restaurant was huge but almost completely empty.  We had a good meal, including the first abalone I’d ever had.  A lot of the guys I’ve met since living in Socal all like abalone (sounds like bologne, but with an “a” in front), and I’ve seen piles of the shiny shells in Baja.  The only thing I didn’t like about the meal was that they put mayonnaise on just about everything (abalone included).  I had some pretty good Chilean wine with dinner, but Phil laid off because he must have decided there would be a chance he’d sleep through his tour the following morning.

After dinner we went back to my place where Phil played on my netbook while I took a shower in the shared bath.  I ended up paying Werner for the entire tour package with my credit card and the whole thing was $375.  The package included all accommodations for 5 nights, all transportation and 3 tours.

I was excited to be in Patagonia and based on the views I’d already taken in from the water front, it wasn’t going to disappoint.

Here are the pics taken while making my way from Santiago to Puerto Natales via Punta Arenas:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  I had a wonderful Christmas Eve, especially when the doorbell rang and it was a guy delivering four tickets to the BCS National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl!!  Thank you, Uncle Mike!  What an awesome Christmas…

I went out on Wednesday night with dad and Jean to see Blind Side, which was an excellent movie.  It actually reminded me of my cousin Chase because Ole Miss was featured in the movie a lot and he committed to play football there next year.  If you’re a fan of football, especially the SEC, go see Blind Side.  It seems a little dated because none of the coaches that guest star in the movie are still at the schools they represent in the film, but it’s still cool to see them.

I don’t want to write too much before I finish posting the rest of the details about my RTW trip, but I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

10/30/09

As we began our descent into Santiago, the capital of Chile, I had an incredible view of the Andes mountains.  They flank the eastern side of the city and the view was spectacular because the sun was rising behind them.  There was even a little snow at the higher elevations.

Once we landed Phil and I made our way to the immigration area, paid the $130 fee for our visas, passed through the actual immigration line and then got our luggage and passed through customs.  On our way through the airport towards the outside, I asked about a taxi ride into the city at a little kiosk and was quoted something outrageous (I don’t remember the exact amount, but it was like $60).  Instead of agreeing to that, we headed outside and smoked a cigarette to slow down and get our bearings.  While we were smoking, a guy came up to us and asked about a private transfer into the city.  It was going to be something like $30, so we agreed and followed him out to the parking lot where we tipped him a few Chilean pesos before hopping into a van with a different guy driving.

We shared the van into Santiago, but we had two different destinations.

Phil didn’t want to go the budget route, understandably so because he was on a 10 day vacation instead of a 9 week one like I was.  In order for me to travel continuously for so long I had to stay in hostels, eat at cheap places, go with budget tours, etc.  Phil had also been apprehensive about planning the trip as we went, instead he wanted everything planned before arriving in Chile.  He emailed me half a dozen times saying he wanted to know what the plan was and each time I told him my plan was to stay in budget places, take buses everywhere, and pay for budget tours once I got into Patagonia, but he wasn’t satisfied with that so he booked his entire trip once I’d already left on my RTW.  He paid a travel agent in Santiago an exorbitant fee (turned out to be about $800) in order to remove the uncertainty of planning as we went.

I can understand being nervous about traveling in a foreign country – fear of the unknown, but I told him over and over we’d be fine.  Anyhow, he made up his mind and decided the extra cost was better than the worry.  My only pre-planning had been to arrange to stay in the most centrally located hostel in the Santiago for the first two nights and I booked a round trip flight between Santiago and Punta Arenas (in Patagonia).  I had no idea how I’d be getting from town to town in Patagonia, where I’d be staying or which tours I’d be taking.  I left all that to chance so I’d be more free to pick up and move on as I pleased and so that I could save money.  Phil booked himself a room at this swanky $200 per night hotel in Santiago for the first night because he had a coupon for a free night’s stay at that chain, and he refused to stay at a hostel.  I’m not really sure what his aversion to hostels is, but he said over and over that he didn’t want to.

Phil wanted to check in first and since I didn’t care either way we took the shared van from the airport to his ritzy hotel.  He checked in but they didn’t have a room ready, so they gave him access to a shower where he could freshen up.  I’d been traveling for over 60 hours at this point, but my freshening up was doing the backpacker thing – washed my face and changed underwear and t-shirt, then I went out to the rooftop pool and smoked cigarettes while Phil took a shower and got all dolled up.

Once he was ready he dropped his stuff off with a bellhop and we took a taxi over to the Plaza de Armas so I could drop my stuff off at my hostel.  The Plaza de Armas is the name of the main square in most large Latin American countries, and it is usually in the dead center of town.  I knew my hostel would be in a great location and that’s my main objective in finding hostels because it cuts down on transportation costs.  The hostel surpassed my expectations because not only was it on the main square, but it was on the top floor of a building on the square so it had balconies that opened up and looked over the square for a great view.  The guys working at the hostel were cool and joked around a lot, and it had a really laid back vibe.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have my room ready yet either.  I had reserved a private room instead of one of the dorm rooms.  I prefer a private bathroom if possible and since their private rooms had en-suite facilities for only $35 a night, I went with it.

Phil and I decided to head out into the streets and check the plaza out.  We ended up stopping at a little alfresco restaurant right on the square, where we had what I guess was brunch because it was around 10am-11am at that point.  We had some ham sandwiches and some of the local brew, Cristal.  While we sat there drinking beer, a huge crowd started to gather in the square.  In less than an hour this entire massive plaza filled up with tons of protesters.

All the protesters were chanting and carrying signs.  We found out from an American expat who sat at the table next to us that they were all professors who were protesting against the government lying about pay raises.  Apparently 3 years ago the government promised a raise of something like $200 a month more for the teachers, but they never delivered and the teachers were pissed.  A guy told me that it was unfortunate for students because the teachers had been on strike for so long (several weeks) that most students are going to have to repeat the grade they’re in.

After all the protesters marched away and we finished our beer, I went back to the hostel to wait for my room to open up.  I got on their wifi and sent emails and blogged some.  Phil left to go back to his hotel and I waited around for what seemed like forever before my room was ready.  I spent some of that spare time asking about things to do and see in Santiago and I asked about the best way to line up a bus ticket in Patagonia, but really the brochures and staff weren’t that helpful.  Finally my room was ready.  I actually was given 3 different keys for my room and led down the hall.  When you exit out of the main hostel door you take a left, walk past the elevator and on down the hall to this random door.  One of the keys opens the deadbolt and the other opens the doorknob lock, then you enter into a large common room.  The common room has a few couches and chairs, a full kitchen, a computer and a door leading out to a private balcony.  Off of the main room are two private bedrooms, one of which was mine.  The room was kinda small but the bathroom was huge.  I took a shower and caught a quick nap, which effectively ended the longest traveling day of my life – Jo’burg to Atlanta to Birmingham to Atlanta to Santiago.

Later in the evening I met up with Phil so we could go out for dinner.  We walked all over the area near the Plaza de Armas looking for somewhere to eat, but oddly there didn’t seem to be as many restaurants as you’d think there should be in order to support all the people out in the streets.  Tons of people were out walking around, but most of the shops along all the pedestrian only streets were clothing stores.  After about 30 minutes I asked a little street vendor lady where we could find a restaurant serving “comida tradicional de Chile” and she pointed us just half a block away.  We walked past a building that reminded me of a shorter version of NYC’s Flatiron building and found the little nondescript Chilean restaurant.

We walked into what looked like an old restaurant in NYC!  Waiters in white jackets rushing around (not smiling either), lots of noise from people talking, dim lighting, etc.  We walked towards the back and sat down.  The menu was entirely in Spanish and our Telly Savalas look-alike waiter didn’t speak a lick of English.  I tried to ask what type of fish would he recommend because everything I read said Chile is known for their great seafood since they have a ton of coastline.  The couple at the table next to us watched and listened and eventually the guy leaned over and helped me out because he spoke a tiny bit of English; I really appreciated it.  He explained what Phil’s steak would come with (eggs?).

This restaurant reinforced our earlier observation that Santiago is not an English friendly city.  I had imagined that a cosmopolitan city in possibly the most first world country in South America would have plenty of English speakers, particularly in the service industry: restaurants, hotels, bus stations, metro stations, etc.  I was wrong.  Besides two people at Phil’s hotel and three at my hostel, we hadn’t met a single person that spoke any English whatsoever, and trust me, we tried with dozens of people.  More people speak English in Tokyo, Cuzco, Paris, Luang Prabang, Kathmandu, Marrakesh, Istanbul or just about any other major world city…

The meal was excellent.  After dinner I wanted to try the sangria so I asked the guy to our left who had explained the menu to us what the sangria looking stuff in the little pitcher he was sharing with his wife would be called and he told me something other than sangria.  The lady said something to him and motioned for me to try some of their drink, so the guy handed me his glass and I sipped it.  It tasted just like sangria to me, and after they motioned for me to pass it on to Phil I did.  We ordered a pitcher and soon after the couple said goodbye and left.

While we drank our pitcher we started communicating with the two guys at the table to our right.  They were obviously regulars because they kept joking with our waiter and giving him a hard time, especially after he dropped something and broke it.  The guy that kept talking to me only spoke Spanish, but I blew the dust off my Spanish skill set and tried for a while to talk to him.  They were drinking some sort of white sangria and he said it was a good drink for the summertime because it’s really refreshing.  He also handed me his glass and let us sample the white sangria.  I wish I remembered what it was called because it was good.  It was pretty cool to be eating in this locals joint and meeting people that just hand their personal glass over to strangers to sample their drinks.  So far, everyone we’d come in contact with had been really friendly.  I just wish they would have known a little English, but it wasn’t too bad because I speak passable Spanish.

After the meal, we walked back to the Plaza de Armas and sat at the same place where we had our brunch earlier in the day.  We sat down for a few beers and watched the crazy crowd going by.  The plaza was hoppin’ with all sorts of people, like a guy dressed up as a red circle, punk rockers with plastic pants, caricature artists trying to convince passersby to sit down and two different competing amateur astronomers who we ended up paying to view the moon and Saturn (or was it Jupiter?) through a telescope.

When we finished star gazing we went up to the hostel’s rooftop balcony and hung out for a while before Phil left to head back to his hotel.  I stayed out on the balcony for a while, talking to a female traveler from Indonesia and a Peruvian guy who had gone to school in Reno for a while.  I wish I remembered their names, but I did enjoy talking to both of them, and they both spoke perfect English!    When I couldn’t hold my eyes open any longer, I told them goodnight and went down the hall to my room.  I smoked a cigarette on my private balcony and then brushed my teeth and hit the sack.

10/31/09

I slept like a rock, but still got up fairly early – around 7:30am.  I showered and then went to the main part of the hostel for breakfast.  I spent a few hours talking to the staff and the Peruvian guy from the night before to find out what there was to do.  Everyone recommended a trip up to the top of Cerro San Cristóbal, a mountain in the middle of Santiago with a statue of Mary on top and views of the Andes and the entire city below.

Phil made his way to the Plaza de Armas in the afternoon.  He had already checked out of his swanky hotel and moved into a different place because his 1 free night had expired.  We walked around for a while.  We went into a church on the main plaza and then look for somewhere to have lunch.  We ended up going to one of the local joints along the bottom floor of the building where my hostel was.  If you ever watch Anthony Bourdain’s show, No Reservations, you may remember him eating one of the most popular fast food items in Chile, a “completo”.  The completo is a long hot dog on a toasted bun, covered in tomatoes, guacamole and a huge pile of  mayonnaise.  It doesn’t sound very good and in fact it wasn’t, but the Chileans are very passionate about their mayo.  I ended up wiping off about 75% of the mayo after the first 2 bites because it was just too much.

After lunch we caught a cab to the base of Cerro San Cristobal and checked out a hotel across the street because we wanted to line something up for our return to Santiago after we finished up Patagonia.

We crossed back over the street and asked the lady at a little kiosk what we had to do to get to the top of the mountain and she pointed us towards a little castle where we needed to buy tickets for the funicular.  On the way to the castle we passed by some little souvenir booths and noticed that the Chilean flag looks a whole lot like Texas’ Lone Star state flag.  Actually, we saw a Chilean flag ballcap that had their flag in the shape of Texas!

We bought our funicular tickets, waited in line for a while, and then rode up to the top of the mountain.  We checked out the views from several sections and went up to the top where the statue of Mary and a little church were, plus we saw a memorial wall and lots of beautiful flowers.  Once we got back down to the main plaza where the funicular station is, I ordered this strange drink that all the locals were sipping on.  It had some sort of oats and a large peach like thing in it, and it tasted like a syrupy sweet tea.  It was called mote con huesillo.

We went back down the mountain on the funicular and walked along the long street at the base that leads back towards the river.  The street was lined with restaurants and bars and the area looked a lot more sketchy than the other places we’d seen so far.  The walls had graffiti and there were punks sitting around with crazy hair and spiked leather jackets.  We continued walking along that street, stopping to shop at little artisan stalls a few times.  I bought some beads for Jean and Phil bought some jewelry for his neighbor.  While Phil was shopping, I witnessed a snatch and grab, or at least the tail end of it.  This guy was sprinting by me on the sidewalk, with a guy in an SUV driving alongside and yelling at him.  The guy stopped for a second and threw down a necklace and then sprinted off just as the guy in the SUV put his truck in park and hopped out.  A couple came walking up and the girl looked shaken.  The guy running by had yanked her necklace off and ran away, but the random stranger in the SUV had pursued him and gotten it back.  The area was definitely too scabby to want to stay there…

We walked across a bridge and to the subway station where we took the train to a station near Phil’s second hotel.  We ordered a couple of tiny bottles of Chilean wine from the little bar near the front desk and drank them in the courtyard.  It was a nice place and the staff were all friendly, but once again nobody spoke English.  We both liked it and the location was pretty good so we made reservations for when we returned from Patagonia.  After several bottles of wine we took a taxi back to the Plaza de Armas and walked around looking for somewhere to eat dinner.  As we were walking along this pedestrian only street I stopped to take a picture of some punks with mohawks and one of them yelled at me and gave me the finger!  It seems ridiculous that a guy with a foot tall bleached blond mohawk would expect people to not notice him…

Later in the evening we wanted to get a 12 pack of beer and ended up finding a really helpful university student that led us around all over the place until we found a place with bars over a window where you pass the cash through and your beer is pushed back between the bars.  It reminded me of the liquor store in Jo’burg!  We took the beer back to the hostel balcony and talked with the other travelers and Rodrigo, who worked there, for about an hour before calling it a night.

I went to sleep fairly early because the next day I needed to be up and out of there early for more traveling, this time down to Patagonia.

Here are the photos from my first two days in Santiago:

10/28/09

On Wednesday (October 28th), I made the long trip from Johannesburg, South Africa to Santiago, Chile with a long stop in Atlanta on the way.  Of all the long flights and exhausting trips I’ve taken in my life, this leg takes the cake for the longest and most painful.

I was up by 7am Jo’burg time.  Immediately I started going through my big pack and organizing everything so it would fit neatly in there, plus I needed to decide what would travel all the way to Chile and what I needed to swap out in Atlanta.  My mom was planning on meeting me in Atlanta so I could swap out warm weather clothes (shorts, tevas, etc) for cold weather clothes (jeans, jacket, etc).  While I got everything together I charged up my cell phone, camera and netbook so they’d be good to go once I hit the ground in Chile.

Kat showed up at Jacaranda and John came to my room saying that she was being cool but that he was going to give her the resignation letter we’d worked on together when she comes to pick me up that evening.  I didn’t feel like getting in the middle of the drama and possibly missing my ride to the airport, but whatever…
I took a bath, which hopefully will be the last time I lay down in a hostel bathtub in my adult life.  John did two loads of laundry for me and I spent a decent part of the day editing pictures for the blog and writing blog entries from Egypt so that I could post them in the Jo’burg or Atlanta airport.  I needed to catch up with blog entries.

In the late afternoon Kat picked me up, John didn’t give her his resignation for some reason, and I was dropped off VERY early at the airport because Kat didn’t want to get stuck in rush hour traffic so we left before it started.  I went through way too many security checkpoints until I was finally in the terminal, then I spent up the last of my rand on magazines and sodas.  I went to a little restaurant and had a few draft beers, an appetizer and then dinner all while working on the blog.  The airport’s wireless connection was too expensive, but it was nice to be on the internet after not having access for basically a month (South Africa, Egypt and India were all difficult to find access and time for internet).  I took a picture of this massive Nelson Mandela statue made entirely of tiny seed beads, then I waited at my gate for what seemed like forever.

While I waited for my flight I met a guy from Alabama after he commented on my hat.  He said he travels around the world with Governor Bob Riley to help with trade initiatives.  Several different business leaders go to developing countries and try to work out trade deals that are favorable to the state so that Alabama products are sold overseas.  I don’t remember any more which type of business he worked for, but I think it may have either been heavy mobile equipment (Caterpillar) or fleet vehicles.

The flight was LONG.  The Johannesburg to Atlanta trip takes about 17 hours.  It was pretty interesting though because I sat next to a really nice lady who worked in make-up for Hollywood her entire career, but is now a script writer and director of her own company.  She was interested in my travels and told me all about what she does.  The other person in our row was really cool too.  He was a Zimbabwean accountant whose father had been a farmer outside of Harare until Mugabe took over and reclaimed land from white farmers and redistributed it to black Zimbabweans.  They lost the family farm and he fled to South Africa and has been working in Jozie for years, but goes back to this lake in “Zim” where he rents a houseboat each year.

I ended up talking to the Zim accountant for a long time and in the end think I’ll take Jean to that lake some time.  He said going on safari in Zim is better than South Africa because instead of the scrubby, almost desert like, landscape it is mostly savanna (tall grasses) and there are many more animals.  He said his brother and sister were both tennis champions who emigrated to the US on college scholarships and the brother is now a tennis pro in the US.  He had a very strong accent that sounded almost British, but with a little of that South African sound in it, and he had light brown skin but could have passed for Indian or black.  He was really interesting and I enjoyed talking to him, especially about the history of Zimbabwe and South Africa.

10/29/09

I got to Atlanta in the morning on Thursday, October 29th.  The plan was to meet my mom in order to swap out warm weather clothes for cold weather stuff.  Just before Jean met me in Egypt my mom let me know that she’d be able to meet up with me for the day so I didn’t have to get Jean to bring all the extra stuff to Egypt and then lug it around in 100F+ temperatures in the desert.  My flight out of Atlanta to Santiago wasn’t until that night so I planned on spending the entire day with my mom, but we never made any plans.

I passed through customs and immigration, then came out of the terminal past security and there was my mom!  I gave her a hug and as we walked to her car she asked if I wanted a shower.  Did I?!  I had been up for something like 35 hours at that point and felt pretty scuzzy.  She hadn’t checked out of her hotel room yet so we went there and I took a quick shower.  After that we decided that instead of goofing off in Atlanta all day we’d make a quick run to Birmingham so I could see my grandparents, sister and her kids.

We stopped at Chick-fil-A (it was nice to be in the US!), and then hopped on I-20 and headed west from Atlanta to Birmingham.  A few hours later we pulled up to my grandparent’s house in Birmingham.  I only stayed there long enough to eat lunch and talk to everyone for about 30 minutes after lunch before we had to hit the road again.  I saw my grandparents, my sister Amy and two of her three kids (Nola and Truman).

We drove back to Atlanta and as we got closer I started to worry that we’d hit some crappy rush hour traffic and that I’d be late for my flight, but we got off the highway and took a back way through College Park and made it in plenty of time.  It was such a short visit, but it was great to see my mom and it was definitely worth the 5-6 hours in the car to see everyone else.  I was EXHAUSTED!  I hadn’t slept in almost 45 hours by the time she dropped me off and I still had plenty of traveling to do.

I made my way back through security and to my gate where I waited to meet one of my college roommates, Phil, for my final leg of the journey.  I was at the gate working on my netbook and reading for about an hour before he came up, then we waited for maybe 45 minutes to and hour for our flight to board.

The flight from Atlanta to Santiago, Chile takes about 9 hours.  It was an overnight flight and put me near the 55 hour mark of solid traveling, but I was able to nod off for about 2 hours during the flight.  Luckily the flight wasn’t but maybe half full so I had a 2 seat row to myself and nobody behind me either.

I’ve been dreading the blog recently because I let my entries grow too big.  I still need to post the Patagonia pictures and post some stories from that final leg of the trip, but I didn’t want to spend the 10 hours of writing to explain what happened each day.  I also spent lots of time moving everything over to the new website hosting company’s servers, so I was burnt out on messing with the website.  I’ve recharged my batteries and I’m pumped to finish up my RTW posts as soon as possible.  Tonight I’m going to relax with the new toy Jean and I got yesterday, but tomorrow I plan on starting to write again.  I’m ready to start back posting our daily blog postings too, but I don’t want to start until the RTW entries are finished.

I never wrote about Jean’s mom coming out to visit, our trip to Vegas, getting tickets to the BCS National Championship, going to a Lakers game and sitting 6 rows back, getting a badass flatscreen HDTV, a trip I’m planning to watch California grey whales in Baja, a trip to the Greek islands, or anything else that’s been going on recently.  I need to stop putting the blog on the back burner and get back into it.

I apologize to everyone who reads the blog regularly, both of you: mom and dad. 

10/27/09

On 10/27 I left the Sani Lodge and headed back to Jo’burg for a final night before taking off to Chile for the final leg of my trip.

I woke up at 5:45am, took a freezing cold shower after a final spider massacre, then packed up my daypack and got ready to leave.  I tried to buy a water from the Sani Lodge store down by the road, but the store was closed.  As usual, nobody who works at the Sani Lodge was around, so I used the house phone in the common area to ring the main house and Russell said he’d be down to take my payment.  When he finally showed up I followed him to the little office.  I had already asked him twice during my stay if he could verify that I’d prepaid for my rondavel in full and both times he brushed me off rudely by saying “Yeah, yeah, you’re fine.”  On the morning I go to check out this twit says I owe something like R820 (~$115).  I questioned how that could be possible because I only owed for two (crappy) dinners and 13 beers.  This idiot checks a few things and then says, “Oh, you’re right, you prepaid.  It’ll be R244.”  The beer prices were good, but $35 for 13 beers and those two meals was ridiculous – it should have been more like $15-$20.

The evening before I had asked Russell to please call the Underberg Express people for me to confirm my pickup because Kat (at Jacaranda in Jo’burg) had told me to do that because I couldn’t miss my bus from PMB to Jo’burg or I’d miss my flight out the following day.  Russell said, “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”  I asked him a second time to please call and confirm and he said he would, but as usual he plodded away to do something else.  Sabrina, one of the German girls, had loaned me her cell phone and I called Steven at the Underberg Express myself and asked if I could be picked up at 7am the following morning and they said “no problem”.  Russell walked by later and I told him I talked to UE and confirmed the pickup and he said he had confirmed it too (yea, right).  The morning I was supposed to leave, after settling my bill and packing up, I waited in the parking lot until 7:10am and then tried to find Russell to have him call to find out if they were running really late or what.  When I saw him I asked if we should call the Underberg Express and this idiot says “After reconfirming so many times I don’t see how they could not.”  I asked this lazy bastard for the simplest things while I stayed there: can you check me in (after searching for someone for a long time), can I have dinner, can you please call my ride for tomorrow, etc.  He was rude every time…  I paid for the most expensive option at his lodge, a private rondavel.  I purchased a tour from his lodge as well as two dinners, and he was still rude!  The Sani Lodge was a cool backpacker’s lodge, but the owner/manager (Russell) was right up there with the worst of them as far as service and friendliness.  If I had it to do over I’d stay at a place in Underberg instead…

After Russell’s final rude comment the Underberg Express pulled up at 7:25am.  I know “South African time” is like “Mexican time”, and that being almost 30 minutes late isn’t a big deal, but when you have connections to make and would have to cough up $1200+ if you miss an international flight, you expect these companies to be professional and on the ball.  Steven wasn’t the one who picked me up.  The U.E. driver was this younger black guy in the little Honda that Steven and his wife took me to Sani Lodge in the other day.  Speaking of South African time, Matthew (the Sani Lodge guide) told us there’s a saying in South Africa regarding this: “Whites may have the watches but the blacks have the time.”

I asked the driver if we could stop by the post office on our way to Pietermaritzburg and he basically said “no”.  Whatever, no big deal.  Next I laid it on him that I had overpaid by R150 because my round trip transfer had been prepaid but Steven had told me I owed R150 when I was dropped off at Sani Lodge two days earlier.  The driver asked if I had a receipt.  We stopped at their office in Underberg to pick up two people and I showed him my receipt that luckily Kat had given to me before I left Jo’burg.  I gave up my front seat to a middle aged woman and sat in the back of the Honda with an old guy who used to work in the timber industry around the Underberg area.  The old guy was great!  Right off the bat he said, “I’m not a city man. I’m a country man, and timber was my game.”  We did introductions and he said he worked for a company called Sappi for decades and that they owned most of the pine farms in the area.  For the next 30 minutes of the drive he told me who owned each new timber farm that we passed by, who the manager for that operation was, etc.  The lady in the front was really nice too.

The driver asked the two new riders if they had change so he could give me my R150 back and the old guy said, “I’ll pay you for the ride when I arrive in Durban.”  The driver then called Steven on his cell and they discussed my R150 and the driver said he’d withdraw the money himself and Steven could repay him later.  On down the road we pulled into a gas station and met Steven.  We transferred from the small Honda to a van Steven was in, and Steven gave the driver R90 to pay me with because he had R60 on him.  I was happy to be in the front of the van instead of smashed into the back of the Honda, and I was happy to have my R150 back.

We continued driving on to PMB and the driver pointed out a lake.  When I asked if he swims in it he said “Black guys don’t swim for fun.  We don’t do any of that stuff for fun.  Have you ever seen a black guy abseiling?”   He told me a story about having to climb a mountain before abseiling (rappelling) and how a black guy wasn’t climbing very well.  My driver had yelled at him to work harder at the climb and the guy yelled back at him, saying, “If you put dogs below me I’ll climb!”  He said black people flock to the beaches in Durban on Christmas and New Year’s, but they aren’t swimming – they’re just standing in the water but they call it swimming because they think if you’re in the water you’re swimming.  We laughed a lot at his stories.  He was previously a tour guide and ended up enjoying all the extreme sports he took groups of white tourists on, like kayaking, rafting, mountain climbing, abseiling, etc.  He said he even joined a canoe club and still gets out on the water whenever he has a chance.  He made the long drive fly by, just like Steven and his wife did on the ride down – great conversations with good people.  Unlike Russell, I’d highly recommend taking the Underberg Express if you need to transfer from Durban to PMB or Sani Lodge.

I got dropped off at the same McDonald’s parking lot across from the Intercape bus office where I’d picked up the U.E. two days earlier.  It was about 9:20am when we got there so I walked across the street and checked with the lady in the office to see if the bus was on time.  It was.  I was hungry so I went back across the street and had breakfast.

I had to use the restroom, but the first 3 people I asked in McDonald’s said “no”.  I asked a security guard at the front door, the girl that took my order and another lady who was standing in uniform near the cash registers.  They said that the bathrooms were off limits because of the renovation the restaurant was undergoing.  The lady that took my order said I’d need to use the restroom at one of the other stores in the strip mall but I had already ordered my food and didn’t feel like going on some Easter-egg hunt for a bathroom.

It was obvious they were doing renovations because there was new drywall and plastic hanging down from opened ceilings all over the place, plus a sign said something like “Please excuse our mess, but it’s temporary so we can have a nicer restaurant to serve you in.”  I took my tray to the small dining room that hadn’t been closed down due to renovations and decided to try again, so I asked a girl that was cleaning the seating area and she said “Yes, I will escort you to our’s [employee's].”  After I finished eating she walked me to the back, past the cash registers, through the kitchen and past several girls giggling and starring at us.  I had to walk heel-to-toe alongside some stoves because they had lots of renovation supplies on the floor.  At the back of the restaurant we went into a breakroom and three girls were sitting down eating at a little table.  As soon as I closed the door to the bathroom that’s connected to the breakroom, the girls went crazy.  It sounded like they were all yelling at the one who brought me back there, and when I came back out she looked upset.  She led me back out to the front and I thanked her, but she just nodded and walked away quickly.  I’m guessing she got into trouble for helping me.  If you’re reading this, sweet lady that was wiping down table tops at the McDonald’s in PMB across the street from the Intercape bus station, thank you so much for letting this foreigner pee in your employee restroom – it was very kind of you!

After my McDonald’s experience I went back and waited in front of the Intercape office for my bus to Jo’burg to arrive.  I asked this girl standing next to me for the time, and pretty soon we were talking about my trip.  She said I had a funny accent and wanted to know what I was doing in PMB, and that led to the story of my trip around the world.  When I asked what she did, she said she works for “Teasers”.  I asked if that was a restaurant and she told me it’s a strip bar.  She asked me how much strippers make in the US and told me the places I needed to check out in Jo’burg, then her mom asked me about Los Angeles.  All at once about 4 big buses pulled up right there in front of the station and it got crazy really quickly.  I said bye to the stripper and her mom and rushed to my bus in the madness.  People were jumping on the buses to sell things like sodas, snacks and bottled water, people were getting off, taxis were pulling up into the mix, people were trying to check luggage and bus employees were trying to move things along even faster!

I got on my bus and sat by myself in the front row of the downstairs level.  I’d sat upstairs on the way down to PMB, but decided to try this seat because I’d been smashed in my seat upstairs.  The seat I took had plenty of leg room because the bathroom was in front of me instead of another row of seats, and the bus wasn’t close to being full so I had both seats to myself.

The ride back took forever and the first half of it was uneventful.  Eventually I started talking to the young lady sitting in the seat on the other side of the aisle from me.  Her name was Pamela and she was traveling with her adorable 9 month old son named Tyler.  We talked for a long time.  Her husband is a boilermaker at a power plant near Heidelberg and she lives in Pretoria.  Tyler was a big hit with the bus staff; one of the drivers came out and carried Tyler around both levels to see everyone, and Tyler threw a fit a few times until one of the girls serving drinks on the bus took him from Pamela and walked him around.  Pamela told me they’d gotten a golden retriever at the same time as Tyler was born after I showed her a picture of my “kids” (Charlie and Tank).

Pamela looked like she was Italian or Greek – olive complexion, dark hair, etc.  I asked if she was originally from South Africa and she explained to me that she’s “colored” and what that means.  In South Africa they have whites, blacks and coloreds.  Colored simply means mixed, and Pamela is an Indian-white mix.  I told her that colored is considered a derogatory term in the US and was used a lot in the Jim Crow laws.  She told me it wasn’t derogatory for South Africans and mentioned our conversation to the girl working for Intercape who kept holding Tyler to keep him from yelling, and she told me that she was colored (mixed) too.  Pamela also told me more about the black tribe dowries I’d heard about from Mpume on my bus ride down to PMB (cows for virginity).  Pamela said it was payment for spoiling the daughter of the family.  She told me that once her husband (colored too) gave a Christmas card to her mother with R500 in it as a joke to say that was his gift for her daughter.  I told her he got a good deal!

We stopped at the same place where I’d gotten into the KFC melee on the way down, but I only exited the bus to smoke with Pamela this time.  She pointed out a female Boer (Dutch South African) who bought a bottle of liquor at the stop and said that she may get kicked off the bus because you’re not supposed to drink on the bus.  The driver that was taking a break also told me that he once left an Indian guy at a stop because the guy was late and when the driver went to tell him to hurry the guy cussed him.  Also, if you’re reading this and have taken the Jo’burg to Durban bus and know what the name of that KFC stop is, please let me know.  I know the exit starts with an “M” and it’s just south of Heidelburg.

I’d been concerned for the past 24 hours about arriving in Jo’burg because of all the crime stories and warnings I’d been hearing.  Johannesburg is dangerous.  Don’t walk the streets alone in Jo’burg.  Don’t go out after dark in Jo’burg.  People get carjacked in the middle of the day in Jo’burg all the time.  And so on…  I had heard all the stories and knew that I’d be getting to the main downtown bus station in the center of downtown Jo’burg late in the afternoon, and have to figure out how to get to Jacaranda.  Originally Kat was going to pick me up, but she was in Zanzibar for a wedding, and then John failed to make taxi arrangements for me, so I was on my own with the taxi stuff.  I had actually been thinking about what I was going to do for a while.  Mostly worried about having to walk several blocks outside the bus station to find a taxi, and getting mugged.

Then, to add to my apprehension, Pamela asks, “So what are you doing once you arrive in Jozie?”  I told her that I planned on walking out of the bus station to catch a taxi and she gets this terrified look (wide eyed, open mouthed look of horror) and then the conversation went like this:

Pamela:  “You can’t do that!”

Me:  “Why not?”

Pamela:  “Because you’ll get stabbed or shot!  Aren’t you really scared?!”

Me:  “Not really, but now I am.”

Pamela:  “It’s really dangerous.  You should have someone there waiting for you to pick you up!”

Me:  “Seriously?  Should I be worried?”

It was obvious that it was as dangerous as I’d been told and now I was really worried.  Not only because she reinforced my fears, but also because the bus was running about an hour and a half late at that point and I would be getting in closer and closer to the time when it would be dark.  I didn’t want to walk around the streets of downtown Jo’burg by myself looking for a taxi, especially not at night…  Pamela actually called over the young girl who was serving drinks on the bus and asked if she’d help me find a taxi when we arrived.  The girl had just started working for Intercape, but grew up in Jo’burg and agreed to help me.  I thanked Pamela and the girl (sadly, I forgot her name, but she was very sweet).

Pretty soon after that conversation we stopped and picked up some people and Pamela said, “Look, this guy is Muslim.”  She pointed out a young guy saying goodbye to his family.  The guy sat next to me and as soon as the bus took off Pamela asked him what his name was and when he said “Fayeez”, she leaned over and looked at me and said “Told ya!”  She explained to him that she knew he was Muslim from looking at him and he confirmed it.  We all talked about religion, race and politics in South Africa for the next hour.  Heavy topics for people that just met, but it was really interesting.

Pamela got off the bus before Jo’burg because she was being picked up by her husband and they were going shopping and then driving back to Pretoria together.  Fayeez and I continued to talk and at one point I explained my concern about finding a taxi and he said he was meeting family at the bus station but would help me get to the taxi ranks.  I told the girl who worked for Intercape not to worry about helping me because Fayeez was.  Fayeez goes to school in Jo’burg and explained that the tower near my hostel was a very dangerous place and that Nigerians run drugs through there and it is definitely a “no go” zone.

When we arrived in Jo’burg Fayeez and I jumped off the bus and while he was collecting his bags from under the bus a guy approached me and asked if I needed a taxi.  I said “yes”, thanked Fayeez, who told the guy to make sure I got to one safely, then I followed the guy through the bus station and out the front door.  Within 100 feet we stopped at a brand new minivan taxi and the guy told the driver I needed a ride to Observatory.  I jumped in, locked my door and off we went.  Not bad at all!

We made our way through the rough looking streets back to Jacaranda.  I asked the driver about crime and he told me the story of the one time he was almost car jacked but how he escaped.  He also said that you’re much safer in taxis than private cars because the taxis have their own “mafia” and criminals know that they have a much better chance of being beaten or shot if they rob taxis instead of regular cars.  Also, as we got close to the guesthouse, he said “Johannesburg is known as a very dangerous city around the world, but really it is only a few sections that give it that reputation and this place is one of them.”  We were passing through Yeoville, the area where Lee and I had walked down the hill for that bottle of scotch earlier in the week…

I got back to Jacaranda in one piece and walked in to Peter (the big farmer/hunter with the spider bite) and John (resident manager) sitting around in the den.  We talked for a while, they gave me their emails and phone numbers, then I went and took a bath and repacked all my stuff until Lee got home.  I talked with Lee for a while, ordered delivery pasta and finally called it a night.

Even after the two full days of traveling in buses and transfer vans, plus dealing with that schmuck Russell, no food options at the Sani Lodge and freezing as I went up through the Sani Pass, it was definitely worth going.  Benny and Sabrina (two of the Germans), Nori (Japanese guy) and the Chinese-British lady were all a lot of fun to talk to, Matthew was a wonderful guide and Lesotho was beautiful.  I’d highly recommend visiting there – I know I’ll go back…

Here are the pictures from my trip back to Jo’burg after a quick visit to Lesotho:

To start with, Happy Birthday Amy!  My sister is a little older today…

Last night Jean and I went into Santa Monica so she could go to a massive bead show and so I could meet up with my friend, Noriko, who I met in Bangkok on my RTW trip.  Jean dropped me off around 3pm and I sat at the Monsoon Cafe with Noriko until about 6:15pm when Jean joined us.  Noriko and I had some drinks, tried several of the appetizers and talked about everything, but mostly traveling.  IT WAS AWESOME!  I really enjoyed talking to someone that’s as passionate about travel as I am.  She showed me her 2005 audition tape for The Amazing Race and it was great, much better than the 15 seconds of stuttering Jean and I put together when we auditioned.  She jumped out of a plane and was filmed with her teammate skydiving before they hopped onto the finish mat.

Jean did a fair amount of shopping and once the show ended she drove down to where we were on the 3rd Street Promenade.  When Jean got there Noriko gave us each a Christmas gift!  She’s too sweet…  They were perfect travel gifts – Jean got a really nice Tiffany passport cover and I got a Tiffany keychain with a little airplane and globe on it.  Thanks, Noriko!

Jean had a couple of appetizers and then we decided to head down to the Santa Monica pier, which is only about 2 blocks away, but Noriko had to call it a night because she was scheduled to work today.  We said goodbye to Noriko and went down to the pier, but we were bummed to find out that we couldn’t ride the roller coaster or the ferris wheel because the ticket counter closed down (it was 8pm when we got there).  The parking lot beside the pier had a huge circus tent setup for a Cirque du Soleil show called Kooza, but we decided just to head on home since we couldn’t ride the rides.

Like so many times recently, I was a knucklehead and forgot to take pictures!  I wish I would have had one taken of me, Jean and Noriko at the bar in Santa Monica.  I’ll try to do better next time.

This morning I woke up early and jumped out of bed because there was no way I could just lay there when this afternoon the Tide plays one of the biggest and most hyped college football games in the past decade.  The #1 and #2 BCS ranked schools are both in the SEC and play each other today in the SEC Championship, so really this is the season championship instead of waiting to see who loses and then let the winner play #3 Texas or #4 TCU.  Alabama (#2) and Mark Ingram will take on Florida (#1) and Tim Tebow today in Atlanta.  I think the Tide is gonna pull this one out!

ROLL TIDE ROLL!!

My dad just showed up, so now we’ll watch the Cincy vs Pitt game together.

Over and Out,

Matt

10/26/09

I woke up at 7:30am, took another shower and got dressed in my sub-arctic rondavel.  It was FREEZING in there, like probably in the 30’s.  Luckily the beds had about 5 inches worth of comforters that I was able to burrow under.

I walked down to the “Tea Garden”, which is what the Sani Lodge (Russell) calls the building down by the road that has a restaurant and store in it.  Sani Lodge is proud of their baked goods and since I had to fend for myself for breakfast, I bought a bag of hard bread snacks they called “Sani rusks”.  The rusks said on the bag that they contained cream, sugar and flour – nothing too special.  I also bought a small bag of little cookies, a small water and a coke.

After I’d bought some breakfast snacks and drinks I went back to my rondavel and brushed my teeth and attempted to plug in my camera’s battery because it was almost kaput.  I ended up having to go to the common kitchen to plug it in, but it only charged up there for about 25 minutes before the resident guide, Matthew, picked us up in an old Land Rover.  Matthew was a great guy and really funny.  I sat up front with him, three of the Germans doing the volunteer work sat in the very back (extremely uncomfortable), and the fourth German sat with an older Canadian couple in the second row.

Matthew brought each of us two sandwiches, a lunchbox sized apple juice and an apple.  I had a cheese sandwich and an egg salad sandwich.  Matthew was really concerned about my staying warm and asked me no less than 5 times before we left if I needed to borrow a jacket.  I had on some long underwear, khaki pants and a t-shirt.  I brought an extra t-shirt to layer with in case I got cold, but I didn’t have “cold” clothes because I hadn’t needed them in Asia or Egypt and I wouldn’t be picking any up until I got to Atlanta before heading down to Patagonia.  I insisted that I’d be ok, but he just kept on asking.  Finally he said he was going to bring a blanket and throw it in the back and I could use that if I got cold.

The tour I was on was only a day trip into Lesotho via the Sani Pass.  I would love to have had more time and done a pony trek, but I spent the bulk of my South African time in Kruger instead.  I don’t regret that choice, but Lesotho deserves a lot more than a day trip.  Lesotho (pronounced “La-su-tu”) is a mountainous country that is completely land-locked, surrounded on all sides by South Africa.  It would be like if Colorado were it’s own country – really high elevation compared to the surrounding area.  Oddly, there’s another land-locked country inside of South Africa – Swaziland.

Lesotho was a British protectorate for a while, which happened because the King didn’t want to fall to Dutch imperialism and decided it was a good idea to get help from the British.  The country gained its independence in 1966, never falling under foreign control or becoming a colony.  The Sani Pass is a dirt road, actually it’s mostly large rocks, that winds up through the Drakensberg Mountains into Lesotho from the southern side of the country.  As recently as 30 years ago the only traffic transiting the Sani Pass was donkey caravans led by villagers from Lesotho who’d come down to trade in South Africa.  Matthew explained EVERYTHING.  He told us about how it would take about 10-12 days for a villager to walk down the pass with his donkeys, he pointed out the remains of the trading posts at the bottom of the Pass near the Sani Lodge where we started our trip from, and he pointed out the original path where it broke away from the current “road”.

Matthew was an excellent guide.  He cracked jokes the whole time, but he was well informed about every single element of the tour.  He asked what our interests were and when nobody spoke up he just covered all possible elements: geology, culture, flora and fauna, etc.  He explained the different strata in the rock formations we saw, he pointed out all the different types of birds and flowers (what they were, when the migrate or bloom, what the locals call them, what byproducts are made from them, and so on), and he told us all sorts of stories about the local people.  He showed us where the Lesotho people smuggle 50 pound bags of marijuana down the pass to sell in South Africa, and said they trade it for goods to return home with.  He knew the local language (I think it was called Sesotho – “sa-su-tu”) and talked to the few people we passed on the road.

We stopped at a few look outs on the way up the Pass to take photos, and at one point he stopped and pointed out wild baboons walking alongside the road in the tall grass.  The weather was terrible.  It was so misty and drizzled a little bit every so often, so visibility wasn’t good at all.  I wasn’t cold in the truck, but outside of it I got progressively colder as we made our way up the Pass.  We made it to the South African border after about 2-3 hours (like I said, we stopped several times).  We handed our passports to Matthew and he took them to the window to get them processed.  While he did that we took pictures near the border sign and took bathroom and cigarette breaks.  I was finally cold enough to put on the second t-shirt.

Once you cross the border you start to really climb and the road conditions deteriorate horribly.  The road was just as bad as the road south of Puertocitos in Baja.  The dirt is replaced by jagged rocks and 4-wheel drive is needed to climb the larger boulders.  Matthew told us passenger cars aren’t allowed up the Pass but they’re allowed down it, and sometimes they make it but sometimes they don’t.  You climb and climb up up the road, with everyone in the truck bouncing around, for like 30 minutes until you get to the Lesotho border.  We were literally in the clouds when we arrived at this tiny border crossing.  It made the border crossing Dave and I walked over from Guatemala into Honduras look like San Ysidro.  The mist was so thick that you could only see 15-20 feet in front of you, and it was freezing.  My hat actually had ice crystals on it after being outside for only 10 minutes in the freezing temperatures with light drizzle coming down.  A few truckers were milling around at the border, there was a tiny immigration and customs building where we went to get our visas and two little campers were setup to sell bread and bottled water.  That was it!  I took a picture of myself next to the Sani Pass sign (9,426 ft) with frost on my hat, and a shot of some truckers walking through the mist to go to the immigration building, then got back in the truck myself.

We pressed on into Lesotho and withing 10 minutes we got out of the clouds and it opened up into one of the most beautiful countrysides I’ve ever seen.  It was pristine!  Our little dirt road cut through this beautiful valley with mountains on either side and two villages with 8-15 stone rondavels off in the distance could be seen as we made our way further into Lesotho.  We drove past the villages and Matthew explained that they put out “flags” (plastic bags on a wooden stick) to indicate the function of their rondavel to passing travelers (mostly truckers transporting goods).  I believe white meant they sell beer, red means meat for sale and green means you can purchase vegetables there.  If there isn’t a flag it’s just a home.  The rondavels with flags are homes too, but they operate a small store too.

Our first stop in Lesotho was at a little barn where about 5 guys were shearing sheep.  Wool is one of the main exports for Lesotho.  When we piled out of the truck a guy was smiling at us and Matthew explained that he was smoking “dagga” – weed.  A pile of sheep were standing around, half were fluffy and the other half shaved.  We walked inside and everyone else in there had sheep pinned down and were using big pairs of scissors to clip the wool off.  We watched for a few minutes and some of the people in our group tried to shear the sheep.  One guy kept watching me and yelling at me.  Eventually Matthew came over to me and said “They’re impressed by your size and want you to sing.”  What?!  I smiled but declined.  The other people in my group tried to get me to also and wanted to sing along with me, but I didn’t do it.  It seemed too odd at the time, but maybe I should just sang something for ‘em – maybe some Elvis.

We left the sheep place and drove up this large mountain.  At the top we stopped and ate lunch outside where it had warmed up nicely.  After lunch the Germans walked another couple of hundred yards up to the top of the mountain.  Before they came back down two young Lesotho shepherds came walking by with a flock of sheep.  They were starring at me, but once I smiled and waved they both smiled, waved and stopped to stare some more.  They stood there smiling and watching me as their flock continued on down the dirt road.  Matthew came up to me and said if I wanted to take a picture they’d expect payment.  The older Canadian guy took their picture and gave them an apple, but they said “money” after that.  Matthew told them in their language that the apple was payment and that’s all they’d get.  He said that giving them fruit is much better because hopefully they won’t grow to expect money.  When the Germans came back down we hopped in the truck, but before we left one of the boys said something to Matthew.  As we pulled away Matthew said he had asked for a ride.

We all agreed that we should give him a ride since we were headed back down the hill and the back seat had room for one more person.  Matthew picked him up and off we went.  Matthew told us that both shepherds were headed to the same place and the other would meet up with the one we were taking later with their flock.  The shepherds are young boys and they leave their villages for a year at a time and wander around Lesotho with the flock.  You see these rudimentary rock structures that are what the shepherds construct to sleep in.  Usually there are two of them so one can stay up at night to watch the flock and keep animals that may eat them away.  Matthew said that if 1 sheep is eaten the cost will be deducted from the shepherd and it’ll be the majority of his pay, so keeping the flock alive is VERY important.

We drove down into one of the villages we’d passed and stopped at a rondavel.  We were invited inside and the woman that lives there with her 2 children offered us a cup of homemade beer (not very good) and some warm homemade bread (excellent).  The bread was being cooked in a type of dutch oven in the center of her rondavel, and she used dried cow pies for fuel because at that altitude you’re in the tundra region so there aren’t any trees to supply wood.  I took a picture of her uncovering the cow pie covered lid from the bread.  We all shared a gigantic piece of this hot bread and it was wonderful, and the Canadian couple bought two more slices from her.  The Canadian guy asked her if the wild spinach on a shelf was marijuana – what a schmuck.  I guess after the guy shearing sheep and the story of traffickers walking down the pass with bags of dope he was still thinking about it…  While we visited this lady in her home her youngest son was asleep in the dark area behind Matthew.  Everything is done in that one round room – cooking, sleeping, etc.

We walked outside and said hello to a few curious locals that had come up to her rondavel, then we left.  We started heading back, but stopped at this really nice lodge at the top of the Pass.  The lodge had nice accommodations and a beautiful deck that would have great views if it wasn’t 35F and socked in with fog and drizzling rain.  It was the coldest I’d been on the entire trip, so I quickly posed for a photo in front of a sign outside and then ran inside to the Highest Pub in Africa.  I drank this hot cider drink called gluwine.  It was perfect – hot and tasty!  Benny wrote a few postcards and mailed them off (I wish I’d brought my address book!).

After a 25 minute break we started down the Pass.  We cleared Lesotho immigration very quickly, but the ride down through the switchbacks took forever because the visibility was literally less than 10ft and we were on this wet rocky road with several thousand foot drop offs and no guard rails, plus almost every turn had a name like “Devil’s Elbow” or something equally as morose.

At the South African border I took a picture of a customs form showing the duties on goods you can bring across the border.  It listed the taxes for chickens and goats!  As soon as I snapped the picture my battery died…

The drive down took a long time but we finally all made it back to the Sani Lodge.  Matthew was a wonderful guide and I highly recommend him for anyone considering a trip into Lesotho from the southern side.  He does all sorts of trips: multi-day treks, single day tours, etc.  The Germans and I had forgotten to put our name on Russell’s stupid dinner list but Matthew had called ahead and we were all served a terrible (and way overpriced) dinner consisting of an anemic piece of boiled chicken, a pile of tasteless white rice and some nasty green beans and carrots.

I ate dinner with the a Japanese guy named Nori and the Germans (Benny, Michael who was actually Dutch, Sabrina, and the fourth German volunteer whose name I forgot).  After dinner I talked to Nori while the Germans played monopoly.  Nori is not your typical Japanese guy.  He’s from Kyoto, but has been living in Cape Town for 2 years, working as a mechanic.  He’s finished his contract and is traveling around South Africa for about a month before flying to China to join a Japanese rally car team where he’ll work on the crew during a big race.  He certainly wasn’t the black suited salaryman riding the subway 3 hours a day and putting in 70 hours a week for a lifetime of conformity.  Nori was a cool guy and he laughed a whole lot; I wish I’d gotten his email address.  After I finished talking to Nori I went back to the room to work on blogs, take a shower after destroying more spiders, and write some post cards.

The little bit of Lesotho I saw was absolutely gorgeous, and the couple of people I met there were extremely warm and kind.  I would love to return some day for a longer period!  Hopefully I’ll be able to talk someone into doing the pony trek thing with me, or maybe I can find out from Lyle (Auraville guy I met in Goa) where the NGO he started there is and volunteer for a week.

Like I said in my previous blog, my conversation with Benny and a Chinese-British doctor (I forgot her name) from the night before was really interesting, but I don’t want to get into it here.  If you’re interested in hearing about it ask me sometime and I’ll tell you.

Here are some of the photos from my drive up into Lesotho through the Sani Pass:

10/25/09

The night before I was supposed to travel down to the Sani Lodge, which is at the base of a mountainous country called Lesotho, I went through the same mess I’d gone through earlier when trying to secure a ride to the Apartheid Museum.  Originally the lady (Kat) that runs the guesthouse where I was staying, Jacaranda Lodge, had said they could provide me with a ride to the bus station in the morning, but now she was in Zanzibar for a wedding and John was supposed to call me a taxi.  Same as before, John didn’t want to call me a taxi but instead kept insisting that I go with some guy from Zimbabwe he knew that lived down the street.  Just like before he kept saying he’d set it up, and just like before after hours and hours of him saying he couldn’t get in contact with the guy I finally said, “I don’t care about saving a few dollars, I want something dependable that’ll be here in the morning!”  He ended up agreeing to call a taxi for me in the morning.

The plan was to get a taxi from Jacaranda to the main bus station in downtown Jo’burg where I’d take an Intercape bus down to Pietermaritzburg.  I’d already arranged for a transfer with the Underberg Express to get me from Pietermaritzburg to the Sani Lodge (Kat set that up), then I’d spend the night at the Sani Lodge and take a tour up into Lesotho the following day.

I woke up at 5:30am on Sunday (10/25) and took the first bath I’ve taken in probably 5-6 years.  I prefer showers, especially when it’s a tub in a hostel, but I didn’t want to walk down the dirt path to the spider infested outdoor showers again.  After the bath I got my stuff ready because I planned on leaving my large pack with most of my stuff at Jacaranda, which meant I’d only be taking my daypack with a change of clothes on this little trip.  Next I woke John up to call me a cab, then I bought a bottled water from him so I could brush my teeth.  Within about 20 minutes the taxi showed up and I took it to “Park Station”.

We left Jacaranda around 7:05am and my bus was scheduled to leave at 8:20am.  I was nervous about driving through downtown Johannesburg because lots of people had told me that there are several car jackings each day and they target tourists because they know they have cash, cameras and cell phones on them.  The websites and quite a few people I’d met said even during the middle of the day guys will walk up to cars stopped at stop lights and pull a gun on you and demand your valuables or sometimes demand that you get out of the car so they can steal it.  I’d read a few police reports in the Jo’burg paper that listed shootings of people being robbed, so it sounded like it could be violent even if you gave up the goods.

The bus station is in a very sketchy area.  It looked dangerous all through downtown Jo’burg and my cabbie kept looking over his shoulder at people approaching the sides of the cab at each stop.  I was pretty nervous the whole ride down there, but luckily there wasn’t much traffic because it was Sunday morning.  That could be good and bad because if someone did try to rob us I could see the driver trying to take off since no cars were in front of us at stop lights.

We got to Park Station around 7:25am and as we pulled into the station I was getting really nervous because there were tons of people walking into the station and they were all starring at me as I pulled through security in the taxi.  I paid the driver, grabbed my little daypack and walked into the massive bus station.  It didn’t feel too dangerous once I got inside the station because there were lots of armed guards.  I walked over to the Intercape ticketing window and a frowny woman took my ticket and wrote the platform/gate number (4A) on it and she told me to line up at 8am.  I stood around in the center of the bus station for about 5 minutes, then I made my way to the gate.  There were already 15-20 people sitting in the chairs in front of the gate, so I found an empty seat and plopped down.  I pulled out my Bourne book and started reading, then after what seemed like forever I asked the girl next to me what time it was and she said 8am.  About that time a family of Indians walked up to the counter where you give your tickets as you pass through to the outside bus platforms.

I figured that the line would be about to form since the girl told me it was 8am and people were already approaching the ticket counter.  I walked up and stood behind the Indian family.  They stood there for about 2 minutes more and then they sat down a massive pile of luggage and all walked outside where the oldest guy smoked and the young kids were kicking each other while what was either the mother or grandmother yelled at them.  I just stood there by myself behind their luggage for probably 20 minutes.  Another bus was loading up and they were passing by the other side of the ticket-takers counter.  Another Indian guy got into this huge argument with the ticket-takers because they said he’d have to weigh these two flat screen tv’s he had and when they were like 55 lbs each he freaked out at the extra fee (R250) they were going to charge him.  He argued for at least 20 minutes.  At one point the senior ticket-taker said “You do not yell at me!  Go away!  I will not serve you!”  It was crazy, but I was the only person that was watching it…  None of the people in the seats about 10 feet away even noticed it.

At some point a line formed very quickly behind me, but I never heard an announcement or anything that indicated our bus was ready.  The Indian family ran back inside and the line started to move.  They checked my ticket against some list and had me sign next to my name, then I headed out into a fenced in yard with a bunch of bus platforms.  I headed to the last bus on the right and since I didn’t have to check luggage I boarded the bus.  It was a double decker.  The bus started in Pretoria I think because there were already quite a few people on it.  The downstairs had a bunch of older white people already sitting down, but I decided to sit upstairs because it was going to be a long ride for me and I figured the lower seats should be for people getting off earlier and older folks.  When I got to the top level there are four seats at the front with a ton of legroom, but they were already taken.

By the way, if you’re as confused as I was about why so many Indians were getting on this bus it’s because Indian laborers were imported to South Africa a long time ago and now the largest community is in Durban, which was the final stop for the bus I was on.  I mentioned in a previous blog that Gandhi started his passive resistance movement in South Africa after being thrown off the train in Maritzburg (which is the short name for where I’d be getting off the bus, Pietermaritzburg).

I took a window seat about halfway back and stuffed my daypack under my seat because it wouldn’t fit in the narrow overhead rack.  I sat there quietly as the bus filled up.  Within a few minutes a very large woman squeezed in behind me and apologized for pushing my seat up.  We talked a little bit, then a girl asked if the empty seat behind me (next to the big woman) was taken.  Apparently someone had already come by and put their stuff in the seat so she asked if she could sit next to me.  The top level was still only about 60% full with completely empty rows, but I said “sure”.  I’m not traveling to keep to myself, plus the long ride would go a lot faster if I could spend the time talking to someone.

The girl that sat next to me was really sweet and we talked for almost the entire journey.  Her name was Mpume, but the “mp” made it sound like “Boomay” at first, but she corrected me and taught me how to pronounce it correctly.  Mpume is a Zulu woman with a young son (I forget his name now), but she was very proud of him and showed me pictures on her phone of her son and her dog.  She impressed me a lot.  She’s a single mother (about 26 I think) whose parents died and her older brother has AIDS, but she sent herself through technical school and became an electrician in the past 2 years.  She was on her way back to a township outside of Pietermaritzburg, which she called “PMB”, after going to her first interview for a job as an electrician at a mining facility about 10 hours west of Jo’burg.  She’d never been that far from home.

We talked about all sorts of things.  She was interested in my Bourne book and my travels, and I was interested in Zulu culture.  She explained to me that her boyfriend owes her brother 12 cows because he got her pregnant.  Normally he’d owe them to her father, but her father was dead and the brother is the patriarch of the family.  Since he took her virginity he owes 3 cows, and since she had his child outside of wedlock he owes an additional 9 cows.  She said he has the choice of either giving the actual cattle or the money it would cost for them, but he can’t afford it right now.  Once he can afford it they’ll get married.  She explained that he can pay little by little, like financing a car or something.  When I got off the bus I told her that she’s worth a lot more than 12 cows and she cracked up.  It was hard to understand the whole concept of cattle for babies/virginity at first, but I suppose I’d heard of it before in school, as kind of a reverse dowry.

I told her she should apply to be an electrician at Columbus Steel because I’d worked for their sister company before and the Acerinox Group has great pay and benefits.  I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to live in a South African shantytown as a single mother without parents and a brother with full blown AIDS who was supposed to be taking care of the family, then on top of that to send yourself through an electrician’s apprenticeship and find a job in heavy industry.  It is just beyond my comprehension.  Mpume was amazing and a lot of fun to talk to.

We stopped for a few seconds at a couple of different places to drop off people or pick some up, but about 5 hours into the ride we stopped at this gigantic truck stop so everyone could take a 15 minute break.  They announced that you had to get back to the bus within 15 minutes or you’d be left there.  Mpume asked me if I wanted anything to eat and said she was going to get something, so I told her to grab me a chicken finger box from KFC and I gave her $20 and told her I’d get her lunch.  After everyone stormed off the bus and made a run for the different restaurants, I slowly made my way towards the KFC, which was the last store along the strip.  A HUGE line formed and I stood outside and smoked a cigarette beside the public restrooms while Mpume waited in line.  There was some ruckus in the bathrooms because 2 young women went into the men’s restroom – all sorts of hooting and hollering were going on.  Another woman from my bus came up and started talking to me and then Mpume showed up without any food and said, “I’m going to the bathroom, but please take my place in line and get our food.”

What?  Crap!  I thought she was going to do that…  I put out my cigarette and she led me around the metal guardrails to about halfway up in line and said “right here”.  The line was completely smashed in and she expected me to take her place right there.  She handed me back my $20 and told me what she wanted.  Everyone in line was starring at us with wide eyes.  I don’t know if it was because I was the only white person in a room of 200+ people, if it was because a young Zulu woman (who was gorgeous and had been a model before getting pregnant) was handing me $20, or if they were wondering how someone my size would manage to squeeze into the line in her place.  I got down on 1 knee, ducked under the rail and simply stood up into the line as Mpume walked away to the bathrooms.  The people around me were about half my size, so just standing up parted the waters, but I apologized to everyone who was shoved backwards as I stood up.  I have to admit that the whole thing made me feel uncomfortable, but once the line moved forward several people started smiling at me and asking where I was from and where I was going.

Race is a huge thing in South Africa.  Apartheid only ended in 1994, 15 years ago.  South Africans aren’t afraid to discuss it and are fairly open about it, particularly people of color.  Whites talk about it, but I’ve been to SA twice now and each time whites only talk to me about it if no blacks are around.  It was strange for me to be in a restaurant, actually a packed restaurant, where I was the only white person, but no more strange than any other place I’ve visited on this trip.  In China and India they stare at you because you’re an oddity.  They don’t see many white people, or at least not many people as large as me.  In South Africa there are plenty of white people, but they stare because 15 years ago blacks were forced to stay out of white areas and live in townships.  So to see a white person on a public bus sitting with Zulus or in line at a truck stop KFC must be a little strange for them based on their reactions to me.

I got our food and made my way back to the bus.  Mpume wasn’t back yet so I sat our food on our seats and went back outside the bus and smoked a cigarette with an Indian guy.  He was trying to hurry up and smoke before his kids got back because if they saw him they’d tell on him.  He told me that the drivers would never leave anyone behind and they just tell people that so they won’t spend too long goofing off.  Most people were already back on the bus, eating pizzas, chicken or biltong in their seats.  Just as Mpume got back I boarded and we sat down and had a late lunch.

Around that time I realized the bus was running about an hour and a half to two hours late and I started to panic.  The Underberg Express was supposed to transfer me from the bus station to the Sani Lodge, but would they wait if my bus was really late?  I told Mpume I was nervous that I’d be stranded in PMB (Sani Lodge is about 2 hours away), and she asked if I had the phone number for the Underberg Express.  I searched through my bag and found it and she smiled and said “no problem”.  She dialed the number on her cell phone.  That was really helpful because my cell phone couldn’t get a connection at all in South Africa.  I’d been trying to use my own cell for almost a week and hadn’t had any luck.  It worked great in Luang Prabang, Laos but wouldn’t work at all in Johannesburg – go figure.  I talked to one of the owners of the Underberg Express, Steven’s wife, and told her which stop we were close to and she sighed and was quiet.  I apologized and she said it wasn’t my fault but that she supposed they would just have to wait.  She said they’d see me when I got there and that they’d be in the McDonald’s parking lot across the street from the Intercape station.

We continued along for another hour or so until we got to PMB.  As soon as we stopped in front of the Intercape office I said goodbye to Mpume and jumped off the bus.  I put on my little day pack and crossed the street to the McDonald’s.  As I rounded the parking lot a woman stepped out of a little car (I think it was a Honda Civic) and waived at me.  I walked over and introduced myself and put my daypack in the trunk.  She asked if that was all I brought and I told her I was traveling lightly.  I heard someone yell “GOODBYE, MATT!”  I looked up and across the street and saw Mpume waving at me.  I wish I’d taken a photo of her and gotten her email address, but I didn’t.  A few minutes later Steven came out and we left.  Steven and his wife were both super friendly people and we talked all the way to Sani Lodge.  Steven stopped in Underberg at a bank for me to use an ATM because I was low on rand.  The drive took about 1.5 hours and I was dropped off at the Sani Lodge around 4pm.

The Sani Lodge is rustic, very rustic.  It is also very laid back, like more laid back than an opium den at 3am (at least how I’d imagine one to be).  I walked into this building that had a common room with couches near a fireplace and lots of tour pamphlets on the walls, plus a kitchen.  About 6 people were sitting around talking and didn’t even look up at me.  I walked around the property for about 25 minutes looking for someone to check me in.  Nobody in the office – the door was locked.  Nobody in the campground, nobody in the shared bathrooms, nobody in the common area (kitchen, sitting room), nobody on the patios, nobody around the rondavels…  What the hell kind of Lodge is this?  I finally asked another guest coming out of their room if anyone actually worked here and they said to pick up the phone in the common room and it would ring through to the owner’s cabin.  I went back to the common room and found the phone and a note on the cluttered wall of tour posters and pamphlets saying to use the phone.  I picked it up and it started ringing, but I didn’t get anyone.  I walked around some more.

I went down the hill to this little store that’s part of the property, but it was closed.  Eventually this goofball comes walking down a path and I ask if he works there and he says “yes” and asks who I am.  It was the owner, Russell.  Russell struck me as inattentive and rude.  He led me to my rondavel, which was much more “authentic” (dirty, rustic, etc) than the one I’d been in during my Kruger trip.  All the windows were open when I walked in – spiders everywhere.  It was ok, but not worth the price I paid for it at all.

I went back to the common room and asked what my options were for food around here and Russell said I needed my name on a list earlier in the day to have dinner at their restaurant, but he’d check to see if they could accommodate me.  He disappeared for about 30 minutes.  While he was gone I went into the kitchen and noticed that the refrigerator was stocked with cold South African beer and it was on the honor system.  I put my name down on the sheet of paper on top of the refrigerator and marked off 1 beer.  I walked outside to smoke and Russell was walking by, but didn’t bother to say anything to me so I yelled after him and asked if I could have dinner and he said “oh yea, it will be ok”.

I went down the hill to the little building near the road and had dinner with 4 Germans who had all recently graduated from high school and were all doing a 1 year volunteer program to help get kids off the streets of Kimberley.  Another girl, from Belgium, ate with us.  Everyone was really friendly and we had a good dinner and a lot of fun telling stories together.  After dinner I walked down this long dirt road with two of the Germans, Benny and Sabrina, to a really nice resort hotel to pick up cigarettes.  It was about a one hour trip there and back, but at least they had an expensive cigarette machine.  They had a restaurant too, but I wouldn’t be taking dinner there because it required dinner jackets for entry and all I had with me was shorts and t-shirts.  It was freezing outside, windy and drizzling rain.  It was also pitch black because you are in the middle of nowhere, and on the way back I was almost bitten by some enormous dog when a villager passed by with two huge dogs on a leash but I didn’t see them until one of the dogs was right at my elbow.

I ended up staying up kinda late with the Germans.  I spent most of the evening talking to Benny.  I added about 6-8 more beers to my tab and then headed back in the dark to my rondavel around midnight.  I brought a flashlight but had forgotten it in my room, so I slipped around in the mud quite a bit.  I killed spiders in the shower for about 10 minutes before getting in, then I killed spiders around the bed before closing the windows and hitting the sack.  I had to be up early to go into Lesotho because that was my whole reason for coming down here.

If this wasn’t already a ridiculously long blog entry I’d write about my conversations with the Germans because they were interesting, but I know I’m going to be taking flack for the length of this one already…

Here are some pics from my trip from Jo’burg to the Sani Lodge. My Intercape bus, a shot of Jo’burg, a look inside my rondavel, and a few photos of the grounds at Sani Lodge:

I’ve managed to write almost 3 more blogs from my RTW trip, but they all need a little more so I won’t be posting them until tomorrow (err, later today).  After those three are posted I’ll be done with South Africa and Lesotho.  Tomorrow Jean has to work all day so we won’t be going to the Hollywood Christmas parade.    I’ll probably work on the blog for a while, read up on Greece (where Jean wants to go next) and maybe fix the blinds in our bedroom.

I worked this morning and then relaxed all day long, mostly watching football and reading articles on the internet.  The Tide struggled with Auburn, but a win is a win and now they’ve gone undefeated in the regular season for two years in a row.  Nick Saban is worth every penny the UA’s giving him.  I’m excited about the SEC Championship next weekend, but Florida looked a lot better this weekend than Bama did.

I also cleaned up my email’s inbox finally.  While I was making my way through my inbox I stumbled across an email I sent myself in Saigon.  I was watching tv in my hotel and this video of a Malaysian folk singer came on and it was transcendental, much like the first time I saw/heard OCMS when they were on Conan back in 2003.  I can’t explain the feeling I had, but it was the same in both instances.  I honestly felt a natural high.

The woman’s name is Zee Avi and I almost feel like I’m cheating on Jean when I listen to her because I’m in love…  I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s the lyrics or her beautiful voice, or possibly the cadence with which she sings most of her songs.  “Bitter Heart”, “Honey Bee” and “Just You and Me” are excellent songs.  She plays the ukelele and sounds almost Polynesian in some songs.  She kind of reminds me of Natalie Merchant and Norah Jones.  Maybe a little Mazzy Star “Fade Into You” thrown in for good measure.  Natalie Merchant is the only female artist whose album I purchased during my high school years.  I think there must be something about that sultry 70’s lounge/nightclub voice that I like.

Happy Thanksgiving!  I went to work this morning for about 3 hours, and Jean cooked up a storm while I was there.  When I got home I played with Charlie and Tank for a while before we sat down for our Thanksgiving lunch.  Since then I’ve been playing on the internet and watching Texas play Texas A&M.  Jean and I both have to work tomorrow.

Monroe has died…  I hope the Bug Fair comes back to LA soon so I can get Monroe II, or maybe a praying mantis or something.

I’m going to attempt to post the rest of the blog entries from my trip this weekend because I know it’s getting hard to follow with current entries mixed in with old ones.  My dad says he can’t understand what’s going on in the blog.  I hope everyone isn’t as confused.

I don’t have to work on Sunday because a guy volunteered to work on-call duty since he has to be up there for something else, so I’m trying to talk Jean into going into Hollywood to see the Hollywood Christmas Parade.  If she doesn’t have to work we’ll probably go.

10/24/09

I woke up at 4:15am in my rondavel, showered, finished packing and was all set at 5am because that’s when Jean had told me to be ready by.  By the way, his named is actually pronounced “Jun”, like a quick “John”.  I waited around at the coffee building for about 5 minutes but when nobody else showed up I walked over to the tent camping area since Jean was nowhere to be found, but neither were the British couple nor the supposed 4 older Brits Jean brought up the day before.

As I got into the tent campground I walked past another guide who was getting out of his tent and since at the time I couldn’t remember Jean’s name I asked, “Do you know where the Livingstone driver is?”  He said “Jean? Yea, the one snoring there in the back.”  I walked around a few tents to the back row and found a tent door half unzipped.  I could see through the half opened door that he was passed out – laying on the ground with most of his clothes still on and all the contents from his pockets thrown around the tent (coins, cell phone, papers), so I yelled at him three times.  He didn’t wake up until I hit him with the wooden stick attached to my rondavel key.

Jean popped up and stumbled out of his tent quickly, really quickly.  You could tell he knew he’d messed up.  He stayed up way too late and shouldn’t have drank so much when he was supposed to be up to shuttle a tour group into Kruger and take a group back to Jo’burg starting at 5am.  He patted himself down frantically and asked me “Where’s my cellphone?” Before I could even point into his tent he ran back in there and collected all the crap thrown around on the floor.  He came back out and quietly asked if anyone else was waiting.  I said I hadn’t seen them yet and he said looked relieved and said “Ok, that’s good!”  No sooner than I said that all 6 Brits came walking up to us in front of the tent.  We went straight to the van and you could tell Jean was still half-drunk – kinda out of it, groggy and a little pie-eyed.

We drove into the park (about 20-30km from Timbavati), and we saw some hyenas laying beside the road in the reserve just before Kruger’s Orpen gate.  Hyena are crazy looking: so muscular and beefy, but they almost look crippled because their hind legs are much shorter than their front legs and that causes them to have a strange looking walk.

Jean went into the building just inside the Orpen gate to check us all in and then we drove to the Moela campsite to drop off the Brits and pick up all the people I’d been on tour with.  I waited in the van while Aaron, Pieter, Roman and Allison all got in.  On your final morning of the tour you have the option of either a paid walking safari or a final game drive.  Nobody mentioned the walking safari so we drove around in the van (not the open-air truck) looking for more animals.  Jean said that he’s seen lots of lions in the mornings before but none of us were feeling it.  It was too early for all of us after several days of being up at 4am and 20+ hours of game drives.  Jean said normally he drives around (only on the paved roads since you’re in the van) for about 2-3 hours, but we only drove for about an hour into the park on the tarred road before taking a vote on whether or not to call it quits.  We hadn’t seen anything but some supposedly rare birds, these huge things Jean called “ground hornbills“, until we finally we all voted to turn around and haul ass to Timbavati to get breakfast.

When we got to Timbavati we were the only ones there except for the staff because the huge tour groups had all taken off for their safaris.  We sat down in the breakfast area next to the bar and pool and one of the ladies made me an excellent ham and cheese omelette.  We ate breakfast within maybe 30 minutes, then everyone went for a bathroom pitstop and then on to the van to head back to Jo’burg.  On my way down from the patio next to the pool to the restrooms I saw a massive warthog in the grass about 15 feet in front of me eating bugs or grass.  I took pictures of him but was a little nervous because they’re supposedly pretty mean buggers.

We finally left the Kruger area around 7:45am.  First we drove to Nelspruit to drop off Aaron for his Greyhound bus to Maputo, Mozambique.  I sat in the front and talked to Jean the entire way while everyone in the back either slept or looked out the windows.  On the way to Nelspruit Jean gave us questionnaires to fill out.  Alison, Aaron and I all complained about Livingstone’s vehicle maintenance in order to help the guides out in the future because we felt bad for Elson (4 tire changes!), but Peiter and Roman just checked “good” for everything.

Nelspruit looked pretty nice and we drove through some beautiful countryside on our way back to Jo’burg.  Alison was hungry after driving for like 4 hours and asked when we’d be stopping, but Jean kept saying “not much further”.  We drove for another hour and a half before we stopped at what appeared to be a truck stop with some little restaurant called “Steers”.  Roman bought me a big messy burger for lunch and within 30 minutes we were back on the road.  We passed by a semi with its bed on fire.  The driver was in the road and frantically waving at people passing by on the highway, and when Jean stomped on it and we sped past I said, “Why aren’t we stopping to help that guy?”  He said something like “It’s too late to help him – his truck will burn down.”  I think we could have pulled over and told him to uncouple his rig from the trailer to save it, then all wave down other drivers to hopefully get some fire extinguishers and try to put it out because the flames still weren’t too high.

After a LONG 9 hour drive from Kruger to Jo’burg, we dropped Roman off first at a backpacker’s called “Bob’s Bunkhouse”.  Allison and I quickly smoked a cigarette outside the van because the area looked a pretty dodgy.  Next we dropped Allison off at her backpacker’s called “Diamond Diggers”.  She asked me about getting together for dinner but I declined because I just wanted to get back to my hostel since I had to leave the following morning for another long day of bus travel.  After we got her into her hostel I used Jean’s map book to guide him to my place, Jacaranda Lodge.  I got there right around 6pm.

I got a very warm greeting from all the guys: John (the resident manager), Lee, Peiter, John and Jo-Jo the pitbull.  Everyone wanted to hear about my trip to Kruger.  Peiter informed me that “You Americans don’t know how to make billllllllltong.”  Lee and I sat outside smoking cigarettes and he bought me a beer as we talked about the flat tire incident, John ordered me dinner and we talked about how he was ready to quit his post at Jacaranda because Kat was mistreating him, and I watched WWE wrestling with the other John for a while.  It was a lot of fun hanging out with those guys and I actually felt like I was at home in a weird way.  I apologized for going to bed early (around 11pm) because I had to get up the following morning to head down to the base of Lesotho.

Here are the photos taken on my way from Kruger to Jo’burg:

I’ve been back in the US for a little over two weeks now, but I haven’t had many opportunities to post blogs.  I started back to work the day after I got home, then two days later Jean’s mom came into town, and when I wasn’t at work or with Jean and her mom I’ve been trying to move the website over to a new hosting company’s servers.  My two year contract with Hostmonster runs out in another 5 days so I needed to either pay to continue with them or find a new company.  They wanted to charge me double what other companies charge to host the site and wouldn’t give me their new customer discount, so I switched!  I’ve had to download dozens of gigs of files and upload them to the new servers, transfer MySQL databases and modify paths, transfer domain registrations, point domains to new paths, etc.

Things are finally almost completely switched over.  You’re reading the blog from the new host’s server right now.  Should you find any dead links or pictures/video that don’t work, please email me and let me know so I can try and fix it.  This weekend should be kinda busy because I have to work, Jean will be working on Black Friday and then the weekend, I need to do a little Christmas shopping and I have to catch up on my blogs.  I plan on writing the rest of the South Africa blog entries and all the Patagonia entries before next Monday.  Oh yea, this is college football’s rival week, so I’ll also be watching a lot of football too.  The Iron Bowl starts at 11:30am PST on Friday – I’ll be watching Bama roll over the Aubie Tigers after going in to work early.

Dad is in Chicago visiting one of my sisters, and I talked to my other sister’s husband tonight to see if he wants to go to the BCS Championship if the Tide makes it there.  If the Tide beats Auburn and then Florida in the SEC Championship on December 5th, Alabama will be heading to the National Championship game at the Rose Bowl on January 7th, most likely playing Texas.  It would be the first time UA plays for a National Championship since 1992, plus it’s gonna be at The Grandaddy of Them All!  If my brother in law comes out, maybe he’d come a little early to go to the Rose Parade and we could head down to Pasadena for some tailgating at the Rose Bowl (Ohio State and Oregon I think).

Well, the blog should be back in motion now that things are about to calm down some…