PLANES, TRAINS, AUTOMOBILES, PED-ICABS, MOTO-TAXIES, BOATS, AND BUSES, OH, AND DON’T FORGET THE TOILET PAPER!

We just returned from a three week plus tour of Peru and we traveled in most modes of transportation excepting animal. Jean spent weeks pouring over tour books, calling airlines and booking agents to organize our trip. We began our journey by taking the long six-hour bus ride to Guayaquil over the “less-than-secondary” Ecuadorian road system. We arrived just in time to taxi over to the airport to catch our flight to Lima, Peru. We were met at the airport by the hotel driver so we didn’t have to figure that one out. Lima is a HUGH city with 8 million people. We stayed in a nice part of town and had previously arranged to meet some boating friends there. The highlight for me was seeing my long-time friend Joe Smith who I hadn’t seen since 2005. Joe and I used to play guitar and fiddle together for years in Mexico

After two nights in Lima we climbed aboard a luxury, double-decker, semi-sleeper bus for the long ride to Ica. Of course we were served lunch, a dry ham (one slice) and cheese (one slice) sandwich with a choice of a glass (not a bottle)

of water or sticky sweet Inca Cola. From Lima south the land is all desert right down to the ocean and the road was bordered by high sand dunes. When we reached the coastal town of Pisco, which was mostly destroyed in the 2006 earthquake, we headed up into the high desert to Ica.Ah Ica, the noisiest town in Peru. There is hardly a private automobile in the town. The streets were crowded with yellow taxies (a universal color for taxies) and moto-cabs. From the sounds on the street they all have a working horn, bell, siren, or claxon. Our semi-cheap hotel ($15/night) was furnished with a nice horse hair and pebble mattress (said my back each morning) and two ten-pound pillows (I guess so you don’t steal them). The hot water was a 50/50 deal. However, it was quiet except for the 2 AM hooker some guy brought to his room. Oh, it was also good that we had a few rolls of toilet paper in our luggage. We surmised that hotel profit margins depend on how much toilet paper they give you. This was to be the norm for our whole trip.
In the morning we booked a tour to three local wineries where they not only produce some good wine but also distill a brandy they call Pisco . The Peruvian drink is a Pisco Sour, which is similar to a Gin Fizz. A big controversy exists between Chile and Peru as to who invented Pisco and Pisco Sours. Our ten o’clock tour found us quite tipsy by noon.

Very early the next morning again boarded the bus for Nazca where we had booked an early afternoon flight to view the Nazca lines. Nazca lines are those shapes that were carved in the desert floor 3000 years ago and can only be fully seen from the air. We had a few hours to kill so we took a little tour of some excavated Peruvian tombs. It was a long ride out into the desert to the tomb site. There are hundreds of tombs but only a handful have been excavated. The burial site is Pre-Incan and so many people were buried here that the desert is littered with pieces of human bone! The mummies are very well preserved due to the dry climate. Our guide said it rains only 5 minutes per year in this area! From the tombs we went directly to the airport and boarded our six-passenger plane for an exciting flight over the Nazca lines. Not wanting to spend the night in Nazca we had booked another luxury bus trip to the mountain city of Arequipa located at 7,600 feet. Because the trip was 12 hours we were served two meals, the normal dry sandwich for lunch and for dinner, a nice change, lukewarm, deep-fried smelts on a heap of rice. We arrived in Arequipa around two in the morning.

Arequipa has a population of 750,000 and lies in a high-mountain valley. The central city is well preserved in the colonial style. We visited the 400 year old Monastery of Santa Catalina. The entrance fee was only $4 and we had an English speaking guide. Later we ate in some nice upscale restaurants. Through our hotel we booked an overnight tour to Chivay to take a tour of Colca Canyon where the attraction is the canyon itself which rivals the American Grand Canyon, sighting the Peruvian Condor and seeing the colorful locals.

The altitude at Chivay is 12,000 feet and most people get altitude sickness which consists mainly of a headache. Our tour took most of the day to drive to Chivay. Along the way we made a lot of stops to view the scenery and take pictures of Llamas and Vicunas a sort of miniature llama. In Chivay we stayed overnight in a room without heat (and, of course, little toilet paper). The bed was stacked with six-inches of Alpaca blankets but did have hot water. Early the next morning we traveled along the canyon to our ultimate destination of Pinchollo to observe Condors flying along the high cliffs along with a hundred or so other tourists. We were fortunate to see and photograph three Condors. From Pinchollo we drove all the way back to Arequipa. Back in town we had our hotel buy our bus tickets for the trip to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca, some 10 hours away. Yes, dry sandwich again!

Lake Titicaca ….. always heard of it, now we’re there! It is South America’s largest lake and the world’s highest navigable lake. Sitting at around 13,000 feet the air is brilliant blue and the water a comfortable 42 degrees! A tour to the famous floating reed islands starts early in the morning. We boarded small covered boats that hold about 30 persons for the one hour trip to the islands. We were one of the first tour boats to leave but we were quickly passed by 25 or so faster boats. The island residents are totally dependent on tourism. They give demonstrations on how they live and sell hand-made crafts. We took a fun ride aboard a reed boat and purchased a few items. After a couple of hours we boarded our boat and motored two more hours to another regular island where we had lunch. We walked around the entire island which isn’t that easy at that altitude. We departed in the late afternoon and our boat was the slowest in the fleet so our return trip ended after dark. Early the next morning (geez, I’m getting tired of getting up early) we had booked a first class train trip to Cusco aboard the Andean Explorer. The last time I took a train trip was in 1964. So, we get up and go down to the street and hail a pedi-cab for the 3 or 4 block trip to the train station. Well the driver thinks we want the train which is located next to the lake (which we don’t). When it becomes obvious that he is going to the wrong place we have only 20 minutes to catch our train! We tell him we want the other train. “Mas rapido” we tell him because we are going to be late but, he doesn’t know where the other station is located so he takes us to the bus station where we grab the first moto-cab we see and tell him “mas rapido”. Well, we go flying in this contraption through, thankfully, the semi-deserted streets of Puno and after a couple of wrong turns, make it to the station with 10 minutes to spare.

First class aboard the Andean Explorer is very first class. We sat in nice living room chairs at a big table across from a young British couple. We were served a fancy lunch and some drinks and later, we were entertained by two different Peruvian folk song groups and a fashion show. The thought of traveling by train across the Andes was exciting. Our highest point was at La Raya at an altitude of 14,000 feet. It was never-to-be-forgot experience. We arrived in Cusco in the early evening. Jean had booked an expensive hotel room ($35/night) because she wanted hot water, heat, a nice bed and toilet paper. Our room was complete with a fireplace and satellite TV (CNN in English!).

Cusco is a nice city of 300,000 people and steeped in rich Peruvian history. Much of the town is lined with ancient Inca-built massive stone walls. Jean planned on four nights here. We spent time walking up and down the narrow streets taking lots of pictures. We stopped at a local guitar maker and I played a few of his instruments. We also walked through plenty of artesian markets to purchase our last-chance items.

OK .... That's most of our trip. I'll upload the remainder this weekend. Whew!

BACK FROM OUR INLAND TOUR

Well we just returned from a two-plus weeks tour of Ecuador. We began by meeting our oldest daughter, Kirsten, her boyfriend, Fred and our oldest granddaughter, Courtney in Guayaquil, a sea port city in southern Ecuador. All three flew to the Galapagos for four days while Jean and I explored Guayaquil. After they returned we all boarded a bus for Riobamba, located in central Ecuador, wanting to see the open market. Here we saw our first mountain people. They are all very short and all the men wear either one of those small felt hats and the women wear either the same type of hat or a pretty straw hat with a thin brim. We stayed overnight in Riobamba and then took the down bus to Alausi where we wanted to ride the famous mountain train. This is where things started to get adventuresome. We were delayed in getting to Alausi because we had to wait in Riobamba for our laundry to get finished. It wasn’t done by 3:30 because the dryers weren’t working at the laundry shop so, after paying $10, we took our wet laundry with us. We arrived late in Alausi and the hotel we stayed in had the thinnest mattresses I’ve ever seen. The manager said to knock on her door in the morning and she would turn on the hot water. Next morning…. No manager in her room, i.e no hot water. So we go at 6:30 AM down to the train station to buy our tickets so we can take the early train because we have to catch the 2:30 PM bus to Quito, a six hour trip. Well crap!! The early tickets are sold out and the earliest train is, yep, 2:30 PM ! So, we really want to go so we wait. In the meantime we have to check out of our hotel room however, the manager (who now appears) says we can keep our luggage in her room until we return from the train ride. Two-thirty arrives and they have sold more tickets than seats available on the train! We are at the back of the line so….. no train ride and we’ve missed the bus. We go back to the hotel to get our luggage and ….. no manager! We wait for an hour and she shows up. She tells us we can catch the bus coming up from Guayaquil if we go up to the highway so here we are on the side of the road waiting for the busses to come by. Don’t get ahead of me now…. Every bus headed to Quito is full so we decide to catch a local bus to Riobamba then catch a bus at the terminal to Quito. Every bus is full going to Riobamba and it is going to be dark pretty soon. Kirsten happened to flag down a guy in an SUV coming out of a gas station and talked him into giving us a ride to Riobamba for 20 bucks. We finally get to Riobamba and catch the bus to Quito where we arrive at the hotel at 11:00 PM. Now we have to be up early to catch our shuttle to Amazonia and Fred has to catch his flight back to California. So, the next morning Jean, Kirsten, Courtney and I meet our driver and head for a nice 4 days exploring the headwaters of the Amazon, in an area known as Amazonia. Two hours out of Quito we are almost at the top of the Andes, ready to cross over to the jungle when the road is closed by SNOW! Our driver said it is the first time he has ever driven in snow and the first time this road was ever closed due to snow. Darn global warming! So we have to back track two hours and take a southern route which ends up taking three extra hours. We had reservations at a jungle resort named Casa Suizo located on the Napo river and we had to be met by a river panga so they could transport us to the resort and the last one runs at 5PM. We arrived at our pick up point at 5 PM and just made it. We spent four very nice and interesting days at the resort. We took guided tours of the jungle every day with two guides, one who spoke your language and one who was indigenous. We trekked through the jungle, saw lots of wildlife and exotic plants. We were shown how the locals trap animals for food and how they use plants for medicine. The resort was all inclusive so we always returned for 3 meals a day served in a pool-side setting. I normally don’t go for organized setting such as this but I was quite impressed. You would be hard pressed to see and do what we did on your own. After four days we returned to Quito where Kirsten and Courtney caught their flight back to California. Quito is the capital of Ecuador and located right on the equator. We visited Mitad del Mundo which is “ the middle of the world”, an area set aside to celebrate the line going around the middle of the world. The next few days were spent exploring Quito and bussing back home to the boat. We had a great time but, I’m still recovering from “bus butt”.

Pics: Guayaquil, old woman in Riobamba, hats in Riobamba, woman in Riobamba,jungle monkey, view from our jungle resort, self explanitory

WE'RE "SOUTH OF THE EQUATOR, DOWN ECUADOR WAY

Well, we tried to update our Blog via email and, of course, we had the wrong email address so it didn't happen but, here we are, past the equator and laying comfortably in Bahia Caraquez, Ecuador. Our passage over the equator was interesting. First, the line which marks the equator is a lot wider than we thought, maybe 50 to 75 feet wide and second the color was mostly black and it was kind of wavy rather than a true straight line. We stopped right on the equator and performed a few experiments. When we flushed the toilet we noticed that the water did not swirl clockwise or counter-clock wise and the same with the water in the sink. Our GPS showed 00.00.00 but did not indicate South or North. The most interesting thing was that our compass spun in a circle until we passed over the equator! It was a 12 day sail from El Salvador and all of it hard on the wind. We spent half the time passing through the ITCZ where the wind changed strength often and it rained most of the time. We had one night where it rained hard for 6 hours non-stop. On our fifth day we got our butts kicked and ducked into Isla Cocos. Cocos is 300 miles west of Costa Rica and is a Costa Rican National Park. It usually costs $75/day to stay there but we were exempted because we stopped due to bad weather. The island is a lush green with lots of waterfalls. The park extends twelve miles around the island and is patrolled for illegal fishing. There is a small conservation core that live on the island and they sell polo shirts, jewelry, and other items to raise funds to help support the island. One interesting item we purchased was a necklass made from the hooks of seized long liners caught fishing in the park waters.

We had to motor the last 80 miles directly into 20 knots of wind with six to eight foot seas. It was very slow and uncomfortable. Our friends directed us to a secure anchorage 15 miles north of our destination to wait for the next mornings' tide. Jean and I finally had a chance to toast our crossing of the equator (now we are officially known as "shelbacks") with a bottle of champagne followed by potato soup. Our bar crossing the next morning was smooth and easy, nothing like Bahia del Sol. Our anchorage is located right on the edge of the town of Bahia Caraquez in front of the restaurant Puerto Amistad. The restaurant operates the moorings and dinghy dock plus, the offer a wide variety of cruiser services from water delivery to laundry. And boy, is it cheap here! Diesel fuel is an unbeleiveable $1.03/gallon and a large lunch can be had for $1.50. Puerto Amistad takes care of some of the check-in into the country but, everyone has to go to the coastal city of Manta to check-in with the National Police. It is a 3 hour bus ride or, for $40, you can rent a taxi for all day. We shared a taxi with another couple. Manta has a very large tuna cannery operation, in fact, Ecuador has the largest tuna canning operation in the world. We went down to the beach and purchased a large tuna for $6 and paid another $1 to have it cleaned. Manta also boasts a fairly large tuna boat building industry. They are built right on the beach and most are fabricated from wood. On our return trip we stopped in the town of Monte Cristi to purchase a real hand made, Panama hat. We expect that we will really enjoy Ecuador and, as like most of the places we visit, will have a hard time leaving.

Boats on the Beach in Manta

"Panama" hats in Monte Cristi

WE'RE OUTA' HERE!

Yes, it's time to leave for Ecuador but, as always, we hate to leave all our friends. We expected to stay 3 weeks and now it is almost nine weeks. We were delayed 2 days due to tropical storm Alma (the first of the season). Our trip to Ecuador should take around 10 - 12 days so we will be updating our blog via email. As we always say " The best time to leave is when you don't want to go."

PERSONAL SECURITY IN EL SALVADOR

For all of you who are considering traveling down here to Salvador: There is no need to bring your own security guard!! Well, that's a statement that we thought we'd never make. All of the well-to-do people here have their own personal security guards and most business establishments have at least one armed security guard. Not that it's dangerous here but, people with money are occasionally kidnapped and a guard costs about $10 per day. Jean and I took an overnight trip to San Salvador with our friends Mike & Mary to celebrate our Jean's birthday. One morning we took a taxi down to the central open-air market located right in the center of San Salvador (hence the name). We were stopped by these two city policemen who told us that we should be careful of pick-pockets and that we should be careful where we go. We thanked them and continued to stroll the markets. A little later we met up with the same officers. They called two of their officers over and assigned them to watch over us while we shopped! They also told them to follow us at a discrete distance and not be obvious. There you go...when did that happen last in San Francisco? Anyway, the open market is quite an experience. Jean and I have been down there twice and always enjoyed the sights and sound of the vendors. Name a vegetable and you can find it somewhere in the market. Fresh vegies, housewares, box California wine ($10 for 5 liters of Franzia Burgundy), hardware items, you name it. Of course, there are many places and many kinds of food from which to choose. This fella here, in the video, managed to miss his fingers while frantically chopping his cabbage. He does, however, look pretty nonchalant about it.

We had an interesting bus trip from Bahi del Sol to San Salvador. Here in Salvador, when it's time for the bus driver to get a drug and alcohol test they just pull the bus over to the side of the road and perform a breath and urine test right there! Our bus was pulled over right at the entrance to the bus terminal. The poor driver was given a little cup and he stood behind a bush and peed right there! Apparently, bus costumers are used to this as they just got off the bus and walked to the terminal from there.

We all stayed at a nice hotel near one of the large European-style malls and went to a nice steak house for Jean's birthday dinner. Four of us, four steaks, two bottles of wine, four top-of-the-line after-dinner drinks, and desert (plus included tip) $105. Ya gotta love it in El Salvador! No wonder we can't seem to get away from here.

SURFING INTO EL SALVADOR

So far twenty-eight boats have come into Bahia Del Sol this season. The other day six boats wanted to come in but the surf across the bar was too large and the wave period was too short so the boats had to anchor out for the night. The next morning we saw that the surf was a little smaller and occassionaly there were some long periods (relatively speaking) so the pilot decided that we could bring the boats over the bar. Sail boats are slow so the technique is to bring them close to the bar behind the breaking waves then, when the set passes, the sailboat goes full speed over the bar before the next wave set comes in. It works most of the time but, as you can see from this sequence of pictures, the 45-foot catamaran, Yachtman's Dream, had an extra exciting entrance. The first picture is from the pilot boat and the remaining were taken by Paradise Bound who was waiting outside to cross the bar. The surf was at least six-feet and moving quickly. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get all six boats safely over the bar. The pilot and I got pretty beat up in the rough surf but we still had a good time.

TESTING OUR EMAIL UPDATE SYSTEM

We just set up our email update system so we can update our blog while we're underway or away from a wireless station.

GREAT TIMES IN EL SALVADOR

The owner of Hotel Bahia del Sol asked us to help him with a print ad so Jean pulled me to the top of the mast and I took a few pictures then, a friend of ours created this ad for the hotel. We all hope this ad will help attract more cruisers to the area. I'm still volunteering to help bring the boats across the bar with the pilot boat. We go out and the pilot decides when we head in and I talk the boat through the maneuvers. It's great fun and so far 23 boats have come across the bar this season. We brought one boat in that had a nine-foot draft with no problems. The local fifty-foot sport fishers go in and out the bar all the time without a pilot but, sail boats have to wait for high tide to ensure that there is plenty of water and they need help locating the channel. We expect 3 to 5 more cruisers to arrive next week.

Eleven of us rented a panga for a day and took a tour of the mangrove estuary. We each paid $6 for the all-day trip. We first visited a small island in the middle of the mangroves that had mango trees all over. We all picked all we could hold. We then took a long site seeing trip in and out of the mangroves. At lunch time we stopped at a shore side palapa restaurant. As you can see from the picture it was very rustic and very Salvadorian. We all ordered the fish lunch. Five dollars for a medium fish and six dollars for a large one. Everything was freshly caught and cleaned then fried in a large pan over an open fire. The fish was served with ice-cold beers, deep-fried shrimps and cooked rice. We had a great view of the estuary and watched the weekend panga traffic cruise by. We saw a funeral procession consisting of 3 panga loads of people and one casket. We were told that they were giving the recently passed his final tour of the estuary.

After lunch we continued on to the Rio Lempa, the longest river in El Salvador. We beached at the mouth of the river and all took a cool, freshwater swim then scavenged the beach for any washed-up treasures. So, for the all-day trip, local guide, panga, and lunch it cost us $26 per couple.

We hadn't planned on staying in El Salvador this long but, it is so pleasant and beautiful we have a hard time pulling ourselves away, however, Ecuador is calling and we can't wait too long to leave due to the weather. Probably and week or two more here then off for a 10 or 12 day sail south of the Equator.