June 2010
27 posts
4 tags
San Francisco Church, Lima
06/27/10
Six months in…
Boxie-boo did her morning happy sway, mimicking the dance of the sugarplum ferry after 16 pictures of beer. Bingo bang bang was in full motion. Her smile gleamed like a well-oiled pair of buttocks. We were stoked!
As a result of catching up on sleep, I woke up in a good mood, feeling a presumptious happiness, like a dog when a doorbell rings and thinks the...
4 tags
The Huaca Pucllana Ruins, Lima
06/26/10
Taking off my shirt and dropping my pants (I see that I already have your full attention), I reached into my belly button and pulled a clump of lint the size of a small grape. I then thought of my readers and named the clump stalker McGee. Waiting for the shower to warm, I shivered enough that had I still be wearing pants, I would have been tempted to pee myself.
Our room was cold...
3 tags
Why Peru was the Last Stop?
06/25/10
On a flight back from Cusco to Lima, I decided to describe why I choose Peru to be our last stop on our around the world trip. In every single way, it was the perfect ending point for us.
Mesmerizing and mystifying, delicate and rash, spiritual and historical, Peru is one of the world’s most intriguing countries. At first thought, Peru conjured up an image of nightfall in the...
4 tags
Inti Raymi: The Festival of the Sun
06/24/10
Loudspeakers belted speeches in Spanish, as we walked towards the main square of Cusco, known in Inca times as Huacaypata - “The Warriors´ Square.” I later realized why. It was time for the packed crowds of Inti Raymi, the Inca celebration of the sun and the winter solstice.
The parade circled the square blocked off by police. Buildings were draped in massive Inca...
3 tags
After the Inca Trail
06/23/10
At 4:30 a.m., we entered the silent streets of Cusco, finally having returned from the Inca Trail…sort of. We were hours late, a result of the train stalling twice and then having to catch two separate buses. Again, Cusco Explorers did not live up to its contract. Instead of dropping each person off at their hostel/hotel, our driver booted a group of foreigners off the bus on...
9 tags
Inca Trail: Day Four
06/22/10
They say it is the person with the shifty eyes you should watch out for. As a result of waking up at 3:30 a.m. after four nights without sleep, I resembled Mr. Potato Head high on speed, constantly changing my snap-on eyes, and therefore, I was afraid of my own reflection.
Looking in the mirror after another bathroom balancing act, the face was somehow familar, but I could not...
3 tags
Inca Trail: Day Three
06/21/10
For the purpose of this story, please avoid picturing me wearing your mother´s wedding dress. Thank you.
“My entire body is sore,” Boxie-boo said at 5:45 a.m., shivering as we took off our thermal underwear and sweaters, knowing mid-hike exercise would result in over heating. We scampered to the bathroom, where I was careful not to slip on the floor covered in slippery...
4 tags
Inca Trail: Day Two
06/20/10
In Canada, I am an average-sized dude, though my nostrils are different sizes, a beauty trend passed on from my mother - one side resembles the Africa continent, while the other could be the wrinkle line near a baby´s armpit. In Peru, I was a Yao Ming giant, which means I had knocked my head on multiple ceilings, including one leaving a bathroom, forcing me to walk out bent forward...
10 tags
Inca Trail: Day One
06/19/10
“Here we go again - back to pooping in holes,” Boxie-boo said, walking under the darkened, cobblestone streets of Cusco before the sun had risen. As a result of our room at Apu Wasi Hostel all night going from sauna hot to ski hill cold, I now know what it is like for a mountain goat to go through menopause. It was a ba´aaa´d night of sleep, further interrupted by someone...
6 tags
Cusco Festival and Pre-Inca Trail
06/18/10
The drums wailed and trumpets blasted, creating a wall of noise around us we leaned against in silence. With her back against a wall, the sun´s glow burnished Boxie-boo´s skin. She watched out wearing a smile on her face of permanent stone. In each direction, young children kicked off the Cusco Festival, sending goosebumps across my skin and waves of music through my veins. The...
3 tags
Arrival in Cusco
06/17/10
The plane dipped an aggressive left, cutting through mountains low to the ground towards Cusco. After landing, our plane did a 360-degree u-turn, before being pulled by what looked similiar to a tractor towards the airport. I was already excited, before even leaving the plane.
When we walked across the concrete runway, I found myself mesmerized by the setting: Cusco was exactly...
5 tags
Brazil to Peru
06/16/10
It was 3:15 a.m. and our hotel phone rang. Our taxi was 15 minutes early. Knowing about all the late night (or early morning) con-artists who take advantage of tourists, I asked Boxie-boo to check to see if the metre was running while I loaded the bags. Since I only had an opportunity for a couple hours of shut-eye, this made me unable sleep.
Outside it was as dark as it gets....
5 tags
World Cup Fever, Brazil
06/15/10
Warning: The following post might contain evidence that you are just so attractive.
Massive waves crashed across Copacabana´s shoreline with the sound of rising thunder, mixing in with the echoes of horns blasting through the air. Drummers pounded out samba rhythms by tables draped in yellow and green, overlooking a beach filled with soccer players in restaurants covered in...
3 tags
The Sugar Loaf, Rio de Janeiro
06/14/10
I do not want to freak anybody out, but I know you are reading this right now.
Alright, the above joke might be funnier if, like all jokes, after the punch line, you imagine a guy wearing a Speedo being hit in the nuts by a football. I thought about this, while Boxie-boo utilized her famous move to get me dancing in the morning by holding up the bathroom. While she sang in the...
4 tags
Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro
06/13/10
Rio’s public transit bus broke continuously with the sound of a pig mid-orgasm. Its body swayed back and forth, adding the sound of twisting latex, as if we were in a massive Durex condom battling a rival Trojan, maddening louder as the road turned to cobblestone. I was beginning to feel feverish. The sounds were getting to me. They managed to leave the bus and enter deep in my...
5 tags
Walking Around Gloria, Rio
06/12/10
I wore sunglasses to hide the fact that my eyeballs were naked and I had not slept in days. The shades had turned the shoreline into a shadow of blackness: a tree-covered landscape became a blanket of dark green and silver pinned by grand rocks lighted a golden brown, the mountains of constant summer. Smooth crests of rocks vanished under a shoreline of tree limbs as we walked, hand...
4 tags
Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro
06/11/10
Sometimes when you backpack, you have to spend some time taking care of some odds and ends. For us, we always felt it was a good idea to circle an entire neighbourhood, to get an idea of where the bargains were, find public transit, grocery stores, etc., while remembering to always smell terrific, which I learned how to do from my readers. Do not bother checking, your deodorant is...
4 tags
Tour of Rio, Brazil
06/10/10
I woke up and learned that yelling at a wall can be beneficial. It kept me from randomly walking up to a perfect stranger, saying good morning, then punching him in the face. Walking around the El Misti Hostel, I disliked everyone - except my readers, of course, because you are just so attractive - for their constant yelling that kept me up all night, before waking me up early. If...
5 tags
Argentina to Brazil
06/09/10
Walking onto the streets of Florencio Varela, homeless men and women huddled around a fire outside Teresa´s home. It was 3 a.m. Our taxi driver, the godfather of Juan´s daughter, was out front waiting, a friendly man who gave us a deal on the ride to the airport since we were family. Most of the poor and desperate people were not sleeping. It was a scene of mix sadness - Teresa´s...
4 tags
Florencio Varela to La Boca
06/08/10
We started our day in a packed line-up to enter the post office, jam full with a crowd all filling out the same form, which I was later told was for welfare. Once inside, we weren´t the only ones confused as locals kept coming up to us and asking us for help in Spanish. I continuously said, “Sordo” (deaf), while holding my hands over my ears, though I was also tempted to...
3 tags
BBQ at Juan´s, Buenos Aires
06/07/10
While writing this post, four of my fingers were down to help me, while my thumbs were opposed. Bad joke? Give me a break, I wrote this after only a couple hours of sleep after having my hair straightened for the first time in my life by Boxie-boo. Having little exercise, no weight lifting and glowing hair that would have been better suited for a golden retriever, this trip left me...
3 tags
Tour with Boxie-boo´s Family, Argentina
06/06/10
I woke up thinking I was wearing my Hammer pants and nobody could touch me. Opps. My mindset changed when I tried to climb a fence back into Teresa´s yard for you, my stalker friend, as I realized I forgot my notebook. My Hammer pants failed me. My attempt to jump the fence resulted in me hanging, mid-air, from the metal spear tip of the fence through the tongue of my left shoe, with...
3 tags
Florencio Varela, Buenos Aires
06/05/10
One of the best things about staying with Boxie-boo´s family was the opportunity to experience Argentina from a local´s perspective. Teresa lived in a community called Florencio Varela, which was about an hour bus ride outside of Buenos Aires City, at least three hours outside of Squamish.
It was a rough area, a tough community with frail edges, tattered at the seams. The streets...
3 tags
Downtown Buenos Aires
06/04/10
The dull ache of too much sleep pounded at the base of my neck and ran through my skull into my eyes. In view out the bus window, my first in-focus sight was a pack of dogs who had pinned down a rival canine, weeping on its back with its paws forward. Instead of distracting Boxie-boo, I made the mistake of telling her not to look. She of course, looked over, and I immediately turned...
3 tags
Brazilian Consulate, Argentina
06/03/10
In Juan´s Toyota truck, we passed a line-up a couple blocks long that ended across the street from Teresa´s home where the poor gathered to collect welfare cheques. Scanning the poor people, it was a mixed crowd with many young people, to my surprise, including young women with small children. Teresa later explained that 200 Pesos were given per month, per child. In these few minutes...
3 tags
Continent Jump - Africa to Argentina
06/02/10
I fought the numbness spreading through my limbs, the pleasant, achy yielding. My eyes fluttered in the taxi, closed then opened, my head rolling as I sat motionless. Sleep pulled at my body with compression, while my mind lulled like waves in and out of consciousness by the rhythm of my exhales. Tempting me to sleep, Capetown was a string of soft lights, black and yellow, thining...
3 tags
Great White Shark Diving
06/01/10
I felt my soul divide while my flesh still absorbed the cold water, yet this same chill part of me, tauntingly aloof, watched me float in a cage beside a three-metre Great White Shark. It was almost an out of body experience. I could not join myself. I watched my arms shiver, my hands gripping a cold metal railing as I held myself underwater in a cage.
The shark neared, knocking...