Villa Sirena and Los Organos Beach

Laura and I recovered from our Machu Picchu adventure at the Villa Sirena hotel in Northern Peru between Mancora and Organos beach. Our first 12 hours at our 'luxury' resort were quite memorable. We rolled in hungry after two flights and a 3 hour cab ride to find the place totally deserted and staffed by only a local groundskeeper. About the only thing that I was able to understand from him was that there was no chance of getting a meal at our hotel and that our one room bungalow was indeed not equipped with a fan.

This left Laura and I no option but to go forging into Mancora in search of sustenance. We found an 'Italian' place with an outdoor seating area that appeared to be Mancora's most tourist friendly establishment. As we begin to dig into our pizza and bottle of white wine, we quickly became aware that the good food and tropical ambiance was also appreciated by a thriving population of cockroach/beetle like creatures who dropped down on us from the trees above and scampered about over and between our feet. Like any good tourist adjusting to new surroundings we turned to the bottle, quickly killing the wine, then heading to the Lone Star bar down the street to finish of the night with shots. Ironically, the tequila and kolua mixers we selected as our shot of choice were called La Cucarachas. We made it back to our 'luxury' bungalow at around midnight where we gladly collapsed on the bed/mattress, the lone piece of furniture adorning the cement floor.

The next morning, through groggy eyes, we awakened to a gorgeous sunny day and a pristine view of our own private pacific beach. Chairs were lain out by the pool just inviting us to head over there, settle in with a book or a crossword, and order that first 8:30 AM cocktail. Well, we had made it just about to steps beyond our porch when the first swarm of sand gnats hit us. Within seconds they were crawling in our eyes, nose, and teaming inside my numerous surf cuts. Like any rational people trying to enjoy a vacation, Laura and I both intuitively transitioned into a policy of full strategic denial. After 6 minutes of trying to sunbathe/read/order breakfast while simultaneously serving as an insect sanctuary all such pretense evaporated in the face rapidly encroaching insanity. We sprinted back to our room/cell and mentally prepared ourselves for a tropical weekend spent hiding from the flies in a steaming hot cement bungalow.

The good part of this story is how it ends. The wind picked up within an hour and all the sand gnats disappeared. We ended up really enjoying the beach, the hotel and its staff grew on us, and at $25 per person a night we felt like we actually had found a pretty good deal. Its pretty tough to find a private beach in that range here in the states. Oh, and also we may have become slightly obsessed with one of our fellow Villa Sirena residents, who was about 2 months old, black, and named Moonie.



Heres the view from our porch of the Villa Sirena pool and the ocean beyond

Laura and I enjoying the beach


Our neighborhood taxi

Thats me surfing . . .errr floating in the waveless expanse that was Organos Beach


Even if I didn't catch any big waves to show off for Laura, I can always impress her with my super cool surfer pose

. . . and then Laura left me for a dog and its name was Moonie

Whats more fun the a Peruvian French Bulldog !

Not quite Hercules but pretty cute

Machu Picchu with Laura

I can now happily report I have received my first visitor of the trip. After four months apart since we had seen each other in NY, Laura made it down to Peru for an amazing 10 days. I had been looking forward to our trek along the Incan trail to Machu Picchu forever and it still didn't disappoint. We flew to Cuzco from Lima where we stayed for one night before leaving for the trail. The trial itself is a 4 day 3 night hike through the Peruvian Andes amidst numerous sites of ancient Incan ruins. We shrugged off the rain, embraced the eccentricities of our oh so special SAS hiking group, and just generally enjoyed each other and our mountain rainforest surroundings. We were with a group of 16 other people that was supported by around 20 porters, cooks, and guides who kept us comfortable ensconced in wilderness luxury despite the wet and cold conditions. We were served hot meals on the trail for lunch, had our tents set up each night when we arrived at camp, and were awakened every morning with warm washing water and hot mate de coca tea.

Without further ado, some pictures . . .


This rat looking creature is called a Cuy and is and Incan delicacy. I was kind of grossed out, but Laura just couldn't get enough .

On of the two giant Spanish cathedrals in the main square in Cuzco

Laura and I, dry and all smiles, right before the start of the Inca trail trek

Notice the small size of our backpacks in the previous picture, its because the above army of porters were shlepping all our gear. They all lived near to Machu Picchu and spoke Quechua a language derived from the Incans.

Laura told me she wasn´t going to leave Peru without seeing a llama; unfortunately this herd came cruising across path our second day on the trail

These ruins (much of which are actually rebuilt) are in WinyaWinna the last Incan ruin site before Machu Picchu. The terraces you see were for growing crops while the house like structures provide shelter to Incan pilgrams on there way to Machu Picchu.

Laura is inside one of the Incan ritual baths, you can see these square structures stair step down and water would flow down through all of them so the Incans could cleanse themselves prior to arriving at Machu Picchu. When we were there, however, there was not so much water flowing but there was beer as evidenced by those rouge bottles that made the shot.

This shot from WinyaWinna shows the amazing Incan stonework. Each stone was split, cut, and smoothed to precise specifications to fit exactly with other stones so that all the construction would be motor free. These structures are amazingly strong and have survived numerous earthquakes.

Trying to sneak up on a llama and looking a little sheepish

The classic view of Machu Picchu as you approach along the Incan trail below the Sun Gate. We had about a 10 minute window from the clouds and were lucky enough to snap a few photos.

A shot of the two conquistadors after concurring the trail.

Pico Alto Surf Camp, Peru

My first stop in Peru was Pico Alto Surf Camp (PASC) in Punta Hermosa which is about 45 minutes south of Lima. There are about 17 surf breaks within a small 8 km stretch that you can easily walk or take a moto taxi to from PASC. The camp is run by a guy named Oscar Morante Jr whose father, Oscar Sr, was a surf legend in the area. Oscar and his staff were super nice and took me and the other Brazilian tourists staying there to a number of off-the-beaten-path surf breaks all over the coast south of Lima.

I stayed at PASC for 8 nights at a whopping 25 dollars per night which included 3 meals a day. I also had my own private room with a TV, a DVD player, and a computer with internet across the hall. We were served home made lunches with rice, marinated meats, and great spicy sauses. It was amazing, especially after a full morning of surfing the cold waters and strong currents that I found ever present in Peruvian surfing. It was a big adjusment from my Costa Rican experience. The surf was just much bigger, with longer paddel outs, more current, and less clean waves where positioning and take off points were not so obvious to me. Peru is a bit of a rough and tumble surfing world. You are paddeling out, pushing trash out of your way as you go, and taking in the dusty desert skyline and hazy outline of nearby Lima. However, when you do finaly get in on one of Peru's big rolling waves, the ride is so much longer then those in Costa Rica, you remember why people come from all over to surf here.


Views of Senoritas and Caballeros, the two breaks I surfed the most


Some of the Brazilians prepare for a surf session

A view of a break called Puerto Viejo south of Punta Hermosa and Lima
'Me and my surf buddy Alex, who was nicknamed Cachito which means a bit or a morsel
Oscar Jr. , the Godfather of Punta Hermosa and one of the nicest guys I met while traveling

Me with two of the night club promoters of Hapas which was the big weekend discoteca in Punta Hermosa

A Train, a Bus, and Buenos Aires

After six weeks in Bariloche we finally escaped. We took the Patagonia Train from Bariloche to Viedma which was a cool 24 hour trip. We had a sleeping car and got served traditional Patagonian fare by waiters in tuxedos in the dining car.

In Viedma we caught another 12 hour bus to Buenos Aires. In BA we checked out the graveyard of Eva Peron, ate at some Parillas, and went to some bars and night clubs. It was a fun time. A few pictures are below . . . now off to Peru.


The old train we took from Bariloche in the Patagonia to Viedma on the Atlantic Coast

Sean and James make eyes at each other in the train dining car

Trying out my artistic black and whites at the Buenos Aires graveyard with Eva Peron's grave

The view down the street our hostel was on in B.A.

Climbing Mount Tronador

So post Spanish school in Bariloche I hunkered down in the Marco Polo hostel with my buddies Sean and James from Colorado to plan our ascent of Mt. Tronador. The peak you see below in the front right foreground is Pico Argentina, which is actually a little shorter then the international peak to its left. However, because of increased rockfall from melting glacial ice during this hot summer, we had to choose to summit Tronador's Pico Argentina.

It ended up being all we could handle. On the first day we hiked up to a refugio, a mountain hut, at the base of the huge glacier that covers Tronador. We ended up forming a summit team there with a very nice couple who were park rangers at Yosemite in the US. The five of us started at 5 in the morning and traversed across the glacier in rope teams until around 10 when we reached the saddle between the two peaks. The glacier was gorgeous and we saw some huge crevasses to remind us why we were tied into ropes.

The only technical part came during the last 20 meters of climbing. Here is was a nearly vertical wall of loose rock and ice mixed together. Not great climbing conditions. A guide who was taking up a client that day turned around in front of us unwilling to take the risk. Chris, the husband in the park ranger two-some we had linked up with, was willing to lead this section of this climb and set up some protection by using some ice screws. We were all able to make the climb without falling but the shear exposure was terrifying, ice screws or no ice screws protecting us.

We all peaked out, repelled down the ice/rock pitch, and then traversed the glacier back home. It was an amazing climb, an a totally unique experience to be surrounded by such an alien landscape as a glacier. I was super lucky to have a great group of friends willing to take me.




A view of Pico Argentina, front right, from the glacier below



Climbing up to the saddle between the two peaks

Chris leads the way climbing the last vertical pitch


James and I celebrate on the summit

The beginning of the repel down from the summit

Some steep snow, but so much easier coming down

Crampons help, but you don't wont to slip . . . the drop off is pretty sheer to the right


A last stop on the snow before reaching the refugio


Let me introduce you to the staff which had a hot meal waiting for us back at the refugio.

Spanish School Bariloche, Argentina

Bariloche has been an amazing experience and as such I have not update my blog in nearly five weeks. Here is the whirlwind tour though the past month !

First to orient you guys check out the map below of Argentina, where you will find Bariloche in the southwest in the Lake District of the Patagonia along the border with Chile.




Looking down from the Cerro Otto hill to the town of Bariloche and the giant Lake Naheul Huapi

I spent the first three weeks attending Spanish class 8:30 to 12:30 Monday through Friday at the A.I.E Patagonia Spanish language school. For those of you wanting to improve and live in an awesome place check out the school at http://www.patagoniaspanish.com/. Class for the first week was one-on-one and for the second two weeks there was only one other student.

Learning Spanish with my teacher Carina

While I was in class I was living with a family. My Senora was an incredibly nice woman who has one grown son and two beautiful grandkids. Her granddaughter Delfina was always at the house and was a wonderful three year old playmate and Spanish teacher for me. We were fond of watching Discovery Kids in Spanish together, with our favorite program being Backyardagins. I had my own room in Teresa's house, got a homemade dinner every night, and even got to join in on a festive asado (BBQ) at the lake side house of a family friend of Teresa's.

Delifna rolls her father down the hill at the asado while Teresa looks on at her son and grandchild at play.

During the weekends Bariloche offered tons of opportunites for play. We had a great core group of students that got along really well. There were my two mountaineer buddies from Colorado, James and Sean, and the adventurous Allesandra from Italy. The four of us did lots of activities together including trekking between Mountain huts, rockclimbing, relaxing at the many lake beaches and even wakeboarding.

The whole crew of Sean, James, Alessandra, and Me before our two night three day trek through the mountain refugios (huts) of Bariloche

The view from Refugio Frey looking out at the Cathedral Spire

James, Sean and I before hiking down from Lake Jacob

Working my way up the rockwall

Sean and I pose with our wakeboarding local friends German and Mario

A glimpse of relaxing on the beach of Lake Nahuel Huapi

Six Days in Santiago, Chile

My flight to South America is out of San Jose, Costa Rica and arrives eight hours later in Santiago, Chile after a quick stop through the airport in Lima. All of a sudden my travels feel like an adventure again. Left behind are the American familiarities always present in Costa Rica- our 51st state ? Starting this new phase of my adventure, I feel a bit alone, like no one knows who I am or anything about me, and I like it. I look forward to getting lost and seeing which way things take me in South America. But, of course, the first stop is a familiar one in Santiago.

I am staying with Jane Hong. Jane and I, besides being connected through my sister, have also shared parts of both high school and college together- so she knows me pretty well. She also knows the city after 6 months there and has an amazingly comfortable couch, so I was perfectly content for my six day sleepover.

I explored some of the local city neighborhoods-barrios- during the day while Jane was at work. One day I tracked down the famous Casa Roja hostel that had been started in a an old run down mansion. I snuck in to read my book by the swimming pool hidden in the spacious open air quadrangle behind the house.

I spent that gorgeous afternoon finishing War and Peace, which I had been working at assiduously throughout Costa Rica. At first I had struggled to find the connection between early 19th century tsarist Russia and traveling in tropical surf hostels, but eventually Tolstoy’s universal relevance won me over. By the end, I felt no other book could have possibly been more relevant to my current time and place. Tolstoy gets to the heart of what we seek in life and explores our often unarticulated conceptions of happiness, purpose, duty, and hope.

Jane and I had a great time during our week. We ate out every night and had a great time bonding over delicious, though certainly American priced, food. We also had two nights out one the town. The first, we were joined by my former Princeton OA compatriot Alisha ‘the wizared . Though we went to a dance club in search of 80s music, we ended up primarily finding extremely strong Piscolas, local grape liquor mixed with coke, that had us staggering for a cab well before the dance floor hit its groove. The second night Jane and I flew solo to a jazz club and made up for lost time listening to covers of Bary White, Elvis, and that song from Ghost. We were the butt end of many of the crooners jokes which somehow made us popular with the local Chilean crowed and led to late night dancing and a generally good time.

Santiago seemed a very modern city. The are of Los Condes where Jane lived is the financial center and is dotted with skyscrapers and bankers in suits walking in between. It really seemed not to much unlike NYC. Since I am just getting my feet wet on the South American experience, Santiago made a good place to start



View of the pool in hostel Casa Rojo

Looking down a main street in Los Condes

A chilean BMX biker in a bark in Barrio Brasil

Out on the porch with the Wizard at Janes

Jane and me out at the bars


Dinner at a Chilean Italian place, I of course was wearing my one outfit which I purchased there to augment the wordrobe of boardshorts and t-shirts i had brought from Costa Rica