"It's Hatunafun!"

You’ll have to excuse the corny name, it was just too difficult to resist. So, near Huaraz (well, anything near Huaraz for the most part is 1-2hrs away as it turns out) is an amazing place for climbing. Well, amazing if you’re a tourist, and not a local Peruvian come to find out. Hrmmmm. Let me start with the pros of this place, which are many, and then end with what I think might be going on there based on what I’ve heard from a few unreferencable sources.
Ok. So Hatun Machay is a rock garden climbers paradise at 14k ft, with mystically placed rock spires ranging in sizes from 1ft blobs to 100ft+ giants. Pretty neat if you ask me.

Just look at this place. I would exploit Peruians for this too....and don't you dare say you would't do the same

The rock is relatively solid, with a multitude of different hold types, some of which are filled with dirt, undoubtedly from years of chemical and physical weathering. The rock is a combination of gritty sandstone and granite. I am not going to fully reveal my limited understanding of geology by going further into the type of rock this place boasts, but will suffice to say that the rock has great friction, is super gritty, and so sharp that linking together two days of climbing is a goliath task for anyone with normal non-kevlar encased fingertips. This place tears your fingers a new one.

Many of the climbs there are harder than 5.9, with the majority being within the range of 5.10b-5.11d. So many of these climbs are in the 3 stars (out of 3…yeah huge variation) range, its not even funny. Many of the climbs stand out in my mind, but of these climbs one in particular shines brighter than the rest. There was this one classic 5.10d that had the whole spectrum of holds from little crimps to freaking tufas. Konge. The end of the climb goes from huecos to weird tufa chimney, to inconspicuous finger deep pockets. Fanfreakingtastic. The distance between the last bolt and the anchors in this last difficult section was huge…they bolted this climb very excitingly. At first I got to this last bolt, and yelled “take!” to Randy, who could hear me huffing and puffing in the thin subalpine air. “I just can’t find out where this thing goes”. Truly a deceptive chimney-like dual tufa sidepull arrangement made it hard to find the concieled, chalk free pockets to the right of the climb, on seemingly featureless face. But after I found the pockets I was up and climbing the last section, with a few girly screams. I have attached a picture of the climb that Randal took with his super robot camera.

LOVE IT

Yeah. Great place. The place where we stayed was gravy too, a “refuge” with a cook who made some pretty kickass chicken tacos….well, kickass until I figured out the chicken was half cooked. “Waop, waop”. That’s the sound of a trumpet, the sound a cartoon character gets right after he holds up a grossly undersized umbrella under a large boulder sized shadow. “Waop, waop, uncooked chicken….. “ He he.
Not much else to say about the place other than the people there are great, generally tourists…ah no I have more to say here. The reason they are tourists only is because the person who bought the land for the climbing, apparently “discourages” (to whatever degree), the presence of Peruvian locals, hence the reason I never saw a single person de Peru. This is interesting. Why would someone do that? $$$$$$$$$$$$$ sorry the key got stuck, but you get the point.
Anyway, $$$$ runs everything here in Huaraz. And yet there are so many poor people around. Well, at least Huaraz keeps to the theme of the majority of South America: Lots of rich, lots of poor….lots of corruption.

Reason # 10000 why I love French Canadians: They are nice. And Randy, you're not so bad yourself...:)

ATTN: We need more people to take the politicians bowling, get them drunk, drop a few fizzy roofies in their drinks, hang them from their testicles and tell them to stop being jerks. Start thinking about your country. Start thinking about the reason why politicians are supposed to exist. At what point in time did politics become drunken mansion parties with women brought in through sex slavery. Come on people.

Ok I suppose this is the end of this entry. Whoo hoo, Hatun Machay….Another amazing demonstration of money being used in a way that does not benefit the masses. But hell, I had a great time…..wish I could just let that be enough….

2 Things Money Cannot Buy: 1.) Home Grown Tomaters, 2.) Gringo Sized Hammocks

The sound of Cole's warm North Carolinian singing voice still echoes in my ear drums after a fantastic 4 days with he and Skyler on our trip down the Amazon on a lancha (looks like a large 3 story river boat). The date of this trip was June 23rd-June 27th. Two days before the trip Cole, Skyler and I took a walk through Belen to shop for the necessary effects to better enhance the experience of a 4 day boat trip. Hammocks was the first thing on the agenda, since this was the only conceivable option for a bed while on the boat—David told us a list of ways to set up our hammocks to avoid clutter with other people’s hammocks, while keeping a safe distance away from our belongings to minimize the chance of theft. We all agreed that the preferred option would be to get a lockable room to place our stuff, and we were fortunate enough to get this room when we went to the boat the day before to reserve a spot.

---A funny story, the day of the boat departure (supposedly at 6:30pm), we grabbed a bunch of snacks and 18 liters of water and put these things and our belongings into our storage room, which we cleverly locked with a different padlock than was provided by the boat staff. Well, we didn’t look too cleaver when we were running around trying to figure out how the boat was departing with all of our stuff, sans gringos….2 hrs early.

The story goes like this. A man who helped us figure out the proper boat for departure to Yurimaguas (obviously for a small fee…nothing is ever free when you’re a gringo) told us about a mystical gray plastic bottle of beer, that was not to be missed. “Well we should have this beer for the trip”, we thought (well Cole probably said this out load). It was 3:30pm, hell we had enough time to do this…so with that we left the boat in search of this magical drink. After about an hour of searching, tagging along a drunken Peruvian man who thought he was helping, but was really just creeping us all out by grabbing our hands and directing us to his friends restaurants, we found the gray bottles of “beer”. Well it wasn’t actually beer, it was really sprite and vodka, with a hint of plastic (BPA) taste. I wish I had a picture of this. It was 2 liters of yuck. But we drank the whole thing the first night.

On our way back to the boat, to our surprise, Eduardo V was no longer docked next to the muddy shores of the masusa, instead it was DEPARTING UP RIVER!!! HOLY CRAP!!! “whaddawedo!?” “We have to hire a pecke pecke (small motorized canoe), to catch this thing!” “All of our stuff is on this thing”! All of this erupted from our mouths simultaneously. Luckily for us this shock and surprise subsided when we realized they were just parking it in a different spot, created by wedging the boat between two closely parked boats of similar size and make. It was like watching Cinderella’s ugly sister put on the glass slipper by wedging it on with a board. I am sure the sound of crushing and snapping wood would have been quite similar. ----
Ok back to the hammocks.

Now maybe there are just certain things that you don’t bargain shop for. For example, open heart surgery, Lasiks, climbing ropes. Well add to that list hammocks…. We spent a great deal of time wheeling and dealing with a small hammock shop owner and his young female co worker. In the art of bartering (which you do with pretty much every market purchase you make in Peru), a person must stay firm. David Sparkman likes to use two methods with taxi drivers: 1.)The utter-disbelief-with-the-price evoked laughter fit or 2.) the walk away and find another taxi method. This man has gone to a great lengths (I have seen him in action), to talk a driver down 50 centimos (mas o menos 20 US cents), for a 30 minute cab ride. Ruthless. Don’t be fooled by his charming and easygoing demeanor--He’ll barter the devil for your soul, I’m sure of it. And get it for a good price.

Ok, so back to the hammock bartering. The dashing trio managed to talk the pair of shop workers down to 22 soles per hammock--our American minds working their hardest to convince them that “buying in bulk should mean we get a better unit price”. Unfortunately what we neglected to realize was this was a market shop in Belen. Not Costco. However, after a good deal of trying the “walk away method” (David you would have been so proud), along with a contrived attempt to set up the hammocks between two human poles (Cole and I) to get a better idea of the hammock size, both parties were content with the transaction. Well at least until we tried to set these hammocks up the day of our departure…

Here’s a fact. Cole, Skyler and I are somewhat tall. Most would agree that being over 6ft would categorize a person as such. However this standard of tall does not translate over to the Peru standard of a tall person, which in most cases might be a male who is over 5ft 6in. These hammocks fit this standard (obviously not fitting ours). The first night Cole, Skyler and I sat in chairs next to our room, happily drinking cane sugar rum and talking about life. Cole played “Home Grown Tomaters” on Skylers ukulele, and we were pretty certain that we were living the life of kings. And I think we were right. Well, that was until Cole and I tried to sleep in these half sized hammocks. Skyler took the smart route, staying in the storage room, which actually had a bathroom and two beds. Cole and I, wanting the full lancha a Yurimaguas experience, decided to push through the discomfort and managed to get decent night sleeps all 3 nights, when combining the 4 hrs during the day when there was nothing better to do than sleep. Yes the Hammocks were very small, but Cole and I managed to figure out how to lay along the hypotenuse to maximize length. One day Cole and I were heading back to our hammocks for a afternoon siesta, and to our surprise, there was a man, all covered up in his hammock, about 20 nano meters above Coles Hammock. I have no idea what this guy was thinking, but Cole just slept in Skylers hammock next to mine, intermittently pushing me into the mysterious man while I was trying to sleep. This man was obviously drunk, he rank of cheap beer and rum. But this all made sense seeing as it was a holiday (the name of which has slipped my mind) the night before.

The rest of the trip was filled with great conversation (in Spanish the majority of the time), seemingly endless stops in remote villages along the river, action movies with Dolph Lungren or Stephen Segal dubbed in Spanish (excellent), and time together. The boat arrived late in Yurimaguas (was supposed to arrive in the morning but instead arrived at 4:30pm), and we took a bus to Tarapoto.
I am so blessed to have shared such an amazing trip with 2 amazing men. Thanks Cole and Skyler for your company on a trip I will not soon forget.

Thanks for reading!

Who needs seatbelts anyway?

I do. Maybe I am just old fashioned, but I was under the impression that studies via the use of accelerometer cladded rubber dummy's have shown time and time again that becoming a flesh missle is a less preferred option to a broken shoulder, or a slightly shafed chin.

Sigh, but again I am getting ahead of myself with another rant. Ok, deep breath...the air in Huaraz might require two.

Cole, Skyler and I arrived in Tarapoto after a wonderful time on the Amazon (the real branch of which has slipped my spanish inundated brain). I will make a blog for this trip a bit later...it will likely entail fabricating a metaphor with "home grown tomaters" (man I miss you Cole). If at all possible. In Tarapoto (a cool town about a 2 hr Concord jet ride and/or a 1 hr crazy ass bus driver away from Yurimaguas, the place of our boat ride commencement) Cole, Skyler and I found a quaint little hostal where we put down our 100lbs of gringo b.s. At this hostal I managed to book a ride with Pizara (possibly the wrong name of the taxi agency), to take me from Tarapoto to Tingo Maria. The road apparently isn't maintained well enough to provide autobus infrastructure. This was all per David Sparkman's advice, telling me that although the trip could lead me directly into the hands of mochilla stealing banditos, the experience would undoubtedly be terrific. David, you were right. You always are. Cole, Skyler and I parted ways here in Tarapoto, I left at 3:00am while they were sleeping...an incredible feat considering the cacaphonous buzzing by of moto taxis ("I don't think I'll ever get to sleep dammit.."- Skyler).

The hired driver was late. Big surprise. I sat in the hostal lobby waiting from 2:45am to 3:45 with an angry and tired 18yr old (max) hostal desk-keep. I jumped in the car, and was immediately face to face with a mother and her 2yr old "gipe" (flu ridden) child (see below...or above...wherever blogspot decides to put the damn picture..html 1, jeff 0). This poor kid was constantly coughing, sputtering, and crying. Oddly enough, right when I started thinking the child was about to breath it's last breath, it would look at me all cockeyed and flash a brilliant smile.

We made a few stops along the way to Tingo Maria, and picked up a 34 yr old peruvian college student who is studying horticulture in Tingo Maria. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself again....here's a bit of history about this road we were traveling on....basically in the early to mid 90's the primary use of this road was by drug traffickers, as the cash crop of coca (the main ingredient for cocaine...well that and the constituents that are present in such well known industrial liquids as bleach) was the major export from the area. Because of this the road was considered one of the most dangerous for travelers for the better part of a decade until the Peruvian National Security started to crack down on these men. Now there is just your occasional blockage, tourist rough up and rob type scenario.

Thanks for that. Ok, let's set the stage a bit more thoroughly. So there we are. A clueless gringo, a spoiled peruvian college student, and a young mother with her gripe infant. Oh, and two other lead characters I left out. The driver and his halfwhitted and likely older "co-pilot". The two people in the back seat with me are less interesting than these two men in the front seats. The front seats which were both equipt with seatbelts (cinturons). The backseats were sans cinturons, to my prolonged and apparent dismay...well apparent to everyone but the driver. For the first 3 hrs of the ride the only thing keeping the driver awake was the bitter cold of the morning (rushing through the open driver window, freezing the gripe child and her mother...of whom I gave my only jacket) and my tri-hourly "esta bien amigo" jarring. The effer probably got more sleep than I. When the sun came up, I was sure that I wouldn't have to tell this man to slow down or drive more carefully. I was wrong. ----oh brief aside. This man, along with others of his peruvian male ancestory, tend to have 2 or more women, not including their wife, for sexual release, since it is more "absurd" to be divorced...which is rather countercultural to our American ideals....the driver told me over lunch that he had "dos mujeres, una mujer en tarapoto y una mujer en Tingo Maria". Well played dickbag.----this man drove like a maniac...and he wasn't alone on the road. See the picture of a car, driven by the same taxi service, being pulled out by men who were slightly more awake and sober than the driver. My confidence was waxing non existant.

Now, the experience in total was amazing, don't get me wrong. These are the types of stories that make life interesting. But when a bridge is only strong enough to support a car and driver, sans passangers, and the driver is not attentative to "mas despacio por favor (slower please)", it is hard to really "laugh it off" in the moment.

The two front seat men would only put on their seat belts when we approached cars with "official looking men", quickly disconnecting them a safe distance away from the point of "clearheaded thinking". Seriously, if we had had a wreck going 60mi/hr down the road we all would have been flesh pretzles. These men pissed me off. We almost hit 2 horses, 100 people, 4 head on cars (while passing), and a chicken. arg.

We made it to Tingo Maria safe and unsound. I pealed my aching butt from the deformed and nerve soaked seat, paid my 30 bucks and waved goodbye to one of my least favorite people on this trip. Regardless of this driver, the views were breathtaking and the experience was hightened by the multitude of unnecessary close calls.

Tingo Maria was beautiful, nestled in a valley surrounded by tall jungle forested mountains.

I stayed in a great hostal, with wonderful hostal staff, organized my trip to Lima to meet the gringa ladies (Christina, Austa and Traci), and slept soundly until the abrasive siren of my phone awoke me from my peaceful slumber.

Leaving Iquitos

Gonna keep this one short. About to leave on a large boat and go up the river to a place called Yurimaguas. I am being accompanied by two amazing dudes: the boy genius Skyler, and the gentle giant, Cole (the manchild) Sigmon. The trip is supposed to take us around 3 days, which would put us in at Yurimaguas around Saturday morning, mas o menus. Then we will either go our separate ways there, or take a colectivo to Tarapoto, where I am staying to deliver some shit specimens to a lab, and hopefully staying with some folks I met at my hostal. Then I am going to try and work my way over the mountains to Huaraz on a path that is somewhat less traveled, but apparently well worth the inevitable trials and tribulations. This path will lead me to Tingo Maria, where things should get much easier. All in all I should end up in Huaraz on the 29th, just in time to meet Austa, Christina, Traci and Randy! I am excited for the adventures ahead, please pray for a high level of dicernment for my surly group and for smart decisions on my part as I forge ahead solo using the Peruvian bus system.

There will be a lot more pictures of the boat trip when I arrive in Huaraz next week. Until then, have a wonderful week!

j

Monkey man is an actor

So I had an idea. "who am I to say that I know who monkey man really is. Maybe he and I just got off on the wrong foot". Then I figured, man it sure would be hilarious if I could get a buddy buddy picture with him. How funny would that be?

Well I got one. He actually looks normal here when he smiles, and seems to take good care of his teeth too. But I guarantee this man is not normal. From what I've heard from people here, he's an actor (artista) from Lima, who I suppose went crazy on drugs and is kept here by his family (out of their hair), by monthly or weekly stipend. Just crazy to see him like this, he just looks like a surley fisherman with a moviestar smile.

:)

"Yeah, I think we're going to ride in the other boat"....

It's funny sometimes how the crazy almost startlingly dangerous things that happen in our lives are the things we remeber the most vividly, and look back on with light hearted laughter. This was definitely one of those stories.

David, Sariah, the Dix (Dixner), the boat driver James, and myself were on our way for a quick visit to a community near the Napo lodge. My first opinion of our driver James, (who is acually a good friend now, but at the time...well) was that he was a bit on the overly cautious to the point of obviously not having an effing clue what he's doing side. I guess my feeling was not unwarranted.

One moment we're flying down the middle of the Napo river, the next moment we were stopped, motor sputtering and coughing, the shock from the abrupt and violent jarring ringing in our ears. "what happened!" Did we hit a log (dead head my grandper used to call'em)? Nope. But we appeared to have either gained an ungodly amount of bouyancy, or we were on land covered by 6 inches of water (i.e. a huge sand bar). Obviously it was the ladder.

Here is a picture of the shaken up gringo's, and Dixner. We were all laughs at that point. Look at the white legs on that gringo.














David's Leg...(it wasn't broken, just badly bruised)















When we tried to move the boat, we found that the 12 inches of water currently displaced by the flat bottom hull was not suficient enough to allow it to float (big surprise), and we were unable to move it one iota. Dixner and James tried using a stick to pry it along...but that was unsuccessful as well. Then we realized that the other gringo survey team was 20 minutes behind. To our delight, sure enough they came to our arm-waving rescue with one load welcoming "hola amigos", from the gentle giant Cole Sigmon, who was poking his head out from the side of their boat.















With 5.6 extra people (mariate (third from the left) helped push too :)). we were able to free the boat from the sand bar. However, when questioned if we wanted to get back on board the "amigo" (the boats name) with James behind the wheel, we very freely and justly said in a number of ways:


"Yeah, I think we're gonna ride in the other boat"....


:)

A Cabybara Love Story

Ah, I seem to have recovered relatively well from a bit of a "week of sickness". Sick! I mean, not sick, but sick as in bad ass. But not as in diarrhea. Hmmm, english slang is getting the better of me while oddly enough still keeping within the overarching them of my blog. I'm going to keep what I wrote, and if you don't like what I have to say you can just "return it to REI". He he.

The water and ecosanitation team made another amazing trip to the jungle, but this time as the total collective gringo circus! For the 4 days we were visiting communties, we were fortnuate enough to be staying at some pretty swanky lodges, built and maintained by Exporama Tours. We started with the most "rustic lodge first", and then ended our trip by staying at a lodge that had a pool, waterslide and AC. I keep thinking it's crazy and absurd to have AC in the jungle, but then am forced to remember a little place called Las Vegas (so many wasted nights...another pun).


The most rustic lodge was on the Napo river, and was duely named "the Napo Lodge". I'm pretty sure there is an Explorama somewhere in the name but lets just keep that implied. In this amazing lodge there was food prepared by awesome chefs, cozy open air rooms with mosquito nets and great bedding, bathrooms that made David and I wonder if we should hire the people who built them to work for us installing ecological toilets. --A cheeky little aside, David and I were enjoying a boat ride back to Iquitos aboard this huge ship named the "Queen of the Amazon". We met a few folks who had stayed at the fancy Ceiba Topps lodge, which was the end of our trip and the most glitsy of the different Exporama lodges. We explained the lodges that we had been staying at, and she was absolutely amazed at the fact that we stayed at the Napo Lodge. "You're crazy, I can't imagine walking down the path to the bathroom (lit by lanters spaced about 10ft on center), that place is just so rustic". David and I both shared the same thought bubble "man she should have seen where we sleeped the last week".

Anyway, at the Napo lodge there was great deal of animal life, ranging from talking parots to everyone's personal favorite, the Capybara. Capybara's are the largest animals in the rodent family. From the picture below, it really just looks like David was shrunk, ran into a mouse hole and stole the poor mouse's hammok. What a jackass.

The Capybara is a funny animal. It sounds like a video game as it walks around, making odd squeeks as it tries to suck the salt off your arm. I don't know if it's possible to put in words how adorable this animal is. It rolls over, it purs...it's just delightful. But aparently even adorable Capybaras have sad situations in their lives. Aparently this capybara had a mate at one time or another, but was abruptly left by her hubby for a sexier (larger?) capybara. They told me that these two would swim together and make lovey lovey noises to one another. Heartbreaking.















As we went to less rustic lodges each day, the semblence of "rusticity" became less and less noticable. Sigh.

The trips to the communities was enlightening. We gained a great deal of knowledge about why certain households have toilets and visa versa. It's truly a strange look at how people function as a community...where we might think that something like a toilet was important for a person, and for those around that person, a great deal of individuals would argue the contrary. It's facinating to me, but I suppose the fact that my white ass is walking around interviewing people and taking pictures of their shitters could also be considered "facinating" from their point of view.

That's about it... I have another story for a different blog, concerning an interesting event that took place during a trip to a community. I'll try to get to that tonight :).

Thanks guys!

Dilapidated Boats, Horny Cats, and Muscas Oh My!

We returned from the Jungle! We only managed to get 5 surveys done and I smell like a prison bus because there are no lavandaries open. But I managed to get all of my stuff washed today, and 10 Soles later, I have some of the cleanest clothes on the planet, what a deal (that´s like 3 bucks).

The trip was amazing. David and I left on a boat packed with people, chickens, chicks (small chickens), and a lot of foodstuffs. About 3hrs up the Amazon and onto a few other smaller rivers that entered the Amazon in almost a perpendicular fashion, we finished our trip in Manco Capac, where we stayed with an amazing woman named Maria. We ate food with her family, set up our mosquito nets, and got to sleep around 8 pm. At about 9pm my mosquito net collapsed. At about 11 pm, two cats in heat were chasing a rat....for about 3 hrs. At around 2am David had a hug Cockroach land on his head...what a butt hole, he woke me up when he got up. So needless to day, David and I didn't get much sleep. David also told me the next day that bugs were coming up between the cracks in the floor....I just opted to not turn my light on.

The next day was amazing, we visited a few house holds with Maria, and saw a couple ecological toilets that were in pretty good shape. Maria really has this town stoaked on sanitation. However, the other towns that we went to the following day (we went another 3 hrs up the river), did not have the same excitement. most of the communities up river, where CARITAS, an NGO promoting health and sanitation in rural Amazonian communities, did not feel that having a safe place to crap was as important as, say, a $100 gun. Either way the trip up the river was fantastic. The boat we took was Maria's and apparently it was only a year and half old. I swear the damn thing was about to sink, and there were quite a few boards missing. On the way home on day 4, we got in a huge rain storm...the likes I have never seen, and I am from Seattle. David and I hunkered down for about an hour, while the other student we were with, Jhon (and that's not spelled wrong) took up the middle, spitting, sputtering, and smiling. Meanwhile Maria, and her husband Robinson, were doing some epic boat navigating, and boat bailing. The picture of the dude with his shirt of is Robinson. One time I look back from my little shelter I built, and there's Robinson in his tighty bluies bucketing out water like it's his job. Oh, and this nimble badass of a man is 60 something. People in the jungle are just burly. And yes, that's a chicken in the front of the boat in the picture of the bow. Pretty funny huh. Didn't want it to go bad!

Ok I'm off to bed. This is not as well as I would have liked to make this entry, but I'm tired, I am excreting green diarrhea, and I am leaving for the jungle again for another 4 days, so I figure I shoud get going. I will try to make the next entry a bit better on the grammer and content front.

Thanks for reading, I hope this blog finds you happy, healthy, and hopeful!

Vamos a la selva!

So we're going to the jungle! Sweet. After getting ahold of CARITAS, they have managed to give us the go-ahead to head into the jungle via the Amazon Rio. The trip will take us to a few communities (which I cannot pronounce or spell :)), where we will have the chance to see how the CARITAS dry toilets (ecosanitation), have been working over the past few years. The cool part is we'll be living in the communities. Should be awesome, but the bugs are likely to be relentless. I hope the antimalaria meds are up to snuff :). I will try to post a few pictures of my travels along the river when I get back on Saturday of this week. I'm super excited. Say a few prayers for our boat, for our health, and for our good time speaking with folks along the way. May we get the information we need to supplement our understanding of why people shit where they do. Because, believe it or not, it's making millions of people sick.

have a great day!

"No me molesto"

Wow, let's start from the beginning.

So right when I was thinking that life was actually becoming a bit routine: meetings with students, municipality members, NGO Frenchies, NGO Americans, distant and hard to get ahold of Peruvian NGO's (*cough*CARITAS*cough), life went and threw me a curve ball. A couple mornings past, I get out of my hostel (the pun is coming later...100pts if you can find it), with my hands full with a bit of food from the lunch and dinner from the day before. I'm still wiping the sleep from my eyes. The day was surprisingly cool, and the sun was just beginning to peak it's way through the narrow streets of Iquitos (en la ciudad). It seemed like any normal day in a large city in the Amazon. People were going about their business, bustling about with newspapers, random candy stands, and getting ready to turn on their boom boxes. Ah, yeah simple, boring, and comfortable. Breath in, hold it, think about trees falling in woods, one hand clapping, and exhale. That's how I felt this morning. Then it happened...Monkey Man erupted from my periph.

He came into my line of site almost like a boulder from an Indiana Jones movie. My shear surprise was probably not unlike Harrison Ford’s. Only problem...I'm not an actor who can escape to my dressing room. Monkey Man was clad in the same kind of pants you might see a white hippie yoga instructor wearing in southern India. Only thing is, the sides of the legs were cut in an unnatural way (longitudinally, and haphazardly), he obviously wanted to be "different". Monkey man wore nothing else. The draw string on his pants was untied, the only thing holding up his pants being the combined shear will of everyone walking down the street. His body was hairier than the usual homosapian. He didn't look like the typical Peruvian by any grandiose stretch of the imagination.

He was obviously well fed, but apparently he hadn't eaten this morning, and I must have looked like an awesome piece of gringo meat. That or he wanted the food I was carrying. Either way I was frightened.

He came at me with a few indistinguishable grunts at first, with his eyes bulging out, and hands held out in a fashion similar to the resting stance of Zangief, the Russian bear wrestler in Street Fighter 2. I quickened my pace. He quickened his. I turned my body and B-lined it up the street, while he kept his body square to mine, similar to how a person plays correct and proper defense in basketball. He obviously used to play forward on some Monkey Man basketball team. Team Tarzan.

"ooga, booga....coooooommmmmiiiiddddaa....." which I think stands for "ooga, booga, foooooooooooood,..." in monkey man. Either way I started to raise my voice, telling him “No, No, NOOOO”. He kept after me for about a quarter of a long block. Finally I remembered what a friend said to say if someone continued to bug me incessantly me on the street. Well at least I thought I knew the right thing to say--all that came out was "No me molesto!" Monkey Man stood there in his tracks, puzzled, brain moving a kilometer an hour (fast for our ancestral cousins). And this is where I left him. In a pile of confusion. “HA, showed him!” I thought.

I met David at the local Asai shop (where I am getting some of the best Asai in the world at a price that would make the hippie, yoga, health conscience type drop their workout mat, stop talking about how awesome their workout plan was, and move to Iquitos). Anyway, I tell him about my story with my knuckle dragging friend. His laughs escalated to their highest when I told him what I said to this man to get away. I was actually quite proud that I told him to “stop bugging me!” and he stopped. “no, no, dude”, David responded, “you didn’t tell him to stop bugging you, you told him to stop bugging yourself (as in, Jeff telling Jeff to stop bugging Jeff).”

No wonder Monkey Man was puzzled into a state of suspended animation.

So, yeah, my Spanish could use some work.

A Day in Upper Belen

Today I took a trip with David to upper Belen, which is just further South of lower Belen, not to be confused with Belen Bajo. We went to visit a non profit group called PROÑOS, whos goal is to assist in building ecological sanitation toilets for community members in Belen, and in or around the Iquitos area. They are up to some pretty amazing things there. The building which houses the toilets is very well kept and has tons of childrens pictures, community photos, and coincidentally, maps of France and French propoganda.

The picture here is of Tristian, a highly animated character who tries his hand at seemingly every language that comes before him. He´s definitely the figure head of PROYÑOS, and in charge of the education part of their two part behavior change communication (BCC) model. The second part, as well as much of the more detailed logistical stuff, is run by another French guy by the name of Julian. Julian is a bit more soft spoken, but equally if not more considerate and genuinely involved in any conversation he embarks on. Both Tristian and Julian speak primarily Spanish with everyone they come in contact with, however Tristian is getting pretty good with his English sounding English accent, since he´s dating a AfricanEuropian (is that PC?) who just so happened to be on her way to Argentina a couple months ago and decided to stay. It´s pretty crazy, a lot of the people involved with construction size of PROÑOS, are either from France, or gringo´s from other countries who were just passing through. Ah the life of the traveler. Oh sorry, let me make this a bit more clear, ahem, the life of the traveling hippie. Many gringo´s would not be game with just tagging along on some crazy projects started by a French person.

















Tristian (can you tell he´s French?)















Picture of the living conditions of Upper Belen
Tristian and Julian are having a party at their place. I think it´s a soccer party. I´m going to be hitting this party up solo since my buddies David and Christie, have a date night. I don´t blame them, they work so hard and I´m sure it´s faily easy to get worn down, causing them to lose sight of they other priority which is their relationship. Good for them. Plus it allows me to get in some more awkward situations that test my Spanish.

Today I have somewhat of a study date with a Peruvian girl I met on the malacona (boardwalk by the river....and yes I´m probably spelling it wrong, I´m pretty good at this). I am teaching her English and she is teaching me Spanish. We´ll see how this goes...it´s likely to be, yes you said it, awkward. Perfect.

Other than this, it´s just meetings, meetings, meetings. Meetings where I only can understand a decent portion of the conversation, and when prompted to speak, I just say, si pues, and estoy de acuerdo....but i´m getting better. And fast. Most of these meetings are talking with students from UNAP...the university in Peru, CARITAS Amazonias, the NGO in charge of a few sanitation project, various UNAP faculty, and San Juan Bautista, the regional municipality, who apparently has asperations to build 600 baños ecologicos. we´ll see what actually happens here, since most of this is apparently for building up the campain of some political bigwigs.

That´s about it. Thanks for reading, and basically participating in somewhat of a journal. Blogs are pretty awesome in that I can use this as kind of a story explaining my travels, since I usually forget where I´ve been and what I´ve been up to. Sorry that some of us have to be the cassualties of my egocentric blabbing.

Hasta nada mas tarde mis amigos!

A night with the Frenchies

Man French people are effing everywhere. I suppose I shouldn't be too amazed since most of Africa was under French rule at some point, and what's further away and more exotic than Africa? But I never thought I would see a French man here speaking French Spanish in the Amazon. Hummmm, but I suppose I ever thought I would see my white ass in the Amazon neither.

It was amazing. These dudes were great. Let me see if I can get this just right: these guys were French Hippie Latrine Constuctors. So fine in my book, but again, fitting the typical mold of the "hippie" that I ranted about earlier. The great part about these guys is A.) they're super energetic and B.) they like ecological latrines, which immediately puts them on my "you're pretty effing rad" list. Joining us in this eclectic meeting was an Australian woman who didn't want to talk with me, a dude from Portugal who looked like the latin dude from Duce Bigelo Male Giggelo (I don't have spell check....it is too much demand on the bandwidth)...this guy apparently loves worms and says that the worms in his compost are as thick as a mans arem. They all work for a NGO (non-governmental organization) called PRONYOS (N should have the squiggly thing), specializing in latrines. Pretty awesome. Our group is going to be meeting with them to construct and "oversee" the constuction of, otros banos. Should be a ton of fun.

Other than that, everything is going great. Worth mentioning:

-ended my relationship with my scamming spanish teacher named Angelo (short for Michaelangelo). It was a tearful goodbye

-Am having an awesome time brainstorming ways to assess rural amazonian communities for the appropriate use of composting toilets...the funny part is it's all theoretical, and I'm making it all up. Ah academia.

-got stung by a bee while eating with David and Christie. It was a single bee, no hive. Dude the jungle is rough.

That's about it. Meeting with students from the Universidad Nacional de Amazonia Peru (UNAP), I think I said that right--to begin putting together research objectivos for the next three weeks concerning composting toilets (ecosan). Should be awesome.

Thanks for reading!

Un foto para que todos

holy crap this thing took 1 hr to load, and I never thought it would. sweet. So yeah, this is a picture taken from my pacapaca (wooden canoe with a weed wacker for an engine). This girls belly was all bloated, probably with tape worms.....hope you weren't eating anything.

Si pues.

Over the past 3 days I have managed to experience quite a few things. Pretty typical for being in a new place. Every day I peel my sweaty body from my bed sheets, look in the mirror and comment aloud at how I look like shit. I set out into the amazon heat and humidity (which actually isn't as bad as I'm making it sound....well maybe it is), and walk around town and grab some breakfast. I managed to make my way to down to the Amazon boardwalk, which is where I took my first picture from. It's kind of where the eclectic group of travelers from around the world sit around and act like useless hippies, selling beads on strings, and various handicrafts. It's funny how non-eclectic hippidom is, it changes a potentially diverse group of people into one hemp enfused, homogenous dirt ball. Wow that was a bit harsh, but just today I had some crazy ass English hippie come up to me, tell me this long story about how he "just a second ago" got hit by a car, had "mum" sending out his visa, and needed 30 soles (about 10 bucks) to go to the aeropuerto. Not buying it. Hippy-ass lier.

These hippies are taking away a market of handicrafting from the indigenous peruvian women who are trying to make a buck a day selling their amazing textiles. Trustafarian liers all of them.

Ok, enough naysaying. I really do love it here, but have been getting angry with the non-indigenous, disingenuous european/american nialist types.

I got off track. Where I was going with this was I met some cool folks who are teaching me Spanish by the boardwalk. Only problem is I think the guy who is teaching me may or may not be trying to swindle me. It's kind of an unsettling environment to learn in, when a person is trying to hide their waistband wallet from his/her teacher. Yeah?

Other than this, I have had a chance to see the slums of Iquitos called Belen, or more specifically Belen bajo, which is below Belen itself and is actually more slummy. Here is a picture of Belen, it's like Venece, but with Giardia. It won't let me load the picture. The internet here is pretty bad, I'll try to load it later.

Anyway, it's crazy here, and sad to see people living in Belen. Yet it is also inspiring to see everyone stoked to be alive, and stoked to be with their families and three legged dogs. It continually shows me what is importent in life.

Ok, thats about it, have a great day everyone!

-Jeff

Ok got one picture to load....don't want to take any chances :)

downloading pictures here in my hotel in Iquitos is difficult. Here is the only picture I could get out, looking away from the city into Belen the slums. This place is unreal.

En Iquitos Por Fin!

Ok, I'll make this a bit quick because I need to hit the sack. Made it to Iquitos, the plane ride went great, basically passed out the whole time but woke up with one hell of an ear ache. Met David Sparkman outside the airport just in time before about 100 peruvian taxi drivers tried to taxi rape me. They were relentless!



Now I'm staying in a pretty posh place for about 15 bucks a night, which isn't cheap, but isn't expensive either. I'll be here for a little more than a month so this will be more than perfect for a home for that time period.



Just ate a questionable sausage. Hope this isn't the beginning of the end.



Here are a few pictures to show the area, hope you all area having a great day!

WTF Continental

OK I get it. I'm a cheapskate and therefore have to reap the ramification of my frugality. I suppose buying tickets to Peru for 50 bucks less than normal price should mean that I'd have 16hrs of layovers. That makes sense. yeah.

Crap.

I'm in the butthole of our dear country: Houston, but more specifically, our wonderful 2 termed president of late GW Bush's airport. Sigh. The only way I'm getting internet for free is I'm outside of the fat cats continental president club and I'm pirating their super fast internet...otherwise I'd have to pay 10 bucks to GW on the "Boing" account. Capitalists. **holy crap I just saw a person running with a baby carriage so fast that she got speed wobbles.....let's see here, catch the plane, have a bludgeoned child with a mental disability. I guess these are things we have to weigh on the balance scale of life everyday. Oh the baby is crying now. I wonder why** sorry about that I had to comment on that.

If you can't tell I'm a bit on the frustrated/tired/fedupwithpeople side. I'm about to catch the last of my continental leg to Lima, where I will spend the night and catch a plane to Iquitos to meet David Sparkman, aka. my night in shining armor...he he. I'm looking forward to seeing the Amazon man, what a rad and unique experience I have before me, once again I have to give a shout out to the Lord who whether you believe or not, is the orchestrator of our lives and the one in charge of my clustered life :). I love it.

Ok, back to secular land. Whew.

That's it for now, let's thank those in the presidents club who are secretly planning their next sex trafficking exploits, for the internet access. Too soon? :)

Laters!

My first blog post

Hey there. If you're reading this blog you're either a.) family, b.) friends, c.) bored, or d.) all of the above. Either way, I'll continue to flatter myself with the idea that you guys care what I'm up to, and I'll try to keep this thing updated.

This blog will start with some travels in Peru, as I am leaving in about 3 hours to meet David Sparkman (a rad PhD type) in Iquitos to do some WASH assessment stuff (more on this later). Don't know where we're staying, don't know what we're eating, and don't really care too much :). Because as you might or might not know, I just travel, with one common theme, flatulence. I know it's a bit crude, but it persists in almost a comforting way, always there....it's my rock. Hence the blog name.

And I couldn't figure out a better blog name. Wanna fight about it?

I can't wait to get this things started and begin to show you the wonderful things I have been blessed with in my life in terms of traveling. This is becoming a passion of mine, and I'm excited to have the chance to help people while I pursue this passion.

Much love folks, more to come in the following weeks!! Thanks for your support!

-Jeff