"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.