Now in Washington, Summer trip 2008

I forgot to mention that in the Columbia River Gorge, on the way to the town Hood River, we stopped at a handful of waterfalls. We hiked up to the top of two of them. Below is a picture looking down the second waterfall.
So the next day we headed up to a hike Stacie chose near Mount Hood. Four miles and 2000 feet up, to the top of this mountain where you had a 360 view of all 5 snowcapped peaks, including Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainer. Absolutely wonderful view, and as a bonus, a lake half way up...

and a vista point at a “boulder garden.” We stopped at each one for photos. The funny thing of the photo at the boulder garden, is that when we got back to the car and looked at the guidebook it had the same exact photo, with the same “stick” (dead tree) and background in it.



At the top of the hike there was still snow on the trail at places. It was above 80 degrees and we were hiking (I probably did as much slipping as hiking) in snow!

The pictures below are the ones we took at the top of the hike under Mount Hood.



We thought we did quite well on the hike, until we ran into this couple who were backpacking with their two dogs, and the woman was preggers! After the 5 hour hike, we headed up towards Washington state, past Mt. St Helens, and to a small town called Leavenworth. Our goal was to get there, camp overnight and be at the Ranger station at 7:45 when they opened to have a chance at getting the Golden Ticket (we’re watching Charlie and the Chocolate factory right now)- two of the 6 backpacking permits given out each day to the Colchuck Lake and the Enchantment Lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

At Mt. St Helens you could see how there was forests that were about 15 feet tall, immediately next to forests that were more than 50 feet tall. There were also entire sides of mountains that were still covered only by fallen trees. We continued our ride towards Leavenworth. After passing some rock formation that looked exactly like Devils’ Postpile near Mammoth Lakes in California. What made that one a national monument, and left these as a simple view along Highway 12?

Stacie drove into the sunset

... and we made it to a KOA in Leavenworth, which was way overpriced.

We got up the next morning, and got the permits! We then started our backpacking trip up 1600 feet elevation and 4 miles.


We spent the night at Lake Colchuck. That is Stacie at the lake that our campsite overlooked, and the view from our tent.


The next day we did a day hike: 4 miles roundtrip, and 2000 elevation rise up to the enchantment Lakes. It was so hard, and we were just carrying a day pack. There were a ton of people who were carrying their backpacking packs. It was mostly over a field of boulders, and it was hard to find the trail, except there were little piles of rocks called cairns. If you look carefully at the picture below, you'll see one.

Although it was so hard, it was absolutely worth it.




On the third day we hiked back down to our car, and went up to Leavenworth, which is a Bavarian town. In the 60’s they hit hard times, so they decided on a theme to attract tourists. So they chose the Swiss town theme. It worked. We camped at a Lake Near Leavenworth and spent the next day relaxing on the beach. We then headed to Seattle. On the way we stopped at the Boeing museum, and took the tour. The tour is of the world largest building (by volume), where they build the 747, 767, 777, and the 787. This is me holding that building, not so big, really.



As the tour finished we saw the dreamlifter land (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747_Large_Cargo_Freighter).

Stacie’s research then lead us to a restaurant, which was so popular, we would have had to wait 3 hours for a table. Luckly next door there was a new bar/restaurant that served the same food, just as a 3 course pricefix meal, and there was plenty of space. There we met this wonderfully hilarious gentleman who told us about how he had survived an airplane crash landing earlier that week.

Yesterday we did Seattle. Saw the Public Market where they throw fish, and where the original Starbucks Coffee is.



We then walked along the Puget Sound – which is just as touristy as Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco,


and then headed to the space needle

and then to the Experience Music Project near the space needle.

This is a picture of us learning to sing...


Today we enjoyed a lunch on West side of Seattle, and took a ferry to Vashion Island, where we walked a bit.

Next we head to Olympia National Park and then down the coast.

Summer 2008 Oregon (and Washington) Trail

Stacie’s on vacation this year, so I don’t think she’s doing much of a blog… but since I have 3 weeks of traveling this year, I thought I’d document our travels a little bit.

We left on from San Francisco, the day after she arrived from a 5 day trip to the Warren Mountains (the far right-upper most -a.k.a. northeast- corner of California) with a horticulture group. I had just finished 2 weeks of intense studying for the second step of the medical board exam.

We packed frantically Monday evening, and Tuesday headed straight up towards Crater Lake National Park, in Oregon. Two thirds of the trip were under a dark haze from the fires all over California. At some points the smoke was so thick, it reminded us of the fog at home in San Francisco, except that the sun was an eerie orange. Even with the sky so dark, the weather in the valley was above 100ºF. As we passed Shasta Mountain, the skies cleared and we finally entered clear blue skies. We quickly stopped for a photo op at the Oregon border.

We then headed up to our campground just south of Crater Lake. Once there, in less than a few hours, I managed to cruise through my first leisure book I have gotten to enjoy in a long time. Our camping neighbor demonstrated how to travel and camp with only the essentials: a tent, a motorcycle and a pair of leather boots. Our car has a little more stuff than that.

We camped the night and got up early the next day and headed up to Crater Lake. What a beautiful sight!

Stacie lead the way on 2 hikes, for a total of 5 miles (according to Stacie, I’d like to say they were more like 7 miles). We were at 7000 -8000 feet altitude so we were in the 80’s, while most everywhere else was sweltering in the heat.

Stacie took this great photo on our hike down to touch the lake.

We camped another night at Crater Lake, and then headed up to Eugene, Ore. for lunch. We stopped at a waterfall on the way. The mosquitoes rushed us back to the car after a couple minutes of enjoyment and the required photo, see below.

In Eugene, we found a great pizza place, and sat outside under an umbrella enjoying our lunch. We planned another hike on the way to Portland, but due to me being distracted we missed the exit (by a whole lot), so we continued on our way to Portland. We arrived to our hotel at a Portland suburb (called Milwaukie) and watched the required TV dose. Since we do not have a TV at home, we consider watching TV at the hotels we stay at, a relaxing portion of our vacation. TV withdrawal… how weird.

On the next day we headed to downtown Portland. As we went to catch the light-rail, they were fixing the fare machine, so they handed us each a free fare to ride the train. We were just on time to our reservation at lunch at the Northwest Culinary Institute’s student run restaurant – Blue. We ate way through 5 scrumptiously delicious courses. Bill for the 2 of us: including a tip: $40.

We then made our way around downtown Portland. First the Art Museum: the photo below is of me at the art museum. (Stacie's modern art!)

Then we headed to the Japanese garden

Next we saw the famous Portland Rose Garden. Portland is very proud of this garden. Hundreds of varieties of roses being tested for resistance against various conditions: pests, chemicals, weather and such. The ones that flourish get commercialized, those who don’t do so well get destroyed. “Survival of the fittest sped up.” We then continued to walk around downtown Portland: Pioneer Square, Powell’s Bookstore, the Pearl District, Old Town, “China Town” (you could tell it was Chinatown by the lamp posts, but we did not see a single person of Asian ethnicity), and then a wonderful stroll along the riverfront. We ended up at a wine bar on the riverfront, and had some wine and cheese. Yup, that's Stacie being cheezy by the river in the photo.

Talk about love at first sight. Stacie loves this city. Portland had perfect weather, quaint downtown with a lot of great stores and happening fun places. I think she’s really hoping that I get into residency there. The next day, after a night and morning of HBO on TV, we strolled around the Portland downtown Saturday Market, a crafts fair with a ton of true local artists. Stacie got a T-shirt from. She makes really cute rustic T’s: highly recommended.

We then headed out the Columbia River Gorge, while making repeated “gorgeous” puns. We stopped at a few waterfalls, and hiked up to the top of a couple them, included are photos of them. It was over 90 degrees, so we limited the distance of our hike. We then stopped at a famous dam, but it had closed at 5pm, so we didn’t get to see it, dam!

We did stop for about 3 minutes at the fishery nearby. I included a video of the fish, whose natural instinct is to swim upstream. There is water pouring into the holding tanks-to keep the water fresh and oxygenated, and the fish are jumping at the stream of water, even though there is a big metal plate to keep them from going anywhere.

Tonight (Friday evening) we arrived to Hood River. We went down to the riverside and spent some time reading and watching a motley crew of dogs prance around. We will be heading up toward the Washington Alpine Lakes area tomorrow after a hike near Mount Hood.

After a very unusual afternoon in Peru and a 20 hour plane journey, I arrived safely to San Francisco. I have quickly adjusted to my return to US culture. --Eating ice cream, throwing toilet paper IN the toilet, taking long hot showers and reading my junk mail...Daniel and I have already begun our lengthy literary journey through the latest Harry Potter novel as well.

And speaking of Harry Potter, I just happened to have been watching the Harry Potter movie in Lima Peru shortly before I felt the earthquake hit. I had gone down to the oceanfront mall Miraflores (A neighborhood in Lima) to see the movie and after it was over I began to walk the few blocks back to my hostel. I was feeling pretty good at the time since the Harry Potter movie really gives off that "I can save the world from evil" feeling. Half way up the block I felt the ground shaking a bit under my feet. A few seconds later, hundreds of people flooded the streets. I asked someone what happened and they said there was an earthquake. I looked around at the stores and noticed that all the manikins in the windows had fallen over. All the buildings appeared to be in tact but everyone appeared distraught and I noticed people crying and using their cellphones. Since I had already packed my camera for my trip back to the states, I unfortunately didn't get any pictures...

I quickly walked through the crowds and went into an Internet place because I had to print out my plane ticket since I was supposed to meet up with some girls at my hostel to share a taxi to the airport at 800pm. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for one of the girls, I had agreed to go 4 hours early to the airport in order to share a taxi with a girl that had a flight going a few hours earlier. After leaving the Internet place, I went to the convenient store across the street to see if I could buy snacks with my last few Soles and ran into one of the workers from my hostel. She was watching the news in the convenient store and expressed worry about her son who wasn't home from school yet. She said never in her life had she experienced an earthquake so strong before. I later learned that the earthquake lasted over a minute in duration. I offered her some reassurances and went across the street to the hostel. The hostel visitors were sitting down and watching a movie and appeared completely un-alarmed. We learned that the earthquake was on CNN and everyone took turns using the Internet to e-mail home to family.

Thirty minutes later, the taxi arrived and we began our journey to the airport. The ride was a challenging one since many people remained in the street and there were several traffic jams. Apparently, there are still some adobe (Mud and Water) homes left in Lima and they are known to be very unstable during earthquakes. While in the taxi, we felt an after shock for a few seconds. Our taxi driver was resourceful and assertive in his efforts to get us to the airport so the girl with the earlier flight wouldn't miss her plane (If planes were going out). The taxi driver did not hesitate to drive up on curbs around traffic jams and drove down a street in reverse to get to another street with less traffic.

When we arrived at the airport there was a large crowd of people outside. We learned that national flights were not going out but there were two or three international flights that were still scheduled to leave. These flights did not leave on time but did depart later that evening. Initially they were not letting anyone into the airport because some of the ceiling tiles had fallen and some of the windows had broken. My flight was later in the evening and fortunately, we were able to get our tickets and leave on time.

While watching the news at the airport, we learned that the center of the earthquake was a 7.9 and was around a hundred miles south of Lima. There were several mortalities and a significant amount of damage near the center of the quake. Some damage had occurred in Lima, but for the most part, Lima did not suffer that much damage. Fortunately, my friend Shannon was in Bolivia at the time of the quake and hopefully her travel plans won't be affected!

So now I'm home, listening to some CDs I bought at the "Grey" market (Because after all, they do provide a written receipt!) and trying to figure out my work schedule for next week.

Thanks to all of you that have written and kept in touch this summer. I look forward to seeing you all soon!

--Until next summer!

-stace

Chicharones

Shannon and I just arrived back in Cuzco after staying the night in one of the small towns in the Sacred Valley. In the morning we went to an open air market in Chinchero and bought some textiles from some weavers near Chinchero. Shannon agreed to let me post a picture she took of one of the weavers if I were to agree to post a few kitten pictures on the blog site (One might call this blackmail....). The hostel we stayed at just got a little white kitten and Shannon fell immediately in love with the little guy.

Tomorrow we have one last day touring around Cuzco. I am already feeling much better as evident by my decision to eat a big chunk of fried pork fat (Chicharones! Yummy!).

-stacie

Machu Pichu

Planning and coordinating our trip to Machu Pichu definitely turned me into a militant tourist for the first time since I left for South America. And my poor friend Shannon had to be subjected to my crazy plans and schedules. We met the train in Ollantaytambo and arrived in Aguas Calientes in the dark on Thursday evening. I then dragged Shannon around getting our 40 dollar entrance tickets to the ruins. --You have to buy them in advance. We then bought our 12 dollar bus tickets that evening (The bus would take us up the hillside to the Machu Pichu site. In other parts of Peru, a 30 minute bus ride would cost no more than 60 cents, but since it is the only way of getting there besides walking up the steep hillside, you have to fork over the dough). Shannon and I (or was it just"I?") made plans to get up at 4:30 am so we could go on the first bus leaving at 5:30 am to Machu Pichu.

When Shannon´s alarm went off, I got up, brushed my teeth and then when I saw Shannon sleeping in until 4:35 am, I kicked her out of bed. I didn´t allow time for breakfast so we scarfed down some Cliff bars that Shannon had brought along from home. As Shannon got ready, I counted down how much time we had before we had to leave the hostel, "15 minutes! 10 minutes! 3 minutes!.." --Poor Shannon....no decent breakfast and getting bossed around at 4:30 am.

When we arrived at the bus stop (At the planned time of 5am thank you very much!), there were already over 20 people waiting in line for the bus. Shannon and I were the last two people to make it onto the first bus (Ha!). By 5:30am, there were well over 200 people waiting for the first buses to arrive. When we pulled into the entrance, I force Shannon to fly through the site without stopping so we could get in line to be one of the people allowed to go up the mountain of Wayni Pichu that overlooks the ruins (They only allow a limited number to go up each day). Since I had stayed up studying the map all evening and calculating the fasted way to get to the registration booth, we were among the first 20 people to arrive to the registration booth. I learned, upon arrival, that they permitted 400 people to go up the mountain each day. So maybe my planning was a bit overzealous...

As we stood in line waiting for the registration booth to open at 7am, I "graciously" encouraged Shannon to go check out some of the ruins and take pictures. Shannon returned well before 7am after checking out some of the ruins (She probably feared for her life if she did not return in time for the registration booth to open).

As soon as the booth opened, we began our one hour hike up and up and up Wayni Pichu. Since I had been on three treks at over 3000m in elevation, I was just elated with the walk. I kept saying things like, "Isn´t this a great walk?" or "I love hiking!" Shannon, who has had only a few days to acclimatize to this elevation did not seem quite as enthused and energetic. Perhaps she had a few moments where she thought about pushing me off the side of the mountain, but she never let on and managed to maintain a positive attitude throughout the trek. We arrive to the top at around 8 am and looked over the expansive views of the ruins surrounded by steep mountains.

There was hardly anyone in the ruins (Most were in line at the Wayni Pichu registration booth) so the ruins were barren and beautiful. I definitely felt like all the planning paid off in the end. We sat for a long time on the mountain side and orientated ourselves to the ruins while eating cookies that I had smuggled in (No eating allowed in Machu Pichu!).

Shannon and I wandered the ruins all day. We also squeezed in a few naps on the terraces and ate a hardy lunch just outside the entrance gate. At around 3pm, Shannon and I took the bus back to Aguas Calientes and met up with another fellow tourist for dinner.

After dinner, I came down with some food poisoning and spent the evening getting acquainted with the hostel´s communal bathroom. Could it have been bad Carma coming back to me after torturing my poor friend Shannon at 4:30 in the morning? Who knows...but Shannon managed to sleep through the whole thing undisturbed.

Today we are passing the time on the Internet and chilling out in Aguas Calientes until our train leaves at 4pm. I am feeling a bit better and have been drinking pineapple flavored, "Electrolight!"

Tomorrow, Shannon and I will go to one of the Sunday markets in the Sacred Valley. On Sunday evening we will meet up with another traveler for dinner in Cuzco and on Tuesday, I will leave Shannon and fly to Lima to catch my flight back to the states.

Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive of my travels. Although I have been traveling "alone" for most of my trip, I think it´s fair to say that I was rarely on my own. I received lots of e-mails from friends and family back home and no matter where I went, I was fortunate to meet some really amazing and kind people along the way. Although I would much rather have preferred traveling with Daniel, I don´t think I would have met so many people or forced myself to reach out as much as I did.

-stace

After a 22 hour bus ride through the Andes, my Shannon and I arrived in Cuzco and settled in to our hostel. We then walked across town to the train station to get our tickets to Machu Pichu only to arrive to a door closing in front of faces. The train ticket office closes at 5 pm. --No exceptions. --Not even if you beg and plead as I did.

So we walked back through town and returned the next day for our tickets. There are various ways to get to Machu Pichu. Most international travelers do a 4 or 2 day trek on the Inca Trail. One must book this months in advance and since we did not, that left only a few other options. Besides the train, there is a hike through the jungle that you could do. Shannon and I were feeling lazy so we opted for the train. There is no other way to arrive to the small town, Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Pichu, besides the train. Today we will get on a bus and travel through the sacred valley and stop and some towns along the way. We will need to arrive to a town that I can´t spell (Olletantabo?)and get the train from there.

In the mean time, Shannon and I visited some of the museums and historic sites in Cuzco. There are many Inca Walls still partially in tact. Above is a picture of us standing next to one. The other picture is of a church which was built on top of an Incan wall. Supposedly the church sustained a lot of damage in some earthquakes but the Inca walls at the base of the church sustained very little damage.

Puya Raymondi

I swore that after spending many cold nights in Bolivia, I would head directly to the beach in Peru and relax for a while. That was until I read about the amazing trekking opportunities in Huaraz. Huaraz is the jumping off point to treks and climbs in the Cordillera Blanca and another mountain range where the book "Into thin Air" was inspired (The book about the climber that broke his leg while climbing and was left by his partner to die but survived.). As usual, I decided to play it on the safe side and did a low-key 4 day trek (Santa Cruz trek) in the Cordillera Blanca that did not involve any technical climbing. As you can see from the pictures below, I was surrounded by snow-caped peaks throughout the trek.

I went with a small group, a guide and some donkeys carried the supplies so it was nice not to have to hike with lots of gear. After four days of walking, I took a night bus to Trujillo along the coast of Peru. From there, myself and one of the other girls I met on the Santa Cruz trek took a tour of various nearby ruins and then took another night bus to Mancora that same day. Mancora is a small, touristy beach-town located in Northern Peru near Ecuador. Below is a photo of boats made out of reeds that some of the local fisherman still use near Trujillo.

As a side note, I also took a tour out of Huaraz to see the famous Puya Raymondi plant. The plant is the largest Puya in it's genus and has the largest inflorescence in the world. I couldn't resist including a picture of the plant. I had to ask three different tourist to take my picture next to the plant until I was satisfied...You can see a dead version of this plant at the SF Botanical Garden in succulent section. After about 100 years, the plant flowers and then dies.

In two days I will be busing back to Lima to meet up with a friend from the states. From there we will be going to Cuzco and planning our trip to Machu Pichu. I hope you are all well...

-stacie