last words

Well, that went by quickly didn't it? I'm back in the Bay Area! It feels great to be home enjoying the wildlife of California (a family of deer just strolled by my window). I'm glad to be vegging out and taking a few days to decompress from moving around every 3-4 days. This traveling experience has been wonderful though frustrating at times. I am positive that I've learned a little bit about how the world functions. I'm sure that I have changed, grown up a bit. These lessons are hard to put into words, but I think they will manifest themselves in my daily life and future interactions with the world around. One thing is certain, I'm not quite done with traveling the world (sorry mom and dad). However, I do want to figure out a more stable way to do it...maybe move to Buenos Aires? =)

Now, for a flashback to my last couple of weeks in Latin America.

My stay in Panama City was a bit bubble-like. Tabitha met me and Natalie there. She had arranged for us to stay in Casco Antiguo, the site of the city's original foundations. I say bubble-like because Casco Antiguo is situated at the end of a small peninsula (easier to defend back in the 1500s) and the charm of a neighborhood in mid-gentrification has attracted fancy restaurants and affluent tourists. Since being declared a World Heritage Site in 1999, the neighborhood has gone through quite a bit of renovation. At this moment, about half of the buildings are bright, shiny, and newly restored while the other half are crumbling into mere skeletons of their old grandeur. The city itself looks a lot like Chicago, with huge condominiums lined up along the waterfront. Interestingly, the tourist maps we picked up all featured real estate and pictures of fancy buildings (including a Trump) instead of marking museums or other points of interest.

The highlight of our time there was definitely crossing the Panama Canal. The inner workings of the canal has not changed since 1914, when it was finished. The trip took about 8 hours and involved our boat climbing 87 ft up from the Pacific and then descending down to the Atlantic. We passed through 6 locks in total. It was amazing to watch HUGE tankers be lifted in the lock next to us at the same exact rate our little boat. And then equally mind-boggling to look across the water to see the Atlantic Ocean a 25ft drop below. All of it is done by gravity, no pumps of any kind are involved in the crossing the canal!

Costa Rica is where Natalie and I parted ways and Jen and Vicki joined me. I visited Monteverde Cloud Forest, Manuel Antonio (read: beach), and Arenal Volcano. At Monteverde we saw the most fascinating butterfly exhibit. We stood and watched as cocoons broke open and beautiful butterflies emerged, dried out their wings, and flew off. Manuel Antonio brought us to our first monkey encounters! We watched cappuchin monkeys groom each other, spider monkeys jump from limb to limb in search of the juiciest leaf, and listened to a howler monkey howl. The beach and ocean was very pretty, but it was way too hot to be sitting in the sun. No eruptions from Arenal Volcano, but Tabitha and I enjoyed a relaxing time at the hot springs which are heated by the volcano. One pool was 113 degrees Fahrenheit! I jumped in it, but could only stay in it for about 3 seconds before my skin boiled off. A word to others considering travel to Costa Rica, book a tour. Independent travel is much more difficult and considerably more expensive there. Oh, and forget buying property in Costa Rica. Nicaragua is the newest hot spot.

Pictures linked in blog title.

Ambato

Sorry if I sounded a bit jaded in my last email. I'd just crossed the border from Peru to Ecuador and was miffed because we'd been scammed by a cab driver who left us semi-stranded after we declined to have him drive us 7 hours overnight to Ambato. In the end, we lost only $1.50 but it just left a sour taste in my mouth. Peru hasn't been the nicest experience. The country itself is gorgeous with a lot of archaeological points of interest. But, it is inundated with tourists and people trying to squeeze every last cent out of them. What I hated the most was that the minute we'd step off of a bus there would be at least 3 men in our faces essentially trying to drag us to their taxis. Ugh. Shaking it off.

During Carnaval it is customary to throw water and get people wet. Throughout the month of February, there are kids and big kids who wield water balloons to throw into open windows of cars and buses and load up water cannons and buckets to get a hapless passerby soaked. Nat and I have spent the month dodging these assaults or at least trying not to react much when we do get wet. The more you react, the more you get wet.

At the last minute, we decided to go to Ambato for Carnaval. It's famous for it's Festival of Fruit and Flowers during the last weekend of Carnaval and therefore very popular among Ecuadorians. Throwing water in Ambato is illegal. Instead, people spray foam at each other or throw hand fulls of flour. Monday night was the peak of Carnaval festivities. Thousands of people lined the streets to watch a parade. I didn't understand why there were so many people because it turned out to be the same exact parade that had passed through Sunday morning. But as soon as the parade finished, the real fun commenced. Throngs of people armed with spray cans of colored foam stormed the streets. Foam Fight!!! The most common technique was to walk casually by a person pulling out the spray can at the last possible moment so that you can get him right in the face and run away before he can react. Nat and I, being a pretty girl with "blonde" curls and a rare Asian gal, were targetted hard. I remember hearing "Mira, la chinita!" several times right before being creamed and blinded by blue/green/pink foam. But don't you worry, we fought back. We got everyone that sprayed us, even if it meant chasing them down and smearing our enemies faces with our own foam filled faces. After the foam fights, dancing in the street was requisite. Definitely a unique experience.



Now, I'm killing time in Quito before I fly out to Panama City. We visited the Equator the other day. We went with three cool guys (Diego, Juan Cristobal, and Raimundo) from Chile. It was like going to an amusement park! There is a massive monument marking 0°-0'-0" longitude (actually, it's off by 200 m) surrounded by several museums, cafes, and restaurants. An orange stone line is drawn into the ground. I was surprised how fun it was to jump from north to south to north to south to north to south. Weee! Of course, I ran a bitty science experiment in a bathroom sink. Water drained straight down!