Nova Scotia - where only the big towns have gas stations

We are back from a weekend trip to Canada, more specifically, Nova Scotia, Canada. It's true that Canada is a whole other country. The people there are some of the friendliest folk you'll ever meet. The land is gorgeous, yet the weather is cold. The fall foliage was starting to show reds, yellows, oranges, and purples. We made the trip up to Big Pond, CA (pop. 47) by flying into Halifax and driving the 4 hours to Cape Breton, the northeastern tip of Nova Scotia.

The wedding was a lot of fun. We started out knowing a couple people there, and ended up knowing practically everyone. About 100-120 people were there to celebrate the wedding of Mike and Megan in the Celtic style. The ceremony music was of course by bagpipe, and the reception music was played by an amazing fiddle player accompanied by a keyboard. After a filling dinner, we were all told to move the tables and chairs out of the way because it was time to square dance! I'm not talking about your typical swing-yer-partner-round-and-round country square dance. The Celtic style of square dancing was free form consisting of 3 sets. At least one person needs to know what's going on and they can tell everyone in the circle how to spin until dizzy, trade partners, join hands, and have the time of your lives. We watched a couple rounds before we were pulled into the fun. At first it was hilarious as we figured out how to follow the moves, but soon even we were helping the newcomers dance. The dancing left us hot, sweaty, out of breath, but also laughing. After a set, everyone would step out into the 45-degree windy weather outside to cool off before starting again.

After the wedding, Mark and I took a drive around the historic Cabot Trail (185-mile loop covering many small towns and the Cape Breton Highlands National Park). We spent 2 days on the trail searching for moose, admiring the fall colors, bundling up against the cold wind off the ocean, and doing a few hikes. Unfortunately the area was closing down for the season, but that really just meant that we had more of the drive to ourselves. We finally did see a moose swimming across a lake pretty far away from us. The bed and breakfast we stayed at along the way was very homey, and we were able to get some decent pictures in along the way. It was a fast trip, but a fun trip and we aren't quite ready to get back to our normal lives.

I've attached some pictures below for your enjoyment. Included is the giant Ceilidh Fiddle in Sydney. A small creek along a hiking trail. A moose swimming in Lake Warren. Mark and Joanna at Beulach Ban Falls. And finally Mark and Joanna freezing on the Skyline boardwalk overlooking the ocean. (If you can't see the pictures, be sure to visit http://markandjoannatravel.blogspot.com/ )

Home Sweet Home

We arrived safely at IAH this morning at 7am, exhausted, and ready to
come home. We took a taxi home and found the house to be in perfect
shape. The bunnies were happy to see us (I think) and were ready for
breakfast. Our bunny sitters did a wonderful job taking care of them
even through the possible hurricane. In case they couldn't get to the
house, they hid food under boxes inside the bunny cages. =)

The house looks so big and clean to us after spending 2.5 weeks in
tiny, dirty, hotel rooms. We were happy to use the sink water to
brush our teeth, shower, and wear clean clothes! Today will be spent
doing laundry and other chores to get us acclimated back to Houston
life.

We had a fantastic vacation. It was long and it felt long. We had
lots of time for sitting and relaxing as well as doing everything we
wanted to do. There are no regrets and no extra wishes. Everything
was perfect. Thanks for reading and keeping up with our travel blog.
I'll do my best to post more of the trip journal and pictures soon.

It's either up or down

Up or down Inca stairs that is. =) We just finished our 4 day trek
on the Inca Trail. We hiked up two very tall mountains, and at one
point our guide took us down what was pretty much a drainage channel.
We got very muddy falling down in that one. We actually arrived at
our destination, Machu Picchu, yesterday via the Sungate. We had to
wake up at 3:30a to get in line at 4:30 at the check point to wait
until 5:30, to practically run the last 2 hours of the trek to get to
MP. We arrived and had a 2 hour guided tour before we got to explore
on our own. We met in the small town of Aguas Calientes for lunch
with our guide who was supposed to give us our train tickets back to
Cusco. Unfortunately, we had a little administrative fiasco. Many
phone calls and a very late night waiting for someone who never showed
up at our hotel, we gave up and stopped worrying about it. Finally
today we got our train tickets at lunchtime and now we are just
killing time waiting for the train out. It doesn´t make sense to go
back up to MP for just an hour.

So back to the Inca Trail....

It was fantastic. This was a luxury hike for sure. We had 6 porters
and a guide for just the two of us. Each porter was allowed to carry
only 25 kg and they did. There is a limit of 500 people a day for the
Inca Trail, and about 300 of them are porters. Our porters cooked us
3 course meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They also set up our
tents, brought us hot tea in the morning when waking us up so we could
drink in our sleeping bags, and they would clap for us every time they
saw us. It was nice not to have to set up tents when we were beat at
the end of the day, but all the catering is not really our style. =)
It was fun, though.

In 4 days we hiked about 45 km going pretty much straight up or
straight down. This is not a hike for the weak for sure! Phew. My
left knee was not happy with me for the past 2 days and going down
stairs was not as much fun. But I´m much better today after having
slept in a bed last night. Mark had no issues at all. On the second
day we climbed two mountains. We climbed the first mountain called
Dead Woman´s Pass (named for the shape of the mountain), then went
down into a valley and then up a second mountain. Boy was that a hard
day. We reached elevations as high as 4200 meters and we had no
altitude sickness. We could hardly breath up there, but other than
that we were fine. Our guide carried portable oxygen, but we never
needed to use it.

The third day was easier, but our guide decided that since we were
such strong hikers, he'd take us on a little detour. It sounded great
at first, because we were going to visit an Inca site that was not on
the regular trail, but little did we know that this detour would take
us up an extra mountain, and add 2 extra hours of hiking. Once we got
to the top of this second mountain, the only way down was by way of a
drainage path. At points I was waist deep inside a muddy channel that
was as wide as me. Plus, the going was almost straight down. One
more surprise was in store for us. We got to go down a shortcut which
basically meant sliding down on our butts. We were so muddy. =)
Also very tired of hiking down, but I think it was worth it in the
end.

Each night was freezing cold. And 2 of the 3 nights it rained.
Luckily we didn't have to do too much hiking in the rain, but we were
glad for our rain suits. Also, I was glad I bought a dry bag for my
camera. We wore 4 layers plus hat and gloves at night. brrr.

Another thing to note is that Peru is full of people wanting to sell
you souvenirs, water, food, and anything else you need. We knew this
in Cusco of course. You can't walk down the street without people
trying to pull you in their restaurant or shop. However, they were
even on the Inca Trail! Peruvians will wake up early, and haul
drinks, chocolate, snacks, hats, gloves, etc up the mountain so that
when the tourists got there we could buy them. Actually, we did take
advantage of this. On the way up Dead Woman´s Pass, our GPS needed
batteries and we realized the extras were in the bag our porter was
carrying. So, we bought AA batteries on a mountain. =)

Today was our second day in Aguas Calientes and the Machu Picchu. We
wanted to hike up WaynaPicchu, but they only allow 400 people a day to
hike it. So, we woke up at 4am to get in line for the bus. The first
bus is at 5:30a. We were about number 30 in line for the bus at
4:30a, and tons of people filed in behind us in no time. While Mark
waited in the bus line, Joanna went over to the line for MP tickets
which opened at 5a. She made it back to the bus line just in time for
the first bus to arrive. There was a mad dash to get on the bus.
About 20-25 buses came and lined up to cart us all to Machu Picchu.
We got on the first bus, but on the mountain the second bus passed us!
Noooo. We arrived at MP and the bus driver told us all to hurry! We
thought that was funny, but then we say that there was already a huge
line at the gate for MP. Some people got up even earlier and hiked up
for probably 2 hours to sit in line. Plus the other buses were all
disembarking. MP opened at 6a and it was about 5:45. I went and
stored our luggage and then gates opened and there was a mad dash to
get through the gate. You´d think that at the gate they would give us
numbers to hike up WaynaPicchu, but no. Everyone now had to literally
run through the bulk of MP city to get to the gate to WP. It was
quite the mad dash. We all made it there by 6:10a, but the gate
didn't open til 7a. So, more waiting. And it rained. At 7a, we
finally got through the gate and Mark and I were numbers 37 and 38.
We got to be in the first group to hike. The whole process was
hilarious and we had a lot of fun. It rained the whole way and it was
too cloudy to see anything other than 10 feet in front of you, but it
was still fun. We hiked to the top and all sat in precarious
positions on jagged rocks while we took pictures of the clouds. On
the way down, Mark and I took the detour that would take us to an Inca
cave. Now this hike was difficult! I think it was worse than the
whole Inca Trail. Soooo many tiny and steep stairs. Luckily there
were a few railings. We climbed up and down a few ladders and
squeezed between rocks, but finally we arrived at the cave. The sun
finally came out and we took off some layers for the hike back. The
hike back was all uphill, well except for the section that went down
down, just to go up, and up. We arrived at the end exhausted. Oh,
and it was raining again.

We came back to Aguas Calientes at noon to hopefully get our train
tickets and to eat lunch. It was too cloudy and rainy and we were too
exhausted to see any more of MP.

Our vacation is now winding down. Today we go back to Cusco by train.
We'll stay a brief night there and then fly to Lima in the early
morning tomorrow. We've got a day and a half in Lima and then on
Monday night we are flying back to Houston. It's been such a great
vacation, and we really aren´t ready for it to end.

Thanks to everyone reading my travel blog. I didn´t bring my memory
card reader to Aguas Calientes, so no pictures this time. However, if
we need to kill some more time in Lima, I'll post again.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Until next time, hasta luego.

Muchos pasos

1. Climbing step after step after step
2. Joanna overlooking the city of Pisaq
3. The mirror on the bus. When we hopped on, we couldn't even fit
inside the door, but they managed to squeeze in about 6 more people.
It was quite an experience driving an hour from Cusco standing
squashed with a baby kicking my leg and crying the whole time.
4. The center of the Cusco Plaza de Armas at night

Breathe in, breathe out, put one foot in front of the other

Its Sunday, and Sunday is market day in Pisaq. So we joined the
locals on a crowded...and I mean very crowded minibus to Pisaq, 30 km
North of Cuzco. There was barely enough room for the two of us to get
on the bus, and then they crowded 6 more people on after us. Much
more of an adventure than a simple taxi ride. And cheaper too at
about $0.75. Pisaq market was a very crowded flea market with local
farmers selling their vegetables and other people selling their
tourist fares. Like any good flea market there were the odd stalls.
Some selling ancient cameras, giant ornate knives, and some with just
rocks. Chess sets were unusually popular. There were more chess sets
there than chess players in all of Peru I guessed. The most popular
sets allowed you to recreate or rewrite history with the Spaniards on
one side and the Incas on the other. Lots of alpaca clothing and
blankets of course. There were several children skilled in the art of
selling. They were carrying around baby alpacas, puppies, sheep,
anything the looked cute trying to get a picture out of you...and a
small commission of course. They rarely took no for an answer the
first, second, or third time. Cute kids though. Lunch at a small
cafe and then we attacked the Pisaq ruins. The ruins, like all Inca
ruins are located much higher than anyone of us wanted to climb.
Great for safety from invaders, tiring for us out of shape tourists.
(We had to stop and breathe about every 15 steps) In all we climbed
around 1600 feet to the highest point. Starting at 10,000 ft didn´t
give us much oxygen to start with either. This Inca Trail to Machu
Pichu might be more difficult than we thought. The height gave us
some excellent pictures of the nearby towns and mountains. Inside the
ruins we saw an Inka shower. There didn´t appear to be a hot water
option. After another crowded minibus ride back to Cuzco we snapped
several night shots of the town square. With the long exposure times,
night shots appear a little different than you thought. There are two
churches on the town square, with 3 clocks between them, and none
showing the right time. Dinner at a local tapas bar, and excellent
dessert at an ice cream shop. Their claim to fame was ice cream
shaped like unusual foods. I.E. pizza, spaghetti, and even the
Flintstones car, all shaped from colored ice cream. I.E. vanilla ice
cream strings for the spaghetti and a red fruit ice cream on top for
the sauce. Neat concept.

One last day of rest in Cuzco and we start the Inca Trail on Tuesday.
Hope everyone is staying dry and safe from Edouard back in the TX.

River rafting is fun

Here are some of the pictures from the rafting trip. Joanna is in the
black helmet and Mark in the blue one.

Life is a jungle

Hola,

We are back from the jungle. We had a great time. We got to see
pretty much all the wildlife that we were expecting to see. We even
got to see the elusive tapir. The tapir is the funniest looking
animal I've seen. It looks like a mix between an anteater, a hippo, a
wild pig, and a cow. The viewing blind was all set up with individual
mattresses for each of us, each with it's own mosquito netting. We
slept/watched for about 4 or 5 hours before the tapir came. We also
saw about 4 types of monkeys, 150 species of birds (our birding
friends were keeping count), and of course lots of bugs and spiders.
Oh, and otters too. We even got to check out a tail less scorpion
with no stinger. It didn't look like a scorpion at all. We each
about doubled the amount of mosquito/sand fly bites, even though we
stayed covered from wrist to ankle. My hands look like I've got a
case of chicken pox. Oh, and it was about 150% humid the entire time
with no electricity. We were so glad to get back to the freezing cold
Cusco today.

The funniest story from the jungle was probably when we found the
guard pig. Mark and I were going for a walk on our own. We didn't
know where the trails were yet, so we were wandering. Well, we
wandered over to the hut where the staff lived and there was a huge
pig blocking our path. We slowly approached, and the pig circled and
grunted and charged us. Then one of the staff came out and told us
how this pig played soccer with them. I think the pig got fed up with
us standing there because he finally ran over and crashed into my
legs, nearly knocking me over. We decided it was a good time to turn
around and head out.

We've got two days in Cusco before our 4 day Inca Trail hike starts.
We are checking out some more ruins, doing laundry, shopping, and
relaxing.

Until next time . . .

Us on the River

...now with pictures!

Bruised and bitten, but having a great time

Hola!

We just got back from our river rafting trip and had a great time on
the rapids. On the first day we drove 5 hours on a dirt road through
the mountains. That was the bumpiest ride of my life. Dramamine
works great, by the way. When we finally got to the river we had
about 2 hours of training through very small rapids and then made
camp. The sun goes down about 5 or 5:30, so first we put up our tents
and then made a fire. The guides made us a wonderful dinner and we
chatted with our new friends. 12 total on the tour.

The second day was the long day. Before the day started, Mark got
stung by a scorpion that was hiding in his wetsuit. They aren't
poisonous, but the rest of us checked our wetsuits very well before
putting them on. We rode though everything from class 0 to class 4
rapids. There were some very technical spots, but we were having a
blast. The water was cold, but we were wearing wetsuits, helmets, and
a splash jacket, so we did not feel that cold. There was one class 5
and one class 6 that we had to walk while the guides took the boats
through. It was a 15 minute walk each through rocks and we were very
glad we bought new closed toe river sandals. On the class 6, the
cargo boat flipped (even though our guide said it was to heavy to ever
flip) and it took 4 of them to flip it back over. At camp that night,
the tents were wet as they were not in dry bags. Also, we found out
that our dry bag had a leak in the middle as our stuff was a bit wet
at the end of the day. We made camp early after 6 hours on the river.
We were sore, but happy. We dried everything out, had a wonderful
dinner and fire.

The third day was rather short at only 3 hours on the river, but we
got to ride though a class 5 rapid which was awesome. We did some
body rafting through a class 2 rapid which was an adrenaline rush,
too. The river is very different at water level and the whole way
down consisted of gulp air, hold breath for wave, gulp air, hold
breath for wave. =) We ended at our tour company's little house and
after lunch took a much shorter 2 hour bus ride back to Cusco.

Tomorrow we are off to the jungle for 4 days. Hasta luego.

Viva Peru

July 24 and July 25 were really one day for us. One day of travel and
recouping from the travel.

Thursday, our flight finally took off at 7pm (2.5 hours late) and the
flight was uneventful after that. We arrived in Lima around 2am or
so, and had no problems getting our luggage and getting through
immigration and customs. To get out of customs we had to press a
button that randomly gave either a red light or green light. Everyone
was getting green, but when Mark pressed the button, we got red. That
meant we had to get our luggage xrayed, but that only delayed us about
20 seconds or so. =)

Our flight to Cusco was at 5am, so we went to the LAN counter and
checked our bags. Then we headed for the gate. We had a variety of
food on Continental, and we were mostly just tired, but not really
hungry. Just before security we paid our airport tax. The airport
was not very busy at that time in the morning, but we only had 2 hours
so we decided to go right to the gate. At the gate, everyone had a
group of three chairs and were laid out sleeping. We read our books
and Joanna dozed, but starting around 3:30, they had a wake up call
and started announcing flights.

At boarding time we were surprised to see that we went outside and
into a bus that drove us to the plane. We slept the whole way to
Cusco. We woke up briefly for an airline breakfast and to see the
sunrise over the Andean mountains.

We arrived in Cusco at about 6:30 and got our bags with no problems.
Our Ollantaytambo hotel sent us a taxi. We found the driver with my
name on his sign and he told us it would be a 1 hour and 30 minute
drive to Ollantaytambo. Amazingly, we mostly stayed awake for the
ride.

The drive through Cusco was an eye opening experience. There are some
very poor areas. The houses were made out of clay bricks. Also,
there were hundreds of scruffy dogs wandering the streets. They moved
about just like people. Plenty of people were out and about as well
as it was the start of the work day. The streets appeared to have
very little by way of traffic control, and the drivers just did as
they pleased. We saw some pigs roaming the streets as well.

Once we were out of Cusco, the drive was mostly down to the valley.
The streets were bumpy, but not as bad as I had expected. The area is
beautiful with the mountains surrounding the valley and a very rural
setting of homes. We passed through the town of Urubamba before
getting to Ollantaytambo. In Ollantaytambo, the streets are
cobblestones and we arrived at our hostal quickly. We are staying at
Home Sweet Home. We arrived around 8:30 and the very nice owner
(Luis) told us that people were leaving, but a room was not quite
ready. We were ready to sleep, but we went out to the courtyard and
sat with others as they ate breakfast. We got some good travel tips
and then went to see when the room would be ready. Not yet.

So, we took a walk to town. The center of town was less than 5
minutes away. We were having no issues with altitude, but we took it
slow. As it turns out, we arrived for a celebration in the street. I
think all the kids of the area were dressed up in their school
uniforms and marching around the circle while an announcer spoke in
spanish. We saw many groups of kids in various little marching bands
with bugles, snare drums, and base drums. The kids were age 6 and up
to maybe 12 or 14. It wasn't very i n tune, but neat to watch. I
wished I had brought my camera, but oh well.

We came back to the hotel to find that we needed to wait one more
hour. Finally, though, our room was ready and we promptly fell right
to sleep. We slept for about 3 hours and woke at 2:30p much more
refreshed. We packed our bag and headed for the Ollantaytambo ruins
just down the street.

The ruins were very neat, but we didn't have a guide, so we could only
listen in on other people's guides. There were two types of Inca
stone. One was the grand no mortar type stone which you always hear
about. That was built only for the temple. Then the terraces were
built out of smaller stones with mortar as that was easier for the
very extensive terraces. The views were gorgeous and it was very
peaceful.

Afterwards we had dinner at Heart Café recommended by Luis. Joanna
felt a little sick and didn't eat much, but the carbonation in the
Inka Kola cleared it up. Mark had a typical Peruvian meal of soup, a
chicken and rice dish, and then dessert. Luis came by the restaurant
to wait tables and he told us we looked much better than we had in the
morning. That's good to hear.

We were already tired even though we finished at 7p, so we headed back
to shower and sleep. Mark found out that our water heater fuse was
dead and we were informed that there were no available extra fuses in
Ollantaytambo . So, we were told to take a really quick shower in a
neighboring empty room, but to keep it clean, because the occupants
were expected any minute.Two quick, and not that warm showers later,
we are here typing our journal and headed to bed.

It's been a relaxing day and tomorrow will have more activities.
Thanks for reading.

more delays

Our flight is coming from Denver, but due to weather, it was delayed
and routed to Austin. I'm not sure what weather was rerouting our
flight, but our flight is in Austin. So we are delayed now until 6pm.
Our flight was supposed to take off at 4pm.

We are in luck, though, because I planned for delays, and we have no
connecting flight to get to Lima. When we get to Lima we are going to
spend the night in the airport before our 5am flight, so we still have
plenty of time.

I heard someone next to me say, good thing we didn't book that
midnight jungle flight. =) good indeed.

We found an outlet and we are sitting here internetting on our phones
while they are plugged into the wall. I got a portable and foldable
keyboard for mine, and it is working out great!

by the time i finished this post we are now delayed to 6:35.

At the airport

We are at the airport and awaiting our late flight. Check in took about 5 minutes including security. =) I guess it's a nice slow day to fly.

Our flight has been delayed by 30 minutes. Everything else is great. The Houston rain has stopped and we are watching the planes come in.

Small update today. Hope everyone has a good day.

Packing for Peru

Sunday night we packed up our bags. We are trying to bring as little as possible. Our challenges with packing light include the need for cold weather gear (We will be seeing temperatures from 30 up to 80) and Joanna's need for camera gear.

See here to see everything we were planning to bring:



Then, I took out about 4kg worth of stuff (yes, some camera gear was pulled) and organized the items into packing cubes. The row shown on the back part of the bed is carryon/wearing. The stuff in the front is to be checked.



Finally, the items went into the duffel bags and the backpack.



There are still some last minute toiletries, paperwork, and the like, but the preliminary weights are 8kg and 9kg for the duffel bags. Then about 5kg for the carryon. There will be one more carryon backpack, and I imagine that we'll have probably 4kg per backpack in the end.

I'm very excited for our trip to start. =) Countdown to Thursday has begun.

New haircut

In preparation for the trip, I cut my hair short again. She did a
pretty good job of cutting my hair the way it wanted to go. Now it'll
be easy to maintain while rafting, hiking, and jungle-ing. I'm also
very excited that my hair is not in my eyes when I run around.

New hiking stick

Hiking sticks that are 6 feet long are hard to take on planes. We've done it before, but it was delayed as oversize luggage by a day. At that time, there was no problem with a day delay, but this time we'd like to avoid that. So, Mark came up with a way to "break" the hiking stick into 3 parts so we can pack it in our luggage.

Rather than do this to his real hiking stick, we started by purchasing a wooden rod at Home Depot. The 6 foot long piece was cut into 3 sections as shown here:



Then, Mark simply drilled holes in the ends, attached a threaded rod into one side, and voila, we had a wood hiking stick that can be taken apart and put back together.

Upcoming Peru trip

Our next trip will start on July 24th and we are headed to Peru. Here is our basic itinerary:

July 24: Fly from Houston to Lima
July 25: Fly to Cusco (central tourist hub of Peru)
July 27 - July 29: 3-day whitewater rafting adventure on the Apurimac River
July 30 - Aug 2: 4-day jungle adventure at the Manu Wildlife Center
Aug 5 - Aug 9: 4-day Inca Trail hike to the Machu Picchu with an extra day at the MP
Aug 10: Fly back to Lima
Aug 11: Overnight flight to Houston arriving early the morning of Aug 12

We are excited and ready to go, but it is still a month away. The whole trip has been booked for some time now and we've been doing some shopping to get ready for the trip. The biggest decisions for Joanna right now seem to be what camera gear to bring.

We are traveling during the dry season, also known as winter in Peru. We will be encountering temperatures from freezing all the way up to 90 degrees, so packing light can be challenging. We will be lodging in tents, hostels, jungle lodges, and hotels. We will be without electricity and showers for big chunk of the trip which will be a lot of fun.

Check back often during our trip and we will find some internet cafes to post our adventures and some pictures.