tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81866725418166060792012-01-04T18:00:51.560-08:00On November 13th, 2007 we departed from Northern California to travel Southwards. We journeyed across land, river, and sea into deep jungles, and high mountains. This is our story; Adventure Southwards, A Fairy-tale Traveler's Guide...Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.comBlogger221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-24093085824410744262008-04-12T21:14:00.000-07:002008-04-12T22:02:18.922-07:00

Home-sweet-home. I open my eyes to morning light, but know I must not be awake. Blinking, squeezing my eyes shut. Time to wake up....I see oak trees outside the window: racking my mind, what country am I in? My mentality is a long time in coming home.Our last few days abroad were spent in the wonderful bohemian area of Lima, known as the Barranco district. Situated on the coast, just South of the

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-50940834946948157362008-04-07T11:30:00.000-07:002008-04-12T21:13:40.198-07:00

Machu Picchu. Land most recently inhabited by gringos worldwide. Formerly one of the last standings of Inca culture. A peoples, it turns out, who are not so far removed from my own spiritual awareness inherited of the cascading Yuba River and her granite bedrocks. Each of these pre columbian ruins are built primarily of granite. Wall of endless wall, staircase, castle- massive constrctions of

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-77769262122174579412008-04-03T16:41:00.000-07:002008-04-12T21:11:59.274-07:00

We set out for Machu Picchu by trail from a set of ruins just above Cusco. The walk to Qe ´npo was straight forward and short, and as we moved towards the fourth set of ruins our bags began feeling heavier. It was after we meandered away from these that we found ourselves content to be beating the tourist buses, and to rest whilst overlooking a vast landscape of hillsides, farmland, creek and

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-90392582045597193192008-03-31T19:08:00.000-07:002008-03-31T20:00:34.159-07:00

Chile proved to be a fantastic land of surreal desert ripped from Dali s imagination. We took a bus from Arica to the Peublo of Putre, higher in the Mountains and inland towards Bolivia. A dusty town, with lots of sun and bordering snow-capped mountains- just beyond the dry yellow, grey and red hills on the horizen. We hired a guide to take us to Parque Lauca (not having a guidebook, internet, or

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-64994564164906534462008-03-25T12:55:00.000-07:002008-03-25T13:56:57.093-07:00

Chile! We thought not to make it this far, but- oh! yes we have. It is a glorious place (all 15 km I have so far explored). With a lot of trouble, we took a rickety old, wooden train from Tacna, Peru to Arica, Chile last night. The locals were mighty hesitant to let us aboard and tried many distractions as reasons for us not to purchase our tarjetas. However, after much persistance, hours, help

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-27689865584936389952008-03-15T17:17:00.000-07:002008-03-15T17:19:29.172-07:00

Wash the corn and place it in a pot with the water, the clove, the cinnamon, the chopped quince, the pineapple shell and the chopped apples.Let the mixture boil until the grain of the corn bursts open, then remove it from the heat and strain it.Let it cool to room temperature and sweeten it with the sugar. Then add the mandarine juice.Serve it thoroughly chilled, with finely-chopped fruit.

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-45978794350152809652008-03-15T07:59:00.000-07:002008-03-15T20:03:17.596-07:00

Only moments ago I stepped into the raucous of Lima, Peru. After adventuring in the jungle for nearly a month, being back on a bus for fifteen hours was tortuous. Ah! The crisp fresh air of a lancha at sunrise, and the beauty of lightning storms through plump la selva clouds. The monotony of hiking through mud ridden- mosquito infested forest, and coursing back and forth over flooder river

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-85444816976172423652008-03-04T14:45:00.001-08:002008-03-15T20:06:28.906-07:00

I left this saga last, in the jungle town of Coca, where we departed Ecuador on the Rio Napo to Puerto Rocafuerte. The speedboat was full with 70 people, a lot of bananas, oranges, eggs, a generator, and other thick bulsas of various cargo. It took 15 hours to reach our port, and we stumbled into a half organized mass of habitations with old broken lamp posts lining the few streets. We found

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-52285115013018008752008-02-24T17:38:00.000-08:002008-02-24T17:50:36.124-08:00

Our final goodbyes are to Ecuador this evening. This Sunday we spent in some relaxation amid the horrendous heat as we got most our supllies taken care of yesterday. We meandered across the river past military residencies, hospitals, spiritual alters, and other establishments. There was a breif moment (very breif) of solitude over a bridge of a Rio Napo tribuatry. Then we hopped on a bus

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-60060323334615961492008-02-22T04:43:00.001-08:002008-02-22T05:03:29.919-08:00

We are currently in Tena, Ecuador, hoping to get a bus for the wet and muddy journey to Coca. From there we are hiring lanchas (cargo boats) to cross the border into Peru and experience the Amazon Rio. There is little information on how to do this, and local touring companies (who charge about $400-$800 for 5 nights a little ways downstream) make it seem unfathomable. Not for danger reasons like

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-89196132453981333902008-02-13T09:12:00.000-08:002008-02-13T10:23:28.327-08:00

We have been traveling along some zig zags for weeks now. I left off in Medellin, where we caught a bus towards Neiva, Colombia at the end of January. The journey took us through towns of Rio Negro, Manizales, Ibague, hitting the highways on either side like mirrors- we bounced back and forth. Twelve hours later, as the light of the day was fading, we found ourselves passing through a snall town

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-25795863767186963942008-01-26T21:33:00.000-08:002008-01-26T22:22:50.331-08:00

Medellin is a burst of enthusiasm hidden in its seams of contemporary architecture, progressive art, experimental theater, and high ambitions for the future. Actually, this city is so ambitious, it has mastered a form of time travel. The local guidebooks for tourists denotes places like a butterfly house, aquarium, interactive exhibit, theaters, gardens, and other things that do not exist yet!

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-21917021716336412602008-01-13T10:48:00.000-08:002008-01-13T11:29:49.888-08:00

Medellin is fantastic. It has much of the beauty found throughout San Fransico (various patterns of cobbled steets and wide walkways, streetside venues, transit, hustle and bustle), yet cleaner, and full of a people unique to the Colombian ways. Everyone here seems to eat the same thing. We havent found one restaurant in Colombia that serves anything gringo. Everywhere is horribly embellished

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-58895688109786653152008-01-09T07:48:00.000-08:002008-01-09T08:02:41.398-08:00

It took five nights over seas to reach our destination, Cartegena, from San Blas, Panama aboard the Stahlratte 40´ sailboat. Everyone (crew and passengers) were sick. The crew implied it was the worst journey in over twenty years. They had trouble steering the ship with rocking back and forth. What a ride! It took a full day to abort the plagued ship, check in with immigration, find hotel with

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-34331681024381849642007-12-30T12:08:00.000-08:002007-12-30T12:15:08.502-08:00

We zipped along Coasta Rica, pausing breifly to toush base in Nicoya where we got REAL dirty spelunking in caves of Barra Honda National Park. Met up with a French-Canadian chica, Crystal, and the three of us caught a ride back to town for dinner. Then we made INSANE headway by bus, and also a ferry over the penninsula, overnighting in Quepos and then a really slow bus driver took 5 hours to

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-85402285946117153602007-12-21T19:47:00.000-08:002007-12-21T20:20:21.363-08:00

We weathered some raging storms off the coast of Utila, Honduras which kept us running to the ferry dock every morning at 5 media AM only to hobble back to the room we rented, and I had forsaken as our crummy luck. We did, however, get some fantastic snorkling in early one morning because of this. Manuel has only snorkled in the Yuba, and myself when I was 10 in Maui. What I remember of it, is

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-24003869171660017072007-12-11T14:29:00.000-08:002007-12-11T14:47:58.548-08:00

We made it through some rough territories. Caught a ride outta San Juan to La Esperanza where they havent finshed the highway. We stayed the night in our first encounter of a not -so- pleasant hotel where we were bug bitten despite our sleeping bags. Then made our way up to Lake Yojoa to find D&Ds renouned Bed and Breakfast Brewery with supposedly fresh blueberries that I culd almost taste on my

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-25665965973240204532007-12-07T12:59:00.000-08:002007-12-07T17:29:00.768-08:00

Hola mi familia y amigos! Just a short reasurance of our health and good spirits. We have been recluse in the Honduras forest of Celeque National Pargue. There we frollicked amoungst giant granite boulders and were well fed by Alejandrena tipica comedor. She was a patient and friendly old woman who had lived on that mountain for at least 20 years. She was born in a nearby Mayan village and cooked

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-8737160347175731212007-11-28T14:19:00.001-08:002007-11-29T10:32:20.563-08:00

Found a little reclusive paradise in San Marcos ashore the lake Atitlan. The city is made up of winding pathways through temperate\tropical forrest. It consists of many holistic schools and centers for care. There are fruit and avocado trees and a small market. We stayed at El Unicornio where there was cocina and enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast with Amigas Charlotte and Susie. We made sweet potato

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-72256949343086136892007-11-20T18:05:00.001-08:002007-11-20T19:35:15.563-08:00

So very tired of the city. Of course, Antigua is muy bonita; its aching ruins around every cuarto and the whisps of fleurs and weeds sprouting along rooflines and even surrounding telephone cables. However, this county is globalising like mad. Personas have too much pride in their cellular phones and it seems that dinero is at too high a motivation. While comfort and quality expectations seem to

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-69163295400823101872007-11-14T10:29:00.000-08:002007-11-14T20:40:44.363-08:00

We arrived safely in Guatemala City yesterday afternoon. After traveling for 20 hours straight we felt exhausted and crazy. At immigration I found two amigas who were planning to attened Sevilla as well. They had been working on a cacao (chocolate) farm in Costa Rica for the last month and wanted to improve their communication skills. Somehow, everyone seemed to beleive I had a good idea of what

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8186672541816606079.post-33314628394171296422007-10-21T22:06:00.000-07:002007-10-21T22:17:23.188-07:00

For five months, Manuel and I will trek abroad Central and South America. We plan on attending an immersion program in Antigua, trying to make it from Panama City, Panama to Cartagena, Colombia (thank you Zuly's hostel zulys-info@gmx.net )by charter boat before solstice, searching through the South American Explorer's club ( www.southamericanexplorers.org/ ) archives for little known trail

Tamaurow Musingsnoreply@blogger.com3