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Heading Home & Year in Photos

Posted on February 11th, 2009 in Photos by Jeremy Kaye

I started this trip on the 1st of February in 2008 and here we are, a little more than a full year later and I am heading back home. I had planned to stay out until at least March, hiking in Torres del Paine with a friend and attending Carnival in the party capital of the world, Rio de Janeiro, but the real world is calling and there are some pots you can’t afford to leave on the back burner. Funny thing is, I arrived home in much the same way I arrived at the places I’ve been visiting: no where to sleep (there is a renter in my apartment until March), no way to contact anyone locally (I don’t have a cell phone anymore), and struggling with a giant backpack on public transportation. It’s odd to feel like a visitor in your own home town, but that’s the sense I had this afternoon. What finally draws you back, more so than the familiar sights, sounds and smells, are all the little unremarkable details that you used to take for granted. Like sturdy Q-tips. I haven’t cleaned my ears with a quality Q-tip in over 12 months. And the availability of ground pepper at all meals. This was a luxury no where to be found down south. It was only after a good ear cleaning and a plate of scrambled eggs with pepper that it finally dawned on me. I was home.

I am typing this from my parents’ house, the home I grew up in. Walking through the familiar rooms, I realize how homesick I have been recently for family and friends and the comforts of home. But now that I’m back, a part of me wants to get back out there immediately. I haven’t even exhausted all of South America yet - you’ll find no stamps in my passport for Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana - and there’s an awfully big world out there across either ocean waiting for me as well. As I type this, it occurs to me that I’m not quite sure which life I really want. After taking care of things, with health and wealth permitting, I may just decide that back on the road is where I belong. For now, I am looking forward to seeing everyone again and resuming an ordinary routine back home. Without employment of course, my allergy to suits and punching clocks has not changed one bit.

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I’ve seen some pretty amazing things over the past year. Here is a Best Of so that people don’t have to troll through all my vacation photos. Going to try to not repeat any pictures posted elsewhere on the site but some deserve a second life.

BEST OF WILDLIFE

Happiest pig alive, outside of Baños, Ecuador:

Bald dogs with mohawks outside the ruins of Chan Chan, Peru rock:

Donkeys. I’ve seen these lovable beasts of burden everywhere down here from country fields to city freeways. Here are 2 of my favorites. One of these guys is a working class schlub and the other is a rock star. Can you tell the difference?

Whales are amazing. You know that they’re big, you apprehend the abstract concept of bigness, but it doesn’t really dawn on you until a “baby” breaches a few feet away from your ship:

Say hello to the the Vibora moth. There is a popular legend in Central and South America that once bitten by a Vibora, the victim is certain to die within the hour unless they have sexual intercourse. In reality, it is harmless and a bite will cause nothing more than a minor skin irritation. I’m sure the guy who first tried to use that line on some girl never imagined it would catch on like it did:

I don’t care who you are, everyone, everyone loves penguins:

Gentoo penguins build nests of up top 3000 stones and then spend the rest of their time stealing these stones from each other:

Ecstatic display by a pair of reunited Gentoos:

A cute Adelie makes his move:

Good natured primates make the top of any list. Below is a Capuchin we met in a zoo in Samaipata, Bolivia who later turned pickpocket. Guess he deserved to be behind bars after all:

And of course the coolest Howler on the planet:

Mine as well embrace the sterotype and give them bananas:

I love Capabaras. Largest rodents in the world. They always have a stunned expression on their faces, like children lost in a department store.

Gallapogas Giant Tortoises, a miracle of nature:

Honorable mention goes to the Anaconda - a gentle and misunderstood snake who gets dragged out of his muck every day and showcased to tourists on the pampas tours in north Bolivia:

The other honorable mention goes to ants. From the Bullet Ant, who’s as big as a peanut with a bite so painful it feels as if you’ve been shot, all the way down to your average leafcutters. I’ve seen this kind of thing on television, an ant highway, but when you’re in the Amazon and see this inexhaustible line of these industrious buggers doing their grunt work for hours on end you come away with a new appreciation for them:

BEST OF SIGNS

Signs Signs Everywhere there’s signs, blocking up the scenery Breaking up my mind, do this Don’t do that Can’t you read the sign?

Sign at the start of the Nariz del Diablo train tracks in Riobamba, Ecuador. I love how the sign lists the 4 things you will find 104 kilometers down at the other end of the tracks: food, hotel, transportation, and of course, Satan.

Self-explanatory and thankfully obsolete:

An unpleasant reminder of the past. Mines of Cerro Rico outside of Potosi, Bolivia:

Sign in a little village outside of Cajamarca, Peru. First prize is a goat. Second is a sheep. Third is a surprise. I can’t even imagine . . . .

Key to the lockers at the museum in Ushuaia, Argentina. It’s just so damn threatening I love it. Lose this key and you will have problems. Believe it, punk!

That first step is a doozy, at Punto Tombo, Argentina:

A classic from Otavalo, Ecuador. A sign that tells you not to destroy the signs.

For those of you who want step by step instructions on how to make yourself a shrunken head, this is your lucky day:

Other oddballs:

NATURE

Salar de Uyuni and Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa, Bolivia:

Iguazu Falls, Argentina:

San Pedro de Atacama:

Valle de Lares, Peru:

Laguna Quilotoa, Ecuador:

El Chalten, Argentina:

And basically everything in here, here and here:

Antarctica!!!

Moreno Glacier, Argentina

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

BEST OF SUNSETS

Not all sunsets are created equal. Like buying a house, it’s all about Location, Location, Location:

Beach town and surfing mecca of Huanchaco, Peru:

Rurrenabaque, Bolivia:

Salar de Uyuni and Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa, Bolivia:

Penninsula Valdez, Argentina:

Drake Passage on the way to Antarctica:

And finally a postcard sunset in Colonia, Uruguay.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement and continued support while I was away. See y’all soon!

Comments (3)

Lavish Living is What Real Men Do

Posted on January 31st, 2009 in Argentina by Jeremy Kaye

Doctor Dinero is a neurologist on a mission. She has exactly 7 days away from her practice and personal demands to enjoy the highlights of Argentina. She doesn’t have time to take poky overland buses, wait in line at communal washrooms or comparison shop for the cheapest empanadas. In order to squeeze the most out of her vacation time she pre-booked everything she wanted to do, and just to make sure I wouldn’t short-circuit her plans with my stinginess, she completely paid my way.

In her email she wrote, “I got your airfare / hotel covered, you just have to meet me in Buenos Aires. No camping, we’re staying at hotels and picking out what tours (I want to do the glacier hiking) to do . . . . What do you think?”

“HELLS YES!” was my reply and my heart lept for joy.

I’ve always wanted to be a kept man - I just could never make a serious go at it because I don’t have the necessary physique or amount of finely groomed chest hair to spend days tanning poolside in a speedo and a gold chain. This was my big chance. Doctor Dinero went ahead and charged our tours, our plane flights and our accommodations all on her credit card. All I had to do was show up and not say or do anything that would get me ejected from her good graces.

When I arrived at the designated hotel I was presented with a refreshing glass of freshly squeezed juice and a mint at the front desk. A man in a smartly pressed uniform insisted on carrying my backpack up to the room and explained where the indoor pool and day spa was located.

It was official, Boxcar Kaye had just been upgraded to first class.

It was a week of guidebook highlights for us: we cramponned across the nape of the Perito Moreno glacier, got soaked in a speed boat beneath the falls of Iguazu, wandered around the streets of Buenos Aires from La Caminata in Boca to the antique shops of San Telmo and the tombs of Recolleta Cemetery.

Lest you get the wrong impression about Doctor Dinero, she is not some snobby stuffed shirt who likes to throw money around, just a down to earth chick with a good job and an uncommonly generous attitude towards those without. What this amounted to was high maintenance travel with a low maintenance woman - simply put - the best of both worlds. We ate at upscale restaurants all the while poking fun at the fact that the chairs with their fancy seat covers were better dressed than we were in our tank tops and flip flops. I behaved in my normal fashion, which is to say atrociously, but instead of slapping me or hiding her face behind her embroidered napkin in shame she was laughing along. And just check out the present she brought me when she came down:

Amazing.

Now, lest you get the wrong impression about me, I was entirely comfortable in my role of the unabashed freeloader. Oh sure I made a few mock attempts to level the “paying field” where I could, but these were symbolic more than substantive. “Oh please, allow me” I would loudly announce as I picked up the tab at an internet cafe, waving away her 2 pesos with a chivalrous sweep of my open hand. Or, “Don’t worry about it, I got you covered,” with a wink as I paid for a bottle of water at a bodega. I was feeling so at ease with the whole arrangement that at one point after she purchased a tour on her credit card I almost stepped forward to sign my own name to the bill.

If there is any complaint to lodge against Doctor Dinero it’s only that her photo-taking ability is seriously impaired.

For example:

And don’t I look great here:

And of course this one is going right into the family album:

g
Oh and she also has no sense of direction, which is more amusing than nettlesome. She went for a short stroll in El Calafate, a town with a population of around 8000, and showed up 5 hours later, having walked all the way to a nature reserve outside of town situated in the exact opposite direction of our hotel. She is the kind of person who has to ask for directions on the way from the bed to the bathroom. She gets lost moving from one side of the jacuzzi to the other. She needs a compass to apply ketchup to her fries. You get the point.

One night the heat of Puerto Iguazu was sapping all of our energy, so we fetched some pizza and the cheapest whisky available (a brand called Old Smuggler) and brought it back to the hotel room for dinner in.

Flipping through the cable channels I stumbled upon Predator, the classic Schwarzenegger flick. I looked over at Doctor Dinero.

“You don’t mind if we watch this, do you?” I asked.

“You don’t hear me complaining, do you?” she answered.

What a great night! Pizza, whisky, fresh linens and gratuitous violence. What more could a man ask for?

The only downside was that Doctor Dinero is the type of person who asks questions during movies instead of watching and figuring out the answers for herself. We did miss the first 10 minutes or so, but come on is it really that hard to puzzle the plot-line of a shoot-em-up?

I kept my responses curt and nebulous, hoping to dissuade future questions:

Because men respect a worthy adversary.

Because men prefer to use excessive firepower.

Because men will always try to self-destruct if they can take out a sworn enemy with them.

Eventually I tuned her out and just answered every question with, “It’s what real men do.”

Hey, why are they shooting those people?
It’s what real men do.
OK.

I don’t understand why he cut himself with that knife.
It’s what real men do.
OK.

So what, this alien is trying to kill them all?
It’s what real men do.
Yeah but it’s an alien, not a man.
It’s what real alien males do.
Hmmm. OK.

Doctor Dinero left for home 2 days ago. Not only have I lost a cool travel companion, but I have been banished back down to the lower caste. No more indoor pools and all you can eat breakfast buffets. It’s back to the real world and living on a long-term traveller’s budget.

Yesterday I took a bus 4 hours north to a town called Rosario and scored a private room in the cheapest hotel I could find with air conditioning, cable television and unidentifiable stains on the walls (I didn’t ask for these - they come standard). I have tentative plans to hike the amazing Parque Torres de Paine with a friend next week. In the meantime, I think that 3 or 4 days of doing absolutely nothing sounds incredibly appealing.

Unemployed, watching television in my underwear, getting out of bed only to stretch and scratch, leaving the hotel only to get take out food and beer.

It’s what real men do.

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Comments (1)

My Ugly Mug - Part IV

Posted on January 28th, 2009 in Antarctica, Argentina, Chile, Photos by Jeremy Kaye

My days in Antarctica and Patagoina were the most well-documented of my life, thanks in part to the trigger happy company I was keeping. I’ll leave it to posterity to decide whether this was a good thing.

Not that cold in Antarctica once you get used to it: