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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!