The Long-awaited Solo Blog Post

Hello everyone, and Happy August.

I am sorry that this post has been such a long time coming. The last three weeks have been a whirlwind, but now my life is gaining some sense of normalcy again, and I promise to make more regular updates. Enjoy!

I hope all of you are doing well, and the warm weather has finally arrived in Canada. Since our last post, my trip has changed drastically. Lisa flew home from Bogota on July 16th, and things have been a real whirlwind since then. The transition from a constant travel partner to absolute solitude is stark, and at first, was a bit difficult.

The other big change was my pace. After four and a half months, I'd become accustomed to our easy style: deciding where to go a day or two in advance, changing our minds about every two hours, and staying way longer than planned in places we liked. This was a free and liberating way to travel, and I highly recommend it.

But as Lisa prepared to head home, I was getting ready to change things up. I'd been down here enjoying myself for a while, and I felt it was time to give back a bit. Volunteering made the most sense at this point, as a way to help out, get to know an area, and conserve what is left of my money. After research I'd landed on Condortrekkers, a non-profit guiding company (I broke this news in the last post). Based directly on Quetzaltrekkers, who we'd done a trek with in Xela, Guatemala a few months ago, Condortrekkers offers guided hikes of 1 to 4 days, contributing the profits to schools, children's centers, water improvement and other projects in and around the area where hike.

Hiking for a cause - right up my alley, and I wanted to get started right away. I felt that traveling my way slowly down here would sort of be having my cake and eating it too, decimating my budget and really shortening the amount of time I could contribute. It was settled, when Lisa left I would head directly down to Condortrekkers.

The problem? Condortrekkers is based in Sucre, Bolivia, almost 7000 kilometers from Bogota. International flights within South America are ridiculously expensive, so I was going by bus. Long story short, I did it in 11 days. Nearly 7000 kilometers in 11 days, not good for the body or the mind.

The worst part was I got off to a rough start. On the first bus, on the first day, a man got on board in Bogota with a loaded hand gun in his pants. This involved cops, papers, lots of arguing, and explanations (turns out he was a security guard and the gun was work issued), all of which I caught a lot of - did I mention the guy was sitting right beside me? All in all, three and a half our delay, yuck.

I got in late, went straight to bed, and got up early for the bus the next day. An hour or so into the ride, the bus crashed into a flat deck transport truck on the highway. Are you kidding me? We moved up into the left lane to pass the truck (standard procedure), and right as we got up beside it, the driver saw his exit, on the left side of the road, and swerved toward it - straight into us. My bus was a smaller 25 seater, so it got pretty much totaled. Thankfully, not one person got so much as a scrape. The aftermath featured animated Spanish shouting matches, and everyone, from toddlers to semi-conscious grandmothers, put in their two cents. Then the normal car accident stuff started happening: insurance, cops, measurements, testimonies, a new bus being sent. Of course, all this ran on Latin American time, meaning another three and a half hour delay. In the first two days, I sat waiting for seven hours in total. Not a good way to begin the epic leg of travel I was undertaking.

After that, things got a little smoother. I crossed into Ecuador, and stopped for a night in Otavalo and saw its famous Alpacha wool market, a spectacle in which Lisa would have bankrupted herself in about forty-nine seconds. After that I moved on to Quito, the capital city and the historic and economic center of Ecuador. I stayed for a day and a half, saw the Old City, and enjoyed myself.

Quito from the Mirador

A tale of two cities, the historic Quito Viejo...

... and the skyscrapers of modern Quito

The architecture in the Old City was very impressive (and I've become a bit of a connoisseur of colonial architecture by this point folks).

Gold doors? Check

Angel paraphernalia? Check.

Humongous Basilica? Check.

From Quito I really put the pedal down: and overnight bus to Loja, Ecuador, from where after a nights rest I traveled non-stop (back-to-back overnight buses with day buses in between) to Puno, Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Probably the most memorable part of this sprint was watching the Copa America Football final from the bus station in Lima. Team Uruguay won, and star forward Diego Forlan scored 2 of their 3 goals, including the dramatic game-winner. Forlan has curly blonde hair, blue eyes, light skin, and is fond of headbands, and though I don't really see it, the Peruvians (black-eyed, and with black straight hair) thought my resemblance to him was uncanny:

The women and children managed to contained themselves to whispers and stares, but some of the young men actually addressed me as "Forlan!"

I was probably most disappointed that my camera was tucked deep in my bag (to avoid theft) on the stretch of road between Arequipa, and Puno. The highway winds through dry pastures filled with llamas and sheep, and their herds, who eek out their living at the top of the world (these fields approach 4000m). The light and colours of the sky, fields, and lakes is absolutely brilliant, and the whole thing has a surreal feel. The only shadows come late in the day, cast by snowcapped volcanoes which tower over everything.

Sadly, by this point in my journey I was anxious to get to Sucre and rest, but another trip to Titicaca is definitely in order before I come home. After a night in Puno I crossed the border and pressed right on to La Paz, the economic heart of Bolivia. Head-spinning La Paz is home to the highest seat of government on Earth, the highest airport on Earth, the highest prison on Earth, the highest brewery on Ea- well, you get the point: it's high.

Set in a dramatic valley with brick slums literally built into cliffs, La Paz has an impressive feel, and I stayed to check it out for a day and a half.

The view from the rooftop bar at my hostel. At 6500 meters, Illimani looms above the downtown core.

La Paz sits in a rocky bowl, the sides of which look imposing here behind the spires of the main Cathedral.

I explored La Paz on foot, but wasn't up for the constant stress of carrying a camera around, so I left it behind (sorry). Fortunately, most of the sights unique to La Paz were a little grim for photography. The notorious San Pedro Prison is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous in the entire world, and is right downtown on the edge of a popular park. The colourful markets were darkened somewhat by a certain plentiful product: dehydrated llama fetuses. Yep. These charming keepsakes hang in thousands from street stalls - some lean forward into the sidewalk, and, when its crowded, are centimeters from your face. They are the size of a big dog, and exactly as disgusting as you'd imagine a dehydrated llama fetus would be. Apparently they are buried underneath new buildings to ward off evil spirits. Apparently there is a flippin construction boom in Bolivia as well..

Another night bus brought me to sunny Sucre, my destination and the end of my road for now. Almost 7000 km on the bus in 11 days. Whew. I'd developed a lump the size of a croquet ball on the tip of my tail bone, which thankfully has subsided by now.

I've settled in Sucre, my temporary home, a colonial city and the capital of Bolivia. "The White City" has been a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993, and is chocked full of 400-plus year-old Cathedrals, museums, and other buildings. In the courtyard of a building less than two blocks from where I live, Simon Bolivar officially declared Bolivia an independent nation for the first time.

The outskirts and the cordillera beyond, on a cloudy day here in Sucre.

The Colonial center from the Mirador.

So as I adjust to being settled down, I'm also getting used to volunteering. My biggest responsibility with Condortrekkers is the treks themselves: the volunteers do everything invoved with the treks, food, equipment, and everything else. I have been out on one so far, a spectacular 3 trek in the heart of the Andes. As a volunteer, I'm expected to carry more than the clients, so before we sat down to the first meal my pack was pretty heavy.

My camera was its moody self, and worked intermittently (though not at all on day two - batteries), but I got a few photos nonetheless.

High and dry in the Andes on the Inca Trail.

Ruining a perfectly nice mountain vista.

A little friend I made on the trail.

Crater Maragua.

Antonio (a guide) in Crater Maragua.

Every Condortrekkers hike goes with one volunteer, and one paid guides. The paid guides are local, know the area, and can speak Quechua with the people we meet. The expenses for the hikes are the guides pay, food, and transportation. The rest goes towards the projects we support: a daycare, various waterprojects, schools, community improvement, etc. I will explain more about this work as I get more involved and start to help out more.

The first day of the trek winds through a valley on the Inca Trail (the same one that goes all the way to Cuzco and Macchu Pichu - the Inca were into walking), and up into the majestic crater Maragua, where we sleep in a community-run hospedaje. The next day (when my batteries were dead, ergg) we climbed up out of the crater, and had a mid-morning break at dinosaur footprints. Dinosaur footprints! Pictures next time I promise.

After that we worked our way down into a second valley, a pretty technical trek that takes all day. Thankfully, the day ends at a gorgeous campsite, and we pitch our tents about 7 meters from steaming hotsprings. After a relaxing night we hiked out and took the camion (Spanish for sketchy truck filled with people, goats, etc) back to Sucre.

The highlight since then has been the arrival of a package from MOM! The contents were all glorious, mainly some warm clothes and candy!

Three more treks have gone out this week, so I´ve been busy working to get those out, and I´ll be off on one of the next ones. I am living in a house that Condortrekkers rents out to its volunteers, and my room/gear closet is quite cozy. As I continue to settle in, make some friends, and get to know the city, I´m going to start helping out on some projects around town, and take a few Spanish classes.

I plan to blog again very soon, with more pictures and more info on what I´m up to currently. Thanks so much for being patient and waiting for this update.

Thanks again for reading, and I promise it won't be so long till the next one!

Love Tor

July in Highland Colombia

Hello everyone!

We hope you are all having lovely summers - we sure are! Our last post came from action adventure San Gil, and from there we've moved south and west through highland Colombia. This post will be fairly brief: it is the last post we'll make before Lisa returns to Canada on the weekend. It is a bit of a shock that the end of our trip together has come this fast, and we both agree the reality of it hasn't fully set in. But more on that later.

From San Gil we took a beautiful scenic bus ride through rugged foothills and brilliantly green pastures, to the dry, colonial town of Villa de Lleyva. This whitewashed, red-tile roofed village seems to be locked in the past: clean cobblestone streets, friendly people, proud architecture and a frontier feel make it a great place to simply wander around. A venture out to the 7-meter sea-monster fossil a few kilometers outside of town makes a nice day trip, something to do between coffees in the plaza. Villa de Lleyva also had crafts out the wazoo, so, as with all the textile and weaving meccas we have visited, I had to physically drag Lis out of there.

The church, plaza and Andes at Villa de Leyva

Seamonster and Tormonster

After our stay in Villa was extended from two days to three (Latin American mystery stomach horror strikes again!) we set off on a fairly ambitious travel day, to one of the largest churches in the world - which is also underground - and then a bus switch in Big Bad Bogota.

The famous Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira was our stop, and it was maybe the most flavourful chuch we've visited (pun intended). Another old town, this one with an enormous underground Cathedral, carved boldly into an active salt mine. A downhill march into the Earth takes you through the 14 stages of Jesus's crucifiction, then into several chapels where people still come to pray. These chapels, 180 meters below the ground and the size of football fields, boast some of the biggest crosses in the world and pillars of 8 meter diameter - all carved from salt encrusted rock.

It turns out salt cathedrals are very hard to photograph. This is me trying my hand in the salt business on the Miner's Tour.

Lisa, the miner, using a dynamite drill!

El Catedral de Sal is very popular with Colombians, and has all the ammentities of domestic tourist attractions of this country: deep fried food, rock climbing walls, horrendously tacky souvenirs, colourful lighting, photobooths, etc. etc. Despite all this, we were impressed with the natural salt formations and the sheer size of it all. And believe it or not, watching a pushy and demanding Colombian family of 15 pose for a photo for t-shirts and coffee mugs is funner than it sounds!

It is even more fun once you have had a coffee! This is us drinking a cup at 180m below ground.

After the cathedral we bussed into the 8.5 million person metropolis of Bogota, where we found the main terminal and caught a bus to Manizales in the heart of the Coffee Zone. Manizales is a beautiful hilly city, surrounded by parks and mountains. We took the 5am milk truck to the entrance of Parque Los Nevados, 4300 meters above sea level. From there we hiked 25 km downhill - through high-alpine, pamplona, cloud, and tropical forests. Our only company was some cows and their friendly herds, and we made some pit-stops at a few aguas calientes - our favorite! Even though we had a nice post-hike soak and were given a ride the last few kilometers to our hostel (middle-aged Colombian couples leap at every opportunity to show travellers that their general kindness and hospitality is far more representative of Colombia than its turbulent history) 25 kilometers downhill is murder on the hamstrings, and we were sore for a solid few days.

Luckily our next stop was Salento, a perfect place to relax. Nestelled amongst coffee farms in the foothills of the Andes, Salento is another beautiful colonial higland town (you'd need several years to see all of them, we discovered) and the gateway to the magical Valle de Cocora. Boasting high-pasture, dense cloud forests, a hummingbird sanctuary, and meadows filled with mighty Wax Palms, the iconic 60 meter national tree of Colombia, Cocora was definitely a trip highlight.

The entrance of the Valle de Cocora.

Hummingbird doing hummingbird business.

Soggy-bottoms in the valley bottom.

Lis and the Wax Palms.

Will she miss me?

With comedors serving hearty 3 course meals of local food for me, and dozens of artesan craft shops (yes, more artesan craft shops) for Lisa, coffee fincas, to tour, waterfalls to venture to on horseback, and one of the most popular hiking destinations in the country, Salento has been the perfect place to spend our last week together. Throw in a little camping, a beautiful hostel, some new friends, and "the best latte in Latin America", and our trip together has ended with a bang.

Trying not to fall off my horse.

Yeeeee-haw!

Rincon de Lucy - we put some serious food away right here!

So this weekend we'll get the bus back to Bogota, where we've got a hostel booked to relax in for the day (I've already dubbed the room "Chamber of Tears") before heading to the airport for Lisa's evening flight. And so will end this part of our adventure together, and what can we say, it's been an incredible four and a half months. Lisa heads home for a Vancouver house-hunt, part of a few chores before she starts grad school at UBC in September. Bridesmaid duty for her friend Angela is another exciting highlight for her.

I'll be making the transition to travelling alone, and on that note I've got an exciting announcement. I've accepted a volunteer offer in Sucre, Bolivia, starting around the first of August. Sucre is nearly 6000 kilometers from Bogota, and because South American flights are insanely expensive, my next few weeks will be Man Vs. Bus.

Once I arrive in Sucre, I will join the volunteers at Condortrekkers, a non-profit group that guides multi-day hikes in the Andes. Because the guides are unpaid, the money from the hikes supports an orphanage and several childrens projects in Sucre. My time will be split between guiding treks and working with the kids - a perfect balance for me.

I intend to keep up this blog, and under the same name (lisaandtornomore.com is a little depressing, no?), so feel free to keep reading, even though the exploits described will be lacking the cute, blonde-haired component that has made up half this blog so far.

Thanks for reading!

Love Torrance and Lisa

ps. (This is from Lisa) Thanks for reading my section of the blog so far! I´m sure Torrie´s continued blogging will be more brief but more hilarious (and likely slightly more obscene). Im looking forward to seeing so many of you so soon! Much love, Lisa.

Fast times in San Gil

Since the last time that we have written about we have managed to do quite a lot in a short little while here in Colombia. From Cartagena we moved on to Taganga - a small, pretty fishing village north of Santa Marta that was overwhelmingly overrun (with people, fried food and club beats) on the weekend, Bucaramanga - a big but welcoming city in the eastern Andean highlands, and San Gil - a small town with a big reputation two and half hours (and a huge canyon) southwest of Bucaramanga.

In Taganga we got the last of our Carribean beaching out of our systems. Taganga itself was full of foreigners but funnily enough the nearest beach, Playa Grande, wasn't. Instead it was packed with Colombians on holiday, as school vacation had just started the weekend that we were there. We spent a great day lounging on the beach tucked in amongst speedos and thongs (the bathing suit kind -Torrance was not complaining!) and we met a number of very friendly families who sat us down and gave us tips on where to travel, how much to pay etc...One of the best things we have found about Colombia so far is that the people will go out of there way to make sure that you are having a wonderful time in their country. The other thing that we have found about Colombia is that everybody thinks we are German...Oh well, at least they don't think that we are brother and sister they way that they did in Nicaragua!!

Unfortunately, though, we forgot to take pictures in Taganga!

Not our photo, but a picture of Taganga in the dry season. It was much greener when we were there. If you are thinking of travelling Colombia, check out the website where we stole this picture from: www.off2colombia.com

In Bucaramanga we really just layed low - visiting a small colonial town nearby (named Giron) and taking a cable car across the Chicomocha Canyon.

The pretty church in pretty Giron

One of the many cobbled streets of Giron

Tor (looking like a stud) at the Chicomocha Canyon

The canyon from the cable car

We were recovering from our 9 hour turned 14 hour bus ride from Santa Marta. Even though this was fairly close to torture (arctic conditions and back-to-back action movies) we did have some not-so-exceptionally-bad movies on that ride, meaning that we did not have to watch Fast and Furious 5 yet again.

And then, we arrived in San Gil. We have liked almost all of the places that we have visited on our trip (minus Momostenango and Jinotega, Nicaragua's version of Momostenango). But San Gil... we love San Gil. It only took Torrie 20 minutes after getting off the bus to decide this!

Some of the things that we have loved about San Gil -

a) The central park with Avatar-esk home tree (you almost expect the people to be blue)

San Gil's central park

b) the nicest hostel of our trip thus far (Sam's VIP - it is great! Wait until you see the bathrooms and kitchen!)

Our dorm's bathroom

We cooked such good food here!!

c) beautiful waterfalls

Tor traversing the Juan Curi waterfall

Me and the falls

d) drinkable tap water

Yay!

e) nice looking dogs

Niko, our hostel's adorable dog

f) Fresh fruit juices! (sorry, no photo)

Of course, some of the other things that we have loved about San Gil are these -

 

It turns out that San Gil is the adventure sport capital of Colombia...

Rafting on the Rio Suarez was amazing...and believe me, I wasn't fully convinced ahead of time. I knew that really I wanted to go, but clearly...

Tor and I, looking seriously unimpressed during the safety talk.

I was terrified!

If you are in Colombia and thinking about doing this, but are a little scared off by a) the heavy price tag or b) the huge amount of heavy water that will be coming at you and potentially launching you from the raft, don't be. We would highly, highly, highly recommend that you go! It is so much fun!

But don't worry Mom and Dad, despite it being amazing, I don't really feel like rafting is necessarily something that I will want to do again. Once was unreal, but maybe once was enough.

If you can zoom into or faces in this picture you should do it!

Paragliding on the other hand was one of the loveliest feelings I have ever had. Poor Torrance came down with a flu of sorts so it was a solo adventure, but luckily a friend (Guyeon) from our hostel decided to come too. When we got to the launch, the paragliding guys sort of wrestled Guyeon into the tandem backpack contraption and he was off the ground just like that. When my turn came around next it was basically a similar experience despite me trying to ask these wrestling men if it was really ok to paraglide with the dark black clouds rolling in behind us...It turns out that it was... sort of. It was a short flight, maybe only two minutes, but two minutes of soaring through the air over an amazing landscape before we had to land in a nearby farmer's field because of the rain. The company was great though and gave me back everything that I had paid. It was a short flight, but a cheap one and I certainly can't complain!

About to begin!

In the air wth the Chicomocha canyon in the distance.

Tomorrow we will keep our feet firmly planted on the ground and if Torrance is better we will spend the day in Barichara. If we're in need of a little adventure there I'm sure I can convince Tor to try the regional specialty - hormigas culonas - literally, fat-assed ants!.

The infamous big-bottomed ants.

As always, thanks for reading! We will be writing again soon!

Love Lisa and Tor (who is now feeling almost 100% better)