Terry's World Tour

All in the right order

2010-12-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

WELCOME TO TERRY'S WORLD TOUR! Unless you are one of those people who like reading the last page of books first I recommend you open the "blog archive" link on the left. January 2008 is a good place to start.

Terry

A Lamentation

2010-03-10T09:47:00.003-07:00

Oh LORD how my thoughts torment me.
How chronic is my torture.
How many are my failures LORD.

How long LORD until my future is revealed?

Many are saying of me,
"He is stronger than I. More adventurous than me."
Oh LORD if they but knew how weak I feel,
how fear follows me everywhere I go.

I climb to high places and imagine the fall.
I gaze upon deadly serpents and imagine the sting of their venom.

Protect me from my defeatist thoughts.
Comfort me from uncertainty.

How long I lay in my bed
yet rest does not reach me. I arise slowly.
When will I find joy my God,
How long until I am comforted?

Where is my companion LORD, who shares my hope?
Am I to live alone forever?
Hear my prayer LORD and answer me mercifully.
Where might my friends be now?

How long must I be alone LORD?
When will your mercy be felt?

My cheeks are wet with tears, my face is downcast.
In silence a battle ensues within me.

Deliver me from sadness Father cast melancholy away.
May joy fill my days, happiness saturate my nights.
Might they see my delight, may I be sought out for a share.

May my strength come from you LORD. You alone calm my soul.

Cast down my enemies, be they doubt and uncertainty.,
break their teeth LORD place their heads below my feet.

Praise you Almighty Father!
the source and giver of hope.
You lift up those who are down.
You give strength to the weak.
You answer prayers uttered in secret.
You are my only refuge.
Your presence humbles me,
your love makes me glad.

Another Dream Come True

2009-12-02T09:09:00.011-07:00

"The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different lpace with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock. The writer walks out of his work room in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whiskey than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith, hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it."
From "Boy" by Roald Dahl (author of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach)

I can relate to Roald Dahl's words here. Writing is not merely typing letters on a page, its the physical manifestation of the author's thoughts and ideas. Writing is re-telling a story-which in turn, feels like re-living that story. Depending on the story, it can take a lot out of you. I've found it exhausting at times to maintain a blog while also keeping up with my own personal journal writing. It may sound like whining, but hey-it's my blog and I'll whine if I want to.

This October I joined Fauna Forever, a long-term wildlife and ecotourism monitoring project in Southeastern Peru where I volunteered as an assistant herpetologist. For five weeks I was looking for reptiles and amphibians in the Amazon Basin. The following is a blog entry I wrote halfway through the trip.

Snake Expectations

I came to Peru to catch snakes. That’s why I’m here, not for the scarlet macaws, giant river otters or howler monkeys. Not for the exotic food or pretty butterflies. My motive is clear, my agenda is straightforward; I quit my job, left my hometown, crossed the equator and joined Fauna Forever to catch snakes in the Amazon. I listed no second choice on my volunteer application, I was either joining the herpetology team, or I wasn’t joining at all.

Green tree viper (Bothriopsis bilineata)

When I arrived, I was excited to meet up with Brian, the lead herpetologist and Dave-who had spent time on the herp team previously-and talk snakes. Just how many would we see? Which ones can I expect to see? How often will we see them? Dave assured me we’d see “loads” of them and Brian agreed when I asked about Imantodes, a certain species of tree snake, it wasn’t if we’d find it but how many we would find.

Blunt-headed tree snake (Imantodes cenchoa)

A week later, we hadn’t seen any and Dave sang a different tune. He reluctantly confessed he had a hunch I wouldn’t see a single snake for my entire stay. It was certainly plausible. We’d been out every night running transects and surveying our trails with nothing to show for it but various species of frogs. By this time I’d begun to doubt my decision to come here. I obviously hadn’t done enough research, hadn’t asked enough questions. I must not have run the numbers correctly before I came. I desperately wanted to prove Dave wrong, but I’ve been on enough walks through rainforests all over the world to know snakes are not easy creatures to spot.

Liophis reginae

I wasn’t completely naive to the difficulty of finding something so elusive and secretive in the vast expanse of an Amazon rainforest. With a million and one places for a snake to hide, where do you begin to look? For the most part the forest is two-toned, green above ground and brown on the forest floor. How then are we supposed to find the local snakes which are predominantly green and brown? Back home I’ve had trouble finding my pet python in my bedroom before. And it was four meters long and bright yellow!

Ornate snail-eating snake (Dipsas catesbyi)

Ten days after my arrival I denied there being any snakes in the forest at all, despite the local guides coming back each day with photos proving otherwise. I was angry with myself for getting my hopes up, I was resentful of the Amazon-whose mere name conjures up visions of giant anacondas and deadly bushmasters-to be honest, I was a little depressed. But I was hopeful. I went on night walks, I brought my snake hook each night thinking maybe tonight will be the night, I quizzed Brian to see which trails cut through the best snake habitat and I was praying for rain, a lot of rain.

Brian and I with a Yellow tailed cribo (Drymarchon corais corais)

The rain came and we still hadn’t found anything. Until finally, while walking a trail late at night Brian froze and immediately dove into the leaf litter and came up with a cat-eyed snake (Leptodiera annulata.) Finally! We all took turns admiring it and taking pictures, if only that snake knew how much we longed to find it! Shortly afterwards on the same trail I spotted a green tree viper (Bothropsiosis bilineata) in a tree. The curse had been broken!

Whipsnake (Chironius multiventris)

From that day to this, our last day at Explorer’s Inn, I’m happy to say not a day has gone by without seeing a snake-sometimes three or four in one day! We’ve found somewhere around sixteen or seventeen snakes so far representing about fifteen species from a six inch long Xenopholis to a monster, seven foot long Drymarchon. Before I came, I made a mental list of snakes I wanted to see and after finding a tree boa (Corralus hortulanus) in our bungalow tonight I’ve now seen them all.

Amazon egg-eating snake (Drepanoides anamolus)

It has been an unreal experience and just when I think it can’t get any better, the forest shows me something that takes me by surprise. It’s almost as if the forest was testing us, seeing just how badly we wanted to see its inhabitants. And now, deeming us worthy, it’s removed its veil and we’ve been allowed an unparalleled view of some of the animals I love the most in this special setting. I’ve seen snakes I have wanted to see for years and I’ve seen snakes I never knew existed.

Tree frog (Hypsiboas punctatus)

I am able to appreciate my surroundings better now that my initiative has been accomplished. I find joy in many things I couldn’t before; like the way the forest flowers smell at night, waking up to howler monkeys in the early morning, a clear starry sky, observing Anolis lizards eating crickets, doing my laundry next to a scarlet macaw, watching giant river otters as they catch fish, chocolate-covered bananas at dinnertime, the sound of approaching rain and yes, even the pretty butterflies.

So for anyone visiting the rainforest hoping to encounter reptiles or amphibians, I encourage you to be patient, be persistent and pray for rain!

THE END

I stayed at two different lodges, Explorer's Inn and Reserva Amazonica. This was written during the last day at Explorer's. Another two weeks at Reserva brought more of the same. We added to our list of species including five more snake species we hadn't found at the previous lodge. A realization hit me one day that I have become a herpetologist. No longer are we young boys chasing snakes in our backyards, the research here goes on to be published in scientific journals, in books and may be taught in universities. And yet, I'm having just as much fun and get just as excited as when I was a young boy chasing snakes in my backyard! Probably more!!

Juvenile black caiman (Melanosuchus niger)

I did see more than just snakes. One day while I was measuring a frog on one of our daytime transects, Brian came over the radio and said there was a giant anteater going in our direction. A couple seconds later and sure enough, here he came crashing through the trees and vines straight for us! I also camped out at a nearby oxbow lake with Krystle and we woke up to find eight giant river otters catching fish and eating them within thirty feet of us.

Amazon tree boa (Corallus hortulanus)

On our last night searching for snakes we found our sixth Blunt-headed tree snake (Imantodes cenchoa,) the most beautiful Amazon tree boa (Corallus hortulanus) I've ever seen, an armadillo and a jaguar! The cat sighting was very brief. It was perched on a log that had fallen across the trail when I picked up it's eye-shine. I froze on the trail, flashlight pointed on the cat and urgently whispered to the others, "Jaguar! Jaguar! Jaguar!" He watched us for a couple seconds and then sauntered off into the darkness. Initially we assumed it was probably a marguay-a smaller, less common species of cat. However, after looking at photos and considering the size of the animal I'm more confident that it was in fact a jaguar.

Rhinobothryum lentiginosum

I can't tell you how surreal an experience it is to be in an environment like that, encountering animals I've only seen or read about in books. Some animals I didn't even know existed! It blows my mind that there is a seven foot long cribo out there right now eating all the frogs and opossums he can find. Or that jaguars prowl undetected through rainforest I lived in and walked through on a daily basis. Its so easy to think of the world in terms of where we live but there is so much out there we haven't seen yet. I often think of a quote my friend and fellow climber Willy wrote after climbing Mt. Rainier he said, "Some things He has made, which are so terrible, so awesome and so beautiful, that I marvel that man be allowed to look upon them!" I couldn't agree more.

Long Journey Home

2009-09-24T09:07:00.011-07:00

They wouldn't all fit. They hadn't given me enough space. When entering the US from a trip abroad there is a question on the immigration form that asks which foreign countries you have visited since you left the United States. To be honest, I'd been looking forward to this question for weeks. I squished and scrunched the names, stacking them on top of one another and cascaded them down the margin until all nineteen countries were represented. When I happily handed it to the customs official I expected some commotion, some suspicion or even an interrogation. That's what I wanted. But I'm apparently not the international man of mystery I thought I was, because the official stamped my passport and began telling me how great her trip to New Zealand was (I didn't go to New Zealand) and then asked for the next person in line. I was back in the United States of America.

Although it was a soft transition. Miami carries a significantly higher level of diversity than say, Salt Lake City. So as I joyfully and unhesitatingly drank from sinks and water fountains I still asked for directions in Spanish and received answers in Portuguese. I spent a day in Miami, staying at a hostel on South Beach. Unfortunately, it was rainy so I didn't get the postcard-perfect Miami experience. But I got a glimpse.

After being a backpacker abroad it was interesting to be one in my home country. Fewer people approach me when I'm lost, but more people are willing to help when I ask for it. If it weren't for the bus drivers of the Miami Public Transportation System I never would have found the beach or gotten back to the airport on time. Each time I got on the wrong bus, the driver gave me detailed directions to get me on the right track.

My next stop was Massachusetts where I met my dad and went to my sister's college graduation. I wondered what it would be like seeing my dad again, how he'd changed, how I'd changed. But when I came through those doors and saw he was the only person in the terminal, and it took him three minutes to figure out how to take a picture with his camera before rushing up and giving me a bear hug I realized he's still the same dad as when I left.

We spent the next few days visiting my sister and her boyfriend, getting lost each time we left the hotel and seeing some local sights in the area. I've been to New England before, but I was still blown away by how many trees there were! Trees everywhere! The euphoric feeling of being around so much green was regulated by the claustrophobic feeling they gave me. That's probably why we got lost so much, we couldn't see where we were going. The graduation ceremony was great. There is a lot of tradition involved, the campus is beautiful and the speakers were great. It was a much more pleasant experience than my graduation which was at night, freezing cold and the alumni speakers all awkwardly asked those in attendance to send money to the university.

My next destination was New York City! I took the bus into Manhattan and had the opportunity to spend a couple days with my friend Jewells before flying out to Oklahoma. This was also a different experience than what I was used to. This was the first time I was staying in NYC. To see the city as a visitor and to see it as a citizen are somewhat different experiences. There was no rush to see the sites, no getting up early or calling ahead. We made our own schedule and adjusted it accordingly. My first thoughts were how livable the city is. It reminded me of the Cosby's, and Jewells corrected me saying the Cosby's front step was filmed one street over! The people are also much more courteous than I'd expected. They were downright nice people! People who talk to you in line at the deli or offer their seats to others on the subway. Maybe Crocodile Dundee was right when he said, "Imagine seven million people all wanting to live together. Yeah, New York must be the friendliest place on earth."

We ate mediterranean food at midnight in Washington Square Park, had a picnic on the Staten Island Ferry as we passed by Lady Liberty, ate the best dumplings in Chinatown and had a barbecue in the backyard. Don't get me wrong, we didn't eat the entire time I was there. I refused to leave Manhattan without seeing a Broadway play. A friend of mine recommended we see In the Heights, a new musical set in Washington Heights. Somehow, despite showing up late and missing the discounted ticket lottery, we nabbed seats in the 7th row at 60% off. The show is A-MA-ZING!! There are about thirty songs or so and I was near tears after the opening number! Not because it was a sad show or anything like that, but there's something heartbreaking about seeing something so beautiful, so much raw talent on display just a few feet in front of me. It was an overload for the senses and Jewells and I kept looking at each other after each song with wide eyes and open jaws. If you live in New York, if you're going to New York you must see this production. It is spectacular, the casting was great, the plot is good-it takes place in Washington Heights and it's a latin community so there were great snippets of Spanish and the music was fantastic.

A lot of the subject matter hit home. For example, the girl whose father sells his business so she can finish college and said the only payment he desires is to hear her name followed by "Bachelor of Arts." This after going to my sister's graduation was very moving. Then a few people think of nothing but escaping the barrio and never coming back and at the end discover they are home. That hit me too since I'm undecided as to what or where home is to me. We couldn't stop raving about it to everyone we talked to. Such a good show!

Oklahoma was next. I'd been looking forward to going to the lake with the Mayhew's for months. I had high expectations and I'm happy to say they were all met. We had a blast setting lines for monster catfish, tearing across the lake on a jetski at sixty miles an hour, catching bluegill off the dock, jumping off the cliffs, cooking s'mores on Skunk Island and anchoring the boat in the middle of the lake and having a swim. It was a trip and lifestyle I wasn't in a hurry to leave. And I wrote this little poem as a tribute:

Tan toes, everybody knows
Come from an imbalance of work and pleasure.
You can have your employment, I'ma stick to my enjoyment
and maintain this life of leisure!

Colombi-ahhhhhh... Part II: The Caribbean

2009-06-20T11:18:00.012-07:00

Seven months had passed since I'd been on a beach-I mean a nice beach. The cold water, shadeless and windy beaches of Peru don't count. I had been looking forward to the Caribbean for a long, long time. After one last 18-hour bus ride, I was there, in Cartagena, at midnight on a Friday night. Locals and foreigners both sing it's praises and it's difficult to talk about Colombian tourism without mentioning Cartagena

I was taken aback when, upon arriving-at midnight on a Friday night-the streets near my hostel were littered with garbage, drunks and the all-to-common salesmen that are found in Caribbean tourist towns. Was I lost? Where's the beautiful Cartagena everyone told me about? Fortunately, I found it the next day as I walked around the walls of the old city, down by the pier and in and out of the narrow cobblestone streets and under the clock tower at the main plaza. I found it again over a plate of fresh seafood and a glass of coconut lemonade. And again walking alongside huge iguanas in the central park. Each day presented another view of this popular city.

There are several day trips from Cartagena that are a lot of fun. The Islas de Rosario is one such trip which departs from the pier in the morning and include a slow boat ride out past the bay where the entire skyline of Cartagena is seen to a chain of small islands. One particular island has an impressive aquarium with a knowledgeable staff and beautiful animals. After visiting the aquarium we went to a nice white sand beach for a fried fish lunch and a dip in the water before starting the return journey back to the city.

One of the more unique experiences I've had was at the Volcan de Tutumo. This is a volcano about three stories high filled with creamy, lukewarm, saline mud. It's so salty in fact you can float effortlessly on the surface. To be honest it's impossible to sink! I've never been to the Dead Sea (yet!) but I imagine its very similiar. The depth of the volcano is said to be over 400 feet, however we all laid on the surface or stood vertically, perfectly and effortlessly suspended in the mud at chest level. Once you get over the weirdness of the experience, it's nice to cover your skin in the mud and relax. After an hour, you walk down the volcano to a nearby lake where everyone washes off, gets back on the bus and heads to the beach were another fish lunch is waiting for us. It's a fun experience I definitely recommend to others.

I was anxious to see what was under the water and spent a few days SCUBA diving in the national park of Tayrona. For a couple days I lived on the beach diving in the morning and afternoons while sleeping in a hammock at night. The Caribbean to me means sharks, unfortunately I didn't see any on my dives but I had a good time underwater and was happy to discover I could still dive after about eight months above water. On our excursion there was a group of dive students getting certified. I went under with them on two occasions and spent some time observing them under water. It had been just over a year since I earned my certification in Australia and I knew I struggled then with some of the skills they were struggling with now. It was fun to be the one to encourage new divers just like many people encouraged me on dive boats around southeast Asia. A lot can change in a year, and my SCUBA skills are proof.

Around this time I could see my time growing shorter and was eager to have another snake encounter before I left the continent. After my dive trip I continued east to the other side of the park and hiked over the mountains to the beach. The hike was fantastic. It wasn't too hot or humid like the rainforest in Bolivia and the activity of hiking was exhilarating. No snakes were found but I came across a different jewel of the rainforest; poison dart frogs. In my experience, dart frogs are common in the forests of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia. They are active during the day and eye-poppingly beautiful.

This one surprised me on the trail and gave me a good chase before I caught it. With the frog in one hand I retrieved my camera from my backpack with the other. I took a few photos and watched as he hopped away into the leaf litter. The excitement of the catch made me thirsty and I unscrewed my water bottle with the same hand I held the frog. When I took a drink some of the toxin must have washed from the bottle into my mouth because it tasted a little different, then began to get warmer and my tongue started going numb! I washed the bottle in a nearby stream and spit out what I could and the sensation faded. Never a dull moment huh!

The beach in the park is mostly unspoiled and uncrowded and unsuitable for swimming. I stayed for a few days walking along the beach, sleeping in hammocks, eating coconuts and mango and chatting with a few people along the way.

From Parque Tayrona I went directly to Barranquilla where I would fly out the following week. Many people questioned my desire to go to Barranquilla saying there was nothing special about it. It's not a tourist town, its not as pretty as Cartagena and therefore it's not special. On the other hand a select few told me it was even better than Cartagena because it wasn't a tourist town. After spending the weekend there I can tell you now, it's one of my favorite places in Colombia. It definitely isn't a tourist town, precisely why I like it. This is life for the majority of Colombians. Nobody is touting crappy souvenirs or day trips to the beach. This is what normal life feels like. I like normal life.

Add to that the fact I stayed with couchsurfers, Khris, Mickey and Jennifer the entire time I was there and saw even further into what a normal life is like, and made some great friends and had a lot of fun! Khris' family has a car which made seeing the city much easier and saved time. It was also a luxury I hadn't experienced-riding in a private vehicle-since I was in Argentina. Staying with Mickey and Jennifer exposed more luxuries I enjoyed; xbox, internet and local friends to hang out with. I had a great time eating, going to the movies, playing video games and playing pool with all of them. The most important thing of all was probably that I didn't spend my last days in South America alone. When I arrived in Buenos Aires I had a friend there to greet me and when I left Colombia, I had friends waving goodbye. Time with those friends, from Argentina to Colombia, is what I enjoyed the most.

Colombia:Part I, The Interior

2009-06-12T07:30:00.010-07:00

I have wanted to go to Colombia for a long time. First, back in high school when it was considered one of the most dangerous places on earth. My mythology teacher told our class stories of traveling through the country with her husband after they got married. They were in three automobile accidents, their bus tipped over once and they were shot at. Sound like a honeymoon to you?

That is the Colombia of yesterday, a far cry of what you see today. The people and government have tried hard-and succeeded-in changing the country's reputation from a kidnapping and drug smuggling paradise to a peaceful and diverse destination. So much in fact that today the Department of Tourism for Colombia has a slogan that says, "Colombia. The only risk is wanting to stay."

I arrived in Bogota and stayed with a friend of mine, Melissa. Melissa and I had never met face-to-face before but we've known each other for several years through a mutual friend of ours whom I went to school with, Aida. Remember the opening scene in Mr. and Mrs. Smith where the characters played by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie meet in Bogota at a colonial-style hotel ridden with bullet holes, surrounded by palms and it's about 100 degrees outside and explosions are going off in the distance? Colombians hate that movie. The city has an elevation near 8,000 feet in the Andes Mountains and temps rarely exceed 70 degrees, there are very few examples of colonial architecture or palm trees and the city has never been under heavy fighting like was shown in the movie. I don't blame Hollywood though, I mean who wants to see Angelinain a parka?

For four days Melissa and I cruised around Bogota seeing the sights like the Salt Cathedral, going shopping (I needed to boost my wardrobe) and surfing her internet for free (a luxury I hadn't enjoyed for months.) We also went to a birthday party for one of her friends and I was introduced to vallenato, a type of folk music that's very popular on the Caribbean coast. Its accompanied by an accordion and guacharaca, a ridged stick that is played by scraping a wire fork over the ridges to keep the rhythm.

From Bogota I went to Medellin. I could live in Medellin. The weather is described as "eternal spring" and fluctuates very little throughout the year. (Wyoming readers: "spring" is a pleasant season between winter and summer characterized by warm temperatures, new growth, emergence and renewal. It doesn't exist where you live!) Previous generations might associate Medellin with Pablo Escobar, whereas current generations associate it with Latin pop sensation, Juanes!

I don't know exactly what it is about the city but I got the feeling as soon as I arrived, that I liked it. Maybe its the weather, or the cleanliness of the streets, the convenience of the metro rail, the beauty of the valley or the attractiveness of its people. I'm sure its a combination of all these variables and more, the truth is I liked Medellin instantly!

My couchsurfing host was Veronica. What can I say about her? She's one of the best hosts I've had and she shaped my experience in Medellin into something I could not have experienced on my own. We walked through downtown visiting the botanical gardens, the planetarium and a couple parks. We were going dancing with her friends that evening. The famous Colombian author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez says, five Colombians in a room inevitable turns into a party. There is a lot of truth to that. As we waited for everyone to arrive a party spontaneously began on the sidewalk! A couple drinks, some plastic chairs, a barbecue grill and a stereo brought people together and before you know it I was receiving some vallenato dancing lessons right there on the sidewalk! Before long we went to a street lined with clubs blaring salsa, merengue, vallenato and reggaeton music and danced into the early morning.

The next day we went to town for the Labor Day Parade. Or at least, what I thought was going to be a parade. Veronica called it a march and when I asked if they would throw candy she said no, but they would probably throw explosives! That's when I learned a new Spanish word: lacrimogeno, or tear gas in English. About ninety-five percent of the marchers are normal, peaceful workers marching for recognition, representation or protesting labor rights. The other five percent are made up of the anarchists and communists. A select few actually believe in a cause and desire revolution. For the most part though, they are mostly young people who want to break stuff (Why else would the two groups march together? They should be polar opposites.)

We shadowed this group as they marched through town, spray-painting revolutionary slogans on store fronts, throwing rocks and paintballs at buildings and lighting explosives in sidestreets. The riot police soon showed up and walked alongside them acting as a small, and sometimes futile barrier, between the businesses and the marchers. You could physically feel the tension rising the further we walked and I was confident I was going to see some tear gas. See some tear gas, I wasn't thinking I was going to get shot with it! As soon as we arrived at a wide boulevard the police finally lost their patience. Veronica and I were in between the police and the hooligans (not a good place to be) when they stared running. I turned to look and saw smoke rising from gas canisters in the street and police shooting more into the crowd. I didn't look back again! I grabbed Veronica and turned to run when I was shot in the back. I ripped off the scarf I was wearing and gave it to Veronica and covered my face with my shirt to try to breathe. Tear gas makes it nearly impossible to see or breathe, both of which are very necessary when you're trying to run away from something. The entire morning I was excited to have this experience, but as we were running and my face was burning, and I couldn't open my eyes, I had snot hanging out of my nose and I wanted to puke up my lungs I decided, 'Okay, that's enough! I don't want this experience anymore!' Then just as we thought it was safe to slow down, the armored truck drove through and shot us with a water cannon which prompted us to run further.

Once you get away from the gas, your lungs feel better and your eyes begin to clear up, but your face continues to burn. Fortunately, my trusty sidekick new the antidote and bought some milk to wash our faces in. It quickly took the burning away and we gave it to anyone who needed it. At that moment, when we were standing in the street, soaking wet from the water cannon, our eyes teary and bloodshot, still trying to catch our breath and milk running down our faces, I gave Veronica a big hug thanking her for this experience and we began to laugh!

We were back with the other ninety-five percent in the march within fifteen minutes, eating a popsicle and listening to music like nothing happened. It was going to be another beautiful day in Medellin.

Monkey Around!

2009-04-26T14:39:00.003-07:00

It's taken me a LOOOONG time to get this uploaded. But I finally have thanks to my friend's computer in Bogota. Enjoy it!

Cutaneous Leishmaniasis

2009-04-25T20:32:00.012-07:00

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease transmitted through the bite of a female sandfly. It is found on nearly every continent in the world with the exeption of Australia. Common symptons are the presence of chronic ulcers on the skin that do not heal or take an exeptionally long time to heal. A more common name for the disease is flesh eating disease. Oh and by the way... did I mention I had it?

The first precense of these sores on my leg occurred after a memorable day of skiing France, in the wettest conditions I've ever experienced. When I took my boots off I poured about a cup full of water out of them and noticed three open wounds on my right leg where the top of my boot meets my calf muscle. Two looked like abrasions and the other a large boil. I chalked it up to the friction between my leg and boot and possibly an ingrown hair or something. By the next day the boil had ruptured and I was stuck with three quarter-sized ulcers on my calf. At the time I didn't know they would still be there four months later.

My repeated attempts at basic first aid continued to fail week after week and I tried to change my methods. At first I kept them covered with bandages, when that didn't work I tried to leave them open to the air to dry out. All the while smaller ulcers would begin to appear like ulcers around the original ones. These would rupture and heal eventually while the three main ones underwent little change. After nearly two months I decided to get some blood tests done in England to see what was really the matter with me.

Before visiting the doctor I sought Dr. Google to see if I could self-diagnose myself. As a joke I searched for flesh-eating disease (afterall, I have been in some crazy places on this trip) and to my astonishment images matching the sores on my leg came up alongside worse, much worse images of patient's legs rotten to the bone and faces that resembled hedge apples or cauliflour. All of a sudden my motivation to be healed increased by a hundred times! As a non European citizen I had to pay fifty pounds to see the nurse at the clinic where she told me, after looking at my leg, I should get some blood tests done. Isn't that why I'm here? Let's do it. Apparently I was at a clinic and not a doctor's office. To get the blood tests I would have to see a general practicioner. She happily put a bandage on my leg and told me if I kept it covered it would probably heal up on its own. I didn't have the heart to tell her that if it didn't work the first six weeks it probably would't work now. So I walked out of the clinic with my $75 band-aid thinking, "This is exactly why I haven't seen a doctor until now."

Fast forward one week and across the Atlantic Ocean where I was staying with a friend in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His family took great care of me and arranged a doctor's visit on my behalf. Cutaneous leishmaniasis isn't very common in Buenos Aires. They say they only see about 300 cases a year. In my mind, that's about one a day, if I saw one of anything every day for a year I think I'd be pretty familiar with it wouldn't you? (Compare this with less than a 100 cases a year for the whole of the USA, the majority being returnees from the Middle East.) Anyway, I was told to leave it alone as it looked to be healing-in reality it was looking to get smaller and they had dried out significantly-if I wasn't a new man in a week or so I was to see a doctor again.

Two weeks later I was volunteering at a wildlife sanctuary in Bolivia and my leg had gotten worse. The staff in the clinic recognized the disease and agreed it probably was leishmaniasis. The president of the sanctuary proudly showed me a baseball-sized scar above his ankle where he had a run in with the disease years earlier. He said it took over a year for it to heal completely. The next morning I was first in line at the hospital!

This was my Bolivian hospital experience. I approached a window where my name and birthdate was recorded and given a reciept to take to the adjacent window where I paid 5 bolivianos for my consultation. That's about $0.70!! I waited for the nurse to call me in where he took my weight, pulse and blood pressure then was ushered to another waiting area where the doctor would see me shortly. And it really was "shortly." I chatted with the doctor, showed him my leg and he seemed convinced it was leishmaniasis also (yay for Dr. Google!) he wrote down my history and drew a picture of my leg on a paper and told me to go to the lab for a test and to come back when I was done.

I walked to the other side of the hospital-which is about the size of an elementary school-to the lab where I was told to go to the pharmacy to buy some soap and gauze and to come back after I had cleaned my leg. Huh? I'll be honest, sometimes I understand the words people say in Spanish but don't comprehend at all what they are saying to me. Confused, I went to the pharmacy and bought the stuff and took it back to the lab where the lady told me to come back after I had cleaned my leg. But where? I found out where, outside in the corner of the courtyard was a water spout where I rolled up my pant leg, took off my shoe and lathered up my leg! Nobody looked at me funny so I suppose it is normal procedure. Back at the lab, the nurse broke a toothpick in two and dug it in and around the edges of each of the three sores on my leg, wiping the blood onto a microscope slide. It felt a little worse than how it sounds, believe me. Satisfied, she had me wait for the lab results. Thirty minutes later it was confirmed, I had cutaneous leishmaniasis. Wonderful.

Back to the doctor's office where he was watching music videos on his laptop computer, he told me this; the good news is, it is totally curable. To which I thought, "Good news? Usually good news precedes bad news!." The bad news is, he continued, I will need a series of injections over the next twenty days. Oh, well that's not so bad. Just a small jab each day right? Not exactly. I was to receive 17.2 mL intramuscularly each day. (Your average hepatitis shots are between 0.5 and 1.0 mL.) He gave me a written prescription and told me I had to go to the hospital in the next village because they didn't care the treatment here.

I went there the next day but didn't bring enough money for the whole prescription so I had to come back the following day. (My taxi got two flat tires, one on the way there and another on the way back.) The nurse counted out 20 syringes and enough vials of medicine for the entire treatment and instantly took pity on me. Even moreso when I handed over the 700 bolivianos (about $100) to pay for it. Fortunately, the sanctuary where I was working had a vet clinic where every afternoon before leaving I received my injection from a veteranarian. When I left the sanctuary I still needed about ten more injections. A friend I'd met at the sanctuary accompanied me, along with her boyfriend, to tour the pampas along the Amazon tributary and gave me the shots while we traveled together. After that I was on my own, giving myself a shot in the butt and in the arm every day.

Here's a video of my last shot.

I'm happy to say my leg is all cleared up and the injections are complete. Yay! No more shots!!!

Here are some pictures of the later progress once I arrived in Argentina.

Taken my last night in Europe

After removing the bandage I got at the clinic in Nottingham.

A few days later.

Series of ulcers on my calf. The large one in the middle was the original boil.

Same shot as above a few days later. The surrounding sores have healed while the original gets worse.

Afternoon ritual.

Catch up!

2009-04-04T07:20:00.003-07:00

Sorry for the delay folks. As it turns out, while I carefully placed my shopping bag containing my camera accessories and charger under my seat in the airplane to Buenos Aires, I failed to take it with me when I left the plane! This explains the lack of pictures and well, anything else on here for the last few weeks. Hope is on its way and a friend of mine is meeting me next week and should be bringing a replacement charger for my camera. Until then, I've been very conservative with my picture taking so as not to use up my battery.

In the meantime you can visit my photo page at www.flickr.com/photos/terrylove for some newly posted pictures!

Rome

2009-03-09T08:37:00.016-07:00

It took me awhile to find an outlet where I could charge the digital camera I bought at Heathrow but I finally did. As it was charging, I watched airport staff drinking espressos and eating small breakfasts. A quick stop at the tourist office for a city map and I was off! Here are some of the places I went:

I went to the Colosseum

The Arch de Constantine

This monument,

The Pantheon

and Trevelli Fountain

It was a beautiful day and the sights I saw created a nice loop beginning and ending at the train station back to the airport. But I couldn't leave without trying some gelato, the famous ice cream!

Unfortunately, on my flight to Buenos Aires I left my shopping bag on the plane accidentally with my camera charger in it! Hopefully I'll find a way to charge my camera battery, in the meantime I'm very conservative with the pictures I take.

Preface

2009-02-27T11:36:00.005-07:00

Such a strange feeling today-this evening-my last on the European continent. I'll wake tomorrow before the sun and board a plane to cross "the pond," to the New World, to my goal destination-to South America. Things are seemingly happening quickly, all at once, but I feel like I'm in slow motion. I planned out my remaining three months and bought tickets to Connecticut departing from Colombia. This seems like a big step-one of the final steps-to cross the Atlantic and arrive in the same timezone as my countrymen-albeit a different hemishpere. I feel like I'd be better prepared for a sea journey where days, sometimes weeks seperate departure from arrival. Enough time to let go of Europe, to reflect and think of the things I've experienced and learned and to detatch from it slowly in a neutral environment like the open sea, which speaks no common language, waves no flag or shares a universal climate or ethnicity. Then finally, to look towards the horizon of the setting sun, to find the patch of green and prepare for it, study it while I'm still a ways off from its shores. Then perhaps I'd be eager-with proper preparedness-to step onto the sand ready for whatever may come.

Let go

2009-02-16T15:56:00.004-07:00

"We're going to have to let you go."

That's what you want to hear from a policeman when you've been caught red-handed, or from your parents on prom night when that gorgeous girl finally accepted your invitation, or from a fisherman after you-a beautiful rainbow trout-were caught by his favorite dry fly and getting dangerously close to a future in a frying pan. It's not what you want to hear from you boss, in the middle of a global financial crisis, five thousand miles from home, when what you're being "let go" from is what many would consider at most, to be a dream job and at the least, a pretty sweet gig to occupy your time before going onto the next adventure. It gets no better when that next adventure needs to be determined within the next four days at which time you're made to leave your home, food and friends for.... well, it doesn't matter where you go, you just can't stay here.

You can imagine my sense of nervousness as I pieced together places to stay for days at a time, only days in advance. I stayed up later, I slept in longer, started reading more, thinking more, worrying more. Not that it was necessarily necessary. I was taken care of. A good friend who lives near where I worked said I could stay the whole week if I needed it. I would have been completely lost without him. Thank you Zola. Before long, as the news spread across the creek, my friend in Wales offered to share his dorm room for a few days while I figured out where I was going next. Thanks Jonny.

To fill you in, I'd been helping out with a holiday company in the French Alps. A usual day was spent with breakfast and a morning prayer meeting and then usually cleaning rooms and making beds until lunch at which time we had a few hours to go hit the ski slopes before coming back to the chalet to prepare for dinner. I quickly became a star player in the after-dinner dishwashing and could usually be found there or in the kitchen while dinner was being served to the guests. My co-workers were a young bunch from England who were full of energy-too much energy sometimes-but easy to get along with and people who I hope to keep in touch with in the future. Thanks guys, you know who you are.

I had hoped to move to Paris with Olivier when he got an apartment, however everyone is looking for an apartment these days and he ended up sharing a house with some others. I could come for a visit but staying for a long period of time or looking for work would be out of the question. Olivier tried his hardest to make something work for me, but in the end, some things just don't turn out the way you thought they would. (Terimah kasih banyak Olivier!) When you pray for guidance you shouldn't be upset when doors begin to close in your face. Some are closed before you walk into the room, others are closed after you've been pushed out of them. But sometimes, the easiest way to make a decision is to decide what I don't want to do, or what I can't do. Then it's easier to focus on what is possible. Guidance.

In Singapore I remember writing in my journal that I was anxious to get to Latin America. I wasn't concerned with Europe and was in fact willing to bypass it altogether in order to be eating gallo pinto and listening to reggaeton all the sooner. However, I was still holding on to Europe. I was holding onto working, holding onto another ski season and holding onto another continent, another language and another year abroad. The longer I stayed in France, the further I'd have to wait to get to South America. Perhaps the doors have properly closed, perhaps it's time to move on, perhaps it's my time to let go of some of my small desires in order to fulfill my larger ones. So this is me, let go, and letting go.

C'est la belle vie

2009-01-12T09:10:00.003-07:00

December 12, 2008
Paris, France

One must record their first impressions of France. You really shouldn't let the glasses of wine and the increasing exhaustion of travel and transit force you to sleep and blur the experience. And here I write:

My first thought-despite it feeling colder here than in London-was where are all the pretty people? I felt like they all stayed in London. Parisians are homely and fair-some are outright ugly to be honest. Hair is matted and disheveled, eyeliner is applied too thickly and most ensembles are seemingly, loosely and quickly thrown together.

The metro isn't as nice either. It stinks for one, and there is an absence of escalators and personnel around. The turn stalls are a pain and the trains are old. I would say of every city rail system I've been on this year-Paris comes up last in terms of cleanliness and modernity. That's saying something considering I've been to Manila.

Of course it's not all bad, I just needed to get the negative out so I could embellish the positive. I found the pretty people in shopping malls wearing designer clothes and smelling better than laundry fresh out of the drier. Then again when I met Olivier's friends and later in the week when we went out dancing.

Paris is quiet. It's surprising how quiet it is near a main street or just around the corner from a common landmark busy with visitors. Parisians have been quite friendly today as Olivier and I walked around lost most of the day stopping random people for directions. Perhaps because conversations were conducted by Olivier in French, but I'm not letting that arguably arbitrary fact sway my feelings that we were met with very friendly people today. Helpful people and some quite jovial.

The reputation for a love of food is duly deserved. Food literally lines the sides of some narrow, cobblestone streets we walked down today. Seafood, fruit and vegetables, even spices are prominently displayed enticing even the un-hungry to stop and browse a while.

I helped a Guatemalan girl carry her luggage to Gare du Nord this morning when I got of the bus. Then I met Olivier near Chatelet and we stashed our luggage at his old workplace and walked around the city past the Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame and a couple other cathedrals. I bought a phone and SIM straight away so that's out of the way.

I was exhausted by 7:00pm when we met Oliv's beautiful girlfriend Elod back where our bags were. I was staying (am staying) at Olivier's friend's house, Rafael. He cooked dinner for us tonight. Seared duck, with fried potatoes served with a blue cheese sauce and a fruity white wine for accompaniment. This will forever be my first dinner in Paris-and what a welcome it was!

It's gearing up to be a great weekend!

I love my friends!

2009-01-11T09:11:00.006-07:00

Fear not my friends, I am alive and well! A thousand apologies for what must have been an excruciating silence over the past-can you believe it?-month since I've last updated my world tour. You'll find me now in a small mountain village in the French Alps. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me fill you in since my last update...

Celebrating Thanksgiving Day with Ben's family in London was a lot of fun. I had a lot to be thankful for over the past year and especially in my current position stying with Ben and his family. They were wonderful hosts, ever ready to make a cup of tea, help me plan my day or have a chat. While Ben was working during the day I caught up on reading some books my friend Trevor sent me, chatting online and going to the fridge whenever I was hungry! You don't' know what a luxury it is to be able to hop into the kitchen and have a bite to eat whenever you wish as opposed to going to a restaurant or food stall. One of the things I enjoyed most was being in a home again and waiting for those friendly faces to come back in the afternoon after being at work.

Ben and I went to Hillsong church in London on Sundays and attended a couple other activities like a men's day, teaching night and home group. I made some friends, ate some good foo and rocked out to eh Hillsong worship team. We also managed to explore some of the city and take some photographs on Ben's day off.

I was fortunate enough to have three of my friends from the States come visit me in London. Helen and I met in Costa Rica and hung out together in Denver a few times afterwards. She'd been in Spain for awhile and was finishing up her time in Europe bagging a few extra countries and between seeing a former roommate in Sweden and her dad in Ireland she had a stopover in London and stayed with me. We shared a fantastic day doing the tourist thing. We walked past Big Ben, the London Eye, Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace. We had some fish and chips, rode a double-decker bus and took a photo in a telephone booth. To finish in classic "terry-and-Helen" style we took the wrong metro line and she nearly missed her airport transfer! Fortunately she made it on time and last I heard she was in Italy with her father.

Trevor and I also met in Costa Rica during a semester abroad. He now works for the company we studied with and was sent to London on a business trip. It had been five years since we'd seen each other, but we've kept in contact ever since and we never missed a beat as we met in London and went to a football (soccer) match. We managed to meet up another night for dinner with his colleagues and we all met up again in Paris a few days later. It was great to get to spend some time together again after five years. And what better than over a croque madame and cafe au lait with a view of the Eiffel Tower!

First Impressions: London

2008-12-10T09:13:00.005-07:00

All my regrets from purchasing a wool jacket in Vietnam and carrying it with me quite uselessly for two months through equatorial Asia quickly vanished near baggage claim at Heathrow Airport. It was cold! It was even colder outside the airport and on the train-er, sorry, the tube. Here's a quick lesson in London lingo; what's the difference between the tube, train, metro, subway, underground and overground? If you can tell me I'd be happy to know. The obvious answer is that the tube, subway and underground are all the same thing since they are under the ground... except that sometimes they aren't, in fact sometimes they are elevated similar to a skyrail. And then there's added confusion that the overground is often underground! The tube/underground is not called a train even though it is a train. The overground is considered a train. Can you understand my confusion when I arrived? I'm happy to announce after two weeks, London transportation and I are good friends.

England is an interesting country in its antiquity. Everything is so old! I walked by a small church near Old London Road in Kingston which was consecrated in the eleventh century and has been under the ownership of the same school since the sixteenth century! Colombus had just 'discovered' my country at that time and here this church was already five hundred years old, yet it still stands to this day. This particular church isn't unique in London either. There are several standing examples of the history of the area. Beachcombers can be seen along the banks of the Thames River browsing among the discarded tires and broken bottles for artifacts and remnants of centuries past.

Despite the cold-which isn't the dry, windy, Wyoming type but a damp, quiet coldness-the city remains colorful. The grass and various evergreens are still green and there are flowers that still bloom. Single and double-decker buses are common and reflect a brighter, more monotonous red than the brick building neighborhoods they drive through. There is a certain familiarity to the city I've likely gained from watching television and movies. I would say it's somewhat similar to the feeling I had in Los Angeles. Although in Los Angeles I felt like everything was fake, make believe on a giant movie set. Whereas in London after walking past the London Eye and seeing Big Ben for the first time it hit me that I'm really in England!

The biggest shock was of course the price of everything. From the airport to Ben's house I'd already spent what was my daily budget in Southeast Asia on the underground and a couple phone calls. This was going to take some getting used to. Fortunately-depending on your point of view-the pound has fallen significantly in the last year and my dollars are going a little further than they would have before. Thankfully I'm staying with Ben's family and are at the mercy of their wonderful hospitality. After a couple days I came to the realization I'd have to find a job quick or go back to Wyoming. Physically it'd be easier to go back to Rock Springs, but I decided I'm not finished yet. My world tour isn't about to be over that quickly!

Indonesia Revisited

2008-11-18T23:11:00.008-07:00

The decision to return to Indonesia was becoming more and more appealing. A part of me had seriously questioned whether to leave Indonesia back in May, or postpone my outbound ticket and spend some more time in Java and neighboring Sulawesi. In the end, I took my friend Alison's advice and left. Six months later, there I was, full circle through Southeast Asia only a ferry ride from Sumatra, my Indonesian horizon.

I was surprised at how nostalgic I became when I arrived. Even the currency I'd exchanged into Rupiah brought back a comfortable familiarity. Hearing the language again was like hearing a favorite song on the radio. My tongue said words that I knew I'd said before, months earlier, but couldn't remember the meaning. My sentences would finish automatically, and then I'd ask the meaning of what I'd just said. Indonesian food isn't anything to brag about but I found myself salivating over the thought of my favorite local foods and couldn't wait to try them again.

In Dumai, where I arrived on the ferry, an English teacher found me waiting at the bus station's office. He said he heard there was a westerner in town and wanted to offer me free accommodation in return for English conversation with his students. Who told him I was in town? I'd just arrived less than ten minutes ago! So went the rest of my Sumatran experience. Especially on weekends, tourist traps were just that, traps set by adolescent English language students hunting for English speakers to practice with. The practice consisted of poorly worded questions that their teacher obviously advised they ask such as, "Do you agree with the economic crisis in America?" "Do you prefer Indonesia or America?" I couldn't believe that any twelve year-old was interested in the answers of their prepared questions (they weren't) so I changed the subject and instead asked them about where they came from, what was their favorite music or football team. Afterwards they all huddled around to get a picture of the tourist. The danger of speaking with one group of students is it gives the other groups a chance to move in where you repeat the same cycle of unanswerable questions-"Excuse me sir. What's the difference between America?"-then pictures and signatures while another group prepares to advance. There aren't many tourists in this part of the world so students would wait outside my guesthouse waiting for me to leave in the mornings. And to think some people are afraid to come here for fear of being attacked by radical Islamic terrorists. Forget about the terrorists, but keep a keen eye out for the English students!
Poor weather kept me from staying long at either Bukittinggi or Padang and I found myself on the island of Samosir in Lake Toba. It is said to be the largest island inside an island (that being Sumatra.) The lake is a crater lake and green hills surround the entire thing. Not much happens on the island so it's a nice place to relax, eat, explore waterfalls, take a swim or play chess-all of which I did my fair share of. The owner of my guesthouse and I played a minimum of five games of chess a day. I beat him once, drew twice and lost every game otherwise. After a week of staying and eating at the guesthouse he offered a challenge; one game of chess, I win and I leave without paying my bill, he wins and I have to stay another day. He won, I paid but still left that afternoon.

After a series of ferry, taxi and bus rides that lasted all night into the next morning I arrived in Pulau Weh, an island off the coast of Banda Aceh at the tip of Sumatra. Pulau Weh is gorgeous! I scored a wooden bungalow with a palm thatch roof and a hammock that's actually over the ocean. And not just any ocean, beautiful, calm, warm, blue-hued ocean full of colorful fish! The area I stayed was quite cozy. If anyone arrived we all knew about it. A surprising concentration of Americans arrived but also Germans, Belgians, French, Dutch, Chinese, Italians, Koreans and Malaysians.
Most of my days consisted of, or at least included snorkeling or scuba diving. The snorkeling was amazing. Beforehand I'd only seen a lionfish on two occasions in the Philippines. I saw seventeen of them here in an hour of snorkeling. Around dusk some beautiful blue fusiliers could be found schooling around some coral heads just in front of my bungalow. If classical music could be seen, visualized, it would take the form of these schooling fishes. That's how I'd describe it.

It was this spectacle I was on my way to witness when I thought the quest for a sea snake was over. Literally right in front on my bungalow, two meters from where I knelt to rinse the spit out of my mask was a snake, banded in black and white! It was searching for food in the cracks and holes around. As I watched it I began to have doubts. After all it just didn't act completely snakelike to me. Something was off. I was right, I found a picture of one in the dive shop's book on marine life. It was a harlequin snake eel. Not reptilian at all. I didn't have to wait long though. A few days later on my last day I found one and this time had no doubt as to what it was. A banded sea krait, potentially deadly but very placid. It took no notice of me as I watched it poke its head into cracks and under coral looking for small fish. I pushed my lungs to the limit as I dove down a few meters to where it was, and gently held it while still allowing it to hunt. As much as I was enjoying myself I was freezing from being in the water for nearly two hours and had to get out.

The diving was also nice although sometimes I felt like the snorkeling was better. A bit unfair to say probably as you don't have much to think about when you're snorkeling whereas I was concerned with my buoyancy, air consumption and decompression limits while I was diving. I dove six times over the course of two weeks, including once at night. I hadn't been too taken with diving previously. It's different, and interesting but I wasn't sure if the cost was worth the reward. Here in Indonesia I better realized what diving was-which is simply breathing underwater-and what it isn't-it's not a breathtaking experience every dive where you constantly see sharks, whales, turtles, etc.-and I think now that I realize this, I've become not only a better diver, but I appreciate diving more. I'll be excited to go again sometime. I'm sure it'll be even more enjoyable with old friends and my ultimate goal would be to dive with my dad who was certified nearly thirty years ago. [So here's a formal request to my father: When are we going diving together Dad?]

Indonesia remains my favorite Southeast Asian country and a place I hope dearly I'll get to return to someday. Before boarding my flight (which only cost $40!) to Malaysia I had one last straight-razor shave in a barber shop and went around town sampling my favorite foods one last time. It was then, while I was on the back of a motorbike receiving smiles from girls in headscarves, waves and salutations from businessmen and curious friendly glances in traffic that I confirmed it; I love this place! The landscape of Indonesia is beautiful and diverse, the people are friendly, the language is a joy and the climate is pleasant. I like how sandals are quickly kicked off before entering a home or shop, how Indonesians touch their hearts after shaking hands, the faint smell of cloves in the air and the sound of a pop star singing a love song on the radio in a language I almost speak.

Indonesia coming soon!

2008-11-16T04:50:00.004-07:00

Just wanted to say I followed your suggestion according to the poll (even before it was finished actually) and spent the last month in Sumatra. For now I'll tell you that it was amazing and Indonesia is spectacular. More to come...

10th Anniversary Caption Contest & "Choose My Adventure" Poll

2008-10-13T02:32:00.004-07:00

Knock yourselves out guys! I chose a winner for the previous contest, Congrats Nikki! Here's the one for this month, my tenth month outside the USA! I know some people couldn't leave comments directly to this blog so they missed out, in order to keep everyone included you may leave your captions here or email them to me at terrysworldtour(at)gmail(dot)com, just write "CAPTION CONTEST" in the subject line.

I'm at a spork in the road, not a fork, but a spork. I can follow the tines to Indonesia or Europe, or I could stay in the ladle of Malaysia. The fun part is that it's up to you! In the spirit of the election I urge you to vote, not only for your next pres. but also for my next destination. Currently, I have a plane ticket from Singapore to Europe at the end of November. I have been thinking of changing it and departing during the beginning of November. The other choice would be to hop over to Sumatra, and enjoy my last days in Asia there before flying out of Singapore at the end of November, as scheduled. Voting is easy: see the poll at the top of the right-hand column? Just make your selection. I'll anxiously be waiting for your replies!

Adventures in Eating

2008-10-10T19:57:00.008-07:00

This week I asked for chocolate milk... cold. I got a Coke. Yesterday I asked for a lassi, got a rootbeer. When asked for the soups du jour, my server rattled off a list of sounds that could have been in English, Malay or Pashtu for all I knew. I thought I heard the word "beef" in the last choice, I mumbled it back to him, trying to imitate his pronunciation.

Beef tongue soup... wonderful. But hey, I'm a traveler, I'm adventurous, I'm open to these things so I dug right in. It's not horrible, most strange food isn't, but I wished it came with bread, or rice or maybe without beef tongue! It looks hairy on one side and smooth, like squid, on the other.

Halfway through with being halfway through, I had the following thought; in the past months I've had crocodile, kangaroo, monkey, dog, durian, duck embryo, fermented taro root, grasshoppers and water beetles, cobra, intestines of all kinds, dried squid, live ants, century eggs and I'd happily try rat if given the chance. I don't think we need anymore evidence that I'm an adventurous eater! So I did something that I rarely ever do, and paid for my food and left with uneaten food at my table. From now on I'll enunciate when ordering my drinks, and better yet, ask for a menu!

Best-Case Scenario

2008-10-06T06:00:00.010-07:00

"I've heard climbing near Krabi is good." "Oh yeah! Tonsai is where you want to go."
"You've been?"

"Yeah. Couple years ago. Meant to spend two weeks there and stayed for three months."

"Three months! Haha. It's that good huh?"

"Wait 'till you see it."

"But I don't have any gear."

"No problem, just meet other climbers. Everyone's cool there."

The conversation I'd had three months earlier in the Philippines was fresh in my mind as I walked down the beach. Nobody. Beautiful rock, but no one to climb it with. Unwilling to shell out the cash of a guide I'll move on tomorrow-another disappointment.

I went back to my book, which I'd put down hours earlier in order to go find some climbing buddies before I gave up, and picked a beach chair next to two girls who were also reading. Slightly disappointed I dove back into the plot of an African boy destined to be the welterweight champ of the world. And then she moved. It wasn't her movement that was significant, but what she moved, a pair of blue, lace-up, Boreal climbing shoes.

"You're a climber?" I tried to sound more impressed than facetious. My tone landed somewhere in the middle.

"Yeah, but we're taking a rest day today." She pressed an index finger onto her skin and waited for the color to return to where she pressed, the international test for sunburn. "You just get here?"

"Yeah."

"How long you staying?"

"Well, I planned on a couple weeks, but I'm not sure. How long've you two been here?" Their eyes turned up and their mouths hung open like they were thinking about a math problem, trying to count the days before answering in an air of disbelief that it's really been that long. I would ask a lot of people that same question over the following days and they would all answer the same way, some people's math taking longer to compute than other's.

"We're going to try the traverse at the end of the beach. You want to come?"

That was how I met the M's; Emily and Emma. And how, less than four hours from arriving on the beach, excited to climb the surrounding limestone that was everywhere but feeling dejected that I'd fail to make friends in time, I was bouldering ten feet away from the Indian Ocean who's horizon was extinguishing a golden sunset behind me. The best part being, I wasn't as weak as I thought I was, the technique hadn't left me, my hands weren't bleeding and I could still climb! We made plans to climb together the next day and I just then realized, I was living my own best-case scenario.

The M's and I climbed together the next day, then took a trip to Ko Phi Phi, an island whose infrastructure was completely destroyed by the 2004 tsunami, and climbed there before we split up and I went back to Tonsai. The scene in Krabi is quite diverse. There are four main beaches in the area; Tonsai, Railay East, Railay West and Pranang Beach. Pranang is the nicest beach but there's nowhere to stay apart from a few resort style hotels. The Railay beaches are back-to-back, facing in opposite directions so the accommodation is basically the same, but East's beach is nearly non-existent and has a muddy bottom whereas West has sugary white sand and a view of the sunset. Railay West is the posterchild. Through the jungle, or over the hill or around the rocks at low tide are the three ways to get to Tonsai, where I stayed. The sand is coarse and the point offshore hides the sunset before it dips into the sea, but it's quiet, it's cheap and it's where most climbers decide to stay.

It seems everyone is a climber to some degree on Tonsai. During evening meals and over an apres climb drink, patrons are physically recounting the day's climbs with their hands in the air, grasping invisible pinches, sidepulls and slopers of invisible limestone at their dinner table.

There are loads of climbs suitable for every level of climber as well. To my climbing buddies I would describe it like this: Imagine Wild Iris (that's near Lander, WY to my non-climbing buddies,) increase the vertical, take away the mountains towards South Pass and insert the Indian Ocean, replace antelope with monkeys, increase the humidity, decrease the summertime heat to around 80 with plenty of shade trees and add a sleepy town within walking distance of the crag where there's plenty of food to shove down our necks when we're done! Then you'll be getting close to what it's like.

The deciding factor of where to climb in the morning is usually related to which climbs are going to be in the shade. The first day with the M's I asked if we really needed an entire bottle of water for each of us. They assured me we did and by ten o'clock we were all quickly finishing the second halves of our bottles. It didn't take long to realize these girls could climb. Although I'd been climbing longer than them, they had a clear mental edge when it came to lead climbing. They led everything without batting an eye while I was more hesitant and decided to let them have the first go before I would then lead. We climbed all day that day and I cleaned our gear off the final route in the dark by headlamp! We couldn't possibly have climbed anymore.

The fact they invited me to Ko Phi Phi was actually quit nice since, we'd be going as a group and be able to share a room and climb together. The ferry departed early the next day. I think we were all shocked at the amount of people, stores, bicycles and noise that was on the island. The funny thing is that Ko Phi Phi isn't any more loud or crowded than any other popular island in Thailand, but after being in Tonsai where there are only two trucks in the entire village (and one's broken) you take for granted the stillness of that place. We all instantly wished to be back in Tonsai!

To escape we went to Long Beach at the other end of the island. We were saving ourselves to go climbing the next day and dedicated this day to finding a sea snake and working on our tans. I grabbed my mask and rented some fins and set out to find my reptilian friends. The visibility was about nine meters and I was swimming in about ten meters of water. So I could just make out the bottom and still have a nice view of the coral formations that rose up closer to the surface. I didn't see much and slightly regretted not waiting for the others because now I was alone, bored and about two hundred meters from the shore in ten meters of water. I was thinking about swimming back to shore when the biggest reef shark I've ever seen made up my mind for me! I've seen sharks before while SCUBA diving, but never snorkeling. And it should be mentioned that whereas I'm not afraid of much while I'm diving, I'm afraid of everything when I'm snorkeling; trash, jellies, seaweed, you name it. This shark was over eight feet long and swimming off to my left. He didn't seem too interested in me, but I suppose that's what they want you to think. My first reaction was, O crap a shark! then the biologist in me thought, O cool a shark! and I started swimming towards it, not necessarily to get closer to it, but I felt more comfortable when I could see it than when it disappeared which it didn't take long to do. I turned around wondering if maybe I should go back when another one came out, a little bigger, looking a little hungrier and I decided my mind was made up. Forget the sea snakes, bring on the tan!

The next day was a lot of fun and like the time before, we were finishing the day in our headlamps. The view from the top of the climbs was amazing and Emily and I decided to do a multi-pitch climb to take advantage of it, but when she climbed up to meet me at the top of the first pitch I couldn't feel my legs anymore due to the hanging belay cutting off my circulation, so she finished the second pitch and I rappelled down. Emily was the most adventurous that day, especially when she was climbing the hardest route of the day, just between the last bolt and the anchors and was attacked by monkeys! I'm not kidding, they climbed up the tree next to the rock and went to attack, I don't' know how she kicked them off and stayed on the rock, but we had a good laugh about it afterwards!

When I got back to Tonsai I met Rob, a Canadian climber from British Columbia. We climbed the following day alternating between easy and more difficult routes. I was belaying him on the first route of the day when it started raining. Fortunately for him the rock was overhanging enough he wasn't getting wet. As for me, I was pressed up against the rock trying to stay dry and the neighboring monkeys, excited from the rain were running through my belay area! Fortunately they were nice monkeys, unrelated to the thieving mongrel monkeys of Ko Phi Phi. After climbing all day and successfully climbing a route I'd fallen on earlier we headed for our daily meeting with the Fried Chicken Lady who sells delicious, grilled chicken (Grilled Chicken Lady doesn't have the same ring to it) and mango sticky rice for a little over $1.

The following day was going to be a rest day. I woke up late, read a few chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude and then went to a leisurely breakfast. I was halfway through my iced coffee when Emily showed up with her friend from Bahrain. They had only arrived the afternoon before and were going climbing that day, would I like to come along? Sure! Rest day or not, I wasn't about to miss a climbing opportunity. We went around to East Railay and spent the day climbing there. We found some really fun moderate climbs that afternoon and I was happy to see another part of the area where I hadn't climbed yet. Then, at the end of the day, after we raced the incoming tide back to Tonsai I met Rob over some grilled chicken.
"You climb today?"
"Yep, we were at 1, 2, 3 Wall all day."
"Are you tired?"
"You mean do I want to go climbing tomorrow?" he shook his head yes. "Yeah, I'll go with you tomorrow!" I laughed.

Just then a newly arrived couple came to browse the delicacies of the Fried Chicken Lady. Rob and I voiced our approval of the food and after they ordered they sat down on broken plastic chairs and asked us, "You been here awhile?"
I furrowed my brow, looked up at the sky with my mouth open as I calculated my own silent math problem. "Yeah, I guess it's been two weeks now." And the circle was complete.

Caption Contest

2008-09-25T23:50:00.003-07:00

I thought it would be fun to have a caption contest in which you think of a caption for the picture above. Whoever I find to have the wittiest or most amusing caption will win something (nothing major, think postcard, foreign currency or small souvenir) from wherever I'm from. In order to post your caption just leave it in the form of a comment at the bottom here and after a week or two I'll decide and announce the winner. NOTE: It's important you give me some sort of clue who you are so I'll know who the winner is.

Have fun!

Cambodia

2008-09-17T01:34:00.008-07:00

As I sit here in Siem Reap, this morning's tour of Angkor Wat fresh in my mind, I can't believe I'm about to leave this country as quickly as tomorrow. That's the exact opposite feeling I had when I arrived a week ago in Phnom Phen and wanted to leave as soon as possible. It had been a relatively pleasant bus ride from Saigon, I finished reading Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, and the puker on the bus-there's always one-wasn't sitting close enough to me to matter. Still, after nine countries in nine months I get a little nervous and excited crossing borders. Especially borders to countries I've never been to. It was simple enough and we arrived in Phnom Phen at night. I was dropped off at the backpacker part of town, which seems to always be the most seedy part. After checking out the local accommodation options, I was nostalgic for the comforts I had in Vietnam. There was a small riot in the street during my first night. Apparently someone through a bottle at someone else, that started a Khmer (Cambodian) versus Westerner and then Khmer vs Khmer brawl which started with fists and evolved to include bottles, knives and a broken guitar handle before it was all broken up and exhausted. I didn't see much as I'm not one to consort with such violence, and the throngs of anxious-looking tourists running my way told me I was just fine where I was. I waited to see the blood splattered on the street the next day. Strangely enough, a few girls ran into the bar where I was watching the Liverpool vs Manchester United game (those are two huge European soccer teams for all you back home) and one of them was a girl I'd met nearly 3 months earlier at a rooftop pool party in Manila! What a reunion. We met up later and had a chat and we ran into each other yet again a couple days later in Siem Reap.

It rained a lot while I was in Phnom Phen so I took advantage of the free DVDs at my hotel and watched a couple I hadn't seen yet, before writing in my journal and reading some more. I was fortunate enough to find a church to go to on Sunday. The speaker was the daughter of Bob Pierce who is the founder of both Samaritan's Purse and World Vision. The latter being the largest Christian based relief organization in the world. She was a crier and not the least bit ashamed of it. She recounted her father's past and some events that prompted him to start World Vision. Before the service I was a little bummed that I hadn't heard from some friends whom I'd been emailing and was planning on meeting with. I knew something would work out and it did. After the service I asked the two girls who sat next to me what they did and it turned out they work with the very people I was trying to meet! Before long we were all having lunch and I had a place to stay should I need one. Which I did one night before coming to Siem Reap. It was nice to get out of the backpacker area and see a more normal part of the city.

The city is actually a lot further along than I'd expected. It's full of casinos and has all the comforts of home if you're willing to pay for them. I was happy to see peanut butter and jelly in the convenience store and instantly started a three day long PBJ diet. My mother would be proud.

On the way to Siem Reap I finished George Orwell's Animal Farm, I remember reading it in high school, but it makes much more sense now. At one bathroom stop during the trip were an assortment of fruits and exotic foods. I found a bowl full of tarantulas, another with brightly colored grasshoppers and a lady carrying around a pan of skinned frogs too. I had tried some water beetles back in Phnom Phen and so decided to opt out of trying anything new and had some grilled bananas instead.

I woke up this morning at 4:40 am and my motorbike driver was waiting out front. We arrived at Angkor Wat before the sun showed up and I'd hoped for a clear morning. It was too cloudy for much color to arrive in the sky behind the temple, but I was happy it wasn't raining yet. As a whole, Angkor is huge, the largest religious building in the world so they say. However, now it's really just a bunch of temples within a fairly close proximity to each other. I recognized the temples as the backdrop to some movies, Laura Croft: Tomb Raider and Mortal Kombat two of the most familiar. Hey, I never said they were good movies! You know that temple you see in National Geographic in the jungle with all the tree roots covering the walls? Yeah, I saw that one today too. I've seen too many temples within the last six months to get too excited, but still, this is Angkor Wat, one of the seven man-made wonders of the world. I don't want to sound uncultured but I did notice I showed more fascination with a giant millipede and later with a trail of ants than I did with the temples themselves. Still, they make for good pictures!

I'm planning my return to Bangkok tomorrow on the bus. It's supposed to be a bumpy, miserable ride and getting stuck in the mud isn't uncommon. Let's hope I won't have to push. This entry puts you currently up to date with my life. After Bangkok I'm going down to the south of Thailand to hopefully do some rockclimbing in Krabi and chill out for awhile on the beach in Phuket. Then it's off to Malaysia. I'm not sure what I'll do in Malaysia but I can't imagine leaving this part of the world without some good snake stories so I may try to find a python or two. Perhaps easier said than done. A few people have asked when I'm coming home or where I'm off to next. It's good to be missed, but if all goes to plan I won't be home for quite awhile yet. I fly to London in November. I'm looking for work somewhere in Europe. I have a desire to learn French while I'm there so, preferably in a Francophone area and, finances permitting, I'd like to stay for around a year. Then, since Latin America was the whole reason I went on this trip I can't imagine staying any less than a year there. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First let's see about this bus trip tomorrow.

Good Morning Vietnam!

2008-09-16T22:20:00.016-07:00

It felt as if I'd been transferred back in time when I arrived in Vietnam. Finally, I had arrived in a place that fit my picture of Southeast Asia. Thailand, Laos and Cambodia are all very similar and it's easy to generalize among the three, but Vietnam stands out. I said it over and over again, "I finally feel like I'm in Asia!" I'm sure it's because of the popularity of the Vietnam War (referred to as the American War here) in television and movies that gave me the impression of what I thought Southeast Asia should look like. It makes sense then, that that's what I felt when I arrived. It's strange too, because many people told me to either miss Vietnam altogether or if I must visit, do so quickly and get out. "It's a beautiful country," they'd say, "but the Vietnamese..."

People complained about their aggressive selling tactics and the requirement to haggle over the price of everything. I found it all to be either exaggerated or mostly untrue. Yes, you do have to bargain for nearly everything, which was difficult for me since I'm such a pushover when it comes to things like that. I made a point to learn though, and after a couple weeks I'm a much more confident negotiator. My first experience was a warm morning in Hanoi when I passed a lady selling baguettes on the street. Knowing that bread couldn't be much I held up one finger and gave her 10,000 dong (the local currency, 16,000 dong=US$1.) She gave me the bread, took the money and watched me slyly from the corner of her eye as she clutched her money purse. I stood there a little confused, certainly this bread didn't cost that much. When I didn't walk away she smiled a mischievous smile and gave me 5,000 dong back in change. "That's more like it," I thought. I was really glad I didn't walk away without getting that change back, I'd hate to be charged double for something, fifty cents can go a long way here. When I got back to my hotel I asked the receptionist how much he'd pay for the bread on the street. Two thousand dong was the answer! Ah ha! She got me good! Armed with this new knowledge I bought another baguette later that day from a different woman. I paid with 5000 dong, she waited for me to leave. I motioned that I needed change so she gave me 2000 back, then I held up one finger and she gave me the remaining 1000 dong. Success! It was a little work to get to the base price but the feeling was great, then I looked at the bread... MOLDY! I marched right back across the street and before I could even say anything the woman had a fresh piece ready for me. What cheeky women these bread sellers are! I had to laugh at myself later when I realized I'd saved just pennies in the whole debate. Those were my first, albeit not my last, experiences in cross-cultural negotiations here in Vietnam. I got better at waiting out a lower price, feigning non-interest and expressing astonishment at all their starting prices. Once I got to Saigon I'd say, "I be in Vietnam long time, no give me tourist price, give me local price." Sometimes they would and sometimes I just thought they did.

I thought Hanoi was beautiful. I stayed in the Old Quarter most of the time where narrow alleys hid unknown culinary concoctions just around the corner. The French-style colonial buildings rose high above the street and were built right up against each other. The streets are narrow and crossing the street required a new strategy than waiting for a gap and running to the other side. No, here you can cross at almost any point, but you do so slowly, very slowly in order to allow the motorbike drivers to anticipate your presence and go around you. That being said I still got hit by two motorbikes. It's not uncommon to see someone in the middle of the street, surrounded by traffic whizzing by in both directions. It's more impressive in Saigon where the streets are much wider, but crossing the street anywhere in Vietnam is not to be taken lightly.

I stayed in Hanoi for a few days, mostly walking around the Old Quarter, trying any new street food I came across. In the evenings, well-established yet impromptu restaurants form on street corners selling bowls of noodles. People huddle together in groups of two or three around plastic tables and chairs big enough for a three year old child. I never had to eat at restaurants, the street provided enough food to keep me intrigued and satisfied. Baguettes in the morning, glazed sweetbreads in the afternoons and noodle soup and dried squid in the late evenings were my staple. There were also good fruits to eat like guava, lychee and banana.

I visited the Prison Museum, most commonly known as the Hanoi Hilton where John McCain was one of several American pilots who were imprisoned during the Vietnam/American War. It was a bit strange to see pictures of the pilots playing soccer, decorating for Christmas and smiling during a movie night. To someone ignorant of the events at that time, they'd think this was a country club over a POW camp. I fail to imagine McCain's inability to lift his arms over his shoulders occurred from a volleyball injury!

I took a tour to Halong Bay lasting three days and two nights. Vietnam is big on organized tours and it's almost the only way to see Halong. What makes the bay so special are the thousands of jagged limestone islands within it. It's pretty and reminded me of El Nido in the Philippines although, after seeing them both I would vote for El Nido over Halong Bay. Here the islands are a long way away from the mainland and the only things that outnumber the huge jellyfish are the tourists. It was a great time though and I even saw a small water snake while trekking on Cat Ba Island.

Afterward I went south to Hue on September 2 which is Vietnamese National Day so all of the temples and tombs in town were free to enter. I took advantage of that and hired a motorbike and driver to take me to them. It was a nice half day excursion and afterward I decided I'd seen enough of Hue so went to Hoi An that evening. People say good things about Hoi An, people are weird. I don't mean to be negative but the streets are crap, filled with potholes and dust, every other shop in town is a tailor (Hoi An's claim to tourist fame) begging for your business and the main attraction-besides the tailors-is a covered bridge that spans nary a river, I'd call it a canal, an irrigation ditch even. I didn't even take a picture of it I was so uninspired! Haha. On top of it all it's downright scorching hot during the day. I wish I would have made it down to the beach, that may have changed my perception a bit but I was too busy getting fitted at the tailor. I ended up getting a wool overcoat, jeans and a shirt. It all fits very well... that is, until I wash it I'm sure.

Nha Trang was the beach stop I'd been waiting for. I wanted to hang out at this beach town and catch up on my reading and my tan. Fortunately I got to do one of those things. The first day was beautiful but it rained every day after that. I spent a lot of time in my room reading and watching the news. The accommodation in Vietnam is a little bit more expensive but it's filled with luxuries like air-con, phone, hot water, mini-bar and cable television. All amenities I'd gone without in previous countries. The Republican Convention was just finishing, hurricanes were pelting the Gulf Coast, Russia was in Georgia, Mugabe was stalling in Zimbabwe and Mythbusters was on the Discovery Channel. The rain was a bummer, but I didn't care that much! I had an interesting culinary experience while I was there. I met some local guys who were keen to practice their English so we started talking. Somehow we got on the topic of food and the fact some Vietnamese eat dogs. Once they found out I was willing to try it we were off! They brought me to a street where every restaurant sells the same thing and only the same thing... man's best friend. I thought I was going to get to try dog. Like, take a bite of it. But noooo, I had dog soup, grilled dog, boiled dog, dog pureé and dog intestine! They just kept bringing it out! To answer your questions, no it doesn't taste like chicken. A little gamy, the grilled dog was a bit chewy and the boiled dog just dissolved in my mouth. I'm glad for the experience, but I'm really glad I don't have to do it again!

Saigon was my last stop on the whirlwind Vietnam tour. I thought it would be my favorite place but it didn't rub off on me like Hanoi did. Perhaps I didn't see enough of it. I went to the War Remnants Museum which has on display some weapons, photos and information about the war. In some of the displays there are a few not-so-slight jabs against the seemingly evil Americans which I would experience at the Cu Chi Tunnels the following day. The museum was good, but I expected more. They have an extensive exhibit of what Agent Orange did to the environment and it's Vietnamese inhabitants, as well as a good tribute to the photo-journalists on both sides of combat.

The Cu Chi Tunnels are some of the remaining tunnels the Viet Cong used to escape, organize and execute attacks against the anti-communist forces. The tunnel system was extensive and very impressive with underground wells, kitchens, air vents camouflaged by termite mounds and even a system of air chambers which released cooking smoke far away from where the kitchen actually was. There is a shooting range on sight for anyone willing to shell out the dong to fire a few bullets from an M16, AK47 or 50 caliber. It adds a surreal element to the experience to hear gunshots in the distance during the tour!

My last day was spent at a small water park lapping the water slides, floating in the lazy river and relaxing in the sauna. I would highly recommend Vietnam as a place to visit and I'm very glad I decided to come. It's probably the most photogenic country I've ever been to. Children sleep on water buffaloes while their older siblings work nearby in the rice fields, bent over and wearing conical straw hats, old men sit on the sidewalk in Hanoi watching the world go by while smoking a giant wooden pipe, women walk all over town carrying all kinds of edibles on baskets suspended from a piece of bamboo across their shoulders, a family of five passes you on a motorbike-the youngest child comfortably asleep and perfectly balanced amidst the heavy traffic, and a group of schoolgirls ride their tall, vintage bicycles to school, their white dresses flowing behind them, wearing the iconic, conical straw hat, their faces covered with decorative cloth masks . This is Southeast Asia, this is Vietnam.

Straddling the tourist trail in Laos

2008-08-28T07:07:00.006-07:00

A bacon cheeseburger, fries and mustard-oh mustard!-awaited me back in Chiang Mai. I instantly felt better knowing I was going onto something new and celebrated by browsing the local bookstores for something to take on the two-day long trip to Luang Prabang in Laos. I arranged to travel via longboat down the Mekong River from the Thai-Lao border to Luang Prabang. It's a popular route by travelers and I met a couple interesting backpackers and I finished both of my books during the two days! The river trip is everything people say it is; it's great for meeting people, for reading books, it's relaxing and you get to see how life operates around the great artery that is the Mekong River. On the other hand, it's also noisy, crowded, hot and slow. Sometimes you've got to take the good with the bad.

In Luang Prabang my new found friends and I visited a nearby waterfall and did some hiking in the surrounding forest. We enjoyed a makeshift picnic between taking dips in the cold water and afterwards walked through the night market back in town. I moved on to Vang Vien soon after which is famous for both the plethora of caves around town and for tubing down the local Nam Ou River. It's similar to tubing back home in that you get a tube and a bunch of friends and cruise on down the river taking in the scenery and basking in the sun. The people of Vang Vien have capitalized on the potential of this by building bars next to the river and they excitedly reach out a bamboo pole or liferope for you to grab onto as they pull you into their establishment.

Apart from the drinking, which is the main draw for many people, the entertainment options are great. High, wooden towers rise over the banks for you to hurl yourself off of on a trapeze or zipline into the river below. I can't think of anything more dangerous than getting drunk, climbing up a tree and throwing yourself into a swift current. The lack of liability is supremely apparent and not surprisingly, drownings occur way too often. I may have been the only one not to consume a drop of alcohol on the river that day. But like a kid in a candy store I ran laps up to the trapeze and zipline. There are seven bars along the river and I tried four trapezes (perfecting my backflip as onlookers applauded,) a zipline and a mud volleyball game that quickly turned into mud wrestling! It was a great time on the river and I'm glad I didn't miss it.

The rest of the time I was in town I toured the local caves. My first cave was great, and I'm not particularly impressed with caves. It was lit up and had a walkway through it to guide you around the stalactites and other formations. At one point the lights stop but the sidewalk continues into the darkness. I whipped out my headlamp and beckoned my friends to follow along. We walked to the end of the walkway and turned off the light to experience complete darkness. It was a humbling feeling to think we'd be completely vulnerable if we didn't have that light. At the base of the cave is a beautiful blue lagoon where we swam with the locals. It was a lot of fun to joke around with them and take pictures with each other. I kept saying how much fun I was having.

Afterwards my friend Aurel and I drove out from the city on our motorbike, past the rice fields where workers were just finishing their work for the day and children were walking cattle back home. We came across a sign directing us to a cave advertising a "great adventure." We were up for a little adventure so we followed the sign down a muddy road to a group of kids who charged us 10,000 Kip (about $1) to continue onto the cave. Our guide was ten years old. It was a long walk up a dry riverbed to the entrance to the cave and it couldn't have been more different from our first cave. Sure it was still a cave and had all the cavy things that caves have in them, but it was extremely dark, the ceiling was much lower and ground was covered in slippery mud and jagged rocks. There were no barriers to prevent us from slipping into one of the holes along the sides which seemed to have no bottom and it lacked the inviting blue water of the previous cave. After a few minutes inside we decided that although it may be adventurous, we weren't in for a broken leg or slipping into an abyss and we decided to leave.

Like a lot of backpacker destinations, Laos has a distinct tourist trail. It starts in Chiang Mai, continues to Luang Prabang, Vang Vien and onto Vientiane where it splits in three and travelers go East to Vietnam, South to the rest of Laos and onto Cambodia or West back to Bangkok. Therefore, the people you see on the slow boat you may see again all along the trail. Aurel was on of these people, then there were the cyclists from Spain and a couple girls from Spain and Chile. All that to say, we all met up again quite randomly in Vang Vien and decided to go out. Since we were some of the only people in the club, the DJ let us pick which songs we wanted to hear, and since all of us were Spanish-speakers we played all our favorite Spanish songs and danced the night away! Just as the day began, is how it ended, with me clarifying just how much fun this was.

I must say something about the pork I had in Vang Vien. At a street stall on evening a woman invited me to come closer and handed out a piece of meat with some forceps. Without asking what it was I popped it into my mouth (is that strange?) and I was overcome by what could quite possibly be the best BBQ pork ribs I've ever had in my entire life! Aurel and I bought a rack of ribs to share with each other and I vowed to return the next day which I did after an all-day trek to a distant cave and the pork woman was gone! Oh the disappointment! How many times had I walked by that very spot in the morning wishing she were there? I'd waited all day and could only think of how many ribs I would buy that night and how great they would taste as I ate the rotisserie-roasted goodness standing in the street and tossing the bones to the dogs. Instead the stand was replaced by a woman selling BBQ chicken, an inadequate substitute. But I bought some anyway.

Vientiane was the last stop on my Laos itinerary. I had a pleasant feeling when we arrived in town. The French influence is very apparent in the architecture and the array of French restaurants and bakeries. I immediately went to the French Cultural Center to inquire of French courses just to find out there aren't any at this time. Bummer. Aurel and I walked around the town, ate dinner along the Mekong and gazed out at the lights of Thailand across the river. We parted ways as he went back to Bangkok and I stayed on awaiting my visa to Vietnam.

It was a sincere privilege to meet some fellow believers there in town. I spent Saturday afternoon watching the Olympics and playing farkle (yes they know how to play farkle!) and on Sunday I went to their evening meeting. Tears of joy rolled down my face as we sang "It is Well," and "Blessed be Your Name." There was nowhere else that I'd rather be in that moment that right there with my eternal brothers and sisters in the presence of the fellowship of believers. We shared some great conversation, encouragement and food together before the night was over. I took the next couple days slowly and visited a couple new bakeries for lunch, rented a bicycle and rode around town and picked up my visa at the Vietnam Embassy. My Lao journey was at an end, but it would be very easy to come back.

Curiosity

2008-08-11T20:21:00.003-07:00

Last week I administered first aid to an Israeli boy who'd been attacked by a tiger. Do I have your attention? It's true, but the tiger was 4 months old, the injuries were minor and we were at a zoo, where I worked in north Thailand.

Anyone who knows me long enough can verify how much I love cats. Which is to say, not at all! It might surprise you then to know I've been working at a zoo for the past two weeks working with Indo-Chinese tigers. Tiger Kingdom is a zoo that has recently opened near Chiang Mai, Thailand and is unique because it allows visitors to go inside with the tigers and pet them and take pictures. I was one of these visitors when I asked if they hired foreigners. Half an hour later I had a job!

I wasn't looking for a job necessarily but I was looking for something to do. Working with tigers could be fun. My day-t0-day duties included arriving at 7:00am to clean the tiger pool and pick up the leaves that had fallen and coconuts that had been ripped apart from the previous day. Then I would help bottle feed the newborn cubs and shower and eat breakfast and wait for visitors to show up at around 9:30. For the rest of the day I was one of the staff members who took tourists into the cage armed only with a foot long bamboo stick should any of the tigers get too curious. After 20 minutes, all the tigers have been petted, pictures taken and questions answered and another group came in. This went on all day until 6pm when I could go home.

There are seventeen tigers at the zoo; 2 five years old, 2 fifteen months old, 4 nine months old, 4 four months old and 5 one month old. Guests can choose to play with the 9, 4 or 1 month old tigers.

After two weeks at the zoo I realized that tigers are just big cats. Duh! And I don't even like cats! In fact, I'm allergic to cats! What am I doing here? So I quit. Actually it's a longer story than that. True, I'm not crazy about cats, including tigers. I jumped into the job before I knew exactly what I would be doing (answering the same questions 50 times a day) and would not be doing (training tigers.) Then I got very sick which not only made me miss anything familiar but made me feel even more lonely and isolated than I already was. All my co-workers were Thai, and most didn't speak English so I was unable to have conversations with them and basic communications became more frustrating than usual. I decided to forgo extending my visa and continue on to Laos where I'll be heading this week.

Finding my grin in the "Land of Smiles"

2008-07-27T02:28:00.010-07:00

You may have caught a negative vibe in the last few threads. I admit I was struggling to stay positive and there were many times that I didn't feel like I was "living the dream." Thanks to some self evaluation and the help of a friend who called me a "Nego" for picking out the negative in everything, I'm seeing things in a different light now. It also helps that I'm in a new place surrounded by new things, people and wonderful, wonderful food!

Bangkok surprised me by how clean (yes I just called Bangkok clean!), green and organized it is. Thailand is very much a main destination on the backpacker trail and everyone from child-toting parents to new-age hippies and straight-out-of-high-school newbies come to experience it. Not since Australia have I seen such a strong traveling community.

Of the many things Thailand has to offer, it was the food I was most anticipating and I haven't been disappointed. There are great local Thai dishes consisting of perfect combinations of sweet, spicy and well... sweet! International restaurants abound and I've had great Italian and Middle Eastern food also. I'm keeping an eye out for food of the creepy, crawly variety but I've yet to find it. When I do, I'll be sure to inform you.

My favorite venue I visited in Bangkok was the snake farm. The Red Cross works in conjunction with the snake farm to produce antivenin for snakebite victims throughout the country and the world. I went hoping to watch the milking of some of the local venomous snakes but, as there was no milking that day, I instead was witness to the best snake show I've ever seen. We all gathered round a small sitting area in front of the show area and as the show began, a man brought a 9 foot long king cobra through the audience and released it on the ground in front of us! The snake hooded and followed the handler while the show announcer educated us about the biology, physiology and general attitude of cobras. Every once in awhile, sensing an opportunity for escape the snake would turn from the handler and come towards the crowd. The handler would grab the snake's tail who would then turn and hood instantly while the entire crowd oohed and ahhed.

The rest of the show played out in much the same way. They brought out more venomous snakes, Siamese Cobras, Mangrove Snakes, Palm Vipers and Banded Kraits, and carried them close enough to the audience that if we were back in the States, mothers would scream and lawyers would salivate. After a particularly close encounter with a teenage girl and the dangerous end of a mangrove snake I turned to the man next to me and commented on how liability must not exist in Thailand. The girls in the front rows provided the most entertainment as the handlers casually dropped tails on them or draped snakes over their shoulders when they weren't looking. I can't say that they cure many phobias but it was definitely good for a laugh.

After the show I walked through the exhibits and was impressed at every corner. Walk into any zoo, reptile house or local pet store and you'll probably agree it doesn't smell too good but this place was immaculately clean. The snakes were well displayed in large, clean cages and the non-living exhibits were very educational. You could learn all about snake anatomy, snakebite first aid and the effects of different types of venom. It really made me miss Delilah, my pet python whom I left at home and it made me think of the crocodile farm in Australia, and I began to wonder what kind of snake, if any, would I get to fill those empty cages once I get back home. And you know what? I was smiling the whole time.

Seven Month Anniversary

2008-07-12T06:22:00.012-07:00

It's been seven months since I left my mother country. Seven months since I've driven my car on the right side of the road. Seven months since I sold that car, my climbing equipment, my CDs and gave Delilah, my 13 foot long Burmese python away. It's been just as long since I've seen snow, eaten my mom's cooking or shook my dad's hand Sunday morning at church. I reflected on this last week and thought about where I've been and what I've done over those seven months. Here's a sample of what I discovered.

approximately 8,000 US dollars have been spent
over 2,000 pictures taken
212 days passed

57 boat rides

28 postcards sent

25 books read

23 new scars earned

17 SCUBA dives logged

14 homes stayed in

10 flights taken

9 mountains climbed, including 3 crater lakes and 2 active volcanoes

8 churches attended

7 countries visited

5 calls to the USA
4 bouts of sickness endured

3 seas swam in

2 oceans swam in

2 cellphones bought (and subsequently broken)

and 1 wedding witnessed.

I have realized a few things during my seven months. In terms of travel, I'd rather not travel alone anymore-wait. Allow me to rephrase. I would like to travel with my friends. I used to be a hard-core advocate for going it alone. After all, it is easier to meet people when you're alone, it is easier to do what you want, when you want and all that. However, it's harder to wake up when you know sleeping another hour isn't going to disturb anyone. Restaurants and movie theaters aren't very enjoyable when you're alone either. Good travel companions also distribute and help eliminate stress. You can take turns listening to the know-it-all backpacker, the down-and-out peasant farmer or turning away the sunglass hawker, masseuse, taxi driver, hotel owner, tour operator and prostitute.

It would be nice to have a progressive conversation every once in awhile and not have to ask strangers to take my picture (and then another stranger to take another one since the first can't compose the shot how I want,) to share the price of a hotel room or to not have to organize anything for a day, to do something someone else wants to do. Sounds strange doesn't it? I travel halfway around the world because it's what I want to do, and then have feelings of doing what someone else wants to do! Traveling with a friend can extend the experience well after you get home. Just imagine sitting around with said travel friend months or years after you both have returned home when he/she says, "Remember that time in Morocco when my camel ate your turban!" That's classic!

For awhile I thought I was homesick. Sometimes I want to go home, but it's usually just to eat at a restaurant in my hometown, to spend the afternoon with a friend or to sleep in my own bed for a night. The next morning I want to magically wake up on the other side of the world again and continue the journey. I'd like to go home for an afternoon or a day. So maybe I want to be home for awhile but I really don't want to go home right now.

I didn't know how much I enjoy books until this week when I devoured one on the bus ride to El Nido, another the next day with my toes in the sand and a third, quite by accident, at a cafe. I literally didn't move from my spot until I had finished the book. I'm constantly surprised at how few people read for enjoyment. They don't know what they're missing. It's difficult to find good titles on the road. Usually hostels, home stays and some cafes will have a small selection of books left by travelers you can exchange or buy. An average collection includes no less then five romance novels, an outdated guidebook, the lone classic like Romeo and Juliet or Great Expectations, a few fantasy novels and at least one shelf of German books. I'm not the only one who curiously asks fellow travelers what they're reading and if I could have their book when they're finished. It's a common custom among backpackers.

The pictures in this thread are of the Philippines, most of them around the town of El Nido on the island of Palawan. The weather had a big impact on my travel plans around the country and things didn't turn out exactly how I'd planned them. I did finish my advanced diving course while I was here and I got to make some friends through a pro-hospitality group I'm part of called couchsurfing. Without them, I know I would have left the Philippines already. When I look towards the future, I'm overwhelmed with uncertainty, but if it's anything like this tour's past it's gonna be great!

Traditionally seventh anniversary gifts are wool or copper. Mine is paper. I have a ticket to Thailand on Thursday! The journey continues...

2008-07-07T03:31:00.003-07:00

I ran across this poem last week and think it sums up the battle that goes on in my head and in a lot of people’s minds between staying where it’s safe and chasing the horizon. I wanted to share it with you and I hope you enjoy it.

The Double Life
By Don Blanding

How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.

And that's just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
For chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For deserts with their mystic spell,
For lusty fun and raising Hell

But shackled to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content

With hearth and home dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,
With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.

One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back,
I'm getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It's tough to have an idle brain)
But One says "Stay" and One says "Go"
And One says "Yes," and One says "no,"
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter's life.

The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.

The Fellowship of Friends

2008-05-30T06:17:00.004-07:00

After arriving again in Bali and meeting up with Olivier we both began to get itchy feet. We needed an adventure and both of us had wanted to go to Java and see the sights around Yogyakarta, or Jogja as it's called locally. Less than 48 hours later we were on a plane bound for Java and it's temples and mountains harboring volcanoes and crater lakes. What would follow over the course of the next several days was one of the best trips I've taken so far and a personal highlight.

In order to save on accommodation costs and meet some people we decided to couchsurf in Jogja. Couchsurfing.com is a website of hosts who open their doors and unfold their couches to travelers passing through the area. As it turned out, there was a gathering of couchsurfers in Jogja that weekend from neighboring towns and some came all the way from Sumatra and Jakarta. Not only did we make friends this way but Tami, a friend of ours in Bali, used to attend school in Jogja and gave us the number of some of her friends. She couldn't stand to be away from the fun though, so that weekend after some begging, pleading and convincing, we got her to fly out for the weekend. Her group of friends are all part of an adventure club at the university who regularly go rock climbing, trekking and rafting. Within the first day of meeting, we had plans to go camping and climbing at the beach and then rafting the river the next day! It was great!

We camped out under some beautiful limestone crags within earshot of the crashing surf. The following day, Tami arrived and we climbed as much as we could before going back to Jogja that evening. The next day we left early to make it to the river in time. We had a great time rafting and joking with other rafters who passed us. I loved the spontaneity of it all, we hadn't planned any of this and yet it was better than anything we could have arranged ourselves. Unfortunately, Tami had to fly back to Bali that night to be at work the next morning.

Olivier and I caught the early train to Surabaya the next morning in order to see Mt. Bromo. Everyone talks about visiting Mt. Bromo during the sunrise. It sounded great and peaceful so we decided not to miss it. I had a picture in my mind of hiking to the top and sharing a spectacular sunrise with a few other tourists. The reality was a little bit different. The sunrise was still great, but I shared it with around four hundred other tourists! Most were Indonesians taking advantage of the weekend holiday from Surabaya and Jakarta. We still were able to capture some great pictures overlooking Mt. Bromo and the volcano behind it.

We had one more stop on the way to Bali. Kawa Ijen crater is... well, it's a crater. But it's unique in that the lake in it's center is about one hundred degrees and there is a sulfur mine in it's crater where local men collect the sulfur and port it out on their backs. Again we woke up before dawn to begin our hike up the mountain. It's around 2 km up a steep trail to the crater rim, and another kilometer down to the lake. It really is a sight to see, as men chip away blocks of the acidic rock and pack it in baskets to be carried out. Sulfurous smoke rose up from pipes and burnt our eyes and lungs. It's not exactly a pleasant place to sit and gaze out at the lake but I wouldn't have missed it. The men carry around 80 kilos on their backs at a time, the going rate being 500 rupiah per kilo making their 6 km, 5 hour journey worth about 4 US dollars. The men were very nice to talk to and regularly asked if they could bum a cigarette and wanted to know where we were from. When the wind shifted and we were unable to move, see or breath they took us by the arm and ushered us to fresh air with smiles on their faces. We hiked down and began the long bus journey back to Denpasar.

I'm happy to say my final days in Indonesia were spent with friends. That's what makes this trip stand out against the others. I've made friends nearly everywhere I've gone but the closeness that I shared with those in Jogja and in Bali surpasses all the rest that I've met in Indonesia. There were several requests that I stay longer, and I entertained the notion for awhile. Repeated compliments about my Indonesian language skills really made me want to stay longer, but in the end I had a plane to catch and I decided to board it. I won't soon forget my friends in Indonesia. Olivier was very generous in allowing me to stay with him while I was in Bali and I truly enjoyed traveling with him. We have plans to meet again in France later this year and I feel like I will be back in Indonesia someday also.

It's amazing to think that my Indonesian experience has been shaped by a chance meeting with two fellow travelers after I had been feeling sorry for myself. I'll never forget when I met Olivier and Handa. And I thank God that it was raining that day.

It's s....l...o...w...

2008-05-12T00:18:00.003-07:00

Due to the expense of internet time, and the inconsistency of internet speeds (or the consistency of getting very slow connections) I am not going to post pictures here. Instead you may view pictures here at: www.flickr.com/photos/terrylove

Hopefully this will be easier for everyone.

Thanks

Terry

Timor of the Rising Sun

2008-05-12T00:10:00.001-07:00

I got a lot of strange looks when I told people I was going to East Timor. They told me the borders were closed and I’d be denied at the border, that all foreigners were to obey a strict curfew since the recent assassination attempt and that there was a lot of anti-Western sentiment. Fortunately, I found none of this to be true. I had only planned on going to East Timor in order to renew my Indonesian visa and then return to Bali. What started out as a four day trip turned into a nearly two week vacation walking around the capital city, Dili and meeting with people from all over the world who work for various NGOs and the United Nations.

My guidebook says the UN presence has left East Timor. If so, I can’t imagine what it was like before. UN police and peacekeeping forces are everywhere. Seemingly every other vehicle is a nice Mitsubishi SUB or Toyota Hilux bearing the giant UN letters or the symbol of any of a number of non-governmental organizations. As a tourist, I was somewhat of a novelty. Instead of being asked, “How long have you been traveling?” I was asked, “Where do you work?” I met people from China, Japan, Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia, Norway, Britain, Jordan, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, the United States and Portugal. Some had legitimate jobs; some were nurses, policemen or advisors. The others, when asked what they did could only state they were initiating dialogue. The topic of dialogue and the members and perceived outcome were usually quite vague.

I made a few good friends while I was there. Some Chinese policemen cooked me dinner a few times and let me use the internet in their office. I visited a local school and counted beans with some of the students (it builds focus and concentration is what they told me.) And I met the advisor to the Secretary of State who showed me around Oecussi and was an exceptional host. That night over a glass of red wine as the sun set, he told me the history of this, the youngest nation in the world, from the Dutch, Portuguese and Indonesian influences up to independence only eight years ago. I have never had much interest in history, maybe it was walking the streets in Dili or visiting the site where the Portuguese first landed on the beach or maybe it was the buildings in Oecussi still fire scorched from the plundering and tyranny of the exiting Indonesians, but I held on to every word that he said that night.

The flowers of Flores

2008-05-11T23:30:00.005-07:00

It’s not often that the casual tourist is allowed a glimpse of authentic local culture, but recently I was actually part of it. On the bus from Labuanbajo on the island of Flores, I met Florenzo and Linda. Lorenzo was returning to his village after being away for over eight years, and he was introducing his wife to his family for the first time. There would be a big party and he invited me to come join the celebration the next day.

He showed me the houses and traditional items around and included me in the day’s activities. I met his family and we sat of the floor drinking tea, coffee and eating cookes while the men smoked clove cigarettes. I found myself quite intrigued with village life. The people make a living through agriculture, growing coffee, peanuts, corn and beans. There seemed to be a lot of young children and a lot of very old people in the village. I suppose those in the middle were out in the fields or perhaps did what Lorenzo did and found another home in the city.

We sat there in the house, on bamboo mats eating rice and pork with our hands. Smoke rose in the air and filled the room from the cigarettes and every empty glass was quicly filled with arak, palm wine, and given back to its owner. I took a little time out in the middle of the day to play with the kids. We began playing soccer, and then I challenged them to a contest to see how many times you could kick the ball in the air without it touching the ground. The highest anyone got was 27, I got 65 and 67 the times I tried. There were around thirty kids between 6 and 13 years old. We had a brief Indonesian and English lesson before they asked me to take a photo. I got a couple good ones before they started fighting for position so I ended it all and went back inside.

I would say there were around fifty people at the party. It’s hard to be a fly on the wall sometimes, especially with such bright skin. Each time I went to check on the pig I would be given something to eat. Whenever I sat down they would bring me a chair or offer me tea. I suppose it’s better to be too involved than not at all.

I think a lot of how different my life is and has been compared to others here. Seeing the old men and women in the village made me curious as to what they’ve seen and gone through in their lives. Children are delivered in homes, food is rather bland and the work must be difficult. A friend told me Indonesians earn about one million rupiah a month, about one hundred US dollars. I asked Lorenzo if he could come back here, to live in the village again. He grimaced and said he doesn’t think he could. Life sure would be different wouldn’t it?

The island of Flores was given its name by the Portuguese many years ago. It means “flowers” but you won’t find many on the island. A friend explained it to me on the way to Kupang; the people of Flores are the flowers. I’d have to agree, and on my visit they were in full bloom

Komodo

2008-05-11T22:51:00.006-07:00

Komodo dragons are huge! I mean, I knew they would be big but we’re talking enormous! The first one I saw made my jaw drop, it was easily over nine feet long. Their feet and heads are very big and each one has characteristics that make them easy to recognize. At the end of our hike I posed in front of three that were near the gift shop. As I took my hat off and threw it on the ground out of the picture, the lizards got up and went after it and us, who by this time were running away! It was quite exciting and nice to see them moving about, flicking their tongues.

The island of Komodo is much larger than I imagined also. I pictured a barren deserted island but it’s actually very big, there’s a village there and at the moment it’s very green and lush. The following day we went to neighboring Rinca island and saw even more lizards along with water buffaloes and deer.

A couple journal entries

2008-05-11T22:49:00.001-07:00

Journal entry for April 8, 2008
Gili Trawangan

The past 36 hours have taught me how valuable a travel companion can be. For short stints of travel going solo is okay, but for longer trips like what I’m doing, I’d really like a friend to talk to, laugh with, bounce ideas off of, share in fortune and misfortune and be an outlet to vent a little bit.

I woke up with a sore throat Monday after my birthday. I didn’t feel like doing anything, but new I needed to get out and see something. From Seminyak, I traveled to Kuta, bus to Padanbai via Ubud, ferry to Lembar on Lombok where I took a taxi to Senggigi and stayed the night, then a boat to Gili T in the morning.

I generally don’t like ferries; they’re too crowded and dirty. But this on held a wonderful secret… American power outlets! I noticed them while I was in the bathroom. This was good news since my camera battery ran out on my birthday. I had been meaning to find an adapter but never did. I was afraid of not finding on at all. I recharged my battery and now I’m hoping all the ferries will have American power outlets in them. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.

Gili seems cool. Everything is slow, people walk slower, smoke their cigarettes slower and nobody is in too big a hurry. There are a lot of dive shops and restaurants. I’d like to walk around the island tomorrow, maybe do some snorkeling and hopefully meet some new friends. I’m using my cold as an excuse not to go diving. Otherwise at $30 a dive, I think I’d be tempted.

April 11, 2008

“Are you rich?” she asked. ‘Am I rich?’ I thought, ‘I have roughly six thousand dollars in various accounts, no car, no house, no job, no specific trade or skill and I’m carrying most of my possessions on my back. But am I rich? Certainly not right?’

“I think you are rich.” She had decided for herself. At twenty years old she helps her family run a shop selling sandals to tourists, hasn’t been further from home than the neighboring island to the east and doesn’t have a boyfriend because she wants one “like this” she says pointing to me.

Yeah, I’m rich. I’m healthy, I have food in abundance, I water my houseplants with water clean enough to drink, I spend more time wondering which clothes to wear instead of if I have clothes to wear, I’ve left my home country on several occasions, by my own will and for leisure at that, and the money I earn is mine to keep. Interesting isn’t it? How rich we really are?

Bali, Again

2008-05-08T22:35:00.007-07:00

NOTE: This is somewhat of a repeat post. I forgot I had already written a post about Bali and didn't realize it until after this was done. Enjoy the similarities and differences, or ignore it altogether. It's the same thing, written a month later.

My first impressions of Indonesia were that it's not as crowded with people as I was expecting. From the plane I could see the roads and there was barely a car or motorbike on them. Even the airport was calm and quiet-a big difference from the throngs of taxi drivers, porters, tour operators, hotel owners and scam artists that congregate in airports in other parts of the world. In contrast though, real estate is at a premium and buildings, shrines, houses and Hindu temples all run into one another. Even the sidewalks are too narrow to comfortably pass someone. On the way to Ubud it never seemed like we left town and entered another. Hoses, shrines and concrete companies making Hindu statues lined the road the entire way. There were only a handful of rice paddies that gave a glimpse of open space beyond the street.

Bali isn't as pretty as I was expecting either. Maybe I'm in another jaded backpacker's mood where I can't see the sun setting past the penis-shaped bottle openers or the T-shirts plastered with profane slogans in storefronts. I think I'm a little sad about still being injured too. That's the main reason I came to Ubud. I suppose Kuta would be okay if you were to spend your days at the beach, but I couldn't get in the water let alone lay on the sand. So if I'm not going to enjoy the beach, I may as well stay away from it. At least until I heal up.

Indonesia is cheap! That's wonderful news considering my current financial position. I've acclimated well and now have trouble justifying a $5 steak dinner. Yesterday I even turned down a $4 massage, then spent the rest of the afternoon wondering why! I believe when my arm heals up I'll get a massage. That will be my reward.

Hindu shrines are everywhere in Bali. They are in the streets, in department stores, small shops, homes, beaches, in the rice fields-as I write this, one hangs above me on the wall in the internet cafe. People place neatly arranged sacrifices throughout the day in little bowls made of woven palm leaves. They usually have rice, flowers, incense and a sweet, like a couple crackers or a piece of candy inside them. People put them on the shrines, in holes in walls, on the beach, on the sidewalk and on vehicles too. It makes me wonder how much time is spent making, preparing and giving these offerings. That's what I thought of Gunung Kawi too, how much time was spent carving it?

Gunung Kawi is a temple carved out of the sides of a small river valley north of Ubud. I rented a motorbike and went to see what I could see, the temple was my goal but anything would be better than stepping over dogs and turning down offers of "Transport?" every thirty seconds around town. Once out of town, houses don't grow so closely together and gaps between them offer views of beautiful green terraced rice fields. This is what I came to see!

After a few missed turns and wrong directions I arrived, paid for parking, bought the obligatory sarong and made the obligatory donations and made my way down the stairs into the valley. A series of statues and rooms are carved out of each side of the valley. I walked around, took a few pictures and made my way back up the stairs declining offers of cold drinks from the vendors lining the stairway until I was sweating and breathing so hard I couldn't refuse.

Soon I was off to another location where I'd heard was a pretty lake. I never got there because it started raining. I sought refuge in a little street kitchen and waited out the rain over some chicken and noodles. After nearly an hour, two more travelers came in from the rain. I was desperate for company and welcomed them in as if it were my own store. Olivier is from France and Handa is from Sumatra. They both live in Bali now, Handa teaching and Olivier "looking for a job." We talked for hours in that place about everything from blond jokes to international politics. The rain never stopped so we eventually had to go out in it. They both stayed with me that night in Ubud since it was too dark and rainy to continue to Denpasar. When they heard it was my birthday the following Saturday, they insisted to arrange everything and take me out for the weekend!

The next morning Olivier and Handa rode off to Denpasar and I went to my Indonesian language lesson. I had paid for three private lessons on consecutive days. The first day was inspiring, I felt like I could master the basics of the language within my short time in Indonesia and I thought of all the doors that would open up. The following day my sponge of a brain had absorbed all it could and I didn't have time to study before my last class the next morning. My teacher patiently went over the concepts we hadn't learned yet and told me to study them later. This led me to revive a thought I've fought with and milled over in my mind during the last few years; If making friends, learning languages and experiencing culture-host country culture-is what I want to do, then maybe I should whittle down my itinerary to the fewest locations possible and become part of a community by studying the language intensely and studying another aspect too like dance, martial arts or find a job or volunteer position. Then spend one to three months in those few locations instead of a week here and a few days there.

I can see great benefits from doing something like that and I think it would be insanely rewarding but another part of me wants to fill up that passport, wants to see everything and do everything. As bad as I am at saying goodbye, maybe I shouldn't stay too long anywhere, but what would Costa Rica, Equatorial Guinea and Rockhampton be to me if I'd only stayed there a week? Decisions, decisions, and what will become of them? I feel like my life is a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book and I'm torn between turning to the next chapter, going straight to page 253 or putting the book down altogether. Somehow though, I doubt any of my readers will feel sorry for me!

Bali, Indonesia

2008-04-13T00:35:00.012-07:00

Bali was not what I expected. I was expecting it to be loud, dirty, overcrowded with traffic but also stunningly beautiful. When I got off the plane the airport was nearly empty, outside the street was quiet. I was expecting throngs of taxi drivers, porters and hotel owners bidding for my patronage. Instead I got a nice quiet bench beside a neatly manicured garden to sit down at. This might not be too bad! Then I went to Kuta.

The popular beach town of Kuta is loud, dirty, overcrowded with traffic and stunning, but not necessarily with beauty. Vendors constantly call out their promises of a good price, a morning price or a good-luck price if you would just take a look at their wares or buy a massage. To call them persistent would be an understatement. Several times they would grab my hand or my arm to pull me into their shop. This is where the motorcycle accident paid off as I would feign immense pain as I clutched my arm and showed my bandages. Apologetically they would let go and leave me alone, embarrassed they had hurt me. Smitten that I'd avoided one hard sell, I would perform the act all over again several times within each block. Crossing the street is not to be taken lightly here as taxis quickly jam together and motorbike drivers weave in and out of the cars. I stayed at a hotel right beside the Bali bomb memorial. I believe it was in 2004 when Muslims from nearby Java planted a bomb in a popular nightclub here killing several people from all over the world.

The Balinese are predominantly Hindu. You can't throw a rock in any direction without it going over at least one shrine or temple. They are everywhere! Next to houses, businesses, rice fields, inside homes and businesses, even taxis and buses! Daily offerings are placed on the shrines usually consisting of rice, flowers, fruit and sometimes money or candy. Incense is also very common. The smell permeates the streets and shops.

There isn't much to do in Kuta other than shop, party and play on the beach. I'm not much of a shopper and I didn't feel like cleaning sand out of my cuts everyday so I decided to leave town and head to the "cultural" town of Ubud. Maybe I'm not up to date on Balinese culture but Ubud is a tourist town. It's nice, there are several art galleries, boutiques, restaurants and who'd have guessed... temples. It's quieter than Kuta and seems to draw a more relaxed, if not older, crowd of tourists.

I stayed a week in Ubud studying the Indonesian language and exploring the area. One day, I rented a motorbike to go visit a temple recommended in my guidebook. Gunung Kawi Tampaksiring is a temple carved out of the sides of a small stream valley. On the way there I passed a valley of terraced rice paddies. It really is a sight to see! After visiting and taking a few pictures I headed north to see what I could see but it started raining! I pulled into a small roadside food stall and tried to wait it out over some mie goreng, noodles with vegetables.
Not long after I finished two other people came in out of the rain. When they drove by I'd hoped they'd stop and that they also spoke English. Success! They stopped and came in to have something to eat and wait out the rain. Olivier is from France and Handa is from Sumatra. They are friends and they are living in Bali now. We had a great time talking about everything from blond jokes to United States politics and whey they heard it was my birthday soon they insisted that they arrange everything and I come to Kuta for the party. Wonderful! They stayed with me in Ubud that night since the rain never stopped and it was getting dark, and left early the next morning.

One of the main sights in Ubud is the Monkey Sanctuary. Being a fan of monkeys I decided to go visit and see the little guys... I no longer like monkeys! I've never seen something so little strike fear into the hearts of more men than I did that day! There are hundreds of monkeys in the forest and many times I found myself surrounded by them. Pretty cool huh? Yeah, until they start fighting and screaming and demanding you give them whatever is in your hands with their fangs showing! I decided to enjoy them from a distance, and watch non-suspecting tourists go through the range of emotions from excitement, nervousness and then fear as the monkeys approached, climbed on them and then started pulling at bags, purses and water bottles. That was a much better way of enjoying the sanctuary!

Under the Sea

2008-04-11T23:08:00.008-07:00

It's official! I have now scuba dove! It's fun! It's relaxing! It's challenging! It's interesting! And everything is so new! Like a lot of hobbies SCUBA is very social, in my certification class in Cairns there were about 15 students and on the live aboard boat we total 37, 31 divers and 6 crew. I passed my dive medical exam despite my injuries. The doctor gave me instructions to keep it clean and rinse with freshwater after each dive. Getting into and out of a wetsuit was a bit painful but it was all worth it. Once I was in the water there was no pain at all, even if there was, it would be easy to forget with all the fish and coral to look at.

The course I took is a 5 day Learn to Dive course. The first two days were spent in Cairns learning about the equipment and theory of diving, then for the next three days we went out on the ocean, living on a boat on the Great Barrier Reef! Our instructors warned us the schedule for the next three days would be little more than eating, diving and sleeping. The first day out on the boat my class went on two dives in the morning working on attaining our open water certification. It's difficult to explain the feeling of diving. The compressed air you breath is very dry, it's louder underwater than I expected it to be, a lot louder. I found diving relaxing though, focusing on my breathing, moving slowly and looking out for Nemo and his friends was quite enjoyable.

At the end of the first day while all of the students were watching from the top deck, the already certified divers were preparing for a night dive. It was so spooky! Sharks were circling behind the boat right where the divers were jumping in. As the divers descended, the beams of their flashlights eventually faded out until you could no longer see them. I couldn't wait for when we could go on a night dive the next day.

Day two was an exciting day since it was the day we'd gain our certification and be able to dive unguided. We still had two dives to complete and perform some skills in the water, by noon we were all certified divers! For my first fun dive I chose to go with my dive buddy whom I knew didn't use much air. I wanted to spend as much time underwater as possible and I'd gained the reputation in class as the one who uses the least amount of air. Our dives up to this point had been between thirty and forty minutes long. On our first fun dive, my buddy and I stayed under for fifty three minutes! It was a blast, even though we kind of got lost and didn't know where we were going most of the time. I noticed that without a guide, I didn't see as much because I was always concerned about where to go next or where my buddy was instead of just following the leader. Over the next few dives I worked out how to navigate better underwater and it made it much more enjoyable when I knew where I was.

Night dive! Just like the last one, sharks were circling the back of the boat as we jumped in. We descended to the bottom and made a loop through the coral and back to the boat. The reef is interesting at night, I'd like to do more night dives. Little shrimps were out on the coral peering up at us with their orange eyes, the soldierfish who are tucked away in holes and under shelves during the day, are swimming about at night. We came across a painted crayfish too which is like a lobster. It's antennae were huge! At one point I was following Oscar, our guide, through this hallway of reef. He shined his flashlight under a big shelf and there was the biggest green sea turtle I've ever seen! It was bigger than the leatherbacks I'd seen in Costa Rica! He was sleeping and had to be over 7 feet long. His tail was as big around as my arm! I couldn't believe it.

We didn't see much else as we made our way back t the boat. We held on to a bar that had been suspended about 5 meters below the boat. Oscar pulled out a plastic pop bottle and began rolling it between his hands and crinkling it, twisting it and bending it. It made a very loud sound underwater, it was a deep, loud rumbling sound... and it was attracting sharks! We couldn't see the bottom and our visibility was limited to the faint glow of the boat's floodlights from above, coupled with our flashlights. Oscar pointed to the edge of our visible limit and I could just make out the green eye shine of the shark. Then it disappeared! Pretty soon it came back again and left again .It was getting closer and closer, staying longer and longer. It was a grey reef shark about two meters long. I was focusing on it with my flashlight when two others came up underneath us! Whoa! It was so fun! As we ascended to the boat ladder the bigger one came closer. I was following it with my light when it turned and came towards me! Ahh! It wasn't enough to get me swimming towards the steps but it definitely got the adrenaline going. That was a really fun dive!

The first dive the next morning, my seventh, took the cake. I had a new dive buddy for this dive, Adam, also from America. Where do I begin? It was very early and we were in the water just as the sun was rising so all the night-time stuff was still out and the day-time fish and turtles were coming out too. We saw the usual things, Christmas tree worms, some really good clown fish in anemones and then a shark! A black-tipped reef shark just swam past and Adam didn't see it! I was trying to get his attention but I didn't want to miss the shark so I kept my eye on it while swimming backwards to grab Adam. He missed it in the end which I thought was a bummer, we probably wouldn't see another one right? We went around a corner and I took a course about 3 feet above Adam and there was a turtle eating! We could have gone right past it. After Adam snapped a couple pictures of the turtle we went around a mound of coral and there was a white-tipped reef shark sleeping on the sand! Wow! We watched it and tried to get closer and closer until finally it woke up and slowly swam away. A little further away were some other divers coming our way, something wasn't right though, one diver looked funny. As it got closer I realized it wasn't a diver at all, but a turtle swimming gracefully towards us! I thought, "This couldn't get any better!." I was wrong again. Only a few seconds later as Adam was taking pictures of some blue staghorn coral I just happened to peer between two towers of reef and I could just make out the outline of a sleeping shark about ten meters away! We swam over to it and watched it for awhile. It was bigger than all the others at about 7 feet long. Sharks look pretty peaceful when they're sleeping. Their gills move a little bit and they open and close their mouths slightly but generally they just lay on the bottom. By this time it was time to go back to the boat and eat breakfast. Nobody could believe everything that we saw in that single dive!

All in all, I went on nine dives, ate some great food and met some interesting people. I'm not ready to sell the farm and make my living from diving, but I am looking forward to diving some more. I would especially like to go with some friends of mine, and maybe, just maybe my parents will dust off their certification cards they got way back in the day and we can be dive buddies someday.

Crash and Burn

2008-04-11T21:15:00.010-07:00

After saying all my "goodbyes" and packing all my things I rode north to Townsville with Jodi's parents. They are living with their daughter and son-in-law, Michelle and Matt while their house is being built. They have a great stretch of land outside of the city and are surrounded mostly by scrub. The advantages could be missed by most people but I understood them fully. My thoughts were confirmed when Matt called me to help remove a carpet python from the garage one afternoon. If snakes aren't your thing, every morning several white cockatoos land in the yard to eat the chicken's food.

I had been looking forward to visiting the local aquarium and Billabong Sanctuary in town. Jodi's husband, Grabs, my co-worker and mentor and the crocodile farm, called his friend at the sanctuary ahead of time to let them know I was coming. I walked around the zoo in the afternoon waiting for the crocodile shows to start. When they finally did, I was the only person left at the zoo so I got my very own personal croc show. They do a great job of demonstrating the athleticism of these otherwise seemingly lazy reptiles. The big males leap nearly 8 feet out of the water to grab the food presented from a stick!

My favorite part of the day though was the behind the scenes tour. In the prep room there are walls of snake cages filled with native species. Blackheaded pythons, womas, water pythons, carpet pythons and the venomous snakes, taipans, browns and tiger snakes. My dream came true when they said I could get any snake out that I wanted. It would have been easier to ask which snake I didn't want to get out! I proceeded to get pictures with snakes I'd only seen in the pages of Reptile magazines and zoos back home. It was a very fun afternoon.

Earlier that morning I went to the Reef HQ aquarium to get a preview of what I might see the following week SCUBA diving. There is a large, underwater tunnel you can walk through and see different sharks and a sea turtle. I really wanted to see the sea snakes but what I was most surprised about were the flashlight fish. I didn't know what flashlight fish were but I stood there mesmerized in an area of the aquarium where the nocturnal species exhibits are, watching these green lights swimming in the water. It was unreal!

That afternoon Matt and I went for a motorcycle ride at the track behind his house. I knew I was out of my league on the 450cc Yamaha but after a few laps on the track I began to get a little braver and go a little faster. I liked coming out of the corners fast, it was fun. Matt was sitting on the quad watching me as I drove by with a grin on my face that seemed to grow bigger and bigger with every lap. Then I bit the dust. I planted my foot improperly on a corner and accelerated at the wrong time, sending the bike one way and me the other. It's precisely at this point during an accident, the point when you realize "This is going to be bad," that I was flying through the air telling myself to roll when I hit the ground. I didn't listen.

Not wanting to worry my host, I quickly jumped up and picked the bike up as Matt came over to access the damage. We laughed about it awhile, as blood dripped off my fingertips that were held behind my back. Once I assured him that I was okay-but that the day was over-I showed him my wounds, some of which I hadn't even discovered yet. I had slid along the right side of my body so I did a number on my hand, forearm, elbow, tricep, ribs, hip and knee. We went back to the house and I laid in the bathtub for a few hours slowly cleaning the gravel out of the cuts. We were all concerned about whether I'd be able to still dive or not in Cairns.

After everything was clean, and I'd had as many painkillers as Michelle would give me, Margaret came over to patch me up. Margaret and her husband are former missionaries to Papua New Guinea and now she works as a nurse just up the road. She was nice enough to come over and bandage me up and invite me to the fellowship dinner they were having that night at church. Now, I've been known to do a lot of things for a free meal but I've never wrecked a motorcycle for one. Although the dinner was really good and I was glad I went, I think there are many less painful options out there!

The following day I got an early bus to Cairns, my final stop in Australia. I was nervous about whether I'd be able to dive, about going to Indonesia injured and about leaving Australia when I'd had so much fun here. It's only a few hours from Townsville to Cairns, but it sure felt like a long time.

The End of the Beginning.

2008-03-15T00:28:00.035-07:00

Rotten chicken heads smell better than rotten pig's heart. Flip flops and shorts, although comfortable and dry, are not ideal working attire. You can never use too much sunblock and going to church is always a good idea. These are a few things I've learned since I've been here. Some are simply trivia whereas others are lifelong lessons never to be forgotten.

I apologize for not posting more pictures. There have been some exciting times on and off the farm in the last couple of months. There have been several encounters with crocodiles recently, both large and small, a few more nest raids-including my second time personally collecting the eggs. The novelty of working with crocodiles isn't gone but I don't run for cameras anymore before a catch or take much time to recount the events in my journal at the end of the day. It's simply become what I do. I still love it, and the thought of my departure is difficult to swallow.

Life outside of the farm has become a lot of fun. I've been going to church every week and my church family here is great. I've really been blessed. Lunch invitations never get old and Ben and I get quite a few of them. The first person I met at church Mark, took us out on his boat to a nearby island to go fishing and relax. The silt and debris from the nearby river made visibility poor and spearfishing impossible. It was wonderful to be out on the water though and the beaches are beautiful around Keppel Island where we were.

Another weekend was spent camping in the national forest and lounging on the beach. Last week I went with one of the deacons Shane, pig hunting. Australia is full of feral, non-endemic animals and wild pigs are one of them. I had been interested in going ever since I heard about it. They hunt them with dogs and kill them by holding their tails and stabbing them through the lungs with a knife! I thought, 'This I gotta see!' Unfortunately, we didn't see any pigs that day but brought home a few rabbits, another introduced animal to Australia.

As I write this, less than two weeks remain before I leave Australia. Early next week I'm making my way up to Cairns to SCUBA dive on the Great Barrier Reef. After that I'll be flying to Bali, Indonesia where I'll meet up with my friend Adi whom I met working in Wamsutter last year. As excited as I am to see Asia and fill up my passport with stamps I am reluctant to leave Rockhampton. Recently, people have asked me when I'll be coming back to Australia and the earliest date I can think of doesn't seem soon enough. It's been such a great experience and I've fallen in love with the animals, the climate, the church and especially the people.

My visa expires at the end of March. If that wasn't the case, I probably wouldn't be leaving. That's the catch-22 I'm in. If you scroll up to the top of the page, it says Terry's World Tour, not Terry's Tour of Eastern Australia. Therefore, I'm trying to think of my expiring visa as a good thing. It's the boost needed to move on, when it would be so easy to stay. I'm comfortable here, I'm happy here. Why would I willingly throw myself into countries where I'll most likely be uncomfortable again, scared again and lonely again? I think this quote from Churchill given at my high school graduation sums up my situation well, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Good Morning Queensland!

2008-02-16T23:12:00.008-07:00

I love my job. I hope you can say the same thing about your place of employment but I really do like this job. Not since my job working at a ski resort in Colorado have I been paid for doing something I would most likely do for free. Sure, I endured days when I thought my toes were literally frozen and the snow report called for icy conditions and wind, but there were also days when I got to work with my friend Will and we'd ski backwards all day and work on our 360's and I'd tell him as we got back on the chairlift, "Thank you so much for getting me this job!"

Similarly here at the farm I often have my hands around a broom handle or elbow deep in rotting chicken heads more often that I do handling crocodiles, but that's just it... I do get to handle crocodiles! Every once in awhile back at my apartment, I reflect on the day and I have to laugh at the day's events. Earlier this week I willingly tried to get a fifteen foot long crocodile to chase me and I never thought twice about it. Yesterday I helped a baby dinosaur hatch from it's egg. I understand that's not normal!

I've arrived in the middle of nesting season when the females are laying their eggs. Over the period of a few weeks the female will build a nest of sand, dirt and vegetation to lay her eggs in. Once the eggs are laid she covers them up and guards the nest until they hatch. Once we think a female has laid, we go in and collect the eggs from the nest and put them into an incubator.

Raiding nests can get exciting as the females are very protective and usually need to be caught and tied up so we can check the nest in relative safety. Sometimes the female will be in the water in which we can't see her or maybe the male will come over to chase us off his territory. In any circumstance there is potential for danger and excitement.

My usual duties have varied from simply spectating, holding the rope which is tied to the female while she's tied up or distracting the male crocodile while people are in the pen. In nearly every circumstance I'm always on the outside of the fence. This week was my big debut. While we were raiding a particular nest the female retreated into the water unable to be caught. We estimated we had close to ten minutes before she would come back out. While Simmo distracted the male, Grabs stood between the nest and the water so I could collect the eggs!

Seventy-four beautiful white ovals that sounded like glass when they touched each other, and seemed just as fragile as I took them from the nest, marked the tops with a pencil where the embryo will have attached and placed them into the bucket. The guys had told me before about the adrenaline rush you get while you're in the pen, making you oblivious to the mozzies biting you, but I didn't experience that. I wasn't scared or nervous, I didn't feel a rush of adrenaline. I was just plain giddy with excitement. I couldn't believe I was finally in there doing what I'd been longing to do from the other side of the fence. It was great!

The fun didn't stop there. As we were moving crocodiles from one pen to another, my roomate Ben was bitten on the leg by a three footer. It let us all realize just how potentially dangerous even some of the smallest crocodiles on the farm can be. Twelve stitches later he was back at work and just to make sure he didn't forget the severity of the experience we had him clean and prepare teeth for the next two days. It has been raining heavily for the last two weeks which has stirred up the crocodiles. We had a few escapees which had to be caught and put back in their pens. After a few days all the crocodiles had been accounted for. I'm ready for the sun to come back out after all this flooding, mud and overcast skies.

It seems like you can't go too long here without some sort of animal encounter outside of the farm. On more than one occasion there have been pillowcases laying in the break room with pythons inside that people have brought to work to share with everyone. Unidentified geckos go home in sandwich containers to be identified and then released. Simmo stopped by our house late one night with a brown bag in his hand and a scaly tail sticking out the top. It was a frilled lizard that had been run over. I didn't know they had them in this area but I was very happy he brought it out for me to see. On the way home we passed an echidna crossing the road. Cute little creatures resembling an overgrown hedgehog, they are one of the only mammals that lay eggs besides the platypus.

Each day is different and each day is the same. There's always something to learn and adventure is never far away.

... and on his farm he had some Crocodiles!

2008-01-30T03:43:00.001-07:00

I could tell you about Brisbane and how it's a nice city with a great river walk through it. Or I could tell you of Australia Zoo, the home of the late crocodile hunter Steve Irwin and how clean it is and what a great tribute it is to his life and passion for conservation. I could even tell you of the scary night I had in Bundaberg at a hostel full of fruit-picking backpackers. I could retell the events and conversations I had during a fabulous dinner with Brooke and Olivia, two Americans I met during my first night in Rockhampton... But I'd rather tell you what you've all been waiting for, the crocodile farm! Koorana Crocodile Farm is tucked away off a back road, aptly named Savages Road. Large crocs lay motionless just beneath the water's surface in pens lining the road up to the restaurant. I arrived on a Sunday so there wasn't much action. My adventure would start on Monday.

A lot of people want to know what I do at the farm. I'll spare you the day-to-day details of farm life and say that I've fed them, eaten them, held them, killed them, cleaned them, caught them, moved them, raided their nests and salted their skins. And that's all within the first week. It feels good to be a crocodile farmer! The farm raises Saltwater Crocodiles for their meat and skin. There are about 3000 crocodiles here. Within 3-5 years they are near 6 feet long and the perfect age for culling. Any older and the meat gets tougher. A couple people work in the abattoir skinning and processing the meat. My main duty is feeding the younger crocodiles. They eat chicken heads every Monday, Wednesday and Friday while the adults get food less frequently.

Croc farmers, like crocodiles themselves are quite opportunistic, so when a lady called up saying she had just shot a cow and was willing to give it to us we all jumped in the truck to go get it. Before long we had it cut up and were feeding it to the big crocodiles. For any Animal Planet watching regular, it's common knowledge that crocodiles bite down with a force of nearly two thousand pounds per square inch. There is absolutely no way you can grasp that amount of power without feeding one yourself and hearing their jaws popping like gunfire and the bones crunching under the force of their bite. I went through a weird emotion at that time. I wasn't in any immediate danger. We would get the animals to come to the fence and then throw them a piece of beef. However there is an element of danger. Hang a little too far over the fence or hold on to the meat a little too long and you could lose an arm real quick! The closest thing I can equate what I felt was as if a friend had handed you a gun and said it wasn't loaded. Then you pull the trigger and the gun goes off. It's a combination of elation that you weren't killed, fear that you were so close to being killed and giddy that you get to do it all over again. Any thoughts of me being young and bulletproof were quickly grounded!

I'm learning something new everyday. If it's not about crocodiles it's about the surrounding towns or definitions to new Aussie lingo. Before I leave I hope to decipher the mystery of cricket! (It's a sport people, google it!)

Here's to a Year of Living...

2008-01-11T18:46:00.001-07:00

Happy new year everyone! As you could guess arriving in Sydney without a clue felt like... well, arriving in a big city without a clue! I walked around town from one hostel to another quickly realizing that I wasn't the only one who thought it would be fun to spend New Year's Eve here. All the hostels were full, there wasn't any vacancy until after the 2nd of January. I spent the first night at a hotel downtown and went looking for new accommodation first thing in the morning just to find out what I'd already known, everything was booked since before Christmas. Finally I settled into a run-down hostel near Hyde Park. The location was great, but it's what my English friends would call 'a bit dodgy.' There wasn't much security, only one staff member who was really quite cranky most of the time, the kitchen was a breeding ground for various molds and insect cultures and the dishes left a lot to be desired. On the plus side though, the internet was free, the location was good and since it was the last place in town everyone staying there was in the same desperate situation I was.

I had some preconceived notions and expectations of Australia before coming; everyone speaks english, it's very similar to the USA, the girl to guy ratio is nearly 8:1 and Aussies love Americans. The reality I experienced was much different. It seemed like everyone was Asian, even the people who did speak english couldn't be understood, it's a different country than USA, the ratio-although favorable-isn't all that noticeable and as far as friendliness goes, I wouldn't know, I hadn't met any Aussies during my first few days.

I did however meet Germans, Swedes, Chileans, Swiss, Kiwis, Chinese, Japanese and heaps of Brits. I love the conversations you have between travellers. I've never discussed US politics as much as I have in the first week I was in Sydney. I thought it was interesting that the news here has a close eye on US elections. But there are other topics as well like differing accents, where people have been and where they are going and regional idioms (you wait in queues not lines, smoke fags not cigarettes and wear thongs on your feet not under your dress.) It's been a lot of fun.

For the most part I didn't do much on a day-t0-day basis in Sydney because I was trying to stay within my budget. After a couple of days I realized I'd spent my monthly budget in two days and had to reevaluate! Australia is expensive. I still found time to visit the opera house. Oh the opera house. You know I can't think of any building that has taken my breath away. But the first glimpse of the opera house made me jump with excitement. Maybe it's because it's an icon of Australia, maybe it's the location over the harbor or the unique architecture or maybe it was the first familiar thing I'd seen since I'd arrived-whatever it was, it was a nice sight.

A few of us from the hostel banded together and set out to watch the fireworks over the harbor. We left late in the morning and brought a picnic with us. We sat in a park in East Balmain overlooking Darling Harbour opposite the opera house and Harbour Bridge. It was thirteen hours before the fireworks started, but it didn't feel like it. There was a happy energy among the party goers and everyone was having a fun time. The fireworks were just part of the experience.

The next week a couple of us took the ferry to Manly Beach which was closed, but we could still swim at a nearby beach protected from the strong current. It was nice to relax, sit in the sun and have a swim. It was also one of my first outings in Sydney other than New Year's so that was also nice to see a change of scenery.

Saturday was the kick off to the Sydney Festival in Hyde Park. There were six stages set up around downtown and different musical guests were at each stage. My personal favorites were the Spanish Harlem Orchestra and Pink Martini. They played very good music. Salsa dancers were showing their stuff in the street and I made up my mind then and there that I will learn to dance. It was only reinforced a couple minutes later when I went to the next stage and they were playing swing music and entire swing clubs were there getting their dance on. It was impressive and very entertaining to watch people who can actually dance. A big comparison to the foam parties and late night techno rave crap that goes on at most nightclubs.

At the festival I met a couple girls who told me about Hillsong Church. I was looking for a church nearby so I went the following day. I would say it's your typical large, contemporary church. Complete with t-shirt wearing presiders, full band, good music and there's a coffee shop and bookstore in the lobby. I met a few people who were real blessings, Steve, Vicky and Roy. Steve and Vicky were visiting from Tasmania and we sat next to each other. They were extremely nice and generous. I almost wish I was going through Tasmania just so I could stay with them longer. The other was Roy, once he heard I didn't have a place to stay for the night he offered his house. Perfect! It was a great night, after evening service we went to his house and talked about Africa, the USA, church planting and growth and different books we had read. The next morning he showed me where to catch the bus into town. I'm really glad I met him.

This past week I've been near Crescent Head at a surf camp. It was a good time. There were nearly thirty people in the group. We spent our days at the beach trying to catch that perfect wave that would propel our love of surfing to the level of lifetime commitment. I don't know if I ever caught that wave. I did have a couple really good ones, and I won't be giving up any time soon, but I don't think I'll be making a lifestyle out of it. The best thing about the camp was being outside of the city. It was refreshing to see rural Australia. These are my kind of people, this is my kind of landscape. Uncrowded beaches, laid back working people and not a single tie-wearing, brief-case carrying office worker among them! I saw my first kangaroo too! It's weird, I have this urge to shoot one now. I think it's just to be able to see one up close that's fueling this urge. But it'd be nice to eat it too I think. From the sounds of it, I may get my chance while I'm here. The other exciting animal encounter happened during our last night at camp. We had a bonfire on the beach and on my way back to camp I came across a small black snake. It seems like everything in Australia can kill you in one way or another, but that didn't stop me from going Steve Irwin on it. I'm not sure what kind it was, but I wasn't planning on letting it bite me either way.

I am now in Byron Bay. It's popular with backpackers and it shows, the streets are busy and my hostel is packed with people from all over. Mainly Europeans but others as well. I'm anxious to get up to the crocodile farm and get into a routine for awhile. But that's not stopping me from thinking of where the next stamp in my passport will come from. Anyone up for Fiji in April?

Hawai'i

2008-01-01T16:02:00.001-07:00

Hawaii is warm. Hawaii is beautiful. Hawaii is nice. It was my first time to Oahu and I was surprised how many people are here. I believe it's the most populated island and you can tell. The thought of Hawaii doesn't usually conjure up images of freeways, buses, skyscrapers and concrete jungles. But they do exist there. They are easily forgotten when you walk along the beach and gaze out into the green-blue sea.

The main excuse to come to Hawaii was my friend's wedding. Travis and I grew up together from childhood and his sister Kim, was getting married. To be honest, I used to be against outdoor weddings. There's just too much that could go wrong like rainstorms, wind, asteroid showers- well okay maybe not asteroid showers but the former are valid concerns that are really uncontrollable. However, I've been to more outdoor weddings in the last couple years than my entire lifetime before. My sister in Alaska, my friend Jason in Wyoming and now Kim's in Hawaii. They were all beautiful and added an element that just couldn't be obtained indoors. As you can see from the pictures it was absolutely beautiful and the most intimate wedding setting I've ever been to. The witnesses were limited to mostly family and a few friends, most of us were barefoot, a harp and flute were the only accompaniment, everyone received flower leis at the end of the receiving line and Kim and Buddy released butterflies after the ceremony. It was very cool!

I stayed at my parent's timeshare on Waikiki of which I was extremely grateful. Thanks Mom and Dad! The weather was perfect everyday, not too hot, not too cool. We went snorkeling at a nearby bay and saw a plethora of fish. Parrot fish, puffers, a moray and even some humuhumunukunukuapaua'a, which are Hawaii's state fish and also known as the trigger fish. But it's more fun to say humuhumunukunukuapaua'a! A few people saw a sea turtle but I couldn't find it.

I managed to completely destroy my feet with a pair of cheap sandals. My feet are more accustomed to steel-toed boots than flip-flops and the webbing cut into the tops of my feet with every step. After a few days I chucked them and went barefoot or opted for sneakers again. Apparently I'm a slow learner. This isn't the first time that's happened. In my defense, I usually travel in the winter months when it's not really feasible to break in summer footwear at home. If it's not new shoes it's usually playing barefoot soccer and cutting up the bottoms. I am now taking Lt. Dan's advice in Forrest Gump, "Take care of your feet!"

Christmas Eve marked my first attempt at surfing in a few years. I'll be honest, it didn't go so well. I have a new respect for surfers and everyone who participates in ocean sports really. It could quite possibly have been the most difficult thing I've ever done. And I say that because after two hours I still hadn't progressed a bit! Most people would have seen some improvement. I was surprised too because I had picked it up rather quickly in Costa Rica, although I was taking lessons and the waves were consistent and uncrowded, unlike the waves in Waikiki. Out of everyone out there I was most impressed (or maybe humbled is a better term) by two girls who literally surfed circles around me. I would be completely exhausted by the time I paddled out to past the break whereas they were catching waves every time I looked up. It was unbelievable and I had to laugh at my complete desperation to catch a wave opposed to the ease at which they caught theirs. I was defeated that day, but I maintain that I will learn to surf.

We all drove to the North Shore Christmas Day expecting thirty foot waves. Although they were bigger in the north, it was a pretty flat day. Smaller waves meant we could swim, even though we weren't planning on it. So we all went in with our clothes on! It was a lot of fun and I can't believe we nearly didn't go in at all. After a short drive back to the south side of the island with our shorts hanging out the window to dry, we hiked up Diamond Head. It's a nice little hike up a mountain trail with great views of Honolulu below. We had worked up an appetite and all went out to dinner.

It's a given that if you travel enough you will experience setbacks and roadblocks. I knew this. I was expecting this. Just, not so soon. At the airport, ready to board my flight to Sydney I was asked for my paper tickets. I thought I had e-tickets for the flight but after a few calls to the travel agency that issued them I discovered that indeed I had paper tickets. The bad news was, they were in a file folder back at home in Wyoming. The good news was was I could buy a ticket with a low-cost carrier the following day for only $360. That 24 hour delay gave me time to think, and I got scared. I finally realized I had no plan once I got to Australia, I had never been there, never seen a map of the city, wasn't aware of the exchange rate, didn't know what to do or where to go or even how I would get there! What was I going to do?

I didn't come up with much of an answer. Not a really good one anyway. Just put my head down, get on the plane and see what happens. Merry Christmas everyone.

Elvis Was Right

2007-12-26T03:39:00.001-07:00

VIVA LAS VEGAS! VIVA LAS VEGAS! VIVAAAA, VIVAAH LAS VEGAAAAAS!!!!

I can't tell you how good free money feels in your pocket. The most fun in Vegas for me isn't the shows, the buffets or even winning at the tables. It's the first twenty feet outside of a casino when I've won money. Because to me, you really haven't won until you've left. Inside the casino you're still fair game to the bright lights and big bets. But outside you're free, the only things beckoning you here are hawkers for hookers and strip clubs, which are easily avoided.

Initially I went to Las Vegas for my friend Aida's, 21st birthday. Interestingly enough, I never did catch up with her, but I did get a chance to hang out with an old friend of mine from high school. He makes a living playing poker, and since poker players pretty much choose their own schedule, he was able to hang out with me the entire weekend. He taught me the error of my roulette ways and showed me the wonderful world of craps. It wasn't long before I was betting the inside, six the "hard way" and backing up my pass line bet. I was hooked instantly, and the extra $300 in my pocket after that first night didn't hurt either!

Each day throughout the weekend played out the same: breakfast at 8:00 with mom and dad, free buffet at noon, craps with Sean till the next morning and back in bed around 3:00 AM. All in all, I think I ended $400 up while also earning my dad another $100 and a funny story that ends with me buying a Band-Aid from O'Shea's Casino for $100. It was a great start for stop #1 on my world tour.

All Skiied Out

2007-12-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

My former roommates would scoff at the title of this one! But it's true. The next time I knock the snow of my boots and 'click in' may be three seasons from now. Funny thing, the opening day of Deer Valley is my last day of the season. It was a good farewell though. I went to Brighton after they received 11 inches and Deer Valley got at least that much the next day. My quads are tight and my knees are talking to me, it was a good season.

My time here is short. I leave the mainland in 10 days, 15 hours, 47 minutes and 33 seconds... 32 seconds... 31 se- okay but who's really counting right? My parents and I are going to Vegas next week. I'm going to try to fund a month on the French Riviera at the roulette table, my dad will be feeding slot machines while my mom stands off to the side saying, "Okay that's enough, wasn't that fun. You don't need to spend anymore." We will though. We'll play until we win, and if we don't win we'll think of how to get it back. That's Vegas though right?

My backpack came last week. I sold my Lowe Alpine I'd taken to Central America, Barbados and camping in Wyoming. I wanted something smaller, something that was carry-on legal. What I got was just that... SMALL! I'm not disappointed at all though. I knew that I'd pack a large backpack until it was full, whether I needed all the stuff or not. So this will be a new challenge. I anticipate being really good at hand washing clothes by the end of the trip! I'm also planning on buying and giving away clothes as I go. It'll be nice to support the local economy and maybe I'll blend in more if I'm wearing local garb. Blending in is fun. I like to blend.

So that's that. Just a few days left before go-time. Good things.

Plantains and Prayers (Haiti part II)

2007-11-22T20:00:00.001-07:00

Big fish, little fish, plantains, avocado, bananas, brooms and toothpaste... huh? That's what strolls past the balcony in the mornings on the road below. Women balance boxes and bowls full of anything you might need. Donkeys stroll by two by two, laden with burlap bags full of charcoal on their backs. Sailboats glide by at the end of the road where it opens into the deep blue Caribbean.

For the most part, days have been very easy-going. I wake up early when it's too hot to sleep and we all wait for breakfast to come up from the kitchen below. Usually bread, rice and eggs. I follow Daniel's lead and mix in avocado with mine. After breakfast it's a slow transition into devotions and the rest of the day. We spent some time picking up trash on the street around the orphanage. Once it's piled up ready to be burned, neighbors brought their trash there as well instead of discarding it on the street. Daniel and Nick went out early to work and within a couple of hours three local boys were helping them as well. That was really encouraging to watch, every time I looked up from my journal another boy was dumping the wheelbarrow or donning gloves and picking up trash.

The afternoons have been spent praying with members of the community. I found it encouraging that everyone we prayed for said something about their spiritual condition-either help in resisting temptation or growing closer to God. It wasn't only prayers to heal the sick, feed the children and do well in school. I found that very encouraging.

The kids are great. Rocheny walks around with a quiet happiness and Andrew shuffles with his shoulders back and his tummy sticking out, sucking on his bottom lip. Sabrina entertains herself pretty well, she gets into everything and goes from person to person at dinner time trying to mooch a little off of everyone. She's hilarious when she gets in trouble. She pokes her lip out and huffs and puffs. Wally is always loud and smiling. He's the one dancing in front of everyone while they're watching a movie competing for their attention. Anabelle is always on someone's lap and when she's not, she's whimpering or standing there with an expression like she's scared to death. The other baby is Rose. She came to the orphanage near death and a month later looked like a happy, healthy baby. Her mom had died and her father would leave her alone on the bed at home with a few crackers... and she was under a year old! There's no doubt that coming to the orphanage has saved her life.

Soulange is the matriarch of the orphanage. She's fifty years old but could pass for much younger although she has earned some gray hairs. She lives a couple blocks away and wants to move the orphanage to her home so they wouldn't have to pay rent. It would also be nice since many times Soulange leaves the orphanage at 12:30am and is back at 3:00am to work all day. Her heart stays with those kids-she gives her entire paycheck back to the orphanage. She's a strong woman, she stands out when she walks down the street. I bet she was a knockout when she was younger.

Mellowsine is another girl who works at the orphanage. She's pretty and has perfect teeth, making for a very pretty smile. I liked her because she helped me with learning Creole. I would ask how she was in Creole and she would continue the dialogue when most people would laugh at my silly attempts to speak their language. Gepson (Soulange's son) has been coming over every evening to play the guitar and lead songs before our devotions at night. When he doesn't have a guitar or basketball in his hand he's usually holding Annabelle. He was very fun to hang out with.

Under Lashbrook Ministries there is the orphanage, boys home and school. I believe it's the only free school in Haiti and at recent competency tests, its students scored the highest out of every school in the country. We visited the school to pray over the students, the teachers and the building itself. Girls with red ribbons and bows in their hair sit next to boys wearing red and white checkered shirts. They watched us with curious eyes as we walked by their classrooms.

There are 24 boys at the boys home. Once they outgrow the orphanage they move down the street near the church. On Friday we cooked a big spaghetti dinner for them and bought them each a soda. After dinner we talked them about what was going on in their lives and at school. Then we had prayer for them as well.

There is a strong U.N. presence in the cities and along the coastline. I kept wondering why they were there and what they did. I got my answer as soon as I arrived home. Tropical storm Noel had flooded Port-a-Prince and other parts of Haiti under eight feet of water. According to news reports, U.N. troops rescued 8,000 from the floods. At first I felt bad for leaving, I wanted to stay for the storm so I could help out. Then I questioned myself. What made me think I could help and not be just another person trapped in the floodwater that needed saving? Fortunately, Port-a-Paix is protected from tropical storms and hurricanes by the mountains to the south and the island of Tortuga to the north.

Haiti is a beautiful country with wonderful people. But it could be so much more. Government oppression, greed and corruption keep the vast majority of foreign aid that comes into the country. Women are treated poorly and usually kept from obtaining an education to stay at home and do chores. Christian churches are only recently standing up and opposing voodoo practices in the country. It's people like Pastor Andy, Soulange and others who work at the orphanage who give me hope for current and future generations. Thank God for them.

Thanks to Nick Edens for taking pictures: http://nickedens.aminus3.com/

Getting There (Haiti Part I)

2007-11-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

The drive to Salt Lake City brought back a lot of memories. I thought of high school snowboarding trips and the time my two best friends and I slept in a truck in a Park City church parking lot waiting for the shopping outlet to open. I arrived at the airport and paid the fee for two overweight bags. In Dallas, I met a couple from Virginia. The husband's name was Bruce, he noticed me praying before I ate and came to ask me about it. We exchanged a few sentences of small talk before he left the food court area and came back with a book about prayer. It's a small book, one you would probably overlook if you were looking for one on the subject. I took it appreciatively but thought it was probably going to read like some of E. M. Bounds' books. C'mon, how relative could a book, which was written in the thirties by a Norwegian prisoner be? What I found in just the first chapter changed my mind. I have yet to discover a more transparent and honest author:

"Now and then you must ask yourself the question, 'Do I really desire to be set free from the lukewarmness of my heart and my worldly life? Is not my Christian life always lukewarm and half-hearted for the simple reason that deep down in my heart I desire it that way?'"
Prayer O. Hallesby

I thought, 'Wow, thanks Bruce.' I found myself underlining nearly every-other paragraph as I read further.

I met up with the rest of the crew there in Dallas. Nick, Ashley and our leader Nicole. I had told Nicole before how nice it was going to be as a member of the group as opposed to the leader. I was still recovering from Africa. We continued on to Ft. Lauderdale and stayed the night in the terminal. I think I'm the only one who got any sleep that night. Which was surprising considering the oddly shaped, vinyl couches we slept on, the air conditioning on full blast, my backpack being tied to my belt loop with my shoelace (in case someone decided to walk off with it) and the service announcements which blared through the terminal every eleven minutes.

As we flew into Port-a-Prince the next day I think I was less interested in my own impression of Haiti and more interested in Ashley's reaction as it was her first time out of the country. It's funny how quickly you forget things that are altogether foreign to the American yet universally similar in third world countries. The same short-haired dogs roam around quietly, their ears open and bloody, their ribs and hip bones clearly visible. Trash covers the ground, bars are on the windows and it's just as commonplace to see a man carrying an AK-47 as it is a briefcase.

Transportation had been arranged to take us to another airport where we would catch a flight to Port-a-Paix on the north coast. We waited for several hours before we were issued our boarding passes, laminated cards with the numbers 1-15 written on them. One number for each passenger. I was surprised to see the number of missionary groups that came through the airport. One group was on their way to the island of Gonave to host a medical clinic. Other's were visiting orphanages in the north or working with schools. I met a writer for Lonely Planet who said the majority of travelers to Haiti come on business or missions trips. Considering Haiti's reputation I'm sure it will stay that way for years to come.

When it was our time to board, we gave our boarding passes to the agent at the door and walked out on the runway to our plane. Haiti is home to the highest mountains in the Caribbean, and we had a wonderful view as we flew directly over them. The country is green and small houses congregate in river valleys next to fields of manioc and sugarcane. Nearly all of Haiti's tropical rainforest has been cut down. Now green fields of grass and shrubs remain where tall teak and mahogany trees must have stood several years ago. Rivers carry silt into the ocean where a dull brown cuts through the brilliant blue sea.

I don't remember falling asleep on that flight, just the bumps as we landed. It wasn't a rough landing, just bumpy like we were on a dirt runway. In fact we were on a dirt runway. We taxied to a gate which led to a small building with people waiting for us. We had arrived.

Going to Haiti

2007-10-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween! I'm excited to be going to Haiti this week. I think not only will it be a great trip for everyone involved, but also a good test to see how well I do in a non Spanish-speaking country. I was given a list of supplies to bring so I made a time-lapse video of me packing everything. Basically it was just an excuse to use my new camera. Hope you like it.

I'll give you an update on the trip when I get back at the end of the month.