Wandering

The month of August was spent in Northern Switzerland. Being as it was late summer for them too, I was able to watch a season change which was unique for me since I am from Florida.

 

 

Posted in: Europe by John Gamache /
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This part of the trip consisted of three weeks in the city (BCN) and half a week away at Costa Brava. If you have questions or are interested in knowing more let me know and I will flood you with stories 🙂

 

 

 

 

Posted in: Europe by John Gamache /
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Getting to the lake was exciting to say the least.  I decided to come by way of the chicken bus since I had plenty of time.  The bus left from Antigua every hour, I hopped on, and off I went.  Three hours and three buses later the show came to a halt.  Apparently my Spanish was not good enough to pick up on the fact that the bus assistant was telling the crowd about a landslide that had recently happened.  So, there I was 5 Km from the place I wanted to go and no road to take me there.  While I was preparing my dumb look face I noticed that some of the people were walking in to the woods and were motioning me to come with them.  I thought what the hell I didn’t want to go back to the previous town so I picked up my bags and followed them.  17.5 Kg doesn’t seem like much until you have to go rock climbing with it.  The locals figured that they would just stomp down a new trail towards the town.  Simple enough if the land was somewhat flat but we were going down the face of a mountain.  The hardest part was keeping up with the old ladies.    After a long sweaty climb I made it to the lake and only a short boat ride more before I made it to my intended destination.

San Pedro la Laguna.

View from my hotel/office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reason for coming to the lake this time was to learn some Spanish and enjoy the weather.  Since the lake is at 5,000 ft the climate is comfortable all year.  Except for some crazy rains that come through.  During the first week that I was in San Pedro la Laguna the level of the lake rose about 3 feet.  For this to occur more that 1.5 trillion gallons of water must enter the lake. Wow

I managed to complete one week of proper Spanish schooling before opting for an alternative method.  To stretch my wanker dollars I decided to stay with a local Mayan family and get training from one of the family members.  This worked out well for about two weeks then I had had enough corn tortillas to last a lifetime.  After the home stay I went back to a cheap hotel and had the teacher come over everyday for my lessons.  I feel as if I now understand 60% of the language 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A brief summary of events: in the beginning the Spanish was hard and the poops were not — in the end the poops were hard the the Spanish was not.

At some point I began to look around at volunteer opportunities to stretch my money even farther.  Somehow I ended up making my own volunteer position at a cooperativa near San Pedro working with Africanized bees. This turned out to be very interesting and fun. For one month I worked with a bee inspector in the the mountains and took Spanish classes later in the days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I ran out of money I came back to the states. (Thanksgiving day).  After I was back I gave a presentation about my experience to the Marion County Beekeepers Club.

If you are interested in seeing all of the pictures http://ungroundartwork.com/2011-Guatemala/album/

Posted in: Central America by John Gamache /
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These particular ruins are Mayan and are known to have the best stone carvings.  Most of the other ruins around the area have embossed pictures while this one has deeply carved three dimensional figures on all sides of the monoliths.  The figures were carved with stone tools and then brightly painted many times. Apparently the area was abandoned for a few hundred years due in part to lack of resources and disease, the trees that took over have destroyed and also preserved the site.  Their roots have broken apart many of the buildings and helped to keep the elements off of others.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To say the trees are huge does not do them justice.  In the pictures they look large but in person they’re unbelievable.  Most of them have been dated to be three hundred years or more.  Interesting and useless fact is that the Ceiba tree only gets wrinkly after three hundred plus years, before that they are very smooth.  Excavations of the site were started in the late 1800’s and then left open to the elements for another hundred years or so.  As you would expect much of the details were lost due to weathering, but there are still some statues that have been left in place, reasonably untouched and still retain their intricacies.  Another interesting tidbit is that the main stairway to the largest temple building was found in a bad state so the original archaeologist put it back together.  However, the stones didn’t get put back into place in the right order and for a long time afterwards the hieroglyphs were misread and misunderstood. Of course the stones were put together real good with proper cement so now they can’t be moved.  There are signs indicating that fancy preservation techniques are being developed but as of now they are using the tarp technique (as seen in photos).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The site was used for three centuries or so.  During which time it was rebuilt many times on top of the old structures whenever a new king took the thrown.  From what I gather it was good to be royalty or closely related to them, otherwise life was hard.

 

Quick note about the sporting events, then I’ll leave the rest to Wikipedia.  The game was played with a 2 – 3 kilo solid rubber ball.  The players used knees and hips and shoulders.  Whichever team won, their owner was sacrificed.  His heart was taken out, drained of blood and then burned.  Somewhere during that time to now, the rules seemed to have changed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My overall take on the visit to the ruins was that they are awe inspiring and that there is a lot of Americas history that is not taught in schools of North America.  Their civilizations were not that far away from what is today USA.  One more interesting tidbit.  Some of the statues have fully bearded men portrayed on them.  However, the indigenous people that I have come across during my travels in the area don’t have much facial hair at all.

http://ungroundartwork.com/Copan-Ruinas-2011/album/

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2011 – September

The Swiss buddies (Dominik – Philipp) had an idea to go diving off an island of Honduras named Utila which sounded good. So, I jammed some junk in a bag and headed out.  Before leaving I was able to convince a local friend to come along for a new experience (Todd).  Getting into Honduras was easy, however getting to the island was damn expensive.  A three hour cab ride followed by another hour and a half ferry ride ended up costing $145 USD.  Luckily my standby flight got bumped around and Todd and I split the cost for transport.  Once on the island transport to the lodging was accomplished by a few unloved bicycles. Accommodation was arranged previous to our arrival by the always prepared Swiss buds 😉  We rented a beach castle fit for a party of 25 all to ourselves and a personal maintenance man to boot.  Maxin’n Realxin was easy and we were only 50 meters from a coral reef worthy of being named as a dive spot.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve lived in Florida just about my whole life but the heat in Utila is ridiculous.  The only thing that kept us alive was slightly cold beer called “Salva Vida” and the fact that we were on vacation and didn’t have tight schedules.  The main reason for going to Utila was that the scuba diving is good and cheap.  We arranged some fun dives and concentrated on keeping hydrated (Salva Vida).  The dive shops were slack about nearly everything, they didn’t check my dive card or proper name or ask for payment or maintain their dive gear. Their only preparation was to make sure the captain showed up and that there were sufficient cookies on board.  Beings as I’m a sucker for cookies all went well.

Eight dives later we realized why people come to this lil slice of paradise.  The dive spots are warm, clear and close.  The corals are colorful and plentiful.  We used the same dive shop for all the dives cause we are too lazy change.  Dominik had just bought a new fancy underwater camera and was able to get some great shots.  We did one dive that was called the “dropoff” which turned out to be really nice.  The transition between shallow warm coral filled water to deep dark blue abyss is something that needs to be seen in person.  Hopefully you will get an idea of how beautiful the places were by the pictures and videos that were taken.

http://www.youtube.com/user/dedch1

http://ungroundartwork.com/Utila-Honduras-2011/album/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple weeks went by and the people that had real life activities to attend to went back and did whatever it is that those people do and I found myself on another chicken bus in a strange place.  Shuttles are available to get tourists around but since I had some time and not much money I decided to wing it and go with the locals.  Seven hours and four buses later I ended up in a small village called Copan Ruinas.  I was headed towards Guatemala and this place was on the way so I thought I’d get some history while traversing the country.

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Well, the imminent cold weather convinced me that staying in China was not a good idea. One, two, go – then I was in Phuket – an island off the south of Thailand.  Having left my winter clothes in Bangkok I was only traveling with a couple shirts swim shorts, flip flops and a smile.

Once on the island I was greeted by Thai people speaking to me in Russian.  Strange enough – after a bit of walking around and talking with the locals I found out that 50% of the population there were Ruskies.  Again the culture difference was above and beyond what I was expecting.  Most of the signs were in Slavic or Hebrew and many of the Thai tour people spoke 4-5 languages and would yell out whatever language they thought you spoke as you walked by.  So, I was many different nationalities that week – funny looking white dude with sunglasses – could be anything.

Somehow I scored a reasonable hotel and hit the beach multiple times a day for swimming.  The ocean water was the clearest that I have seen anywhere.  One day I rented a motorbike and drove around the whole island.  Again needing to remind myself at each intersection which lane to turn into since they drive on the left.  Zoomin around the island allowed me to explore the high priced golf and country club housing subdivisions,latex gathering forests and other natural wonders.  The place is more like a tourist spot with Thai people as the employees than Thailand itself.  From what I have heard this area brings alot of money in for the country.  They even had hotel tax added to my $11 hotel room.

During my stay on Phuket I was able to do some diving.  The weather was not sunny however the dives turned out to be fun.  The water clarity was not as good as I had expected by looking at the beaches but it was still a top ten spot to dive.  Names of the places that I dove are -Shark Point – King Cruiser – Koh Dok Mai.  After a late night party in Thai Vegas watching a Detroit Dj “Roger Sanchez” I decided that it was time to move on.

Next up on the to do list was Koh Phi Phi.   It is a tiny place with beautiful scenery all around.  There was a mix between gated resorts and party animal backpackers.  The first night I was suckered into renting a bungalow for $20 then the next night I thought I’d stay in a hostel and save some money.  For $6 I was able to stay in an room with 17 beds and 20 raging party animals.  To say the least my beauty sleep was not fully completed.

One of the afternoons I did get to go on a snorkel tour around a few nearby islands.  Turned out to be another highlight that is burned into my memory plank.  The weather was clear and beautiful, the water as you can see doesn’t even seem real. Due to high temperatures in the previous year the hard corals had died but there were signs that they are coming back, which is good.  If anyone has seen the movie “The Beach” we went there also.

Well – that about wraps it up for this trip…… All that is left is the travel back

• 2 hour boat ride from Koh Phi Phi

• 15 hour bus ride to Bangkok

• 6 hour plane ride to Tokyo – First Class – (Thanks Tim Lynch)

• 13 hour plane ride to Atlanta – First Class – (Thanks Tim Lynch)

• 2.5 hour panic session at Atlanta airport due to severe weather

• 1 hour flight to Orlando

• 1.5 hour car ride to Ocala

Smooth Sailing……

Travel Tally

Total Time = 59 days

Total Cost = +/- $3,000

Lost Items = worn out hat – sunglasses – lung capacity (air pollution china)

Gained Items = tiger balm – stomach critters – fake north face jacket and backpack – two words in mandarin

Net worth of trip = PRICELESS

Posted in: Asia by John Gamache /
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Time for me to get out of Red China.  Thirty days has come and gone and now the weather is tempting me to the south.  If all goes well I’ll make it back to Thailand and continue on.  Below are some random pictures that I thought I’d share.

Posted in: Asia by John Gamache /
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Visa time for me was running low for China but I wanted to do one last activity, so I hit the rode north from Dali to get to Lijiang.  From there the plan was to continue on to Tiger Leaping Gorge.  This trip turned out to be the highlight of my journey (besides the first class plane ride).  Lijiang was way too touristy for me to handle,  after half of one evening I was getting overwhelmed by trinket stores and tourist crap.  One thing that they had which was different from other places was shaved mountain goats hanging from their noses in front of restaurants.  They put the animals up in the morning and in the evening they start cutting the meat off the skeleton starting from the head.  By the time they are done the entire skeleton is stripped clean and their is one big wad of meat mixed with everything else on a big plate under the carcass.  That allows the patrons to see the freshness –  mnnnnnn.

Next morning I was off on another tour with twenty five chinese people and me, the white kid in the back of the bus.  This time the tour guide didn’t speak any english.  A couple stops on the way to the gorge allowed us to get out and look at cloud covered scenery and imagine how nice it must be if it were to be clear.  During one of the stops a chinaman asked were I was from, we got talking and he was from Macau china which was a colony of Portugal.  We talked about how it was like traveling around in places without speaking the language.  Turns out that we had been to many of the same places and oddly enough he spoke Portuguese so traveling through south america was not a problem for him.  As we talked, another chinese guy came up and started chatting with us.  He was australian born and raised(chinese)  now working in Hong Kong.  Anthony was his name and he had asked if I was going to stay in the gorge since I was carrying my pack.  I told him that I wanted to change hostels but couldn’t explain to the owners that I wanted to leave my bag throughout the day- so I just carried it with me.  Anthony said he was thinking of doing an over-niter in the gorge and invited me to come along.  We both had about the same level of travel planning, which was none.  Neither one of us had camping gear or food or water or a map.  One thing that we did have that would make things possible was his chinese language skills. Another hour or two down the road then we realized that we were entering the wonderland itself. However the wonderland did not have a proper road built yet.  The tractors and dump-trucks were actually cutting the road into the mountain as we were passing them.  Rock slides had taken out parts of the previous goat path so a newer 1.5 lane road was being constructed. Crude and dangerous were the words the came to mind as we watched and waited to pass tractors.  The department of transportation in America would surely poop their pants if they saw what was going on.

We continued on down the road the scheduled tour ended up kicking our butts.  The itinerary was supposed to involve a late lunch and a walk down to the river.  Turned out to be a serious 3.5 hour hike down and back up a mountain slope. The walk down was about 2 hours and at the bottom a sign read “Fast way up” and another read “Safe Way” of course you know which path was taken.  The fast way turned out to be a rebar ladder that was fastened to vines and loose rocks. Before we proceeded the tour-guide advised us to put everything loose into our pockets and also the fact that 27 people had died this year in the gorge.

After the tour was done Anthony and I  throttled back our expectations of what we could accomplish that day.  We had the minibus driver leave us at the nearest guesthouse and had beers and went to sleep early instead of any more activity.  Next day we decided to hike a partial loop of the gorge.  The weather turned out to be perfect even though the predictions called for rain. Amazingly it was  just Anthony and I walking through a natural paradise.  The pictures cannot capture how grand the place is.  A wide angle lens would be needed to get the extents of the gorge.  At the top was snow covered mountains and at the bottom the Yangsi river which was warm and humid so you can imagine what the elevation difference was.  I would have to blame the low oxygen levels on how pathetic our hiking went and not the beers from the night before.  Once we made it to a level area it was clear and beautiful out with the sun shining and Buddha smiling.  The pictures don’t really show it but the wind was so strong in some places that you had to hold on to rocks so that you would not be blown off the trails.

I would recommend to anyone that is a nature lover and adventurist to hike the gorge for a few days. During the summer would be better, since the vegetation has mostly dead while we were there.

Posted in: Asia by John Gamache /
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Before leaving Yangshuo I went on a day trip to Longsheng so that I could witness the worlds most beautiful rice terraces. The word that sums the day up would be “Cloudy”.  I had expected it to be but for $12 I thought what the heck its a ride in the country. A few good pictures came of it, and it was interesting just the same. At the restaurant in the mountains they had Fried Bamboo Rat as a special.

The highlight of the trip was when the bus tourguide (chinese only) woke me up on the way back to Yangshuo and handed me $2 worth of yuan and asked if I could take the public bus the rest of the way ( 2 hours) in broken english of course.  Before I had time to contemplate the situation she motioned that this was my stop. There I went – dropped off in a random city in the dark hoping to take a public bus which is always hairy no matter where you are.  Somehow I made it and had something more to remember the trip by than a postcard. Before leaving Yangshuo I decided to get a traditional chinese massage.  There must have been years of anger and oppression built up in this little lady because she unleashed a world of pain upon my tender body.  The next couple days were used solely for recovery.

Next destination was Kunming to the west which was an easy 18 hour train ride after a couple hour bus ride.  The city itself reminded me of Boston.  It has some hilly streets and yuppie neighborhoods.  I walked around the city twice and went to a couple of discos during the night.  Having not caught my interest I decided to keep moving on.  Dali(Old Town) seemed like it would be a relaxed place to hang for a while so I packed my bags and headed out.  Conveniently enough the guidebook showed that the long distance bus station was only 2 blocks from hotel, which is why I stayed there in the first place.  Turns out that I got to use my blank face and hand waving some more before waiting in line for five of the same number local buses to fill up before I was able to get on and ride 8 km out of town to the real long distance bus station.

Finally made it to Dali and really liked the atmosphere.  There must have been some chinese hippy influence at some point just from the vibe around town.  The hotel I stayed at costs $8 for a private room with an electric blanket.  The cleaning ladies come in everyday and wipe everything down including all my stuff.  For some reason they bring new combs and toothbrushes(packaged) every day.  I’m not sure if they are trying to tell me something or if it is customary?  One thing that is apparently a custom is bringing a new roll of toilet paper to the room every day.  Each hotel that I have stayed in does the same thing,  how much TP can a person use in a day.  I’m still working on my squat toilet technique which may never be perfected.  It’s hard to read the newspaper and hold a cup of coffee when you have to brace against the wall at the same time.

The food in Dali is varied – from fried duck heads to pizza.  I have run the gamut on foods lately which end up costing around $3 for more than one person can eat.  For stabilities sake i’m sticking with rice and sandwiches for a while.   Drinking water comes from the mountain which is 1 km away and by the time it get here there is already a gut twisting gray haze to it.  Without looking too hard I found some public toilets in the area. (see picture below)

Next up was market day in Dali. Nothing brings out the locals better than market day.  There were hundreds of people selling anything and everything.  Seems like the old people don’t shop in stores, so they only come down from the mountains once or twice a week to get their goods.  It was a truly unique experience, since once again I was the only westerner in the crowd.  This turned out to be fine because there was so much going on that they didn’t even care.  This was the first market that I had been to that had booths/tables selling teeth.  They had a box labeled show repair kit which they used to attain exact fit for the customers 🙂 Some people had weird machines hooked up to their tractors that would grind grains and chili’s or whatever else you could put in them.  I got some great deals on socks and random nonessentials.

At last I found a French bakery that sells breads and cheeses with proper coffee so all is well. However I’m off again….

Posted in: Asia by John Gamache /
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Now officially I’m traveling by myself in a communist country without knowing more than one word of their language.  My first experience of this great land was at the train station where a security guard said “You go away”.  I expressed in my best dumb look face that I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. He didn’t know anymore English than what he had said to me. After some backtracking and interpretations I figured out that I had gone in the wrong door -which had an arrow pointing in – and proceeded to go in the exit door.

The ticket counter at the main train station entering the country did not have one english word on it.  Thankful for the guide book I knew what time the train should leave and how much it should cost.  I told the ticket lady where I wanted to go and a screen popped up with chinese characters and a string of numbers.  Opening up my wallet I held up some cash and expressed my blank face again.  Someone in the line that new this wasn’t going well pointed at the bills that I should hand over. (smooth sailing)

Thirteen hours later I arrived in Guilin.  During the train ride I was told to keep moving – so half an hour later I was on a raft/boat on my way down the Li River. It turned out to be a super nice trip (5 hours) during which time I got to speak some spanish.  Turns out I was cheap and took the Chinese tour and ended up on a boat with a guy from Antigua, Guatemala and a couple of Chinese ladies. The pictures will tell some of the story.

The boat ride ended in Yangshuo which is like China’s historic disneyland.  There are boatloads of chinese tourists (literally) and souvenir shops one after another. I needed a place to hang out for some days and do some work on the computer and there are enough english speaking people that I can get around – so I stayed for 15 days.

The most exhilarating and heart stopping moment was navigating a six lane four way round-about on a two person bicycle in the dark with an old chinaman at the helm.  Again, being cheap I didn’t take the tour-group, but decided to walk the 8-10 km to the 1700 stairs leading to the scenic spot and then walk back. Six bucks is too much!!!!! Previously I was able to catch a ride with a motorbike taxi for $1 but for some reason the evening in question did not provide such services.  After walking halfway back to town nearly exhausted, a chinaman in a suit pulls up on the said bike and said – “we go together”. Little did I know that I wasn’t ready for the trip. Anyway we made it and I saved enough money to buy tiger balm for my legs of fire the next day.

While in the area I managed to get to some almost awesome caves.  They would have been great if there where not hundreds of people and tour guides with speakers all over the place. It was so loud that it was literally deafening. Of course there is always a gift shop at the end of every tour to wind down and buy some plastic crap.

Big banyon tree was also on the list of activities.  It speaks for itself.  Said to be 1000 years old which I doubt but still it was a big one. Since my buddy is not here to blame the plant enthusiasm on i’ll take it this time. 🙂

Next up was Moon Hill which turned out to be absolutely wonderful.  Although it was cloudy and gray out and the pictures aren’t vivid, I still had a great time up on the top alone enjoying the scenery.

I had my 31st birthday here which consisted of getting 2.87 sheets to the wind and playing hacky sack with the locals.  The beer here is 3% – so they sell it in liter bottles and it takes alot of them to do much.  Guess that’s why they are only 50 cents.

Next stop Kunming ——>Dali

Posted in: Asia by John Gamache /
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