Amritsar and The Golden Temple

Even before I got to the Golden Temple, I liked Amritsar immediately. My bus pulled in at 9am, from a 5am start (why why why must they have these obnoxiously early start times?!) and right away you could tell it was a place that had that hustle and bustle. Lots of rickshaws driven by Sikh men with their flowing shirts and white beards, competing on the road with the cars and rickshaws. I’m a sucker for old towns, and Amritsar’s old town feels very old, borderline falling apart, with building that looked to be hundreds of years old. You could tell the Indian government certainly wasn’t pumping any money into this area.

rickshaws fighting for space in the narrow streets

You never know what you’re gonna see just walking around

The state of Punjab is where the majority of the Sikhs in the world live, 16 million of them, almost 60% of the population. There is also a sizable diaspora worldwide, with Canada’s population being almost 2% Sikh. You can easily tell the Sikh men by their turban, although many people confuse the look for being Muslim. Uncut hair is one of the pillars of Sikhism and the turbans are worn to show equality within the group.

The street right outside the temple

The religion itself was started in the 1400’s and was distinct from Hinduism and Islam, with a focus on equality of man, which was at major odds with the caste system in India. The Golden Temple was built in 1604 and then rebuilt in the 1800’s where it was inlaid with gold, and then more gold added in the 90’s. It’s the crown jewel of Sikhism and is the 3rd most visited holy site in the entire world. So it gets a lot of people! And it’s open to anyone who wishes to come.

the view at sunrise

As I mention before, it also operates the world’s largest free kitchen (called a Langar), serving 100,000 people a day. Volunteers run the kitchen, rolling the rotis, cutting vegetables, adding the spices to the huge vats of dhal. Everyone gets one metal serving tray and a bowl to keep dishes to a minimum. You sit in parallel lines and the different servers come by with rollable canisters of water, rice, dhal, and the rotis. You just signal to whoever is walking by and they’ll put the food on your plate. It’s not glamorous, but the system is definitely efficient. It’s a sight to see such a large communal eating experience all in one place. And the amount of volunteers is seriously impressive!

Of course now that I’m out of the mountains it’s back to being 113f in the middle of day, so I was happy to take a short walk and around and find a mango lassi, and then retreat back to room to relax for most of the day. It is kind of nice, they have water stations set up around town to make sure people are properly hydrated, they never wash the cups though! At one of the stores nearby I found what was basically a giant chunk of strawberry fruit roll up, which became my new favorite snack. In the late afternoon I finally meandered over to the temple. The sheer amount of people around, even though it’s hot as balls outside, is certainly noteworthy. I can only imagine how many people are there in the peak season.

You never know who you’re gonna meet walking around. This guy had albino rats who lived on his shoulders!

To get in you have to take off your shoes and wear a headscarf, which they have a huge bin of right outside the entrances. Best to wear sandals so you don’t have to worry about them, just chuck ‘em somewhere. They’ll check inside your bag, and then you’re good to go. Hopefully you don’t mind dirty feet! If you’re a germaphobe, India is not the country for you! Immediately you can see the temple through the arched entranceway, albeit over a bunch of heads all trying to get a look at the same thing, it does make an impression! Once you head down the stairs you can see the grandiosity of the whole complex, from the huge lake, the sheer amount of gold, the intricacies carved into the marble, and just that palpable religious energy. You’re expected to walk clockwise around the perimeter (the lake) where they have mats laid out because the marble gets really hot in the day! Every single spot in the shade is taken up by worshippers who are staying at the temple for who knows how long. It takes about 30 minutes to do the loop, and what a loop it is!

first look

tea delivery

It’s definitely worth it to visit the temple at least twice, once in the early morning around sunrise when they do the chanting of the prayers and once around sunset, where the color of temple’s golden color really seems to radiate just after the sun goes down. It’s just way too hot during the middle of the day though. You can visit the guru inside the middle of the actual temple, but the lines are just crazy long, at all hours of the day, so I decided to take a pass on that. And I did get one meal at the langar, which is certainly a unique experience. I also didn’t see another white person around, so I did get lots of attention, definitely more than I would have liked. It wasn’t just peace and contemplation, I had lots of people chatting me up, requesting selfies, trying to get me to show up at their English class, asking what I do for a living, warning me of the moral bankruptcy of gambling for a living, etc! But still, the Golden Temple is one of the coolest places in all of India! Here’s a few night shots to finish up…

not a bad way to spend an evening

The Popular Spots: Tosh and McLeod Ganj

After getting down from the Hampta pass and back to Manali I had one night to recover my concrete block legs and then it was off to the Parvati Valley, specifically the village of Tosh. The whole valley is known as the hash capital of India and the police simply look the other way, as it provides the livelihoods to many of the villagers. Traditionally Kasol is the most commercialized village that gets more Indians and Tosh is higher up in the mountains and gets more Europeans and Israelis, so many it’s nicknamed Little Israel. It is (or was) a hugely popular place for young Israeli’s to go after finishing up their military stints. I was a little skeptical because large groups of young Israeli’s have not been the most pleasant groups of people to be around, but at the same time I hadn’t talked to anyone who wasn’t Indian in well over a week and I wouldn’t meeting some more foreign tourists. Plus the setting of the village is gorgeous!

The old temple that you can’t touch

I like that it’s more like a town with actual inhabitants than a tourist strip

 I was able to take a bus most of the way there, then it was another bus to get to the village right below Tosh, and then a shared taxi from there to climb the potholed road, and then a nice sized walk to get to the accommodation. Easy! If you can’t tell I’m starting to get a bit worn out from all the mountain transportation at this point. This trip, which included at least 30 minutes mountainside gridlock, took over 6 hours to go 60 miles total! Sigh. I did meet some Indians on the bus to who wanted to hang out, although I couldn’t help but sounding like a snob when I didn’t want to stay in some crowded $4 dorms with them. I had a nice room with a western bathroom, good mattress, view and balcony in mind. We exchanged numbers to do dinner together. Spending $15-20 on a room seems crazy cheap in USD, but for these young Indian guys, that’s prohibitively expensive.

my view

Anyway the place I wanted was booked out, but I could stay next door for $10, also with a balcony and view! So fine by me. Finally some real time to relax! I did absolutely nothing that afternoon, and then did next nothing the whole next day, great stuff! Just sipping on mango lassies and watching the birds go by.  I had certainly not had enough R&R days on this trip. I couldn’t take too many days off because I had a deadline and I wanted to get in enough of Pakistan! Oh and somewhere around this time my visa did eventually get approved for Pakistan, nice. I did have to fork out an extra $100 for a Letter of Invitation, which I was told weren’t needed for most applicants. Annoying.

Curiously there were very few Israeli’s and yet again, almost all domestic tourists. And they all seemed to be doing this one hike called the Kheerganga trek and camping overnight. I also did it, but woke up early to pump it out in the morning and avoid the crowds. Compared to the other stuff I’d done it was woefully underwhelming, and at the end is dozens and dozens of stationary tents and campgrounds where all the Indian tourists spend the night, hundreds of tents. Ugh, not my thing at all. Everything popular in India has to involve tons of other people around. You don’t even have a nice view of the mountains from where the camps are located! Anyway I was glad I was doing it as a day hike. There’s also some hot springs, which is was the one redeeming factor of the hike, and I forgot by swim trunks, doh.

The next day I checked out of the guesthouse and stopped by a Sikh holy temple called Manikaran, which also had hot springs, and I did have my suit! The popular holy sites in India are pretty damn great, there’s nothing like them in the world. The Sikh sites in particular are cool  because they staff massive kitchens that feed everyone who comes, for free, no matter who you are. At the Golden Temple in Amritsar they feed 100,000 people a day during the busy seasons, crazy. So of course I grabbed a platter and took a spot on the floor where they served up rice, chapatis, dhal, and potatoes. It’s a cool experience! Even when I get frustrated with India, the unique experience of a place like Manikaran perks me back up again.

After Manikaran, lots more buses! A few hours to get down the mountains, a few hours to another city, a few more to Dharmshala, and then a 30 minute taxi ride up into the hills to Mcleod Ganj, and further up, a 9 hour day. Mcleod Ganj is the home of the Dalai Lama and is nicknamed Little Tibet, you can see monks strolling everywhere around the streets. Where I was staying (Bagsu Village) was further in the hills was a bit more calm, more of a western style hangout. Foreigners like to come here for yoga and meditation courses, energy healing, that kind of stuff. You get more of the longer term crowd who get an apartment for a month or a few months.

You can also find western breakfasts! Where I was traveling you might be able to find western lunch/dinner options, stuff like burgers, chicken sandwiches, pasta, pizza etc, but the Indian + Tibetan dinner cuisine is diverse enough that I usually didn’t eat much western food. But what does not seem to exist up north is anything other than bread omelets (usually greasy and overcooked eggs on two pieces of toast) and parantha (a type of fried flatbread, usually with onions or potatoes inside) for breakfast. I had literally started my day with those two dishes for weeks straight! So I was more than thankful to be able to eat something like a fruit salad with yogurt and granola, or avocado toast with poached eggs, or French toast with berries. With a decent cappuccino. Yessss.

boring!

So it was nice to hang out here a couple of days and chill, drinking good coffee, reading my book, editing some photos, getting some massages. You could even smoke hookah. Of course there is one popular trek that I felt compelled to do, the triund, 3 hours up, 2 down, with some great views of the mountains in the background. Although compared to some of the scenery I’d already seen, this trek was a bit underwhelming (I’m spoiled, I know). Also very crowded. Everything in Northern India this time of year is just so crowded! But nothing compared to the crowds at the Golden Temple!

The Hampta Pass Trek

I awoke with my alarm bright and early at 4:45am, first light. I had already packed up all my stuff, I wasn’t exactly eager to remain in the cheapest lodgings of the trip so far, a stand-alone building/garage with some cheap beds in it, $4 for the night. I rolled up the squeaky garage door to the dismay of the one other person sleeping there, and I was on my way, snack in hand. I crossed the bridge over the river, passed some tents, and easily found the start (or end) of the trail.

The usual way that 98% of people do this hike is starting from Manali and finishing where I’m starting, using a tour company, staying in their tents, fully cooked dinners and breakfasts, donkeys to lug up all the stuff, etc. The whole production. It’s the same standard package at every single fricking tour company, the 4 days/3 night tour. Sooo slow! Independent trekking still isn't a big thing yet here in India. One the previous week I had emailed a bunch of the big companies wondering if I could just get a guide, and ONLY a guide to do the trek in reverse, where I carry all my own stuff and do my own meals, and we finish the whole thing in 2d/1n. Absolute crickets on this request! Not a single response! Ahh screw it, I’ll do it by myself. I’ve got my offline map, it’s a well trodden route, what could go wrong?!

The previous night I’d already seen from the road that there might be a tricky part right at the beginning, a large section of snow/ice going all the way down to the river, but it appeared to have a path cut through it. It looked very steep from the road, but once I got up to it the angle wasn’t so bad. But what worried me was how deeply frozen it was. I started to cross, but if you got further out and happened to slip, you’d slide all the way down into the freezing, rushing river. Nope Nope, too risky. It would probably be fine in the afternoon once the snow thawed and you could cut out steps, but not all slicked up at 5am, no sir-e-bob.  

So it’s either go back or go around. Around it is, arghh! Already lots more work than I hoped. I scrambled 45 minutes uphill until I could finally get around the sheet of snow/ice. Hard work! By this time I was already so far up above the trail that I wondered if I could just meet up with trail a bit later. As I kept going it looked like I probably could, the only problem being that I was on the wrong side of the river and I’d have to find a good way to cross, which might be difficult. Eventually the river flattened out a bit and I’d have my chance. I tested out a few spots, didn’t really love any of them, but eventually settled on a route that took me on a long diagonal.

the trail going up, finally the sun coming out

The important thing on these crossings, besides not crossing anywhere too deep, is to have enough rocks above the surface to be able to rest a hand on for stability. It’s very easy to have your foot slip from the slick rocks of the riverbed, especially when you’re not wearing shoes - and you really really do not want to fall all the way in. I took off my shoes and socks, strapped them to my bag, got out of my hiking pants and started across. The water was absolutely freezing and flowing at a good clip. It didn’t take long before my feet were going numb, but I had to keep moving. My feet were getting so cold that I thought about stopping, climbing on a rock and attempting to warm them up, but nahh, just gotta keep going. Towards the end my feet might as well have been bricks, it was hard to place them as I literally could not feel them at all. Finally I scampered to the other side, quickly dried them off on a sunny rock and tried to smack some life into them. Come on!

I think this was the coldest my feet had ever been! I was actually somewhat paranoid that I possibly did some long-term damage to my toes. They weren’t coming back yet! Even after I started hiking again the toes on my left foot stayed tingly and not completely revived. It would be hours before they felt normal again. But hey, the good news was that I was back on the real trail! From here it was just a steady ascent further into the alpine valley, with one more annoying river crossing, and then the steep uphill climb of the pass. Soon snow started almost all of the ground, it was lovely. There was also one small lake which made for a nice photo with blanketed white peaks looming not far away.

I made my way up the weak point where I thought the trail would be, but I guess I lost it in the snow. It took me a bit of scrambling to find it and then it was straight up up up to get over the pass! Fortunately most of the trail was not snow covered, so it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Not long later I was looking down over a completely white valley, the mountain peaks looking very close! This was it, Hampta Pass! No prayer flags to mark it, just some absolutely outstanding views. (pictured at the top)

Then it was down some rocks and to the bottom of the valley, I’d have lots of snow to cross now. But it wasn’t steep or dangerous and it was soft enough where you could cut out your steps to make sure you didn’t slip. There were also parts with no rocks where you could sit on your butt and slide downhill for 40 or 50 feet, called glissading, and that was obviously the fun part! It took about  two hours before I would get completely out of the snow, but it was mostly enjoyable.

Once the snow ended it was all standard downhill trail hiking, nice! Around 2 pm I passed the camp that all the tours sleep at before heading over the pass in the opposite direction. They were a bit surprised to see me. I said some hellos and chatted for a few minutes before heading on my way. I was in a good hiking mood and was happy to descend rapidly. From the camp I picked up two guide dogs to lead me along the way. Well one was always running ahead and waiting while the other one was happy to stay right behind my heels. It was nice to have some company.

My guide doggo

I was moving fast enough downhill that I thought I might be able to finish the whole trek in just one long day, the full 20 miles. This became my new goal. And then maybe I wouldn’t have to camp overnight – I uhh didn’t actually have a tent, but I did have a tarp and some twine, although I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use it or not! So down and down it was, passing plenty of groups slogging their way up. Judging by the facial expressions and body language, most Indians did not appear to be enjoying their hike whatsoever!

Hours passed, I had now made two more river crossings, passed another big tour group campsite, made my way through a bunch of sheep, saw some waterfalls, and I was getting pretty close to the end of the trek. My knees were hurting pretty good at this point though. I talked to a local and he said there wouldn’t be any cars to take me down if I made it to the road, and it was another few miles until the next village down the road. So while I could have made it to the road, doing an extra 3 miles past the road sounded absolutely miserable, so I decided to make camp about a mile before the road, where I still in nature and had a nice view of the valley. So technically I didn’t do the whole trek in one day, I only did 95% of it, blah blah blah.

Now all I had to do was find a flat spot with two trees about 8 to 12 feet apart where I could tie my twine across and make a little A-frame tarp/tent. Of course I could not for the life of me find two trees across from each other on a flat piece of ground, so I would have to improvise. I’m not sure the Boyscouts would be proud! But my shelter seemed to hold up, very fortunately it didn’t rain, and due the exhaustion I slept pretty damn well considering that I was not close to being comfortable!

Not pretty, but it got the job done. Thank god for no rain!

I woke up with sun in the morning, packed up and made it out to the road. It was still to early for people to be getting dropped off up there, so I decided I’d just walk down back to Manali. And fortunately there were dirt trails in between the switchbacks so you didn’t have to follow the meandering road the whole time. A few hours later I had reached the very bottom of the valley and finally flagged down a taxi to get me the couple miles to the city center where my hotel was. A very successful day and a half of hiking! I can’t say I’d recommend it my way, but I was certainly pleased with myself!

After so much high altitude desert, it was great having trees again!

Manali down below

Spiti Valley

Ok, so I was in Spiti, at last! Kaza is the largest city in the valley, it’s not particularly that exciting, but it does make a good jumping off point. On the bus a younger (Spitian?) guy I was chatting with had told me about a festival a few hours away, and that a head Lama was attending, and he said I should definitely come, ok sure! The next morning I was on the 7:30 am bus to Tabo, two hours away. And the roads were mostly smooth! Like riding on a cloud compared to yesterday. Although still lots of narrow spots and blind curves to navigate. These drivers are pros though. In Tabo I found a ‘homestay’ and had a quick rest. I put homestay in quotes because with more development to the region, a lot of newer hotels call themselves homestays, but it’s not a homestay whatsoever, it’s just a normal smaller hotel, hmmphf. It should be noted that it’s difficult to do day trips in Spiti with only one bus running to each location per day, so it’s better to stay a night somewhere and then catch the bus the next morning. But once a day buses sound pretty great compared to Leh’s once a week buses!

kids in their costumes

The festival was held at the school, and I followed the crowd of people also headed in the same direction. They were offering free tea and snacks to everyone coming in, so I took some tea. At the courtyard all of the spots in the shade were taken, so I took a spot in the sun. Being the only foreigner, I was getting a lot of looks! Then one of the guys who was running things came over and welcomed me to the festival and asked if I wanted to come up to the balcony area, I wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t really asking, he was insisting, so I was dragged upstairs and given a front row seat a few spots down from the Lama dude. The benefits of being the only white guy! I was sat next to a guy from Delhi doing development projects in the village. As things were starting some women came around with the white Tibetan scarves and lowered them around our necks as a welcome invitation. It felt a little awkward, but thanks!

The setting of the school

The festival itself was more of a school assembly I suppose, some talks from teachers and administrators (some even in English!) and lots of song and dance performances from the students. They did have some older women doing traditional dance routines as well. All in all it was pretty entertaining, lots of cute kids. It lasted a bit longer than I would have liked, but we were continually being plied with tea, juice, cookies, nuts, so I certainly couldn’t complain. At the end the Lama stood up and gave a speech, I had no idea what he said, but the crowd listened enthusiastically! Then it was game time for the students and I made my exit.

There wasn’t exactly a whole lot to do in Tabo after that, but with no buses until the next morning I’d have to keep myself busy wandering around, which I’m used to. The next morning I was back on the HRTC bus to a place called Dhankar. Well not really, just the side of the highway where a road leads up to Dhankar. I could have probably hitched a ride up the five miles, but I packed light specifically for this purpose, so I took the walking trail up, which was nice, passing some little houses and farmland with the monastery a small dot in the background.

the walk up to Dhankar

I booked a hotel in town, right by the famous monastery, perched on the steep hills overlooking everything. It cost $17. After dropping off my stuff I was off to the lake, about an hour walk above the village. In Ladakh I had felt kinda sluggish and low energy, but now that I had some miles underfoot an being at a lower elevation (still a pretty high elevation!) I was feeling good, springy, I could basically run up this trail.  The lake really wasn’t anything special, but you also got superb views over the whole valley, so it was worth it.

Back in town when the sun started get low it was time to bust out the big ole camera, it was a particularly scenic town, with the sun disappearing behind the mountains directly behind the monastery, making for some splendid photos. This is the stuff you miss out on if you’re just quick day-trips, the really nice light. Back at the hotel, the guys who ran the place were from Delhi, so even though I prefer to stay at locally run places, the upside was that they could make good Indian curries – and I didn’t have to eat Tibetan food yet again! I love the Tibetan areas, but man the food could use a bit a variety - and some spice.

The next morning it was back to hiking down to the road to catch the bus. You really get to be an expert in the HRTC bus schedule in Spiti Valley! As I was waiting by the road a young guy came out the house nearby and said his brother was coming and would give me a ride to Kaza, so sure, great! A few minutes later he pulled up in a little beater and I was with him on the way to Kaza. I tried to pay, but nope.

In Kaza I met some Indian med students near the taxi office, and we agreed to do a shared taxi tour up to the villages higher up and finish with the famous Key Monastery. Nice. We stopped off at some good viewpoints, checked out an apparently famous bridge and then explored the Key monastery. I didn’t go back with them though, I wanted to stick around to get a nice sunset photo overlooking the monastery, which was totally worth it! Risky though, because I had to hitchhike back to Kaza and it was getting dark! Fortunately some middle aged guys road-tripping from Delhi had some room in their SUV and gave me a lift. Whew.

The next morning (surprise surprise) it was back on the HRTC bus! This was the one back to Manali but I was only going a few hours to the top of the Kunzum La Pass, where there is a hiking trail to one of the most well known lake in the region, Chandra Tal. The hiking route was much preferable to the bumpy 4x4 road you’d have to take to get there. After a few hours of hiking I arrived and ran into the med students again, who had taken a 4x4 taxi to get there. Originally I had planned on camping at the lake, but it turns out the tent camps are almost 2 miles from the lake, wtf, so I shared their taxi back the little village/encampments on the highway. We said our goodbyes as they were able to hitch a ride to Manali.

I was hoping to get a ride to a village called Chhatru, only 32km (20 mi) away, where I could then  hike back to Manali on the Hampta Pass Trek. I’d had just about enough of these roads! But it was a bit awkward for me, not speaking Hindi, to approach groups who stopped and ask if they had room for a ride. It was getting to be late afternoon and cars were getting fewer and further between, and usually full anyways. I was mostly resigned to the fact that I’d have to sleep in the crappy roadside village and wait for the bus the next day - not the end of the world, but certainly not ideal! After a few more No’s I was talking to someone having tea, and he was a driver, he said his car might have room and he’d ask the family. And they said ok!

So I hopped in the SUV, it was man his wife and their teenage son, taking a vacation from Mumbai.  They were super friendly, spoke perfect English (all the educated people from the big cities do) and were interested to hear how I like traveling in India. It was also a good thing they had me, because at one point we got stuck in the sand going uphill and everyone had to get out and push as the driver slowly gave it some gas. It took many tries, placing different rocks under the tires, but we eventually got it and 3 hours later (to go 20 miles!!) I was dropped off as dusk settled in, at the Chhatru roadside encampments. Excellent! The Dad also gave me his number to stop by if I’m ever in Mumbai :) I found a (dingy) place to sleep, had some rice and beans, and got to sleep nice and early.

Now I’d be able to start my trek first thing in the morning back towards Manali, wheee!

Misadventures in Road Travel

North India is not exactly known for it’s ease of travel! The roads in the Nubra Valley were just a glimpse as to what else I’d have in store for me up in this part of the world. With the infrequent public buses, expensive taxis and poor information, it’s a real treat. In Leh particularly I swear the bus stand people made it as confusing as possible for tourists to use local buses so you’d have to deal with the taxi cartels! Anyway it was about time to for me to be moving on from Ladakh to Himachal Pradesh (the next state to the south) via the vaunted Leh-Manali highway. And the word ‘highway’ is used very loosely here! It’s 266 miles through the mountains with often poor road conditions. It used to be a mandatory two day trip, but with the completion of the Atal Tunnel near Manali you can do it one full day now, only 14 hours! A government bus does the route once per day.

The afternoon before I wanted to leave I stopped at the bus station and the guy in the office told me it leaves at 3am, so I should show up at 2:30, UGHGH. Fine. That evening I attempted to get to bed early and of course I was treated to some of the loudest sobbing, yelling, hysterical screaming I have ever heard. I was 100% sure that someone must have just died, so I did feel pretty bad. The man in the room left, then woman was leaving shrieking voicemails, some women in the guesthouse came down to offer help - turns out it was an Israeli girl and it was just a breakup, whew! But omg wow, such drama! She turned down the offers to help look for him and went back to crying. Not much sleep for me.

I was off just after 2am to walk the 25 minutes downhill to the bus station. The street dogs were just going nuts at me. They mostly talk (bark) a big game, but never get too close to bite. Still kinda scary though. I made it to the bus station and it was eerily quiet. Uh oh - Literally nobody there, no lights on, just a few dogs barking their heads off at me. It didn’t take a genius to know that there was no bus going. Damn that bus station attendant! I waited until 3am just in case, but yea, it was hopeless. And then I had the 30 min walk straight uphill to get back to the guesthouse with all my stuff. Come on. And now round Two of possibly be turned into dogmeat, yay. But you see, this one of the things I like about traveling, always staying active! Not.

I had read you can also try and get a shared taxi in the morning, so I got a few hours of sleep, and it was back down to town and into a taxi to the shared-taxi (jeep) stand. I found one, but I would have to wait for it to fill up. After 1.5 hours (9:30am) it was totally packed and we were ready to go. Fortunately I had a window seat, but man it was just not a comfortable seat, at all. Bring the pain! The first few hours were nice and flat until we got up into the mountains. Then it was a mix of decent road and unpaved track. There were certain parts where our driver would turn off the road and take these extra steep and bumpy dirt trails to cut some time off of the switchbacks and pass trucks. That was kinda fun.

Getting high up in altitude

These buses are everywhere, pretty cool decorations

Everything was going smooth enough, until it wasn’t. We turn the bend and LOG JAM. We sat in the jeep for maybe 30 minutes not moving and then people started getting out to investigate what was going on. As always it was a narrow part where only one car could pass at a time, but now the cars were so piled up in each direction that nobody could go anywhere. The only remedy for this was a coordinated effort to get all the people in one direction to back up and keep backing up until all the cars going the opposite way could pass. We’re talking 50 or 60 trucks and cars that all would have to back up in unison. It took forever, but they got it done, and maybe 2 hours later we were back moving again!

There ain’t enough room for both of us pal

Our dinner stop

It was smoother for the rest of the afternoon; we stopped at a scenic spot with roadside stalls for dinner, as the sun sank behind the hills. It’d been over 9 hours and we still had a long way to go. After dark the roads turned into complete shit again and it was a miserable couple of hours. We also got a flat tire, so that was another half hour sitting on the side of the road. It’s never just a super straightforward trip! But at least they built that tunnel getting into Manali. We finally pulled into the bus station at 1:45 am, so about 16 hours. Nice. I had booked a hotel three minutes away and went to pass out.

Temple in Manali

I had a full rest day in Manali, my one short excursion was visiting some temple in the forest (greenery yesss!) and I also inquired about the bus up to the Spiti Valley. It left at 6am, but I couldn’t buy my ticket now, I’d have to buy it on the bus the next morning. Hmmm. So fast forward to 5:30 the next morning, I find the bus and all the seats are full. Internal groaaaaan. Well I’m already up, packed, wide awake, I guess I’m standing. The high pass that this bus goes over to get into Spiti Valley had only just been cleared of snow recently, which is why the bus was so crowded I guess. When the bus started to move, all the standers outside the bus hopped on and crammed in the aisles. This would be fun.

We went back north through the tunnel and then east towards our destination: Kaza. Eventually the paved road just abruptly disappeared and you’re left with a bunch of rocks and gravel. At one point everyone had to get out to make it easier for the bus to get over a stretch of boulders. We continued on and on this bumpy 4x4 track for hours and hours and hours, it never improved, not even for small stretches. We had to be averaging less than 10mph. The bus driver’s navigational work getting past every obstacle was quite impressive though. And like usual, there were lots of parts where the bus has to pull over or go in reverse to let other cars get by. Often the driver would be shouting instructions to the self driving noobs in SUVs who weren’t confident on these types of roads.

Getting rocks in the proper location

Everybody out!

The route was just recently cleared of snow, can you tell?

It’s kind of trippy seeing the next village on the map being 20 miles away, and it’s well over two hours to get there! Oof. It was entertaining watching some people being able to sleep on the way, I mean if you could sleep on this bus, you could literally sleep through anything. As for me, I’d been still standing for six hours or so, kind of numb to the discomfort at this point. Sometimes in India you just have to switch on the Zen mode.

We finally climbed over the Kunzum La Pass and it got better from there. We stopped at the first village marking the beginning of the Spiti Valley, I gave my passport details to an officer, and amazingly some people got off the bus!! After eight (EIGHT!) hours of standing I was able to sit down, thank god! And two hours later on good roads we were in the largest town in the valley, Kaza. This would be my base for exploring the area.

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Outskirts of Kaza

I must say, I’ve seen plenty of long bus rides and horrible roads before, and normally I’m pretty resilient, but these couple of days were really pushing my limits! As for the worst roads, this part of India might just take the cake. Either that or Western China. Honorable mention to Tajikistan. Real distinguished company…

Will the worst of my India bus travels be over now?! We’ll see!

Nubra Valley and Pangong Lake

This is the signature trip when you’re in Leh, which takes you over the world’s highest motorable road. Exciting stuff!  Once I returned from the Markha Valley trek this was next on the list. My hiking partner was off to a high altitude medicine conference, so she was out, back on the hunt for travel buddies. Leh is a bit odd in that it doesn’t really do group trips. You have to find a group and then split a shared taxi and a driver. The travel agencies can help find you seats if you only have one or two people, but with so few foreigners around the most likely thing to happen is I would get put as +1 to an Indian group or family.  Ehhh. Anyway, I put my name and number down at two agencies to see what would happen.  That night I got a call they had a spot for me. Lucky! It was two Koreans, a German – Indian couple, and me. We were off the next morning at 9am.

I met everyone at the agency, and then we were into the jeep going straight up and up and up. We climbed well over a mile in elevation on a surprisingly nice stretch of road, as the snow kept accumulating on the tan colored mountains. After a couple hours we were at the top, Khardung La Pass! There were a couple of cafes – all saying the highest café in the world, as well as the world’s highest medical tent and government office! You get the idea. We hiked up a bit to the lookout point and I had to bend over to recompose myself after about 3 minutes of steps, oof. You’re only supposed to stay at the pass for up to 15 minutes for safety reasons, and it’s cold enough where you don’t really want to stay for longer than that anyway!

the drive up with Leh down in the valley

Khardung La Pass

the other side

The other side of the pass looked much different, everything was completely blanketed in snow and the roads deteriorated quickly. I did not enjoy sitting in the back seat for this part. A couple hours later we were down in another valley, this one called the Nubra Valley. There were a few small villages, but like most of Ladakh, it was mostly rocky, dry, and barren. We stopped at a huge Buddha statue and monastery overlooking the valley and had lunch at roadside restaurant. The Koreans actually weren’t traveling together, they coincidentally met in Leh and were both from Busan. The German girl was visiting her Indian boyfriend for a month. They had just taken the ‘highway’ from Manali in a shared taxi, which included their driver drinking whisky, some sort of belt in the taxi going bad making them lose electricity in the car and having to drive many hours at night with no lights, for a grand total of 18 hours. I’d be taking that route the opposite way next, yikes!

Sandstorm - Darude

The greenest part of the valley

Besides the mountains, the Nubra Valley is known for its sand dunes and Bactrian camels. The one thing everyone does in the valley is go for a camel ride. Well at this point in my travel career I’ve been on enough camels by now to know that I don’t really need to sit on another one. They have to be one of the most uncomfortable animals to ride, clunking along, jerking you up and down every step. No thanks. I was happy enough to play photographer.

After getting through a sand storm and another hour of driving we arrived at the sand dunes, where the camel/tourist zoo was located. The rides only lasted about 15 minutes and the camels were certainly kept busy with an unending supply of Indian tourists. For being in such a remote part of the world, it certainly didn’t feel like it! In our group just two opted for the camel ride, while the rest of us walked around with our cameras. I was not the only photographer in the group! And it was an excellent location for photography with the dunes and the mountains in the distance. I just wished we could have arrived just a bit later for better lighting!

Camels waiting for their riders

3/4 of our group

chilling on the dunes

Our driver took us to a guesthouse he thought would have room, Rishav did some negotiating in Hindi and we were all set. The valley isn’t exactly cheap, it was 2,000 rupees per room, pretty expensive by Indian standards, but in dollars it was $24, fine by me. We took a rest and then walked around a bit, the sheer number of guesthouses, many of which had been built in the last 5 years, was pretty wild. We got back for a typical dinner buffet of rice, chapatis, dhal (lentils), and curried vegetables. You don’t get much variety out in the mountains. We all retired pretty early, the combination of the altitude and the amount of time on the road that just seems to sap all your energy.

The next day was a solid 5 or 6 hours of mostly dirt track to get to our next spot, Pangong Lake.  Despite the driving conditions there was a steady caravan of tourist jeeps, sometimes piling up a bit when the roads got narrow and only one car could pass. At one point a rockslide had washed away some of the road and we had to sit and wait while the Bihari road crews cleared it away. Bihar is the poorest state in India and I guess they get employed en mass to do roadwork in Ladakh, not with machines though, all by manual labor, while living up on the roadsides in small little camps. Pretty bleak, but I guess it’s better than having no work.

rockslide delay

the roads

Our first glimpse of the bright blue alpine lake was a wonderful contrast to the dullish grey-brown terrain we’d been driving through. We even got a few minutes of sunshine breaking through the clouds. We eventually stopped a very famous section of the lake, one where they had filmed a scene from a famous Bollywood movie, 3 Idiots. You can pay to take photos with props from the movie, it’s a must stop for almost every Indian who goes to the lake. Although by the time we had stopped the clouds had completely closed in and the winds picked up, so it was absolutely freezing. The photos looked nice in a dark, ominous type of way.

first glimpse. Sadly you only get that nice blue when the sun is out

Not so nice weather. Not pictured: The wind

We drove further along to lake to get away from the most touristy villages and found our way the smaller town of Merak. After stopping by a few guesthouses we found one with 2 rooms and I got to sleep on the cot in the common area, ha. It was fine, I’m not really that picky. After a nice tea break we had a chance to walk down to the lake, beautiful, but also still numbingly cold. Dinner was basically the same as the night before, as expected! Later on the Koreans wanted to make some fire ramen (Buldak) and Soju (Korean rice wine) as customary back home, so we all joined in the festivities. A nice way to spend the final evening.

scenery outside Merak village

Then it was back in the jeep the next morning, one more stop at the lake, and over a different pass. This one was in much worse shape than the first one, and it was mostly a snowy whiteout, making for a long day on the road. I would be getting very used to horrible road conditions on this trip! Once we were back in Leh we ate dinner together and the next day we parted ways, some people back to Manali and some going further into Ladakh. And I was happy to take a rest day! So all in all it was good trip, and the scenery was spectacular. Although the ratio of time spent driving was certainly a bit higher than I would have liked! And of course I do have to lament on how friggen touristy this part of Ladakh is. I’m hard to please :p

One last stop at the lake

Taking a photo of someone taking a photo of someone taking a photo

just the beginning of the ascent, ugh

The top. Very popular route with motorcyclists. I’m glad I’m not one of them!

Next up: The Leh – Manali highway and onto the Spiti Valley. As if I hadn’t had enough desert mountains, monasteries, and rough roads!

Leh and the Markha Valley Trek

It’s wayyyy to hot in Delhi! I gotta get out. So it’s certainly convenient that you can hop on a flight and be all the way up in the mountains of Ladakh in 1 hour and 15 minutes! Soon enough I was on a tuk tuk to the airport - of course when we get there the driver tells me he isn’t allowed to go any further and I have to walk with all my stuff to the terminal, which I can’t see, but I’m assured it’s just 300m down the road! I had a few choice words for this new development, but what can you do? Ahhh India. It really wasn’t hard to find and a few hours later I was stepping off the plane outside Leh, swapping the sweltering heat for beautiful 60 degree and sunny weather. Although I really should have paid a little more and booked a window seat though, oops

I shared a taxi into town with the only other foreigners on the plane, a German couple, got dropped off and headed up the hills a bit - really feeling every step in my lungs! I had gone straight from sea level to almost 12,000 feet, which is not ideal obviously, but I took some Diamox to help prevent altitude sickness beforehand, just in case. I’ve never really had many problems with high altitude, so I wasn’t too worried. But I would certainly need a few days to take it easy and acclimatize. First order of business upon clamoring to my guesthouse: a nice long nap!

The guesthouse was nice, especially the rooftop terrace with a view, although it appeared to all Indian couples or families. Later that afternoon I headed down to the main tourist strip to see what’s what. I was pretty surprised at how bustling it was! It looked like Covid had certainly dampened the international tourist crowd, as there were none that I could spot, but domestic tourism appeared to be alive and well! I guess I didn’t realize how popular Ladakh had become with Indian tourists, it seemed like the place to be. Everywhere you look there are new guesthouses being built wherever there’s any open space. It used to be that you had to take the brutal Manali-Leh Highway to get to Leh, but nowadays you can just hop on a flight, so I guess that helped it’s popularity considerably, along with being featured in a famous Bollywood movie. And while it’s nice that Indians are out exploring more of their country, mass tourism isn’t exactly my scene. So I was looking to get out of town and do some trekking in some more remote parts outside of Leh, preferably one you an do independently - the Markha Valley.

the main tourist street of Leh. Feels more like Nepal than India!

strolling the side streets

Well, it’s time to see if I can find any like-minded people who might also want to do this trek. I stopped into some hostels to see if they organized any treks or had a message board for travelers looking to recruit some other people for excursions (quite common in western hostels), but nope, nothing of that sort. Then I stopped in the travel agencies, and they all said they had received almost no interest in the Markha Valley trek, as I guess Indians don’t really do trekking, heh. Plan C was sit around the main strip and chat up the very few foreigners I saw walking around, seeing what their plans were for Ladakh, but alas, no trekkers. Welp, I guess I’m on my own.

After two days of rest and acclimatizing and visiting some monasteries, I took an expensive taxi up to the mountain village where the trail starts. The nice thing about the Markha Valley trek is that there’s a few tiny villages along way, which have some homestays where a family gives you a very basic bed (well, mattress pad), cooks you dinner and breakfast, and give you a few snacks for lunch, in exchange for about 1200 rupees – about $15. Although my taxi driver thought they might be shut down because it was so early in the season and there were so few tourists trekking. Uh oh. But why would a homestay shut down, it’s just a spare room in the house right? Well we’ll see.

very simple lodgings, but a sweet view

I really do enjoy this type of trekking though, they call it teahouse trekking in Nepal, and it’s very convenient because you don’t have to carry a tent and all your camping gear. All that stuff is huge PITA to carry along on a longer term trip. Also it adds a nice cultural component to the hike, but you still get plenty of peace and solitude once you’re back on the trail itself. As for the start of my hike, once the taxi dropped me off it certainly seemed like I would get PLENTY of peace and solitude! There were two villages right at the beginning where I saw some people, but after that, it was just me and the trail. I had 15 miles total to Markha village. My taxi driver had made me a little nervous, these guesthouses better be open or it would be cold miserable night somewhere! And then I’d have to hike out the way I came and hitchhike back to town, ugh.

Prayer wheel marks the start

The scenery itself was very pretty, in a rough, raw type of way. Very few things seemed to be alive except for some patches of vegetation along the river bank. Apart from that it was all sand and rocks, flanked by dry brown mountains. After hiking a few hours I spotted what appeared to be someone with a big backpack ahead, another trekker perhaps? And it turned out it was! It was a German girl, about my age, also doing the trek solo, looking to get to Markha Village for the night. The Gods are good! She’s a doctor in between jobs, here in Lakakh for a high altitude medicine conference, well traveled, and very interested in Tibetan culture, and we got along well! She did have a boyfriend though, I’m not THAT lucky.

looking after the sheep

We arrived in Markha and stopped at the first place we saw that said homestay. The man, who spoke some English, welcomed us to our little room, which had a nice view of the mountains. His wife brought us some milk tea and cookies while we took some time to relax on our mattress pads. Very nice! We also had some time to walk into town and check out the small monastery up on the hill. The views of the valley were great, there wasn’t much in the way of civilization even though this was the largest town in the valley! Fifteen or so houses, a bit of farmland, a handful of people in the fields, some kids sliding down loose scree in the distance, plus some sheep, donkeys, and dogs roaming around. Extremely tranquil. We got back for a dinner of popcorn, curry vegetables, lentils, rice, and some dense Tibetan bread rolls. It was a nice way to start the trip!

The town of Markha

the small monastery

they’re called blue sheep or bharal

The second day would be an easy day. We slept in and had chapati and tea for breakfast, with a few different types of jam to choose from, peanut butter AND nutella. We didn’t realize how good we had it so early on! That morning our hike to the village of Hankar was pretty flat, ever so slightly uphill, with the valley walls steepening and closing in on us a bit. At one point there was a homestay perched way up in the rocks, closed sadly, but it looked like one of those places in the movies where you go and train with the monks and start acquiring special mental abilities. Someone alert the instagrammers when it opens again!

If you squint you can see the little house up there

We arrived mid afternoon to Hankar, which was less than 10 homes, and didn’t see any homestay signs, but we did see a woman outside to who beckoned us to come in. We were shown our room and brought some tea, and then headed out to see what was around. Hankar had an old fort that was built way up on a steep rocky pinnacle, with a precarious trail to get up there. We made it to the main fort section, but the highest tower was via some very very exposed rock steps, the fall to your death kind, and we took a pass on that part. But it was quite the excitement for such a quiet sleepy place.

Now this is a tea room

The fort sits on that sharp rocky point

ruins of the fort

Sheep looking over the valley

wider view

Back in the homestay was a little weird, the woman and husband were very solemn, and didn’t really acknowledge us and left us waiting well into the night for dinner. Finally they invited us to the common room, which was looked great, where we ate a dinner of some Tibetan flour dumplings and some potatoes, along with the parents (presumably) of the man or wife. They looked to be in their 90’s (they probably weren’t) but these old mountain people have such leathery weathered faces. Everyone sat and ate in silence, and we speculated this family may have fallen on hard times, but we couldn’t know for sure, the place felt a bit awkward. Some visible baby shoes with no baby around seemed like a bad sign.

the old man reading his prayer book at breakfast

Anyway, it was chapati and jam and honey for breakfast, and off for a tougher hiking day, almost all uphill to a camp called Nymaling. It’s a seasonal camp, so I was worried it might be closed, but Olga (odd name for a German) had the intel that is was indeed up and running.  We had nice sunny weather at the start but eventually the clouds came and the wind picked up, and we were pretty chilly by the time we reached the camp. The hosts weren’t there, but we each grabbed a tent and were happy to throw on all the blankets and take a nice little nap until the two young Ladakhi hosts returned and made us some tea. And the sun did end up peaking its head out for a bit in the evening, making some nice light for photos. Although after about 15 minutes outside my fingers were about ready to fall off.

looking back down into the valley on the way up

The valley eventually flattened out and got greener: Nymaling Campsite

struttin

so cold!

Later on we were invited by the two guys into the mess tent for our soup, rice and dhal meal. They were surprisingly chirpy in spite their living conditions in a high altitude, freezing valley. Olga said it was a place she could spend a few days because it was so peaceful. A big nope for me, I’ll find a peaceful place where I can feel my extremities, thank you very much. Once again it was an early night, although the quality of sleep was kind of lousy, presumably because we were at 16,000 feet.

The next day we tackled the high pass, which was steep, but only 1200 feet to climb. The cold wind really picked up near the top, making the last few hundred feet quite the slog. At the top (hooray!) we had some views of the mountain ranges in the distance, but that was quickly enveloped by clouds. Soon we were in a total whiteout and the wind was blowing the snow just about horizontally. We threw on every layer we had, and this was the time to bust out my sock gloves, and quickly scurried down the other side. These were not conditions to mess around with! Of course 30 minutes later it completely blew over and it was sunny again. The rest of the day would be all downhill, but much more challenging than I was anticipating. Loose rocks, an ice/snow covered riverbed, narrow and exposed sections of trail, and then a few hours of no real trail, but just walking and carefully placing footsteps in the rocky riverbed. It’s exhausting having to pay so much attention to where you’re walking! I was kinda hoping to get down to the highway that afternoon, but nahhh, we were both pretty tired, so one more homestay it is!

clouds moving

A few minutes until zero vis!

This homestay the woman came down the hill and grabbed Olga’s bag to carry up to our room. It was located beautifully at a fork in the river and you had views of the valley in three different directions. This woman was super friendly and quickly got us tea and cookies, then instant noodles for a snack, and pulled up plastic chairs so we could watch the sun go down behind the mountains. We were glad we made one more stop! Dinner was the usual, rice and dhal and some veggies. The next morning we just had to walk a few miles downhill to the highway, but we got lucky and flagged down an Indian Gov’t jeep and they took all the way down. Then we split a taxi back to Leh, and that was it. It was really a enjoyable hike, we had mostly all good experiences at the homestays, and we had the whole valley pretty much to ourselves. Quite the opposite of being in Leh. Totally worth it!

Traveling again: India and (hopefully) Pakistan

Well now that I’m traveling again I suppose it’s time to hit up the ole blog. The last couple of years have been pretty slow for any type of real active traveling, but I did enjoy my time in Nicaragua and Mexico during the pandemic times. And now it’s been a full 10 months of pretty heavy grinding at the poker tables with very few breaks, mostly in Texas and Florida, as the Chicago have been hit by some pretty severe dealer shortages. Although I can’t say I really enjoy traveling this much for poker though, I kind of like having a home base and some sort of stability when I’m ‘working’. Not being on the road ALL the time, it’s too much.

Fortunately the games I’ve played in have been pretty juicy, and it was a solid poker year. Unfortunately my expenses have been basically off the charts this year. Between travel costs, short term airbnbs/hotels being insane (FL, cough cough), eating out too much, paying for a broken collarbone and aftercare, dental work, and of course my good for nothing health insurance which doesn’t cover anything, my monthly expenditures have been stupidly high. Oh and now whatever I have in crypto is now in the tank, yay.

Humayun’s Tomb, Delhi

Anyway, it’s been a kinda frustrating year, so it’s very nice to be on the road again. I find the more time I spend outside the US the happier I am! So the plan is to be in the Himalayas for most of the two months I have to travel, in the Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh states of India and the mountain villages in Pakistan, north of Islamabad. After spending a lot of time at the beach in Florida, I felt like some cool fresh mountain air and snowcapped peaks were calling my name. Also there’s some interesting Tibetan culture, plenty of centuries old monasteries perched on the cliffs, and some great trekking opportunities. And I could certainly stand to lose a little weight. At high altitudes I’ll burn a lot of calories hiking and at the same time the altitude also seems to decrease my appetite quite a bit - the Himalayan Diet! Maybe throw in some diarrhea for even more effective weight loss, heh.

hanging with the blue sheep

Logistically it makes the most sense to start from India, as their e-visa only lets you choose airports, while in Pakistan you can choose land crossings. It’s also worth noting that Pakistan has made their visa situation much easier in the last few years and the political situation is pretty stable right now, so I’m hoping it won’t be too difficult to get. For the India e-visa (for Americans) you can apply for a 5 year visa, which is really convenient, and they approved it, no problem! Also I found some $350 flights direct from Chicago to Delhi, which is a pretty damn good deal. I won’t be staying in Delhi very long though as they’re experiencing a heat wave where its 110+ degrees every day, yikes. And it’s a only a 1 hour 15 min flight up to Leh in the Ladakh province.

Qutub Minar in Delhi

Update: I actually missed my flight to Delhi! I got to the airport 2 hours early, which is normally fine, but the line at the Air India check in counter was snaked way down the airport and almost everyone seemed like they had a cart fully loaded with jam-packed suitcases, and thus the check in process was moving along very slowly. I had apparently forgotten how much luggage Indians travel with! Also the check in closes a full hour before the flight, uh oh. So I finally get the counter with 5 minutes to spare, and I had my vaccination card ready, but I did not do my research properly and you have to upload that and your passport to the Indian government website. Shiiiit. It’s mandatory to fly. I still have time though!

My fingers were flying typing in all the blanks on the form on my phone, just mashing buttons at lightning speed, when eventually it gets to the photo upload part. They don’t take Jpegs, only PDF files, noooo. So I had to download an app to switch them to PDF and tried again, but it still doesn’t work, too large of files! AGHGH. At this point they’re closing up the counter and me and few others are still frantically trying to finish up on this stupid clunky gov’t website. Then the staff leaves the counter. And that’s it. Nothing you can do, nobody you can protest to or rebook a flight or anything. Air India doesn’t even have an office or ticket booth at O’hare. Nothing. I had to call my mom and to get picked up, and we went to the Air India office a few miles down the road. $300 cancellation fee + other fees basically meant I’d lose the value of the whole flight, but fortunately I could book the next day for the same price, so it could’ve been worse I suppose.

And now I’m in Delhi, the 14.5 hour flight really wasn’t that bad. Of course it’s hot as hell here and my guesthouse/hostel is oddly quiet, so not exactly ideal. But I’ll be off to Leh in two days! Although I’ll still have time to check out a few sites I haven’t been to yet, if I don’t fry to a crisp first.

Hauz Khas Fort

Lodhi Gardens

Qutub Minar again

Hauz Khas Fort overlooking Deer Park

Call of the Cenotes

So with my change of apartments I now get to go to beach everyday instead of the pool, which was pretty great, besides tracking sand everywhere I was also near two dive shops, so I’d hit them up to do some cenote diving. The absolute coolest thing about the Yucatan region is the cenotes. These are fresh water underground caverns that you can see on the surface as pools in the limestone. They’re fantastic for swimming, they’re fantastic for snorkeling to see the underwater rock formations, and some of them are best when explored far under the surface, ie Scuba diving! To really investigate them you’d need a cave diving certification, but what I was doing was called ‘cavern diving’ where you never got too far away from one of the entry/exit points. And to be honest, the parts of the cavern that are lit up by natural light are the coolest looking anyway, not the pitch black cave tunnels (although you always have a flashlight). Just the way the natural light would hit the fresh water and create these striking sparkling rays of light underwater was just spectacular. Magical. Fairy tale stuff!

So I was hooked. Fuck coral reefs! It’s all about the cenotes now! And Playa didn’t even really have any good reefs, you had to go over to Cozumel, and I was far too lazy for that. There were tons of these cenotes all over, and while some don’t look particularly interesting from the surface, underwater they open up into all sorts of cool caverns and passageways and rock formations, or sometimes just big grand massive chambers. Like an underwater Roman coliseum. There was one called Maravilla, that really opened up in the most spectacular way, with a massive beam of light shining right through the middle of it, going down 100+ feet, like the light of God. Or the beginning of Independence Day :p

The only problem I had was getting other people to join me on these cenote trips. Most people fall into two groups, a tourist, who will do 2-3 of the easiest, most popular cenotes, or the long termers, who have lots of cave experience and have their own gear, and don’t really pay to go with guides. So it was a sometimes a struggle being able to join an actual group of divers to do the cenotes. So I kept in contact with a couple different companies, to have them hit me up if they ever have people doing some of the cenotes I had on my bucket list.

Eventually I got a message from a Russian run shop, and they had a girl coming in from NYC to do a few days of cenotes, and these were most of the ones that I still hadn’t been to yet. So yes please! Rather than explain too much I’ll post the photos and you can check them out yourselves. A lot of the cenotes aren’t huge, like you probably couldn’t spend too much time on them, but some of them are just so damn unique!

And so the diving went great, it turned out she was also staying in all inclusive resort with a dive shop, over in Cozumel for the next few days, and I was able to join her there for a bit. I would have been happy to pay the joiner fee, but she insisted there was absolutely no reason to, I kinda felt like a sissy for even suggesting it! I enjoyed her no-nonsense, Eastern European anti-authority type attitude (she’s Ukrainian). And of course she was right, they didn’t even care about the wristbands at the resort, although I still felt more comfortable wearing a long sleeve shirt, just in case. And the diving in Cozumel is very pretty, pleasant, and relaxing of course. Excellent vacation diving!

So I thought about writing another blog post, but to wrap up Playa del Carmen, but I honestly didn’t have too many more interesting things to add! Our pickleball group grew bigger, and we had some drama with the court owner trying to jack our rates, but nothing we couldn’t work out. I kept up with the yoga, although I improved at a slower rate than I was hoping for. I think what I need to do is spend less time on actually yoga yoga and spend more time on some different positions of actual deep stretching, just so I can get to the point where I can do some more not-beginner yoga positions. I joined crossfit for a few weeks, which was rough because they just kinda toss you into the lions den (there’s no easing into it) and then I tweaked my shoulder pretty good with rope climbs somehow, and that was about it. I got the first stages of my dental implants where my back lower molars are, and all that went smoothly. I was still meeting with my small group of friends every week or two. And I made a enough money playing online poker to pay all the bills, but not much more than that unfortunately.

So I was leaving Playa much healthier, in much better shape (got the 6 pack back), and I curbed the drinking significantly. So on a health level, it was great. Monetarily… ehhh. Making enough money to get by. I was hoping maybe I could start coming up with a good plan for something else to do instead of poker, but unfortunately that didn’t really materialize. It never does. Actually the worst part was meeting some poker players, most of whom are HEAVILY invested in Bitcoin, and watching them make a fricking killing in the crypto heater, like net worths quadrupling in months, while I’m sitting there like a retard for not having my net worth invested in Bitcoin. Or DOGECOIN for that matter. God damn it. Life is not fair. Idiots from Tiktok were putting money in random pump and dump coins and killing it. Sigh. So the monetary end could have been better.

Socially, I was pretty active, made a few friends, met a couple of women, nothing crazy, there was a pandemic going on after all. So overall it was a pretty decent 3.5 months. Much better than being in Chicagoland, I’ll tell you that! But some of the snowbirds I was friends with were starting to leave to go back home, and I guess I was about ready to move on as well! Except I wasn’t ready to go home just yet, Mexico is a huge country and I’ve still seen very little of it, so I wanted to start changing that!

uh oh, Covid?

It had been a few weeks and I was feeling pretty happy with my days, I had a nice little routine going. M/W/F was pickleball in the morning, yoga in the late afternoon. Every remaining day was either running or doing my exercises in the beach or the park, or every once in a while use the expensive beach gym that was kinda far away. I’d try to get in a scuba dive each weekend. Lots of sunshine, cappuccinos and fresh fruit juice in the meantime. I was usually too lazy to head all the way out the beach during the day (lol) and I always worried about someone stealing my kindle if I went to take a dip in the ocean, so the pool rooftop was a good option. I was actually reading a classic (very weird for me), The Count of Montecristo and enjoying it a lot!

Unfortunately we had take a break from pickleball when the group founders came down with covid. Not exactly shocking as they were not shy about hitting up the popular restaurants. If you come to Playa del Carmen for any extended period of time and are actually going out, doing the nightlife stuff, you’re gonna get covid. It’s gonna happen. With so many tourists coming and going, covid is everywhere in Playa.

So wouldn’t ya know, just a few days after John and Kelly (pickleball founders) were diagnosed with covid, I started feeling a bit weird. I had a slight fever, but basically I was just feeling super lazy.  Like the thought of getting up out of bed to go for a bike ride or run errands, sounded awful. I mean I certainly could have gotten up, I wasn’t dead, but I just REALLY did not want to do anything besides lay in bed. I told the pickleball group I too was feeling a bit strange, and we officially cancelled it for 2 weeks. The fever went away after the first day, but it was a solid three days of lethargy, just laying around like a slug. Very strange after being pretty ‘up and at ‘em’  the last few weeks. But no cough or respiratory symptoms, no body aches, just laziness! So I assume it was Covid and went into quarantine, but I never actually got tested, so I can’t say for sure. I do remember specifically helping John cram the net in the bag after pickleball was over, unmasked, with our heads right near each other’s, so that’s when I assume it happened.

It could have been worse obviously. I guess John was coughing real bad and ended with pneumonia. Plus he got a neurological condition where his right hand would shake when he was putting a spoon to his mouth. So even though he was in good shape, he still got hit pretty hard! And at least I can say in the few days from when I most likely got covid, to when I got symptoms, I could count on one hand the amount of people I’d been close to, unmasked.

So that was a boring two weeks obviously, but everything was right back where it started when quarantine was over. Although I did end up switching apartments to get closer to the beach, which is a double edged sword as it puts you right by 5th ave as well, which is annoying. Although it wasn’t near any nightclubs at least! It was kind of a strange place. A two apartment unit, with both apartments being raised so that a bunch of cars could park underneath them. It didn’t take long to notice that there were other people that had keys to front gate, and that there were always people coming and going to the furthest part of the garage, under my unit. What could it be, hmmm, what do they try and sell to the tourists on 5th avenue all the time?! Hmm. Drugs! I was a little sketched out at first, but then it wasn’t really a big deal.

There was a German and girlfriend who were staying in the other apartment unit, and some nights he would be drinking and invite everyone he had met up to his rooftop to pound some whisky and smoke some joints. He’s one of those very outgoing,  non-stop talking, know-it-all types. Covid denier to boot, of course. So I did stop up there briefly one night and met some of the guys that were always hanging around. Most of them didn’t speak much English, but one of them lived in Chicago a bit, and of course he had whatever I needed, if I needed anything at all!  But they seemed pretty harmless. I’m sure they had some sort of agreement with whoever owned these apartments, and not pissing off the tenants was presumably part of it. If anything, I was protected by the cartel, hahaha.

Activity time

Time to get active. The first that I joined was pickleball. The Canadian guy and his wife setting it up already had extra paddles and nets, so all I had to do was show up at 9am at the courts, located in the gated community of Playacar. If you’ve never seen pickleball before it’s played with plastic paddles (a bit smaller than a racquetball paddle) and a ball similar to a whiffleball. The courts are smaller than a tennis court and the net is a little shorter. It has an area next to the net that you aren’t allowed to step in, so it makes for some more interesting strategy placing little drop shots in this area. We were playing doubles, so it’s not really too much running. For that reason the older people seem to prefer it to tennis. But ball placement is key, so you definitely still have to be quick on your toes. To start there were five of us, but it would keep growing, as expected. They say pickleball is the fast growing sport in the US right now!

Staying out of the kitchen! The line that runs parallel to the net

Next up: Scuba diving with the sharkies! January to March is bull shark season in Playa and I certainly wasn’t going to miss out on it. We had a group of three, plus the instructor, all set to go. It wasn’t through an actual dive company, the instructor was a freelancer, and we got our gear through a small shop right on the beach. For most commercial dive shops the money mostly goes to the company and the local instructor makes just a small percentage, so this way was better for the local economy. The only downside was the equipment was a bit shoddy. There’s always a tradeoff. But anyway, we got geared up, hopped in a boat waiting for us at the shore and a few minutes later we were at the dropoff point and rolling backwards off the boat.

I assumed we’d have to go find the sharks, but literally as we were descending someone made the fin-on-forehead sign (universal signal for shark!) and pointed down behind me. A bull shark lurking down by the sandy bottom. By the time we were at the sand there were three of them circling, and a few more would show up as well. These are not friendly looking sharks! They have big ole jagged teeth sticking out and a general disposition that says ‘don’t mess with me’. Which  is fair, as they are one of the more aggressive shark species. They are quite intimidating, and they are  not afraid to get up close and personal. But they know the drill, they know they’ll get fed eventually, which is why they buzz around like vultures. And as far as I know there have never been any attacks on Scuba divers. Although I don’t know if I can say the same for snorkelers!

So we were down around 70 feet, 5 or 6 bull sharks just gently weaving in and out of our group. Sometimes they’d disappear out to the blue, but they’d always come back. For taking photos underwater it was pretty great with how close they’d get. I was using my underwater casing with the iphone 11 for the first time, and I was really impressed with how easy it was to use, and with how well the photos looked. Seriously the advances in cameraphone technology over the last few years have been very impressive! No need for a DSLR + big clunky underwater casing to take good Scuba dive photos anymore.

big moray on the 2nd dive

the funky looking remora fish

After 50 minutes or so we started our ascent, the sharks still following us. The boat captain tossed over some jumbo fish heads that the sharks eagerly gobbled up, and then they wandered off. We all got in the boat, everyone was super pumped about being so up close and personal with the feared bull sharks. Plus we still had one more reef dive to round out the morning, although Playa’s reefs are mediocre at best. But still, definitely a cool experience.

Next class: Yoga! This one yoga organization offered a bunch of classes up on a hotel rooftop, so I opted for the 4pm beginners class. Now when picturing a yoga class, I was imagining mostly women, mostly young fit women in form fitting attire. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I walked up and the whole class was men! One guy about my age, two guys in their 50’s and one guy in his 70’s. Okay then! Although the instructor did fit the stereotypical description I had in mind, a super bendy Russian girl, who also spoke pretty good English. But with an all male group and a hot young female instructor, it sort of made you go ‘hmmm.’

But anyways, the pace of the class was nice and slow, which of course I liked. And I thought for sure I would be the least flexible person in class, but that was not the case. The 70 year old guy could hardly even do most of the moves, what a loser! Ha, I’m kidding, it was admirable that he was now doing yoga 5 days a week. And most old people are just like this guy, literally zero flexibility. I was starting a bit late, but I wanted to be able to move my body in a couple different directions when I get older! And one of the dudes in his 50’s was like stretch armstrong, I was impressed.

So between pickleball, diving, and yoga, plus playing poker, cooking, going to the beach, kindle books, learning more Spanish, going for runs and doing body weight exercises, I had quite a few different things on my plate to keep me busy for a while. Without hardly any drinking and partying, I had enough time for all of them! Life was pretty good.

Settling in: Playa Del Carmen

I departed the Cozumel ferry and walked just a few blocks inland to find my apartment. To start off my stint in Playa, I booked an airbnb for a month. It was kind of an odd unit, it was located in an apartment complex, but whereas everyone else went through the main entrance, this was off to the side facing the street. I still had access to the rooftop and pool like everyone else, but I had my own separate door, which was nice because it gets awkward saying hello to the security guard every time you come and go. Plus I had a little foyer area right at the entrance before entering my unit.

The place itself was quite a bit smaller than it looked in photos, and I didn’t even realize that there was no kitchen table! I guess I just kind of assumed there was a place to eat food, like an idiot! Although there was a combined desk and dresser thingy that ran along the window facing the street next to the bed, so I was able to pull a chair up to that, and that was now my dinner table! Dinner with a view! But eh, it would be much more annoying if it was. couple trying to eat together. Overall it was a decent place, newly redone, nice wooden closet, cabinets, and finishings, cheap cutesy decorations that let you know the owner put at least some thought into the place, dark marble (fake marble?) kitchen countertops, a big comfy bed, and two layers of blinds – very important for my sleep schedule! Seriously more places need these double blinds.

rooftop pool, where I get my tan on. It’s an infinity pool no less!

I was about a 10 minute walk to the beach and 5th Avenue, the main tourist strip that runs parallel to beach for a few miles. The location was not really the heart of the touristy part of Playa, which was fine, and there were plenty of local places around. Within a few blocks I had a nice little veg market and fruteria, a tamale and elote stand, a panaderia, a paleta shop (Mexican popsicles) a McDonalds ice cream kiosk (50c cones!) a seafood restaurant, and numerous taco stands. I liked my spot. Although basically everything in Playa can be walkable, it’s spread out enough where having a bicycle would be nice. So I picked one up facebook marketplace for $40, and probably paid too much. It was just a basic beach cruiser, one gear, and foot brakes. Perfect.

my bike

The very popular fruteria

So many different ones to choose from

I kind of like this one

called Mamey, soft and creamy, it has kind of a sweet, cinnamon, butternut squash taste to it. Good for pancakes

I just want to comment on the availability of the fresh juices is Playa, which is excellent. The fruteria pictured above makes fresh juice every morning in half liter or one liter portions. $1 or $2. You can choose between normal orange juice, mandarin orange juice, grapefruit juice, coconut water, green juice, orange juice and beets, orange juice and carrots, and sometimes mango or watermelon. This is fresh, on demand, every day! And then of course if you pay more you can get whatever combination of fruits that suits your fancy. And they’ve got some weirds ones too! I would say guanabana is an underrated one. Oh and the OJ+beets or the OJ+carrots sounds kinda weird, but they’re both delicious!

Ok, so basically settled in, now whatt? Well considering I knew nobody there, I guess it’s time to start making some friends. The thing that I really like about Playa and other expat hotspots, is it’s extremely easy to meet people on these facebook groups. For example: someone posted about wanting to get some people to go diving with the bull sharks – boom, I’m in. One couple was trying to get a pickleball group going, it sounded kinda fun, so sure why not? Someone posted about some covid friendly rooftop yoga classes, I could definitely use some flexibility, alrighty, I’ll try it out. Of course there’s also people looking to go out drinking, but in the pandemic, I was kinda staying away from that type of activity.

More of the beach. It was kind of cloudy and cold at first in January. Looking back, I miss that weather!

As for Covid rules in Playa, well every store you walk into requires mask, has sanitizer, and some will take your temperature, although a lot of it is covid kabuki theater. And then when you walk down 5th Avenue, well it’s quite a different story. Strolling past some of the bars around 9pm, you would definitely have no idea that Covid existed. Music pumping, people jammed close together, no masks whatsoever. It was pretty wild. I had no desire to part of that scene, but there were certainly a lot people who were escaping from lockdowns in the US and elsewhere and letting loose in Mexico. But considering how many of the locals depend on the tourism industry, most people were pretty okay with the completely open-for-business policy. The Spice must flow.

As for me, I was fine with any activities that were outdoors and could be spaced out a bit. Packed bars, and the type of people who inhabit them during a pandemic, nahhh. It didn’t need that, but really I was just thrilled to be able to get some sun and go to beach or the pool, explore a new city, go for runs or ride bike around aimlessly, stop for some fresh fruit juice or a cappucino, reading my book on a patio. I would not be surprised if I had some type of seasonal depression, that sunlight just rejuvenates me.

Apparently I only took photos of the cloudier days

Some simple healthy cooking, citrus pulled chicken and mango tacos. Just needs some hot sauce.

Viva la Mexico! Isla Holbox and Cozumel

As most of you know, I’m not a winter person. The thought of spending all winter in Chicago, staying with my parents, with things on lockdown was not great! Shockingly it’s not very life affirming when you’re 35, staggering downstairs in the same pair of sweatpants everyday, and getting greeted with ‘Good Afternoon’. Then drinking about 4 coffees out of sheer boredom. I had to get out. And of course there are not many countries open to travel during covid, but there is one little country south of the border that doesn’t have any restrictions, soooo Viva la Mexico!

I flew down after Christmas, a straight shot down to Cancun. The first thing I did down there however was getting an abdominal ultrasound, as I swear something is funky with my stomach. In the US I checked the prices for the Edward Group in Naperville, $1200 if I use my insurance (silly bc I have an $7,500 deductible and it’s the end of the year) or $600 out of pocket, and of course nothing available right away (in fact a 2 month wait for the Naperville location).

At the local clinic in Cancun, the price was $37. Thirty Seven Dollars. It’s not a complicated procedure. The price difference is just ridiculous, medical prices in the US are just so out of synch with the rest of the world. Some of you are probably thinking $600 for an ultrasound, that’s not bad at all! But that’s only because it’s all we know; nobody else in the world pays $600 for a routine ultrasound. And for all of you reading that have nice insurance with your employers, maybe you think the US healthcare system is perfectly fine, but understand for those of us who have to buy their own insurance, we pay thousands a year to not get covered for anything unless it’s cancer or whatever.  The system is just straight up garbage. GARBAGE. I can buy round trip tickets to Cancun, stay a week and still come out ahead. That’s how silly the whole thing is.

Ok, rant over, we’re in Cancun but not staying long as there is nothing much downtown Cancun, (the ultrasound was normal btw) so off to Isla Holbox for New Years! Now I didn’t plan this very far in advance so almost everything was booked up except for a campground with fixed tents + a common area for eating/cooking etc. That’s fine, I’m not that picky. It was a two hour bus ride to the port, plus another 30 minute ferry and we were there!  One of the draws of Holbox is there’s no cars, just golf carts and scooters. However the roads are a potholed, puddled mess. I found the campsite just fine and ‘checked into’ my tent, ha. It had big sleeping pad, clean sheets, electricity (a reading light, mini fan, and outlet to plug in stuff) and built in wooden cupboard/shelves. Not bad for a tent!

Walking around my part of the island you can see that it’s a pretty basic place, quiet, just some corner shops, and you might have to walk on some wooden planks every now and then to get past some muddy sections of road.  Eventually you get to tourist plaza, with the restaurants, ice cream places, clothing shops, tour companies, etc. Of  course the real action is at the beach. Holbox has some sparkly white sand beaches, so that’s where everyone spends their time of course. And because it was NYE, there was no shortage of people. Normally Holbox is known for being a very chilled out, relaxing place, but not on New Years Eve! The music was already pumpin.  

White sand beaches

Away from the touristy section

After a good stroll down the beach (there’s a lot of it) I was back in the campsite to shower and relax. I met some of the people in the campsite, although it was mostly a Spanish speaking party crowd, so yeah, not my cup of tea. Even though Mexico doesn’t enforce any quarantine, I wanted to be especially careful in the first 10 days, so attending the Covid parties, and possibly being a super-spreader was not what I was going for.  I was more than happy to spend my evening eating from the taco stand and reading a book down on a quiet section of beach, just taking in the tropical breeze. Happy New Years!

Awww yeah, gonna take me a long time to get tired of this!

The camp cleared out in the morning and the beaches were mostly empty when I went for a run. In the mornings Holbox has this great long sand bar that stretches for a mile or two. You have to wade waist deep to get out to it, so I took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my shorts to get out there. I just held my shoes as I ran barefoot, it was a beautiful spot for a jog. Probably my most active New Years Day  morning, well, ever!

Photo stolen off the internet to give you a good idea of how nice the sandbar is!

Eventually I would meet a couple people in the campsite and we rented some bikes and explored the island a bit. Well to be fair there isn’t that much to explore. One end kind of devolves into a mangrove forest and you can’t really go any further unless you have a boat, and the other end has beautiful houses that I’m sure make for expensive rentals, and that’s the end that you go for the sunset, which is really nice.


But on the whole, Holbox is one of those places that is a beach destination and basically only a beach destination. So for me, it got a little bit boring after a couple of days. I need other stuff to do, snorkeling, scuba diving, waterfalls, jungle, renting a scooter, anything! Four nights was definitely enough for me. I still had a few days before my Airbnb was starting in Playa del Carmen, so I took the bus back to Cancun, then onto PDC, and from there hopped on the ferry to Cozumel to get in a couple days of scuba diving!

Sunset near the main ferry pier

Dark clouds and Christmas trees on the boardwalk

From Cancun it was an easy bus ride to Playa del Carmen, and then just a two blocks down 5th Avenue with all the vendors trying to get you to buy their shit, and then you’re at the ferry terminal. They go about every two hours this year, 35 minutes and you’re in Cozumel. I had booked a guesthouse a little outside the touristy part, but walking through the main strip you could tell that Cozumel was quite a bit more dead than Playa, the vendors more desperate to get your attention. It was kind of depressing. I guess Cozumel relies on lots of cruise boat traffic, and with none of those this year, it was hurting especially hard. 

I dropped off my stuff and popped in one of the scuba dive offices I saw on the way, and I was already all set for diving the next day, easy. Two Brits and two Americans. We had to take a taxi up to the port and then from there another 30 minute boat ride to part of the island with the best diving, the Palancar reef. It’s really nice diving, lots of big bulbous structures to swim through, nooks, alleyways, natural arches, all that sort of stuff. The visibility was good, not much current, basically just very relaxed diving. We saw a lot of the usual critters, a few turtles, sting rays, one or two big eagle rays, moray eels, some squid, barracuda, some huge lobsters, etc. Just really pleasant diving. I did three days of it.

I broke the diving up one day by renting a scooter and cruising around the island, which is a great way to spend an afternoon. The far side of the island is rocky and windswept, some very scenic beaches, although a lot of them have red flags for no-swimming. The roads are also nice with hardly any people on them, especially this year. Although they have a couple restaurants out there that are tourist trap central, $12 for a cheeseburger, $15 for a jumbo margarita? GTFO. I wasn’t having any of those type places. Coming back inland they also have a Mayan ruin, which isn’t much too look at, but if you’re there, why not? So anyway, that was a worthwhile thing to do. And I basically love anything on scooters of course.

Abandoned bar on the far side of the island

Looked pretty wicked

rich people taking their boats out

So that was Cozumel. Overall it was a bit more of a boring place than I anticipated, with the downtown being pretty dead and all. I mean I liked it because of the diving, and there were some nice sunsets, but if you’re not a diver, I probably wouldn’t bother. Next up: hunkering down in Playa.

San Juan del Sur

So from Big Corn Island I flew to Managua and then it’s about a 2 hour taxi ride down south to San Juan del Sur (Saint John of the South). I remembered SJDS from the first time I was there about 5 year prior when I was doing my Central America trip, Costa Rica up to Cancun, and upon getting dropped off by the taxi in the middle of town (it’s a very small town) the layout and the landmarks started coming back to me. I walked towards the big party hostel, Casa Oro (obviously it’s not a party hostel right now) and kept going a street with a whole bunch of guesthouses in a row. I put my mask on and semi-randomly chose one that looked alright. These were family run places, with the family living downstairs and the upper floors having around 10 rooms plus a kitchen and small common area. I booked 3 nights and it looked like only one other person was currently staying there. I could get away with English on the Caribbean side, but it was mostly only Spanish over here.

The first thing I did was join the facebook group for San Juan del Sur and make a post inquiring about monthly rentals. As all the tourists had left due to Covid and the borders were basically closed, this post got me a lot of messages! I had choices from bungalows, a room in a boutique hotel with shared kitchen way up in the hills, a studio out near the surf beach, some local places that would cost hardly anything, etc. But after living in a very spartan set up for the last 2+ months, I kinda wanted something nice, and with good wifi. I checked out a couple places, and that studio out by the surfer beach was very tempting, but at the end of the day I decided to stay in town with the niceties like ice cream places, coffeeshops, smoothies, pizza stands, asian food, etc. Hell, even Nicaraguan cigars!

There was a British lady and her husband who had a great set up with a whole house that she would normally rent out for $200 a night, and she was offering it to me for $600 a month. We’re talking 3 bedrooms, a big ole modern kitchen, a small pool and lounge chairs out front, upstairs balcony, big TV with netflix, well decorated, lots of natural light, gated, etc. This was a pretty good offer! The crazy thing is, I could have probably haggled lower if I wanted to, because I mean there were basically no new people coming into town. She was kind of the OCD type, and had a list of rules like 20 miles long, but I agreed all the same. It was a very cushy set up!

San Juan del Sur, in better times, was one of the main party places in Central America, which means it also has a kind of seedy underbelly that goes along with the booze and drugs. Late night muggings were not uncommon. I remembered the golden rule when I first was there: “never walk on the beach at night” and I assumed it was still true. The good new was that I really had no intentions whatsoever of staying out late at night. I was hardly drinking, playing poker every night, plus the obvious fact that there was a pandemic going on. So I wasn’t very worried, although I had to imagine that the lack of tourists was hurting some of the locals really hard.

My favorite place in town, by far, was the coffeeshop. It was modern, well crafted, open air, and overlooking the bay. And the coffee was great of course. That was the place where I was able to meet some of the other gringos sticking around during the pandemic. And I must say, it was a pretty eclectic crowd. There is something about ex-pats that tends to also coincide with a mistrust of government, conspiracy theories, and just being anti-science in general. I suppose that’s why a lot of them left their home countries, because they wanted more ‘freedoms’ in Nicaragua. One of the first people I met was a guy who did a monthly newsletter on global conspiracies that had been covered up (obviously not well enough) and he had a hefty life insurance policy, in case one of the powers that be tried to silence him. Hmm. But there were also plenty of normal people too!

Another thing I really liked about SJDS was that there was a lot more room to roam. Staying too long on a little island can get you feeling a bit cooped up. I like having some new places to explore, so I had plenty of that in SJDS. There are lots of little roads that snake their way into the hills, some of them have nice houses and gated, but the guards usually let me run up and back. The benefits of being a gringo! But man it was not easy running. The summer months are basically 100% humidity, so throw in some hills on top of that, and ouch, not fun. And I did find some great look out points. Even the main section of beach was about 1.5 miles long, so that was a pretty solid run right there. If I ran anything more than 5 miles I’d be on the verge of overheating. But running on the beach as the sunset colors were coming out over the bay, mwah, chefs kiss!

There are also some even nicer beaches around that you’d want a scooter or motorcycle to get to. Preferably a motorcycle because some of the roads are very steep and rough. So occasionally I’d go rent a motorcycle and go off exploring outside of town. My favorite beach was called Playa Majigual (you can probably guess what that means) and besides being very isolated, it had this gorgeous rocky out cropping that you could rock-hop out to during low tide, watching the sun set as the waves crashed all around you on the rocks. Just a a fantastic spot. The Pacific side has a much more raw and rugged type of beauty than the Caribbean side. And so many of the great spots you get all to yourself. I was pretty content with my decision to stay in Nicaragua during Covid.

And at least by this point, things were cooling off a bit with the virus. At least in the US, the spring spike was over. Same with nearby Costa Rica. In Nicaragua, well who knows. The government was doing it’s best to pretend Covid did not exist. Things didn’t sound great in Managua, but in San Juan del Sur, life seemed reasonably ordinary. I assumed the very outdoor/open-air lifestyle helped. Of course the expat facebook groups were constantly at war with each other on all things Covid. It was insufferable. Another popular topic was the flight situation, as there were still no commercial flights running. All the airlines would post some date a month out as their next flight, it would get cancelled a few days before the flight date, and rescheduled a month later. And somehow people were continually shocked when their flight got cancelled again!

The options were pretty minimal at first, some people were chartering small planes to fly to Costa Rica or Mexico, but prices were running at $2,000+. Eventually some fulled sized plane charters (like a 737) started going to and from Miami at $1100, so that became a reasonably popular way to get out, if needed. Another similar option was a full sized charter to Mexico City, and from there you could fly commercial back to the States, as Mexico was pretty much fully open. This is what I would end up doing eventually! But of course there were plenty of complications with government and these flights would often get delayed for a days, or week or who knows.

But back to life in San Juan del Sur, everything was pretty decent for me. I mean nothing really exciting, but definitely peaceful. I had my routine of waking up and some Spanish stuff, going out by the pool, reading, and attempting to meditate, maybe a little jaunt into town, some afternoon poker sessions, either running or doing my body weight / elastic band exercises by the beach, come back for some covid doom scrolling online, make dinner, more poker, and some tv/movies if I had time. There are certainly worse ways to live!

So honestly I wish I could type up more interesting stories about living in SJDS, but I mean there wasn’t much! Oh, well I did go try to get a dental implant, but after the CT scan it was revealed that I had lost too much bone around the site, and the best course of action was to remove my other molar (where I had lots of good bone) and use some of that to bone graft where I had lost the bone. Of course my silly dentist on little corn island did not inform me that I might need a bone graft after the extraction, so thanks lady! So I had that done.

I spend about 2 months waiting to see if anything was going to change with commercial flights, but it didn’t look like it, so I booked the Managua-Mexico City charter flight for $700. And two days before that flight was set to go, they informed us it was delayed another week, so I opted to spend that week in the pleasant colonial town of Grenada, just outside of Managua. Which was great until the night before I left someone must have been able to fish out my camera using a hook, right off the kitchen table. So there goes my trusty Canon 5d mark2 that I’d had the last 8 years. Hmmph. Actually the electronics were going bad, so it wasn’t really the end of the world. Although it was a nice wide angle lens that was attached to the camera. So unfortunately that is why I have almost no photos to post. I do have some from my trip 5 years ago though. But anyway, I eventually managed to fly to Mexico City at the end of July, stop there a few days, and then fly direct to sweet home Chicago!

Life on Corn

It was a very relaxing lifestyle on Little Corn Island. I had my bungalow, my kitchen, my hammock, my books, my Spanish materials, and of course my own, almost private, section of beach! My only real human contact was Alberto and his girlfriend, who were always upstairs in Da Beeg Howse (as it’s pronounced) and I suppose whatever shopkeeper I bought some groceries from, that was it. So with Covid raging on, that was a perfectly agreeable to set up. Days just kind of blended into weeks.

Although eventually one afternoon my tranquility was interrupted when a very old couple showed up with a younger man, the couple looked late 70’s (maybe??) and the guy looked to be around 50. I assumed he was their son. They were French and OF COURSE they spoke no English, or pretended not to. They knew Spanish though. We had a friendly co-existence at first, but it started to fray as they continued to take over the kitchen, leaving messes around the sink, and using my sugar, coffee, and milk at their leisure. Meanwhile complaining to Alberto about me, because I was cooking with meat! Hahaha these people! I guess they were vegetarians. Shrug. I was actually eating mostly vegetarian, as getting and storing meat on the island isn’t the easiest (with the power going out every day from 6am-11am you really have to freeze it), but I’d still have fish or chicken or spam occasionally.

These fish are everywhere. Cost about a dollar!

So for the most part I ignored these new people. Apparently the younger guy was not their son, they were all just traveling together. What solo traveler pairs up with a super old couple?! Seemed really weird to me. But the old couple looked to be spry and in good health, and the man would carry around his wicker basket and go poking around in the jungle for random plants that were supposedly edible. Sometimes he’d show me some flowers and stalks and stuff that I should try. Ehhh, ok!

One morning I woke up to some screaming and yelling in French, but eventually went back to sleep. I found out from Alberto that the old man thought something happened with the younger guy and his wife and he was threatening him with his machete. Pretty wild! I mean the woman is in her 70’s! Anyway the younger guy packed up and disappeared that afternoon, and then a few days later the old couple left as well. Good riddance!

Not long after that, Chris, the Canadian guy who co-owned the property with his Nicaraguan wife came back. Which was good because even though I got along with Alberto, I’m pretty sure he stole some of my money. Plus we had more in common to talk about. I remember that first night well, because that’s when something happened with my molar, it was like a bomb went off in there. After ate dinner I was getting these shooting pangs of pure pain radiating throughout my whole mouth. I ended up having to wake him up at 11pm  or so to see if he had any pain meds laying around, but no luck. I didn’t know what to do, so I walked into town. Everything was closed. I was very close to knocking on a random door! Two guys in their early 20’s walked by and asked if I needed anything (implying drugs) They ended up taking me down a new path to a hole in the wall local bar. The bar tender let me buy a bottle to go, it was like clear licorice flavored stuff, maybe 25% alcohol, pretty disgusting, but man was I glad to have it! I managed to get myself through the night and off to the ‘pharmacy’ the next morning.

The pharmacy on little corn island was a guesthouse that had a side room full of medicine. So I took the highest dosage of Ibuprofen I could get. The timing was also horrible, as it was Saturday of Easter weekend, so I’d have to wait for Monday to actually see a dentist. It was not a good weekend. Monday morning rolled around and I took the boat over to Big Corn and off to the dentist. He asked me which dentist and I didn’t know, so the taxi took me to someone’s house. David the Dentist was not home, but they pulled out a chair for me to wait until he got back.

Maybe 30 minutes later he arrived and showed me to a wooden sidehouse, with a musty smell and concrete floors, where an old brown dentist chair sat. This was not what I was expecting! I sat in the chair and he shot me up with the anesthetic. There  was a machine next to the chair that he turned on that connected to his drill, it  looked like it was from the 70’s and it vibrated violently, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Lovely stuff. The molar was one where I already had a cavity, so he took off the cap did some poking and drilling around and eventually filled it with a soft cap. And this was supposed to do the trick. Or not. The pain was back that night.

Two days later I went back to Big Corn to see the other dentist on the island. She was younger, kinda cute, and a much nicer office, you know: clean, white, professional looking. I felt much better here. She took a look at dentist Daniel’s work and she thought that he might have hit a nerve. Even though I had the anesthetic some spots she touched was just soul searing, unadulterated pain. She’s apologizing profusely. She said I would need a root canal, but wanted to put me on some antibiotics first. Ugh. Now I had to wait another week. Keep in mind I am just absolutely pounding these high strength Ibuprofens and Tylenols at this point. Like every few hours. And even then, they take a good 45 minutes to really kick in, so if I waited just a little too long I would be in excruciating pain for a good half hour.

After the week was up, it was back to the dentist. I don’t know what she was expecting the antibiotics to do, but they didn’t do NADA. She shoots me up with anesthetics and gets the drill going. I jerk back. I can still feel it. She shoots me again. Tries to drill. AGHGGHGH! Nope, still feel it. Shoots me up another time. Nothing is working. I thought this might happen. At this point all I want is for the pain to end, it’d been a week and a half of this BS. We agreed to pull the tooth. Apparently numbing the gum for extraction is much easier than numbing inside the tooth itself. She finagled around with her tooth pliers and soon the whole thing was wrestled out. Thank you Lord Jesus Christ Almighty! So that was the initial phase of the tooth saga! She told me it would be about two months to heal up completely before I could get a dental implant. Great!

Back on little corn, Chris had now brought his whole adoptive family, consisting of his wife, her teenagers, the stereotypical extra largie auntie, some brothers, more little kids. There were now at least ten people all hanging around the grounds. So on one hand they were friendly, but on the other hand it was kind of weird dynamic where they were family, doing family stuff, and I was kind of the outsider just kinda hanging around the edges. I never actually ate with them, but they’d sometimes offer leftovers or what have you, so that was okay!

A few more weeks had passed, same old same old. At this point, younger people were easing up on lockdowns, two of the local bars re-opened, and I did start to actually meet some more of the people who were hanging around closer to the central part of the island. I was apparently taking covid more seriously than most, ha. And covid cases were definitely here and there around the islands, mostly Big Corn though. There was an outbreak in Bluefields, where most of the islanders came from originally, coming over by ferry. There was also talk of stopping the flights, as cases were going up in Managua as well.

So with rainy season looming, and flights possibly in question, I decided to head over to the Pacific side of Nicaragua, where there’s more people around, better infrastructure, good wifi, and better dental clinics! Flying home commercially still wasn’t an option, so looks like even more time in beautiful Nicaragua!

Home and Away

Well, I made it safely back to Chicago! I had enough time to say see my brother and his wife, my parents, and a couple of friends, but the timing was a little weird, as COVID fears were increasing. People were starting to wear masks and the hand sanitizer was quickly being emptied from the shelves. Should I be seeing anyone at all because I had just been traveling - even if it was from a country with very few cases? It was a bit awkward.

So by now the Cambodia plans were definitely in the trashcan. It was now mid-march and Italy was getting ravaged by Covid, cases were everywhere, and it certainly looked like a lock-down would happen in sometime in the near future. Of course I had no place of my own, and if we went into lockdown, I’d most likely be stuck at my parents place, which is not something I really wanted. So where would I want to get locked down? Preferably someplace warm and tropical. Someplace a bit detached from most of civilization. An island perhaps. Somewhere quiet.

I remember a travel buddy telling me that he really liked an island called Little Corn Island when he was traveling in Central America. Super chill spot, no cars, not very built up for tourists, beautiful beaches, and away from it all! This sounded like an excellent option. It was off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, most people fly there from the capital city Managua. That gets you to Big Corn Island, and then it’s a 30 minute boat ride to Little Corn. Honestly this sounded perfect. I didn’t have much time, the covid cases were still pretty minimal in Chicagoland, but the writing was on the wall. I booked a flight for March 15, Spirit Airlines to Managua, 77 dollars! Then a flight to Big Corn.

The escape plan

The airport was a bit hectic, masks were required by now, some people were donning full face masks made of plastic. I had my bottle of hand sanitizer and tried my best to not touch anything I didn’t have to, as nobody really know how much it spread from droplets at this point. Fortunately the flight was only 1/3 of the way full. Once in Managua they took our temperatures and asked about symptoms, but nothing else. Upon landing on Big Corn they were more concerned about drugs than the virus, as dogs sniffed everyone’s luggage. From the airport it was a short taxi ride to boat launch, where I learned that there is an MLB player from Corn Island, pretty cool! We had to wait an hour and then we loaded up the panga (as the boat is called) and it was a slightly bumping 30 minutes to Little Corn Island. From the pier there was a small crowd waiting, hoping to get you to stay at their guesthouse.

I had already booked a bungalow, a little bit away from the main beach, up near the lighthouse. There seemed to be no fears about the virus on Little Corn, there were plenty of tourists around, certainly no masks, and it looked like life as usual. And I was in luck, the place I was staying was having their weekly Taco Tuesday. I was planning on limiting my exposure after traveling, but I did have to eat afterall. The general mood was pretty light, everyone was talking about covid, but it also seemed like a faraway problem from the small island. Nobody was altering their travel plans or anything. And I didn’t go to the bars, but I did take a walk down that way in the evening, and they were hopping!

the bar/restaurant at the lighthouse

Doing some walking around the island the next day, I found a few sets of beach bungalows around the island. The nicest beach was on the far north part of the island, maybe 30 minutes walking from town (remember theres no cars, no scooters) which was also where the only resort on the island was. But not far away from that was a set of bungalows, set off in the woods a bit, that shared that same, beautiful beach. This was where I would relocate to. The bungalows weren’t of the nicest craftmanship, but they were cheap, away from town, and there was nobody staying there at the moment! A day later I was settled in to my new home. Basically just a room with bed, mosquito net, a dresser, chair, some shelves, and the bathroom. Plus a hammock out front! What else do I need?

Red circle is where I stayed. Purple is the main part of town

It didn’t long for things to start changing very fast in Little Corn Island. The speed of exponential virus spread is frightening! At first my section of beach was still crowded with people, snorkel trips were running, etc. But soon countries began announcing that they would be closing to visitors and urging citizens to come home, NOW, before it’s too late. After a few more days it became a pretty stressful time, as lots of people were now scrambling to book (expensive) flights home, and the Nicaragua to Europe connection isn’t the most straightforward. I felt especially bad for the ones who were traveling long term and had just started their trips, dashing some big, grand travel plans. But there weren’t many options, it was either hunker down in Nicaragua, or whatever other country you could possibly get to, or go home. And for the vast majority of reasonable people, home was certainly the best option.

Everything was still kind of up in the air over the severity of this thing, there was certainly plenty of doomsday speculations: the food runs out, the banking systems collapses, the world goes to anarchy, etc. Or it’s just the flu, being blown way out of proportion by the media! So staying on a small island certainly carried some risk, if the food stores got low, and island would be the first place to run out… But I wasn’t overly worried, and had already decided that I would stick it out on Little Corn, for better or worse.  

So now, a week after arriving, all the bars and restaurants had shut down, not long after lockdown took effect in Illinois. Although it was community imposed lockdown, not governmental. Next was the school, and then the only things open were the small grocery shops – and the church. It’s a small but very lively church, and no virus was going to stop a devoted islander from Sunday worship! The speed at which the tourists cleared out was almost impressive.

The palm trees reach all the way up to the water

Everything was very quiet up at my end of the island. The nice resort was still low-key open (which was nice because I liked going there to use the wifi, the bar/restaurant area is gorgeous). Besides the resort there were two or three local homes that had been built on the beach a while ago, a little beach restaurant (closed), a shack with snorkel gear to rent (closed) and that was all! Lots of palm trees! It’s too bad my place wasn’t right on the beach, but it was just a minute walk through the bush. It was a big cleared out area with 5 very basic bungalows, a communal kitchen, dining area, fire pit, laundry station, and the big house which was normally inhabited by a Canadian guy who lived with his Nica wife and family. It was him that built all the bungalows. Although when I got there the owners weren’t there and it was run by the wife’s brother and his girlfriend, who were not in the business of hospitality, ha. It’s not a good sign when your host is asking you to borrow money for cell phone data just a few days in! The wifi was also, but at least I had bought a Nicaraguan SIM card, and that worked fine on my phone.

living in nature! Coconuts, flowers, aaaand bugs

 It only took a week and half since I had arrived for the island to be totally cleared out, with the exception of a few other stragglers. I could walk out to my section of beach, which is the nicest beach on the whole island and have it all to myself. Maaaaybe there would be a few other people hanging around, but for the most part it was just me. It was pretty surreal. An empty, gorgeous, secluded beach! I had chosen well! Eventually I would wish for a place with perhaps a few other things to do, and more food options, but at this moment in time, it was perfect! I had my 1100 page monster book that I had been wanting to read and putting off, so now was the time! I also had my Spanish audio lessons loaded onto my phone, and some guided meditation stuff, so I was ready for beach seclusion.

Not bad huh?

My daily routine was something like: make coffee + eggs or pancakes, do some Spanish lessons, head down to the beach for a couple hours or reading/sunbathing/swimming/audio lessons, make a late lunch of maybe fruit and a sandwich. Back to the beach in evening for a light workout, catch the sunset, some meditation, and then back to the bungalow. Then doomscroll on my phone for all the new covid related news, make dinner, play poker on my phone app, if I had time watch TV/movie I had previously downloaded on my computer, and then bed! Although the sleep from 6am to whenever I woke up was not always the most comfortable with no electricity, but I managed! Certainly much better than being in the States!

Bolivian Salt Flats

So this is just about it for the trip! Four days of cruising around the Bolivian altiplano region. The standard tour is 3D/2N if you finish up Uyuni, Bolivia, but I had to get back to San Pedro, so I had to tack on another day. And then I’d have one more day in San Pedro and then back home! Just over four months in South America. Not bad! but still plenty left! I’d especially like to do more of Bolivia, but with the coronavirus heating up worldwide, now seems like a good time. Plus, I was just flat out ready to be done! The fatigue had set in!

There’s lot of stuff in the Altiplano region besides the infamous salt lake

So on this trip it would be two jeeps in our group, eight people in total. A nice number! It was a slightly more expensive tour, with guides who spoke ‘some’ English, so it was aimed at the gringo traveler, which is what I wanted obviously. They picked us in a big van, nice and early. Immigration was a bit of a mess, but once on the Bolivian side we got shown to the jeeps and had time to meet everyone. It looked like a pretty diverse group: Israeli guy, Spanish guy, two South Korean guys, German girl, and a middle aged German couple. And me. So the guy:girl ratio could have been better I suppose…

our jeep. They’re all Land Cruisers!

So we got all our stuff packed up on top of the jeep and we were ready to roll! I was with the two South Koreans and the German girl. Departing from the border there weren’t any paved roads, just gravel tracks crisscrossing all over the place, going wherever. Pick your own adventure!

The itinerary for the first day was some geysers/mud pots, a thermal hot spring to swim, and a lagoon, and lots of driving in between! I was by far the biggest person in the jeep so I got to sit in the front, I’ll take it. I also spoke the most Spanish of our group (not a good sign!), so I was the official go-between between us and the driver, Ernesto.

trying to catch that perfect bubble

We would drive for most of the afternoon and ended up at some little village somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I was curious as to how anyone made any money in a place like this because it just doesn’t seem like there is anything at all. Salt harvester?? There wasn’t anything to see in town, so I wandered into the brush a bit, found a decaying dog, and called it an evening! Who’s ready for dinner?! Writing this a year later I have no idea what we actually ate, some soup or something. Overall the group meshed pretty well! I stuck around after dinner for a couple beers and card games with the lads.

The next day we got to sleep in, just a tiny bit, before hitting the road. Before this trip obviously I knew about the salt flats, but I had no idea what other kind of stuff we’d be seeing, which was kinda nice to be surprised. I guess it’s mostly a lot of weird rock formations on this leg of trip. Sounds good to me!

So it was a nice day out on the road, this time we were staying in a fancier accommodation, called the Salt Hotel, where the bricks are supposedly made of salt. I guess there’s lots of so called ‘salt hotels’ in this area. But apparently business was going well in the salt-structure industry, and this place was nice and brand new! I had a room all to myself surprisingly. Glorious! Although again, it’s just kind of in the middle of nowhere. We eventually got the other driver to take us on a beer run to nearby dusty village. We returned triumphantly to a hearty meal of grilled chicken and fish, no complaints here! Then a very early start the next day to catch the sunrise over the salt flats!

It’s pretty surreal, a continuous flat white plane stretching to the horizon on all sides, as far as the eye can see. But up close, it’s far from being flat. It’s easy to see the crystalized structures that makes soft little hexagonal outlines. And very crunchy underfoot! There’s not much to do but relax and take in the otherworldly landscape. Although to be fair I was hoping we’d do sunrise over the part of the flats that is submerged underwater, which looks even cooler with the reflections. But these tours don’t acquiesce to the whims of the photography crowd. Hmmph.

Next spot: Cactus island. A weird place within the weird place. It’s basically a little rock mountain that you can walk up, which feels like an island in the middle of the salt flats. And tons of cacti grow there. Kinda neat! We walked around here for an hour and had breakfast. Off in the distance there was a huge bus hurtling its way down the salt flats, like a scene out of Mad Max. If I ever come back, I want to be on this bus!

Next we drove for a while and the flats started to get softer, slushier, and puddlier. I assume the drivers know where the spots are that are totally covered in water, but not too much water of course. This was the cool thing about going in February, we had the opportunity to see the never ending mirror effect. It only last a few months out of the year! Eventually the various puddles finally merged into one massive puddle and that’s where we stopped to take photos. I switched over to flip flops, as they say all the salt will ruin your shoes! We took some fun photos (which I currently do not have), and some of us took a shot of tequila using the salt to lick afterwards. Very touristy I know!

After milling around a bit more it was time to keep trucking. We stopped at another salt hotel that had hosted a bike race on the flats some years prior. And not longer after that we were back on the dry dusty dirt. And then pavement. Bummer! We had drinks at the tourist market, because you always have to stop at the market, and then finished up in a real, but not very visually appealing, city: Uyuni. We’d have lunch together and this is where we’d part ways. Most people would continue on into Bolivia, which i was a little jealous of, because Bolivia sounds great to me. But at the same time I needed to start making some money again! Those poker games in Cambodia were calling my name! At least I thought they were. But the COVID situation was changing fast, and even in the four days on this trip, the outlook had gotten considerably bleaker.

cute kids crossing the calle, Uyuni

So for me, and two other strangers, they loaded us into a different jeep and we would make the trek back to the Chilean border, the quick way though, almost all on roads, well gravel roads. Unfortunately the place we stopped for the night was that same little crap town we had stayed on the first night. And then by the next morning we were back at Chilean immigration, scooped up by a van, and back in San Pedro de Atacama by noon. And back to the pool for me. That evening I went on a little excursion to the Valley of the Moon, and then the next morning it was the bus the airport, then a quick flight to Lima, and then a longer fight to Chicago. And the timing was fortuitous, because by this time (early March) Covid was really starting to really creep up, and it was becoming quite apparent that it was going to become a worldwide pandemic, as cases were starting to be detected in just about every country :0. My original plan of going over to Cambodia to play poker was now looking like it might not be happening!

last image of the whole trip!

But anyway, Chicago here I come!

San Pedro de Atacama

Back to Chile! This will be the 4th time on this trip I think?! And it won’t be the last because the plan is to do the Bolivian Salt Flats and then loop back to San Pedro de Atacama to fly home (San Pedro -> Lima -> Chicago). Good thing they let you come and go as you please on the 90 day visa!

So I arrived in the mid afternoon, and the first thing you realize is, it is hot hot hot! February is South American summertime! Fortunately my hostel was only a few blocks from the bus station, and it had a pool, so I knew what my plans were. Later that afternoon I headed down to main strip to ask about the Bolivia Salt Flat tours. And boy is it overwhelming! I don’t know how you’re supposed to decide which company to go with because there’s a million of them and they’re all seemingly the same. But the thing is, you don’t know who’s gonna be in your group, and there’s tons of hispanic tourists, so I had to do some research online to figure out which companies are more of the gringo-catering kind, because if I was alone on a tour with all Spanish speakers for four days straight, I just might snap! Or you know, sit there and sulk for four days.

All the shops are located on this one street

So I was able to find an English speaking tour that left in a couple of days, which gave me time to explore around San Pedro a bit. Like Salta, there’s nothing much in the city, everything is basically group tours and excursion to the different spots outside of town. MORE GROUP TOURS AGHGHG! I’m getting super jealous of the people with the decked out camper vans! But hey, there’s volcanos, hot springs, geysers, high altitude lakes, crazy rock formations, lots of stuff. All the tour companies want you to bundle up like 3 or 4 tours for a cheaper price or whatever. I ended up seeing a company that advertised this huge yellow badass looking truck/bus (like what I rode in Africa) with a huge breakfast spread of eggs, cheeses, meats, breads, fruit and avocado etc. Sign me up! 4:30 am pick up, wheee!

TRUCKBUS! Setting up for brekkie

Being at a high altitude, it is freezing cold in the morning. Fortunately they give you blankets on the bus for some extra warmth. And once again, I’m the only gringo on the bus. Sigh. We drove for an hour and then they set up all the tables and chairs in front of this really pretty lagoon, it had bits of white stuck around the edges, calcium deposits maybe? Eventually they called us over for breakfast, I just grabbed a seat at the end of the table, a bit awkwardly. As I’ve said, my Spanish just isn’t good enough conversationally, especially in Chile/Argentina. Great food though! The rest of the morning was a few more lakes, and just very interesting looking landscapes all around. So it was nice, but I am so done with Spanish tours!

love that reflection

lunar landscapes. Some vicuñas in the foreground

If you have magnifying glass eyes, those are flamingos

cool looking bacteria

wild ostriches

So many different colors in these high altitude lakes

Back at the hostel I met a Dutch girl (again) at the pool and we hit it off pretty well, made dinner together, and she convinced me to go on the geyser tour with her the next morning. If I must! Another 5am start, ugh. They get you there 1.5 hours before sunrise to freeze your balls off before that sun finally creeps over the hills. I mean 30 minutes before sunrise would have sufficed, jeez! The geysers were pretty cool, although if you’ve been to Yellowstone, it is kinda child’s play. After breakfast there was also a hot spring to swim in, but the air is still cold as hell, so you gotta keep your whole body underwater, jostling for the warm vents with the other tourists. Anywho, I could have probably done without this tour. I was happy to spend the rest of the day at the pool. And sleep in the next morning. And go back to the pool! Laying on the couch at home is sounding better and better!

Some nice little bursts

Come on sun! It’s so cold!

digging the light behind the water vapor

baby vicuñas!

awwwwww!

I did end up renting a mountain bike for a few hours in the late afternoon that following day, and that was the best thing I did in San Pedro! They have some very cool mountain bike trails just outside of town. Some parts were pretty advanced, so I had to pick up my bike and walk it occasionally, and one part where I had to scootch by butt down a hill dragging my bike, but i made it! Better than faceplanting on my bike! The sun was going down and the scenery was awesome. This was more of the adventure I was looking for, not these group tours where they drag your sorry ass around all day.

San Pedro de Atacama in the foreground here. It looks weird seeing snow covering a desert volcano, but you don’t realize how high up this is. I bet that volcano is 20,000+ feet!

you’ll see a few desert foxes hanging around

reminds me of the badlands

So that was about it for San Pedro de Atacama, the next morning I would be getting picked up super early once again, and heading in a jeep off for a 4D/3N excursion to the Bolivian Altiplano! Which looks a lot like the Chilean Altiplano!

Iguazu Falls and Salta

So as I mentioned before, I wasn’t done with Argentina just yet! I really wanted to see Iguazu falls, which is in the far northeast part of Argentina, where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet. It’s annoying because it’s in the middle of nowhere. From BA it’s an 18 hour bus ride or a 1.5 hour flight. I’m lazy, I splurged for the flight. Chile and Argentina are just too damn big and spread out!

All the red lines are flights I took. Wayyy more flying on this trip than usual

The flight to Puerto Iguazu was as smooth as can be, and it’s interesting to watch the landscape change from dry and arid to lush tropical jungle. It’s a small town with nothing around it but trees, and it feels like they purposely built the airport 20kms away for the sole benefit of the taxi drivers. I checked into my hostel that evening and would head off to the falls the next day. Being that Iguazu straddles Brazil and Argentina you can see it from both sides. On the Argentina side you get the best view from the top and the mouth of the falls looking down and on the Brazil side you get the better view looking up towards it, a little downriver from the falls. A few years ago it would have been very expensive for an American to do this, you’d need to pay a $160 for a visa for Argentina and $160 for a visa to Brazil, but now they’ve done away with those visas and it’s very easy to see both sides thankfully!

The few English speakers in my hostel had already seen the falls, so I would be on my own. But on the Argentina side it’s super easy to get there, there’s buses that leave every hour and drop you off out front. Obviously the most popular spot is the lookout from over the top of the falls, and to get there you have to take a short train ride, which is included in the price, but consists of you packing in very tightly with lots of other sweaty people. Deodorant seemed to be lacking. I was one of the last people on this train and they made a very overweight woman scootch over to accommodate me, which wasn’t exactly pleasant for me or her, but I didn’t want to wait for the next train! From there it’s another 20 minutes walking along platforms stretched out over small islands in the super wide river/mouth.

A coati hanging out in the forest

It’s shockingly calm on the river above the falls. It’s very spread out, shallow, and the water doesn’t appear to be moving that quickly. If you didn’t know it was one of the worlds biggest waterfalls ahead it would actually seem like a pretty good place to take a swim! The iron clad walkways stretching over the river are a bit narrow, so you’re always getting stuck behind slow walkers, families, strollers, fatties, or what have you. Finally you reach the overlook of the falls and as soon as you can wedge your way in between selfie sticks, it’s an amazing view! The main part of the falls is absolutely thunderous but there are also many other cataracts and smaller waterfalls that give the place a feel of epic proportions. It probably is the most impressive waterfall I’ve ever seen, although experiencing it through the throngs of tourists definitely takes away from it’s magnificence a little bit! Also the photos really don’t capture completely the volume and power of the water that you can feel dropping over the edge!

Above the thunder! It’s hard to capture the sense of scale and power

Fortunately there is a lot more to place than just this one viewpoint! After taking the body odor train back towards the main section of the park there are few kilometers more of walkways giving you more interesting views of the falls and all of it’s different cataracts. It’s hard to stress enough how huge this place is! It’s not just a waterfall, it’s like a whole network of rivers and sheer cliffs apart from the main falls that all make up Iguazu. Plus its a jungle, so there are also some massive spiders, tropical birds, monkeys, coatis (something like an anteater) and even a crocodile! The trick is really finding some of the viewpoints that you can have by yourself that aren’t inundated with the tourist horde so you can really appreciate the sheer magnitude of the waterfalls.

More cataracts on the Argentina side

One of the massive spiders, having lunch apparently

crikey!

In total I spent about four hours on the Argentinean side of the falls. When I got back I ended up doing dinner with a Dutch girl where we split a monster steak and salad. The only problem in Argentina (and Chile) is that their salads are crap. Like the normal dressings that we have in the US don’t exist here. The salads are normally served dry, with hardly any ingredients (maybe some onion/tomato) and you have to drizzle some olive oil on it. Balsamic vinagrette if you’re lucky! So bland! In Patagonia we ordered a carrot salad, which I just assumed was green salad with carrot varieties or something, but nope, just one huge bowl of uncooked shaved carrots. That’s it! Waaat. Anyway, the steaks make up for it! Sorry no pics!

upper viewpoint on the Brazilian side

The next day it was off to the Brazilian side of the falls, which requires a more expensive bus, a trip through immigration, and higher park fees. But I’m pretty sure this is the one time in my life I’ll be here, so why not? The views on the Brazilian side are very nice as well, and you get the best view of the mouth of the falls from down low, although there’s not so many paths and viewpoints so you really only need about an hour on this side! I ended up meeting a Swiss girl on my bus who was also somewhat cynical about this side of the waterfall and we got along well! That night we met up for… you guessed it… steak and malbec! This is nearing the end of my Argentina trip, so might as well get as much red meat as I can!

lower viewpoint on the Brazilian side

not bad! If it wasn’t for all those god damn tourists! :p

This one give you a better sense of scale

The next day I hopped on another flight to the far northwest part of the country, close to the border of Chile and Bolivia, a place called Salta. It’s a semi-arid wine region known for it’s colorful red rock formations. Something a bit like Southern Utah. It straddles the altiplano deserts to the west. It also has some interesting history. One of the main things to do in town is visit the museum of high altitude archaeology that is famous for it’s mummies of Llullaillaco, the best preserved Incan mummies ever found, and among the most well preserved of any mummies in the world. The mummies are children, drugged and sacrificed to the gods as part of an Incan ritual. The stratovolcano they were found on tops out at 22,000 feet, the dryness of the air up there helped greatly to preserve the remains. And it was only 20 years ago that they were found!

Cloudy day at Plaza 9 de Julio

But most of the stuff to see around here isn’t in Salta, it’s all around Salta. You can do some really nice scenic loops around here with a car or motorcycle, so that’s what I was gonna do! EXCEPT, I didn’t do my research (shocking!) and it was another long holiday weekend for Argentines (shocking!) and every single rental car agency had nothing. Zip. Nada. So that was kind of a bummer. Of course there are group tours and stuff, but Salta is far from gringo-land so everyone is gonna be Chilean or Argentinean and it’s gonna be all incomprehensible fast talking Shh Spanish.

front seat baby!

But still, I had to do at least one tour to see the countryside. And actually there was one other gringo on the bus! An older super grumpy British guy, possibly the biggest grouch I’ve met on the whole trip, bitching about the time, the stops, the AC, obviously didn’t speak a single word of Spanish. He wouldn’t even switch seats so a woman with young kids could have a spot with more room. So everyone hated this guy. With all the bus being Spanish speakers, this was the guy I’m naturally supposed to be buds with, wtf! Anyway, we made some nice photo stops on trip, went to a winery, had some time to explore this little touristy wine town, and then back to Salta. It was fine, but travel fatigue and lack of English fatigue is setting in and I was just about done with group tours! Normally I would have tried to do at least one more sightseeing trip, because there’s definitely more to check out, but ehh screw it, I took the bus over the border to Chile for the final time. Smack in the middle of the desert. San Pedro de Atacama, the Atacama desert. Here’s the view south of Salta:

The hills getting redder and redder

La garganta del Diablo. Devil’s Throat

Some gorgeous scenery a couple hours south of Salta, towards Cafayate (wine region).

Poker Time: Punta del Este

West side of Punta. People definitely have some money in this town.

I was in the mood to play some poker with some real stakes, and apparently the place to do that was in Punta del Este, Uruguay. The quickest way to do it is taking a ferry, so the next day I took it from Buenas Aires across the bay to the port town of Colonia in Uruguay. From there is was a bus ride maybe 4 hours to the popular tourist town of Punta del Este. Uruguay is actually one of the wealthiest countries in South America, and walking around town looking at the chalkboards with dinner deals confirmed that! Lunch specials starting at $15, whaaat? Where am I?? I checked into my hostel and unfortunately shared a room with a whole group of traveling Israelis, literally a nightmare. Packs of young Israelis have to be some of the most uncourteous travelers on the planet, they literally chatted to each other, their friends, parents whoever, in the hostel room, at all times of day. Airbnb time…

The casino

As for the casino, I was happy to find out that they operated only using dollars! As for the games, these were the highest stakes I’d seen in South America by far: $2/5 blinds, maximum $600 buy in. Although the action was a bit underwhelming, only two tables and some pretty conservative play. But I started on a Tuesday night, so it’s hard to expect too much. I did win $1200 that night, so not bad. Plus they had some sort of tournament coming up that weekend, so I was optimistic about the games would improve. I booked an airbnb for a week, a studio right on the beach, on the east side (the quiet side). It was good to be able to stay in one place and relax for a while after my pretty travel intensive schedule in Patagonia. Plus the beaches in Punta Del Este are beautiful!

steps leading to the east side beach

love the sand dunes, did not love the wind

You kinda had to rent a chair unless you wanted to be constantly sprayed with the windblown sand near the ground

The point, (punta in Spanish) is a narrow strip of land with beaches on both sides that are easily walkable. One is more of a protected bay with less wind and smaller waves, while the other side is a bit more raw with sand dunes, higher winds and more of an undertow; prettier but not as nice for just lying on the beach. My airbnb was on the latter side, which is also the cheaper side! Considering the prices of food, it was nice to have a place to cook as well. In the casino the cheapest thing on the menu was a basket of fries for $10, ouch! So for a week I spent my days making sandwiches for lunch, laying on the beach, reading in the afternoons, making dinner, and playing poker all night long. Not a bad lifestyle. Although a bit lonely as nobody speaks English around here, just Spanish all day everyday.

Lighthouse near the southern tip

No swimming on this beach

A little bit on an income disparity here

As for the poker, it did not go as well as expected! I was the table punching bag for a few nights, people would just call my reraises with any two crap cards trying to crack my good hands, and it was working! My AA and KK hands were getting smashed. But I made most of it back the last few nights, so I only lost triple digits. Meh. Still pretty disappointing. I could have stuck around a few more nights and probably finished in the black, but the following weekend in Montevideo (capital of Uruguay) they had their big Carnival parade and I wanted to be around for that. I could wait for the better poker games in the US and Cambodia.

One more jellyfish! Next up Montevideo

I’m a fan of eclectic buildings, and Montevideo has a few

On to the capital, Montevideo! Parade time! It’s called the Parade de las Llamadas, it happens once a year and it’s much more for the locals, as compared to, let’s say Rio de Janeiro. It’s two nights, lasting from 8pm to 12am. I took the bus from Punta Del Este to Montevideo and met a German guy in the hostel to go see the parade with. We foolishly got there at 8pm (nothing in South America starts on time) but the real action and when all the locals streamed in was around 9:30. I think our biggest mistake was not spending $10 to get seats when we had the chance, before you knew it the crowds grew thick and pushy and it was a bit tricky to see everything that going on from a bit further back.

jealous of that VIP window seat

But it was still a lot of fun, bands full of drums, people waving flags everywhere, and of course the scantily clad women shaking what they got! Although that was less of a focal point than I had assumed based on photos that I’d seen of Carnival in Rio! So it was a fun night, good vibes, high energy! I’m pretty sure everyone in town was at the parade. But a few hours of the parade was plenty. I would think doing it for a week straight in Brazil or something would be a bit overkill!

flag wavers

So that was pretty unique, and I still had a bit more time to do some of my usual wandering around the capital! A lot of the city was a lot more dead than was expecting, lots of very empty streets and some pretty run down buildings. But some of the buildings looked cool in that zombie apocalypse scenario type of way. Some obvious drug users in the streets didn’t seem so cool though.

Always fun to see some random tango dancing in the streets!

ostriches!

would love that balcony

I dig that building! Palacio Salvo