The story today takes place somewhere out there, 107 countries later... Blog
Isla San Cristóbal: How Galapagos were Created. June 17. How Galapagos were created is that beneath the Galapagos Islands is a hot spot/volcano that releases magma into molten lava that rides to the surface. How Galapagos were created is the hot spot never moves but the Galapagos are on a tectonic plate called Nazca and this plate moves 3 centimeters each year towards the continent of South America. How Galapagos were created is that the eastern islands of the Galapagos...
Isla Santa Cruz to Isla San Cristóbal: Consistent Animal Entertainment. June 16. At 8am, I went to get on my boat to Isla Floreana and I was told that it was cancelled because there were not enough people on it to make the trip. That was after the morning boat to San Cristóbal had already left. So, I hung out at the fish market for about an hour to watch the fiasco taking place with the sea lions, pelicans and humans. ...
Isla Isabella to Isla Santa Cruz: Not Cruz-ing with Pleasure. June 15. I was up at 4:30am to catch my 5:20am check in for my boat from Isla Isabella to Isla Santa Cruz. A solid four hours of sleep. I know the world thinks that I live this glorious life of just travelling and sleeping in late and hanging out at the beach and partying at night. It is a good gig that I have, but it is not the...
Isla Isabela, Galapagos Swimming with Sea Lions. June 14 It was an easy start. I had sleep last night. It was a treat. I checked out of my hostel and headed to the square of the Puerto Villamil for breakfast and seen that a stage was being built with huge band speakers. A party! So, I asked someone who could speak English and they told me that there was a grand fiesta tonight in honor of Father’s Day, and the...
Isla Isabela, Galapagos Los Tunels Tour. June 13. Up for a Galapagos Los Tunels tour at 7am after finally getting to sleep around 1:30am. This is burning the candle at both ends. I am afraid to look back to see how many days of insanity that have passed in a row this has been for. 8:20am in Ecuador means 8:40. Eventually a boat hauled about 12 of us through very rough waters for 50 minutes to an area for snorkelling...
Galapagos: Isla Isabella Snorkelling, and Boobies, Crabs, Penguins and Iguanas. June 12. A 6am alarm is a disturbing sound when you have only had a few hours of sleep. This is absurd. I need to rest somewhere. Too much is going on and too much awesome is happening. Once I washed the black rings around my eyes and I said goodbye to Stephanie, I headed to the pier to catch a $30 boat ride to Isla Isabela, the largest island...
Puerto Ayora, Galapagos: The Lion Thief. June 11. Muay Consodo. I do not seem to be sleeping anymore, and that is a shame because I am really good at it when I get to try it. In the afternoon I headed to the fish market of Puerto Ayora because I heard there is a lot of action there. The market was finished for the day but there were a lot of pelicans around the place. Abruptly, a sea lion showed...
Guayaquil to Galapagos Islands – Really, I am in the Galapagos? Awesome! 10 June Getting up at 6am after going to bed at 2am is not a pleasant experience for me. At those times I am really glad no one else is around to have to deal with my mental demeanour. I like a solid 8 of sleep, just to restock the cerebral cabinet. A taxi to the airport. Today is Guayaquil to Galapagos Islands. I was told that I...
Guayaquil: A Change Will Do You Good. June 9. I slept so hard on the bus that the driver had to wake me up in my seat at Peruvian/Ecuador immigration. The man next to me and I were the only two people left on the bus. I need some real rest. Exit stamp. Hasta Luego Peru. I will not miss you. I will not miss having 18 year olds in bars trying to sell my cocaine and I will not...
Máncora to Guayaqiul: Good Riddance Peru… June 8. It is funny how English speaker perceive my name when I tell them it is ‘Castor.’ They often look at me in awe and say, “Wow, that is a very exotic name,” or “You are a Canadian, how did you get a name like that.” I do not usually tell them that it just means Beaver in Spanish, Portuguese and French. When I introduce myself to Spanish speakers here in Latin America,...
Máncora: The Tussler. June 7 I opened my eyes because someone was waking me up. It was Mary. It was light outside. I was on top of a sheet on a cement floor of a dress shop in Máncora, Peru. Hard liquor and I are not compatible. We never work out well. It is possible that I would have been in this exact scenario had I only drunk beer, but the odds are less likely. We left the shop, and...
June 6. Party Boy Wakes Up. I had a late start, but after a swim in the ocean a girl began walking towards me and she was walking towards me with that walk where you know that the person is going to approach you. I stood still as she walked my way until she took off her glasses and I recognized her as Angelique from Germany who held the flashlight in Sucre while the English girl peed in the middle...
Máncora: Here Comes the Sun (♬Dee Dee Dee Dee Deeee♬). June 5 I found a lousy hostel for S/$20 per night that is right on the beach front where loud waves crash right below my room. Rad. Ah, Here Comes the Sun. I have wanted this for a long time… Maybe I have found a temporary home. I went for lunch and a walk around town to find out that I know no one in town. I have made so...
Hunachaco to Máncora: Chasing the Sun. June 4. Staying up late for nothing really screws up a day. It was 3pm before I left the hostel today and I walked out onto the beach and warm weather that I have been longing for as I have been chasing the sun and wondered what took me so long to get my ass out the door. I should have known it would be awesome outside because the mosquitoes had already found me....
Lima to Huanchaco: Oceanside…You Have Been Missed. June 3. Take a bus north of Lima to Huanchaco some time in your life. It will blow your mind. Lima is in the middle of a desert. In fact, the whole of the west coast of South America that I have seen so far seems to be a desert. But, the road that will take you into northern Peru out of Lima to Huanchaco is something else. The highway is build on the...
Lima Spanish Inquisition Museum of the God Ol’ Days. June 2. I recognized that I had a friend on the bus once we arrived in Lima, Matias from Poland/Germany. We checked into the same hostel and went out for lunch. Ceviche, Peruvian style raw fish, is freaking awesome! Who knew that something that should taste so terrible could be so good? I could eat that three times a day… We went to explore a couple of Lima’s 40+ museums. On...
Cusco to Lima: Mass Tourism Cusco. June 1. My friend caught a plane towards Iquitos this morning. I had a blast with her. We had a little goodbye romance and she headed for her plane. It was strange for me as I was being left. I am always the leaver. My friend Aafje, who ditched me on my birthday, was in town. She was sick and wanted me to visit her so I went to meet before I left mass...
Cusco: Trying to Be Nicer in this City I do not Like. May 31. My friend tells me that we have been in seven different hostels in the past seven days and she is wearing out. I thought this was par for the course. I move fast! But, we will spend a second night in our Cusco hostel tonight. It was an awesome morning of having no plans and no need to be anywhere, so she and I spend all...
Discover Machu Picchu. May 30. My friend’s alarm went off at 3:30am. Yuck. She went to the shower and I stayed in bed. When she got out she crawled back into bed which lead to a precarious position whereby we used energy that really should have been saved for the climb. Life is not easy. By the time breakfast was consumed it was too late to hike up the mountain, so we spent $10 U.S. to ride the bus up...
Cusco to Aguas Calientes: Machu Picchu. May 29. There was not a lot of sleep to be had as we went to bed late last night and I was up early this morning because of a pair of wondering hands. Life can get worse… We got on our Cusco to Aguas Calientes $100 U.S. tour to Machu Picchu in a van with about 13 other gringos. I had to sit beside a crusty woman from Argentina who was a nasty...
Cusco: My Tourist Hell. May 28. Construction workers were hard at it this morning and had us awake a lot earlier than we would have liked to have been. It was noon when we finally left the hostel and the workers were sitting out on the sidewalk drinking beer with their lunch. That-a-be fellas… Cusco is the kind of place were women in traditional clothing walk around with small lambs sit in purses and peer out at the world while...
Isla Del Sol to Cusco – Country Number 60! May 27. When the sun shines during the day in Isla Del Sol it is intense, and it will burn your face, as it did mine, but you can also feel a cool breeze on the wind because it is an island in the middle of a lake at 3800 meters altitude. Isla Del So is that beautiful woman who teases you with her warmth and makes you feel so good,...
Isla Del Sol: Island Fun. May 26. A small boat took my grumpy-with-a-backpack-on friend and I on a two hour ride to Isla Del Sol, an island in the middle of the highest altitude large lake in the world, Lake Titicaca. I was not enthused about the idea of heading to a cold island in the middle of a cold lake, but warmed to the idea when we checked into a family guesthouse with a couple of cows who overlooked...
La Paz to Copacabana: Train Wreck of a Day. May 25. Neither of us could sleep at all. It was 10am and though my body was tired, and my brain was not racing, but it would not let me rest. And my stomach is still wonky. So, we decided to try to start our day which was actually just a continuation of the previous day. I felt terrible and there was no energy at all in my body, but we...
La Paz: Route 36 Cocaine Bar. May 24. I hit the free city walking tour of La Paz and it was awesome. – We started in front of minimum security San Pedro Prison, most famous for its place in the book ‘Marching Powder.’ There are only 15 guards at a time for 2,500 inmates, and the guards do not even enter the prison. The prison is totally policed by the inmates who establish rules and a hierarchy. All inmates pay...
La Paz: Israeli Manners. May 23. Two Israeli girls were sitting behind me on the bus. One of them kept on putting her feet up on the back of the seat so that they overhung where I was sitting to show her Israeli manners. It was driving me nuts, but I was tolerant. It was muddy outside and when a chunk of mud fell on my seat, I slapped her on the foot and told her to keep her...
Rurrenabaque to La Paz: Mucking Through the Muck. May 22. Yesterday we were on the incredibly rough road on the way from Santa Ana to Rurrenabaque. We were driving in a Toyoto mini-van. That road is one of the worst I have ever been on in my life and it destroys vehicles. I am not sure how tour operators can make money. Those mini-vans drive 3.5 hour into the Pampas every day and 3.5 hours back again on an unimaginable...
The Pampas: Amazon. May 20th and 21st. Five hours of sleep is not enough to keep my pencil sharp. I am dull and groggy. Keeping up a blog takes shitloads of time. I have written every day of my life for about 9 years, and it was all pen-to-paper journal business before. No problem. But, this internet business takes serious time. The writing part is the fast part. I would say it is only about 25% of the time of...
Rurrenabaque: Termites Taste Like Mint – Surviving the Amazon. May 17-19. As I met Maar-sneeze in the morning she told me, “I read your blog last night. You’re such an asshole.” I would learn to get used to being called an asshole in an unmistakable Dutch accent over the next three days. This would happen often… The Survival tour. Okay. We will see… Maar-sneeeze and I met with our guide, loaded into a long boat with a new friend, who...
Rurrenabaque: Dutch Girl Madness Plans. May 16. A late sleep in and like 9 hours of sleep happened! Those days exist for a vacationer, but they hardly exist for a traveller, and they are as gorgeous as a bright red apple on a tree with strippers climbing that tree when they do happen. I hung out and read waiting for a Dutch girl, my friend Maar-sneeze to arrive (Her name is Maartje, but I can hardly pronounce her name because...
