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Up and Over

Posted August 11, 2013

PART 15 (DAYS 33-35): “How’s everything here?” I asked Chris, the manager at Southern Laughter Lodge, when I arrived back in Queenstown for a day in order to catch a homeward bound flight early the following morning.

“Oh, it’s quiet. It’s finally slowing down,” he answered.

“Oh, is the ski season over?”

“No, the season can go all the way until October,” he told me. “But all the Aussie kids have gone back to university.”

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Miscommunications

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 19, 2004

DAY 120: The only task Lara and I had for the day was to try on our Beija-Flor costumes for when we marched in the Rio Carnaval and we were back at our tour agent in Copacabana in time for our 10 a.m. appointment. A pet turtle on the floor walked by, foreshadowing what a slow process it would be to get our new clothes.

And The Crowd Goes Wild

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 18, 2004

DAY 119: In the U.S.A., “football” refers to the classic American sport where teams of padded warriors duke it out under their coaches’ plays, so they can ultimately work their way to the Big Game where Janet Jackson gets her boob flashed on national television. In the rest of the world, “football” refers to what Americans call “soccer,” and it is an international phenomenon which brings out the obsessed craziness in most people. No where is football (soccer) more a part of national culture than in Brazil.

Fantasies From The Thirteenth Floor

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 17, 2004

DAY 118: For my first full day in Rio de Janeiro, the goal was to figure out the plan of attack for the rest of the stay through Carnaval. Lara and I had two mission objectives: 1) to find a place to stay since our Botofogo hostel was already booked for Carnaval time — at three times the price of the regular rate — and 2) to try and figure out a way to join a samba school and actually march in the Carnaval parade rather than be a spectator.

Welcome to Rio

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 15, 2004

DAY 117: I woke up in my seat the middle of the night on my overnight bus from Foz do Iguaçu to Rio de Janeiro. My eyes opened and saw that Lara wasn’t in her seat next to me. I assume she moved to the two empty seats behind us to spread out and closed my eyes again.

I opened my eyes a couple of hours later and saw that in Lara’s chair was a big Brazilian man.

Race to Rio

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 13, 2004

DAY 116: In CBS’s Emmy award-winning reality show The Amazing Race — coincidentally, a show I tried to get on with wheat — teams of two must get over their differences and work as a team to beat other teams to the finishing checkpoint in some city around the world. Without being on the actual show, I had no definite finish line to get to.

Dumb and Dumber Day

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 13, 2004

DAY 115: I don’t know if was the daze and confusion of a slight hangover from partying the night before, but all day Lara and I just acted silly and stupid like Harry and Lloyd in 1994’s Dumb and Dumber.

Great Adventure

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 13, 2004

DAY 114: When Lara and I signed up for a tour of the Argentine side of Iguazu Falls with the Hostelling International office, we spent the extra 10 real on a tour called “Gran Aventura” that included both a truck and boat ride. Like the Six Flags theme park with the English translation of the tour name, the tour included a wet and wild ride through the roaring rapids of the Rio Iguazu.

When Quatis Attack!

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 10, 2004

DAY 113: Iguaçu/Iguazu [Brazilian/Spanish spelling] Falls, one of the world’s greatest natural wonders and a UNESCO site as of 1986, is a massive collection of 275 waterfalls at the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, where gravity pulls down millions of gallons of water in a great spectacle that looks great on a postcard.

I had been recommended by everyone who had already been there to visit the Brazilian side first for an overview of the falls before seeing it up close in Argentina. I passed this recommendation onto Lara and so we went off on our own to the national park just 3 km. away and accessible by public bus.

An Episode of E.R.

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 08, 2004

DAY 112: Behind the scenes, the producers of “The Trinidad Show” (me) had been emailing certain former cast members in hopes they would return for another appearance. Like the returns of Diane on Cheers and Lilith on Frasier, Lara — who I met in Lima, spent Christmas in Cusco with, partied with in La Paz, and toured the Bolivian salt flats with — came back for some more episodes.

Little did we know that her comeback would be on an episode similar to one of the medical drama E.R.

Eat Your Heart Out

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 08, 2004

DAY 111: On my first day in Campo Grande, I was totally confused with the Portuguese language and just said “sim” (“yes”) to everything. Being in the Pantanal for three days with mostly English-speaking tourists, I didn’t get to practice much of the new language, so when I got back to Campo Grande, not much had changed.

Standing Room Only

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 08, 2004

DAY 110: I don’t know if it was from the horseback riding or the fact that I slept in a hammock that had sunk low from everyone’s drunken swinging, but I woke up with every muscle in my body sore. Perhaps it was a combination of the two.

The Last American Cowboy

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 06, 2004

DAY 109: Frodo, who fleed like a girl when the caiman got temporarily loose the day before, had the same sort of reaction when he had to de-hook the piranha he caught from the bridge where we were fishing for our early morning activity. He was too scared to handle the “man-eating” fish until it eventually got loose, fell through the bridge planks and back into the creek.

I shouldn’t have laughed because if I were in his shoes, I would have probably acted the same way — that is, if I had caught anything. I had no fish to contribute to the group pile. Meanwhile, Mika, an aspiring tennis star from Holland, was master of the fish with a catch of four.

Caimans and Big Cats

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 06, 2004

DAY 108: The one thing about wilderness safaris is that, unlike a visit to the zoo, animals aren’t presented in convenient, sectioned off areas. The one guarantee about safaris is that there is no guarantee you’ll see anything good. I had come to the Pantanal in hopes of seeing big cats — pumas or jaguars — but was disheartened when I heard that one Croatian girl who had been there a month working in the camp hadn’t seen a big cat yet.

Eight Hours to Nowhere

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 06, 2004

DAY 107: There was a Brazilian morning show on television called Mais Você hosted by a sassy middle-aged woman and — although targeted for adults — a talking parrot puppet. I figured the Brazilians needed to spice up their mornings with a soft-spoken character that could spontaneously explode into loud outbursts, the way Americans did with Regis Philbin.

The Sims

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 02, 2004

DAY 106: “The C Phase,” a phrase I coined (or at least I think I did) is that inevitable period of time when a non-Spanish speaker first enters Latin America and, confused with the language, just says “si” (“yes”) to everything.

“[Would you like me to charge you more money than I normally do to a local?]”

“Si.”

The C Phase got me in many predicaments, like on a mountain bike ride through the Ecuadorean countryside and on a cargo boat trip through Peru, until I eventually got the hang of Spanish and started to understand the gist of what people were saying. However, in Brazil, the only Portuguese-speaking country in South America where “yes” translates to “sim,” I was back to square one.

COPS in The Pantanal

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 01, 2004

DAY 105: I woke up that Sunday morning early and got in dressed in my Sunday best — I was off to the Federal Police station for my entry visa stamp, obligatory mugshot and fingerprints for being American, since I couldn’t get them the day before at the border. I wore my nerdy Poindexter glasses in attempts to look less of a criminal, or perhaps just a white collar one.

Oi, Corumba!

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 01, 2004

DAY 104: The sun rose and woke me up around six in the morning, only after a mere three-hour slumber. What the sun revealed was worth the rude awakening though; we were well into the Bolivian side of The Pantanal, with its marshy, tropical vegetation and impressive rocky cliff formations. The girl next to me wasn’t so impressed; tired, she just kept on sleeping, often falling and leaning on my shoulder until she’d suddenly wake up embarrassed. When another two-seater opened up after a stop, she snatched it to sleep in peace.

Random Thoughts While Waiting and Walking

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 01, 2004

DAY 103: It’s funny the things from your childhood that resurge in your mind out of nowhere when you’re alone on the backpacker trail. I woke up in my San Jose de Chiquitos hostel room singing the words to the theme of “Teeny Little Super Guy,” the stop-motion animated series of shorts that were shown on Sesame Street in the 70s and 80s. This random thought that was one of the more exciting things of a relatively boring day of waiting and walking in the Jesuit mission town.

Use The Force, Gringo

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted February 01, 2004

DAY 102: Lonely Planet’s South America On A Shoestring, which covers all the countries in South America in an abridged form, is a brick, weighing maybe two pounds. Lugging it around had become a burden for me — I already had the burden of lugging around cameras and electronics — and so early in my trip I took the suggestion of many travel gurus out there: rip out the sections that you need, as needed. At first I hated the notion of ripping out pages in my neatly bound book, but after the first rip, there was no stopping me — it was just easier. Ripping was a great idea as I could just fold 3-4 pages conveniently into my pocket, but it wasn’t such a good idea when I lost the pages I needed: the section about taking the train from Santa Cruz, Bolivia through the small tropical highland towns to the Brazilian border.

Money Matters in the Mountains

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted January 28, 2004

DAY 101: After a quick breakfast of empanadas de pollo, Zolly and I split a taxi to the bus station for our day-trip to the nearby mountain town of Samaipata, a popular weekend getaway town for Santa Cruzians. It was possible to get there and its surrounding highlights on a bus tour, but we decided to wing it with public transportation. However, when we got to the bus terminal, we found that no public bus went to Samaipata.

Keeping Cool in Santa Cruz

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted January 27, 2004

DAY 100: My night bus from Sucre drove along a bumpy dirt road through the night, under the desert moonlight that made the shapes of cacti look like ghosts in the desert. As the darkness of morning turned into dawn, the ambient light revealed a change of scenery — we had made it out of the desert and into the lush, tropical green landscape of the jungle. The bus made it to the Santa Cruz terminal one hour ahead of schedule on a sunny morning of what would be a scorcher of a day.

Suckers in Sucre

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted January 26, 2004

DAY 99: After a late night in the “party dorm,” Zoe, Sam and I just slept in until we had to get up for our check-out time at noon. We got our gear together, sorted out our laundry to bring to a laundromat and went back yet again to the Joyride Cafe for much needed “Desayunos de Ch’aqui”, the “Hangover breakfasts.”

Another Day in The Trinidad Show

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted January 26, 2004

DAY 98: The thing to do on a Sunday morning in Sucre is to leave the city for the day and go to Tarabuco, a smaller town with its lively Sunday markets. Zoe, Sam and I hopped on a bus to these markets, a one-hour drive away. The “Moody Jacksons,” the family musical band we saw perform the day before at the Cafe Gourmet Mirador, was also on the bus ride. Again, the kids played unhappily while their father laughed like Tigger in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh at certain parts of the song.

Kids in the Park

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted January 25, 2004

DAY 97: ”?Puedo tenir un Desayuno de Ch’aqui?” I ordered to the waitress in the Joyride cafe at a table with Sam and Zoe. The “Hangover breakfast” — an open-faced egg and ham sandwich — came after a few minutes and it really hit the spot at nine in the morning. It was a very “grown-up” start to what would otherwise be a very juvenile day.

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