Cuzco, Peru, Ancient Inca Capital, Gateway to Machu Pichu!

Waiting for my pal Erin from Australia to meet me here at the infamous Hostel Loki. The header photo above is the view from my room. Not bad, eh? The photo of the large group of people is a bit of sunday afternoon comedic entertainment. A man pretend to taunt a Cholita- the native ladies who wear a most unique-to-Andean-culture, multiple ruffled skirts, knitted sweaters, and bowler hats! But the lady is really a man and was really hamming it up for the crowd, who were in stiches, even the attendant Cholita's themselves!

Cuzco is the ancient capital city of the Incan Empire, and has been a capital city for 900 hundred years. When the spanish sacked the city and murdered the last Inca King they then tore down all the amazing stones they could figure out how to move and constructed the cathedral on top of the ancient temple's, often literally using the old foundations. (Why not right. The massive mortarless stones obviously weren't going anywhere)This was done all throughout the empire and was meant to be a psychological move. "We not only have subdued you savage's but we've replace your temple's with our's. Our way of life even our religion is now totally forced upon you. So there!"

The McDonald's pictured is directly across the main plaza from the Catedral (pictured). The military parade in the photo takes place each Sunday morning. I made the mistake of standing on the nice green grass to snap a picture and then i was whistled at by an angry Peruvian. Like in most other countries besides the State's, grass is for looking at, not sitting or walking on! Shame on me. Felt very much the dumb gringo, with my two back packs on and my camera around my neck.

Last night i finished reading a book i'd started in Rio. "Richer by Asia" by Edmond Taylor. Published in 1947, it is the nonfiction account of his 28 months in wartime Asia, mainly in India and the a bit in Burma, working for the OSS studying how people think, and how to help the British-US allied force there get along and focus on the job of defeating Japan. In the book though, he mainly shares how the 2 years there changed his thinking of the East. After realizing he knew next to nothing about their religions and ways of life, which were then and even more now accounting for more than half the planets population, he began studying Hinduism and Buddhism and finally realized that if ever there was to be a united world, One World as he calls it, then the west would have to come to an understanding and appreciation of a number of the East's so called 'backwards' ways.

It was a fascinating read, especially as it was happening in an incredibly tumultuos period in world history, on the cusp of the violence and chaos of British withdrawal and Indian Partition, the rise of Ghandi's leadership and cultural revolution, the dropping of the first nuclear bombs, america's wrestling with the physical, spiritual/moral fallout from what could be basically considered mass murder on the scale of even our sworn enemies the Nazi's. It made me realize how much i really dont know about even US history, not to mention world history (for instance, i'd never even heard of the OSS).

I better go now. time to unpeel my eye's from my computer screen and say hello to the real world.

Happy Labor Day to all my friends back home,

Cheers!

Nick

Catching up on catching ya'll up

Apologies for the long absence. My excuse is good though! I was far far away from the city. First in Samaipata, a little mountain town for four days and then on a farm for 8 days and both had no internet!

Thursday August 26th I left the farm to return to Santa Cruz in one of the old beat up toyota wagons that are the de facto taxi's and are zip all around Bolivia, connecting distant towns, and they always pack people (and chickens!) in. My first ride was in the front seat which i shared for two hours on a bumpy road with another guy. i was basically hanging half out the window. i wanted a discount for that but no dice. had to pay the whole whopping $5 fare. The other time i was in a van taxi next to a very talkative bolivian lady who while super nice after two hours of halting psuedo-conversation where 90% of it was her and i trying to figure out what we were saying, and but then she insisted on showing me cell phone pics of her little black and white dog, which was cute and fun for all of a minute. Then to my relief she shifted her focus to the very tired middle aged Australian lady named Amelia in the back seat who spoke little more spanish than I (as in none).

Found out later when i ran into Amelia up at the El Fuerte ruins that there was a chicken in the back seat the whole time that never made a peep and belonged to a bushy eyed owl of a bolivian man we had picked up on the side of the road an hour out of Santa Cruz! There were actually two older bolivian men in that back bench seat and both never made a peep either. The lady apparently took on the job for all of us.

After getting dropped off on the highway out side Samaipata, I hiked by myself the long hot dusty road to El Fuerte, about 6km, with all my trip-ly possesions strapped to my back. El Fuerte is ancient city atop a hill overlooking incredible mountain vista's. First built by pre-incan's, it was occupies and expanded by Inca and then Spanish conqueror's who all left their own additions and subtractions on the site that may have supported up to 20,000 citizens at a time. Not much is known, really, about the site, other than the main rock was surely ceremonial in nature and never actually of true military significance. The ancient name has been lost. A bit more info can be found here through wikipedia. No one though desputes the presence of an energy field. Whether because of the ruins, or the ruins are there because of it. I could not deny feeling a powereful vibe while standing near the summit of the temple mound. Sadly, the public can no longer walk to the very top where is situated a sunken circle of alternating seats of triangles and squares. women are triangles men are...well, square.

After 2 hours exploring and staring down the mysterious hole in ground which some say was part of an underground passage system linking all major inca sites (and other's daresay was just a well), I started back down with all my heavy gear and shortly was offered a ride from a nice couple from Washington D.C. I hopped into the pickup bed and enjoyed a much easier way onward to my next destination, the sleepy mountain town called Samiapata, whose very name means "rest-in-the-hills". Immediately headed to a hostel, called "Anderina" whom my 3 year old Lonely Planet guide book said had a roof top jucuzzi as my legs and back were much in need of a soak. Got there and checked to the quiant place with an enclosed garden patio. They jucuzzi was there, but had never been finished so was just an empty tiled rectangle with a great, albeit windy, view.

The next day i spent wandering in town and observed the last heat of a time trial Rally race (what?!), the talk of the town, and the noise of it too as I could hear in the distance the race cars' exhaust screaming from clear atop El Fuerte, 4km away.

After 3 nights in Samaipata, including an all day hike to an remote mountainous area called Bella Vista, on Tuesday evening I headed south back to Ginger's Paradise Farm, sharing a taxi with 2 swiss girls, Karen and Sarah. I had been hoping to help harvest coffee and learn the whole process of making coffee. We arrived around 8pm and stumbled across the swinging indiana jones style rope bridge and the 10 minute walk down the trail across the river to the stone house where owner's Cristobal and Sol live with their amazing kids; 5 year old Ginger, 9 year old Dizzy, and 14 year old Nova. Despite arriving to a dark house shouting "Hola", we were welcomed with happy faces and Sol graciously ran off to make up beds at the guest house, an 8 minute walk back up the trail to the rope bridge.

I did learn to make coffee! The whole process was about 4 days. On my last morning, august 26th, I had a cup of the coffee i had personally harvested and wow it amazing, smooth, strong, and earthy. Sure beats the instant Nescafe coffee that is served almost everywhere in South America!

I then took a 16 hour bus north to La Paz, a dizzying 13,323 feet above sea level. I have been here a week which included a 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni, ( a 12 hour bus ride south) the largest salt flats on earth. The first day of that we cruised across the flats and in the evening were into more desert scrub brush landscapes, sorta like Washington's scab lands. stayed in the most unique lodging ever, a hotel made entirely of blocks of salt! A chewy dinner of Llama was enjoyed and washed down with a bottle of Bolivian red wine, "Vino Fino Tinto". Say that ten times fast.

The next two days were spent driving through surreal desert landscapes, surrounded by volcanos, and around twisting rock formations plopped in the middle of vast expanses of sand and dirt and shale rock, carved into fantastic shapes by eons of blasting sand storms. Throughout these regions were scattered vibrant lagune's, all colors of the rainbow, and in them all, bathing and refreshing in the mineral rich waters were flocks of pink flamingos! No cheesy plastic yard art here, just thousands of majestic birds doing what they have been for who knows how many millennia.

Well, i must go as i have to check out of my hostel room here at the Adventure Brew Hostel (they make their own beer!) in 8 minutes. Yikes!

I am off to Lake Titicaca today or tomorrow, and then to Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital in Peru, hoping to arrive sunday or monday in preperation of a 5 day trek to Machu Pichu.

So long and i hope you all enjoy reading about my trip and please check out my Flickr photo blog! I am proud of the many images I've been lucky to capture, and i feel it allows you to tag along with me.

Ciao,

Nick

The sky is blue, the water blue but the only thing blue about me is the teacup steaming by my breakfast pastry. The hostel resident dog is standing at attention thinking he might get some extra sympathy from a naive tourist. Not today pup.

While I'm sure i am a little naive i am really more than a little unsure what to do with my days. I had read that this happens to most people when the first start vagabonding. I've been so used to going and doing the past few years and now that i have nothing to specifically go to or things that need doing, i have frequent bouts of anxiety about that.

Now i know i might seem like the dog moping for sympathy. poor Nick. stuck in sunny Brazil. Somebody tell him what to do! My pal Lindsay said "Update your damn blog!" in a recent FB comment. Thats not a bad idea.

So today I was about to depart for Ihla Grande, a tropical island eco preserve 3 hours south of Rio, but alas the weather report says nothing but clouds and rain the next 3 days, and I am to head to Bolivia on Friday with a few travel, so i guess i missed my chance. Afraid to go there in the rain as 25 tourists were buried in an avalance last January during heavy rains. Thats a rational fear, right?

Its not like there's a lack of things to do in Rio, though. My favorite past time so far is to grab my goofy Ipanema touristy beach towel and slather sunscreen on the bod and catch some rays on Ipabema Beach just down the block from my hostel. If all else fails, if i come up with no other activities, why not just lay on the beach and while away the day.

Honestly this has been the most relaxing part of my trip so far. That's when it finally sunk in that i really am on the road indefinately, and while there's no reason why i should lay on the beach all day, there's also no particular reason i shouldn't. Now that was a revelation, and one that instantly made me realize just why every year millions of North American's choose to spend their entire vacations doing just that, flying to sandy, sun drenched, palm tree lined crescent beaches the world over. A quick google check reported 1,800,000 U.S. citizens flew to the Caribbean and the same to Mexico in 2010 already!

[Discovered a new favorite band the other day that I can't recommend enough. They are from LA and are called Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's. A so called 'hippy musical enemble' led by 31 year old Alex Ebert, former known as Ima Robot. They have a cast of about 15 total musicians and have a style that is part 70's rock opera and part sufjan stevensesque brass band explosion. His vocals are sung with ardent passion, the lyrics at times apocalyptic and at times very simple but also profound via the delivery. Like my two favorite's: Home and Jade. Listen to them here. Altogether lovely and inspiring- inspiring me to love other's and to keep my chin up. ]

View more Rio photo's here!

World's Away

Arrived in Belem, Brazil at 3am today all in one piece, save for two packages of whopper malt balls which had spilled open and coated everything in one of my boxes! Stew picked me up at the airport in Belem and we drove the 20 minute drive back in his 2009 vintage VW Kombi bus through some super rough neighborhoods to the school's little fortress, only slowing down at red lights as its unsafe to stop here at night. The gaurd in their alley lowered by hand his little chain to let us pass, and Stew laughed and shook his head. "Like that thin chain is gonna stop anyone".

The gaurd at the high main gate was more intense, but opened it right away when he saw it was Stew.

We bumped along a curving red dirt lane under a canopy of palm, acai, and towering glossy- leaved ficus trees toward, passing quiant white- washed bungalows along the way to his house.

As I took all this verdant jungle flora in through the Kombi's bulbous bay window i was struck by the realization that i'd traveled an amazing distance in a relatively very short time. I was in fact, worlds away. Just yesterday, Monday July 19th, starting at 6am morning a shuttle bus with my Dad and I on board wove his way through downtown Manhattan traffic horns blazing and deposited us at 7am at JFK airport. From there I flew Delta to to Miami, then to Aruba aboard an ancient 737 on Surinam Airways, and then to Paramaribo, Suriname. There, after much nauseating hassle to get my luggage actually on my soon to depart connecting flight, I fly on another ancient Boeing 2 hours south to finally touch down in Brazil. And on my 29th birthday too!

So I am taking it easy today(the sky just opened up too for my first Amazon-style rain shower), have a bit of jet lag and just plain exhaustion after a week driving across the USA with my pal Lindsay Fuller, visiting her amazing family in Birmingham, AL and the flying to Newark, meeting up with the Dad for 2 days of visiting relatives in Warminster, Philadelphia and 3 days exploring the sweltering sight's of the one and only Big Apple- New York City (Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, top of the Empire State Building, staring up slack-jawwed at the anemic Flatiron building, ferry to Staten Island, walk through Central Park passing by the Guggenheim Museum, delectable street food, perfect pizza, nightly beers at The B'Way Dive Bar, the fun never seemed to end)

The plan now is to hang out here for a week and visit with my dear friends the Stewart's and see the sights in Belem, and then to head down the coast of Brazil and eventually get to Cuzco, Peru by September 6th to hike to Machu Picchu via the Salkantay trail.

I am uploading a rather portly batch of photo's to my Flickr account right now so please take a gander and let me know what you like. It's good to be on the road finally, and in a foreign country. The horizon has never seemed so full of possibilities for adventure.

View my photo's on Flickr

Boulder has great New Orleans food, and dry air gives us mondo boogers!

Breakfast at Lucile's in Boulder with (L-R) Julie, Aubrea, LF, me, and Uncle Mark Miller who lives in nearby Arvada and who we called up last minute and he was thankfully home and met us this morning for a great meal. had not seen him for a few years and it was great to catch up with him! He is a musician too, as well as all those girls there so we had fun talking music. had a cajun omelet,yum!

Drove a heck of a long ways today, Down 25 nearly all the way to sante fe, then caught a shortcut hwy 84 to hwy 40 east.

Drove through a insane down pour (pictured). emerged unscathed. drove through New Mexico, entered texas, crusised through Amarillo, and shot right out the other side of the Panhandle into Oklahoma (yes, the wind does go sweeping down the plain). We saw a HUGE lone wind turbine in a little town in texas called Tucumcari, swore it was the biggest we ever saw. And we've seen an impressive number of wind power generators popping up all over the country sides so far on our road trip-an encouraging sight even if they are all subsidized by uncle sam. they are nevertheless clean renewable energy which is a heck of a lot better than more oil rigs, right?

About 2am we couldnt drive anymore and found a cheap Super 8 motel. the room is actually really clean and nice and the bathroom i about yelped when i turned the light on. It is so nice! Really! like recently and tastefully remodeled.

We got so engrossed in conversation earlier tonight that we nearly ran out of gas. the little light blinked on and we made it about 5 miles later to a little isolated station which was closed but the pumps were on. there was this old crumbling VW camper bus sleeping right by the pumps. ahh, memories. sight of vw's in the lone star state makes me think of Don Miller's memoir Through Painted Deserts, about leaving home in houston and driving across the west with his buddy in a similiar old bus. It was originally titled Prayer and the Art of VW Maintainance. Lindsay's new favorite word is "Dingleberry".

Which applies to anything and everything apperently. Here's one, actually!

Road Trip beginnings, like a giant slowly waking

After sitting like this for 5 whole minutes in Seattle, no one picked me up. So I called my friend Lindsay Fuller and she offered to take me as far as Birmingham,Alabama. We left an hour later. We are in Boulder, CO tonight. Had a fun night out in Denver at the Ogden Theatre, saw a band called The Hold Steady with Lindsay's friends Aubrea and Julie, old classmates of her's from Baylor U. yesterday we went to the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City where I almost got converted by a really cute LDS, but LF saved me at the very last moment and we left the heart of the beast and walked down the street to a bar called The Beehive Inn and downed a pint of cold refreshing Polygemy Porters, whose motto is "why have just one"?Indee. One was enough though.

First night out we stopped in La Grande,OR so I could see the hospital I was born at on a camping trip. not much has changed. the town was so small the ER room doors were locked and it seemed the whole place was closed for the night.

The landscapes we have driven through last three days have been sup

er varied-s. washington state (as pictured in rolling hills and blue sky), the desert of Utah and the mountains of Colorado. All throughout though we had the peace of knowing we were not more than 100 miles from a Starbucks, Subway or Costco.

Tomorrow should be a great day, breakfast with A and J and my Uncle Mark Miller is gonna meet up with us too i hope, even though we just called him today on our way into town.

Day one pics with new Canon G11

Thought I'd share these test pics. Since i have nothing else to do. (ha! get off yer duf nick! get to work!)
These are all unedited, straight fromo my camera to Flickr.

Aunt Marianne is getting married in less than two hours!

I am staying at a resort near Redmond, OR near Bend with my my parents, Katie, Mary, and other relatives including cousin Nadine from NYC who I just met for the first time. She is my Dad's cousin but we dont know the proper word-is she my great cousin, or cousin half removed, once removed? Twice added? So we will just say cousin. Also met Marianne's fiance Steve Munsen and his son Colby. Colby just graduated from U of O with a geology degree so a big congrats to him.
I had a fun night hanging out late last night with him and his friend in their deluxe coach r.v.-the lap of luxury! Watched the 1987 film Predator on the flat panel tv that folds down from the ceiling above the drivers seat. A pretty intense alien movie starring the governator Arnoldandjesse ventura. The whole freaky jungle monster seems sort of played out for me after 5 years watching LOST. But the heat seaking alien-eyes view was quite captivating, and very interesting soundtrack too. With the generator rumbling (surprisingly quietll) it felt like we were traveling down the road the whole time, which gave rise to sudden panick's about who was actually driving. This was probably a result of the rather prodigious amounts of excellent wine which were imbibed, and the sedative quality of the catered chicken dinner, and the odd, sensory heightening experience of catching up with so many Thomas' I hadn't seen in a long time. Seems we only see each at weddings and funerals, my dad said. Sad but true. Speaking of Dad, a very Happy Father's to my Pa! I owe you a round at Deschutte's!

elliot bay fish pier at sunset

elliot bay fish pier at sunset, originally uploaded by Nicholas D Thomas.

One of my favorite shots. taken 2 winters ago. The lighting was just so perfect, and it was one of those situations where it just kept getting better and better like god was fooling around with the knobs of Adobe Lightroom.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.