Thursday, May 31, 2007
Glass or Plastic
This adventure begins in our hostal, Hobo Hideaway. Emily wants some water and, of course, what emily wants, emily gets, unless it´s an illfated jungle trip. however, this is not a jungle trip, it is a trip to the mini mart. she sent me on my own, my virgin trip in peru, she even let me have the key. Anyway, it all started with a simple request, "go get me water, papa." I figured i´d get it at the front desk, but it was dry, so i ventured out barefoot ( i believe this is what is known as going native)to the nearest mini mart. I had watched emily and was feeling pretty confident that i could handle 2 waters. So, i proudly requested, "dos aqua". It instantly went down hill from there when she replied in Spanish, "congass" or something that sounded suspiciously like glass. So I politely reply in my best English, "No, plastic". To make sure she understands I point the the plastic water container on the 3rd shelf. She picks it up and i instantly see my error. The bottle is labeled "Con Gas", with gas, in other words (i.e. English) carbonated. With gas, why i didn´t instantly think of emily, i´ll never know. But i recover nicely, smile and say "no, no" and point to a still boxed and unopened stack of water bottles (all plastic, by the way)that are the the kind without gas, just like the bottle we had yesterday. She puts that bottle of con gas away she points to another one in the cooler. She doesn´t get it, it´s the same brand. I don´t want con gas. So I insist on the familiar brand in the stack on the floor, same as we had yesterday. When she again gives me a puzzled look (i seem to be getting a lot of these), i figured she still didn´t get it and was never going to get it, but since I did, i didn´t worry about it. She handed me the familiar bottles but couldn´t resist one more look. I bought my dos aqua and proudly hurried back, still barefoot, to the hostal. It was not until the first bottle fizzed all over my pants that i understood her looks. I had rejected the con gas in the cooler, made by Cielo, and the ´sin gas´ (without gas) in the cooler, also made by Cielo, and insisted she give me the more familiar brand, SanLuis. How was i to know San Luis made two types of water?
dengue fever.
just because a visit to the police occurred doesnt mean the trip is complete.
of course it wouldnt be without a trip to the hospital.
i thought i had malaria and so papa researched it and came back to the hostel room saying we have to go now (something about kidney failure and coma). so we went. first paying two whole soles to have a guy take us 115 steps (we didnt know we were at the end of the same street the first private doctor was on) and then went to the 24 hour emergency room when that one was closed.
i said malaria. the lady looked at me, poked my stomache, and said, no, it´s dengue fever.
well, great.
so i sat in this hospital bed with an IV dripping painfully slow and a medication on top of that... which helped. but they need urine, blood, and "excrement" samples. the first two i gave successfully and quietly. the third was a bit of a problem as i had taken immodium AD earlier that day in order to try and "block" myself up, if you will.
i got up repeatedly, to be a good patient, and try, i even ingested some lubey, minty, NASTY drink to try and encourage my digestive system. no luck. on top of that, everytime i got up i somehow managed to mess up the needle in my hand and it sent the blood rushing back the wrong way. saline was no longer going in. blood was going out.
five hours later and no bowel movement, i felt better and papa and i just wanted to get out of that place. we had some good laughs at first (youll have to see the photos) but soon grew tired and just wanted bed.
i dont think i have dengue. though that would have been a great story. i think i was dehydrated and had a lack of good nutritious food. i´ll soldier on.
unfortunately, we cancelled our second jungle trip that we had planned and paid for. iquitos sure is expensive for a whole lot of nothing. so no jungle this time, but we´re off to lima (a day and a half early) and then off to arequipa to meet niall (the scottish guy from huaraz) for some hiking and mountain biking.
love love to all.
please pray for health.
of course it wouldnt be without a trip to the hospital.
i thought i had malaria and so papa researched it and came back to the hostel room saying we have to go now (something about kidney failure and coma). so we went. first paying two whole soles to have a guy take us 115 steps (we didnt know we were at the end of the same street the first private doctor was on) and then went to the 24 hour emergency room when that one was closed.
i said malaria. the lady looked at me, poked my stomache, and said, no, it´s dengue fever.
well, great.
so i sat in this hospital bed with an IV dripping painfully slow and a medication on top of that... which helped. but they need urine, blood, and "excrement" samples. the first two i gave successfully and quietly. the third was a bit of a problem as i had taken immodium AD earlier that day in order to try and "block" myself up, if you will.
i got up repeatedly, to be a good patient, and try, i even ingested some lubey, minty, NASTY drink to try and encourage my digestive system. no luck. on top of that, everytime i got up i somehow managed to mess up the needle in my hand and it sent the blood rushing back the wrong way. saline was no longer going in. blood was going out.
five hours later and no bowel movement, i felt better and papa and i just wanted to get out of that place. we had some good laughs at first (youll have to see the photos) but soon grew tired and just wanted bed.
i dont think i have dengue. though that would have been a great story. i think i was dehydrated and had a lack of good nutritious food. i´ll soldier on.
unfortunately, we cancelled our second jungle trip that we had planned and paid for. iquitos sure is expensive for a whole lot of nothing. so no jungle this time, but we´re off to lima (a day and a half early) and then off to arequipa to meet niall (the scottish guy from huaraz) for some hiking and mountain biking.
love love to all.
please pray for health.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
fotos de iquitos.
ok guys. since i understand spanish a little more every day i was finally able to understand how to upload photos on picasa.
no username. no password. no problema.
para ti.
no username. no password. no problema.
para ti.
Almost in the Jungle
When I last blogged, we were headed to the jungle. i said, "if we return. . ." I should have said, "If we get there." it´s 2 days later (dos dias - i´m mastering the language, the keyboard is quite another thing.) Anyway, we´re still not in the jungle. Good thing is, Iquotis is a pretty cool town. not sure why i think so, but i´m having a great time. Almost got killed, but you´ll have to read lu´s blog entry for that.
Day one of jungle turned out to be a looooonng day in travel agency. we met out tour guide at 8sharp, which means 8:15ish. Eagarly we boarded the 16´ boat with it´s 40hp Suzuki outboard motor and headed up the Amazon. Precisely 17 minutes later the engine lost power, broken shaft, shear pin, bearings, whatever. never sure, but it made us turn around and head back down river under trolling speed. We met up with a barge of logs with a family on it. The woman was doing the wash by hand in the water that had seeped between the logs. (Maybe this is why i think iquitos is such a great town.) Whilst moored to their raft, our boat driver fashioned a new shear pin to put on the replaced prop and we limped a little faster back to an Iquitos shoreline boat repair shop. We waited patiently for the repair to take place, even enduring the little jaunts to prove that it indeed hadn´t. two and 1/2 hours later, we exceeded even my patience and we demanded another boat. "you guys fix this on your own time and get us another boat." They promised another motor and 90 minutes and a new contract later we were back in the same boat equipped suspiciously with a Suzuki 40hp motor witht the same scratches, wires hanging and dents. When i pointed out that this was the same motor, they acted offended i would suggest such a thing. When i pointed out that i remembered the type, hp and wires, they claimed that the owner bought 2 of the same and had just replaced it. emily suggested to them there was no need to lie about it, and i, too - this will be hard for marcie to believe - did not believe their story. especially when as we motored off the new driver held up some old parts from the repair and said something in spanish, which i could not interpret, but i could read his body language perfectly; "you forgot these, oops, i shouldn´t have said that in front of the guys we just lied to, guess we´re too far off shore to get them to you, i´ll sheepishly put them here under the seat and pretend . . ."
So now we´re headed backup the Amazon and the motor sounds great. We reach the 10 minute mark and Lu says, Ï´ll be more relaxed when we get there.¨ At the 17 minute mark, I pointed out we set a new record. At the 20 minute mark the motor stalled again. Mind you, this is a 3 hour boat ride up the amazon and we were already 4hrs into it and headed back to the dock. Actually, the driver said he´d fix it, but given the track record of the Suzuki 40 i figured i didn´t want to get 2 hours up the river with only a paddle. We turned around and arrived back at 1:15ish.
Now is the time to recall two stories. 1) emily in cuba with the lost wallet and 2) dave in Evanston with the bad transmission. This is a bad combination of the two.
We went back tothe agency to get out money back, and we were told not one, not two, not three, but 7 different stories, none of which were or became true.JuanCarlos is out of town, back at 6; JuanCArlos will be back in 5 min; JuanCArlos willbe back at noon; JuanCarlos will be back at 12:30; JuanCarlos´wife will get you the money andwill be back in an hour. I sat in the office from 1:15 until 5p, hoping any of these would be true. emily, in the meantime, came and went several times to enlist the help of anyone who would listen. her approach was not random, but very thoughtful, and i´m proud of her. Some of her new friends include the police, the tourist police, a woman named Delicia (like delicious), the owner of a restaurant who also had a bit part in The Motorcycle Diaries, another travel agent who was trying to get her business, and several gringos who came to her rescue when the tears finally came. It was Delicia who was most help. She entered the travel agency (don´t think US agencies; picture a decent size Minnesota fishhouse--with out the ice or the lake--equipped with a bench, a desk and a phone) and lit into the two men who where there. Again, I know very little Spanish, but I´m top notch on body language. Ouch! We finally gave up the vigil, deciding to regroup and recoup on Wednesday. We decided it would be cleaner for all if we just took the trip with JuanCArlos´ agency and left him a message tothat effect. In the meantime the stories continued to mount; wife in the hospital, JuanCArlos stuck on the road, they´d have the money later. Considering they had the money now, it was becoming obvious they did plan tohave the money later. I was hoping we´d have themoney later. Gerald of Motorcycle Diaries fame is also BMOC in the town of Iquitos. Busses, motorcarro, cars, pedal bikes don´t stop for anyone. (well a bus stopped for me, but that´s emily´s story). They don´t stop for anyone, but they do stop for Gerald. We were walking with him to the Peru Agency and it was like walking behind Moses. He is a retired engineer and has set up shop in Iquitos. His word and recommendation carry tremendous weight, tho he has no official status in the city. Anyway, he escorted us to Peru TRavel and it appears we´ll get out money back. It also appears Emeral Forest will not be getting Gerald´s recommendations. Perhaps we´re the ugly Americans, perhaps we misread some cultural tendancies. Well, not perhaps, we did. But Emily and I look at each other and say, Why can´t people just be honest.
AFter all that, we´re headed into the jungle tomorrow (Lord Willing) to see His creation as we´ve not seen it before. Sloths, caymans, pink dolfins, butterflies the size of really big butterflies, and more. Emily is planning on holding a sloth and I´m planning on being the luckiest dad in the whole world, just watching her.
Keep checking
Day one of jungle turned out to be a looooonng day in travel agency. we met out tour guide at 8sharp, which means 8:15ish. Eagarly we boarded the 16´ boat with it´s 40hp Suzuki outboard motor and headed up the Amazon. Precisely 17 minutes later the engine lost power, broken shaft, shear pin, bearings, whatever. never sure, but it made us turn around and head back down river under trolling speed. We met up with a barge of logs with a family on it. The woman was doing the wash by hand in the water that had seeped between the logs. (Maybe this is why i think iquitos is such a great town.) Whilst moored to their raft, our boat driver fashioned a new shear pin to put on the replaced prop and we limped a little faster back to an Iquitos shoreline boat repair shop. We waited patiently for the repair to take place, even enduring the little jaunts to prove that it indeed hadn´t. two and 1/2 hours later, we exceeded even my patience and we demanded another boat. "you guys fix this on your own time and get us another boat." They promised another motor and 90 minutes and a new contract later we were back in the same boat equipped suspiciously with a Suzuki 40hp motor witht the same scratches, wires hanging and dents. When i pointed out that this was the same motor, they acted offended i would suggest such a thing. When i pointed out that i remembered the type, hp and wires, they claimed that the owner bought 2 of the same and had just replaced it. emily suggested to them there was no need to lie about it, and i, too - this will be hard for marcie to believe - did not believe their story. especially when as we motored off the new driver held up some old parts from the repair and said something in spanish, which i could not interpret, but i could read his body language perfectly; "you forgot these, oops, i shouldn´t have said that in front of the guys we just lied to, guess we´re too far off shore to get them to you, i´ll sheepishly put them here under the seat and pretend . . ."
So now we´re headed backup the Amazon and the motor sounds great. We reach the 10 minute mark and Lu says, Ï´ll be more relaxed when we get there.¨ At the 17 minute mark, I pointed out we set a new record. At the 20 minute mark the motor stalled again. Mind you, this is a 3 hour boat ride up the amazon and we were already 4hrs into it and headed back to the dock. Actually, the driver said he´d fix it, but given the track record of the Suzuki 40 i figured i didn´t want to get 2 hours up the river with only a paddle. We turned around and arrived back at 1:15ish.
Now is the time to recall two stories. 1) emily in cuba with the lost wallet and 2) dave in Evanston with the bad transmission. This is a bad combination of the two.
We went back tothe agency to get out money back, and we were told not one, not two, not three, but 7 different stories, none of which were or became true.JuanCarlos is out of town, back at 6; JuanCArlos will be back in 5 min; JuanCArlos willbe back at noon; JuanCarlos will be back at 12:30; JuanCarlos´wife will get you the money andwill be back in an hour. I sat in the office from 1:15 until 5p, hoping any of these would be true. emily, in the meantime, came and went several times to enlist the help of anyone who would listen. her approach was not random, but very thoughtful, and i´m proud of her. Some of her new friends include the police, the tourist police, a woman named Delicia (like delicious), the owner of a restaurant who also had a bit part in The Motorcycle Diaries, another travel agent who was trying to get her business, and several gringos who came to her rescue when the tears finally came. It was Delicia who was most help. She entered the travel agency (don´t think US agencies; picture a decent size Minnesota fishhouse--with out the ice or the lake--equipped with a bench, a desk and a phone) and lit into the two men who where there. Again, I know very little Spanish, but I´m top notch on body language. Ouch! We finally gave up the vigil, deciding to regroup and recoup on Wednesday. We decided it would be cleaner for all if we just took the trip with JuanCArlos´ agency and left him a message tothat effect. In the meantime the stories continued to mount; wife in the hospital, JuanCArlos stuck on the road, they´d have the money later. Considering they had the money now, it was becoming obvious they did plan tohave the money later. I was hoping we´d have themoney later. Gerald of Motorcycle Diaries fame is also BMOC in the town of Iquitos. Busses, motorcarro, cars, pedal bikes don´t stop for anyone. (well a bus stopped for me, but that´s emily´s story). They don´t stop for anyone, but they do stop for Gerald. We were walking with him to the Peru Agency and it was like walking behind Moses. He is a retired engineer and has set up shop in Iquitos. His word and recommendation carry tremendous weight, tho he has no official status in the city. Anyway, he escorted us to Peru TRavel and it appears we´ll get out money back. It also appears Emeral Forest will not be getting Gerald´s recommendations. Perhaps we´re the ugly Americans, perhaps we misread some cultural tendancies. Well, not perhaps, we did. But Emily and I look at each other and say, Why can´t people just be honest.
AFter all that, we´re headed into the jungle tomorrow (Lord Willing) to see His creation as we´ve not seen it before. Sloths, caymans, pink dolfins, butterflies the size of really big butterflies, and more. Emily is planning on holding a sloth and I´m planning on being the luckiest dad in the whole world, just watching her.
Keep checking
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
eyebrows and BANGS.
i can´t wait for my tweezers back home (i have no idea why i didn´t bring them) and a trim from corrinne at salon buzz.
yikes.
yikes.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Iquitos May 28 2007
Woke up at 3:15, 3:30, 3:45 this morning. Love that snooze button! Lu paid our way out of the hostal and we waited for our ride. we waited . . . and waited. . . and finally we hopped into a toyota corolla that somehow seemed even smaller than it really was. However, it did have the great old cigar smoke odor to add to the ambiance. after largely ignoring stop lights and stop signs we arrived at lima airport several horn blasts later. paid the guy and checked in. no hurry in line or behind the counter - good thing we risked cutting off the other vehicles to get there. as deliberate as the line seemed to move, we did depart on time and somehow managed to snag seats 1D and 1F on the bulkhead.
before our flight we had, of all things, Dunkin' Donuts. Chocolate chocolate here. Ems wnet for the coconut glaze but got the coconut with filling. My Spanish is about as good as my doughnut and Emily´s is infinitely better. Altho´' Spanis for Dunkin' Donuts is Dunkin' Donuts. Got that one down, both the name and the doughnut.
Iquitos (our destination after the doughnuts) is aninteresting town. Tiny airport (IQT) exp for an international airport. brief walk across tarmak to baggage claim, plants, boxes of baby chicks and the occasional bag were offloaded. our was last which was nice b/c it allowed us to watch the whole process. As soon as we exited baggage we rec'd a hero's welcome. Many, many men came running to us, calling ´taxi, taxi, taxi'. I´ll have to look that one up. We selected our taxi driver, but that didn´t deter the others from continuing to adore us and swarm us calling after us until we actually got into our limo. The ´limo´is locally called a motocarro, which is basically a motor cycle cut off just behind the driver to which is added a two seater with an open trunk. Picture a pedal bike ice cream wagon with a motor cycle engine. my backpack straps were dangling around the rear tire as we flew between, somehow never over, people and other moto carros on our way to our $15 anight hostal. Well, being me and anal and all that, I reached down to make sure my straps didn´t get hung up in the wheel, but my hand almost did. Didn´t tell Emily then or yet. She´ll have to read it here. Would have been just one more rookie thing I did and am sure to do on this trip.
Off to the jungle tomorrow (Tue, 29th) for 4d/3n. If we return, we´re heading for Colca Canyon.
before our flight we had, of all things, Dunkin' Donuts. Chocolate chocolate here. Ems wnet for the coconut glaze but got the coconut with filling. My Spanish is about as good as my doughnut and Emily´s is infinitely better. Altho´' Spanis for Dunkin' Donuts is Dunkin' Donuts. Got that one down, both the name and the doughnut.
Iquitos (our destination after the doughnuts) is aninteresting town. Tiny airport (IQT) exp for an international airport. brief walk across tarmak to baggage claim, plants, boxes of baby chicks and the occasional bag were offloaded. our was last which was nice b/c it allowed us to watch the whole process. As soon as we exited baggage we rec'd a hero's welcome. Many, many men came running to us, calling ´taxi, taxi, taxi'. I´ll have to look that one up. We selected our taxi driver, but that didn´t deter the others from continuing to adore us and swarm us calling after us until we actually got into our limo. The ´limo´is locally called a motocarro, which is basically a motor cycle cut off just behind the driver to which is added a two seater with an open trunk. Picture a pedal bike ice cream wagon with a motor cycle engine. my backpack straps were dangling around the rear tire as we flew between, somehow never over, people and other moto carros on our way to our $15 anight hostal. Well, being me and anal and all that, I reached down to make sure my straps didn´t get hung up in the wheel, but my hand almost did. Didn´t tell Emily then or yet. She´ll have to read it here. Would have been just one more rookie thing I did and am sure to do on this trip.
Off to the jungle tomorrow (Tue, 29th) for 4d/3n. If we return, we´re heading for Colca Canyon.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
back to lima. blah blah blah.
lima aint got nothin on huaraz.
did absolutely nothing today except was really grumpy at this loud dirty city.
two more hours and papa arrives!
did absolutely nothing today except was really grumpy at this loud dirty city.
two more hours and papa arrives!
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