Nearly Deaf

Apparently Wordpress 2.9.x requires a much newer version of MySQL than I was using. A quick look on wikipedia yields that I was using a version of MySQL (4.0.x) from 2003, which was breaking my upgrade path. The 2003 caught my eye, and so I checked my old blog/website, and it turns out the original NearlyDeaf dates back to “5.7.99″ as I wrote it then. Which means I’ve had a continuous web presence for almost 11 years now. In the process I almost blew away my WordPress install as well, but then I remembered a quote I read the other day; made famous by Regan – “Trust, but verify.”. Called up godaddy support and I just had to adjust the db name in the config file (slaps self on forehead). Up and running again. Also I think I finally got Google Analytics plugin to work so I can stop using this other statistics plugin.

arrived, it was rainy. stopped raining around 4pm the next day. got to see all three major tourist attractions; sugar loaf mountain, Christ the redeemer, and copacabana beach. also did new years on copacobana beach, but it was dark, and 2 million people on the beach, so you couldn’t exactly see the water haha. got to dance barefoot on the beach to live music until after 3am. apparently the party continued on the next beach over, with another million on that beach. i don’t doubt the numbers, it was shoulder to shoulder for most of the night. happy new years!

currently in the city of florinopolis, an island city about 18 hrs south of rio. i skipped sao paulo completely.

me visiting sugar loaf mountain. its named that for some sort of device used to boil down sugarcane. there’s a cable car to the mountain im currently standing on, and then a cable car from there to the actual sugar loaf (behind me on the left). the mouth of the harbor is punctuated by sugar loaf mountain. oh yeah, and i got a haircut! amazing what a difference something like that makes when its hot and humid out.

Terrible pic of me at Christ the redeemer. There’s tourist helicopters constantly circling this thing; that’s really the way to do it. I like to call it Super Jesus, as he’s 30m high, and sits atop the tallest mountain in rio, with a view of the entire city. while seeing super jesus is neat, the truly spectacular thing is the view. sugar loaf mountain looks like an anthill from up here.

speaking of which, that little knob to the right of my shoulder is sugar loaf mountain.the atlantic is further to the right, and to my left you can see someone posing for their pic with super Jesus. i left for super Jesus around 3, and it was so crowded I didnt make it up until almost 7pm, so I got to see rio at sunset, which was pretty neat…better shot of rio at dusk. to the left you can see the harbor by the yacht (iate in portuguese) club. the main port is to the left, along with downtown. this is just the super ritzy area by sugar loaf.

and here’s sunset, looking west from super Jesus. just stunning views. they give hang gliding tours for like $100 from the mountain just left of this picture. i almost did it but was running short of time. i’d really love to go sailing in rio one day.

rio yacht “iate” club. had to post this pic. someday….

and i’ll leave you with this pic of me on copacabana beach. happy new year!

i´ve arrived in brazil; these portuguese keyboards are giving me grief. theres no wifi here so i cant upload pics till the next place I get to. lots of  pics from the falls, lots and lots of video. i thought i could see the falls the same day I arrived, but I had to see them the same day I LEFT for brazil! the falls are about 30 min from town, and I didn´t get out of the park until almost 3, with a 6:45  bus to Rio…. except brazil is an hour ahead of argentina, so really it was a 5:45 bus. plus getting to the border and clearing customs. talk about panic mode. also my legs are still acting up since machu picchu, and so after rushing up 80m of cliffsides to make the bus (the bus was was late) i got to limp around the hostel until my INTERNATIONAL TAXI (how many people have taken one of those) arrived to get me to the brazilian bus station (thre are no direct buses from the argentine side to rio, you have to do the land crossing and then bus to the coast on the brazilian side). the ride was just short of 24 hours, we were late somehow and got caught in Rio rush hour traffic which delayed the trip some more.

my bus from rosario to the falls was awesome, double decker “marcopolo” brand bus with air conditioning and only 3 seats wide, meaning exxxxtra wide seats that fully reclined. maybe i already mentioned that. anyways, brazilian busses… not so much. 4 seats wide, with only so-so recline capability. somehow i managed to sleep for 15 or so hours but brazilian buses are apparently known for being less fantastic as it turns out. sad, since brazil is a giant country.

anyways arrived in rio. its been raining and i arrived after dark… so imagine sort of what gotham city looks like in all the new batman movies. thats my impression so far, but i´m sure in the morning things will look much better. going to go see “sugar loaf mountain” and Christ redeemer statue. supposedly beyonce is headlining new year’s celebrations down on copacabana beach. apparently 2 million people show up between 6 and 10pm and stay till 3am, so i´m looking forward to doing that this year. apparently there are some amazing beach resorts with crystal clear water two hours south of here by boat so i might go do that on the first and second instead of stay in rio. everyones told me to skip sao paulo (3rd largest metropolis in the world) as its just a drity gritty city. so we´ll see.

Until then, happy new years!

argentina is a lot like texas in late spring. flat, hot and sunny with plenty of humidity and rain. it seems to rain in the morning or a couple hours after dark. no real pics to share since the countryside looks shockingly like texas. here in a few hours i hop on an overnight bus to puerto iguazu, with fully reclining seats, what they call a “cama” (bed) bus. i took a “semi-cama” bus from BA to rosario; its about a 5 hr bus ride @100km/hr in a seat that looks and feels like a first class airplane seat (reclines back as far as a laz-y-boy). A full cama seat supposedly reclines almost completely flat. i’ll find out here shortly, I guess.

rosario is pretty neat. its right on the river, and the whole area is nearly at sea level so you have these huge freighter ships going by, even though you’re 5 hrs inland from BA. theres also a huge argentinan war memorial with a huge flame and neat art deco architecture that overlooks the river and park.

the nightlife in argentina is very strange; people START cooking dinner starting at 9 or 10 at night, and then eat and socialize from 11-2, and then go out to the clubs from 2:30-5:30….in the morning. back in buenos aires the clubs don’t close until people start to go home, closer to 9:30am, when they head out to resturants for breakfast before going home. this happens every night(!) except mondays. on wednesdays it starts at 6pm instead of 10pm.

i got into the hostel at 5am this morning, and in my room of 8 people i was the first person there. people slowly trickled in until about 9am.

some government building and/or hotel across the plaza from the “pink house”, where the president of argentina lives, like our white house… except “pink”, although I thought it was more of a terracotta color. pink house sounds better to tourists though haha. mostly this just made for a good backdrop for the argentine flag. it’s also a good example of french architecture, which you’ll be seeing a lot of in the next (many) pictures. all of my pics look the same since all of downtown was basically built between 1890 and 1940 by french architecture. argentina recieved a lot of immigrants from europe in the same way that New York City did and for the same reasons. due to their agricultural exports they weathered the great depression rather well, and also had a lot of jewish immigrants during WW2. before i’d even got to my hostel in BA i saw a lady with her kids (wearing yamikas) cross the street infront of my taxi. it’s no wonder BA has the largest jewish population in the southern hemisphere.

random shot. ave 5th of mayo. looks a lot like paris; no wonder they call BA the “paris of south america”. most of the architecture firms employed in BA were french.

more pink house, now with 100% more chad!

BA’s first skyscraper. 100m (300′) tall. first building in s.america with an iron frame. tallest building in BA from 1890-ish until 1920 or so, according to the sign in front of it in 3 languages(!)

dramatic capitol building shot. the stairs are fenced off, but you can walk right up the the building on all 4 sides. the house and senate meet in this compact capitol building. theres all sorts of political graffiti written on the tarmac in front of the building  (also a major public bus hub). weekly demonstrations are part of the culture here, their politics are easily as active as ours. Che Guevara spent his adolecence here in BA, his first name isn’t actually “che”; che is the nickname given to him due to his BA “che” accent.

capitol building, now with 100% more chad! also some of the many bronze statues on marble pedestals. every plaza, public space or park has multiple bronze statues on marble pedestals.

just a really unusual building. definitely still very french, but you can’t help but imagine a witch lives in the top floor, perhaps selling potions on ebay in this day and age. this is about 10 blocks from the main avenue, note the 5-10 story buildings next to 2-3 story buildings. everything is closed because it’s christmas day. the next morning everyone had their stores open and this was a busy street again.

rosario. on the river (you can see some of it on the left). this is a war memorial, absolutely stunning. on the other side are some stairs that lead to a marble lined plaza with the tower on the other side. you can see the park and river beyond that. the edge of the river was crowded with people fishing with bamboo poles with their kids, just pulling fish out of the water like it was nothing.

the other side of the monument. theres an elevator inside the tower that will take you to the top. only the second art deco building i’ve seen since i’ve been in buenos aires, and also south america. it’s worth noting because most of the famous buildings built in NYC during this same period (empire state building, 30 rock(afeller center), chrysler building etc) are all in the art deco style, and this region of argentina has many of the same european immigrants (italian, german, spanish). for some reason french arch. influence was greater here.

well, i’m off to ignazu, it’s a 20 hour trip by land. argentina is the 8th largest country in the world by area, right after australia and india. after that i’m off to rio, in brazil, the 5th largest, only marginally smaller than the US.

long, busy 24 hours. woke up around noon sunday, couldn’t get a direct ticket form cusco to aguas calientes (machu picchu “base camp”) so i got a round trip ticket form ollanta to aguas calientes, walked on down to the bus station, found a (non-express) bus to urubamba (i think i mentioned this in the previous post, but i’m too tired to go double check), caught a transfer in some korean equivalent of a dodge 15 passenger van to ollanta, stayed the night at the…KB Tambo Hostel…. really, really nice place for the price. overlooked a two story garden with a view of inca ruins in the hillsides (hostel sits in the river valley bottom).

took a leap of faith, left my bag in the hostel room with the promise that they would take good care of it, and left the hostel around 4:20 am (no that is not a typo, I willingly and under my own power woke up and went somewhere that early!) got on the train at 4:38 and was at aguas calientes by 6:30am. got on a bus that takes you to Machu Picchu, it was pouring (it’s on top of a mountain, surrounded on three sides by a river, what do you expect), then the fog rolled in… until about 2pm. did a hike out to the inca bridge, where my camera battery promptly died (yay!). with no camera battery and nothing to take pictures of, when it hadn’t burned off by noon, i decided to take a hike to the nearest trail, the machu picchu peak (the city of machu picchu sits in a saddle between machu picchu and huannu (wannu) picchu. well it turns out machu picchu’s peak is 1000 ft above the actual city the buses take you to.  ended up being 2.5 hrs up, and sadly also 2.5 hrs down due to my gimped ankle. great pics though; the fog cleared right after I reached the peak (i’d been hiking in a misty fog the whole way up and had no idea just how far up i’d gone). first time i’ve climbed a legitimate mountain. anyways here are some pics.  took the bus down to the base camp, nearly missed my train, picked up my bag from the hostel, caught the last taxi out of ollanta and got home. ha, “home”.

there are clouds constantly drifting over machu picchu. two pics taken 10 seconds apart look vastly different and huanna picchu (the lumpy mountain in the upper left,, the mountain that makes or breaks a machu pichu pic) may or may not be in the photo since it’s obscured by fog/clouds

i ran into some british guys on the way up, they let me put my memory card in their camera and take some pics. huannu (i spell it differently every time don’t i?) picchu is to the right, about level with my head. the clouds level with my elbow were swirling around obscuring the view of the city and the british guys finally left without a good machu picchu pic. i stuck around however…

and here’s the view. i’ll have to post a panorama or video of the peak later. you can see for about 10 miles in every direction, along with seeing the river snaking its way around the three sides of machu picchu. i’ll do some video work over christmas and see if i cant post some neat videos.

another pic of me at machu picchu. some japanese guy took this for me

another pic from the same session. there are closeup pics of the buildings, i promise… just not tonight. tired.

hey look, it’s chad… at machu picchu… again.

even my accidental pictures came out great. machu picchu has got to be the most photogenic place on earth (When the clouds cooperate)

other people i ran into today… a couple from austria doing an around the world trip, a german dude, a norwegian guy from trollhaven(?) troll something.. an older german couple, some belgians. some australian guy  in line at breakfast up on the mountain. pretty wide variety of people on a rainy, foggy monday morning!

i fly out sometime tomorrow morning for lima, then transfer to a plane to buenos aires the same day, where i’ll be spending christmas, and use as a jumping point towards brazil, ultimately for new years in rio.

So I guess the last time I updated, I had posted some pics of my first day in Cusco. The next day I did a walking tour of the city and the surrounding countryside. I ended up walking up the side of a cliff to Sacsayhuaman, which is this giant fortress on the side of a steep hill/cliff, which in itself is enough to make people pause before attacking, let alone doing it in 30-40 lbs of armor and hauling a 10lb steel sword up the hill. The incas are famous for their “dry stone” method, where they would carve the boulders in create interlocking pieces, without the use of cement, mortar or any other “glue”. Archeologists suggest that this design is why these walls are still standing hundreds of years later despite being in an earthquake prone region. Many of the stones are refidgerator to u-haul van sized stones. Walked through a field, found a rocky outcropping, got some great views of the city, and kept walking to the temple of the moon (I later found out) for a total of about 1000 vertical feet. On the way back down (Still walking) I may have twisted my ankle slightly, so I decided to put off Machu Picchu for a day (mon instead of sunday) and let it rest. I ran into a girl from Paris, who was volunteer teaching in some village up in the mountains, what she told me was that the children were only given food for lunch 3 days a week since the school didn’t have the money to feed them 5 days a week. She was spending her own money to feed the kids the other two days a week. Perhaps thats why half the population is under 5 feet here… Either way it’s a sad one. Ran into a guy in Cusco who was from Cork, Ireland, who had met a lady from Peru and had been living in Cusco with her for the past two years. He seems to really like Peru.

Today has been an odd one. Due to changing my plans I wasn’t able to get a train ride to aguas calientes (Machu Picchu base camp) so I took a bus to the city of Urubamba, and got a transfer to the city of Ollantallu (however it’s spelt). Ollanta is a dusty city that looks like a set from Sergio Leon’s “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”. I was waiting for clint eastwood to pop out from around a corner and start shooting at someone. The city sits on the side of a river in the valley, with a bunch of streams routed through the middle of the city. It’s very strange, but it’s effective and it works. I’ll try and post a video later. I checked and I have about 4gb of video, or 40 clips at about 35 seconds each so hopefully I should be able to create something out of that. Anyways these streams are everywhere in the town, and from the town’s two main squares, you can just look up and see HUGE inca ruins in every direction. I wish i’d known more about this place, I would have devoted two days to the place; there’s a lot to see. Ran into a guy who is working as a part time tour guide for churches that come to help feed the poorer villages here in Peru, he’s living up in a village a day’s walk from Ollanta. He’s originally from South Africa.

Anyways thats about it. I pick up a train to Machu Picchu tomorrow around 4:45am and arrive around 6:30 (Machu Picchu can only be reached by train). Cleared my camera’s memory card and recharged the battery, I should be good to go. I think at this point I have a 50/50 chance of getting one of the 400 tickets to clime Wannu Picchu (the big mountain in the background of all the pics) that are usually gone by 7am. Being a Monday I’m hoping less people show up extra early like me for the ticket. We’ll see.

heres another pic of me from lima. hooray. lima is very uninspiring, but plaza la arma was pretty decent.

On top of the world! Cusco below me. About a quarter the way up to saysuhuamana.

Bussing from Cusco to Ollanta. Most of the scenery looked like this, with a bunch of adobe brick buildings along the way. Passed through perhaps 15 small villages. I remember asking my dad what adobe was, and his response was “huts made out of mud bricks; about half the world’s population lives in them”. I didn’t believe him at the time, but up here above the tree line there’s not a whole lot of materials with which to build from.

Another shot of the countryside. Two or three adobe brick buildings, surrounded by an adobe brick wall. The only trees up this high are lumber crops, typically for use with window sills and doorways.

I cheated a little here; the camera’s color profile makes everything look washed out, so I played with the contrast here. You can see some really well preserved inca ruins over my shoulder there. Below is another adobe hut. Out of the pic, and to the right about 90 degrees is some really well preserved stuff as well.

Anyways thats about it for tonight.