Well, since we last checked in, we made it to Johannesburg, we met up with Natalie and went to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (which was just spectacular). There, we went to a crocodile farm, watched them feed (yikes!), and even had crocodile for dinner. We went on a sunset cruise on the Zambezi river (the one that feeds into Victoria Falls from above), and stayed in a gorgeous colonial style lodge. http://www.ilalalodge.com/
On our way back from Victoria Falls to Johannesburg (en route to Nairobi) our flight was cancelled and since we didn't want a South Africa visa as we didn't intend to stay, the immigration officers made us all temporary citizens of South Africa! Woohoo! Well, we only visited our new residence to be taken to a shwanky hotel in Jo-burg by Kenyan Airways and then back to the airport the next morning. But still, it was fun to be granted temporary citizenship.
We made is safely to Kenya and appear to be far removed from any of the local trouble. We've learned a lot about the factors that played into the volatile situation here, and of course, it's more international and political and instigated by the world chess tournament than we thought from the news we get fed in the US. Playing for oil and natural gas and coal, of course, which has been discovered in abundance in the countries surrounding Kenya, and the only safe access from the west to these places is none other than Kenya, thus the attempt to place a leader sympathetic to the desires of the west in power. Very interesting, saddening, but also inspiring, because the Kenya populace refused to bend to the will of the mostly British and American pressures, and have been rallying to stop the violence and to help those that were hurt throughout all the strife they've experienced here with sanctuary, food, clothing, and funds.
We're staying with my good friend Sally, who has a beautiful house amidst avocado and banana and papaya trees, and she and her daughter have made us feel exceptionally welcome and safe. We're on the outskirts of Nairobi, and can hear the cows and chickens and such of the nearby village communities, just down the way from our gated, manicured gorgeous lawns. It's like another world entirely and has not personally seen any of the destruction that has been going on for the last month since the election.
We're about to leave on Safari to Tanzania on Saturday and will very likely be out of communication for 10 days or thereabouts. So, don't worry about us - all is well! So far, Africa is amazing!
So far, we've already seen hippos, warthogs, monitor lizards, baboons, and crocodiles in the wild! We're about to see just about everything else in terms of wildlife this great continent has to offer, and you can be sure we'll have lots of pictures to share before long.
Next stop, Safari!!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
A Story of Our Upward Spiral in Action
In any romantic relationship, when things are good, it´s easy to think everything is going well. It´s when things become challenging, or in this case, very challenging, that you get the opportunity to see how things really are. This is a story of one of those moments. It´s long, so..
tl;dr... = D (tl;dr = 'too long, didn´t' read for those new to internet lingo)
We had a direct flight to catch from Lima, Peru to Sao Paolo, Brazil. First, we had to get to Lima from Iquitos. We were told our driver would pick us up at 3pm, and we were (unusually) right on time. At 3:30, we were a little worried, and had the hotel call for us. Turns out, our guide was confused or something, and the driver was actually coming at 4pm. Ok, no worries. We made it to the airport and just barely made the flight. After arriving in Lima, we have several hours until our flight was set to depart, so we walked around and played in the shops. In particular, we took turns playing video pinball on a display Nintendo DS.
Our 1:50am flight was delayed. Very delayed. Around around 11 hours of waiting, at 5am, they finally started boarding. We were both exhausted, and a little jittery from the coffee, but trying to stay in the best of spirits, even though this was the second time Lan Peru Airlines had failed us in some regard. As we´re about to board, a guy walks up and approaches us singularly out of a very large crowd about to board, including a huge asian tourist group. He asks (only us) to see our medical cards to make sure we had the right shots to enter Brazil. We didn´t even know we needed to get shots to enter Brazil! No worries though, as we had them for Africa anyway. Then, he asked to see our travel visas. We didn´t have any visas for Brazil but assured him we had checked it on the internet (as we thought we had), and could get one at the airport when we arrived. He seemed a little puzzled by our response and said he would go check into it. We watched him talk to some ladies at the desk, and then start helping to take people´s boarding passes. Mix up, apparently.
Then, our turn to board finally came up. No we don´t have our visas, but again, we told them how we had checked on the internet, and could get one on arrival. They said something along the lines of, (paraphrased) "Actually, that´s not true. This happens all the time with people from the USA and Australia. Basically, Brazil will let anyone else in, but you and the Aussies need visas. Sorry." We continued saying that no, we had really looked into it, and it would be fine. She was firm, and would not let us board the plane. They even got out the book of rules to show us, where we saw a huge list of countries not requiring visas, of which the US was definitely not listed. She told us getting the Visa only took 24 hours usually, and we would have to try and see if we could change our ticket and hopefully get a seat after we had our visas. We had waited about 11 hours, were exhausted, and needed to get to Sao Paolo in order to catch our flight to Johannesburg and meet up with Natalie. With the hint of tears in our eyes, we walked away confused, angry, dejected and rejected, and trying to understand what happened. We found out over time, that a mix up on our part was at fault, and we really did need a visa. Even though we were fairly hostile to the lady at Lan Peru in our response, she was awesome. She drew us a map showing the closest Lan Peru office to the Embassy, and helped us get out of the airport and delay our exit stamps so we didn´t have to repay the $30 US Dollars each airport tax when we next tried to leave.
At this point, it´s maybe 6am and we hadn´t slept since Monday night (this is Wednesday morning). In order to get a visa, we need to go the Embassy of Brazil in Lima to get our visas, which opens at 9am. We discussed just getting a cab there and camping the door, but as we described in our earlier entry of Lima, that might not be wise as we didn´t know how safe it would be. We settled on getting a hotel room near the embassy, and trying to get an hour or two of sleep before we made our effort. Our cab driver was awesome, and took us to a great hotel that was $100+ cheaper than the other nearby hotels, and turned out to be one of the nicer hotels we´ve been in. We were very grateful since he drove around to several hotels asking for availability for us and finding out how much they charged, at 6 in the morning. He also explained where we needed to go later that day and how much we could expect to pay for the cab ride, so we wouldn´t be conned. He gave us his number so we could get a ride back to the airport when we needed it, for a very reasonable fee. We slept for 2 hours and went to have a quick breakfast before the days ordeals were to begin.
We get to the embassy and get in line. After a while, we get to the window. We fill out all the paperwork, and find out it will take at least 24 hours. We ask if there is any way to expedite the visa, and find out that we merely have to prove we have a flight connecting out of Brazil soon, and pay $130 each. Deal! She tells us we can pick the visas up at 4pm. At this point, we have slept 2 hours in the last 48. All we need to do is get some local cash to pay for the expedited visas, pay the bank around the corner, bring back the receipt to the embassy, and see if we can exchange our tickets for a flight leaving that evening. We get the cash, go pay the bank, give the receipt to the lady at the embassy, and head down the street to the airline office of Lan Peru.
After taking a number we wait.. and wait... and finally we get to speak to an agent at Lan Peru, who kindly tells us she can´t help us. Our travel agent had used an Australian-based company that they had a carrier deal with, so she was not able to alter, replace, or refund our ticket. We were confused at first and the three of us examined the paperwork, only to discover she was correct. Our tickets had decidely not been purchased through Lan Peru. We begged and pleaded to no avail. After discussing options, it appeared we needed to get in touch with our agent. We went to the nearest internet cafe for the first of many times that day. Our travel agent was based in San Francisco, and it was 8:30am there, so he wasn't available to call. We sent him a slightly freaked out email asking for help, although he typically doesn't respond very quickly, so we didn't have a lot of hope there. We wait. Mikol calls the company, and we find out that because the ticket was purchased through an Australian company, we have to wait until they go to work, in about 5 or 6 hours, to get our reply. They were understanding, and said they could try and get a refund (requiring us to go get new tickets) or could try and change our tickets if possible. We needed to try calling back at 3:30. Our agent did reply in email after the call, and basically said the same thing.
We went to a cafe to grab food and try and kill some time. We went back to the internet cafe to check options and email, and found out through the travel agent that our best option was to refund our ticket (mostly) and buy a new ticket on our own. We looked online, and checked an airline they recommended called Gol. We tried to buyt tickets from there online, but the charge would not complete even after two tries, and decided we didn´t feel good about that airline since they weren´t technologically capable of even handling a credit card charge. We were also very on guard since so many things had gone wrong, and just wanted something to go right. We went back to the embassy and got our Visas! Yay! Half way there!
Frustrated with Lan Peru as well, we tried Taca airlines, which had an office right across the street. They wanted about 4x the cost that Lan Peru had been charging, so we passed. We went back to the internet cafe to check in, and looked on expedia. Found some Lan Peru tickets that looked good, and decided to walk back down to Lan Peru and buy them in person, so we could have them, reliably, in our hands. After waiting 4x as long as before, we finally got a fairly incompetent agent who couldn´t speak English, didn´t seem to understand Mikol´s spanish, or find the flight we wanted. She found a flight 2x as much, and we left angry and very exhausted. At this point, we have slept about 2 hours in the last 54+ hours. We decided to go back to the internet cafe (again) and just buy the tickets over expedia. The charge went through, (we got 2 of the last 6 available seats on our flight) and we printed. Wahooey!!! We have visas and a flight! Please let it work! Please let it work! Mikol went to go get the printouts and the guy who was supposed to know where they were gave her trouble, and she cried out, "Why does everything have to be so hard?!" We finally got the printouts and wanted to go back to the hotel to sleep. Somehow, we couldn´t sleep (I think we were over the tired hump and were so tired that we couldn´t sleep) and went out to dinner instead.
Throughout the day, exhausted as we were, barely able to keep walking, we had managed to crack jokes, and kept finding the little moments to keep each other´s spirits up. The food where we ate dinner was amazing, and the sandwich Jeremy had was one of the best he had ever eaten, ever, and not just because the day had been so long and so hard. Mikol had a bite too (of chicken, no less), and it was really that good! Our flight was at 1:50am. At this point, we had slept 2 hours of the last 60 or so. Somehow, we were still nice to each other, and toasted things looking up, and how amazing it was that we were still smiling. 5 years ago, had all this happened, we would have been at each other´s throats a loooong time ago. It was pretty awesome just to witness the very real and palpable evidence of our daily efforts with each other.
We finally got to the airport, made our flight with minutes to spare (We are not sure we have ever been happier to board a flight!), because of having to go through a lot of red tape dealing with our having left the airport the night before, getting our airport tax verified, long security lines, questions at immigration about why we were denied leaving the day before, etc... and made it to Sao Paolo without a hitch... somehow, still smiling and holding hands. Ah, love! <3
So, while it was very challenging, it turned out to be a wonderful lesson in how much we´ve grown, and worth every minute of the experience just for that.
Now that we´re here (this is Mikol writing now), I have to say that all those people that said you can get by in a Portugese-speaking country with Spanish were mistaken. They may be able to somewhat understand me, but when they speak back, I have not a clue what they are saying and catch about every fourth word or so. Lisa, if you´re reading this, how amazing that you were able to learn this difficult-sounding language!
Well, that was our big adventure getting to Brazil! But we made it, and we are in time to make our connection to Johannesburg tomorrow! Next stop, Africa with Natalie! We hope to be hanging out with lions and elephants soon enough. =)
tl;dr... = D (tl;dr = 'too long, didn´t' read for those new to internet lingo)
We had a direct flight to catch from Lima, Peru to Sao Paolo, Brazil. First, we had to get to Lima from Iquitos. We were told our driver would pick us up at 3pm, and we were (unusually) right on time. At 3:30, we were a little worried, and had the hotel call for us. Turns out, our guide was confused or something, and the driver was actually coming at 4pm. Ok, no worries. We made it to the airport and just barely made the flight. After arriving in Lima, we have several hours until our flight was set to depart, so we walked around and played in the shops. In particular, we took turns playing video pinball on a display Nintendo DS.
Our 1:50am flight was delayed. Very delayed. Around around 11 hours of waiting, at 5am, they finally started boarding. We were both exhausted, and a little jittery from the coffee, but trying to stay in the best of spirits, even though this was the second time Lan Peru Airlines had failed us in some regard. As we´re about to board, a guy walks up and approaches us singularly out of a very large crowd about to board, including a huge asian tourist group. He asks (only us) to see our medical cards to make sure we had the right shots to enter Brazil. We didn´t even know we needed to get shots to enter Brazil! No worries though, as we had them for Africa anyway. Then, he asked to see our travel visas. We didn´t have any visas for Brazil but assured him we had checked it on the internet (as we thought we had), and could get one at the airport when we arrived. He seemed a little puzzled by our response and said he would go check into it. We watched him talk to some ladies at the desk, and then start helping to take people´s boarding passes. Mix up, apparently.
Then, our turn to board finally came up. No we don´t have our visas, but again, we told them how we had checked on the internet, and could get one on arrival. They said something along the lines of, (paraphrased) "Actually, that´s not true. This happens all the time with people from the USA and Australia. Basically, Brazil will let anyone else in, but you and the Aussies need visas. Sorry." We continued saying that no, we had really looked into it, and it would be fine. She was firm, and would not let us board the plane. They even got out the book of rules to show us, where we saw a huge list of countries not requiring visas, of which the US was definitely not listed. She told us getting the Visa only took 24 hours usually, and we would have to try and see if we could change our ticket and hopefully get a seat after we had our visas. We had waited about 11 hours, were exhausted, and needed to get to Sao Paolo in order to catch our flight to Johannesburg and meet up with Natalie. With the hint of tears in our eyes, we walked away confused, angry, dejected and rejected, and trying to understand what happened. We found out over time, that a mix up on our part was at fault, and we really did need a visa. Even though we were fairly hostile to the lady at Lan Peru in our response, she was awesome. She drew us a map showing the closest Lan Peru office to the Embassy, and helped us get out of the airport and delay our exit stamps so we didn´t have to repay the $30 US Dollars each airport tax when we next tried to leave.
At this point, it´s maybe 6am and we hadn´t slept since Monday night (this is Wednesday morning). In order to get a visa, we need to go the Embassy of Brazil in Lima to get our visas, which opens at 9am. We discussed just getting a cab there and camping the door, but as we described in our earlier entry of Lima, that might not be wise as we didn´t know how safe it would be. We settled on getting a hotel room near the embassy, and trying to get an hour or two of sleep before we made our effort. Our cab driver was awesome, and took us to a great hotel that was $100+ cheaper than the other nearby hotels, and turned out to be one of the nicer hotels we´ve been in. We were very grateful since he drove around to several hotels asking for availability for us and finding out how much they charged, at 6 in the morning. He also explained where we needed to go later that day and how much we could expect to pay for the cab ride, so we wouldn´t be conned. He gave us his number so we could get a ride back to the airport when we needed it, for a very reasonable fee. We slept for 2 hours and went to have a quick breakfast before the days ordeals were to begin.
We get to the embassy and get in line. After a while, we get to the window. We fill out all the paperwork, and find out it will take at least 24 hours. We ask if there is any way to expedite the visa, and find out that we merely have to prove we have a flight connecting out of Brazil soon, and pay $130 each. Deal! She tells us we can pick the visas up at 4pm. At this point, we have slept 2 hours in the last 48. All we need to do is get some local cash to pay for the expedited visas, pay the bank around the corner, bring back the receipt to the embassy, and see if we can exchange our tickets for a flight leaving that evening. We get the cash, go pay the bank, give the receipt to the lady at the embassy, and head down the street to the airline office of Lan Peru.
After taking a number we wait.. and wait... and finally we get to speak to an agent at Lan Peru, who kindly tells us she can´t help us. Our travel agent had used an Australian-based company that they had a carrier deal with, so she was not able to alter, replace, or refund our ticket. We were confused at first and the three of us examined the paperwork, only to discover she was correct. Our tickets had decidely not been purchased through Lan Peru. We begged and pleaded to no avail. After discussing options, it appeared we needed to get in touch with our agent. We went to the nearest internet cafe for the first of many times that day. Our travel agent was based in San Francisco, and it was 8:30am there, so he wasn't available to call. We sent him a slightly freaked out email asking for help, although he typically doesn't respond very quickly, so we didn't have a lot of hope there. We wait. Mikol calls the company, and we find out that because the ticket was purchased through an Australian company, we have to wait until they go to work, in about 5 or 6 hours, to get our reply. They were understanding, and said they could try and get a refund (requiring us to go get new tickets) or could try and change our tickets if possible. We needed to try calling back at 3:30. Our agent did reply in email after the call, and basically said the same thing.
We went to a cafe to grab food and try and kill some time. We went back to the internet cafe to check options and email, and found out through the travel agent that our best option was to refund our ticket (mostly) and buy a new ticket on our own. We looked online, and checked an airline they recommended called Gol. We tried to buyt tickets from there online, but the charge would not complete even after two tries, and decided we didn´t feel good about that airline since they weren´t technologically capable of even handling a credit card charge. We were also very on guard since so many things had gone wrong, and just wanted something to go right. We went back to the embassy and got our Visas! Yay! Half way there!
Frustrated with Lan Peru as well, we tried Taca airlines, which had an office right across the street. They wanted about 4x the cost that Lan Peru had been charging, so we passed. We went back to the internet cafe to check in, and looked on expedia. Found some Lan Peru tickets that looked good, and decided to walk back down to Lan Peru and buy them in person, so we could have them, reliably, in our hands. After waiting 4x as long as before, we finally got a fairly incompetent agent who couldn´t speak English, didn´t seem to understand Mikol´s spanish, or find the flight we wanted. She found a flight 2x as much, and we left angry and very exhausted. At this point, we have slept about 2 hours in the last 54+ hours. We decided to go back to the internet cafe (again) and just buy the tickets over expedia. The charge went through, (we got 2 of the last 6 available seats on our flight) and we printed. Wahooey!!! We have visas and a flight! Please let it work! Please let it work! Mikol went to go get the printouts and the guy who was supposed to know where they were gave her trouble, and she cried out, "Why does everything have to be so hard?!" We finally got the printouts and wanted to go back to the hotel to sleep. Somehow, we couldn´t sleep (I think we were over the tired hump and were so tired that we couldn´t sleep) and went out to dinner instead.
Throughout the day, exhausted as we were, barely able to keep walking, we had managed to crack jokes, and kept finding the little moments to keep each other´s spirits up. The food where we ate dinner was amazing, and the sandwich Jeremy had was one of the best he had ever eaten, ever, and not just because the day had been so long and so hard. Mikol had a bite too (of chicken, no less), and it was really that good! Our flight was at 1:50am. At this point, we had slept 2 hours of the last 60 or so. Somehow, we were still nice to each other, and toasted things looking up, and how amazing it was that we were still smiling. 5 years ago, had all this happened, we would have been at each other´s throats a loooong time ago. It was pretty awesome just to witness the very real and palpable evidence of our daily efforts with each other.
We finally got to the airport, made our flight with minutes to spare (We are not sure we have ever been happier to board a flight!), because of having to go through a lot of red tape dealing with our having left the airport the night before, getting our airport tax verified, long security lines, questions at immigration about why we were denied leaving the day before, etc... and made it to Sao Paolo without a hitch... somehow, still smiling and holding hands. Ah, love! <3
So, while it was very challenging, it turned out to be a wonderful lesson in how much we´ve grown, and worth every minute of the experience just for that.
Now that we´re here (this is Mikol writing now), I have to say that all those people that said you can get by in a Portugese-speaking country with Spanish were mistaken. They may be able to somewhat understand me, but when they speak back, I have not a clue what they are saying and catch about every fourth word or so. Lisa, if you´re reading this, how amazing that you were able to learn this difficult-sounding language!
Well, that was our big adventure getting to Brazil! But we made it, and we are in time to make our connection to Johannesburg tomorrow! Next stop, Africa with Natalie! We hope to be hanging out with lions and elephants soon enough. =)
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
A few more pictures from Peru...in no particular order
Here comes the rain again!
I can get... 2.25 liters of Coke...and ít´s all mine!!!!!! This picture is taken in the Iron House (yep, that´s what they call it) famed for being built by Eiffel (yep, of the Eiffel Tower) and shipped down the Amazon to be reconstructed in Iquitos. It´s now the Amazon Cafe where we had a yummy dinner. 
Some sort of pipe and serious tree roots...technology and nature in harmony (sort of)
Fluffy little clouds
Jeremy pets the alien Saki Monkey
Baby brown woolly monkey
Baby spider monkeys aren´t scary! Look at that face! (Jeremy ran anyway! Aiieeee!) 
Mama Brown Woolly with Baby on board!
Saki monkey
"Do you want to be my friend?" "Yes, I think I do!" - Saddleback Tamarin youngster 
Jeremy makes friends with 2 brown woolly monkeys ..."How do you do?"
Bald Uakaris monkey greeting us in our boat upon arrival to Monkey Island!
Baby Toucan in Yagua village!
Yagua Indian communal hut
Huge Banyan tree with smiley face sun carving (This one´s for you, Nathaniel! Congratulations you two!) 
Fer de Lance viper, happily, floating non-threateningly in a jar.
Segundo, our guide, the second son of a Peruvian Shaman 
The giant anteater eating soup and his mighty forepaws! 
Catfish from the top - yikes! 
Bizarro face of the 3 foot long catfish
Now, those are some crazy branches or roots !
Yin-Yang Sky
Dennis the Giant Anteater (look at the staff member back away!) 
Razor-billed curassow
Aw, it´s the canopy Prom photo! 
Restaurant in Lima - rendition of the "Brujas" (witches) 
Iquitos view of the start of the Amazon and the floating houses in the distance 
Plaza de Armas in Iquitos at night, self-portrait with fountain 
Lounging in hammocks with a good book is very nice...
Centipede about 5 inches long
Piranha teeth! Yikes! 
Jungle canopy walkway A few more pictures from Belize
Click here for a few more pictures from Belize...
http://upwardspiralworldtour.blogspot.com/2008/01/pictures-from-caye-caulker-belize.html
http://upwardspiralworldtour.blogspot.com/2008/01/pictures-from-caye-caulker-belize.html
A few more pictures from Guatemala
Click here for a few more pictures from Guatemala...
http://upwardspiralworldtour.blogspot.com/2008/01/tikal-guatemala.html
http://upwardspiralworldtour.blogspot.com/2008/01/tikal-guatemala.html
Monday, January 21, 2008
Peru Photos - January 13 - 23, 2008
Floating houses in Iquitos, Peru
Piranha that Jeremy caught and we later ate for lunch! Chomp!
Philodendrons grow quite large here!
Pretty Amazon flower of some kind or another =) (this one´s for you, Shana N.!)
Jeremy holding a baby gator!
Canopy pathways above the rainforest
Canopy pathways above the rainforest for scale and simple construction
A Pink dolphin photo (we didn´t take this picture, but couldn´t find the photographer´s name to give them credit for it)
Us just before the rain began...look at those clouds in the background...oh boy, we´re going to get wet!
The sloth came down from the tree right in front of our boat! They only do that about once a week! What a great photo opportunity, despite the rain pouring down!
Dennis the Giant Anteater
Charlie the Capybara (a rodent of unusual size!)
Giant Water Lillies
Blowguns are cool.
Sweet Yagua Indian girl and the baby sloth
Mikol and the baby sloth!
Too fun! Why won´t you stop licking my forehead?!?!?!?!? LOL
Jeremy and the baby brown woolly monkey, who wouldn´t leave his arms - sooo cute!
Jeremy and the Saddleback Tamarin alien monkey!
Mikol and the red monkey whose name we have forgotten, who greeted our boat on Monkey Island when we arrived!
Roughing it in the Amazon...ah, the pool and jungle slide of Ceiba Tops!
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