Days 370-372: Cusco

The flight between Lima and Cusco was short but interesting.  It's just over an hour long, so you never really reach a high altitude as you fly into the Andes.  When you're coming in to land you're flying below the tops of many of the surrounding mountains.

We got a bus to hotel we were staying out and dropped things off and going out to explore a little.  Cusco is culturally very important as it was the capital of the Inca Empire, but its also a convenient place for hikers to acclimate to the elevation before moving on to more strenuous things.  It's around 3400m (11,150 ft) above sea level and considerably cooler than Lima.

The tourist influence is pretty evident in Cusco as the central plaza (Plaza de Armas) accommodates a KFC and a McDonalds, and the central area is full of little touristy shops selling Peruvian souvenirs and hiking equipment.  Despite these the city still has a very old-world feel and remnants of both Inca and Spanish periods are everywhere. We were there over Easter, which they celebrated in part by marching crosses and a Jesus replica from church to church around town.

Near the city center are the old Inca walls, including the strangely famous 12-sided stone.  Like the pyramids in Egypt the stonework is impressive for the tight precision of each stone fitting into the next, and without the aid of modern machinery to carve them.  The 12-sided stone is just the most noted because it shows off how each stone is so perfectly set.

A few other buildings of note are the Convent of St. Dominic which doubles as the Cusco Museum and the Church of la Compañía de Jesus which houses some colonial art.

To help everybody get used to the altitude we did a hike up into the hills at the fringe of the city, climbing past the old Inca ruins of Saksaywaman and finally up to Cristo Blanco, which is a smaller Christ the Redeemer that stands above the city.  I always like this sort of small climb outside of cities, and this one gave a really nice view of the city below and the surrounding landscape.  Also, this short venture let me see the first of many llamas and alpacas in Peru.

We also stopped by the cental market, Mercado Central de San Pedro, which was... an experience.  I'm always fascinated by all the bustling markets of the world, but indoors I found this one similar to many of the others, and outdoors, where most of the action was happening, things were too chaotic/crowded for me to really enjoy.

The only other location of note is Jack's Cafe, an Australian/Peruvian restaurant that was quickly established as everybody's favourite place to eat.  So maybe it didn't have the most traditional Peruvian menu, but everything we ate there was amazing.  (For the record, the Jack's Cafe burger is definitely in my top 5 of the world, maybe even top 3).
Now that we were used to the elevation and had gotten to know each other it was time to travel deeper into the Inca heartland...

Day 356: Freemont Street

My bus got into Las Vegas in the afternoon. Instead of staying on the more recently developed Strip I was downtown on Freemont Street. Freemont Street is the old part of Las Vegas where the original, mob-run casinos were, and now it's largely filled with bars and casinos that are a bit less extreme than the famous Strip ones. The afternoon desert heat was quite nice after the chill of San Francisco and after walking down the street, out far past where anything truly touristy was, to drop off my things at my hostel I explored around downtown a bit more.


Also now on Freemont Street is the (in)famous Heart Attack Grill, where I went for dinner. Heart Attack Grill has become famous on serving some of the most unhealthy food in the world, and making a point to take pride in just how unhealthy it is. If the name wasn't enough of a clue, the staff are dressed as doctors and nurses, and they put a paper hospital gown on your when you step in, just to drive the theme home. There's a scale out front of the restaurant for people to weigh themselves, because the restaurant has a standing offer that if you weigh 350lbs or more, you get to eat for free.

The quadruple-bypass burger has a world record for the most calories in a burger - about 10,000. Even worse, in the menu there's an 8-layer octo-bypass burger. If you get the burgers with bacon they add 5 strips per level, so that's 40 pieces of bacon just added on top. I kept things reasonable by only getting a double-bypass burger, without bacon, and a coke instead of their butterfat shake. I've probably regressed somewhat in health since leaving Asia, but I'm not looking to reverse a year of constant exercise quite so easily. It was delicious, but I'm glad the restaurant is in a place that I won't be visiting often.

Day 352: San Francisco

San Francisco is another of those American cities full of famous things - some of which I feel deserve the fame more than others. San Francisco also has a lot of art and culture, and that immediately made it more appealing for me than Los Angeles was. Because San Francisco is contained by the Bay, it's not all sprawled out like a lot of cities, and I can walk around everywhere pretty easily, and I tended to cover a lot of ground. I started off by heading south-east a bit to check out a specific street art murtal I wanted to see, then turned north-east and followed Mission St. up towards the harbor. Along the way I stopped at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I've expressed my mixed feelings about modern art before, but this is one of the most famous modern art galleries in the world, so I was curious to see what it would be like. Half the gallery was closed down as new installations were going up, but because of that the tickets were half price. It was a pretty cool gallery. The permanent collection had some things I liked and some I didn't. They had one exhibit up of Lebbeus Wood works that I really liked. He's an architect/artist, but a lot of his drawings and sculptures look like futuristic, sci-fi architecture.


When I reached the water I just followed it past all the piers until I got to Fisherman's Wharf, stopping to check out all the harbor seals and Alcatraz. There are lots of ferry tours out to Alcatraz, and I probably would have found it interesting, but it's one of those things where I feel it's reputation probably exceeds it's real interest to me, and I'm trying to save money, so I skipped it.


I stopped for lunch at Fisherman's Wharf, going to one of the famous In-N-Out Burgers. I've had multiple people from California that I've met tell me it's amazing, but I honestly don't really get what the hype is about. It was good, but no better than a lot of other burger chains around. I got some icecream afterwards and walked up the nearby hill to Lombard Street, which is known for being the crookedest street.


That was pretty much it for the day. I walked back towards the hostel from there, stopping to hang out in a park for a bit and cutting through China Town before wandering through the financial district and finally back to the hostel.

Days 346-347: Waiting to Leave

I took my last bus ride of New Zealand from Taupo, back up through Rotorua and finally to Auckland. During our hike across Tongariro our group had a lengthy discussion on New Zealand meat pies, which seem to be something of a national dish. One of the places that came up was a little bakery in Rotorua that had delicious pies, so when I happened to have an hour between transferring buses around lunch in Rotorua I managed to hunt the place down and get a few award-winning pies.


I had purposely booked a hostel a bit closer to where the buses come and go, mostly so that I wouldn't have so far to work at the dreadfully early hour I had to go at to catch my plane when I finally left the city. I didn't really have much I wanted to do in Auckland, but I did hang out in the city for much of the second day, just browsing through comic and book shops and sitting around in parks or by the water. Although I booked 2 nights in my hostel, I ultimately only slept there once. My flight from Auckland to Los Angeles left around 7am, and between the few hours early I'd have to get to the airport, the bus to get there, and the walk from my hostel to the bus stop I'd have had to get up around 3am to do everything comfortably. Instead I just walked to a nearby park where I could use wifi (my hostel was charging $10 a day to use wifi - one of the things I really hate about New Zealand) and just spent the night reading a book on my tablet and planning out the next few weeks a little.

Days 339-340: Northward Blitz

It was now time to blitz back across New Zealand, or at least the south island. I first took a long bus ride from Queenstown up to Christchurch, delayed slightly be a huge herd of sheep that wouldn't get off the road.

I was curious to see what Christchurch would look like now, after it suffered so much destruction from the earthquakes. At first, it doesn't look that different, but then you start to notice all the empty lots and the fact that there really aren't many buildings more than 2 stories tall. The hostel was nice enough to come pick me up from downtown and drive me to the hostel, and the driver/owner was pointing out all the buildings that have been torn down, or are going to be torn down because the foundations are no longer safe.

The hostel itself was... interesting. Because there's been so much damage to the infrustructure there's a combination of not enough accomodations in town and a lot of people coming into the city looking for construction work, causing a huge shortage of beds. The hostel I was in had addressed this by having tents spread all through the backyard, with big outdoor communal areas under tarps. I was in a more traditional dorm room inside the house, but spent the evening hanging out with a lot of the campers. It had a very hippie commune vibe to it, and included lots of random drum circles and impromptu sing-a-longs.

My bus in the morning was at an annoying 7am, so I had to take a taxi from the hostel. About 2/3 of the way to Picton the bus came to a sputtering stop, and died. The driver tried a few things, but ultimately gave up and told us that they were looking for an alternative, but that anybody going to the ferry was going to miss it. I was mentally trying to figure out all the things I was going to have to shift, when one of the other passengers who happened to be a mechanic managed to get the bus going again. We rushed on north and I managed to catch the ferry and cross back over to Wellington. I just had time to get to my hostel, drop off my bags and have a quick shower before I met up with my childhood friend Alan and his girlfriend for dinner, as they happened to be heading down south as I was coming north. If you can't reconnect with old friends on the other side of the world, where can you?

Overall, a really long 2 days.

Days 337-338: The Divide and Return

The final day was from Lake Mackenzie to a place called The Divide, which is where a few different trails begin. It was mostly in woods again, so the views weren't as spectacular, but it was still a nice woodland track. The one notable exception was another steep side tail up to Key Summit which climbed back above the tree line to an alpine marsh preservation. In addition to all the lovely mountain views it was also new flora with lots of different colourful mosses and groundcovers.

From there it was a steady descent down through the forest. Closer to the Divide there were lots of other hikers who take a bus out, hike for a couple hours then go home. I think they miss all the best parts of the hike, but not everybody has the time, desire or fitness to do the entire thing. I got picked up a couple hours after finishing the track, and got driven back to Queenstown in a much longer journey than the one that brought me in.

Back in Queenstown I returned my sleeping bag and decided to book an extra day in the city to relax and look around a bit. I tried to get dinner at this famous burger restaurant called Fergburger. It's not only famous in the city, but had been recommended to me even by people on the other side of the country. Unfortunately I'm not the only person looking to try it out, and the line was too daunting to get one. Instead, I waited until the morning and went and had a massive, delicious burger there at 9:30 in the morning when there was no line at all!


The rest of my day was pretty uneventful. I visited the small beach in town and just hung out relaxing.

Days 309-311: Return of the Rain

While the rain wasn't constant, it was definitely regular, especially the first day. I spent a lot of the day in the hostel reading and using the internet. I had one trip out to China Town for lunch that ended up with me getting soaked, but by the evening the rain had died down enough that I ventured out with one of the girls in my room to try to find a place to each and watch the Australian Open men's final. Everywhere we went they either weren't playing it, or were playing it without volume. We found one place that had it in, but didn't serve food. We had a couple of beer there, then decided to hop over to McDonalds to grab food quickly between sets. Coincidentally they were actually playing the game in McDonalds, and we got talking to a few other people watching the game and ended up spending the next 2 hours watching tennis in McDonalds while eating 30 cent ice cream cones.

The next day I ventured out into a few of the Sydney districts further from the harbor. There was a small art gallery/shop in Surrey Hills that was my main focus for going to that area, but there were lots of the out of the way independent shops, restaurants and little bits of art that I enjoy so much.

From Surrey Hills I walked over to Newtown, which is another area that had been recommended to me. I didn't really know where to go though, and the main street of the area wasn't as interesting for me as Surrey Hills had been. I did find a burrito shop which had the best burritos I've had since leaving Canada, so it was still worth the trip over. In the evening the hostel had an activity out to a bar where you got a free drink and fries if you went. I have a hard time turning down free things, so I braved another period of pouring rain to go out. The free fries was actually massive plates of both fries and potato wedges. I didn't really stay out much beyond the food and drink, but Australia is so expensive that anything free helps.

I spent a lot of the next day in the hostel planning things and talking to the new round of people going through. One was having a birthday, and we decided to prepare a dinner of vegetables, rice and kangaroo steaks from the grocery store. We went out for drinks afterwards, but I didn't stay out too late since I had a train to catch in the morning.

Day 286: Single's Night

We decided we didn't really want to do anything too involved on the island, and we began the morning by opening the door, taking the 3 steps to the lake and jumping in for a swim. In the little cottage rooms above and beside us were 4 young Finnish men who were hanging out and swimming around, and we chatted with them for awhile.

After drying off we walked around the loop on the peninsula that makes up Tuk-Tuk, looking for food and for a place to use wifi since our guest house had none. Periodically through the day we'd see young men dressed up in suits with ties and elaborate plumed hats and sashes on, and by talking with a few of them we learned that there was a big festival going on in town in the evenings. Apparently once every 5 years all the young single men and women (and their families, and people just looking to party) from all the neighboring villages come for a festival/dance, basically to try to hook up with a prospective spouses. This sounded too culturally weird/awesome to pass up, so in the evening we met up for dinner with our Finnish friends (they had been on the island quite a bit longer, and took us to a much better restaurant than the earlier ones we'd had), then followed the sound of music through the city and the road away from the buildings of the town.

It was made pretty clear to us that we weren't to dance, and we sat to the side with what was presumably family members and well-wishers. Since none of what was going on was in english it was a bit hard to follow at times, but there was an MC who would walk around talking, and then the band would break out into the song. I say -the- song because there was only one. By the end of two days of this festival I got quite tired of it. I don't really understand why they have a large band to play the exact same traditional song over and over and over. They should just tape it and save some money next time. Anyway, once the music was going the two groups (male and female) would start dancing and slowly approach each other, dance a bit, then break back apart to their seperate groups when the music stopped. This happened over and over, and I guess eventually some prospectives paired up. In the next phase, All these matched pairs lined up facing a group of family members in an opposing line, and there was a sort of weird tug-of-war dance where one side would force the other side backwards, then they would reverse. All the singles who failed to meet anybody got to stand around feeling left out.

Afterwards the dance broke into more of a free-for-all (still the same song). A few of the Finns stuck around but most of us headed back to our sheds for the night.

Day 283: Monkey Business

On New Year's day we finally got the jungle trek under way. We had a small group of our guide, an older but fit Australian, and my lumbering Swiss friend Peter. I was a bit skeptical at first how much of a "trek" it would be with two older men, especially since I'd had a good sample of Peter's fitness the day before. Much to my delight, our guide didn't take things easy for them, and while we did have to slow down a bit for Peter and take a few more breaks that I would have liked, the hiking was intense. We were climbing hundreds of meters up steep rock faces, sliding down clay and mud banks, pulling ourselves up slopes by the roots of trees, and almost always either ascending or descending. Our focus was on finding animals, and the different guides would text each other when things of interest were spotted, and we'd take off trying to find them. Through the course of the day we saw gibbons, macaques (which are the usual monkey seen everwhere in SE Asia), Thomas Leaf Monkeys, and two different orangutans, which are the real prize of the national park.

The rest house we stayed at for the night was alongside the river. Luckily we didn't have to stay in a tent, since it rained rather hard all night again, but we were in the open air under a tin roof. Dinner was a vegetarian mix of dishes from things grown in the jungle nearby, as was the dessert of passion fruit, bananas, pineapple and oranges.

Day 279: Medan

I had an early flight from Kuala Lumpur over to Northern Sumatra early this morning. The flight left around 7:30am, and it the bus ride to get to the airport is an hour, so I had to leave quite early to get to there with enough time to feel comfortable. I was flying out of the LCCT, which is the low-cost budget airline terminal, and you can definitely see where the low cost part comes in. Things were pretty disorganized and checking-in/dropping off bags was a massive free-for-all of people pushing towards the front without much of a queuing system. Luckily I came with time to spare and managed to get through everything without any of the frantic scrambling I try very hard to avoid.

Medan itself isn't much of a tourist destination, but it's the biggest city in the center of quite a few interesting things in North Sumatra part of Indonesia. It's one of those rare cities where the airport is actually near the city center, and I just avoided the swarm of taxis and tuk-tuks and just walked from the airport to my hostel and fortunately he extra weight of the stuff I bought in KL was barely noticeable. It was still early when I got to the hostel and my room wasn't ready, so I left my bags and went off on a lengthy walk without a map or any knowledge of the city at all.

Medan is a bit rough around the edges. It reminds me a bit of some of the more sane cities in India. It's hard to go a few minutes on foot without somebody trying to get you into their tuk-tuk or on the back of their motorbike, as if the only reason you were walking around has to be that nobody else has bothered to offer you a ride yet. I was obviously something of a rarity. All the old men sitting in front of shops would call out and wave to me, and lots of people came up to talk to me. Even though it does get a bit tiring when you can't just have a little peace, I much prefer the ones who just come up and want to talk out of curiousity to the ones always trying to offer you things. At least here people are pretty accepting when you just say no or shake your head, and don't hound after you. The streets all look virtually identical, full of squat little random shops and apartments. I can't think of a single building I saw with more than 3 floors, or a single recognizable brand name other than one McDonalds I came across.

My McDonalds anecdote deserves special mention. After walking around all morning after an early morning flight I was pretty hot and exhausted, so I went into the McDonalds with the intention of buying an ice cream. At the counter they told me there was no ice cream, so I left. I instead bought a cold drink from a shop outside and just sat on the patio in the shade relaxing. About 10 minutes later, a group of 4 Muslim girls who had been in the McDonalds came out with a bag of food. They, having seen but not heard my exchange at the counter thought that I hadn't had enough money, and when they saw me sitting outside had bought a meal for me. I was pretty embarassed, because obviously I do have money - probably a good deal more than they do, and I tried to explain the situation, but they insisted I keep the meal (I suppose there wasn't much else they could do with the food). I should have offered to pay them for it, but I didn't think of it at the time, and in a way I feel it might have cheapened their gesture. Instead, the only gesture I can offer is to mention this story and hopefully help out somebody in genuine need of a meal later in my travels. In the "western world" there's unfortunately a lot of negative feelings towards Muslims these days, but the fact that these girls were so willing to do something like that for a random stranger deserves special consideration.

I finally made it back to the hostel around noon and checked in. There's no AC and no windows, which means the one outlet in the room has to be for the fan when I'm in the room, which makes charging / using my tablet a bit of a problem. My plans in Indonesia are somewhat off the beaten trail, so it's very possible I'll have trouble keeping in touch for the next 10 days. If I stop posting things, don't worry - odds are I won't be dead.

Days 275-276: Merry Christmas from KL!

First of all, Happy Holidays to everybody! "Christmas" is different things for different people, and I hope that even those who aren't into the religion bits, or into the consumerism bits at least manage to take a bit of a break to enjoy friends and family.

My bus ride from Tanah Rata to Kuala Lumpur was faster than I thought, only taking about 4 hours. My hostel was within walking distance, but it was a solid walk (although not as gruelling as the one in Panang). The hostel I'm staying in was picked for its proximity to KL Central Station, which wasn't a factor coming in, but will be a factor when I leave since my flight to Indonesia is very early and the only night buses to the airport are from KL Central (see, I actually plan some of these things out, sometimes!) In addition to a good location for me, the hostel is also very cool. It's run by a group of young people who are all into the arts in some manner, and into the youth culture and activism. All the walls and floors have murals or other artwork on them, and they use the common space to put on different art/music/dance/theater shows. After getting to the hostel and checking in I basically just retraced my steps back to where I got off the bus, checking out all of the interesting things I'd seen on my walk down that I wasn't able to stop and explore because of all my bags.

The first of these stops was at a canal / reservoir I had to cross. Both sides of the canal were covered with lovely street art murals, and I've since learned that it is really the focal point of street art in the city. I walked the length of the painted sections of the canal admiring the art before climbing back to stree level and continuing on.

I also visited the Central Market, which is a building full of shops focused on Malaysian art and culture. A few parts were neat, but I found a lot of it to be just more gift shop like places selling the same cheap stuff you find everywhere else, only more concentrated. I also visited the nearby Petaling Street, which is the central hub of KL Chinatown. It's a long pedestrian market street similar in feel to the markets in Hong Kong and Taipei.

After a good sleep today was my day to really explore Kuala Lumpur. I wasn't sure how much Christmas would alter the. The signs of it were certainly present, but not like you'd fine in North America (for one thing, everything was open). The big shopping malls all had Christmas displays out, and I came across a group singing carols in one mall, but the malls didn't seem unusually crowded. The people working at food stalls and in convience stores all wished me a merry Christmas, but that could just because I'm western.

I found a very cool shopping mall called parkamaya that had a definite Japanese flavour to it (it's the one with the purple trees above). It had cosplaying mall girls handing out flyers and all the walls were posted with anime/manga figures. One of the shops had legitimate anime for sale at ridiculously low prices that I just couldn't pass up. In the end I spend about $35 CDN for what would have cost me over $400 to buy at home. It's going to be a bit of a pain to carry it around for the next 4 months, especially since I can't watch any of it on my tablet, but I didn't go as crazy as I could have, so I'm sure I'll manage. After that I swung by the famous Petronas Towers. After visiting most of the famous cities of the world a few more towers aren't all that impressive, but there was a park nearby that was a nice place to take a rest and enjoy the day. I suspect the weather at home doesn't allow for quite the same sort of outdoor recreation.

The collection of unique towers in Kuala Lumpur makes it pretty easy to keep track of where you are when travelling on foot, although the roads tend to wind and cross over each other a lot. On my way back towards the hostel area I angled by the even taller KL Tower.

Back at the hostel I was treated with some of the other guests to a Christmas dinner prepared by one of the hostel co-owners and her girlfriend. We had spaghetti, chicken, potatoes, salad and corn, along with a mix of desserts. Not quite the traditional Christmas dinners of Canada, but the food was good and the gesture very much appreciated!