Southbound Bus Bender

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February 2nd 2007

Published: February 2nd 2007

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Elheernt

Boquete, Panama

another town with a river running through it

Well folks, here we are! Hope you´ve been anxiously awaiting your next installment of Landon and Maresa´s traveling circus southbound. Minus the animals, we often feel like a clown show bumbling from town to town. Sometimes there are animals...like the random dog that follows you home and pees on your tent, or the one-legged, red-eyed pigeon in the park. Although, we have yet to pull in money like the carnies do.

We´ve had some major changes in the last few months and as always some fabulous stories to go along. We´ve changed continents, hemispheres, and when before we were merely boyfriend/girlfriend we are now engaged! Although some things are still the same. For example; we´re still wearing the same clothes, don´t wear deodorant, and havn´t worked in 5 months.

We left you last in Boquete, Panama on crazy Frank´s land. We ended up camping on this little slice of paradise for 2 weeks. In this time, we explored some amazing areas of Panama in the back of Frank´s truck and relaxed on his ¨Rio Encantado¨ nature reserve (otherwise known as his safe sanctuary from Uncle Sam). We also learned much in the realm of tax evasion, credit fraud, and

ant attack

this doesn´t come close to doing it justice

the dealing of pre-Columbian art both illegal and legal. Frank was an interesting character in the book of our travels. However, after 2 weeks we´d had our fill of his grave-robbing stories and financial advice and were ready to move on. And, it was just in time as we were blindly attacked in the night. Army ants. Red, wearing helmuts and equipped with ammunition able to get through 3 layers of gore-tex. We awoke to find them in the thousands swarming us under our sleeping bag. We were aware of the threat of insects in the tropics and daily checked our tent surroundings. Nothing could have prepared us for their sneaky night attack. They came in a matter of hours, crawled out of the cement pad we were camped on and chewed through our footprint, tent floor, and the bottom of our sleeping bag. There was only one layer of defense left between us and them. Luckily we found them in time. This was war. The hours that followed were a mad clammering of shaking, stomping and killing. No mercy. The thought of their presence all night gave us the creepy-crawlies to say the least. And then the duct tape

Rio Caldera

one of Frank´s waterfalls

came out. We had hundreds of pea-sized holes to patch. Thanks to good ol duct tape we were back in business and anxious to move on. Our next destination was to find a spot on the beach for Christmas.

After a few buses we found ourselves in hot, humid Chitre. A pleasant town with all the hustle and bustle of Christmas but not the beach scene we were looking for. We searched up and down the peninsula, but to no avail. Our dreamy Christmas beach was no where near. So we hunkered down in a hotel in Chitre and treated ourselves to A.C. and cable TV. We sweated through late night mass and enjoyed all the Christmas classics even if they weren´t in English. Chevy Chase in funny in any language, the dub job made it even funnier. Christmas dinner was street shish-kabobs, take-out pizza and coca-cola in the bottle. The day after, we boarded a bus on our way to Panama City and hopped off at the small beach town of Santa Clara. Not much of a town but we finally found our beachside camp spot. Better late than never. We had a tiki-hut in the sand with

swimming hole on Frank´s land

climbing for a jump

hammocks and a view of ol blue. We were happy. We stayed 4 days and if the price hadn´t risen everyday we would´ve stayed longer. After 4 months we´d learned that there is no sense in arguing with a latin american businessman. Common sense and simple math just doesn´t matter. With time running out we hitched a ride to the highway and caught a bus for the city. Unfortunately we picked a bad one, as it broke down and left us stranded on the highway. We were reimbursed with a $1.00 in nickels and advice to squeeze on any other bus that would stop.

Once we made into Panama City we used our Peace Corp discount and scored a nice hotel with a roof-top pool and spectacular views of the city and ships lining up to go through the canal. While here we enjoyed the speed of city life (thank God only for 4 days), casinos, and cheap eats. We watched the deaths of Ford, James Brown, and Saddam and rang in the New Year with a quiet little dance party of our own. We made our way to a movie, (the only english showing was 007) in a

our campsite

named Profundo for the deep swimming hole

mall where there were more people than in the whole state of Montana. The most people we´ve ever seen under one roof. We enjoyed the people watching but were afraid of the holiday stampede and fled back to safety of our hotel room to pack for South America. On January 2nd we boarded the plane for Lima, Peru. And thus began our race for the bottom of the world.

With more money than time we devised a ludacris plan to bus more than half the length South America. From Lima, Peru to Punta Arenas, Chile. The operation took 7 days and tested our sanity.
Bus number 1 - Lima to Tacna, Peru - 18 hours. Landon gets a puke covered seat, the toilet didn´t work, and they blared action movies nonstop.
Bus number 2 - Arica to Santiago, Chile - 32 hours. We were served mystery meat meals, there were good movies but we couldn´t hear them, and we had the seats closest to the shitter. The views during this portion were of the most amazing wasteland Atacama desert. No life, just sand, something like Mars.
Bus number 3 - Santiago to Puerto Montt, Chile - 18 hours -

Christmas Eve

view from our hotel looking at the cathedral

The meals were cookies and sugar tea, but the views were better and we were farther from the toilet. In Puerto Montt the sweetest of hostel hawks suckered us into staying at her place. Being it was our first bed and bus break in 3 nights we were an easy catch. This was the last bed, off the ground, we slept in to date. Here the dirty bus germs finally caught up with us. Due to bus schedules we had to stay 2 nights of which Landon was sick the whole time and needed the rest. Although we enjoyed Puerto Montt with a sunny day on the bay and views of looming Volcano Osorno. But we just longed to get back on those buses.
Bus number 4 - Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas, Chile - 36 hours. We were fortunate to have crystal clear skies and sunshine which made for stellar views throughout the Lake District which bosts a volcano every 30 or so kilometers. We were served more sugar tea and 2 meat and butter sandwiches the entire ride. At 11pm we were waiting for the customary Chilean late night dinner to be served when we realized we had

Santa Clara, Panama

camping on the beach

eaten our daily ration at 11am. Fortunately we had wised up to the bus food portions and indulged in our own grocery snacks. We snuggled up a to a nice family horror movie filled with blood, guts and gore. The next day we arrived in Punta Arenas where we had just enough time for an over-priced pizza when we became bus-hungry again.
Bus number 5 - Punta Arenas, to Puerto Natales, Chile - a mesely 4 hours. It was on this, our last bus, when the nasty bus germs were passed on to Maresa. When I say last bus I only mean in terms of our fast southbound journey. Busses will always be a constant in our travels. In Puerto Natales the best hostel hawk took us to the cheapest place in town, which we dubbed ¨Little Israel¨as we were the only Americans. Here we spent 4 days fighting the germs and preparing for the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine trek. The town was cool, touristy, and with loads of trekkers from all over the world there to explore the the wind-swept, glacier-carved Patagonia land. It was nice to feel a taste of winter, although it was summer, it was

on the way to Panama City

brokedown bus

the coldest weather we had seen yet.

We left for the Torres del Paine curcuit trail on a crisp, clear day. The trail was an 8-day adventure making a loop around giant granite peaks, enormous glaciers, and turquoise lakes. Day 1 was an exhausting 7 hour hike to kick it off leaving Landon with a quarter size trophy blister on his pinkie toe. Day 2 was a more mellow 3 hours through fields of daisies and ending at stunning Lago Dickson. Day 3 was about a 5 hour hike through lush Lenga forests to camp just below glacier Perros. At this point we began to recognize the fellow hikers on our same route. We met Team Alaska, Sean and Janet, (whose sister-in-law worked with Landon in Colorado...small world) and whom quickly we became great friends with. Day 4 was the toughest part of the circuit and we were blessed with the worst weather of the trip. We ascended 600 meters and descended 800 meters in 12 km. climbing over John Garner Pass. When we found oursleves upon a river crossing with a washed out bridge, we formed Team North America. Fortunately behind us Team Canada had a rope which

Panama City

view next to the rooftop pool

Team Alaska secured on the other side allowing us to cross safely. Climbing the pass was a head-down march in strong winds and sleet. The remaining descent to camp was a mud-slide, and I don´t mean that tasty drink. At camp there was a shelter with a home-made wood stove we shared with some exhuberant Germans who shared tea and chocolate with us. We were so thankful for the cover as the rain never let up. We burned one pair of socks while drying them out but seeing fellow Team Israel attempt to dry a dripping wet down coat, and Team Lost Trekking Pole trying to dry their cotton sleeping bag, we felt pretty good about things. Day 5 the rain stopped, the clouds cleared and the massive Glacier Grey came into view. The hike was pleasant and dry and forever a memory. Perched on the trail, high above the massive glacier which spilled out of the mountains and into the lake, Landon got down on one knee. He pulled out the coconut carved ring he had bought in the Bay Islands and carried all this way and asked me to marry him. I was totally surprised and flooded with

leaving central america

cheers to free plane bevs

emotion. Thus being said, we are engaged! The rest of the day we practically skipped back to camp like school kids. It was an awesome moment in a perfect, majestic place. We told our new friends, Team Alaska, and celebrated with a game of four-man cribbage and a great dinner. Day 6 was an easy hike but we started to encounter loads of people doing the day-hike thing. The views were still outstanding...more glacial lakes, rivers, and towering mountains. Day 7 we hiked up Valle Frances for more astonishing views of hanging glaciers, and Paine Grande, the highest peak in the park. Day 8 with Landon´s knee getting the best of him and with over 75 miles behind us we finished the circuit. With the Towers of Paine fading in the distance we took the last bus out back to Puerto Natales. We immediately went to feast on a meal other than mushy backpacker food...burgers loaded with avacado and cokes. Next order of business was getting clean. A hot shower feels so good after 8 days in the woods.

We rested for 2 days and were on our way to El Chalten, Argentina to hike around Monte Fitz Roy

bus number 1

middle of nowhere, wasteland Peru

in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. We went out for another 8 days but took it rather easy. We first hiked into Campamento Poincenot where we stayed for 4 nights with Fitz Roy as our backdrop. We celebrated Maresa´s birthday with a box of wine and dulce de leche cake, and a special night show. To our surprise when we stepped out of our tent at 4 am there was a big, bright, comet streaking the sky. We called it birthday comet. We spent our time there taking day hikes in the area to neighboring glaciers and high alpine lakes. The topper was a 5 am hike to view a stunning sunrise display coloring Fitz Roy and satellite peaks. We then hiked to Campamento De Agostini where the weather wasn´t as kind to us. We only caught a few glimpses of Cerro Torre before the winds chased us back to town. We acquired a greater appreciation for the hard-core mountaineers enduring months waiting for that perfect weather window. We just pretend we´re hard-core and enjoy pizza and beer at the brewery with the best of them. With the weather in El Chalten looking grim we decided to head north.

We

gas up fun

bus break activities

are currently busing again back up north to the upper Patagonia/Lake District where we plan to hang out for the next 2 months. Enjoying the summer weather, more hikes, fruit galore, and hopefully landing some trout. Landon says cheer on the Colts, and keep the emails coming. We are now half-way through our trip, can´t believe where the time has gone. We miss and love you all. Peace and fried milanesa grease. Hugs, Landon and Maresa

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