Bringing down the Rain

These are my wonderful cousins and hosts during my stay in California. On your left are Bob and Linda whose house I invaded and who own Sherman (from It´s a Dog´s Life). That´s me in the middle (duh) and on my right are my wonderful cousin Sue and her other half John. Sue and I were the ones who went to Hawaii together. We had a wonderful time and you can tell by how relaxed she and I both look. We are at a final dinner the night before I left Southern California.

The next morning I headed off to the East. I was on my way to South America -yeah I know, Sth America is, well, south -via Sedona in Arizona and then onto my brother´s house in Laramie, Wyoming.

Sedona is the most amazing place. It´s located in north western Arizona and I suspect it was once Sacred ground to the Hopis and Navajos but now is loaded with tourists. Daily they crawl through the main street in town, which is loaded with Navajo jewellery shops and adventure tour companies. (and trendy restaurants-except for the Hitchin´ Post, which is pure cowboy funk) I couldn´t go past the viewing of the escarpment at sunset via a jeep ride or the helicopter ride (having become enamoured of helicopters in Hawaii).


This is a typical view from anywhere on the main street of Sedona. You can see the resemblence to Auz sandstone-namely because that´s what the cliff´s and hills are made of. The view from any position in Sedona is spectacular, but the further out you go the more spectacular it gets. My jeep ride-which was billed as "medium" (there were 3 types of "adventures" one can participate in: mild, medium and wild) was very fun and a little more than medium.
There were only 3 of us on the jeep....I am presuming the rest of the tourists were in the cowboy bars drinking. Brad, our "genuine" cowboy, replete with hat and spurs, was our driver and a honeymooning couple from Montreal and I were in the back. We went over lots of uneven ground-the jeep tipping this way and that and ended up on a huge plateau looking at the cliffs as the sun went down. The light show was fantastic, and the ride exillerating. As we watched the sun go down in the west there was a rosy glow which spread out on the cliffs turning them into a work of art. All of the galleries in Sedona feature this view in either photographs or paintings.
( Which I would show you but I am working on a computer in Cuzco Peru which is not letting me add any more images, so you will have to do with words until I can upload the images-sorry about that one)

The helicopter ride happened the next day and was pretty spectacular as well.....except that the blades on the copter sounded like they were going to fly off any minute. I loved the way the pilot kept flying straight into canyon walls only to pull up at the last minute...very exciting. I would guess that the hot blonde sitting in the front seat might have had something to do with the hot-dogging. FYI I was sitting in the back.

Leaving Sedona, I headed for the 4 corners area of the South West. This is where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado meet. I went to a place called Canyon de Chelley. (pronounced Canyon de Shay). The whole area is dotted with canyons so this place was only one of many. Here is one of the areas where the Anasazi lived.

The Anasazi were a tribe of Native Americans who seemingly disappeared sometime in the early 12th century. Many Navajos believe that they are descendents of the Anasazi. The mythology of the Anasazi was that they could bring down the rain through prayer and ritual. They lived in cliff dwellings and which are littered throughout the canyon. Some of the buildings are houses and some are storage bins for food, which gives a new meaning to the idea of going to the fridge for a midnight snack, since the storage bins (or fridges if you will) are on a different part of the cliff pretty far away from the houses. The buildings are always nestled inside a "cave" which gives them the roof and back of the house through natural means.

I took a canyon tour on a very old 4-wheel drive, flat bed truck (with a set of seats for the tourists on the flat bed) driven by a black eyed Navajo called Benson. Benson was very laconic and when I told him I was from Australia, he said: "I have been to Alburquerque, Farmington and the Canyon" describing the territory to which he belongs and travels. It made me smile and think about all those Eastern mythology stories about finding your world in your backyard.

Every once in a while Benson would stop the truck climb out of the driver´s seat, stand on the running board, loop his arm across the driver´s side door and tell us about the rock paintings or the Anasazi dwellings, which he pronounced Nazzi. Once he stopped at a place called Fortress Rock and told us about Kit Carson and his capture of the Navajos. During some interminable battle for Native land, the Navajos climbed up Fortress Rock -about 100m high solitary rock standing in the middle of the canyon-with supplies as well as the whole tribe. Then they kicked away the ladders so Carson and gang couldn´t follow them up there. They withstood the attacks from Kit Carson and crew for 4 months before surrendering and being taken to the reservation, so that some commercial company could have the land and sell it off to the other Americans. After Benson got back into the truck and headed off, I heard a woman in the back say: "I was always told that Kit Carson was a hero." (so did we all honey).

The canyon floor was made of sand and had huge ruts in it. Every once in a while there was a "wash" with trees and a stream. It took us 4 hours to complete the trip. You will have to wait for the slide show to see what I saw. It was pretty wonderful and at times breath-taking. I cannot for the life of me imagine climbing that high into the cliff to go back home. Or else, I probably would not leave home, but I am sure they had to go and get food (now that might motivate me off the cliff).

My last US adventure was a lovely visit with my brother in Laramie Wyoming. There is not too much to do in Laramie, but I did manage to meet a man from Melbourne who ran the local bakery. Go figure eh?

On 21st October, I flew out of Denver airport, connected with a flight at Dallas to Lima Peru. Met up with my tour group, who all seem like nice folk, and we took a flight (at 6AM mind you!) up to Cuzco, which is about 4,500m in the Andes. My first 3 days were spent suffering from incredible altitude sickness -like being sea sick but a little worse. It felt like I was in a cartoon and the Road Runner was pumping up my head with a bicycle pump blowing it up little by little, every time I just walked up the street. Believe me, there is a lot more climbing to do than walking up the street.

I am getting a little better each day. Climbing is a trip though. Yesterday we went to a place called the Sacred Valley-an Incan village or two which included a significant amount of climbing straight up the mountain side. Everywhere you look, the Andes rise majestically up to form the background of whereever you are. It is nothing short of spectacular. It´s enough to make me forget that my bum muscles are in permanent spasm.

Today I toured through an ancient Incan temple site, which overlooks Cuzco and this included a lot of climbing too. Good practice for tomorrow as I take the train up to Machu Pichu and there is lots of climbing to be done there. So wait for news from the Temple of the Sun in the middle of the Andes somewhere.

Adios mia Amigas and Amigos
Hasta Luego....
Genie

Hawaiian Eyes

Aloha from the Ocean! I managed to see a lot of the Pacific in the past couple of weeks, and let me tell you- it is HUGE! It also contains some of the most beautiful islands on the planet. And I was lucky enough to see 4 of them.

My cousin Sue and I sailed for Hawaii from Vancouver -don't ask why Vancouver- that's a whole other blog entry- on Sept 20th and spent 5 days on the Pacific doing the usual cruising things- namely eating, walking the decks, drinking coffee, talking to other passengers and just plain relaxing. I think we slept for an average of 9 hours a night. We both needed it.

When we got the the first island- Maui- we rented a car [a convertible no less] and drove around the island for a couple of days. The ship stayed in Maui for two days and we managed to get to Lahaina [a lovely little village on the coast - of course, most of "civilisation" is on the coast. "Civilisation" meaning shops and other conveniences...This means we did some serious shopping. At most of the islands most everyone from the ship wanted to shop- and where did these happy travellers want to shop? Why Walmart! [not for us- we picked local places]. For the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would bother to sail all the way to Hawaii to shop at Walmart. We found some groovey little shops along the way in our journeys and of course indulged. So much for my mantra "experiences not shopping".

The first night on Maui we went to a Luau...a Hawaiian dinner where they roast a pig in the ground and offer many other Hawaiian delights, like Poi. [more on Poi later]. The luau was OK except there were 400 other people there- or rather 398- and we got stuck at a table with a motor mouth from New York, [I think he had Turrets] who told us everything about himself, including the details of the pre-nup agreement he had to sign with his new wife, and how he drank out of a glass on the ship that was chipped and cut his lip and now he was scarred for life and was going to sue the shipping lines. I have never seen such a brilliant display of non-verbal communication as other people at the table leaned way back away from him and stopped making eye contact in the hopes that he would shut up. No such luck. But the dancing was pretty spectacular ranging from Hawaiian hula to Maori war dances.

There were lots of other things to do too....We went snorkelling one day [on Kauai] with this great company [all the islands that people visit have a giga-billion tourist companies who cater to all sorts of fancies from diving to sailing to golfing to hiking etc etc]. The company we went with had two guys on surf boards where people snorkelling could hang on and not be battered by the surf and another guy on a board who pulled in those of us who strayed into dangerous waters. Some of us got so enamoured with the fish that we had to be pulled away from the lava rocks we were about to crash into. The sea life was wonderful....exotic fish of all colours and sizes and shapes, an octopus, sea turtles and lots of other things like anenomies and sea slugs. And of course coral. The surf was wild and we were on a beach that had the best restaurant on the island where we ate for my cousin Sue's birthday. I didn't take the camera snorkelling, so you just have to take my word for it.

The other exciting thing I did was to take a helicopter ride over a live volcano! At Hilo [Hawaii - the "big" island] there is a volcano that is still erupting. In the morning we went on a bus tour that took us to the crater [among other places like an orchid farm] where we got to walk on cold lava [called frozen fire] and look into the mouth of the crater, but from that vantage point, you can't see the live lava. We didn't expect to go on a tour in the morning, so I didn't bring my camera. The morning tour got me to the dock just in time for the helicopter ride in the afternoon - so I didn't have my camera then either. But I do have a video of the whole helicopter ride. It was amazing! Little fingers of red fire [called worms] sliding down the hillside into the ocean. When it hits the water, billows of steam fill the air. It was pretty spectacular. And of course I loved the helicopter ride!

Our last day was in Honolulu [on Oahu]- the least interesting and most crowded island of them all. This snap might give you an idea of how big the ship is. Behind is Honolulu- no other town/city on any other island looks like this- with all the skyscrapers. Most of the other islands had small villages on them. You could drive down the main streeet of Lahaina [Maui] or Lihue [Kauai] or Hilo [Hawaii] in about 1-2 minutes. But Honolulu is crowded and dense and busy. We did not spend much time there. When we disembarked we flew to Kauai and spent a wonderful 3 days in the best "hotel". It was really an apartment with a lounge room, kitchen and bedroom. It overlooked the gardens which were filled with Plenaria [frangipani] trees and coconut palms and right across from the beach. Plenaria is what they make the Hawaiian leis from. In the old days when you arrived on any island you used to get greeted by someone who would throw a real flower lei around your neck and say Aloha. They don't do that any more. We got a few shell necklaces [it's not the same, believe me] or an I [heart] Maui/Kauai/Hawaii badge. It loses something in the translation. I guess I am sounding like an oldie comparing the present to another time.

The beaches, of course, are slowly disappearing. I remember when I was 15 and my grandmother took my cousin Bob and I to Hawaii. [where we got the real flower leis put around our necks on arrival]. The beaches were beautiful long, wide and sandy. Today they are narrow and there is not much room between the top of the sand and the waves of the ocean. It is sad to see the beaches disappearing as the Pacific islands start sinking into the sea. Global warming at its best.

On Kauai we went on a tour of Weimea Canyon and up to the Fern Grotto on the Weilea River. The canyon is amazing. You can see all the geological formations from over the ages in the rocks [like the Kimberlys and the Grand Canyon]. The day was beautiful. The shot on the left is of the canyon and the right of the fern grotto. I really thought I could live on Kauai, except for the humidity. We were lucky on the tour through the canyon and the fern grotto- it was dry and a little windy. But as soon as we got back, the clouds came over and the humidity must have peaked to about 90%. Too much for this old bod!

The best things about Hawaii are the sunrise and sunsets. The air is beautiful in the morning and at night. This shot is not an unusual one. This is what happens every night in the islands. No wonder the Hawaiians are so relaxed. In Hawaii there is only Hawaiian time, which may or may not correspond with the time frame you have in mind for completing a task. It is very refreshing. I can really see why people sell the farm [as one of our tour guides expressed it] and come to live in paradise.

Aloha from the South Pacific.....next stop- South America! I am getting ready to roll on to Machu Pichu and the Galapagos Islands.

Sue and I in Maui.....and me on board the beautiful [definitely not] Carnival Spirit Cruise Ship.