Bob and Karen's Circle Pacific Tour: Living . . . on . . . island . . . time

Peru was the right place to begin a year's travel

Peru was an eye-opener of a place to launch our trip. It’s a little difficult to remember all the things that went through our minds as we settled into our year off during that first month of leisure. But I recall being sharply aware of the need to travel differently than any previous travel we’d done. This was a year off, and there was no way any person could spend that many days in full-on explorer mode. You have to stop and let the time pass you by. And you have to do that surprisingly frequently. You can bully your way through the strenuous two days of climbing Mount Putukusi and neighbouring Machu Picchu after a big bad bout of altitude sickness, but there are serious physical limits in the longer term. I speak now from a position of clearer understanding. Our first major steps on returning home were health care – Karen to a naturopath to fix her digestive tract, me to the family doctor to treat a knee injury. Now the knee MRI data is in and it turns out that a year of stress to one’s knees doesn’t necessarily cause ligament damage. At least not in my case. Instead, a year of daily strain (and about a dozen mountain climbs) results in bone injuries – extensive bruising and a small fracture to my left femur. My knee may take as long to heal as it took to cause the damage. And Peru was a powerful dose of knee wear with which to begin our year’s adventure. About two-thirds of the way through our year off we began to look back at Peru and comment that it was a good thing we’d done Peru first, because at that point we didn’t feel capable of the mountain exploits we’d done back in September. Now, a full year later, I have similar thoughts regarding the year off. I don’t think I could do it again. I certainly can’t do it again in the condition I’m in now. The effects of aging isn’t the point of this piece but I had to get past that to get to the wind-down in Huanchaco. While Machu Picchu was one of the icons that we built our year off around – the others were Easter Island (up next) and Angkor Wat (towards the end) – the lazing away of days and weeks in Huanchaco is the travel style that we wanted to perfect. Later, we executed a nearly perfect down-time dropout on the island of Koh Phangan, where we spent 33 days doing as close to nothing as two people can manage. In Peru, we spent almost half our month in Huanchaco. It is a small fishing village, with little going for it but charm, and we made it our home. By the time we had wandered every street I knew we were successfully living in the moment. That’s a sensation that we are striving for in our travels and, as much as Machu Picchu was a miracle in the mountains, Huanchaco was its own miracle on the seashore. I am more likely to go back there, but that may just be the bad knee talking. We could always bus it up Machu Picchu.

Re-living our tour in photos

A totally unexpected result of travelling for a year (unlike any other number of months) is that we are re-living the experience month by month as we sort photos. It's September now so we have spent weeks sorting and editing our Peru pictures. As we build a slideshow of our month in Peru, we are choosing from photos that weren't available for posting during our trip. We carried two cameras but only blogged from a backup point-and-shoot. So, here's the result, a handful of our Peru favourites. We might find a few more before the end of September when we switch to reminiscing about Chile. But first we'll have an essay on Peru, which will be our next text post.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Living . . . on . . . island . . . time

Slap our wrists, we've been lolling around on our third island in a row doing mostly nothing. Well, eating, sleeping and strolling the beach, but the strolling part has only been here in the Cook Islands. Before that we luxed out on Moorea, the second main island (after Tahiti) in French Polynesia. On Moorea, we substituted watching the fish instead of the strolling. And there were lots of ways to see fish . . . best of all was the glass window in the floor of our overwater bungalow. Even if we weren't hunched over it staring into the coral, we would just make sure to glance at it as we passed by on the way to the deck or pool or bar. Basically, we lived above a tropical fish aquarium for four days. There were many tiny fish -- iridescent blue, yellow and black stripes, white and black stripes, and something we called saddlebacks because of the weird blob of colour on their mid-back. Bigger yet were the big blue parrot fish up to two feet long that would occasionally cruise by. I once saw something that looked like a red and black spotted snake, but it was gone real quick. We still haven't got the hang of the French Polynesian language. Barely know hello. The problem is the vowels . . . there are too many and they say every one For an example, the capital city (Papeete) has four syllables and the airport (Faaa) has three syllables. But everyone speaks a form of English and are all extremely friendly so there are no problems. We did manage to go for one walk on Moorea and met a woman outside her souvenir black pearl shop. After less than five minutes of conversation about her family, she offered us the use of her car, ideas on what to see nearby and where to buy a three-pack of really fresh, juicy pineapples. The Cook Islands is in many ways similar with the same tropical volcanic reef fringed with coconut palms and the same outrageous prices. At least here in the Cooks we're in a simple self-catering unit so we don't have to eat in restaurants all the time. In Moorea, the restaurant main courses were $30 to $45 so Karen's first bit of home-cooking in two months is a welcome respite from the price shock every time we got a bill. Besides, she missed the cooking and the meals are a lot simpler with less creamy sauces. Another pleasant aspect of life here in the Cooks is the chance to meet a sympatico bunch of Aussies and Kiwis all staying in the same group of bungalows on the beach. Every evening we get together for a few hours to drink and gab before the mosquitoes chase us inside for dinner (our dinner, not the mosquitoes). We don't really see the sunsets because of the orientation of our beach but the sunrises are spectacular. We got up so early yesterday for the sunrise that we put in a five-hour walk before noon. Good thing too, it was bloody hot by then and we had to drink several buckets of water back at the bungalow. If all goes well here at the Internet cafe, we hope to get caught up with our picture posting. Pricey though, $2 for the first 10 minutes. Gah. Can't imagine posting again from the Cooks so our next contact will likely be from Auckland after we fly on Guy Fawkes Day, Nov. 5.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: Finally got the link to your blog. Reading about your travels is like reading a good book - only we know the characters for real.
Although I usually read the last chapter first..so this will be a "drive me nuts" fun book to read.
Your over water hotel sounded awesome! thinking of you guys..the Jackowski's; November 2, 2009 at 8:26 PM
Anonymous said...: I too want to know how tall the moai are. Deni's question got me thinking in "Bob lengths". Is the average height about 2 Bob lengths?
Your Tahiti treat sounds great!
The fall colours were beautiful here. I won the pumpkin carving contest. Yoga 2-3 times a week Karen (not the same alone...need to join a class). All the best...Jen; November 2, 2009 at 9:39 PM
Tanya Gillert said...: I am so envisioning everything you see, feel, taste, touch, hear...I am so living through you guys right now! lol Enjoy and keep sharing!; November 13, 2009 at 3:08 PM