The Witch That Peed On Me.

Sunset Views from the Ananda Wellness Resort, Koh Pha Ngan

It has been too long since I've posted anything on my blog, so this week, it is my goal to catch you up on my travels and post some of the pictures from the countries I have visited. After volunteering at the KAT Centre in Nepal I went home to the US to visit my parents. My father was having surgery and after having spent time caring for homeless dogs, it was also time to go visit my own--whom I missed terribly. After visiting my parents I made my way to South America with plans to hike Aconcagua, a very high mountain, which except for the altitude and the uncomfortableness of having to wear proper ice-climbing boots (the kind that are like ski boots) starting at basecamp, is a rather easy hike. The next three-and-a-half months were a bit of a travel disaster.

First I made a stop in Colombia to visit my relatives and check up on the new house my parents are building. The house was almost finished and there were to be no workers that week, so I left my back pack in my room with all of my brand new mountain equipment and all of my prized photography equipment. This, of course, was the moment when thieves decided to break in. They stole all of my things including my fleece facemask (probably to rob more houses with), the oven, all of the kitchen appliances, the TVs, all of the installed energy efficient lightbulbs, and all of our junk food. The thieves were brazen enough to sit down in the kitchen to eat our oreo cookies and left the tin wide open and on the kitchen counter. At least they left the toilet paper. Luckily there was nothing else to take.

I'm not one of those people that is terribly attached to material things but having my camera stolen felt like someone had chopped one of my arms off. I travel, because I photograph. So this was a major setback.  As for having all of my gear stolen, since I was in a country where no good equipment can be had, and about to go on a hike where the temperature can reach -40C and the winds can reach 60 miles per hour, I was mostly worried about losing my fingers and toes to frostbite if I didn't get a hold of some gear. So the only solution was to reorder the stuff, overnight it to my parents in the US, and pay the exhorbitant sums of money that FEDEX charges for expedited "door to door" international delivery from Mcallen, Texas to Mendoza Argentina. The package had 10 days to arrive because on my way to Aconcagua I was making a stop over in Peru to visit my best guy friend, Aaron Drayer and to see Machu Picchu.

I made it to Peru, ever saddened that I would not be able to take photographs of Machu Picchu. I had a great time in Lima with Aaron and his Peruvian wife, Violeta. Then I flew to Cuzco for my much awaited train ride to Machu Picchu. I should have suspected that something was amiss when I arrived at the Lima airport that morning and noticed that almost all of the flights to Cuzco had been canceled except for mine. And then again when I arrived in Cuzco and called the hostel in Aguas Calientes to confirm my reservation and the lady on the line asked if I was sure I could get there. As it turns out, while I was in the air the river that passes through the Sacred Valley was in the process of flooding and taking with it 6km of railroad and a few villages. Several days later the Peruvian government started evacuating stranded travelers from Aguas Calientes on military helicopters. There was no way into Machu Picchu and I was stranded in Cuzco for the next week.

When I landed in Mendoza, one day before the beginning of the trip, there was a letter from Fedex waiting for me telling me that my package had been held up at customs in Buenos Aires and the only way to retrieve my climbing gear was to fly to Buenos Aires and pick it up. This, of course, would not have been possible. After countless phone calls with Fedex in the US and Argentina, I had to give up on having my gear and rent what I could. I didn't manage to summit Aconcagua, in part because my left ankle started aching after the first day at basecamp. Despite my daily 30min "ice-downs' in glacier water or snow, my ankle brace, ankle tape, and having to hire a $300 a day porter to wares, it seemed as if my ankle couldn't withstand carrying any weight--which basically consisted of two liters of water--substantially more than I ever had to carry in Nepal where the myriads of guesthouses along the way and the amiable and always eager to please sherpas make it such that one can get away with climbing Everest with only a fanny pack and an ice axe. In part I couldn't summit Aconcagua because my over-gloves were too big and kept falling off and the undergloves that I had to purchase to replace my own were inadequate to withstand the cold and wind. So, I reluctantly made the decision to turn back to save my ankle and my fingers from frostbite.

After Aconcagua and the loss of my camera my ankle hurt too much and I was too disheartened to continue my trip through Southern Argentina and Chile. Luckily this means I missed the earthquake in Concepcion, Chile because that was where I was headed. Instead I checked out the wineries in Mendoza and booked a bus to Buenos Aires to retrieve my gear from customs. Then Buenos Aires flooded. This is when my uncle told me that I needed an exorcism because a witch had most certainly peed on me.

As luck had it, I couldn't change my airline ticket and had to spend the next 2 weeks in flooded BA. I broke the time up by heading to neighboring Uruguay (where I did nothing but sit on the beach) a much underrated country before heading back to my home in Colombia.

After Colombia I made my way to Japan for spring and cherry blossom season except that due to unseasonably cold weather, the cherry blossoms were late and it snowed or rained everyday I was there except one. After a week in Japan, while stepping of a curb on the streets of Tokyo, my left ankle twisted and I ended up at Tokyo Hospital with a mild sprain and on crutches for the next two weeks. I considered throwing in the towel and going back home immediately, but I had scheduled a 5 day cooking class, a meditation retreat in a monastery, and time at a colonic detox resort in Thailand and since none of it involved walking I decided to relax there. Thailand is a fantastically cheap place to relax and get top notch alternative medicine.

Now I find myself in Koh Pha Ngan--finally off crutches. Still with a bum ankle but much better. My 12-day Vipassana meditation in the monastery seems to have sanctified me enough to lift the witch's curse and I find myself staring blissfully at the ocean.

P.S. Never use FedEx door to door delivery to Argentina (and enquire diligently before using them anywhere else in the world outside of the US). When I picked up the package at customs, the agent told me that FedEx knows that it can not offer door to door service anywhere in Argentina because every single package that flies to Argentina is held up at Buenos Aires customs and must be picked up at the airport. Plus, I had to pay $150 in storage fees for picking up my package "late".