viajes de Alex Umbers

Ham-berg-guesa

2007-01-31T11:10:00.000-08:00

Maracojar-Brazilian style whopping giant passion fruit heaven!

Where in the world? We got some armarillo, verde, azul, and cocos....it must be BRAZIL!!

Abrigado a los hombres. Two days driving with these awesome Brazilianos to Florenopolis and their little amount of Ingles made for one entertaining ride. We stopped for burgers somewhere, in the middle of exactly nowhere, I think.

Montevideo Sunday market had everything and nothing at all, twenty blocks of this and that, but made a great morning for gawking at weird, feathery and wonderful stuff and things.

One amazingly long dusk between Patagonian Chile and Argentina. An incredible work out for my rods and cones.

Huge burgs slough off from Glacier Moreno every few minutes, and make enormous thundering sounds followed by epic waves. This monster is 60m high above water, and 100m below.

Moreno Glacier. Tourists come enmass to entertain themselves by watching global warming in action. Perhaps a little beautiful as well? Check them nubes out.

The last two weeks are escaping me too too fast. I dont want to stop, even to blink.

Episodes I-VI

2007-01-24T07:46:00.000-08:00

After four days of complete solitude, I hope I may be forgiven for the following episodes. Younger viewers may require parental guidance.

I-Agua sin gas

II

III

IV

V

VI

Maybe it can pass as art, or an experiment, or perhaps a means to channel ones frustration at one incredibly soaking wet night stuck in a leaky one man tent.

Torres Del Paine-Patagonia

2007-01-24T07:19:00.000-08:00

For the Labyrinth lovers -- The Bog of Eternal Stench, or was is my hiking boots??

Oh the joys of a dry peanut butter sandwich, lunch each day on the ´W´ circuit hike. I actually seriously contemplated leaving this one in the rain to lubricate the four day old bread, it was that good! Yummmmmm. Jos, for the record it was smooth PB.

There is something seriously cool about ice burgs.

Greys Glacier

For Amy New, some native Chilean geese for you. And for the Goose, I thought of you and Derek when I spotted these guys (not the gooslings!). Hope Sydney is treating the pair of you awesomely.

Torres del Paine, the hike to the look out quickly revealed itself as the ´towers of pain´. I met with a band of ol´ British oil company CEO retirees living in Costa Rica. They offered me a swig of their finest single malt at the summit, and then dinner at the five star refugio after the decent. It would have been rude not to accept (on account of global warming).

Patagonia Prelude

2007-01-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

Argh the agony of torture. So close to Antarctica, and yet so far. I could almost taste it, and I could certainly smell it on the Patagonian breeze. I longed to share a whisky on the rocks, made with million year old ice cubes with a Russian scientist on an ice burg. But this was as far south as I got. Of course, I am a sucker for a good mo´, especially one in a naval uniform, but somehow, it didn't quite cut the mustard. This time, Antarctica was a Mo go.

I went to town on the scroggin at the local Tiende de fruta seca, dried fruit store. Needed to stock up well for the next epic days trekking in the remote Torres Del Paine National Park, Chile.

There was definitely not a local butcher across the street, who did not make the worlds best salami, from which I definitely did not buy a huge wad of salami with the intention of taking it camping with me, and definitely did not scoff it all before I even made it back to the hostel. Those who know me the vegetarian in me well, can attest to my pure and utter self control when it comes to such things as a fine salami. Its all true, it never happened! So far I have a tent, mat, food, sleeping bag....Er what else....A full belly....Anyway if you dont hear from me in more than a week, send the search party.....

Ok, so its another classic ´Alex takes a million shots of herself until she gets a nice one and then publishes it on her blog with the exact same smile you have seen in every entry´ shot. You know it.... and you love it. (I hope)

But this one is extra choice. I´m far south, at the bare bones of the end of the world and it is 10.30 evening time. With days this long, you would think you have enough hours in the day to do everything you ever wanted. Not this chica. I lay in bed, thick with feather duvets, devouring Oscar Wilde. Then at 10.30 ventured all of fifteen metres to delight in more of the good stuff, a local Patagonian cheese platter and Chilean cabernet. Tough gig

What one doze in the ´Doze´ (Mendoza, Arg)

2007-01-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

Bailar de Salar Salsa

2007-01-16T12:02:00.000-08:00

Bolivia Bonanza

2007-01-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

Lake Titicaca Peru/Bolovia

2007-01-05T15:44:00.000-08:00

Five star, five foot.

Los Hombres. Part of the ramdon crowd that stayed on Isla Aramarti with locals Sarafina and her hubby Alberto. Doors were a little short

SJ this one is for you. On this island in the middle of the worlds highest lake, the women wander spinning brightly coloured alpaca wool on spindles, and the men shuffle along cobble stoned farm tracks knitting woollen hats, occasionally looking up to check the herd and admire the ancient Inca ruins.

Isla Taquile

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Martin Pescador, one of the sprats that lives on the floating Euros reed islands.

Sinking ships

Peru-Bolovia train ride

2007-01-05T15:34:00.000-08:00

Abir los ojos- open your eyes

Buena Vista

Llama love

Jungle Fever

2007-01-05T15:16:00.000-08:00

After a few days chillin’ in Cusco, and a few more sneaky nights boogying at Mama Africa with Claire and Sarah it was time to lift my game and get on down to the Amazon Basin, Madre de Dios in Peru. This time I was not getting screwed by a local guide, and asked advice from my lovely local liquados (fruit smoothie) lady ‘Linda’. She was on the money with young local superstar from Puerto Escondido. Abed who has worked on BBC docos as a guide, and lead me into the bowels of the jungle guns blazing. Actually it was a slow slow slow boat ride with a terrible hangover, eventually arriving to an old man Francisco’s cabana, complete with tens of chickens, Sam the dog, and fresh papaya, mangoes, coconuts picked straight from our dusty chicken run backyard. The toilet at night crawled with frogs, giant grasshoppers, beetles and god knows what else. Lucy, I had a moment here for you!

Lake Sandoval prohibits motor boats, so all exploration was paddle powered. Ouch. Hours we spent silently advancing on unassuming critters. The first sense to be aroused was my hearing. Totally saturated with the rattle and hum of jungle life. Monkeys, exotic birds, caiman, lilies, green, bugs, frogs, butterflies, teeming with life. Alas no giant otters. I wondered how such an ecosystem could exist.

Symbiosis was the answer. It was lying under every lily pad, every leaf, and every tree trunk. Two species of monkeys hang out together, one guides the smaller species to the fruit, while the cunning little species keep an eye out for hungry condors. Poisonous ants nest in tunnels through native tree trunks in exchange clear the surrounding competing fauna. The enigmatic giant otters dominate the lake over crocodiles and 6m long anacondas by feeding and swimming and meandering as a pack. If only us humans could take a page out of these little critters books.

I saw a mutant night Lillie flower in the middle of the day, lop sided and not sure of itself. Mutants in nature are rare and equally beautiful. I thought how phyto-hormones regulate the opening and closing of flowers.

Hormones are so cool, human or plant, they totally float my pad!

Back to new heights at 3000m. NYs in Cucso went off, I mean, these Peruvians know how to bring in the year with a bang. The main plaza was rife with dynamite blasts, the smell of gun powder and Latino beats well into the small wee ones.

Rodrigo trying to look very serious. Nys in the plaza
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A weary Caiman waits for bird food.....
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Francisco and gringa, in our thatched cabana jungle ghetto.
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2006-12-25T15:37:00.000-08:00

Cusco possie

Worldly words-Peru

2006-12-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

Last stop, they took credit cards luckily
Llamas have the right of way on this highway.
Jono sniffing the altitude sickness away, good sport even with all colour drained from him.
Alberto, champion at charades, we knew it was Shrek all along.

mountain goat

Claire Emily and yo

Me and my mate at Machu Picchu

Christmas market

Antigua. Motorbike volcano mission unsuccessful, donkey mission complete!

Christmas feast Peru style, I was not game for fried rodent

Christmas Eve

Travel rule numero 1: Check the dates of your international flights. One week of Spanish lessons had turned my brain to mash. Thinking l had a day up my sleeve to explore Antigua before my flight to Peru I checked my ticket, I asked my home stay mother Maria what the date was. Panic. Flight left in two hours, and Antigua is two hours from the international airport. Throwing my clothes from the floor into my pack, Alberto Jnr agrees to literally fly me in his red pick up to the airport, no seat belt required. Luckily, the airport runs on Guatemala time, and I scrapped through by a whisker. Tranquilla gringa. A mad dash was the only way to leave this place behind.

Peru. I had become accustomed to traveling alone but decided to swallow my independence and embrace group life for our Inca Journey over the next eight days. A mixed bunch, all quiet and meek to begin with, 'are we alive?' our guide asked us on the first day. Group dynamics took hold and the peeps were soon mingling and learning of one anothers journeys, physical, emotional, metaphysical or otherwise. All on a clean slate, no preconceived notions of one another’s past, present or future but moving closer to one another and Machu Picchu galvanised the group. The meeting of strangers is a wonderful thing. No expectations, but with time and amazing vistas, one man islands dissolved leading to the development of some very pure friendships. It is the life of a traveler, you meet people, some you stay with, and some you move on from, learning things about people and yourself along the way, in the hope of becoming a better person, whatever that means.

The trail, 42kms with altitudes of 4200m lead some to suffer. Five days of rain and sometimes hail did not dampen our spirits. Energised by the exploration of mountains, new friendships, ruins and of course our amazing guides Alberto and Cesar elevated us to new levels. Photos nor words will not do the last five days justice. These Peruvian mountains breathed new life on us all, and gave us a new way of seeing the world, sparking new ways of pondering the world we live in, ways to appreciate, conserve and respect this beautiful planet we live in.

Christmas in Cusco, con vinos muchos, amigos especiales y explosiones in La Plaza. Good one Tim!

Next stop Jungle boogie take two.

Feliz Navidad

2006-12-24T15:26:00.000-08:00

Por Todo,

Awesome Xmas to everyone, filled with Pohutakawa trees, corney jokes and muchas cervezas. Lots of love to everyone, from one day fresh off a week hiking the inca trail. Photos to come. Big NY to ya!

Alex xoxox

WOW-temala

2006-12-13T18:06:00.000-08:00

Mercados, speaks louder than the tortilla hawkers themselves. alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5008206176804474386" />

Largo de Atitlan, took my breath away in more ways than I expected. With a gang of backpackers from Luna Azul, we kayaked through hell to reach San Marcos, destination 30ft cliff. The boys jumped no problems, but being the sucker for punishment that I am, I waited and waited until a jump was forced by countdown. All was well until I hit the water, 30ft down, arse first. I couldn’t feel my legs for a few minutes, and now have the most awesome bruises ever. Thanks ´Haps´ for the encouragement!

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On the way up, I came across a band of kids who were on their way to cut maize and watermelon. Needless to say, I was scared for my life when this little Javier caught me off guard with his weapon of mass destruction. The town of Todos Santos was fascinating. Here in the 80s, the guerillas seized the village to gain territory from the government. In a gesture of government prowess, over 3000 villagers were murdered. And yet the people of Todos Santos were some of the friendliest and welcoming faces I have seen. It is truely amazing what the human spirit can defeat with a simple smile.

In the sticks. I caught microbuses and crossed half of Guatemala in 10 hours. Some of the locals, Carolina and her brothers, with piercing eyes, drop offs and pick ups in the middle of nowhere.

Leaving the jungle and bound for the highlands, our first of many obstacles was a flooded road at sunset. I was not complaining though.

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Andres, the longest legs in Guatemala, was fortunate enough to be given the shortest horse in all of the land, ´frijole´ or bean. Had he not gone crazy on the local Gallo beer and been seduced by the Gallo Girls in lycra the night before, he may not have agreed to two painful days in the rain in the jungle. This is a long story. Dont trust any Henrys or their deals that no es problemo, and then finding out everything is no es possible!

Chiapas de Mexico

2006-12-13T17:28:00.000-08:00

This seems like eons ago, but my time in the San Christobal Colon de Chiapas is well worth reliving. Here I visited a Mayan village where life has changed little in a few hundred years. San Juan Chamula is the home of the infamous Zapatistas, and is a quaint town with one beautiful church, flocks of Mayan peeps in traditional cladding whose lives revolve around Sharman ceremonies and the local market. They try to steer clear of the evangelist who try to recruit souls like they are apples in a market. Inside this church, thousands of candles burned in the name of the saints, which are stored in huge glass boxes. There is so much smoke the walls need to be painted every year. The floor of the church is covered in new pine needles each week, and stings and strings of wild flowers hang everywhere. Mayan people come here to pray and perform rituals to cleanse the soul, lead by the spiritual leaders and Sharman’s. These rituals involve herbs, chickens, eggs, and the local drop ´posh´. I was lucky enough to witness such an event, the chicken didn’t make it. Explosions are heard every few minutes, a way of capturing the attention of the spirits, and they certainly caught my attention. Boom! The smell of this place is magic, pine needles, chicken feathers, wild flowers, cotton, smoke and gun powder fill the lungs. I wanted to learn more about Mayan natural medicine, but on my way to the Museo de Mayan Medicinas I encountered two lifeless bodies, and decided to come back the next day instead. 14hours overnight I landed in Polenque, Las Runias Central. Mind blowing civilization. Between the 600-800 8000 people lived here. One of the places that sticks in my mind is the playing field. The ball court was used as an entrance to the underworld, a place of death and resurrection. The movement of the ball represented celestial bodies, life and death. Defeated players were beheaded and displayed to warn off any challengers. Loser, Mayan style, they didn’t take any prisoners! Maybe we could toss a few of those Australian idols to the field.

South of Mexico City

2006-11-25T17:14:00.000-08:00

According to Heisenburg´s Uncertainty Principal, there are absolute limits to with which pairs of quantities can be measured. If the momentum of a something is known, then the position remains a mystery. So from that fact, the world of quanta may be only observed on the basis of probability, and we are lead to the steely truth of the uncertainty principal.
From my thatched roofed cabana at ´Frutas y Verduras´ Hostel in Puerto Escondido, run by a welcoming band of Slovenian Surfers and their loyal perritos, I wake to the ocean and what sounds like military propaganda from the Oaxaca State Government and Latino beats simultaneously blasting from a tried soap box that dates to the rusty VW from which the sounds are projected. The beach is humming with life-soaring eagles, pelicans, butterflies, dolphins and of course, waves lapping at the feet of the sun drenched local surfers. The surf and sunsets are stunning, the stars even more so.
Uncertainty has led me to the ridiculously perfect sandy shore of Peurto Escondido. In losing my initial position, I have gained momentum, but a momentum which in itself makes moving forward from this place almost impossible. I lost my feet and in exchange, found a place to stand.

El Punta, Puerto Escondido, post 17 hours bus ride, and worth every torturous kilometre. This place is magic.

during crunch time
In search of the famous ´mole´ sauce, hot on the trail but slightly distracted by the other local fanfare-chilli crickets. Taking a moment to reflect...before
Puebla, the unofficial home of the marriage between Chilli and Chocolate sauce lovingly named ´mole´. It became immediately obvious to me that this is also the place to get hitched, with Spanish colonial cathederals on every corner, cobble stone streets, and friendly chaps such as this one dressed in complete military attire and waiting to be snapped up, I am surprised I made it out unscathed
Conquestodora, at the top of the beastie and out of breath-lost to the view.
Temple of the Sun, at the epic aztec site of Teotihuacan, where 256 bodies were found buried below, sacrificed in sets of 3,5 or 9, all in the name of fertility. The main drag is of the empire is two miles long and runs almost perfectly between north and south. Not a bad feat for a civilisation which existed almost two thousand years ago.

Vive de vivo Mexico City

2006-11-18T21:31:00.000-08:00

There is a certain undercurrent of irony in Mexico City. While the old green VW beetle taxis proclaim they are 'free', catching a taxi in the city is a sure bet to fast track your way to getting mugged, beaten, shot or stabbed. Mum, I have been catching the underground-no worries bro!
Salvation! The banana crisis is over. 1 peso for the most luscious morsel you will ever devour, I have been out of control
Hot stuff
One thing about travelling alone, you dont get to take mugshots of people without getting strange looks from them. Luckily, I have managed to get this specimen to pose for me numerous times, also generating my fair share of weird looks. Looking through my digital photos and seeing the smiley face of her makes me happy I at least have her as my compadre. Outside the 'Blue House'
Delicious armarillo goodness
Cheap shot of a not-so cheap shot. Rivera murals around every corner, and I am not less fascinated by every new one of these absolute beasties I encounter
Pinyata mania-whacked out stuff

First of several.....

2006-11-11T23:34:00.000-08:00

day after mo' down.

I saw the quote, 'linear perspective depends on a central viewpoint' and thought it was apt.
As for the ring ins last night, well...

Bon voyage in two days.....

2006-11-11T23:26:00.000-08:00

2006-11-11T23:22:00.000-08:00