Shayari, Kichwa Jungle Community, and more...(by micah)

Well! I dunno if you blunters are still reading these speils... as with the lack of a digital camera I guess they become a bit tedious. Tis a right shame... we have some pearler analogue photos tho which you may get to see someday!

Well we busted out of the Cloud forest, finishing on a high note of a 3 day Horse trek to a highland lake (I actually got galloping for a few hundred metres!, bloody fun) and a Christmas Hangi which Kahl diligently impressed the locals with... we slaughtered the christmas pig and cooked him in the ground! poor sod. After a night on the Puro (a rather inebriating spirit made from local sugar cane) with the locals, singing Sloth room, and dragging a comad dave home 2 km, I had a pretty uneventful (asleep, sick) new year while kahl was out getting stabbed with a butter knife in the Mariscal of Quito! (dont worry he wasnt hurt it was just a butter knife) The following night we made it down to the Jungle again...

A community of 75 (mostly kids), and lots of fertile jungly land! We stayed in some beautiful Cabanas open to the steamy jungle air, right in there away from civilisation! We helped build an enclosure for small mammals called Guantas, and ended up putting the young Tapir in there cos its elders were giving it shit in the big enclosure. We helped make a dugout canoe, and generally hung out, swam with piranhas (and ate piranhas!) played footy, and wandered about the community looking at tarantulas, snakes, swinging on giant swings, checking out the medicinal gardens... we were the first volunteers to stay there, and Don Fausto Obliged us an Ayawasca spiritual trip which the indian Shamans do! nothing to rave about really...just made us puke. The folk there all speak Quichua, which was inspiring. They are poor as but yet so rich and lucky to have the land that they do and many of their traditions still thriving. We ate a million platanos, Yuca, papayas, and palm hearts, all prepared in different ways each day, which was something quite special. Our leaving treat was big ass grubs like huhu´s, which smelt like cheese and oozed like melted cheese and tomato sauce upon being squished open! We kindly obliged and ate them.

The heat was eventually too stifling and we were glad to return to a flight out of Ecuador... but... my passport aint here yet still, so Kahlil has taken off to Costa Rica and I will meet him in Nicaragua whence my passport gets here!
Happy New year to all...
Micah

Intag, bears, machetes, battles, books, rain, rivers. (By micah)

Howdy folks...
Well... it seemed that destiny knew I was going to have my passport nicked, for we planned an extended stay in Ecuador, and then it was nicked which means we have to stay here longer anyhows... while I wait for a new one.

Jesus has been sold for a mighty $380, we have left montanita, and after a fruity 5 days in Cuenca with our pisshead dutch, dane and kiwi mates we have started "tracking Andean Bears" in the montane cloud forests of Intag. It has proved a relaxed affair, seeing as they dont really need our work, they just need our money. After getting over the feeling of being slightly duped, we realise we are here for the duration and are making the most of the place! The worlds of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jack Kerouac infiltrate our loopy exsistence... in between slashing trails through dense bamboo and cloud forest looking for possible places to put bear traps for when the GPS collars arrive... which are now 2 months overdue.
David, the pleasant englishman who leads the project couldn´t stop us joining him in the protests against the copper mining progress... and a most interesting day ensued; becoming one of hundreds of ecuadorian campesinos stacked into trucks and utes for a 3 hour ride to the protest thjrough hairy country roads, we experienced first hand rocks flying over our heads, flaming tryes rolling down hills, and...you better believe it, bullets whizzing overhead! Not especially convinced we wanted to involve ourselves in fighting ecuadorians we stayed out of range and observed ecuadorians fighting each other. Well... hired goons of Ascendant copper and bought police fighting country folk... and we felt very sad about it. After 5 days of protest the minister for the environment finally announced ascendant had not complied with all the rules of the EIA and the mining has been postponed.
We also had one heartstopping ride down a grade four river in nothing but inner tubes! After being dashed and dunked and churned whilst gripping on to our tubes for dear life for 300 meters without repose, me and kahl crawled out of the water gasping for air and gave up the ghost..., however our amaerican friend dwight was washed away downstream. we searched for two hours and feared the worst when he finally shoed up from just a few meteres downstream of us, where he had been waiting patiently for us to follow him!
Other than that we laze in our ham,mocks in the morning sun till the rain arrives, then play cards and watch movies in our rustic quarters. The locals are very friendly. The bear project is very loosely run, and Josh would have a fit over the randomness of the telemetry used to pinpoint their positions using triangulation.

This morning I awoke from dreams of Anniversary dinners and hanging out with close friends and family and felt for the first time in my travels, a little homesick.
So I wish you all a flaming merry crimbo and Nuevo Ano,
Eat some lemon merangue pie for me!
Micah

Montanitas

HI All

We have struck Montanitas at long last, a sweet little tourist town on the coast of Ecuador, with a nice little surfbreak too. We barely made it as jesus decided to have his fourth flat tyre for the trip, and needed to be push started ten times to get going. He is now doen to only two cylinders and can barely push his own weight, good thing this leg was only 10km, and no more, for here we will sell him for sure.

Last night we also dined on the finest food we have had since arriving: a chicharron mixto in Mangralito, it was so good we ordered another main between us. Dreams of introducing the mouthwatering treats to folks back home. Yum.

So now we wait fr the next swell...

Phat Lobitos tube for Kahlil

And it continues

Un buenasso tubo

Kahlil

Here is the sequence of me getting barreled at Lobitos. Unfortunately I diddn´t quite make it out, but came damn close.

Jesus is in Ecuador!

Jesus has coughed and spluttered his way into ecuador! Good news is, gas is nice and cheap here! Interesting happenings at the border, including street money changers putting $350US of false bills in our hands in exchange for the car... which we escaped from rather rapidly! Yuca Bread is Yummy, yet to experience the marvels of Ecuador, but so far it has been a flash hotel with a swimming pool and leopard pattern beadspreads.... photos soon!
Love to all, Micah

Surfing!!!!! Photos

Kahlil getting barreled at El Hueco, Lobitos. Hell yeah!

Big thanks to Pepe who took the photo, its a ripper.

We are finished with Lobitos now, after ten days of waves, and its off to Ecuador...

Norte Peru and its trails tribulations and perfect surf

First up apologies as it seems my card reader has bit the dust and so no photos, even though we have lost, including video of me pulling into some mackin pits at El Hueco. Currently in Lobitos....


We diddn´t get big swells at the big left (Chicama), but have hit some solid swells on other fine lefts since. At the moment we are housed up in Lobitos, in some chirtian peruvian dudes house. Its sweet for about $5 a night we just live there like a flat, he works all day so its just us and a couple of other surfers, and an insanely hot girl (taken unfortunatley). At the moment I am just completly zonked. I have been surfing every day now for so many days I have lost count, I think maybe more than ten. My shoulders are a world of pain and all my cuts have blossomed into beautiful sea ulcers, but I have pulled into (and made it out of a lot of) more epic barrels than in the rest of my life. Have been surfing the spots of El Hueco http://www.wannasurf.com/spot/South_America/Peru/North/el_hueco/index.html and Punta de Lobos.
The days are hot and the sun is blinding in the desert sands. The town of Lobitos is almost totally dead, a small colonial town deserted when the oil began to run out, so it is full of huge empty buildings full of bats with huge vultures overhead, the horizon is dotted with vast oil rigs out to sea and the sun sets through them is a big red ball every day. One always feels completey spaced out during the day, and the sea breeeze is so strong surfing is out of the question. I routinely get up at 5.15am to hit the waves, a punishing routine.
My spanish is slowly improving and speaking what little I do know comes now without effort, the words are packing in.
We went up past Cabo Blanco and Mancora. Cabo is a cool fishing town with heavy waves, mancora a tourist spot which is a bit dead now in the low seasonj but good for parties, with Micah and I gong out till dawn hanging at the beach.
A dude from Lima called Carlos came with us as far as Mancora. He was a funny little dude who was obsessed with surfing and white women, and as such always talked aout one or the other. Machisimo is commonplace here.
The food here rules, with Chicarron de mariscos being my personal fave, battered and deep fried squid and shellfish served with a special sauce. MMm mmm. I also dig the fried maize the give you beforehand to munch on while you wait, salty and good, better than peanuts by far.
Our car, Jesus, thankfully is running okay, but guzzles the gas and must take all hills in either first or second. We caught a taxi to talara today because its actually cheaper than driving the ten km.
Micah hired a rod and I have a handline so we fish a bit but si far have come up with naught but a tiny stingray. Bum. And micah still beats me at chess. Bum.

Kahlil

Jesus, the 1974 Datsun!

We have bought a 1974 Datsun!
Bring on the fear and loathing of driving on the right, the Panamerican highway, and access to 6 foot peeling lefts!
Lima ain´t such a bad city...

The joys of peruvian bus travel! (By Micah)

The days and nights have blended into one perpetual skanky busride, sleeping in bus terminals, with the odd hotel room strewn in there... My bladder is permanently full and pressing on my ning nong, surrounded by loco peruanos and endless desert, once more. I have one forearms length between my headrest and the one in front of me, my neck is killing me, let alone the spanish movies and joke shows that grip my brain relentlessly! My feet are stuck in highland socks and shoes, but I havent the legroom to remove them. I´m so thirsty I have a headache but i darent put one extra drop in my bladder. The ticket collector looks more hungover and seedy each time he walks the aisle. After 36 hours spent shaking in a cold delerium, and 21 pumpkin soup plops later, we have left La Paz for Lima. Kahls foot aroma wafts past my nose intermittently, reminding me of that queeziness... please lord, get me off this hellbus and into the oceans clean tubes!!!!!!
and to boot my pack is soaked in a foul smelling liquid upon arrival, which has proved impossible to remove...ya ya ya!