Panama City

As I write this, I am 12 stories off the ground, poolside on a rooftop deck with sweeping  views of Panama City, beer at my side, earbuds firmly planted, Radiohead given reign over the din of horns and sirens below.  Its about 85 degrees outside, the skies are blue, the palm trees are swaying, and I'm about 3 days away from sugar-sand bliss in Bocas Del Toro, so if you're wondering how I'm doing since my last report, I'd say I'm doin alright.

I feel much more in place, happy to be here and NOT looking forward to my now-fixed return home of Monday, March 5th (kicking and screaming seems like the right way to go out). 

Anyway, I'm in Panama City now, which is great, and I've been touring all over the place with my uncle (actually, my mom's cousin), Ovidio.  I had been staying with him until today, when I decided that it would be criminal not to find a rooftop pool deck, given the heat, the humidity, and the fantastic views.  So he's out running some errands (will join me later) and I'm here, baking in the sun, melting in the humidity and basically, for the moment, an apparition of perfection.

Ovidio, it turns out, is the the perfect guy to have waiting for you when you show up in a strange, giant, throbbing Central American city looking for distant family connections and a sense of place and context between the skyscrapers and the jungle.  Not only is he completely hospitable, he's also a walking encyclopedia, something of a hobbyist historian on all things Panama, a full-service tour guide, and the keeper of the family genealogy.  The records he has of the blood line are incredible.  He has a written record of every person (literally every child, grandchild, great-grandchild, aunt, uncle, cousin - EVERYone) all the way back to my great-great-great grand father, Jose Manuel Gallardo, who was born in 1865 in Colombia, and eventually parented 14 children in Panama!  It turns out I even have a big jolly Caribbean aunt!  I met her the day I got here.  I'll be going home with a few pictures of my grandmother (one is a wedding photo with the grandfather I never met, but whom everyone says I look like and the other is a picture of her when she was a little girl with her sisters and her mother, who appears to me a lot like the indigenous indian women I have seen here).  All told, as of my generation, there are no less than 699 (known) decedents, which made it hard for me to walk down the street today without feeling like I was somehow related to everyone I passed on the sidewalk. 

This week was Carnaval, which was exciting: lots of crazy costumes, water fights and crowd-drenchings, parades and fireworks.  I've also been to the canal, of course, which truly is an incredible feat of human engineering and persistence (the French spent 20 years and many lives and eventually gave up - it took the Americans another 10 to finish it after that).  We also took in some traditional folkloric dancing over dinner last night.

And I've seen 4 different Panama Cities here: there's the ruins of the original 16th-century settlement, destroyed by pirates, there's colonial Panama, built by the Spanish 100 years later, and then there's modern Panama, which is really two places unto itself: the remnants of Noriega's reign, a people rising from the ashes of dictatorship and striving to create a middle class amid an ever-present military police force, and the New Panama, a dense and sprawling forrest of waterfront luxury condo and hotel developments.  I was told before I showed up that Panama City is the "Manhattan" of Central America, and it certainly appears that way from a distance.  Even Donald Trump has a tower here.  But the more I learn about the development going on, the more appropriate a comparison seems to Dubai or Abu Dabi.  Literally there must be 40 brand new towers, and at least another 10 under construction.  So, who's moving in?  No one.  According to my uncle, who is also former government economic advisor and current economics professor at the University of Panama, the soaring vacancy rates don't bother the primary investors : "business men" from Colombia who are just looking to park their excess millions.  And as if the comparisons to the Middle East weren't obvious enough, Trump's tower is even shaped like the infamous original sailboat building (so unoriginal), and the shoreline is being expanded; they are building a peninsula-island to create more waterfront property, just like Jumira.  The government is also undertaking a full restoration of all the historic quarters, and the installation of a subway system, seemingly across the entire city at once (traffic is horrible), all of which has been undertaken in the last ten years, since Noriega was put behind bars, coinciding nicely with the canals finally being turned over to the Panamanians in 1999.  I guess maybe I notice it more because of my construction background, but Holy Cow there is a lot of work going on here.  It's good to see cranes again!

I'm here in the city another few days before I head for the beaches.  Lea stayed in Ecuador an extra week to soak that in while I'm here, but we'll head out of town when she gets here on Monday.

PHOTOS (I dont think you need an account to view this link):

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Ecuador: WTF am I doing here?

For better or worse, this report is going to be different than the rest.  I'm not going to ramble on about how amazing Ecuador is, put up pictures of wildly-colored tropical birds, or  bemoan and simultaneously praise the worn and yet content faces of a hard-working people.

Instead, I'm going to complain about how I've grown tired of the great privilege of my extended travel.

I am suffering greatly from a bout of being unimpressed  and generally uninterested in what I'm doing this week.  I don't think it's Ecuador, I'm just tired and growing weary of bouncing from place to place, looking for meaning in something new and different from home.  The last week has worn on like this, "...another town, another city, another monument, another plane, another bus..."  I'm having trouble continuing to find excitement in all this ongoing movement.  I have been sleeping in a strange bed every night for almost 4 months, and I'm not looking forward to the strange bed I'll be sleeping in tonight.

And let's please not write this off as a simple case of "home-sickness".  That's too easy and obvious.  This is something else.  I don't long for home, per say - you could barely argue that I have one (the city of LA, yes, family and friends, of course, but there is no address, no specific four walls that call to me) - so there is no home to miss in that regard.  This is a case of being exhausted of traveling and lacking purpose in that travel, a case of honestly wondering what I'm doing in Ecuador.  I wish I could tell you.  And I'm reluctant to describe anything I've seen in the past week for fear it will be tainted by this cloud of indifference hanging over my head.  I'm inclined to tell you that Quito is a real s**t-hole, but it's probably not, I just can't see that right now.  On second thought, actually, it totally is.  Sorry, Quito.  You're a s**t-hole.

When I left for NZ, I was full of purpose and direction, happy to pack up my belongings, invigorated with a sense of adventure and exploration.  And really, NZ was the fulfillment of a 5-year dream, something I had studied many late nights, had talked about exhaustively with patient friends, researched and planned, waited for the moment, and ultimately ached for so fully that the fulfillment of that dream became inevitable. But Ecuador?  I can't figure out why I'm here.

Okay, here's one thing: I stood on the equator yesterday. That was kind of cool.  I watched water swirl down a drain in opposite directions not 5 feet from each other, on either side of a red line painted on the ground.  I balanced an egg on the head of a nail driven into the center of that red line.  Consolation prizes, though.

So I guess the real treasure of the past days has been the people I've connected with.  There's Jody, the India-born CPA and Michael the American-born draft-dodger and mirror de-fogger salesman, both from Canada and both very sweet and intensely spiritual people.  There's Heather, the California girl studying abroad here, and her genteel father who's visiting for 3 weeks, and her very interesting boyfriend, Jack.  Jack is a character.  We went out for a handful of beers last night and he told me his story, or some of it, and this guy is a testament to the human spirit.  He's 24.  His father is Nigerian and his mother South African.  He left Africa a few years ago in search of a better life, put plainly enough.  He went first through Russia, then Cuba (these were easy countries for him to obtain a visa).  In Cuba, he was sleeping on the beach and was attacked and robbed in the middle of the night, every penny and every possession taken from him. He begged for food in the streets.  He eventually got the Nigerian government to send him some money, and he used that to come to Ecuador.  I asked him if he didn't consider just going home at that point, and this was what impressed me about him: of course he did, but to go home from there would have been to admit failure, and he wanted to persist forward.  Forward to where or towards what exactly,  he didn't then and doesn't now know, but he tells me that he loves Heather, believes in God and Fate, doesn't like Quito anymore, and dreams to go to Australia one day, among other places.  He's a professional soccer player here now - walked onto a field and begged to train with the team until the coach agreed and ultimately discovered that he's actually really good.  This guy impressed me.  I gave him my contact information and told him if I could ever help him in any way, to simply email me.  And Michael, the mirror defogger guy, has really challenged me this week, intellectually and spiritually both.  We've had a number of lengthy, in-depth conversations about "the nature of things,"so to speak.  The conversations have gone to some great places, never too "out there", always grounded in conventional philosophies, but have really made me consider my own beliefs and forced me to remember some of the important events in my life that have shaped those beliefs.

And there is a bright light just ahead for my continued travels.  Tomorrow morning I jump a plane to Panama.  I am actually really looking forward to this.  My grandmother was born in Panama, emigrated to the states when she was 22, and that part of my family heritage has always held a special place in my sense of identity, and yet in my life, I've never been there, despite having made 4 trips to Costa Rica, the country directly next door.  The family she keeps in touch with has been to L.A. on several occasions, met the Joneses, their gringo relatives, and some of the CA family has been there to visit them, but not me.  So now it's my turn and I'm really looking forward to connecting with them, and this part of me.  I'll probably be a week in Panama City, and then head for the white-sand, crystal-water beaches further North and try to get some surfing in before I come home.

Peru, Cuzco, Machu Picchu

Well, it's been just about two weeks since I arrived in Peru.  I spent almost no time in Lima, just the afternoon and evening that I arrived, really.  So I don't have much to report other than it was about what I expected from a coastal South American capital city: crowded, built-up, smoggy and not particularly clean, and yet  cosmopolitan and being thrust into the modern era and Western tradition.  I caught an early flight the next morning to Cuzco, which is a whole different story.

Situated in a mountain valley roughly 10,000 feet above sea level (its cold and you're stopping to catch your breath if you're walking up stairs), Cuzco is the former Inca capital in Peru and an entirely unique city among those I have visited.   It's long history as a site of struggle between the indigenous Inca population and the Spanish conquistadors lends a mixed cultural flavor to the otherwise modern tourist hub, as Cuzco is the launch point for the infamous lost city of the Inca, Machu Picchu, the top tourist draw in the country.  In the last 10 years alone, annual visitor counts to Machu Picchu have increased from the tens of thousands to well over a million.  Cuzco has figured this out, and as a result, you cannot walk down the street without being bombarded with offers to buy artwork, jewelry, hats, scarves, sweaters, blankets, rugs, wall hangings, finger puppets, flutes, whistles, and any variety of the endless artisanal  products Cuzco seems to be capable of pumping out, not to mention the tours (hiking, biking, rafting, Machu Picchu and 20 other surrounding ruins), massages, dinners, drinks ("happy hour, señor!"), shoe shines, candy, and plain old-fashioned handouts.  The  place is a zoo: making it a few blocks can be exhausting.  Despite that (and admittedly sometimes because of it) walking the streets of Cuzco is charming, especially in its mix of colonial, Incan, and modern ramshackle architecture (building practices seem to have been sturdier 3500 years ago).  You can walk down a narrow street you would think was pedestrian only until a taxi is nipping at your heels, nudgingly beeping his horn, yet never slowing down and find that the buildings inhabited by the modern galleries, gift shops and restaurants are actually original hand-cut-and- stacked stone blocks put up by the Incas eons ago.  And then you'll turn a corner and bump into a several-hundred year old European-style cathedral before passing the banks, 5-star hotels and the Starbucks (yep) on your way home, which in my case was one of the ramshackle jobs.

So it was 2 nights in Cuzco, planning the Machu Picchu excursion before setting off in a minivan packed full of locals and being driven for 2 hours like it was being chased through curving mountain roads and past muddy roadside villages to a train that carries you to Aguas Callientes, a remote, river-side mountain town without roads that now makes it's living as the overnight stay for visits to Machu Picchu. It's a pre-5a wake up call to make the entrance by opening time, 6a and get a rare glance of the ruined city, empty, without tourists, as it may have appeared upon it's discovery in 1911.  I took about 200 pictures that day, but none with my iPod, which is what I'm using to update the blog on this trip, so I'll put up pictures another day.

Also climbed the peak in the background, a near-vertical struggle to another set of stone buildings atop the summit and a rare view of the lost city.  There's not much to tell about Machu Picchu because there's not much that is known.  Clearly, it was a city: there are easily identifiable homes, neighborhoods and storehouses, but an explanation for the temples, an understanding of some of the "how" and all of the "why" is a futile enterprise.  There is no written record, and so you are left only to marvel at the miracle of its existence: it is entirely remote (thinking pre-tourist times), buried in the rainforest, stashed in a valley, and hidden atop a mountain.  Almost twice the age of Jesus, and it's still there, stone upon stone, for the ages.

I hiked for two days beyond Machu Picchu, following a raging brown river, crossing it once in a 2'x4', cable-suspended basket, sometimes walking along train tracks (nervously sprinting through tunnels), sometimes on narrow, diverging trails through the jungle, or high above the river on stone cliffs with sheer drops above and below, just to see what was out there I guess and not join the thousands returning by train to Cuzco.  On that hike, I came across a man with a broken foot (the result of a dropped rock) and left him all the applicable first aid and advice we had, as well as a welcoming family home with turkeys, a parrot, dogs, and a hanging jaguar skin accompanied by a story that ends with a two-month hunt and a borrowed, early 20th-century rifle.  Also, a woman with a pet Capuchin monkey.  I got to hold the monkey.  It was awesome.  I thought there was a good chance I would be bitten and die of monkey rabies in the jungle, but it was worth it.  This monkey was 9 months old (purchased in Cuzco) and it still had a nursing instinct.  We caught him right before his nap time, and as all small and cute things do, he found me endearing and comforting and took to nestling and cuddling into my arms and trying to suckle my bicep, but not before showing me his gleaming, tiny fangs, at which point, like I said, I thought I was going to die of monkey rabies in the jungle.  But he was already clinging tightly with hands, feet and tail, and I didn't want to alarm him, so there was no shaking him loose - I just had to let him suck on my arm for a while.  I want a monkey now, it's my new goal in life.  The lady said he's like a cat - wanders the property, comes back for food and love, except it's a fucking monkey! Awesome.  I need one.

At the end of two days, I caught a car 1/2 way back to Cuzco and stayed in small town there for a week, soaking in the empty hillsides and making day-long excursions to the local sacred Inca sites before returning to the madness that is Cuzco.  

This trip, so far, has been nothing like traveling New Zealand.  It has become impossible to consider them together, as one trip.  My first few days on the ground, I kept thinking to myself, "You're not in Kansas anymore."  For instance, take the food markets: warehouse-sized, open air bazaars that know no health code - the meat section to be avoided by those with uneasy stomachs - dogs running around looking for scraps and humping under each other in the aisles.  Braved it one day for lunch - barely made it to the next morning.

The other outstanding characteristic of Cuzco that cannot go unnoticed or untold is the colorful tradition of the Quechua women and children.  These are the ancestral descendants of the Inca, their blood mixed with Spanish; they are the closest thing to a living native culture in Peru.  The women are typically short and squat with layered skirts and sweaters, long braids, felt hats and carrying all manner of things in a full-spectrum color blanket slung across their back: usually a child, often food or wares for sale, sometimes sheep, puppies, even turkeys.

I am currently in flight from the mountains and the rain, headed North into the heat and banana fields of Ecuador (so named for its location along the Northern and Southern hemispheres and then on to meet some of my extended family in Panama. I will likely retire my shoes in Ecuador, send home a box of no-longer-needed warm clothes from Panama, and spend the rest of my time in sandals, on beaches.  The way it should be.  That's the plan for now anyways.  More to come, stay tuned...

Off to Peru

Been in LA this week catching up with friends and family.  Will be in LAX in less than an hour, and in Lima by mid-day tomorrow.  Tuesday I'm flying down to Cusco and will head straight for Machu Picchu.  After that, I have no specific plans, but I hope to be gone another 2 months.  I'll keep you guys posted...

E

My Notes on New Zealand

I don't intend this to be anything more than it is: a type-written copy of the general observations I've been making about New Zealand.  It would be a huge mistake for anyone to misconstrue this as any sort of journalistic enterprise with even the slightest amount of authority or organization.  So, disclaimer out of the way, here's what I've seen:

• The British influence is unavoidable.  New Zealand, like Australia, has its own government, but still resides "under the Queen".  There's the accent, of course: a sort of drawled, kicked-back version of the Queen's English.  Then there's the place names: Christchurch, Oxford, Queenstown, Invercargil and Dunedin (those last two are Scottish settlements).  Sport: Rugby and Cricket are the two big ones, games still played in collared shirts.  Food: you can find beans on a lot of breakfast menus, and tea is ubiquitous, as in the motherland.

• New Zealand is also home to an indigenous population of polynesian people called the Maori that landed here a long time before Captain Cook.  Their cultural influence is as much a part of the Kiwi identity as the British part.   Aside from volumes of omnipresent visual imagery, the Maori have their own political party, language instruction in schools, a TV channel, radio station, and villages into which only Maoris are allowed. They've also had an impact on the accent: there's a popular TV commercial that embodies it well (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYvD9DI1ZA) and a YouTube video a couple of Australians whipped up to poke fun at the Kiwi accent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVHZwI8pcA).  There is also a whole other set of place names that will tie your tongue in knots: Pukekohe, Whakatane, Rotorua, Urewera and Waikaremoana, for example.

• Each culture is distinct from the other, but both are an essential part of the national identity, like yin and yang.  

• New Zealanders LOVE Rugby.  Their national team, The All Blacks, won the World Cup for the first time in a long time here in NZ in October, right before I showed up.  The flags are still flying.

• Rugby players wear short shorts, so unfortunately that's embedded itself as a fashion trend here among men, even among well-out-of-shape men that you would really never want to see in short shorts.  And mullets everywhere, without shame.  Jean shorts too, even cut-offs.

• Lots of cute nicknames, like boat drivers are "Boaties", throat drops are "throaties", the barbeque is the "barby", the Off-License liquor store is an "Offie".

• New Zealand is not a country made for cities, and I wouldn't recommend traveling here to be a tourist in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch.  Do that in Europe: go see Paris, London, Prague, and Barcelona.  New Zealand's best sightseeing is found in the natural environment.

• There's no Starbucks in New Zealand.  Maybe one in Auckland, one in Wellington, one in Queenstown.  Haven't seen any in Christchurch.  People somehow get by here without one on every corner - imagine that!

• Sheep outnumber people in NZ by 20:1

• New Zealanders take a great interest in their country's natural environment.  People have a decent understanding of the geology, geography, and the plant and animal life.  Everyone's an amateur naturalist.

• Anything with fur is not indigenous to New Zealand (as many NZers have told me).  And there are lots of furry things here.  New Zealand suffers from a history of rare indigenous species being wiped out by common, imported ones.  

• The birds here are numerous and impressive: kiwis, parrots, penguins, GIANT pigeons (would eat our city pigeons for breakfast), peacocks, some big birds of prey, and innumerable other strange and colorful birds endemic to New Zealand, lots of them flightless.  There used to be a giant, solid-boned, ostrich-like bird here called a Moa, but they have since become extinct (apparently, the Maori ate most of them and the Brits finished them off).

• People read the newspaper.  Regularly.  Thoroughly.  And defend their regional papers which make room for world reports and entirely small, local news (like hay thieves).  The newspapers here, much like the ones I've seen in Ireland, can be a bit tabloid and sensational.  The news is there, but there's also present an emotional appeal you wouldn't find in the Times or the Wall Street Journal.

• People understand the weather.  They know the difference between a low-pressure system from the SE and and high from the NW - there's a big difference!  And I suppose they have to - it's a reaction to their environment, being sandwiched between the tropics and Antarctica.  If being a weatherman in San Diego is the easiest job in the world, then being a weatherman in New Zealand has to be the hardest.  The weather changes by the minute and there are so many discreet regions with different climate patterns packed very tightly together.  Watching an evening news weather report is exhausting: it's rainy here, but only cloudy there and sunny here but only in the morning, then chilly, grey and windy in the afternoon, sunny again tomorrow... and that's only one corner of one island for the next 12 hours! 

• Kiwis love American country music.  Love it.  I think it resonates with the landscape, and the people that still make a living working the land, so it's kind of like middle America, except...

• This is a very liberal culture.  We are talking full-on tree-hugging, tears-for-puppies, bleeding heart Greens.  Not that I have a problem with that (I'm still young enough to lean a bit left myself), but it's just very apparent here.  Rugby-playing cowboys for social medicine, I'm telling you.

Farewell New Zealand, and Onward

Well, I'm down to my last few days in New Zealand.  It's hard to believe it's been almost 3 months.  Doesn't feel like it.  Dad and I are watching Crazy Heart in a Christchurch motel right now, waiting for the last few grains of sand to slip through the hourglass before we have to head to the airport.  We first arrived here over a week ago, put the van up for sale, spent a few days checking out surf spots and climbing crags and then headed back into the mountains about 2 hours inland for a quick backpack trip and a run up a short, rocky alpine peak called Mt Oates.

Been back in Christchurch now the last few days doing more climbing and surfing.  Rode through a couple midnight aftershocks since we've been here as well.  This is definitely an interesting place to be right now.  It doesn't take long to figure out that the city is currently just a visage of its former self.  For starters, the entire city center, the heart of the business district and cultural core is closed.  Square blocks (maybe 10 x 10) are completely shut down, barricaded, every building within that boundary uninhabitable, in the process of either being torn down or completely rehabilitated (in the case of old masonry landmarks, like churches and museums).  Outside of there, the damage is spotty, but equally apparent.  Just about every church in the city is a fenced-off, half-standing pile of rubble with the steeple braced upright on the ground nearby.  Homes are wrapped in red tape, cliffs have crumbled, undermining foundations above and crushing backyards below, businesses are shuttered, heavy equipment visible through remaining storefronts, entire buildings missing, the din of demolition equipment (jackhammers and squealing metal equipment tracks) constant throughout the city.  Over 600,000 properties have been red-tagged.  The most damaging quakes were a 7.1 in Sept 2010 and a 6.3 in Feb 2011.  The aftershocks are constant.  In the last 24 hours alone, there have been 10 earthquakes ranging from 2.5 to 4.1.

People are obviously missing from the city as well.  The place is a ghost town.  Something like a third of the population has relocated to other parts of the country.  Everyday the paper is full of stories about the recovery effort, insurance claims, and the government's next steps.  They're putting the total anticipated cost between 20 and 30 Billion.  Unfortunately, a lot of the rebuild effort is tied up in insurance claims.  People are getting pay-outs to vacate their properties (residential and commercial) because even if they could reach a settlement to rebuild, the insurance companies aren't willing to reinsure, the government isn't stepping in to guarantee anything, and people can't afford the risk on their own - so they're taking what they can get and leaving.  Despite all of that, the folks that have stayed here are surprisingly upbeat.  They love this place and believe it will be rebuilt, and seem to understand that it won't be the same and will take a long time to get there, but they're still here, going about their lives.  A lot of business are operating out of shipping containers and temporary facilities - some nice ones too - I imagine some of them will stay like that permanently.

So, this might not be a bad place to find work after all, but that will have to be another day.  The plan right now is to spend a week at home, then meet a friend in Peru at the beginning of February, travel for another 2 months (into Central America, finally visit my family in Panama) and then go back to work.  If it's still quiet in Southern Cali, then Christchurch might not be a bad place to look.  There is some work unfolding here.  Aside from being on the other side of the planet, it's strikingly similar to California: lots of sun, golden rolling hills, plenty of surf, nearby mountains - what else can you ask for?  Family and friends, that's what,  which is why I'd rather be home, but I do have to return to the world of the employed at some point, wherever that may be, and being a part of the resurrection of this city would be a really cool thing to be a part of, so maybe...

A few days back in Milford with Dad

Well, after Mt. Cook, we had to figure out what to do with ourselves for a while.  I was itching to get back to Milford Sound and dad's never been there, so we made the long drive back to what's got to be one of the most beautiful and unique places on the planet.  

The evening we showed up, we were greeted by this fantastic sunset:

On our first day, we went for a hike up this valley

This is my "vato loco" look from the mountains

I found this stool in the snow very amusing

Our hike took us here, to a saddle at the brush line with a surprise view of Milford below

Kea, mountain parrot.  We stopped to rest and this guy found us within 10 minutes.

A little hide-and-seek

My idea for the next day was to climb Mitre Peak (the one on the left).  It is only accessible by water, directly from the fiord, and there are no official or marked trails.  Only about 20 people ever set foot on it each year.  It's a 14-hour round trip or an overnight halfway up the ridge.  We opted to travel light and go for the one-day push.  So, early in the morning, we set off in a borrowed kayak (we stayed with the guides again), paddled out to the toe of the mountain, and dragged the kayak into the trees.

Dad got this sunrise shot from the base of Mitre right before we started our ascent

The first part of this climb is unlike anything either of us have ever done.  It's basically a bushwhack through the jungle on a near-vertical slope.  The trail is... well, it's not really a trail.  It's a few stepped-on plants, just a very faint track.  We actually started the walk about 4 times before we got it right.  We'd walk into a hole in the bush, thinking it was the right way and then find that it just ended in impassibly thick ferns and vines.  Ultimately, we found our way up the steep slope, hand over hand on roots and mossy rocks.  Usually when I go hiking, I'm used to being able to see where I'm going and where I've been , but in this case, all we could see was the dense foliage around us.

At one point, we came to a rare clearing with a view back down to Milford Sound.  That's the airstrip down there, next door to where we were staying with the kayak crew.

There were a few trail markers along the way like this.  Someone with a good sense of humor used a bunch of "Danger Keep Out" tape!

Here's a straight on view of the peak.  When you're done with the steep jungle slope in the foreground (our trail would have gone right up the middle), you're spit out on a loose, rocky ridge and free solo for the summit.  About 3 hours in, we were at the top of the bush-covered portion in the back, to the left of the peak in the front and were facing a big dip in the ridge, back down further into the bush before climbing back up again to the rock and dad called it, said his legs had enough, so we had lunch, soaked in the view and turned back.  No big deal on the summit.  I'm just glad we got out there and went for it!

A couple more great sunset shots from that trip

Funny signs seen in NZ

Classic

I took this at Cape Reinga, the Northern-most point of NZ

Road signs here are messed up.  WTF is this supposed to mean?

Hey guys, take it easy on this turn.  Keep it to 85.

Now you tell me!

I love this sign.  You see it all over NZ.  It's not the most unusual thing - it pops up when the roads are potentially slippery, but I love how drastic it is.  Look at that car!  The tire marks are all crossed up, and it's about to flip over and burn up in a fiery crash!  Slippery roads in NZ are no joke.  You will die.

Dually noted

Some good German humor.  Saw this in a hostel.

What do you mean if it's not working?  Does that happen often?  This seems dangerous.

Seriously?  15 minutes?  And what am I supposed to do if it's 6:30?  

This was at the tunnel entrance on the way to Milford Sound.

I couldn't resist.  This is the unfortunate name of a country town on the South Island.

It's really funny if you pretend you have a lisp.  "Don't be such an Athol!"

Also seen, not photographed:

"Horse Poo.  $1"

On a farmer's fence: "Dogs will be shot"

Slide Show

I have a great internet connection right now which is very rare and pictures are uploading quickly, so I figured I'd take advantage and upload a bunch of shots I might not have otherwise had the bandwidth to share.

Lakeside Dinner a few nights ago

I think dad got up to pee in the middle of the night and got this shot of Betsy and the moon

Sweet surf-mobile in Dunedin

These "Kea" mountain parrots have been in all the alpine areas I've visited.  They are very smart and very friendly - they will come right up to you and try to steal your food when you're not looking.

They have some beautiful red feathers on the underside of their wings

Camp the day I picked up dad

Shot of the two of us at first sight of Mt Cook

Contemplative: "Crap that looks like a big mountain"

Dunno.  Thought you'd like to see a blurry picture of me in orange light.  I like this one.

Pretty flowers

Great swimming hole the locals showed me in Milford.  There's a jump from the bush on the top left.

"The Chasm", Milford

Mountains + Sheep = NZ

This was in Abel Tasman.  I had to cross these big tidal estuaries that drained out on low tide.  People would tie up their boats, the water drains out and leaves them sitting in a desert landscape, a sort of surreal scene to come upon during the walk

Some more pretty flowers

Some more Milford.  So good.

Mountain Biking Queenstown

Dad and I rented a couple of full suspension bikes in Queenstown today and bought a gondola pass.  They have some pretty sick tracks.  We stuck to the easy stuff, but still plenty fun!

Here's a gondola with the bikes all racked.  I don't know who the random guy in the foreground is.

Dad goin for a ride.

Here's looking back down the gondola to QT, past the crazy bungee jump platform

Ripping

Shredding

You gotta pay to play!