The End of an Era

        I debated for a long time whether of not to keep the beard or shave it off. Eventually I decided to shave for two reasons.

1. I refused to pay someone in Denmark 200 kroner when I could get it done here for 12 kroner.
2. The chances of me getting hassled at the airport have decreased 10 fold.

        My sincerest appologies to anyone who was looking forward to stoking my masculine mane while laughing about how I looked like a caveman, rabbi, or monkey. It had to be done.

        Tears were shed. Shaving was comparable to the end of "Old Yeller" or saying goodbye to a best friend. I'll be alright through, there's no need to send flowers.

On the left: final photo after three months. On the right: last night after a shave and a haircut.

        Have no fear! When I'm 70 years old and couldn't care less I will grow a similar if not more impressive beard. Imagine Tibetan-120-year-old-man style complete with the red robe and cane. Yeah.

Goodbye Urubamba, Goodbye Arco Iris; Hello Puno, Hello Lake Titicaca

Arguably the most artistic thing I've created since kindergarten.

        As they say. All things must come to an end and my time in Urubamba at the Rainbow Center has done just that.

        I thoroughly enjoyed my time working at the Rainbow Center. I enjoyed my time there so much that I extended my stay beyond my original plans. Working alongside the other fantastic volunteers and the wonderful staff at the center has made me even more appreciative of the work that Kiya Survivors is doing.

        At no point in time did I feel money was being squandered or that time was being wasted. Without a doubt every cent was accounted for and overhead costs were kept to a bare minimum. I am proud to have had the opportunity to witness such a deserving charity in action and I sincerely hope to be able to return someday. Between my family and I moving back to the U.S. and myself starting university, in the immediate future, my schedule is a bit, ahh, full. But someday.

        On Wednesday, my final day at the center, the staff and students gave me a very kind sendoff. Quite a few of the students and nearly all of the staff came forward to say a few words kind words and give me a goodbye hug. I was surprised by the amount of students who came forward to say goodbye. I either made a greater impact on a greater number of students then I previously imagined or I'm just a cuddly dude. It could be both.

So. Many. Hugs.

        Whatever the reason, I was genuinely touched. I wasn't expecting a sendoff at all and to see so many of the children eager to say a few kind words before I went reassured me greatly that my time at the Rainbow Center was not in vain.

        As my lovely volunteer coordinator Aisha told me: "Even when you don't think you're making a difference... you are." The sendoff made me appreciate how much I had enjoyed my time at the center. I found myself a bit choked up as I said goodbye to all the teachers (or profes). From smiling Miguel, our indispensable outreach angel, to Louisa, the happy cook who always scolded me for not eating lunch at the center and everyone between the entire staff is worthy of a thousand and one thank yous. They make Kiya Survivors function day by day in a fantastic way.

        I encourage everyone to visit the official Kiya Survivors website (www.kiyasurvivors.org) and check them out if you haven't yet. Please consider spreading awareness about the work they are doing or, if you are able, assisting them with a monetary donation. You can make a donation, buy a gift for either a child or the center, or even sponsor a child monthly. Consider it a "tip" if you've enjoyed my blog thus far... or if you just want me to go away.

You can even buy feed for the animals at the center if children aren't really your thing.

        Now, let me tell you what I've been up to the past few days. On Saturday morning I took a bus to Puno, a city located on the shores of South America's largest lake: Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca holds the record for the being the world's "highest commercially navigable" lake in the world at 3,800 meters above sea level. Apparently, from here, "highest commercially navigable" means able to support boats "Bigger than those little rubber rafts that you weenies haul to the top of mountains in your vain attempts to 'prove' that your piddly little puddle is the highest lake!"... as the Peruvian's say.

Certainly not a little puddle.

        Please note: the last link where that ridiculous explanation of "highest commercially navigable" comes from is the same source that the infallible Wikipedia uses for its page on Lake Titicaca. The website makes no attempt to pretend that its a credible source of information; it claims to have got most of its information "searching the internet". How marvelously credible their information must be then! I mean, hell, the website is even called www.highestlake.com so they must know their stuff. Tsk, tsk, Wikipedia: I expect better of you.

        The lake itself has many charms, but perhaps the most renown are the "floating islands" of Uros. Here you can visit the unique living culture of a society of people who live on raft-like floating islands made from water reeds.

Say what?

        As the name suggests Uros is not your typical archipelago. The forty-two "islands" upon which a few hundred people live are not technically islands, but are large raft-like human creations made from the semi-edible and incredibly buoyant totora reed which grows just off lake Titicaca's shores. The authenticity of the current generation of island dwellers is often questioned (with good reason, the vast majority of the "islanders" live in Puno), but I nevertheless found my little glimpse into this dying culture fascination.

Yep, that's actually floating.

My day at the islands went something like this:

        I woke up early and had a quick breakfast of eggs on toast. This was something of a special breakfast when contrasted with the usual jam and bread that you get served at most hostels, but let's not dwell on my meal choices.

         After breakfast I was off to Uros. I took a tricycle from outside my hostel down to the port. Even though it was downhill most of the way I wasn't entirely sure how to feel about being peddled around in a tricycle. I was paying him, but something about being "driven" around in a peddle bicycle just reeked of imperialism. "I'm sure the British felt alright knowing they were 'paying' the Indians..." I thought to myself as I tried to justify my own ride.

The elusive and awkward "I'm not sure if this is morally right" smile.

        In any case, after my guilt-ridden journey to the port I bought my boat ticket and away I went. I took pleasure in being the only gringo in my tour group. When you're traveling you know you're doing it right if you look up and you're the only foreigner in a group of tourists.

        A short thirty minute ride left us at the first floating island. And how bizarre it was. Everything was made of the floating reeds. We stepped (gingerly) onto the floating mass to learn more. Our friendly island guide gave us a brief, but informative introduction to life on the islands.

Being greeted by the islanders.

        We learned that the bundles of reeds were over 2.5 meters (8 feet) deep and rested on the underwater root system of the original reeds some 3 meters (10 feet) down. The islands are then moored in place by eucalyptus trees driven into the lake bed 15 meters (50 feet) down so they don't "wake up in Bolivia". Each month the islanders put down a new layer of reeds to replace the older ones which rot away from the bottom. The culture of these islands may be dying, but the islands are very much alive.

A nice illustration: the block on the bottom is the "root bed" upon which 3 meters of the green reeds are laid. Houses are then build on top.

        Naturally we were hounded for money and repeatedly offered hideously handmade crafts, but only with halfhearted enthusiasm. I believe the islanders must save their energy for the larger fanny-pack toting and alpaca jumper wearing foreign tour groups.

        We were taken on a quick boat ride in one of their traditional reed boats and dropped off on the "main island" where we had the opportunity to buy overpriced food and drinks. I passed on the kind offer. We then returned to Puno by boat.

Two traditional boats joined together to form a pontoon boat. I suppose that makes it non-traditional, but let's not get too technical here.

        All in all the whole journey took roughly three hours and I felt they were three hours well spent. The trip set me back only 8 USD as well so I definitely got good value for my money. If you have the patience to visit the island sans organized tour I would definitely recommend it. Granted you have to be in the southern highlands of Peru first!

        Puno itself doesn't have too much to offer in the way of entertainment. As a matter of fact it really has nothing to offer aside from letting you visit Uros and a few other nearby islands. I spent the rest of my day there walking around and writing up with blog. There is a small hill you can climb for a good vista of the city, but I usually don't count that as "something to do" in a city.

        Tomorrow I begin my trip home! I have a flight out of Cusco (where I am now) at 12.00 and a flight from Lima to Madrid at 19.45 tomorrow evening. This puts me in Madrid by 14.30 on Thursday and after an overnight stop I continue again to Copenhagen . I will be back in good old Denmark by 15.00. As you might imagine I am incredibly excited to be returning home to the land of good food, good family, and good friends. I assure you that if you're reading this blog, then I'm probably excited to see you when I get back: I don't imagine too many of my arch-nemeses are reading this now.

         See you all on the other side!

Puerto Maldonado: The "Real" Jungle.

Monkeying around a bit on the vines.

        When in doubt drink a few cups of coffee and start writing. That’s quickly becoming my catch phrase for this blog. Fort Minor in their 2005 song “Remember the Name” says “this is 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will, 5% pleasure, 50% pain, and 100% reason to remember the name”. Let’s just say that regardless of what percentage luck, skill, and concentration play in this blog at least 50% of it comes from good ol’ coffee. I was trying to rework the lyrics a bit to make “caffeine” and “coffee” fit, but finding a suitable rhyme with either of them proved to be more difficult than finding a white guy at a Black Panthers meeting. It might be hard to believe, but I was never much of a rapper.

        My lyrical prowess aside I’ve become quite fond of writing this blog. With my trip rapidly coming to an end I’ll need to find another project to channel my artistic talent. Maybe I’ll write the most pretentious autobiography in the world. I mean really, who thinks they’ve lived long enough at the ripe old age of 19 to warrant an autobiography? I wonder how many pages my life story could fill before it became boring enough to put a coked-up hummingbird to sleep. Maybe 20… with lots of pictures.

        But I digress; this post is going to focus not on my non-existent autobiography or my lyrical genius, but on my recent trip to Puerto Maldonado. Puerto Maldonado lies 230 km east of Cusco in between the hot, humid, and huge rainforest reserves of Manu and Tambopata. Together these reserves cover 30,000 square kilometers (3 million hectares) of Amazonian rainforest and represent some of the most biologically diverse areas in all of Peru. One tree in these parks can be home for over 1,000 species of ants alone.

And it would be a pretty sweet home at that.

        When I labeled my last post “Welcome to the Jungle, baby!” I believe I did a disservice to the actual jungle of Peru. Quillabamba may have been hot and humid, but at no point was I woken up by a monkey or did I have to sidestep a tarantula on the way to the bathroom. Puerto Maldonado, on the other hand, was the real deal.

        I, along with my two traveling companions from Urubamba, had the pleasure of spending four nights in a jungle lodge roughly one hour away from Puerto Maldonado down the Rio Madre de Dios. Well, 40 minutes with the current and an hour and half against it. The lodge was a bit of a bare-bones place. To say that there weren’t a lot of frills would be misleading: there were no frills. But complete with several hammocks, a residential monkey, and a coffee loving macaw it was just fine for us.

Our lodge. You don't want to know how much trouble I went through to get this photo.

        Now I’m not going to bore you with an exhaustive list of what we did each day. I don’t have the patience to type up such a list and I know you don’t have the patience to read it. Instead I’m going to focus on two things which capture the essence of trip: the pets and the ecology. The first covers life at the lodge while the second covers the ever living jungle that surrounded us.

        Now I mentioned earlier that the lodge we stayed in was pretty “bare-bones”, but the lack of creature comforts was more than rectified by comforting creatures.

        We had Lola, the adolescent howler monkey, who was fond of crawling into your hammock for a little snuggle, surprising me on more than one occasion. Lola joined us on several excursions into the jungle choosing to take the easy way by hitching a ride on my shoulders. With his tail gently wrapped around my neck Lola would ride along happily occasionally reaching for a tempting leaf or hopping off on his own little adventure in the branches above us. Lola was incredibly mischievous and enjoyed sneaking into our bedroom to play “Try to find and eat all of Ben’s food before he notices”, a game I’m certain he enjoyed more than I did.

I learned, much to my dismay, that my beard is more effective at attracting monkeys than women.

        The other pet at the lodge was a colorfully feathered red macaw. Aside from the occasional “Hola!” he wasn’t much of a talker, but he captured my heart in another way. Like most successful friendships our relationship was founded upon common interests: we both love coffee. I spent several afternoons sitting with a cup of coffee and my feathered friend spoiling him with spoonfuls of tasty dark brown magic.

Coincidentally, “Dark Brown Magic” would make a good stripper name.

        In between sleeping, meals, and playing with the animals we did a fair share of excursions. We walked, we canoed, we zip-lined, and we kayaked our way around the jungle. We certainly saw a plethora of plants and animals I could never have imagined existed. And a few I wish I didn’t.

        In a place where competition for sunlight is fierce and nearly everything could eat you, given the chance, you can bet that there are a fair amount of plants and animals that have adapted in extreme ways.

        My personal favorite was the “Leaf Cutter Ant”. These ants take their name from how they cultivate their primary source of food. They harvest small sections of leaves and carry them to their colony where they use the leaves to grown a type of edible fungus. Yep, that’s right, they’re little six-legged farmers. The ants are second only to humans in the size and complexity of their societies. One colony can be comprised of over eight million individuals and they even have a caste system to divide up labor based upon ant size. The smaller ants work as “leaf checkers” making sure that the quality of leaf cuttings is up to scratch while the larger ants forage or protect the nest. In short, they have testers, gatherers, and soldiers.

A line of ants carrying their green trophies. If you look closely you can see the smaller "checker ants" on the leaves.

         In the history of humanity the invention of agriculture some 10,000 years ago was instrumental in the development of society. In those 10,000 years humanity went from a species of nomadic hunters and gatherers to the vast and powerful creatures we are today. Judging by that timeline I can’t imagine that it’ll be too much longer until the leaf cutter ants harness fire and invent the wheel. From there it’s only a small step to the printing press. I recommend we start building diplomatic relationships with these ants before it’s too late. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

        An honorable mention for “most interesting organism” goes to the “Tarantula Spider” simply for being the embodiment of everyone’s fear of the jungle. As this animal is one that lives in everyone’s nightmares I don’t think I need to show any photos of it. But I will anyways.

I did you a favor by not using my zoomed photos, but now you can see exactly how big this one was. Look at your hand. Now look at the photo. Sleep well.

        Measuring up to 10cm in diameter this furry arachnid does not create webs, but instead it lives in shallow burrows where is waits for its prey. They clear the areas in front of their burrows and patiently wait to ambush their meals. Luckily for us their venom (in most cases) is not strong enough to cause permanent damage to humans, but I don’t imagine it would be pleasant.

        We also saw “walking” palm trees, giant river otters, spider monkeys, and an abundance of insects and fungi. The jungle is not for the faint of heart. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, but I don’t think it could have been done without lots of insect repellent and even more chutzpah. And I’ve got so much damn chutzpah I should be wearing a yamaka. 

It would match the beard!