Adeus Iberia...

"The principal ingredient is love" said the man in the kelly green shirt with the mohawk mullet cascading gracefully down the back of his head as he served up a second helping of cornbread crusted cod fish (bacalhau) to another happy, wine flushed guest at the Lisbon Lounge Hostel. That was the beginning of our time here. Now, six weeks later we are preparing to leave Portugal... with a little bit less money in our pockets, heads full of amazing stories, hearts full of love for this country, its language and its culture, and certainly a lot more meat on our bones. As usual, it is so hard to sum up the experiences we have had here so for now, until I can compile my thoughts into some readable format, I will leave you with some pictures of our time here. Right now I think this collage of experiences will say more than I can until I get my act and my thoughts together...enjoy!

Em Lisboa (In Lisbon)

Eu adoro (e-oo a-do-roo). I love it here. It´s beautiful. And not like beautiful we have back home. Perhaps we do to some degree in older cities on the East coast. No...Lisbon is beautiful because it bleeds history from every avenue, from every building, from every tile and brick. It seems to ooze out of the old churches, monasteries, blue and white azulejos that paint the sides of the buildings. Since our arrival, we have wandered wide-eyed, twisting up and down narrow cobblestone sidewalks - assaulted at every step by this magnificent history and architecture. There is so much to explore, so much to enjoy in this city, and I suspect there will be much to tell as we do :)

Holi Wah!

Strangely, stepping off the plane into the warm, pollution laden air of Kathmandu, weaving through traffic, using all lanes of the road, being bombarded by the honking of horns...it felt a little bit like home. Things were feeling good. Familiar. Until I felt the first explosion against my back and turned around wide eyed and dripping wet, to search out the seemingly invisible perpetrator who dared to hit me with a loaded water balloon. Alas, he just disappeared. I had become a victim of Holi. Holi, a religious festival turned chaos, falls on the first full moon in the month of Falgun. It's a festival of friendship, a reminder of the coming monsoon, a quest to keep germs at bay (which, the local newspaper points out can be achieved by playing with colored water in the sunshine). Through the eyes of an observer though, Holi is a city-wide, gender vs gender (or more accurately men targeting women) colored water fight. In the week leading up to Holi, all the roadside stands sell packets of colored powder and there are significantly fewer women on the streets as local boys warm up for full assault. Bags of water and water balloons fly unannounced from rooftops and through open windows to splatter on unsuspecting women walking on the streets below. I took 4 pre-holi hits total. All little buggers who smiled sweetly (devilishly?) as I walked by and then blasted me in the back before running off. Brian, his masculinity a saving grace, got away unscathed.

On the actually day of Holi, however, it was no holds barred. Men vs men, men vs women. At our guest house in Paknajol, old and young, men and women, all joined in a full on, 3 hour rooftop combat, hurling red dye-filled water balloons, throwing buckets of water on one another, breaching security territory to smear red paste all over the faces/hair/clothing of anyone lucky enough to be nearby. Later in the evening, when we actually ventured out of our hotel (wearing garbage bags) the streets looked like a war zone and the people we passed were soaking wet and often covered head to toe in rainbows of colors. There was no water for hours after the heavy combat. It had all been used up and now we have the wonderful privilege to walk down the plastic bag and balloon lined streets of Nepal in relative safety, although I admit I am still quite paranoid and glance up at the rooftops much more than I did before. Welcome back to Kathmandu, the land of obscure, but aggressively exuberant holidays!

Hiking up the trail to Gokyo Valley. Brian and an icy waterfall between Phorste Tenga and Dole.

More to come...

So Much Time - So Little Fuel

I am baring my arms in public for the first time since we arrived in Nepal on January 7th. The coffee shop where I sit on the 3rd floor balcony is frequented by working middle and upper class Nepali's who are not quite so traditional as some. In fact, if you were to see a Nepali woman in a tank top (gasp!) it would probably be here.

I am unwinding from an adventure at the bank. I walked into the large branch and was greeted by wall to wall people holding numbers and glancing expectantly at a scoreboard-like digital display of letters and numbers. In my confusion I lumbered through the crowded rooms, looking for a signal to give me direction. Three people and four electronic numbers later, I was directed past the 'peons' (a term used in the local newspapers) and other less important people, to the 'priority' line, where an overly helpful security guard along with a local woman, kept trying to shove me generously to the counter ahead of a waiting room stuffed full of disgruntled customers shifting uncomfortably in the ridiculous indoor heat. 'You are our guest!' they kept saying. I tried to communicate that as touched as I was by thier hospitality, I had no desire to be beaten by an angry mob for magically beaming myself to the front of the line with the special powers exhuded by my pale skin. You may be laughing at the thought of disgruntled bank customers taking to the streets to punish someone for the second grade offense of 'cutting in line', but truth-be-told, the angry mob is quite a popular trend in Nepal these days.

Currently, in the south of Nepal, or the Terai region, there is a banda, which is a strike that blocks all through traffic. The strike is caused by unmet demands from some Terai political parties of the Madesi people. These parties, which make up a fraction of the MANY parties in Nepal, have the unique advantage of controlling nearly all of the India/Nepal border. Although the strike is hours and hours from us in Kathmandu, the valley is strongly feeling it's effects. All the petrol, diesel, kerosene that Kathmandu depends on travels the highway from India through eastern Terai before heading to the city. Consequently there is an increasing state of emergency in Kathmandu. Along major roads, there are lines of cars miles long waiting for the small pockets of fuel that successfully make it through the banda (usually with army or police escorts) to Kathmandu. Unfortunately, those lines have moved very little in the past week. In them wait school busses and ambulances, which recieve no special treatment and so schools have been closing and hospitals conserving there fuel for emergencies only.

Along with the fuel shortage, there is electricity loadshedding. Due to lack of rain/snow in the Himalaya, Kathmandu, which relies on hydropower for its electricity, currently has 8 hours per day of no electricity and is forcasted to have as much as or more than 11 electricity-less hours per day by the time we leave in March. Until the monsoons return in summer, the loadshedding is likely to increase.

Being here and adapting to these changes is not hard for us. We realize that our hasty hot showers are a luxury. But how will we get used to Western society again? I think it will be a much larger culture shock than coming from New Zealand to Kathmandu! Back to our gas guzzling, petrol happy, air conditioned wonderland where people all own cars and often possess more than one car or television! That said, I still think we will be ready to be back to appreciate the vast possibilities of our luxurious and decadent country. And its not that Nepal doesnt have it's fair share of money rolling in. It survives as a country largely on foreign aid, but with a corrupt, confused and inefficient government, only a fraction of this foreign aid actually trickles down to those who need it.

But even in these times of crisis, we tourists are gives special treatment - and some actually still expect it, although there are many tourists who have no idea what is happening in the country in which they are travelling. We are still ushered past rooms of people waiting into the 'priority' lines and then ushered ahead again. It is hard to be a 'special guest' when we know and see the local reality, when we get glimpses behind the golden curtain of Thamel and see slums, beggars, a confused and unjust governement scrambling for footing. I think our time in the city is wearing on us! Tomorrow we leave on a local bus to make the 10 hour 'express' trip to Jiri. From there we hike the long, uncrowded, non-touristy route into the Everest region. It will be a refreshing change from the politics of Nepal that we are confronted with daily and hopefully some of the political and petrol problems will have solved themselves by the time we re-emerge as dirty, smelly, long-haired, dal bhaat eating trekkers.

Annapurna Panorama - Part 1

We were westbound. A line of ants. A procession of buses and taxis descending caravan-style out of the Kathmandu Valley and heading steeply down a roller coaster road following the rivers that escort the Prithivi Highway to Pokhara, the gateway to treks in the Annapurna region. It was about 3/4 of the way through our 8 hour trip when I felt the first rumblings in my stomach. In my rational denial I dismissed them as an unpleasant side effect of the pothole strewn, windy, steep Nepali roads. No such luck. I had my first case of travelers diarrhea (or what we affectionately call "Dal Butt" after the Nepali staple meal of dal bhaat - lentils and rice). Surprisingly, our four day wait for the little gut bug to stop wreaking havoc with my innards proved one of the best parts of our trip. For starters, Pokhara, with its misty lakeside location, is a much nicer place to wait out any sickness.

We walked the relatively uncrowded and unpolluted streets and were able to practice our Nepali and make some very worthwhile connections. On a toilet paper excursion, we a met a young boy named Sundaysh and were invited to stay for tea, which his mom produced in lovely glass mugs. We visited awhile, sitting on squat stools in the cool dark shop, talked about Nepal and America and played a bit of hackey sack (which, along with Badminton, people here are NUTS for!). We also by chance stumbled upon the Amrit Guesthouse, run by brothers Bednidhi, Bishro, and Purna Adhikari. During our stay in their brightly colored courtyard, we helped them to fine tune their recycling and composting program (the first we have seen in Nepal!) and to show their gratitude, Bednidhi invited us to dinner. Dinner with a Nepalese family is an honor and adventure in itself! The common meal of dal (lentils), bhaat (rice), saag (greens), and saucy curry is all eaten without utensils and with only the right hand (as the left hand in this mostly TP void society is used with water for bathroom detail!). I am sure Bednidhi and his wife enjoyed having us as mealtime entertainment as we struggled awkwardly to shovel the food into our mouths with one hand.

Finally, four days later than planned, we set out into the front range of the Annapurna for our first trek in Nepal. Our six day trip was amazing, taking us from the dusty streets and rice paddies of the lowlands to the superb snow capped mountains views of Ghorepani and through misty bamboo and rhododendron forests and terraced rice fields.

Our trek was an uber-refreshing mixture of climate, ecosystems, and culture. The dwarfing mountain sunrises and stunning panoramas were only a small part of our experience, the best parts being the little things that really gave our journey character! From the beginning, we shared the trail, leapfrogging with an extrordinary mother-daughter pair from Germany named Miriam and Lioba and their friend/guide Jangbu Sherpa. With them we found fabulous trail buddies and shared many laughs over hot lemon and masala tea. We also made a point to stop in the lonlier and enchanted places - off the "lonely planet trek" - sitting by the fire or huddling under down jackets beneath mossy cliffs or frozen streams,talking to the genuinely warm people of these harder to reach places. Stumbling upon a small stone cottage in the midst of a vast bamboo and rhododendron forest and arriving, cold and wet, to find laughter, friendly faces and hot tea was something even more valuable than the sunrise views of Annapurna.

It is hard to describe those fabulous six days. How can I possibly do justice to these moments? Things like discovering a fresh trail of leopard footprints as we broke trail in the snow of an icy gully, being surrounded by a flurry of large, white faced languor monkeys as they flew through the tree tops and munched rhododendron leaves, or sitting on squat stools in a fire lit Nepali kitchen, drinking potent mustang coffees (coffee, butter, sugar and local rice liquor) into the night, sharing jokes with our host Rupee and her sister Jamuna while she was elbow deep in rice batter frying up mountains of circular Nepali roti over an open fire.

We left Rupee's place on a crisp, sunny morning, plunging back down into the world of touts wanting inflated prices to drive us the 20 minutes back into Pokhara. Already, back in tourist comforts of Thamel, Kathmandu, I miss the simple beauty of the mountains. For now, we have a few weeks to enjoy the crazy chaos of the city, but I will be happy to return to the mountains once more before leaving Nepal.

Annapurna Panorama - Part 2

1- Sunrise on Machupuchare - The Fish Tail. 2- An impromptu Kathmandu marching band having a morning practice on the street near Chhetrapati. 3- Rupee cooking Nepali roti over an open fire. 4- Ulleri Panorama and Annapurna shrouded in clouds. 5- Andrea and Brian and the COLD sunrise at Poon Hill - Annapurna in the background. 6- A large cat track in fresh snow - probably leopard. 7- Brian and Bednithi working out the kinks of the compost system at Amrit Guesthouse. 8- Lioba, Andrea, Brian, Jangbu Sherpa, and Miriam before parting ways in Gandruk. 9- Cats in the sun and curry simmering in a Nepali kitchen. 10- The view from Rupees place in Deurali - guesthouses and mountains.