Costa Rica

Hey Yonki Fans out there,

I just want to let you all know that I arrived in San Jose today, safely and a little bit wet. Next stop is Nicaragua!

Pictures!

Hey everyone,

I finally got around to posting the pictures that our good buddy Dan took for us from Mindo and Colombia. Eventually I´ll post the ones from the salt cathedral.

www.photobucket.com/ayonki

ENJOY!

Bogota!

I´m in a small village right now called Zapiquirá (I think, I´ll get back to y´all on that one) where the main attraction is a salt cathedral. Yes, a salt cathedral. What they did was dig a whole cathedral into the mountain that was and still is the source of quite the salt mine. It sounds odd, but once the pictures come up (FROM MY NEW CAMERA!!!), you´ll see why it´s so friggin´cool.

So, Bogotá is a huge city, the biggest I´ve been in since we´ve been traveling. 7.5 million people, it´s basically the same size as New York City. And so much of it makes me think I´m actually in New York. First of all, there´s a pizza place that serves pizza (vegetarian friendly, for once) by the slice, and it´s cheap as hell. Second of all, something about the streets, especially the other day when we were looking around for stores. Also, there´s a wicked public transit system that works quite well (though not an underground subway). there´s also a cool bar that makes it´s own (GOOD!!) beer. Yeah, i know, I haven´t had good beer since Guatemala.

Speaking of Guatemala, it´s almost time for me to go back. And for Michelle, it is time for her to go back to Guatemala. I leave Colombia on Tuesday, and will be traveling up to Guatemala by buses and staying in hostels like I did on the way down. This will be an experiment in Yonki Travels on his Own. It may sound scary to many of you, but honestly, since I´ve done it the other way, it shouldn´t be too much of an issue. Besides, there is always the possibility of travel buddies you meet on the road.

Next trip- OSTRICH FARMMMMM!!!!

Medellin (Pronounced Med-a-yeen, not like Magellin with a D)

Heyo everybody,

I'm currently in Medellin, Colombia, formerly the drug trafficking capital of the world, but that lost its title after the impressive execution of Pablo Escobar. For those who don't know, it took an elite team of 1500 men 499 days to find the bastard and they gunned him down like whoa back in 1993....

ANYWAY, let's talk about Colombia (who lots its title of Kidnapping Capital of the World to Iraq in 2005 or something like that).

We peaced out of Ecuador the night after their new constitution passed, which happened the night me and Dan got back from Mindo.

Have I spoken about Mindo yet? It was really cool, it's a cloud forest about 2 hours from Quito, lots of cool nature stuff to do. Me and Dan got soaking wet walking to and from the many waterfalls that were there. In order to access the waterfalls, we took this hair raising journey across the 530 meter cable car, over a gulch about a few hundred feet deep. When I get time to skank my pictures from Dan, those will be posted. Anyway, fun times, and a moth the size of a bat at dinner.

So, onward to Colombia. We took the 5am bus from Quito to the border town of Tulcan, crossed the border in a surprisingly painless fashion, and hopped on the bus to Popayan , the first town of any actual substance after the Ecuadorian border. We got there late at night and stayed in a hotel, and peaced out the next morning for Cali. It was a long ride, but we got there in the afternoon. Cali was really cool, kind of reminded me, weather-wise, of somewhere in Florida. We basically took those few days to relax and just sit out on the hammocks listening to music. Also, as much as I didn't like Aguardiente in Ecuador, the Colombian aguardiente is especially nasty, thanks to its licorice-like flavour.

After Cali, we headed over here, to Medellin. Medellin is quite the city. They have this subway system that is gigantic and ultramodern and clean. Quite nice.

The people in Medellin, and I think Colombia in general, are a little odd. They're very nice...VERY nice...TOO FREAKIN' NICE. To the point that it's a combination of rude, inconsiderate, and condescending.

ITEM- Michelle and I get arepas at this panaderia, and the lady sitting in the table next to us first of all starts cracking up at watching Michelle cut the arepa, and then proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes of her and our lives trying to teach her how to cut the arepa the correct Colombian way...please, it's a freakin' arepa. There's no wrong way to cut it as long as it gets cut.

ITEM- The hostal we're staying at, we can't tell if it's a hostal (there aren't really too many travelers), a halfway house (lots of older transient Colombians) or a drug den (lots of hyperactive, older transient Colombians). The people are very nice, and were really nice about taking care of Dan (somehow he contracted a similar stomach infection as Michelle did and spent most of the other night hugging porcelain), but it got to the point at the 9th person that entered the room to pet him and make sure he was okay.

ITEM- Being woken up like, 12 times in the morning by people coming in and out of the room and having casual conversation in their normal (LOUD even by my standards) voices, leaving the door open to let the light flood in (when we haven't really slept thanks to an older transient Colombian's extreme snoring), or running the water in the adjacent bathroom at full blast with the door wide open.

ITEM- They just have too much friggin' energy and I don't drink enough coffee to deal with it.

Anyway, we're bound for Bogota once Dan gets better, which will hopefully be soon. From there, Michelle is headed straight for a volunteer position in Xela, and I will by not too far behind. I start off in Costa Rica on the 14th, and aim to be in Guatemala on or before Halloween. That will hopefully be an interesting experience. But maybe not as much as the ostrich farm outside of Bogota....


STAY TUNEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD (Cue lame ass music...)

FINALLY I know some shit!

So, after nearly a month of trying to figure out our next move, things have finally ordered themselves out, and I know what my destination is. Michelle and I are going to Guatemala by way of Bogota, Colombia, in order to do some more volunteer work in Xela.

Getting to this point was a pain in the ass.

First of all, let´s talk about Yanapuma, as it was them who put us in this mess in the first place.

First of all, the visa issue, which is the reason we have to leave. Apparently, Ecuador, in a fantastic showing of governmental bureaucracy, made an unannounced yet still official policy change where one could only come in on a tourist visa, stay for 90 days, and not return to the country for another 6 months. We found this out through someone at Yanapuma who found out through a friend. Gotta love unannounced policy changes.

Then comes their promise that they would be able to get us visa extensions, as we were volunteers doing good things within their country. Yay for decisions and positivity!

NOPE. We found out that Steve, while he did have a meeting, was told A) That he could only get visas for current Yanapuma volunteers. Since we have terminated our Yanapuma volunteering, we couldn´t get them through that. Not to mention, a visa application is $30, plus $180 more if the visa is granted. And we wouldn´t find out for two weeks. I love Quito, but I can´t cock around Ecuador for 2 weeks just to wait on a visa. There´s so many other things I could be doing. But, now that we have that information, we have decided to peace out of Ecuador, not like we had the choice...

NEXT on the chopping block are the assholes at TACA airlines. We got dicked over by them when we were flying from Costa Rica to South America. Somehow these people managed to overbook the flight by about 20odd people. How do you do that? So we get bumped and rerouted to Quito via Bogota, where it was 1.50 for 15 minutes of internet that we HAD to use to call Yanapuma and tell them what happened. We thought it was all worth it, however, because we thought we had a voucher worth enough for a free flight.

SUCK IT, they told us, when we went in to talk about it. Despite assurances from not only the ticket agent at the SJO airport (who spoke ENGLISH as a native language, mind you) but other folks associated with the airline that it was enough for a free flight, it alas is worth a mere $150. TACA, unfortunately, like everything else associated with Costa Rica, is quite expensive. However, with that voucher, we can legitimately get back to Central America from South America. The positive side of this (negative if you believe everything the State Department tells you) is that we get to go to Colombia! We´ve both kind of felt like schmucks for not going to Colombia, especially after hearing everyone we´ve met rave about how awesome it is. So, we are waiting to leave Ecuador after their vote for the new constitution. After that, we´re heading to Colombia, to Costa Rica by plane, and from there to Guatemala by bus, and we´ll be volunteering there and living with a family until probably mid December.

Which brings us to now. We spent yesterday and today in Latacunga, about two hours south of Quito, at the Mama Negra festival. Basically it consisted of men dressed up as black women, bands, people handing out shots of liquor, and dancing in the streets. Our buddy Dan met us there and a good time was had by all. TOmorrow hopefully we´re going to Mindo. HOpefully it´´ll be fun.

Some things

So, a few things have happened in the past few days. The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that I was mugged on Friday afternoon walking through Old Town Quito. I only had $20 on me, but I also had the camera, and he took that. Prick. I am okay though, and that is the most important part. It sucks also because I took some bad ass pictures, namely from the hair raising tower of the Basilica del Voto Nacional. What a cool building that is, it´s fairly new as well. Climbing the tower though....WHOA. SCARY, but the view was SO worth it. Unfortunately, no pictures to prove it.

On Saturday morning, I woke up really early to take a bus to meet up with Michelle and Dan...they had traveled to the Quiloto loop, and I stayed behind so none of us get sick of each other. Anyway, that ride was awesome, and I met up with them at Lago de Quilotoa. 3850 meters above sea level...it was cold but the setting was amazing!!! We were in the Andes, in the truest sense of the phrase, surrounded by the mountains, Quichoa speaking indigenous people, Alpacas, sheep and Llamas. AMAZING.

Now I would like to talk about the lake. We walked down into the crater and it took about half an hour. The lake is a shiny green body of caustic (Dan checked) water that neither comes nor goes. It was a VERY long hike up, especially when you take into effect the elevation and the temperature. I picked up a few woollen things to keep warm up there.

When we got back, we struck off for Santo Domingo and Bua because we wanted to say a final goodbye and so Dan could see what we did. We arrived little before 8pm, had some dinner, and woke up early the next morning. We went to the school, and, during a meeting with the teachers, I was presented with a tsa´chila kilt as a token of appreciation for the work we did. I also helped a group of engineers move rocks. That was fun, though my arms hurt like hell afterwards.

After a quick lunch of fruit salad and a bolon de queso, we struck off for Quito...and were held up for almost an hour due to a really bad car accident. We also watched two of the worst movies I´ve ever seen...

We are currently back in Quito, anticipating our next move. The next big update will come after we know said next step. Stay tuned!!!!

WORLD CUP!!!

Also! We went to the Ecuador v. Bolivia World Cup Qualifier match! There´s pictures in its own section in the Ecuadormant album if you want ot see them!