Toda Bom

Guest blog by Nick Coder

Walter Brown (aka Wally, World, Duck, Ducky, and most likely a few others) and I met Jon and Kristen for the final two weeks of their SA excursion. While Jon and Kristen were hoping to gain another perspective through which to view their life and their relationships, as well as each another, Wally and I were hoping to gain a few darker shades on our tan. I'm happy to report Mission Accomplished.

We started in Rio. Wally and I got in early Saturday July 15, with Jon and Kristen expected later that night. Without their guidance, Wally and I ended up eating dinner at the Irish Pub. We noticed a number of Indian and Mexican dishes on the menu. I thought it might be ironic to have Mexican food in the Irish pub in Brazil. So we had steak. Jon and Kristen met up with us and for the next few days, we took in all of the tourist sites in Rio (beaches, Christ the Reedemer, beaches, Sugarloaf, beaches, Maracana - the largest soccer stadium in the world, and beaches) and then headed to Paraty, a great beach town between Rio and Sao Paulo.

We started with a bike ride and hike, which led to this:

The following day, we hired a boat operator, who looked suspiciously like Vin Diesel, shown here:

We spent much of the boat tour on the top of the boat, which had a pillow-top deck shown here. Please note Wally in the background giving the Brazilian(/international?) sign for Life Ain't Bad. Also note Jon and Kristen working to put lunch together, while Wally and I do not:

Also seen on the pier at Paraty were Jimmy Buffett and Mark Gastineau. Apparently, Paraty is a big celebrity hideout.

From Paraty, we took a lovely 16 hour bus ride to Iguacu Falls. They are said to rival Niagara Falls and Victoria Falls. You can make your own judgement:

In addition to the Falls, there was a nice nature walk where wildlife was supposedly on display. We were greeted on the trail by this sign:

Clearly, the sign was referring to this:

From the Falls, we then took a 41 hour, 8 leg trip that ended up in Ilha Grande, an island off the coast of Rio. For those keeping score at home it went like this: Cab from Puerto Igassu, Argentina to Foz do Iguacu, Brazil; Bus from Foz to Curitiba; Train from Curitiba to Morretes (very scenic - we took probably 60 pics. Draw your own conclusions based on the fact that none of the pics made the blog); bus from Morretes back to Curitiba; bus from Curitiba to Sao Paulo; bus from Sao Paulo to Rio; bus from Rio to Mangaratiba; and finally ferry to Ilha Grande. After all of that, all we really wanted to do was this:

But after we arrived at the beach, it was all worth it......

All in all, an excellent trip.

We´re Engaged!!!!



4 months of travel in South America has taught Jon and I many important lessons. However, 4 months of spending every minute together, and being the only support system and sense of home for each other, has helped us come to the most important decision of all: we want to spend the rest of our lives together!

We are still riding high from our engagement on the beaches of Brazil. Jon proposed on a deserted stretch of beach in a small northern beach town called Praia de Pipa. We had gone up to the famed Northern beaches of Brazil for just a few days to soak in the sunlight. We were staying in a private thatched roof cabin in the sand, which had a hammock on the porch overlooking the ocean....not bad considering the state of our accomodations for the majority of our trip!! I had some idea that the engagement was coming (read on...) so jon had a tough job of surprising me. Our second day in Pipa, after spending the morning paddling kayaks with the dolphins, we decided to explore an immense and rocky stretch of deserted beach past all of the hotels, hostels, and restaurants. We were in our bathing suits and had been in and out of the water all morning, so when jon got down on his knee and proposed in the middle of our walk down the beach, I was VERY surprised to say the least. We celebrated with a bottle of Champaigne on our hammocked porch and then a delicious dinner of fresh fish in an oceanside restaurant.

Jon had begun to think about how to craft a proposal in Brazil a few months back, and had researched a small town in Brazil called Ouro Preto that is famous for its gemstone mines. After racking his brain to try to think about how to get there and buy a ring without me knowing, he gave up and decided he would have to include me in the process. So, together we made the 10 hour busride from Sao Paulo to the little colonial town of Ouro Preto. We spent two days looking at stones and talking to different jewelers about what we wanted our ring to look like. By the second day of our searching, we knew that we wanted an imperial topaz center stone (this is only mined in Ouro Preto) and two diamond side stones. We found an amazing jeweler to design and create the ring--she was very excited to be participating in our engagement and had her daughter drive the diamonds up from a nearby town. I did not get to see the finished product until the proposal, but the ring turned out beautifully, and it will always remind us of our world traveling adventures--the beaches of Australia, where we met, those of Brazil where we were engaged, and the many places in between where we have strengthened and deepened our love.

We are still feeling like every day is a celebration, but are looking forward to catching up in person and sharing our excitement upon our imminent return!!

Ouro Preto-- Macchu Picchu



This morning Jon and I are doing some catching up on internet etc. before leaving the colonial mining town of Ouro Preto (black gold in Portugese) for Belehorizonte. We enjoyed the slow pace and quaint cobblestoned streets of Ouro Preto, although we did not tour the gold and gem mines, which is the thing to do here. Our struggles with Portugese are still comical. We hadn't realized how effective we had become at communicating in Spanish until we arrived in Brazil, where we can't communicate at all!! We can't even seem to remember the word for Hello! Jon is really good at throwing out spanish in what he thinks sounds like a Portugese accent--it works about 10% of the time to communicate, but is hilarious 100% of the time, so it seems like a good strategy. The most important phrase we've learned: no fala Portugese--I don't speak Portugese!

Here are the rest of MP pics:


There she is at sunrise!! The destination of our journey!
The crew at sunrise overlooking the peach
Just one of the magnificent views we reached along the trail. We are higher than the clouds!!Dan with Llama--no explanation necessary.

The view behind is is the what we saw as we reached the highest point on the trail at 4300 meters. Not bad--we were pretty excited to reach the top on day 2 after hiking uphill for four or five hours!!
The crew at the top of the second peak on day two. After going up to 4300 meters, we went back down to 3600, then back up 600 meters!! Who designed this road?? According to our guide, Speedy, the original Inca trail did not go down into the valley and then back up--of course, they went straight across on a different road. It wasn't until tourists ruined the original trail that it had to be re-routed!! Serves us tourists right, I guess.

Machu Picchu Pictures--starring Brad Johnson, Christine Brown, Jon Ferris, Kristen Burton, Speedy Gonzoles, and one unidentified Inca Trail Bandit.

The first day everyone arrived in Cuzco, we went horseback riding and spelunking. Although the pics weren´t great, because everyone was on horseback, in the first pic, you can get an idea of who had the piggy horses. Christine and Dan´s horses are already chomping on grass before everyone is even ON!! We also shared the landscape on our ride with various barnyard animals--cows, llamas, sheep, etc.

This is a pic of the sunrise as Jon waited for the rest of the group to arrive from his hiding spot along the trail the first day.

These kids played with us as we ate lunch on the first day.

The first ruins we saw along the trail--there are many ruins before Macchu Picchu Jon´s view on his walk the second morning

Campsite, night one.

Ran out of room for pics!! Will do day 2-4 next time:)

Departing the Andes (and the comforts of Español)

As we write this entry, Jon and I are awaiting the take-off of our flight from Quito, Ecuador to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where we will begin our exploration of the South American country famous for its beaches, its beach attire, football, dancing and parties, and unfortunately, Portugese!!

Our last ten days in Ecuador have been the perfect end to the past two months we have spent exploring the Andes of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. After the Ferris family left, we traveled just a few hours north of Quito to Otavalo, the town famous for "the biggest markets in South America." Although we cannot claim to have seen all the markets in SA, these were certainly many times larger than any others that we have visited. We began the morning at the livestock market, where we saw cows, pigs (really, really, really, big ones), sheep, and horses being sold and loaded into trucks or led off on foot to their new homes. As a Delaware native, I am closely familiar with livestock, and my family was visited by the occasional loose pig running through our yard when I was growing up. The pigs in this market were much bigger, uglier, and louder than any other I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. They were black, rather than pink, with course hair, and the weirdest scrunched up noses--they looked like they used to have a long snout, but had run into a few too many walls.

After the livestock market, we moved on to the main part, which consisted of thousands of stalls lining the streets of the town. There was a produce section-- where we bought pineapple rounds on sticks (like a pineapple lolipop)-- a cooked food section-- where you could buy meat cut off a whole pig that had been dropped in a very big deep fat fryer (it still had it's teeth!)-- an artisan section--where we managed to refill all the space in our bags that we had freed by sending things home with Jon's mom and dad--and, of course, the everything else market--where you could buy anything from baby shoes to bras to a VHS player.

The best part about Otavalo, though, was the hostel where we stayed. It was an hour walk from the town, through the local farms and up into the foothills. The views from the hammocks on the porch (yep, that's right) were amazing, as was the fireplace we had in our room (all for the bargain price of 9 dollars a night)!! Both made for great relaxation after doing some of the dayhiking in the area. On Sunday we walked up to three lakes formed by volcanic craters with a Kiwi couple--we had a great time, despite the fact that after 4 hours of walking, we never found the 3rd lake!!

Although we had planned to return to Quito for Spanish school after a long weekend in Otavalo, we enjoyed our return to the Andes so much that we decided to spend our last week in Ecuador at a different Ecolodge in the mountains called the Black Sheep. So, Monday morning we left Otavalo for the long trek (8 hours of car-bus-bus)to the town of Chugchilan, population 100, and home to the Black Sheep Inn. The last bus ride we took to get to Chugchilan was 4+ hours....and 60+ miles. Uhhhhh, nurse? It was very uphill, and very unpaved--road would be a loose term for the surface upon which we were traveling!! But, we found the destination to be well worth the trip--to keep you coming back, I will save the details of our week there for the next entry--I know, the suspense may kill you:)

So, after 10 days in the mountains of Ecuador, we are leaving the spanish speaking mountain nations of South America. Exploring the Andes and the language of Español have been two of our favorite parts of the trip so far, but although we are sad to be leaving, we are looking forward Brazil. Upon landing tomorrow, my Brazilian friend Bruno, who was an exchange student at my high school, is taking us to the beach to watch Brazil play in the Quarter-finals of the World Cup--this should be an explosive start to an amazing trip through the cities and beaches of Brazil.

We will update the blog soon with Black Sheep stories, and stories from the game--we may have to purchase Brazil shirts in the airport so we fit in--although, Brazil fans probably paint their bodies or do something much more extravagant than just wearing a jersey....we'll let you know:)

Gooooo Brazil!!!

Love,
Jon and Kristen

PS Sadly, although we have old pics that we will be posting very soon, new pics will be few and far between due to some technical difficulties experienced on the city streets of Quito (a VERY sneaky theif managed to take our camera from our bag without us even knowing it)!! The day the camera was stolen, we had downloaded over 500 pics saved on its memory card onto a CD--so, although we were upset, we felt like it was the luckiest robbery EVER!

"The Ferris Family Explores the Equator"
Quito, the Galapagos Islands, the Rain Forrest, and Setback

Just as essential supplies started to run out in the Southern of the Americas, the Ferris family arrived to fortify our toiletries, our bodies, and our hearts with the familiar comforts of home!! On June 10, Jon´s brother Pete, his wife Tammy, and Jon´s parents Anne and Mike arrived in Quito, Ecuador for the family vacation and a much needed visit all rolled into one. Jon, his younger brother Daniel(who had been traveling with us for a month), and I met the rest of the family at the airport--jon and dan were sporting the famous ecuadorian hat called the Panama hat (really, this is no joke, go figure) and island shirts in an attempt to begin the family vacation with a little flash.

Jon, Dan, and I started the trip a day earlier than everyone else by checking into the Marriott in Quito. After three months of Hostals that often were just barely scraping by the line of adequate, we were like kids on Christmas morning checking into a hotel/resort with much missed items like predictable hot showers WITH water pressure, clean pillows and toilets that you can put toilet paper in! The best surprise didn´t come until that night though, when we got turn down service in our rooms with free AMAZING chocolates (every night after we found the turndown cart and helped ourselves to some extra chocolates).

The morning after everyone arrived, we traveled just 40 minutes outside the city of Quito to the official equator line. Interestingly, there are two equator lines within 400 meters of one another in this particular location. The French mistakenly drew the line in the wrong place when they were initially exploring, and it remained there until the advent of GPS, when it was moved to its correct location 400 meters away. We started at the real equator line, where we learned that toilets DO flush the opposite way in the Southern Hemisphere. We also can now say that we experienced winter and summer at the same time, with a foot in each hemisphere. If you look carefully at the pic below, you can see that Mike, Anne, Dan, and Peter are in the middle of summer, while Jon, Kristen, and Tammy are stuck in Winter.


The day after our visit to the middle of the earth, we left the haven of the Marriott early for our flight to the birthplace of the theory of evolution, the Galapagos Islands. Despite the fact that flight schedules seemed to operate on island time, our travels were uneventful. We were tramping through snoozing sea lions to board our boat, Santa Cruz, which was to be our home for the next week, by mid-afternoon. That afternoon, we disembarked via pangas (spanish word for Dingy) to visit an island that was home to the closest thing i´ve ever seen to a dinosaur--pictures below. There were two different kinds of lizards on this island, and many other islands in the galapagos. The first has adapted a very good disguise for his home on the lava rocks. The one in the pic is crawling up from a swim to find a rock to sun on. Their body temp drops as much as 20 degrees during their swims!

Day two in the Galapagos we hiked to a lookout--the view in the pic does not quite capture what we saw. The landscape behind us looked like what you might find if you dropped the Carribean ocean onto the moon--an arid volcanic landscape surrounded by vivid blue waters. All of the islands were formed by volcanoes, but they are so old that the land formed by active volcanoes has actually moved from the geologic hotspot that spurred the initial eruptions. All the species indemic to the islands (there and nowhere else) floated there over a million years ago (on the boats they built...haha) and began to adapt to their new environments, which is what made it such an interesting place for Darwin who arrived to find species like those in Ecuador and South America but not quite the same.... After finishing the morning snorkeling among the creatures of the sea like sea lions, giant parrot fish, skates and...Tammy saw a Shark, we spent the afternoon hiking around on the volcanic rocks on a new island (as you may have noticed, none of us can remember any of the names of the islands!). In addition to more sea lions and lizards, on this island we found Darwin´s toilet--a giant hole in the volcanic rock where cool critter like giant sea tortoises like to hang out---cooool. The evening of day two we began a tradition which changed the future of free moments on our trip--we began an epic tournament of the Ferris family favorite card game, setback.



Day three was a day for the birds.....we visited an island that was home to the guys below. The first is the freakin´ friggit, who is a pirate bird, living by swooping in and stealing the food of other birds as they regurgitate--yummy!! And, the second little guy was the instigator of one of most exciting moments of the trip--Dan was able to finally see his very first booby.....thanks to the red footed one inhabiting the island! In other exciting moments, during lunch of this afternoon, the captain called everyone to the windows of the dining room to look out to see something amazing--he then announced that if you looked at the bottom of the ocean you could see the equator line painted in red, as we were passing over it as he spoke. Of course, none of us fell for it....

Day four we met the namesake of the Galapagos Islands, the Galapagos Tortoise. The hombres of this species weigh up to 500 lbs. and live for 150-200 years!! They are so big and have such a slow metabolism that it takes them a month to move 8 miles (although they really prefer not to move at all). Talk about obesity issues.

After returning from the Galapagos, we traveled 3 very curvy hours by car to a resort in the rain forrest. The highlight of this two day trip was a hike to the waterfall below. On the way we saw cacao trees, coffee trees, banana trees, sugar cane, and all sorts of unique flowers like birds of paradise. After swimming in the waterfall (and in the cave underneath it with bats) we returned to the resort to make sugarcan juice from the sugar cane and lemons we had picked AND chocolate from the cacao beans (which we put over fresh bananas--mmmm). The chocolate was almost as good as the marriott chocolate! Unfortunately for Jon and I, the local rum was all you can drink at the resort where were staying. We have become such bargain hunters on the trip that the last night at the resort we felt incredibly pressured to make the most of our money. This made for an uncomfortable curvy trip back to Quito the next day.

Through the car rides, the boobies, the toilets (the Marriott´s and Darwin´s), the freakin´ friggits, and the card games, we shared a lot of laughs and learned many incredible things about the world in which we live. Although you may not have to go all the way to the middle of the earth for an experience like ours, it certainly wasn´t a bad place to have a family vacation!!

"Going dark" on the Inca Trail

Just getting off the 4 day hike to Machu Picchu, via the fabled Inca trail. Bradley and Christine, and Danuders came down to join us for this trip. All was perfect, except for the fact that they "forgot" to make Daniel´s reservations onto the trail (booked 4 months prior, and impossible to get once they the realized mistake).

They told us there was one solution to the problem: They could sneak me through the control checkpoints in the cover of darkness. I decided it was better that I go covert and let Daniel use my reservation because if I let anything happen to him, I knew I would have some explaining to do to Mom and Dad

The following adventure ensued...

Monday morning, 1:30 AM:
Two Peruvian men, Rafy and Chino, pick me up and we drive 1.5 hrs to the entrance to the clandestine trail head. Along the way, we talk politics and the upcoming Peruvian election. Both guys are strong supporters of the far-left socialist candidate, and articulate intelligent reasons why they believe Peruvians have the right to profit from the nationalisation of oil production.

When the conversation turns to American politics, it becomes clear that their distaste for Bush and American policy is strong ( this is commonplace across the majority of South America). When asked my opinion, I decide that agreeing with them is in the best interest of my safety, as I am about to venture into the darkness with these strangers in less than one hour. A bad thing to say here would have been "You know, I think American world domination is really in Peru´s best interest." Instead, I went with "Ya, Bush is a loser."

3am: Arrive at rickety footbridge to cross the river. Our driver Rafy announces, "Here is where I turn around. You two are going to walk 1.5 hours until you hit the Control checkpoint. When you get within a 2Kms, turn off your flashlight and walk slowly and quietly. Everyone should be sleeeping. Facil, no problema."

3:05am: Five minutes in, Chino tells me to turn off my flashlight, it is too bright. For reference, my flashlight is about as bright as an indiglo watch. I started to get a bit nervous, as we are walking along a rig line, with a loud river roaring a few stories below. Trail is about 2 feet wide.


3:20am: Following conversation ensues...
me: "So Chino, how many years you been working for the company?"
Chino: "First day, I don´t actually work for them...just tonight¨"

I consider asking him if he has ever walked this trail before, but decide I dont really want to know the answer. (I find out later the next day that he was a friend of our guide. The guide was worried about him showing up for our mission, as he had been out at the bars chasing woman pre-1:30am. If I had known this, I think I would have felt more comfortable holding the lone flashlight)

3:50am: Chino whispers, "From here, we go dark." I immediately start having flashbacks to childhood, when we used to paint our faces with green and black paint, and play Army in Calvin and Ben May´s back yard. Only problem this time, is that instead of Johnny Cance blasting me from behind a bush with a squirt gun, I am worried it is going to be a Peruvian soldier with a sawed off shot gun.

4am: Been dark for 10 minutes. Tripped a couple times, but happy to have not yet fallen into the below river. Chino describes the moment, whispering, "We are like mexicans trying to cross the border to the US." I laugh, nervously

4:15ish: We can see the light from the control tower. We both know that conversation is over for the next 15 minutes. We inch forward until we are only meters away. All we can hear is our breath and our hearts beating...until suddenly, what sounds like a large dog starts barking. We keep walking, Dog sounds like it is getting closer. Suddenly, the whole "mexicans crossing the border" joke isn´t so funny.

4:25: We evade the dog, find a hole in the barbed wire fence, and take our first steps on the controled side of the Inca trail. Once my breathing slows down, I realized I am smelling some fresh poop. Pretty sure I probably stepped in the horse variety, but quietly wondered if I had a little accident in my pants.

4:45: Chino and I arrive at our previously agreed upon spot on the Inca trail to rejoin the group later that morning. We find a grassy spot outside a farmers hut, put down a plastic pancho, and try to sleep despite the near-freezing temperatures. I want to cuddle for warmth, but decide that would be awkward. An hour later, we watched the sun rise over the moutains and valley. Decided it was all worth it.

10am: Meet up with Kristen, Daniel, Christine, and Brad. Machu Picchu, here we come!

Pictures from the trail and and Machu Picchu coming next post...

From the shores of Lago Titicaca:

Hola all. we have just finished three weeks of language school in Cusco. Tomorrow Daniel, Brad, and Christine land in Cusco for a trip to Manchu Picchu and more days of fun. We are running behind on timeline of pictures, but flashing back to Dateline End-of-April, here are some pictures posted from Lake Titicaca (on the Border between Bolivia and Peru).

We started our Lake Titicaca tour, spending a night on the shores of Isla de Sol, the birthplace of the sun, according to the Inca legends. The above picture is our lunch spot--a traditional meal of lake Trout on the grill. After lunch we were planning on finding this "birthplace of the sun", but after a beer and a full stomach, we decided it was time for a nap. Our hostal could not offer us electricty, heat, or running water, but they did have lots of blankets and cost us about $3 for the night. Given the compassion of the Señora of the house, we were more satisfied.
In the above picture, Kristen is still searching for the birthplace of the sun. Turns out, we never really found it. We saw lots of Donkeys, Llamas, and sheep, but no evidence of UV rays being born. Next time...
Our last stop in Bolivia was a little town on the shores of the lake called Copacabana (above). We ended up staying here a couple more days then planned, due to an inpromptu transportation strike. We were upset for five minutes before realizing there are worse places to be stuck. If you look closely, you can see our hotel!! It is the giant pink one on the waterfront on the far right--we used our stellar spanish here to bargain for a nightly rate of $7.00, including breakfast. See below of for the view from our window.

The man below is one of the inhabitants of the Uros islands, a string of floating islands in Lake Titicaca, made out of lake reeds. There are close to 40 islands that were constructed years and years ago by the ancestors of the current inhabitants who were trying to escape wars on the mainlands. The entire culture of the islands centers around the reed plant--their islands are made of them, their boats are clearly made of them, they make their houses from them, and yes, they even EAT them!! (they kinda tastes like celery). Unfortunately we didnt get any good pictures of the islands themselves. We did, however, meet a Catholic priest on our trip to the islands from Tressie´s home of Effingham, IL and he knew of her family--what a small world.

As the sun set on Lake Titicaca, we realized we are not destined to see water again until the northern beaches of Peru. Dont feel too bad for suffering traveler, beaches are only two weeks away.

Hasta Luego,

Your now fluent spanish amigos