CRATER LAKES OF FIRE

THIS IS THE WAY THE JOURNEY ENDS, NOT WITH A BANG BUT…

WITH A MAGICAL CRATER LAKE AND ROILING LAKE OF LAVA FIRE

From Leon we all piled in the trusty VW, and headed south. Princess Fluffy, Adventure Dog, literally sat on top of us in the back. Or over us. Or behind us. She basically took over the van. lol.

 



We cruised past volcanos and rivers and the Wal Mart. (Yep. In the capital, they indeed have a Wal Mart.  Not going to lie… I kinda wanted to stop just to see how it was the same or different). There were Black Friday ads everywhere. After all… today is

THANKSGIVING!

And I am tremendously thankful to be on a trip like this, with great friends, seeing all the amazing things the world has to offer. I’m grateful. I’m humbled. I’m happy. Thank you life and the world for all of this.

We head up and over the rim of Laguna De Apoyo… a magical crater lake. We went to the camping area on the shores, as rain came in. We got our suits on and ran down to the water to swim with beer in hand. (I am with German’s remember! lol)  It was really incredible to be there. It was maybe 3-5 kilometers across. You could see the mountains all around, and a volcano in the distance. We swam, cooked lunch, played with the local dogs that all came to say hi.

 

 
And we played NINJA.  Which is this hilarious game were everyone is a Ninja trying to chop of the arms of everyone else. But you can only make single moves, and they can make single moves in defense. It’s easier to show, but it’s really really funny.

Then head to Hostel Paridiso
And for $9/night had a dorm bed on the shores of the lake at a place with kayaks, a floating dock, beach chairs, amazing food. Sweet.

As we were walking over to the hostel I said “I give it about a 65% chance we’ll see some travelers we’ve met before on this trip.”  We walk to check in, and literally EVERYONE from the shuttle and the party last night was there. Like 10 of them or more. lol.  Ahhh traveling! Awesome! And everyone of them is a solo traveler and they’ve all just teamed up fora little while on their journeys.

So our crew (Officially called the International Ninjas, by the way).
We met 2 more Germans (lol) and played Cards against Humanity. (As you do in Nicaragua).
And since it was Thanksgiving I naturally ordered… Chicken Cordon Bleu.
(They don’t have any turkey). It was hand made and really really good.

Trivia night fun! We teamed up with everyone there and had some trivia fun. My team won! A bottle of RUM! As you do down here.
The trivia also was to help raise money for students at the school. An extra $20 can help them with supplies or uniforms. It’s crazy, but a lot of them can’t even afford the pennies a day to get to school. I thought I might be able to help some, so I donated enough for a full years tuition for a student. I’d love for all this travel to have a positive impact on the places I go, and not just be about having a great adventure in a great place with great people. Hopefully that helps. I like to think it will. :)

THE GRAND FINALE

Originally we were going to push on to other places and other cities and I just suggested that we don’t. Let’s stay here. Let’s enjoy this lake and the swimming and everything, and the Ninja’s whole heartedly agreed. See, they are on a MUCH longer trip (2-3 months for Franzi and Stefi, and who the hell knows how long for Hannah and Fabian), so the pace they move is significantly slower normally than what they have been doing because I’ve been here. It is true, on the trips where I’ve had 6 weeks instead of 2, it is easier to dive into a place a little deeper. Spend an extra day or three. It’s nice.

So that’s what we did here.

A day of morning swims, kayak out into the lake, picking up floating rocks (?). Yep.
Why not? lol.
We floated on inter tubes.
Had great food.
Kayak races.
Great conversation.
Slack lining.
We tried to do volleyball, but the ball was so flat it was hard.
Still, we hit it around in the water and random folks joined us.
The temp was perfect.
The water was perfect.
The place was perfect.

(A reminder, this was $9 a night. Or $25 for a double…. and it’s as bad ass and wonderful a place as you can find. The food was $4-$8 a meal… and wonderfully tasty. And the drinks were $1.50. So the next time the thought “man, travel is expensive” crosses your mind… it doesn’t have to be. There are ways to go places, amazing places, that don’t cost much at all :)




A LAKE OF FIRE

Franzi, Stuff and I took a shuttle with some other folks to Volcan Masaya… an active Volcano about 10km away. It’s a national park. You go in at sunset. You go through the museum in a whirlwind with the guide who explains all the volcanos in the area (almost 30). All in a straight line from Mexico through Nicaragua. The newest started erupting 150 years ago. You can volcano board down it.
This particular volcano is one of 6 in the entire world where you can see a BOILING, ROILING LAKE OF FIRE!

HELL YEAH! (Irony noted! lol)

So we go up to the crater rim and you have 20 minutes to look down 200 meters (600 feet) to the boiling heart of the earth. And with my zoom camera, I could really zoom in close and see the lave and magma just roaring and churrning. It was 200 meters down… but still amazing. If you were really quiet you could hear it too. Roaring. Rumbling.

That's 200 meters (600 feet) down down down

 

It still blows my mind that this is happening under our feet (sometimes WAY under our feet) everywhere. It’s the planet we live on. It’s alive. Not just on the surface, but deep inside. Churning. Building up. Sometimes blowing up. I’ve seen lava before, and am so happy I have. It’s amazing! And to think a lake of lava like this can only be seen in 6 places on the planet… wow. And it just started here 3 years ago. Seriously. The lake wasn’t visible until 3 years ago! The planet is changing and building and breaking down. Fascinating.

The planet is alive.
Inside and out.
All we have to do is look around, breathe it in, and remember what a blessing and gift this wonderful, amazing, magical planet is. Let’s take care of it. It’s everything we have. If it goes away… so do we.

You don’t have to travel to the ends of the earth. Just step outside. Look at the trees. Check out that amazing sunrise or sunset. Hear the ocean waves. Climb a mountain. Get close to the sky. See those birds flying… there is magic all around us.

And I’m thankful everyday for all of it.


This is Craig Ouellette,
last surviving member of the Nostromo
Signing off. (until the next one!)

****Unfortunately I couldn't get the video to upload here. So for now, no video. But maybe in the future.

Here's a video of the lake of fire! Hopefully it looks cool on the blog. Keep in mind it was handheld at 200 meters zoomed in 72x. Enjoy!

I’M GOING BACK TO BALI

 May 9, 2013

For the finale of Indonesia it's time to return to where it began: Bali.

But first some scuba diving in Komodo National Park. Supposedly some of the best in the world, and I can tell you that it's really great. The coral was perfect. The fish innumerable. And we had turtles swim withing a meter of us. I just watched the dude and he was checking me out as he cruised by. Now the currents are really strong here, so you really have to pay attention to your guide, and when he says to stop and turn around, you best do it. Or you'll be pushed down into the deep.

On the second dive it was a drift dive along this coral wall. And I have never been on a ride like this. The current is so strong we were FLYING over the coral. There was no way to slow down and if you drifted away from the wall you got pushed along even faster. It was pretty wild.

To leave Flores Island we took a flight. It was a propeller plane, that was actually pretty good sized. Maybe 45 passengers. A/C. Comfy seats. Much more elaborate than I thought it would be. The airport in Labuan Bajo is an old cinderblock building, but it fortunately had an air conditioning unit which we stood by for 45 minutes to cool down. They're building a new one right next to it, so things are changing. The dive master said 2 years ago there were 5 dive shops. Today there are over 20. My suggestion would be to get your ass to Flores now. It's an amazing place with the sweet balance of tourist services and local flavor that is hard to come by. It's really a wonderful place. The islands are impossibly beautiful. I stood outside our room on our last night and watched the sunset and every single direction was a postcard for tropical perfection. This place rules. I wish we hadn't already bought our ticket. I wish we had more time.

But the time has come to go back to Bali... and we did.

Bali is an entirely different animal with all the tourists and traffic and people. But it's wonderful as well. We headed up to the "mountain" town of Ubud. This is where Julia Roberts found "Love" in "Eat, Pray, Love". And it's a cool town. TONS of stores selling art of every conceivable kind. The art represents all the villages from all around. Wood carving. Bone carving (very cool). Kites. Textiles. Dresses. Penises.

Yep, I wrote that. There's a strange amount of phallises all over. Some small. Some HUGE. (Like 3 feet huge). Some on kites. Some on dragons. Some as ashtrays. Not sure what the fascination with the cock is. But hey, what you gonna do?

We saw a "fire show". It involved 50+ men chanting in a circle as folks in costumes danced around. There was a crazy monkey-man. Burning coconuts. And it even rained during the performance, which was really cool. They performed it at the temple where they've done it for hundreds of years. It was cool.

The next day was the Eco Bike Ride. I think they say "Eco" cause that's what all us traveling hippy tourists give a shit about. Not sure what's Eco about it, but it was super awesome anyway. You ride in a van up to the crater rim of Mount Batur. The view is awesome. Apparently it blew it's top in 1963 and created the lake there and knocked the top 1000+ meters off the top of the mountain. Nutso.

Then we hit a coffee plantation. You get to sample beans, chilis, and shit coffee. Not that it's bad, but it's literally made with shit. Yep. There are these little ferret like animals that eat the beans, which are fermented in their stomach and then they crap out the bean whole. Then some brilliant Balinese person decided to roast the beans and make coffee. And sell it for a shit ton of money (pun intended). It cost $6 for a cup there. $12 for a cup in Ubud. And you know what...

...it's bitter like coffee is. I'm not a coffee conneseur, so I'm not the best judge. But the other samples were good. Some much so.

Then it's no the bikes for a 25km downhill ride where you stop at a traditional village, where we take pictures of people making bamboo mats. And it occured to me how weird it is that we come into peoples homes and take pictures. That's weird. It would be like someone coming into my room while I"m editing and taking pictures, going "wow, that's so cool and different." Not sure how I feel about it. But I did learn alot about traditional Balinese family life and beliefs, so in the end it's probably okay. They do get paid as well.

We stop at rice paddy's and other cool spots. It was fun.

The end has an optional 8km uphill portion, which me and a gal Jennifer from Germany went for. It wasn't to hard, but it was hot as balls. And the last 1 km was on a busy main road with big trucks.

A great trip.

This is a car road too, not just for bikes

The rest of the time in Ubud was spent eating, seeing shows, enjoying the swimming pool at our totally awesome tree house temple homestay. Homestay because it indeed is someone's house. However, it's like the coolest multilevel, temple, castle place ever. Our room was at the top and looked like a treehouse with ornate carvings of Hindu scenes and swastikas.

Um, what?

Yep, swastikas. Lot's of them. Some vertical. Some at the 45degree Nazi angle. What's up with that?

Well, turns out the swastika was and is one of the oldest symbols in history. It means all sorts of stuff and was only corrupted by the Nazi's during the 30's and 40's. So for much of the world it still means peace, prosperity, good luck, good fortune, good health etc etc etc.

And so ends the Indonesian portion of the trip. I can tell you, it was awesome. Alicia was a great travel buddy and the country is an awesome place. It's so cool how each island is different and unique. The people are wonderful. The terrain spectacular. It really is much cooler than I even thought it would be. It was a place I always wanted to go, but didn't know much about it. Very little in fact. Now I know enough to recommend it. I definitely say GO.

Bali is the most tourist friendly. And parts of it are challenging. But overall Indonesia is a wonderful, fascinating, beautiful country.

So we both left today. Alicia is on her way back to LA. I flew a few hours and landed in another land. A place that already feels very different. Malaysia.

I rode a bullet train from the airport. I saw the Patronas towers in the distance. I ate beef balls at a stall in Chinatown at 10pm. I'm staying at a hostel. I'm on my own and ready to see where the road takes me...

Craig O

PS: I appologize for the lack of emails, but I've been having big issues with Gmail security. Often when I log in from a new computer the security locks me out and the ONLY option they give me to verify myself is through a text message. Guess what? My phone is in LA. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know as I'd like to keep the updates coming.

Flowing Lava and Running Children

Fear not team, I am alive and well in the town of San Marcos on the shores of Lake Atitlan in the highlands of Guatemala. And no, the flowing lava didn’t{t cause the children to run, that was something else entirely.

So, 5 days into the trip, I have already had some great adventures. From being the only (and I mean ONLY) tourist in Guatemala City downtown to traveling on a boat on the lake, to meeting some very cool people, and a surprising number of American{s. I guess this is where they go ´to travel as opposed to SE Asia.

Anyway, After an afternoon in Guatemala City, I took a shuttle the 45 minutes (read that it took 2 1-2 hours because of traffic... just like Los Angeles, wooooo!) and ended up in Antigua, the old Spanish capital of all of central America. The town still has cobblestone streets, a central square (which includes a fountain surrounded by four cement women who have water shooting out of their breasts... hmmm... kinda different), and is surrounded by three volcanoes (though in all honesty there is only one that is obviously a volcano). There are a lot of gringo{s here as it is a hub of Spanish classes in the area.

The next day I decided to go on a day trip to climb VOLCAN PACAYA... another 2 1-2 hour drive, but this time in a pimped out 70{s party van with shag carpet on the walls! Met a great bunch of folks, and made some friends. You don{t hike anywhere alone in Guatemala, as it isn{t a very safe country. One of my new friends Kate had been robbed and mugged the night before in Antigua, so we are all on guard. Thus, you have a guide on any hike and there are the Touristica Policia who keep you safe... in theory, but crime apparently is much less now than it was in the past.

We climbed up through cloud forest, where it began to rain and we actually entered a thick cloud when we reached some lava which had been cooled for a month or so... (so thom, it was just like Hawaii, misty, cloudy and lots of lava rock...) but, then the skies cleared and there before us stood MOUNT DOOM!

Okay, so it’s not mount doom, but it looked exactly like it with this sprawling lava field and surrounding us, thousands of feet below was the plains around the volcano. it was awesome. we went out on the cooled lava, it breaking beneath our feet like glass, and getting hotter and hotter until we found it.... flowing lava... A LOT of flowing lava. Being mostly dumb Americans and a dude from Holland we made sure to get really close to it and take photos with it like 6 feet away. it was hot as hell, sorta like the fires of the netherworld had joined us on earth. It was really hard to breath it was so warm, and I got a suntan on my legs from the heat. But it was AWESOME to see it flowing...and HEAR it flowing...

INCREDIBLE...

danced and ate in Antigua and then, on Thursday... low and behold... RUNNING CHILDREN!!!! thousands of them. all blowing whistles and carrying torches... hmm, doesn’t{t seem to safe. But turns out that for Guatemalan independence day (which is actually friday) all the kids travel to towns and light the torch with the freedom flame and run it back to their town or village. It represents the spread of the news from Antigua, Guatemala 185 years ago when it was the capital of all of central America. There are kids from Honduras, el Salvador and beyond...

the festival went all day and was a lot of fun. I hung out with Quinn, victor and the others I had met the day before here and there. Danced to some salsa in the town square and went to a club that though Raggaeton music was all there was. Still a good time.

Friday I got out of Antigua and headed to Lago Atitlan with Kate (no team, no RBR here, just friends). We checked into this crazy ass mediation center called Las Pyrimida´s... where yes, every building is the shape of a pyramid. (or so they say, mine was actually a hexagon... hmmm). We went down to the water for a swim, and as we were out in the water a Guatemalan teenage boy STOLE OUR SHIT!!!! yes indeed, I had a $9 pair of sandals and my sarong from Ko Phangan stolen... and they took Kates shorts and key to her room... which has a laptop in it! So we charged back to the pyramids, and proceeded to get lost on the mazelike trails and jungle paths that surround this loony town.

Turns out he didn’t{t come back, but the super SUPER mellow guy in charge of the pyramids acted like we were some weird folks for having anything stolen. I can’t do my impression of him here, but it is pretty amusing if I do say so myself.

So, I’ve been robbed, Kates been mugged and robbed... ah yes, VIVA GUATAMALA!!!!

But in all honesty it{s been pretty cool. Most of the people are nice, but there is a definite caution that has to be maintained at all times. we met up with a group of teachers and ate and joined the festivities in town square... which is really a basketball court... where they had music blasting and about 8 kids dancing. the rest stood on the sides like a high school dance. so anyone says that all Latin folks dance is lying to you, they havne{t been to san marcos. We danced. to some raggaeton... oh yeah!... and trance, ¨which was very fun and some of the same music I heard at the full moon partay last year in thailand.

All in all I{m in the groove of traveling, it{s time to do laundry and go scuba diving tomorrow. Hope you are all well and let me know what you are up to.

Rock on

Craigo