2009 PERU: LIMA

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru.

Landing at a foreign airport at 11:00 pm is never a good way to begin a trip. For a country to schedule five such arrivals at nearly the same time is just plain stupid. Do they think tourists will be impressed by waiting in line an hour to clear customs? ... that people will think ”Look at all the people trying to get in the country. I'm lucky to be here.“ The only good I got out of the wait was a warning not to drink the water.
My hostel had sent Christian to pick me up from the Lima airport. He was a young professional, not a cab driver. It was the first time that I ever had an English speaking person as my first contact in a Latin country. The wait at customs was soon forgotten as Christian told me about Peru... a good start after all.
When I arrive in a country in the daylight I usually take a local bus from the airport. It pretty much follows a straight line to the city center taking two or three times as long as a cab ride ... for a tenth or a hundredth the cost. When you take a cab you twist and turn so often you often wonder if you are going in circles. Probably you are just avoiding traffic. At night, with no sun as a reference point And no traffic on the streets, you are at a complete loss as to where you are going ... a much bigger worry than the crazy guy who just got on the bus.
The Kokopelli Hostel was a great find on the internet. The rooms were newly furnished and the staff was the friendliest I have ever encountered at a hostel. The actual owners seemed to be available all the time. Every night they presided over activities in the rooftop bar.
It was fairly quiet for a place just a block from a couple of Lima’s busiest streets. Those street were along side of Parque Kennedy in Miraflores which is the upbeat, tourist area of Lima. The park was a great place to be day or night. About a half mile down the street was Lima’s oceanfront parks. I spent a lot of time in those two places doing nothing ... a lot more time doing nothing than I usually do.
Lima sits high up on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It sounds like an ideal setting but it isn’t. Because the city is squeezed between the ocean and the Andes Mountains it is almost always shrouded by a thick cover of clouds. Cool winds off the cold ocean currents collide with the mountains but are unable to flow over their heights. Clear days are rare and didn’t occur while I was there. With no sun and a constant wind even 65-70 degree days are a bit uncomfortable.
The city’s seven million people are spread out for miles along the base of the mountains. Traffic was terrible even though car ownership is still low there. Over half the vehicles on the road were taxis or busses and yet the streets were jammed. No traffic laws are obeyed by anyone. Speed was of the essence. Lane changes required but a car length plus a meter. A horn honk replaced a look at blind corners. At night we never stopped for a single red light or stop sign. A young cab driver ask me if I liked the way he drove ... Sure! Yeah! Right!
The old heart of the city is referred to as Lima as opposed to Miraflores or other named neighborhoods. A busy commercial walking street joins two major plazas. On one, Plaza de Armas, stands the seat of government and the Cathedral. Nearby San Francisco church was the most interesting place I visited in Lima.
Museo de La Nacion, is located nowhere near anything ... unless the cab driver drove in circles to get there. It is one of the worst history museums I have ever been in ... and I visit every one I possibly can. It is a huge modern building of good design with practically no exhibits.
As you may have gathered by now, Lima does rank as a recommend city in my book.
Other than sitting in parks, the only real fun I had was going to a bullfight. It wasn’t fun watching a bull get tormented and killed. Nor was it fun watching 12 year old matador get knocked over five or six times by a bull and finally carried off ... he couldn’t kill the bull because he wasn’t strong enough to drive a sword in deep enough to kill it.
The fun was the drunks I sat with to watch the fights. The liked me just because I bothered to come to the fights. They loudly proclaimed me their amigo. Equally loudly they wondered why I didn’t drink wine with them from their leather pouch. ”Well if you don’t drink, do you like girls?“ ”Yes. I got my ticket from a girl I met here.“ “Way to go man.” And this cycle was repeated between each of six fights as though it had never occurred before. I tried to ask about the fight rituals but lack of my Spanish or their lack of English or their lack of sobriety interfered. Meanwhile their wives sat on their hands wishing they weren’t there.

2009 PERU: AREQUIPA AND THE COLCA CANYON

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru.

I had never even heard of Colca Canyon before I arrived in Peru. On the way in from the airport my cab driver asked if I was going there. He said it was better than the Grand Canyon. Yeah! Right! I knew it couldn’t be better, but maybe it was worth seeing. When I put together my travel package I Had it included.
The trip began with a seventy minute, evening flight to Arequipa in Southern Peru. After an announcement that my limited Spanish prevented me from understanding, we were served champagne rather than Pepsi. Then we got a Subway-type sandwich ... incredible on a seventy minute flight. Then, when we touched down, the passengers broke out in applause. I thought the previous flight must have crashed and they happy to land alive. Then I saw TV cameras outside. I loudly ask what was going on after finding out my seat-mate didn’t speak English. It turns out that it was Peruvian Airlines first flight into Arequipa. All those suits on the plane were worn by company executives.
I was met at the gate, as I would be at every stop of the tour, by a guide ... this one with limited English. I did find out that Arequipa is Peru’s second largest city with over a million inhabitants. This is a city I had never heard of before. It turned out to be a very nice at least at its core where I stayed. Later Cuzco would prove more interesting, but Arequipa seemed more livable.
Even at ten at night the Central Plaza, called Plaza de Armas in most Peruvian cities, was swarming with people ... even families with kids ... even a high school student needing to interview an English speaker for her language class. It was the same questions you get ask all over Latin America ... “How do you like our country? When did you arrive? How long will you stay? Oh yeah, where are you from.”
There was no time to explore Arequipa. In the morning before I was picked up, I just had time to run over to the Plaza and take pictures of the Cathedral. It was the first church to which I had ever been whose nave ran perpendicular to the front or plaza face. It wasn’t too old ... the whole town having been flatten by earthquakes rather regularly.
As we neared the edge of town we seemed to be entering into another world. There was no longer any trees or even grass. The bare red soil swirled up in clouds of dust. A hillside showed signs of a new barrio’s beginnings The guide said that a plot of slanting land in this government approved barrio was about 100 square meters ... that’s about 32 feet by 32 feet for a house, yard, and anything else it might take to survive.
The further we got from town the more desolate it got. It apparently never rains there. As we climbed out of the city there were quick views back down into the fertile valley in which Arequipa sat ... but no one lived up there in mountain desert. In a whole day there weren’t a dozen farm houses Standing alone. After an hour or so we came onto a dead flat high plateau or alti-plano where the road seemed to run straight to the horizon.
Along the way we stopped twice to look a vicuna grazing in the sand and scrub. Vicuna are the the smaller, wild version of the animals that we think of collectively as llamas. No one owns vicuna; they roam in the wild, but are rounded up to harvest their wool.
Llamas are the largest of these types of animals. They have long faces and multicolored wool. Alpacas are slightly small and either white or brown in color. When young, their shorter faces make them look almost like sheep. While both are domesticated, they are often seen grazing unattended on the alti-plano.
By the time we stopped, a toilet break was needed by all. It would be the first time I would be confronted by a market-like setting of vendors selling wool products, silver jewelry, and carved stone llamas. If a dozen similar stalls didn’t provide enough buying choice, there were a dozen or more individuals milling around with a single product to sell ... and they all had the mornful-eye-look down pat. Also available were little kids hoping you would take a picture of them and their llama.
What I didn’t know then was how often I would see this same scene in the coming days. What I also didn’t know was that the pavement had ended in that parking lot. The road ahead might often have better described as a trail. Motion sickness pills were probably in order as we whipped from one side of road to the other in order to bang through smaller potholes. The pavement would occasionally reappear only to crumple away again. Happily when we got to the final switch back climbs and decents the road was paved ... but didn’t have railings along the edge so you could look straight down a few hundred feet.
As we had driven higher and higher in altitude our guide had extolled us on the virtues of coca leaves, even handing out samples. At the stop she urged us to drink coca tea. Coca would keep us from getting altitude sickness. Even though I wasn’t worried about that, having never suffered any more than shortness of breath at latitudes up to 14,000 feet, I chewed the leaves. It’s much like chewing dirty, foul tasting weeds or grass ... the kind in your yard not the kind in a plastic baggy.
Our guide, Maribelle, constantly told us of native cures that she had learned from her grandmother. Nature had a plant to cure everything ... and coca was a miracle full of vitamins and minerals. She also reminded those who might have sought a coca high that it takes a great deal of processing to change coca leaves into cocaine.
Just after our stop at the highest point of our trip, 15,750 feet, it hit me ... altitude sickness. I had a head ache, was slightly dizzy, and very light headed. Her cure was using rubbing alcohol as a smelling salt ... and it worked ... to a point.
When we dropped down 4000 feet into the Colca Valley and it capital city/village, Chivay, I was forced to take a nap rather than explore the village. When it was time for our group supper in a hall with a hundred or more other tourists, I seemed to be nearly recovered ... that is until the ‘native Peruvian’ band started playing. The ‘native’ music has more like cover music ampped up to the volume of a rock band. The sound was loud enough to be heard miles up the valley. I am surprised that the local people didn’t complain about their peace being disturbed. Maybe they suffered in quiet thinking the crazy tourists who provide our livelihoods must like that noise.
I didn’t sleep well that night. I had a headache. Maybe it was from the band; probably from the altitude ... and I kept looking at my watch worrying about a five o’clock wake up call. Nothing later that day would indicate that we had needed to get up that early ... although I do suspect that the residents of Colca Valley may have wanted a little of the day to themselves without having a tourist snap their pictures or peer into their front door.
After spending the day before in what was essentially a desert, the Colca Canyon was beautiful green paradise. Actually, because of the high altitude, there wasn’t much natural foliage. The green was on the thousands of terraces which lined the mountain sides. The terraces, joined by winding foot paths, reached a thousand feet up above the valley floor. The work that had gone into building them unestimatible ... and this work had been done by the Incas six hundred years ago.
Colca Canyon is not another Grand Canyon. It is a whole different place ... a unique place of it’s own. The mountains rise as much as 4000 feet above the valley floor ... maybe the deepest canyon in the world, or maybe not. Their terraces are incredible. Nature is still at work there. A 1995 earthquake had dropped sections of the road a hundred feet or so reminding us all that the Andes Mountains are an evolving force of nature.
The bus tour of Colca Canyon ends at the Cruz del Condor where watching condor soar on wind currents is the advertised feature. It was a short feature as four different condors took up less than five minutes in over an hour’s time.
Oh ... Now I remember why we had to get up so early. We not only drove back to Chivay where we ate a late lunch, but also on all the way back to Arequipa ... over six hours in a twelve passenger van. Only two of us survived the trip awake. Whether one likes the dirt roads, mountain switch backs, or desert atmosphere, it was a glimpse of another world ... one I hardly knew existed.
I squeezed in a couple miles of running before dark. Arequipa’s 7740 altitude ( the lowest point on my ten day trip ) made the up hill portions very uncomfortable ... two recovery walks were required to make it a half mile up a gentle slope. Maybe here the ”Are you Crazy?“ looks were justified.
Back in Arequipa it was Halloween and the whole town was out to celebrate. Parents tugged their little goblins and princesses thru the streets. Teenagers made themselves onto their favorite movie characters ... many of whom seemed to be teenage hookers. Thousands of orderly, happy people who were occasionally assaulted by irate drivers who apparently had no idea that driving through a throng of revelers would be so time consuming. When left at eleven he crowds had hardly diminished. That day’s five o’clock wake up was to be followed by one at six.

2009 PERU: ON TO PUNO, LAKE TITICACA, AND THEN TO CUZCO

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru. Each corresponds to an album of pictures on my Picasa Web site:
www.picasaweb.com/hytenjr



The trip from Arequipa to Puno was interesting but in a negative way. Five and a half hours in a bus isn’t something to look forward to even if they do serve you a sandwich and show you two movies along the way. Only great views can save the day. The views on this trip could only be described as depressing ... even if they were educational.
I didn’t realize that the south of Peru is mostly alti-plano, that is a high plateau. By high I mean over 12,000 feet ... so high and dry that practically nothing grows. The area around Arequipa was mountainous and dry. Here for miles and hours it was flat and lifeless ... no people; no vicuna; sometimes no plants; nothing. I knew great areas of Bolivia were like this, but I thought Peru was green like all the pictures of Machuu Picchu that I had seen.
Just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, we entered Juliaca. The southern approach was the site of a major building boom ... and it looked like a bomb had gone boom. Reinforcing bars stuck out of the roof of every building. Red bricks sat in red dust. The red dirt and rock road had an unfinished divider whose concrete curbs were covered in red dust. There were drooping wires and piles of construction materials ... and not a tree, shrub or blade of grass anywhere. People had scarves over their faces to keep out the blowing dust. This place would make prefect set for a movie set in a time after a nuclear holocaust.
We turned a corner on to a half paved street that led to the horrible future the newer street had to look forward to. The rest of the way into Puno I sat in stunned silence.
Your first view of Puno is from a mountain top high above the city ... and the city sits at 12,600 feet. Too many switch backs later through barrios after barrios you reach the lake front bus station. Only later in your cab do you realize to whole central city is series of one lane, one way streets. It was quaint but not clean.
The trip was made better by talking to Maria a young Peruvian industrial engineer. She was the only non-office female employee working with a thousand men at mine two hours north of Juliaca. She was an incredibly happy girl who had found a few guys who treated her as a little sister in need of protection rather than a female target.
You go to Puno because it sits on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake. Puno will be remembered well because of a great dinner and evening with New Zealander Nick and Germans Mijra, and Hoglar.
The next day was spent on the lake. It was a nice day. The sun was bright and the lake calm. The floating islands ( floating on reed mats ) were interesting even though they could easily be classified as tourist traps.
Two hours further out on the water we docked at Isla Taquile, a tiny dot on the huge lake. We had to climb almost straight up 1500 feet for our lunch ... a then further up for yet another chance to buy souvenirs. Thank goodness the trip down the other side of the island was a long gradual slope ... with beautiful sea views.
On the way back I played trivia with question taken out of a Lonely Planets travel guide with three Brits. I never answered a question right but then neither did anyone else. Much as in horseshoes, close was good enough. I ended up spending the evening with them too. I saw Nick on the street. Everybody is pretty much doing the same trip, just with one of dozens of different tour companies.
The trip over to Cuzco was to take ten and a half hours. Five stops and a luxury bus or not, this surely wasn’t anything to look forward to. Turns out I was wrong. It was one of the most comfortable and interesting bus rides I have ever taken.
The first stop as at Pukara a tiny village with a large church with a dark but impressive interior. The museum next to it contained a few stone remnants of what had been major Inca city which had been swept off the earth by the conquering Spaniards.
The next stop was at the highest point of this day's trip, 14,222 feet ... not too high to discourage vendors to set up selling more of the same stuff. I do have to admit that I never tire of the colorful stacks of wool scarves. They make a beautiful commercial display of which I usually take a picture.
Along the way I sat with Elsbie and Jasper, a Dutch sister and brother who seemed to travel well together. I had both lunch and supper with them.
At Raqchi we saw the ruins of a major Inca temple and distribution center. It was there that the ticket gatekeeper was wearing a hat which said on it ’70 anos’. Do you know why I had to have it? With my limited Spanish I was able to pull off a trade for my Alaska hat. That was fun.
Our last stop was at a third small village, Andahuaylillas. It had an incredible church whose interior was covered in gold leaf and frescos. A major restoration job was underway. We got to see frescos being redone and gold leaf being applied. Unfortunately they didn’t allow picture taking which is something I don’t understand. If you saw pictures of the place I’ll bet you would want to go there.
We arrived in Cuzco just before sunset. By the time I checked into my hotel and hit the streets, it was dark ... but Cuzco is ready for tourists day or night.

2009 PERU: CUZCO

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru.

Cuzco is the gateway to Machuu Picchu. Every tourist heading for Machuu Picchu spends at least a night there and most spend three. The city is tourist-ready. There are hotels with as many or as few stars as you might like. You can get a meal for $2.50 or $25.00. Street vendors, local markets, ‘official’ Peruvian artisan’s shops, and worldwide brand name shops battle to open your wallet. There is a travel agent and a money exchange ... or two or three .. on every block. And with the exception of the occasional, persistent street vendor, they treat the tourist very well.
The museums aren’t very good. They aren’t very big and they lack English translations of their information signage. I realize that Peru is a Spanish speaking country, but a fairly large percentage of the tourist are English speaking either as their first or second language. The idea of a museum is to showcase your culture and/or teach your history. The non-Spanish speakers are in museums to learn those things more so than the hordes of school children who inhabit every Latin museum.
The churches are locked immediately after 6:00 AM mass so only a few devoted old ladies get to view the incredible gold-leafed altars and wonderful statuary inside the 16th and 17th century masterpieces. Only the main Cathedral is open to the public ... for a $10 entry fee. I suppose it is worth it. It is full of paintings ... a Peruvian twist on church decoration. Practically all the walls are covered with pictures done in the “Peruvian school” fashion which is quite like that of the Renaissance masters.
All the standard tour packages include a half day city tour and a full day Sacred Valley tour. Both are well worth the time ... if you can ignore all the stops at roadside ‘markets’. I sure hope the guides are getting a huge kickback from the vendors because they lose a lot of tip money forcing the bus load of aggravated passengers look at still another stack of alpaca wool scarves and silver necklaces.
Ninety percent of the Peruvian guides speak heavily accented English made even more difficult to understand by the names of places usually being in an ancient, unpronounceable Inca dialect. I am not sure that I have identified my pictures correctly because I often just could not understand fully what was being said.
If you are only traveling to Cuzco and Machuu Picchu, the Cuzco city tour is a warm-up for what is to follow. Qorikancha in the Santo Domingo church in the city, Tambomachay, and a couple places I can’t identify are interesting. Saqsayhuaman ... or sexy human as the guides like to jokingly call it ... is a great introduction to the enormity of Inca construction projects. Probably built as a fortification near the end of the Inca era, it has a commanding view over the city of Cuzco.

The Sacred Valley trip winds through the mountains with many a spectacular view all day long. Pukapukara introduces you to agricultural terrace construction, while Ollantaytambo’s terraces were a spectacular climb up to temples dominating the valley below.
Chinchero is a nice little village which is basically in the middle of nowhere. The town and its gold-leaf and fresco-covered church are built over the ruins of an Inca city. That’s what the Spanish conquistadors did ... they used the stones of Inca cities to bury the Inca culture and build new Catholic cities. Many of the places we visited had just been found and excavated in the past century.
By the end of those two days my legs were weak, my knees collapsing, and my lungs hungering for oxygen ... and I run every day at home so I am in pretty good condition.
My new friend in Cuzco was Jung Shin, a Korean woman on her dream vacation. I met her on her first day of her two month around-the-world trip. She was on the city tour ... at least she was until the bus began to pull away from our first stop without her. I got the bus to stop and we became friends. That night we met in front of the Cathedral.
While out to dinner I ask where she was staying ... and she couldn’t remember. She hadn’t taken a card from the front desk like all travelers should do. She was pretty sure it was behind the Cathedral ... or maybe some other big church. As we set out to find the hotel she remembered that the name might be the Cuzco Plaza. A policeman said there were two of them, but he didn’t know where either was. Luckily a street vendor overheard the conversation and said he could lead us to it. In front of the hotel he put on a full court press trying to sell ‘his’ paintings which looked surprisingly similar to those of very other kid selling paintings on the street. Jung bought two at a price too high and then gave me one ... the one I had told her was the best in his portfolio.

2009 PERU: MACHUU PICCHU

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru. Each corresponds to an album of pictures on my Picasa Web site.
www.picasaweb.com/hytenjr


Machuu Picchu is the reason you go to Peru. Peruvian people are nice; Colca Canyon’s terraces are interesting: the Inca sites around Cuzco are great; but Machuu Picchu is why you go to Peru. Sometimes your destination lets you down ... it’s not what you had envisioned. Machuu Picchu, on the other hand, is all you could ever hope for. It is beautiful, complex, historical, and downright unbelievable.
The Machuu Picchu experience begins one of two ways. You can hike the Inca Trail for two or four days ... If you are very fit and like rough adventure ... or you can take the train out from Cuzco. I chose the latter. Starting in the wide and fertile Cuzco valley ... a thirty minute bus ride outside of town ... you wind through the ever narrowing canyon whose vertical side seem to tower over the narrow gauge tracks. At one point you actually back down a siding to continue on a track lower in the canyon. The three hour trip to Agua Calientes, which is just outside Machuu Picchu park, is an ever changing panorama of the Peruvian mountains.
Agua Calientes may be the world’s largest tourist trap. Actually it isn’t very big but well over 50% of the village is devoted to gathering the tourist dollar. While things may be fairly cheap by American standards, it does get any more expensive in Peru. I arrived there at 11:00 AM and found very little to do the rest of the day. The up side was that I would get maximum time ... over six hours ... at the Park the next day. The usual trip is arriving on that train and going immediately to Machuu Picchu for a three or four hour stay. I would recommend taking a later train out from Cuzco ... A couple hours more sleep in Cuzco is more of a vacation than a few hours wandering around Agua Calientes.
It takes about an hour from the time you board a bus in Agua, travel up the mountain, go thru the ticket line, and hike up to the first view of the ruins. And what a view it is. Even with clouds below obscuring some of the view, it was breathtaking. (Don’t worry about the clouds ... they come and go all day long as my picture show.)

I am really at a loss for using words to describe Machuu Picchu. It is art and beauty with almost unbelievable architecture and history. Almost every view can be composed into a great picture. As an architect, I am amazed at every aspect of the construction. Even a huge computer program attached to the most modern stone grinding machines would have difficulty matching the precision of of the stone walls of Machuu Picchu’s temples. The short history (1400-1550)of the Inca civilization makes it all that more improbable.
Our group of ten or so English speakers had a great guide for a two hour tour of the site. I then spent the next four plus ours with a really nice girl, Olivia, soaking in the whole site from higher altitudes. We climbed upwards in altitude a thousand feet or so to the Sun Gate which is the last pass on the Inca Trail prior to reaching Machuu Picchu. We sat on a ledge over a two hundred foot drop and pondered the sight and the world. What a memorable time.
People often ask me if I get lonely living by myself. I always say I am only lonely when I stand looking at a great view of the world around me and have no one to turn to and say ‘Would you look at that!’. I am thankful that on that day I had someone to share the experience with.
You have to take this trip ... the Cuzco-Machuu Picchu part. Do it while you are strong enough to survive the climbs. You will not regret a breath lost.

VANCOUVER AND ALASKA 2009

BY BICYCLE AND CRUISE SHIP: VANCOUVER AND ALASKA’S INLAND PASSAGE

By Bob Hyten, Jr. ©2009

I had wanted to cruise Alaska’s Inland Passage for years but cruise ships don’t like single passengers, i.e., people who don’t share a cabin with another person. If you travel alone they expect you to pay for both beds. They advertise “Cruise for fun and romance” but they don’t want single people. They would rather a room be empty than sell just one bed in the room. I've heard that there is a cruise line that will sell to a single person on the condition that if they find you a roommate you must except that person. That’s seems fair enough, but I can’t find which line that is.
After years of asking people to join me, my old running buddy Eric Gyaki agreed to fill that other bed ... maybe because I found a $605 rate for the seven day cruise. In the 1980s Eric was a regular member of our running team till career opportunities took him to the Washington-Baltimore area. We kept in touch when he returned to the St, Louis area to visit relatives.
We decided to meet in Vancouver three days before the ship’s departure. I wanted to see Vancouver, but I also needed a little travel leeway since I fly non-revenue, standby on Delta ... my son Mark is a Delta pilot. Eric searched the Internet for cheap flights and saved himself over $250 compared to Holland America Cruise Line’s fly-cruise rate.
Sitting just outside the Canadian customs area waiting for Eric, I saw him hand over his passport ... and then commence to have an animated conversation with the border agent. After five minutes ... or what seemed like that long ... I began to think he was talking his way into a back room holding area. Bearded Eric loves to tell stories. Customs agents don’t like to hear them. I was more worried about him than I had been that morning waiting for a standby seat on a heavily booked flight.
When he finally cleared customs, we made our way curbside to Vancouver’s Airporter bus for our 50 minute trip into the city. Again we had saved money as a round trip Airporter ticket is $22 while H-A wanted $75 for a similar service.
I like bus rides into cities as it gives you an all-round introduction to the place. Regular city busses take longer but give you even more local flavor.
The Airporter dropped us off less than five blocks for the HI Downtown Hostel our home for three nights in Vancouver. Again, it was a big savings. Holland America offered a room for $200 plus a night and HI wanted $31 per person per night. Granted it is a hostel with four beds in a rooms and the bathroom down the hall, but I find hostels to be generally clean and certainly more friendly. This one was particularly nice as it sat on a quiet corner right in the heart of downtown Vancouver.

Vancouver was a wonderful surprise. It is a clean, vibrant city which is rapidly growing. It is full of great architecture, both old and new. No other major city has a park to compare to Stanley Park. The city has miles of beaches lining its miles of shoreline. The downtown area is not much more than one and a half miles across in either direction. People were friendly and courteous, happy to share their city with tourists.
It was nearly five o’clock before we were ready to hit the streets of Vancouver. We headed straight down to the harbor waterfront at the city’s convention center ... 13 blocks from the hostel. Adjacent to the convention center is the cruise ship dock at Canadian Place. We read historical markers about the city’s history, and saw seaplanes coming and going to Victoria and Vancouver Island, cruise ships heading out to sea, ferries to North Vancouver, and a big demonstration protesting Iran’s ‘fixed’ election. It seemed that there may have been more locals than tourists enjoying the 65-70 degree, sunny evening as the year’s longest day approached.
The next morning, after a peaceful night’s sleep with no roommates, we rented bicycles for $26 a day from the hostel and set out to see the city. I can’t imagine that there is a big city anywhere in the world easier to see by bike than Vancouver. A bike trail follows the shoreline form the downtown waterfront around Stanley Park, around False Creek, a former industrial harbor, past Granville Island and along the open water out to the end of the city’s westernmost suburbs and the University of British Columbia .... over twenty miles.
There was never a time without a view of some kind. On the six miles around Stanley Park there was water on the right and a forest of giant trees on the left. False Creek is now lined by apartment buildings in all states of finish. Passing the Granville Island tourist area and under the Burrard Street Bridge you come to the Maritime Museum and then five miles of continuous beaches. At the end of the peninsula UBC sits high above the ocean ... and when I say high, I mean high. It took 20 minutes to pedal up there and 3 minutes to coast back down. The UBC Botanical Garden and the separate Rose Garden made it worth the trip. Except for the UBC visit, the whole route was virtually flat. The 33 mile, nine hour excursion was as nice an urban day on a bike as you could ever spend.

Our plans for the next day hadn’t been finalized when at the hostel’s free breakfast a guy asked for our attention and asked us to join him on a tour of the city and a hike in Lynn Valley Forrest across the harbor ... at a cost of $12. What a bargain that turned out to be. John led us through downtown telling about the city’s history and its buildings. We took a local bus across the harbor and on to the the Lynn Valley Forrest were we hiked among the trees to a ice-cold creek where we ate the lunch we each had brought. We hiked across a very, very high suspension bridge, past the park’s offices, and out of the forrest on to a North Vancouver city street where a city bus whisked us to the ferry terminal. A ferry ride with great views dropped us off near a train that took us to Chinatown. Another bus took us back to the city library and the tour’s end ... all eight hours for $12.

On our third day in Vancouver we had till three o’clock to see the city before boarding our cruise ship. Most of that time was spent on Granville Island in the middle of False Creek which you can reach by taking the littlest ferry boat you’ve every seen ... less than 15 feet long. Granville is all about the tourist experience, but it is a good one. It has a great market which locals use extensively. It was like the local markets in Central America except in price. The price points in the two market places are at the extremes.
The walk to the cruise ship that afternoon took less than an hour including stopping at a sculpture exhibit at a bank and a visit to an art gallery. The only entrance to the cruise ship embarkation hall is hidden deep below the Pan Pacific Hotel with only the smallest of signs to the right of the hotel entry doors to direct you down a ramp to the area where the cruise line buses empty their passengers.

We boarded the Holland American Line’s Voldendam around 3:00 after a quick trip through a very long line at Canadian customs. Since we had only carryon luggage we were able to settle in our room quicker than if we had let porters bring our things to our cabin.
Having managed to have purchased our cruise for the ridiculously low price of $605 including all taxes, we were shocked to find we had been upgraded three grades to a nice size room with a huge window overlooking the promenade deck. Of course being on that deck meant we had to keep our drapes pulled most of the time. Actually the window had one-way glass but you still kept the drapes pulled.
Unlike my previous cruises, this cabin had room to move around. It even had a desk, love seat, chair and table ... and a TV. The latter is actually a good thing because, in addition to a few satellite channels, it kept you up to date as to where we were, what the weather and seas were like, and what activities were available on the ship ... all handy information to occupy you while your roommate showers.
By 4:00 we were in our first buffet line ... let the eating begin. Knowing it was but four hours to our first sit-down dinner, I was able to use a little restraint. Before we could finish eating the ship was under way.
Harbor cruises are always interesting but the view from high atop a modern cruise ship is special. Sea planes buzzed right overhead. At sea the temperature dropped at least ten degrees partially because going 15-20 MPH into a 10-15 MPH breeze creates a bit of a wind chill factor out on the top deck. When we went down to eat at 8:30 the sun was still higher the sky.
We had chosen open seating’ for our evening meals. That means you can call before 4:00 and reserve a time or just show up when ever you like from 5:00 to 9:00 risking a bit of a wait. We ate late every night and waited five minutes only the first night. A nice thing about open seating is the chance to eat with different people each might. That being said, all the people we ate with would have been great company every day.
Cruise ship food is legendary. There are things you would never have at home. There are things you have at home, cooked in a way to make them completely different. Sometimes tiny helpings are placed in an elaborate display. Sometimes huge helpings fill their plates. The one constant is that by the time you eat the appetizer soup or salad, entree, and dessert, you’ve eaten way too much.
Over the week I had seafood and fruit appetizers. I had soups made of fruit and salads made out of weeds ... I think. I had entrees of duck, salmon, steak, quail, surf and turf, venison, and lamb. I had desserts of chocolate in forms unimaginable. While I can’t say every item was delicious, I can say every meal was in the end more than satisfying. Eating is the number one on-board pleasure.

Our first full day was at sea. I have to say that I am not big fan of days at sea. I’m not a gambler so the casino isn’t an attraction. I'm not shopping for art work or diamond jewelry nor do I want to attend a workshop on why I should buy these items. I don’t want to buy a picture of myself for $19.95. They had photo workshops but they were about using PC programs not Mac programs. There were cooking programs but I am not a gourmet cook.
They had a nice little library but you could not take to book out of the room. They showed movies each evening but not during the day. Now that I think about it, almost every activity was a profit center for the ship. Free activities were quite limited.
When we were close to land I spent time on deck even though it was quite windy and cool there ... but that’s were I met like-minded travelers. The other good side to that weather was that I had the top deck pretty much to myself between 6:00 and 7:00 when I wanted to run. The first night and both days at sea I ran 22 laps or about two miles around the wood-floored 9th deck. On one side the wind pushed me to a fast pace and on the other I had to work hard to maintain my momentum into the wind. Even on the rainy last day the footing on the wet deck was very good. I did try the treadmill and step machines one rainy day but I can’t get comfortable on them. I rode an excise bike instead.
After diner there were two entertainment opportunities not available during the day. There was a different stage show and different movie each night but eating late made it impossible to do both. I’m not big on stage shows other than comedians. One of the comedians, a juggler named Barnaby, was great. The other shows were a bit like watching TV on the nights when your favorite shows aren’t on ... were and there are moments of entertainment, but on the whole you are just killing time.
Another way of killing ten to fifty minutes is to put a dollar in a penny slot machine and see how long you can make it last by playing a single penny on a single line on each pull. You can usually get 15-20 minutes out of a dollar. The first dollar I played had zero winners in one hundred pulls. There were no signs around advertising ‘the loosest slots in town’ so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. To be fair, the next night I quit after forty minutes, $1 ahead.
I was only tempted to the late night buffet twice because of my late dinner times. Can you guess the body type of those who frequented it?

As the second day dawned we entered Tracey Arm. Unfortunately ice flows kept us from getting all the way in to the glaciers there. Still, the chunks of ice radiating shades of blue in the sun light were nice and the mountains lining the narrow gorge were beautiful. Southeast Alaska’s high rainfall keeps everything green.
By 2:00 we were docked in Juneau and by 2:45 we were on a bus to Mendenhall Glacier. We bought our $14 ticket right at the bottom of the gangplank saving at least 50% over the price on the boat. The twenty minute ride out to the glacier gives you a quick view of the city including their very own Wal-Mart complete with real eagles sitting on the light standards out in front.
Mendenhall is a good place to start your glacier viewing because it turns out to be about the smallest we would see. It was impressive at the time ... marred only by a steady string of helicopters heading past to set tourists down on the glacier itself. Given the very low cloud deck each day I can’t imagine that any air ride was as full an experience as could be possible. It made me wonder about how bush pilots manage to fly over cloud capped mountains to land in high valleys.
Mendenhall’s park center had exhibits showing the glacier’s advances and retreats in recent times. It’s most recent retreat began well before we started hearing about global warming ... speaking of which, the temperature did not reach sixty that sunny afternoon.
Back at the docks by 5:50, we set out on an 1800 foot climb to the Mt. Roberts tram’s upper station. Walking out of town in the only rain to mar off-boat days, we reached the lower trail head in about twenty minutes. As we started our climb the rain stopped and sweat began to dampen our shirts. The trail climbed unceasingly over rocks and roots and switch-backs.
We were told that the hike was an hour to two hours and we felt we were proceeding at the faster pace. It was nearly a half hour before we got our first glimpse done to Juneau’s waterfront and the Voldendam. Fifteen minutes later we began to worry as the ship was now well behind us, yet we knew the lower tram station was right next to the ship. The trail had no markings. Three times we had chosen paths which went higher rather than lower. We began to wonder if we might be on the way to Mt. Roberts’ peak rather than the tram station. We decided that at one hour we would probably have begin retracing our footsteps if we were to return to the boat before it cast off that evening ... back down that unmarked trail with unmarked options. And then at 59 minute, we rounded a switch back and there were people ... and the tram station ... and joy ... and relief ... and finally exhaustion.
The tram’s round trip costs $22 if you buy it off the ship but if you only need a ticket down it costs only $5 ... and if you buy $5 worth of stuff in the gift shop the ride down is free. Imagine that ... you can save $22 by hiking up 1800 feet on a steep muddy trail. All kidding aside, it was a great hike if you are fit. Only after we were done and someone wanted to kwon if we had seen any bears did we think about the possibility of meeting one in the wilderness above Juneau.

On Day Three we docked in Skagway before we ever got out of bed. Sleeping on the ship was great. In part that may have been due to the time zone changes which had us going to bed a couple hours later than usual or maybe it was the gentle rocking of the ship. Both times that we were in open sea rather than the inland passages, I worried about sea sickness, but never did the ship roll enough to feel the least bit uncomfortable.
Skagway has four streets which are about fifteen blocks long. About a quarter of those blocks are dedicated to getting your tourist dollar. Thankfully there are also four nice, small museums there. They occupied our time till the 12:45 boarding of the Skagway & White Pass Railroad’s summit tour.
For $103 on-line or at the ticket office versus $130 or so on the boat, it was a trip well worth either price. The train’s route followed the 1889 gold rush miner’s path over the summit into Canada. Finished just as the gold ran out, it remained a supply line to the interior until the construction of the Alaska highway during WW II. Now it runs on tourist gold.
There is not a moment on this trip when there isn’t a terrific vista. I stayed out on the end-of-car platform snapping picture after picture. It is a trip made for digital cameras ... much to the dismay of friends and relatives back home. I can’t imagine that anyone on that trip experienced anything but awe ... except maybe those trapped in the car with the screaming kid and his indulging parents. A call for volunteers to toss the kid over the edge would have resulted in a riot of volunteers.
Back at the ship well before our 8:00 departure time, I disembarked again for a run though town. Running end-to-end on the streets flanking the tourist shops I was able to see a little of how locals live. I think it is safe to say that not many people are getting rich there. While things there were a might better than I would see later in Ketchikan, the housing stock is small and generally rundown and unpainted. I was told that many people only summer there, heading south when the winter winds blow.
The sunny day was the warmest of the trip at around 65 degrees.

Day Four was spent slowly cruising in Glacier Bay. I have to admit seeing the day’s schedule did not inspire me but in the end I knew that is is what Alaska is about. By 10:00 we were at the deepest part of the bay looking at the Margerie Glacier. It’s face was huge and it curled back up the mountain valley as far as the eye could see. The only disappointment was not getting to see any great chunks of ice calf off in the sea. Several small ice slides sent water into the air but no major iceberg was born while we were there.
What was surprising was a very small sailboat creeping very near the ice face. I wasn’t as surprised to see kayakers treading through the ice flows having seen that on TV before. At times I envied them and at times I shivered for them.
Later that day as we exited Glacier Bay we passed an island fill of seals ... at least that was what the park ranger said those brown dots were. Actually I could see them with my super powerful binoculars, just as earlier in the day I had seen two grizzlies that no one else could see. Shortly later, when he excitedly announced a whale sighting, I was as disappointed as everyone else to see only an occasional white or black dot on the horizon. I guess we’ll have to take his word for that.
That was the day I tested the gym’s equipment as the ship rolled a bit as we entered the open ocean.

By breakfast the next morning we were off of the open sea headed for Kechikan’s harbor. While Ketchikan seemed to have more commercial docks lined with warehouses and factories, it also seemed less prosperous than Juneau or Skagway. There were four cruise ships in port that day, disembarking over 7000 people, yet the stores didn’t seem over crowded nor their clerks rushed. Maybe everyone had signed up for one last plane ride or fishing trip, by-passing the town.
After visiting the town’s three museums we had intended to rent bicycles to ride the town’s water front road to nowhere end-to-end. Apparently the bike rental businesses have all gone belly-up because none were to be found. That left us with only shops to kill our time ... and death came only after repeated, slow, torturous viewing of T-shirts, sweatshirts and stuffed animals. A couple mile run along the waterfront didn’t brighten my day either.

Our last day was all at sea under wet skies and low hanging fog. Every day could have been like that so I can’t complain too much. I spent much of the morning sitting on a bench under an overhang at the back of he boat talking to a guy from Singapore. I'm pretty good at sitting and talking to strangers so I had a good time. I met Aussies, Brits, and a surprising number of Canadians from Vancouver. Half the 1400 passengers were American but more than half my contacts were with other nationalities. That’s another nice thing about a cruise ship.
On the final morning I awoke as the ship gently bumped the dock in Vancouver. One last buffet breakfast, some final packing and off the ship by 9:00. We road the Airporter back to the airport with a British couple who were also savvy enough to skip Holland America’s expensive transfer offer.
At the airport, the longest customs line I have ever been in took us out of Canadian customs and into American customs right there on Canadian soil. Behind me in line was the Philippine Islands only winter Olympics hopeful, Serina Eden, a downhill snow boarder. Maybe she will be this winter’s Jamaican bobsled team story.
The hour in line shortened the nervous wait for my standby seat on Delta’s full Salt Lake CIty flight. A breakneck walk from one far end of the SLC airport to the other got me the last seat on the already boarding flight to St. Louis. Needless to say, I arrived home quite tired. I has in bed by 8:30 Pacific time.

If Holland America’s people ever read this I doubt they’ll ever give me an upgrade again. They make their money on selling you booze and tours and a few diamonds on the side .... I didn’t realize how important these extras were to them till I saw an CNBC program ”Cruise,Inc.“ a week after I got home. If you don’t spend any money on the ship, cruising is the greatest travel bargain out there ... and this is from a guy who backpacks and stays in hostels on most of his trips.
I can highly endorse the Alaska inland passage cruise and Holland America in particular ... and if you buy a couple land packages from them I won’t be mad and neither will they.


4115 Words written after a trip to Vancouver and Alaska, June14-24, 2009 by ...