And so, the real journey begins!!!

Now, let me reiterate, we were embarking on a journey unheard of to most of the locals and non-existant to the gringos. This had all the signs of being an adventure among adventures... and so it was.

We woke up early to catch a several hour bus ride to Alca, knowing it was as far Northeast as scheduled buses from Cotahuasi would reach. We held the optimistic belief that a local bus from Alca would continue further Northeast towards our ultimate goal of Huarcaya, but were relying on good fortune at that point. Immediately after reaching the central square in Alca we wandered to the only hostel which had surprisingly nice rooms given the location, and a window facing the square so we could get a visual on when things were opening up since we arrived sometime during that dead mid-day hour seemingly impossible to avoid throughout our travels. Anyway, we were exhausted and took a nap, but my antsy self was up before Acacia and wandering through the central square to try to get information about catching a bus to Puica! There was a definite bus station/company in the square that had a listing for a bus to Puica in a couple of days, which differed from what we'd heard, so I kept asking around people in the square. Eventually I found a very friendly store owner with some delicious and cheap chicha (the fermented corn beverage of choice in Peru) that I bought a few glasses of and got to talking to him about getting to Cuzco.

What I learned:

1. He'd only ever heard of one other group of locals making the journey the direction we were going
2. None of the the towns we needed to get to existed on any of the maps he owned.
3. He wasn't certain about where the bus would reach from the Cuzco side of the mountain range.
4. A weekly combi was leaving tomorrow circa 5:30 am from the square to Puica and possibly onward, so we should be at his corner of the square by 5:00 am just in case.

Perfect! All I heard was, "the bus you want leaves tomorrow morning!". Now, time to find those hot-springs that are supposedly nearby. I went back, told the news to Acacia, we went and got food at the bar below us, and then sought ourselves some hot-springs. Asking the hostel owners, we determined it was about a 30 minute walk down the road the direction we had come to get to the hot-springs. Seemed worth it, and, so, we made the journey just after dark. The walk was actually quite fun down this gravel road with more than a few drunk gauchos "riding [horses] under the influence" to wherever a gaucho is heading at 8:00 pm on a Tuesday in the Cotahuasi valley, and a few good lookin dogs following along to keep us company.

Anyway, we arrived at this "hot-springs" which was basically an indoor hot tub full families and children that was fed by a natural spring from elsewhere. Not exactly what we had in mind. But, so goes it, I wasn't ready to admit defeat. Acacia immediately turned around and started hiking back, but apparently I'm a bit more stubborn or handle crowds a bit better than Acacia so I was determined to stay. I walked in, tested the lukewarm waters, realized I was going to be paying about 10 bucks to sit in a warm pool, friendless and not able to communicate with any of the Quechua speaking indiginous families there, and quickly high tailed it out of there to catch Acacia down the road. Well, at least it was an enjoyable walk!

We woke up dark and early the next morning and caught the bus to Puica! Naturally, we were the only foreigners on the bus, and probably the only foreigners the bus-driver had ever driven, which actually mad him quite concerned. A of all, he figured we were already lost when we got on the bus. B of all, he figured we were super confused since we actually stayed on the bus longer than any of the locals. Literally, the bus driver asked if this was our stop, specifically to us, at every stop. The bus ride was pretty fantastic, rising up out of the Cotahuasi valley during sunrise, passing through tiny indigenous towns in the middle of nowhere. We reached Puica, assuming it was the end, but to our surprise it was just the end for most of the folks who had boarded in Alca. Just about everyone disembarked, and then a bunch more people got on in Puica to continue of the valley. Alright! Motorize transport more Northeast than we thought we'd get! I jumped off the bus and peed in the middle of town where I think only a few villagers spotted me, and then we rode this bus until the bus driver finally told us we had to get off because it was the last stop!

Perfect! Town we don't know, middle of nowhere, nobody hardly even speaks Spanish, and when we find a shop with some snacks and a Spanish speaking store owner she tells us it's a one day hike with donkeys to get to Huarcaya... she thinks. "Go up the road and ask at another store. He'll know. He has donkeys". Sweet! Except not. Store's closed. Whelp! Onward and upwards at this point we suppose. So we start walking up the road, the direction we're pretty sure Huarcaya is in, and eventually pass a young boy and slightly older girl sitting on the side of the road. Just for reassurance, we ask them how far Huarcaya is. They agree that it's about a day's hike. But, there's a dump-truck coming in about 5 minutes that'll drive us most of the way there if we want to hitch a ride with them. Uhhh, chyea! That sounds far superior to uphill hiking at altitude with heavy packs. Sure enough, a truck comes by and offers to pick us up. I hoist my pack up to folks in the back of the dump-truck, then climb on up to help grab Acacia's pack and our day pack, but just then the truck starts driving away. Fortunately, everyone but the driver was on it, so they were screaming from the back of the truck for the driver to stop, which gave Acacia the opportunity to run with two packs a few hundred meters to try not to get left behind. We get both other packs and an Acacia into the back of the truck, and continue up this windy gravel road towards Huarcaya...

Let's Hike to Cuzco!!!

Alright, so this one has been a long time coming... Obviously Acacia and I have been seriously slacking (you might say completely slacked since about October of last year) on the blogs.

It all begins in the second largest city in Peru, Arequipa. This is a city of nearly a million people in the southern part of Peru tucked up near the Andes. Lots of people come to Arequipa as an initial staging place for organizing climbing trips up some seriously oxygen deprived mountains. (Acacia and I climbed Misty Volcano which just crosses the 19,000 foot mark in elevation, leaving from Arequipa, but that's another story that may get written down some way...) Anyway, the point is that Arequipa is big, surrounded by mountains, and gets a lot of tourists who want to climb those mountains. And after talking with several guiding companies and multiple guides from each, there was a single man who was familiar with the existence of a route whereby Acacia and I could hike from the Cotahuasi Valley over a mountain pass to catch a bus to Cuzco on the other side, for a much more direct, albeit temporally longer, and more scenic route to the ancient capital of the Incan Empire than the canonical highway route. Perhaps the limited number of people (read: 1) who knew about this possibility and the limited amount of information he knew about it should have forewarned us about the logistical uncertainty we were about to embark on. He claimed it was about a day's hike from the Cotahuasi Valley to Huarcaya. Anyway, that guy sold us the only map of the Cotahuasi Valley we could find in the city, told us when/where to catch the bus to the Cotahuasi Valley, and sent us on our merry way.

Volcan Misti!

The bus ride was maybe the worst one yet. It's not like we had many options, because there seemed to be only one general time frame that buses left for Cotahuasi, and that was a couple days a week leaving around 5pm. At the bus station, I did some haggling to find the cheapest ticket, which was about 20 bucks for a 10 hour bus ride. We had the very back seats, so they didn't lean back, and they bounced extra along a windy, gravel, washboarded, mountain road that went straight through the night. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep. Once we arrived at about 4am in Cotahuasi, we sat on the side of the road as the one shuttle van in town shuttled all luggage carrying people (which included us since we now had 3 backpacks between the two of us after selling Alejandro and throwing all the contents of the car into packs) from the bus to the center of town in about 6 trips. Just before sunrise, we got to bed at a hotel and crashed for a much needed few hours of sleep.

We woke up to this amazing valley that we were in! Rooftop deck at the hotel had amazing views, and I think I speak for both of us when I say that we were incredibly stoked to explore the area! The first step was to find some information about the valley. There was a little tourist office in town that was open for a couple of hours spread out throughout the day. We walked by it several times as we checked out the rest of Cotahuasi, which was about 3 blocks in all directions, and saw the church, several street meat stands in the form of stir-fried intestines and potatoes, and a restaurant serving local trout ceviche. When we finally saw the door to the tourist information place open, it was a pleasant surprise when the lady working there wanted to practice her English telling us about the area. She wrote down the bus schedule for us, which was critical because most buses went a couple times per week from Cotahuasi to even smaller villages scattered throughout the valley, so in order to see more than a couple of the towns and accompanying hikes we had to really plan out the timing of the buses. Rather unpleasantly, she also informed us that she had only ever heard of one group of people who hiked from the valley to get to Cuzco, and was pretty sure it would take us at least 2-3 days. She claimed to have a map of the route, but not with her, so we had to come back later and she would have one for us.

The main church in the town Cotahuasi

Rooftop view up the valley

Rooftop view down the valley

The local pond. Wandering through the pastures reminded me so much of Kamicancha, Peru in the Sacred Valley

At this point of the trip, Acacia was working on figuring out employment back in Canada, so, in addition to figuring out the logistics of our exploration of the valley, she was working on the logistics of getting hired. In any case, our first destination was Velinga, a town about 25km west, and a couple km lower in elevation than Cotahuasi. Since hiking the whole round trip seemed excessive, and the only buses coming from Velinga back to Cotahuasi left around 9am, our most viable option was to catch the early morning bus to Velinga and hike back to Cotahuasi. So, our third day in the valley (still without seeing a single other tourist in town) we caught the 6am bus with backpacks full of food and water, and watched as many locals loaded weeks worth of supplies onto the top of the combie, including a young calf we picked up on the way down, which was skillfully lifted and tied to the roof of the bus! Like, "oh, no big deal, just strap another ungulate to the roof and drive down this treacherous mountain road , totally normal." I guess at least Mitt Romney would feel at home. We arrived at the bottom after driving through some gorgeous terrain, ran into a couple of backpackers at the bottom, watched as the locals hoisted the calf off the bus, and then began our long hike up the valley. Our decision to hike straight back up was a fairly controversial one, as we opted to skip visiting the actual town of Velinga, or going farther down to the valley to Quechualla, a town reachable only by doneky, and Ushua, the town at the deepest part of the deepest valley on earth! Yea, Cotahuasi Valley puts the Grand Canyon to shame in that regard, its more than twice the depth. But, in order to maximize our exploration of the valley given the limited bus situation, our hike was on a serious timeline because we had to catch an afternoon bus in Cotahuasi to catch another bus up the valley.

Ready for the long hike up

Cactus Forest!

Catarata de Sipia

Some pastures part way up the valley from Velinga

In any case, we began the paced march up this valley, following the river through some crazy saguaro-esque cactus forest called "Cactaceas de Judiopampa", crossing several bridges back and forth across the river on our way up to Sipia Falls, roughly the half way point of the hike. The incredibly steep and rugged terrain, with a few critters here and there as well as condors flying WAY overhead made for quite the scenery. But, being on a timeline and not having kilometer markers pushed our pace as we neared the halfway time without having reached Sipia Falls, the approximate halfway point. We stopped there for a bit, giving Acacia's heels a break (which she can tell you more about later) and enjoying this one perfect seat for enjoying the view of the falls. Seriously though, there was only one good seat. The rest were blocked by the fence from being able to see much of the falls. It was pretty terrible design in that regard. Anyway, we took turns sitting there, and then climbed down a bit for a closeup of the falls from above and to scoop some water into our bottles. From there, it was just a long slog another 10km or so up through the valley. From this point on, I knew there was one little storefront/home between us and the top, and I was super looking forward to grabbing a cerveza and some other cold beverage since it was pretty warm at this point. And, as we got farther up the valley, it definitely got more populated closer to Cotahuasi, since that was kind of the hub of the whole valley. Unfortunately, as I saw the storefront/home, it was closed and there was just a dog barking at me :(. So, onward and upward until we finally were within sight of pavement, aka Cotahuasi town center, and immediately sat down at the entrance sign for a nice long 45 second rest.

Eating some delicious trout ceviche in Cotahuasi

Made it!

We quickly snapped some pictures, checked the time, and had about 30 minutes to eat some Popsicles, go back to the hotel and pack our stuff, take our extra backpack full of things we probably wouldn't need for the next few weeks to the bus station to get placed on the bus to Cuzco with the intention of picking the backpack up when we got to Cuzco, and then find and catch the bus to Pampamarca, a town near the canyon's rim. Needless to say, it was a bit rushed. Especially given the fact that when I showed up with my bag to send on the bus, the lady was like "no way dude, shit's going to fall out and all those straps are going to get caught on something, I don't want the liability". Or at least that's what I gathered from her face and little boy who immediately ran to a store, grabbed a huge blue sack, charged me 2 bolivianos, and then sewed my backpack into this giant sack within about 20 seconds. Impressive. Then some old guy in the back eyed the sack, charged me 20 bolivianos to get it to Cuzco, and Acacia and I raced to catch the bus on the outskirts of town.

Waiting for the bus, I built up quite a hunger since it had been a while since we had had anything substantial, so I went looking for calories while Acacia waited with our stuff. I couldn't find any place open, and then I finally found a store that was open, but with nobody inside! Somebody must have seen me looking into the store, because pretty quickly a woman came from down the block to ask what I wanted, and I ended up settling on a bottle of chicha, which took too long for her to get since the bus came and I ended up just running back to the bus, buying a skewer of meat from the street vendor about 7 feet from the bus, and then we jumped on for a long windy road up the valley to Pampamarca. At least this time there were no bovine to worry about.

Our accommodations in Pampamarca

View of the one restaurant in town, and top of the ridge is the rock forest

We arrived in Pampamarca fairly late and didn't really know anything about the town except that there were some crazy "stone castles" near by as well as a hot springs. Most people had gotten off the bus at stops along the way, close to their village or family's house or whatever, so by the time we got to the town square in Pampamarca we were one of just a few people to get off. Fortunately the one store/market in town opened up as the bus arrived, and the lady working at the store was also in charge of running the one hostel in town, so she walked us across the square to the hostel, who's only other residents appeared to be guinea pigs, and then took dinner orders and walked back to the store to start cooking us meals. Awesome!

Pampamarca town square

The next morning we got off to an early start since we had a lot of hiking planned for the day and still had to catch the evening bus back to Cotahuasi to keep our valley exploration schedule. Surprisingly, there was at least one other person profiting off the tourism in Pampamarca--a haggard-looking old guy sitting in the middle of the square waiting for people to look lost while trying to find the trail up to the "stone forest". "Are you guys looking for the trail to the top?".... "uhhhhh, yea!"..... "ok, follow me." So, we did. Now, I don't know if it had just been a while since we were last tricked into paying for something we didn't really want to pay for, or if the friendliness of the valley and distinct lack of tourist infrastructure had conditioned us otherwise, but the friendly fellow led us down the trail just to where it started to get steep and then looked at me and said "Money?". Damn. Tricked again. So I paid him a couple soles and we began the climb up.

View down into the town from the start of the hike

Following out guide

While this climb wasn't too intense technically or overly steep, we were right around 12,000 feet elevation so it was no walk in the park either. The view was spectacular! Even just a few hundred feet above Pampamarca, you could see the whole town just emerging from the shadow of the mountain we were hiking up, and it's sunlit sister town across the valley that was just slightly lower. I kind of thought they should have built a zip-line to at least avoid the long bumpy road going between the two in one direction. Anyway, we continued up at a slow and steady pace, with occasional breaks for Acacia's open heel wounds to regenerate some much needed epidermic tissue, towards the rim of the deepest canyon in the world. Total, it was about 2 miles up through some pretty dense shrubbery at the lower elevations and then up to a very alpine environment to an incredible view where we could see the valley in about a 300 degree view. It was incredible! We were like on this little peninsula of rim that jutted out into the valley so we could see several small villages thousands of feet below and miles away. AND, the 60 degrees or so of our view that wasn't the valley was this crazy collection of rock spires that was like a prehistoric playground.

Ouch!

Other side of the ridge

One of our attempts to get a 2-Acacia panorama photo

Rock forest

Epic throne!

After trying to get the most epic panoramic photo we could (and trying really hard to see if we could get Acacia in one panoramic photo twice by like having her run around me to be on both ends of the photo... didn't work) and sitting on these spires like our own iron throne of the valley, we hiked back down the mountainside straight to the one market in town to calorie up before our hike to a waterfall and then a hot-spring! Except the market was closed. Alright, well back to the hostel to Steripen some water and eat whatever non-perishables were in our backpacks. The path towards the Uskuni waterfall and hot-springs were at the opposite end of the square from the hostel so we followed the cobbled road down to the outskirts of town and began following a dirt path through pastures. The path split a couple of times, but there were some locals doing trail maintenance and they helped direct us towards the waterfall. Finally, we were going around the last bend before the waterfall, aaaaaaaand LET DOWN. I guess the lack of rivers nearby should have been a clue, but "the waterfall" was just a view from about 5 miles away of a waterfall down in the valley. Not that it was unimpressive or anything, just nothing like actually being at a waterfall.

Whelp. Hopefully these hotsprings will be better! We walked back a few hundred meters from the lookout to the waterfall and then took a different path that began a pretty steep descent down into the valley. Acacia, with tender heels and what not, realized that coming back up the steep descent wasn't going to be fun, so I was our scout and headed down into the valley. Which, quickly turned into a less steep path that made it's way across several different pastures and then followed the villages aqueduct right along the edge of some pretty steep cliffs until finally I after a mile or so I saw what looked to be a hotspring. It was waaaaaaay down the valley right at the river, which probably would have been a pretty cool spot to hang out with the whole cold/hot water combo and being pretty secluded, but being on a pretty regimented timeline and not really wanting that much of an adventure after our climb to the rock forest, we opted not to. Which was actually pretty enjoyable since we just walked back to town, packed up, and then hung out in the market and had a solid lunch waiting with a variety of other folks awaiting the bus back down the valley. Naturally they were all curious about what we were doing and super friendly. And, one of them was the bus driver for the ride down, so we didn't have to worry about missing the bus.

After the long bumpy ride back down the valley, we checked into the same hotel we'd been at in Cotahuasi. Acacia went and sent some emails at the incredibly slow internet cafe while I went and got a beer and heard Thrift Shop blaring from one of the bars in town, WHAAAT!? I'm always surprised at how ubiquitous American culture is in places as remote as this. We went and got some street food of fried intestine and potatoes and got some rest before the start the unknown adventure that lay ahead.

The Amazon Basin in Bolivia

After landing back in Santa Cruz, we crossed our fingers as we walked out to where we had parked the car, paid our absurdly cheap parking fee for a month of parking at the airport, and began our drive back to Santa Cruz, as the airport was north of Santa Cruz, and our journey was taking us south. The only particularly notable thing driving back into Santa Cruz was that the police did not stop us on the way in. This was quite the relief actually, because we had to drive past the same highway police station that stopped and fined us for not having a fire extinguisher on the way out to Buena Vista about a month earlier. Though I was pretty sure if we got stopped again it would just be another fine, I, for one, did not want to find out about any kind of increased penalty for making the same violation and having to talk to the same police officer about it.

Anyway, we got back to Santa Cruz and returned to our trusty old hostel, but it was full so we were sent to the slightly-jenkier-yet-no-less-cheap-hostel around the corner. We spent a few more nights there than originally planned to recover from being jet-lagged. Santa Cruz has some decent street markets so I did some gift shopping for people, made some epic fruit salads, and had some of my first very sketchy street meats that would become a theme of Bolivia. Not that the meat ever made me (too) sick, but it was BBQ steak chunks on a grill that clearly hadn't been warm for several hours, and it sold for 14 cents, which is cheap even by Bolivian standards. I climbed to the best view in Santa Cruz! It was amazing (wink, wink ;) ! You climb up three stories to a church bell tower so you can see the 1-2 story white rooftops of Santa Cruz's urban sprawl. Really, its hard to sell it as a "view", but I got suckered into paying the 28 cents for it, and to be honest it was one of the most exciting things we discovered in all of Santa Cruz. In the few days we stayed there, I became a regular at some cafe with mean salteña empanadas, and drank about a gallon of freshly pressed orange and grapefruit juice. Probably the most useful thing we did was finding a huge market for car things in the area of town with all the mechanics and bought our necessary fire extinguisher as well as some window wiper blades because it turns out Alejandro was not properly equipped for rain.

We eventually found our way back to the main highway out of town, extinguisher readily available in the back seat, kind of low on gas, and headed for our next destination, Samaipata! Along the way we passed by the Paceña factory, the Bolivian equivalent of Budweiser, and then got to some pretty jungle-y mountainous terrain. It was gorgeous and super fun to drive, almost fun enough to make us forget about the low gas situation. Seriously though, this was THE highway that went through Bolivia, like the I-5 of California and there wasn't a gas station on the way out of town (or at least not one with cheap gas, I can't really remember). Based on the mileage to Samaipata, I was certain we were not going to make it without getting gas, and just as the gauge went below E we started having to climb a pretty big hill. I'm trying to coast as much as possible and beginning to wonder what AAAs Bolivian coverage is, because we were in the middle of nowhere and it didn't seem like the kind of place where camping on the side of the highway was very Kosher. But, just as I was staring at the speedometer trying to calculate the minimum amount of speed reduction needed to make the next curve without losing traction but without wasting any momentum, out of the corner of my eye I saw a half hidden sign behind a tree in front of some guys house that read "hay gasolina". So I pulled over to the side of the road, told Acacia what I had seen, then found the sign to confirm it wasn't a phantom "hay gasolina" sighting. We kind of poked around this guys house until he came out and then I asked for gas. He brought out all the gas he had, which was 12 liters stored in 6 2 liter soda bottles.

We filled

A Couple Days in Santiago on Our Way Back to Bolivia

Disclaimer: Same as the previous post, our camera was down for the count, so the images are from Google

After a pretty long flight form Paris, with a layover in Madrid where we discussed shotgunning a beer but decided against it for some reason, we got to Santiago pretty early in the morning and headed back to our trusted La Casa Roja hostel. 

Our stay in Santiago for a few days was similar to the  first few days we were there.A bit too much beer in the bar, making some fantastic meals in the epic kitchen at the hostel, and enjoying the last few days in relative modernity before heading back to Bolivia.

Our kitchen at La Casa Roja
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At one point we decided to play some frisbee in the park near the hostel, which was pretty fun because it was kind of the bohemian part of town so people drove slow, it's where everyone took their kids to play on the dinosaur laden playground, and there were some pretty solid bakeries around the perimeter of the square. While we were hucking disc, we had another random guy join us for a bit, and then a group of high schoolers approached me. It seemed like they were working on a school project or something? So I was friendly with them, and the conversation went a bit like this, all in Spanish of course:

Random girl from this group: "Hello?"

Me: "Hi"

Entire group: everybody giggle super hard

Random girl: "Yea, can we record you for some reason or another that I couldn't understand?"

Me: "Yea, sure"

Random girl: "Ok, here's what you have to say. 'askljfgkl  jahslk jfh lkjhgasrglkj ahsdfg kjlhasfgk jlhn,m.nvc'. Now repeat that back to me." 

Me: (with a look of impossibility upon my face) "Alright, here goes"

And then everybody laughed super hard again. I had absolutely no idea what I was saying, or even how to say it. It was really difficult to remember since I was basically just trying to remember a string of syllables and not an actual sentence. Was I probably doing something to help out with a school project? Hopefully. Could I have been promoting something political, terrorism, or condoning drug use? Possibly. 

After that my frisbee game was all off. I kept tossing it into the street and dropping the disc when it hit me square in the hands. I just couldn't handle the pressure anymore, so we quit and I probably went to go get some baked goods.

While we were eating baked goods, a marching band of sorts came by and was playing some music. Basically, Plaza Brazil is where all the fun stuff happens in Santiago as far as I could tell. 

Plaza Brazil, the one near our hostel
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Also, since we were recovering a bit from the jet lag of a lot of time zone change, I was up super early the second day and went on an early morning run to Parque Quinta Normal, the park with some trails, fountains, and museums. It's basically Santiago's version of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco or Balboa Park in San Diego. While running I met a dog who jogged with me a bit, and then some guy thought I was a local (I love when that happens) and asked me where some museum was. Fortunately I had already run by it so I knew where it was. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to make a complete sentence in Spanish, so my atrocious accent and poor grammar probably blew my 'local' cover. There was also a coast redwood in the park, so that's exciting. 

Parque Quinta Normal
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Anyway, we spent a few hours playing backgammon on the board Justin had made for us, and did a bit of gift shopping at a couple of artisan markets Acacia had read about, only to discover that things were either super expensive or factory made by poor laborers in Bolivia and then shipped down to Chile and branded as artisan. Cool Santiago. Needless to say, we didn't make any significant purchases.

Our last night in Santiago I went on a search to find a battery for the camera which you've probably noticed by now was lacking said battery due to the Google pictures which clearly are not the quality of pictures you're used to from Acacia and I. This turned out to be a bit of an adventure because I looked up Canon camera distributor, tracked it down in the financial district of Santiago, which required a several mile subway ride. Turns out it was closed. NOT what the website said. So I searched around the area in a few of the electronic stores asking for the battery, and every time got sent to a different place that was supposed to have the battery. After a while I just gave up and bought a new camera, our third of the trip. Don't ever lend me your camera people! Anyway, things were looking up at this point. I had a new functioning camera, the rain had stopped, and there was some kind of fountain light show happening on my way back to the subway station. I got myself a subway ticket, walked down the stairs (faster than the escalator because of the billion or so people trying to squeeze onto it, which I guess should have been my clue of what was to come next), and then I waited for a subway. Only two minutes away, good. And then it happened; the subway came, and it was so full of people that when the doors opened people literally popped out and knocked over a couple of the people waiting to get on. What!? How was I going to get on this thing? People were getting running starts to plow into the mass of people inside the train, and then when the doors closed you could see noses squished up against the glass as some members of the riding class I'm sure were suffocating and risking death to get on. I ended up having to wait for about 10 trains before one was empty enough for me to fight my way in, elbows up for protection of course.

Santiago Subway Rush Hour
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The next morning we flew out of Santiago back to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, which, like our flight into Santiago, was indirect with about a 6 hour layover. This time, the layover was in Iquique, a small city in the north of Chile sort of famous for its beaches. Since we had 6 hours to kill, we looked into getting a ride to the beaches and the town to check it out, but turns out the airport was 43km south of the city, without regular bus service. So that was unfortunate news. After about an hour in the airport, I had already read the menu at both the restaurant and the snack bar in the airport, done a few laps of the place (hoping to find something new or something? I dunno), and had tried to get my passport stamped for leaving Chile only to discover that they don't open the customs booth until 30 minutes before the flight. But, the airport lounge was available to us for some of the rewards points I had on my LAN credit card, which I only had for a 20% discount on our flight to Brazil way back in January. I had been to these lounges before and new about what to expect, but it was Acacia's first time. And we took full advantage of those points! We ate about 4 sandwiches each, probably half a dozen baked goods, several jars of trail-mix and dried mangoes, AND there was an open bar so you can probably imagine what we did for 5 hours. We played some cribbage and then worked on finding a WWOF, Work Away, or some similar type of program for down the road in Bolivia or Peru. We were actually so engaged in looking into these programs that 5 hours later we nearly missed our flight. Man did we feel like idiots then...

Our Personal Tour of Holland from some Local Dudes

Disclaimer: I lost the battery to the camera earlier in Europe, so most of the pictures here weren't taken by us.

Mike had to return home early because of a broken ankle, and was still rolling around in the wheel chair when we met them.

We took turns pushing Mike on a crowded sidewalk as we headed to a place on a canal for more beer (surprised?). On the way we stopped for a meaty snack that I didn’t partake in.  It was basically a breakfast sausage with sauces on top. Dutch version of a hot dog I guess. I ended up getting a sour IPA, one of the more memorable beers of the trip, because it was so different and tasty. Then we started to head toward the train, but stopped again on the way and definitely got more beer, and maybe some food too. The food was basically a bunch of fried things. Some kind of balls of like mashed potato with ground beef and then deep fried. Not bad, but, ya know, potato.

Pushing Mike

We took the train to Utrecht, the big city near Nieuwegein, the town where Floris lives, and then took a bus to Floris’ house where his family and friends were getting ready to celebrate his brother’s birthday. We had a huge family dinner, and then enjoyed a fire for the rest of the night. The dinner was delicious; schnitzel, sausage, wine, etc, and some veggie dish for Acacia. Floris’s sister Sonja is quite the chef and a very gracious lender of baking materials for making pancakes later in our stay. Also, since Acacia and I didn’t bring a gift, we stole Floris’s and wrapped it for his brother. 

Utrecht. A big university city.
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/7f/8f/76/utrecht.jpg

The next day Floris made us a solid breakfast and then the four of us biked into the city to visit a bar that had a huge variety of beers (some American craft beer too, Flying Dog).  Along the way Floris gave us quite the tour of the area. Pointing out various locks (the kind for boats to move around canals) and Mike gave us some history lessons. They were a good combo. After a couple rounds at the bar we went on a little walk around the city (with some more history lessons from Mike. I remember an old church I think that a road got built through, so they just tore down the middle of it or something like that) and then to a beer store where Floris completely followed through with all the bets he lost while traveling with us. And John bought a 3 liter bottle of beer… which he carried home with one hand and biked with the other. I'm thinking of inventing a new sport.

One of the Locks in Nieuwegein
http://www.nieuwegein.nl/2308/waterroute-nieuwegein/files/sluis_herenstr-merw.jpg

Back at Floris’ house John and Mike stuck around while Floris and I went to the store to get ingredients for legit sandwiches. Mozzarella, tomato, onion, garlic, pesto on a roll of French bread (I really miss bread…) which we toasted and then ate with soup. Yum. We watched a movie that night and planned on heading out early the next day.

While staying at Floris’s, we camped in the backyard. Not because we weren’t offered sleeping room inside, but because the backyard was pretty great; a nice patch of grass, a little garden, some bees and trees. It was a pretty perfect spot, just across from the canal.

The next day rolled around… and I don’t think we were up as early as we had planned. I was up early enough to make pancakes for everyone. Floris and Mike had gotten pretty stoked about my pancakes when we were in Patagonia, so I promised I would make some for them again when we visited. Floris, John, and I were going to take the train north and then a ferry to an island called Texel while Mike went home to prepare for his ankle surgery. The train ride was pretty standard, and the ferry so short that by the time you walked across the boat, you were pretty much there. We rented bikes, grabbed a map, and headed off to a campground, all of us with backpacking backpacks, and likely another bag thrown on the back, and John’s 3 liters of beer. (This time in a backpack, not in a hand though).

The campground had rules stating that at least one person had to be 25 at the campsite. 25!? Geez. They made an exception for us (probably because John had left his beer outside). Really though, we didn’t get rowdy. After setting up camp Floris’ bike broke… so we drank a beer while waiting for a new one to be delivered. Then we biked into town and after glancing at some menus decided we were going for a grocery store meal of sandwiches. We were fulfilling our South America cravings-nice seedy brown bread, solid cheese (perhaps smoked Gouda?), olives, PB&J, and beer. Generally speaking, South America doesn’t have peanut butter and when it does, it is some pretty weak sugar paste with peanuts. Then we decided to go on a little ride around the island, which, being Holland, was covered in bike routes. We somehow stumbled on the islands brewery-I don’t think that was the plan?- and of course stopped for some beers and goat (I think sheep?) petting, but it was too late for a tour. Then we continued on to another town and got a snack of raw herring and some fried other fish I believe. The island was completely flat, fairly car-free, and covered with wild flowers, little farms, and old villages. One of the more peaceful, human inhabited places I have been. That night was 3 liter beer night. I had been suffering from a cold this entire Europe trip, so I called it a night early.

Texels Brewery
http://farm9.staticflickr.com

Texel Island Scenery. It was pretty nice.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com

We had big plans the next day. We biked through a forest with a lot of Sitka spruce (trees!? From home?!) and then stopped at a spot where we walked out to the ocean, through an estuary and some sand dunes. After a bit of a snack, and relax we hopped back onto the bikes and made it to the most northern point at a light house, where there was a stand of jams with prices listed and jar to put money in, so I bought two jars which ended up making their way back to South America, and then cruised east to attend a tidal walking tour. At low tide you can walk for kilometers through ankle deep water, just heading straight out, perpendicular to the shore. In theory, and if you time it super well, you can actually walk from the island to mainland Holland during the two or three hours around low tide. We saw crabs and fish and then raced back to our bikes and pedaled full speed back to the campground to grab our bags and make the last ferry of the day. We took the train back to Floris’ house.

Tidal Walking, or Wadlopen as they say in Dutch
http://www.holland.com

The next day we were heading to Mike’s house in the south. Near the city of Maastricht I believe. The plan was to take the train, but at the last minute Floris’ brother lent us his car. Two hours later we were rolling up to Mike’s house. Finding his house was a little bit of a challenge because of the one way streets in his neighborhood, but we got there, unloaded our huge backpacks, threw Mike’s wheel chair into the trunk, and then all headed to some centuries old limestone mine/quarry. This is where Mike works as a guide, so we got a private tour through this network of caves that you could easily get lost in if you weren’t paying a lot of attention to your route or with a guide. We pushed Mike through the canals as he held his gas lantern and directed our pushing by some interesting art and other sites in the tunnels. We also learned that the tunnels were up to 700 years old and that they have been used for smuggling people during WWI. Then we had a beer in the caves, which stressed Mike out a lot because apparently its frowned upon. The caves were also cool because people lived down there during the war and we saw some cave bread ovens.

The limestone caves. There's lots of art on the wall.
http://www.maastrichtunderground.nl

We dropped Mike off back at his house and then went to a campground (Zinkviooltje, outside the town of Epen) nearby, where Floris had camped previously. Upon arrival we took turns shotgunning with Floris, to ensure our Holland shotgun was covered… We probably had some more beers that night. 

The next day my cold was getting the best of me, so I hung around, napped, and wrote a letter while Floris and John went for a bike ride. Actually we went for a drive first. We weren’t sure about Acacia’s recovery and wanted to give her a chance to go on the ride later so we decided we would go for a bit of a drive into Belgium and Germany. Since we didn’t really know how to get to all three countries, and plugging “Germany” into the GPS doesn’t really help much, we took a bit longer than we had expected. But, we made it to the triple frontier of Germany, Holland, and Belgium, which I think also counts as the highest point in Holland. All of 300 meters in elevation or so. We had a beer and some pie there, and then continued trying to figure out how to drive into Germany. We ended up going about 800 meters into Germany on the highway and then drove a few kilometers further to Achen where we bought some German beers and some baked goods from the nicest German lady who said “Tchuss!” when we left.

Triple Frontier
http://upload.wikimedia.org

We got back to check on Acacia, who was still under the weather so we offered her German baked goods and then decided we would go on a couple hour bike ride. I was thoroughly impressed with some of the climbs and it was nice to do some cross country mountain biking because I really miss it from back home. The day before Floris had told me about how he and his dad used to race from a certain point that all of the routes end up by on the way back to the campground, so we raced on the way back and both had lead legs upon arrival to the campsite. As soon as we sat down at the campsite we split a can of beer. This was no normal can of beer. We’re talking a liter of 10%. It was the perfect relaxer after the ride. After that we showered and then we walked into town for dinner and then came back for beer at the campsite. I met a puppy that was camping next to us, named Inukshuk, who was owned by a Canadian. 

The next day I joined the guys on a bike ride. We road into Belgium, like it was nothing, and after a slight malfunction with my bike and a bit of nettle we stopped for lunch at this weird fish farm place. They had a koi pond, that they grabbed fish out of and cooked up. It was a solid lunch. And of course, we had some beer to go with it. Then we continued, I was struggling a bit because of my cold, but we were having loads of fun. Then John’s bike broke…. This was not your standard break though. Somehow the rear derailleur had gotten caught in the spokes of the wheel and gotten ripped around so it was like 180 degrees off and bent badly. So we walked uphill and rolled/walked back to the campground. Since that was taking forever, I did manage to get the bike into one gear, so as long as the uphill was short or not very steep I could manage, but otherwise it was 8km or so of walking. We shoved our stuff back into the car and took quick showers, or I did, John isn’t capable of that kinda thing and ended up walking out of the bathroom soaked and covered in soap (for some reason he didn’t think a towel was necessary either). On our way back to Mike’s we stopped for more beer and some food.

One of the bike trails outside the town of Epen
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17359120

We got back to Mike’s for the last big shebang with the Dutch guys. We had already talked to Mike about shotgunning, and after Floris had done it with us he was already stoked on the idea. We shotgunned in Mike’s backyard. Floris made everybody some dinner (under Mike’s instruction), which was typical Dutch cooking; mostly just a pile of animal protein. Then Mike taught us a drinking game, which everybody was too good at or something, but nobody had to go into “the boat,” which is a round for extra losers to basically get really drunk because it’s nearly impossible to get out of “the boat.” But, since Mike was disappointed about that, I  told him I would be the loser in "the boat", but then I got out on the first try and Mike was even more disappointed. Eventually it came time for Floris to head back to his house since his brother needed the car for the work week. Acacia and I spent the night at Mike’s, and had to be up really early the next morning to catch a train to Maastricht, and onward to Paris where our flight was out of.

Maastricht
http://www.ikonmap.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/maastricht.jpg

Mike wrote up our itinerary for us and we tried to buy tickets beforehand, but ended up not, for some reason. Basically we were trying to get the discounted ticket, but ended up not being able to because they didn’t sell it at the train station and we couldn’t buy it online, so where can you buy it!? There were loads of kids in their 20s on the train because there was a music festival that weekend, we were probably the only ones below 40 who weren’t going. The train travel continued without any issues, and we arrived in Paris with a bit of time to kill.

First, we got crepes, then some pizza, then went to the park, and then to the post office, where I could buy stamps through this odd automated machine, but couldn’t find a mailbox anywhere. We decided to continue on to the airport, figuring that there would be a mailbox there. The train was really hot, full, and slow, but we eventually made it to the airport about 1 hour and 45 minutes before our flight. Perfect. Except, we were told that our flight was closed for checking in, we were too late, and were redirected to the stand-by line. After 5 minutes of standing there asking ourselves how checking in could possibly 2 hours before the flight, and how we could have missed wherever that was written, one of the women who led us to the standby line came and apologized, saying she was mistaken, and we could check in after all. Phew! 

However, there were no mailboxes in the vicinity, so once we got to out gate and sat down I watched all of our stuff while Acacia ran around looking for a mailbox, and ended up giving her mail to one of the airport employees who said she would send the letters. Awesome!

Amsterdam! City of Canals, Prostitutes, and Coffee Shops

Finally, on the train for our journey to Amsterdam with lots of stops. And each one was a race to find the bathroom so one of the ladies could go not on a train toilet. I left my camera charger in the socket on one of the trains. We bought some very mediocre sandwiches for lunch at one of the stops. And us ladies plus Joe, discovered that ALL of the toilets on the train were out of order. ALL. Seriously!?  After arriving in Amsterdam we struggled to find the trolley that would get us to the hotel. Someone had the idea they left hourly, so after we saw the preferable one pull away, we decided on a backup, getting off where the driver told us, and dragging our luggage ALL over the city. This was a pretty nice time to be carrying a backpack instead of rolling luggage, I thought.

After settling in the hotel we… hmm… well… uh… I bet we ate or drank… I think we met to drink the wine John and I had gifted to Priscilla from Argentina. Then we walked around a bit,

  We discovered that there were definitely boat tours in Amsterdam, and knew we wanted to go on one. After drinking the wine in the kids room, we all went down to the main plaza area and then over to where boats left for the tours, and discovered we could go on a tour later that evening. Perfect!  We went and got some dinner pre-tour and then got back to the boats in time for me to throw a couple of shoes through the windows on the boat to mark our seats before everybody else piled on.

Canal Tour. One thing we learned is that there are A LOT of bikes under water in the canals.

Picture from the canal tour

The boat tour was fun. There was a recorded audio tour, in a lot of languages including English, that was timed with the speed of the boat. So we all just plugged our headphones in, ordered a Heineken (way better than the North American version) or two, and sat back and relaxed while getting boated through the canals of Amsterdam and learning about different places, buildings, and history. Of course Tina’s favorite part is when we went through the red light district. “John, look! There’s a lady in a window! Ahhhh!” ….”Yes, Tina, this is the red light district, there’s lots of ladies in windows.” And there were already big plans to go check it out in the next couple of days.

The next morning was breakfast at the hotel! Yes! It was also pretty good. Not as good as the one in Brussels, but there were still pan au chocolates and strong coffee, so Acacia and I were both stoked. The plan for the day was to go to the Rijks museum. It’s a huge museum in the center of Amsterdam with an enormous collection of art, including some Rembrandt exhibits that are the main attraction. My favorite was a drinking gourd where a baby would float to the top to indicate that a couple is pregnant. Could you imagine finding out that way!? “Hey babe, could you pour me some beer? Thanks” A couple minutes later…. “um…. Honey, do you have something to tell me? I found a floating baby in my drink!”.

Don't remember the artist, but we all like this swan

One of the many Rembrandts

There was also an exhibit regarding drinking games, although I don’t remember what culture. And another that had toques from whale hunters… or something. Those were the non-famous memorable (although only semi, I suppose) ones for me.

John is asleep now, so you’ll have to deal with me and my memory… After the museum, we were lucky enough to discover a Ben and Jerry’s right next to our hotel. I had never had B&J out of the US, so I was stoked, EXCEPT they didn’t give samples!! What kind of B&J is that!?!? Or really ice cream shop!?! You gotta give samples!

Afterwards, we were on a mission to find the Tulip museum, because apparently the Dutch are famous for having an economic crash due to Tulip price speculation. This museum was much less official than the others we had been to. It was essentially a Tulip shop with a few displays and a couple films to get potential buyers in the door. Interesting nonetheless, and we learned that like 10 billion pounds of Tulips are sent from the Netherlands to the U.S. every year, and those pretty white and colored striped Tulips are that way because they have a disease.

On our walk to the Tulip museum

It had been a pretty museum filled day without a lot of beer or food consumption. Fortunately there was a cheese shop just near the Tulip place, so we went in and sampled all kinds of cheese: green pesto, red pesto, truffle, garlic, smoked, aged truffle, aged garlic, aged smoked, hard cheeses, soft cheeses. Basically we tried a ridiculous amount of cheese. And then, we bought cheese. And of course, to go with our cheese, we had to have some beer, so first Acacia and I went into the nearest bar and just ordered 6 beers and a small Prosecco for my mom. Then we sat by the canal, ate our cheese, drank our beverages, and played a game where we tried to get the boats passing by to wave at us. But we were really into this game. Fortunately I didn’t make any bets about it. Anyway, we ran out of beverages pretty fast, so I went on a second booze run. This time I went all the way to a market to get a six pack of beer for way cheaper than beer from a bar.

After a few hours of sitting around the canal waving loudly and aggressively as only Vivios would at people, some members of the family needed a rest. 

Our "get the boats to wave" spot

The adventurous of the crew decided that after a couple of beers was the appropriate time to sample some of what Amsterdam had to offer. So, Acacia, Tina, Diane, and I all walked down to the nearest “Coffee Shop” where we were going for a “Space” Muffin or two. The first coffee shop we walked into, a couple of us sat down at the wrong table, so got hassled by some guy telling us to move tables, which we promptly did so that we could divide our first space muffin as equally as possible into 4 parts. Our table was right on the canal, so we quickly ate our space muffin and then watched as boats went by on the canal. After some time, we opted for a space brownie and another muffin. Overall I think 3 (I though2… John things between 2 and 4) space things were consumed, which meant that by the time we had to be back at the hotel to meet the parents and Brodie, the good child, we were definitely “spacey” if you will. But, don’t forget, between round 1 and 2 we went for ice cream… I got chocolate and mango! 

Ok, we were pretty high. The plan was to go to dinner at an Indonesian food place, I think? Or maybe it was an Asian place? In any case, it was a big round table, so we could all sit across from each other and observe each others’ highness, which made things a bit more entertaining. Also, the waiters received food from the upstairs kitchen through a dumbwaiter type system, which at least Brodie and I were pretty impressed with the space efficiency of it. Also, Diane couldn’t do anything but stare blankly, and Acacia couldn’t stop giggling ( impossible to not, sitting across from Diane, who was pretty much drooling), especially when she watched Diane. John wasn’t exactly holding it together either… but Tina. Man, whata pro. And generally, it was a bit of an awkward dinner. Mostly because it was SO quiet.

After dinner, though, we got to walk back through the red lights district. So, of course my mom loved it and Tina and Diane definitely weren’t stoked or anything. I think the rest of us pretty much observed it for what it was; doll-like women posing in windows with red lights trying to catch anybody’s eye to beckon them in.

When we made it back to the hotel, my dad just really wanted to go out for beers. But, most of us were pretty ready for bed and definitely were not into getting beer, so I think that was the biggest let down of the space muffins for my dad. Don’t worry, even though we didn’t go out with Joe, we consumed plenty to satiate our munchies.

Also don’t worry, because the first thing we did the next day was a booze cruise.  We knew that we wanted to go on another tour of Amsterdam’s canals, and my dad was looking into getting a private boat. There are so many boats on the canal, and everyone looks like they are having a great time, but especially the private boats that are loaded with food and drink. So, after a huge breakfast again, we walked down to the boat launch area and asked the few companies there if we could get a private tour. None of them offered it. But, we did find a lady who was running a smaller boat where we would have about half the seats. Also, it was 10am in the morning, which meant that my dad bought a case of Heineken. Or he tried to anyway. The woman selling the beer didn’t believe he wanted a whole case, plus it was her entire inventor for the moment, so she only sold him 15. Still a pretty good amount for 3 people to split at 10 in the morning. Basically we turned this leisurely boat ride on the Amsterdam canals into a booze cruise for the Vivios. Perfect.

After the booze cruise we hit up the Van Gogh museum, which was pretty interesting because of the old paintings they had on display which had been painted over by Van Gogh, but with some kind of x-ray magic they could see the original image.  

And outside the Van Gogh museum was a big sculpture that said "I Amsterdam", that was like the spot for tourists to take pictures. So we did.

That evening I don’t remember what we did for dinner, but afterwards we went to a jazz show where we got some Duvel’s and my dad is pretty sure he saw a hooker trying to pick up some dudes at the bar. It was some pretty good music and perhaps our latest night in Amsterdam.

Our last day with the family we browsed a touristy area of shops, where Diane and I ended up getting matching shirts, not for the first time, after an  embarrassing incident she had with the cashier… we had also been looking for some herring to try, or, Priscilla had, although she wasn’t too into trying it herself (later in the trip I had herring, P, so you gotta too). We ended up finding a grocery store and loading up on some legit picnic food.Seriously legit. Bread, cheese, olives, honey, fruit? Wine, and some sort of meat… and took it all to the field behind the museum where we played Frisbee and watched some sort of performance  from these kids who were supposed to be on a field trip to the museum, but had gone into the fountain, so were stuck outside playing all day? Something like that?

John, Tina, and I were diggin the sunshine so we stuck around and played some more, with plans to meet the family later. Soon enough we realized we  were seriously lacking beer, and had been playing a game, which essentially boiled down to who ever made the first mistake would have to go buy beer. I was counting on that being John when I made the rules, but it ended up being me. Off I went in my summer dress, with cash in hand or bra, nothing else. I chose my beer, which Floris and Mike had introduced to us in Southern Chile, a Belgian quad, and was promptly asked for my ID, which I definitely did not have with me. And there was no bargaining with this lady. Off I went empty handed. I hadn’t been carded in a long time. Never in South America, where the drinking age is 18, never in CA in December, I don’t think, and I can’t remember a time when I was living in Powell River and the drinking age is 19. BUT in Amsterdam, a city some might call the world’s most liberal, where the drinking age for beer is 16, I couldn’t buy it. Seriously?! For those of you who don’t know, I am 22.

Tina ended up going to buy the beer, because she was the only one with ID (all 3 of us were of age… for the record), and wasn’t carded, of course, we played some jungle speed with kids from New York,and then more Frisbee. Not to be understated here is the fact that we had already had about a half a bottle of wine each with the rest of the family, plus 2 of these Belgian quads which were around 10%, so  we were feeling pretty friendly. At some point we all decided a bathroom was required, so headed to the museums, which of course required a line before an entrance fee. We ended up at a restaurant ordering more beer and a brownie, because who could resist, even though at this point we were on our way to meet for dinner. We finished the brownie probably faster than we could all use the bathroom, or finish our beers (which certainly did not compliment the dessert) so we ordered another. This one was served without whipped cream, not that we noticed, and by the time the waitress had returned with the cream, the brownie was long gone, not that she dallied, at all. Oops. It was almost like one of those moments when you are brought something that MAY be finger food at a restaurant so you eat it, only to find out that once you finished, the wait staff is bringing you utensils and is a bit disgusted. Yeah. One of those.

**Speaking of those moments… When we were in Santiago we went out for Indian food, which ended up being pricey and less than average. A bummer, really. Before the meal we had lassi, of course, and they snack that was set on the table reminded me a bit of cat food… little cracker things. We had these incredibly intricate settings in front of us, so the boys were grabbing finger fulls of this food and dropping it on their dishes, while I was just going bowl to mouth. In not too long the waiter showed up with our plates… to set on top of the settings the boys had been using as plates. John ended up having to lift his up and pour his crumbs onto his actual plate, which the waiter was still holding. We have learned once again, that we are not fit for nice places…

Anyway, after we left the restaurant we had a map, where Priscilla had circled where we were supposed to meet them. Somehow, Tina was the most fit to lead. She must have been studying the map or something. She got us there, without any issues (that were her fault, anyway. John encountered a bicycle on the walk…). We ended up at a place with outdoor seating where we enjoyed more drinks, before heading off to dinner.

Pictures on the skinny bridge while Tina, Acacia, and I were all playing Frsibee

This other place with outdoor seating was not without its moments. First of all, my mom immediately noticed that the 3 of us were a bit more lubricated than the rest of the family, and pretty much everybody else at the place for that matter. So, while the rest of the family was drinking beer, we weren’t allowed to? What!? Right. I ordered a beer. I’m pretty sure Acacia nor Tina did though. (I think John was a bit too lubricated to remember…  the rest of the family was drinking wine, which I joined in on. Tina wasn’t allowed to drink more, and John wasn’t either, but ordered a beer anyway) However, as we were sitting there about to get ready to head to dinner, this pretty attractive Dutch couple came biking up with a cart of liquor and orange colored liquid to mix into it for some fancy mixed drinks. They were trying to just sell the drinks and get some pictures for publicity, and, naturally, my dad decided to get involved. He bought two of these drinks (my mom protested, but apparently she was overruled). We then realized that Tina’s Nalgene and dress combo matched the color of the drinks with a blue umbrella and had to take a picture with the drink in hand, which meant she finally got a beverage. We took pictures with these two promoters and  then off they biked, and we quickly finished the drinks and the beer to head to the Rice Table Indonesian restaurant.

This restaurant was like THE Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam. We showed up, with a reservation of course, and we already knew what we were getting; 3 trays (like 34 dishes, or something absurd, including the vege ones for me) of single dishes of Indonesian food ranging in spice from mild to hottest. That were refilled when you emptied them. The waiter came over to see what we wanted, and my dad told him the full Rice Platter, and then the waiter suggested a starter of “prawns”. Ha! Well these “prawns” came out, and they were like the size of a lobster, which meant it was basically a meal in itself. Afterwards the trays of food came out, with one tray of only vegetarian food to make it easy for Acacia, or that was just how it came? Anyway, started eating and it wasn't that spicy, so I decided to go for the hottest dish just for fun. Bad idea! Not that it was super deadly, I mean it was painful and brought tears to my eyes, but I couldn't taste anything for the next 10 minutes , which meant that everybody else got to eat all the best dishes while I waited to cool down. Turns out you can just ask for more of the good dishes, so it wasn't too devastating. Also, it basically turned into an all you can eat buffet of these Indonesian dishes with the “bring out more of the empty dishes” rule in play. Yum! We ate and ate, with no beer surprisingly because we were drinking carbonated water, and then when everybody was full Tina, my dad, and I all went in for the spiciest dish. And we all sat there with our tongues out panting like dogs and tearing up for a bit waiting for the heat to die down. It was a bonding experience.

As this was our last night in Amsterdam, and we had yet to "go out", Diane had it in her mind that it was going to happen tonight. When we got back to the hotel, dad, Acacia, Diane, and I all "went out." Here's what it was like:

1) Walk to the square right next to our hotel and see some girl spinning fire. (this was the highlight of "going out")

2) Walk towards the bars and try to go to one. See a bunch of hostel/pub-crawl groups going from bar to bar. 

3) Get solicited by pub-crawl organizers to join a pub-crawl. We REALLY don't want to join one of these pub-crawls, so don't show much interest. The organizers think we are playing hardball on the price so they lower the price and offer us free shots. Tempting as it was, the vomit we had to avoid on the ground behind the pub-crawl groups was a definite turn off.

4) Decide the bars probably aren't for us. And, neither are pub-crawls.

5) Sit down at a table on the square and order some beers. See who can find the most 8-and-above's. Realize there aren't as many attractive people in Amsterdam as we thought. I guess its psychological or something. Change game to "find the largest differential in a couple or group of friends". 

6) Somebody finds a high differential and calls it a night

Fire spinner in the plaze outside our hotel

The next day we ate with the family, and said goodbye as they piled into a taxi for the airport. Around lunch we trekked to the train station with all our gear to meet Mike and Floris, who we travelled with for about three weeks earlier on this trip.