Chile - Volcan Villarrica

As you are reading, you might think kayaking is the only thing I do. Let me justify my blog - backpack gone wild - by revisiting some of my good old days living out of the backpack. After Cotopaxi, Iguazu Falls, Machu Picchu, and even the Galapagos, I saw the most amazing landscape on Volcan Villarrica on the Chilean Andes. Under the white snow cover that looks as docile as a rabbit bunny, lies the most active volcano in South America and one of the only four lava lakes in the world. Its spectacular scenery was complimented with the breathtaking sulfur gag. If it was just snow everywhere it would have been boring. But there were icicles in all sorts of crystalline forms growing in the most unimaginable dimensions. The strenuous ascent was rewarded by stunning panoramic views of lakes, ice-capped peaks, blue sky and white clouds that extended all the way to the bulging horizon. This photo was taken 500m below the summit. Imagine seeing this 500m higher and 360 degrees around.

The climb started below the snow line at 1520m and the 1327m ascent took 6 hours to reach the summit at 2847m. The hard plastic boots provided by the alpine guides gave me bruises on my lower legs early on and soon it was painful with every step. I had to slow down considerably and was about 20 minutes behind the others.

When my leg was hurting so much and the climb seemed to have no end, I asked the guide how much longer it would take. 50 minutes, he said. I decided not to check my watch any more and not stopping until I got to the top. After what felt like 2 days, I met the fast climbers coming down. I resisted but finally asked, “How much longer until the summit?” A Dutch girl said without blinking an eye, “Five minutes.” It was like the atropine I needed to jump start my heart. With a new battery, I was marching up the icy slope like the Energizer Bunny. Fifteen minutes later, my guide turned around, shook my hand, and said, “Congratulations, welcome to the summit”. On the way back, I thanked the Dutch girl for lying to me. “If you had told me six minutes instead of five, I would have turned around and come down. I wasn’t going to take that punishment for longer than five minutes!”

Five and a half hours of climbing earned me less than 10 minutes at the summit. Getting too close the active volcano’s smoking crater had proven to be hazardous. A month before my climb a woman fell into the crater, landed on a rock outcrop, survived the fall, but was soon choked to death by the sulfur gas. With wind speed topping 20 miles an hour, the acidic gas was burning my eyes, nose and throat even when I was a few meters upwind from the crater. That was no place for picnic.

Coming down required bending the ankle forward and therefore was even more painful and awkward. To my delight, more than half of the way coming down, where the snow was packed, we could sit on our butts to slide down. That not only saved my agonizing legs but made it so thrilling and fun. On the steeper slopes it got really fast. At the beginning I was not good at balancing and rolled a few times and had to use the ice pick to stop the slide. Soon I got a hang of it and sliding down was like a breeze. The slide was better than any ride in Disney, and that's what backpack gone wild is all about!

This is an extract from my travel journal. To see more pictures of my travels in Chile, view my Chile Album.

The Mighty Altamaha

The Nature Conservancy calls Altamaha River one of the last great places. Two weeks ago, lured by its serene beauty, I put down my kayak at Jaycee Landing and paddled up the gushing water. I was fighting the current like a cockroach being flushed down the toilet. Any normal person with a sound mind would have turned around and gone home, but my hard head kept me fighting upstream for an hour. When I finally decided to turn around, it took only 15 minutes to get back. I call it the Mighty Altamaha.

Looking at the map, I realized I had only seen one out of 138 miles of its meandering charm. I wanted to see more of the Mighty Altamaha, but I didn't want to be the cockroach again. So I tried to recruit several kayakers in order to do an A-to-B run and shuttle between the launch site and the end point. It was a good plan until everyone bailed out. Going on a river by myself never bothers me. It is the lack of a ride back to my truck that had me deeply concerned. Luckily Mike volunteered to give me a ride. I wanted to do a 16-mile stretch down the river, starting at Upper Wayne County Landing. From my last cockroach down the toilet experience, I estimated about four hours and asked Mike to pick me up at 5 p.m. at Jaycee Landing.

For a Chinese blond like me, getting to the launch site was a little more challenging than fighting the current. By the time I got my paddle wet, it was already 1:56. The day was as gorgeous as could be, considering the record low cold snap earlier in the week and the incessant rain we had the two days prior. Blue sky, sunshine, calm air, fast water, that was all the Mighty Altamaha offered and that was all I wanted. In the dead of the winter, the bald cypress looked utterly naked. The woodland was flooded and grey shadows casted on the black water. The deserted sand bank seemed striped of life. Messes of dried twigs made the high bluff feel desolate. Scrawny gum balls dangled from the forsaken sweet gum trees, hanging onto life that was already drained. Even the calls of the osprey that occasionally broke the silence sounded exhausted. This is the kind of tranquility that only exists when everything is dead and when time stands still. Below the water surface, the Mighty Altamaha was roaring with all the forces it had drawn from the land.

After 3 hours and 5 minutes of paddling, I landed at 5:01. Without a watch, that time was close enough. Mike was already waiting at Jaycee. One thing came to my mind: When the whole world bails out on me, Mike is there for me.

For more photos of the Mighty Altamaha, please visit my Altamaha album.

Savannah's Chinese ballast stone

Anybody who visits Savannah will visit River Street. Anybody who goes to River Street will walk on the cobble stones. Anybody who knows the history of Savannah will know the story behind these cobble stones: In the 18th and 19th centuries, the golden age of Savannah's cotton export, empty European cargo ships came to Savannah carrying a load of cobble stones for ballast. When they arrived, they unloaded their ballast stones and loaded up with Savannah's cotton. These stones made good pavers and building materials along Savannah's River Street. They have a wide variety of origins: mostly England and Europe, some from Africa and the Caribbean. A friend of mine spotted one cobble stone with Chinese inscriptions.

My attempt to unveil the history of this piece of stone leads to some research on the history of China and Savannah. The format of the words on the stone indicates that it is most likely a broken piece of a tombstone. The inscriptions - by sheer chance, told the exact year when it was carved: 1798. The first two words on the right denote the name of Emperor Jiaqing in Qing, China's last dynasty. His reign lasted 25 years, from 1796 to 1820. The next two words mean "third year". This puts the stone to 1798 in China. The three bigger words on the left are the name of a person. The first two words from the top, Cheung and Lin, are both very common family names. But the second word, Lin, is also widely used in given names. In the Chinese culture, when a woman is married, she adds her husband's family name before her own. So in this case, the name on the stone could be a man's; he would be Mr. Cheung. Or it could be a woman's name; she would be Mrs. Cheung and her maiden name would have been Ms. Lin.

If I was to see this stone a year ago, before my time in China, I would be jumping up and down and think we should FedEx this historic artifact back to China or a museum. But 11 months in China made me realize a sad part of modern Chinese history. Stones like these, usually tombstones or plaques or monuments at temples, were deliberately destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and used as road pavers or foundations everywhere in China. It is disheartening to see them but they are just everywhere and no one cares in China. Even if they do care, the Chinese people do not dare to say or do anything. However, since the Cultural Revolution occurred in 1965-1968, this particular piece of broken tombstone on River Street would not have been a result of it.

It is a mystery how this Chinese stone made its way to Savannah. Instead of solving this mystery, I am cooking up a story full of colorful Chinese traditions, the volatile history of China's last dynasty, Savannah's romantic plantation era stories, and the power struggle before, during, and after the Civil War, all in the backdrop of River Street's glorious days of political and economic hot spot in the Southeast. A novel may be born of this cobble stone.

For more images of Savannah's Historic Downtown, please visit my Savannah album.

Peru

I always hated history. Three months in Peru changed me. I researched on Peruvian native history and cultures while visiting numerous archeological sites all along the coastal desert and the Andes, such as the Valley of the Tomb of the Moche culture (100 AD - 800 AD), Chan Chan Adobe City of the Chimu culture (800 AD - 1492), and the famous Machu Picchu and a series of other not-so-famous Inca sites of the Quecha people. At first I was sympathetic towards the Quechua (more commonly known as the Incas), for the malicious conquer of their empire and the merciless rape of their culture by the Spaniards in 1533. History reveals that the Quechua had viciously destroyed the Chimu, which had smashed the Moche before them with similar brutality. The rise and fall of these ancient warrior cultures were as natural as the flood and ebb of the tides.

My favorite destination in Peru has to be Cuzco. I

spent 16 days there and never had a dull moment. It is the hub to dozens of Inca sites in the Sacred Valley, incluing Machu Picchu, which was a 4-day mountain-biking and hiking excursion. We began with descending almost 3000 m in 5 hours on the mountain bike, followed by two days of hiking on the Inca Trail. On the 4th day we got up at 4 a.m. and climbed 1400 steps to make the prigrimage. But once you got to see it, the magnificence of Machu Picchu was worth every step. With the dramatic mountains and valleys and precipitation in the cloud forests, there are many excellent locations for kayaking and white water rafting. Horseback riding gave my legs a break but did not save my butt. Fortunately, you could get a massage for about US$8. In the mountain villages, for about 30 cents, you could try Chicha, an indigenous beer prepared by collecting fresh maize in the morning, chewing it up and spitting the mush into a pot and letting it brew for a day. By evening, it turns into something that looks like a beer but taste nowhere near it, a flat, stagnant, and murky liquid with a revolting layer of spit-like foam on top. Try it if you are really committed to sampling beers around the world or in need of a serious purge of your system.
My life-long dream of being a beach bum was realized when I stayed in Huanchaco, a surfer's hotspot, for 5 weeks. I surfed in the first 2 weeks. Then the current turned and the water became cold so I found a new hobby, Totora Seahorse. For 2000 years, these kayak-shaped watercrafts, made with a reed called totora, have been used by native fishermen. Huanchaco is one of the only three sites in South America where real fishermen still fish with the Totora Seahorse. Most days I got up early in the morning and ran along the beach, watching the fishermen brave 3-foot swells and breaking waves on their Totora Seahorses. There were buyers waiting on the beach to pick the best catch, while the leftovers were handed out to elderly people or whoever needed it. Even I, the professional beach bum, was offered free fish several times. Getting free fish: $0. Experiencing kindness and good human nature: priceless.
I ran into another kind soul in Colca Canyon, where distance is measured by days' hike and time is observed by the change of the seasons. Fabio, a Quechua man, proudly showed me his estate and all his assets: a small adobe hut, fully equiped with a straw bed, a stove, a guinea pig enclosure, and a few rocks completed the furnishing. A small plot of quinoa field cheerfully greeted us on the other side of the foot path. His sun-burnt face glistened with contentment and his wind-chapped lips spoke liberty. What else does one need to be free and happy?

This is an abstract from my travel journal. Go to my Peru Album to see 300 photos of colorful Peru.