Category: International Travel

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New Zealand part 3 – Like Thunder from the Mountain

A crack splits the air and everybody’s head turns, eyes scouring the face of stone and ice looming high across the valley. But there is nothing to be seen. A false stillness beneath gliding clouds. Finally and only by training my eyes on the cliffs do I see an avalanche let loose, sending a shower of car-sized ice hunks and cascading loose snow free from the glacier. By the time the sound reaches the ears of the hikers milling around the Mueller hut and heads once again turn to face the noise the sudden, violent burst of icy activity has subsided. For now.

The Mueller hut is a basic backcountry cabin offering bunk beds, a cooking space, and water that you need to boil or filter before you can drink. This cabin’s claim to fame is the view it offers of Aoraki/Mt Cook and the fact that it was founded by Sir Edmund Hilary – climbing partner of Tenzing Norgay and co-first-summiter of Chomolungma/Mount Everest. The spartan interior is all but irrelevant because what lays outside, what all of us are here for, is the chance to see Aoraki. And in this, we are extremely lucky.

In this part of New Zealand rain, clouds, and general mountain-obscuring weather is the rule, not the exception to it. Sitting at 12,218ft (3,724 meters) the peak plummets dramatically 10,000ft straight down to the valley floor. Its shoulders a parade of razor-sharp ridges bedecked in flowing glaciers which transform in detail and color as the sun and clouds play across the sky. Closer to the hut sits Maukatua/Mount Sefton, and it is this peak which continues to roll great plumes of snow off its shoulders, like thunder boiling up from the rock itself.

As the sun arcs towards the horizon and begins to tuck itself neatly behind Maukatua’s jagged ridges the day hikers filter away from the cabin until there are only 20 or so of us overnighters left. The view towards Aoraki lays obscured by clouds so I turn my full attention to the ever-cascading face of Maukatua as it rumbles its way into darkness. Stillness. Then a cascade. Stillness. Then a cascade. Finally, the cold chases me inside while my little mammalian heart beats in time with a world so much larger than myself. And Maukutua rumbles and roars alone in the darkness, a restless giant, a fracturing cacophony of one.

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New Zealand part 2 – Living in the Sun

I turn my face to the sun and wait for the chatter of the walk signal to usher me on. “My god,” I think “it’s perpetually fucking beautiful here.” Four days of travel just to get to the country followed by two days of walking through the endearing city of Christchurch have left my body aching and fatigued, yet my mind yearns to see and feel as much of the city as I can. The light turns, the crosswalk chatters and as I open my eyes to my surroundings an older person on a bicycle comes sliding past, singing cheerfully as they go, a musical of one.

Christchurch is proving to be an easily loveable city. Golden rolling hills extend to the south while the ocean to the east provides a cooling onshore breeze. New construction abounds as does street art and a seemingly endless supply of small coffee shops. I am both compelled on and struggling under drooping eyelids. And it is this drooping fatigue that I eventually pay heed to as I turn my feet back towards our hostel.

Our trip to New Zealand and Australia is ultimately unlike any other travel Keith and I have done. Previously, when traveling to another country our tactic has been to cram in as many things as humanly possible, relying on the return to home and employment to provide the rest forgone on the trip. A trajectory well suited to a trip on the span of days to a couple of weeks. Conversely, when we thru hiked the Pacific Crest Trail the whole endeavor was undertaken with a goal in mind: Canada, the finish line, the accomplishment of a completed hike. But neither of those ideologies seem to fit the ethos of the three and a half months that lay out before me. For on this trip, the end will be less of an accomplishment than a termination; while cramming each day to the fullest will almost certainly bring on burnout far ahead of our return flights. And in that burnout lays another danger, in the form of my tumultuous struggle with mental illness: a formidable danger both literally and metaphorically resting at the back of my mind.

So what then? Can a goal be as simple as living? To live through each day as both the point and the accomplishment of the trip? Can I push myself to adventure and see while simultaneously letting go of the frustration that will inevitably come when I cannot do everything I think I must? I suppose it’s far too early to tell and in the sunshine of this day I don’t feel the need to tackle such conundrums to their terminus. So I return to our small hostel room with my tired feet and mild sunburn, with the plan to begin this quest of living anew tomorrow, and, I figure, for every day after.

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New Zealand part 1 – 24 hours in Fiji

The heat and humidity wrap around my Seattle-chilled bones, welcoming to Nadi, Fiji like a heavy blanket of possibility. Choruses of “Bula!” from the staff greet us as we meander through customs while in my head my emotions back-flip over themselves; elated to be somewhere new, somewhere besides the bone-aching winter chill and permeating dark of Seattle. It’s like I’ve escaped, it’s like I’ve been set free. I’ve come across the world, across the dateline, down to the southern hemisphere and into the start of three and a half months spent in New Zealand and Australia. Only now, only upon setting my feet down on foreign soil does this trip feel real. Even during the months of planning and research this trip has felt like a mirage on the horizon. Visible, yet I dare not believe it real. The last years have taught me the debilitating disappointment of hope that fails to materialize and I’ve built walls around myself to keep that potential disappointment at bay.

Through flights booked, hotels reserved, and a plucky little rental car scheduled I fueled this dream through practicality instead of anticipation. But then things started to shift as trip-specific purchases accumulated, jobs were quit, and bags packed. Each one planting seeds in my pessimistic brain: “this is real, this is real, this is happening and this is real.” And now here we are in Fiji and the gravity of what Keith and I are doing is finally hitting home.

For the next three months we will live and travel across New Zealand. Starting on the southern island and working our way north through the northern island, through the end of the southern hemisphere’s summer before spending a whirlwind two weeks road tripping up the eastern coast of Australia. But today we will spend 24 hours on the island of Fiji. Baking our pale bodies under the tropic sun and eating whatever local food we can find. Tomorrow it’s on to Christchurch New Zealand and then, well then dear reader the adventure begins. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

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Iceland

We leave Reykjavik under a heavy sky that is just beginning to lighten. It is 10am. Starman pilots the car through endless roundabouts as we make our way north out of the city. After 40 minutes the low buildings of Reykjavik drop away and we are deposited into rolling countryside, hemmed in one one side by an expansive ocean while the other rises quickly to mountains ground flat by immense glacial rivers.

This land feels desolate and removed from modern time. Only the occasional gas station with its neon lights creates a tenuous link the present. Though Iceland has only been inhabited for 1,000 years, the remote hamlets and farms feel ancient beyond scale. The world is pale grey sky, black rock and umber grass.

I dream about living here, alone and distant. In this fantasy I occupy a small cabin, just a single room with a loft for sleeping. Warm wooden walls and a fireplace to heat. In the summer I would walk in any direction I chose, climbing mountains, following streams and drinking from their cold waters. I would grow a garden under the endless sunlight and in the evenings, sit on the porch and watch the sun dip lazily across the southern sky. Feeling the Earth turn as the seasons march forward.

In the winter I would draw myself close against the dark and biting cold. During the short days I would ski slowly and without intent across the land, returning home in the evenings to melt snow for water and watch the wind blow patterns in the snow. I would marvel at the changing face of the land, both familiar and born anew each season. I would read and write and burrow into my solitude like a warm bed. Contented and held by the land, by the desolation of this small, imaginary cabin.

And in the spring I would re-emerge into the sun and into a life with people. Having been healed by time and space and loneliness.

I have been in Iceland for less than 24 hours and already this land calls. Speaking a language I didn’t remember knowing. Something in my bones aches to be ground down by the wild remoteness of this land, I wish to be unknown as I come to know this place. Perhaps, I think to myself, it would be possible to live here one day.

On our second day in Iceland we drive to the black sand beaches of Vik and I pretend that I am standing at the end of the world. The Atlantic stretches like gunmetal to the horizon. A brutal, cold sort of beast whose mere proximity stirs something desperate in my mammalian chest. Danger and awe. I am fragile and impotent standing next to such a force. I relish its power to destroy me and I am smothered in the presence of vastness, of enduring authority, of power without scale. Water not for play, but as a vast mote around a small island.

The water takes many forms in Iceland but none is as captivating as the waterfalls. Foss, as they are called in Icelandic. Gullfoss, Iceland’s most iconic and popular waterfall drops like curtains into a gaping maw of a canyon. And we stand on its rim and oggle like children at the size, the urgency with which the water flings itself forward and down through slot and sluice. The roaring of the falls is seconded only by the wind. That perennial Icelandic wind, pushing at our backs as we run to the car. Feet slipping in the mud and snow Starman and I laugh until we are gasping. Past the accusing eyes of tourbus pedestrians we fly. Each step a leap of faith that we will come back down to the ground. Any moment we could be carried away by the wind and set free.

Like any first attempt at love it is over too fast. Eyes widened and cheeks wind-burnt I find myself at Keflavík Airport. It is time to go home.

The flight path to Seattle travels north over the arctic and from the window I can see the mass of hulking white below me. The vast, craggy expanse of the arctic is enchanting in the dregs of daylight. I cannot help but stare and wonder. Wonder what it would be like to walk day and night across the ice until northbound travel becomes south. And I become nothing more than a laugh on the wind, alone in these northern places that call to me.

For more photos find me on Instagram @karaontheoutside

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Trip Report – In the Valley of Giants – Peru Part 2

We rolled into and out of Cusco without ever seeing the sun. Only once our little cab had begun its winding descent into the valley outside of the city did my sleep deprived brain begin to churn into motion. This is what Peru is supposed to look like I thought to myself. Green valleys exploded in front of us, puffy clouds grey with impending rain scattered across the horizon, mountains in the distance. I’ve lived near mountains my entire life, but my mountains looked nothing like what I saw here. These were not mountains, but massive, sleeping giants that reached into the sky above us. We were nothing compared to these mountains. These mountains were strangers to me, and yet I loved them instantly.

After the cab we climbed into the back of a truck and set off up a dirt road, after the truck we began to walk. We would walk for the next four days.

Our legs carried us up and up through a lush green valley, above us stood these massive white faces that looked down on us. To the Peruvians Mother Earth is known as Pachamama. I wondered if Pachamama was looking down at her little gringo children. I wondered if she thought of us at all.

We climbed. 11,000 feet, 12,000 feet, 13,000 feet. Tomorrow we would go even higher. Tomorrow we would cross over Salkantay Pass which stood at 15,200 feet, more than 5,000 feet below the peak which bore it’s same name.

As we went to sleep that night, buried under fleece blankets to block out the cold, I wondered what it would be like at 15,200 feet. I couldn’t imagine it. I could only wait for morning to come. I guess I’ll find out I thought as I feel asleep.

And then it was morning. Or, at least, it was time to get up. We dressed in the dark, ate our breakfasts, and listened sleepily as our guide gave us the instructions for the day. I really hope I’m understanding him correctly I thought, knowing that I was the only one here who spoke even remedial Spanish.

Later we would come to find out that I actually hadn’t understood our guide fully. But in the grand scheme of things it didn’t really matter. My misinterpretation would cost us a few hours without our bags, about $100 american dollars, and a fair bit of sanity as I attempted to explain a rather complicated situation in Spanish. But then again, what is travel if not a series of memory-creating fuck ups?

Anyway. By 9am we had summited Salkantay pass, and although it was cold and crowded, and blindingly bright, I thought I should never want to leave this place. I feel like I’m being obtuse when I say that I literally cannot describe its beauty. But there you have it, that’s what pictures are for.

Besides, we still had to make it to Machu Picchu.

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Trip Report – The Sun is on Fire – Peru Part 1

My alarm is blaring, it’s freezing in our hostel, and it’s far too early. My brain feels blurred around the edges, and things come slowly into focus as I shiver into the clothes that I laid out the day before. Thank you past self, I sleepily think. Outside our bus is waiting and we board with a dozen other half-asleep gringos and rumble out of the city. I know I’ll likely never see Arequipa again, this mountain city in Peru, and yet that fact doesn’t keep me from falling asleep as soon as the bus hits the road. That’s something they don’t tell you about international travel: that not every experience you have will be a mind-blowing, spiritually-awakening, self-realizing journey of discovery and love. Sometimes it’s just a pre-dawn bus ride.

Eight hours before I was in Lima which, and I’m being really honest here, is a really hard city to love. I’m sure people do love it there. Mothers love their especially awful children too. But I don’t. The city seems half way between Spanish colonialism, and a botched construction job. In all but the nicest parts of the city cinder-block buildings dominate, cops adorn more street corners than not, and traffic blares, rumbles, and honks its way through the streets. Lanes aren’t a thing here, but then again neither are stop signs, pedestrian crosswalks, or logical right-of-way. Dully I realize that life in Los Angeles has made the hectic sprawl of Lima seem rather tame. That’s nice.

And yet, the city does have some charm, though I cannot explain it’s origin. Perhaps it comes from the fact that nobody is interested in catering to my needs. English speakers are few and far between, and locals seem only marginally interested in spoiling this confused blanca and her endearingly white boyfriend. It’s refreshing. It’s also annoying at times.

I wake on the bus and we’re on the side of the road. We stumble out and watch the condors slide overhead. It’s incredible to see these birds. The same birds I remember learning about in third grade, and the likelihood they’d be extinct soon, probably within my life time soon. But here they are! It’s amazing.

Then we’re back on the bus, then we’re off the bus, and then just like that we’re below the rim of the Colca Canyon and it’s quiet. Really quiet. The canyon drops thousands of feet below us to a rushing river that looks like no more than a stream from where we are. We hike down down down, and then because we are foolish and because rest is for those with vacation time, we hike up up up and across the other side of the canyon. And I’ll spare you the details, but after all the hiking up we do, we turn right around and hike back down into the canyon, all the way to the bottom to the little town of Llahuar.

Our lodge there is everything I could have wished it to be. There are warm cocktails, and dinner, and little Peruvian women who giggle at my flawed spanish, and yet are so gracious and helpful. There are even hot springs and after dinner we soak in the water. Allowing our muscles to unwind as we watch the super moon rise.

Tomorrow we’ll hike out of the canyon. The sun will bake down on our heads in, what I’m coming to learn, only an equatorial sun can do. On our hike up we’ll realize that we don’t have enough water, and at least I don’t have enough food, and there is no shade. But it’s ok, because all there is to do is hike. When we get back to Cabanaconde on the rim of the canyon we’ll guzzle water and eat a lunch which, is by all objective standards completely average, but in the moment is perfect.