Thursday 28 March 2013

Day 2 SA, Off to the Amazon!

We found Doug and Ruth in the morning for hotel breakfast. Dawson and Julie ordered Peruvian, but not so good. What we thought would be some sort of chicken and corn breakfast tortilla was more like a soggy grainy cornbread and chicken, filling but somewhat tasteless. So much for adventure.

We met up with the tour guide, Edouardo, for the next 2 weeks all we have to do is stick with the herd. At 7:30 we were of to the aeroporto to catch a TACA flight to Peurto Malardo deep in the Amazon basin. The flight was via Cuzco with no debarking required, due to this, we all got various different combinations of boarding passes. We got 1 for the whole flight, some people got 2 boarding passes and Doug and Ruth just got 1 boarding pass but for the second leg of the trip. No one was concerned except the tourists!

Weather was clear and we got to see Lima from the air. Very flat land, with low buildings. A few highrises downtown. The area was quite large. Quickly we left the city and coast behind for the foothills of the Andres. Terrain was rough featuring green hills with lots of switchbacks road and next to no population. Then came the rugged snowcapped Andes. This was a beautiful site to witness from the airplane window. Beside us at one point was a snowcap mountain peak that you felt you could reach out and touch. It's top was through the clouds to the blue sky where we were flying. We took numerous photos on the first leg of the flight The flight gained lots of altitude as we were going from sea level to 10,000 feet. We landed in Cuzco to exchange some passengers and then we were off to the Amazon Basin. The second leg was to the river city Puerto Maldonadole, on the Tambopata River was only about 30 minutes. The Tambopata river is one of the main tributaries of the Amazon River.

This flight was overcast so not much to see until we started our decent into Puerto Maldonadole, here we got our first glimpse of the rain forest. Lowland with winding muddy rivers and cotton ball clouds in the trees like gorillas in the mist but without the gorillas and hopefully no guerilles (shining path terrorists used to be in Peru until 1995). Once we got off and picked up our luggage we were off to the Tour companies local office to pack for our two day visit to the rain forest.

Normally the trip to the lodge would be via bus and then a river boat but due to recent rainfall the tour company made the decision to eliminate the bus ride, thus lengthen the 2 hour boat trip to a 3.5 hour one. This in it self was not a bad thing as it gave us a good opportunity for sightseeing along the river. Notable animal sightings along the way was a pair of cappabera the largest rodent in the world. Think guinea pig but 1.2 meters high, we also saw a number of birds along with excellent views along the river. We arrived at the Tambopata Eco Lodge just at dusk, were assigned our rooms and then dinner. Once fed we headed out for our night hike. We were heavily prepared for mosquitoes which were almost non existent. The night walk consisted of a 300 m hike in company with our local guides. The guides would point out insects, birds, spiders and mammals as well as the local flora. Some army ants on the move Pretty neat. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Cheers Julie and Dawson


























Day 5 SA - March 28th

Today we are in Ollantye, Peru.  We have very little internet.  We have been writing our blogs, but unable to post.  Tomorrow we head to the Inca Trail for 4 days so again there will be no updates.  Very sad as we were enjoying journalizing our trip.  We are taking lots of pics though.

Chat to you later.

Julie and Dawson.

Wednesday 27 March 2013

Day 1 South America

Day 1 of Phase 2 saw us on our way to Lima via Houston. Check in/custom and flights were all uneventful. We had a 4 hour lay over in Houston but thanks to Dawson's excessive flying last year we were able to set up camp in the United Airlines lounge.

From Houston it was a 7 hour flight. Dawson watched one movie while Julie made an extraordinary effort and got 3 movies in. Once we had cleared customs and picked up our luggage Gadventures spotted us quickly and we were whisked away to our boutique hotel room with twin beds. We did not see Doug and Ruth as they arrived an hour ahead of us and were sleeping by the time we got to our hotel around midnight after 19 hours since heading to the airport that morning.

Sunday 24 March 2013

Day 0 South America

Well we are back to the adventure with phase 2 now under way. It has been 5 days since our last post with this time spent in Sarnia at our interim home, Julie's moms house. Time was well spent catching up with Julie's side of the family, Cassie and getting things in order for the South American adventure.

We did manage to keep the training going with a number of walks and Dawson did a couple of runs around the area. One run was around the Petrloia area which included a visit to the Petrolia Oil Discovery. The Oil Discovery is a working museum which provides a look at Canada's first oil producing fields. The museum was closed for the season but was still in operation with ~5 wells in production. Two of the wells are pumped using "jerker rod" system. Power is produced at a center stream engine and transmitted to the well via wooden rods. Quite an interesting system from an engineering perspective. My tour ended earlier as I was spotted by a worker and informed the site was closed to the public.

March 22 saw us back in Roma's basement packing, as we had done 25 years ago for the trip to Oz and more recently for the skibattical. Interesting enough the pack Dawson is using for this trip is the same one from the Oz trip. We managed to get everything into 2 day packs (thanks Kevin for lending us your pack), 1 large pack and a carry on with wheels.

March 23 had us back into our home (truck) for a drive to Guelph and then over to Diana's and Paul's in Port Credit. The stop in Guelph was to pick up Ross and Heather as we are leaving our home (truck) with Ross while we are away, Ross and Heather accompanied us to Port Credit where they dropped us off.

Diana and Paul are good friends, Diana was Julie Best Woman at our wedding. We did some finally shopping and nice "Urban" hike with Diana and Jessica (daughter). Paul elected to forgo the hike and have a nap as he will be running the 30km "Around the Bay Run". It was then back to Diana's and Paul house for dinner, stimulating conversation and off to bed.

5 o'clock found us up with Paul driving us over to Pearson for our 8:10 a.m. flight. Thanks Paul and Diana for your hospitality, we trust that one day we will be able to accommodate you guys in the same manner you have done for us.

We are now writing this on our iPad so please excuse the new look.

Cheers Dawson and Julie












Monday 18 March 2013

Day 39 - Full Circle

Today we completed the circle of phase 1 of our seabattical.  After 11,457.8 Kms. and $1,753 in fuel (truck is a pig), we got to Sarnia where the trip began.  We enjoyed every km. and had fabulous driving conditions for all but a couple hundred kms. on the way home across Saskatchewan and Manitoba.


Dan Fay re-united with train set
The most fun of our arrival home was watching Dan's enjoyment unwrapping the train set we brought back from Vernon, via Vancouver, Comox, Tofino, Whistler, Kamloops, Jasper, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Toronto and finally Sarnia.  The train set was a childhood toy of Julie's brothers, which had been passed along to family friends the Godfrays (about 40 years ago) that we stayed with on night 15, and they were happy to pass it back to the Fay family as they are mucking out and the train had run its course under the care of the Godfrays.  What a wonderful gesture to send it back our way as Dan had wonderful memories and was thrilled to hear that Godfrey's were wanting to part with the train set.

Now it is time to pack up for South America.

Cheers Julie and Dawson

Day38 - A day of past experiences

Well today was a day of past experiences.  Sudbury to Toronto.

Breakfast at the Cardinal Motor Inn
It started out with breakfast at the Cardinal Motor Inn for breakfast with friends, something which was a standard when we were part of the working world.










After breakfast we were on the road for Toronto to pick up the remaining boxes of our life at our apartment in Toronto for transfer to Julie's mom in Sarnia.  The drive from Sudbury to Toronto is a route that we have done alot but the nice thing is that the drive has gotten 45 mins shorter in the pass 25 years and now has a Mountain Equipment Co-op to stop in at in Barrie.   MEC has entered back into our life, and we stopped and picked up some stuff for Phase 2 of the Seabattical (hiking).

Back in Toronto we picked up our uhaul trailer and headed over to the apartment.  Loading the trailer was quick this time, and we headed up to Queen street for dinner.  As it was a Sunday we were obligated by tradition to head over to Castro's to take in the entertainment and a local beer.  It is one of my favorite traditions.  Interesting the band was the Gypsy Rebels (a band we had seen previously) play for St Paddy's day.  A very interesting choice.
The Gypsy Rebels at Castro's Sunday Afternoon


Cheers
Dawson and Julie

Saturday 16 March 2013

Day 37 - A hike with friends

Day started with a session of yoga with Ruth, Doug, Dawson and Julie on the big screen TV.  It was great.  Doug's back is sore so yoga stretches is one of the treatments to get him moving better.  After a leisurely morning we met up with the Trevisiol's at Hillcrest field for a hike over to Fielding Park and beyond.

Julie in a brich grove

Julie, Ruth and Beth
Julie, Gary, Beth, Ruth and Dawson

The day was sunny and cold.  Our fingers got a bit chilled and the pathway was slippery.  Julie carried an 11 pound pack as part of the Machu Pichhu training.  All went well.  For the evening we were off to the Dickieson's to see their holiday pics from Morocco.  A most enjoyable and education event.

Cheers
Dawson and Julie

Friday 15 March 2013

Day 36 Sudbury

Well we awoke early this morning as we had to bring the truck in to get the winter tires changed to our all seasons tires.  So if there is a snow storm in the near future it is our fault.

We spent the rest of the day meeting with our financial advisor to see what magic can be worked during our seabbatical, and visiting with friends.  Julie said hello to some of the FedNor gang and we ended the evening with drinks and dinner at Fionn McCools for Bruce Jago's  birthday.  A very exciting time.

Nancy, Kim, Julie, Dawson, Mary and Bruce

Thursday 14 March 2013

Day 35 Home to Ontario

Trip odometer rolls over.
Well the drive home seemed a lot longer than the drive west, but we made it.  4 days instead of 3, a bit of ice on the Canadian roads but overall we hit a 4 day high with lots of sun and no snow.  Roads were great today.  We drove the south side of Superior which was a nice drive.  Nothing too exciting about the drive except the truck rolled over 10,000 kms.  Total kms. were 10,500 driven in the 35 days.  As you can see below boredom took it toll on us and we downloaded a IPad app called Auto Bingo for our entertainment.  Very lame!

Auto Bingo, note missing W on keyboard


Overall, the entire trip was great.  In total I believe we lost 3 gloves, a scarf, a W, and a pair of earrings.  Not bad.  Basically, didn't buy anything but food, drink, gas and lift tickets. 

Thanks to all the people who made our trip so special.  It was so wonderful reconnecting and renewing friendships.

Day 1- Roma's (Julie's mom) driving day from Sarnia
Day 2-3 hotels -driving across the USA
Day  4-8 Wright's cabin -Pincher Creek -5 days of skiing
Day 9 Barry household - Calgary
Day 10-11 Parnell household-Cochrane -2 days hiking
Day 12-14 Jennings/Gilbert ski house Golden - skied Kicking Horse, hiked Wapta falls
Day 15 skied Revelstoke 2 days, Powder Springs Hotel
Day 16 Godfrey's house Vernon
Day 17 Cliff and Karan Proudfoot's - Vancouver
Day 18-20 Bogusky's Comox, BC - skied 2 days Mt. Washington
Day 21-22 Tofino, hiked Qualicum falls and the beaches
Day 23-25 Jagger Family, Whistler BC
Day 26 drove to Merritt BC
Day 27-28 Jasper AB, skied Marmot
Day 29 Baillie household, Edmonton
Day 30 Payne household Edmonton
Day 31 Drumheller, tourist boutique hotel
Day 32 Wright household, Calgary
Day 33 Price household, Saskatoon
Day 34 Sandi Proudfoot, Winnipeg
Day 35Patrick household, Lively

Now it is time to start organizing for Phase 2 - trip to Peru and Chile

Cheers
Dawson and Julie

Day 0 Skibbatical Adventures too!

More administration to do.  When does the fun begin?

Moved!
Doggie dropoff done!

Packed for skiing!

Day -1 In the beginning.....

Well it has been a long time in planning.  It started a long time ago when Julie sailed as a teenager on her dads boat.  Then Dawson and Julie hitchhiked onto a Catamaran at the Great Barrier Reef for a couple of weeks 25 years ago, then the Tanzer, the Mirage, and now the Caliber.....

After many training courses, a few international charters, a few races, and lots of cruising we are about to embark on our 18 month sabbatical.

Turkey Charter 2010

The house is rented, mailing addresses adjusted, boxes packed, jobs put on hold, dog sitter lined up (thanks Alicia and Alex), kids employed or at school and doing wonderful, so here we go.  Oh no, waters too cold, let's go skiing and hiking for a few months and wait for the water to warm up.  Stay tuned as we drive across Canada, couch surfing and skiing with friends along the way on our
Ski-bbatical.

Wednesday 13 March 2013

Day 34 U.S. or Canada?

Well we scoured the weather forecasts, interviewed previous drivers, weighed the pros and cons and decided to go south of Lake Superior.  Before we left we remembered to get a picture of our gracious host my aunt Sandy.


Dawson and Aunt Sandy
The drive started out a bit suspect as we passed two cars in the ditch within 30 mins of leaving Winnipeg, but the roads quickly improved and by our turn to the east at Grand Forks the roads were in excellent conditions.  We drove till Iron Mountain in Michigan where we booked into the Comfort Inn for the night.  Here is a picture that captures our point of view in crossing from Wisconsin to Michigan.

The view from operators console

For all are dedicated readers the answer to our question of yesterday is.  It is the ice on the side of the pickup from our drive across the prairies.  Congratulations to Alicia for her correct answer.
What is this?  It is .....

Yes it is the ice buildup on the Dakota



Cheers
Dawson and Julie

Tuesday 12 March 2013

Day 33 Delisle to Winnipeg

The day started off with a quick breakfast at Rob and Allison's and then it was time to say goodbye to their cats and we were on the road for 8:30. 

A cat's way of saying goodbye
Our start time was a little later than we wanted but it turned out for the best as the road were slick and it proved we were better off to be later as the roads needed time to warm up.  To date we have been telling people we have lucked out on the driving conditions, today was not so good.  Within 2 km's of starting we past our first car in the ditch.  We were to count 20 in total for the day including 2 transports

View out front window note the glare on the road and the car in the right ditch in background
The roads did improve as we headed east.  We stopped for a coffee in Wynyard Sask. and snapped the picture below.  Let us know if you know what it is?  We will post the answer tomorrow.
What is this?
As this is the praires we saw a number of trains, all very long.
Morning train just outside of Saskatoon
Afternoon train near Portage la Prairie
The afternoon train was a harbinger of the worst roads to come.  The train crossed highway 16 just before it joins with highway 1 from here to Winnipeg the roads were quite slick. 

Highway 1 East of Winnipeg note that the vehicles in front are driving on the shoulder to avoid the ice!
But the good news is we made it without incident to my aunts in Winnipeg.

Cheers
Dawson and Julie

Monday 11 March 2013

Day 32- Time to head East


Well the truck turns east today.  Closure to phase 1 has begun.  We bid farewell to the Wright household including taking Barnaby for a walk.  We crossed town to meet up with Martin to get the lowdown on his trip to Tanzania specifically his goal of climbing Kilimanjaro non-stop.  We met at a Starbucks in a Chapters, and enjoyed an hour of sharing stories.  Martin’s quests are quite amazing and we are constantly impressed how he can overcome the mental and physical challenges of his quests.  2 days after running a marathon, Martin climbed Kilimanjaro.  His intension was to complete it in 24 hours.  It took a bit longer, however he made it in one go.  Just incredible!
Dawson, Caroline and Kevin off 90
Martin, Julie and Dawson at Chapters
 

Well it was time to get into the truck and head east.  A good-bye hug at the Chapters coincidentally in front of Martin’s book which is on the shelves at Chapters and we were off.  Skies were blue and other than some snow blowing across the fields and sticking on the road in a few places, driving conditions were great.

Roads got a bit icier however visibility stayed excellent.  We saw about 5 vehicles in the ditch as we went along, and although Delisle was north of where our most direct route to Sudbury was, the roads were much better as we kept hearing horrible reports about the roads south of us all being closed.  Glad we were making the trek to Saskatoon for the visit and the roads.  We went through Hanna which boasts being the home of the music group Nickelback.  Pretty small town but seemed friendly.  They at least had washrooms.  We had gone into the town of no whereville in search of gas and a washroom but it was pretty slim pickings!  I bought a horrible cafe coffee for the privilege of using a washroom that had no working door to the hallway!
Julie and Rob Price


Truck in front of 4 bay garage and log home in Delisle SK
We got to Delisle around 5:30.  A bit confusing as we now were on central time zone, but Saskatchewan does not change their clocks for daylight savings time so we were not quite clear on our arrival time.  Rob had a wonderful roast in the slow cooker and veggies to mow down on.  What a wonderful greeting.  Life in Delisle seems well as Rob and Alison have a lovely log home and it is only 10 minutes from work.  They back onto the golf course.  What more could you ask for.  After dinner we got the tour.  Rob and Allison are very industrious and have always been avid renovators and creators.  Rob has a 4 car garage that all our male friends would be jealous of.  The kids have moved on to school and work so we had a choice of guest rooms to snooze in.  A wonderful visit.  Allison was not here unfortunately as she is in Florida with her mom currently.  Sad for us, but nice for her.  I am sure we will cross paths again in 5 years or so.  It has been at least 5 years since we have seen Rob and Allison who we met in Whitefish when we were all just raising our little babies.  I met Al’s mom before I met Allison and I remember her telling me how her daughter had just had a baby..... then Rob and Allison moved north and we became friends until they moved away to Fort McMurray many years ago.  Glad we have reconnected.  Gosh life is good.

Cheers Julie and Dawson

Day 31 - Tourist in Drumheller

Today we woke up in Drumheller prepared to be tourest for the day.  We stayed at the Heartwood Inn in Drumheller which is a boutique hotel run by Zeke and his wife Patrice.  The establishment was perfect, great location, fabulous room with a jet tub and very nicely appointed.  After a nutritional breaky we were off in the truck to the east check out the badlands. 

Badlands created in the Red Deer River Valley


 
Suspension bridge over to old mine workings
We had driven to Drumheller in the dark the night before so we were keen to check out the lay of the land.   It was very flat until Drumheller but the Drumheller Valley has been heavily eroded leaving a steep sided valleys with muddy hills, coal seams and hoodoos.  The hoodoos look like giant mushrooms.  The hoodoos are in constant production as the erosion is ongoing.  We drove south of Drumheller along the "Hoo Doo Trail.  All along the "trail" are small town which are all ex mining towns, the Drumheller Valley was a major coal producer in the early 1900's with the last mines closing in the late 50's.  The town of Rosedale boost a suspension bridge the miners used to go to towork.  It was interesting to walk across.  Then we went to see the old Atlas mine which is closed for the winter, but we walked around outside a bit.  There were a number of deer around, an old dog and some decrepit buildings.  What was amazing was the number of tiny houses that were no more than 400 square feet.  Every 3rd house was this tiny little thing.  Most homes were very tired looking too.  Our last little town was Wayne which again was a coal mining town that used to employ up to 1100 in the mining industry and now has a population of 26.  Here we saw the last chance saloon which was closed on Sunday and some ring necked pheasants.  Wayne was a bit of a disappointment as I thought it was a ghost town from the 1800’s, but really it was a modern day ghost town, less exciting than Creighton.
Julie with Albertasaurus at the Tyrell museum

Back to Drumheller to the Tyrell museum.  This is a world renowned museum for fossels.  It was really worthy of the world renowned title as there were whole dinosaur skeletons throughout mostly from Alberta.  We spent about 3 hours going through the museum before heading off back to Calgary to the grand finale reunion of phase 1 of our seabbatical. 

Once again the roads were great for driving and we were only about 1.5 hours from Calgary so landed at the Wright household.  Caroline had reserved tickets for all of us to go to the “Ironwood” and listen to Stephen Fearing and Lucas Chiasson.  Stephen is a Juno winner that many in the Wright’s circle of friends have been following for a few years as his record label is published by friend and Dawson’s fellow Cat skier Andy Hoag (queen’s 84).  Lucas opened for Stephen and he was great.  Lucas is only 18 and lives in Cochrane which is where our friends Martin and Sue currently live.  Turns out Lucas has also done some promo work with Sue and Martin.  We were also able to connect with Chris and Paula to say a personal thanks and good-bye for letting us use their cabin in Golden about a month ago when we skied Kicking Horse.  Sorry it is not a better pic, so much for blackberries!
Julie, Chris, Paula and Dawson