Inca Postcards

Somewhere in PERU -- photos of our ollantaytambo and machu picchu escapades. ang ginaw!

carved out of an entire mountain (probably sent a lot of inca workers to their deaths)

paparazzi shot while looking for a hostel

are we there yet

it got hotter up the sacred valley ruins

something about peruvian water made our hair look nice

jeetas with croatia's answer to borat (croatian morning gymnastics, anyone?)

capoeira!

Salvador , BRASIL -- bahia is the birthplace of capoeira so we can't not post on that now can we? we weren't able to catch the masters at pelourinho on video so for now here's master marcos vinicius and top pupil jeetas (this was how we would start our day: waking up in a condo overlooking the ocean, to the sound of afro-brazil beats and a half-naked bahiano getting our coffee ready...such was the life we had)

manay, get your namorado to show us some serious capoeirista moves!

putting an end to saudades

Salvador, BRASIL -- On June 5, after a week in Rio de Janeiro, I eagerly hopped on the plane to Salvador de Bahia with Risa, Justine and Ditas. I was anxious to see Marcos after our three-month (endless) exchange of muitas saudades (missing with a heartache) over Skype. After retrieving my suitcase at the Salvador airport, I hurriedly made my way to the exit. No sight of Marcos. Risa: “I'm sure he'll be here soon.”

And so he was. I saw Marcos burst through the glass doors and run to me with a bouquet of flowers. And then the cinematic embrace. (Photos courtesy of Ditas). I can't remember the last time I felt that kind of high. When I passed the bar exams probably.

The girls and I spent five days in lovely Bahia before heading to Lima. More on that next time.

Now, after two weeks of near-arctic weather in Peru and Argentina, I'm back in Salvador. It's good to feel the sun on my skin again.

hey, im having fun too!

Manila, PH -- while the girls are having the time of their lives halfway around the world, i guess i can do the same here in our beloved metro. i haven't been traveling but having such a good time. just hanging out, shooting or even staying at home! yeah, of course i'm dating someone. what else can make me stay at home ?

ladies, meet rossy. make that rossy and robert. since we are a couple.

she's a 23 year old interior designer and the sweetest girl in the world! well that's not counting the 5 of you.

been very busy shooting lately, portraits and people. i think, its been more than a year since i took portraits of the pseudobackpackers. why not check my latest shots here ?

the boston celtics won the nba title again after 22 long years. i just had to wait 2 years for this one though. but that's two things that made me really happy this year.

oh did i mention i'm in love ? or that's too cheesy na ? hahaha

brazil in the baggage

Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA -- marcos once explained to our manay jan what the word saudades meant. it´s a special kind of missing, when you miss something or someone so bad that your heart aches. i think i feel that way about feijao com farofa. that´s black beans with traditional brazilian farina (flour). i´m pretty sure i´ll be craving for that when i get home.

right now i´m at the ezeiza airport thankful that i got to extend my stay in rio but wishing i had more time there. my last night in rio was spent at a laranjeiras flat perched on a hill. my friends and i listened to joao gilberto and ravi shankar while drinking wine and laughing at this.

my carioca friend maira says we´re the same because we both have espiritu de gorda. a fat spirit. this, after she witnessed me order pizza and grape juice from a madureira food stall just an hour after i had wolfed down a plate full of feijao and a mini chocolate fondue.

beijao to all the brasileiros who gave our fat little spirits a lot of room to play! all you people did was make us eat, dance, sing, and eat some more. the shame, the shame. piscar, piscar (wink, wink).

tempos felizes

our little festa at the corcovado tram ride


maira and our leblon chef making pasta a la jeetas

Ipanema, BRASIL -- happy times above.

it´s looking like it will be time for me to leave cidade maravilhosa tomorrow. if lan airlines would just cooperate i can spend another weekend here.

i am, again, waiting for my galera to finish their to-do lists. i´m watching the sound of music later with my friend and his folks. i´m not sure if it will be in english. como se diz "how do you solve a problem like maria" em portugues?

some replies:

jan: i miss you, marcos, and the lovely people of salvador. i was at centro again today and i found acaraje from a vendor who was an honest-to-goodness bahiana...wish i could have more over there. saudades!

sparklemind: that´s not emo yet. watch out.

jushtine: haven´t gotten any text messages from you or anyone back home (except for a spammer offering me a car loan)... attempting to apply that lovely italian word. here´s to building things that last!

constant rain

Rio de Janeiro, BRASIL -- it´s wednesday night and i´m alone at a cafe in leblon reading that elizabeth gilbert book jushtine and jeetas kept throwing spoilers of back in peru. it´s so popular you can get a copy of it here in portuguese (comer rezar amor).

getting a bit lonely. i´m back here in rio for the second time in 4 weeks. i flew in from salvador de bahia last night without jan (hi manay & marcos). the terrible tandem left south america a week ago. right now i´m waiting for my friend to finish his errands. i called my other friend daniel to see if he wanted to hang out but he doesn´t get off from work ´til late.

this is just fine, though. i´d rather be lonely halfway across the world than back home. it´s easy to feel hidden here, away from things and people you´d rather not think of.

maybe it´s the constant rain.

* i´ll stop here before you all let out a collective aww which i might not appreciate ;p

the most "GP" entry!

Torrance, CA -- I was having second thoughts of posting this 'cause it is SOOOO wholesome compared to Ditas' "meaty" entry. Oh well, just try to look at my shoes!;-)

i know i owe blog entries, but this picture is just too funny.....

Salvador, BRASIL ---
THE NIGHT THE VEGETARIANS GAVE IN......TO HAMON.
Let's slice the ham.
Let's bring home the ham.

mais que nada

Machu Picchu, PERU -- i'll leave the post about bahia and other happenings with "jeetas," "jani," and "jushtine" (love the portuguese way of saying things).

so manay jan and i arrived ahead of the terrible tandem by a couple of hours. the lima airport had an unusual concentration of metalheads in black sneaks. when we asked our cabbie why there was a commotion at the arrival area he simply said: "megadeth." yes, they're still around and we flew in on the same flight. they are apparently on the latin america leg of their "tour of duty 2008."

after lima we went to cusco, ollantaytambo and finally aguas calientes, the last stop before macchu picchu. if you want more historical info just borrow cely's print-outs on peru (that's jushtine's cousin). just know that machu picchu means "old mountain" and it was discovered in 1911 by our man hiram bingham.

we were such penny-pinchers when it came to sightseeing that we refused to hire anyone and tried to eavesdrop on the machu picchu guides holding their nth lecture for their big tour groups. and when we couldn't hear everything we would just dismiss it with "it's all just speculation, anyway."

i can't post it right now but i have photos of my footwear problems right before the bus ride for machu picchu. great timing. so i can proudly say: i conquered machu picchu in tsinelas! and we have a dance video to prove it.

watch out for our mais que nada in machu picchu samba number. teehee.

highlights:

ditas' ollanta, cusco and lima admirers
sacred valley ruins
best meal at indio feliz, aguas calientes
450-year old monument-turned hostel (loki backpackers' hostel in cusco)
wayna picchu jungle hike - congrats manay (almost there) and deets (made it)!

futebol e vida!

the flamengo seal

pre-match with the couchsurfers

pati with the new flamengo fans

Maracana, BRASIL -- football is life! in brasil, anyway. and we had a thrilling first-hand encounter with brazilians´love affair with the sport. we watched a match between flamengo and fluminense, 2 of the top 4 clubs in the country. the electric vibe at the stadium was infectious. the drum beats, the huge car-sized bandeiras, and the passionate fans all made the match more memorable. we were on the flamenguista side and by rooting for that team we learned a slew of new portuguese cuss words (my sources were right: it's the flamenguistas who know how to have fun. you can liken their fan fever to our own ginebra pba fans).

the match also earned me a souvenir on my left thigh, a big purple bruise caused by an overly-excited english fan. when flamengo scored a goal on a penalty kick our side of the maracana stadium went crazy and his wildly waving arms caused me to land hard on my seat. the screen proclaimed: goool!

patricia offers this simple summary for soccer love: you can change your wife, you can change your sex, you can even change your country. but you can never change your soccer team. to do that would make you a traitor to all that brazilians hold dear. 'til the next crazy futebol game!

* flamengo won, 1-0. we went home a happy bunch.

Corcovado

Rio de Janeiro, BRASIL--On our second day in Brasil, we paid a visit to Cristo Redentor in Corcovado. Since we had in our previous travels caught the sunrise in Angkor Wat, we thought it would be perfect to catch the sunrise overlooking this marvelous city. Tip: the first tram up the mountain only starts at 8.30am. Whilst killing time we went on a hunt for some food. One of the locals pointed us to Princesa Supermercado where wonders of all wonders, it was also still closed. Sleep deprived and cold we were in no mood to wait until an elderly Carioca came up to us just to tell us we were such garotas lindas (pretty girls). Suddenly, the morning didn´t look so bad. After some pao de queijo (post about this to follow) and cafe with leite (but separa por favor), we trooped back to the tram station to make our way up to Cristo. The first time I looked up at Cristo, I felt a rush to my head and realised...oh my god, this statue is big. Second thought: I promise to be good, really. Once we were done gazing up (way way up) at the Cristo, we busied ourselves admiring the view of the city. Perched on top of a mountain, we could make out the marina, the race track, the famous Pao de Azucar and Maracana (post on this to follow).

Taxi fare from Ipanema to Corcovado: 15-20 reais

Tram fare to the top of Corcovado: 36 reais

oi!

Ipanema, BRASIL -- the terrible tandem of justine & ditas finally made it to south america. they weren´t all bright & cheery when they got here, thanks to their missing luggage (courtesy of american airlines). plus we welcomed them to our terrasse hostel room, which deets proclaimed as our nice "walk-in closet" (had a shared bathroom for the first time and it wasn´t so bad). we brought them to corcovado to see cristo redentor and partied at house, this bar in leblon.

i´m a bit frustrated as the pc i´m using right now is ancient and i can´t find the usb port. so no photos for now.

i forgot to post about our first time in ipanema. jan and i were a few blocks from the beach when she gasped all of a sudden. in front of us were these two dudes walking, like regular pedestrians. except that dude number 1 was wearing a tee and... skimpy red speedos. imagine seeing that while you´re walking outside greenbelt. and then while we were outside the botanical gardens in tijuca we saw this guy walking in the opposite direction. shirtless and looking like a bronzed baywatch surfer extra. jan and i were in unison -- "temptation!" giselle, our new puerto rican friend, agreed. they´re everywhere.

will post soon about the football game we watched at maracana stadium. tchau for now!

sextas-feiras em rio (thursday in rio)

Copacabana, BRASIL-- our first night out in o brasil! it was funk/"hipy-hop" night at clandestino bar.

after watching indiana jones (with portuguese subtitles) we headed to copacabana with cariocas rosangela, bianca and daniel. it was a rainy night at 17 degrees but inside the club the dj residentes "dropped it like it´s hot!"

we had our strongest caipirinha (with fresh strawberries) and it took us three hours to finish half a glass. daniel was careful not to drink too much lest he lose his english proficiency. rosangela, with non-alcoholic sprite in hand, had the best moves of the night. and bianca showed us some mean forro steps which we miserably attempted to copy.

on the way home the cristo redentor greeted us again, this time bathed in fog and city lights.

day 3 in rio. super-legal!

cidade maravilhosa

Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, BRASIL--"saúde!" says the cute brazilian shop clerk as i sneeze while walking past him. we´re in shopping tijuca, a mall near our host´s apartment. patricia, our couchsurfing host, says the expression means "bless you!" in portugues. so it´s not just a way to toast to good health, i´m finding out.

a few hours earlier i woke up with a jolt as the plane´s tires screeched on the pavement. i turned to jan and the first thing she said was "we´re here!" with a huge smile on her face. i was so out of it after an 18-hour flight. we were jetlagged coming from los angeles and we had a stopover in santiago, chile plus undisclosed stops at lima, peru and sao paolo, brazil. we only found out about the other stops when the pilot announced the whole route on the plane!

hasten was asking about first impressions when i texted her earlier today. we haven´t been around yet but i love how we´re in a city surrounded by mountains, a forest, and beaches.

also, the locals we´ve met thus far are just great. marcelo, the driver who picked us up at the airport, was also an excellent tour guide. he pointed out some landmarks like the maracana soccer stadium and told us not to worry about dengue fever as it hadn´t been raining for 18 days. quite a character, that guy. he´s not sure if he´s really brazilian as he dislikes soccer and the samba.

i´m writing this from marcos´ laptop. that´s marcos, patricia´s sister. not jan´s namorado ;)
it´s almost 2am and i have to sleep soon. we´re off to parque national da tijuca in the morning.
later!

* photo of cristo redentor taken from here. will post our own photos soon!

How it started

Los Angeles,CA -- I wanted to cry when I saw Janice get off from the shuttle, more so when we met Risa 2 days before they left for Rio. I was so happy that the South Am plan pushed through (even though I'm not joining the girls..) We reminisced about how we actually came up with South America. I was personally asked a couple of times why we decided on South Am. I'd always tell them that it's because of a Swiss couple we met in Sagada--Jean-Philippe & Caroline.

Later on, while talking about learning the salsa and waiting for Justine at her surprise despedida, Risa looked at me and asked, "alam mo ba yung blog?" We were thinking of the same thing but didn't know how to start. Then we met Sparklemind, and "mypseudobackpack" was born.

While the girls are enjoying their adventure, I'm hooked on the Travel Channel, taking down notes on food, people & places, and planning on where we can take Lucas. I think I'll let Lucas explore South America by himself when he grows up =)

Any suggestions for baby- friendly places? Please spare Disneyland!

first stop: L.A.

Lawndale, CA - after a 13 hour flight out of manila with a 20 kilo suitcase and a 40 liter backpack i arrived in LAX on may 25...exhausted. along with the USA men's volleyball team and a pack of japs headed for vegas, immigration inspector asked me the purpose of my visit (stopping over before rio de janeiro, sir) and customs officer asked me if i brought longganisa and balut (no, but i could bring you some next time). once out of the airport, i hurriedly took my supershuttle ride which joy so kindly booked. 20 minutes on the road and i was at joy's doorstep!

i had missed joy so much it felt surreal to be seeing her, this time with 6-week old lucas and hubby rico. twas great catching up on a year's worth of life stories.

risa and i spent our last day in L.A. with joy and her boys over breakfast at denny´s and animatedly planned our next big adventure: turkey/morroco/greece in april ´09.

first things first, though - vamos a sul america!

Pseudobackpackers Packing List (subtitle: I should be working but I choose to maintain my sanity by blogging about the essentials)

Suntec City, Singapore--On a recent trip home, Reese and I got last minute tips from my fabulous cousin Cely who backpacked around South America for almost 3 months after taking the bar exams. Here's her list of what to pack:

1. two pairs of pants - 1 pair of jeans and 1 pair of cargo pants or gauchos

2. 1 mini skirt

3. 4-5 tank tops (two of which must be black and white)

4. 3 tops for going out (ehem ehem)

5. all weather jacket with hoodie

6. 1 long sleeved top

7. 1 pair of sneakers/trainers

8. 1 pair of going out sandals

9. 1 pair of flip flops

10. gloves, scarf,extra socks (folks, Peru will be in the lows of 35 F when we get there)

11. photocopies of all travel documents


I have done some pre-packing of my own and would like to add the following essentials:

12. lock for backpack (be sure to get the TSA approved ones, i.e. the ones with a digital combination lock and the keyhole that can be opened with a standard international key)

13. money belt (to be worn inside jeans..not very fashionable but oh so essential)

14. universal plug

15. anti-mozzy repellant

16. bikini

17. camera and film of choice

Words of wisdom from Cely, if you have extra space, bring more tops for going out! Wise woman, that cousin of mine.

Any other suggestions? Less than two weeks to go!!

me, prepare for brazil?

Manila, PH -- joy, i am an obedient girl so i'm posting my list.

1. got immunization shots (hepa a, typhoid, flu). bawal magkasakit! tomorrow i'm getting yellow fever shots with manay jan. apparently you can only get these in manila at the bureau of quarantine. right, hasten? (we were teasing her that because of her tiny tidy island's requirements, she'll be the only one getting the shots & falling in line with livestock & such. look who has to go now.)

2. been somewhat faithful to my brazilian diet. brazilian diet: because i need money for brazil i can't go shopping or have lunch out! hopefully next year i'll be on a turkish diet. wink, wink.

3. looking for a good 55-liter up backpack. my sister the mountaineer is using hers daw. sigh. i don't want to blow $300 on something i can't wear/take pictures with.

4. brushing up on my portuguese/spanish. i'm not doing great, though. today i learned how to ask for food in a restaurant: "�tiene comida vegetariana?" jan, if i can't remember how to conjugate i'll leave all the talking to you...unless i decide to bring my 'wicked spanish' phrasebook (and we all know how useful that will be).

5. couchsurfing! i've hosted several people here but crashing a relative stranger's house will be quite a plunge for me and the girls. the people who are hosting us are mostly from the north zone of rio de janeiro. i've got their contact details on my notebook & i'm excited to be a part of their homes for a few days. will post on how this goes.

lomo above of mutch & me: in the justine tradition of posting photos that bear no relevance to the text. by eazy of lomomanila.

About Her Recovery

Harbor City, CA -- I was searching for a tunic dress online and looking for what's new in one of my favorite boutiques back home, I Love You Store, when I came across this site: www.aboutmyrecovery.com. Although the site was intended to be therapy for a mom's loss, i think it turned out to be a labor of love. It is inspiring (and you don't have to be a mom to be inspired by some of her entries), and informative as well.

Ladies, can you write something about how you are preparing for your South Am adventure?