Christmas Day

So with no family around we invited a bunch of people around on Christmas Eve and cooked an enormous amount of food. Check and check. Our Christmas Tree. Courtesy of nature itself.

So we woke up on Christmas morning, cooked up another feast, opened some presents and headed up the mountain. It even started to snow too.
A picture of the main buildings in the resort on the way up on the chair. The bottom level of the main building is the rental shop. My office view looks straight up the mountain. Nice.
Riding the chair on Christmas Day.
A view down the mountain. The mountain base is on the bottom right. Fernie is in the top left (you can hardly see it because it is snowing), 7 minutes in a car.
Bella carving it up both looking up the mountain and down.
And finally the man in the red suit (actually this was on Christmas Eve hence the blue sky).

Bella on Christmas Day

Bella carving it up on Christmas Day. Imagine how good she is now.

Opening Day at Fernie Alpine Resort

December 8, 2007. Bella's first day on a snowboard.Evidence that it was her on a nice sunny day.The Cedar Bowl.The Resort has 5 of these massive bowls. The resort has only been open for a week or so now and is still in need of a bit of snow, but i am sure it will happen. Stories of 50cm in 6hrs in previous seasons. Not sure if i will be heading into the backcountry around here (areas outside the resort ski fields). Avanlanches are a serious concern. The resort uses bombs to blow up the dangerous areas in the morning before the lifts start (the fernie alarm clock). They use more bombs than any other resort in North America. Something about the steepness of terrain and amount of snow we get here.

Waiting, so playing around with photos.

Costa Rica is nice.

A Little Mountain Town

We arrived in Vancouver, Canada and spent a week with Bay and Luke. A good week catching up with some friends we hadn't seen in a long time and a chance for us to eat and drink all the things we went without during our travels.We arrived in Fernie after one last long bus ride and with not much more than a couple of personal recommendations and a website saying it is the powder capital of Canada, but they offered me a job on the mountain so the decision was made. We arrived a little late compared to all the other seasonal workers, but managed to find a room in a sharehouse and Bella found a job, all in a couple of days.Our new house on the left. We arrived to a week of cold but sunny weather. Fernie is surrounded by mountains that all had a little bit of snow on them. Very scenic.
A typical Fernie street. Well use to be. Now they look like this a day later.We had about 20-30cm overnight. Hopefully this is the start of something big.
Now this is what our house looks like.A few trees.
Maybe a Christmas Tree contender in a month's time. Just needs a few decorations and some tinsel. Might look for one a little bigger.

A Step Back

I never did an entry about our last week or so in Peru and there was some interesting stuff. We headed to the beach at Huanchaco. It was good to walk on the sand, hear the waves although the water was far too cold to consider swimming. There are also some ruins around the place, as is the case throughout Peru. They had so many communities all over the country throughout its history. Peru's coastline is one massive sand dune. Towns are built in the middle of nowhere on the sand. In the ruin sites, buildings and walls were made of sand as opposed to the stone used in the mountain cities. The intricate carvings all represent parts of the ocean which they worshipped. These structures are from around 800AD and while some restoration has been done, they have withstood the test of time pretty well. Although some structures do resemble a big pile of sand.The town of Huanchaco is a quiet little fishing village. The reed boats below are still used to paddle out and place the nets. But also used to give gringos a cold, wet ride.We made it to Lima a couple of days before we had to fly out. We had heard many people give it a bad report of a boring city with not much to do. However, we had a good 4 days here. Again, more ruins, although this time they are in the middle of a city of 4 million people. Apparently it use to be a big pile of sand and people use to dump rubbish on it until the 1980's when they discovered it was an ancient religious pyramid.Again completely made of sand and shale. This is an example of the library technique of construction. Gee, those archaelologists are so creative.A picture of the beachside cliffs at Miraflores, Lima, with Bella standing atop a shopping centre built right into the hillside.

Costa Rica

(Our two week summer in a year of Winter)

This all happened a number of weeks ago now but anywho. Costa Rica is a very cool place where you could spend months and still have heaps left to do and see. We only had two weeks so we decided to pack a lot in the first week and take the second week easy to enjoy the sunshine and sand as soon we would be heading to a Canadian Winter.

We started with the most popular attraction in Costa Rica. We headed to La Fortuna which is near the Arenal volcano, the 4th most active in the world. It is called La Fortuna (translates to the fortunate) due to it being created after the eruption in 1962 which destroyed the villages on the other side of the volcano. Previously this area use to be agricultural land but is now fully cashing in on the tourism boom. The volcano stands ever-present.

It is here where we also discovered the abundance of hummingbirds in this country. Much to our delight on our second morning in country, we had breakfast with the view of an active volcano and hummingbirds feeding.This started my slight obsession with watching them and also photographing them (albeit poorly, as the limitations of a slightly older digital camera become obvious. Note how I blame the equipment). So fast, noisy (the wings flapping) and protective of the nectar.

We visited the volcano at night via the cheapest tour we could find. We soon realised that we were no longer in South America with South American affordability. Costa Rica is a popular getaway for people from the US and prices accordingly. The backpacker market barely exists.
After a short nature walk to see some toucans (at a distance), spider monkeys and coatis, we headed to the lava fields to view the action. The volcano is pretty much erupting most of the time but all it is is tumbling rocks and some smoke. But at night time this is amazing as the rocks are bright red and tumble down the side of the mountain, smashing up as they go. Again, my camera shows its age (although I doubt many cameras could capture this image). This is lava.A very cool experience that can't be captured in a photo. From the volcano we headed to the cloudforest. Costa Rica has some amazing rainforests, well pretty much the whole country is a rainforest. But these ones were designated as reserves. We visited Santa Elana Reserve which is actually owned by the local high school. The only difference I could determine between cloudforests and rainforests is that cloudforests have so much rain they are in the clouds. Again my camera showed its limitations with a few exceptions.Some big trees.And of course, more hummingbirds.Sometimes they sat still.
Most of the time it is a blur. I have lots more but will save you from them.

From the forest to the coffee farms. We did a tour with the local coffee co-operative. This included seeing everything from farm to the packet. Costa Ricans are known for their coffee and they also consume a fair amount on their own, of course all the non-export grade stuff. The co-op focuses on sustainable farming unlike the large private companies that mass produce. An interesting lesson.Coffee beans on the tree. Red ones are ripe and are hand picked.
The progression of the bean from left to right. Raw, peeled/washed/sundried, peeled again and roasted.

The Beach. It had been calling us for a long time. We basically spent 5 months without seeing the ocean and when we did in Peru, it was far too cold to even consider a swim. The beaches on the Pacific coast in Costa Rica aren't picture perfect white-sand but were great for us. Apparently the Carribean side has better beaches but it was too far away. Anyway, we came to Playa del Cocos (the beach) to do some diving. The top 5 metres is warm due to the sun but anything under that is freezing cold due to the underwater currents and we also had terrible visibility due to torrential rain the country has had over the last month. However, all this aside we saw what we came for. MANTA RAYS!!!!! About 6 circled around on our second day of diving. Silent and massive. Wing spans of 5-6 metres. Simply amazing creatures.

Other than that, we simply enjoyed hanging around in the warmth. A bit of sun-baking, a bit of walking, a bit of laying around and of course, nature watching. Costa rica is chock full of crazy critters. We had howler monkeys in the trees next to our accomodation. Also squirrels fighting in the trees, iguanas eating spines off cactuses and the obligatory hummingbirds. Below is a howler monkey with a baby on her back making a dash to the next tree.
Some colourful sunsets. And a final goodbye to the beach, the warmth, the ocean and Latin America in general. Here comes Canada and a whole heap of coldness. Till then.

The final walk

The problem with Peru is that there is just too many treks in too many different areas. We arrived Huaraz after hearing many greats things about the Cordillera Blanca (the surrounding mountain range). We were initially keen on the idea of trekking the Huayhuash area, but got the run around by a bunch of agencies and final some honest advice saying the weather had turned and the rain has begun. Not a good idea to start an 8 day trek. So we relented and took the easy option and did the Santa Cruz trek. The most popular in the region.

It all starts with a solid 5 hours on the road or slushy mud track as it were. Upon entering the national park you get some great scenery. Massive steep cliff faces and odd laguna.We then climbed and climbed and climbed. Numerous switchbacks in a fairly crowded minivan on a dirt road covered in snow melt.

After surviving the drive, we then walked.Nice green valleys with a lot more vegetation than we were use too. Surrounded by snow capped mountains.More photographic indulgement. It's a pretty pretty place.

More reflective glory.The snow started at about 4200m asl. Bella being happy to be back in it again. Plenty more to come in Canada.The track soon became a just rock. Either little ones or massive ones. All with melted snow running over it. The pass we are walking to is pretty much above the guy with the white pack´s head.Conquerer of the pass at 4750m asl. Our donkeys heading back down the other side.

The valley from where we had come.The weather was crazy. We had mostly cloud but also rain and snow and even occassionally some sun. At camp that night with the pass now clear on the right.A little 5900m peak in the early morning light.Alpamayo. One of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Not sure how you rate it but this is about as much as we saw.Back in Huaraz. A stunningly located town.

Now, no more trekking and to the beach. Although my hopes are not set high.