Winner Creek Hike & a Reindeer (and More!) Farm

Posted on July 9, 2025July 8, 2025 by Lark

We’ve covered all of the major adventures of my trip to Alaska, so this last post is a bit of a mish-mash of things that didn’t fit in anywhere else… but I have pictures I want to share (like me feeding a MOOSE! I can’t keep that to myself!) which means you get one more post (and SO many pictures).

There’s one hike that we haven’t covered, and that’s because it wasn’t a full-day experience like the others. The day after O’Malley, we decided that we probably weren’t up to back-to-back, 9-hour hikes. So, Olivia’s mom suggested we do one of her favorite hikes, Winner Creek. This was a short little 7 miler… which I realize isn’t nothing, but it wasn’t a super intense 7 miles (also technically it’s just a 5-mile hike, but we innovated a bit). There was some up and down, but we certainly weren’t climbing a mountain. I was happy to have an opportunity to get moving and still give my body the recovery day it wanted.

Winner Creek is very different from the other hikes we did. It doesn’t have the same breathtaking vistas, those sweeping views of colorful valleys framed by jagged mountains. There’s not even really a big destination. Mostly, it’s just a walk through some very pretty woods. The good news is that I love to walk in the woods. I also love those heart-stopping, mind-blowing hikes that make me feel like I’ve left the planet, but I don’t need that. I’m plenty happy to be walking through a forest, marveling at the big ole trees. Now, something like a viewless hike through scrublands… that would not be my favorite. But I love me a good forest.

Seriously, there’s no better place for a walk.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to run out anytime soon.

This, without question, is a good forest. Fun fact, it’s the northernmost temperate rainforest in the US! I find the “northernmost” part of that claim kind of comical because if it exists in Alaska, it is clearly the northernmost fill-in-the-blank in the US. The temperate rainforest part is, to me, interesting and unexpected because I think that despite knowing this isn’t the case, in my head, Alaska is still just a frozen tundra. This hike, though. It was giving me “Pacific Northwest” vibes. Important disclosure: I’ve never been to the Pacific Northwest, so you can give that the weight it deserves. BUT, I feel justified in my observation because… Did you know that there’s coastal temperate rainforest stretching from Alaska all the way down the coast into the contiguous US? Aka the Pacific Northwest! Sounds to me like I nailed it.

Besides being in a fabulous forest, the hike also criss-crosses a creek (in case “Winner Creek Hike” wasn’t a giveaway). It’s glacier-fed which means it’s SUPER clear and blue and is very pretty. There was this one waterfall that reminded me of an Ithaca waterfall except with more moss. The rock formations were very similar, though.

There used to be a hand-tram that you could use for a creek crossing in one place, but there were a few accidents and now it’s closed with plans to replace it with a bridge. That was a bummer. It would have been a beautiful view to see the creek from above, and I love unique things like the hand-tram. Oh well.

There was a different bridge, but this spot wasn’t quite as dramatic as the hand tram location.

Do I look like I’m maybe a little bit thinking about jumping in because the water is so pretty? (But then immediately deciding I like not being a popsicle so maybe not…)

Another pro about this hike is the drive to get there. It’s about 45 minutes from Anchorage, and much of the route runs along the coast! There’s water on one side of the road and mountains on the other. Pretty cool! Apparently, there are often beluga whales in the water there, but we didn’t see any (not that it would have been that exciting if we did… I talked about this in my Anchorage Tour post. You can barely see anything when a beluga surfaces. Just a little flash of white here and there).

Mountains on the left, water on the right!

The other activity I want to talk about is visiting a reindeer farm! That’s probably not something I would have sought out on my own, but I have a cousin who lives in Alaska, and she recommended going. It felt kind of silly/gimmicky, but now that I’ve done it, I’m 1000% in.

LOOK AT THIS MAJESTIC CREATURE. Really though, aren’t those some impressive antlers?

Besides getting to see the animals, you also get to FEED the animals which, again, feels like something gimmicky for kids, but I got over that feeling pretty fast once I did it. They don’t just have reindeer! The place we visited also had some alpacas. A Tibetan Yak. Highland cattle. I petted the yak and fed him some branches. There was a moose! Her name is Lily, and she was just about a year old but still enormous. The lady from the farm said that it’s special that they have a moose because you aren’t allowed to keep them without a good reason. Lily was abandoned as a baby, so that’s how she came to live with them. And we got to feed her! They had a little reptile house which was random but interesting. Olivia and I took some prom pics together. We saw a couple of miniature donkeys, and then there was another reindeer herd. We got to feed them too! I don’t know what I was expecting from the whole experience, but it was very entertaining. Enjoy a recap of our visit in probably way too many photos…

Olivia jumping right in to feed an alpaca.

One more alpaca pic because they’re just so funny looking.

A bison! (Also I’m just going to say there’s like a 40% chance I’m going to misidentify an animal… so don’t quote me.)

In case you were wondering, I did not pet the bison.

Photo overload, I KNOW, but look at the REINDEER!

The sign behind me is saying not to touch their antlers because in the summer, they’re covered in velvet and are very sensitive, and in the winter, grabbing their bone antlers is taken as a challenge.

These guys aren’t very big, but I still wouldn’t want them coming after me with those things.

And here are some miniature donkeys. Lol.

And now, with that, our time in Alaska has come to an end. Don’t worry, though! The blog isn’t going anywhere! Our next stop is… New Zealand! This is another actually recent trip (before we really start diving into the archives). I was there in February of this year! So, get excited! It’s going to be a fun time!

Before we part ways, I have a couple of orders of business to review…

I know I’ve been posting at a snail’s pace, and part of the reason for that is because I’ve been doing some general website maintenance projects (the other parts of the reason are because I’m trying to have a life and also not burn out, so you know, all good things!).

Mainly, I’ve been working on cleaning up the archives. Believe it or not, I’ve written over 400 posts since I first started the blog, and I never really developed a good system for making old content accessible. It’s still not quite there, but little by little, I’m hoping9 to clean things up. I’ve just redone the Georgia archives page (check it out and enjoy some throwback posts!), and I’m planning to slowly work my way through the others as well.

Next, I know that my travel timeline is confusing. I’m writing now about things that happened who knows when, and it’s just going to get more confusing the farther back in time we go. SO, I’ve created a chronological archive where you can see when I was actually somewhere (if you care) and keep track of what’s been written about and what is still to come.

To reiterate the plan, we’re off to New Zealand next, and then barring any new travels, we’ll go backwards from most recent to oldest trips. So, from there to Barcelona, then picking up where we left off years ago in South America, and eventually making our way back to the Europe of what will probably be 10 years in the past by the time we get there. But hey, a lot of that stuff has been the same for hundreds of years, so what’s a few more?

Admittedly, the chronological archive is also very confusing, so I’m not sure how much good it does. At the very least, when I forget all of the places I’ve been, I’ll have someplace to go and be reminded. For the rest of you, feel free to ignore it and keep going with the flow. Just know that when you start getting posts about me being in Panama or Germany or Albania, I was not there any time recently. I’m just reliving the glory days.

ANYWAY, enough of that! So, say goodbye to Alaska, and next time we meet, it’ll be in New Zealand!

Reed Lakes Hike

Posted on June 13, 2025June 19, 2025 by Lark

As usual, the weather was looking uncertain on one of the days we had designated for hiking. One of Olivia’s friends came over to hang out in the morning, and we were hoping that with a slow start to the day, we’d be able to get a better read on the forecast and would make our final decision at the last minute. Well. Olivia’s friend came and went, and we still couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to rain or not. We checked a few sources, and none of them matched up. One looked like it was projecting rain where we were going? But another one said that there was a very low chance of rain. We decided to go with the more favorable forecast. Why not? Worst case we’d get rained on, and it’s not like that was anything new.

Part of our eagerness to give it a go was because Olivia had been looking at photos from the hike, and it looked spectacular. We were running out of possible hiking days, and we both agreed that it was as good a day as any. Rain is always a possibility.

The hike is called Reed Lakes, and it’s near Palmer which is where the State Fair is. We drove past the fairgrounds and up into the mountains without any instances of rain… good sign, but also, the forecasted rain didn’t start looking bad until more like 4PM (we started hiking around 2). We held onto our optimism that we’d be okay.

Get ready for another post full of me remarking about “THE COLORS! THE COLORS!”

Even from the parking lot, we could tell it was going to be worth it. It looked like the leaves were already starting to change up there, like fall was in full swing. It was crazy how different it looked from Anchorage, only an hour and half away. The mountains towered over us, and the colors were insane… reds and oranges and yellows and browns, plus plenty of green still. Olivia was trying to take pictures out of the window while we were driving, but she said nothing did it justice. That was kind of the vibe for the entire hike. I took SO many pictures, and I don’t think any of them are sufficient to show how incredible it was out there.

I couldn’t get enough… and hopefully you feel the same way because there’s a lot more where this came from.

The beginning of the hike is fairly flat, and it’s on a nice, gravel path that winds through the valley alongside the river. Then, there’s a turnoff point, and that’s when the uphill and the Lara-and-Olivia-losing-the-trail begin. I’m not exactly sure why we are so bad at following trails, but I’m going to say that the blame is shared between 1. The trails: because they aren’t actually marked, 2. Our trail apps: because they’re never quite right, and 3. Olivia and me: because honestly, we’d probably get off course regardless because we’re way too busy chatting away to pay attention to something as silly as navigation.

Then, this trail has a couple of additional navigation-complicating factors. There are rock scrambles (climbing over large rocks) which makes it much harder for a followable path to get worn down (stone is slightly more durable than grass). When there is grass, there are little cow paths running here there and everywhere (I don’t know if they’re really called that, and they’re definitely not formed by cows… but you know what I mean), so who knows which one is considered the official “trail”. We didn’t stand a chance.

If only the whole thing was like this, we couldn’t have gotten lost if we’d tried.

And besides the colors, how about those mountains??

Scrambling. I’m pretty sure we were lost when this picture was taken…

This is one of the lamest photos I took on this hike… and come on. IT’S SPECTACULAR.

Okay, so yes, I made Olivia re-walk up this rock because I decided it would be a cool picture… but it turned out pretty well, right?

One positive about the weather forecast was that it probably scared some other people away. We saw more people on this hike than on any of the others, but that meant maybe 7 or 8 other groups over nearly 10 miles. And all of them were leaving as we were hiking in. That’s always very reassuring, especially when there’s rain in the forecast. (You’re thinking, “Are we the only idiots who didn’t decide to get an early start to avoid the weather?” and the people you’re passing are probably thinking, “These idiots are going to get soaked.”)

GUESS WHAT? We finally saw some animals!!! No bears (somewhat to my dismay… I’m not crazy, though. I was hoping for a distance bear-sighting. Like across a river or on the opposite side of a valley. But alas, we didn’t even get that). These animals were much smaller and less potentially threatening. One marmot and a few prairie dogs. They were all very cute. Some people who wrote reviews of the trail said to watch your stuff if you put it down because marmots might come for your food. Ha! They look a lot like groundhogs. So did the prairie dogs, actually. And they all make various squeaking noises. As you might imagine, this made them incredibly intimidating (not! They were adorable!).

Excuse the incredibly pixelated picture… but look! It’s a marmot!!!

Can you spy our little marmot friend in this picture? He’s pretty close to smack dab in the center of the photo. If you follow the left edge of the path straight up, through the greenery, he’s right there before you hit the yellow grasses, looking off to the left. Only his head is visible.

These little hills were FULL of prairie dogs (and yes, I’m going to gloss over the existence of that incredibly blue lake at the moment because we’re not talking about the lakes yet… but LOOK AT THAT INCREDIBLY BLUE LAKE!).

All in all, the hike wasn’t too bad. There was definitely some good elevation, but since so much of it was rock scrambling and walking on boulders, it was easier than just hiking uphill. I enjoy that type of terrain because it makes things a little more interesting and distracts you from the fact that you’re also going up. And we only got REALLY off course once when we realized we were on the complete wrong side of the river and had to innovate a river crossing. Not our worst, though!

Here’s Olivia, course correcting after we inexplicably ended up on the wrong side of the river.

Just going to sprinkle this in here because I’m pretty sure I have three of nearly the exact same picture, and I can’t make myself exclude a single one.

The entire time, we were commenting on how insanely beautiful our surroundings were. I had that feeling I always get when I’m in a setting like that… like it’s so beautiful that I can’t even stand it. My heart aches out of an almost longing? Or a desperate feeling that I need to find a way to preserve it or store it so that I can keep it with me forever. I want to bottle it up and take it with me. I don’t know how else to explain it. The same thing happens to me a LOT in the fall when the leaves are changing. I mentioned something to Olivia, and she said that sometimes when things are so beautiful, she gets almost angry. That sounds insane, but I can relate… for me, there’s a part of me that’s mad that I can’t always see it and that it won’t always be the same.

Does this not make you downright furious???

Me with another lake that we’re ignoring for the moment.

You may have guessed from the name of the hike that we got to see some lakes as well. There’s one major lake along the way (SO PRETTY), and the trail ends at another one nestled in the mountains. As you approach the end, it feels like you aren’t even close, like you’ll be hiking endlessly because there’s no final destination in sight… then, you go over a ridge, and BAM! A huge, beautiful lake comes into view.

I love hikes like that, where you really can’t get a good handle on where you’re headed until you’re there. Most hikes are straightforward. Like if you’re hiking to the peak of a mountain, you can usually pause along the way and see the view unfolding as you ascend. But with a hike with a hidden lake or waterfall or a view over a mountain or something similar, there’s no going partway and feeling like that was enough. You don’t even have an inkling of what awaits until the moment of the big reveal. Then, you turn that corner or crest that ridge, and for a moment, it’s like the world stops. “How could that have been RIGHT THERE all this time?” you think. It feels like you’re being let in on a secret.

Eventually, it’s time to go. As you walk away, it’s like you’re walking through a portal back to the normal world. The curtains close behind you, and the lake is gone without a trace.

Our first view of the lake along the route.

I wondered, “Is this lake just as pretty from every angle?”

AND THE ANSWER IS YES. I mean, are you kidding with this? HOW IS THIS REAL?

And then THIS is the final lake. I’m telling you, 50 steps away from this lake, you can’t see squat.

Look at the water! I said at the time that I wanted to swim in it, but on second thought, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of prehistoric dinosaur fish lurking in the depths… so maybe not.

But then, the water is SO clear that you’d probably be able to see any monsters, right? Sure, just in time for them to EAT you. So again, maybe not. I’ll just look from here.

In general, I can’t get over how little justice the photos do to the views. We took SO many pictures, and they look amazing, yet they’re all missing something. I think it’s because a picture can’t convey that feeling of vastness surrounding you and the smallness you feel when you’re in the middle of it. As disappointing as it is to not have the ability to reproduce the beauty completely, at the same time, it’s kind of a gift. It makes it worth visiting a place even when you’ve seen it in pictures. You can show people what you saw, but a part of the experience is kept sacred, shared only between you and the other people who have been there. That’s kind of beautiful, I think.

The photos are still pretty darn spectacular, though.

You’re not tired of looking at these pictures yet, are you?

I sure hope not because we’re not done yet!

We ended up getting insanely lucky with the weather. We got rained on a little, but I think it was the least of any of our big hike days. It was never very heavy, and it didn’t last very long. Thank goodness for that because we realized this would have been one of the worst hikes to do in the rain. Between the walking on rocks and the already muddy trail, we didn’t need any more slip factors entering the equation.

Headed out… this is actually one part of the trail where we took the same route there and back, but that’s because it’s pretty clearly marked for being a trail with no trail markers… That is literally a mud trail across the rocks.

Here’s the map of our hike. We started and ended on the right side of this picture. You can see that our navigation got a little dicey there in the middle (the thickness of the line in that section shows we definitely did NOT take the same route there and back, and the little point up near that small lake is where we realized we were on the wrong side of the river… oops). And then, of course, you can see the two lakes that I took the most pictures of.

In the end, the hike was about 9.8 miles long (15.8 km) with 2,100 ft of elevation (650 m). Supposedly, according to the trail guides, it’s an 8.6 mile hike, but that’s apparently not what we did. I can’t imagine we added a full mile with our wanderings, though. That would be crazy. The most sensible conclusion is that the guides are wrong.

ANYWAY. Needless to say, we were drained but happy when we got back to the car. We had about an hour and a half drive back to Anchorage, and Olivia’s mom was once again the hero of the night. We got back to the house around 9, and dinner was waiting for us. Moms are the best.

Little O’Malley, O’Malley, and Williwaw Lakes Hike

Posted on April 23, 2025April 22, 2025 by Lark

Another hiking day! The weather was, as usual, looking uncertain, but in the mountains, that could mean misery or an absolutely beautiful day. If we waited for everything to look perfect, we’d never go anywhere. So, we packed lots of snacks and clothes for any possibility, and off we went.

Our planned hike had a few possible variations built in. We were headed back to Chugach State Park, just one ridge over from where we were for Flattop and Flaketop. This ridge started with Little O’Malley, another peak Olivia had hiked a million times, but after that, we hoped to continue on to Big O’Malley (actually just called O’Malley). After O’Malley, we could turn around or, better yet, continue on past a couple of lakes and turn our hike into a loop, rather than an out-and-back (always more interesting). Later, there was one more opportunity for an add-on, an out-and-back trail off the loop that led to more lake views. We definitely couldn’t do that entire trail, but we figured we’d wait to decide how far to go once we were there and had a better sense of the weather and the timing. We expected the whole thing to be around maybe 12-15 miles (19-24 km), depending on some of those decisions.

Fair warning… I have a LOT of pictures. You have no idea how hard I worked to winnow them down to the ones I’ve included, and there are still so many.

The hike up to Little O’Malley wasn’t bad at all. There was definitely some good elevation gain, but there were nice switchbacks that made it reasonably gradual which was nice. The view from there was… obscured. There was a lot of fog/cloud cover surrounding us. Thankfully, it was moving fast so we did see SOMETHING, but it was moving fast, so you had to keep your eyes peeled and be ready.

Atop Little O’Malley. Honestly, it didn’t even really feel like a summit, but maybe that’s just because when we were at the tippy top, we were completely surrounded by fog and couldn’t see anything.

From there, we continued on to O’Malley. Just like with Flattop and Flaketop, once we got past the first peak, we saw very few other people. There were maybe 5 human sightings over the rest of the hike. It felt like we had the place to ourselves. Crazy!

This was also where things got much more challenging. Well, not getting from Little to regular O’Malley. That was pretty flat, and it was very beautiful because of the colors of the valley and the dramatic mountains surrounding us (on the rare occasion when you could actually see them through the clouds… ha).

Another warning… the number of times I’m going to caption a photo with just an exclamation about “THE COLORS!!!!”… it will be more than once. But seriously, though… THE COLORS!!!! And we’re just getting started.

When we got to O’Malley, we knew it was going to be a different story. No more easy, flat ground. Our upward trek started out with what felt like an endless scree field. That’s where it’s all shifting and sliding little rocks, and you have to either not care about slipping or take extra time to be sure of your footing. I’m definitely a “take extra time” person. It takes me forever to go up those things because I’m checking and double checking my footing on every step before I commit. I hate the feeling of sliding. There wasn’t a particularly defined path for the up, so Olivia and I each decided for ourselves what seemed least terrible and ended up taking completely different routes.

This was the worst part of the whole hike, but thankfully, despite the slow going, I still felt good, both physically and mentally. There was never a point where I wasn’t sure I would make it. I knew I would be fine; I was just moving slowly. I also didn’t worry about Olivia. I knew she could handle herself, and we’d meet up at the top.

This was the last time I was close enough to Olivia to take a photo. I’m a pokey pokey tortoise.

Can you spot the little speck Lara in this photo? (If not, see bottom right.) I feel like you can maybe kind of see how steep the uphill was, considering that the world seems to drop off a cliff behind me.

As we wait for slowpoke Lara to crest the scree field, I’d like to pause for a moment of Olivia appreciation. There are MANY things I appreciate about Olivia. She’s fun and interesting and thoughtful. When we met in Armenia, I knew immediately that I wanted to be her friend. I thought she was the coolest (still do). We’d never hiked together before this trip, but I had a good feeling about it. Turns out, we make great hiking buddies because 1. We will never run out of things to talk about, 2. We’re on a similar level, fitness-wise, and have a good sense of our capabilities, 3. We love adventures, 4. We’re up for a challenge, and 5. We’re determined.

I feel pretty confident that if I’m up for something, Olivia will be too. My adventurous side feeds off of that… knowing that she’ll likely say yes makes me push myself a little more (and it’s probably the same for her). It’s not like I would do something I didn’t want to do, but having her as backup lets me say yes to things that my voice of reason would talk me out of I was alone. Like this – doing an unfamiliar, challenging hike with basically no cell service and no other people around. Everyone evaluates these things differently, but for me, doing such a hike solo would have felt like a silly risk. Would I probably be fine? Sure. But there are too many things that can go wrong, and an extra person increases the chance that at least one of you will be able to get help if needed.

Anyway. In conclusion, Olivia is the best. Okay, slowpoke Lara has to be getting close by now…

Once I finally tortoised my way to the top of the scree, Olivia and I reunited and continued our trek. From there, we still had about another half mile to the peak with 800 feet of elevation gain, but after what we’d just done, it felt easy. The path was hard to track, but having learned our lesson from the last hike, we were much more diligent with checking the map whenever it seemed like we were getting off course. There were also MANY false peaks. These are high points that look like they’re the summit, but they aren’t. Usually, you get there and then see that the true summit is still ahead. As you might imagine, that can be discouraging. We called them deception peaks because it made us laugh and was also more fun to say when we were yelling at them. Luckily, since we were looking at our maps, we were undeceived. (In case you’re wondering what one yells at a deception peak, it’s just things like, “NICE TRY, deception peak! I’M ON TO YOU!” Um. Anyway. Just trust me when I say it feels therapeutic in the moment.)

Here’s a snippet of our route up O’Malley. We came in the top left, and that part with the tight contour lines is the scree field. When our route turns more horizontal, that’s where we’re walking the ridge. You can see that our paths out to the peak and back are totally different. Like I said, we tried to follow the path. I’m still not completely confident that there IS a single path. And the one spot where we’re matched up in both directions is completely off the “trail” according to the map. Oh well. Whatever works!

Olivia made it to the actual peak before me, and she popped up holding a metal case. I wasn’t sure what it was… random geocache at the top of the mountain? It contained some random objects and a book where you could sign your name!! That was cool. It made us feel like we’d accomplished something significant.

It was fairly cloudy when we reached the top, but since the clouds were still moving so quickly, we decided to stick around, eat a snack, and see if the view cleared up at all. Eventually, we got a decent view of the valley on the Flattop side of the mountain, but the other side stayed covered. Of course, that was the way we were headed. We just hoped that there was no rain associated with those clouds.

Just happy I’m not hiking up scree anymore.

Once we were thoroughly chilled, we got moving again. We trekked down across the ridge and then were back at the scree field. In case you don’t have a lot of scree experience, let me tell you. Going down a scree field is way easier than going up. I still don’t love doing it, but if you get into the right rhythm, it feels like magic. All you have to do is turn off the part of your brain that thinks sliding = falling = bad. You take long, gliding steps and ride little self-created rockslides down the mountain while also steering yourself around immovable rocks and any scree-free areas. Oh, and remember to keep your weight on your heels so that you don’t tumble down the mountain. And bend your knees. And sit down to reset if you start feeling out of control. And keep a good distance between you and anyone else so that you don’t send any surprises hurtling their way (either a rock or your body). Got it? Easy peasy!

Leaving a healthy distance between me and Olivia. It looks like she’s literally headed off a cliff.

Like I said, when you get into a good groove, it’s kind of awesome. I feel like I’m flying or moonwalking or I don’t know. Floating. Weightless. Like I said, it’s magic. Then, a split second later, that euphoria turns to terror because I’m moving too fast and losing control and there’s a big rock ahead and it’s coming on WAY too quickly. Sit down. Breathe… 1, 2, 3. Recalibrate. Restart. Maybe I lied a little bit when I said I don’t love going down scree fields… I kind of do, but the feelings of terror and euphoria are so interwoven that it’s hard to isolate the joy when thinking about the experience. And the faster you go, the higher the high but also the higher the risk. It’s a fine balance. I took three recalibration breaks, aka panic sits, on the way down.

We took another time out at the bottom, stopping to clean out our shoes which were, shockingly, full of little rocks. I also needed a mental break… you have to stay focused the entire time you’re scree sliding, spotting your path and always having the next few steps planned. It’s exhausting.

With O’Malley behind us, we reached our first decision point. Keep going, or turn back? We both felt fine physically, and the weather was drizzly but not terrible. We decided to continue on to the lakes. This involved another relatively steep downhill, but it was dirt/mud rather than scree. That’s its own challenge, but slightly less terrifying and also way slower to descend. We didn’t mind, though. The whole way down, there was a beautiful view of the valley and one of the lakes. We kept yelling about how it didn’t even seem real. (If it seems like we did a lot of yelling, well, yes. There was no one else around, so why not?)

At the decision point. As you can see, we’re a little wet from the rain. We only look happy because we took a picture with miserable faces before this and looked so pathetic that we started cracking up.

This was the view as we were descending the mud/dirt slope. Unreal.

Spot the little Olivia, running on ahead.

Black Lake. Now brace yourself for approximately 10384024932 photos of kind of the same thing but different.

The little plants on the ground were so pretty. And so many blueberries! Olivia was snacking the entire time we were hiking. This is also why, later when there were more hiding spots, we were on high alert for bears.

Last one! Of this lake, at least. Onward!

Eventually, we made it down to the bottom of the valley, and our trail dead-ended into the trail that we planned to follow out. This was our next fork… we could either turn left to go back to the car or turn right for more adventure before turning around. We decided to go right for a bit, just to see where it led, but we quickly hit a river crossing that was definitely too much for Olivia to do without waterproof shoes and probably too much for either of us to do without hiking poles. We settled on a short detour to get a better view of the nearest lake and then turned around and started heading back towards the car. We had about 8 miles to go and only a few more hours of sunlight, so turning around was probably the right choice anyway.

Before we go, though, we should enjoy a few more pictures…

Look at that bright green! Trust me when I say that this is actually how it looked in real life.

Okay now this… this is insane. I have pictures of the same mountains in the background with like 15 different foregrounds because they’re all spectacular and I couldn’t stop taking pictures.

Looking towards our way out. THE COLORS. ARE WILD.

Here are those identical background, variable foreground pictures I was talking about.

One more. Those mountains are just so photogenic. All of it. Just amazing!!!

The way back was so much more terrible than I expected. I didn’t expect it to be terrible at all! The maps said that it was mostly flat, and that was good enough for me. And to be fair, at the beginning, it was great! We were in a beautiful valley. We could hear the sounds of the river rushing past. There were some bear-den shrubberies around (aka plants large enough to theoretically conceal a bear), so we made up silly songs about bears and sang them loudly to scare away any potential lurkers. Life was good!

Unfortunately, what we couldn’t see from the elevation profile was that most of the trail was overgrown with tall grasses, AND it was muddy and sometimes completely underwater. Our feet got wet very quickly, and that’s guaranteed misery on a hike. Olivia’s shoes weren’t waterproof, so she had no chance. Mine were once waterproof, but there are some weak spots. So maybe the infiltration took a little longer for me, but barely. Even if our shoes HAD been 100% waterproof, it wouldn’t have mattered. We were walking through waist-height plants that were covered in water and overhanging the path. As we brushed past, it felt like water was pouring down our legs and into our shoes. It was awful. Also, it started raining again. It’s not like it made us much wetter than we already were, but it felt like adding insult to injury. Like really?

I could tell that Olivia was feeling similarly terrible. Neither of us said anything about it because what would that help? But also, neither of us was talking any more than necessary. The creative bear songs faded into Olivia yelling, “Heeeeey, bear,” whenever passing a potential bear den and me just hoping she was making enough noise for the both of us.

I was singularly focused on keeping a good pace, both to end our misery and because we were a little concerned about sunset. That meant I was zero percent focused on the map… if there hadn’t been a couple standing at our crossroads, I would have blown right past our turn. Eek. That would have been very good for morale. But, thankfully, we were saved from that fate, we made our turn, and BAM! There was an insanely vivid rainbow right in front of us! A double, actually! A tiny little boost to keep us going. And man, we needed it. I was holding myself together until we made that turn, but then there were just 2 miles to go and we were so close and I was so over being wet and cold and the end just couldn’t come fast enough.

Double rainbow!!! I took zero pictures during the miserable parts of the hike because I was too miserable to think about anything besides walking as quickly as possible.

I practically collapsed from joy when we got back to the car. We both took our shoes off for the drive home, and back at the house, I took a glorious hot shower. Olivia’s mom made pasta for us, and it was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. She also gathered up our wet clothes and shoes and set them up to dry, and I was so thankful to have nothing to do but eat and vegetate and stretch. Moms are the best.

Our final stats for the hike were: 14 miles (22.5 km), 4,000 feet of elevation (1,200 meters), and 8 hours and 40 minutes (total time, not just moving time). Even with the grumpy final miles, it was a good hike.

Here’s the final map of our hike. We started at the end of that tail on the left, went along the bottom of the loop to that other tail to O’Malley Peak. Then we went downhill (up on the map) to the lakes, had our tiny little detour to the first lakes (Williwaw Lake) on the lake trail (the others are out of view), and then we made that big loop back around the top to meet back up with our path in for the final little leg back to the parking lot.

Flattop, Peak 2, Peak 3, and Flaketop Hike

Posted on March 25, 2025March 25, 2025 by Lark

When I signed on to visit Olivia in Alaska, she asked what I wanted to do while I was there. I was up for anything, but I definitely wanted to do some hiking. I love to hike, and Olivia and I are well-matched hiking buddies (the same amount of crazy but also appropriately cautious). We didn’t travel too far from Anchorage, but there are plenty of awesome hikes in and around the city. In fact, Chugach State Park, which supposedly has over 280 miles of maintained hiking trails (you’ll soon see why I say “supposedly”), is mostly located within the municipal limits of Anchorage (a fact that Olivia repeated anytime I said something about hiking near Anchorage. “Actually,” she would say, “did you know that much of it is IN the city of Anchorage?” Thank you for the fact check, Olivia. I will continue to say that it’s near Anchorage).

Prepare yourself for LOTS of pictures. And these are the ones that I was left with after really doing my best not to overdo it on photos…

Looking back towards Anchorage on our way up to Flattop.

Chugach is enormous (~495,000 acres), so we didn’t explore even a tiny fraction of the park. We stuck to the area most accessible from the city which is basically made up of a few different mountain ridges. We had a couple of hiking days where we followed a ridge, hitting as many peaks as possible along the way. The plan for our first day was to hike around 9 miles and visit four peaks. The first, Flattop, is the most climbed mountain in Alaska. Olivia said she’s been there a million times. From there, though, we kept going which was a first for her. Based on how few people we saw after leaving Flattop, I’d say most people are content to turn around after visiting just that one.

I took this exact same picture about 500 times.

I’m only going to make you look at two of them, though. For now.

Here’s a good view of our mountain ridge for the day!

The next two peaks are creatively named “Peak 2” and “Peak 3”, and the last one is Flaketop. To travel between peaks, the trail runs along the ridge. Since this is a less-traveled path, staying on track was a little iffy. Sometimes, the trail was super easy to follow. For example: walking through a grass-covered area and sticking to the non-grass-covered line. Other times, it was less so. For example: walking through a rocky area and trying to determine if this patch of exposed dirt seems like the trail… or is it maybe that patch of exposed dirt over there? I wouldn’t have been opposed to the use of some trail markers. I’m just saying, a couple of paint blazes wouldn’t hurt anyone.

We may not have had a clear path, but we did have awesome views to both sides. Views to the right…

Also, this may come as a surprise, but Peak 2 and Peak 3? Not the most defined peaks I’ve ever encountered. We did some, “Do you think this is the peak?” “No, my GPS is showing it somewhere over here… do you think this is it?” I think we probably found them. Let’s just go with yes.

There were also some very fast-moving clouds.

Compare this to that last picture! It was crazy how quickly the conditions changed.

And for good measure, let’s put another of these photos in.

Possibly taken from Peak 3? (I feel pretty sure that we made it there.)

Ambiguous peaks/trail aside, we did okay getting from Flattop to Flaketop. We certainly didn’t take the most efficient route, but we mostly managed to stay near the trail. There was a lot of map checking and course correcting. This was possible because while the trail wasn’t necessarily CLEAR, it did exist, so if you started walking in the right direction, at some point you’d think, “Ah, yes! Here’s the trail!” and start to follow that. (Was it actually the trail? Who knows. But at least there was something trail-like enough to convince you that you might be in the right place.)

Spot one of the approximately 3 people we saw on our hike post-Flattop.

There were some pretty spectacular colors along the way.

Happy to be walking on the trail (maybe).

Flaketop is the craggy peak to the right in this photo (not the tallest one).

After Flaketop (a much more commanding peak than Peaks 2 & 3), things started going downhill. As in, we began descending, and also as in, the trail quality took a dive. There was just… nothing. We’d follow a maybe-trail until we found ourselves at the top of a sheer drop off saying, “Hm. This is probably not right.” We’d check the map and see that we were WAY off course. Then, we would “find the trail”, but that just meant that our little GPS dots looked like they were in the right place. Sometimes, we would insist that we really did see a trail. “Oh yes! This is totally it!” one of us would say, as the other person nodded with great enthusiasm but weak conviction. Then, one step later, the hint of a trail would be gone again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

At least if we were going to be lost forever, it was in a pretty place.

According to our maps, we were headed for a junction with Ptarmigan Pass Trail, our route for the next leg of the hike. As we struggled down the mountainside, we staked our hope on that transition. “That one is probably more popular, right?” “It can’t be worse than this, right?” “Don’t let me down, Ptarmigan!” I’m sure you can guess where this is going.

We overshot the imaginary junction. How could we not? We were on an imaginary trail, headed for another imaginary trail. I started yelling about how it should be called Pterodactyl Trail because it was extinct. This felt funny at the time, if that tells you anything about how we were doing mentally.

Olivia and I kept checking our maps. “The trail should be just over here.” “Mine shows it right over here.” I kept thinking that our GPS must just be a little off. It’s never perfect, plus we had no cell service which doesn’t help. Eventually, though, we determined that there was no trail. I wish I could say that we gave up on trying to follow it, but we didn’t. After all, the trail could magically appear at any second! Right? (Spoiler: wrong.)

The more we walked, the loopier we got. My terrible pterodactyl joke apparently wasn’t enough for me, so I kept going, asking Olivia if she was on the trail yet or pointing literally anywhere and saying, “I think that’s the trail there!” or, seeing that my GPS dot was in the “right” place, “Look! Can’t you tell that I’m on the trail?” Olivia was actually laughing at all of the jokes, so again, you can make your own call about how we were doing.

I look like I’m falling apart, and there’s a good reason for that.

Where’s the trail? Are you on the trail, Olivia?

The only positive I can come up with is that this “trail” was carpeted with little ground-cover-type plants that made the descent really nice on the knees. The negative is that you’re generally discouraged from going off trail to keep from killing things like little ground-cover plants… but we didn’t have much of a choice. We figured that no one was ever going to replicate our steps, so the plants would probably be fine.

There was a small part of me that felt like we were never going to get down to the bottom. Then, out of nowhere, this beautiful, bold trail came snaking up towards us. I was indignant, “HECK NO. There is NO WAY the whole trail was like this, and we just couldn’t find it.” No. It’s impossible. We zigzagged over every part of that mountain. There was nowhere left for it to hide.

Afterwards, it was almost comical to look at the map of our route. When you look at it from afar, it looks fine…

For reference, here’s the overall map of our route.

But if you zoom in, you can see the chaos.

At the top right, you can see the “junction” between the two trails. And then you can see how we absolutely didn’t even almost follow the “trail” (that skinny little yellow/orange line) down (we’re the thick orange line that looks like total nonsense).

The hike ended on a good note. The last trail was glorious – wide and flat, and we couldn’t have gotten lost if we tried. Shout out to Rabbit Lake Trail. You’re my hero. We zoomed back to the car, cranking out the last 2 miles like they were nothing.

Isabela Island – Sierra Negra Volcano

Posted on February 5, 2021February 5, 2021 by Lark

Most Galapagos day tours have a similar pattern… boat ride, walk around and look at animals, snorkel, boat ride, home. On our second-to-last day, we did something a little different and went on a hiking tour! It was to Sierra Negra (Black Mountain), one of the six shield volcanoes that make up Isabela Island, the largest island in the Galapagos. Five of these volcanoes are still active, Sierra Negra included. Its last eruption was in 2018! The main town, Puerto Villamil, is located just to its south, but thankfully, the lava from that eruption mostly made its way north. There are, however, parts of the hiking trail that are still closed because they were covered by lava. Sierra Negra erupts approximately every 15 years, so keep that in mind when you’re planning your trip! Hehe just kidding. They’re super cautious and monitor the volcano closely, and no one is allowed to visit without a guide. I will say, though, that the previous eruption in 2005 came with no advance warning signs… sooo the only sure bet is to steer clear.

Well, I didn’t know any of that before we went, and maybe that’s for the better. We were picked up bright and early, as usual, and took a bus from Puerto Villamil to the eastern side of the volcano. The tour involved a hike up the rim, a walk along the perimeter, and then an exploration of the lava fields to the northeast of the caldera.

Sierra Negra, besides being one of the most active Galapagos volcanoes, has the largest caldera. It’s oval-shaped, and its long axis is almost 6 miles (9.3km) across! Interestingly, it’s also very shallow, only about 330ft (100m) deep, making it the shallowest one on Isabela.

The beginning of the hike was a gradual but constant uphill as we made our way up the side of the volcano to the rim. Remember, shield volcanoes are short and wide and are formed by long-duration eruption events where very flowy lava is supplied continuously. Explosive eruptions, in contrast, are shorter-lived and result in taller and steeper volcanoes. The shallower slope was fine with me! No need to rock climb our way to the rim. Even so, it reaches an altitude of nearly 4,500 feet (1,120m), so don’t be imagining some little hill!

There was a decent amount of vegetation along the way, but as we moved farther up, it began to thin. Sierra Negra is the greenest on its southern slope, the windward side, because it gets more moisture thanks to the wind. That’s also where the Sierra Negra wild tortoises are mostly found. At the start of the hike, there were green, leafy plants and trees lining the path. By the time we reached the rim, there wasn’t much vegetation taller than I am, and the wildlife sightings were limited to a few little birds.

One of the only critters we saw during the hike

Our first view of the caldera was a bit jarring. We were lucky that it wasn’t too cloudy, giving us decent visibility to the other side… which was VERY far away. I mean, I know that I told you how big it is, but to stand there and see miles and miles of black lava rocks… it’s a strange sight.

Isn’t it amazing? The dark spots are cloud shadows

The guide told us that the lava patterns on the floor of the caldera tell the story of how it was formed. I’m not fluent in lava (and honestly, I had trouble paying attention to the guide), so I can’t tell you what they say, but it is interesting to see how much variation exists in something that, at first glance, appears somewhat uniform.

Some better views of the lava variations on the caldera floor

If I told you this was another planet, would you doubt me for a second?

There are a bunch of big cracks along the perimeter, like this one

The caldera was cool, but without a doubt, the best part of the excursion was the lava fields. To the northeast of the main caldera, there’s a “parasitic cone” called Volcán Chico (Little Volcano). I’m not a big fan of that name… it sounds kind of gross. Alternatively called a “satellite cone”, it’s a location where lava escapes from fractures in the side of the volcano, outside of the main caldera, forming cone-shaped lava accumulations. The final leg of the hike took us through the lava fields to the cone of Volcán Chico.

The lava fields are… thought provoking? That’s probably an uncommon assessment, but for me, they prompted a whole series of “THAT’S CRAZY!” thoughts. For example, Isabela is one of the youngest Galapagos islands. As I walked across the barren expanse of lava, I kept thinking about the fact that at some point, all of the islands looked like that. Seeing that made it even more amazing that plants and animals managed to survive and eventually thrive there. Like… there was NOTHING at the beginning. Now, some of the islands even have rainforests!

There is a little bit of life trying to pop up

The guide pointed out various formations along the way and explained that the different colors of lava result from the oxidation of various minerals. By looking at the coloring, scientists can determine what lava came from which eruption. The least colorful stuff is usually more recent because it hasn’t had as much time to oxidize. I’ve seen a lot of lava in my life, but I can’t remember ever seeing so much color and vibrance. It was beyond amazing. And beautiful!!

There are also natural vents across the landscape, places where you can hold your hand above a hole in the ground and feel heat coming out. It’s a little spooky to think that you’re feeling the heat of the Earth’s core. Eek! Also creepy is when you see a formation that looks like it could be water, frozen in time. It’s a bit of a reality check, like, “Hey! In case you forgot, this used to be FLOWING. Oh yeah, and it wasn’t water. It was MOLTEN LAVA.” Nope. No, thank you. You can keep that molten lava faaaaar away from me.

Okay so like I said, I didn’t do a great job of listening to the guide, but he was really amped about this material on the lava… I THINK it’s sulfur, but don’t quote me.

This looks like a wave in the ocean. Okay, now imagine it’s molten lava.

A partially-collapsed lava tube in the lava fields.

Finally, we reached Volcán Chico. The view is bizarre. You can see the northern part of the island, and it doesn’t look like it belongs on this planet. Elizabeth Bay is in the distance. The best part, though, is the COLORS around the cone. I’m not even going to attempt to explain it. Just soak in the amazingness of these pictures.

Sorry in advance for the million pictures that are nearly identical… except that I’m not sorry because they’re awesome and you have no idea how many I filtered out to end up with these million that I want to show you.

I look pretty happy in this picture, but I promise you that this doesn’t even begin to do my excitement level justice.

Then there’s this… black, black, black, GOLD!

It’s like a treasure trove of the world’s prettiest lava rocks

The guides started herding us back to the bus before I was ready to go. It was like looking at really pretty fall foliage, where you wish that you could capture what you’re seeing and what you’re feeling and bottle it up forever, but since you know that you can’t, you want to stay as long as possible to try to imprint it in your brain and heart. You know? Orrr maybe that’s just me. But I guess I did an okay job because even now, I get that same feeling when I close my eyes and imagine that I’m back there, gazing out at the otherworldly landscape.

The hike back was mostly uneventful, but we did get to experience the massive difference in weather conditions between the lava fields and the volcano rim. In the lava fields, the weather was hot and bone dry. As we walked along the rim, it got wetter and wetter, and by the end, we were basically walking through a cloud. And I’m sure that at that same moment, the lava fields were just as hot and dry as when we left them. It’s all about the wind/topography/it makes my head spin!

A nice panoramic photo that absolutely does not do the caldera justice. But I had to try.

We were exhausted when we got back to town, but since it was New Year’s Eve, we went to sleep early and set our alarms for 11:30PM so that we could check out the happenings in the main square. I was only about 20% sure that we would actually wake up, but amazingly, we all dragged ourselves out of bed and joined the festivities!

Ecuador has some funky New Year’s traditions. People make effigies, either of actual people or characters or something that represents the previous year, and at midnight, they’re set on fire as a sort of cleansing ritual before the new year. You know, on our early morning bus ride to the volcano, I thought that I saw a roadside stand filled with paper mâché heads, but it seemed too weird to be true. I assumed that I was out of my mind because it was so early. Nope! Most families make an effigy, and they need to get their heads somewhere!

There were some bigger scenes prepared to be burned at midnight as well… this depicts an incident that occurred at the end of 2019 when a crane unloading a generator from a boat collapsed, spilling hundreds of gallons of oil into the ocean. Obviously, oil spills are never good, and in a place like the Galapagos, they have the potential to be extra bad. I think they contained it really quickly and minimized the damage, but still. Not good.

Here’s a video of the post-midnight mayhem, and you can see different people coming up to toss their effigies on the fire.

After that, we tried to go back to sleep, but our hotel’s great location near the center of town meant that we could hear the New Year’s party going on into the not-so-wee hours of the morning. I think I fell back asleep when it stopped at around 5AM. Ugh.

Iceland Lava Rocks – okay, not the official name of the post, but if you want to see more cool lava colors, check it out!

Perito Moreno Glacier – for a completely different otherworldly landscape, do some glacier trekking!

Mount Aragats – speaking of volcanoes, why not visit Mount Aragats, the volcanic crater that gives Armenia its tallest peak?

Isabela Island – Tortoises, Flamingos, and the Wall of Tears

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Lark

After our morning tour to Las Tintoreras, we still had half of the day free for more activities! My aunt and I went into town after a brief stop at our hotel and started asking around about renting bikes. There’s a 3 mile-long (5km) gravel path to the west of Puerto Villamil (the main town on the island) that winds past different points of interest, and we wanted to make a plan to explore it later in our stay on Isabela.

Here’s Isabela Island, for reference again. And Puerto Villamil, the main town, is on the southern coast.

Welp, as is often the case with traveling, that is NOT what happened. We talked to a few shopkeepers and realized that since the next day was New Year’s Eve, stores were going to be closed for the next two days aka the rest of our time on the island. If we wanted to bike instead of walk the 3+ miles each way, this was our last chance. There was really no question… we went back to the hotel, broke the news to the group that we were NOT going to be having a chill rest of the day, and quickly got ready for another outing.

The girl at the bike rental place gave me a map and some recommendations of where to go and in what order. I love it when someone removes the guesswork and just tells you what to do! She showed me how to get out of town and then recommended that we visit the tortoise breeding center and flamingo lake before following the bike path. There was a general “Do we really have to see more tortoises?” vibe coming from the group, but since she who holds the map holds the power, I said yes, we did. And so, off we went. Also, before you start thinking of me as some sort of travel dictator, I’ll just say that we saw a lot of tortoises on our trip and no one ever regretted a tortoise sanctuary/breeding center visit in hindsight, this time included.

Isabela is, by far, the largest island in the Galapagos. It’s nearly four times the size of the second largest island, Santa Cruz, and was formed by six shield volcanoes. Isabela is home to the most wild tortoises of any island, and due to its size and difficult-to-traverse topography, there are actually five different subspecies of tortoises found across the island. These roam freely in five of the volcano calderas.

The tortoise breeding center on Isabela was founded in 1995 after some fires in the southern part of the island reduced the southern tortoise populations. Even before that, the tortoises faced survival challenges, such as competition for food with an ever-growing population of non-native goats (these have since been eradicated from Isabela). Tortoises were brought from across the island to the center to breed, and the populations have been seeing steady growth ever since. The center protects eggs and hatchlings, and once the tortoises grow big enough to give them a good chance of survival, they’re released.

This map shows where all of the subspecies of Galapagos tortoise are from. As you can see, there are five on Isabela, and they’re each somewhat centered on a caldera.

I enjoyed this visual aid in the little information center. It shows a little timeline of human life vs. tortoise life… the human life starting with a baby and ending with a tombstone around 100 years (optimistic)… and the tortoise starts with an egg and ends with a full-grown tortoise still alive at 150 years.

Hehe I thought it was funny seeing this tortoise flopped on the ground. Looks like she’s having just one of those days, you know?

The tortoises at the breeding center are fed three times per week.

These tortoises were going CRAZY for their leaves.

This guy got scared and hid in his shell. It’s pretty cool… they tuck their heads in and then use their arms to cover/shield their heads.

LOOK AT THIS SHELL. This is a Cinco Cerros tortoise and their shells are just about as flat as they get. It’s almost comical.

After we left the breeding center, we biked a bit farther down the road to hopefully see some flamingos! Isabela has the most flamingos in the Galapagos, and they can often be spotted feeding in the many salty and brackish lakes near Puerto Villamil. We weren’t there at an ideal feeding time and thought we were out of luck when we reached the first lake and saw nothing. Luckily, there were some people coming off of a side street who told us that there were a few hanging out in the next lake over! Awesome!!

The empty flamingo lake… but even flamingo-less, it’s a pretty view!

Flamingos!! You can (maybe?) see one flamingo in the front lake area, and there are two on the far end of the second lake area.

The flamingos were pretty far away, but that didn’t make seeing them any less exciting. My camera lens wasn’t even nearly strong enough to get good pictures of them, so my uncle taught me about the “poor man’s zoom” aka take as many pictures as you can, and once you’re looking at them on a computer, crop the best-quality ones. Ha! So… I took a lot. You can judge the effectiveness of that strategy for yourself.

These two were so far away that there was really no hope

From there, we biked back to the main road and started on the bike trail. The trail started with a sandy stretch, but that thankfully became a nice, packed-gravel path. It was a super pleasant ride, mostly flat with a few uphill sections that weren’t too bad if you accelerated into them a bit.

This sandy stretch was NOT my favorite part of the path. Also, very bold move of me to take a picture while biking on this because I wasn’t feeling especially stable.

Doesn’t this look like it’s meant to be a painting?

We decided to ride to the end of the path first and then slowly make our way back, stopping at the different sights along the way. The path ends at the Wall of Tears (Muro de las Lágrimas), a memorial to one of the many sad chapters in the Galapagos human history. After World War II, a penal colony was established on Isabela as a bad solution to the problem of an oversaturated prison system in Ecuador. If you remember from the Galapagos History post, there were other penal colonies in the Galapagos throughout history, and none of them ended especially well. This one was no exception.

In 1946, about 100 inmates and 30 guards were sent to Isabela. Wooden structures used by American soldiers during WWII were repurposed into prison buildings. From the very beginning, it was a nightmare. There were significant food and water shortages. Many prisoners died from tuberculosis and other diseases. The guards made up pointless tasks to keep the prisoners occupied, the worst of which was constructing a hulking wall out of lava rocks. This process involved harvesting stones from a not-so-nearby quarry and carrying them to the wall location where they were then broken into smaller pieces and stacked on the wall… all while baking in the harsh Galapagos sun. The wall became known as the place where “the strong cry and the weak die”.

“In memory of those who suffered and died here 1946-1959”

This project was a death trap for many reasons. Those who weren’t pushed to exhaustion by the heat and exposure were in danger of injury by the not-infrequent wall collapses. With no access to proper medical care, even minor injuries could lead to much more serious health problems. The guards were cruel and unrelenting, sometimes shooting inmates for not working hard enough. Many people died, slaving over a worthless wall. In 1958, the prisoners had had enough. They rebelled, escaped from the colony, hijacked an American yacht, and sailed to the mainland. Many prisoners and guards were killed in the uprising. The event was reported in American newspapers, shedding light on the horror of the colony, and it was finally shut down for good in 1959.

Today, this portion of wall is all that remains of the prison. It was 620 feet (190m) long, 30 feet (9m) tall, and 20 feet (6m) wide at its base. People say that the wall is haunted, that you can still hear the wails and cries of those who perished, hence the name “The Wall of Tears”.

Everything that I read before we went said that you shouldn’t expect too much, that it’s not especially spectacular or impressive. I don’t agree. It has a sort of haunting beauty to it, and anyone who thinks it isn’t impressive has probably never built anything. The stones are stacked up with no mortar, hence the many wall-collapses during construction, and they’re fitted together like a puzzle. To support its height, the wall has a super thick base that narrows as it rises. Along its length, the whole thing undulates, like a snake. I don’t know whether it’s haunted or not, but there is a definite heaviness to the place. I could feel it clutching at my heart as I walked around, amplified even further by the fog that settled in while we were there.

This is how the weather conditions looked when we started our hike…

…and this is how it looked by the time we came down. That fog really just rolled on in while we were up the mountain.

Nearby, there’s a mountain you can climb for a view of the sea and surrounding area. The weather was already looking a little questionable, but by the time we got to the top, there was no more question. It was going to rain, and we needed to get back to town ASAP.

The trees looked kind of eerie with all of this moss (I assume?) hanging off of them.

We hiked approximately forever… and then there was practically nothing to see from the top.

It was cool to see the coastline, though.

The rain really messed up our plans to visit the other sights along the path on the way back to town. We made no stops, just biking and biking and trying to get back to town and out of the rain in case there was a deluge coming. So, it wasn’t quite the outing we expected, but hey, that’s life!

Santa Cruz Tortoises – if you’re not tired of tortoises yet… meet the tortoises of Santa Cruz!

San Cristobal Highlands – and if you’re STILL not tired of tortoises, meet the tortoises of San Cristobal!

Machu Picchu: Inca Bridge and Intipunku

Posted on August 28, 2020August 30, 2020 by Lark

Machu Picchu day!!! After three days of visiting ruins all over the region, everyone in the group was excited for a day of… visiting ruins! It may seem like you’d eventually get to the point where you’re like, “Ugh, MORE???” but at least for me, I’ve seen a LOT of Inca ruins and am still not tired of them. It’s not just me, either! My parents, Benjamin, and Jocelyn all said that they were surprised by how different all of the sites we visited were and happy that we saw as many as we did.

Anyway, like I said, we were all excited! When my alarm went off at 4:30AM, I practically leaped out of bed I was so pumped! Okay, that’s not true. Is it even physically possible to leap out of bed at 4:30 in the morning? Instead, I grumbled, forced my eyes open, and prayed that my alarm was set to the wrong time. No such luck.

By 5AM, we were walking from our hotel to the bus stop to ride up the mountain to the ruins. The bus line was already shockingly long, even though the first bus didn’t leave until 5:30. Luckily, it’s probably the most efficient operation in all of Peru, and even though we were on maybe the fourth bus, we still were at the site by 6:05, only five minutes after our ticket time. Impressive!

Once we entered the site, my parents and I parted ways with Jocelyn and Benjamin so that we could all go at our own speed. They were also hiking up Machu Picchu Mountain, something we were definitely NOT doing (I did it last time I visited Machu Picchu… it’s literally ALL stairs. Endless. Stairs). We were, however, planning to do the two non-ticketed hikes to the Inka Bridge and the Sun Gate. As we walked up the mountain to the start of the first hike, we stopped at some viewpoints overlooking the site. The weather was a little iffy, but I was hoping the sun would clear out the clouds as the day progressed.

The fog sure gives the site an eerie quality, doesn’t it?

Machu Picchu is one of those places where they tell you to dress in layers and be prepared for a year’s worth of seasons in one day. We were a little worried when we walked in and felt like we were inside of a cloud, but the fog was moving fairly quickly, and we had some moments of good visibility. The key word is “moments”. At one point, while enjoying a clear view of the citadel (what they call the “town” part of the site), I started getting overheated and decided I needed to ditch some layers/apply sunscreen. By the time I finished my wardrobe change, a thick fog had rolled in, completely blocking the view again… and the sun. I put my jacket back on. Dad was laughing at Mom and me because we did two outfit changes without even moving.

Kind of a clear view, but don’t let yourself be fooled.

This was after my layer-shedding stop… as you can see, I’m still looking quite bundled, and the mountain is looking a little cloudy.

Our first hike was to the Inca Bridge. In my memory, it was completely flat and not hard at all. With my new parent-oriented eyes, I saw that my memory wasn’t quite reliable. On the way to the trailhead, there are these terrible stone steps of all different heights. Some are mid-thigh high, and you wonder what kind of giants the Incas were… even though you know they were probably shorter than you, so the stairs DON’T MAKE SENSE. They were definitely in prime physical condition, probably thanks to running up and down those ridiculous stairs all the time.

After the trail starts, there’s a little up and down, but it’s not too bad. The good news is that the view is majestic, so at least there’s something to distract from the walking.

It’s a pretty nice path, and there’s lots of plant cover! It feels a little rainforest-y.

Dad on the way to the Inca Bridge. See? Nice and flat-ish.

In contrast, here’s a preview of what we hiked up later in the day on the way to the Sun Gate. Some portions of the trail have stairs, like these, and others are just inclined. But no matter what, you’re going up.

The Inca Bridge itself seems kind of underwhelming, but conceptually, it’s pretty darn cool. A narrow path was built onto the side of the mountain, potentially a secret army entrance to the site, with one 20-foot gap in the path bridged by a long piece of wood. If invaders were coming, the wood could be removed, like a drawbridge, to cut off access from that path.

The Inca Bridge from a distance. How on earth did they build that path?? You can’t even see the bottom because of the plants, but my goodness what insanity.

These are some super cool-looking mountains!

I’m not afraid of heights, but I don’t know how I’d feel about 1. walking with only that narrow stone path keeping me from falling to my death, or 2. walking across those wobbly-looking boards. Err. Maybe not.

From there, we set off on our more ambitious hike of the day to Intipunku, or the Sun Gate. For Incas coming from Cusco along the original Inca road (or for people hiking the Inca Trail today), Intipunku is the first point from which you can see the site. It’s quite the view. It’s also crazy to think that you’re walking on a road built over 500 years ago! Back in Inca times, the roads were only open to people traveling on state business, so it was an elite few who had the opportunity to travel the breathtaking path from Cusco.

Mom and Dad, post-Inca Bridge and pre-Sun Gate. That’s why they still look happy…

The hike to Intipunku from the ruins is all uphill with an elevation gain of nearly 1,000 feet (240 meters). I wanted Mom and Dad to get the perspective of the site from above, and this hike is way easier than going up Machu Picchu Mountain (the other option). I told them that we could go at whatever speed necessary, and if they didn’t want to go all the way there, that was fine. Hiking at nearly 8,000 feet (2,400 meters) of elevation is rough! And that’s the elevation at the trailhead, not the top! High-elevation hiking really redefines the word “breathtaking”. We did a LOT of breath-taking and not a lot of oxygen-getting. Honestly, that’s the hardest part of the hike. The uphill isn’t fun, but it’s doable. The added challenge of limited oxygen just really doesn’t help.

Looking down at the site through some ruins along the way.

I don’t know what this is, but it’s along the path to the Sun Gate and isn’t it pretty?

We kept chugging away, one step at a time. We stopped whenever anyone needed a break. I wasn’t in a rush. The people coming down as we were going up were very encouraging, saying things like, “You’re almost there! Only another 30 minutes.” Mom said that they had a different definition of the word “almost”. Hehe. We passed a woman who gave up maybe 10 minutes from the top. Her ‘encouragement’ was, “The worst part is ahead.” Gee, lady. Thanks a lot. Mom wasn’t fazed. She said, “I’m not giving up this close to the end.” Yeah, Mom!!!

We made it. And Mom and Dad both said that it was worth it, so that was a relief. It was only about 10:30AM when we finally arrived, and it felt like we’d already lived an entire day! We took a break at the top, enjoyed the view, and ate some snacks before heading back down the mountain. That had its own challenges because the rocks can get a little slippery, but there were zero falls which means it was a double success. By the time we made it down, we had already been at the site for 6 hours. Ha. We definitely got our money’s worth!

The Sun Gate. And some random guy’s backpack.

View of Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate. You can also see the switchbacks of the road that the buses have to drive up to reach the site.

Everyone had a teeny bit of energy left, so we headed into the citadel to check out the ruins before calling it a day. Next time, get ready for a tour!

Adventure Walking

Posted on May 5, 2020May 11, 2020 by Lark

After winging it on our first day in Canta, we started off Day #2 with a very well-defined plan: hike to “that” waterfall. See photo below for details… (Can you find the waterfall?)

Took this picture while speeding down the road between Canta and Obrajillo (David was appreciating the open road after we got past a spot of traffic). Have you located the waterfall? Scroll down for help…

To orient you, Obrajillo is in the valley to the right, the overlook is at the edge of a village, San Miguel, and we hiked up to the waterfall trickle that you can barely see (which seems kind of close to San Miguel, but I promise you that it’s not).

Okay, so the plan was vague, but Julie did some research and came away with the conclusion that it’s definitely possible to hike there (probably). The directions, as far as she could find, were to start by walking up to a popular viewpoint overlooking Obrajillo. Okay, easy enough. And then, walk to the waterfall. Hm. Welp, at least we knew the beginning part! We could figure things out from there, right?

The good news is, I love to overpack for hikes which means I was already prepared for uncertainty. My formula for day hikes is roughly: (day hike + 4 days) x # of people… and then I pack snacks and water accordingly, as though no one else is bringing anything (even though they are). It’s good to be prepared! What if someone else is underprepared? What if we get lost? What if someone gets hurt? What if there’s a mudslide and we get stranded and don’t want to resort to cannibalism? No one ever says, “I wish we had less food.” Worst case, you don’t need it all and get stronger from carrying the extra weight.

Once we were ready for anything, we walked to get breakfast sandwiches before heading out. This was our staple meal for the weekend (literally 3/5 meals in Canta): a fried egg on a roll. After you eat approximately four, you’re good to go! Then, we piled into the van and drove down to Obrajillo. There was traffic because of course there was. As soon as there are two cars on the road, it seems to be inevitable (I think it’s because Peruvian are so proud of their traffic, they need to make sure it’s always living up to its terrible reputation).

After we parked, we located the path to the viewpoint, and David, Dina, and her daughter split off to do other things… apparently the idea of a potentially endless hike didn’t appeal to them. Sorry, I mean “adventure walk”. Julie doesn’t like “hiking”, so we rebranded the activity. That ended up being a much more appropriate name in this instance anyway. “Hike” implies order, a defined path. “Adventure walk” says “I don’t know where we’re going, but that’s part of the fun!”

I can’t get over the greens! Maybe if they knew THIS was the view they were missing out on… nah, they still would have ditched us.

Anyway, the path to the overlook was easy enough to follow. Maybe that could be called a hike. From there, it was inarguably an adventure walk. After the viewpoint, we started asking every person we met for directions. That may sound like overkill, but it was a necessity. When people don’t know the answer to your question, they don’t say, “I don’t know.” They say, “Oh, it’s that way!” and point and say it with full confidence and make you think they have a clue. So, the only way to be safe is to ask as many people as possible, rate their trustworthiness, compare answers, pick a direction, and remind yourself that not knowing where you’re going is part of the fun.

Like seriously. (Also, that’s Canta on the left.)

HOW ARE THERE SO MANY GREENS? Also, fun fact did you know that the human eye can differentiate more shades of green than any other color?

The good news was that we could see the waterfall, Catarata de Shupucro, in the distance. The bad news was that it wasn’t clear how to get there. Even now, the only thing of which I’m certain is that our beginning route was NOT right… because there was no path, and we ended up inside the locked gates of a school. So, thanks for nothing, people who gave us directions up until that point.

Okay, let’s try again with the directions. We asked the school groundskeeper (who looked confused about why we were on the school property… yeah, same) and he unconvincingly pointed us in a direction. A few steps later, a woman vaguely motioned that was as well. Finally, we found a guy who confidently pointed at a path and said it would take us 2 hours to get there. He had the highest trustworthiness ranking. Welp, nothing left to do but cross our fingers and start walking!

Despondent donkey on the path. He was probably trying to find the waterfall as well.

Just starting out, back when we were so young and naive

I mean, it’s kind of like being in an airplane… The earth looks like a patchwork quilt.

Our biggest mistake was asking for more directions after trustworthy-guy. Right as we started up the path, we saw a few people coming down. Julie asked how far it was to the waterfall, and the guy said 20 minutes (LIES) and then gave some directions for how to get there. They seemed trustworthy… I mean, they had just come from there, so you’d think they’d know something. YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

The way up was unpleasant. The path was well-defined but also steep and rocky, and we were all feeling the effects of the altitude. Eventually, Jocelyn tapped out and told us to pick her up on our way back down. I felt bad leaving her, but she clearly wasn’t going to change her mind. We left her just before a fork in the path where we started following the directions of the guy we saw coming down.

Taking a breath before scaling these rocks…

Wrong choice. Very, very wrong. I still don’t know what we should have done, but definitely not that. We ended up on the wrong side of the mountain, and after maybe 30 minutes of walking up the worst ever uphills, we bumped into a couple coming down. Julie asked if we were going to the waterfall, and they said, “No, this is the path to the cross!” And then they pointed at this teeeeeny tiny cross at the top of a mountain in the distance. Can you spot the cross?:

THERE it is. My gosh. Is there anything about this picture that makes you want to walk to that cross??? It looks like torture.

This is me, standing on the path to the cross, looking up at the trail ahead, zig-zagging up this steep mountainside. No, thank you.

The only benefit of going the wrong way was getting this view of the valley

Yeah, no thank you. So, we turned around and tried to find where we went wrong. At this point, we also realized that we were almost all the way back to Jocelyn, so we sent Paul to bring her to meet us. She was nice and rested after her 40-minute break, and we were exhausted after our spirit-crushing uphill climb to nowhere.

Time to change strategies. We could see the waterfall, so instead of looking for the “right” path, we decided to walk towards it until we got there. I’m Peruvian-giving-directions confident that we took the proper route, and I will now describe it here, just in case you ever find yourself hiking in Canta: when you get to the fork in the path, don’t go left. Also, don’t go right. Instead, walk across the poop-covered field, following no path. Jump down the 5’ wall into the cornfield. Cross the field and climb over the short wall at the other side, taking care to avoid the cacti on top (nature’s barbed wire). Cross the river. Walk along the river until you reach a big rock and little waterfall. Cross the river again. Climb up the 7’ rock wall. Continue to walk towards the waterfall until you see a path. Follow the path to the waterfall.

Keeping our eyes on the waterfall while hopefully not destroying this cornfield

Can you spot the Lara? I’m hiding somewhere in this picture!

Exhaustion break disguised as a photo op

Got that? I couldn’t have made it any clearer. No wonder no one could give us directions!

As is generally the case with waterfalls, the view of the actual waterfall wasn’t great from up close. We did, however, get a better view of the valley and took a moment to pat ourselves on the backs because we made it!

The hike up had been steep and tiring, but the way down was brutal. Lots of slipping and sliding with a few falls. Jocelyn had the worst luck. On one of her falls, she caught herself on a cactus and got a cactus spine stuck in her finger. We tried to pull it out on the trail but couldn’t get a good grip or tell how deep it went. I had tweezers at the hotel, so she decided we should just leave it until we got back.

Can’t believe we were at that waterfall…

The layers in this picture are crazy… the bright green foreground, the hazy green middle (thank you, smog), and the low clouds above, chopping off the mountain tops.

Once we got past the steep part, the rest of the return trip was easy. Well, there was one part where a rock wall collapsed beneath me, but it’s fine because Kylie caught me by the backpack and saved me from disaster. It’s good to have friends with quick reflexes!

Found this kitten model on the way back to town

Back in town, we met up with David, Dina, and her daughter and drove back to Canta. Our first order of business was getting the spine out of Jocelyn’s finger. I got my tweezers and tried to ease it out, thinking it might be short. That did nothing, so Jocelyn braced herself and I pulled as hard as I could until it came out. It felt like I was going to pull her finger off! When it finally gave, we all freaked out because it was SO much longer than we thought. I can’t believe she walked around with that thing stuck in her finger for like 4 hours! And I can’t imagine how much the extraction hurt. Geez! Jocelyn wins the pain tolerance award.

We headed to dinner after the drama and devoured our food, only slightly hampered by the nightly power outage. It’s clearly not an uncommon occurrence because the waitress was prepared, bringing in an emergency light. And then the power came back on… and went out, and came on, and went out. Geez, just leave it off.

Back at the hotel, we made a solid effort to stay awake a little longer (it was only like 7:30PM) and eventually gave up and passed out. What a day!

“Birthday” Weekend and Another Floor!

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Lark

It’s been a fun couple of weeks! Ever since I got back from the States, I’ve been feeling so much more at ease and like I have some sort of control over what happens each day. I’m working on not needing to be totally in control in order to feel okay, but it is nice to at least feel like I have my feet on the ground instead of being sent this way and that by whatever wind happens to blow at the moment. I’ve pieced together a routine for the mornings and evenings during the week, and since our schedule is much more regular when teams aren’t here, I’ve actually been able to stick to it.

We’ve also been trying to be more productive with our weekends, getting out and doing things instead of rotting away in our apartment, and that’s been helping too. When all you do is work and rot, life passes by incredibly quickly. And it gets old and boring. I’m neither old nor boring, so why should I let my life be?

Mountains and moon — Super clear night! Check out those mountains in the background and the moon up above!

Anyway, I’m letting myself get sidetracked before I even begin! Work has been 1 part fun and 1 part tedious. The fun part is the construction! Two weeks ago, they finished laying out the bricks and the conduit (for the electrical wiring) and everything for the first ceiling on Module 2. I had to check the box locations and how they ran the tubes to make sure it all matched up with my plans, and that Saturday, they poured the concrete! This isn’t the first pour they’ve done, of course, but I had the best view of this one. I went up on the third floor of Module 1 and watched from above. The pump truck came in and set up, then the concrete trucks came, and I got to see the whole pouring procedure from start to finish. It was awesome! And since I was technically on the site, I had to wear a hard hat the whole time which made me feel like a big deal even though I was literally doing nothing but taking pictures and trying to stay out of the way.

Here are some pictures so that you can experience the fun! Also, the thought has just crossed my mind that you might not find this nearly as interesting or exciting as I do, but try to imagine that you helped to design a building, have a strong case of imposter syndrome (aka I don’t feel like I’m completely qualified for the role that I’m playing) (though don’t let that worry you because I truly am confident in my design), and despite that, people are listening to you and actually doing what your drawings say… and the building is going up before your eyes. Welcome to my life and the reasons behind my super excitement!

More bricks for the ceiling — Adding the bricks in for the future floor/ceiling. This is Module 2 (I’m standing on Module 1, on the third floor, to take this picture). The area on the left side is going to be the corridor. The completed two sections of brick are a classroom.

Putting in PVC pipe for the future wiring — Working on adding in the conduit for the 1st floor lighting/fire alarm/ceiling fans and 2nd floor outlets

Lots of PVC pipes — So much conduit! This is where everything needs to go to make it back to the panel, so we have a lot of tubes coming together here.

Two of the construction guys — I was creeping around taking pictures, and the guy on the right yelled for me to take a picture of them 🙂

PVC pipes for formwork clamps — Looking down into the biggest beam in our building. See those PVC pipes inside? The wood is clamped together with the help of steel bars running through those pipes, making sure that it won’t move during the pour and the beam will come out exactly as it should. Thanks to the pipes, the clamps can be removed after the concrete is in place.

Module 2 completely ready for the concrete pour — Okay, time to pour!

Pump truck unfurling its arm — This was so much fun to watch. This is the pump truck for the concrete. It has this super long arm so that it can reach every point on the floor.

Pump truck with its crazy arm — Look at it stretching across the building!

The concrete pour — This is how the pouring process goes… The guy at the bottom in the white is controlling the pump truck’s arm. The guy in the green shirt is guiding the tube to make sure the concrete goes where he wants it. Then, the two guys behind him come through with vibrators to help the concrete settle and make sure there aren’t any air pockets. The guy in the orange uses a rake to even out the surface. Finally, the guy in the back in the grey comes through with a piece of wood and smooths it out. Whew!

Nearly halfway finished — Making some good progress

Working in the final section — Just a little more!

The finished pour — Finished! (well, except for the last corner but essentially finished)

Junction boxes and conduit cut into a brick stairwell wall — Future light locations in the stairwell! This is going to be a regular light and an emergency light

Concrete-mixing station — Column-pouring day! Here’s the concrete mixing station. You can see the piles of sand and gravel next to the mixer, plus the concrete and water are nearby. Can you see the shadow Lara nearby?

Guy on a ladder with a bucket of concrete — After the concrete was ready, they put it into 5-gallon buckets for this guy to carry up the world’s most rickety ladder. He handed it to the next guy who walked it over to the guy on the “scaffolding” who dumped it into the column

Using the vibrator to get any air pockets out of the column

Parapet wall on the 3rd floor — The 3rd floor in Module 1 is coming together too! It’s going to have a half-wall, so that’s what you see the beginnings of here.

Parapet wall with columns — Parapet making good progress!

The building from behind — So tall! And there’s not even a roof on it yet!

Two weekends ago was a big deal, not only because the concrete pour was on Saturday morning (working on a weekend is not the best, but that was cool enough that I could get over it), but also because Julie and I declared it Birthday Weekend and created a schedule of events for Friday – Sunday. For those of you who know when my birthday is, this may seem strange… because it’s in December. Same with Julie’s. BUT, ever since we realized that no one is going to be around during our actual birthdays, we’d been talking about having a joint half-birthday party. Well, that would have been in June, and June was a busy month. And so was July. But now, things have settled down a bit, and what better way to celebrate than with a 2/3 birthday party! (Interestingly enough, not my first 2/3 birthday party. I used to throw those every year in high school… but that’s a story for another time.)

Neighborhood mountains — We had a nice, clear day for once. Look at how pretty the mountains look!

We didn’t go TOO crazy with the event planning because no one is going to sign up for an all-consuming not-actually-your-birthday weekend. So, this is what we ended up with for the schedule of events:

Friday night – pancake dinner followed by a bonfire dance party (including s’mores because why else even bother with a fire? Certainly not because we just like smelling like smoke.)

Bonfire and s'mores! — Post pancakes, mid-dance party/s’mores-making

Saturday – concrete pour (not an official part of the birthday events, but part of the schedule nonetheless), hike to the green mountains near the neighborhood (same thing we did the weekend before, but it was such a nice break that we wanted a repeat), eat cheesy bread (the easiest way to make a good day into a great day), and watch the first half of North and South (a fantastic 4-part mini-series based on a book by Elizabeth Gaskell)

Selfie in the green mountains — The hiking crew! Me, Debbie, Julie, Jocelyn, and Dina and her daughter Rachel

Funky cacti surrounded by green — Weird green desert

Me with the green mountains — Such a pretty view!!

Green mountain view — Seriously, how much better is this than brown mountains?

The girls with their backs facing the camera, looking out over the neighborhood — Debbie, Julie, and Jocelyn were all wearing different EA shirts

Sunday – church, birthday brownies, and the second half of North and South

Me lighting the second candle on our birthday brownies — Birthday brownies!

Me and Julie with our brownie "cake" — The “birthday” girls

The weekend was a great success! Debbie and Jocelyn even obliged our request for presents and gave us chocolate bars and mini-Oreos. And they sang to us and let us blow out candles even though we hardly earned it. It doesn’t get much better than that! Everyone who participated in any or all of the events said that we need to do it again sometime, so we’re currently in the process of assigning every remaining weekend to someone’s birthday celebration. It’ll probably be Julie and my turn again in November. Kidding! But it was fun having an agenda for the weekend, and I think we all realized that we need to keep planning things to look forward to, or else time will go by without a passing glance.

Playa Yaya — This past weekend was slightly less eventful, but we dragged ourselves out of the house to the beach! (The beach looks kind of nice in this picture, but don’t be fooled. It’s pretty gross, to be honest, and you couldn’t pay me enough to go swimming in the water.)

Back in the Groove and a Weekend Adventure

Posted on August 26, 2019September 5, 2019 by Lark

I’m back in Peru! I got in late last Monday night and spent Tuesday wrapping my head around the fact that they poured another floor while I was gone. That’s right, we have a 2-story building now! And even though there are no walls on the third floor, we can walk up there and see what the view is going to be like when it’s finished (the other buildings on the property are only two stories or less, so this is a new experience for us). Essentially, all the third floor means, view-wise, is that we will be able to creep on our neighbors exceptionally well. Like the ones next door who have a pool that we’re all very jealous of (though to be fair, we already knew about that thanks to the drone).

Mountains from the 3rd floor — 3rd story views

View of the new building from behind — As you can see, we have two stories on the left (Module 1) and one story on the right (Module 2). The existing bathroom building is in the middle (with the bricks piled on top).

Construction site — With our new view from the “3rd floor”, you can get great pictures of the rest of the property. Here’s the construction site, and at the top of the picture, you can see the septic gardens (top right) and the equipment/workshop building (top center).

Concrete mixing area — Here’s the area where they do the concrete mixing (bottom left). You can see the piles of different materials, and they usually have the mixing drum right in the middle. The long, bamboo-fenced area running along the top of the picture is where we store a lot of construction materials (for maintenance and stuff, not for the actual construction project). And you can kind of see the neighbors’ pool deck.

As I was saying, the construction has made big strides since I left. I was a little sad to miss out on some of the fun, but no need to get too upset about it because there’s still much to do. Now, they’re starting to work on the first-floor ceiling on the other side of the building (Module 2). I wasn’t super involved with the foundation phase up until they started the ceilings, but now they’re finally installing electrical-related things which means I have more to do! As they’re laying things out, I’m making sure that everything is in the proper location and that it’s going to work the way I designed it. It’s crazy getting to see it all come together!

Ceiling scaffolding — There’s nothing like a good scaffolding forest…

Looking through the roof supports at the existing building — Standing in the second floor hallway looking towards the new building… these buildings are going to be connected when we’re finished!

Module 2 in progress — Ceilings coming soon! The beginnings of the ceiling for the first floor on Module 2!

Boards covering half of the Module 2 classroom — Halfway there!

Module 2 from above — Adding in the steel for the beams

Junction boxes on Module 2 — You can see the little, white electrical boxes sitting on top of the wood. Those are for the lights, ceiling fans, and smoke detectors in this classroom.

Stack of bricks on the ceiling formwork — Nearly ready to start adding the bricks!

Looking up at the ceiling — This is what the ceiling scaffolding/formwork looks like underneath after the bricks are added. Between the bricks, above where the wood planks are, is the poured concrete.

I’ve also had fun getting to be somewhat hands-on in the construction process. For example, the electrician came last week to direct the construction crew on where he needs tubes for the electrical wiring, and first, he and I walked around and made sure that we were happy with the locations of the devices. I chalk-marked the walls in the stairwell showing where I want the lights, and he and I talked through some locations for the electrical boxes. This is way more than I would be involved with on a job in the States. There, the engineer essentially just shows the way they want the system to work and then leaves the details to the electrician. Here, I had to include much more installation-related information on my plans, and now, I’m getting to see it all through. How cool!

Me and the electrician on site — Me talking to the electrician and looking very official in my hard hat (though not wearing appropriate footwear).

One of the guys standing on a board spanning between a ladder and a water drum — Do you like this work platform? Very safe… Don’t worry, he’s not doing anything dangerous… just using a saw to cut the channels in the brick wall for the conduit

Box and conduits set into a wall — Nice and ready for some wires!

Mason putting stucco on the wall — Applying the stucco

Half of the wall with stucco, half still brick — Stucco job in progress

Mason smoothing out the stucco — The mason working on the stucco. I’m still not quite sure how he manages to get it from this lumpy mess to completely smooth. He’s using that piece of metal in his hands to level it out a bit, but that seems like a very long process

Besides the construction, things have been nice and chill since I got back… well, with the exception of actually getting back into the country. I had a little scare in the airport on the way in because I’ve already overstayed my welcome for the year. You can technically only stay for 90 days each year without additional paperwork. When the lady at immigration told me I had already exceeded my allowance, I was worried that they were going to put me right back on a plane home! But thank goodness they let me back in, only giving me a 30-day visa instead of a 90-day… which just means that I definitely can’t leave the country again this year until I’m sure that I’m ready to be gone for good, and when I do leave, I’m going to have to pay 60-days’ worth more for the exit fee (that’s the punishment for overstaying your visa, a fee that accumulates for each day beyond your allowed stay).

Aside from that whole mess, though, things have been good. I’m not feeling overwhelmed or overworked (yet). I’m happy to be back working on the project. It’s been a fun week of hanging out with the roommates and getting back into some good habits. I think my trip home came at just the right time, and now I’m back and feeling ready to have a strong finish to my time here.

I want to make the most of the time I have left, so I’m trying to be more proactive about doing things on the weekends. On Saturday, Julie, Jocelyn, and I went on an adventure walk (aka a hike, but Julie thinks that doesn’t sound fun enough). The mountains near where we live are usually nice and brown, adding some extra brownness to the rest of the brown of the desert landscape. Since it’s been such a humid and misty winter, some of the mountains have turned green! I don’t know how so many little plants managed to spawn in such dusty ground, but I’m not upset about it! From a distance, the mountains look like they’ve just gone a bit moldy.

Road cut out of a brown mountain — Spot the moldy mountains

A half-green, half-brown mountain — How weird is that line between green and brown??

We’re starved for green landscapes here, so we decided to take advantage of this favorable development and investigate. What does that entail exactly? Well, we had to cross over one row of brown mountains before getting to the green ones, so we looked for a path that didn’t seem too exhausting. We walked from our property through our neighborhood and the next one until we got to the foot of a low point between two peaks. I thought maybe that would mean it was easy to cross over. No. I was wrong (rare occurrence, but happens every so often).

It wasn’t “easy”, but we made it over after nearly 30 minutes of walking up a mountain slope that might as well have been vertical. Seriously, it had to be at least a 75-degree incline. And then we had to walk around the mountain on a skinny, slanted path, only one foot-slip away from a tumble all the way down the steep mountainside. The verdict? Not the best route we could have taken, but live and learn!

Climbing up the mountain — Julie and Jocelyn having so much fun…

The neighborhood from the top of the hill — The neighborhood!

Selfie at the top — We made it!… to the top of the “gap” between mountain peaks

Jocelyn walking on the little path — The long, winding path around the mountain

Selfie in the wilderness — Our discussion topic at this point: “When I imagine the wilderness, it looks something like this.”

After that, though, it was heavenly! We learned that the moldy green is mostly wildflowers! There was practically a line separating the brown from the green, and after we crossed over, it didn’t matter how steep the path. We were too busy raving about the smell of plants in the air and the fact that there were actual flowers (no irrigation system required!) and marveling at how much happier we felt being surrounded by green life instead of brown dust. It was magical.

Pretty green mountains — It’s like we’re not even in Chilca anymore! (spot the Jocelyn)

Green mountain selfie! — Just happy to be here, breathing in the fresh, plant-supplied air

Green mountains — It doesn’t even look real!! Such a vibrant green

Mountain color progression — Contrast… Green to less green to less green to BROWN

Cactus in a field of green — Despite the addition of these new plants, we’re still in the desert!

More green — Can we live here? I’m moving.

Line of identical little houses — We walked through this weird little neighborhood on our way home. This is what they usually do when they’re marking out plots to be sold. You get this wonderful patch of dirt and this completely customized hut with your purchase!

Little, purple flowers — Flowers!!! SO MANY FLOWERS!

More purple flowers — Can’t. Get. Enough.

On top of all of that, and I’m sure that I cannot possibly convey the extent of my excitement for this next part, we discovered a new neighborhood gem. One of my favorite things to eat here is cheesy bread… exactly what it sounds like. Cheese + bread = Lara dream meal (I’m very easy to please). Our usual cheesy bread supplier is at least a 15-minute drive away, and it’s been closed for the last couple months with no explanation. BUT we recently discovered that there’s another cheesy bread place just a 15-minute WALK from where we live. We walked there to check it out at the end of our hike, and they have now been quality approved by us. This is life-changing! (no exaggeration… it doesn’t take much) I’ve never meant it more when I say that the future is looking bright!

Cheesy bread!!! This one has ham in it too