Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Venezuelan Adrenaline Tour

Revenge is a really harsh word. I would hardly use it to describe the birth of my latest brainchild, the Venezuelan Adrenaline Tour.

In order to act out revenge you must first have ample motive. You must feel wronged in some way, shape of form. Sure, three weeks ago Stevie subjected me to a museum tour in Cartagena that many people would consider just left of torture (remember the tour here). But I actually enjoyed those 105 degree afternoons walking through art galleries. Who doesn't like visiting a museum or 20?

I can assure you the Venezuelan Adrenaline Tour was born from nothing but the purest intentions. I simply wanted to share some moments in nature with my beloved wife. You know, some paragliding and fun afternoon canyoneering. How was I suppose to know what would happen? How can I be held responsible?

You can read about our paragliding experience here. I was very proud of Stevie. You have no idea how hard it was to look into her beautiful brown eyes as she began to cry right before take off. It crushed me. En serio.

Our next adventure was a 3 hour canyoneering tour. (See photo above. Click it to enlarge and see if you can find Stevie rappelling off the waterfall).

Canyoneering Defined - The sport of exploring canyons as by climbing, rappelling, and swimming down steep technical descents

Now THAT is a perfect couples sport.

My first indication that something was awry on our canyoneering expedition occurred when I put the following four facts together in my mind...

1) Nobody was asked to sign a liability release
2) Nobody was asked if they knew how to swim
3) My wetsuit had 10 patches on it, indicating abrasive contact with rocks
4) The climbing gear (which I know well) looked like it was from the golden age in Yosemite.

Unfortunately my data crunching was slow and the "super extreme" output popped out well after we were underway.


Hell, what did I expect in Venezuela? The realization that there wouldn't be any lolly pops at the end of the tour put a huge damper on my mood.

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Photos and Video - Due to extremely wet conditions, I had trouble capturing good photos, but I got a few shots and 2 good videos. Check em' out...

After our guides gave everyone an awesome 30 second lesson on how to rappel, we were underway. This photo is the first rappel and was no F'ing joke. Notice the rope disappears into the curtain of the waterfall, which was thumping. This offered an excellent simulation of drowning and was a little extreme, even by my standards. I went first and half way down I started thinking about the best address for Stevie to send the divorce papers.

On the second waterfall I took video of Stevie. 

At least the 2nd waterfall was a dry rap, but it was still technical. The rocks were slippery as hell. And did I mention that this day was Stevie's first time rappelling, EVER?
(click photos to enlarge, its the only way to see her and gives perspective on the size of these waterfalls)


Our group started looking a little tired so about 3 hours into our "3 hour tour" I asked the guide how much farther to the bottom. She replied that we were half way there. I did the quick math and enthusiastically announced that we were getting twice the value for our money! Stevie did not think that was funny.

I had done a pretty good job keeping Stevie calm up until the final rappel. We walked around a corner and saw a HUGE horizon line. The rap was about 120 feet into a deep pool of turbulent water. From there you had to disconnect from the rope while treading water, swim into a cave, and then swim down another rapid. It is my belief that this was where the seeds of revenge were first planted in Stevie's mind. 

Want to see the birth of revenge?



More seriously, I love that Stevie and I open doors for each other in our relationship. I would never see all the amazing museums if she was not in my life, and she would not experience nature in its many raw forms.

I love that we can share our passions while broadening each others horizons.  


This I can tell you, Stevie stepped up and was a complete super star! She did things I just never thought I'd see her do, without tears and without complaint.

However, at the end of our adventure she gave me a sweet kiss and whispered into my ear with a calm, bone chilling voice...

"I am so happy that you love museums sweetie. Lets explore the city tomorrow"

Wait a second, THAT'S MOTIVE! Can I get a witness? I think she wants revenge.

TREE

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Styles Of Madness

If you like this post, please share it on Facebook, Twitter, or StumbleUpon by clicking one of the buttons above. Thank you kindly! -STEVIE

Lately I have had to calculate a lot of risk.
The math goes something like this:

Is the exhilaration that X brings me worth potentially splattering, drowning or exploding in mid-air?

If so, exactly how big is the risk of dying compared to the thrill I’ll get from said moment of living. Personally, I prefer the ratio to be 1:1,000,000, whereas Tree considers 1:5 a bargain.

On a day to day basis, most people don’t have to think about their fear of dying on a conscious level, but being married to Tree, I get to consider it quite often. Just the other day I was standing on the edge of a cliff wondering...

Yet, in reality, our death anxiety is always present. We just keep it repressed because if we didn’t, we’d be existentialists—depressive twentieth-century philosophers who wore black turtlenecks, smoked cigarettes, and wrote really long books and confounding plays on the meaninglessness of life.

In one such Pulitzer-prize winning book, appropriately called The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker explains how man is torn between his symbolic, self-conscious awareness and his flesh and bones, brute nature:  The same creature that names himself, imagines, explores and speculates his own everlasting heroism is, in the end, nothing more than worm food.

This conscious awareness of our imminent death can be a bit maddening.

“Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.” –Blaise Pascal

In other words, we go through crazy measures to repress our death anxiety, because if we didn’t, we’d go a different kind of crazy.


Ernest Becker calls Pascal’s necessary styles of madness ‘vital lies;’ we create these social constructs to give meaning and heroic status to our earthly life, as well as hope of an afterlife. For example, Capitalism and Christianity are two widely held vital lies in the United States. The bigger our bank accounts, the higher and more important is our social status, and if we believe in Jesus, we trump the worm food problem with a soul that goes to heaven.

This is all fine and dandy, unless of course you happen to be a hellbound Jew, Muslim- or god forbid, homeless person, the least valued member in our society.

The problem with vital lies is that they tend to be mutually exclusive, and we’re willing to fight to the death to prove that our own vital lie is the real truth—hence the billions of people that have died in the name of god and country.
But what does any of this have to do with Tree and me? We're not religious, nor are we particularly concerned about climbing any social ladders. So what do we do to give meaning to our life in the face of imminent death? What is our vital lie?

What is our style of madness?
In looking at our life and the choices we make, it seems Tree and I think that maybe we can cheat death by squeezing in as much life as possible. This has become even truer for me since I’ve been with Tree, who thinks life itself is an extreme sport. And as for our hero complex, well….

It’s bird, it’s a plane, it’s SUPER NOMAD!


What is your style of madness? We want to know. Post it in a comment below...

Thursday, June 23, 2011

The Door To The Andes - The Longest Mountain Range In The World

There were three reasons we decided to brave a trip into Venezuela. One was to visit Trujillo (read previous post here). The second was to enter the Andes mountains at their source. The third reason I will let you know in a few days.

The Andes begin in the town of La Puerta, Venezuela. La Puerta means "The Door".

The Andes Mountains are no joke! They extend from north to south through seven South American countries including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. That's the entire continent from top to bottom, which makes the Andes the longest mountain range in the world. It is over 5,000 miles long. It ranges in width from 120 to 430 miles and has an average height of over 13,000 ft!

Anyone driving the Pan American Highway will spend an extensive amount of time in this mountain range. But again, the mountains START in Venezuela. That means if you truly want to drive the entire stretch of the Andes, which we do, then you have to go into Venezuela to start, which we did!

Stevie - Yes my love, I know, it's not a competition. I'm just giving them all the info.

And so we went to the little town of La Puerta, and from there we entered The Door into the Andes!

The temperature quickly dropped as we began climbing into the clouds. Our destination was the mountain town of Merida.

We passed many small villages living at the high altitude. Pretty cool to see.


On our first pass we crested over 13,000 feet. The roads were extremely steep and narrow. In many places landslides had wiped them out and narrow dirt lanes were carved into the mountain side for passage. It took us 5.5 hours to drive 98 miles in excellent weather conditions. I guess its going to be a really long trip to the end of the Andes.

We made it to our destination safely. We plan to spend the next couple weeks exploring the Andes mountains from our new Posada in downtown Merida.

We're still traveling with our friends, but we suspect they will be moving on soon. From here they will take a bus to Brazil. That's class 5 hardcore just so you know.
Guillermo's lesson the last couple days has been on changing our perspective about traveling... 

He says that wherever we go, we should not view ourselves as visitors or travelers. Rather we should view that place as our home. We should care for it and the people as if they were our own, because they are.

What an interesting change in our perspective, and a powerful shift in how we view the world.

Cada dia es mejor. Cada dia estamos mejor!
TREE

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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Trujillo - My Peeps Have A Home

One of the big reasons I wanted to come to Venezuela was to visit the state of Trujillo. For those of you who don't know, my last name (and now Stevie's last name) is Trujillo.

The original plan was to visit all of the towns and states named Trujillo on our way south. We missed Trujillo in Honduras due to a run in with a narco gang and a Sprinter break down, (remember that nightmare by clicking here). But I was determined not to miss the one in Venezuela.

And so here we are, in Trujillo Venezuela! I feel very very important here. I make it a point to introduce myself as "Senor Trujillo". I walk tall and with purpose. Stevie calls it "strutting", but she's just new to the whole "Trujillo way". I even made myself a small name tag and placed it prominently on my right chest pocket.

When Stevie reminds me that Trujillo was a brutal dictator known throughout the Americas, I politely request her to BE QUIET, or else. Viva los Trujillos!




I would love to get a placa like this for the Sprinter.


Our drive across the plains toward the mountain town of La Puerta was beautiful. Guillermo and Paola are still traveling with us. They are great companions.

As soon as we arrive anywhere, the first thing our friends do after setting us up in a Posada is go to the Central Plaza where they sell. This is how they make their money. They travel from country to country with nothing more than two big backpacks. Guillermo calls it "The Simple Life." He says that the more simple your life is, the happier you will be. I am beginning to believe him.


Video - Street selling in La Puerta, watch now

It is such a gift for us to be traveling with these guys. They are truly enlightened. Every morning I say to Guillermo, "buenos dias hermano" and every morning he greets me with the same response:

"Cada dia es mejor Tree, cada dia estamos mejor" 
Translation - Every day is better Tree, every day WE are better


Should I be paying him for these words of wisdom, life lessons, and inspiration?
-TREE

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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Sand Surfing Coro

Coro is an old colonial town on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela. We had heard that it was a cool hang, so we went to check it out.

Guillermo's standard operating procedure when arriving in a new town is to walk around for 2 hours talking with the owner of every Posada (hostel type hotel). Sometimes he asks questions about the rooms, but more often than not, he's just making friends with the whole town. This is a big change from Sprinter Life's SOP. We usually just take the first place with internet.

Guillermo's efforts landed us in the best Posada in Coro, La Casa del Mono. This bad ass place is owned by Fabricio, who also runs an adventure and ecotourism company. He is fluent in English, Spanish, and just in case you need it, Slovakian. If you go to Coro, THIS IS THE PLACE TO STAY!


Kiki fell in love with Fabricio's pet turtle.

Lurking in the hammock, my new extreme sport. I'm getting old.

Coro is surrounded by huge sand dunes. 

Fabricio has pioneered sand surfing in this area and took us out one afternoon.

Stevie got the hang of it and started tearing it up on the bunny slope.


As usual I had talked way too much shit so Fabricio took me to the double black diamond hill. It went pretty much straight down. I sent it though, barely.

Fabricio dropping in

Finding internet remains our biggest challenge here, but other than that, we are loving this country!

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