Wind Down

Full of ups and downs, I was back in Mexico with the trip drawing to an end. One of the most exciting things about the trip was the food. I love spicy food and especially Mexican, so this was my chance to load up on some real Mexican cuisine. Being a vegetarian down there made finding suitable food a little tricky, and aside from a couple minor translation difficulties, I ended up surviving it. Lots of tacos and burros, even legit churros, and of course hot sauce in everything. On potato crisps and even IN beer (oh michiladas!)

Playa Del Carmen was the last port of call, seemed like a good idea to avoid going back to the mediocrity of Cancun. Little did I realise both places are about as bad as each other, ultra touristy and pretty tacky. Not a huge bother, I ended up taking a full day tour out to Chichen Itza and a cenote. I’d say this day was the single biggest highlight of the whole trip, and I’d recommend it to anyone going. Chichen Itza was great to experience, much like the other ruins scattered through mesoamerica, but it was swimming in the cenote (limestone cave with natural pool) that was just incredible. The temperature was cool and refreshing, and the water was crystal clear and even had fish in there.

We ended the day at some luncheon where the servers played music and inexplicably danced with bottles on their heads.

And that was the end of the Mexico trip.

Super anti-climax to the blog of North America, I followed this up with two weeks of snowboarding, hopping between friends’ places between Vancouver, Whistler, Vernon and Banff. Seriously, best country I can think of.

Whistler part deux

When I was in Whistler by myself Bee mentioned she’d like to get up there sometime, and considering my trip up there was on one of the most miserable weekends ever I figured it’d be good to go again since it couldn’t be any worse, and going hiking would be more fun with a friend. So that’s what happened, we organised to head up together the very next weekend.

And I was right (as I usually am), the weather couldn’t be worse. In fact it couldn’t be any nicer than it was; clear blue skies, great temps, just amazing. For not much more than the cost of staying at the hostel 25 mins out of town we managed to get a bitchin’ 3.5 star hotel in the centre of the village, complete and utter luxury when you’re used to slumming it in old, run-down hostels. And it also included a breakfast feast fit for a king. Score!

The first order of business was to go do the ‘Peak2Peak’ a 4.4km Gondola between Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains. You could get out at the peaks and go hiking, checking out the scenery down over the village, or small patches of snow and glaciers.

Whistle Village

Big Inukshuk

Bee holding up the clouds

My first play in snow since arriving in North America.

Obviously, I am yet to grow up.

Being the moron I am, I ate some of the snow. It was slightly dirty. I lived to see another day.

Looking over at Blackcomb Mountain

You can see a bit of a glacier in there amongst the snow.

We caught the glass-bottomed gondola across to Blackcomb. It was pretty awesome if you like looking at trees.

More sweet views.

Whilst in Whistler I also managed to cross another thing off the bucket list. I would have done it the week before, but like I said earlier it was such horrible weather and it’s so much more fun to do stuff with friends. Like have your horror caught on camera. I finally took the plunge – quite literally – and went for a bungy jump. It’s extremely similar to skydiving in terms of the experience, except ridiculously shorter; stepping to the edge your heart is beating like crazy, the adrenaline hits you the second you jump, your heart is out your mouth for the first couple of seconds, then the next 3 seconds feel like you’re floating. And then the rope catches you and you begin to bounce around, at which point the experience is obviously fair different.

The bridge from which I would be jumping.

The view

Geronimo

Definitely a cool experience. The funny thing that I learned afterward was that the winch to pull me back up decided to fold it’s arms and throw a tantrum, refusing to pull me back up… Kinda makes sense now why they just left me hanging for a couple minutes. Not that I could complain, pretty sweet view down the stream from where I was. The jump itself was about 50m, for the record.

After that we stooged around the village, mainly just acting like the kids we are.

This little guy is called Quatchi. He's one of the 2010 Winter Olympic Mascots and he is badass!

And then we returned back to Vancouver and our awesome weekend of awesomeness was over. The end.

I’m in high places!

One photo I forgot to post in the last update… One last shot (for now) of the snow-capped rockies:

The Three Sisters

Now that Bee kicked me out of her place and I’m back on the road I’ve been seeing quite a bit again, but I also managed to squeeze in one last hike in Canmore before I left. A short and sweet hike, but one with panoramic views over Canmore, Grassi Lakes trail has been one of my favourite so far. Even on a miserable day the place would lift your spirits immeasurably:

I'm becoming pro with the timer function and utilising tree branches as makeshift tripods (monopods?). Also becoming pro at looking like a dork.

Grassi Lakes

So onto Kelowna, not really knowing anything about the place except the name is a native word for Female Bear and that it sits on some bugger-off huge lake called the Okanagan. Bears and huge lakes are pretty awesome, right? I went on another hike here up Mt Knox, and I was hopeful once again that I might see bears. But no, no bears. Not even a bear track or bear poop. At this point I was pretty sure I would never see a bear in the wild. And that made me sad. Almost as sad as this.

The Okanagan has its own monster, along the same lines as the Loch Ness Monster, except theirs is called Ogopogo.

The view over Kelowna from Mt Knox.

After two nights in Kelowna, it was on to Vancouver for a quick overnighter to recharge the batteries and hang out with Allie before moving on to Whistler. Sat around drinking pints of Beaver Brew (the hostel’s in-house beer) and it’s a damn fine drop. So much so, I may have woken up a little sore-headed the next morning before having to board the bus up here. Good times, good friends, spare change, spent weekends.

So that brings me to here. Whistler. Cold, wet, and so cloudy I can’t even see the mountains. That part is a little disappointing, but Whistler Village is still a pretty sweet town. Liking it so much I’m looking at the possibility of staying here through October until I go on holidays again with Mel down south, or at the very least coming back and spending the first couple days of Oct here with Bee. Keen to do some hikes with her and do some of the adventure activities.

Last night I caught Hot Hot Heat, and as much as I really like their stuff, I think I’m giving up on their live show. If they’re not playing terrible songs off their bad records, they’re murdering their great songs from their brilliant albums. But hey, it was a night out and it was fun, AND AND AND AND AND!!! My first sighting of a wild bear! So I do believe they exist now! He was running amok (well, scavenging) through the streets of the village before a ranger shooed him up into the hills. Pretty dark so I didn’t see much, then two minutes later, ANOTHER BEAR! I want one as a pet, he seemed harmless enough. Now for bad lighting and bad photography: bear caught on camera…

Ok so that could be a shrub or a big rock with a hole in it, but it's totally a big badass black bear (how's that for alliteration?!)

And while I’m at it, a couple of photos of Whistler:

Heading to Nanaimo tomorrow, then another city or two on Vancouver Island after that.