Adios amigos!

What am I doing this week? Going to Buenos Aires. No big thing :)

The last few days I have found myself singing "I want to be a part of BA, Buenos Aires, Big Apple!" Name that musical (that shouldn't be too hard, as I think there's only one famous musical set in Argentina)!

Big B and I leave very early Wednesday morning for our South American adventure. We are pumped to tango in Buenos Aires (what with meeting in a tango class five years ago and all), see the Andes and Iguazu Falls, trek to Machu Picchu, visit the Bolivian Amazon, stand in the Great Salt Flats, drink Argentine and Chilean wines at the source, walk on glaciers in Patagonia, and enjoy the feeling of discovering new places together & muddle through being totally out of our depth together. We know this is a tremendous opportunity and are so appreciative of the chance to take it!!

I'm not sure how much blogging will actually happen, as we are not bringing any sort of computing device, but I hope to post the odd tidbit here and there. There will be Facebook updates and emails from time to time too. And certainly there will be some sort of multi-stage epic recap once we are back home in Cape Town.

Adios, everyone- see you in May!

Nepal- the food edition

What did we expect of the food in Nepal? Dal...lots of dal. As part of our "training" we were eating dal at least weekly (although admittedly it was nothing like the dal we got there). We also expected to be inundated by yak milk butter tea, a drink that is said to be as grim as it sounds. Being the forward thinker I am I packed Milo (a chocolate drink powder) to surreptitiously add to the tea to make it more palatable. It turns out you don't actually encounter the stuff until higher elevations (because yaks don't live in the low territories). Unfortunately no yak tea was had on this trip. I spent my time at the highest elevation we reached communing with the squat toilet. I'm not sure what Brendan's excuse is.

The biggest food surprise in Nepal was that, like the country itself, it is a blend of the influences of the two major countries on either side of it: India and China. There were lots of curries and chapatis and the like right alongside chow mein and chop suey. Add in a little Tibetan flair and the continental food that pandered to the tourists and it was quite the food fest. Here are the highlights.

Momos (Tibetan dumplings). Really delicious. 

Thukpa (Tibetan noodle soup). Also really delicious. 

The one, the only dal bhat. Lunch of trekking champions. There are many awesome things about this dish, two of which are that a) it is one of the only ways to get a pretty balanced meal given the menu offerings along the trekking route and b) you keep getting refills of rice, dal, and/or curried veg until you cry for mercy (or just say that you're done). Now that is value for money!

Apple pancakes, black tea, and fresh mint tea. Our typical trekking breakfast.

Roadside pastries (and by "road" I mean dirt path). The Nepalis have clued into the fact that lots of their visitors have a soft spot for baked goods and there are now many German bakeries along the trekking route. I have no idea what makes them German, though, as there was nary a strudel in sight. Brendan is showing off his cinnamon bun here. This is definitely the prettiest dang place I ever ate a cinnibun.

Clearly not cutthroat business people.

Everest beer. This is the special Sherpa Nimbu Gombu edition dedicated to the man who summited Everest 12 times. Clearly a beer of champions. 

Nepal videos

Here I am paragliding in Pokhara on a very overcast day. Yes my helmet is too big for my head, and yes that is me yelping as I sail off the edge of the mountain. There is something wholly unnatural about going off the edge of anything so high, but I loved it and B and I are looking forward to paragliding again in Cape Town. Oh, and you'll have to tilt your head for this one...we thought the camera would auto-orient the image but alas that was not the case.

Next we have some Nepali street musicians/dancers. Keep your eye out for the particularly amusing whirling-dervish old guy!

Brendan's original plan was to not shave at all during the trip, heaven help my poor lily white cheeks. The day before we left for the trek he decided to clean up and have a shave at one of the Nepali barber shops. Nature took its course of the rest of our trip, however, and it was a surprisingly good look for him...far better than that horrific mustache.

And finally, a glimpse of the start of our trekking adventure. We rode for 3 hours from Pokhara to Besi Sahar, and then another hour by local taxi to Bahudanda where the Annapurna Circuit officially begins. The bus was overcrowded and the seats were minuscule. I felt sausaged into my seat, so you can imagine how Brendan- who is approximately twice the size of your average Nepali- felt.  While this video is entirely blurry, you get a sense of our jarring, dusty, musical experience.