Lifts of Love: High Speed Quad to the Heart!



All photo credits to Max Losee

So...it started with an innocent little idea. 
I was just riding the chairlift with a friend.  We began to laugh about the 'Singles' line at the base of the chair.  And, oh, if only it were that easy in life....Wait a second....YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! And thus, Lifts of Love was born.  Speed-dating at a ski hill.  Each lift ride up is a speed date with some other eligible snow rider.  And if you don't like how it goes, well, you schuss off into the distance.



By the next day, Cupid (aka Jeff Siddle) was on the slopes of Mt Norquay for his photo shoot.

 

A couple weeks later, 100 singles were lined up to ski and shred for the evening.  Connections were made, numbers were exchanged.  And the rest, as they say, is sweet ski hill history.  Until the next Lifts of Love event, that is!

Thanks to CJSW's Charmer's Almanac and Mountain FM for radio interviews, and a host of others (including but not limited to the Canmore Leader, Rocky Mountain Outlook, Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Virgin Radio) for great stories and coverage!

Footnote:  The added hilarity here is that I grew up skiing at a very small, intimate ski hill. When skiing alone, at the base of the hill you were to raise a pole in the air, tilt your head back and belt out a mighty 'SIIIIINGLE!'  I always thought this was how one should operate in pubs and such.  Finally, I now have an outlet.  And for those of you who are thinking that I launched this entire event as a  campaign to uncover my next mountain man.  Well....so what if I did???

What are you grateful for?

My first American Thanksgiving took place two weeks ago.  In Cusco, Peru.

This is Tal.

In his own words Tal can, 'Piss a dinner party for 20'.  As such, an American Thanksgiving on a day´s notice was no big deal.  What we forgot to take into account was that I was helping.

This is me with Tal.

In everyone's words, all I touch turns to disaster (or adventure - it all just depends how you look at it!)

As such, because I was involved...

The turkeys that we purchased at noon on the day of our Thanksgiving dinner for 20 were obviously frozen.  We had to wade through a reeking room of poultry blood to get them.  Tal´s loudly proclaimed Peruvian swear words shocked all within earshot.  Fortunately for him, he oozes charm and can get anything he wants when he bats his big blue eyes.

Below is a portrait of our turkeys, en route home from the 'All things poultry' warehouse in Cusco.  (This seems to be the only place a turkey is available outside of Christmas.  Apparently all the other turkeys are too skinny at this time of year.  Or too tired from having flown in from Lima?)  Here we are giving our turkeys a break from their long Lima flight and sharing a ride home in our taxi.

Our turkeys were frozen and our oven is the size of a shoebox.  Rather than stuffing the fowl into the shoebox, we decided to outsource the problem.

This is Don Julio.  With our broken spanish, we think we´ve agreed to have him thaw and cook the birds at warp speed.  He does, after all, run a chicken roastery.  He must have an oven or two.  Or so we thought.

The photo is fuzzy because the boys are working so fast.

Believing that the turkeys were successfully outsourced, we were now free to toast to our brilliance with a Bloody Mary overlooking Cusco´s main plaza.

Unfortunately, due to our poor grip of the Spanish language, our turkeys were not in fact being cooked.  We arrived hours later to Don Julio´s, only to learn that his favour to us had been to leave the turkeys thawing on his counter.  Perhaps he thought we didn´t have counter space?

In true Backroads leader form (clearly the type of people who've pulled off gourmet picnics in 20 minutes in developing nations with hurricane warnings blaring and rabid dogs at our heels....) we showed our creative brilliance, took a deep breath, and threw more money at the problem.

This time we ran/hauled our fowl up the street to a special ´horno´.  This incredible wood oven down a back alley was surely the answer.  Twenty steaming cuy (guinea pigs) had to moved out of the way to accomodate our birds.  Because the guinea pigs were nearly cooked through, they couldn't even squeal their protest.

 At 9pm, we heaved steaming, delicious turkeys up the 3 flights of stairs to our apartment.

Tal is sideways after all the effort.  And because I can't figure out how to turn him around...

Mmmmm!

Somehow Tal pulled this off in spite of my support - what a team!

McKay, Diego, and a whole lot of food...

It's odd that a Canadian and an Aussie should choose to throw an American Thanksgiving meal, but throw one we did.  Our home overflowed with new friends from Peru, Japan, Ireland, and even a few token Americans.  We played music, sang and shared our gratitude for food to eat and friends to share it with.

This day full of misadventures led to my first American Thanksgiving meal, and I am so grateful for it.  Of course, things never quite seem to go the way that you expect (ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE ME).  And thank goodness for that!  Because of it, I have been blessed by beautiful people who leap into my life to link arms and ensure that everything turns out better than expected (yeah Tal! thanks Emma! And Don Julio and countless others...).  Anyway, with a few misadventures under our shared belts, yes there are moments of panic - and a whole heck of a lot of fun along the way!

Of course we don't have to eat turkey to profess our gratitude.  How wonderful that we can practice being grateful anywhere in the world, on any day of the week.

*

*This phrase and image is borrowed from my all-time favourite restaurant, Cafe Gratitude.  Check it out next time you're in San Francisco!  Order up a serving of, 'I am adventurous'. Share a little, 'I am vivacious'.  Then wash it all down with a big gulp of, 'I am courageous'.  Yum!  A tasty serving of inspiration and gratitude...

It's shocking, really

how much privilege I have experienced growing up in an upper middle class home in North America.

For example, I have not once been shocked in the shower.  Until now.  My hair is still dripping wet as I type this.  Had my hair not already been frizzy, it certainly would be now.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. My landlady did warn me not to touch anything metal as I showered.  This cautionary warning actually kept me out of our shower until recently.  Finally though, I tired of my own scent.

Seriously - would YOU trust this shower?

In the end, the morals I take from this story are:

 A) electricity and water should not mix, unless at a hydroelectricity plant (even then I have my doubts),  and

 B) it's okay to be dirty and smelly.  Better dirty than dead, I always say. 

(Which is likely how I earned my 'Dirty Girl' nickname in university.  But that's a story for another time.)

My visiting friend from Canada was horrified when I explained Peruvian bathroom procedures to him over a very classy dinner last night.  As a former wastewater treatment plant tour guide, I am used to speaking of such things over meals.  I should try to remember that not everyone is so comfortable.  I told Keith that the convenient wastebasket next to each Peruvian toilet is a receptacle for used toilet paper (for cases when you are lucky enough to be provided with such a luxury as toilet paper).  The pipes and systems in Peru (and most of Latin America for that matter) are not able to handle anything that isn't produced directly by one's body.  I get so used to this that I often find myself seeking out a wastebasket next to the toilet upon return to Canada.  (To my mother's obvious horror).

Oh, and of course there's no toilet seat.  I would develop strong quads here in Peru, if only I did a bit of exercise.

One commonly used word here for a toilet is an inodoro.  For some reason I find this hilarious...An odourless?  I suppose it beats the alternative, an odourful.  And really, what luxury!  A system IN the home that uses water to rush our wastes away to the nearest river?  Or if we are very lucky, to a nearby wastewater treatment plant?  These days, we are so lucky to use inodoros - a water closet being far less odoursome than the alternative outhouse.  Interesting.  The language here fascinates me.  More on this later.  Stay tuned for an upcoming post in which I shall address the issue of: 'V bersus B'.

I take so much for granted at home.  How much I can flush for example, and the fact that I can drink my tap water (or could even safely drink my toilet or shower water if I were that thirsty).  Stay tuned for another upcoming post addressing my recent tour of Cusco's water treatment plant.  I believe I shall call it:  'At Your Service...??'

On the topic of privilege, please excuse my somewhat light take above on this subject.  If I were to really dive into the fact that most of my friends here have nearly no preventative health care, have never seen a dentist, make less than my lunch money each week and can't travel to my country even for a visit, well, it steps outside of the lighthearted, silly and self-indulgent nature of LittleMissAdventure.com.  So, that's all for now folks.

Til next time!

Love,
Little Misadventure

Awooooo-sangate!

Five days trekking around Cusco's most sacred mountain...
Pure heaven!  Need I say more?

I think this video will do more than I ever could to tell the story of my new favourite place in Peru.

Ausangate Trek, October 2012

Thanks to our friend Alex Estrada for his brilliant photography, cinematography, and non stop high altitude comedy act.  His one man show began each day at 5 am and ran through til tent time every night.  His numerous talents include (but are not limited to) climbing every boulder in his path, screeching Peruvian slang curse words at the top of his lungs, filling the world with his boundless energetic presence and teaching mountain yoga classes, which to my delight, ended with the sacrilegious shouted prayer,
'Namaste....bitches!'

Alex in action - walking a very thin line, as usual!

My mom told me not to fall in love in Peru...

...but of course, a daughter never does as a mother says, does she?

I went one better and have fallen in love with not one, but TWELVE people in Peru (thus far!)  And Mom, it's okay, they aren't Peruvians! (I know you fear I may move far away and stay in Cusco forever.  For the love of the city I still may, but for now at least, my heart still lives in Canada.)

My Backroads trekking trip in Peru this fall introduced me to a group of special strangers.  As they supported one another on one of the area's toughest high-altitude treks, they made a pilgrimmage towards Machu Picchu.  It only took days for them to become amigos, dancing together on tables, laughing late into the night and rising for magical mountain sunrises.  Their special Journey reminds me of a song that we sang all week that goes on and on and on and on....And I LOVED the way that even on the hardest of days, our team didn't stop believin'!

So Mom, since I know you're worried, allow me to introduce you to the dozen who have filled my heart so far:

There's Debbie - an intrepid traveller, spin teacher and Silicon Valley powerhouse who took Peru (and our collective hearts) by storm.  We have all decided that we want to adopt her into our lives.  Here she is on the right with Marlena, rewriting (and belting out!) an old favourite song:

Which brings me of course to Marlena, a gorgeous jazz singer (and lyricist, as above!) and her Esteban (or Steve) who kept us healthy at high altitudes and well-hydrated with the best wines South America has to offer. (Perhaps my favourite high altitude tidbit from Steve is that as people age and their brains 'rot', they are less susceptible to cerebral edema because there is more room in their skulls for their shrunken brains to expand.  Mom and Dad, you're perfectly suited to a high altitude adventure!  Now aren't I a nice girl to have learned that for you?):

Don and Shelly led the charge to the hot tub every night.  They were ever ready with their camera for all the perfect shots and look so perfect together that its impossible not to photograph them too!  Clearly still so in love after raising their two beautiful daughters, it would be impossible not to love this couple.  And wow, you should see that Senor Don ride a horse!  Here they are, smiling as always, featured in front of Mount Salkantay:

Tammy and Scott (or, esScott, as we say in Peru) really got us off on the right foot with their excellent combined lyrical and dancing abilities.  Their endless energy has me working hard to recruit them away from their stable jobs into The Leader Lifestyle as Backroads' next staff dream team:

Sabine and Steffi stole everybody's hearts with their beautiful and supportive relationship.  Aunt and niece, though more like soul sisters, they made their way over Salkantay pass through hell and high altitude to the enigmatic Machu Picchu:

And as we were all falling in love as a group, a certain couple were falling even more deeply in love with one another.  They chose to commit to a life together during this pilgrimmage!  All our very best to Severin and Silvana as they dance forth into a life together that is at once as adventuresome, as supportive and as magical as their shared journey to Machu Picchu:

Finally, with her signature pink lipstick on display here in Machu Picchu Mountain's registration book, Conni danced from Long Island and New York City all the way to Machu Picchu and into the hearts of every Peruvian and traveller who chanced upon her:

 

Dancing every step of the way!

I can't forget to mention our trusted horse guide or 'Arriero' named Teofilo, whom we playfully nicknamed 'Senor T'  (Pity da foo' who doesn't get to work with Senor T!).  Like some 'Where's Waldo' character, Senor T seemed to show up unexpectedly at every turn:

Our journey would never have been the same without the expert guidance of the indomitable Javier Bello:

Or Whilder's incredible support on ALL fronts from dawn until well past dusk:

I've learned so much from my new friends.  I will never forget our magical journey together over the Salkantay pass en route to Machu Picchu.  Nor will I forget the lesson we learned on one of our first days together.  When it rains, link arms to make a rainbow!

Post Script

Mom:  I had numerous misadventures on this trip, most notably the bottle of champagne that shattered in my backpack, tearing holes in my clothes in all the most inopportune places.  (Though I am still striving hard to maintain my dignity in this somewhat reserved area of the country)  This incident occured when our horse spooked and galloped down the Salkantay Pass, throwing its load as it went.  (In all likelihood, the poor horse spooked at the sight of a shock of flaming red curls in its normally brown and grey environment.  But I prefer to stick with Javier's explanation - that a backpack - mine of course - fell off the horse and scared the poor creature into a full tilt gallop.)  But breathe a sigh of relief Mom, because none of the near daily misadventures yet include my meeting a man who shall steal me even further away from you.  Remain ever vigilant, but for now I am happy to report that I am yours, as always,

Heather

Preppin' for Peru

And now a little bit about what it took to get here...

1.  Four travel immunization shots, two in each arm (mostly unecessary, me being paranoid)

2. A grocery store trip to purchase $650 worth of granola bars, chocolate and individually packaged wet wipes and hand sanitizer.  The scope of this expenditure required approval by the grocery store manager.

3. A trip home to Ontario from Calgary, clearing ALL of my belongings from the house I'd been living in.  Obviously I couldn't leave a single item behind, not even a cucumber.  I could barely haul everything onto the plane.  I could just SEE people in the departure lounge thinking, 'Wow, that girl has a LOT of baggage'.  Well...while that may be true, how rude to think that of me without getting to know me first!   Besides, a girl travelling on her own SHOULD carry a cucumber.

Oh, and 4. A delicious aiplane meal to send me off.  Word to the wise: NEVER profess your preferences as 'vegan' on an international flight...(and WHAT kind of an excuse for water is that???  It sure made me appreciate the incredible access we enjoy to quality tap water in Calgary...)

A rainy day in Cusco

 

I have landed in Cusco during Peru's 'primavera' or springtime, which means that it's raining here a little bit every day.  I have finally decided to take advantage of this liquid sunshine to post a few recent misadventures!

Today I'll comment on:

1. Being invited to a Peruvian wedding on my 3rd day here and

2. The very strange sign on the bike in my bedroom

On the topic of #1:  When I arrived, I had to haul my very overweight bags (stuffed completely with granola bars and dark chocolate) three blocks to our Cusco apartment.  The taxi stopped short of our home because our street is currently under construction.  Fortunately, a kind construction worker took pity on me and carried my bags in his muddy wheelbarrow to our apartment door.  As I made this trek, I saw a familiar face under a construction helmet.  I thought to myself, 'I am SURE that's Benito'....But after four years away, I didn't want to approach a stranger in the street.  (If I'm being honest,  I also feared being accused as one of those North Americans who just think people from other places all look the same).  So I didn't say hola.  Two days later, after seeing him every day, I finally just launched myself upon him in a friendly hug.  Sure enough, it was Benito, the night guard from the hostel I used to stay in whilst in Cusco!  We were thrilled to reconnect, and he immediately invited me to his wedding, taking place the following Saturday.  Unfortunately, I'll be away trekking and cannot attend, but what an honour!  The moral here:  Never be too shy to approach somebody in the street...they may just have a wedding invite up their sleeve for you! 

The photo above relates to Topic #2 - a bike found in my bedroom, bearing this note.  I noticed it before going to sleep on my second night here.  Upon awakening, I dug deeper to get more details.  Apparently a donkey spooked and crossed the path of an unsuspecting bike rider.  The cyclist quite literally rear-ended the donkey.  The moral of this piece:  You never know when you may unwittingly hit an ass in the ass...