<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss version="0.92"> <channel><title>JJ&#039;s Travelogue</title><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog</link> <description>Reflections from my vagabonding adventure</description> <lastBuildDate>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:22:16 +0000</lastBuildDate> <docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs> <language>en</language> <item><title>Christmas in Cusco</title> <description><![CDATA[At last! A new post! Thanks for your patience.. I&#8217;ve been hanging out in Cusco for the last two months. This is the first of four posts to come catching you up on all my recent activities. NB: Although I&#8217;m writing this in February, I&#8217;m backdating it to December as per my usual practice of dating [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/12/30/christmas-in-cusco/</link> </item> <item><title>The less-traveled road to Cusco</title> <description><![CDATA[Back on the coast I looked at the little map in the guidebook to see what the most direct route to Cusco is. Which it turns out, is not always the fastest route! What the map didn&#8217;t show is that the most direct route actually takes the longest.. about 30 hours in fact, over rough [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/12/12/the-less-traveled-road-to-cusco/</link> </item> <item><title>Fun in the desert</title> <description><![CDATA[Four hours south of Lima lies the Ica desert, a moonscape of surreal sand dunes. Paleontologists know this area for the fossilized bones of gigantic whale-eating sharks, sea sloths, and other long extinct marine animals. Oenologists know the region for its vineyards, planted by the Spanish in the 16th century. Hundreds of bodegas (the other use [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/11/30/fun-in-the-desert/</link> </item> <item><title>Pensive thoughts</title> <description><![CDATA[A pensive post today.. forgive me if it&#8217;s depressing, but I feel that the blog should accurately reflect what I&#8217;m going through on the road&#8230; I must admit that one of the reasons I&#8217;ve viewed Lima in a negative light is that I&#8217;ve been in a funk the last couple of weeks. I think it&#8217;s a [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/11/26/pensive-thoughts/</link> </item> <item><title>Lima&#8217;s faded glory</title> <description><![CDATA[For no good reason, I&#8217;ve been in Lima for two weeks now.. which is about two weeks too long. I exaggerate. Kind of. Like any metropolis of it&#8217;s size, there are many Limas.. and some of them certainly are attractive. The central plaza is a beautifully landscaped park surrounded by handsomely restored colonial palaces and other [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/11/25/limas-faded-glory/</link> </item> <item><title>&#8230; and back to the Andes</title> <description><![CDATA[I awaken to the cold steel light of dawn filtering through the drawn curtains. The windows are fogged over indicating how cold it is outside, but I occasionally catch glimpses of the passing scenery. It looks like Iceland &#8211; barren tundra, ice floes in the river paralleling the road. Mist and fog hang over everything, [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/11/13/and-back-to-the-andes/</link> </item> <item><title>From the mountains to the sea&#8230;</title> <description><![CDATA[Leaving Cajamarca, I headed back to the coast &#8211; to Trujillo, a large city of not much interest. Spent a few days wandering around the colonial centre viewing the pretty architecture and large square; but as one moves away from the center the city quickly devolves into urban blight. In an example of the law [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/11/06/from-the-mountains-to-the-sea/</link> </item> <item><title>First Week in Peru</title> <description><![CDATA[Some impressions from my first week in Perú. First, about getting out of Ecuador &#8211; leaving the hotel at 4:40am having not slept in a couple of days, I made the 5 o&#8217;clock bus to Loja. But the 7am bus from Loja to the border never showed, so I had six hours to wait until the [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/10/26/first-week-in-peru/</link> </item> <item><title>Last thoughts on Ecuador</title> <description><![CDATA[Some final observations from my last four months in this country as I prepare to leave Ecuador for Peru:I highly recommend Ecuador to you North Americans looking for a quick (2-3 week) vacation. It&#8217;s a small country, so it&#8217;s quick and easy to get around, yet offers a ton of variety. Beautiful tropical beaches, interesting [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/10/19/last-thoughts-on-ecuador/</link> </item> <item><title>Conspiracy Theories and the expats who love them</title> <description><![CDATA[It seems that I bit off more than I could chew. I started writing this post about two months ago and it&#8217;s slowly grown out of control. I became fascinated, and just a little bit obsessed, by all of the conspiracy theories I&#8217;ve been hearing around town and the bigger view of what makes people [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/10/15/conspiracy-theories-and-the-expats-who-love-them/</link> </item> <item><title>Vilcabamba Diary</title> <description><![CDATA[More from the wilds of Vilcabamba, southern Ecuador. I thought sharing some random encounters with you might give some insight into the life down here. 8/14: Got into an argument with a Canadian  anarcho-capitalist about political systems. He honestly believes that the world would be a better place if all governments were eliminated and every public [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/10/09/vilcabamba-diary/</link> </item> <item><title>Horse Trekking</title> <description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been on three horse trips in the last couple of months while here in Vilcabamba. Here they are combined into this one blog post. 8/25: Gavin (the Kiwi cowboy I wrote about in the last post) convinced me to try a one-day horse trip. He didn&#8217;t have to twist very hard, I&#8217;ve been curious for a [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/09/26/horse-trekking/</link> </item> <item><title>Vilcabamba, the valley of eternal spring</title> <description><![CDATA[Hello again! Haven&#8217;t written in a while because I&#8217;ve spent the past few weeks blissfully hanging out in the tiny outpost of Vilcabamba. It&#8217;s a small town (only 6,000 souls in the entire valley) located in the far south of Ecuador. It&#8217;s the kind of town where you could lie down in the street for [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/08/30/vilcabamba-the-valley-of-eternal-spring/</link> </item> <item><title>Photos from Loja</title> <description><![CDATA[UPDATE 10/21/09: Added a few more photos, taken on my way out of Ecuador. Lest you think I&#8217;ve fallen off the face of the Earth: I&#8217;ve been hanging out for the past two weeks in the lovely little town of Vilcabamba, in the south of Ecuador. It&#8217;s tranquil and pretty here with great hikes and walks into [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/08/24/photos-from-loja/</link> </item> <item><title>I stood here for a while, but nothing happened!</title> <description><![CDATA[Courtesy of digg.com. Some of the comments: &#8220;Did you stare at an Orange Juice box because it had the word CONCENTRATE written on it?&#8221; &#8220;Did you stare at a Ford because the car had the word FOCUS written on it?&#8221; Did you try saying &#8220;Enterprise, one to beam up&#8221;? ]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/08/14/i-stood-here-for-a-while-but-nothing-happened/</link> </item> <item><title>Cuenca and surroundings</title> <description><![CDATA[Fri 7/24: Arrived in Cuenca last night, Ecuador&#8217;s 3rd-largest city. As one would expect of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it&#8217;s pretty &#8211; a mix of colonial and other interesting architectural styles. There are even a few art deco buildings, one of my all-time favorite styles. I wonder how Cuenca ended up with all the [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/08/04/cuenca-and-surroundings/</link> </item> <item><title>Sick on the Road</title> <description><![CDATA[ Sick ON the road, not sick OF the road. You may want to skip this post unless you&#8217;re a really close friend or family, since it&#8217;s basically a bunch of whining combined with a cheap ploy for sympathy. So after being sick most of last week with a bad cold that I feared was H1N1 (but [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/08/01/sick-on-the-road/</link> </item> <item><title>Déjà vu all over again</title> <description><![CDATA[Normally I avoid night buses since they&#8217;re meant to be dangerous, I enjoy watching the scenery, and I have trouble sleeping on them. But I had no choice in going from Puerto Lopez to Quito in order to meet Eloisa on time. This one was well organized &#8211; we boarded the bus in front of [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/07/23/deja-vu-all-over-again/</link> </item> <item><title>Poor Man&#8217;s Galapagos</title> <description><![CDATA[Leaving the party town of Montañita, I headed up the &#8220;Route of the Sun&#8221; a couple of hours to Puerto Lopez. This town is a big disappointment coming from the mellow pueblo of Montañita. Puerto Lopez is spread out, a bit trashy, just not terribly attractive. But a lot of fishing boats are based out [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/07/16/poor-mans-galapagos/</link> </item> <item><title>Guayaquil to Montañita</title> <description><![CDATA[7/5:  I&#8217;m sick of freezing up here in the mountains. I&#8217;m heading to the coast! 7/6: Arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador&#8217;s largest city. Although Quito is the capital of Ecuador and gets all the attention for being the center of arts and culture (and generally being a prettier city), Guayaquil is the economic hub of the [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/07/09/guayaquil-to-montanita/</link> </item> <item><title>Old vs. New Media</title> <description><![CDATA[I figured out how to listen to my favorite podcasts again, even after having the iPhone stolen. My Palm Treo (which was my backup, now my primary phone) has a memory card slot. I go to a net cafe and download the MP3 files of the podcasts from the various websites, save them to an [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/07/07/old-vs-new-media/</link> </item> <item><title>Traveling Updates</title> <description><![CDATA[A short post today  to update you on the bigger picture of my travels. I&#8217;m taking the more-established western route down South America. While in Colombia I was tempted to hop over and see a bit of Venezuela, but travelers I met coming back from there told me it&#8217;s not that cheap and the people [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/07/06/traveling-updates/</link> </item> <item><title>Parades, Markets, and Almost Trains</title> <description><![CDATA[Leaving Baños, I headed south a couple of hours to Riobamba with the intent of riding on the famous steam train up to Devil&#8217;s Nose, an extremely steep incline (5½ % grade via a series of switchbacks) that required one of the world&#8217;s greatest feats of engineering. From the publicity: &#8220;The route was known as [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/07/05/parades-markets-and-almost-trains/</link> </item> <item><title>Beautiful Baños</title> <description><![CDATA[Four hours south of Quito lies the pretty mountain town of Baños. The town itself isn&#8217;t much to write home about, it&#8217;s fairly utilitarian, but it&#8217;s setting is stupendous. Nestled in a valley surrounded by mountain peaks with rivers running through that have eroded dramatic canyons, and to top it off an active volcano looming [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/06/29/beautiful-banos/</link> </item> <item><title>Site updates</title> <description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m trying out a new plugin for the blog called  Snap Shots &#8211; now when you hover your pointer over a link, it will pop up a window showing you a preview of that page. I find it useful for Wikipedia articles when you don&#8217;t want to be bothered with opening a whole other [...]]]></description><link>http://thetechtable.net/blog/2009/06/24/site-updates/</link> </item> </channel> </rss>
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