February 2020 - Volcano Love

The art of disconnected travel: Is it possible to travel without a smartphone?

Posted on February 24, 2020 by Tom Peeters

I always travel without a smartphone. For the simple reason that I don’t own one, never have and I have no intention to buy one in the near future.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against technology.

I don’t use a horse and carriage to get to places. (Instead, I cycle, walk or use public transportation.)

I don’t live in a mud hut in the mountains of New Zealand, disconnected from electricity and running water. (At least not yet.)

I definitely don’t carry around a portable typewriter, like the bohemian writers and beatniks of the old days. (Although I admit that the idea sounds kind of cool.)

No, on the contrary. As of late, I’ve evolved in quite the flashpacker. I almost invariably carry a laptop (for writing), a camera and an iPod (remember those?) around. I am fond of my toys. But a smartphone? Nope, I’d rather have my balls slowly removed with a rusted spoon.

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Horse riding in Copán Ruinas, Honduras

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Anete Kruusmägi

In Copán Ruinas, we slept in a beautiful colonial-style guesthouse called Madrugada. It was far from our usual simple and cheap accommodation. Nothing from the outside betrayed that a hotel lay behind the facade — it looked just like a regular yellow house with no signs.

But once you gathered enough courage to step inside, you could take a glimpse of how the household of a former tobacco plantation owner looked like. The rooms formed a semi-circle around the green wild garden, which stretched until the river bend somewhere down the hill. The garden formed a proper mini jungle with all kinds of plants- a lot of them had pretty colourful blooms. Often, you could see the caretaker of the house, a tall man with a bush-like moustache, watering the plants or taking care of the green corner.

The common area, a shared balcony with straw furniture, hammocks and boardgames, screamed peace and relaxation. When we entered our room, we were pleasantly surprised. It was clean and spacious, whitewashed walls decorated with pictures. Everything was stylish and fitting so that it felt to me that I was transported back to our grandparents times.

Clip-clop, clip-clop behind the window

Horses walking on the street in Copan Ruinas

If you’re familiar with our blog, you can be surprised at our choice. Whatever happened with the stingy nomads who slept in humid concrete cells? Well, Workaway happened. To stay in this historical household, we had to mop the corridor floors every other day. Which left us plenty of time to roam the streets of the cute town we resided in, Copán Ruinas. It was definitely our favourite Workaway experience.

But let’s go back to our room now. It was early, the curtains were still drawn, and we slept between crisp white sheets. It was quiet. All we could hear was our breathing. All of a sudden a loud clip-clop, clip-clop woke me from my sleep. Horses walked on the cobblestones just behind our window.

I couldn’t fall asleep anymore. After all, it was the day we too were going for a horse riding trip to the nearby hills.

Horses in the workshop

Tom with the horses in Finca Ixobel — Our life with horses in Finca Ixobal in Guatemala.

I have to make one thing clear here. I have never been one of these girls who go crazy about horses. The ones who annoy their parents endlessly, talking about how much they want to take horse riding courses. Or worse, demand a pony as a birthday gift. Sure, I had my pony as a 10-year-old, a pink toy that I loved. I also remember a trip to the zoo when my sister and I sat on horses. And on the picture, I’m smiling my biggest smile. So surely horses were a big thing, I was just not obsessed with them.

I managed to grow up and travel a bit without any close contact with a horse until our trip to Central-America. Or, to be more precise, until we volunteered in Guatemala.

We had chosen to do Workaway in Poptun because we heard other Workawayers talk about how they rode horses there. And surely, we worked very closely to the horses. Sometimes they peeked into our workshop. At other times they pushed their noses against us to take a better look of our work. Occasionally, they just plainly barged through the workshop for god only knows why. Probably to find better grass somewhere they shouldn’t have gone.

But horse riding was the thing that didn’t happen back then. The one time when we got close to going on a trip with guests, I was in no condition to jump on a horse and discover the cave systems. Bad diarrhoea forced me to spend more time on the toilet than I would have liked to.

But something had shifted inside of me. I started to feel that I would really like to try horse riding. And from then on, I put all my hope in Honduras where, according to Lonely Planet, outdoor activities are cheaper than in any of its neighbouring countries. And of course, we didn’t leave this piece of information unused. We rented a kayak in lake Yoyoa, booked a bird watching trip there as well, rented bicycles in Utila and took a kayak to go to find a lonely beach.

So no wonder that as soon we saw that the travellers’ cafe ViaVia offers horse riding in Copán, we decided to go for it.

Mariposa, Rei and Niño

In the morning when we heard the horse behind our door, I felt nervous. After all, horses are tall, and they’re no bicycles or motorbikes. They are animals with their own mind, instincts and fears. What if the horse would get scared or would fall? These were the things I worried about.

My stupid habit to research everything I do before didn’t help much either. For example, an article about what to wear when you go horse riding gave me bloodcurdling information that I shouldn’t wear any scarves or I can accidentally hang myself should I fall from the horse. Great! One more thing to worry about.

Instead of making horror stories in my head, I should have just listened to the kind owner of ViaVia, who said that even his mum did it. And once I saw my horse, a little brown beast with long bangs covering his eyes, I was much calmer. Niño (child) was just a tiny bit taller than a pony and seemed harmless.

There were two more horses tied to the fence when we arrived: Mariposa (butterfly) and Rei (king). Next to the horses stood their owner, an old man with a cowboy hat. He said he had eight horses and we could really see the experience shining in the man’s eyes. He gave us a brief overview of how to stop the horse and how to make it turn left and right.

Horse riding in Copán Ruinas

Tom and Anete horse riding in Copan Ruinas in Honduras

It didn’t sound too complicated so we jumped on our horses. Once we got used to the new way of moving, it honestly was not scary at all. Or maybe Niño was so small that I sat not too high from the ground. In modern dance classes, I have been practising a lot how to fall, so maybe I could use this skill if things would go really bad? Later, we learned also that people in Copán use smaller horses because it’s easier to navigate them through the hilly landscape.

Anyway, it seemed like my horse was smart. He reacted nicely to every stop sign. I guess he was even smarter than me because even when I messed up my left and right, he could turn the right way. Thank you, Niño, for ignoring all the false signals I gave you.

We walked quite peacefully, but sometimes the guide still hurried our horses, and they galloped, or at least that was how it felt. That was pretty scary- I was literally jumping on top of Niño. Did I tell you already that Niño was a black horse? And that in spite of his cuteness, he also had an evil side. It turned out he was no angel — every now and then, he enjoyed bullying Tom’s horse Rei. So Niño pushed Rei to the other side of the road until the poor (but much bigger) horse didn’t have anywhere to go. Also, Niño often snorted loudly. “Don’t let him behave badly,” the guide said. But I don’t remember anymore what I had to do to make him behave better.

Bombas

Tom horse riding in the hills around Copán Ruinas, Honduras — We really hate bombas

After an hour of enjoying the peace and beautiful nature, we reached La Pintada, a small Maya village. The peace was brushed from the earth as if it had never been there. A rowdy gang of children welcomed us with bombas (firecrackers) and tried to sell us cheap mass-produced handicrafts.

A regular reader of this blog is probably aware that we really hate bombas. I don’t mind fireworks in the darkness, and I can admire the patterns drawn into the sky. But making a lot of noise with seemingly no other aim than to make noise- no, not our thing. I flinch at every loud sound, and when I see somebody throwing bombas, I just want to go back and take another street. Sounds bad, right? It’s a thousand times worse when you’re on top of a horse. Because the poor animal is even more scared than you. My poor Niño jumped of horror. It was not pleasant to sit on a top of a scared horse. So our guide attached the horses on the fence, tried to explain to children that they shouldn’t make so much noise, and we continued on foot.

We checked out a sacred place for Mayas in the mountains. There were plenty of stones and sculptures where Mayas used to pray. Looking to the other side, we could see the archaeological site of Copán Ruinas through the trunks of the trees. A pretty impressive and special moment. It’s always so cool to see the touristic site from another angle, as a part of a landscape instead of something that looks like it’s built for tourists. Standing here, the ruins felt almost like a living thing, something that the village people have seen since they were born. But have they actually been there, climbed and touched the ancient stones? Probably not. Doesn’t matter that they are Maya, the successors of people who once built it. Now some other people make money off their heritage.

Slowly, we turned back to our horses, to descend the mountain, and find our way from the long-gone civilisation back to a small bustling town in the 21st century.

Horse riding in Copán Ruinas: practical

Price? 15 USD per person for 2,5 hours. Book with Via Via Copán.

Santa Claus Village: the Disneyland of Lapland

Posted on February 10, 2020 by Tom Peeters

Humans are funny. Chalk a line on the floor somewhere, call it a border and you can be sure that everybody wants to take a picture.

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Finnish Lapland (2): about the northern lights, or a football game with a walrus skull

Posted on February 3, 2020 by Tom Peeters

In the first part of this story, you could read how the sauna thawed Teemu. Three cans of beer later, he even turns out to be a gifted storyteller. The sauna stones act as an ersatz campfire. “According to a well-known Sami legend, the foxes of the polar region could generate the northern lights”, he says, “Every time a fox swept up some snow with his tail, the aurora borealis appeared in the sky.” The Finnish word for the northern lights finds its origin in this story: revontulet – or ‘fox fire’.

Folklore is rife with northern lights

For decades, the northern lights have fascinated the people who live close to the poles. The countless legends and forms of superstition bear witness to this.

The Sami from the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia believed that the spirits of the dead manifested themselves as aurora borealis. That is why they stayed in their lavvus during such a display. Children had to be quiet, out of respect for deceased blood relatives and not to aggrieve them. (On a side note, wouldn’t it be nice to have more northern lights, if only to shut up the children?) Whoever ignored those unwritten rules, called for sickness and death.

Scots thought the northern lights originated from epic battles between warriors in heaven. Other medieval Europeans saw in the red-hot sky a bad omen for calamity, war, and bloodshed. (Although, let’s admit it, even a peace dove could have preceded those in Medieval Europe).

Anete and Tom in front of northern lights in Kelujärvi, Finnish Lapland

aurora borealis over Kelujärvi, Lapland.

Blubber baking or walrus skull football?

The north of North America has almost as many stories about the northern lights as there are Indian tribes.

They are the campfires of medicine men from the northernmost regions, who let their enemies simmer in giant pots, thought the one clan. The torches of friendly giants who helped people with nightly spearfishing, said the other. No, a tribe of dwarfs bake blubber from a whale over a fire, claimed a third. Those dwarfs are half the size of a canoe’s paddle, but strong enough to catch a whale with their bare hands.

And I can go on. My favourite, however, is a folk tale which almost all the Eskimos believed. According to them, the aurora borealis came from their dead comrades who played a rough game of football in the hereafter, with the skull of a walrus as a ball.

The hunt for the aurora

I have been eagerly anticipating my first screening of the polar light for two months. It was one of the reasons to travel to Lapland in the first place. Two months earlier, I believed I could scratch the aurora borealis from my bucket list already in Sysmä. Even more southerly, the phenomenon appears in the sky now and then, friends had told me, so in Finland that would certainly happen.

That’s why, at first, I was not actively looking for signs of the aurora. Simply turning my eyes skywards in the evening should suffice, I thought. Nope! When I still hadn’t noticed anything by mid-December, I started panicking. Time was ticking. Another half a month and our writing residence in Sysmä would be finished. Would I really leave without seeing the northern lights?

The hunt for the aurora started. I scoured the internet like a madman. After a while, I was able to read a magnetogram without any problem. I knew everything about solar winds and their speed and densities. Magnetic field and coronal hole no longer held any secrets for me. But the aurora borealis – no, I still hadn’t seen a glimpse of it.

Northern lights in Luosto, Finnish Lapland.

Another northern lights disappointment

“Come out of bed!”

It was December 21, and I could hardly hide my excitement. Anete rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

“What? What’s the time?”

It was half-past one. I waved her question away.

“Hurry up! A geomagnetic storm is happening! The Kp index is going through the roof! Come on, let’s go! According to this website, there is a small chance of aurora at our latitude.”

We exchanged pyjamas for clothes and rushed out of the door for an evening stroll… under thick clouds. I was disappointed, Anete grumpy because I woke her up for no reason. Then I was green – ha! – with envy when I saw pictures of northern lights taken that night in Iceland and the north of Scotland.

No time to get dressed

All of that just to say I am full of expectations in that sauna in Kelujärvi. In Rovaniemi, nature paints the sky about 200 times a year. Sodankylä is more than 100 kilometres more to the north. If it doesn’t happen here, then I am doomed and I better give up my dreams of polar light.

Teemu’s mobile phone rings in the dressing room. It is his father, an amateur photographer who has been shooting auroras for years.

“Out!” shouts Teemu from the dressing room. “Now! No time to get dressed, you can never predict how long the northern lights will show.”

With just a towel around our loins, Anete and I storm out. An arc of diffused white light appears in the sky. It is vague, hardly visible. It looks like a gate of clouds, were it not for the stars visible through the white glare. For a moment I think: is this it?

Anete and Tom with the northern lights in Kelujärvi, Lapland.

Disco in the sky

But then it explodes.

An immense curtain arcs over Kelujärvi. The white changes to bright fluorescent green. Then suddenly there are two curtains, now three. The curtains start flapping, the famous dance of the northern light. And this is not a tame slow dance at a boring wedding party. No, the light dances exuberantly in the firmament, like a winding green river which is unsure which course to follow.

“Disco in the sky”, Teemu grins. The dance speeds up, the light constantly getting brighter, as if aliens are parking their flying saucers. It is not surprising that the aurora is sometimes so bright and clear that you can read a newspaper in its light.

I don’t even feel the bite of the cold, my body expertly prepared by the sauna. Now I understand why all those tribes watched this spectacle so contemptuously. Even with all the scientific knowledge available, this Stairway to Heaven remains a powerful phenomenon. Above our heads, in more ways than one.

I have no idea if fireworks will ever impress me again. Rubens and Picasso, eat your hearts out… nature is the greatest painter of all time.

In the final part of this mini-series, we head to the Disneyland of Lapland.

We visited Lapland after our writing resideny in Sysmä, awarded by Finnish literary organisation Nuoren Voiman Liitto. This article was first published in Dutch on Tom’s blog.