What just happened? Or... Nella pt I

Nella and I had agreed to meet at Cartel this evening at 5pm. I arrived a little bit early, which my photo album from Havasupai, and my one pink rose. I sat there at the bar and struck up a conversation with this guy who does high interest loans for small businesses. We spoke for a little while and laughed about how he is some sort of modern loan shark. At some point, Nella arrived. I was pretty sure it was her from the corner of my eye, but could not be certain. She then interrupted and verified that it was her, so I ended my conversation with loan shark, paid for Nella's toddy, and my small latte, and sat at a table with her.

We spoke of a lot of different things. Most of it centered around science, and health, and the underlying philosophies guiding these things. She explained more about what she does now, and what she had done in the past. Her voice is less awkward in person than it was on the phone, but she still has a very teacherly voice. That is to say that she speaks slowly and over enunciates her words. This is, of course, the exact opposite of how I speak. Yin Yang, whatever. It was a nice conversation. Not life changing, by any means, but nice. There was no serious discernible spark, but I think that I may call her again anyways. I asked her if she was okay with me calling, and she said yeah, so we'll see.

Then, I was just chilling at Cartel sort of debriefing with Ashley (the barista), and I sat down at the bar next to this Indian dude (India, not Native American). Eventually, he was sucked in to our conversation, and ultimately I began to speak to him directly. His name is Tejaswi (tay-jhus-vee) or Te (tay) for short. Te is here from India, and studying some sort of Computer Sciences, but he has something to do with Biology, too. We spoke at length about the differences, or rather, the lack thereof, between America and India. He says that they are the same place. He is from Bangalore, which is somewhere in south India. We spoke about the amazing place that is Mumbai (formerly Bombay), and how Slumdog Millionaire actually captured it quite accurately. He explained the the people in the slums of Mumbai have been enticed to leave by the government, because they sit on very popular real estate. Te believes that they do not want to leave, even though they live in abject squalor, because if they leave, they become irrelevant. When they are on the important real estate, people care in some way about them, but as soon as they relocate to the outskirts, no one pays attention anymore, he thinks. He may be right. Te hates Arizona, because of the hicks, which I thought was funny. He was a cool cat, so I grabbed his number. I mean, I see him at Cartel often, but I'll probably call him up for a beer sometime.

While I was talking with Te, Elizabeth (neighbor girl who used to date Tree, and to whom I lent my ipod, which was subsequently lost) and her friend/roommate Ari came in. Ari is a very beautiful girl with an absolutely killer ass, and she was wearing a t-shirt material dress that very wonderfully accented this portion of her anatomy. Anywho, she was going to have a party tonight, so she invited Te and I to come. Te could not make it due to school and the such, but I figured why not? I mean, worst case scenario: I end up sleeping with Ari, right? That's what I thought.

Her directions actually included the words, "bring beer," so I did. Just a 12 of Miller Lite, which seemed silly when I first arrived. I got there around 10:30, and the true core of the party was there. It was a hippy party. Her friend Starlyn gave me a 30 second hug and a kiss on the cheek, and was just a cool nutball, and everyone else sort of fit in. Very happy free love types of people all drinking small microbrews. So my giant box of shit beer stood out, but I drank it anyways. Eventually, more and more people showed up, and it started to get weird so I left. Before that happened though, I sat in some living room area while this Matt guy played his various ethnic flutes. Chinese, Japanese, Irish, etc. He even brought a few didgeridoos. He was actually really good, and I enjoyed listening to him raga out. I told him about the elusive "listening night" and asked if he would like to come some time. He of course said YES to this, and I warned him that it would probably be a chant listening night, but he was unfazed by this. No worries. As long as he brings his rad flutes, Adam will love him. Adam's trip sounds amazing, I can't wait until he gets back so I can actually hear about it instead of read. I keep almost calling him to just say what's up, but then I remember that he is a broad. ha ha.

Hmm, oh and this drunk girl was flirting with me, but I would have felt bad so I didn't let it go anywhere. Tracy? Stacy? Tracy, I think. She was the first person to arrive with beer that wasn't all local and microbrewy, so we hit it off (she brought one of those hilarious personal pump keg things of coors light). On the way out, she was sad that I was leaving, and really wanted to run in to me again, but like I mentioned, she was drunk. So, I don't know, I just let that one slide. I probably will see her again anyways, so we'll see what happens then. Hmm, was a weird night. Fun, but weird. Oh, also, Starlyn let me bless myself with her personal incense blend. Good times. Adam, this was YOUR kind of party.


Oh, PS, I heard Mandala closed down? Lame.

Havasupai Trip: Wednesday

We wake when we wake. With the sun, I suppose. I have fantastic granola in air temperature soy milk. Very good. Kind of weird though. We prepare slowly, and I strap Chaco sandals to my Camelbak.

The end of camp is punctuated rather dramatically by Mooney Falls. It is the tallest fall that we will see.



To get to the bottom of Mooney, we must descend a rather treacherous path made even more so by my mother's slow movement.




(this one is a shot from the bottom up, the chains are for climbing, as it is pretty much straight up)

We hike past Mooney into some dense greenery that is sort of ridiculous. It is all dominated by what appear to be grape vines.



We were hoping to get to Beaver Falls, but my mom didn't want to do the second chain climb, so we turned around (there is a second - more intense - chain assisted climb later on in the hike to Beaver Falls). We stop and have lunch before turning around.


(this is where we stopped to take a shower)

Havasupai Trip: Tuesday

Tuesday:

We wake up early to shower and eat (peanut butter and jelly sammies and some fruit). We have about 70 miles to drive to the Hualapai Hilltop where we will leave the bags that are to be packed into the canyon on mules. We leave our stuff and head out.

From the hilltop there are some amazing and daunting vistas.

(this picture was actually taken on the last day as we left...the weather was more clear on the first day).

The hike begins with a 1 mile steep descent reminiscent of Squaw (Piestewa) Peak in Phoenix. Then, a 9 or 10 mile flatland hike through small canyons to the Supai village and eventually to the campground below Havasu Falls begins.

The 9 or 10 miles to the village are largely uneventful, and mostly boring looking (other than their vastness), so I didn't take any photos until we started to get into the verdant bottom, where water flows freely. The first 6 miles are just desert desert desert, and then all of a sudden:




(that's water in the bottom right)

We walk through overgrown foliage like this for another 2 miles or so, crossing the creek a number of times. The creek is sourced by melting snow in mountains far away, rain, and water that seeps slowly out of the stone cliffs themselves (more on this later).

Wi'igliva (spelling varies) marks the arrival at Supai. These two stones are supposedly ancient protectors of the Supai.



The Supai village is a little bit of mindfuck. In the words of my dad, "It's got a bit of that 3rd world thing going for it, doesn't it?" This is a fairly accurate description of the shitty attempts at farming, and emaciated horses tied tightly in the sun next to dilapidated houses. The place is spotted occasionally by flowers (cactus flowers are in full bloom during this trip), but the road is heavy heavy sand, like beach sand. The going gets really slow, and our shoes fill up. We stop for a quick bean burrito at the cafeteria, and then proceed. Just outside of the village, we hit our first real water.



This sort of water yields fantastic greenery. We continue:



Here are the first real falls that we found. These peak out of a green cliff side and fall a total of about 50 feet.



Then we proceed another long ways on that beach sand until we actually see Havasu Falls. It is impressive, indeed. This falls a little short of 100 feet I think.



And it forms the first of the famous terraced pools. The water is a sort of luminescent green-blue because of lime deposits in the sand.



Ugh, I'm tired of typing, and hungry. We keep going, get to the camp site, it's packed. We carry our bags in about halfway down a mile long campsite. I rinse off in the river, and we eat and then sleep.

Total mileage for the day: approx. 14 miles.

I look pretty rough before going to sleep:

Havasupai Trip: Monday

Monday:

I wake up at 6:15am to finish packing and go to my parents' house. Ashbaby and Lou Bega had just cleaned the house (aka moved all my shit) so that last little bit of packing took way longer than I expected. This didn't really matter though, as my dad takes forever to do everything, so we didn't hit the road until two hours later than we wanted.

We drive to Flagstaff and eat at an Olive Garden. Cute hostess

We continue through Williams (Road Kill Cafe) to Seligman and eventually to a hotel called Caverns Inn or Canyon Caverns Inn or something. The hotel is located near the Grand Canyon Caverns (which really have nothing to do with The Grand Canyon other than maybe some air from the cavern exits a Grand Canyon wall). We toured these caverns, which are dry (they are no longer growing, probably because of tourism and such). They weren't too bad. Some cool selenite formations, and a dead bobcat, and some 50 year old government rations (the gov't wanted to use it as a fallout shelter during the Cuban missile crisis, so they stocked it with a bunch of crackers and candy and shit). We eat at the cafe there afterwards.