Ecuador, you stole my heart! And some Colombia too…

Where to start? Haven’t updated the blog in a couple months so this one will be jam packed I’m sure! Let’s go back to early November when I arrived in Ecuador. The border crossing from Peru was probably my worst. I was the only person called off the bus at 2 a.m. and I had no clue what was going to happen. The policeman asked me what I was doing in Ecuador and what was in my bag. I simply replied tourism and clothes and he looked at me skeptical. I stood there for a while as he thought about what to do then he shuttled me back on the bus. Once I was back on the bus he followed me on and started arguing with the woman sitting in front of me. She had numerous bags hidden under seats with god knows what in them. She kept saying please help me and his response was I told you that you can’t do this. Eventually he left and the woman seemed satisfied she got to cross the border with whatever it was she had. Once in Ecuador I headed to Montañita to surf for a few days. Unfortunately I got really sick when I was there and basically sweated under a mosquito netting for 4 days and then left. Did get a few days of surfing in which was awesome!

My next stop in Ecuador was Vilcabamba, the valley of longevity. This valley has some of the oldest people in the world. People say when these 100+ year old people are walking in the streets they are treated like cows! the cars just go around them! Vilcabamba is also a popular hub for expats which many in the community have conflicting ideas about. There are numerous granola and juice spots and you could say its a bit of a hippies paradise. While I was there I stayed at Rumi Wilco, an Eco lodge run by two Argentinians. I meet two guys from Colorado who live in Fort Collins and we hit it off immediately. The next week was filled with hikes to waterfalls and an amazing energy that Vilcabamba sends out. One of our hikes was to a huge waterfall deep into the jungle. The scenery in Ecuador is amazing because the landscape can change so drastically when you are hiking that you never get bored with your surroundings. We were able to go from jungle to pastureland with cows to red earth and then back to jungle. At one point we went down the side of a pasture because we heard rushing water and assumed it was the waterfall we were looking for. It ended up just being part of the river but the scenery was amazing. I felt like I was in the jungle book with vines hanging and cool rocks to sit on and watch the river. When we finally made it to the actual waterfall it began pouring rain about 30 minutes after we arrived. Hiking back up out of the jungle and back to the trail was wet and slippery. When we finally made it to the top we sat under a farmers roof until rain let up and we began our trip back. Nature has become and will stay a close part of my life. Getting to hike all over South America has been one of my favorite parts about this trip because you get to see the different parts of these countries that are untouched and show a raw beauty. Below are pictures from Vilcabamba.

After staying in Vilcabamba for a week I headed up to Cuenca to meet a friend from Oak Park, Greg. He also had two friends from college that we visiting which was nice. Cuenca is probably one of my favorite cities in South America. It reminded me a lot of Cusco with it’s cobbled streets and amazing nature. Being with a friend from Oak Park was a nice change of pace and we went to Cajas national park about 45 minutes outside of Cuenca. There we hiked in one of the areas of the world with the most water in one place. It was crazy what the actual landscape felt like. Many times it was like you were hiking on sea creatures. The ground was very wet and sponge like along with crazy small organisms growing out of it. There were 6 lakes on the 5 hour hike and towards the end of the hike it started raining. We were able to grab an amazing trout lunch for less than $5 and then hitch hiked back to the city. The next day we decided to check out a series of markets outside of the city. Thee set here markets were known for different things but one of them being Panama hats that are actually from Ecuador and not Panama. It was my mission to buy one of these hats and then once we found them everyone in the group ended up buying one. It was hilarious once we all had our hats and the indigenous ladies were laughing at us trying to take pictures. We ended up grabbing a photo with the ladies and having a good laugh with them. The next day I headed out for Ambato, the fourth largest city in Ecuador. Below are pictures from Cuenca and surrounding areas including Cajas national park and some small towns we went to on a Sunday where we got our hats! There is also a picture of  one of my infamous market meals, $2!!!

I went to Ambato to visit my friend Ariana’s host family. She lived there for two years and I felt that I should definitely meet them if I was in Ecuador. The family was great and the kids were hilarious. I stayed with them for a couple of days then went with their grandparents and cousins to their house in the jungle. After leaving them I went to Baños, surely my highlight of Ecuador. Baños is one of those places with endless things to do. First there is the hiking, then the rafting, the repelling down waterfalls, the biking, the hot springs, the rock climbing, it’s an outdoor lovers paradise. While I was there I met Maddie, a girl from California who I immediately hit it off with. She worked at my hostel and had that great energy you just know you want to be around. I also met a few other girls and me we ended up doing a few activities together. My hardest feat while I was in Baños was the rock climbing. The day started with three of us heading out to a large wall next to a river. It was an amazing setting and before I started to climb I didn’t think it looked so hard. Was I wrong? Yes, very wrong. My first three tries ended in tragedy only getting half way. But I was determined to get to the top of this wall and so was my guide. He ended up free climbing beside me to help to get to the top, and man was he determined to get my butt up there! It was hard and the realization that I have pretty much zero upper body strength was tough, but when I did make it to the top the feeling was incredible. I had conquered the wall that had given me trouble all morning and I was stoked! The rest of the day I was more tired than I think I’ve ever been from physical activity! The day after we went on a bike ride called routa de las cascadas (route of the waterfalls).  There are 13 waterfalls along the way including probably one of the largest waterfalls I’ve over seen that close. Falls Iquazu and Niagara falls are amazing but you could stand underneath this things the power of the water was unreal. I also went to the infamous tree house swing that so many have seen on buss feed lists as one of the things to do before you die. It was cool but I don’t know if you really need to put it on a ‘before you die’ checklist. I will say leaving Baños wasn’t something I wanted to do. I felt like it wasn’t time to go but I had been there a week and needed to move on. Pictured below is Ariana’s host family and I, pictures of visiting waterfalls in Baños, rock climbing and making it to the top, and the infamous tree swing!

My next stop in Ecuador was Quito. I had heard mixed reviews about Quito and honestly I ended up really loving it. The old city was amazing and getting to hang around with some ‘locals’ (I met up with my friend Greg from Oak Park again) made it even better. Greg and his friend Pat from college live in the old city. I guess about 5 years ago this area was really dangerous and the buildings were basically falling down. Since then there has been a ton of money put into restoring the old city and the police presence is very noticeable. Walking at night is much more safe and the vibe of Quito is great. The weather is warm but not hot and many times it will become cloudy giving you the relief from the sun. I was there right after a huge festival so the pride for the city was very noticeable. That first Sunday we watched the bears game and biked around the city in the morning. Greg has his own bike and is part of a free bike share for residents in Quito so I was able to ride the free bike for the morning. In Quito and most other cities in South America they close off certain streets on Sunday for bikes. It is to promote exercise and give people the chance to bike around the city with less worry of cars. It’s a great idea and totally think it should be implemented into big cities in the US. We biked for a few hours and then got some great ceviche, something Ecuador is well known for. I also got to spend some time with my friend Alex and her boyfriend Thomas which ended up being really nice to have some travel buddies to explore the city with. The four of us ended up going back to Baños my last weekend in Ecuador so we could hike up an active Volcano. This thing was straight up for 3 hours until we made it to the refugee and let me tell you once we got the refugee I was over it. He landscape was crazy as we were basically hiking through tunnels with high dirt walls surrounding us once again going from jungle climates, to colder pastureland, to high altitude with less and less plant life. My fingers had swelled up like the nutty professor and my ring that I can normally take on and off easily was totally stuck on my finger. We gained about 2,500 meters in that 3 hours and me and Alex called it quits. The boys kept hiking a bit further and started to hike in black sand. They ended up turning back after about an hour more. We ended up heading back to Quito that night. The busses on Ecuador was possibly one of my favorite things for all the food they sell. There are homemade Popsicles, these amazing coconut banana bars, homemade chips, empanadas, homemade juices, pretty much you name it and they sell it. You can basically feast on a four hour long bus trip with some of the best food ever! I was honestly dreading the last leg of leaving Ecuador. I had a 34 hour bus to get to Bogotá and at this point I had been in Ecuador for the last 5 weeks where it takes 12 hours to cross the entire country. Below pictured is Greg, Alex, Thomas and I at the refugee on the side of the volcano And cooking food in Quito!

I had a bus to catch that Monday night at 11 p.m. which would take me across the border into Colombia. Unfortunately the bus I was taking to get to the terminal broke down on the way there and then it all became a nightmare. I exited the bus to find about 200 people waiting for the exact bus I was waiting for. I ended up being a part of a bum rush onto the bus and got my arm caught in the door. After standing on an overcrowded bus for almost 20 minutes with my huge backpack and sweat streaming down my face I arrived at the terminal. I went up to the counter to see where the bus was leaving from and the lady told me the bus was pulling out and to run! Imagine me with my backpack weighing about 17 kilos, running basically down the street screaming espera (wait)! Luckily I was able to stop the bus and jump on. This was the beginning of the long journey that was from Quito to Ipiales he border crossing (7 hours), the border to Cali (supposed to be 10 hours but ended up getting a flat tire so it took 15), and lastly Cali to Bogotá lasting about 12 hours. Below is Benny!

Arriving in Bogotá was a mixture of feelings. I was meeting Moni’s family (my brother Ben’s girlfriend) and seeing my family in a few days for the first time in nearly 8 months. I was tired, excited, and ready to not be in a hostel for a couple weeks. Moni’s family was great, they were so warm and inviting and immediately treated me like I was family. I slept for most of the first day and then was introduced quickly to Colombian culture. Aqua de panella soon became one of my favorite things about Colombia. Sugar cane juice warmed with milk…yummy. I went to the market with Rosa and Benjamin (Moni’s parents) and we tried some fruits I’ve never had before including one of my favorites from Ecuador, (pitaya) dragon fruit. A couple days after I arrived my brothers and Monica flew in. Seeing my brothers in South America was an awesome feeling and I knew the next 10 days were going to be great! My parents arrived the next day and everyone was so happy to be together. The day after everyone arrived Ben ended up proposing very sneakily while we were all hanging out. He went up to Monica’s room and posted pictures of their friends from around the world holding letters that spelled out ‘Monica Velasquez Montes, will you marry me?’. It was semi shocking but also expected although Ben didn’t tell any of the family…what a sneaky guy! We now have Colombian family and couldn’t be happier. On Christmas Eve my dad decided he wanted to get in touch with his new found Latin side and had all of us get up and learn how to salsa. Rosa and Moni are great teachers and the videos I have are priceless. Unfortunately I don’t think I can post the video but I will post some pictures. After Christmas we all went to Laura’s (one of Ben’s friends from Illinois) families house in La Vega. This place was absolutely amazing set on a mountainside with an amazing pool and lots of hammocks great for reading in! We also went on a. Great hike to a huge waterfall with two of her German Shepard’s that were loyal to us until we started climbing rocks and getting into waist deep water in order to make it to the waterfall. Once we made it we each climbed up into the middle the water feeling the cold water crash down on us! It was an awesome experience but unfortunately we didn’t catch any pictures. I guess some things are supposed to be remembered in your head and not captured in pictures. After our great stay at Laura’s house we went to another town about 2 hours outside of Bogotá. We stated there for a couple days and then headed back to the city for a couple nights until everyone left back to the states. Our last day in Bogotá we did a bike tour and got to see the whole city. It was great to bike around on a Sunday when there weren’t as many people out and seeing a city from a bike is awesome. pictured below is family time in Bogotá and La Vega! We hiked, we biked, we saw tons of street art, we learned salsa and had an overall great time!

Saying goodbye to my family was hard but I know I will see them again soon. Charlie stayed an extra day and we wandered the city eating different foods and walking around different neighborhoods. We saw the leather district, walked in the old city and found great street art, and had ceviche. Charlie left on New Years back to DC and I headed to Medellin to spend it with some friends. I ended up bumping into some friends I had met in Bolivia 4 months ago on NYE at 3 a.m. and the while night was really fun, seeing people again that you’ve met in the past is always a pleasant surprise. After NYE I headed to Cartagena on my way to where I currently am, Santa Marta. I am volunteering at a school here for the next couple of months and then I head home. The children at the school are great and have pretty hard lives. Being able to help out this community is a great way to end my travels and keep my Spanish immersion going. Not a bad place to finish off my travels, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. These days life is treating me well with tons of fresh fish caught minutes before buying it and lots of deserted beaches. One in which I visited on birthday last weekend was a great deserted beach filled with lots of relaxing! My neighbor and landlord has an adorable 3 year old who likes to hang around with me in the afternoons when I’m back from school and we read books and play with bubbles.Thats about all I got for you now! Hopefully it was a good read to update you on my most recent adventures, thanks for reading and I wish everyone a very happy new year!!! Lots of love, Emma.

lastly a great picture of my new view from my place in Taganga, some pictures from my birthday, and Charlie being silly for good measure! (And sorry for spelling mistakes !!!)

Bolivia, Peru, and some spelling mistakes I’m sure

Bolivia…probably the best country for a young traveler. This is for many reasons. The first probably being that you are going to be riding in some crazy almost death ride busses for most of your trip around this country. And I don’t think when you get older you would be able to deal with the near death experiences. When I crossed the border into Bolivia from Argentina I had read tons of horror stories about the border I was crossing. These were all bullshit because the border took me less than 10 minutes. I did have to pay another fee of $135 this time to enter the country but the immigration officer was very nice and gave me $15 USD in change from the $150 I gave him. After getting through the border I looked for a bus to Uyuni, and found out the earliest bus left 7 hours from the time it currently was. It was all good…when traveling you get used to waiting in shitty places. The bus I was taking was supposed to take 6 hours…I was told it was the fastest bus to get there, most others took around 10 hours. I really wish I has taken the bus that was supposed to take 10 hours.

Before I got on the bus I was spotted by the only other white people and we ended up sitting together. We get on the bus, it’s hotter than hell outside and all of the windows to the bus are taped shut. The bus is also completely packed. The cargo underneath is overflowing with what looks like entire fruit markets or people are moving their entire houses on this one bus. I see a woman getting into an argument at one point because she wants to load more shit and there is no room. The inside of the bus has even more stuff. To get down the aisle you have to step on chairs because of the mass quantities of cocoa leaf bags and other random bags of tomatoes and garlic that are completely blocking the walkway. In the overhead bins they are packed with more and more crap that looks as if it will fall onto your head at any moment. There are at least 2 babies under 6 months old on the bus and the air is so stale it’s hard to breath. We start moving and are going at a snail’s pace because of all the crap weighing us down. When we get to our first stop in Tupiza (which is supposed to take 45 minutes to an hour) it is 3 hours later. When it finally hits midnight I ask someone how much longer until we arrive. I’m told at least 4 hours. That ends up being 6 and we arrive at 6 a.m. A 6 hour bus ride turned into a 14 hour bus ride from hell. I can remember every time I got off the bus when we would stop I desperately didn’t want to get back on because it was like walking into a nightmare. The roads in Bolivia are also a fun time…you will all of a sudden be almost backing off of a cliff and feel the bus going sideways in a way you know it shouldn’t be. This is very common in Bolivia and you thank god that most of the time you’re on the bus at night so you don’t have to see the possible cliff you just almost drove off. For some reason bus drivers also love to go around corners on the left side when they have no idea who is coming from the other direction. This can be really fun when a car is actually coming and you almost crash head on! In saying all of this, I am being serious when I say Bolivia is an amazing country. I have definitely fallen in love with the culture and people. The culture and tradition are so vibrant it feels like I’ve finally gotten to a Latin American country.

I went to Uyuni to see the salt flats which are said to be seen from space they are so large. I can believe it after seeing them. They are huge! Salt flats are named mar de blanco or in English the White Sea. There is salt for days. I got some amazing pictures and met a few people I ended up traveling with to La Paz. Contrary to what other people said I really La Paz. There was great food, tons of culture, lots of history, and I didn’t see it as being such a dirty city. La Paz is known to have a street for everything. They have a shoe street, an automotive street, an electronics street, and many other streets that are specific to certain products. This is the same for food in La Paz. There aren’t any grocery stores. There are just streets with different foods you would normally buy at a grocery store. The culture in La Paz is very vibrant. The women who wear traditional clothing are dressed in layers upon layers of colorful skirts and tops, always with their hair in two long braids that are connected at the bottom and tied behind their backs. They are usually carrying a large cloth bag full of goods on their backs, although sometimes those goods are a baby slung behind them with something in front. They also wear bowler hats which at first is really funny it seems they all look like Bolivian women trying to copy Charlie Chaplin. These hats are actually very expensive because they are imported from Italy and if you catch one of these women on a rainy day you will see them take a bag out from under their hat and place it over their head so their hat doesn’t get wet. These women are called cholitas and if your mother didn’t dress in traditional wear then that means you don’t either. It is only passed down in the family so these women are carrying out their families tradition.

Food in Bolivia is very cheap. You can go to the market and get a 3 course meal for around $1.50 USD. I remember when my brother Charlie said he would basically play Russian roulette when ordering food in Kyrgyzstan. Well it’s kind of like that here. My Spanish is definitely better than when I started but when I ordered my soup the lady didn’t say anything about a foot appearing. It was hilarious to see those toes looking back at me as I slurped down the soup. I didn’t eat the chicken foot but had to grab a picture of how creepy it looked staring back at me. Many times in the street you will see ladies with basically pop up restaurants. They will have different pots filled with different food. There is always a soup. They will have actual plates and bowls and you will just sit in the side of the road having your lunch and after they wash the dishes and their mini restaurant goes on. It’s a bit strange at first when you see a bunch of people eating off of plates and bowls you might see in someone’s kitchen in the street, but you get used to it.

My lunch with a yummy foot staring at me!

When in La Paz I knew I wanted to bike ‘the death road’. It is supposed to be the most dangerous road in the world. 2 years ago it started to be less used because they built a new road. Before this there was at least 1 death everyday. Cars driving off cliffs, rock slides, and other fatalities named this road the most dangerous in the world. Today it has little traffic other than that of construction workers fixing it, and locals driving up and down it…and then of course there is the brave souls that bike down it for a rush and a view of some of the most amazing peaks and valleys I have ever seen. I biked it with my friends I had met in Uyuni and after we finished we went to an animal refuge. Right when we arrived I loved it and the director said they had volunteer positions open if anyone was interested. I jumped right on the opportunity. Two weeks of working with 6 types of monkeys, birds, cats, tyras, a cayman, tortoises, turtles, and many other animals. I went back to La Paz to get my things and then returned to the refuge a few days later.

Death road

Death road on the edge!

La Senda Verde is a place for illegally trafficked animals to go and live out the rest of their lives. It is given animals mostly by animale SOS, an organization in Bolivia that bring animals to a safe environment when they are caught being sold illegally. Vicky and Marcelo, the owners, began this project 10 years ago when a trucker found a monkey and said he was going to go and sell him in La Paz. They convinced him to give them the monkey and let him live in his natural environment. That one monkey has turned into almost 100 monkeys including spider monkeys that are going extinct. When an animal is sent to La Senda Verde that is where it is going to live out the rest of its life. In Bolivia there is a law that trafficked animals cannot be rereleased into the wild after being found therefor La Senda Verde has all these animals for the rest of their lives. Some of the Macaws will outlive me seeing that they can live to be 80. Getting to work one on one with monkeys in their natural environment is an experience I will never forget. They are so smart! And funny and mischievous. You literally have to empty your pockets before going to work with then because they will open all of your zippers and go though your pockets. I had a few monkeys crawl down my back just because they were convinced there was something in there that I was hiding from them. Unfortunately women aren’t allowed to work with the monkeys alone because some of them really dislike women. This is usually because they have been abused by women in the past. Many of the animals arrive abused and very distressed because of previous traumas. They could have been beaten, fed terribly, used as house pets, or locked in small cages with no food at all. It’s an amazing thing what La Senda Verde is doing and these animals are so lucky to have people so committed to them.

 

At La Senda Verde as a volunteer you are on a rotation. I started with the birds. I never knew how much birds could shit. And they have some of the grossest shit ever. In the morning whatever rotation you are on deals first with the shit. Wether it’s the tortoises, the monkeys, the birds, or if you are in quarantine with the new animals that have arrived, you are going to be touching, smelling, and cleaning poop. After that it is feeding time. I had a love hate relationship with the birds. Some of them really liked me and we would talk, but some of them liked to fly on my shoulder and bite my ear and my neck. Those birds and I did not get along and I tried to steer clear of them. Some of the birds are so stressed out that they pluck out their own feathers. This was the case for Mr. Bean who i will include a photo of. It’s really sad because this is their coping mechanism from a past trauma. One of the tortoises we worked with named Nanna had a brown jaw. Because of this he was hand fed. It was pretty cool to hand feed a hungry tortoise everyday.

Mr. Bean

This is something I wrote one night after walking back to my house: To  really try to explain where I am right now is hard to capture in words. On my walk back to where I sleep it looked like something out of a movie. Imagine a dirt road winding around the side of a mountain. There are high peaks surrounding you as your feet trudge through a muddy valley with low clouds and mist dispersed above you. The moon is peaking through numerous clouds and you can hear a river on your left rushing quickly to the sounds of cicadas. As you look across the river it looks like tons of flickering lights because the fireflies are so bright. The silence is deafening and you feel in that moment that you’re the only person on this road in this place. This is La Senda Verde.

Besides the animals the best part about La Senda Verde is the people I met. George and Leanne are a couple from England and Alex is from Australia. Immediately we all got along and formed a group that joked and played card games and laughed a lot! One of the best parts about traveling is the people you meet. I think that the places I remember most are those that I made a connection with a person and I know I’ll have a bond with them forever. It’s rare to find that and I feel lucky that I have been able to meet such amazing people on this journey. I was also lucky enough to become good friends with most of the staff that only spoke Spanish at the reserve; especially the kitchen staff. This was one of my valued and treasured friendships. One reason being that they were all so sweet and by the end of my stay at La Senda Verde I was calling Francisca, the main cook, “mamasita”. On one of my last days there I went up for seconds because I was particularly hungry after a long morning of dealing for turtle poop water and baby macaws escaping their cage. I went and got seconds and a few newbies (new people) saw this and thought oh well I want seconds too. As they returned with long faces and empty plates I sat with Alex and laughed. They weren’t in with mamasita like I was! It’s funny how La Senda Verde is very much a place by word of mouth and I’ve recommended it to so many people that plan on going! It’s a great place filled with so much to learn and contribute and I’m so happy I was able to stumble upon it.

George, Leanne, Alex, and me playing cards and laughing a lot!

Alex and I being spider monkeys….

After leaving La Senda Verde I headed to Peru. I would’ve for surely spent more time in Bolivia but I have much to see and needed to move on. My first stop before crossing into Peru was Copacabana. A small town located next to the border of Peru and Bolivia on Lake Titicaca. I went to a small island called isla del sol (sun island) and hiked the island from north to south. It really wouldn’t have been that horrendous of a hike if I hadn’t been an idiot and decided it was a good idea to bring my bag weighing 16 kilos. Everyone had left their bags at hostels in Copacabana but for some reason I missed the memo. The hike about murdered me and as I saw girls with only a bottle of water and nothing on their backs stopping from the difficulty of the hike I wanted to kill them! But I didn’t for obvious reasons. I stayed on the island that night and then headed to Peru the next morning.

Hiking with my HUGE bag at isla del sol

Cusco was next. It’s a city of history and magic to be honest. Seeing Inca walls that were built so structurally sound that they still stand today as parts of buildings is amazing. It sometimes reminds me of Rome and walking though the city at night to see the Colosseum standing tall and reminding you of  the city that once was. There is a trick to tell if the wall is Inca or Spanish. All Inca walls are built on a 15 degree angle and they bricks match perfectly together with four other stones surrounding them making the wall literally earth quake proof. I was lucky to be able to meet my friend Romi from Argentina and her dad here. They were celebrating his 60th birthday and let me crash their vacation. We saw ruins and traditional dances in my first few days here. Then we headed to Aguascalientes for the Mecca. Machu Pichu. The one shitty thing about Aguascalientes and Machu Pichu in general is everyone trying to get your money. Everyone wants to rip you off and it starts to get frustrating. The morning we headed to Machu Pichu we woke up at 430 to get there by sunrise. As the park opened at 6 there was a major feeling of excitement. Once inside the park you literally couldn’t see anything. It was cloudy and rainy. With the purchase of your ticket for Machu Pichu you either can hike Huyanu Pichu or El Mountana. Unfortunately they were sold out of Huyanu Pichu when I purchased my tickets so Romi and I parted ways. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started walking up El Mountana. An hour into the hike I wondered how much longer. Imagine stairs built for giants that are climbing up the side of a mountain. Sometimes you had to side step on the way down because they were so large and steep (Incas were very tall). By the time I made it to the top I was in a cloud. I waited for a while and once the clouds parted and you could see Machu Pichu and the valleys and mountains that surrounded you made it all worth it. The Andes are an amazing set of mountains that impressed me more than I can express. The rest of the day we walked around he city and had a Inca picnic on one of the sides of the cities overlooking the Andes. Some of the ruins we saw you could literally see the handles that were carved out of stone in order to moved these huge pieces of rock. The smooth surfaces that were made and intricate buildings made you think of how smart the Incas were! It was an amazing experience to imagine the lifestyle that was lived there and the difficulty it must have taken to build such a place. When we returned to Cusco my friend Alex I had met at La Senda Verde and her dad had just arrived and for the next couple days it was basically me and the dads and daughters! We had some great meals and wandered to the markets where I had beset trout ceviche I’ve ever had and found the cheapest nuts and dried fruits ever! Snacks for the road!

Romi, her dad Alberto, and I in the sacred valley

 

Machu Pichu

 

After I left Cusco I headed to Ica where I went to a small town to try sand boarding! At this moment I could hear my dad in my head saying, ‘how safe is this?!’. The actual sand boarding really wasn’t great but the dune buggie ride was awesome. Going up and down sand dunes in the dune buggie was super fun! I also went to Paracas which is a small town where you can go to ‘the poor mans Galapagos’. It’s basically a 4 hour trip out to some islands that have thousands of birds nesting, penguins, and seals and sea lions. Since I won’t be making it to the Galapagos this trip it was cool to see some wildlife and get to be out on the water. I know my dad would have loved the bird watching as half of the birds flew away while the other half stayed and protected the nests. It looked like a serious scene out of the birds as a cloud of black flew away to hunt for food.

Sand dunes near Ica

 

I only stayed in Ica for one night and then headed to Huaras via Lima. When I finally arrived in Huaras 21+ hours later I was ready to sleep in a real bed. I knew Huaras was an outlet to a ton of treks in the area but I also knew the weather was beginning to turn bad and if I wanted to do a trek it was now or never. I met a girl from the Czech Republic (Barbora) and she said she wanted to do the Santa Cruz trek. After a bit of discussion we decided to leave the next day for a 4 day trek. I have to say I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into but the pictures of the trek looked absolutely amazing so I decided to jump at the opportunity. The next morning we got into a van at 6am for a 5 hour ride to our starting point for the trek. We had our guide, Jamie and our cook, Christopher that we were introduced to immediately. When we got in the van it was me, Barbora, and Lutz (a guy from Germany). On our way we were stopping to pick up the rest of the group…turns out it was 9 Israeli guys recently discharged from the army. Little did we know our 4 days would turn into 3 partly because these guys were total beasts! Once in the van it was lots of yelling and singing of songs for the next 5 hours in Hebrew and I honestly thought Barbora and I were going to kill these guys. Once we arrived at the starting point they loaded up the donkeys and we were on our way. The scenery was amazing, waterfalls everywhere you looked and streams flowing throughout the valley. Along with the group was señor and his daughter that took care of the donkeys and set up camp. Later on these two would have a huge affect on me. The trek itself the first day wasn’t too strenuous but it did rain resulting in wet clothes and shoes. Along the way the villages and children we encountered were amazing. In some ways it was hard to see and believe that these children would never have any education or know anything but these small towns and this small world. That is one way of looking at it and the first way I saw the situation. Then I thought about how maybe this doesn’t really matter because if they aren’t exposed to another world then they aren’t really missing out on anything. Although the lack of opportunity is hard to see it may be just me thinking this as an outsider. Either way its always hard to see children in poverty and not wish that you could do something more than just give them some candy. 12kms later we arrived at camp. The next day was the hard day. We were going straight to the top and then straight down for a total of 8 1/2 hours. Not positive how many kms we did that day but let me tell you, hiking up to 4,750 meters is not an easy thing. Trying to breathe in that altitude is especially difficult and doing it in rain, snow, and more rain is really hard.

When we were getting closer to the top (Israeli guys are already gone at this point) the señor and his daughter and the donkeys came past. His daughter is 11 years old. She is the strongest 11 year old I have ever seen in my life. I keep seeing her picking up snow and eating it. She is doing this to stay hydrated because she doesn’t have water. It’s amazing for me to watch her in no jacket and no proper hiking shoes walk up this mountain with a smile on her face. She is walking with her father and a group of other older men who are taking care of donkeys for other groups. Some of the men are wearing sandals. At this point we are walking up steep slates of rock and it is snowing. Once we got to the top the blue Laguna lying at the bottom of the mountain was an amazing site. It was an aqua blue that I only picture in my dreams. We walk for another 4 hours down a river to another laguna where we camp for the night. The next day is a long walk down to the end of the trail following a river the entire way down until we hit a small village. We are walking through large peaks and valleys with cattle and donkeys passing us every once in a while. There are agricultural fields set on the sides of mountains and Lutz (the german guy and I) stop to look at them in awe as to how a person could even create these fields on the sides of mountains. Lutz just finished his bachelors in Berlin in Agricultural Economics (same as my brother did with his PhD) so it is very interesting to him.

  

    Agriculture fields on the side of a mountain along the trail

Once we got to the village at the end of the hike the 11 year old (her name is Cealia) and her father sat down for soup. As we were leaving I saw that they were heading back up the mountain to do the same hike back all over again to get to the town they live in. It broke me. I took the girl aside and gave her a bracelet that I also have and showed her that I would wear mine so we could be connected in some way. I also gave her some money and said it was for her and her father. They both thanked me and I could see in her eyes that she knew she had affected me in some way. I wanted them to know that I appreciated them, that I could see how hard they work and how hard of a life they have, how this life was going to be her life forever and I wanted her at least to see that I recognized it. And even though I can’t understand it fully I wanted her to know I’m not just some unappreciative white person who came on a trek and she was working for. She is a person to me that I will never forget and I hope that she could feel how important meeting her is to me. This type of situation has an affect on me. One that I can’t get out of my head, nor do I want to. It’s a constant reminder that my life is so fortunate and the opportunity I have solely being from the United States makes my life that much easier. It’s a constant reminder to strive in my future to make others have the same opportunities I have and open the world to them. It seems so crazy to think there are people in these small towns who will never have an education and never see anything outside of their world but its not abnormal. I know that experiences like this are why I came on this trip and although you can read about the world and these types of situations I don’t think they really affect you until there is an experience that can touch you like this one.

Me with señor and his daughter. I look like a giant compared to them!

So after the trek I got back to Huaras and went to try some guinea pig (delicacy in Peru) which actually wasn’t terrible, but hardly any meat. Currently I am on my way to Mancora, a small surf town in the north of Peru. I plan on staying here for one night and then heading to Ecuador! Pretty excited about that and in about a month I will see my family in Colombia! Hope all is well with everyone and sorry the updates haven’t been so frequent! Love you all!! Emma (the picture below is my one of my favorites of my trip so far, we gave these kids some apples and I was lucky enough to catch this beautiful baby)

 

ROSARIO! and leaving Ariana…

I am sure everyone is wondering where my blog has been…and if you haven’t you should be! Ha! Well, truthfully I’ve been avoiding writing anything because I felt like I hadn’t been doing much…which is partly true..but I’ll get into that later. Lets go back to the end of July when I parted ways with Ariana…I can assure you that this post won’t be as funny as my adventures with Ari but I’ll definitely tell you the times when I wish I had the cacklin’ Mexi with me!

So on the last Saturday in July Ariana and I parted in Buenos Aires…she was heading back to Brazil to spend her last few weeks in South America with her (ours now really, I mean Fernie and her fam aren’t only The Puentes families, family anymore) Brazillian family and friends. I was heading to a smaller city 4 hours north of Buenos Aires…Rosario. I want to say that our parting was sad but in all honesty we were both so hungover from the 4 bottles of wine we drank the night before that we hugged, said we loved each other, and parted ways…in that moment it really didn’t feel like we were leaving each other…and trust me when we skyped within 24 hours of parting each other that’s when it really set in…I complained about my pillow at the hostel being a brick and she bragged about eating banana pancakes, laying on the couch in the living room of Fernie’s apartment, and being in weather above 30 degrees. I missed her laugh, and presence, and still do but I am very grateful for the time we spent together and know we’ll always have those stories..and her laugh will never change so that’s a plus.

Arriving in Rosario was a bit of a haze, I had heard great things about the hostel I was staying at and it seemed cool enough but honestly I went to bed shortly after arriving that Saturday night. The next day I set out to see Rosario…it was a Sunday so there were tons of markets along the riverfront walk and I even met some girls with a golden retriever and sat and drank mate with them. Rosario seemed to be my kind of city. Very walkable and easy to get to know, I immediately liked it. Tuesday I was leaving to go to work on a farm in the Entre Rios province of Argentina, it borders Paraguay and Uruguay, on the northeast part of the country. Juan the owner of the hostel I was staying at was awesome and totally welcoming. I really connected with everyone there and only stayed for 3 days…it seemed like a trend. There is Javiera, Juan’s sister who works mornings/days. There is Cameron who is from Oregon and had been living in Rosario for 9 months. There is Barney, one of the night shift guys who is into Celtic music and culture and sometimes he wears a kilt and is in a heavy metal band. Ryan, the New Zealander who met a girl and fell in love on some travels and now lives/works at the hostel. Federico who is also in a band and loves jazz and blues…he plays the best music during his shifts. And then of course Juan, the kinda crazy but very funny owner who invited me very openly into this hostel family. Now you may think think that I learned all of this over a 3 day period but that would be a little incredible…I’m foreshadowing here people…I am still in Rosario at this very moment if that gives you any hint to where this story goes…it doesn’t but let’s keep going. Below is Juan the owner of the hostel. And photos of Rosario.

So I stayed in Rosario and then left to catch a bus to a farm in basically the middle of nowhere. When I told people in Rosario the name of the town they had no idea what I was talking about and Juan told me to give him my fathers email so he could inform him if I was dead and point him in the right direction to where I could be found. I jumped on a bus for another 4 hours east of Rosario. I arrived around 8 pm, which normally I would prefer to not get in when it’s dark but there was only one bus so I took my chances. When I arrived I was meeting an older man named Ivan who owned the farm. No one was there. 10 minutes passed and I started to think of my options…for someone who hasn’t planned ahead so much I was pretty sure I would ask to use a phone and figure out the situation…I did have his cell number which was a plus. Right when I started to actually worry that no one was coming for me a man and younger woman started walking towards me…and it was Ivan and Jimena!!!!

We jumped in Ivan’s car and immediately I found out Jimena spoke Italian…plus for me since I can communicate pretty well in Italian and they started to tell me that Ivan saw Jimena and her boyfriend CoCo in town earlier that day on their bikes and asked if they wanted to come out and stay at La Malfatta. La Malfatta in the name of Ivan’s farm. Jimena and her boyfriend Coco are riding their bikes to Mexico…that was semi understood in the car on the way to the farm but was fully explained when I arrived at the house. Ivan’s house is pretty amazing. High ceilings, huge fireplace, big kitchen, two floors…4 bedrooms…he started building it in 1989…when I told him I was born in 1988 he joked and said he knew I was coming…and that’s why he built it! The first night there I hung out and met everyone…had an asado (BBQ Argentinian style) and went to bed early.

People staying at La Malfatta when I first arrived: Jimena and Coco, they met in Puerto Madryn…Coco had biked all the way from Mexico to raise money and awareness for a NGO he works with in Mexico in an indigenous Mayan community. It took him a year and a half to get to the southern tip of Patagonia…amazing to say the least! He met Jimena while in Argentina and she quit her job as a lawyer to bike back with him….how inspiring and what an adventure! They are both so amazing and I know I will see them again…hopefully in Colombia around May of next year…that’s when they plan to be there. They use  Couchsurfing, camp, and find people like Ivan for their accommodation. They sell postcards that are of pictures CoCo has taken along his journey…it’s amazing how much money you can make if you really try and sell some post cards all day…at least that’s what Coco tells me. Next up is James: he is from whales and has been traveling around the world for the last 18 months. He was living in Australia for a large period of this time but traveled to a lot of places and was a plumber for 10 years before he started traveling. He’s only 28 but started plumbing at 16. He always made me laugh when he drank mate because he always called it cabbage. He had been there for around 5 weeks when I arrived. Lastly but not least was Jose: he is from Mendoza, the wine country of Argentina and had been at the farm for around a month when I arrived. Jose has a strong connection with nature. He could calm the craziest horse I had ever seen. He is a very hard worker and you could tell he took lots of pride in his work. Ivan is the owner of La Malfatta and has been having people come and go for the past 5 years. He built the house with the help of others. He has mostly cattle but also clover fields, pigs (chanchas in Spanish), horses, and a cat.

The next morning when I woke up James took me out to see the pigs. One of the moms had just given birth to 10 babes that were now 2 weeks old. It was so cool to see baby pigs and they were the cutest ever! Scared shitless of humans, and they have good reason to be. There wasn’t a ton of instruction on what I was to do while on the farm so I jumped in where I thought I could be most helpful. I replanted lettuce that was planted too close together and mostly worked in the garden. One of my jobs was to excavate a bunch of plants from a bed and plant them in the ground…harder than it sounds…keeping all of the roots in tact when extracting tiny plants is pretty hard. I will attach picture so you can see what I’m talking about.

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately Jimena and Coco only stayed for 3 days which sucked because I loved them both so much! We laughed a lot and really got along. Coco taught me a word in Spanish to beware of if encountering a Mexican and want him to do something…’ahorita’. If a Mexican tells you this when you are trying to get something done then plan on it never happening! The next weeks were filled with horseback riding, fishing, feeding pigs, killing pigs, deskinning pigs, planting seeds, pulling up roots, shoveling corn into bins, planting citrus trees, de weeding old trees, walking to see otters that inhabit a small pond in the middle of one of the fields (I have no idea how they got there), collecting firewood, making homemade bread and pasta, and hanging out! A week into being at La Malfatta, Dani (a friend of Ivan’s from buenos aires) came to stay. She was awesome and taught me how to dance cuarteto (if you’re lucky I will attach the video of us dancing at the end of this post) and kept me company with talks of her future travels. She has never been outside of Argentina and is planning for a big South America trip starting in December.

So here is where things start to get a little bumpy….one day Ivan brought a dog home. If you know me then you know I love dogs. The dog was still a puppy and definitely an outdoors dog. He had been living at a ladies house and she could no longer take care of him. If Ivan didn’t take him he would be put down. The second day the dog was on the farm I was throwing stale bread into his bowl. He went for one of my hands and couldn’t let go. I was trying to open his mouth with the other hand and he latched onto the other one. Finally his grasp let up and I was able to release my other hand. Only one of the bites was really bad but it was pretty shocking. So that’s where my story takes a turn (insert wishing like hell Ariana was there to laugh about this, because I was doing a lot of crying, and freaking out, and trying to pull it together but really freaking out a little..so the cackle would have been really helpful)…because of this I have been in Rosario for the past 5 weeks getting rabies treatment. There was no certainty that the dog had/has rabies but it was more of a safety precaution. So I now write you this at 3am the night before I get to go in for my last round of shots…all in all it will be 13 shots I’ve received in the last 5 weeks including tetnis, hep B, and the rabies vaccination. More of a pain in the ass than anything but it has let me come to have a real connection with Rosario and the amazing people that live here!

When I arrived back in Rosario after leaving the farm I wasn’t sure what to do. To go to a hospital or wait it out. I hadn’t talked to my parents yet because I didn’t want to worry them but I had spoken with my personal nurse Lynn and her mom had talked to the infectious disease doctor at hospital…I would say I was on top of the situation. My options were to wit it out and see if I got symptoms, or to start treatment. I was in a bit of a pickle because my initial plan was to go to Mendoza and work on a vineyard. But being in a remote area when you possibly have rabies and would need to get to a hospital ASAP is a very bad idea. So when I got back to the hostel and told Juan the deal he immediately said, tomorrow you will go to the doctor and figure it out. At that moment in time I really needed that and am thankful he was there to tell me to just go to the hospital.

Trying to communicate with doctors when you don’t speak the language is hilarious and verrrrry difficult. I remember arriving at the hospital pretty early and waiting with a lot of other people to see the infectious disease doctor. It was about an hour before he showed up and then two hours before I realized I needed to jump up and walk in to talk with him unless I wanted to wait there all day. When I walked in my Spanish was broken and terrible but I had a note explaining everything and he read it over and asked me to sit down. As we sat and talked in the little Spanish I knew people kept walking into the office to ask questions and tell their story in hopes he would pick them next. It was all pretty funny because they would come in and start talking and looking at me and smiling and laughing and thinking I had a clue of what they were saying. The doctor and I would look at each other and laugh. They brought a few people in to help translate although by the end of the appointment there were probably 6 people in the room and nobody really spoke English they just knew certain words. It was comforting that they really wanted me to know what was going on and they were genuinely trying to help. The most amazing part of it all was that it was free! Coming from the US where luckily I have had my parents or been in an institution that provided healthcare I have yet to worry about that yet. If I were somewhere else it would have costed me around $200 a shot and that doesn’t include seeing the doctor. So this is where the 5 week adventure at La Lechuza (the hostel) in Rosario began.

I decided to use my time wisely and enrolled in an intensive Spanish course at ‘Spanish in Rosario’. A school owned by a woman from Southern California and her husband (Stephanie and Claudio). My teachers who are now my best buds were mostly Fede and Romi. I immediately connected with them both and could not be more excited to have them as friends forever! Fede and Romi are both really into photography and the last weeks I’ve spent here have been filled with lots of fun times with them both. The cool thing about Spanish in Rosario is that there are other international students so you end up meeting new people from around the world all the time and Spanish is your best tool to communicate. It’s hard for me, I definitely understand much more than I can speak but I have come miles from where I started and I feel much more confident for the rest of my trip. Fede is coming to the US next summer to take photos of ‘trash people’ of the US. He is really talented and can’t wait to see what he comes up with when he is in the US. The funny thing about Rosario is I knew I made a small connection when I arrived that first time before I went to the farm but now I’ve made lifelong connections. I remember walking along the river when I first arrived and seeing tons of families making asados (BBQ) and wishing I knew someone to be a part of it. 3 weeks later I was down there having an asado with my classmates and teachers and feeling very much a part of a community. I love that I’ve been able to make that happen here and know I can always come back and have these friends. I know this isn’t a terribly long post but I will post more soon as the adventures are continuing! I am heading to Salta tomorrow, in northern Argentina and then I will be crossing the border into Bolivia! Very excited to get back on the road but will miss all the amazing people I have met in Rosario! And when I get home I’m definitely making t-shirts that say ‘I tried rabies in South America’ if anyone wants to preorder theirs 🙂

below are pictures of friends from Rosario! And of course amazing food!!

    FEDE!!!!

 

 

 

 

ROMI!!!

Argentina so far…it’s been AWESOME!

Where to even begin? I am going to have to go back 3 weeks to when we first arrived in Argentina. We caught a flight from Brazil to Puerto Iguazu in North eastern Argentina, bordering Brazil and Paraguay. We arrived on the Brazil side hoping to not have to pay the entrance fee to get into Argentina. 2 hours of buses and borders of Brazil and Argentina we finally got through and were in Argentina. We ended up having to pay the $160 to get into Argentina which I was a little pissed about but oh well! Once finally in Igauzu we went to our hostel and then to the park where the falls are the next day. There had been a ton of rain in the last month and so parts of the falls were closed due to over flooding but that almost made it even more incredible. The massive amount of water was crazy. I am going to attach some photos so you can see what I mean by MASSIVE amount of water!

 

 

Seeing the falls was amazing and seemed like a must do when in Argentina. We got really lucky because we heard after we left it rained a lot more and they ended up closing the park for a week! From Puerto Iguazu we headed south to Cordoba, a town in the direct center of the country. We decided to go there because we heard it had a lot of universities and a lot of young people. This is also where I first learned about mate. Mate is the tea they drink in Argentina. People literally carry around a thermos of hot water to keep refilling their mate cups all day. When you drink mate you use either a gourd or wooden cup that you can buy pretty much anywhere in Argentina. Since it´s a loose tea the straw you drink it with is metal and has small holes at the bottom for the tea to come through. It´s a very bitter tea but I really like it. It is also very caffeinated. I also learned you can´t just walk up to a person on the street and ask for a drink of their mate. It is something that is shared, same straw and everything, but you must be friends with the person to share their mate. So anyways, we get to Cordoba and decide to stay at a hostel that is close-ish to the bus station and pretty cheap…around 60 pesos a night which is around 11 dollars. We arrive at the hostel and the guy running the show has a broken foot and a dog that follows him everywhere…and eventually us too :). Sebastian, the guy running the show was super friendly and suggested we hike at a nearby national park the next day.

 

Since we had time we walked around the center and explored the city. There were numerous universities and lots of piazzas…or plazas in Spanish (need to start thinking in Spanish instead of Italian, I´ve been doing pretty good but once we meet an Italian in a hostel it all blurs together and gets really confusing…if you don´t know already I can speak some Italian, used to be lots but I feel I’ve lost lots of it from not practicing). So anyways, we were walking around all of these plazas and I couldn´t help but notice all of the stray dogs. I noticed them in Brazil and have been told that there are tons all over South America but before I didn´t notice them as much. I think I notice them here because they seem so free and everyone seems to take care of them. They sleep where they want, they eat when people give them food, they are friendly and always wag their tails at you if you give them attention. Especially at night you can see them in their element, their packs of friends all huddled together and sleeping. It just reminds me how much I love animals and can´t wait to have tons of them!

 

 

The next day we left for Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito. The park was created because 30 years ago a man and his son were out hunting condors. The father shot a condor down and the son went up to it and though of how sad killing the innocent animal was and told his father. After this day his father decided to work to protect the condos in this area of Argentina and they made a national park. We went to the families coffee shop and saw pictures of the son and father and the many condors they had shot pictures of. The bus ride was two hours and we were literally dropped off on the side of the road not knowing where the hell the park was! We walked for about 400 meters and then saw a sign that pointed towards a visitor center. We arrived and got a map and then set out. The first point we were trying to get to was a river. It was 4km to the river and then another 6 to the shelf where the Condors nests were. We wondered where the hell a river was going to come from since we were in a dessert. As we got to the sign for the descent to the river we saw where the it was. You had to walk down a Lord of the Rings looking path that was steep and narrow into a canyon. Once you made it to the river it was worth it but Ari and I knew we wouldn´t make it to the shelf. Another 6kms and we had to walk back up this seep canyon to get back to the path. We ate our lunch by the river and explored a little before we headed back up the trail. We kept saying during the trek ¨we´re literally out in the middle of nowhere in Argentina alone¨. Pretty awesome to think about. When we got back to the visitor center we had hiked around 6 hours and were ready to get on our bus back to Cordoba. Unfortunately it was only 5 and our bus wasn´t passing by until 6:30 so we decided to hitch hike to the café and get a hot cocoa. It was only 10 miles or so down the road so we hopped in the back of a pick up and they dropped us off a few minutes later. We enjoyed our cocoa and then caught our bus, by literally waving it down on the side of the road, back to Cordoba. When we arrived we looked weathered and tired and our legs as we put it ¨felt like wooden sticks¨. We laughed about that hysterically for a while. If you know Ariana and I it isn´t very hard for that to happen.

 

 

 

 

The next day we caught a 10 hour bus ride to Mendoza, the wine country of Argentina. Immediately we loved it. Our hostel served a free glass of wine every night and I mean come on, it´s wine country, how can you not love it? We went on a tour of a few vineyards and it was cool but by far our best experience was horseback riding into the mountains to have an asado. Asado is the traditional BBQ of huge racks of meat they have in Argentina. It is similar to that of theChulhasco in Brazil. Basically it´s a vegetarians worst nightmare. Lucky for Ari and I we aren´t vegetarians. The horse ride was pretty legit for just signing up on an excursion. I´ve ridden horses but never into the mountains and pretty unsupervised. At this moment I thought of Gwood and all the questions he would be asking about safety of the horses. HAHA, but for me I walked up to my horse, Toro, looked him in the eyes and jumped on. I think I heard one time to look a horse in the eye so he knows who is boss. Well I would say Toro kind of knew who the boss was. At one point we took off in a gallop and it reminded me of a trip my family took to Mexico when Charlie got in trouble for booking it on his horse in front of the guides and our whole family. Pretty sure he got yelled at for it then, but the guapos that were leading the trip loved it and somewhat encouraged it since part of the group was going so slow. The people that were going slow on the other hand did not like the encouragement and I´m pretty sure they were pissed when their horses took off. The setting of the ride was amazing and when we arrived at the small shack in the middle of nowhere in the mountains we were greeted with wine and racks and racks of meeting cooking away. After we finished eating they took away the tables and chairs and the real party began. They pulled out the guitars and the jugs of wine started pouring out. We drank so much wine that night I can´t even explain to you how bad the hangover was the next day.

 

Below pictured is an old picture of wine of the owners of the biggest winery in Mendoza. Then our horseback ride and asado.

 

 

 

The next day we headed south to Bariloche, PATAGONIA! This is what I had personally been really looking forward to. We took a 23 hour bus to get there and let me tell you, it was worth every hour on that bus! I am also very thankful I brought my warm warm warm sleeping bag because this was the first bus ride that it got really cold at night. Ariana on the other hand does not have a sleeping bag and although we could have shared she accepted the bus boy´s coat and an extra blanket. This is also contrary to our bus ride to Mendoza which was extremely hot and Ariana sat in her underwear for half of the ride…and no this is not a lie, I about died laughi when I asked her if she would go up to the driver and ask him where we were in her undies. We arrived in Bariloche around noon and headed straight to our hostel. We were dropped off on Salta Street in front of a long uphill of stairs. We both looked at our cab driver like, this is it? After finally climbing the 50 plus stairs we made to Hostel Inn Bariloche. I will recommend this hostel to anyone for the staff, the cleanliness, the view, I mean this spot was prime. It sits on the top of a hill overlooking a lake and the entire town. It was awesome. A little more pricey than our other hostels but really it was worth it in the end. It included dinner and breakfast and was only 18/day. When I told my dad it was kind of expensive he laughed in disbelief because of the meals included, and it was CLEAN! Cleanliness is something you start to value when you live out of a backpack, trust me.

 

Below is the town on Bariloche

 

 

When we arrived in Bariloche we planned on staying 2 or 3 days tops. We ended up staying 6. Our first day there when we were cooking in the kitchen we met Flo, a French guy who has become our good friend and travel buddy (his actual name is Florent but its very hard to actually say because you need the heavy French accent so we just call him Flor…which is flower in Spanish…he loves it). He is in Argentina on holiday for two months learning Spanish and traveling. He took a liking to us immediately, mostly I think because of Ariana´s loud exuberant laugh that has gotten us many stares since arriving in any and all of our hostels. The cool thing about having a free dinner is that every night you meet new people at dinner. This is how we wrangled up a group of a Frenchman, 2 Swiss girls, A Colombian, A Brazilian, and two Americans to do rent a car….but more about that later. Our first full day in Bariloche we looked into different excursions we could do, and found that most of them were really expensive. I heard that skiing was pretty cheap and soon found out that it was actually VERY expensive. So although I was in Patagonia and didn´t know the next time I would make it there I had to make the sacrifice to eat and live over snowboard. It really wasn´t terrible but it would have been an awesome experience. We immediately decided we wanted to do the 7 lakes tour which we had been recommended to do from a few friends here in Argentina and our good friend Joe back in the US. Flo said he wanted to do it to so we jumped on the opportunity to get someone who drive stick well! Ariana and I know how to do it but weren´t so comfortable driving the 400kms to do the tour on our own. Many parts of the lakes are very remote too so it just didn´t seem like the best idea. So he was our first recruit and the start of a great friendship with him. We started to be a pack of three instead of two now and we all get along really well. Our third day in Bariloche we hiked up Cerro Campinario. There was a chair lift to the top for 70 pesos or Flo told us we could hike it. Being the ambitious girls we are we decided to hike it. It was pretty steep at parts with trails running in and out of each other everywhere so we weren´t positive which way to go, but made it to the top all in one piece. Once at the top the views were incredible. I want to do some kind of trek in this area in the summer with my brothers in the future. The lakes, mountains, sky…everything is just majestic. I took pictures but I´m not sure that you will really see the magic I saw through a photo. But you can try.

 

 

The next day we spent hanging around town and getting gifts for family and friends. Bariloche is known for its chocolate so of course we had to try some. Bariloche is one of those amazing towns where you could just walk around, have a coffee and your day would be great. That might be why I loved it, similar to towns in northern Italy. Argentina has reminded me a lot of Italy. Maybe that´s why I seem to love it so much! Every night at our dinners at our hostel we seemed to pick up another traveler that wanted to do the 7 lakes trip so when we were at 7 we decided we were maxed out and had to get the car and do it. The weather had been bad so the day we wanted to go got postponed a day. This was actually kind of cool because it started snowing and we were with tons of people who had never seen snow before! It was pretty awesome seeing them all run outside in excitement and press their faces on the window in amazement as the snow fell. I wonder what the feeling would be. They seemed to be pretty excited so it was cool to experience that.

 

Snow from the hostel window.

 

 

I had posted on Couch Surfing (couch surfing is a site where you can offer your couch to travelers for a night or more and experience meeting different people around the world. You can also post in forums and ask for help about the city you are in or what to do there etc.) in Bariloche about the 7 lakes trip and the best way to do it. I got a response from a guy named Alfredo to meet at a brewery and chat. Flo, Ariana, and I met him at the bar and immediately found him very interesting (in a good way). He is a lawyer originally from Chile that sorts out titles of abandoned land in Southern Patagonia. He works in both Chile and Argentina and has gotten to meet and become friends with groups of people that live in these remote areas. One of the most interesting things we talked about was people that want to go and ¨help¨ in these areas. He said that when a person arrives in an area like this their first instinct is to help, whatever that help may be they just want to help. He said when they first are there the person in the town is confused because they don´t need their help but they take it and welcome that person. For a little bit it works but then the person in the town starts to become suspicious of why this person wants to help them as an outsider. The person then spreads to the other people of the town that this person is not to be trusted and they are in turn rejected. This seemed so interesting to me because I would love to be the person going to the town and ¨helping¨ the people and having an experience like that. But, like my mom said (wise woman) this is not possible. You can´t just go somewhere and make a change or have an experience or effect on a group of people unless you consciously decide to make a commitment to that group of people. Time is the only thing that can induce the trust needed to be accepted. In saying this it gave me a lot of perspective on my journey in South America. I don´t want to be an outsider but really the only way to become a part of the people here is to live and be with them for a long time and I´m not sure that’s a commitment I am willing to make right now. I think it’s definitely something that sparks my interest but for now I will just say the trek continues. Meeting Alfredo was awesome and I plan to stay in touch with him. It´s pretty awesome how the Internet can connect people in such a way that in the past was not possible. There are so many people that are willing and wanting to meet and experience other people and it´s pretty amazing how if you open yourself to those people that will come to you much easier than you could have ever thought.

 

The next day we did the 7 lakes tour. The weather wasn´t the greatest but the lakes were still impressive to say the least. Our car of United Nations traveled the 200kms past the 7 lakes and up to San Martin de Los Andes where we stopped for a baileys and coffee. Flo and the Swiss girls got huge cakes and ice cream but Ari and I stuck to the booze. Our trip back was almost as amazing as the 7 lakes because of the sunshine and unexpected sight of flamingos! I think that might be what makes Patagonia so amazing, the nature and unexpected awesomeness that arises everywhere. We hopped a fence and went down to the water to see at least 20 flamingos wadding in the middle of a river. It was a sight to see to say the least! That night we went to the bus station and Flo, Ariana, and I bought bus tickets for the next day to Puerto Madryn. The land of the whales! Our last night in Bariloche was awesome. We had become friends with a few of the front desk girls and a few other Argentinians that were staying there. Two of the Argentinians had guitars and we ended up having a jam session of Spanish, English, and French songs until 2 in the morning! I´m not sure if the rest of the hostel was happy about our jam session at 2am on aSunday night but we sure had fun and it was a great last night in an awesome town!

 

Below is the 7 lakes (not the greatest pics because of the weather), flamingos, and our last night in Bariloche playing music with new friends! Also there is a picture of us and Flo!

 

 

 

I also wanted to put up a picture of how w crazy it was that there was such green wilderness with snow covering it! I tried to capture it but don’t think I really did. But here is a picture of it anyway trying to capture the ‘jungle’ with snow!

 

The next day Flo, Ari, and I set off to Puerto Madryn which is where we currently are. We took the 16 hour bus at 5 pm Monday and arrived here at 8am yesterday. Immediately we went to look for a car rental and see if we could set out for the peninsula. Unfortunately all the car rentals were really expensive and since we didn´t have our other 7 friends from around the world to split the cost with us we went with renting bikes instead. It was 17km to the beach we wanted to watch the whales at and I just remember Flo kept saying, ¨I will be fine riding the bike, I don´t know about you two but I will be fine¨. This stuck in my head for 35kms!!! You think okay 17kms…like 10 miles…I can do that…yea keep telling yourself that. The difference is we are in ARGENTINA and the road is dirt and rocks and there are HILLS! Oh and we are on mountain bikes. So we set off, and immediately Flo says to Ariana, have you ever ridden a bike before? This is also something I will never forget. Flo decides that since Ariana doesn´t know how to change her gears and is going kind of slow that he is going to fix the problem. He takes the two locks we were given, attaches his two carabiner´s to the locks and then attaches one lock to the back of his bike and the other to the front of Ariana´s. After they started riding Ariana said, ¨Oh yea this is better!¨. The way there wasn´t terrible. It wasn´t great but it wasn´t terrible. When we got to the beach it was totally worth it. We immediately saw whales from everywhere jumping, swimming, spraying water, EVERYWHERE! They were 20 feet from the beach and it is definitely one of the most amazing things I´ve ever encountered. There were mom´s with their babies swimming on top of the water. It was just unreal. Lots of them would flap their tails like they knew they were putting on a show for us! It was incredible and I recommend everyone to come down to this area of Patagonia in July if you want to see whales up close. We had a picnic there and took tons of pictures and videos. It just never got old and I´m pretty sure we could have sat there for more than the almost 3 hours we did. But we knew we had a 17km bike ride back and now the wind was getting really bad…oh god. So we set out to leave and realize that Ariana has a flat tire. We pump it up and start going. This is where the fun begins…Ariana was cool, she had her puller levy system with Flo and they were off…me on the other hand, not so cool. Imagine riding on a dirt rock road uphill with dirt flying in your eyes every time a car passes (which is about every 2 minutes). Also imagine the wind blowing 15-20 mph against the front of your body so you can really only go about 3mph if that and you want to die. At one point Flo was pushing my back in the front and pulling Ariana in the back. WHAT A GUY!!! Later when we talked about it he said he couldn´t believe he actually did that. I couldn´t believe it either. So I am a ways back when we finally get to the paved road and when I reach Ariana and Flo they look distressed. Ariana´s tire is definitely blown and we have to change it. Ariana can´t stop laughing at this point because she is telling me about how Flo keeps asking her while they are riding if she has ever ridden a bike before. I am trying to help Flo change the tire, although its really a one man job, and Ariana just can´t stop laughing. My mom can vouch for her, she gets into these laughing fits and just can´t stop! So we finally change the tire and then we´re off. Now we are all together and riding on the pavement about 5kms from the bike rental place when Flo gets a flat! Two flats!!! Ahhh so we didn´t have another tire so he rides on it for a little then we walk it the rest of the way. It was an awesome experience to see the whales and the bike ride there was great but I could have done without the ride back! Although we did make it out without many cuts or bruises, mostly just our butts hurt really bad! So now we are in PuertoMadryn and head to Buenos Aires tonight at 9:30 with a 20 hours bus ride ahead of us. We are definitely sad to leave Flo but excited to get to BA and see Fernanda, her sister Carro, and Ariana´s cousin Madiana who bought a spur of the moment ticket last week to come meet us! If you´ve made it this far I applaud you! Sorry it´s such a long post but I really had a lot to say! I love everyone back home and hope all is well!! Email me anytime, I love

hearing from people!!! Sending love! Emma

 

pictured below is the whales and the struggling bikers! First is a baby and mom.

 

 

 

Emma

Brazil…a wonderful place!

 

 

My time in Brazil is coming to a close. On Saturday I leave to Argentina for the next month or so with plans to head to Chile after that. Above is a picture of me (right) Ariana (middle) and Fernanda (left) together last week taking a walk through a beautiful park in the city I have been staying in. Both of these girls mean so much to me and I’m so glad I’ve had the chance to experience life here with a real Brazilian and her family! Fernanda’s family has now become my family and I could not be more grateful for their hospitality and open arms while I have been in Brazil. 

In saying that there have been some cool things I’ve done in the past couple weeks before my departure from this beautiful place! I got to experience sushi here which was amazing! I didn’t know this before I came to Brazil but there is a large Japanese population and some say the best sushi outside of Japan is here! We were lucky to have a friend take us to an all you can eat spot where we stuffed ourselves until we couldn’t eat anymore and we literally holding our bellys in agony!

Last weekend we went to a music festival about an hour from our city. We camped for two nights and it was a pretty good time. Most of the music was really awesome with lots of horns and well played instruments. The only thing I probably didn’t like so much was the rap scene because listening to rap in another language ends up all blending together at some point and just sounding the same. All in all it was a great time and we were really happy we made it out there for our last weekend spent here. 

This week has been spent planning Argentina and being sick :(. Unfortunately I’ve been sick for most of the week so I haven’t been doing much besides laundry and sleeping. It’s crazy to think that I will be really living out of my backpack starting in a couple days. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do laundry again so making sure everything is clean is a high priority. 

Argentina has lots of adventures in store for us and I can’t wait to get going! It’s been great to have a home base but I really want to start learning Spanish and seeing more of South America and its beauty. As of now Ariana and I are starting our trip in Iguazù Falls, an area Americans say is the Niagara falls of South America. Then we are headed down the country and across to Mendoza and into Patagonia. It’s snowing in some of these areas so its going to be a big climate change from the mostly 80 degree weather we experience here but I’m super excited to snowboard for a day in Patagonia and see the amazing landscape everyone talks about in this area. 

I will definitely be posting from Argentina but Internet access will be less frequent. I can’t believe I’ve already been in South America for almost two months! The time is going by fast! I hope to hear from friends back home and if anyone has traveled to Argentina and has suggestions please shoot me a message! Hope all is well! Sending love! E

Ariana and I in northern Brazil

Amazing all you can eat sushi 

 

 

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I have found that putting yourself in uncomfortable situations is one of the better ways to get to know who you really are. In a way, you don’t really know what you are made of until you have to face an uncomfortable situation head on. Both the exploratory elements and the physical aspect is a good way to get to know yourself- Travis Rice

This goes along with the previous post….and I see it being true to my life and anyone who has decided to take a jump into the unknown.

Comfortable or uncomfortable?

Comfort is something I feel many people take for granted. Or maybe it’s just me and I’m realizing thousands of miles from my home and the people I love that maybe I’m not so comfortable and its a hard pill to swallow.

Uprooting my entire life. Leaving friends, my boyfriend, my dog, my family. I want to say it is a brave act to follow through with. But is it also selfish? To take this leap of faith and leave behind those you love? To put yourself first and say this is something I choose; instead of continue living a life that isn’t bad or unfulfilled, it’s just that you know you were meant to have an adventure. And as you get older it feels like life can take away that adventure because its life and responsibilities arise as you get more and more invested in having the life you want to live.

I’m writing this post because currently I am in a place of comfort in many ways. Arriving in Brazil and immediately having friends here to welcome me made this transition much easier for me. It doesn’t mean it made it easier for those that I left behind and I know it’s hard for some people to understand why exactly I am down here. I also know this Immense feeling of comfort is soon going to disappear and maybe that’s when the real adventure starts. Ariana and I leave for Argentina in less than 3 weeks and that is when the real living out of a backpack begins!

For the first month of Argentina I will be with Ariana who speaks fluent Spanish. After that I will be on my own with plans to head to Chile for the month of August and volunteer with a program that incorporates surfing, English, and environmental consciousness. It’s definitely going to be an adventure to get there with my little Spanish skill. The nicest thing about traveling and being on a loose schedule is the opportunity to go to so many different places and be put in such situations where there is a huge possibility for things to not go as planned AND the option to figure it out is your only possibility.

This post came about because I was missing someone important in my life today. I had to remember why I came down here in the first place and decided to make myself so ‘uncomfortable’. I can honestly say it might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done but hopefully in the end it will be as rewarding as I expect.

As the adventure continues I will keep you updated. Brazil is still awesome and I will post some pictures following this post! Thanks for reading and feel free to email me anytime! Lots of love to all!

e

Trip to the coast in the state of Bahia

Lynn flew in on a Thursday, we stay in Sao Paulo for a night, and then started our long journey to our final destination of Taipus De Fora. I will include a map later on so you can understand how long our journey to get to this amazing place really was. So we were lucky enough to find out the day before we were leaving that our flight to Salvador (not the country El Salvador, which G-Wood thought…no we didn’t fly to Central America) was actually not leaving from São Paulo but from Campinas, a city about an hour and a half bus ride from where we were staying. Luckily we looked into it and Fernanda’s brother (Fern is our host and long time friend here in Brazil) Douglass lives in Campinas and offered to let us stay the night before our flight left for the coast. They were so inviting and generous to let us stay with them and Douglass took us to the airport the next morning for our early 6 am flight.

Once we landed in Salvador we didn’t really know what we were in store for as far as how long it was going to take us to get to Barra Grande. We had read lots of tourist information online but nothing that was completely clear on the best way to get there. I will include a map so it’s easier to understand but I will also explain how we got there. All I have to say is thank god Ariana speaks Portuguese! She might say otherwise but if it was just Lynn and I we would have been screwed. We talked to a number of people and they all seemed very confused on why we chose to fly into Salvador and not the other airport that we later found out was much closer. So the real journey now begins…we took a taxi to a ferry. The ferry then took us across a bay to Itaparica. From there we got on a bus that was originally supposed to be 2 hours was now 4 hours. Although the bus ride was longer it was absolutely amazing. Passing through small towns and seeing communities living on the land. Little grandmas selling fruits or setting up a small local bar with a few bottles, a folding table, and an umbrella on the front porch. The scenery of lush green mountainsides filled with all different kinds of crops and a number of  rivers flowing through towns. It was absolutely beautiful. When we arrived at our destination (Camamu) we went to the dock to see if we could catch a boat to Barra Grande. We were very lucky since at that time of night there usually weren’t boats running. There were two women we waited for which ended up being around an hour. Later we found out they owned the boat company and that was why there was a boat leaving that late. The boat ride was awesome, although Barra Grande isn’t an island you can only travel there by boat. It is a peninsula and there aren’t any roads that go there. The boat ride was awesome because it was a speed boat and it was nighttime by the time we boarded. The three of us sat in the back of the boat like little girls on a roller coaster for the first time. The night sky was amazing. The boat took about 45 minutes with lots of leaps and bumps along the way. When we finally arrived to Barra Grande it was 7pm and dark. The boat people must have relayed that we needed a taxi and were headed to Taipus De Fora so when we arrived and walked off the dock and into the colorful town of Barra Grande there was a taxi awaiting us! We felt very welcomed and taken care of. When we got in the taxi he told us he had to stop at the pizzeria to pick up his wife. We swung into the pizzeria and he shouted for her. She came running out with beer in hand and was so friendly and inviting. Next thing we knew we were on a bumpy ride along a pot hole ridden road. Bouncing around for about 20 minutes and the three of us were more than ready to get there! Finally we pulled up to the gates of a small posada (hotel) called Velas e Ventos.

We were more than excited to have finally arrived and just be there. To say we were over our 12+ hours of traveling would be an understatement. The hotel was about 50 yards from the beach and you could hear the ocean waves crashing from our balcony. Once we arrived we dropped our bags and went down to the hotel restaurant to get dinner and beers. We sat and laughed about how long our day had been but how lucky we were that everything fell into place and we were finally at our hotel and could get some sleep!

Map of our route

This picture shows the route that we took to get to Taipu de Fora. Starting from the top we went from Salvador and took a ferry to Itaparica. Then we took a bus from there to Camamu. Then from there a boat to Barra Grande. After that a taxi to the other side of the peninsula to Taipu de Fora.

We had a really relaxing 4 days hanging on the beach, eating lots of food, and exploring the peninsula. We went swimming in the ocean everyday. Rented four wheelers and rode around the entire peninsula. Something that was amazing but don’t ever ask me to ride 4 wheelers for 7 hours again. Only if I am driving on flat paved roads that don’t require you to bob in and out of pot holes all day. We saw monkeys in the trees and ate fresh coconuts on the beach. To say it was a paradise doesn’t really suffice because it was amazing. Hopefully we will be able to return to this place again one day! And to experience it with Ariana and Lynn was amazing. More posts to come…thanks for reading!!!

Sunset in Barra Grande

Taipu de Fora

Camamu

Acai Bowl

If you’ve never had Acai before or an Acai bowl you are really missing out. The first time I had this amazing fruit was in Hawaii. The Acai bowl contains the acai berry pulp that has been frozen into a ‘smoothie’ type substance. Then there is also honey, granola, and in the photo there are bananas. Other times there will also be strawberrys, blackberrys, bee pollen, and in Brazil and I am finding they sometimes layer the Acai with whip cream. YUM. So basically this went from being something I could really only find in Hawaii…to something I could eat everyday here if I wanted to….and that just might become a reality 🙂

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be the change you wish to see in the world – Mahatma Gandhi

I’m about to embark on a journey that has many unknowns. For example, I don’t know if I will make my next flight when I get into Brazil because the times are so tight between flights and it might just not work out. But hey, that’s the way it goes sometimes and you figure it out. It’s strange because right now I don’t really have an excited feeling. Not to say that I’m not excited but I just have a comforting feeling of being at home.

I think the reason for this may be that I am laying in my mom and dad’s bed and realizing this is the last time for a while that I will be doing this. My parents have sold our house so this is literally the last time I will be in this room feeling like this.

Change is a crazy thing. It makes you much more resilient because you have to learn to be okay and figure it out. The quote above is my favorite quote and one that I come back to often.  I kind of see it as a way to live this trip. But I feel like the experiences I have and the people I meet are going to change me; I don’t think I will change them per se. I feel like I am going to get a greater respect for people in the world and the experiences I have are going to shape whatever I decide to do in my life. Because really this trip is partly to have an adventure and partly to see the good in the world that sometimes comes from the most unexpected places.

Last night I got in bed with my mom and felt an overwhelming sense of fear. Not really afraid to go on this adventure but just afraid to leave so many things behind that I love so dearly. I know that this is going to be an experience of a lifetime but it doesn’t mean that it’s not hard to do something you are so passionate about. As my dad would say, last night when we are all cuddled up together, I was the meat in the sandwich. Safe and sound between my parents. This is something that I will always be able to come home to and that is the comfort I need to do a trip like this.

Lots of change is upon me and I hope everyone in the states will follow me on this journey. I love you all and can’t wait to share this experience with you!