Our Car!

Here is a picture of our car for inquiring minds.

In the Wop Wops

Sticking to the schedule (with some twists and turns), Joe and I have been mighty busy! I quite liked how he has been doing the past posts, and I think I'll stick with the same format!


Joe and I spent 4 days and 3 nights canoing on the Whaganui River! It was incredible! We loaded our big red canoe with two water proof barrels, grabbed our paddles, and hit the water! It was just the two of us and the river, literally, in the middle of nowhere, or in Kiwi, the Wop Wops. The stretch of river we were on has no road access. We saw only 3 other canoes the entire time all on the first day, so we felt a big sense of isolation. Although most of the river is slow moving, there were some rapids to keep us on our toes! It is one of both of our favorite things we have done on the whole trip. I see a potential hobby on the horizon, and Joe used to make fun of me for wanting to river kayak!

Being that we are in New Zealand, the very next day after the river adventure we found ourselves in a completely different world - Tongariro National Park. We had planned on doing a three day trek throughout the park, but settled on a long one day on the "Crossing" (what all the tourists do). We started the hike at 6am and walked through clouds for the first half. I can't say that I much enjoyed this first half. Apparently I'm not a fan of mountain tops because I was pretty miserable. The wind was roaring harder than I have ever felt, it was wet (my rain coat is just awful, shouldn't even call it a rain coat really), we were walking up a steep mountain, and we couldn't see any of the scenery. But! The way back was quite amazing. The clouds lifted enough that we were rewarded with glimpses of this crazy world.

Well, apparently it's almost Christmas, a notion that has pretty much breezed by Joe and I unnoticed. Being from Colorado, we are lucky enough to have the idea that the holidays are a snow filled, chilly time of year, where once in a while you are blessed with a sheet of fluffy white snow on Christmas day. Here in New Zealand, Christmas means sunshine, beaches, and barbecues. Nevertheless, if we forget to say it, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! We are shipping ourselves and the car to the South Island tonight!

On the NZ trail

Hey there everyone! Courtney and I are back from our first "tramp in the bush." NZ is by far the most goregous country I have ever seen, and we haven't even got to the so called "good stuff." I guess I'm loving quotation marks for the first little bit of this. So anyhow, we finally have a couple of our pictures uploaded for everyone to see. I will tell our story with the aid of these...

This first pic is of a friend we met named toni paddling out to sea to check his nets before sunset. He and his family (including the three cutest little girls on the planet) were living out of a bus on the corommandle penninsula. We happened to meet them while enjoying a beach side campsite for the evening. After introductions they invited us over for some fish that they had smoked in their bus. We chatted by the campfire and enjoyed an awesome evening. In the morning while they were rolling out of the campsite in their bus, they handed us an envelope and headed off. After opening it we found $100 NZ! We had told them that we hadn't ate at a restaurant in NZ, and had been eating pasta out of our car for the last two weeks. They said it was for going out to dinner, but going out for dinner here only costs about $15-$20 NZ. It gives you a little bit of an idea about how nice the folks are down here.

This is a pic of our lakeside campsite outside of Rotorua. This is the most touristy town in NZ, and we managed to escape it for the evening at this campsite. It was quite the spot. Rotorua ended up being our least favorite spot we have seen thus far, and we had anticipate this prior to. Despite this, there was some really cool geothermal activity in the area, and we checked it out for a day.

This pic was snapped off on the way to Te Urewa National Park. ALL of the countryside here in NZ is gorgeous, and this gives you a good idea of what we get to look at on those down days when we are cruising around the country in the van.

Here is me cliff jumping into the lake on our first trek! I have been itching to get a good pic of me cliff jumping, and this is indeed fits the bill!

Yet another pic that courtney the photographer took while on our trek. She has been doing an amazing job, and there are plenty of great photos we have yet to publish.

Courtney and I have been doing great and are off on another trek tomorrow. Sorry for the lack of communication with the outside world, but we are usually off in the backwoods having a blast! Hope all is well back home!

We all live in a turquoise MPV... a turquoise MPV... a turquoise MPV

Hello everyone! As the title implies... courney and I have succeded in purchasing a vehicle and are now cruising around the beautiful country of New Zealand! I'm going to have to make this a short post because we are on a bit of a time crunch, and internet time is quite expensive here in the first world.

The first several days in NZ were spent in Aukland trying to secure a vehicle for the journey and contacting family and friends back home. We spent our last night in a proper bed six days ago and traded in the hostel/cheap hotel life for a bed in the back of a car. This will be our home base for a couple of months. So far it has been working out excellently! We wake up to the sun rising (because we don't yet have curtains in the vehicle), cruise around, find awesome hikes, have picnics in amazing places, have fires to wind down from the long day in the sun, and watch the stars for a bit before calling it a day. Needless to say, I love it! We just took our first shower of this second leg of the journey yesterday. Before that we took a dip in the river to clean some of that sweat off from all that hiking. The simple life at its finest!

We are now on the coromandel penninsula on the north island, and are headed south to do some backcountry "tramping" for a few weeks. We then plan to rent a canoe and float a river in the southern part of the north island (hopefully we don't die). It is supposedly quite safe.

Thats about it... life on the road, living out of a car in NZ. What could be any better? I don't know.

We will try to post some pictures as soon as possible. Hope all is well back in the states!

Goodbye South America

Hi there everyone! This is a quick little blog to let everyone know that courtney just updated all of the pictures on the picasa album, as well as in the previous blog. We are all packed up and ready to move on to the next section of our trip, new zealand. Our flight leaves rio tonight with a layover in buenes aires and then continuing on to aukland. Strangely enough we will be crossing the international date line tonight and completely skip the 27th day of november (thanksgiving). We will be thinking of family and friends throughout the holiday weekend. Eat a couple extra slices of pumkin pie for me, and help yourself to an extra helping of mashed potatoes for courtney in remeberence of the two of us.

The plan is to purchase a vehicle as soon as possible in aukland and get on the road. We hope this transition goes smoothly!

Unitl next time...

Buenos Aires to Brazilian Beaches

It truly has been forever since we last updated this thing! That is unfortunately a theme on this blog. I uploaded new photos on to the Picasa Web Album (link on right) and added a cool little map dealie at the bottom of the page that tracks our journey. Now I will try and search my memory and recount the last month and a half for you all. Bare with me, it will take a while!

When we last wrote, we had just arrived in Puerto Madryn, Argentina. The town served as a good stopping point for the long journey from Southern Argentina to Buenos Aires, which would have been over 40 hours straight. I also heard amazing stories about whale sightings right off the pier in town, and you know me, I love me some wildlife. On our first stroll down the waterfront toward the famed pier, we could see the tales of whales popping out of the water! From the pier we could see, up close, about five Right Whales swimming and jumping around. It was amazing and free, which we just love.

And on to the great big world of Buenos Aires! Our main purpose for going to BA was to get our tourist visas for Brazil, a pretty crazy process that had us waiting in various lines throughout the city for a day. We had to wait for the visas to be processed, handing over our passports, and thus were committed to the city. Joe and I aren´t the biggest fans of big city life, but we certainly made the best of it. We stayed in an area called Palmero Hollywood, a cutsie area with upscale restaurants and bars scattered on the quaint tree-lined streets. The neighborhood was nice and chill, but its amenities were a bit out of our price range! We spent about a week walking around and seeing the sites - historical buildings, parks and random open spaces, street fairs. The city definitely had a cool vibe and we certainly enjoyed ourselves. Nevertheless, we were happy to move on!

It was a little bittersweet to leave Argentina. It has been my favorite country so far in terms of sites, cities, culture, and people. It brought us some of the best memories from the trip, and we certainly miss the dulce de leche (carmel spread put on everything even at breakfast).

With visas in hand, we moved on to Brazil! But first, a stop at the famous Iguazu Falls, a site not to be missed. The Falls create a portion of the border between and Brzail and Argentina and can be viewed from both countries. Everyone we met had raved about Iguazu, ``it will ruin every other waterfall you ever see!´´ It´s true, they are incredible. The word ``waterfall´´ doesn´t come close to describe it; there are hundreds of waterfalls of all different heights and sizes. Despite a cloudy turned rainy day, the views were breathtaking. I am constantly saying the phrase ``this is the coolest thing I´ve ever seen´´ while on this trip, and this was definitely one of those moments.

From Iguazu, we headed to the famed Brazilian coast! First, a stop in Paranagua, an incredibly photogenic seaside town full of brightly colored old buildings, and then on to Ihla do Mel (Honey Island) via ferry. I don´t really know how to do this island justice... there are no cars and no roads, just dirt paths. The island has 3 villages, but most of it is a natural reserve that isn´t accessible. The beaches aren´t exactly pristine, but they are certainly beautiful in their own right. What made this place truly special was that there were hardly any people (tourists). The weather wasn´t the best, raining quite often, but we got a day of sunshine in, and simply enjoyed being, as they say, away from it all. It was here we discovered one of our favorite Brazilian foods, pastels (fried dough stuffed with meat, or on Ihla do Mel, seafood!). After calling these things ``pasties´´ for days, it turns out the word is just pronounced how it looks...too late, it has stuck and we call ém pasties. Portuguese...that´s another story! Our Spanish skills have certainly helped here and we understand far more than I ever expected, but the language leaves me baffled. Sometimes I´m convinced it has to be the same as Spanish with just a really really different pronunciation (so many words are the same), and others I am just lost as the hills, as my mother would say. Anyway, Ihla do Mel was sweet, and I pretty much had to drag Joe away from it convincing him there were other beaches and more pasties elsewhere.

After an ill planned trip to Floranopolis that lasted a day (rainy, yucky big city, bad vibe), we decided to just go to Rio de Janiero and meet up with Joe´s Vail buddy, Pedro. We spent a week in Rio, and the best part for me was getting to chill and be normal... We spent a lot of time just hanging out in Pedro´s room, and were able to watch our man Obama win the election (we love CNN World News)!! We went to Cristo Rendedor, the famous enormous statue of Jesus overlooking the city. Unfortunately it was quite cloudy and the view was covered by a cloud field (we were getting quite tired of all of Brazil´s clouds by this point!). One night we went to a concert at Pedro´s university and got to experience some Brazilian samba. Pedro and his mom were fantastic hosts. They let us crash and we got to eat delicious homemade dinners (including Thai, Joe´s favorite!) for a couple of days! Rio is a very beautiful big city, built in between the ocean and mountains. Some parts are only a couple street between the two. Tall buildings occupy the landscape, which make it easy to miss the infamous favelas (extremely impoverished neighborhoods) covering the hills around the city. It´s a very stark and troubling contrast, one that I wish I had done more about than just look at.
After several days in the city, we were ready to go back to the beach! Joe and I went a couple hours south to a beach town called Trindade. Called the Emarld Coast, the beaches here were amazing. There were natural swimming pools, a small waterfall and swimming hole in the jungle, and perfect waves to play in. We spent 4 days here soaking in the sun (dodging some rain), enjoying the chill beach night life, and playing in the water. We then went to Ihla Grande, which certainly lives up to its name. The thing is huge, and although the whole thing is covered with hiking trails all accessing beaches, it is some what inaccessible based out of the town. Most wealthy tourists, of which there are many, take boat tours that take you to the many beaches around the island. We are not these people, and were left to walking. The first day we walked 9 hours - through very cool jungle - to no avail; not a single beach worthy of hanging out on (tides were to high or there was a village right on the coast). We did see two enormous iguanas, some small monkies, and a weird small mammal thing (no idea). The following day we did much better. We walked 2 hours and found a pretty nearly secluded beach. The best part of our time here was our accommodation. We randomly walked through this calm, tourist free neighborhood and found a room for rent in a house that had an outdoor kitchen attached. We only spent 3 days on Ihla Grande, but that was good enough for us.Wow. Is this ever long...

After Ihla Grande we headed very far North to Salavdor. It´s a large Africa-esque city bubbling over with culture. We stayed in the historical center of the city, which was filled with colorful detoriating buildings lining cobble stone streets. We were lucky enough to be there on a weekend when the streets are lively during the day and especially at night (everyday at night). There was live music ranging from reggae to samba to chill acoustic streaming out of every other doorway and plastic tables and chairs crowding the narrow streets. A crazy puppeteering festival was also in town, which was strange on principal, but incredibly artistic and cool. The street vendor food is also eccentric - women in traditional Brazilian-African dresses sit with four silver pots and dish out seafood dishes. It was a short trip, but well worth it.

We are now in Itacare, another beach town. It is much larger than any of the other places we have been to, but we have spent several tranquilo (our favorite Spanish adjective) days here. The beaches are beautiful. There are some close by and others that require an hour of hiking to get to. Again, we have found an incredible place to stay at, complete with patio and hammock, five minutes from the beach. Yesterday we managed to make cookies using our camping stove; truly a remarkable feat. We will spend one or two more days before heading back to Rio and setting off New Zealand!

Oh my goodness, this has taken forever! I have learned my lesson and promise to be better about blogging!! It´s just plain ridiculous! We are really enjoying our time here in Brazil, but we are incredibly stoked for New Zealand which we leave for in less than a week!! I´ll post more photos in Rio. You have just got to see these beaches!

The Patagonia Express

Hello there family and fellow blog readers! Sorry it has been so long since we last updated this. Unlike our usual routine, we have recently been traveling like true backpackers... sticking to a hectic schedule in order to cram as much into our itinerary as possible. When we last blogged we were headed north to Puerto Montt Chile in order to catch our ferry. We will pick up the story there with the help of some photos we have taken along the way.



Both of these pictures were taken while on board Navimag (the ship that transported us down the chillean fiords to true patagonia). The ride was excellent! It was nice to be able to relax while still taking in some of the most gorgeous scenery in the world. While on board courtney and I passed time by reading and getting to know our fellow passengers. The sunrises, and sunsets were out of this world, and it was an all around awesome experience!

After landing in Puerto Natales courtney and I had originally planned on heading straight to Torres del Paine National Park. Famously renowned as one of the most beautifully glaciated mountain regions in the world. There is a very famous backpacking loop through the park that takes five days and four nights, and the plan was to prepare for this trek as quickly as possible and get on the trail. As is the case with travleing, things rarely go as planned. When we arrived it was snowing and the temperature was well below freezing (sounds about right for how far south we are). We changed the plans and decided to head north to the town of Calafate and another world renowned National Park (Los Glaciars National Park in Argentina).

The southern part of the park is home to the perito moreno glaciar. One of the biggest in the world! Instead of taking the usual tourist route of jumping on a bus and spending a couple of hours at the park before returing back to town, we decided to hire a car with some european friends (two frenchies, and one dutch girl). This worked out amazingly well as we got to spend all day taking in the amazing sight. We saw the glaciar shed peices of ice about the size of a house into the lake below in an amazing display of natural force. The day was a bit hampered by rainfall, however it was much much better than camping as we would have been doing further south.
Following this adventure we headed further north in Los Glaciars National Park to the town of Chalten. Here we stayed with a hippie mountainer while making three day treks from our hostel in town. The first day we went to a sweet waterfall, that was an easy hike from town (you know us, courtney and I love a good waterfall). The second day we got incredibly lucky and woke up at dawn to clear skies! We hit the trail for 13 hours and took in some amazing views of the Fitz Roy mountain range. This mountain is also famous the world over for mountaineering, and its sheer beauty. I talked courtney into hiking up a closed trail to the base of the mountain, and boy was it worth it. One of the most gorgeous things I have ever seen in my life (but i say that at least once a week). Above is a picture of courtney at the top. After this crazy day i also managed to talk courtney into waking up at four in the morning for the third day, in order to take in sun rise from one of the amazing lakes we had visited on the previous day. We got lost in the dark, but managed to find the lake just in time to snap off a couple of those coveted sunrise pics. With the rest of the day we hiked to another crazy glacier and took a nap underneath Fitz Roy. What a couple of days!

Following the adventure in el chalten we headed back south to puerto natales to get ready to do the Torres del Paine trek that we had originally planned on doing several weeks before. The weather had turned for the better, and we lucked out with five amazing days! We hired out camping equipment and took in some of the most amazing mountain scenery in the world! Above are pictures of courtney and i on our way into the park on a catamaran with coffee in hand. Thats right i now drink coffee... not that i actually like it. The other two pictures were snapped off at sunrise on the fifth and final day in the park. On the way up the one hour ascent from our campsite courtney was quoted as saying this is worse than torture. We had gone about 70 miles in five days, so she was sort of right. I told her the best things in life were the most out of the way, and you can see throught these two pictures that this is indeed the case. We both agreed that our time in the park was absolutely amazing!

Now we are in Puerto Madryn argentina looking at some whales before heading to buenes aires in order to aquire a visa to make it into brazil. Sorry that the end of this post has been so abbreviated, the woman in this internet cafe is kicking me out. I have been stressed out about not getting to do this for so long and now it comes to this... such is traveling. Miss you all!

Bariloche Bliss

Our time in Bariloche has finally come to an end. Joe and I made this beautiful small town our home for a little over 3 weeks. We definetly fell for this town...good ski resort, homemade chocolate, hiking trails galore, breweries, and stunning views from all directions. Not to mention incredibly inexpensive housing and land. We are torn whether to go back and spend more time there, or keep moving forward as planned.

While I attempted to sharpen my Spanish skills, Joe chose to forego the classroom and headed to the hills! He spent time at the two local ski resorts (Catedral and Cerro Bayo). He said that the views from Catedral were the most spectacular mountain vistas he´s ever seen, and he´s seen quite a few. He did a lot of hiking at the top of Catedral, and got a lot of ¨freshies.¨ On days he was not snowboarding, he went hiking on some of the amazing nearby trails.

Joe and I went on several hikes together as well. Every hike lead us to beautiful, ¨wow¨ inspiring views. On one hike in particular, to the top of Cerro Llao Llao, we were enjoying yet another breathtaking view when a huge avalanche came thundering down a nearby mountain. We were likely the only people who saw it.

I took three weeks of Spanish classes while in Bariloche. I really liked it! I am a big dork and pretty much love learning...but the teachers were great and I was with only one other student the whole time. I definetly know much more Spanish, but my initally problem remains, I´m hesitant to talk to people. Joe always winds up as the communicator despite me knowing more Spanish. Got to work on that one. I also spent some time volunteering at a local night school for adults that had to drop out for whatever reason. They provided child care as well, and I spent evenings running around with crazy kiddos. It pretty much made me crazy, the kids were out of control, but I can now look back and be somewhat fond of my time there. It gave me time to experience the culture of the lower class in the town/Argentina, which I appreciated since we were living in tourist-drenched Bariloche.

We reluctantly left Bariloche on Saturday, and are now 4 hours south in Esquel. Yesterday, I finally joined Joe on the mountain and we went snowboarding at La Hoya. Today we are taking it easy, and tomorrow we leave for El Bolsón, a hippie town with lots of hiking 2 hours north!! Then on to Puerto Montt, Chile where we will take a ferry south for four days. In Joe´s words, ¨Patagonia es mi favorito.¨

Peace. Cor.

A Picture´s Worth a 1000 Words...

Las Leñas, Argentina.

Joe sat around for a week trying to get one day in at the top.

This was unsuccessful. :(

The most expensive hotel in Argentina´s private dock.

Joe spent a lazy afternoon taking it all in.

The view from the school Courtney volunteered at.

Staples of Bariloche.

Joe romping about at Lago Moreno, Haupi National Park.

Taking it all in. Cerro Llao Llao outside Bariloche.

Lago Nahuel Huapi. View from Puerto Pañuelo.

View from the top of Catedral Ski Center.

Cerro Companario at sunset.

Peninsula Valdez, Bosque de Arraynes National Park.

Laguna Patagua, Bosque de Arraynes National Park.

Photos!

Hey folks! I posted new pictures to the Picasa Web Album. There are some pics from Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile, but sadly many of the Santiago pictures were on the camera when it was stolen!! There are photos from some of Joe´s snowboarding adventures in Chile and Argentina, and also Mendoza, Argentina and our temporary home in beautiful Bariloche!

Blissfully Enjoying the Nothing

Disclaimer: This is bound to not be too incredibly exciting. I don´t do much these days...

We FINALLY left Chile!! I was beyond ready for this because, as Joe mentioned in the last post, I was doing a whole lot of twiddling my thumbs in Chile while he was off gallivanting on mountain tops. The best thing that I got out of my short and uneventful time there was a renewed sense of ¨I can do this,¨ which to me was worth the week and a half of twiddling. Peru was exhausting, really. We were sick, homesick, and sick of the food. The weight of ten months seemed unbearable, and we both began to waiver in our belief that we could make it to Asia. We will inevitably have some more homesick slumps, but we´re feeling capable again!

Our first couple of days in Argentina were spent in Mendoza, a sweet smaller city mainly popular for it´s local vineyards. We drank a lot of really good, really cheap wine...¨When in Rome.¨ We rented a tandem bike (yes, we´re tourists) in the Maipu Valley and went to some ¨bodegas,¨ wineries. Joe went snowboarding the next day in Penitentes, and that night I took off for Bariloche.

Joe has been waiting on snow and lifts to function at Las Leñas, and is doing a little of what I did in Chile (i.e., nothing) in the meantime in a town called Malargue.

Bariloche hasn´t gone exactly according to plans for me. I was supposed to meet with the director of the school I´m going to be volunteering at on Tuesday, but, in typical South American-ness, things didn´t work out as planned. He wont be able to meet me until hopefully Monday (fingers crossed)! So...I´ve been doing some more hanging out. This town will be our home for the next three weeks, and we picked a pretty good one I´d say. It´s stunningly beautiful. The town sits on a lake, and is surrounded by towering snow capped mountains and even more lakes. Pictures to come...We now have to share a camera because of the turd that stole our other one. The only thing that would make it better would be if were Summer, not the end of Winter (in my opinion!). It´s snowing as I type. There isn´t too much to do beyond ski at the local resort, which is lacking in good snow. I have managed to find some hiking trails that aren´t too wet, and in a couple weeks we should have a chance to do more outdoorsy things. Joe should be meeting me here in a couple of days and I start Spanish classes on Monday. I got good on the horizon.

Peace. Cor.

I love Snow

Well, where do we begin? Courtney and I successfully navigated our way from southern peru to santiago chile. It only ended up taking five days on a bus with one night stay at a cheap hotel sandwiched in. It wasn't too bad though, nice and relaxing after our hectic schedule in peru.

Courtney and my experiences here in chile have been quite different. We arrived a little more than a week ago and spent several days touring the city and getting our bearings. Highlights of this time include a trip to the local science museum (very very impressive), an amazing night out for thai food, and a day long trip to metro park.

Following this I departed for the mountains to go snowboarding! The first day I met up with my peruvian friends Jose and Alejandro and made a trip to Valle Nevado, the largest ski resort in chile. The morning was a bit crazy as it pretty much dumped snow on us for four hours. In the states I generally love riding in the snow because you always get first tracks and can hide in the trees a bit. Down here this is not the case. It was freezing, there were NO trees to seek shelter in, and I had no idea if I was about to fall off the side of the mountain or not. A bit of a dicey morning. All was made up for when the sun decided to come out in the afternoon! Breath taking views of some of the most gorgeous mountains I have ever seen, not to mention fresh powder (lots of it). After the day riding I had the bus driver drop me off in a small town called farrelleones and attempted to find a hostal I had made reservations at. This did not work and I wound up walking around town for several hours before finding a place that had beds and was more affordably priced. This place was amazing!! The woman who worked there made the best meals I have had in south america, there was a hot shower (extremely uncommon down here), and I could walk to the ski slopes. Pretty much a dream come true.

The next day was probably a top 10 day in my life, however it didn't start out that way. I woke up and paid way too much money to rent crappy snowboarding boots, sort of misplaced my debit card, spent tons of money on a lift pass, and got my backpack stuck on the lift for the first time in my life. After I was done with these shanagagans things definitely turned around. I found myself in an amazing back bowl of el colorado all to myself with two plus feet of fresh snow! Apparently people in south america don't like to ski in powder, this has been good news for me! The sun was shinning and everything was perfect. The next day was much of the same.

Following these three epic days I headed to Valparaiso (a chilean coastal town courtney had made her way to). We got rained in for two days and learned about the closing of the pass that we needed to take to get to Argentina four days ago. Valparaiso had a cool vibe though and we met a lot of fun people in our hostal.

This brings us to where we are now... back in santiago. I had another epic day of riding yesterday at la parva. However courtney is getting a bit irritated about being stuck in santiago while I go spend our entire budget on lift tickets to fancy andean resorts. The pass is supposed to open tomorrow and I am going to ride at Portillo on our way over to Mendoza. Then head south as planned and do some more riding at a variety of resorts. Courtney will be volunteering in Bariloche earlier than initially planned, and hopefully everything will work out. That pass better open soon though!

P.S. I had my camera stolen in Valparaiso so the jungle pics aren't going to happen. So sad. This was a devestating loss for team america (the name in which courtney and I have been appointed during our travels). I like the name, not the fact that I don't have a camera.

The Jungle!

This last week courtney and i were fortunate enough to visit the amazon rainforest! Pretty crazy, i know. Ever since i was in fifth grade i wanted to be a rainforest biologist because i thought that the artificial one we had created in our class room was just about the coolest thing on earth. My life long dream has now been realized...

As courtney elluded to in the earlier post, we were about to board a 18 hour bus ride to puerto maldonado (a very remote town in the middle of the peruvian amazon rainforest). This bus ride ended up taking 23 hours due to having the bus break down at three in the morning during the middle of an intense downpoor, and several rockslides. Courtney wasn´t in her usual chipper mood, but i found it all in good humor, we were going to a tropical RAINforest. After arriving in the city we settled in to a hostal and attempted to find a well priced tour. This wasn´t as easy as anticipated, however, two days later we had booked a tour and eaten our fair share of jungle ice cream (which is quite good).

The tour was a blast! Our first big activity was wandering through the forest at night with flashlights in search of crazy insects and animals. We were successful and saw several stick insects, beautiful butterflies, three different types of frogs, tarantulas, and many other weird exotic creatures. The next day we woke up early and took a boat up river for a trek into a lake deep in the rainforest. We saw wild alligators, learned about the delicate ecosystem, and cannoed for a good couple hours. Following this we went to an island in which wild monkeys live, and went looking for alligators at night time. Once again we were successful in seeing both animals! The next day we went to a turtle hatchery, learned about the site, did a canopy walk, saw more wild monkeys, and tasted some of the exotic locally grown produce. All good fun!

The next day courtney got attacked by killer jungle insects! She yelled so loud that natives on the other side of the river ran to her aid, and it was a good thing they did because i didn´t have the damndest clue of what to do when your girlfriend is being attacked by crazy insects in the middle of the jungle. After a morning of relaxing to alliviate the headache that ensued, we headed off on our way to take a bus back to cusco (apparently we had not learned our lesson the first time around). This bus ride ended up taking us 28 hours due to another rockslide. What great fun! Directly after getting off of this bus we boarded another bound for arequipa again. This is where we are now.

We are picking up a snowboard from my good friend jose, and making our way south to chile and argentina. I plan on snowboarding for two or three weeks, at a variety of resorts. Courtney is hoping to find a volunteer oportunity prior to our spanish classes in bariloche argentina that begin on the 1st of september. Despite the long bus rides, and killer insects i certainly enjoyed my time in the jungle!

Mas Picturas!

So this seems to be the easiest way to share photos with you all. I´ll keep posting them on Picasa as we travel!

http://picasaweb.google.com/CourtneyMcAlister

Walk Like an Inca

Wow. Where to begin!? We left Arequipa about a week ago after spending two more days in the city with Joe´s friend Jose. I spent one of those days in bed sick...quite fun.

We then headed off to Puno, about 4 hours from Arequipa where Lake Titicaca is, with Jose and one of his friends. The drive there was probably the best part. The landscape here is amazing and so different from Colorado! Many of the roads are higher than any of our mountains back home. In Puno, we took a boat out onto the lake and visited a group of islands called Los Uros. It was very touristy and made you keep thinking ¨Is this for real?¨ It´s so hard to describe, we´ll have to post a photo. They´re called the ¨floating islands,¨which they kind of do, but not technically. Eveything - huts, the ground, boats, etc.- is built from long grass and is the same yellow-tan color. There were so many tourist and the community appears to be soley focused on tourism. I have heard that they have other islands tourists don´t go to, and I can only hope that this is true, otherwise none of their original culture has been maintained.

After Puno, we went to the oh so popular city of Cusco. Jose´s family in Arequipa contacted more family in Cusco who welcomed us into their home! We love getting to stay with families! We get to practice Spanish, learn more about the culture, and meet new people. We spent a day in the city and visited some close Inca ruins. Joe´s friend Martha from Colorado is also in Peru right now, and we met up with her and a friend. It was really great to hang out with some Colorado folks, made us feel a little closer to home! Last Thursday we embarked on the first organized tour of the trip to Macchu Picchu! It began with a 48km downhill mountain bike ride to Santa Theresa. The next day we hiked about 26km to a town called Santa Theresa. The hike was pretty intense, but beautiful. We stopped for lunch at this random house in the jungle and got to pick mandarinas and avocados right off the trees!! That night we went to hot springs, which seemed crazy to us as we were dripping with sweat during the trek, but it ended up being a wonderful end to the long day. The next day we took a very short and very expensive bus ride outside of the town to the train station, which we could of walked. Our guide, Papito as he asked to be called - it´s like calling someone ¨amigo¨, was a nice guy who was new to the whole being a guide thing and didn´t really get it. It caused several problems, one being this ridiculously over priced bus. From the train station we walked a couple hours along the tracks to Aguas Calientes, the city below the Macchu Picchu ruins. That day we hiked Montaña Feliz - Happy Mountain, which overlooks the Macchu Picchu ruins. It was a sweet, but tough hike comprised of wooden ladders, one about ten stories high, and rock stairs. The view was absolutely amazing and worth the leg pain. The next morning we woke up at 3.45 and walked to Maachu Picchu. Now, I for one thought when people said, ¨it´s about a 1 to 2 hour walk¨, they meant it was a nice stroll to the ruins...more stairs. An hour and a half of more stairs. Worth the pain of course once we saw the awe inspiring view of the ruins and mountains. We spent 9 hours there, but decided not to climb Waynapicchu or Macchupicchu because we were just spent form the past few days. I kept thinking, ¨I can´t believe I am really here.¨ For me, Macchu Picchu was always synonymous with Peru, and even after being here for several weeks, seeing it really affirmed that I was here...weird I know. So, the first tour was overall pretty darn good. It´s a good way to meet people, and we did meet some pretty neat ones.

We are now back in Cusco for another day and a half. Tomorrow we will leave for Puerto Maldonado, a gateway city to the jungle! It´s an 18 hour bus ride!! Until then we are laying low, resting, doing the internet thing and some laundry.

Cor

PHOTOS!!!

Hi guys! Not too much has happened since the last post... We attempted to hike this big canyon (Colca), but got lost! the town it was in was very cool though and they had this HUGE festival going on. They all wore very traditional fancy outfits, danced like maniacs, and shot off fireworks. We are now at Joe´s friend Jose´s house (another Vail friend) and plan to spend a day or two more in Arequipa before heading down to Puno, where lake Titicaca is.
Peace, Cor

The crazy art warehouse in Miami


El Parque de Amor (the love park), Lima


Plaza de Armas, Lima with Laura and Giovanni


Ballestas Islas, Paracas


Sleeping at the bus station, Arequipa


View from hostal in Arequipa of the Misti Volcano


Streets of Pisco


Plaza de Armas, Arequipa


Joe at the Colca Canyon