Another day, another border crossing...

Hola from Peru! Yep, after a quick two week sprint through Bolivia I am currently in Puno, just enjoyed a lovely hostel dinner with two other solo traveling California ladies (first Californians I have hung out with in the past 3 months of travel!)and tomorrow morning I am off on an all day bus tour to Cuzco! I am really excited to get to Cuzco where I will first be meeting up with my friend Suzie who I met in Buenos Aires and then on the 10th one of my SF besties Erin will be flying to meet me. Two days later we set off on a 5 day alternative Inca Trail Trek, the Salkantay route. Ahhhh, so ready for this epic adventure! Climbing, camping, and craziness to come...

Bolivia is a beautiful country and although I only spent 2 weeks I am happy with what I was able to see... salt flats, desert, charming cities, amazing lush/jungle scenery on a bike ride down "the most dangerous road", and a gorgeous lake. The past 3 days were spent on Lake Titicaca, which is an amazing body of water. Copacabana was an ok little town to hang out in for a few days - the actual waterfront is not the nicest but amazing views from up on the mountain and yesterday I took a boat ride to Isla del Sol, an island in the middle of the lake which was the supposed birthplace of the Incan sun god. The island itself is home to villages and farming communities and many ruins, which I spent the day exploring. I really enjoyed the stunning landscapes from high atop the hills, and a really great 3 hour hike from the north of the island to the south.











The two highlights of my time in La Paz were conquering the "Death Road" bike ride, and funny enough, celebrating Holland's Queens Day. Our traveling circus of 8 led by Eric and Tom, our Dutch cultural guides, went out all out to celebrate April 30th. I am determined to get to Holland for it next year because it was that fun. Everyone in orange, cheesy Dutch pop songs, streamers and confetti, face painting of the Dutch flag, Heineken, and great dancing. I was unofficially voted "Best fake Dutchgirl" because I was just loving it...my ode to all the fabulous Dutch I have met during my travels.




As for the "World's Most Dangerous Road", I'll go ahead and let wikipedia fill you in with the deets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Road

One of the must-do's for South American backpackers, beautiful, exhilarating, and insanely dramatic cliffs. I definitely had some trepidations about doing it but at the last minute I went for it - and SO glad I did. We set out early in the morning in a van carrying our bikes and gear up to the top of the mountain and it was POURING and freezing, to add another special element to the precarious route. Within seconds of starting out on our bikes my shoes were filled with water and I was drenched with water and mud. At first there was a fog layer present that made it so you couldn't see just how ridiculous the cliffs were, which was possibly a good thing for me, but eventually the rain stopped, fog lifted, and WOW. There I was coasting down the smallest, steepest road in existence. I was literally laughing out loud about how crazy/beautiful it all was, as I bumped along the gravel, conquering my fear of falling from high places. I never felt scared, or like I was going to lose control and fly off the cliff because the bikes are excellent and you can go as slow or fast as you want in order to make it down the mountain. The company that took 6 of us up for the downhill adventure was great as well. It was a really special, adrenaline-filled day. I didn't take pics but here are some I stole from others and stay tuned for the photos from the CD we were given with shots that the guides took of us and the scenery. I am the helmeted one on the right, and the one making all flagrant gestures...

Salar de Uyuni!

Way behind on the events over here but the jeep expedition to Salar de Uyuni was a great success! Our guide Jona was a soft-spoken 20 year old Bolivian who navigated us safely and comfortably through the desert and graciously endured our 2000 stops for “pipi” or photos. There are so many companies to choose from in order to do this trek and everyone walked away feeling like we chose a winner. Go with Cordillera, people! They did a great job. I had imagined way colder and rougher conditions for the trek but it was really quite easy. Spending several hours in the jeep bumping along the terrain was fun, obtaining my $135 Bolivian visa was a breeze, and the altitude that I was worried about didn’t phase me. On the first day crossing the border into Bolivia we were at 5000 meters and most of the crew wasn’t feeling too great. Other than feeling slightly light headed on the first night when we got to our lodging I have been altitude sickness free! I finally tried chewing the ubiquitous Bolivian coca leaf, which many travelers swear is helping them deal with the altitude in Bolivia and Peru. It is sold in every form imaginable and although I’m not exactly sure what it really does, a few leaves in warm water makes for a nice green tea of sorts.

Our jeep group of 6 joined with another jeep of 4 from the same company, so it was 10 of us in total on the same route, sharing same meals and lodging for the 2 nights. It was a really cool, easy-going group and beyond seeing the most incredible landscape ever we had fun playing cards, listening to music, and taking 50000 photos...






Our lodging in a hotel made of salt



Quinoa growing everywhere










So we ended this Salar de Uyuni trip about 14 days ago and since then our traveling circus/dysfunctional family of 6 has been quite busy... we have seen the town of Uyuni, Potosi, Sucre, and now am in capital city of La Paz. After hearing so many mixed tales of Bolivia I must say I have been pleasantly surprised. Potosi and Sucre were beautiful cities, lovely and helpful people, cute little winding streets/colonial architecture. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much in Sucre because I was beat down for a few days after food or water or something did a number on my system. Everyone gets struck down in Peru of Bolivia at some point, and well, my bout came pretty much as a Bienvenidos a Bolivia. Back to normal now though and am really enjoying Bolivian food...quinoa galore, llama, and excellent soups. AND everything is SO much cheaper here, which has been a relief on the ol' budget. After seeing sights of La Paz I am off to Copacabana tomorrow morning, Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca, and then it is on to Cusco to meet Erin for our 5 day Salkantay Machu Picchu Trek!!!

Much more love from Bolivia coming soon... Besos!

Bolivia or bust...

My 6 day bus adventure through northern Chile has come to an end (see below for photos!) and I am currently relaxing in a charming little town called San Pedro de Atacama. It am literally in a wild west movie set right now… in the middle of the desert, tiny adobe rows of artisan shops, hostels, tour agencies, and then local homes once you get off the main street. In the high season I can’t even imagine how over-run with tourists it must get. During the day there are locals roaming around going about their daily business, but apparently 85% are gringos running errands and organizing treks. Despite the backpacker wonderland it feels really peaceful and the desert scenery is beautiful. And the stars!!! The visibility is incredible, with the Milky Way is illuminated like I have never seen before. Today I rented a bike with new pals Phil and Frank and had a great time cycling through the desert. No roads, literally riding our bikes through dried up river beds and uphill for a great vista. Then after this 5 hour adventure some of us hopped on a bus to swim in a salt lagoon about 30 min. out of town. Cold water but so fun floating! You cannot even dunk yourself under the water, you just pop right back up. Once we stopped shivering and had dried off our bodies and hair were completely covered with a layer of dried white salt. A bizarre feeling. Then the bus took us to a small nearby salt flat for sunset which was so amazing..those pics are not included below unfortunately. In the past week I have experienced the most unique and breathtaking sunsets of my life! Chile is truly a beautiful country and I know I will return. I have been so impressed by the people and places I have seen and to think I almost didn't get to experience it this time around!

I was getting a bit stir-crazy being with the 16 person bus group for 6 days (I have NO idea how people do it for months at a time, yiiiiiikes!) so the end came at a perfect time for me. It was a great way to see some seriously amazing places that I never would have gotten to see on my own though, and I have teamed up with a great crew from the larger group to head onward with on Sunday - the 4x4 jeep trek into Bolivia!!! I have really been looking forward to this part of my adventure and I am so happy to have found a really good group of people to do it with - enter Phil, Shama, and Sohail (married couple) all from England, Ryan from US (Annapolis, Maryland), and Frank from Germany - who has been traveling with Phil. It will literally be bloody awesome, and I quite fancy taking some brilliant photos with them! Hehe, I have been jokingly poking fun at the British vernacular and after our fantastic 3 day jeep voyage I will surely emerge an honorary Brit. So, tomorrow morning, vamos! 3 days and 2 nights, during which a guide will drive us 6 and all our supplies across the border into Bolivia, eventually arriving at the largest Salt Flats in the world - Salar de Uyuni. On our way we stop at several points of interest, including bright green lagoons, flamingo habitats, huuuge cacti, swim in hot springs, and see wildlife. All 4 guys I am traveling with are amazing photogs with impressive cameras, so hoping to learn a thing or two and score some sweet photos to share with you all! :)

Please check out some of my pics from the past week, uploaded to Flicker!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47573664@N05/sets/72157623747975883/

Off to the desert...

Yes, it has been awhile, but I am alive and well!!! No pics this time even though I have 5 mil to share, but not enough time in this quick stopover with internet access. Coming soon I promise!

Saturday morning I said goodbye to Santiago and headed off on a 6 day bus adventure with a small travel company called Pachamama that runs the entire length of Chile only. I'm in a small van with 14 others and a funny guide named Yerson and we stop to see sights all along the northern coast, eventually getting me to San Pedro de Atacama - the world’s driest desert! I have been really excited about this place after hearing how much other travelers have enjoyed it. Last night and tonight we are in cabins in this reaaaally isolated little beach called Bahia Inglesa. The group is really fun and currently we are about to go get supplies for tonight´s beach BBQ.

Chile has been a really nice change of pace after my journey through Argentina. Santiago was a great city and it was nice to set the ol’ mochila down for more than 4 days, in a standout hostel that became like my home away from home. La Casa Roja is an amazing converted mansion that fits a ton of travelers but yet still maintains a cozy feel. It is beautiful architecturally, with 2 courtyards, full backyard with pool, and a fully stocked professional kitchen. The hostels I have loved have been ones with a kitchen culture, people from all over the world whipping up some really impressive meals. Well this one tops them all I would say, and I was lucky to befriend a man named Luis from Brazil right upon arrival who everyone called the chef of the house unofficially because of all the time and effort he was putting into cooking, and I joined him for a lot of it. It was really fun going to the central market to purchase all sorts of local meats and fish and then acting as sous chef to prepare the hostel feasts- like a free cooking class for me! This Luis was seriously a character, and our dorm became a little dysfunctional family of sorts. We had Javier, a guy from Santiago who has been living in the hostel for 2 months to “work on his English” and sets up his “office” every day outside in the courtyard, complete with a lamp, headphones and audio exercises on his computer. The shining stars were the two amazing chicas, Kristiana (Bulgarian from Denmark) and Natasha (Colombiana from Holland), lovingly called Shakira because of the resemblance. They are both traveling alone as well and both 20, which I was shocked to find out because they are both so wise for their age, and such independent spirits who have logged a really impressive amount of world traveling already. Truly global gals, and we had a lot of fun together. Natasha will be in Colombia when I go so we have planned to meet there eventually.

So what else did I do in my 2 weeks in Santiago? Well, of course I had to do another bike tour - my absolute favorite way to learn a city, and this time the bikes were green. I seriously wanted this bike for my own… my fave shade of green with a cute little white basket and bell, cruising around town….yes! We had a fabulous guide Glen who told us a ton about Chile’s difficult political past and showed us some really beautiful areas of the city. I fell in love with Santiago that day. It is SO clean, the parks and plazas are incredibly Euro and beautiful, and the public transportation is amazing. After 2 months of Argentina’s pollution spewing buses and BA’s subpar metro this place is like a dream. Top 5 subway system in the world and I loved it. Again, so clean, so easy, and trains come what feels like every 30 seconds.

I also took a day trip to Valparaiso. I had been excited to check out this funky little port town for awhile now, and a 1.5 bus ride in and out the same day was perfect amount of time to roam the streets. It is famous for its cobbled hills with funiculars, the beautiful street murals/graffiti, and brightly colored homes… it has been referred to as the SF of South America because of the hills, the water, and the bohemian feel. A really cool little city and we went with a group of Chileans that Kristiana had met, and it was nice to have local guides.

Ok, off to go find my bus peeps. Hasta pronto amigos!

P.S. Check out this crazy video on you tube…. Footage of my Santiago hostel captured during the earthquake!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8a8RXe1fdY

P.P.S. Last week marked my 2 months on the road anniversary! 2 months, still going strong :)

FarmFAIL, Ruta del Vino, and traversing the Andes...

Soooo, about that 2 weeks on the farm...

I actually only ended up staying 2 days because let's just say it was not a welcoming place for enthusiastic volunteers like myself. Unfortunately everything on the website was a thing of the past and now it is a pretty depressing place. A few years back a fire destroyed the volunteer house, the husband lost it, ran off to Buenos Aires leaving wife and two young kids behind. Immediately upon my arrival the woman (from the US) gave me a rant about the sad tale and several expletives about her ex and I realized that no one comes to this place to volunteer anymore - for a reason. Then she invited me in to sit in their little shack and I played with the two kids who were pretty cute (3 and 8)and despite the underlying weirdness of the whole sitch I was still feeling motivated to help out...whatever that was going to entail. In the dark with a tiny flashlight I made my way up the hill to my, umm, lodging. It was rainy and windy and there I was in what used to be a loft barn. No animals on the farm anymore because like I said, this "farm" doesn't really exist anymore, so you can erase any images of me curled up next to horsies and rabbits. It was pretty ridiculous though, and I am still laughing/shivering thinking when I picture myself there.

My first full day of work involved digging up and transplanting currant bushes, then fertilizing with heaps of fresh manure from a nearby grazing horse borrowed from a neighbor. Day two, after a full day of preparing beds for planting and then planting a ton of garlic I started losing steam quickly because of the really bad vibe I was getting from the woman and the place. I felt like I was more in the way than anything, she seemed annoyed by me being there even though I was doing a lot for her and the WHOLE time she was off somewhere on her cell phone talking to a boyfriend in Buenos Aires. It was so bizarre, so not the farm volunteer experience I was looking for, plus I wasn't feeling so great so I told the woman I had to leave. It was kind of awkward, she called me a taxi and I made my way to a hostel in town. THEN the next day as I was heading to a bus out of town they pulled up right in front of the bench I was sitting on. Super awkward. The kids got out of the car and came running towards me, shouting "Jenny!!" and the woman told me the best place to buy a ticket to Mendoza. Farm #1 = fail, BUT I have gotten some leads on places that look much better for what I am looking to do in terms of farm volunteering/learning, so we shall see.

When I fled the farm I decided to hightail it north to Mendoza, the Napa of Argentina, and treated myself to a nice hostel with a pool. Ahh, the weather was my idea of perfect- dry, sunny and warm - very Fresno late spring, so I was loving it. There was a really fun asado (BBQ) at the hostel Friday night, a meat + vino feast by the pool with everyone who was staying there. Great fun... excellent food, pool, ping-pong, and hilarious convos with new Aussie friends - just what I needed to recover from farmfail 2010.

Saturday I spent the entire day on bike touring the vineyards of Mendoza along the "Ruta del Vino." There are tons of bigger, fancier ones to visit, but I LOVED checking out these family run, artisan wineries instead. I've only seen the large-scale models of Napa so this was quite a different experience and I learned a lot about the wine-making process. AND you can tool around from winery to winery doing tours and tastings on bike! Pretty great. I really enjoyed the city of Mendoza itself as well. Pretty plazas, a cute center square area, and a relaxed vibe. A lovely 4 days.






THEN, I decided to change my plans up again and see central/northern Chile after all. So today I hopped on a 7 hour bus, had an amazing day watching the scenery change as the bus crossed over the Andes, went through a super quick border crossing, and here I am at a hostel in Santiago! Not to fear, it has been business as usual in this area for awhile now, and after getting the consensus of many fellow backpackers I decided I had to see Santiago, Valparaiso and the northern coast, eventually getting to the desert of San Pedro de Atacama where I will start a 3 day trek of the famous salt flats, crossing into Bolivia to see Salar de Uyuni.

Excited to start my city exploration tomorrow!

Buenos dias, Bariloche!

Another beautiful day, another endearing town and waaaay too much to report that I am a little overwhelmed sitting down to write a post - which will inevitably be the longest thing ever, so bear with me!

First things first, pics of my wild glacier trek in El Chalten! I set off at 7 am and returned at 7pm, a FULL day of hiking which definitely surpassed my craziest/longest/hardest hike ever record. It was a hilarious group, me and 5 Spanish-speaking males - the whole day was in Spanish, two Argentinos and three Spaniards. By the end we were buddies and they all congratulated me over and over for my ability to gracefully put up with being the only chica en el grupo de los machos for a really long and difficult day of hiking. I will never forget the act of walking on a glacier - it was like exploring another planet! Once we arrived to the glacier after about 4 hours straight of uphill climbing we put on crampons and set off onto the ice. It was pretty scary at first but once I got a feel for how much the crampons really hold you to the ice it was SO fun!



Arriving at frozen tundra... time for crampons!



Our guide ice picking footholds for us....yikes!

Cuidadoooooo!

Ummm, ice climbing? Who am I?!

Wheeeee!

On our descent into town we happened upon a rodeo, gauchos in full effect!!!

El Chalten was a really rustic, tiny town set in a dramatic valley below the beautiful Fitz Roy peaks and I met two great girls from Colorado in my hostel, Hannah and Amy. We really hit it off, cooked some amazing dinners, and shared stories of travel and life. I was having a lot of fun with them and hopefully can meet up again somewhere along the trail.

Currently I am in Bariloche in the gorgeous lake district of Argentina, arrived Wednesday after a 36 hour bus ride - yes, you read that right. I will officially be unfazed by any travel distance from here on out and have graduated to South American bus traveler extraordinaire. I actually find it really fun, love seeing the scenery change, chatting with randoms, listening to music, working through my Spanish novel and practice books from school. Bus travel is really relaxing for me and it usually puts me right to sleep. So yes, got in on Wednesday and when I arrived to the hostel my German friend Connie who I traveled with in the glacier land was sitting on the couch. I didn’t know she would still be here and I am in Bariloche sooner than expected so it was a nice surprise. Oh the gringo trail, it is such a funny little circuit. Immediately upon arrival we went out with another girl who we met in Ushuaia and her friend for St. Patty’s Day. Definitely the most festive St. Patty’s I’ve ever had, complete with shamrock face painting and green beer at a local pub and a great band/multicultural dance party. Good times.

Today I went on the most amazing hike, and I swear I feel like I keep saying that but then keep topping it somehow! Connie and I set off early and were able to catch the gorgeous pink sunset that you see in the picture above (taken from our hostel balcony, yeah this place is fabulous) and took a local bus to the trail head of our chosen hike. OMG, perfect hiking weather, the lake was so still, 2 hours up to the most amazing vista at Refugio Lopez - cutest little pink place where you can stay overnight or enjoy food while passing through on a hike. We sat in the sun with our legs dangling off the ledge just in complete awe of the view while condors circled overhead. It was indescribably peaceful, definitely had a moment up there. We headed back down from our new favorite place in the world and walked a few miles down the main road to Colonia Suiza, a tiny little Swiss village right by the lake. Not much there, but we sat on the dock and again marveled at the beauty of this lake. I have obviously seen lakes but this lake area has something special. The water is clearer, the green is greener, there aren’t 5000 boats, and it feels really untouched by humans. We got off the bus at a recommended local cerveceria that crafts up their own brews. Happy hour as the sun set on the back patio alongside a lush meadow/bog of sorts…. What a day.




Tomorrow is my last day in this lovely lake land and then I set off for adventures… in farming!!! Sunday I am taking a bus 2 hours to a tiny little town called El Bolson, the Berkeley of Argentina, where I will be living and working on a farm for 2 weeks. The farm is called Chacra del Cielo and I have been arranging my stay with a nice woman named Rosa for the past month or so… Ahhh excited! Check it out: http://www.chacraelcielo.com.ar/
They no longer have the cabin and house for volunteers so Rosa offered me their barn, with a mattress and blankets. Cost free lodging for 2 weeks in a barn on an organic farm in Argentina. Love it. I will most likely be off the grid during this time but at least you know exactly where I will be and will report to town with photos and stories just as soon as I can pull myself away from the farm bounty:)

Buenas noches, mis queridos amigos y familia!