Circle Of Life

From the day we arrive on the planet, And blinking, step into the sun.There's more to see than can ever be seen. More to do than can ever be done. There's far too much to take in here. More to find than can ever be found.But the sun rolling high.Through the sapphire sky. Keeps great and small on the endless round.

It's the Circle of Life. And it moves us all. Through despair and hope. Through faith and love. Till we find our place. On the path unwinding. In the Circle. The Circle of Life.

I can't help but to think about the Lion King as my travels come to an end. I am sitting in Cafe Cuiles in Oaxaca City where I started out, making a full circle. Pocahontas always reminds us that we are, "In a circle, a hoop that never ends". With the help of Disney characters I am trying to process what the hell has just happened over these last 8 months. Sitting in this exact same cushioned bench in this Cafe 4 months ago I sent my thesis in and graduated. I have seen a llama birth, I have jumped off a bridge, I have biked down the Worlds Most Dangerous Road, exploted dynamite, found the lost city, climbed to elevations I have never gotten to before, battled a million mosquitos and a giant jelly fish, and put a tarantula on my face. And after all of that, I find myself sitting in the same place I started. I am no Walt Whitman, but that seems pretty metaphorical.

After leaving my friend Naomi behind in Guatamala, I traveled a horridly long time to Puerto Escondido to catch a couple more waves before heading to Oaxaca city. Of all the coastlines I have seen on my journey, I still keep coming back to the pacific side of Mexico. Puerto Escondido is a larger beach town with everything you need, from overpriced cafes that serve soy lattes to delicious fresh fish to cheap beers to half naked people walking around without shirts and no shoes. It reminds me of Santa Cruz with the surfer bum attitude, but mixed with locals and more tranquilo surrounding beaches where there is nothing but white sand beaches and expansive skies.

I conviniently got into Puerto Escondido and met these two other Mexican chicks, Rym and Sarah, who I spent the next couple of days with. Both super awesome chicks. I got to listen to Sarah play her guitar and sing La Bamba probably a hundred times. Good thing she is really talented, or else I probably would have killed myself listening to that song over and over again. Rym and I have already made plans to come back to Puerto in September and dedicate ourselves to the waves. Haven't told my parents yet... Invites are open for whoever else wants to come and learn to surf!

With these two girls I found a gem of a beach: Chacahua. It is a couple hours from Puerto where the Laguna hits the ocean. We convinently met a senora on the truck heading out there and stayed two nights in her house sleeping on her hammocks. Only paid for the fabulous lunch of fresh fish and shrimp her sons caught that day. Spent the days sun burning on the beach, playing music around fire circles and learning how to hula hoop. I have decided that I would be that much cooler if I was a professional hula hooper dancer. Good thing my hips dont lie like Shakiras.

After a while in Puerto I started to freak out and realize that I was really close to the end of my trip and wanted to get myself back to Oaxaca to see my man there. Mexicans claim that they are not latinos and are part of Northern America and not latin america. However, I am pretty sure that the way Gerardo dances salsa, eats lots of spicy food, speaks only spanish, and calls me mi princesa and mi amor, he seems way more "latino" than "north american". I know no one from North America that eats that many tortillas in one sitting. Not really sure why they do not consider themselves latino. Must be political or something. Anyways, coming back to Oaxaca and seeing him after 4 months was a little bit of a strange transition. To lighten the load we headed back to Puerto together, hoping that the waves and hot sand would bring us close again. He is a really fantastic guy, someone who will be in my life forever in some way or another even with the distance separating us. I also predict he will be famous one day for winning Americans Best Dance Crew, latin version of course.

I got the worst fucking hair cut ever a couple of days ago. I went to Gerardo's gay haircutter, who looks like a really large women with oversized lips. My hair had not been cut in 6 months and was turning into one giant dread lock, so I really needed a cut. I really was loving my long hair though, and when this horrid haircutter women/man chopped off like half my hair I almost cried. I am still having a hard time getting over the tragedy. I refuse to ever again get a haircut in a foreign country when you cant explain properly what you want for lack of communication. I have the ugliest bangs now too, its like an animal growing from the top of my head, all sticky uppy. i will just have to get it all cut off and get a cute little haircut when i get home at a real salon. A new haircut for a new phase of my life i suppose.

I plan to bring reggaeton back to the states in full force when i come back. i really hope it goes over just a well at home as it does here.

The ambulance system in Oaxaca is really shitty. Gerardo and I were the sole witnesses the other night to a drunk man crashing hard on his bike/cart carrying elotes (a oaxacan street food of corn off the cob with loads of mayo...surprisingly delicious). Corn flying everywhere he came crashing down hitting his head hard. MIO for spinal. Thanks to Wilderness First Responder class I quickly ran to protect his spinal cord. While we watched the ambulance pass by us twice (apparently the police didnt communicate to the ambulance about where we were very well) a religious man came over and asked the half conscious man if he was catholic. the man rubbed some wierd shit on his forehead and told him that jesus would protect and cure him. So corn covering the street, a man mio for spinal, breath smelling heavily of alcohol, a priest protecting him with the essence of god, and the ambulance circling around trying to find the scene. I couldnt help but laugh. At least its good to know that God will always protect us if the ambulance is late to arrive.

Its mango season here in Mexico and I have eaten like a million already. I will miss the abundance of tropical fruit here.

I also finally ordered this fat piece of chocolate cake from a Cafe Brujula in Oaxaca. I have though about this piece of chocolate cake since I laid eyes on it 2 years ago when I first came to Oaxaca. I finally treated myself!

After 8 months of being away from home, I have tried to reflect on the meaning of all of this; seeing unbelievable sites, graduating, meeting amazing people on route, creating my own path. I am having a difficult time trying to come up with a conclusion for it all, but I don't think I really can because more than anything it doesn't feel like an end. It just feels like all part of my life, building memories and experiences. More than anything, I have learned that with a little confidence and a smile I can independently make my way in this crazy world. Although, without the support of the people who love me I would not have been able to financially nor mentally be able to do what I just did.

Although I did not just win the Oscars (and I probably never will), I would like to go through my thank yous. I would like to thank my dad for treating me to the most amazing cheviche in Peru, spending good quality time riding horses, hiking in canyons, and eating delicious food with his daughter, and resupplying me with soft toilet paper. I loved spending a week with you pops, it meant a lot to me that you came to visit. I would also like to thank him for being the only person that ever called me or texted me on my phone. It would always make my day. I would like to thank my mom for learning how to use skype and email so we could stay in contact. And for still treating me like her baby, making doctors appointments for me and making sure when I come home there will be a pot of hot brisket waiting for me. I would also like to thank my sister for ALWAYS studying for med school on her computer so that when i came online she was ALWAYS online. She was the most consistant skype date I had. Also I would like to thank her for enjoying a fabulous 10 days in Cuba with me, and for her medical advice when I had travelers diarrhea and weird rashes. I would also like to give a shout out to my best friend Sarah for always being really excited to hear from me. I am really proud of her for completing her EMT cert, living in Arizona on her own, and recovering fully from a bad bike accident that made her face look like an Avatar Zombie. i would also like to give a huge thanks to all those loyal readers out there that read my blogs! It meant so much to me knowing that I was either helping people procrastinate from their work or just simply letting them into a little bit of my life. It feels good to share stories knowing that people are actually listening.

As I come to the last mile of the race, I leave you with Walt Whitman's words from a poem I have reflected back to throughout my journey, "Songs of the Open Road":

My Call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion
He going with me must go well armed
He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry, enemies, desertions.

Allons! The road is before us!
It is safe-I have tried it-my own feet have tried it well-be not detained!

Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or low;
Will you give me yourself, will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

So, here I leave you...till the next adventure...

Oh, The Places To Sit

On my travels I have realized the overwhelming happiness I get from coming across a place that offers good places to sit. If the place has a good nook, alcove, or secluded spot with a good view,maybe in the shade/sun, or just has an all around good vibe, it is automatically moved to the top of my list. And when there are options between hammocks, couches with lots of pillows, reclining lawn chairs, and bean bag chairs, then the place is definetly five star.

I have also come across another giant revalation on my travels. I have always known, but have never really identified nor put into words my huge dislike for stools and sitting backwards on a hill. Unless the stool is super top grade (which they rarely are), they are mad uncomfortable. My legs just dangle off with no where to put my feet and squeeze my thigh fat over the edge in ugly and uncomfortable fashion. Its like you are niether standing nor sitting when on a stool. The akward in between stage and the force of gravity make it so you are constantly struggling so stay on, which not only hurts your butt after a while but makes me slotch over and hurts my back. Just like stools, sitting backwards on any slant is also mad uncomfortable. Unless you are trying to get an ab workout, no one likes this.

I would also like to mention that sitting with your money belt is one of the more annoying things to do as well.

Sitting on chicken buses is also a huge feat, especially with a backpack. When you think that there is just no more room left, a women comes on selling you mangos and hot empanadas, a fireman comes on asking for donations, and a man that has just had a recent stomach operation is showing you his scar asking for money.

So, after coming to these conclusions about places to sit, Noami and I ended up falling in love with Lake Atitlan. There were just so many amazing places to sit. After making our O.M. sheet (Outcomes and Methods) we made a vow to sit in all of the great places around the hostel before we left-obviously purposely avoiding the stools. Our Outcome was to relax and our Method was to just sit. Lake Atitlan is this super zenned out hippy holistic therapy didgeridoo thai massage vegan tofu scramble kind of place. and thus really lends itself to awesome relaxing places to sit.

La Iguana Perdida, the hostel we stayed in was just what we were looking for. It is designed as this earth lodge kinda place right next to the lake. We stayed in the room "castillo" (meaning castle), which was a cabin with no walls and really felt like we were connected with our surroundings (although Noami might have felt a little too connected to mother nature when she woke up with 5 mosquito bites on her face). We sat in the hammocks under the refreshing shade and read, we sat in the suana sweating out all the bad toxins before jumping into the cold lake, we sat playing apples to apples with a group of friendly travels, we sat curled up together on the most comfy couch watching hilarious movies (my new found favorite is Pinnapple Express), and we sat around a fire playing guitare and singing classic camp fire tunes. My favorite time sitting at the Iguana Perdida was spent around the communal dinner tables. Every night they had a family style meal prepared with soup, whole made bread, a main dish with vegies, tempura, salad, mashed potatoes, pizza, etc, and a dessert. It felt like home. We met this awesome newly wed couple of thier honey moon from L.A. Normly I do not like Southern California kinda people, but these ones were super awesome and seemed like not only lovers, but best friends. maybe one day i will find that and come to lake atitlan to just sit and relax on my honey moon.

Naomi and I journed ourselves to the other side of the lake one day to wonder around until we found an awesome place to sit. After popping into the cooperative artisan shops, where Naomi went crazy and bought wicker shoes, a bag, and a scarf, we found an awesome bench to sit on and drink coke and eat mango. I love sitting on benches in latin america with the locals drinking cocacola out of a glass bottle. the coke in glass bottles is way better cuase it has real sugar and not that high fructose corn syrup shit. There is also no where else in the world where you can find freshly cut mango or watermelon in bags just when you really need it. I have been really trying to maximize on my mango consumtion before i get home. So, after sitting on the bench we migrated like 50 feet to a little cafe that was recomended to us-to sit and eat! It was a wine, coffee, and cheese cafe so we ordered just that. I would like to note that I am still a recovery lactose intolerant patient and so have not indulged myself in a platter of cheeses in over 4 years. That afternoon I said screw it and we slowly and meticulously spread cheese slice after cheese slice on fresh bread dipped in olive oil, vinegar, and honey. Cleansing our palet after each cheese with fancy wine and olives we discussed the taste of each one. We were true cheese conusiers that day. Although the rest of the night and following day my stomach did not agree with me too much, I FUCKING LOVE CHEESE and do not regret any bit of that experience.

The owner of the wine and cheese cafe is one of the few guatamalen jews and looked exactly like a latin version of the father in fiddle on the roof. Jews always find jews around the world. And when we do find our like kind there is always this nice little connection we share together.

So as much as we sat around relaxing and enjoying just being, Naomi and I were also slightly active. We took a hike around part of the lake from our hostel in Santa Cruz to this other town called San Marcos. The journey went by fast as we passed by beautiful five star hotels and private property owned by gringos now leaving in the area. Time also flew by since Naomi and I are both very talkative and chit chatted the whole time about our love for summer camp. When we got to San Marcos we found our way through all the holistic health places and vegetarian cafes to the lake side where we could jump into the lake and rinse the sweat off. There was a really high rock to jump off of, but we are both super wooses about that sort of thing and were content jumping off a five foot high rock instead. That still was kinda scary.

I ran 3 times in 3 days there and did ab workout and some yoga stretching. yeah for me for finally getting off my travelling ass and moving my body. All the yumming pupusas, greasy street food, and delicious comfort food that we had eaten in antigua were really making me feel like a fat blob. my lungs almost exploded on my first 20 minute run. my hopes for coming back home and running the bay to breakers race are becoming slimmer and slimmer.

In Antigua, where Naomi is studying Spanish, I stayed at her house families house and got to feel a little bit at home. It was nice having her show me your city and meeting all of her friends there. We became regulars at Cafe No Se where there is live music every night. Naomi is obsessed with one of the preformers, named Jueves. Not really sure why his name is Thursday, but he makes rad noises out of his mouth that sound like all these different instruments.

In Spanish when you say your phone number you say the numbers in groupings. For instance, 285-4460 is said like "two, eighty five, forty four, sixty". I have decided to memorize my number as one big whole number like this. so i have been working on saying for 415-407-6702, "four billion, one hundred and fifty four million, seventy six thousand, seven hundren and two". Cant wait for the next time someone asks me for my number.

I hadnt travelled with a friend from home in soooo long, so it was a little bit of a transistion when i met up with Naomi in guatamala. But, I soon got used to it. Noami and I have not seen each other in almost 2 years or something, but somehow we actually pulled it together and met up in latin america. And had a grand ol´ time with eath other too. She is an awesome chick and a great travel companion. Although she takes probably 3 times as much time in the morning to get ready, we had such a good time together. She is one of those friends that even after years of not seeing each other, our parrellel interests allow us to easily connect again. She is just as social and talkative as me, loves to dance, try new things, seeks adventure, loves her family dearly (we talked about how much we appreciate our family a lot), and is just as much into eating as me. And did i mention that she break dances-probably one of the few white chicks out there that can get down like that.

I have bought batteries twice now for my camera and head lamp and not one of them has worked. lesson finally learned: never by batteries off the street in latin america.

Loca Loca Loca

I would first like to note that latin american festivals are of a whole nother level than back at home. One of the most amazing things about this continent is that food and beer comes directly too you. You dont have to wait around at any stupid long ass lines waiting for a falafal that you end up consuming in under 2 minutes. Or having to stand for days waiting for a overprice bottle of water. Instead, at the TigoFest in Guatamala City, the vendors come up to you selling you things. And way better things too. Tacos, meat on sticks, bowls of yummy salsa stuff, grilled meat with tortillas and guacamole, donuts, fruit with white chocolate drizzel (actually it looked more like mayo drizzled on top), and cheap cheap beer. Guatamala`s popular beer is called Gallo (which means rooster) and when you order it you can just put your open hand up to your forhead to make a rooster symbol. great tradition.

So I got to experience this amazing latin america all day festival. and the headliner of the day was SHAKIRA!!! It was really the pinnacle of all reggaeton discoteca parties ever. i mean, who does not like shakira or at least seeing a beautiful colombian women shake her booty around and pop her chest. Her show was really out of control. although pinned tight around other shakira fanatics and difficult to actually copy her moves and dance along, i was mesmorized by her show. she sang all her songs in spanish (except for the oh so famous hips dont lie song), which was super fantastic. she had this amazing move where she would fling her long beautiful hair around like a rock star. and then of course pop her chest and move her hips like they were literally disconnected from her body. i have no idea how she does it, but i must learn. and not to mention her 5 costume changes. I mean, who can pull off a tiger print skirt that looked like she had just killed and skinned the tiger yesterday and wrapped it around her waist with a belly dancer jingly skirt on top. really pushing boundaries. she also performed this beautiful tango dance where she started out in this crazy big blue dress and then ripped it off her. good shit.

After leaving the stage for a good 10 minutes she built the crowd up for her grand finale of Waka Waka. Everyones all time favorite african song! as she sang she had all these kids come on stage and dance around with a slide show of disadvantaged looking african children on in the background. so profound. fireworks were ignited, highschool girls screamed their heads off, and i went crazy.

Besides from the climax of Shakira it was a whole day festival with some of the top reggaeton and latin artists. Don Omar with his Mano Arriba song and hasta abajo, and Chino y Nacho with the Nina Bonita song and Tu Angelita Soy Yo song. If you have at all spent time in the last couple of months in latin america or listen to 100.7 reggaeton y mas on the radio you are all probably familar with the majority of these songs. Don Omar is like the latin version of Kanya West. His music videos are him on fancy yatchs and pimp houses with pretty girls. And Chino in the Chino y Nacho couple is super sexy and took his shirt off at the end of the show. My friend Naomi and I really liked this part of our day.

the only negative part of our day was that someone bear by in the crowd was ripping major ass. It smelled super bad every so often. But I guess thats the joy of being in large crowds...you can fart and be completely unknown.

We came across these two gringo dudes who were dancing around like it was a festival in the states. Super hippy like, crazy, arms everywhere, leg kicks, etc. It was definetly out of place in a crowd of mostly latinos who dance much different than the improve dance style we have back at home. anyways, we were drawn to our own kind for a second and started talking to them. We quickly regreted the conversation because one of the guys (the one that looked like owen wilson) started blabbering on and on about his junior cousin (which i think meant his cousin once removed or something). all we wanted was to get icecream. Naomi stopped paying attention and I was left trying to make really akward conversation about a junior cousin. what the fuck?

I ate this nastiest thing ever inside the festival. i ate an uncooked hotdog in bun with cabbage covered all over it. its a bad idea to put cabbage on a hotdog cuase it just makes the bun super soggy. uncooked hotdog with soggy bun. i cant believe i finished it.

I have never been more lucky than to experience a full day of live reggaeton music, latin balladas, and shakira. oh and i got to give major props to all of the backup dancers. I had a dream last night where I got to be like 5 meters from shakira walking up some stairs. i said hi to her and she responded back! i think this means we might be friends one day.

The Perfect Marshmellow

On April 7th 2011 at 6:32pm Kate Harrison made the perfect marshmellow.

Naomi and I signed up for a tour to climb and spend the night sleeping on Volcano Pacaya. Although it might sound strenous and all to climb a volcano, it was more like an hour walk up there so we could get to a really hot steam vent thing that released so much heat we could gorge ourselves on s´mores and spend the night hanging out around a camp fire. super cush. We found giant sticks long enough to toast our marshmellows all the way down into the crevasse. and in under 3 minutes the marshmellows were perfectly golden brown. Crispy brown on the outside and soft and melty on the inside. Now if you are the type of person that likes to burn their marshmellows this would not be the place for you. There is no fire to stick the marshmellow in and burn the living hell out of it. This lava vent is only for the more sophisticated and dedicated s´more makers that like to really perfect the art of golden browning.

The australian we were with had her first s´more. it was an honor to witness.

We fell happily asleep after being super immature and laughing about poop and farts with lots of marshmellow and chocolate in our stomachs. It was a well spent night.

Off to shake my sweet ass to shakira tomorrow!! woohoo!

Good Vibes

My first day in Guatamala was defined by salsa. I met my friend, Naomi, who I have not seen in ages in Antigua. I spent the hour long shuttle ride from the airport to Antigua with this super crazy older man from Germany. He was a holistic health therapist or something coming to work on Lake Atitlan to do spiritual hippy like things for tourists there. He was just going on and on about how he just wanted to touch the ground and feel the presence of guatamala and how it just felt so right that he was here now. He smiled and sang to himself the whole ride on the shuttle stoked on life. All I knew is I would never want this kinda creepy overly spiritual man giving my a holistic rub down massage or something.

Anyways, I showed up to Antigua and ran into the warm embrace of my long time friend Naomi. She is one of the girls that no matter where in life we are or how ever long passes not seeing her, we will still be good friends. Her excitement for spanish, latin lovers, dancing salsa, learning break dancing, hiking, being loud, and generally just enjoying the joys of life is just like mine. Becuase of this, in the first half day of being with her we took two salsa lessons (one private and one group) and went to a salsa club. Such a good sweat. I have decided I must start taking Salsa lessons when I get back home. I really want to be one of those gringas who can just bust out with the latin dance moves. I plan to get in contact with my good friend Shakira tomorrow when I see her at the concert and ask her for free dance lessons. She has just been super busy these months on tour and hasnt been able to spend much time with me.

I had this really great moment the night of the salsa club. Naomi and I were walking home and came across one of her friends hanging out with a couple other guys on the street. One looked exactly like a super stoned joney depp from pirates of the caribean. So I was going around kissing them all on the cheek (cuase thats how you introduce yourself here in latin america), and I was unaware that one of them was blind. So I had this super awkward interaction trying to figure out how to kiss him on the cheek. It definetly caught me off guard at first. However, he turned out to be super cool and told us that the best part about being blind was the fact that he could always walk passed security without them stopping him. Never had really thought about that benefit of being blind, but he has a very good point.

I had a major freak out moment when I realized I had forgotten my new bathing suit at the hostel in Panama. However, life is just good to me, cuase my friends who were in my same hostel room picked it up and will mail it to me. YEAH!!! This bathing suit means a lot to me. It is costum made bright pink and green and makes me look tanner than i actually am. it would have been a huge loss. i almost cried.

Crazy Taxi Rides

Panama has some fucked up taxis. Almost every taxi ride I went on in Panama city ended up bad.

Taxi ride numero uno: Our taxi driver got pulled over becuase he illegally turned left. He had not paid 3 of his last tickets and so was going to have to pay a butt ton more for this infraction. sucks to be him.

Taxi ride numero dos: a kinda scary looking homeless man on crutches was asking us for money. our taxi driver rolled up all of his windows so the man could not ask us for money. The bum got super mad and smashed his crutch into the side of the taxi. the taxi driver got out and yelled at the old homeless man.

Taxi ride numero tres: Heading back at midnight after celebrating our last meal together, Danya and Roxaine and I got pulled over in the taxi. The police were checking everyones (the taxi drivers and the passengers included) identification. Apparently it is a rule in Panama that foreigners have to carry a passport with them at all times. However, if you are at all an experienced traveler you know that carrying your passport where ever you go is a huge risk. If it gets stolen it is your only way out of the country, so everyone just keeps them locked up in the hostels. So obviously we were not carrying our passports. duh. but it is a huge fine if you dont have them to show the police. what the fuck. we had to sit out on the street corner in the middle of the night like we were prostitutes or something, waiting almost an hour for the tourist police to show up. When he finally got there, he escorted us back to our hostel to look at our passports. It was actually pretty cool walking into the hostel with the police. We felt really bad ass.

Taxi ride numero cuatro: The taxi driver was super high or something and was driving crazy. He was blabbering on about how much he loved us. He told the one Czech guy we were travelling with that he loved him. Thank god the ride was super short, cuase I was super fearing for my life. When we got to our final destination the taxi driver wouldnt accept our money. He said that the ride was free since he loved us so much. So all worked out in the end. We survived and we didnt have to pay.

Moral of story: Do NOT ride taxis in Panama city unless you travel with a copy of your passport, have extra coins to give to bums, and you check the driver for sobriety before entering.

Her Hips Dont Lie

Shakira´s hips dont lie, and niether do mine. I would like to announce to the world wide web of bloggers that on April 9th, 2011 Kate Harrison will be seeing in real life the movements of Shakiras hips and her infamous and sexy chest pop moves. Shakira is on Latin America tour right now and will be passing through Guatamala city right when I get there. Could there be any better coincidence in life than this? I think not. And for those of you who do not know my love for her, it should be made clear that if i could pick any artist to be, i would hands down choose Shakira. Pure talent.

I got to Panama city yesterday and have already been to the giant mall 3 times. There is really not much going on in Panama city and so the crew I was travelling with (my boat crew) all decided that our time would best be spent going to the movies, shopping in american stores for real clothes, and eating at the food court (i got my sushi on twice there!). We saw Invasion del Mundo, which is about aliens invading L.A. and is shit. one of those movies where teh music nevers stops and is just pure entertainment, but a horrible script.good buttery popcorn though.

Like all good tourist I went to the Panama Canal today. I was welcomed by a hundred american tourists. God i sometimes hate seeing my own kind travelling-really embarrassing some times. I thought it was going to be a super lame tourist attraction, but seeing the locks open and close was actaully pretty interesting. The industrial revolution at its finest.

I hear that plastic surgery in Colombia is really cheap. Apparently loads of chicks go to Medellin and Cali and get boob and butt jobs. The offer deals where you get the surgery done and then a week of spa and vacation treatment or something. Good to note down for future travel plans...

Huge revolutionary moment: This american chick who I travelled with on the boat with, Roxaine, and I were blown away the other day. We noticed that the American dime (our ten cent piece) does not have the actual value of 10 written on it. All of the other american coins have the value written on it, except this one. Which is totally messed up. This implies that america assumes that all foreighners should either be literate enough to read the word "dime" and be able to interpret the value, or that they should just know our coin system so well already cause we are the center of the world. We have decided to write the president on this matter. It it also quite strange that the US is the only country that has names for all of their coins (quarter, nickle, dime, penny). no where else in the world has names for their cents. quite bizarre.

when you have a chance, check out the dime and just imagine if you were a foreigner and did not know how to interpret our monetary system. it would be quite confusing.

Pillaging and Plundering Pirates

I just spent the last 5 days pretending I was a pirate on the high seas of the Caribbean Ocean. I really perfected my "arrg" "ahoy matey" and my "yo ho ho ho a pirates life for me" phrases. Our german captain, Konnie, was probably super sick of hearing us pretending to be pirates (especially since every tour group he takes out probably does the exact same thing). Despite that, being the good pirates we all were, we stocked ourselves with handles of cheap rum and one good bottle of Captain Morgans-cause every pirate needs that. We also got a bottle of champagne to make a music video to "I´m On a Boat", cause we thought that was also quite fitting. Too bad we didnt have enough time in Colombia to find eye patches before we "up-anchored-arrg".

After all the build up for our departure, our excitement was quickly squashed when we realized that sailing is actually not all fun and games. The actual act of sailing is really not all thats its cracked up to be. its one of those unfortunate situations where the destination is far better than the journey. The sailing part was pretty damn shitty and the whole island seeing land and swimming part was fantastic. I pretty much felt like shit the second we started. Night time came fast and I couldnt focus my eyes on any horizon line or anything, so i got super sea sick. I was the first and only to vomit on the trip (puked in a plastic bag that started to leak right next to this girl sharing my bed with me-oops). Puked up chile dinner too, which looked exactly like what i had ingested an hour earlier. I am still super confused why Captain K decided to serve chile the first night (grossest thing ever to vomit up). He could have chosen pasta or sandwiches or something lighter. I then spent the next 35ish hours in the horizontal position. I squeezed myself into this little benth under the little shade the boat had to offer and didnt move unless I really had to pee or sit up to eat bread or pasta. And I wasnt even able to finish even one cup of rum and coke (the coke was warm and flat in like 3 hours too which was gross). Guess i am not such a good pirate after all.

However, because the journey was just shit, the destination felt ten million times better. We got to the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama in after two days of hell got to jump into the crystal clear sea. It was straight out of a postcard. Sea stars the size of my face, perfect shells to collect, amazing coral reefs to explore, palm trees blowing in the wind, white sand beaches to do yoga on. It was like "Finding Nemo" meets "Little Mermaid". The last night we spent on an island occupied by the Indegenous Koni people. I am pretty sure we met the exact same women that is on the cover of the Panama Lonely Planet book. We spent the night eating fresh lobster that they caught for us, smoking lots of green herb (it was a good medicinal cure for my sea sickness), and roasting marshmellows over a giant bomb fire of palm tree leaves. The Germain captain and the Czech couple in our group had never had marshmellows before. They thought they were too sweet and just concluded that Americans eat way too sweet of things and are fat asses. Probably true.

Raul was our Koni friend we met who spent the night talking my ear off in spanish about how fantastic he was. Biggest frickin´ lier I have ever met. I didnt believe one word of his stories about how nice he is, how he wants to buy his own property to house his family, how he had actually died as a baby but a healer women cured him and told him that he would only be able to live till age 37 (which gives him 6 more years of life left). I fell asleep on the boat deck listening to Raul shit faced drunk swimming in the water yelling out random words in english. Nice peaceful way to fall asleep-looking up at the beautiful stars in the middle of the caribean sea listening to drunk indigenous man half drowning in the water.

Learned a new phrase: Aqua Turd. It is when you pull down your bathing suit in the middle of the ocean and take a dump and then swim away to escape the scene. The cute australian couple taught me it. Someone had laid a fat turd in the toilet on the boat that did not fit down the small little tube that was used to pressure suck the shits out. no one claimed it, so it just sat there for a while and we all got pretty desperate. So we had to resort to the aqua turd. it leaves you feeling quite clean.

Oh, so this story was definelty not in the brochure that we got before the trip left: There was a murder that just took place like 2 months ago right by the islands we stayed at. A Spanish captain who was also chartering backpackers across the sea got cuaght on a reef in bad weather and sunk his boat. Everyone on board was fine and the backpackers were taken care of by a nice American sailer man named Red Dog (thats apparently his new indigenous name). However, the Spanish captian went crazy and a month later decided to hijack someone elses sail boat and killed the captain of the boat. A while later he killed two other captains by stabbing them and tieing them around their anchor lines and throwing them into the water. He was eventually cuaght a month ago becuase he was using the credit cards of the captains. Dumb ass. I got to snorkel around his ship wrecked boat and was super freaked out that a dead body was going to float out of it. Dead bodies definetly hang around ship wrecks. True fact.

Could thing the rents didnt know about this story before I decided to go on the boat trip. They would have freaked out.

So after perfecting the aqua turd, barfing up chile, coming in close contact to Spanish murderers, and meeting indigenous chronic liers, I was more than happy to see the main land again. I spent my first night back on land showering off layers of sunscreen and salt water and eating fantastic pizza made from the crazy austrian hostel owner. she owned a really cute baby sloth that was carried by her really cute kid (none of us knew if the kid was a boy or a girl-it was hard to tell).

It took me a full 24 hours to feel like i was not still on the boat and swaying back and forth. I dont understand how these captains sail for like 5 years all around the world. I would go luney.

Arrg (that means "good bye" in pirate talk)

Paradise

I have just spent the last couple of days in utter paradise on Carribean beaches. Palm trees, drift wood scattered on white sand beaches, fresh mango juice, cold cervezas, coke in glass bottles, hammock time, and fried fish. I have still not been able to figure out how they cook the fish so it is every last bone and skin particle is fried and crispy delicious. One of those culinary mysteries that is probably better left unknown.

The last couple of weeks in Colombia I have used the small beach town of Taganga as my base. It is a good 3 hours Colombia time (which means 5 hours) from Cartegena on route to the National Park Tayrona. Taganga offers many wonderful things; from the arepas (typical colombian corn patties with butter or guatamole inside), to the one dollar beers, to the roof top discoteca for a good night of reggaeton-ing and salsa practice, to the playa covered in perfect skipping rocks. It also surprising has the best hostel this side of the mitad del mundo (equator). La Casa de Felipe is a social hang out hostel full of amazing hammock spots and the best restuarant EVER! I ate there 4 times. It is owned by this french dude, so the food is normal (or should i say, not the typical colombian food of rice, more rice, smooshed platains, meat, and shit salad with a piece of tomato on top). Whenever I was in a low moment struggling on the muddy trail back from the Lost City I would just dream of my next meal at Casa Felipe. Filet mignon, steak, fresh white fish in creamy delicious sauce, pumpkin soup, french onion soup, and creamy pasta with shrimp and fish. And let me note, only for a maximum of 9 bucks. Cant beat that. Down the road from Casa Felipe was also an amazing baguette place where you could get sandwhiches half the size of my arm full of avocado and mozzarela cheese. I would also like to mention that I ate my first icecream bar in 5 years. I am slowly becoming less lactarded, which is a really big thing for me since i love me some dairy products.

Apparently Israelis have an Israeli-only website that tells them where the Israeli- only spots are in South America. Wierd. They all seem to know where the Israeli hostels are and where to find the best shwarmas and hummus. Taganga had this really bizzare israeli hostel that became the after-party once the discoteca shut down at 3am. I only spent 10ish minutes there, but quickly noted that the pool with a giant israeli star on the bottom is one of those pools i would never jump into, that you could probably find every drug in the world there in under a minute, and that if you are not sufficiently smashed you better get there quickly cause otherwise it is super akward. So, i walked in, promply tripped in this hole next to the pool, and left. The way Israelis travel is on a whole different level.

Besides the crazy Israeli hostel, Taganga has a really nice beach front. There is a beach 15 minute walk away too called Playa Grande, that attracts more of a local scene and less annoying vendors selling you jewelry and creepy messages. However, my first time at Playa Grande with Rachel was spent getting hailed on and ingesting a shit ton of sand from the intense wind storm that came through that day. Not so pleasant. Although my second time was much nicer with Steve eating fried fish in the shade. I watched a snorkel class on that beach as well, which i thought was the funniest thing ever. Colombians had actually paid for a lesson on how to snorkel. They all stood in a circle, put their masks on, and stuck their heads in the water as their teacher instructed them. Maybe i take it for granted that i know how to snorkel, but i thought putting your head slightly in the water and breathing normally is a pretty simple activity. Maybe the act of floating is something that not all people know how to do. I guess I am pretty fortunate that my parents took me to swim lessons when i was younger.

After finding the Lost City, I was convinced quickly by Steve (who I met on the trek) to come to Tayrona National Park with him. Over a breakfest of eggs and toast at Casa Felipe I quickly changed my plans around and decided to pack my bag for a 3 hour hike to spend the night on a paradise beach in this national park. The hike in was sweaty and hot and long, but with good company and a rest stop for fresh squeeze juice we made it to the beach Capo San Juan in good spirits. Except for the ridiculous prices (a hammock was $10 a night, which is the same price as a hostel bed with breakfest included in a city) I could have stayed there forever. I got a lot of sun tanning in (actually i burnt my lower ass cheeks kinda badly), book time, and just good quality hang out time. It is nice to travel with someone for a while so you get past all the bull shit supervisial introductory ¨where are you from¨ ¨where are you going¨kinda stuff. Besides the nice benefit of a friend watching your bags while you take a dip in the ocean so no one steals your stuff, Steve and I really hit it off. It is nice finding someone who travels just like you. Wants to wake up at the same time, actually do stuff during the day, hike, eat good greasy street food, drink when you want to drink, sleep when you want to sleep. It is hard to find people that are on the same travel page as you, but when you do it is amazing fun. I tried hard to convince Steve to call in sick to his job he had to go back to, but he figured his boss wouldnt buy the whole travels diarhea food poisoning thing. i guess thats the thing with travelling, you are always arriving and always departing. nothing is ever static or completely stable. you just have to hope that the awesome people you come across on your journey will somehow cross your path again.

with that, i am off to panama on a 5 day sail boat trip. god life is hard. in the words of my old man: lifes a bitch, and then you die.

The Best Banana

I had the best banana i have ever had in my life. On my trek through the jungle to the lost city we stopped on this open plateau for a rest break. There was a really ugly horse with lots of magots on it, loads of chickens running around, and indegenous kids wearing long toga like dresses. one of the kids was wearing a shirt that said ¨this way to paradise¨with an arrow pointing down south. thought that was pretty classic. anyways, the kids ran up and cut a bundle of bananas down off a banana tree and handed us each a fresh banana. It was perfectly mushy, not too hard, not too soft, super sweet, and didnt leave that nasty feeling in your mouth where all the saliva is stripped away. i threw the banana peal to the magoty horse and he happily ate it.

the end.

lost city part two!

i forgot to mention two key moments on my lost city trek.

the first is that i spent a night playing a great game of cards with steve, two english dudes, and a german. the candels that we were using to see attracted a million moths of all shapes and sizes. the german guy thought it was loads of fun to take the hot wax and drip it over the moths and watch them die. He would cover the moths completely in wax until they looked like fossils. he left a giant moth grave yard all over the table. i thought it was pretty entertaining.

the second moment is when i met this french dude who was staying at one of the indegenous peoples huts out in the jungle. he was living with a family of the kogi tribe (i am probably spelling this way wrong). this group of indegenous people all live in this round huts and wear toga like dresses. they all have long hair and are really short so they all kinda look like little girls. this french dude was living with them for a while and he totally looked like tarzan (all jungle like with long hair). thats it.

I found the lost city!

I re-arranged my whole schedule (even though i dont really have much of a schedule travelling) to go on the lost city/cuidad perdida. Becuase of this, I have heard the same couple of jokes from about a million people this last week. "Have you found the lost city yet?¨or ¨dont get lost going to the lost city¨. at this point i really only respond with a pity laugh. but, if you would like to know the real answer, i have found the lost city.

The cuidad perdida is one of the oldest cities built in the amazon by a tribe called tayrona around 500 b.c. After trekking through lots of mud, crossing the platform of death over a raging river, and almost stepping upon a poisonous viper snake (which a local quickly killed by hitting it over the head with a stick), we got to the site of the ruins on the morning of the fourth day. it was a perfect sunny morning to explore this old civilization now covered in jungly trees and vines. i really felt like i was in an indian jones movie (minus the large number of military men that now live there and guard the site from travelers like myself who want to sneak up there and camp overnight). However, as i like to say ¨it was not the destination, but the journey that mattered¨. Even though the actual ruins were far more than i expected them to be, it was the rest of the trek that really made it worth it.

We spent the days walking through beautiful shaded canopies of trees, jumping off of rocks into pristine waterholes (although i was too pussy to actually jump), hanging out around the wooden tables playing cards and eating good food, and sleeping in hammocks at night.

I would like to note that hammock sleeping is really not as amazing as everyone cracks it up to be. i feel like everyone is always saying that sleeping in hammocks if great, and it is super cool and traveler-like to just buy a hammock and sleep in it where ever you go. However, this is only in theory. in practice, i think hammocks are good for about an hour of siesta. But for an entire night sleeping in one position (not to mention it does get kinda cold from the draft coming up from under the hammock), it is really not an ideal sleeping situation. and a lot of times the hammock is rarely cleaned so you end up sleeping on a moist piece of cloth that like a million other dirty hippie travelers have slept on. and it really is an art form to get in and out of those things. trying to figure out how to get in and out with a mosquito net and two blankets is a really ungraceful process. i like to pretend that i like sleeping in hammocks, but in reality i would choose for a bed any day.

so anyways, i spent 5 days hiking in the jungle and meeting awesome people. my actual tour group consisted of only 4 other people. There were two really sweet german girls that did not have an ounce of mean-ness in them, and then this hilarious 38 year old gay guy from kentucky. Anthony was born and raised in the south, based out of new york now, but lived in chile for a year to tap into the gay south american scene. he was one of those people who claps at everything and everyone every other second of the day (i had to tell him to shut up some times). he has cried watching star wars and has been a pirate in the pirates of the caribean ride at disney land. apparently during his straight phase in life he dated jasmine from aladin. he loved to analysis and gossip about everyone on the other tour groups. great company on the trek.

my group ended up meeting up with another group and essentially became part of there trip. There were these two guys alex and tim (alex coincidently lives in the mission in sf) who were travelling together. although you would never for the life of you expect that they were friends. total opposites. alex was a super tall, in shape, beautiful muscles, physical trainer kind of guy that ran down the trail in his light weigh vibram shoes. Tim on the other hand had just graduated from med-school and clearly looked as if he had eaten a box of cheesits every time he was studying for a test. it was tims first hike ever and although he came prepared with a uv-light water purifier and biowipes (biodegradable wipes made by coleman outdoor company), he still complained that this was the hardest thing he had ever done. hopefully it did not turn him off to hiking completely. i thought it was a pretty funny traveling pair.

I made a decision to change my name to Anya (my middle name) here in Colombia because i like it better. It has not gone over too well though. I keep forgetting that I want to change my name and introduce myself as Kate first and then instanstly try to tell people it is Anya. People get really confused, and I get really confused becuase I cant remember who i told what. So, I guess i will just stick with Kate. Too bad my parents were super uncreative in terms of naming their kids.

The other dude that was part of the tour group was my favorite guy i met (maybe favorite on my whole trip which is a really big statement). The first 5 minutes of meeting Steve I tried to tell him about this coincidence I had with stealing this girls shirt. He quickly stopped me half way though the story and told me he had already heard this story from a girl he went kite surfing with. After that little coincidence we totally hit it off and ended up spending the next couple of days together. Steve is a Canadian firefighter that might spend the rest of his days in Edmonton, Alberta putting out fires for half the year and travelling the other half. Seems like he gots the whole formula of life balanced out nicely. The best thing to is that Steve has started up his own lawn mowing company that completely finances his travels. He drives around in his truck for 6 weeksish every spring around the cookie cutter suburb houses of canada and gets a butt ton of money from rich people so he can travel. pretty fucking great business if you ask me. We have also decided that we both might go into the business of cleaning windshields at red lights. apparently there is good money in that.

People here sometimes use the word reggaeton as a verb. Like, ¨do you reggaeton¨or ¨lets go reggaeton tonight¨. i love it! i am interested to see if i will like reggaeton when i am back in the states. cause right now, i am mildly obsessed with the act of reggaetoning!

MUNDO PEQUENO!!

This world is so unbelievably mind boggling small! When coincidences happen in life you just cant help but believe that you are doing something right; that you must be on the right path of life. For instance when walking down a trail in the heat of the day sweating balls and you announce that you want a cold cerveza, so out of no where someone comes marching down the trail with a cooler full of cold beers and offers you one for free. Those are the moments when you know something up above is smiling down upon you, reminding you that there is no where else in the world you are soppose to be but right there in that moment.

In my two weeks in Colombia I have been struck by many of those random and beautiful coincidental moments. The first coincidence was my second night in Cartagena, the main city on the northern carribean coast.

Side note/travel recomendation: NEVER EVER IF AT ALL POSSIBLE should one bus all the way from the Colombian Ecuadorian border to the north of Colombia in one day. Go on a plane. I had decided to zoom through all of Colombia to get to the north coast in one swoop, and so spent 45 hours on 4 different buses from the ecuadorian amazon to cartagena. imagine 45 hours in 2 and a half days sitting on your ass staring out the window and eating greasy shit food. I felt like i was in another planet and arrived to Cartagena having forgot how to interact with people. It took a while for my social skills to come completely back.

anyways back to the coincidences. After spending my first full day in Colombia getting day drunk and walking around the old town with two Canadian chicks, I came back to my hostel to shower and change into my favorite traveler shirt i have (which is not that hard to choose since i only have 4 shirts in total). I found this shirt 2 months ago in a hostel becuase some girl had left it behind and the cleaning women was just going to throw it out. So, conveniently I took it. It is nice comfortable shirt with cool designs on it (i love asking travelers what they think the design is cuase i always get different responses). It has also been perfectly cut so it hangs off my shoulders just right. so anyways, i put this shirt on, head around the corner to a restuarant/bar/hostel to grab a bite to eat. As i step into the restaurant I got super overwhelmed cuase at one table where these 2 dudes i had hiked to machupichu with 2 months ago (coincidence numero uno), and at the other table i hear this girl yell "Thats my shirt!" (coincidence numero dos). I was tempted to run out the restaurant and book it down the street so i wouldnt have to own up to the fact that i stole this girls shirt. However, she said the shirt fit me better (cuase she didnt have the boobs to hold it up and it always fell off her shoulders) and said i could keep it. turns out too that she went kite surfing with this guy i met a couple days later and traveled with (coincidence numero tres). we have also decided to travel together on the sail boat to panama.

Shortly after this crazy moment, coincidence numero cuatro took place. I was standing outside a bar and out walks my old next door neighbor from mexico, Sandro!! Sandro and I used to live in the same apartment complex in Oaxaca and became pretty good friends. But I have not seen sandro in like 4 monthish, and here he is in colombia partying at the same bar as me. fucking wierd shit.

the next day in my hostel i ran into two dudes who i graduated with at UCSanta Cruz. They had recognized my voice (apparently i have a really loud and distinct voice), and came to find me. one of them remembers having a long conversation with me at a party last year about my necklace. Coincidence numero cinco.

The last and craziest coincidence was when i was in taganga (a small beach town close to cartagena). I was tanning/burning on the main beach reading my book when this girl comes up to me and asks if i know how to get to the other beach near by called playa grande. i had wanted to go there as well, so we both helped each other get there. after about 5 minutes of introductions we realized that we had about a million parellels in life. She grew up with, lived in the same neighborhood with, and went to college with one of my best childhood friends, miera. Rachel´s (the girl i met) family is best friends with Miera´s family, who my parents are best friends with. Since Rachel lived in minnesota and my sister went to school in minnesota we are pretty sure that my sister has met her and her family before at passover dinners and the like. Rachel is also moving to SF in a couple of weeks! I cant wait to show her around my city and have my parents become her adopted family in sf. she also has led outdoor adventure trips in costa rica for organizations like the ones i have worked for. we shared lots of stories about our mutual friend, laughed tons, and generally had a blast together. i love finding people in this world that are like your twin.

Coincidences on the open road are fucking great. i have been running into other travelers all over that i met other travellers that i already know. its like this little community of people up here that quickly forms a tight net. you meet people so quickly here and since everyone is generally really open and fun (minus a couple debby downers), you create this little family. you get to know people much faster when you travel becuase you are constantly with them. at home it would take months to get to know someone on the level that you get to know them while travelling with them for 3 days.

so moral of the whole coincidences thing, is that i really feel like i am doing something right in my life. that everyone just always works out for me. it feels really good to know that i am able to create such good things for myself and meet such awesome people. like the glass is always half full kinda shit.

Favorite series of questions

1. Are you married? NO
2. Do you have any kids? NO
3. Do you have a boyfriend? YES
4. Do you have an Ecuadorian boyfriend? NO
5. Well then, do you want to get a drink? NOOOOOO!!!

Small World

My sister studied abroad in Tena five years ago, which is why I went there in the first place. She told me it was a beautiful entry point into the jungle. So, today i went on a search for my sisters home stay. With the shitty directions and map that my sister drew out for me, I wondered around the early morning streets of Tena. She said the house was right next door to a corner store. I was mildly thrown off for a while cuase the corner store turned into a restaurant in these last years, but i eventually ask this big fat women standing in her doorway if she knew a man named Luis (that was the name of her father). I thought it would be a shot in the dark cause everyone is named Luis here, but it was spot on! Luis was her husband, and the fat women in the doorway was the host mom. She did what all good host moms do and offered me fresh squeezed juice and fresh bread she just baked. We sat and chatted for a while about the changes that have happened in the last 5 years since my sister has been there (ie. Her 4 baby nephews and the cabin they are building is finally completed). They totally remembered my sister and it was super great to know that she had made a little impression on this family. The world is so small. I love it.

I am off to Colombia tomorrow. Good thing i already sold my load of cocaine off to buyers this week so I wont get stopped at the sketchy border!

Muddy

I have never in my life experienced such amazing mud before in my life. My 3 days in the Amazon jungle right outside of Tena, Ecuador was fully defined by the amazingness of the quality of mud. In the deep depths of the Jumandi cave (I called it Jumanji after the robin williams movie) and along the shores of the river I bathed myself from head to toe in the most orgasmic mud ever. After having a massive mud fight with my guide (I looked like smeagle from lord of the rings) I decided that this mud in these parts seems to be the smoothest and most exfoliating in the world. I was thinking about bottling it up to sell it in competion with all the dead sea salt shit that israelis sell in shopping malls. i think there could be a profit in this. Anyways, the mud became an over arching metaphor for my whole experience in the jungle: fun, cleansing, relaxing, wet, and dirty.

I stayed at this paradise lodge called shangrila (not to be confused with the one in china). There were only a few other tourists there at the time, so we could sit in any of the hundreds of hammocks are little hearts desired. Our guide for the 3 days was this dude named Alex. Long hair, short, strong build, great salsa dancer (like every latino is), and ridiculous really breathy laugh. After eating the local jungle cuisine of fat worms (tasted like delicious buttery shrimp) and drawing a penis on his arm with the indeginous dyes found in some red fruit we became great friends and had a blast together. We had a super bonding moment when he put a giant tarantula spider on my face. I had to resort back to my yoga breathing or else the tarantula might have peed on my skin and left a wierd rash. I am worried no one will believe me that i had a hairy tarantula crawling on me cuase i have no photo evidence...but lie, i do not.

Speaking of rashes, my jelly fish sting has not really gone down yet. In fact, I am convinced it is still releasing some chemical or something that makes it itch like a bitch. Not to mention that I counted around 28 mosquito bites on my left leg and around 30 on my right. And I have had to take a round of cipro for a UTI contracted from wearing a dirty old bathing suit for a week straight. Oh, and I have a big pimple on my face now. Such is life of a traveler. So hard.

My 3 days spend in the jungle were loaded with lots of wet muddy adventures. I spent an afternoon tubbing down a river drinking beers with these two other couples that were staying in the lodge. They were the kind of older married couples that you could still talk about farts with and how the stalagtites in the caves looked like erects dicks. spent a great night drinking rum and hot chocolate drinks and dancing to old school rap from my ipod. I think the last words the husband said before he went to bed with his wife was, ".you think i got her drunk for nothing..."

Side note: i have become deathly afraid of peeing in all water sources (rivers, lakes, etc.). Apparently there is this kind of fish that is attracted to urine and swims up your vagina. It has spines only pointing in one direction, so once it is in it cant come back out.

With these two couples, a group of 4 ecuadorians (who all spoke perfect english and have an import company in china), and Alex (our trusty guide) we all hiked up this river to a bunch of beautiful waterfall spots. We ended the day in this big lagoon. After beign forced to jump off the rock into the water (i hate doing that shit), Alex and I rocked hopped up river. It was just one perfect waterhole after another. Paradise. I felt really in my pachamama moment connecting with nature and all. The day was topped off by riding ontop of the truck in the pouring rain. I think at one point it started hailing cuase it definetly felt like a thousand pins and needles all over my body. Maybe that is what acupuncture feels like. We were screaming at the top of our lungs and singing zip-a-dee-doo-daa to keep ourselves warm. Only in Latin America can you ride ontop of trucks in the pouring rain.

Alex called me pastelito the whole time. That means little cake. It sounds a lot better in Spanish than in English. If anyone called me little cake in english I would probably punch them in the face.

Alex taught me how to balance a pointy rock ontop of another rock. All patience and zen meditation I guess. He says I am one of the only tourists he has seen do it. Hell yeah! Soy Madre Tierra y que!

After rolling around in the mud the entire last day in the jungle, Alex and I went out dancing in Tena to celebrate his birthday. There is only one club in Tena so it was naturally packed. Got super sweaty, ate a giant plate of rice beans and grilled chicken for 3 bucks at 3am, and happily passed out in my own hostel room. Life is good.

Carnival!!!

I was originally only going to spend a couple of days in Atacamas for carnival, but it sucked me in and I stayed a week. Atacamas is the beach town that all of the locals go to for carnival. They have 4 days off from work and all go to the beach to enjoy the rays, surf, and parties. There is just one bar with straw roof after another. If you dont liek the music at one place you just go to the next one over.

reasons it is great:

1. Ceviche. it is out of this world. 5 bucks for a bowl full of amazing fish. I ate it every day for a week.
2. Caipirinas. lime, sugar, and zhumir (45% alcohol made from sugar cane)
3. Music. Samba, reggaeton, Salsa, rumba.
4. Polaca. The most orgasmic drink made of milk and different oaty cereals. Sold in a huge barrel, served with a ladel, and consumed by me in mass quantities.
5. Hammocks. Found this great hotel/bar where there was great hammocks and really comfy couches. owned by two americans. met the father of the owner who bought me lots of beers and coke. This dude i met was the dj there so i got to walk behind the bar and feel popular. on sunday night there was this bizarre show of models in bikinis and samba dance. i thought it was quite random and really hilarious. everyone else in the bar seemed kinda bored.
6. foam. they have spray containers of foam everywhere and everyone ends the night covered in foam and soaking wet from the water guns.


There were only two down sides of atacamas:
1. i was travelling with this chick i had also randomly met in bolivia a couple of months ago and really didnt like her. she was super negative nancy.so after a night in a hostel room with her i told her that i did not want to stay there any more. we kinda fought and then i left. it was actually pretty empowering to feel like i had zero obligation to this girl.
2. i got stung by a jelly fish. all over my body!! i was swimming far out and felt this huge shock of electricity run through my body. it stung me on my arm, back, and a little on my leg. i was told be everyone to put hot sand on it. so i rubbed my entire body in hot sand. didnt do crap. it was all inflammed and bumby and red and all. really hurt. apparently they are called madusas here or mala aguas. i was trying to explain that they are just fucking jelly fish. the pain went away, but i still have this wierd rash.

sketch city of quito

Quito is a big sketchy city. Not my favorite place in the world, but has some really cheap indian restuarants, gringo cafes with brownies, a movie theater (saw 127 hours-i still cant believe he cut his arm off), and a good street with gringo bars and raging dance parties. my first night i went out to this club called bungalo 6. coincidently this bar was highly recomended to me by my sister and the canadian chick i was traveling with knew the owner. good times.

From Quito I went to Otavalo on a day trip, where on saturday markets there is the best market in all of south america. it was impressive, but after seeing a million llama sweaters, alpaca hats, and bags i had enough. although i did meet these random girls on a 11 month missionary project. they did not try to push jesus cristo on me and i liked them for that. in fact, i ran into them 2 days later in quito. maybe it is destiny and i should convert.

I also day tripped to Mitad del Mundo where you can step on the equator. probably the lamiest thing i have done on my entire journey. it was like disney land with really nothing to it. there wasnt even an egg to balance (apparently you can balance an egg on a needle on the equator). although it was a little bit more worth while cause i went on sunday when they have live music. so i listened to random ecuadorian bands and this women sing loads of baladas. the locals were loving it. i was tired though and by myself so i just watched from a far and ate chips.

i have run like 5 times on my trip!! really proud of myself. i ran to the park in quito and stumbled apone the sunday morning free shit in the park that they offer. i took the free aerobics class and the free dance class. it was fantastico!! i did aerobics and all these crazy dances with almost 100 locals all off beat and moving in all different directions. loved it. dance in latin america is everywhere and everyone knows how to dance. you are pretty much born dancing here. it is much more erotic and sexy of a dance. so i was popping my booty to reggaeton with 60 year old ecuadorian women.

during aerobics i met this romanian chick who is trying to teach english in ecuador. we got dinner later that night and i realized she is super boring and lame. good thing i am travelling alone and can just make shit up so i never have to see her again. hehe.

well thats all for quito. adios.

Adrenalina

It has been a while since I have written. I find myself always arriving and always departing that there has been few moments to sit down and blog. I finally have time after 3 weeks to wash my disgustingly dirty and wet clothes.

My first stop in Ecuador was this place called Banos. Banos is known for its ecotourism and its crazy fun packed excursions you can take. It is set among beautiful mountains (Ecuador is sooo green!) with hot baths everywhere and cheap massages. I did not do a massage, but I did meet this Canadian chick who got a chocolate massage and had an anal cleanse. I was jealous cause she smelled of chocolate and had very clean bowels. And all I did was go into these really dirty green colored hot baths that were loaded with locals and not relaxing at all.

In Banos I repelled down waterfalls, went on the longest zipline in ecuador, biked to waterfalls, and jumped off this huge bridge. I nearly peed myself when I jumped off. You pretty much just show up to this bridge, pay the random dude 15 bucks US, get strapped in, and jump. No paper signing, no contact information provided, nothing. It was so latin america. The scariest part of all was the fact that you have to jump off completely on your own. And the human mind (at least mine) is not built to just want to jump off really really high things. So the only reason i was really able to jump was becuase there were all these other tourists watching me and i didnt want to look like a pussy.

In Banos I met this canadian chick who was a super crazy girl. She works on a private yacht for this wealthy jew, and is a professional skydiver. so when she jumped off the bridge she was like dododooo this is nothing. it was kinda annoying cuase i was shitting myself out of fear and she was saying it was too short of a rope. she also always talked about her 5 million ecuadorian lovers that she has met in quito and montantita (this beach town she is living in). Whatever. I ended up getting some drinks with her a couple of nights and travelling with her to quito.

I also met this junior from puget sound who was doing WOOF (farming volunteering) in this community near banos. I am pretty sure actually that he is the same guy that emailed me on my WOOF account when i was thinking about doing it. wierd coincidence. We spent a couple of nights hanging out with him and the women that owns the farm. She is the awesome women named Linda from Florida who moved to Ecuador 16 years ago and built this beautiful log cabin in the middle of the jungle. She claims online that she has a farm to volunteer on, but it seemed to me that the only thing she was growing was weed. Her ex-husband, who has a giant mustache, has been visiting her for months now in Ecuador. I could barely understand anything that he was saying to me. We went out to dinner with her and all these other random gringo families that she knows that live around Banos. It seems like there are these pockets of gringo communities all over Ecuador. Lots more americans here then I thought. So maybe some day I will do what Linda did and move to South America, build a log cabin, and hang out at cafes with the locals and other gringo families who are just as crazy as i will be.


Linda also enlightened me on the best sandwich idea ever: grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich. like a grilled cheese, but with peanut butter and jelly (you could also add nutella or bananas if desired). put some butter or oil in a pan and put the peanut butter and jelly sandwihc on the pan. easy and delicious.

gastronomy

Athough the word gastronomy I think sounds a little gross, it is the art and science of eating good food and is a very beautiful thing. Peru has some of the best food in the whole world and so my last days here I stalked my stomach with loads of good ceviche, alpaca meat, fish, and bowls of soups.

Before I left for my travels I thought I was going to be the author of my first ever book called ¨The Best Places to Run on the South America´s Gringo Trac¨. I promised my sister in Cuba a bunch of times that I was going to wake up and go run. However, I have had to put my dreams for this book on hold becuase I have become quite lazy with my running. In fact I have only run once for 20 minutes on the beach (that was yesterday). In the beginning I was mad at myself for not getting my heart rate up everyday, but I have come to the conclusion that feeling bad for myself is not worth it. Instead I have embraced the art and science of food:gastronomy. I am a really professional eater now.

While travelling it is really important for me to try all the amazing new foods. Everything from the top of the line ceviche restaurants to the greasy and delicious street food. Peru loves to put french fries on every plate and I love Peru for that.

Eating cheap really carbo loads you up so I have to balance it out with a good mango or pineapple juice or something. No where in the world can you just pick up any mango anywhere and have it be the juiciest and most delicious thing ever.

I tried the guinea pig that is so famous in Peru and it sucks. Not really sure why they eat it. There are way too many little bones and barely any meat. It is like eatying squirrel or something. not good. but alpaca is delicious.

I spent only one night and two days on the beach in Mancora. Although a nice place to get tan or sunburnt, I could not stay any longer. It is where every Peruvian family goes during this time of year to stand around in the surf and cover the beach with umbrellas and loud reggaeton music. I was also woken up in the middle of the night by a one night drunken stand of an australian and argentinian chick having sex in my room. so uncomfortable. i woke up early to go on a run and sweat that gross night out and found the guy totally naked without any covers on. found the condom in the trashcan; at least they were practicing safe sex!

made it to northern ecuador today after 3 bus rides. on one of them i was told by the ecuadorian next to me that this was his first converstation ever with a gringa. what an honor. i am in this place called banos where all you do is crazy ecotourism things. going repelling down waterfalls and bridge jumping tomorrow!! need to get my adreneline up. hopefully i wont throw up all the loving gastronomical food i have eaten this last month in peru.

so adios peru and hola ecuador!

the pops comes to visit

I would first like to start off by saying that I have the best parents in the entire world. Now granted I have never experienced having any other parents, I would say that I am very lucky and it could be a hell of a lot worse. I really would not have been able to travel for as long as I am and alone if it wasnt for the trust and love )and somewhat financial help) of my parents. Due to skype, blogs, and cell phones, my parents have stayed very close with me throughout my journey. Whenever I am lonely, I just think of how close they really are and that I am not alone. In fact, I think I have talked more with my sister on skype these months then I talk to her when I am home. Travelling has also provided a great excuse for my parents to travel and come visit me. So this last week I was blessed by the presence of my old man )although he still acts more like a 20 year old).

Throughout the whole week my dad and I kept using the phrase, ¨This is the best ___ever.¨ We ate the ¨best chocolate mouse ever¨, we went to the ¨best restaurant ever¨, we stayed at the ¨best hotel we have ever stayed at¨, we drank the¨best pisco sours¨, we had the ¨best pillows, that felt like clouds, ever¨, toured aroound the ¨best monastary we have ever been in¨, ate the ¨best ceviche ever¨, and the ¨best (and also the first) alpaca meat ever.¨

After staying in hostels with rooms of up to 18 beds, communal bathrooms with rough toilet paper, and annoying travellers turning on the light at 4am in the morning, I felt like royalty this week with my dad. And when my dad travels he does not cuaght himself short. He figures this will be his only time with his daughter in Peru and so we must eat at the best of the best and stay at the best of the best. Once we spent like an hour trying to find this off the beaten track cheviche and fish restaurant in the middle of nowhere in Lima that some friend had recomended to him and he insisted we find. After the fun adventure trying to find the place, it was totally worth it and we ate the most amazing ceviche and fried fish ever. This place was like dimsum in SF, where families go and eat for sunday brunch.

We spent a few days exploring the streets of Arequipa with a really short tour guide named Norma, touring a randomly interesting monastary where now only 21 nuns live, seeing an organ in a church with 1,180 pipes, and eating among locals a giant bowl of soup for $3 (where I think I got food poisoning and dad fell in love with the beautiful younger lady serving the soup). Valentines day was spent eating at this amazing restaurant called Zigzags over their famous plater of 4 different kinds of meats. My dad was so thrilled by this place he wrote his first comment on tripadvisor recommending the place. He was really proud of his blurb and I think he told everyone we met about it.

After Arequipa, we drove 3 hours on this beautiful road to Colca Canyon and passed by snow covered mountains and fields full of vicunas (which are the less common and softer cousins of the alpacas). cool. When I win the lottery I have decided that I am only going to only wear realyl soft llama, alpaca, and vicuna clothing. For now, I just bought my sister a few soft items, my mom this beautiful baby alpaca sweater taht I want to steal, and a mini sweater and gloves for my boyfriend´s sisters new baby.

The place we stayed at in Colca Canyon was out of control the most amazing and beautiful place I have ever in my life of 23 years have ever set foot in. Heated floors, our own outdoor and indoor jacuzzi, an outdoor and indoor shower, pillows made of clouds, a hot water bottle at night placed on our beds, slippers, bathrobes, an ipod player, a huge movie selection, giant umbrellas that protected you from every raindrop, the biggest garden full of every veggie and fruit you could imagine, and a restuarant with fabulous rosemary bread and croissonts. I could have stayed there for ever just eating bread, strolling around the grounds, and watching movies. A llama pulling a cart even carried our bags down to our room for us.

Dad and I became professional equestrians as well. The Harrison family is not one for riding horses, but I think I might have a future in riding. With the right gear I looked pretty darn good up on that horse. Our first riding experience was on mules coming up a 3000 foot mountain we had just walked down and were too lazy to walk up. Despite the fact that these mules seemed to walk as close to the cliffs edge as humanly possible, I was not that scared and got into the whole motion of the ride. The next morning we decided to push ourselves even more and went on a horseback ride for an hour around the valley. Granted we did go on horses that are physically incapable of running, I was pretty proud of ourselvs and think we looked pretty professional up there. It might look easy just sitting there, but our leg muscles were activated the whole time and for the next like 3 days after our calves were sooo sore.

Dad overprescribed me anti diarrhea medicine caused I apparently ate something bad or was unfamiliar with the bacteria he brought over from the US. So then I was constipated for 4 days after. Advice: never take 4 anti diarrhea pills in a whole day. It really clogs you up.

We saw a male andian condor. they are the biggest birds in the world with a wing span of 3 meters. After 5 minutes of it sitting on the cliff side so dumb ass tourist made a loud noise and it flew away.

The hotel also gave dad and me free pisco sour lessons and a cooking lesson on how to make quinoa risotto. The pisco sour lessons were more fun since we got kinda tipsy with the barman Walter. But then since I had no food in my stomach I felt really gross and then next day dad had a mild hangover. Pisco Sours are super strong with only a little lemon, sugar, and egg whites flavoring the 3 ounces of 45% alcohol.

I lost in a game of chess to my pops and got mad. Apparently chess club in 3rd grade did not help much.

After lots of relaxing time reading and hiking around the gorgeous trails in the canyon, dad and I flew to Lima where he had to take a flight home. Guess some of us have to work. I was really overwhelmed by the big city of Lima. I forgot what big cities with people everywhere felt like. We stumbled upon this really ugly beach that was full of around 10,000 people. From up above all you could see were these little ant like people standing in the water (people from latin america realy like to just stand in the water at beaches) and thousands of umbrellas. I dont think I even saw what the sand looked like there were so many people. one third of perus population lives in lima. Giant.

It was sad saying goodbye to my daddy. I was getting used to the ease and comfort of travelling with a familiar face and having him pay for everything. Besides all the resupply items of soft toilet paper from home and more toothpaste, it was so great to have travelled with my dad. The 18 hour bus ride to the coast of northern peru on my own was a little sad, but i know I will quickly readjust to the solo traveller mentality.

Till next time.

Sand gets everywhere!!

Sand is like glitter. It is hard to resist touching and playing in it, gets everywhere, and never ever seems to come off even after a couple of showers.

After an 18 hour bus ride (which feels like nothing to me now), I got to Huacachina, which is a small town near Ica surrounded by huge sand dunes. I have never seen so much sand before in my life. And the softest sand ever too. I was only planning to stay one or two nights there, but ended up staying 4 days cuase I just couldnt resist the sand. It was the first time too in a month and halfish that I felt the heat. I got to walk around in my bathing suit all day long, swim in my hostel pool, relax, and play in the sand.

The thing to do there is to go sand boarding, so I rented a board one day with some other travelers i met and we climbed up the huge dunes and zoomed down the hill on our stomachs and butts. Such a rush. Sand boarding is apparently a profossional sport or something. Like snow boarding but on sand. However, I am definetly not professional and see no career in my future in this sport. It was more fun for me to climb up the dunes (really good calf work out), look at the sunset and contemplate life and then roll or run down the slopes.

I met this one Israeli girl (there are tons of Israelis in this town) that became a walking legend in Huacachina. She was really proud to tell us all her story about how two weeks ago she almost died sand boarding. Pretty crazy story actually. She was sand boarding with her friends and was going too fast on her stomach. I am not really sure why she did not just roll off her board to stop, but she apperently did not see that there was a hostel right below her and crashed straight into it! She lost consiousness for two hours, bruised her enter body and still can not walk right, and cut open her head. The security cameras were on and there is live footage of her crashing right in between a tree and the ledge of the pool. Super lucky she survived. Apparently there have been deaths of tourists there.

Although she had such a truamatic experience, It seemed to work out for her benefit in the end. The hot bar tender at our hostel came to her rescue and "nursed" her back to health. She had decided to stay an extra week there to recover/hook up with him before her flight home to Israel. She seemed pretty pleased to be the talk of the town. And although she could barely walk, we all went to this salsa club in the city together and got our dance on.

I had met this other guy from Isreal in Huacachina,named Avi, who went with us to the salsa club. He was one of those super honest stereotypical Israelis that thought he knew everything. He was a punkish dj with side bangs who definelty had no idea how to salsa and was pretty uncomfortable among all the peruvians in the club. But we hung out with each other alot and had loads of fun. There as been a suddle shift now between seeing lots of Argentinians to Israelis. Israelis come in waves and I think it is about to crash into South America.

I have loved every place that I have been and have decided that I could also live in Huacachina for a while and just chill out, play in the sand all day, and build up my calf muscles by hiking up the dunes. After running down the sand dune for the last time i forced myself to leave and headed on my way to Arequipa. I am making a slight detour down south becuase my pops is coming to visit me!! I cant wait to see him. It will be a nice break from the shit hostel pillows and greasy cheap street food. My dad refuses to stay in hostels, so 5 star hotels it is and ceviche every day! He is also resupplying me with good netrogena sunscreen and soft toilet paper! I saw my first starbucks today in arequipa and got a soy latte. Side note: i have been randomly eating things with cheese and milk products in it, and have been feeling okay. maybe i am slowly becoming un-lactarded!

professional yahtzee players and french mafia

My last couple of days in Cusco were pretty exciting. I decided that I could definetly live in Cusco for an extended period of time, work in a bar in a hostel, eat ovepriced eggs and bacon breakfest at Jacks Cafe, learn to play the didgeridoo at the local hippie hang out spot, and wear llama and alpaca clothing from head-to-toe. I would then make friends with the guards at Machupichu so I could go in at night and sleep under the stars in an Incan temple or something. That would be the life.

I have titled this entry after these two jerks that I met in my hostel room. I met these two french guys my first morning staying at Wild Rover hostel (which offers a good party every night with the most unorganized hour of power and good eighties tunes). Not realizing that one of the french guys was a chronic lier, I believed them when they told me that they were involved in the french mafia, owed money to the Peruvian mafia, and had a gun and knife in their backpacks. I figured that being nice, but maintaining my distance was the best way to handle the situation. It turned out that they had already been kicked out of the other well known party hostel in Cusco because of their knife, which in reality was more like a dagger(they claimed they bought it as a souveniour in the jungle for protection from the mafia on the streets of Peru).

The first night I had with them in the hostel room they broke all three of the hostel rules and ate, drank vodka and mango juice, and smoked like a pack of cigerettes making all my clothes smell horrible. Once they were sufficiently drunk they moved their party to the bar in the hostel, as well as their dagger. They claimed afterward that they had no idea how their dagger ended up in the bar at that some Australian must have found it under thier mattress bed and brought it in. Likely story. Whatever the case, a dagger in a bar with drunk people is not such a good idea. The next day this super nice chick from Canada had a photo of the knife held up to her neck. Also not a good idea. Later in the night (more like the wee hours of the morning), they asked me if I had money to give them because they needed to pay off the mafia. Um, no. Over a good vegetarian meal for breakfest at this awesome place called El Encuentro, we pieced together the night and came to the conclusion that these french dudes were chronic liers and major sketch balls. Luckily they had left for Machupichu that morning and we would get a break from them until they came back.

A couple of days later when they came back (after claiming that their guide left them alone and they had to walk in the dark by themselves for hours to aguas calientes),they instanetly got thier vodka confiscated and were told that the police were en route to the hostel to pick them up. The 27 year old super chilled out Irish hostel owner somehow had found their dagger and came into our room right as they both stepped out of the shower and were half naked. He kindly kicked them out recomending that the best thing to do would be to leave cusco immediatly. After trying to deny their innocence for a while, which didnt work so well, they finally left. I randomly ran into them on the street an hour later as they were trying to find another hostel far away from the center. I calmly told them that maybe it is not such a good idea to have such a big dagger when traveling and that bringing it into a bar when people are drunk is also not such a smart thing and that telling people you have a gun and are part of the french mafia is also not very smart. I was glad to never see them again!

Besides this minor encounter with sketchy french men, Cusco felt super safe and was really fun. Cusco is loaded with great plazas to sit in, good restaurants, lots of markets to shop in, and an amazing nightlife with an array of chilled out reggae scenes and loud discotecas. It really trapped me in and after spending around 2 weeks there i decided it was time to move on with my travels. So on my way I went...

You can sleep when you die

Now that I have had amble time to reflect and sleep from my journey to one of the 7th wonders of the world, I feel like I am able now to share it with the world wide web. My adventure to Macchupichu was out of control un-matchable experience. There are a couple of different options of how to arrive to the ruins, and I chose, hands down, the best option. Instead of going on the overpriced and overcrowded famous Inca trek, I took an alternate route called Salcantay Trek. Not only was it cheaper ($200 US), it was one more day, I barely saw any other travels, and it was not rerouted that week becuase of landslides. Despite the hail, snow, constant rain, avalanches lasting 10 minutes, mud up to our ankles, wet socks, near death experiences in landslides, and loads of mule shit, it was one of the top treks I have ever done. In fact I think that National Geographic rates this as one of the top 16 treks (which is a bizarre number) in the world.
Our group of 8 all got super close too. The first day we were already sharing dirty stories, most embarassing moments, and having deep beautiful moments looking up at the stars. There was a group of 4 Australian med students who are doing an elective in clinics in Cusco. Super chill group of people. There were two english dudes, one with a horrible pealing sunburn. and the last guy was this hilarious dude from ireland that laughed really spontaneously. good group.
Climbing up the first couple of days I got to the highest point I have ever been to in my life at 5,033 meters (around 15,000feet). The last couple of days were spent descending down through beatiful jungle and along the most raging river I have ever seen. We even had mules carrying the majority of our stuff with 2 cooks that would show up before we got there and already have popcorn and tea for us. Soup before every meal was served and we woke up every morning to coca tea in our tents. Besides the five star food we got, our guide was absolutely amazing. Juan Carlos was a young hot peruvian guide that enjoyed socializing with us around beer and cigars and educated us on the ancient Incan culture. He taught us that the word Macchupichu is originally pronounced slightly different in Quecha for "old mountain", but with the Spanish influence the pronouncation has been altered and now means "old dick" (macchu meaning old and pichu meaning dick). And Wuaynapichu (which is the famous peak that you climb in the macchupichu,means ("young dick"). So we all hiked 5 days to ancient dick and then climbed up the steep stairs on young dick. jeje.
After spending our last night in Aguas Calientes, which is a tourist town right at the base of the ruins, we woke up super early and hiked up the steep steps to get to the entrance to Macchupichu before all the old fart tourists showed up on the buses. I was the 8th person to be emmitted into Macchupichu and so was one of the 400 people they allow up Wuaynapichu. I spent the whole day wondering around these magnificent ruins in complete awe. Since we got in so early we got to experience the ruins without anyone there. So magical. As the people started pouring into the site, I was so grateful that I went during low season. I can not even imagine how crowded it would be during high season.
My group of 8 that I had hiked with all climbed up to Wuaynapichu together. And although it was raining at the time and some bitch lady had told us it was not worth the climb up, we made it to the top and took a naked photo that we had been planning on. It was an awesome photo with are white bare bums siluetted by the white clouds in the background. Unfortunetly, and completley understandably, this was not allowed in such a sacred place and the security guard made us erase our photo work. oh well.
The rest of the day I spent wondering in and out of the ruins. On my way up to the Sun Gates I had a very National Geographic Discovery Channel experience. Right after I was almost run over by like 10 llamas charging down this narrow path, I stumbled apone a llama giving birth!!!!!!! It was so amazing. Right before hand the father had committed suicide and fallen off the cliff to meet his death (I am convinced it was becuase having a child was just too much responsibility for him). For an hour I watched a baby llama being pushed out and welcomed into this world. It was so floppy and had placenta all around it. But once it was able to sit down and lift its head up on its own, I was granted the honor of preforming a baptism ceremony. I drank some boxed wine with some workers of Macchupichu and poured a little over the llamas head welcoming it into this world and thanking the patchimama (mother earth). With every death there is a birth. So beautiful and metaphorical.

On the way back to Cusco, the entire bus wanted to just pass out from having had such a long journey the last couple of days. However, we were blessed by having the biggest assholes in our bus ever. They were from California and I felt sooo embarrassed for my country. They were pissed drunk and screaming and yelling fuck shit gay nigger every other word. They pissed in bottles, one guy shat himself cause he thought it would be funny, they were so disrespectful to this 60 year old man sitting next to them, and when the driver and the women working on the bus asked them to be quiet they just told her to take her clothes off and get naked. We stopped the bus and were going to kick them off at the police station, but unfortunetly they convinced the driver that they deserved to get to cusco. Such jerks. or as the english say, such wankers.

So when i eventually got back to cusco the bed at wild rover hostel felt so good to climb into. The week had been just one adventure after another and i was reading to just sleep and do nothing for a couple of days. Cusco has trapped me in with its small streets, beautiful plazas, amazing food of all sorts, and great nightlife. I could really see myself staying here for a couple of months and working in a bar hostel restaurant teaching english or something. However, my plans are taking me north and there are more countries to see. I will come back some day for sure.

Lake BoobPoop (aka Lake Titicaca)

I am not really sure why anyone would ever name a lake that refers to boobs and poo in the same name, but never the less, it is an amazing lake. Lake Titicaca is the highest navitagable lake in the world and sits between the border of Peru and Bolivia. At times it looks like the ocean since you cant see the other side of the lake. To get to the lake on the Bolivian side the common place to stop off at is Cocacabana (which reminds me of a beach coctail with a mini umbrella in it for some reason). However Cocacabana is not really anything like that. I spent one night there in this really shitty hostel room with only one bed, a little cabinet, and nothing else. It was raining so I just read my book and ate an entire bar of chocolate in the hostel room.

After eating amazing chicken soup for breakfest (I have discovered the joy of eating soup for breakfest), I heading on a 10 mile hike along the coast through farm land to a small port town where I picked up a way too expensive boat ride over to Isla del Sol (island of the sun). Although I got only a little bit of sun in the two days that I spent on the island, it was absolutely beautiful. There were some pretty epic lightning and thunder storms. I counted and there was not even one second between the thunder and lightning. ahh!

If I was travelling with a lover, this would definetly be the spot to go. It is super romantic, quite island, with hostels high up on the island with views of the lake and snow peaked Andean mountains in the background. However I was not with a lover and instead past the time by myself the majority of the time. I got in a lot of good me time, which got a little lonely after a while. Although I did end up eating one dinner with these two dudes from South America who are in a pop rock band together and wore leather jackets and long dangly earings. I couldnt really understand much of what they were saying since their spanish accent was nearly impossibly to understand. But I did a good job at pretending I knew what was going on.

I walked a good 10ish miles around the island and saw some inca ruins and a beach loaded with tents and hippie argentinians with guitars and mate. If I was argentinian and shaved off half of my hair or wore baggy pants and carried hot water to pour into my mate tea, I would have loved camping out on this beach. However, I am far from that. Apparently this island was where the Incans created the world for the "second" time. I am not really sure where they created the world for the "first" time. I went to the rock where they created the world and was told that there was a puma shape in the rock. i definetly did not see any puma in the rock, but nonetheless touched my hands against it and absorbed the energy it gave me.

I could definetly go back to this Island and just do nothing for a couple of days. It was really peaceful and beautiful. However, I did get kinda lonely and was ready to head to a more touristy place where I would meet other travellers. I ran down in the rain with some French peeps I met and cuaght a boat ride back to Cocacabana. We bought tickets to head to Cusco and although we paid for "semi cama" seats that were suppose to recline, we got stuck on a shit bus. I spent my extra bolivianos on lots of cookies and chocolate and crossed the Peruvian border!! yeah! another stamp on the passport!

We stopped over in Puno for 4 hours on route to Cusco. Puno is the shittier town on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. In those 4 hours I stumbled upon a huge fiesta in the plaza. hundreds of people were celebrating some virgen or saint or something. There was lots of live music and locals dressed in their typical wear. I hugged my backpack for life so no one would rob it and went straight in the middle of the crowd. Peruvians are way nicer than bolivians and I was quickly invited into a circle party. I danced some salsa, drank some Cusquena beer, went pee on the floor in this nasty bathroom (which everyone was doing), and bought way too much greasy street food (hamburgesa, fried chicken on friend noodles, and meat on a stick). Gross. but so good. Good first hours in Peru!!