Picture Freedom

Biking vineyard to vineyard in Mendoza

View from the hostel in Bariloche

El Chalten (home to Fitz Roy)

After our whale watching tour

Rocking the 80 onzies on our Torres Del Paine trek

(surprisingly the most helpful piece of clothing we could have brought)

Streets of Mendoza (most beautiful city yet)

Drinking mate with one of my many bus flings

(j/k)

Simple pleasures

Typical landscape of Patagonia (minus the towering horizon of mountains)

Trying to take a pic but inhibited by the 55mph winds

Fruit foraging in a mulberry tree

Lalia disappointed yet again by the typical Argentine bus lunch of 3 ham and cheese sandwiches

(bus cama however is a very different story... wine, good beef, great flics)

Glacier Moreno (outside of El Calafate)

You would think she would remember by now

Wind, wind, and more wind

Now we find ourselves near the end of the world after...

1. an unbelievable amount of bus rides, including a 36 hour one (try that in a normal bus for a heck of a back ache)
2. ¨chocolate hopping¨ we like to call it from fine chocolate to fine chocolate shop in Bariloche, displaying false curiosity in hopes of free samples (as any self-respecting street child would do)
3. eating enough fruit in days to last us a month (Chilean fruit is cheap and insanely good, whereas Argentine fruit is expensive and minimal)
4. some more ¨loving¨ from bus drivers and attendants... it is so very odd
5. the most astounding scenery i have ever seen... hands down
6. yarn and thirft store shopping with our Chilean host mom for our newly acquired and short lived hobby of crocheting
7. biking vineyard to vineyard and fruit foraging along the way in Mendoza
8. appreciating the beauty with which Argentines live their lives. it is a country where the world shuts down from 1-5 and every sunday, people savor the fine things in life like chocolate, wine and steak, mate is drank and only shared of course, family is always first, and sundays seem to beckon the city to the park with grandparents sipping mate and snacking on their packed picnic as their grandchildren play
9. wishing we were losing weight like normal travelors, not gaining... too many empanadas i suppose
10. wishing Chilean Spanish was not impossible to understand, and therefore resolved to be confused until we are back in Argentina
11. thankful for beds we don´t fear for bed bugs in, but severly missing the ghettoness for the third world
12. being blessed by people´s generosity
13. getting blown about (the wind here is outrageous!)
14. learning alot about love and it being a choice
15. and, saddened by the idea of a turkeyless thanksgiving

Huanchaco at sunset

(typical fishing boats)

Dinner with the Risconi´s

(Argentine missionaries in Peru)

Spanish classes in Quito


Shoot...more to come, technical difficulties

Recent Jaunts

1- After being stuck in Cusco waiting for riots to break on the road to Puno (Lake Titicaca), we made some arrangments for alternative transport. Truck driver Guido stuffed five gringos in his ride and we set out on backroads for 10 hours, stopping only for a little snack of sheep and potatoes and a couple of road blockades set by fierce and adament indigenous women.

2- Always ride the cheapest transport if you want to be a part of drug busts in the middle of the night.

3- Today, after a confused and hilarious exchange of broken Spanish, we helped our Chilean old lady friend sneak bras and underwear over the Chile/Argentina border.

4- And sadly, more to rack up our claims for travel insurance as we found ourselves cashless and camera-less after a bus ride to the border of Peru and Chile.

Marks of the Developed World

1- Bike paths
2- Art expos
3- The fashion mullet
4- Lack of potholes
5- Organized traffic (aka people stop for pedestrians)
6- Toilet seats
7- Mattress pads, fitted (& matching) sheets and legit pillows
8- Youth projects
9- Framed art vs. pasted gas station ads for decor
10- Asian tourists
11- Refridgerated meat
12- Skinny jeans & trendy dress
13- Less street dogs
14- Sadly, whiter skin
15- Less food for more money

Gringo Crepes for Sale!

"if you don´t know the lingo, buy a crepe from a gringo!"

This is indeed the slogan for our booming new business...Gringo Crepes.
Hilarious, but strangly and somewhat fitting perhaps...
This I suppose is what happens when your stuck in a tourist mecca for too long (still waiting for Lalias debit card to come) with no money but a wealth of ideas and just enough insanity.
Good news... we broke even and made a whole $.33!
Our dreams of funding our travels by selling crepes wherever we go were slightly dampened by the lack of monetary success upon first attempt but the dreaming continues... french toast perhaps?
Though the profits were lacking, the laughs however were not.

Morning Tea

We are not used to being spoiled like this...
A friendly knock at our tent and a welcome world with hand delivered tea every morning!
This is just one of the many delights of our last trek...the Salkantay Trek that took us to Machu Pichu.
We strongly debated going the cheap/quicker (though really not that cheap) route to the big destination but had to remind ourselves we are here to take in and enjoy, not check things off the good ol´list.
A hard bargained $160 got us an awesome group turned family for a week, surprisingly good Peruvian meals plus tea time (popcorn, cookies, and tea every afternoon), Edwin (our softspoken, very knowledgable, kind guide who reminds us of a little boy), awesome natural hot springs, tons of microclimates, 177 black fly bites on one leg (true!), and horses to carry our packs!
Machu Pichu was incredible... we kind of expected it to be cool but just what we´ve seen so many times in pictures, but it was unbelievable. Thank goodness too because the 1,000 step hike up was far from leisurly. The Incas are ridiculous... I´ve never been so intrigued by history or ruins for that matter- well worth the walk, the crowds, and our now lack of sleep due to uncontrolable itching!

until today...
never have i ever woken up to a field of wild horses, trapped in by a peruvian fog.
surely this is not "fake" life.
surely the "real world" is no more real than this glaciated valley.
i hear the cracking of the snow.
i feel a cold wind as it brushes our rain fly.
my hands are frozen.
my feet are wet in the stream.
dear God,
i see you in the water.
dare i jump in?
to possibly make me feel more alive?
dare i ride one of these horses bareback? or would that just make me dead?
oh wow.
now they are stampeding.
good thing i decided to sit and journalize on a rock.
not much more could contribute to my alive-ness.
thanks for these friends... for alena, laura, lalia.
for what we accomplished yesterday. 15800 feet... dizzy from the height
of punta union pass, achey from the same and sore today (a memory possibly. my muscles did not want to forget that scree and talus climb until they were blue in the face... blue like the lagooon at the top).
thanks Jesus for our DTR. calm. cool. collected. rational... neccessary.
traveling with people... hard at times - difference of pace, personality, opinion, tastes, preference.
some need to be right and speak up, some are afraid to be wrong and never do, and then there are others (eh hem) who never want to ruffle anyone's feathers and so freely get trampled all over... a lot we all need to work on...
and i am no better.
and i would never trade slighly hard relational dilemmas for the "easiness" (aka do whatever i want, when i want it) of traveling solo.

South American Mess

Officially... we are a South American Mess!

Laura has chronic diarrhea and a stolen camera.
Lalia has blisters and identity theft.
Jordan has an earache, a spider bite on her butt, and no money (still).

However... still in high spirits but thank you for your concern

Our Path

Places We´ve Found Ourselves...
1. Banos- canyoning (rapelling and ziplining down waterfalls), one heck of a hilarious 35 mile bike ride through the Andes passing waterfalls every 30 minutes to a neighboring town
2. Casa Victoria- some more time finishing up Spanish classes in Quito and hanging out with our friends at Casa
3. To the Coast- found ourselves in Puerto Lopez, a dusty little fishing village after a torturous but memorable for sure 11 hour overnight bus ride
3. Montenita- we spent about a week in this hippie surfer town. I ended getting to work with Gustavo, this hilarious ex famous Argentine rock star turned chef at a really cool restaurant in town. The girls (and i for a day) got jobs teaching english at some schools in neighboring towns which was a sight in itself considering Lalia and I barely speak Spanish!
4. Worked down the coast to Peru- more overnight bus rides but good news... Peruvians buses are delux (hot empanadas at 3am!)
5. Mancora- another couple days at the beach (rough life huh)
6. Huanchaco- our hostel, an awesome group of people, surfing, another cooking gig for me, and my first dose of legit travel sickness (you know what that means) reeled us in for almost a week
7. Now we find ourselves just outside of Huaraz, the icecream and trekking capital of Peru learning our fare share of S. American inconvenience in the form of broken down transportation at 12,000 ft. Better luck tomorrow getting to the trailhead of our 4 day trek through the Cordillera Blancas!

Politics Here

Its a hot and pivotal time for politics in Ecuador. At the end of September, the people will be voting on a new constitution, which if passed will start a transition into Socialismo. The poor sector of the population seems to be all for it because for the most part it will take from the rich and benefit them. Even the children know that new school uniforms will come with a ¨Yes¨ vote. The richer sector however claims the poor are misinformed, uneducated (most don´t understant what the new consitution entails), and don´t want to lose the capitalist society they have worked for. The economic gap here is astounding, a tell tale sign of the developing world.

Everyday, new sights seem to shock us into the reality of our world apart from our own affluency. We realize all the time how blessed we are!

Casa Victoria

So crazy... but the last few days us girls have been staying at this house called Casa Victoria in perhaps one of the sketchiest barrios of Quito but its this awesome Christian community house that has graciously invited us in! We've been eating like kings here and stalking up on delicious meals to last us the anticipated days to come of peanut butter and bananas.

Some activities we have been enjoying:
-Mitad del Mundo (center of the earth)
-Pretending to learn spanish (j/k, i think we actually may be)
-Panaderia hopping (we may or may not be obsessed)
-Bartering for llama textiles
-Watching Spanish flicks
-Soccer pick up games with Ecuatorian children
-South America's largest mercado
-Hammock reading at an Andean countryside getaway
-Being lost in who-knows-where jungle thanks to the
similarities of "laguna" y "la luna" and our quechua speaking friend
-Becoming Quito navigational professionals
-Rescuing street borrachos (drunks)
-Any fruita tu quieres in the form of $.50 jugo from our fave...Nancy
-Recovering from sketch hostel situations
-Getting robbed by sneaky frickin Claudia bus thief (& CO)... aka
chicitos under the seat...whoopsies
-And learning from the same woman to carry a switchblade on buses
-Partying in a taxi turned discoteque with Patricio
-Buying street food and minor cases of diarrhea (tapeworm tal vez)
-City bus races (es loco)
-.....Looking forward to more adventures to come!

First Impressions

observations...
1. ecuadorians are honk happy
2. toilet paper does not go in the toilet
3. horror movies are shown on buses
4. buses are also passing happy on crazy
windy roads
5. its freezing and no buildings are contained
6. who knew? Quito is the second highest
capital in the world
7. the poorest people still own tv´s
8. broken glass= barbed wire in these parts
9. the news is all graphic blood and guts
10. 70% of the country lives below the poverty
line
11. due to the poverty, everything is fried
because ovens are too expensive
12. foreigners know more about American
politics than we do
13. you can get full off an Almuerzo for $1.50
14. there is nothing close to any type of health
code...or safety code for that matter
15. meat is never refridgerated and always
butchered in front of you
16. locals love telling you about their family
in the United States...wierd
17. coca candy does not contain cocaine
18. fanta tastes 100xs better when you
haven´t eaten in 2 days
19. who knew chocolate covered bananas
could bring so much joy
20. the fruit selection here is unbelievable