Raining ticks in the prairies

The adventure continues from the beautiful Lake Nippising in North Bay ON to St Josephs Island followed by a quick visit with Ivy and Fields near Torch Lake and a brief moment in Detroit.

We have made our way through thunderstorms I was certain would result in a flash flood in St. Criox Falls, WI, non-stop rain in Voyageurs National Park, Minn and now....the prairies....

The praires, it all started in Winnipeg, Mannitoba. Here we got our first day of sunshine. I thought "I love the praries" (though I knew the love would not last)...down town is cute a big city with that small city feel. Getting an early start decided to make the long haul to Regina, Saskatchewan. Well lets detour becuase the prairies are flooded and the trans continental highway 1 is shut down. South we go in search of camp. The flooding is crazy, nearly every field is flooded resulting in lakes filled with new wild life, really it is tragic to see houses roads farms all under water. A woman of 102yrs told a women we met that in all her life she has never seen anything like this.

Numerous detours followed in a town Weyburn where the entire town was shut down. It was awful we were starving, now we have been driving 7 hours. Onward, hardly any civilization for hundreds of miles, at last we take a gamble, betting that Dunnet Park will not be flooded, and go 30miles more into the land of nothing. We won! We pitch our tent on some dryish land in the home of more black flies and mosquitos then I have seen throughout this journey combined, must be all that rain huh? We take control of the situation with a bug bomb of sorts and start our fire with a glass of whiskey in hand enjoying the clear skies and warm sun...until the stroms roll through and in they came for the entire evening. A tick found on Hyde led us to do a quick tick check, yup, Hyde has two and Henry three, us humans none.

I wake this morning at six am and for no good reason I lift up the sleeping bag a little and would you look at that, it is a tick! I silently freak out in my head, grab the closest weapon, a lighter, and I burn it. Dee wakes up and upon looking at me she knew something was wrong. "Why are you awake" "You have to pee" "Do you have a headache"...no, I say, you dont want to know and I tell her of my tick discovery. We both get up and do a body check....eeeeek Dayna asks me to look at something on her rear and sure enough on her ass is a tick munching on her skin and snacking on her blood, I look down and I scream there is one on my thigh. Dayna is screaming I am sceaming, quite the site let me tell you, even the dogs were getting upset. We calm down and I take the tweezers grab that sucker by the head and yank it out and snap its body. Eeeewwwweee....thats it we packed up in the rain, got soaking wet, and split.

Heading to Alberta to continue the endless battle with the elements and bugs!

Caio, Andrea

The Great Northeast

Hey ya'll! WOW, so much has happened in the last month!

I ended my South American trip in Cusco, at MachuPichu with my sister, most of you have heard that story, so I will not elaborate. I will say the energy there is incredible. After a 4 day hike through the Incan trail, up and over mountains I was amazed I could climb, we came back to Detroit. Here I visited, hopefully with most of you, for 2 weeks.

Currently I have traveled from Detroit to Baltimore to Harwinton Conneticut, B

urlington Vermont, The White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, Portland Maine, Middle of Nowhere Maine, Acadia National Forest Maine, Fredricton New Brunswick, and Bathurst New Brunswick. Phew....

First and foremost I am now a proud auntie of the lovely Ximena Carolyn Norona. She was born May 19th at 7lbs and 11.4 oz. She truley is a bundle of joy!

I wish Renee and Joao the best over the next, ahh, for the rest of their lives, haha :D In addition to meeting my new niece I was able to spend quality time with my mom, sisters, and Joao!

As much as I wanted to stay in Baltimore, the show must go on. So Dayna and I ventured

forward to Conneticut to visit an old friend from vet school. Before heading to Vrmont, we

celebrated my birthday by going out to breakfast and enjoying a little hike in Kent falls.

The eve of my birthday we got a hotel and had a nice dinner and brews in Burlington Vermont. What a beautiful city, sitting on Lake Champlain, overlooking the Adirondak Mountain Range!

The following morning we hiked up Mount Philo to get a panoramic view of Burlington then to a

Wildflower farm (with very little flowers, bummer), on to a nursery, and then lastly to the Magic Hat Brewry. After our adventure filled day we head to a campsite to enjoy the evening.

From Vermont we head straight to the White Forest National Park. Upon setting up our tent I had my first encounter with a moose!!!

And not just one moose, but adjoining her greatness was a calf, who happened to nurse from her

mom no more than 100 ft in front of us! I got some good footage :)

The following morning we packed up and drove up to Mount Washington, which is accredited for having the "worlds worst weather"having calculated winds of 231mph! It was beautiful, you could see the Appalachian mountains and the old and new weather observatories. Definitely a monumental day!

Onward to Maine, we made a pitstop in Portland, and then to the middle of nowhere where we camped at DuckPuddle Pond Campground. A las we made it to Acadia National Park!! What a sight, well once the fog cleared up it was. Dayna the dogs and I hiked up a mountain only to see absolutely nothing, but fog, more fog, and maybe a tree behind all the fog.

Fortunately, the next morning the skies opened up, all the memorial day campers left, and we hiked into the mountains. This place is absolutely beautiful!!! Acadia is full of lakes, surrounded by the ocean and covered with mountains!! I have never been to such a place :)

(thats my shadow in the bottom left, can you see it?)

Sadly, we left Acadia and head to Canada. Stopping for a quick nights sleep outside Fredricton on the St. John River, we showered and quickly head out to Bathurst! Yet another jem.

Bathurst and its surrounding towns are located all along the shore of the Atlantic. The coast is rocky and the water in parts is a deep blue.

We are staying here at a campground owned by my old college roommate, Emily's, father. We were upgraded into his camper and were teated to a lobster dinner. Surely we are being spoiled...I'll tell you it is quite nice as the temperatures here are cold and there is plenty of rain! We look out of our window and stare at the beach and the ocean and every morning we take the dogs for a walk on the beach with our coffee and tea. I'll tell ya, this is living....

Miss you! (as soon as i have good internet i will upload photos)

P.S. We may, depending on the arrival of the "little Boddy", be rolling through Detroit instead of going through northern Ontario!

Peru

Ahh Lake Titicaca, not sure exactly how I feel about it...

I toured Lake Titicaca for a total of 3 days. First Isla del Sol in Bolivia then the floating Islands containing the Uros and Taquila in Puno Peru. It was an interesting experience. I felt like I was invading the peoples land, and I felt obliged to buy things from them. In addition, the children sang to us in every language and it was clear that this is not what they want to do, but they have no choice but to do it...weird..I had a hard time with the fact that everyday these people wait for the tourists, spend the first 8 hours of there day with strangers and then go about there normal lives. What kind of life would that be to entertain people in your home on your island everyday? Thing is these islands are very small, there are over 40 islands with 5 to 8 familys per island. It was a sight to see, but way to touristy....

The island of Taquile was better, a natural island, unlike the man made floating islands (which were made to get away from the Incans on the main land). Still the people are so pushy, buy my bracelet NOW!!! NO!! I met a girl in the main square that was no selling anything, she was playing with a string. I start talking to her and teach her some fun stuff, like how to make the witches broom, ad the farmers pants, then I show her cats cradel. A guy sees me playing with her and comes over and we play cats cradel together. The little girl is amazed. She then shows me a lil trick that she knows how to do, which was basic, but cute! I really enjoyed her company, she didnt want any money from me and simly enjoyed playing with me. I wished that I had brougth something in my bag to give to her, like a toy or something...

I arrived back to Puno, the 3rd largest city in Peru, a little to large for me, but I stayed in an amazing hostel for fairly cheap and had my own room, my own bathroom, and a HOT shower!! WOO!

From Puno I went on a bus to Chivay, completly skipping over Arequipa. It was a tour bus with me and 4 other people, ahhh very comfortable. We stopped at different locations looking at a lake, lots of alpacas, and flamingos. I am still in the Andes, and on our journey we peaked at 4900m. Highlight of the ride was when we went through a crazy snow storm, it was awesome! The road was completely covered in snow, it has been awhile since I have seen snow collecting on the ground. However, we were unable to see the volanoes because of the storm, but it was just as fun to be in the snow storm and besides I have seen many volcanos.

So onward to Colca Valley. I went to Chivay first, where I visited the local hot springs, La Calera. It is interesting becuase every terma that I go to is so different. This one was segreageted into 5 different pools, and the water was about 85 degrees. Overall it was nice and relaxing. The mountains surrounding the pools and the river flowing below were all very serene.

I then went to to Cobanaconde, where I would be able to get into Colca Canyon! Upon arriving I check in and meet a girl from the US that was there for the Peace Corp. I hung out for a bit had some lunch and caught the 2pm bus to the Cruz del Condor. Here is a lookout close to a bunch of Condor nests that have been around for generations. I must have seen over 20 condors. They are HUGE! When they fly by you they sound like a plane. This was not my first time seeing the Condor, as I saw them in the Tupiza to Uyuni tour, however, this was the first time that I sat and specifically watched for them. As I was there in the afternoon there were only 5 of us up there. In the morning when I drove by there mist have been 100 people there. Essentially I had the canyon to myself!! As I waited for the bus to arrive I met Melanie and Rob, one from Spain and the other England. We hang out and waited for the last bus to arrive, which should be there at 430 or 5 I was told. At 5, it begins to get dark and cold, maybe we should walk. We walk about 3 miles for about an hour and half up and down the mountain road, when finally at 630pm a bus drives by and we hitch a ride!! I was grateful to be with other people!!

The canyon let me tell you is gorgoeous. At the bottom of the canyon runs the Colca River, and near the bottom is a place called Sangalle. Sangalle is an Oasis, with Palm trees, grass, and pools. I hiked down here which took about 2.5 hours, down a steep, rocky, mountain trail. It zigged and zagged all the way down. I had lunch and then becuase I did not have a guide, like every other gringo had, and it was already 3pm, I hired a mule to take me back up. The walk up is 4 hours, ALL up the steep rocky moutain trail, and it gets dark at 5pm.

With the mule I got up in 2 hours, It was such an odd experience. I was so sad that the poor mule had to work so hard carrying me up, she was sweating. UGhh, at one point I wanted to get off and walk myself. At the end of the trip up there was a down hill section and my girl, Blanca, I named, her slipped a little while running down and I almost fell off superman style! I intinctively grabbed a hold of her neck and my back pack was on and my water bottle went flying out, phew, scary moment!! I was grateful for saving myself from what coulds have been a bad accident, me hitting large rocks and then possibly being trampled by a huge mule!!!

Ohh in addition, the house dog, Osa, followed me down to the canyon and did not follow me back up. When I left Cobanaconde she was still not back! EEK...

The hostel I stayed at was awesome, it was named Pachamama (meaning motherearth), it was cheap, had hot shwoers, a bar, and good, safe, food. Which brings me to my next point, my last night in Cobanaconde I fainted. I do not know what happened, I was talking to a guy, and then I remember saying "excuse me, I am sorry I am suddenly not feeling well". I put my head down on the bar and then looked back up, he was saying something to me but I couldn´t hear, and then I was fighting to keep my vision. I excused myself, stood up, and was attempting to walk to my room, when the next thing I know I hear a Peruvian screaming for Kristin. I look over and realize I collapsed in the middle of the dining room!! Ugh, I felt like such an asshole, I got up and said "wow I am okay, really, I don´t know what just happened". Sucks, maybe it was because I had done down 1100m and then came right back up and my body was confused with the altitude. Cobanaconde is at about 3800m. I am okay, and since then have not had a repeat!!

After a day and a half on buses, I am now in Lima!!! I am SOOOOO stoked to see Dee today!!! Ahhhh!!! I can hardly wait, I have been talking about her non-stop!! I am equally excited to ge to Cuzco and anxious to do the Incan Trail!! I imagine I will have time for one more post to discuss Macchu Picchu before returing home on May 3rd. But the travels don´t stop here my friends, North America (northern USA and southern CA) follows this trip for the summer of 2011!!

Missing you all!!

Andrea

Lovin La Paz, but on to PERU

What to say about La Paz, on our first meeting I would describe it as high, smoggy, filled with people and little buses!! To say the least I was not too pleased with La Paz. First step I took on the ground began an adventure. The adventure begins with my bus dropping me off in the middle of the street, in nowhere La Paz, NOT at a bus terminal. NO tourist office, just a bunch of Bolivians scrambeling around getting to work and school! It´s 630 in the morning and I have not a clue as to where I am!!! I relax and as opposed to my original plan to walk, I simply hail a cab, but as soon as I start talking he says no and drives away! Hailing another cab, I see two people in the taxi, the driver and another man whom I presumed to be the drivers father. I tell them where I need to go and they agree to take me. Running into a closed road filled with protesting Bolivians, the father is dropped off. The driver then proceeds to tell me, ahhh we can not get down to the city. HUH!? Why not I ask? There are people protesting all the roads are closed!! Shit! I tell him, I am scared because I do not know where I am at and that I don´t know what to do. He tells me do not worry I have a friend with a moped, he can take you, he owes me a favor. OK. Knock knock, nope. No one is home. Do not worry he says, I will take you. We then pull up to his house, we park the taxi, I get introduced to his mom, attacked by his dog, he grabs my pack, throws it on his back, and we are off. We load up into a little dodgy bus and then get dropped in the middle of the largest clusterfuck of traffic and humans I have ever seen. Cars, people, dogs, EVERYWHERE. Avoiding getting hit by the insane drivers and with the lack of traffic laws, I just keep following Jose.

We arrive to a door....this is a Wizard of Oz door, becuase I open it and I see an incredible site, The city of La Paz! It lays in a valley, and so nicely is covered by a cloud of smog. We walked down a STEEP, very STEEP, pathway comprised of ramps and steps, down down down to the city. We must have walked this path for 20 min! I wished that I had my camera handy, but I have no pics of this adventure! about an hour and half after walking we find my hostel. Let me now tell you that the altitude is some 3700m. So walking for an hour and half really exhausted me. When we made it to the hostel I was so grateful, Jose carried my large pack, me my small bag, the whole time! I wished that I could explain to him how grateful I was, instead, I paid him way too much money and gave him lots of hugs!

I arrived to the hostel, and ran into two people I met on a bus to Salta, a long time ago, and then I met a swiss gril, Axel. Axel and I decided to go on the tour fo the Worlds Most Dangerous Road together.

The Worlds Most Dangerous Road!!! Taking a bus, at 730 am, to the start of the ride, we are surrounded by a lake and mountains! 4700m up into the sky, better believe that it was cold! We recieve our bikes! I have an awesome new bike named Barney! The first 20 km we fly down the paved mountain road, racing through clouds, reaching speeds of 36 to 38 miles per hour! Quite exhilirating!!!

FUN FUN, but ok, now for the dangerous road! This road is now hardly used due to the production of a new, not so dangerous, road. During the ride I fell twice! Once under a waterfall, I was stuck behind someone going to slow and blah blah...I toppeled. Then later on a 180 degree turn I was going maybe to fast and slowed down but ran up on to some head sized rocks and again tipped over. This was not bad though, I did suffer some bruises but nothing dramatic. We did however lose two people during the ride, they didn´t die, but were hospitalized!! One girl fell pretty bad, was concussed and needed stiches and plastic surgery! Then a guy from Estonia, fell at the end and disloctaed his shoulder and something bad happended to his elbow, his face was a pretty beat too!! At this point I decided I better go slower, and I did.

At the end of the ride, we went to an animal refuge, where monkeys are rescued from the black market and from people who have trained them to pick pockets. No monkey climbed on me, but they tend to climb up people pick there pockets and run off. They also has birds, like Macaws and Tucans, there was a boa constrictor, and turtles. Pretty neat place aside from the sand fleas. Those little shits are savage, biting you eveywhere and you cant even feel it!! I have some pics...ewe

After the refugee, I zip lined through the valley!! This wasn´t over exhilirating, but on my first run my heart did begin to race. It was simply enjoyable to fly over the valley!

So before arriving to La Paz I was in Sucre. The only thing I want to report is that I went to the worlds largest dinosaur track!! In limestone peaking out of the ground due to natural causes, you can see the footprints of dinosaurs that walked mya, they also have the largest figurine of a, uhh, animal. Pretty neat stuff! My last destination was in Copacabana, near the border of Peru, on Lake Titicaca. Nice little town with character, a little touristy, and full of hippies. I daily battle food poisoning. I went to bed early without eating for the second day in a row, and woke up to go to Isla del Sol. The island contains over 80 incan ruins, has no cars, and no paved roads. I walked up a large case of stairs to see the Incan garden, but quickly had to retreat to the boat, I only went for half day so that I could get to Peru early! Which I did! I am in Peru, in Puno, at Lake Titicaca. Tomorrow I will go on a tour through the floating islands, I will enjoy my single bedroom wiht my priate bath, with HOT water, for two nights, and head to Chivay, to see the Colca Canyon!! I´ll get back to you soon! Caio Andrea

Getting High in Bolivia

BEFORE YOU READ, to follow along, check out my facebook pics (faya: consult a FB member), I cannot load pics on the blog it takes 45 min for one pic...


I don´t even know how to begin. I just had what may have been my best adventure in South America so far. It started by crossing the border from La Quiaca in Argentina to Villazon. The border crossing was very easy, the only annoyance is that we americans get to pay 135 USD to enter while every other person gets to pass for free. I met a couple of canadians and a girl from the US so we all crossed together. We then hung out all day and waited for a train to Tupiza. After a beautiful relaxing ride, I exit the train and would-you-look-at-that, I run into an Aussie I met in Salta, Neville (I am surely on the gringo trail). I followed him back to his hostel and crashed there, but not before booking my 4 day 4WD Jeep tour through Southern Bolivia to Uyuni, home of the worlds infamous salt falt. Before I start, I want to let you know that I was the only tourist, out of 9 of us (there is another jeep we were traveling with with holding an Aussie and 3 kids from England), that can speak Spanish well enough to understand the guides. I therefore was the translator for the group (Joao don´t laugh)!! I wasn´t so stoked about it at first, but then again, it was GREAT practice and clearly I am speaking the language well which is good good good!!!


Day1: Leaving Tupiza at about 9am, we boarded our jeep, we being two Israelis, Lital and Uval, a Frenchie, Karim, myslef, and Nev. Ohh yes and we can not forget our driver, Edwin, and our lovely cook, Maura. We start our journey going up up up into the mountains. About 4000m´s (thats about 2.5 miles) up into the Andes!! What a ride. It was slow, but beautiful. We stopped at what is called sillar, which essentially was a valley and then Puerta del Diablo (The devils Gate). Stopping in a small town, San Pablo Lípez, I was suckered into giving two Bolivian girls the rest of my change to support their playing volleyball and basketball and subsequently was followed by three boys and convinced to take a picture with them, cute:) This day is kind of hazy to me now, we were driving for so long and did not stop too often. Alas, we stopped in a town, San Antonio Lípez, to sleep and enjoyed a great meal, courtesy of Maura, and cards (shithead-the official travelers game with too many varieties to debate and play my way)!! Day2: Offically the best day of the trip (even though the salt flats were quite incredible). We started at 4:30 in the morning, and arrived to the place where we would sleep at 6 pm....Looong day! We first entered Puebla Fantasmo (Ghost Town). Here there were ruins of an Incan civilization, taken over by the Spanish due to the richness in gold and silver. It is thought that now if you were to stay there you would go mad because it is haunted, I think it is probably just because of the altitude ;)

Laguana Morejón, Salare Chalviri (a much smaller flat than the one in Uyuni) were our next sites followed by Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde, which lay before Volcano Licanabur. The volcano was home to an Incan civilization. To keep the sun rising they would sacrafice children by pushing them into the volcano. Half-way through the day we arrived to the Termas (thermal pools), however; unlike the other pool in Jujuy, we could only spend 15 min in here due to the high concertation on minerals including Borax (used to make glass). We bathed, we ate (yet another fantastic lunch provided by Maura), and Maura did my hair in braids with the classic Bolivian beads I purchased in Villazon!! Working on fitting in here ;)


Following lunch we headed to the peak, as far as altitude (5000m or 3.1miles), of the trip, the Geysers!!! Due to the volcanos there are boiling deposits of pressurized water in deep holes with steam arising. Here the rocks become full of color. Quite a spectatuclar vision, and smelly too!! Lastly, we arrived to my most favorite location, Laguna Colorada. Imagine a lake full of all the colors of the rainbow (due to the high concentrations of borax, salt, and other minerals), with mountains in the distance and flaminogs amid...can you? No? Let me show you... (here is where you would want to look at FB, hehe)


We slept in Hullajara, close to the lake, in the middle of the desert where the temperatures dropped below 32 degrees F. Burrrrr....


Day3: This days started just like every other, before the sun rose. Our first stop was to arbol de piedra. This literally translates to rock trees. They are unique rock transformations that mimic trees in the middle of a desert, which are, of course, surrounded by the Andes mountians. Venturing forward we visitied many lakes, one of which is used to make soap. We saw another volcano (Volcan Ollagüe) and had lunch in San Cristobál. San Cristobál is worth mentioning becuase it has one of the oldest churches which was completly rebuilt, and we were able top climb up onto it, fun fun! We ended the day in Colchari, a little town close to the flats enabling us to go to the flats for the sunset!! Our hostel, located off the flat, therefore enviromentally consious, was completely made of salt, the ground was salt the tables, chair, beds, etc....All except the toilet, which was a simple hole in the ground, always fun :) We quickly enjoyed some tea and cookies and headed to flat for the sunset. You will notice that at this time of the year it is wet so the flats are under water, which makes for amazing photos due to the reflection!! The downside, we were unable to drive through the middle of the flats, guess I´ll have to go back one day and see them dry! (FB)


AHHHhhh, like nothing I have seen before. A few fun facts for you geeks: the salare is the worlds largest and highest salt flat in the world. It is 12,000 km squared, sits a 3650m high, and is as deep as 125m, as discovered today, and compasses do not work here!


Day4: We started the day at 5:30 and went straight to the salare for sun rise, followed by breakfast at the salt hotel in the middle of the flat, and took picture after picture after picture. What a great day: we laughed, we danced (to MJ), the energy was high, and it ended a trip that I am sure none of us are soon to forget :) Driving back to Uyuni, I was ready to start my next adventure, but it was bittersweet. We had our last lunch together and said our good bye. I nearly cried saying good bye to my dearest Maura, I think she was close to tears too. We hugged for a long time. I will miss her so much. She asked us all ¨will you please return one day to Bolivia¨, I will!!

Now I just depàrted from Potosi, which is a whole adventure in itself. I spent 4 nights here! But not the best four nights of my trip thats for sure. I spent two nights in pain, extremely sick. Inside my belly was gremlin having its way with my intestines...ughhh felt like death. Until Saturday afternoon I had been bed ridden and visiting the toilet every hour. But after 48 hours and some modern medicine (holler Dee), I am beginning to feel better. Thank you to those of you who gave me sympathy, I was very homesick and despertly needed it. On Saturday I finally exited the hostel and went to a thermal pool "ojo del inca" (eye of the inca) just outside the city AND I finally ate after not eating for 2 and a half days!! WOO-HOO!! The thermal pool was amazing it started at about 1.5 meteres and dropped dramatically to 22m (66ft), like a cone shape. The heat comes form the center of the lake! The landscape surrounding the water was colorful and tranquil. We left the terma in a jeep with a Belgium guy and his parents who drove us half way back to Potosi. Returing to the city we hitched a ride with a Bolivian family to the center. To cap the evening a German, a Belgin, two Norwegins, Nev (who has been terribly sick as well), and myself made dinner, shared wine, and played music in the street. I am now in Sucre, tomorrow I will explore the city and then head to... I have no idea!! ahhh the life of traveling...

P.S. Dee will be here in 12 days!!!!!! WOOOOOOO!!!! Will be nice to see a sister

Until next time, Cheers, Andrea

The Andean Northwest...Salta and JUJUY!!!

Salta was a blast. I hung out with natives the entire time, and spoke nothing but Spanish for 3 days, Super Bien! I made new friends who I truly hope to see again one day. I am forever grateful for them exposing me to the Argentinian culture and treating me like family, in fact, two of them, Celeste and Manuel were brother and sister. I was little jealous :) So I meandered around the city a lot, I got to know it VERY well. It´s always so annoying that after you know the ins and outs of the city you have to leave, ahh a part of traveling. With my new friend, Celeste, I rode the teleferico, which is essentially a gondola. It gave me a great view of the city and the mountains surrounding it!

We went out every night, saw live music in the street, typical folk Argentinian music, another night we went to a bar for a cover band, who seemed to love playing the classic american songs! I had such a great time with them, drinking mate, walking around, sharing music, and exchanging aspects of our culture. Side note: they were in Salta for a concert by Indio. People are obessed with this guy, so much that I bought a T-shirt with his logo, AND, when I arrive to Jujuy the girl at the front desk has a tattoo of the logo, OBSESSED!

I am rejuvinated from Salta, and am prepared for the next 4 weeks, ONLY 4 more weeks left. Time is going so fast. I made a delicious dinner of stirfryed veggies and tomato and avacado with tortilla and cheese. I have a picture. This is my last good home cooked meal for a while, since food poisoning is inevitable in Bolivia I am going to be very cautious on what I eat. I am prepared though, to get sick, I just hope its not as sick as I was in in El Salvador (remember sisters???).

After my friends left Salta, I decided to head to Coronel Moldes (can you find it on a map?) Its just a little town with a lake and a river with rapids. Here people do "extreme sports". Sounds right up my alley!! So I try to figure out how to get here. I ask a few people and they all send me in different directions. After about 30 min of a building frustration, I go to the central bus station and talk to someone. I really got so frustrated that I almost cried, haha...I had to verbally tell myself to calm down, it was just the time was passing, and I wanted to get there and back before dark. Alas, the man at the station directed me where to go. And it was a successful. About an hour after searching for a the bus, I found it (this was my first time getting on any city bus in South America)!!! I was certain of my success after meeting an older lady who was sitting on a bench near the bus. What a sweet lady she was, we talked for about 30 min until her bus arrived....Another 30 min passes and yay, the bus is here. Its about 3 ish now...I talk to myself telling myself to relax, I still have 4 solid hours to enjoy this day, and the bus ride is only 1hr....NOT...the bus ride was almost 2 hours. I then finally arrive to Moldes, it is 430 and the bus driver tells me the last bus back to Salta is at 5:10...haha, gotta love it, at this point I had been practicing patience and was not even slightly thrown askew from hearing this news. I walk around for 40 min snap a few pics of a lovely lake with beautiful landscapes.

Then I head on my way back to the bus for my 2 hour ride back to Salta. I spent my entire day on the bus. However, I found that I enjoyed it. I did a lot of poeple watching, saw lots of landscapes and went around the entire city of Salta...Overall an unexpectedaly decent day!! After arriving back to Salta I find to Aussies in my dorm room, YAY I finally spoke some English!! We had a couple drinks at the hostels bar on the rooftop and talked about what was mostly insignificant.

I now have arrived to Jujuy, after being convinced by by native friends in Salta, and I love it! If I had known that it was such a great city with copious beauty and nature amid, I would have come here earlier. In fact, I have chosen to stay one more day! I was convinced to stay longer, by another set of locales that I met yesterday. When I first arrived, I wanted to make the most of my day so instantly I got on a city bus (I am a pro now, I had absolutley no problem figuring it out this time) and I head to Tremes del Rey. This is a place up in the mountains about an hour outside the center of the city, that has natual thermal pools (I thought of you Amy). The views were stunning! It was a valley, with a little river in the middle, and green, lush mountains all around me. When I was in the thermal pool I was so relaxed, bathing in natural water from the mountains staring at mountain tops that were covered with clouds, brisk air brushing acrossed my face....ahhhh

(Awww bummer, the pics are sideways, well its takes literally 10 mins to upload one photo, so this will have to do, meh...)

Ohh, but this is not the whole story, prior to my arrival to Termas de Reyes, when I was on the bus, a guy started talking to me about where I was from and what I was doing. After walking around and arriving to the pool, I talk with him and am introduced to his two friends. This turns into us drinking mate, which turns into me meeting one of the girls uncles, who then takes us around the city is his car, we then go get an asado (BBQ), drink wine, and then I go to a town an hour away San Pedro, and drive around there, till suddenly it is 2 am and I am exhausted. What a day! I am grateful that I can speak Spanish, and therefore get to meet locals, and do what not every back packer gets to do! These new friends of mine have now convinced me to stay one more day in Jujuy, which is good, I wanted to communicate with you all before I left for Bolivia, which I leave tomorrow morning. I suspect I will have limited internet access, but I will do my best to keep in touch.

Caio-caio,

Andrea

Gato at the pool that just jumped up on my lap!!

Iguazu- Paradise

I was in the jungle for the last couple days. I met a couple of American´s on the bus to Iguazu that are teachers in BA. As it turned out they were taking a vacation to the Iguazu falls with a bunch of the gringos residing in BA. It was a nice change of pace to meet and follow other people, I ended up hanging out with this group of 8 or 9 people for my two days in Puerto Iguazu. It was nice to converse in Spanish with gringos, because they pronounce thier words better and speak slower and in more simple terms. Therefore, I can understand almost everything that is said. I was amongst americans, germans, frenchies, and a few spainards...I have to say I enjoyed being in a big group of people for once. For one, when I walked around the falls, I went by myself, but I would run into them and they would be so happy to see me, I don´t know if that makes any sence, but it felt like I was at Cedar Point in high school, running into groups of people you know all day. However, I will say that it made me appreciate my alone time more, I am so used to being alone with my thoughts for a good portion of the day. When I was around everyone all the time, I forgot to write in my journal, and even forgot to buy post cards...but I also appreciated the enjoyment of being with friends. Humans are a herding type of species, we don´t typically like to be in isolation...

I talked alot with each person, and at dinner I talked about my PhD work. Everyone was very interested in my studies and wanted to hear details about my thesis, I´m not going to be pessimistic and think they were just trying to be nice, I think that they were truly interested. It was great, I have not talked about my work in a month. Everyone was excited about it and even impressed. I in turn got excited about it, and where it has been easy for me to feel humble about my successes, it has been more difficult to feel proud of what I have accomplished, and this night I did, I felt very proud!

I have been reading a lot, since I have spent so much time on the busses lately. I am almost done reading the Alchemist. I am really enjoying it. It explained that the intense suffering that may come along with following your dreams will pass more quickly than the constant suffering that apperars to be bearable living each day without reaching for your dreams, which that latter goes on for years and without realizing it eats your soul until we can no longer be free from it and the bitterness stays with us forever. It also talks about the guilt one feels when deciding to go on their personal journey. Here I´ll quote it, "The mere possibilty of getting what we want fills the soul of the oridinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far". So it kinda took a burden off me to see this written down as I have had these feelings before. Okay enough about my growth, what you want to see are the falls...

On Friday I spent the entire day at the Iguazu National Park. It was breath-taking, memorizing, and thought provoking. There were hundreds of falls, and one very large fall, called Garganta del Diablo (Devil´s Throat). The drop sucked down all the water spewing up mist that allowed for the most beautiful rainbows to radiate, making you realize the reality of nature.

These falls have existed for years, well beyond my 26 years here. While the water moves continuosuly and rapidly it was now flowing coetaneously with me... I am not sure I can even do the falls justice by words nor can I desribe how I felt seeing them. I do have pictures, yay!!! Still, they neither do this dreamy world justice. All I can say is that it was loud, magnificent, powerful, and colorful...GOOOOO!!!

Saturday I spent the whole day on the bus and SundayI arrived to my next destination, I am in Salta!!!!! I could not be happier. After driving through the jungle and the arid desert, on a bus ride that I don´t care to tell you about or even want to remember, I have arrived to the beautiful mountains. The emotions that I felt after arrving to Ushuaia, and Puerto Natales came rushing back. I could not stop smiling, I could feel the difference, the energy here is positive. The people seem friendly, the city is not too big, and I am surrounded by lush green forests covering the mountains. Did I mention the heat and humidity in Puerto Iguazu?? Ohh, it was a sticky hot mess, like August 1st in Michigan, slightly miserable...but they call this paradise!!!

So now I met some locals and we went out to a festival on the streets and listened to classic "folk" Argentinian musi allllllll night!! Good times!! Fireworks, dancing, happy people singing thier favorite songs!! Okay kids I am out...

Today, I will look for adventure, and will be sure to report back to you all after it is all said and done...

Take it easy, miss you lots!!

Andrea