City of Color

I just got to Santiago, Chile after staying in Valparaiso for 3 days... I think it was my favorite city so far. The weather was shit and we almost got robbed but the colors and artwork in the city were absolutely amazing. I could walk around this city for a year and always find something new to look at and never get bored.

I didn't take any pictures of Mendoza... I didn't spend very much time there and there really wasn't much to take pics of. I mean, it was a nice enough city just nothing really amazing. I did go horseback riding which I haven't done since I was really young so that was really fun.



After Mendoza I took a bus to Santiago and crossed the boarder into Chile. Although I thought I lost my passport (I found it... no worries), the pass was pretty amazing.



We went straight to Valparaiso after getting to the bus terminal in Santiago. It was only another ~2 hours so we figured it would be easier w/o knowing Santiago just to hang out in Valparaiso for awhile. Like I said, Valparaiso was absolutely amazing... I had a hard time walking down the streets because I would stop so much to look at/take pics of all the artwork. There were so many hidden paths w/ staircases and all kinds of different artwork all over the place. I'll try to minimize the number of pics I post but it is really hard for me. Hah.























I am now in Santiago and just got in about an hour ago. I am going to hopefully meet up w/ Tamara tonight or tomorrow... this city is really big so I think it will be good to have a friend here to show me around. I am really excited to see her!

After Santiago I think I will go back to Mendoza for a little while and then go straight to Buenos Aires from there. I haven't completely planned the rest of my trip but I believe I am going to come back to the States around the end of July or beginning of August... I think that will give me enough time to see more of Argentina, some of Brazil, and then get back to Lima for my flight.

Bye Sucre!

Well I am now in Mendoza, Argentina! Took a solid 3 days of non-stop travel to get here... wasn't so bad though, I slept really well on the train the first night and on the bus the second night.

Anyways, before I left Sucre I saw this really cool fountain show that they do every week just down the street from my house. They had live music too but I couldn't get any pics because it was pretty dark. The pictures don't really do this justice because part of what was so cool was how the water moved.... anyways...







Last weekend I went on a 2 day hike. The first day we hiked to a small town called Managua that was built inside a crater that was formed by a volcanic explosion.

We started at this old church.


And then just past the church there is an old trail from the Spanish that was built in the 1500's that we hiked down. The trail goes down into this valley.




There was some cool stuff along the way. Some rivers and a lot of old farm houses.


The people at this farm really liked us I think... one gentleman even threw a rock at us to show how much he liked us (thanks Evo).


Yeah, I guess it isn't very safe hiking through the "campo" here because the Bolivian president has created some tension between the farmers and the city people. We had a good guide that spoke Quechua so I think we were fairly safe... he told us when to hurry past a pueblo and when to be quite and sneaky so that the people wouldn't hear that we were around (lol).

This is the CITY of Managua and a pic of the hostel we stayed at. The hostel was insanely nice but even though it was all set up for electricity the power line hadn't been run to the town yet so we just had candles. The town was supposed to have a bunch of artisan crafts that you could buy but the town was still celebrating a holiday so they were all drunk (and no, i'm not exaggerating... they really were ALL drunk).







Me drinking the chicha... I had to try it...... I think I paid for it this last week. That's what I get for drinking out of a huge rusted barrel that smelled (and tasted) like cow piss.



Later that evening we hiked up to an old graveyard on top of a plateau. Most of the graves were fairly new though... I think the old ones didn't have any time markers. They did however seem to have moved some bodies because there were TONS of human bones all over the ground.




Another view of the valley we stayed in the first night... this is taken from up at the graveyard.


Ugh, getting tired of doing this... just going to post the rest of my pics. On the second day we got to see dinosaur footprints which were absolutely awesome. These ones are raptor tracks... there were also some bigger ones but they weren't as clear as these so I just decided to post the better pics. These are from the second day:







This is just taken from the car on the way back to town. There was a market just on the outside of town.


Anyways, like I said, I am now in Mendoza. I took a 9 hour bus ride Friday morning, an 8 hour train ride Friday night into Saturday, a 7 hour bus ride Saturday day, and an 18 hour bus ride Saturday night into Sunday. It wasn't as bad as it sounds really... I slept both nights really well and managed to have the seat open next to me most of the trip. Going to stay here in Mendoza for about a week I think and then head to Santiago.

Sucre!!

Finally! An update of Sucre!!!!

Most these pictures are really bad... a lot seem like they are overexposed or something. Oh well.

This is where I am living for the time being.





Time is going by really fast and I only have 2 weeks left! Honestly I don't feel like I have learned that much Spanish but I have a feeling I have learned more than I think I have. I can understand a lot when people are speaking slow to me but can barely understand anything when they are talking regular speed. It definitely takes time to develop an ear for a new language...

Anyways, this is the host family I am living with. They are soooo nice and a lot of fun to hang out with. The daughter is obsessed with Michael Jackson and she even did a dance that was perfectly choreographed to one of his songs. The grandmother's name is Martha, the mother is Shirley, and the daughter is Maria... they are all so nice!!





This is my school... i can't remember the name for these types of places but the middle of the school is open to the outside and then all the classes are around the middle "plaza" type area.





Sucre doesn't look like most Bolivian cities... it has a much more European look to it with a lot of colonial type buildings.





There are also a lot of amazing parks all over the place.







We go and play "Wally" at least once a week. It is like volleyball but you can use the walls. In fact, we are going to play again tonight!!



Here is the main market... they sell all kinds of amazing fruits and vegetables as well as meats, cheese, and anything else you can think of.

Salar de Uyuni, Potosi, y Sucre!

A lot has happened since I last posted. There hasn't been many wifi spots since I have been in Bolivia but now that I am in Sucre I should be able to post a little more often. I am staying in Sucre Bolivia studying Spanish right now so I probably won't post too often because I won't have many new pictures.

I am staying with a Bolivian family... the Grandmother's name is Martha, the Mother is Shirley, and there is a daughter named Maria. They are all incredibly nice and feed me really good food (and too much of it).

After La Paz I took a night bus for 11 hours or so to Uyuni and booked a tour with some random guy on the street for a tour of Salar de Uyuni (the biggest Salt Flat in the world).

Besides the really awful food, the freezing cold hostel with no insulation and no heat, waking up at 5am, inhaling dust for 10 hours because the cars vents were broken, and listening to the guide laugh at his own stupid jokes... AVI Tours was really awesome!!! Seriously though, the sights that I saw were unforgettable and it was all totally worth it.



There was a guy in our group that did freestyle walking (Parque?) that made for some really cool pictures:



We also tried to mess with perspective a bit but kinda failed. This is me standing on Dave's hand:



We walked around on Isla del Pescado which had some really cool rock formations and cacti that were over 1,000 years old.



We stayed in a hostel that was made completely of salt the first day. Pretty cool I thought.



We also got to hang out at a thermal pool on the second day. I lost my swimsuit and my towel sometime in La Paz or Cuzco so I didn't swim (it was soooo cold out) but I soaked my feet for awhile which felt awesome. All the water around this pool was almost completely frozen.



After Uyuni we took another night bus to Potosi and didn't get in until about 2:30am. We booked a tour of the Potosi mines the next morning. I am a little claustrophobic so I was a bit worried about it but it turned out to be really cool. We even set off dynamite inside the mine (even though we could barely hear it because we were so far away). We also set dynamite off outside which was a lot cooler because we got to see the explosion! :)

We went to the mines on a Saturday so there weren't hardly any miners... I don't know how this guy fit through some of the tunnels in the mine because I thought they were pretty tight and this guy is huge. He has been working in the mine since he was 10 years old (for 30 years). I found it interesting they smoke cigarettes in the mine because it is healthier to breath in the smoke than the toxins that are in the air (and obviously this guy is super healthy, no?).



Hard to get many pictures on the inside of the mine obviously...



Me being a tourist and pretending to mine...



After the mines we took a bus to Sucre and I have been here since. Sucre is a really cool city with a lot of colonial buildings... they call it "Ciudad Blanca" because pretty much all the buildings are... you guessed it! White!!

I haven't loaded the pics of Sucre onto my computer yet (and to be honest haven't taken many yet) but I will do that next time.

Thanks for commenting on my blog... I never know if people are reading/viewing or not (maybe there is somewhere that says the # of views??). I always like to know that I am not just wasting my time posting on this blog.

I have been really busy with school, activities after school (learned a little salsa last night... woot!), and hanging out with the host family and students from the school so I don't have much time to come online. Hopefully I can make a post about Sucre in a week or so.

Hope everyone is doing good! Keep in touch!