So for the second time in my trip today I had to watch family member walk through the airport and wave goodbye. Never is an easy thing, but seeing my parents for those 8 short days was well worth the hardship of seeing them leave. I could not have asked for any better present than to see them come out of the Cusco Airport. Amazing week.... (and no that's not a suck up speech). Altitude was not a problem with the rents, thank God, and the first day we hit the ground running (and panting at the top of staircases) [View Full Entry]

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A couple months ago I heard of a trek in the middle of Peru. Stayed too long in Colombia and had fly through Ecuador to make it to the end of trekking season. The trek is the Cordillera Huayhuash. It was worth it. Peru is a truly amazing place. Started the country at a backpacker resort of a hostel in northern Peru, got my surf on, saw a massive humpback whale and decided I was ready for the mountains. The Andes blew my socks off. I decided to join up with a group and take off on my first serious trek [View Full Entry]

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Saw the equator monument that is not really built on the actual line (French... whoops!), saw the real equator line-- did some experiments and stuff, climbed a massive church (scary lack of safety), and then decided we were over ecuador and using US currency and went to Peru. Sorry the internet is horrid, I promise my next entry will be better. [View Full Entry]

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Bogota. A little different than the rest of Colombia that I have grown so fond of, but nevertheless a must see on the tourist train. Although Bogota is cold, dirty, bum infested, and cold (did i mention that??), I actually liked the place. Full of awesome museums (I´m not the museum type either...) and bums, yet it does have its charm. Sundays in Bogota are pretty special. They shut down most of the buses and leave a ton of the streets only open to walkers and bikers. Also all the museums are free entry. The gold wear picture I posted is [View Full Entry]

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Medellin... What an amazing place. When one thinks of Medellin, Colombia it is impossible not to think about Pablo Escobar and the drug cartel. If you watch the HBO series Entourage you would think this place is all mafias and military. Quite the contrary. Medellin is a modern, large city and the people here will not let you down being the most genuine people you will meet...This place is nicknamed land of eternal spring, which really should be changed to "the best weather ever." I really don´t like spring at home, but the weather here is amazing. This place is a [View Full Entry]

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My journey through South America began with a whopper of a city. Cartagena. Wow. The beauty, the history...Perfect start to an amazing continent. To give a brief history, Cartagena was founded in 1533 and became the main Spanish port on the Caribbean and after a ton of pirate attacks, the Spaniards constructed elaborate walls all around the town and a chain of forts to protect it. The walls are still intact today (you can walk all over them), and within is the very amazing old city. We stayed in a sweet, real chill hostel(casa venecia) in the historic part of town [View Full Entry]

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Tayrona. 3 days worth of water, tuna, oatmeal, peanut butter and bread. Beach side camping in paradise. After a hot jungle two hour trek to our desired beach of El Cabo San Juan we were finally there. The hike was relatively easy and we saw heaps of monkeys (they actually were throwing fruit at us) and long highways of leaf cutter ants. Tayrona was beautiful and I have to admit the sunrise the day of us leaving was the most beautiful sunrise I have seen. The beaches were pristine and the water was warm. Cool boulders to jump off and crawl [View Full Entry]

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The past few weeks have been a blur. Pete has left and is now all moved in up at Purdue (hesa gettin sooo biig!), my parents are now officially empty nesters, Jess is working.... hahah, and I have missed the Travis Hacker Golf tournament (Sorry Smiths! :() . The day I chapperoned Pete to the airport to see him out I returned to my hostel and got on a 17 hour bus straight to Panama City. Hooray for good books. See ya later Costa Rica. Panama City was an awesome change from the blah blah hectic Central American capital cities I [View Full Entry]

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So far all of the border crossings we have done have not been that bad. You go through the typical formalities of stamping passports and then you are on your way. Not Panama. The one glitch is the need to have an onward ticket. Kind of a scam in my opinion. So in order to cross the border you have to have some kind of ticket already to leave the country. Conveniently they sell tickets back to Costa Rica for 11$ on the border. Everyone who doesnt have a flight from Panama City buys one. Nice little cash cow they have [View Full Entry]

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Costa Rica is a beautiful country. The wildlife and the jungles are exactly what we had heard... Pretty darn good. However, in our opinion, we feel like CR is way too touristy for the budget traveler and it is very difficult to get through without shelling out a lot of cash. It can be done, but it is very easy to spend a lot of money... Even when something looks inexpensive in the restaurants it is slapped with 23% service/sales charge making it downright expensive (comparable to US dinners, which after 4 dollar lobster dinners is absurd!). We cooked every meal, [View Full Entry]

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