Brooke

Well, this is long overdue, but here we go... After spending about 14 hours in the Lima airport, including one flight which took off, flew to Cusco and tried to land but couldn't because of weather, so it flew back to Lima where we waited with little instruction and much confusion and then flew again... We spent about 5-6 awesome days and nights in Cusco, including our trip to Machu Pichu!! In a word, Machu Pichu is AMAZING. Breathtaking is an understatement for this world wonder. It's everything I thought it would be and more. It 's much bigger than I thought it would be, and so high... That people actually lived there is incredible. We walked around the mountain to the Inca Bridge, where the Incas fled from the Spaniards. It's this narrow pathway along ... read more

Hello family and friends! I landed in Lima, Peru two days ago and we finally made it to Cusco last night. For those who don´t know, I´m in Peru for six weeks, helping my friend, Jonee, who´s starting a volunteer cultural immersion program in Huancayo and also just traveling around before I start school again in the fall. My cousin, Courtney, married a Peruvian and they´re both here too, along with one of the program participants, Liz. So far it´s been an adventure, and a lot of fun. Cusco is a beautiful, mountainous colonial town near Machu Pichu, which we´re going to visit on Monday. We just got here last night, after spending about 14 hours in the Lima airport because the early morning flight we originally booked took off for Cusco, flew an hour to ... read more

I think the last thing I wrote was a whirlwind update of a week's worth of adventures in Costa Rica.... Now we're in the homestretch - Panama - the last country and final few days of the trip. I can´t believe how quickly it's gone! I'm sad that's it coming to an end, but also feel so lucky, and excited about so many things back home. It´s funny how traveling does that, makes you appreciate the mundane or little things and of course, the people close to you back home. Anyways... back to Panama! After missing a 6:40 am bus and waiting in the rain for two hours for the next one, we finally made our way across the Costa Rican and Panamanian borders. This was definitely the easiest border crossing yet, but also one of ... read more

"Pura Vida" or "pure life," that´s what you see and hear everywhere in Costa Rica. And I can understand why.... I have never seen a country with such concentrated natural beauty. Painted green with rainforests and fringed with white-sand beaches.... In a word, it´s gorgeous! Costa Rica is very different from the rest of the places I´ve visited in Central America. First, it caters more to tourists, hence it is filled with many more tourists and more Americans than I´ve seen anywhere else. Second, poverty is not as strong or as evident. Third, there is more care and conservation of natural resources, less littering, etc. Fourth, so many people speak English, they are actually surprised when I speak Spanish! Lastly... Probably because of all the tourism, Costa Rica feels more diverse, but almost lacking in a ... read more

I´ve changed my mind about Nicaragua, although I never did fall in love with Granada. Maybe Leon is just more my style. Nicaragua on the whole, however, is ranking right up there with Guatemala for me now.... I am loving it here! I ended up in Granada for a few days, again sucked in by an always-fun, all-inclusive hostel called The Bearded Monkey. I met Debra, Tom and Jim in the hostel bar at the end my first slightly traumatic day. We ended up at a disco, dancing to the Nica (Nicaraguan) beats, and became fast friends. The next day, I decided to visit Lago de Apoyo, a Crater Lake just outside of Granada. About eight of us piled into the back of a pickup truck, had innertubes dumped on top of us and arrived a ... read more

I must have been getting too comfortable, I must have let my guard down.... For the first time since I've been here, somebody tried to rob me! It's my first day in Granada and just as I was thinking I could fall in love with this colonial city by the lake, a guy rode by on a bike and tried to rip my bag right off my body as I was crossing the street. I grabbed it just in time. He broke the strap and rode away, but luckily I got to keep the bag. It's strange because I had just been walking down the street with this Nicaraguan woman who works at my hostel and she was warning me to be careful and I was thinking, here, in Granada, but it feels so safe.... Not ... read more

My first nice, air conditioned bus ride in Central America was completely empty except for myself and Mike and unfortunately, it made me sick! I don´t know if it was entering a confined, far too air conditioned space after weeks of heat, the winding moutain roads, or the blue gatorade and salty plaintain chips I had downed just before climbing aboard, but for the first time on this trip, I threw up, twice! I felt much better afterwords though, and enjoyed our whirlwind trip through El Salvador, the tiniest but most populated country in Central America. We left Honduras, cut though Guatemala briefly and entered into El Salvador, stopping for every border crossing and for the police several times along the way. Hondurans and Salvadorans have a long and checkered past and apparently the Salvadoran police ... read more

It´s funny how when you´re traveling alone, you never really are.... I had barely left my cozy room with Matt and Maggie, when I met Mike on the ferry from Utila to La Ceiba. Mike just finished two years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and is traveling back to California overland. We chatted for most of the ferry ride and somehow I convinced him that he should come to Copan with me, though I had barely decided so myself just the day before. Mike and I jumped in a taxi and two buses and about seven hours later, we felt like we had known each other for years. We got to Copan and got a room together, asking repeatedly for two separate beds. We joked that the hotel owners probably thought Mike had messed up ... read more

Four days on Jewel Key turned into a week, and still I'm finding it hard to pull myself away. There are three restaurants and a couple of general stores. Every house sits on stilts, just above the water. The people rarely wear shoes and speak this sing-song English that's almost impossible to understand. There's a tiny white church and the "knowledge square," where the men sit around and talk the day away. The week was filled with loads of sunshine, ocean breezes, baleadas for breakfast and fish burgers for lunch, plenty of Salva Vida and some of the best people I've met on this trip. And then there was the diving - I'm officially PADI certified! I wouldn't have done it any other way. The diving went smoothly and was absolutely gorgeous, after a minor near-death ... read more