Girl of the World

So this blog took a while to get to you, hope it was worth the wait... After a 3 hour road trip from La Paz to Coroico on the "World's Most Dangerous Road" (which actually wasn't much scarier than lots of roads in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia), we found ourselves in a little town surrounded by cloud forests and farms. There were lots of hikes available in the surrounding areas, and we chose one that visited a few nearby waterfalls. Little did we know the purpose of our trip would be much more than getting to the falls. We started off by passing some coca plantations- which look a bit like coffee plantations, but smaller. These particular plants aren´t used to make anything illegal. In most any restaurant you go to in Bolivia ... read more

Lake Titicaca, where the world began according to legend, is in both Peru and Bolivia. It's the highest navigable lake in the world, and it also has people living on floating beds of reeds. How does this work? They are continually adding fresh reeds to the tops of the islands while the reeds underneath slowly break down. They're actually quite thick and I soon stopped wondering if I might fall through. So, why are they living out there? As the story goes they originally moved there to get away from the Incan Conquistadors, and I suppose found a nice nitch safely within the confounds of the lake. Stevie and I came from Cuzco (where we spent Christmas (sorry, no pics), travelling for 8 hours on a bus to Puno, a city by the lake. From there ... read more

Unfortunately I was battling a bit of food poisoning during this part of the journey so all I have to show is a lovely picture of the mountain peaks from our hotel. The town of Huarez is located at about 10,000 feet and is about 8 hours north of Lima, not too far from the coast. The peaks of these mountains top 20,000 feet! Incredible!. There´s several hikes you can take up them- most involving ice picks and boots with spikes. I was happy to sip tea and gaze at them from below. ... read more

Back to computers, cars, and travel blogs. We´ve just finished a tremendous week of hard labor and good eatings. There were 4 of us travelling friends helping out three local people that run this farm way up in the mountains from town (4 wheel or two feet only to get there). Most of our week consisted of clearing a field to plant corn in, moving soil from one place to another, and digging holes and weeding around baby trees. In between digging, there was the constant reward of this incredible view of the town below and the surrounding mountains. I liked to imagine how the food we were helping to grow someday would go down there and they´d make a great almuerzo with it. We realized last Wednesday that the following day was Thanksgiving- how appropriate! ... read more

Stevie and I have discovered another jem, hidden between the mountains in the town of Vilcabamba. There´s an Incan woman overlooking the "Valley of Longevity," and they say bathing in the waterfalls here add a year to your life. Many people live past a 100 years. Researchers from the world over have come here to discover why. Mainly vegggie and pescatarians, they work hard, live in a very clean place, and drink excellent water from the mountains. We´ve found several opportunites to volunteer here and just finished our first week up in the mountain almost 10,000 feet up in the Podocarpus Nat´l Park. We rode horses with our supplies up, then walked down a week later, very down, so down I am still recovering 2 days later. My calves don´t want to work as they should ... read more