With less than 2 months remaining on my trip, it is time for me to start thinking about where I’m going to live, where I’m going to work, where I’m going to back to school, and how the hell am I supposed to afford any of it. When sitting on the beautiful Playa Blanca near Cartagena, it struck me as to what my calling in life is… to be a model! In other words, watch your ass Marcus Schenkenberg! After a few months of daily body waxes, hours in the gym, a diet of nothing but bananas and tuna, plastic surgery, [View Full Entry]

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When strapped to a complete stranger and peering over 2,600+ ft cliff the last thing you want to hear is all the paragliding pilots arguing over whether the jump was safe with such high winds. My pilot made the decision for us and we were immediately swept straight up into a grey cloud. For the first few minutes of the flight, visibility was 2 feet and the winds whipped us to the point where I questioned how much control my pilot really had. Finally we dipped down below the cloud line and flew in and out of some of the low-lying [View Full Entry]

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Venezuela is the world leader in plastic surgery and beauty queens (which results in thousands of anorexic teens pumped full of silicone and fearing cellulite more than death). With that being said, I did notice on my flight to Caracas that many women opted to bring their own personal flotation devices rather than use the seat cushion in case of emergency. I woke up at 3am Friday to be at the airport 2 ½ hours before my flight to Bogotá. Of course I speed through check in and my flight is delayed 2 hours. No complaints though, the thought of being [View Full Entry]

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A few weeks ago (ok over a month, sorry bout the delay) I tried my first hallucinogenic ever...honestly… get that smirk off your face (Hi mom!). A few of us volunteers from Ecotrackers visited one of the indigenous communities we work with for a weekend. We visited the Tsachila group of Indians in a community outside of Santo Domingo de los Colorados called Chiguilpe. The Tsachilia tribe is fairly famous throughout Ecuador and South America because they have a unique hair style which they color with the bright red paste of the achiote plant. There are only around 2300 Tsachilia remai [View Full Entry]

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I underestimated the effects of tear gas. This week, however, I had the pleasure of finding out exactly how debilitating it is. It’s not too bad at first when your eyes just start to burn, then your nose begins to run. As soon as you taste a cinnamon-like taste in the back of your throat you know you are in trouble. Breathing becomes difficult and you can’t stop coughing. The irritation in your throat makes you start to gag as you start spitting up everything. You might not be worried about this though because by this point your eyes are swollen [View Full Entry]

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On Christmas day I lost a game of beach volleyball to a bunch of coke-heads on a tiny pacific Ecuadorian island called Muisne. It was a normal, friendly game of Ecuadorians vs. Gringos when one guy called a time-out, pulled out an enormous hunting knife, dipped it in his baggie, and snorted what he claimed was the reason he loved living near Colombia. The energy level of the other team quickly accelerated and we gringos were left in the dust (no pun intended). It was definitely a unique Christmas for me. I spent almost the entire day laying on the beach [View Full Entry]

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After 3 bus rides totaling around 13 hours, I finally made it to Arequipa, Perú. I had a stopover in Copacabana which I put to good use eating a huge fresh trout. I didn’t arrive to Arequipa until 10 at night, so I was glad that I had met a doctor on the bus who recommended a cheap place near the central plaza. Arequipa is known as the “white city” because a lot of the old colonial buildings are made of Sillar, a white volcanic stone that comes from the beautiful surrounding volcanoes that look over the city. After a [View Full Entry]

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I just got back to La Paz from my incredible tour of southwest Bolivia. Due to the rough and extremely surreal terrain of the southwest, all tours take 4x4’s for the typical 4 day/3 night excursion. Our 4x4 happened to be a Toyota Land Cruiser from the early 70’s. I got to know the back bumper quite well as it never started at a standstill… it either had to be pushed, towed, or rolling downhill every time we started it up. There were 6 of us tourists packed into the back of the ‘hunk of crap on wheels’ and the driver [View Full Entry]

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I’m in La Paz! After some excellent relaxing in Copacabana, Bolivia, I am trying my luck in the Big (and high) capital city. First, let me tell you about my time on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Copacabana is a tiny lakeside town overflowing with tourists and hippies. Walking down the one main street in the town, you will find tons of shoeless, dreadlocked hippies selling amazing handmade jewelry back-dropped by the amazingly blue lake. It is probably the extremely laid back atmosphere of Copacabana that has turned it into a sort of “Che worshipers’ breeding ground.&rdquo [View Full Entry]

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I had yet another eventful bus ride from Cusco to Puno, but this time it was no joking matter. In Juliaca, a 6 year old boy ran out in front of the bus and we slammed into him. There was a thud and then I was unfortunate enough to see a small lifeless body skidding across the sidewalk. It ranks up there with one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen. The boy was put in a taxi and rushed off to the hospital within minutes and the bus (with all of us in it) was escorted to the [View Full Entry]

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