I entered Peru by the same route I had left in November, using the Macara border crossing and heading to Puira. This time however I didn’t get stuck in Puira, instead I took another bus to Chiclayo and yet another bus from Chiclayo to Trujillo, which put me in Trujillo at about one in the morning. So I had a cabbie take me to the closest cheap hotel and got some rest. Now for some reason there are no buses from Trujillo to Huaraz during the day, only at night, so I had a day to kill in Trujillo. Luckily the [View Full Entry]

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My second time in Ecuador was unfortunately rushed, like the first time. My only objective was to spend my birthday in Banos, hopefully rock climbing. So I went straight from the border to Quito, arriving late in Quito I found a cheap hotel by the bus terminal and got some rest. The following morning I caught an early bus to Banos and met a group of Americans and a Canadian on the bus to Banos. They were all studying in Quito and had a week break were they could travel a bit. So we all decided in Banos to find a [View Full Entry]

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I flew into Bogotá on a day that I would have rather been in bed, getting rid of the cold that had been plaguing me at the end of my Guatemala experience. Nevertheless I made my way from the Bogotá airport, to the Bogotá bus terminal, and promptly was on an overnight bus to Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast in the north. I arrived nice and early in Santa Marta and decided on the Hotel Familiar as I was too lazy and sick to find something that wasn’t in the Lonely Planet. My first day I basically wandered around the [View Full Entry]

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Arrival to Guatemala was fairly smooth; I was to meet up with a woman named Carla Rumsey who wanted to come help as her daughter was working the volunteer project, which had brought me to Guatemala. This went well, but we ended up getting over charged by our supposed cheap transport from the airport. This was frustrating, but nothing to dwell on. Spent a night in Antigua and then off to the project. The project itself was with the Engineers Without Borders group from UW, which I had at one point been el presidente, yeehaa. We would be building a school [View Full Entry]

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Once again this may be a long one, sorry but there is a lot to recap. I arrived in Costa Rica three days ahead of the rest of my family, because of course I wanted to make sure that everything was good to go. This is more or less how I spent the first day in Alejela, calling hotels along with the epic journey to San Jose to buy our bus tickets. This was a giant fiasco, but in a days time everything fell into place. With my well earned free day I visited the Volcano Canoa, which was interesting as [View Full Entry]

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So I have gotten dreadfully behind, but I feel the need to have some sort of written account of Ecuador, wish me luck. After Chachapoyas I basically took one kick ass bus journey so I could get to Ecuador and not waste anytime. This included a bus to Chiclayo, Chiclayo to Puira, and Puira to Loja which took me about a day and a half. In Puira I had to kill about half a day, which was not much fun, but I managed to watch Bailwolf and get ripped off on a shoe shine. In Loja, which is in Ecuador, I [View Full Entry]

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Note that as is with anything, words can not discribe an experience, that goes double for this blog as I try my best to remember and recollect all that I have experienced while in the Chachapoyas area. My first memory of Chachapoyas is arriving in the morning before any light and talking to the kid who walked me to my hostal about the area, and hearing for the first of many times how safe and tranquil the Chachapoyan streets are at all hours. Needless to say this is a good sign, and the fact that I stayed at the nicest hostel [View Full Entry]

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As always I seem to meet people as I go and so continues Peru, from Cusco I took a very long bus to Lima, stopped, wandered and found my ticket to Huaraz. Proceeded to eat a nice seafood lunch and met a local with just enough time to visit and get on my bus to Huaraz. I arrived in Huaraz at first light more or less, and again followed the trend of finding lodging through a tourist agent at the bus stop. This time I struck gold with Hostel El Tambo I found very friendly staff, good clean rooms, and a [View Full Entry]

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In Cusco I continued my trend of finding a hostel by simply going with the recomendation of the locals who wait at the bus station for travelers. The thing this time is the girl who brought me to the hostel did not work for the hostel, she worked on commission and of course wanted to sell me a tour afterwards. This didn´t work for her though as I found a company more my speed the next day, and was on my way to Machu Picchu. There are many ways to get to Machu Picchu, the easiest being the train. This would [View Full Entry]

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So I have again fallen far behind in my blog, so I hope I can do this entry justice. Once I had returned to my santuary in La Paz, I decided that I should do something besides climb, you know absorb some culture. So I decided to make the day trip to Tiahunaku, which is the most significant ruins in Bolivia, and is the site of the most important South American society, even more so than the Incas. This is because the Tiahunaku people lasted thousands of years, while the Incas only a few hundred, we just know more about the [View Full Entry]

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