Slamalikum! That's Wolof for hello. i'm learning wolof because the official language here is english, but everyone speaks wolof anyway. so california. a good three weeks. two trees fell down across the road, we did a sweat lodge, hung out, ate food, and did inner journey stuff. we had a lot of fun. marin, corinne, and zoe turned our cabin into a fort and we slept underneath it the whole time. at the end of the three weeks it was time to go to africa. at 2 am on wednesday morning, Sam drove Liz and I to the sonoma airport where [View Full Entry]

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Estancia Colipilli (pronounced Colipiji) is not actually near Zapala. we took at three hour bus from Zapala to a small pueblo called El Huecu. travelblog apparently does not know about El Huecu, so Zapala is the closest i could get. Colipilli is owned by a man named Ashley. He lives and works there in the winters with his 20 year old daughter Sky. they´re originally from california, but have permanently moved down to Patagonia. Patagonia is a sprawling desert with rolling mountains and snow caps. It´s beautiful. it gets really hot in the day (the hottest part of the day is [View Full Entry]

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not in Buenos Aires yet, but i have a computer again. so day 2 in buenos aires was pretty phenom. we woke up, had breakfast at the hostel, and spent the day at Palermo. Palermo is the biggest neighborhood in Buenos Aires. We got a bus down to Palermo Soho and shopped all day. there was a little open market and a bunch of boutiques. i started the day off with Maya and Hanna and we went to a cd store. then we met up with Sam. Maya and Hanna wanted to go back to the cd store, and i wanted [View Full Entry]

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everyone is white in Buenos Aires. it is SO european. that´s the first thing we found out when we landed. we drove on a HIGHWAY (we haven´t seen one of those in a few months) to the Hostal Ricoleta. i wasn´t feeling so well on the drive there. i got to the hostel, went inside, and threw up. that put me out of the health competition for Argentina. for the rest of the night, i sat in my bed, miserable, and threw up about 6 more times before 3 am. the rest of the group had a good night. they went [View Full Entry]

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wow, it´s been a while. sorry about that. this is the first time i´ve had internet since the last time i´ve posted. innyhoo, Day 4 of the trek. We arrived in Aguas Calientes on Day 3, settled into our hostel, and i updated my blog. afterwards we went out to dinner where we had really good pizza. when we left, we were all walking funny. we were all super stiff and sore and it was pretty funny to see. i went and got ice cream with a few people and then we went to bed. the next morning we got up [View Full Entry]

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I am flippin tired. right now i'm in the town of aguas calientes, relaxing after a long three days journey. excuse me. epic journey. amazing. wicked hard. beautiful. magnificent. painful. i'll start at the beginning. in cusco we woke up at 4 am and left at 4 30 with the bare necessities. we piled into a van and left to begin our journey. we drove for about 2 hours and then stopped for breakfast. we had bread with butter and jam, tea, juice, and eggs. then we all bought bamboo walking sticks for 4 soles each and piled back in the [View Full Entry]

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Hola! so when we got back to Arequipa sunday night after Colca Cañon, Maria greeted me and was wonderful, as usual. Yuri had a very relaxing weekend at home, so it was all good. Monday morning we went to spanish and then in the afternoon we went to father alex's with maya, corinne, and yuri. we got there around 3 and waited until 4, but he didn't show up, so we went back and chilled at home. tuesday we had spanish class and went back to father alex's. this time, he had someone waiting for us, so we went up to [View Full Entry]

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so where did i leave off? thursday. thursday we had spanish in the morning and in the afternoon maya and i went back to the church. we chilled at the church for about 40 minutes until father alex got there. once he got there he took us on a tour of Arequipa. first we went to the poor part of the city. it was incredible. the houses were made out of stone and clay and were smaller than a classroom. the roofs were sheets of metal held down by large rocks. whole families of 5 live in these houses. they were [View Full Entry]

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Oh hey! so right now i´m in Chivay. but more on that later. i spent the last week in my homestay in Arequipa. it´s the second biggest city in Peru and it´s pretty cool. sunday i got to my homestay and chilled with my family and Yuri. Monday i woke up and went to spanish school. i was in a class in the morning with maya and yuri and we did bookwork and stuff. that was for 4 hours. at the end, melena (the woman in charge of the school and homestays) decided that yuri was beginner, i was intermediate, and [View Full Entry]

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Buenas tardes right now i´m at my homestay in Arequipa, but more on that later. tuesday morning we woke up and went out to breakfast and lunch and got food (i got bread and juice, because that´s all i could eat). then we went to the airport, checked everything in, and regrouped in the terminal. we reflected as a large group on our past three weeks away from each other. the other group had done their homestays in Cuenca and worked at a high school in the Amazon. we definitely got a lot closer as a small group than the other [View Full Entry]

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