FROM ZERO TO HERO Since leaving Panama City I met up with Kayce in her voluntary home for the last two months of La Paz, Bolivia. While there she was volunteering in various medical facilities, all of which were based around her interest in pediatrics. In addition to her volunteer work, she was also getting one-on-one Spanish lessons 5 days a week and has jumped wayyy past me in her ability to converse, debate and of course barter. And for an explanation for the title of this blog, I went from the shores of Panama City at sea level to a whopping 12,000’ in a matter of hours. La Paz is perched near the peaks of the Andes and owns the title of highest capital city in the world. Game on. After a couple nights catching ... read more

I'm writing to you today from a breathtaking location in the Andes Mountains. I left Panama on June 29th and have been eager to get my Panama story up for you since leaving but have had a difficult time getting proper internet and I quite literally have been trying to catch my breath. Since leaving Nicaragua Devon and I continued on to a very brief stay in Costa Rica en route to our destination country of Panama (we had both been to Costa Rica before and know our Pura Vida). In getting to Panama, we stayed a couple nights in the rastafarian Caribbean town of Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. Our time spent there went well enough but the weather and first hand accounts of machete laden banditos put a bit of a damper on our time ... read more

Hello Arizona!! Hi there loyal patrons of my amateur travel-blog. I recently spent my spring break backpacking Havasu Canyon and canoeing the Colorado River in the Black Canyon below Hoover Dam and have had some requests for pictures and a story (apologies for the delay, been super busy). The first leg of the trip was a 12 hour ride from Santa Barbara to the rim of Havasu Canyon, part of Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona. We camped there for the night before backpacking in approximately ten miles early the next morning. The hike began with an extremely steep one and a half miles of switchbacks bringing us to the canyon floor which was followed by a slow descent down the canyon to Havasupai Village and two miles later the infamous Havasu Falls. Havasupai Village ... read more

Hi everybody, Just wanted to say I really appreciate the texts and emails concerning the Peru earthquake and my whereabouts in South America. My friends and I are already over in Argentina and missed the quake by about 5 days. We actually spent some time last week where the epicenter of the quake was, and are feeling grateful to have already left. The sand dunes on my previous blog are very near the center and the picture of the sunset on the water is where around 450 people perished in the quake. We fly back to Lima on Tuesday for 1 day before leaving for the states, hoping to not have any problems. Argentina blog coming soon. Hope all is well back home. ------------Johaan... read more

School´s Out! Well we finished school on August 3rd. We had a final dinner as a class out at one of the nicer restaurants in Cuzco. Some very interesting meats were served (kidney, heart, etc.) but very good none the less. After a late night of drinking and saying our goodbyes seven of us set off for a 22 hr bus ride to La Paz, Bolivia. Along with an absolutely insane border crossing, a flat tire on the bus and chasing down buses in a city without a bus station, we made it to the capital of Bolivia where we stayed for 3 nights. Included in our stay was our third independence day in just over a month (USA, Peru and Bolivia). Honestly it ended up causing us more problems than anything, but that´s life in ... read more