San Pedro de Atacama

The past 3 nights I spent in a small desert town of San Pedro de Atacama, near the Chile/Boliva/Argentina borders. The town is very touristy with about a bazillion tour companies offering the same excursions and another million restaurants with the sameish menu. But it also has a rugged feel about it and is very quite outside of the bustling main drag. We were in a cute hostal with puffy colorful comforters which was by far the cleanest hostal I have stayed in on my travels...particularly impressive considering all the roads are sand and dirt.

Day 1. we arrived after an overnight bus trip and just got ourselves oriented. There are only 2 ATMs in the town and only one that accepts visa, which of course was broken. Ash needed cash so she turned around and went back to Calama. I slept in a hammock at the hostal all afternoon then cooked dinner for us.

Day 2. the plan was to rent bikes and bike out to valle de la luna for sunset but there was a vicious wind storm stirring up sand all over town. bikes got canceled. then we booked a tour to salar de atacama which the company proceeded to cancel on us due to the wind but really because there were only 4 people on the tour because other agencies went. we ran after another group going on a tour to valle de la luna and jumped on the bus with them. worth the trip other than the fact we got utterly abused by the sand and the wind on top of a ridge by a dune where we were watching the sunset.

Day 3. much nicer day. actually went to salar de atacama and saw flamingos in salt flats with the setting sun over the mountains. pretty epic.

Now i´m on my way down to Santiago/Valparaiso. i have a 24 hour bus ride ahead of me which sounds awful, but i actually quite enjoy buses. lots of time to stare out the window, think, sleep, listen to music, read, and stare out the window some more.

And Chloe Neely will be waiting at the station for me! YAY!

Chile

Lake Titicaca was worth the trip, but the side from Puno, Peru is not the most beautiful and not open to the whole big part of the lake which is more or less divided into 3 sections. The people think the shape is like a puma, their sacred animal...I didn´t really see it, but sure. We went out to the floating islands of the Uros people which were created to escape the Spanish invading. They have continued to live on these islands built out of reads that literally float in the lake. Now they are anchored down but its pretty incredible how they continue to live. The material is really cushy and i just wanted to lay on the bed of reeds that is the island and sleep in the sun. It was a very ¨touristy¨ experience but worth it.

From Puno Ash and I got on an overnight bus to Tacna. We were in the front two seats and finally remembered to bundle up. Bus rides always start out a comfortable temperature but somehow end up freezing in the middle of the night. We brought my sleeping bag on board, layered up and snuggled through the night to keep warm. From Tacna we crossed the border into Chile where we have spent the last couple days enjoying the sunny warm weather, enormous sandwiches and huge plates of fries at a place called Roly´s and lounging on the beach.

Tonight we get on a bus to San Pedro de Atacama. There are cool natural things there like geysers and valle de la luna. We´ll see. Chloe Neely, my best friend from Grinnell, is going to be there this weekend with her dad who is visiting. Such luck! i get to see her a few days sooner than expected! Ash heads back to Lima on Sunday then to Quito to fly home. I have 2 months to the day left of traveling!

Peru

Peru is a lot more desert than I expected. Compared to Ecuador it is HUGE! In Ecuador I could get on a but and be pretty much anywhere in a maximum of 12 hours. Here it is a minimum of 12 on bus to significantly change where you are. They still have jungle and mountains and coast like Ecuador, it just take so much longer to see it all.

I met my friend Ashley last Sunday night in a hostal in Arequipa, a small city in southern Peru. At our hostal we met a cool woman named Barbara from London who joined us on an adventure into the canyons. We opted to go on our own, rather than on a guided tour so we could go at our own pace and do what we wanted. The bus ride was longer than expected. The bus company said 6 hours but the last couple hours a bunch of local people piled on to the bus then we had to stop every 10 minutes for people to get off in little villages along the rim. So 6 hours became about 7.5 hours. The next morning we hiked down into Colca Canyon, which is the 2nd deepest canyon in the world. It is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. There is an oasis at the bottom of the canyon where we spent two nights in cabins with natural pools just chilling and exploring the river and surrounding area. There is no electricity down there so after dark everyone just went to bed. It was really relaxing to get away from technology and lots of people and rushing for a while.

I got kind of sick with stomach stuff down there so unfortunately had to take a mule out instead of hike. I felt really lame coming up to the top on the mule when all the groups that had left before us that morning had just gotten to the top and were celebrating that they had made it. But I had no energy to climb. I´m starting to feel better and taking a day to relax in the city of Arequipa again. Tomorrow Ash and I will go to Lake Titicaca which is supposed to be beautiful. Unfortunately, its better from the Bolivian side but we can´t go to Bolivia because the US made stupid laws charging Bolivians a lot to enter the US so they did the same and now American citizens need a visa at to pay 130 dollars to enter Bolivia. Not worth it for just a couple days. So we will head out to the islands on the lake and maybe stay there for a couple days? Its awesome not having a fixed schedule!

Cuenca

So I was going to spend a couple days in Cuenca before heading to Peru but because my friend Anna came, 2 days turned into 4 days. Cuenca is a gorgeous city full of Colonial architecture, beautiful churches and plazas and parks. The people are not as bothersome as other places, which at first we thought was unfriendly but then grew to appreciate the lack of harassment because if you initiated a conversation they were incredibly helpful and warm. The indigenous dress was different than in the north--much more colorful and fun, topped off with Panama hats. Panama hats are misnamed because they really come from Ecuador but got exported through Panama. One of our best adventures was visiting some small towns surrounding Cuenca: Gualaceo, Chordeleg and Sigsig. In Sigsig we wandered down a path and ran into an old man who took us to his farm and showed us his cuyes and made us pick strawberries. He was really sweet and not creepy. We then got stalked to the a women´s hat making cooperative my a different creepy man. It was a little ways out of the city so we really didn´t want to walk the 20 minutes back to town alone with him so I distracted him while Anna told the woman there what was going on. The three women working there took care of us, hid us in a back room while watching to see if he had left, fed us apples, flagged down a pickup taxi for us, rode with us up to the bus terminal, told the bus drivers what was going on, and waited until the bus had left for Cuenca. These women were so sweet and incredible. Nothing probably would have happened, but better safe...

I left Cuenca this morning chasing down the bus in a taxi because our jerk of a bus driver from the city to the terminal was not helpful in telling us where to get off and we missed the terminal. Anna headed back up to Quito and I am on my own heading South. A random couple on the bus kind of sheparded me through customs without me asking and we shared a cab ride to Tumbes. I´m glad they were there because I ran into some girls coming across the border from Peru who asked me if there were strikes going on because someone had told them there was and they couldn´t cross. Lies. There was nothing and they had gotten ripped off. But we swapped guide books! which is really lucky for both of us because lonely planet has become a good friend.

Off to Trujillo overnight, then to an Eco Village I found through Couch Surfing that is just North of Lima. I will meet up with my friend Ashley on Sunday and be traveling Southern Peru with her for a few weeks.

Hitting the road!

Rough plans for the next few months (most dates have an “ish” behind them):

May 10—head south on an overnight to Cuenca, possibly with a friend [Anna] from the program who is sticking around Ecuador for a while
May 12—cross into Peru
May 16—meet my friend [Ashley] in Lima, Peru.
May 17-June 1—wander southern Peru with [Ashley]. Lake Titicaca. Sand dunes. Beaches.
June 2—head south to Valparaiso, Chile to meet [neelychl]!!!
June 4-8—Buenos Aires, Argentina with [neelychl]!
July 1—[sissy] arrives in Lima, Peru!
July 6—Machu Picchu with [sissy] and [neelychl]
July 9—start heading back up to Ecuador
July 10-26—Vilcabamba, Guayaquil, Canoa, Quito, Otavalo, Cotacachi, Quito with [sissy] and hopefully [neelychl]
July 27—fly home with [sissy]!

Its been an awesome semester in Ecuador. Saying goodbye to friends was hard because they are what made this such an incredible experience. Fortunately for most of them it was just a "see you later" because I already have plans to see them in the states. Here goes round 2 of South American adventures!

Wrapping up

I've been back in Quito since last Friday working on my monografia, presentation and dozens of other random documents CIMAS wants us to turn in. Also, enjoying the company of my incredible friends here, especially my neighborhood crew of Ashley and Kevin. We all have laptops so we get to hang out working in cool places while our other friends are stuck in the CIMAS building all day. Bringing my laptop to Ecuador was the best decision ever.

So yeah, final presentation on Friday and I pretty much have everything else wrapped up! The semester flew by and was a nice academic vacation. And an amazing adventure.

More on my future adventures coming up soon.