F***ing Trecking

So like I said in my last entry my trip in Guatemala was going to be a jungle trecking adventure that I signed up for last minute. The trip was going to be cancelled due to a lack of a staff member wanting to go, so I decided that I woud jump aboard and save the trip. This was actually one of the trips that I wanted to do from the beginning but didn’t sign up because of the cost, but since I was sure I would be trip leader I would get the automatic 50% off!

The trecking trip didn’t leave till day two, so on day one I decided to go to Antigua with Anne and Ebonie. The night before I decided to chat with the interport student (a student that arrives prior to a port and talks about there country) and ask about the best way to get to Antigua. While chatting with him he just suggested that we catch a ride with him up to Antigua, which was great considering it was about a $100 cab ride and that we were told that the buses were the most unsafe way to travel (the US diplomat described a normal occurrence where people hijack buses, shot someone and let them bleed to death while they collect money, so needless to say we were going to avoid public buses).

So that morning we waited outside with the interport student Pablo and chatted with him a bit and found out that he owned a Sushi Restaurant in Antigua, so yes, he was definitely well off. This was also confirmed when we asked how his car was getting to the port and his response was that his driver was bringing it….duh…I hate it when I forget to ask my driver to come pick me up!

Antigua is basically a tourist town that has done a great job in keeping the area clean and safe and basically serves as a hub for tourists to get to all the other parts of Guatemala you would want to see. It was a very picturesque town, loved it!

We ended up visiting the market, getting coffee, and then having dinner at Pablos sushi restaurant with some of my favorite students. We had what has to be my favorite sushi roll I have ever had “Mango no come Mango” which was a roll with mango, shrimp, avocado tempura, and macadamia nuts…heavenly! After dinner and a few drinks we headed back to the ship to get ready for the jungle trekking and the rest of the trips Anne and Ebonie were going on.

On day 2 we left bright and early aboard a small plane to the area of Peten and the city of Flores in northern Guatemala. The plane was a 4 prop plane that sat about 50 people, so not that small really…When we arrived in Flores we got on some small vans and headed out to the starting point of our journey, a small town outside of the biological zone known as El Zotz. El Zotz, which means Bat in Maya, is the largest reserve of land in central America and the second largest in all of the Americas. Once in the small town we were given details of what the next 4 days would look like on our way to Tikal. Trekking and roughing it are exactly what we did, we were told this was going to be strenuous but very rewarding. Everything we would eat and sleep in would be on the back of about 7 horses who headed out about 30 minutes in front of us. We were also given the option on day 1 to have the horses carry our backpacks (mine which weighed I would guess 20lbs). Everyone decided we could carry our own stuff that day, I mean we signed up for a hard few days right!

Well Day 1 we come to find out would be a 20K hike along an old access road. The first hour of the hike was horrible as we trekked along a piece of road that was not covered by trees, rather was just HOT and HUMID and extremely muddy. After the first our we finally arrived to the entrance to El Zotz park for the rest of the 4 hours of walking up and down muddy roads and rocks to get to the first camp site. The first day was by far the hardest due to the lack of shade, the heat, and the backpacks we all had. The mud was so mad that for most of the hike we all had about 2 inches of mad on the bottom of our shoes adding another 5 lbs to each step it seemed.

At the first camp site which was composed of a small “kitchen” and an roofed area to hang hammocks we had some time to rest before we were to head off to watch the famous El Zotz bats. Around 6:15 we walked about 5 minutes to a small area near a cliff where at dusk millions of bats would leave from. I personally have a fear of bats and so I was definitely a little on edge when we arrived to a small dip in the path that was known as Bat alley where thousands, and I literally mean thousands of 6-8 inch long bats were flying around looking for insects to eat and we had to walk right smack through the middle of this. My first reaction was “are you fucking kidding me!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Yup...that is my first recreation to the bats...

After some more cursing I made my way into the alley and became one with the bats…probably one of the most incredible experiences of my life as thousands of bats flew within centimeters of my body without ever touching me, for the bats we were just another obstacle to fly around. Many many times a bat would come within inches of my face only to fly directly around me, so freaky!!!

After the alley we made it to the cave and were told to look up and within minutes we would see the mass exodus of bats. At the foot of the cave where we were standing we were literally standing in about ankle deep guano, or Bat shit, and were told that to squint when looking up because the bats as they flew over would be pooping all over us.

For those that have never stood in Bat poop it is basically a smelly really fine black powder. After a few minutes the dusk sky turned black as thousands of bats left the cliffs caves and made there way out for feeding for the night.

On our return to the camp we saw that our tents had been completed with mosquito netting that made each of us have our own little cocoon to sleep in…and so my first night of sleeping in the jungle in a hammock was not to bad. Oh ya…food, well dinner on the first night they prepared a chicken with potatoes and a sauce, it was actually quite tasty, but it could also have been that we were starving! So if you are keeping track I have now gone 24 hrs with no shower (and we sweat for every one of those hours) or pooping (I decided I didn’t want to have to poop in the jungle).

Day 2 we walked about 3 hours to a few un excavated Mayan ruins known as the Zotz and the Diablo temples. These were near the camp, but not in the direction of our final location Tikal, the largest and most spectacular of all Mayan Ruins. While on this small excursion we saw some creatures including 3 snakes and some scorpions…tasty. After we returned to the camp we packed everything up had some lunch (soup…very fitting for the cool afternoon in the Guatemalan jungle….not). And so we were off for our day 2 15K hike. This hike was down a smaller path that the horses could still travel on so I decided for Day 2 I would let them carry my pack. For the last hour of our 3.5 hour hike they skies exploded and we had to pull out our ponchos for the downpour that stuck around all night. Night 2 in the jungle was amazing as our camp was under the canopy which was home to a ton of howler monkeys who were kind enough to serve as our 5am wake up call to start our last and final 20K hike. So for your score keeping, 48 hours no shower or bowl movement (you would be surprised what you can do when you don’t want to poop). I was pretty grossed out by my own smell, it was repulsive.

Day 3 we started at 6am to walk 5 hours into the Tikal ruins along the final part of the Mayan trail. This part of the trail was to technical for the horses so we had to carry everything on our backs. While yes, this part of the hike got long, it was truly amazing as we weaved our way through the jungle following our machete wielding guide over and under logs and trees. After about 5 hours we left the jungle and had our first glimpse of temple 4 of Tikal and were told we had about 5 minutes. At this point I had been about 60 hours without pooping (and so had about 5 of my students, it was a great challenge for all of us) so as we saw Tikal we RAN to the bathroom and well I guess you can imagine the next ten minutes. It was about 11:30am and so of course we had been walking for 5 hours so we had some lunch, a can of black beans on white bread…yes…this may have been the most tasty bit of food I have ever had.

We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting all the ruins of Tikal where the Mayans once lived many years ago. I am not going to go into to much detail about Tikal, but here are some pictures. A lot of people have asked which I found more impressive, Tikal or Machu Picchu, and I would have to Say Tikal hands down…it was breathtaking. But I also think the arrival to Tikal was much more rewarding…. That is me right after arriving in Tikal

My reaction to seeing the first coke stand in Tikal...DIET COKE!!!!

so…a little summary of my trip to Tikal:

- 40 miles of hiking in Hot, sweaty, humid Guatemalan jungles for 3 days

- No showering for 72 hours

- No pooping for 60 hours

- The trek we went on is only done by about 350 people a year

- A ton of moneys, koatamundies, snakes, lizards, birds, and other scary things.

Our last day we spent the night in a cute little hotel where we got cleaned up and celebrated our true accomplishment of the Mayan empire.

After the hotel our flight home was on the smallest plane I have ever been on...I definitly held tight and hoped for the best!

I would have to say without a doubt that this was the best trip I had while on SAS, truly an amazing way to end my time at in port!

Just so everyone knows, we were not effected by the earthquake in Peru and the tsunami warnings and watches…but damn that was a close call, we were there less then a month ago!
Getting on the ship for the last time was definitely bitter sweet as I have been saying for a while, knowing that I get to see everyone again, but known that this adventure is coming to an end way to soon.

The next few days should be fun on the ship…I have my captains dinner tonight, Rasa’s b-day is tonight as well, the ambassadors ball in a few nights, and some going away parties…good times!

I will try and post a couple times before I get back in a few days, but if I don’t…see ya soon!

Love ya

So we just got back on the ship from our stop in Nicaragua…wow…what a country! Another one day crossing, so we will be in Guatemala tomorrow morning!

The one day crossing to Nicaragua was actually quite eventful! I am not sure if I had mentioned it yet on my blog, but I had since that day gone the entire voyage without seeing one bit of sea life…and well today made up for the whole trip! While we were at lunch I was sitting where I could see out te window when all of a sudden I see dolphins jumping like CRAZY…backflips, twists, front flips…it was SO cool…all I could do was slightly squeal a little till people figured out what I was pointing at! I have never seen dolphins that playful in the wild…it was so cool! SO I spent the afternoon on the top deck waiting for more dolphins, and I got them! I was even able to take a couple pictures…


OK…so we made it to Nicaragua…even before we got here we knew that this was going to be one of the poorest countries on our itinerary, but I had no idea how bad it would be till we got there. We docked in Corinto, Nicaragua which is nothing but a couple of little streets and a lot of run down and old buildings. When we exited the port we were accosted by bicycle taxis wanting to take us where we wanted. If you remember from the end of my last blog I had managed to rent a house in Las Penitas Nicaragua, so we needed to arrange a form of transportation that city which was about 1.5 hours away. Rasa worked on the transport while I worked on changing over some money at a local bank.

We got in a van that looked like it was held together with duct tape and was being driven by a really creepy driver, but alas that is all we could find to make the trip…there were 11 of us in the van, so obviously it was going to be safe. After asking directions a couple times we made it out to the house. Pedro and Carmen were the caretakers of the house and were very welcoming to our large group (we had about 12 people at the house at any given time, some people left while others joined during the 4 days we were there). The town, tiny, I mean tiny…of course we didn’t see much of it, we really did just stay at the house for 4 whole days! Mom, it was smaller then Boca de Uchire in Venezuela! Pedro took us that first night to the grocery store so we bought almost $300 in food and beer…that was a show of course, 5 Americans in a small grocery store in Leon with 3 overflowing carts full of food (we had each signed up to cook a meal or two). The grocery store was about 25 minutes from the house and we made it there and back by riding in the back of a pick-up truck J Love you Mom J

So the house was beautiful, it opened right onto the ocean…maybe 15 ft to where the waves were breaking, literally I could crawl from my bedroom to the beach and never walk. The house had 12 beds, a kitchen, dining room, outdoor living room, small pool, elevated palm covered hut, and an amazing few with a private beach…oh…ya…and at only $125 a night divided by 10 people…extremely CHEAP…

So the only complain I have about the house was the first morning I woke up sweating wondering what happen to the fan and the air conditioning that were on all night? Well turns out that there are rolling power outages every day in Nicaragua! So Las Penitas didn’t have power EVERY day from 7am-2pm…YIKES…luckily we only lost a little bit of meat, but for the most part everything was ok…it just meant we were up early cause the rooms got hot REAL quick.

So since everyday at the house was pretty much the same I am gonna note some highlights:

- Cooking empanadas and arepas for everyone and teaching Tania and Lisa to make them
- Boogie Boarding in the most amazing waves
- The Hut that became Ray’s house (he stayed there most of the time due to his broken foot)
- Playing cards – Progressive rummy is a bit addictive….get ready OSU!
- The pool where I was able to sit in water and read Harry Potter which was sitting on a floating boogie board
- Just a much needed relaxing time!

So we left around 11am on the last day and arranged a boat ride back from the house to the ship. We decided on this because it was much closer this way due to the lack of a direct route between Las Penitas and Corinto! While most of thought that the route would be a quick and easy way along the beaches we were surprised to learn that we would actually be navigating through a huge Nicaraguan Mangrove! It was AMAZING and one of my favorite parts of the weekend….at this point there were 8 of us and we managed to fit in a small boat and trusted that our driver knew his way through small mangroves. At time we had to duck and move out of the way of branches and at one point we all had to climb into the boat and lay down because a tree had fallen the night before and got in the way of the boat. Finally we made it out and could see the MV Explorer in the distance and we made the most amazing return to the ship I have ever heard of…we even got to pull up along side of the ship as we got to a smaller docking area.

All in all Nicaragua was an amazing time with my new friends and I loved it dearly! I would recommend this house and this country to anyone that just wants to get away and enjoy a relaxing beach!

Costa Rica – Pura Vida!

So the days leading up to Costa Rica were filled with activities on the ship including the Students of Service auction and the Talent show. The students of service (SOS) is a group of students that try and raise money for non-profit organizations in the countries that we have visited, Ebonie, one of the other RDs is in charge of this group. Students, faculty and staff donated items ranging from expensive baseball cards, breakfast served in bed and chance to steer the ship to a weekend in someone’s home in Puerto Rico. I think this was the first time I truly saw how privlidged (how much some of these kids have) some are on the ship, considering they raised almost $10,000!!! Lets just say I didn’t bid for anything in the auction…

The talent show was fun, yes, there were some awkward moments (OTL auditions anyone?) but my friend Tania who is famous on board for rewriting lyrics to songs wrote the following lyrics to Seasons of Love and called it Summer at Sea. Myself and 6 other people sang/acted it out…it was cute!

Summer of Love
(sung to the tune of Seasons of Love)

Ninety three thousand six hundred minutes
Ninety three thousand moments at sea
Ninety three thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a summer at sea?

In life vests, in lectures, in dolphins in Sea Olympics
In Preports, knots, in adopted families.

In Ninety three thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a summer at sea

How about, Friends
How about, Friends
How about, Friends; measure in friends

Summer at sea, Summer at sea
Ninety three thousand six hundred minutes
Ninety three thousand, journeys to plan

Ninety three thousand six hundred minutes
How do you tell the tale when your back on land

In the language she learned
In the new foods he tried
In the credits she earned
Even through Co-lab died (colab is a paper submitting program on the ship that broke 2 weeks ago)

Its time now, to sing out
Before the Voyage ends.
Lets Celebrate the bonds we’ve made with our new friends
Feel the, Love
Feel the, Love
Feel the, Love
Summer at sea

Summer at sea
Summer at sea.

So the song was cute, and yes, now it is stuck in my head again!

So Costa Rica! Well 4 days in this beautiful country is definitely not enough to truly enjoy it. A little over all reaction before I really start to get into the trip is that in my opinion Costa Rica really lacked a sense of nationalism from what I experienced. Maybe it was the experiences that I did have, but mostly all I did was see touristy spots that didn’t really give me a sense for what Costa Ricans really are as a people. In all the other countries that I visited I got a sense of what Panamanians cared about, or Chilean people, etc. The only thing that Costa Rica seemed to have was the huge love of Eco-tourism and a laid back attitude that fit their “Pura Vida” or “Pure Life” a saying which I love and am going to try to bring back.

Puntarenas was the port where we docked which was literally a small fishing town that may have at one point been a cruise terminal, but is now just a long pier that probably had not seen a ship in a while. It was very cool pulling up though because we literally pulled up to a beach, we were so close I almost felt that I could jump off and swim to shore to a beach…very cool! OH YA! I saw my first bit of sea life…a sting ray!

Our first day we had planned on meeting up with some students to try and find a way to do some sort of adventure sport on the first day. The 5 students we met up with very quickly turned into 25 students, to many for a relaxing afternoon on Isla Tortuga. At this point we had hired a boat to take us over to the island and at the grocery store were we were going to purchase water and snacks, students started to purchase large amounts of alcohol…and of course it was some students that I am not all that found of that were purchasing large amounts of rum and coke. Yup. That was enough for Doug and I to bal out of the trip. Doug and I headed back to the ship with our purchase of water and hot sauce (I have been buying hot sauces in every country).

When we got back we met up with Nicole and Ray who had plans to head out to a resort. Nicole works in the field office who works with the tour agents in every country setting up the semester at sea sponsored trips, so the tour guide in this Costa Rica gave us a free ride and a free pass to lay at the pool of a 6 star resort on the top of a huge cliff over looking the pacific coast. Breathtaking. So the four of us spent the afternoon laying out at the infinity pool (which is basically a pool that looks as though it has no end) and had a couple of fruity drinks (I had a tasty passion fruit margarita…mmmmm).

We ended up heading back into town for dinner and meeting up with Aaron, the video guy on the ship. We tried to find a small restaurant we read about which led us on a long walk through what we found out was deserted Puntarenas…we found it and had a decent meal at a little hole in the wall restaurant.

The second to third day I was trip leading a trip to Manuel Antonio beach which is a national park in Costa Rica famous for the jungle coming right down to the beaches. The drive was about 3 hours, we made a couple of stops. This picture is of Jaco, a small town famous for its surfing.

Manuel Antonio is the national park, but has a ton of hotels outside that are really close to the entrance and located up on a cliff above the park. The cool thing is that along the rode you notice a lot of electrical and telephone cables and then a lot of bright blue ropes tied across the street as well. We found out that in the past the park was finding a lot of dead squirrel monkeys fried by the wires so they installed ropes which they quickly learned to be safe. As we were driving we say 3 little squirrel monkeys crossing the ropes, it was so cute, little bright orange guys.

We were staying at a hotel right near the entrance to the park and got there just in time to eat lunch and then have the afternoon free. One thing that we learned about Costa Rica is that sun and weather play a huge role in what you can enjoy. Costa Rica is located just south of Tampa, Florida but has the same time zone as Salt Lake City, translate that to a 5AM sunrise and a 5:30pm Sunset. Costa Rica being a highly agricultural country has not changed there time zone and likes this early sunrise and sunset. The other thing is that we are in the rainy season, so every day by 4:30pm expect rainfall…and that exact thing happened. Doug and I went to the beach around 1pm and had to go back around 4 because the sun was gone and DARK clouds were moving in.

We spent the evening in the hotel room watching TV in English (we randomly had 3 channels from Denver) and got caught up on US news (scary stuff about the bridge!). Dinner at the hotel and then some drinks in the pool with some of the students and we called it a night!

We were up early and headed out for a day in the actual national park and some more beach time! The park was truly breathtaking seeing the jungle come to the beach front and enjoying the large amount of wildlife. One thing that I have learned on this trip is that I am not a huge of large tour groups that ask a lot of redundant questions (or that spend ten minutes pointing out the obviously HUGE sloth that everyone else in the group has already seen in the tree). So after about 30 minutes, most of the students and myself decided to split from our tour guide and enjoy the park on our own. We grabbed a beach spot and enjoyed the quite time. We saw some wildlife including howler monkeys, lizards, iguanas, birds, long nose koatamundies (SP?), and my favorite, the white face capuccine monkeys. These little guys came right to the trees were people were sitting and started interacting with everyone (we had already been given a warning to watch our belongings as these little guys were famous for stealing snacks, clothes and cameras! I was literally less then a foot from them…so fun!

We headed back to the ship around 3:30pm and got back around 6:30pm and ran into Anne and Rasa who informed us that Ray had broken his foot playing volleyball the previous day and that they were going to try and get him off the ship for dinner. Poor ray was on crutches and a bandaged foot. After a long treck down the pier and a good dinner close by we headed back to the ship for an early night. We had planned on getting a ab to drive Ray down the LONG pier, but as I mentioned earlier Puntarenas is DEAD at night and not a single cab was coming by, so after about 15 minutes of waiting I got Ray on my back and carried him about halfway down the pier till Doug was able to get a wheel chair off the ship. I am sure he will kill me for putting this picture online…

Our last day in port was pretty chill and a good day of just relaxing with friends that sadly I will not see after another 17 days L it can be summed up pretty quickly by saying Ray is in a cast and mostly likely needs surgery, lunch was whole fish, laid out on the pool deck on the ship, dinner was the best Costa Rican Chinese Food I have ever had J

So we are on our first one day crossing right now, which means that scary but true, we will be in Nicaragua tomorrow morning already! We rented a house on the beach, so this should be a fun relaxing time! Love ya all!

Peru...Favorite port so far!

Coming to Peru was a pretty uneventful crossing. We had a couple of issues with students and drinking to much in Chile coming back onto the ship, but that was not that big of a deal when it came down to it. One thing that SAS does is random drug tests and random room searches for contraband (alcohol mainly). The random drug tests were definitely interesting because the policy states that if a student has taken any drugs they will be removed from the program. The main reason for this is that we are in international waters and if any port official were to find drugs on a student the ship could then be subject to stay in that port and have government officials check the entire ship for drugs…and as you can imagine that would be a slight inconvenience! Well we had some, and had some interesting results…luckily no one was kicked off, but it was a stressful afternoon for one of my favorite students L

OH Peru…well I am not sure If I had mentioned this, but right after we dock we have a diplomatic briefing by local consoler or embassy reps. Well our American friends in Lima, Peru were we docked came onto the ship to give us some basic information and warnings about Peru, and to say that they scared the shit out of us is saying it nicely! Basically we were informed that Lima is probably one of the most unsafe cities in all of south America! Yay! Oh, and the area where we docked being on of the most unsafe…score! So we were told that heading to the area of Miraflores would be best as this is the upscale neighborhood. In any other part of Lima we were told that muggings, express kidnappings and other violent crimes are common. So needless to say I was excited that I only had one afternoon in Lima to kill. Doug and I decided that we would head to Miraflores and check it out and then head back to the ship early in order to get to bed because we had to be up at 3:30am to catch our 6am flight to Cusco, Peru.

Miraflores was a very uneventful day of shopping and eating. We did stop and call our tour agent to confirm everything in cusco and machu picchu. Doug and I had decided back in April to book a trip to Machu Picchu independently of SAS, but we were not sure that our travel was legit and not some scam. Luckily it all worked out great! After getting some Peru stuff and eating McDonalds (we just needed something consistent to eat after Chile) we headed back to the ship and then early to bed.

By 4am the next morning we were up and out of the ship and on our way to the airport to catch a 6am flight to Cusco, the closest city and airport to Machu Picchu. Our flight was run through Taca airlines which turned out to be one of the best airline experiences I have yet to have. The flight to Cusco was only about an hour, but the land we were flying over was amazing! The Andes just jetted out of the ground immediately! This picture I took from the airplane and shows the peaks of the mountains peaking out of the cloud level, stunning!

The one thing about Peru was the lack of efficiency that the country seems to have, starting with their airports! On our way out of the country we had to pay an airline tax, and instead of adding that to the tickets, there is a s separate line that we had to wait in to pay. Then when we arrived in Cusco the flow of traffic of passengers exiting and boarding planes was such that we had to cross paths. That meant that those people getting off the plan had to stand in the terminal for about ten minutes while a flight boarded before we were able to leave the airport, very awkward.

When we left the airport we met with the people from our travel agent who picked us up and took us to the Hotel we would be staying at in Cusco that night, the Royal Inti. Cusco is an adorable little town nestled in the mountains of Peru at an elevation of over 11,000 feet so our tour guide told us to take the morning to just lay around our hotel room and get used to the altitude. Before we did that we had our first cup of Coca tea which is a leaf that the Peruvians believe helps with altitude sickness. It sort of tasted like chamomile tea, it was tasty!

We were also told not to eat anything really heavy that day and to just take in a lot of fluids, which to me sounded a lot like the old wives tales that I used to hear in Venezuela (my favorite being that you shouldn’t read after you eat…ummm…ok). Anyway, we spent the morning exploring the city by foot and then had some lunch before our group tour of Cusco and the surrounding Inca ruins. Lunch was ok, although the appetizer that they brought was basically stinky tuna between layers of mashed potatoes…I almost lost it when I smelled it.

Our afternoon tour ended up being with other English speaking tourists in Cusco (read: the type of tourists that I really don’t like, older Americans wearing fanny packs and asking stupid questions). The tour took us to a local Inca ruin in town, a church, and then some ruins in the area outside of Cusco. Janet, our tour guide was cute, but definitely talked WAY To much and turned a 4 hour tour into almost 5 and a half hours. The one good thing that came out of this tour was my chance to be photographed with the most adorable women and Alpaca…You have no idea, but I have become slightly obsessed with any and everything Llama and Alpaca, trust me if I could have found Alpaca underwear I would have bought some!

A couple of the moments where I wanted to poke my eyes out on the trip:

- We had an American on the trip wearing what I call a Canadian tuxedo (for those unfamiliar it is when you were jeans and a jean jacket, he accented this with a leather backpack, fanny pack and a braided belt). He then felt the need to comment on EVERYTHING Janet would say in order to try and impress the group with his knowledge of Inka history…great…we were looking at some walls in the middle of a field, why it took almost an hour to get out of there is besides me.
- On the way up to the last ruin we were gonna see, we had someone get on the bus with a laptop and try to sell people a DVD with pictures of Peru and background pan flute music. Needless to say many of my fellow American tourists got one…at almost $12…really?
- At one point we thought we were done, but then Janet surprised us with a stop at a local Alpaca shop to show us how to buy good alpaca wears. The problem was that at this point I had a headache from the altitude, I was tired, and we realized that the shop was called Perez Alpaca…our tour guide was named Janet Perez…kickback anyone?

After the tour we freshened up back at the hotel and then headed out to dinner at a local restaurant called Jack’s Café (American owned with a great menu). We were in bed early because we were being picked up at 6am to catch our train to Aguas Calientes the closest town to Machu Picchu.

The next morning our guide came on time and picked us up and dropped us off at the train station for our 4 hour train ride to Aquas. We had gotten the package on the backpacker train which was actually not that bad except for the fact that the seats were all facing each other so that you were facing two people. The people across from us turned out to be this adorable older Colombian couple (the lady reminded me a lot of my grandmother, well at least what I can remember of her) who actually had a daughter that studied abroad for two year at Ohio State…such a small world! They of course were a little upset when I told them that I had yet to go to Colombia and that it was not on my agenda during this trip…so I guess I need to plan another trip sometime soon to Colombia J

After the train ride we arrive in Aguas and dropped off our luggage with our hotel in Aguas and then took a 30 min bus ride up a mountain on a dirt road to the entrance to Machu Picchu. How can I describe the Andes? I have never been in such an amazing area with a landscape so amazing. These are mountains that literally jet out of the ground and peak everywhere. The clouds sit at there peaks and continue to roll in and out of the valleys. A little about Machu Picchu for those unfamiliar, it used to be considered the lost city of the Incas, but after much debate it is now just known as an Incan mystery because no one is sure what occurred here, some say it was an agricultural center, others say it was an astronomical center, some just say it was an Incan estate/vacation type location. Machu Picchu was discovered by Hiram Bingham who was following the river at the bottom of the ridge looking for Incan remains and ran into a family who the story goes was living up in the mountains to avoid taxes. When Hiram spoke to the family they mentioned some stones they had found in the upper valley between the Machu Picchu (Large mountain) and Huayna Picchu (little Mountain). Hiram was then taken to the top of the ruins and when the clouds lifted he was left with this view (of course all the jungle was over grown and it was not this clear). In this picture I was standing up near the top of the Inca trail which connects Cusco and Machu Picchu (a 10 day hike), in the picture you see the agricultural terraces, rock quarry, some rooms and houses and you all see Huayna Picchu in the background which is the large mountain whose peak is slightly covered by a cloud.

We spent the day just exploring the ruins and learning as much as we could about what this place was used for. My favorite part of the ruins was escaping the crowds and finding some quiet time down at the bottom where most people did no visit. We left the mountain around 5pm and planned on coming back the next day to watch the sunrise and to take the challenge that most don’t which is to climb Huayna Picchu! From the base of Huayna Picchu in Machu Picchu to the top is almost a 1000 ft. climb. Those that want to climb have to arrive early as Huayna is only open from 7am-1pm and they only let 400 people on it each day, which is usually filled by 10am. At the top of Huayna is the temple of the moon and the most amazing views of the area.

In Aguas we spent the evening walking around this adorable little mountain town. The best part was there was a parade for the upcoming Peruvian Independence day which was the towns children dressed in typical outfits all carrying poles with papier-mâché designs with a candle in it. Adorable!

Around 5:30am we headed for the bus and up to Machu Picchu again. Unfortunatly it was cloudy and misty and the sunrise was not anything to exciting. However it was cool to be one of the first 50 people into Machu Picchu and to experience the ruins almost alone with a thick layer of mist…it was eerie yet calm at the same time…amazing. Around 6:45 we headed over to Huayna and got in line to start our climb. We had to wait about an hour in order to get onto the mountain, I was number 129 for the day! I am not sure how to explain Huayna other then the most difficult bit of hiking I have ever done. There were many points that I realized that this was so dangerous that if this was in the US there would be no way we could make this climb. The Inca created this path up the mountain over 1000 feet higher then Machu Picchu with uneven rocks up a 70-80 degree incline at some points. “stairs” were more like 5-6 inch deep slippery rocks. This is a picture of me almost to the top, as you can see all the way to the top we were climbing up in a cloud! How cool is that! We were climbing up a mountain in the Andes in a cloud…love it! At the top of Huayna we waited for about an hour to see if the clouds would break to see Machu Picchu from the top, but unfortunately it never happened completely. A couple of times we were able to see a glimpse of how high we were, but never a full on view. NO worries though…it was an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything!

Some people say that Machu Picchu has its own spiritual energy…we saw many people meditating, some people chanting and praying, others performing odd rituals. While I am not sure what the energy that exists at Machu Picchu really is, sitting on top of Huayna feeling the Andean clouds float by was probably one of the most peaceful places on earth I have found.

After our climb we headed back down the mountain and then back to Aguas to catch some lunch and our train back to Cusco. In the time we had left we went to the Aguas Calientes (hot Springs) which as supposedly medicinal waters that are naturally heated (which means they smell like farts and look like someone had diarrhea in the water). Of course I had not brought any shorts (we were still in winter remember!) so luckily right outside the hot springs I was able to RENT a towel and RENT a pair of shorts for 6 soles (less then $2). Yup…I went in the hot springs in a rented bathing suit…I got a lot of laughs back on the ship for that one J The hot springs were interesting as they were not really that hot…but still an experience that I am glad I had. The view was amazing!

So back to Cusco the train ride was smooth and a lot more comfy as the people in front of us got off on the first stop (about an hour into the trip) so we each had our own seat and could stretch out as much as we wanted.

Luckily we had no problems getting on our flight in Cusco and back to the ship, because as we found out when we arrived to the airport MANY people had either missed their flights or were bumped from flights as the practice of overselling flights was in full force…I just don’t understand how airlines can do that!

Anne and Nate had an amazing time…hopefully no one they know reads this before they tell you, but Nate proposed to Anne on Machu Picchu!!!! How cute is that! Such a great place for that to happen…congrats guys! The not so cool time was when they arrived at the airport they found a student that had missed her flight and was bawling because she had no money on her and had not brought her credit cards (real smart, huh) so Anne helped her and got her money and got her a new ticket…so much for being nice because this caused Anne and Nate not to realize that they had changed the time of there flight by 30 minutes thus causing them to miss there flight!!! Ummm…Nate had to be back in Lima by 10am the next day as he was leaving the trip to go back to work in California, so for the full story check out her blog, but lets just say it took them a 17 HOUR CAR RIDE to get back to Lima…they hired a driver to take them through the Andes Mountains…I am so proud of them for making it back!

Well Peru is over, a lot of headaches with LAN PERU (the airline that bumped and oversold tickets), we left one student in Peru who missed a flight in Cusco and could not get on one before the ship left. Luckily they are letting him get back on in Costa Rica (even though he is missing 3 days of class, which is A LOT) only because him and his friend BOTH missed a flight, but when a flight with one seat came available he let his friend get on the plane because this friend is not on an American Passport (I think he is from China) and would have an EXTREMELY hard time getting out of Peru and into Costa Rica.

Anyway…I miss you all a LOT and I am having a great time…3 more weeks and I am home! Can you believe it!

Mullets, 80s Music and Bad food...CHILE!

Chile…

If I was asked to sum Chile up in a few words it would be

- To much PDA
- Mullets and Fullets
- Constant 80s dance party
- Chilean Cuisine…an oxymoron

Chile is a country that coming in I knew would be interesting for a few reasons the first being that the lady that married my grandfather back when I was little was from Chile, and well she did not leave a very good impression on me, of course this was for more personal reasons. Apart from that, I knew going in that this was probably going to be one of the more expensive/well off countries we would encounter and that was definitely true. Although it doesn’t take much to see right past that well-off exterior and see the same amount of poverty that you see in every other country, it was just a little more hidden.

The weather in Chile is also something to note, as we are in the dead of winter…luckily I packed my Northface jacket and some gloves…Valpo was in the low 60s, but Santiago was a chilly 40-60 degrees!

Coming into Valparaiso (Valpo for short) was beautiful as this town is known for its hillside homes that line every part of the city. It just looked like a twinkling horizon as we approached…breathtaking! The part of town we docked was right near the Chilean navy, we were docked right next to a bunch of navy ships. Tom, the assistant executive dean was joking that when talking to the port authority he was informed that the Navy School was about a 10 minute walk from the port, his response was that most people on the ship would probably be running there.

I spent the first day in port with Anne, Nate and Doug just kinda wondering the city. Our first venture was to try and get some Chilean Pesos, which was actually more complicated then we thought. As we were leaving the port we were told that all the ATMs near the dock were empty because we were arriving on the tail end of a holiday weekend (it was the celebration of some virgin that I can’t remember right now). We ended up going to at least 4 ATMs and started to curse the Chilean economy for not knowing how to keep an ATM stocked. Finally at the 5th ATM we realized that we were just not reading the instructions and that we had to hit a button for a “foreign transaction” to use our ATM cards. Yup…we felt REALLY stupid L

After that we ventured up one of the many Asensores (ass-sensors as my students called it) or funiculars which took you up the hill to the community of brightly painted hillside homes.

Once up here we headed to a restaurant that the Lonely planet suggested which turned out to be a bit more expensive than we wanted, but we stuck it out. My first taste of Chilean cuisine was a seafood gratin which was a mush of shrimp and scallops (which still had what looked like there poop shoots still attached)…I stirred it around and then felt as if I was going to vomit.

The rest of the day we spent in Vina del Mar, a beach town near Valpo, were we went to the Mall and watched the new Harry Potter movie. Trust me I would have rather done something else, but the whole country was shut down due to the holiday!

Dinner was my first introduction to the Chilean gastronomical technique of throwing a fried egg on top of something and calling it a meal…a burger topped with onions, fries and an egg…and yes, this was the beginning of stomach issues I am still dealing with.

Day 2! We hopped aboard a bus and headed to Santiago where we had reserved a hostel (this being Doug, Rasa and myself…actually we found out that some of my favorite students also booked rooms at the same place, so it was fun!) in the area of town called Bellavista which is the art/bohemian center of Santiago. My first impressions of Santiago was that is an incredibly metropolitan city, I can only compare it to New York or even Chicago…of course neither of those cities have the Andes with there snow peaked mountains as there back drop.

Onto Bellavista we found our hostel which was adorable, eclectically decorated and in a perfect part of town full of restaurants and young people mostly backpackers or world travelers. After checking in we realized that our luck was not all that great because our room was the first one by the front door and that our room had no heat…thank god for thick ass blankets!

After checking in we headed off to the El Cerro San Cristobal which was right behind our neighborhood to ride the funicular and the teleferico. On the way we stopped for lunch were we met two Australian travelers who would be come our partners in crime for the rest of the day. Tristan and Byron who were on day 2 of a year long world adventure joined us in some sight seeing around the city. The best part of this was taking the teleferico which is basically like a tram you would find in Disney world which travels the length of the city and gives you one of the best views of all of Santiago.

View of the City


Around 5pm Rasa headed off for a nap and Doug and the Aussies and I headed for a beer…around 7 we met up for dinner at this little Thai restaurant and then continued on for some more hanging out and drinking. Now most of you all know that I am a light weight when it comes to alcohol…so lets just say that when I took myself home at 11:15pm I was not feeling very well. All I am going to say is that the lesson learned is never drink with Australians. Never.

The next day we got up and needed some greasy food (and about 3 advils), Doug had the bright idea of finding the McDonalds we had seen the day before. Nothing like some McD’s to get you going in the morning. The only problem is that in Chile the breakfast menu is not your typical Sausage egg and cheese with a hash brown. Rather it was French bread with an egg…no hashbrown. Not what we wanted. We went next door to doggies for our first and only taste of a Chilean hot dog called a “complete” the picture says it all (and yes that hot dog has guacamole and tomatoes on it).
The rest of the day was sight seeing and phone call making…we did get a chance to meet up with some of my favorite students Shannon, Jesse, Sarah, Brian, Mackenzie, and Ashley for dinner…most of these folks are from big 10 schools or from Pitt. We ate at a French restaurant. Chilean French food = not good.

On a side note I need to comment on the 80s sound track that seemed to playing throughout all of Chile! Every store we entered, every restaurant, every metro station had some 80s hit playing. At some point I started to wonder if the countries pop culture was really that behind, but then I would see some Justin Timberlake or Shakira posters. The fact is that Chile is just one huge 80s party…one hit wonders of the 80s are still going big in Chile!

The other side note is the mullet and fullet (female mullet, thank you Byron) which was the cut de jour of Chile…it wasn’t even a question…it was the average haircut of most people 20-35…a mullet! I mean I know its cold, but folks, they invented things like scarves and turtle necks (although not cute) to keep your neck warm…get rid of the mud flap!

Our last full day in Santiago we spent sight seeing again, local markets, coffee shops, etc. It was nice to have a pretty normal average day in a city not jam packed with stuff! The sad part was that this was the first day of poor Doug really going down hill with his sore throat and mucus grossness that had been going around the ship. That night he and Rasa were out of commission so I headed out with some of my favorite students for some drinks to watch the Chile/Argentina soccer game and then to a bar for some music and dancing. In true Chilean style when we asked the live singer to sing a classic American love song she belted out Sweet Child of Mine…hilarious.

I think my favorite part of Chile was getting the chance to hang out with some really amazing and fun students and have a good time with them. As I was talking with Lisa about this morning, I think unfortunately sometimes we are forced to only interact with our students around bad things like extreme intoxication. But when you have a chance to hang out and get to know students is when you truly start to love this job. And that is what Chile was for me, students becoming friends that I hope and want to keep in touch with after this voyage.

Caribbean Sea takes FIRST :-)

I am on vacation!!!

Yup


Well not really, but like I had mentioned before, my big day was yesterday, the Sea Olympics! All I can say is…Grrreat Success! After a few weeks of planning with only the help of a few students due to the high amount of academic work they had we pulled a late night making sure everything was in place and ready to go for our Sea Olympics. I belief I mentioned this before, but each floor is a Sea (for example I am the Caribbean Sea, Doug is the Yellow Sea, Anne is the Arabian Sea, Etc.) and the faculty and life long learners are all apart of there own sea which they called the “Si”Sea..cute…

The day started off with our opening ceremonies and every team entering with their banners, colors and cheers…the Caribbean Sea was blue and we of course had a pirate theme (I am pretty sure there is no other theme as appropriate). The union was filled with an amazing energy as every team came in chanting and cheering and trying to be louder then the other. I think the best part of this was the positive energy that had been lacking the last couple of days due to an abnormally high stress level that the students have been experiencing because of midterms and papers on the ship. I had about 6 students that helped me put together the different events and organize the whole day as well as run the day. Joe, one of Doug’s resident was our MC for the opening ceremonies and did a great job.

The Si Sea won…a bit controversial because our judges were all from the Si Sea…but I am gonna blame it on all the kids on the team.

The second event of the day the obstacle course which involved a saltine whistle, balloon toss, egg carry, orange role, and of course a soduko puzzle at then end. While the Caribbean sea had a bad start coming out last from the cracker whistle, somehow we have a soduko genius who started the puzzle last yet finished it faster then anyone else! So score a victory for the Caribbean!

On to a flip cup tournament (and yes there were 9 year old girls playing flip cup) and a mini Iron Chef (first time ever on Semester at Sea, and one of the most popular events!). Caribbean took first in flip cup and 2nd in iron chef!

The afternoon had a few competitions including trivia, taboo, basketball shootout, dodgeball and limbo. One of the most popular events was the Syncronized swimming which was hgilarious! In case you forgot, we are in the southern hemisphere and our water and air temperature are usually around 57 degrees…not something you want to be swimming in! But of course, we had a delegation from each team. Caribbean did a little number in which they came out in bathing suits but then put on sweaters and sweat pants cause the water was to cold and then jumped in…it was cute…It got us third. The first place team was a group of 5 guys all wearing matching orange speedos (well more like orange underwear they purchased in Ecuador).
The evening was topped off with a pie eating contest and twister…by this point the score was obviously in the Caribbean sea’s favor being almost 300 points above the 2nd place team. The last event was the Lyp Synch, which for us entailed a pirate dance off to Michael Jackson’s Beat It…fun, but didn’t get us any more points. Doug’s team did a Brittany Spears 8 minute thing…HILARIOUS…although it did not follow any of the rules, it won first place. So at the end of the night, the Caribbean sea took FIRST place by a land slide and that got us the right to disembark first when we get to San Diego in August. This is a pretty huge deal because as you can imagine getting there and having to sit and wait as your families are waiting to pick you up as a student is hard!

Anyway…we arrive in Chile tomorrow…as I keep saying to folks, I am on vacation now J I just have a couple more things to do on the ship, but mostly I am going to be reading and relaxing.

Oh ya…the other night we had our Sea Social which is a time for students to hang out in the Faculty staff lounge with the faculty and the staff and enjoy food and drinks. It was great, everyone came and dressed up. It was at the beginning of this crossing, so a bit stressful because of the Latin America Today exam, but over all a good time!

I will try and call again tomorrow…hope to catch some folks at home!

Love ya!

With only a 2 day trip over to Ecuador the days on the ship went quick and were extremely busy! Nothing to exciting happened that I haven’t already talked about (no hair/crossing the equator) so I was very glad to get into Ecuador and back on land and in SOUTH AMERICA! It has been a few years (what…almost 13 years now? Since I have been in south America?) so that was very exciting to see this part of the world again!

A little about Ecuador, for those that don’t know the whole country is about the size of Colorado yet is known as one of the most diverse countries in the world both in terms of its populations as well as its geography. We ported in Guayaquil Ecuador which is a very industrial port city, also the largest city in Ecuador, is located somewhat inland along a river. So the cool part of coming into this port was that we actually traveled up a river into the port city, apparently we were boarded by the port pilot at approximately 3:00 AM when we entered the river. I only know we entered the river because te ship started to rock so much that every thing in my room stared to fall off of shelves and in the bathroom. It was rocking so much that at one point I thought I might fall out of bed I was moving so much! Luckily it was only for a few minutes, things started to calm down once we actually entered the river.

Guayaquil is not known for a being a pretty city, and we definitely saw what people meant by the port area. The port was very industrious, not a place where cruise ships usually dock (not that this is a cruise, but it is nice to know you are going to be safe as you walk into town). Usually when we port, we have a diplomatic briefing, and the one for guayaquil talked mostly about how careful we needed to be in this city…my favorite part was the warning of the speedy kidnapping which is where someone follows you into a cab and then forces you to an ATM where you must withdraw money…wonderful!

So a few of us decided to spend our first day in port enjoying the hot spots in Guayaquil which took us to the safest part of town which was the Malecon 2000. This is probably the most touristy part of the city that was cleaned up in 2000 and made into a really cute riverfront walk way. Since it was so early in the morning (1000 or so) we decided to take a detour to La Plaza Semenario which is known for the hundreds of iguanas that live in its gates. The cool part is that the iguanas are not caged in, but yet they never leave the park which is located literally in the middle of the city! The iguanas were HUGE and they were all over the park and the trees. One tree in particular had so many iguanas it was hard to tell them apart from the leaves. The only way you knew it was full of iguanas was because every few minutes a huge amount of iguana pee would come falling to the ground. Tasty. We then headed off to what would really be one of my only true Ecuadorian meals at a restaurant called Los Nuestro. Here most people tried the Yapingachos (not sure what it was) but I had something that involved a steak smothered in onions and tomatoes and rice with eggs on top.

After lunch we headed to the Mercado Artesenal and I bought some gifts for people, they had some really cute stuff for pretty cheap. We then headed up to the neighborhood known as Las Penas. I guess this is another part of the renovated Guayaquil which was really pretty. It was a neighborhood of really quaint little homes along a mountain side which had a lighthouse at the top. The climb up involved 444 steps which were all numbered. Along the way were a number of shops and restaurants…we stopped at one on the way down and had a beer. After the climb we decided it was time for a quick dinner and then time to head back to the ship as most of us had to be up early (I had to be up and ready by 4:30am)…dinner was a quick stop at an empanada stand for some Colombian style empanadas.

So the reason I had to be up so early was that I was trip leading a trip to Quito with students and we had a departure time of 0500. On the trip I had 38 students, I was suppose to have one more, but the girl decided to sleep in versus go on her $500 trip to Quito…oh the privilege some of these students live with to just be able to throw away money like that! I must say that Quito has GOT to be the most beautiful city I have ever flown into. For those that don’t know, Quito is the 2nd highest capitol in the world at almost 9000 feet of elevation. Flying in the mountains start to appear almost immediately and so do some of the almost 60 volcanoes in Ecuador. The 2nd highest and closest to Quito is one called Cotopaxi and was so amazing to fly near its snow capped peaks.

The first day in Quito just involved a trip around the old town and through some of the famous churches and sights in the city. Quito has got to be one of the cutest and most quaint cities I have ever been in. The people are simply warm and inviting and so is the city as a whole. The first thing you notice about the people of Quito is the height of the people, the majority being under I would say 5’10 made me feel like a giant and I am not that tall at all! The second thing you notice is how conservative the dress is in the city, color being almost absent and shorts not even around. Some of the churches we went to were totally amazing, my favorite and the one that I could not take picture in is known as the gold church. Literally every corner of this church is COVERED in gold leafing, it is so incredible the detailing in the workmanship.

After the city tour we grabbed lunch in the hotel (5 star hotel in Quito with single room, check) and the we all had the rest of the afternoon free. My plan was to take a nap and then explore the area around the hotel and then meet up with Anne and Nate who were in Quito on there own excursion. Of course, a student spoiled this plan after she started to feel sick and thought that she might be having an allergic reaction to shellfish (which she said she never had had before). For SAS trips they give us each a medical kit so as we are waiting for the doctor the hotel calls to come I give the student an antihistamine to see if that helps. Eventually then non-english speaking doctor shows up and there I am trying to translate medical terms for the student and the doctor…lets just say I earned my 50% off the trip from SAS. After a couple of hours the student was in her room with her roommate taking the night off and I was off for my much needed nap!

Dinner I met up with Anne and Nate and headed to a steak restaurant that there guide book recommended. When the taxi finally dropped us off we realized that the place was EMPTY despite the sign stating that we were about to have “The Steak For Our Lives”…we ended up going in cause the owner opened the door and saw us out in front debating if we should enter. Of course, the steak was amazing but the restaurant and its sea foam green napkins, table cloths and chairs left much for the eye to desire. After dinner we went to a Bar across from my hotel…MARIO’S BAR!

Day 2 in Quito…White Water rafting! We were picked up and took a 3 hour trip to the river. On the way we took a road that took us down and mountain where the road dropped 6000 feet in 20 miles of blind curves and sharp cliffs on a 40 passager bus…thrilling to say the least…especially for the 3 students that lost there breakfast, literally…luckily there was only one moveable trashcan and no bags on the bus! One girl decided that coming up to me with her mouth full of vomit and then reaching over me to the trashcan in my row was a good idea…I almost vomited myself after that one!

White water rafting was a blast and defiantly something I want to do again! We were on a river that gave us about 3-4 hours of class 3 rapids. My favorite moments include paddling the boat up to a water fall and just letting us sit under the falling water for a good minute, a feeling I will always remember. We also got a couple of chances to get out of the rafts and float down the river just in our life vests (this was also a perfect time to pee, but of course I had to remember the famous pee + fish episode of Greys Anatomy…alas I had to hold it). I think the best part of the trip was that while rafting I definitely drank about half of the water n the river…I quikly learned that when I am excited and having fun I open my mouth, the problem is that when you are doing that in a river in Ecuador is that you get mouthful after mouthful of water. After getting a pretty big scare during preport that the water in Ecuador was BAD, I was afraid I was going to get the runs that night…so do I have the explosive D’s? well lets just say that Imodium and pepto are my friend J The ride back to Quito was just as eventful as the bus had many close calls making passing attempts on blind curves on the cloud filled mountain…trying to force myself to sleep was about the only option I had!

Our last day in Quito was a zip lining trip in the mountains at the base of the volcano Cotopaxi. The logistical mess that was our tour guides got us lost on the way to the zip lining area and that placed us on a steep mountain road dodging HUGE potholes and boulders. At one point the road was so steep that we all had to exit our buses and walk next to them because we were to heavy. After about a mile of walking, the tour guides realized they had made a wrong turn and that we had to go back down the mountain….of course now it was to steep going back down so we had to walk again…We also had a chance to stop by a Cuy stand. For those that don’t know what Cuy is…it is well…guinea pig…roasted usually. Some of my students definitely decided to buy one and give it a try. The best part was that at one point the Cuy lady hands the students a Cuy on a pole that was still cooking so they could take pictures…my students misunderstood and started gnawing on the little beast. After a few bites they were informed that they started to eat raw Cuy…yuck.

At the location we ended up zip lining on two different lines that expanded the length of a canyon cut by the last volcanic eruption of Cotopaxi. The first line was about 220 meters long and the second one over 400 meters…amazing! While there we also got to hike to a water fall that was near by, a hike that took us climbing over volcanic rock, black as night and really smooth, you can see how the lava dried and formed these structures. We ended this day by going to lunch at a Hacienda literally in the middle of no where (which can be said for a lot of this trip), the food was great but we were running behind to catch our flight back to quayaquil, so we had to speed through the meal.

Out last day in Port I spent it with Nate and Anne again and just had a “normal” nothing planned day in Guayaquil…which was great and much needed!
Finally I want to say sorry for not calling anyone in this port, the phone card that I had did not work on any phones and when I finally had a chance to try I didn’t have time to try and buy a new calling card. I am hoping that the card that my mom sent me works in Chile! Also…a HUGE thank you to everyone that sent mail, getting a little hello from you all at home here on the ship is amazing…and let me just say that everyone is jealous of the mail, and I like it that way! Love you all so much and can’t wait to catch up soon!