Life is more than a downhill journey...

This is what our new German friend told me when I mentioned biking down the Chachani Volano. It was definately more than just down-hill. While Andy and Carmen were trekking up Mount Misti, I decided to venture down the volcano with a mountain bike and 2 friends from the hostel (one girl who just finished a year stint as a volunteer teacher in Region 1 of Guyana - I've stopped questioning the conincidences). It was intense and I have a couple great bruises to show for it (about 4 wipe outs in all, and just one over the handle bars ;)).

(Mount Mist- as seen from the top of Chachani)


Last night was my first real day solo. I managed to get the last seat on an overnight bus to Ica, Peru. After sitting on the floor for my last bus trip, this one was at the luxurious extreme. There were fully reclining chairs (with a recliner for your feet even!), dinner included, a movie, bathrooms, drinks, pillows, and a fleece blanket. It did not feel like I was backpacking at all. I made friends with the man next to me (until he fell asleep and sprawled out all over my chair that is grr). We had good times speaking in his broken English and my attempt at Spanish. The movie was "The Bucket List" and I had a hell of a time trying to explain that "Kick the Bucket" is an expression for when you die and the bucket list is a list of things you want to do beforehand. The spanish translation was literally "Before you pass on".

My last few days in Arequipa were pretty relaxed. We decided to skip the tour to Colca Canyon in favour of taking it easy and seeing a few sights. We celebrated Peru's independence day with a crew from the hostel, went white water rafting, and had our last meal with Carmen and Ariana (below).



This morning I took a dune-buggy up to the sand dunes and had my first experience sand boarding. It was very similar to snowboarding, but much faster. My guidebook told me not to be lulled into a false sense of secuirty however, so I was cautious. The dune-buggy's alone were worth the trip, it was pretty much like being in a roller coaster that could at any moment go in any direction.


After the sand-boarding, my car (3 Isrealies guys and 2 Danish girls) decided to hit the poolside and relax. This has been the first time since Guyana that I was able to wear my tropical clothes and enjoy some sun. It's a very nice way to end the trip. Tonight we are heading over to a BBQ for one hour of all you can eat/drink. Should be a nice night to end off the travels. Tomorrow I am headed back to Lima and then fly to Toronto at 1:30 am!







I am sad to head home but excitied to see some familiar faces :-).

Oh and for any Guyana volunteers that might be reading this.... guess who I ran into at the top of a sand-dune in Ica, Peru??? John (friend of Em, the missionary, who was visiting when we were there... small world!!).

See you in the Northern Hemisphere!

~AH

Guyana Snapshots - Students

Professional Bus Riders

So it seems there are only 2 routes that backpackers in Peru take, the one to Bolivia and the one from Bolivia. Just after I finished writing the last post, guess who we see checking into the hostel that Andy and I are checking out of? The same three Irish guys from the day before! I expect that won't be the last time we see them.

The salt flats tour was amazing, we saw some unbelievable sights and freezed our bottoms off. The photos are all on Andy's camera so those will come shortly. After 3 days of intense jeep driving we were back on an overnight bus to La Paz.... only problem was that it seems they overbooked the bus and there were two girls in our seats! So we spent 8 hours sitting on the stairs at the front of the bus (Andy just full on slept in the aisle) and then got about 4 hours of sleep after 2 girls got off the bus (who coincidentally were the same girls we met on the way down... and they gave us beer :-) ). Then it was a mad dash to another 12 hour bus to Arequipa, where we are now. Now we are just relaxing and seeing some sights. We met up with Ariana and Carmen this afternoon for lunch and are meeting them again shortly this evening.

It seems Andy and I may be going separate ways after Arequipa. I would like to check out the Nazca lines and do some sand boarding down near Ica and he wants to go with Carmen to climb another mountain (I've had enough of the cold, snow, and climbing). Plans are still in the works, but I'll keep updating on here.

Chau for now!

The Lady of Peace - Bolivia

After Machu Picchu we headed back to Cuzco and took a full day bus tour to see some of the ruins outside of the city. Then we hopped on a 10 hour bus to Puno (stink hole of Peru... pretty much just a stopping point before heading to Bolivia). We did have a funny encounter in Puno though. We ended up sharing a little apartment style room (3 bedrooms and a living room/dining area) with these 3 Irish guys. We end up going for dinner with them and it isn´t until about an hour in to the meal that we all realize we were in the same hostel room in Cuzco. The conversation went kind of like this "Were you the people that arrived at 6:30 am and turned on the lights?" To which my response was "Oh were you the guys who turned on all the lights at 2am the next night and I woke up and asked you what time it was?" "Ha-ha ha oh yeeah that was us!". It was pretty random. Even more so because Andy left his shades in that hostel room and those guys saw them but decided to leave them there.



Now we are in La Paz, just relaxing and checking out the big market here before our 12 hour overnight bus to Uyuni where we are headed on a 3 day tour of the Salt Flats. Oh and guess who were the trivia champions last night!! (Andy, Me, some random Canadian guy we met, and 3 Irish guys who´ve been traveling for almost a year - they were the dominating forces for sure). One of the questions was "What does La Paz translate to?" I thought it was "The Peace" but turns out that it was "Lady of the Peace", hence the title of this post ;).

More to come...

p.s. Here´s the site of some other traveler´s (Ariana and Carmen) that we met at Agua Caliente - stopping point before Machu Picchu. They have better photos posted on their blog: http://www.arianaperu.blogspot.com/

Cuzco - Aguas Caliente - Machu Picchu - Ollantaytambo - Cuzco

It was a relaxing first day in Lima, but we´ve been on the go ever since. After Lima, we flew to Cusco and then took the train up to Aguas Caliente to see Machu Picchu. Yesterday we climbed Mount Putukusi, the big mountain accross from Machu Picchu. It took us an exhausting hour an a half. Well to be fair it only seemed exhausting for me, Andy is a marathon runner and had no problems scaling up the ladders and rocks. It was an incredible view, once in a lifetime moment for me. Until today that is when we actually walked through Machu Picchu (a lost Inca city that was rediscovered in 1911 by an American historian). We were lucky enough to be one of the first 200 people there and were granted access to Mount Wanapicchu, which is the bigger mountain just accross. That one only took about 30 minutes to reach the peak - we were just slowed by the people everywhere. At one point you actually have to crawl through a cave to climb higher. Now we are back in Cusco for a night and looking forward to do some more exploring in this city. After that we are off to Puno and then La Paz, Bolivia!



I´m getting good with this haggling business. So far I´ve managed to talk a 60 soles taxi down to 10 and a 70 soles sweater down to 40 (did I mention that it´s freezing in Cuzco - I don´t feel silly for bringing that toque anymore!!). We also talked a restaurant down to 15 soles for a 3 course meal with the help of a Portuguese friend. My Spanish is coming in handy :-).

Es todo para ahora ¬ AH

Lima Adventues Begin

The last few days after project were quite emotional. It was difficult to say final goodbyes to all of the volunteers and my group leaders. A few people had earlier flights out of Guyana and we were in such a rush that I never got a chance to say a proper goodbye to Pauline, Erin, and Jaclyn. Some of the community members that we met in Parika came out to Georgetown to spend our last few days together. That meant a lot to see a couple of the guys we became close with take the bus out to meet us and say goodbye.

After a 5 hour layover in Trinidad, then an hour in Panama, I arrived in Lima around 1am and had no problems finding Andy (my traveling companion from Statistics Canada). He managed to make friends with a girl on the plane from Toronto who arranged for her brother to give us a lift to our hostel.

Today was my first day officially off project in South America as a traveller. I must say that I throughly enjoyed the HOT standing shower and the warm bed with a real pillow! It was also nice to share a room with only one person instead of 10 :-).

While Andy and I sat on the rooftop of our hostel planning the rest of our trip, we made friends with a couple of guys from England who`ve been traveling for a few months now. We went with them down to the waterfront for lunch (my first experience at a Hooters restaurant) and played at the beach for awhile. Now we are back to booking rooms for the rest of our adventure.

That´s all for now. Thanks for the postcards from T.O.!! They made me smile :).

°A

School's Out For The Summer

Now school has finished and the kids are coming for extra class in the mornings. I can't belive tomorrow is the last day at the school. I've really formed a bond with some of the little ones and am sad to say goodbye. It seems like every Guyanese I meet asks when I'm coming back to Guyana. I really hope I get a chance to come back and see how things have progressed here.

On Saturday we held an HIV/AIDS and ABSTINENCE workshop at the community center (where we are staying). All in all, it went pretty well. A teacher from the school (a regular teacher) came by to help out and I think we made a significant impact on those who attended.

On Sunday, we were invitied to have duck curry at a friend's place down the road and then to his private beach. It was in the town of Hubu, which is a much more privlidged village next to Parika (not too privlidged... we're still talking about out houses for toilets and limited electricity).

Today we had the environmental session in the afternoon after school. It went really well. Many of the kids from school came by and I think they learned a lot about greenhouses gases, and why it's important to reduce and reuse.

I can't believe how fast this trip has flown by. On Friday morning, we head to Georgetown to write up reports and leave feedback to the Youth Challenge Guyana crew. Then I'm off to Peru to meet up with Andy.

Stay tuned....

Photopalooza ~ Teaching, Parika Health Fair, and Community Center Clean Up