Brittni’s Blog

We’ve traveled through Ecuador and Colombia in a bit of a rush because we heard so much about the sandy, white beaches (or with Vlad’s accent: “sandy, white bitches”) on the Caribbean. When we arrived we immediately fell in love, Brent with the warm climate, Vlad with the architecture, me with the beaches (or bitches…making fun of Vlad’s accent is a continuous form of amusement for Brent and I), and all of us with the absence of buses. From here we were planning on taking a sail boat to Panama, but we found out that it would take 3-4 weeks for Vlad to get a visa (Russia and Peru being of the few countries that have a hard time). So, we decided to stay in Colombia for a few more weeks, maybe go to Venezuela, and then fly back to California on the 12th. We celebrated Brent’s 19th birthday in Cartagena and then got out of the city by taking a boat to the island of Playa Blanca (White Beach) where we ate fresh fish, slept in hammocks for $3 a night, and spent most of the time in the warm, bluish-green water.

Next stop is Taganga where Brent and Vlad are thinking of taking a 4 day course to get their Padi Open Water Certification.

Here’s Playa Blanca:

After Quito and Cali we thought of heading to Bogotá or Medallin, but decided that we were again anxious to get out of the city and find another small town. They’re are always a little harder to find and its always a decision on which one to go to since there are more of them, but the pros by far outweigh the cons. First of all, to me the cities in South America almost all look about the same so if you just go from city to city it doesn’t seem like your traveling and you don’t experience much culture. Plus, in the smaller towns the pace is more relaxed, the people are friendlier, you can avoid the heavy traffic in the big cities, you can find cheaper and much better hotels, more traditional food and there are more often other festivals where you can experience other aspects of culture such as dance, music, etc. So, we read about a few towns outside of Mediliin in our Lonely Planet guide book and settled on Rionegro where we spent a few days .

compare Brittni’s dinner to Brent’s dinner (of course Vlad got a hamburger as usual)

We thought about taking some more stops along the way, but since we’ve been hearing the beautiful beaches on the Caribbean calling out to us, we decided to do a straight shot from Quito to Cali, giving us another 21 hours of bus, bus, bus! (Writing this now I’m on the beach and can say it was worth it.) Cali is well known for being the salsa capital of the world, but unfortunately I’m traveling with the biggest non-dancing, any-excuse-to-avoid-it, two-left-feet bros in the world, so I wasn’t able to appreciate the salsa much. To redeem them I will say that at least I it never takes much effort on my part to get them out for a few beers at a bar and its almost always…mostly…usually…pretty good conversation

We got one funny story from Cali, though. The first night we stayed in a normal, main stream hostel with 10-bunk-bed-style dormitory, bar, etc., and while those are always great for meeting other travelers and having a good time, they aren’t usually the cheapest bed in town. So the first night we were walking around on the street and we met a guy (as usual asking for directions) and he happened to own a “hotel” that was about $5 cheaper than our current hostel. So the next night we move in and at first all looks good. …But after a little while we realize that there are some pretty funny characteristics of this place. For a few examples, the bed has a glowing red light under it (picture below), the bathroom has a window highlighted with blue lights (picture below), the showers have windows looking in on them from the bed, there’s an enormous mirror covering one wall, and instead of soap we got condoms. It wasn’t until later when we took a taxi back to the hotel that the driver told us that in fact its really not a hotel where people sleep, but usually just rent by the hour for….other purposes. If you need more explanation, e-mail me and I’ll spell it out for you.

We stopped in Quito for one night, but felt like it was really dangerous, even though we were in the old town which is suppose to be the safest area, so we decided to only stay two nights. But we got to do the main touristy thing to do in the area which is go just outside of the city to the equator, known as the Mitad del Mundo.

We took an overnight bus from Piura to Guayaquil, stopping twice for Peru’s and Ecuador’s immigrations, and were originally intending to stay in Guayaquil, but when we arrived we just realized it was another big city and decided, since we’ve been anxious to get out of the cities and see more small towns, to just not give it a chance and instead head straight to a town outside of one of the Volcano’s just south of Quito. This decision lead to another day on the bus and in total from Piura to Baños we spent about 21 hours. But when we arrived in Baños we immediately knew it was worth it. Its located just at the base of Volcano Tungurahua, which makes for a spectacular view and is surrounded by beautiful waterfalls, lush green vegetation, and natural, mineral water pools. Plus the town itself is lovely and just what we were looking for; a place to take a leisurely stroll through cobble stone streets lined with quaint, historic buildings and churches.

After Trujillo we decided to go to Paita, a small fishing town 6 hours north, to see Ernesto’s (Vlad’s dad) fish/squid factory. We went with Vlad’s uncle, Rafael, who set up a ride to the factory, gave us a tour, and showed us where to get the best ceviche (a typical Peruvian dish of raw fish with onion in lime sauce). Unfortunately, the factory wasn’t in production when we were there, but nonetheless it was very interesting to me and Brent, since we’ve never seen anything like it before. In my opinion, the best part of traveling is when you can get away from typical tourist attractions and you have local hook-ups to show you the real life of the country. We weren’t expecting to see Vlad’s dad because we thought he was in Lima, but luckily we ran into him last minute and had lunch before we headed to Piura.

After a night in Paita we got a ride in the back of the truck of Vlad’s dad’s friends and headed about 30 minutes south to the larger city of Pura. There we visited Vlad’s god-father, Alejandro, who is from Costa Rica and met Ernesto when they were living in Russia. He owns a very nice hotel and restaurant where we got to sleep and eat for free. After being taken care of so well by all of Vlad’s family in Lima, Trujillo, Paita, and Piura, Brent and I feel well spoiled and are hoping to show Vlad and his family as good of hospitality in California.

After selling Vlad’s car and saying goodbye to his family in Lima, the three musketeers finally set out on there long journey north to America. Brent has about 6-7 weeks left before he heads back for his second year of university in the fall and for now the vague plan is to either stay in Colombia or take a short 4-5 day boat trip to Panama (since there is no road in the thick jungle between Colombia and Panama). Our first stop in 6 hours north of Lima in the town of Trujillo where Vlad has his grandma, 2 ants, 2 uncles, 4 cousins, 1 niece, and 1 old friend from Russia. Of course visiting and getting to know the family was the highlight, but we also went to the ruins of Chan Chan, the temples of el sol y la luna, the beach in a small town nearby called Huanchaco, took a car ride to another town called Simbal, hung out a lot in the center, and recovered from a couple big nights out to the clubs.

The ruins at Chan Chan.	Chan Chan	Chan Chan
Chan Chan	Chan Chan	Museum next to Chan Chan
The beach at Huanchaco	Huanchaco	Huanchaco
Huanchaco	The Plaza de Armas in Trujillo	Vlad and Roma (friend from Russia)
Carving on a wall at the temple of the oon	Temple of the moon	Temple of the moon
Dinner on the 4th at the house of Vlad\'s uncle Rafael, aunt Rosario, and cousin Carol.	After dinner drinks with Roma	The Russians
Starting the night out	Tio Rafael and Tia Rosario	Roma
Roma and Vlad.	Roma and his girlfriend Becky.	.
Spending a day in Simbal with Vlad\'s grandma Graciela, aunt Teresa, and cousin Carla	.	Buying fruit on the way to Simbal.
.	Buying avacado, guava, and milk.	El Gato.

While Vlad finished up his exams Brent and I decided to take a trip to Cusco and without planning out anything on purpose, Brent and I just happened to be in Cusco during the biggest festival of the year. To celebrate its anniversary during the month of June there are free outdoor concerts, fireworks, carnival games, and daily parades with floats, marching bands, and dancers in elaborate costumes. We were originally planning on only spending about a week in Cusco, but ended up there for 12 days, both because of the festival and because many of the roads leading to different cities in the south were closed due to bus strikes. But we had a good time hanging out in town and watching the parades everyday, and Brent even got to learn how to ride a motorcycle when we did a half-day ride outside of Cusco to see the countryside and nearby cities.

Of course its the most touristy thing to do in Peru, maybe even all of South America, but Machu Piccu is something that just couldn’t be missed. Brent and I also wanted to go to Waynu Picchu which is another sent of ruins on a higher mountain next to Mahcu Picchu. Since they only allow 200 people up twice a day and tickets sell out early we spent the night before in Aguas Calientes which is a city about an hour and a half hiking from Machu Piccu and started hiking by 4am. The hike up Waynu Picchu was a bit of a challenge, but the view from the top made it well worth the while. From the very top you have a 360 degree view of the valley and a spectacular view of Machu Picchu.

Oh, and you might also notice Brent’s new hair in these photos.

I was thinking that I wanted to do some volunteer work and when I read about the opportunity to volunteer at an orphanage, something inside me instantly shouted out and I new it was something I wanted to do. The main things I was looking for going into it were to improve my Spanish and learn about the culture, but I learned so much more than I ever could have imagined. I’ve don’t a lot of volunteer work in my life, with the hungry and homeless, with the elder, and with families in 3rd world countries, but I’ve never worked directly with so many children.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but let me tell you, it is soooooo much work! The kids are amazingly energetic and its exhausting trying to keep up with all 17 of them. But the kids, oh, the kids. They are the most extraordinarily affectionate, precious, lovable little angels I’ve ever met. By the end of my two and a half months with them I felt closer than I meant to get and had a hard time leaving them. They taught me so much about myself and changed my life forever.

On day we got to go on a field trip and we took the kids to a big park/zoo were we played, snacked, ran around, looked at the animals, played some more, ate lunch, walked around with the kids all attached in a long line by holding hands, the other teachers and I gossiped, and played some more.