28 - Arequipa and Colca Canyon

Sorry... It´s been way too long since adding anything to this blog. There are lots of reasons for that including being sick, being busy, and being lazy. I posted these pictures a long time ago, and never added any descriptions. Now it´s been so long that I just want to get this post done. I´m not going to write very much, and hopefully the pictures can just speak for themselves.

A few weeks ago I took an overnight bus from Ica to Arequipa.


Here´s the main plaza and the church. Pretty much every city in Peru has a main plaza with a big huge church.

This is the market in Arequipa.

I went on a really cool tour to Colca Canyon. It´s an amazing Canyon a little outside of Arequipa. The canyon is even deeper than the Grand Canyon.

Along the way to the canyon we stopped to look at vicuñas, which are an animal related to llamas and alpacas.

The whole area around the canyon was absolutely incredibly beautiful.

The tour of the canyon included an overnight stay at a really nice rustic hotel. This is the view from the window of my room.

We also went out for dinner at a nice restaurant where we watched a show of traditional Peruvian dancing. I had alpaca steak for dinner.

That night was the last night of Carnaval and all the locals were out in beautiful outfits dancing all around the plaza. We joined in the dancing and had a great night. 

Some more beautiful pictures and a short video clip showing the area around the canyon. 

I took a great picture with a local woman, a llama, and an eagle on my head.

We saw a condor, which made me really happy because I love birds. 

Some nice pictures on our drive back to Arequipa.

Well Arequipa and Colca Canyon were really amazing. Right now I'm in Cusco volunteering in an afterschool program for Cusqueno children. It's been so much fun, and the kids are amazing. I don't think I want to ever leave. I'll give a more complete update on my time in Cusco in my next post. 

27 - Lima and Huacachina (Peru)

I woke up at 3:15 AM on February 11 and took a taxi to the Bogotá airport. From there I took a three hour plane ride to Lima, Peru. In Lima I stayed in a hostal that I read about in my book Lonely Planet. When I got to the hostal it turned out to really just be a family´s apartment with an extra room with five beds in it. The family was very nice, and gave me a map of the city and highlighted landmarks. Also staying in the ¨hostal¨were two boys from Denmark (Jon and Kasper) and a boy from France (Tristan). I spent two days with them exploring Lima and learning about Denmark and France. One thing that I really love about backpacking is that I´m not only learning a lot about the country I´m visiting, but I´m learning so much about the rest of the world. I´ve met people from all over, and it´s incredible how backpacking makes the world feel so much smaller.



This is a photo of Plaza de Armas, Lima´s main square.

Here´s a photo of a small shop selling typical Peruvian souvenirs. One of these things is not for sale.

Houses in the mountains just outside of Lima.

Miraflores is an area within Lima that´s located on these cliffs overlooking the ocean. There are lots of expensive hotels and restaurants in this area.

My friends Kasper and Jon went paragliding off the cliffs. I would have loved to have done it, but it was pretty expensive for just a short ride. Looked like lots of fun though.

I didn´t paraglide, but I did surf. Who knew there was surfing in Lima? I sure didn´t. The waves in this picture are really small, but I went out further and they were bigger. It was a great day.

Another beautiful sunset in South America. It never gets old.

The famous ¨kiss¨statue with the sun setting over the ocean in the background. How romantic... gag.

While walking around Lima we came across a dance rehearsal.

The boys I hung out with in Lima. (L to R) Darag from Ireland, Jon and Kasper from Denmark, and Tristan from France. We enjoyed a concert in the park while drinking some delicious Peruvian beer (Peru has good beer).

From Lima I took a 5 hour bus to Ica. Here are a couple pictures that I snapped on the bus drive.

5 km from Ica is a small touristy town called Huacachina. The town is basically just a small lake surrounded by restaurants and hotels/hostals and then surrounded by a huge desert of sand dunes.

The sand dunes were incredible. I took a sandbuggy tour of the desert, and it was so fun speeding up and down the dunes. I had my hands up like I was on a rollercoaster the entire time.

We also got to sandboard down the dunes. AMAZING. I went head first down some of the dunes and rode the board like a snowboard on others. The video (below) of me ¨snow¨boarding is on one of the first dunes, which was pretty small. The dunes got bigger and steeper as we went along and the last dune we rode down was incredible. It was like a 500 foot waterslide made out of sand and I sped down head first smiling and getting a mouth full of sand. I was so sandy by the end of the day. My shoes had more sand than feet.

The next day I went on a wine vineyard tour. We went to two different bodegas and got lots of free tastings at each. We also got tastings of pisco, which is a famous liquor in Peru and is 44% alcohol.

The first bodega we went to, Tacama, is the oldest vineyard in South America. It has been running since the 1500´s. After the two bodegas and all the wine and pisco tastings I went back to my hostal and took a lovely long nap.


Well my time in Peru has been great so far. Can´t wait for more.

26 - Outside Bogota

The Catedral de Sal (Salt Cathedral) is located about an hour north of Bogotá and is an underground Catholic church built within the tunnels of a salt mine 200 meters underground. The salt mines have been exploited for a long time, and the church was later constructed as a place where miners could pray before starting the days work.

This is the entrance to the underground salt tunnels.

I tasted the walls.... salty.

Here I am in the main part of the church. Everything all around me was made out of salt. Most of the salt in the mine was black because it only turns white from humidity.

One day I drove with my friend Alexander to Raquira, another town about two hours outside of Bogotá.

It was a little town but really cool because all the buildings were painted in beautiful colors.

We also drove to a small colonial town called Villa de Leyva. The town was really beautiful with cobblestone streets, white washed buildings, churches and monasteries, and a really nice central plaza.

Cute dog in the Plaza Mayor (main square)

Alexander and me in front of the main church.

Plaza Mayor

Villa de Leyva is surrounded by mountains, and unfortunately at the time we were there there were really bad foreset fires.






One of Kendra´s best friends from Baker School, Cristina, lives on a farm outside of Bogotá. She invited me to spend a few days on her farm with her husband Andres and her daughter Michelle.

They had a beautiful house with cows and chickens and goats and horses.

One day we went horseback riding which was tons of fun because the only horseback riding I've ever done was with big groups where we just ride really slow in a single file line. This time I got to run and go as I (or the horse) pleased. It was great, but I definitely need more practice because I was bouncing up and down on the horse like a pogo stick. By the way check out my cool cowgirl boots. I ride in style.

One day I went to the Fernando Botero museum. Fernando Botero is one of Colombia´s most famous artists and he´s known for his paintings and sculptures of fat people and fat horses and fat birds and fat fruit and all sorts of fat things. Throughout my time in Colombia I´ve seen so much of Botero´s work that fat people don´t even look fat anymore.

One thing that was really special for me was that I got to go to the orphanage that my brother was adopted from. I got a personal tour and saw all the rooms and the kids eating lunch. All the kids looked really happy, which was really nice to see. My favorite thing was that all the walls in the building were covered with photos of happy families with their adopted children.

Here´s a photo of the kids eating lunch. Most of the kids don´t live in the orphanage, but are only in a day program and go home to their families at night.

Well that´s what I´ve been up to for the past week. Today is my last day in Colombia, and tomorrow I´m off for Lima, Peru. Colombia has been a great experience and I´m very thankful to everyone that made it so great. Thank you to the Bello/Alverez family for taking such good care of me and making me feel at home, to Cristina, Andres, and Michelle for the horseback ride and all the food and fun, and to Alexander for driving me all over the place and being such a great friend. I will certainly miss Colombia and all the friends I´ve made along the way.