My top 5 in South America!

1. Machu Picchu. The hike was exhausting, but incredible... especially with this postcard perfect shot!

2. Torres del Paine. The yurt was luxurious, staff was wonderful, and the hikes were breathtaking. 

3. Alpaca city. I'm sorry, but I forgot the name of this wonderful little weaving town! If it's not Cusco, it's just outside of it... many women from the town were weaving and making crafts from alpaca fur! There, of course, were alpacas to feed and a market to shop from! It was lovely and I could have easily spent more time here. hehe 

4.  Neither of us were huge fans of the rainforest, but one thing that struck me was during our night walk tour with the guide. She had everyone turn off their flashlights and I've never seen anything so pitch black before! It was amazing to be standing there in the Amazon freakin' Rainforest in total darkness listening to the sounds around you!

5. Brazil as a whole. 

My experience in Brazil (THIS TRIP) would have not even made the list, but the ONLY reason for that is because the weather was crappy.  If the weather had been clear like it had been in all of our other locations, it would have easily made this list!! Just look at the photos below at how gorgeous this country is!! 

I learned, while down there, that the city of Paris gets more tourists than the whole country of Brazil, which is very sad and unfortunate. We had no issues or concerns over health or safety during our time there... just muddy waters and foggy statues! Instead of showing you again the images that we took, here are pictures of what it's supposed to look like! We're going to go back at some point for a re-do and I cannot wait!! 

Final days in Brazil

Things have gotten calmer (no more waking up before 5 am and we’ve been able to stay at the Brazilian hotels for longer than one night. (they've each been 2 nights, but hey, it's an upgrade!)

We first visited Iguazú falls, the largest waterfall system in the world. It’s HUUUGE. As a former First Lady said, “Poor Niagara.”
Did you know Iguazú falls has 275 drops?! Niagara only has 3!

Unfortunately, the water level was extremely high so the water was muddy so not clear at all. I was disappointed with the color of the falls and the fog that surrounded it that day. Here are a few pictures... it’s still amazing, but doesn’t look as good as it typically would. 

I edited one to make myself feel better:

Rio de Janeiro:

We arrived in Rio and stopped by the escadaria selaron. This is (in the travel world) instafamous meaning I’ve seen loads of photos on travel instagrams recently with these colorful steps. I was told, originally, we couldn’t see them so I was super happy that we were able to fit them in!

And...It was even better in person! Apparently a gentleman that lived on the street wanted to make it more beautiful...so now there are tiles from all over the world! I even found one from Ohio! 

Unfortunately, our next (and last) day in Rio wasn't great. We used Rio Line so instead of having a private tour (which we've been getting most of our trip) we went with a group and had an open air bus tour. Just to clear the air- I don't have a problem with group tours, we've done a couple other group tours and they were fine however we couldn't really hear anything our guide was saying, she left a couple of people in our group behind, the bus went many places we could care less about, and to top it off the sites and views we were most interested in were too foggy to see anything! (Which is weather related, not tour related) She also gave ZERO information on the Christ the Redeemer Statue whereas another guide (from a different group) told his group the history and background. (so we heard a little bit from him)

I don't know if I have ever written anything negative about a tour company on my blog, and maybe other experiences/guides with this company would be different, but overall we weren't impressed with our guide or the tour. (We even left early from it... in part, due to the weather and low visibility)

This is what the Christ the Redeemer Statue looked liked most of the time we were there:

After waiting a 20-30 minutes, we got a few seconds (literally) of visibility:
 

I found it amusing that so many people were waiting on Jesus to come out from the clouds and then applauded when he appeared. 

Location of Carnival:

We "stepped" on Copacabana beach:

Overall, Brazil was our least favorite part of the trip. In large part due to the weather if nothing else. I think Brazil as a whole has a lot of potential to be a great spot to visit so please don't think I'm not recommending it. Iguazú and Rio are both beautiful - I was excited about Rio, but weather changes things drastically!  I have seen plenty of beautiful photos of the city, sugar loaf mountain, and Christ the Redeemer statue. The city of Rio is absolutely stunning if you google images of it, but that's not the Rio we saw, unfortunately. We saw a lot of rain, fog, and grayness. It was a bummer way to end our trip, but coming back for a re-do is not out of the question, for me anyway. ;)

I think both of us are ready to come home and not worry about flushing toilet paper down the toilet. (LOL!) And hey! We've only had to squat for a hole in the ground once this trip!

It'll be nice to settle back into a routine, minus having to work. (Sigh)  EJ, I know you're reading this and you know I love you!

Stayin’ Alive

During the first leg of our trip, we heard that song ("Stayin' Alive") probably more times than I’ve heard it in my entire life. I don’t know why it was so popular in Chile. Regardless, that song fits this post quite well after yesterday! 

For starters, we woke up at 5 am to catch a train to the starting point of the baby Inca trail hike. (We did the one day hike as opposed to the 4 day hike)


 This trail was about 7 miles long (uphill!) and, according to my health app, was “133 floors.”  

^^Do you see the section free of trees in the background? Those are terraces of ruins that we come to later in our walk...crazy!!!

We finally made it to those terraces that were off in the distance!

Also, keep in mind this is at a much higher altitude so yes of course I had a small bout of altitude sickness. That being said, it was all worth it! The views were beautiful and the weather was perfect. I was worried earlier because according to the forecast it was supposed to be rainy. I wanted to take that perfect iconic picture... and I did!! 

I HATE hiking uphill and I hate climbing steps, but when I saw the last stretch of stairs to Machu Picchu I practically ran up them...huffing and puffing. It was a fan girl moment for me... it’s so stunning and beautiful! I couldn’t believe that it was real life! <3

We made good timing too! I think we ended up an hour and a half a head of schedule. (It was still around 6 hours of hiking) Our guide from Condor Travel, Freddy, was excellent. I would recommend this company/guide! 

After all of the excitement from seeing MP, we got back to the hotel and both had some problems. Hey, I’ve been to 6 of 7 continents and have thrown up in 4 of the 6! Not exactly what I wanted as my “claim to fame,” but it’s something. ;) (We are both doing much better now!)

This morning we woke up and took a guided tour of Machu Picchu. Did you know that 80% of it is original whereas only 20% is restored?! The Incas built this city over a span of 80 years with the help of 15,000-20,000 people...keep in mind this was prior to any modern day tools. The structures are earthquake proof and many things are very advanced. 

And of course, I couldn't sign off without posting this:

All Life is Precious

Sorry this post is delayed. I wrote (most of it) a couple days ago so hopefully that doesn’t confuse people. (We are presently in Machu Picchu!)

We essentially had two full days of travel-planes and transfers to get to the Amazon which is why I haven’t blogged in a few days. Our flight was delayed coming out here so we missed our first excursion upon arrival. They were kind enough to offer it again to us the following day. 

We stayed at Inkaterra which is only accessible by boat. The huts were nice and electricity was only available during certain times of the day. 

Full day in the Amazon:

We woke up at 5am to get ready, have breakfast, and head out on our first excursion: Sandoval Lake. We had a semi long trek through the mud to get there and  the whole time I was thinking, “I’m in the Amazon freakin’ Rainforest!!”  I’m not one to get excited about celebrities or popular culture, but I DO excited about such iconic places!!!!

It was a long walk followed by canoe ride in which we saw otters, monkeys, birds, caiman (like a crocodile) ... and insects! We saw many bullet ants which are more poisonous than scorpions! And we also saw my personal favorite the leaf cutter ants! 

 

We didn't get an up close photo of the ants (though I do have a video)... so I stole this image off of google so you could see the busy ants! :)

                                 

The title of this blog post, in case you’re wondering, refers to these leaf cutter ants. We were walking through the trail when our guide cautioned us not to step on the ants because they’re hard at work. Scores of ants carried leaves and sticks at a rapid pace for the Queen ant... it was fun to watch them rush back and forth in a constant flow.  Normally I would not care for ants, but that happened to be an unusual occurrence. 

We returned to our lodge and took a break for lunch followed by some swinging on the hammocks. :)

The next excursion was the canopy tour. It wasn’t as much walking, but we had to climb a bit to get to the top! We then crossed 7 swinging/rope bridges and got some nice pictures.

Our last excursion of the day was a night walk. It was mainly looking for insects. (Ew!) We saw a couple of tarantulas and various other bugs. (Again, ew!!)  The cool thing about this walk though was when our guide had our group turn off our flashlights and stand in silence for a few minutes. It was pitch black and you could see nothing in front of you... you could just hear the sounds of the Rainforest. 

Pat Part 2

You know you're a traveler when you take a million photos of the same thing at a million different spots trying to get the perfect picture that you hope will do it justice.  And no picture ever does. It’s funny because you worry the first time you see it will be the one and only time even though the views only keep getting better. Just today: I took pictures of a mountain from inside the car because it was so pretty only to realize we kept getting closer and closer (outside of the car) for even better shots. I just don’t want to miss capturing any of the beauty.

We did a longer hike today and had a bigger group, but everyone was so nice to talk to. I couldn’t be happier because all of this is part of the travel culture and Mike is finally experiencing it! He can now see why I love it so much! Not only is traveling amazing for getting to see some of the most beautiful places on the planet, but you get to experience culture, food, and people from all over the world. The world isn’t all bad and traveling proves that. Watching the news can be so depressing and it seems like everyone hates everyone, but the world is full of so much love.

Enough sappy... here are some pictures from today!






P.S. I've been able to practice my Spanish since being down here. I forgot how much fun it is! Today, as my friend and I were waiting for the rest of the hikers to get back, the bus driver started talking to me in Spanish. He spoke very little English and I speak little Spanish so it was a lot of fun trying to communicate. We were very good at Spanglish. :) I think he has been my favorite person in Chile to talk to. It’s one thing if a native Spanish speaker is fluent in English and it’s completely different when they’re not. It’s less intimidating and not embarrassing because you’re both learning and pulling resources together to communicate. I LOVED it!

I’d like to think I’m decent at Spanish, but so often I get discouraged by all the things I don’t know. For example, if someone is talking fast I won’t be able to follow them, but I’ll maybe catch a couple words. I do, however, know enough words and phrases to get by and use Spanglish to communicate somewhat effectively. (Or that's what I’d like to think)

P.P.S. I found some people that have traveled to all 7 continents and were RAVING about Antarctica so guess who is now on board to go with me?!? (I’ll give you a clue... I think the travel bug bit my husband) hehehe

Is that Patagonia? No, it’s Lands’ End

Good news!! We traveled via plane and 3.5 hour car ride to get to Patagonia and I didn’t get sick or nauseous this time!!

Even better news... it’s beautiful here at Patagonia Camp! This is the same high quality stay as Sabi Sabi in South Africa with the absolute best service! I highly recommend this place!! Upon arrival, we got settled into our lovely yurt and heard about excursions for the following days.

Today we hiked a lovely fauna trail and saw the Torres in Torres Del Paine!! Absolutely stunning! The weather was perfect and we got some great shots!

We saw a lot of animals as well and got a private tour that was just us and a sweet British lady! We had some great laughs and good conversations. We quickly became obsessed with Guanaco! (Looks similar to alpacas!) We kept asking to stop the car to take pictures, but they couldn’t stop because of the twists and turns in the road (which were dangerous)... so when they finally stopped the car, we looked out the window and sure enough there was a guanaco... dead on the side of the road. It became the running joke that we wouldn’t stop for the live ones, but we’ll stop for pictures of the dead ones. (The one below is very much alive!)

You may also be wondering about the title of this post... it goes back to a lovely (HA!) conversation I had with a woman back in the U.S. She had the iconic Patagonia/Torres Del Paine picture on her T-shirt. It looked almost like it was purchased in Chile as a souvenir so I asked if the shirt was from Patagonia. She replied, “no. It’s from Lands’ End.” I then explained, “no, the picture itself... it’s patagonia,” but she continued to argue it was Lands’ End so I gave up on trying to convince her otherwise.

P.S. I HAVE OFFICIALLY CONVERTED MY HUSBAND TO THE WAYS OF TRAVELING!! HE LIKES TRAVEL NOW!!! We've come a long way!! :) :) :) :)

Hola from Santiago!

Hello from continent #6!! This post might be a little bit of a downer because, well, this past day was kind of a downer...

We flew from D.C., had a quick layover in Panama and then flew to Santiago. As many of you know, I’ve had air sicknesses problems develop within the past few years so flying is not fun for me. I got very sick on the flight over to Santiago, but my wonderful husband handled it like a pro. He stayed up with me the whole flight and let me lay down in his lap which helped ease some of the nausea. I might have gotten sick in the plane bathroom again and I also might have spent an hour in said bathroom with my head down between my legs. (Falling asleep in that position, I might add)

Anyway, the flight was pretty miserable so I did not enjoy this day as much as I could have. Not to mention we arrived at 5am (3am Ohio time) and couldn’t check into our room until 1pm.

We had a tour of the city prior to check in so that helped some of the time pass quickly... although, both of us were pretty sleepy and sickly (on my part) so it wasn’t too exciting for us.

This a picture of the presidential palace:

Here we are at Santa Lucia lookout:

And.....

There are a lot of stray dogs around the city... I want to adopt them all!!

We took a siesta in the afternoon (much needed!) and then went back out to see the city from the tallest skyscraper in South America! We went at sunset so we got some pretty great pics ! :)

P.S. if you think about it, please pray for my health! I’ve still been feeling nauseous and we have a lot more flying (and car rides) to do!!