In the last few weeks...

Alright, so I haven´t been keeping up with this blog thing. Sorry. But I´ll try and summarize what´s happened ¨in the last few weeks...¨
I returned to Lima to spend Passover with some Jews. I contacted the synagogue there after an Israeli girl named Niva told me that they were having a seder for travelers. At the hostel I chose to stay at there were a group of Israelis that were also going to that seder and that I was able to walk with to and from the synagogue. The seder was nice. It was about 70 people or so. Most were Israeli. Actually, all except for me and one other Australian fellow. So the whole thing was done in Hebrew and it was loud and rambunctious, as things tend to be around a bunch of Israelis. But it was really nice to be surrounded by so many people that were all away from their families, but still mantaining the spirit of the holiday. I definitely started to feel homesick at this point because Passover is usually a time for me to be with my family and we have certain traditions that I didn´t realize I would miss so much. And Soph wasn´t around to provide the cheer and to distract me from thinking about my family too much. so that was hard, but still really cool.
After Lima I went to the town of Huaraz which is located in a section of the Andes called the Cordillera Blanca. There are loads of opportunities to be in the outdoors and I thought that I would spend some time there before I left for the beaches of Ecuador and Columbia. What I didn´t anticipate was getting altitude sickness the second I got there and feeling sick the entire time I was there. I would have waited more time until I became acclimated, but I´m sort on time as it is and I was anxious to leave Peru. So I left without really doing anything that I had wanted to besides for take a tour of the surrounding towns and lagoons. It´s a beautiful region and I definitely want to return to really explore the area. So, that´ll be my next trip.
So I bounced from Huaraz to the town of Trujillo on the northern coast of Peru. I actually stayed in a small village about 20 minutes outside of Trujillo called Huanchaco, which was right on the beach. It was a really nice place to relax and recuperate. I ate fish, layed in hammocks and slept. I also met a few people to that were planning to travel to Ecuador and I decided to go with them. But before that we visited the ruins of Chan Chan just outside of Trujillo. Chan Chan predates the Incan civilization by about 300 years or so and the ruins are a huge complex, over 10,000 buildings and they´re still excavating more. The buildings were made from sand and adobe and so they were a nice contrast from the typical stone Inca structures. They were absolutely beautiful and so well preserved. The area is pretty dry, but I´m still blown away by how well preserved the facades of the buildings are. Anyway, that was a little bit of culture for that excursion.
The four of us left Huanchaco. Ruth and Luke are a couple from London and Yael is Israeli. Together we make a nice group. Along the way we´ve picked up some other travelers and we arrived in a pack to the beachtown of Montanita in Ecuador. We had a HORRENDOUS time crossing the ¨worst border in South America¨ but that´s a story for another time. Basically we were conned, robbed and abandoned in a dangerous area of the border. But, being that we were in a group it turned out alright. I think I should probably clarify, the conning and robbing were done at once by the people taking us across the border and there was no physical assaulting or violence, but it was still scary and we all felt pretty stupid and angry afterwards. The important thing is that we were together and it all turned out okay.
But anyway. We made it to Ecuador and so far I really like it here. We stopped for one night in the city of Guayaquil which was like any other city. And now we´ve finally made it to Montañita. It´s a small town, basically ready-made for tourists who come to take advantage of the great surf. I´m planning to take some lessons sometime, but for right now I´m just trying to settle in. Again it´s overcast, but it´s very warm. And the beach is really nice. Alright. That´s about it.
Hope everythings going well for you guys!
Love,
Gabi

La Huacachina

Hello!
I´m down a traveling partner. Yes, dearest little sophie has left me. We got to Lima and after searching for a little while, managed to find the house of my friend Javier´s family in the neighborhood of Santiago de Surco, Lima. LUCKILY for us we managed to find a really decent taxi driver who was with us the whole way, determined to make sure we got to the place we wanted. Javier´s family was, of course, extremely gracious and wonderful hosts. The first night Javier´s mother, Teresa and Aunt Ana took us to visit Larcomar, a mall-ish structure that is built right on the cliff above the ocean. But we were so beat from the 20 HOUR bus ride from Cuzco to Lima that all we wanted to do then was go to BED. The next day a neighbor boy named Luis took us around to visit the beaches of Lima as well as the neighborhoods of Barranco and Miraflores. It was a beautiful day and despite the pollution, Lima has a really nice coastline. Luis was a G and we quickly became friends. After lunch and a bit of a siesta we headed out with Luis and some of his friends to the center of Lima to walk around a bit before Sophie left. The boys insisted on accompanying us to the airport where Soph and I tearfully parted.
the next day I decided to skip on out of town and headed to the southern town of Chilca. When I got there, it was pretty deserted, pretty boring, pretty disappointing. There were no hostels in sight, no tourists in sight and no one to really ask any questions of. I decided to have lunch before i made any decisions as to what to do next. The place I picked is called Rositas, it´s on the main plaza, facing the cathedral. The owner, Rosa, immediately recognized that I was a tourist traveling on my own and offered her assistance. She told me where to go, how to get there, she fed me and even offered me a room in her house to sleep in. I ventured to the ¨magical¨lagoons, for which Chilca is famous for. What I found was a series of smelly ponds surrounded by other tourists covered head to toe in the mud and silt from the bottom of these ponds. I hopped on in and took a swim. It was alright. Do I feel like a different person? no. I returned to Rositas and began chatting with her and her father, Melquiades. Both characters. Very interesting. I ended up spending the evening chatting with the rest of her family over ¨lunch¨(a snack between lunch and dinner) over at their other restaurant, by the highway. They were pretty awesome actually. I felt like part of the family, for a second. Today it was hard to say goodbye to them, especially since I probably wont see them again, but if ANYONE is trying to go to the beaches south of Lima, go visit them. They usually work a restaurant near the beach during the tourist peak months of may-august. Melquiades will show you his collection of dinosour fossils, or bones, or something. They will take care of you. Good people.
So from there I caught a bus along the panamerican hwy going south to the town of Ica where I visited the Ica Cultural Museum and had lunch. Then I took a taxi to the small oasis...village of Huacachina. I don´t really think it´s even a village, it´s just a collection of restaurants and hotels around this oasis lagoon. All around this oasis are HUGE sand dunes, something out of Alladin, or Arabian Nights tales. A lot of tourists, a LOT of Israelis and a lot of sand. I´m not sure if I´m going to want to ride down the dunes, but there´s a pool in my hostel and hammocks and that´s all good for me. It´s a chill little spot and I´m planning on relaxing for a few days here before heading back to Lima for passover.
Love and Peace,
Gabi

Boliva, Peru

Hey everyone, sorry it's taken so long to write...I know you've all been desperately checking this blog everyday in hopes that I might have a new post. A lot has happened since last time. I don't really even remember when the last time it was that I blogged. But I think it was in Argentina. Since then we've been to two more countries. We're moving along pretty quickly since Sophie has to leave to go back home from Lima on th 15th of April. Anyway, Bolivia was really, really incredible. I really loved it a lot. Crazy, beautiful and so surprisingly diverse--in all aspects. The food, the climate, the geography, the people, all so distinct and vibrant. I know that word sounds kind of cheesy, but that's exactly the word to describe everything in Bolivia-distinctly vibrant. It sucked having to leave so soon, especially since we had to pay 100 dollars for the visa to get in, but whatever, I get it, the USA screwed over Bolivia and we deserve it. Especially considering how EASY it is to get a visa into the United States.
But anyways, we did the salt flats tour from Tupiza along with these two Canadian chicks which was a nice change of pace coming from all the cities we had visited in Argentina. We then spent a couple days in La Paz, which might have been my favorite city we've visited so far and then we went to Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca where we spent a few days exploring the Isla del Sol and the lake itself. I got really burnt the day we hiked Isla del Sol, but it wasn't all that bad since it kept my face warm during the extremely chilly nights. Now we're in Puno, Peru and we're leaving to Cuzco tonight. We're planning on visiting Mach Picchu and maybe whitewater rafting on Rio Urubamba before heading to Lima for Sophie's departure :(
And then who knows where I'll go, the opportunities are endless. I'm finally getting the hang of traveling however, so I think the next 7 weeks of my trip are going to be incredible. I've learned from the mistakes made during the first 5 weeks, and there have been many.
Anyway, that's just an overview of what has happened in the last couple of weeks. I'll try to keep a more updated blog in the future.
Hope all is well with everyone at home and traveling.
Love,
Gabi