back in the u.s. of a

Well, I decided it would probably be best for me to formally end this blog. After 22 straight hours airports and planes, I've made it back to Shorewood, Illinois. On my last two days, I did make it to Uruguay although my friends unfortunately did not. Rachel was sick, and Sara, Friday being my last day (and not knowing at the time that it was also hers), nobly offered to stay back and let me go.

The trip was relaxing and nice - making the decision to bail on Argentina for the day at the last minute, I raced to the ferry and thankfully it was running late. The trip was quick - just an hour's boat ride across the Rio de la Plata (really not a river at all) to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay to get myself another stamp to add to my passport's pages. Colonia turned out to be a smaller, sleepy (at least in the end of their fall) beach town that dated back to being the oldest city in Uruguay. Once on land, I spent the day walking around the old parts of the city, eating lunch at an amazing little Italian place that literally drained me of every peso I had on me (which wasn't much), walked along the coast for a while, and then read and relaxed at a cafe. Once nightfall came around, I headed back to the ferry to make my way back to Buenos Aires.

For my last official night, we all decided more or less to make it an easier night, all having long ways to travel the next day. Sara and I met up with our two Aussie/Kiwi surfer buddies we had made earlier in the trip and went out for some drinks and dinner. Getting a few pints and then some pizza, we were sitting at the restaurant finishing our drinks when our night came to an abrupt end - Rachel's fever ended up spiking again and not wanting to either have a horrible disease to bring back home or become so sick that she would not even be able to come home, we took Rachel to the ER at 2 am. No worries though, she ended up be plenty fine to get herself home to New York Saturday night, and Sunday morning tests show that it was just your average flu.

In between the ER and the flight home, Sara, the boys from Down Under, and I spent our last afternoon (the boys heading out that night as well) walking around San Telmo and going out for one last parilla hurrah. Salad, steak, wine, and Freddo (awesome gelato chain in Argentina) was our last meal in a foreign country (besides airplane food), and it was fantastic. Afterwords, we packed our bags, said goodbyes to friends and vacation, and made our ways to the our respective modes of transportation. At about 7 pm, I said goodbye to my NYC friends who hopefully I'll be able to see sooner than the year intervals we've been averaging.

After non-stop flights without major delays, my bags and I miraculously all made it to Chicago on time, and I was comfy at home by Sunday afternoon. Overall, my trip was an amazing time, though exactly what I expected happened in the end - three weeks seemed significantly insufficient. However, in three weeks I saw some amazing things and definitely met incredible people along the way. Thanks for following along with me, and I'll make sure to invite everyone to see our pics once we get them up and to follow along my next blog whereever I wander to.

Cheers,

Sarah

3rd leg of the trip: Buenos Aires

Alright, I've finally managed to set aside a little time to write about my travels to the Argentine capital Buenos Aires. Although I've been here for a week now, I'm not going to go into too much detail, partly because I'm not sure if you'd be interested in such a lengthy blog but mostly because I need to get ready soon to possibly do a day trip across the Rio to Uruguay (keeping my fingers crossed that it goes through).

Well what can I say about Buenos Aires - it only took me about 2 hours in the city to realize it is one that I can fall for head over heels. I mean, just listen to the description: an old yet incredibly modern city with beautiful architecture bursting with home-grown world famous trends (tango, to name the largest), great red wine, Italian food everywhere (pasta to pizza to gelado) paired with incredible cuts of steak that although are crazy cheap would give something out of Morton's a huge run (and yes, I have been participating), and to top it all off, the boys all look Italian yet speak Spanish... perfect combo, right? This makes learning a crazy, "ch" sounding version of Spanish well worth getting used to.

But enough with drooling over the city and more about what I've been doing. We've been spending most of our time in our hostel's neighborhood, San Telmo. San Telmo is one of if not the oldest barrio of B.A. What used to once be the location of the city's upperclass (my hostel is in an old mansion), San Telmo is at the moment the cobblestoned boho section of the city, boasting to be home to classic cafes and tango music. We've spent plenty of time here, taking history tours of the neighborhood, wandering around for coffee, hitting up the Sunday market that overtakes the length of one of its most prominent streets, catching a tango show, going out to some pubs, and of course, eating some parrillla aka steak and other grilled goods. Our hostel isn't too bad itself either. Like I said, it's built right into an old, remodeled mansion which means that there are tons of private beds rather than dorm rooms, great for us. There's also a big terrace on the rooftop with a coal grill which we and some of our hostel friends have definitely taken advantage of. Garden House Art Factory hostel... I recommend it to any future travelers, young and old.

As nice as San Telmo is, we've stretched our legs and made it out to the other major neighborhoods of B.A. mostly everyday. We went to musuems and parks in Recoleta, one of the city's more high end neighborhoods, caught some of the nightlife in Palermo the most popular neighborhood especially for people our age, saw an amazing drum show called La Bomba de Tiempo, went to a pub to catch the Ecuador-Argentina soccer game, saw the brightly painted houses of the not so bright neighborhood La Boca, strolled along the boardwalkish Puerto Madera, and toured the Microcenter barrio which holds the center of the city and famous governmental sites such as the Plaza de Mayo and the building which everyone knows for Madonna standing atop the balcony and belting out "Don't cry for me Argentina...". Needless to say, Buenos Aires has had more than enough to offer to keep me busy.

As I said, I'm trying my best to make this short and sweet... I'm sure plenty of you will be asking mountains of questions about my trip regardless of what I write anyway. The pictures are limited for now... Rachel has been taking all the BA shots, and I'm still waiting on them. Now I've got to be off to check up on my roommates and hope that they've recovered from a little virus that seems to be going around the hostel and are up for our 11:30 ferry across the Rio de la Plata over to Uruguay. Hopefully in my next entry I'll be able to tell you about another stamp in my passport... until then, chau.

Don't worry, I'm alive..

Well I don't have much time to write, but hello! I am alive and well in Buenos Aires, where I've been for the past few days. I'll write later today I think, I just haven't had time yet really... way to much to do and see. Also, I just saw that I spelled "autumn" wrong... that's embarrassing. That's what happens when you're speaking another language for most of your days I guess.

What we all really come to Cusco for... Machu Picchu.

Like much of this trip has and will continue to consist of, Monday morning involved a pre-anybody's desired waking time, but as always, for a very good reason. A 7:30 am train was calling our names to take us to Aguas Calientes, the small, touristically consumed hence miserable city at the base of the mountain upon which Machu Picchu sits. The ride was decently enjoyable, taking us through little valleys and below mountains of the Andes for about three hours. PeruRail staff?? Incredibly helpful and entertaining. Having booked our train tickets at separate times, Sara and Rachel ended up with an earlier return than I, so we went a little earlier to investigate changing tickets. Turns out that their tickets were not only in need of a time change but a date change as well, them being booked for July 1 rather than June 1. Although this could have been disatrous in other places, one particular PeruRail employee named Jorge took our plight as his personal mission for the morning. After being escorted around the train station and into three seats next to each (which we clearly did not have), he and two other employees pleasantly stuck on us like glue, chatting us up, practicing their English now and then and even making sure that we were all together on the way back. We even got a free coffee or two out of what at first seemed to be a big mess. Ah, the glory of being three young girls in Latin America.

Traveling aside, I'll cut to the chase. Once in Aguas Calientes, we got our bus tickets, grabbed some food (including a Peruvian variety of Lays potato chips: Andina), and made our way up the mountiain. After a winding half an hour ride, we avoided the solicitations for tour guides and booked our way to the gate entrance. We made our way through an old path, went through a little passage way, came through an opening and then all at once it was there: Machu Picchu in all of its ridiculous, undescribable glory. Because I can't possibly do it justice, I won't go into much detail. It's an ancient Incan city that is on top of a mountain surrounded by breathtaking views of the Andes... Google Image and Flickr this place to get more of a taste, but nothing but being up top that mountain looking down on the place will be able to portray its crazy beauty and mad architectural skills. Whether we were wandering through the ruins of ancient buildings and plazas or sitting at the edge of a cliff staring into the fog capped Andes, it was always almost too much to take in. Amazing.

As a leaving note, seeing Machu Picchu makes me realize how many other incredible places are out there for me to see in Peru, that only visiting a couple of cities and sites just doesn't cut it. Trains through the tops of the Andes, Lake Titicaca, the Peruvian Amazon, the Nazca Lines, beatiful cities like Arequipa... a week and a half and two stops in Peru absolutely did not cut it. I'll need to come back, my calendar, budget, and walking shoes better prepared.

Hanging at the hostel and a day-trip to Pisac

So much for saying that I felt absolutely great up in sky-high Cuzco. After walking around the Plaza de San Blas (San Blas being the neighborhood we're staying in) and Plaza de las armas, I started to feel really queasy around lunch time. Although my stomach had been feeling off the night before, I took that as a reaction to an early morning flight and a strange sleep schedule. By one, I felt like I was heading downhill quick so I hopped a cab to the hostel and chilled out there, thinking that the altitude was really starting to get to me. Instead of walking around the city somemore and making it to dinner, I just slept for a while, hung out all day and read a lot. My roommates not feeling up to much that night either decided to stay in after dinner as well. One plus to all this was that we found an awesome telenovela called Doña Bárbara, a bitter jungle cowboy girl who is seeking revenge on men who did her wrong when she was younger. Awesome.

Luckily, I woke up this morning feeling tons better. Turns out it wasn't so much the altitude that was getting to me but the anti-altitude pills I had been taking (I stopped taking them yesterday). Feeling rejuvinated, we decided to hed to a small city called Pisac, only about a 4o minute and 60 cent bus ride from Cuzco. The city's located in a valley in the Andes and had amazing views, including terrace style farming along the mountain sides. Although there are some ruins there that we may go back for, we spent our day at their big Sunday market with tons of fresh food and mostly artisan crafts. Don't worry, I got some souveniors for those who requested.

At about 4 we made our way back to Cuzco and relaxed a bit before heading out to get some dinner, making first this pitstop at an internet cafe. The rest of the plans for tonight are to grab a bite to eat, grab a Cusqueña or two (the beer, not people), and get into bed relatively early. We've got a crack-of-dawn wake up waiting for us to go visit Machu Picchu.

Chicago > NYC > Lima

Here starts the sharing of my adventures to a South American autum. The trip as planned consists of three major stops with day trips up for consideration: Lima and Cuzco in Peru and then Buenos Aires in Argentina. Although it is now the 29th of May, my trip starting the morning of the 26th, having a bit of a late start while trying to squeeze as much of Lima out as I could in two days. To catch everyone up to speed, I'll backtrack a bit and detail my over-extended trek to Lima and the days spent there. Since I forgot a camera chord, pics will have to come later.

Arriving at O'Hare at 11 am on Tuesday mornign, I was psyched to see that my trip was going to be smooth sailings, figuring leaving ORD on time in the middle of the afternoon would be the largest aerial feat to overcome. Little did I know that Lima is a very tricky airport to enter. Arriving at JFK airport in New York, I had hours to kill before my friends arrived for our 11:30 overnight flight. When Rachel arrived around 8:45, we were checked in and everything was good to go. Sara, however, arrived barely 20 minutes later and received the bad news: our flight had been delayed by over 3 HOURS, boarding at 2:45 am. Thank you, giant layer of fog that covers Lima.

Despite being slightly strung out due to a strange sleep schedule, we arrived just fine in Lima around 10ish that morning. Our hostel, located in the boho, seaside neighborhood Barranco, let us check in early and store our bags. We hed out and wandered the streets our of barrio which was known for its abundance of affordable restaurants and nightlife for young travelers and limeños alike. Perfect match for us. For the first day, we found some lunch and ate plenty of Peruvian dishes like causa (mashed potato dish layered with a filling close to a veggie or chicken salad) and different variations of arroz and fish or chicken.

Later that night we decided that the best way to see a city of nearly 8 million in two days was to start off with a 4 hour bus tour. We took it at night, taking us all around the city including a stop at a slightly ridiculous fountain park that had really intense water, laser, and epic music show. After that we cruised around the colonial Centro Lima, ritzy San Isidro and Miraflores, and many other neighborhoods ranging from museum villages to places where your average limeño calls home.

Coming back to the hostel, we figured that the first night was our only real chance to see what Lima nightlife has to offer, our departure flight taking off on the third morning at 5:40 am. We went to our room to take a break, and there we met our hostelmates, two girls from Ireland and the UK who were looking to get a tast of Barranco at night as well. Around midnight we headed out, grabbed some olive and cheese sandwhiches for a late dinner, went to a few bars, drank some pisco sours (something similar to a Peruvian brandy margarita with egg white foam, much tastier than my description sounds), and danced till about 5 am with some more friends we made a long the way. Overall, very successful night out in Lima.

The second day we woke up bright and early (for my schedule at least) and made our way to the old center of Lima. We visited the Plaza de Armas which exists in most old Spanish colonial cities, walked around plenty of pedestrian walkways and through many other impressive plazas. After a late lunch and realizing that all major museums were closed for the winter for rennovation, we headed back to Barranco and checked out the Pacific Ocean view. Suprisingly, despite it being in the low 60s and perpetually foggy, people were still making there way out to surf. We decided to finish the night off by eating at what Rachel's foody friend and Frommer's labeled the "best restaurant in Lima," Astrid y Gaston, our one splurge dinner planned for the trip. I decided to OD on seafood and got easily the best ceviche (raw seafood cocktail "cooked" by the acids in the lime juice) I ever had... scallops, clams, mussels, oysters, fish, mmmm. Overly satisfied, we headed back to our hostel to try and get a couple hours of sleep before our 3 am wake up for our flight to Cuzco.

Well, here I am now in the middle of our first day in the old Inca capital. The city is gorgeous, filled with cobbelstone strets and ean incredibly scenic view from our hilltop hostel with a room on the top floor. At a height of 11,000 feet with Sara having once experienced altitude sickness and told us her horror story, we've decided to make it an incredibly easy day, catching up on sleep and then walking around the main Plaza de las Armas (yep it has one too), and drinking plenty of coca tea. Besides feeling slightly short of breath, I feel great and am incredibly excited for the days to come.

I'll do my best to make it to some internet cafes and keep everyone updated, and definitly will hunt out an adapter to upload some photos.

Hasta luego.