¡Hasta Luego Sur America!

We pryed ourselves away from Samana Chakra in Mancora, Peru and made our way to Quito, Ecuador. We arrived midday and found an interesting cabbie to take us to our hostel. After an overnight bus and a solid afternoon of travel, we found a great Chifa restaurant (South American Chinese food) and stuffed ourselves silly for $3 each! The next day, which happened to be Mother's Day, we scurried off to the Mitad del Mundo, the equator. There was a great cultural festival with music and dance, which made for a great afternoon. We bus-hopped our way home, never knowing exactly where we were going, but got back to the hostel in time to call our mothers :) Keeping up with our tight schedule, we were out of Quito that night and headed to the border of Colombia. Our guide book told us the border was open 24 hours a day, but when we arrived at 9:50 p.m. we found out it closed at 10 p.m. We found a dumpy hotel across the street, had dinner and passed out. Talking with some of the locals we found out that 1 gallon of RUM is $10!! Andrew was pretty bummed it wasn't available by the gallon at the local corner store. The next morning, off we went to the Colombian border, fast and easy. We headed to the terminal and got tickets to Cali and ended up spending another 12 hours on a bus. The Colombian countryside is absolutely gorgeous, making up for the long ride. Cali didn't have much to offer the travelling tourist, most activities required you to leave the city and we only had the day. Andrew's only friend in Cali just happened to be in Bogotá that day, so we had to fend for ourselves. We walked the city, shopped the black market, ate delicious fresh fruit, made some fruit juices and that night caught a bus to Medellin. Regrettably, we didn't stay in Medellin and grabbed the 6:30 a.m. bus to Cartagena, the Caribbean coast. We spent a whopping $98,000 Colombian Pesos (about $50), our most expensive bus ticket to date. 20 hours later, Cartagena's sticky, wet weather greeted us with a smack on the face as we exited the freezing cold, air conditioned bus. Without a clue of where we were headed, we took a city bus to the center of town and found a basic and cheap hotel. Cartagena definitely wasn't what we expected, with high-rises stretching right up to the sand, looked like what we thought Miami would look like. We made the most of it and explored the beautiful historic center and lounged carelessly on the beach while being bombarded by relentless vendors. Apparently, no trip to Colombia is complete without being offered Cocaine by 20 people a day. To find the gorgeous beaches we sought, we took a detour to Tayrona Parque Nacíonal. These beaches are the ones you dream about-- white sand, crystal clear waters, palm trees on the shore by the hundreds, and lots and lots of sun! We stayed at a local campground and did a lot of nothing while enjoying the view. We could have stayed there forever, but we didn't bring enough cash with us. So, Monday we grabbed the next bus to Bogotà and here we are, our last destination. We've gone to the Fernando Botéro Museum, gone bowling (inwhich Andrew beat me twice for the first time ever, Bravo!), finished our shopping, had too many cookies for breakfast, met up with Andrew's cousin's husband's younger sister (random), and are printing our boarding passes for tomorrow's flight as I type this. We thought we might write a little list of things we will miss from down here and things we will be happy to leave behind...

WILL miss

-giant mercados (markets) with fresh anything you can think of, for CHEAP
-random fresh fruit juice stands on every corner
-surfing in Peru (Andrew), tanning on the beaches (Hillary)
-la gente (the people)
-being able to not have a car
-MANGOS!
-carrying our lives on our backs
-mmMmmm street food (empanadas, and papa/arroz rellenos, in particular)
-meeting new and interesting people daily
-catching a whiff of fresh bread in the morning
-not being dependent on a cell phone
-being able to buy literally whatever you need on the street (IE. I really need a hammer right now, oh look there's a guy selling hammers across the street)

will NOT miss

-taxis honking at you in hopes of a new customer, even when riding a bike in the opposite direction
-the Argentine double L (jahh)
-24 hour bus rides!!!
-paying to go to a public bathroom
-paying more for being white, aka Gringo
-flavorless beer
-carrying our lives on our backs
-the smell of burning tires/trash and open sewers
-wondering if what you are eating will keep you up in the bathroom all night
-Peruvian folklore music
-streets that sell only one item all at the same price (Andrew)
-roads that are literally called 'Death Roads' with crazy bus drivers
-needing to carry toilet paper wherever we go
-police walking around with huge automatic weapons (Hillary)
-Andrew's obsession with his mustache (Hillary)
-being away from family and friends <3

Thank you all for keeping up with us on this amazing and incredible journey! This was the experience of a lifetime. Although this trip ended up being completely different from what we had originally planned, we wouldn't take back any part of it for anything. If you were ever questioning visiting South America, don't. Just go!

Vamos muy rápido!

So, here we are-- the last few weeks of travelling in amazing South America. Unfortunately, you will notice that there are no more pictures. You can give thanks to someone who maybe confused my camera with... uhh my camera, and took it as their own. Instead of buying another camera down here, with only 2 weeks left, we decided to go BD (before digital) and bought 4 disposable cameras. We'll get some interesting photos, I'm sure. Where we last left off, in Sucre, Bolivia, we made our way to La Paz, the capital. This city has a reputation of CRAZY. We didn't do the party scene here, but still heard stories of some crazy nights from people we met along the way. From here, we did a jungle tour through the Amazon in Rurrenabaque. We heard amazing things about this tour and were anxious to start- first we needed to take the 20 hour bus ride on Death Road to get there. Yes, they call the only road from La Paz to Rurre Death Road. There are many reasons for this-- the road is meant for two cars, but was built for one, one side is a sheer cliff down to the river, there are very many turns and tight corners (we're in a very large, double decker tour bus, mind you), children and locals alike use this same road to go to school, the next town, work, etc. The list goes on, I'm sure. Nevertheless, this is the only CHEAP way to Rurre (you can fly for 6x the price). After very many 'I'm getting the hell off this bus' call outs, we made it to very humid, very gorgeous Rurrenabaque. The city itself is not the site to see, it's the hub for the many amazying and interesting tours outside the city. We choose a tour that took us into the pampas (the savannahs), which has a diversity of animals and plants. We saw pink river dolphins, macaws, parakets, stinky turkeys, aligators, went in search of anacondas, and saw some pretty amazing scenery. After 3 days we made our return to Rurre and then back to La Paz... but of course it wasn't that easy. Remember that Death Road I mentioned? Well there are a lot of people that live along that road and they also use the road day to day. They had set up 3 road blockades and weren't letting ANYONE through. We had a choice: stay on the bus until the protest was done with (they were saying 5 days), or grab our bags and start to walk and pay different types of transport to get back to La Paz. We choose the latter and so did 3 others. We made it back to La Paz, 80 Bolivianos later, and for all we know the rest of the bus could still be trying to make its way to La Paz. From La Paz, we were ready to head back to Peru and finally make our way to Cusco and Machu Picchu! I am so sorry that I don't have pictures to post, because what a site to see. It's obvious why so many people come to Peru JUST to see that. After 2 days, we took a very budget bus 24 hours to Lima, in order to make our way back to northern Peru, in Mancora- where we worked in January. From Lima we had to take yet another 20 hour bus to Mancora, and here we are! We are fortunate enough to be able to be staying as guests at Samana Chakra, free of charge. The owners there have treated us so well and we are so grateful for all they have done, we can't say it enough! Tomorrow we leave on a 15 hours bus to Quito, Ecuador. We'll most likely be there for one day and make our way on another bus up to Colombia. Good news-- we've changed our flights so that we come home the 20th, instead of the 27th. We're missing home, family and friends, a simple normal life, and getting tired of travelling and being on the go- also spending money all the time, instead of making any becomes expensive!! haha. So, until Colombia :) Love, Andrew and Hillary