The Yonderers

Hiking the W Trek was a challenging and amazing experience! For those of you unfamiliar with the area – Patagonia is listed amongst one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s full of mountains, glaciers, greenery, flowers, and clear aqua lakes (formed from the summer sun on the mountain ice). Most of the year it’s freezing here, but when the short summer comes, hikers from all over the world travel to the area to view the beauty. When we were booking our trip, we were advised that if we enjoyed hiking, the W Trek was a must, and I must agree!

While planning the trek, we had a lot of trouble figuring out how and where to sleep. Torres Del Paine (the National Park in which the trail is located) has campsites and refuges at several points along the trail, but you have to have a reservation to stay at them and open camping (camping anywhere) isn’t allowed. We happened to end up here right at peak season, so even though we were trying to book back in November, several of the sites were already full! We ended up settling for a 4 day/three night hike instead of the 5/4 we originally hoped for, and really, I think it worked out for the best!

This was my first multi day hike. After reading blogs and articles about the hike, I had decided that it was going to be a literal and figurative walk in the park since this is at a significantly lower altitude than we’ve been hiking the last two months. It turned out to be a little more difficult than I originally anticipated (mostly because of the additional weight my pack put on my not-so-great knee), but it was definitely worth the the few difficult points we encountered! Not to mention that Kirk was incredibly encouraging through it all. He was so patient when I needed to rest or go slow, and carried the large majority of our stuff in his pack so that less weight was on my knee!

Below is a map of the park with the part we hiked in red. Some individuals do the entire “O”. We didn’t quite finish the “W” since we couldn’t get a reservation on the left side of the park.

Day one: Bus from Puerto Natales to Pudeto, Ferry from Pudeto to Paine Grande, Hiking from Paine Grande to Camp Frances

Heading to the bus station! We were running late, but made it with two minutes to spare! Behind us is the neighborhood we stayed in in Puerto Natales.

Our bus made a stop between Laguna Amarga (the East end of the park) and Pudeto (where you catch the ferry to go into the park) to let us take a picture of the range. It was beautiful! The video I posted on facebook/instagram was of this site.

In Pudeto we drank a cappuccino while looking out over Lake Pehoe, then boarded a ferry to take us into Torres Del Paine.

The mountain view from the boat was beautiful! What is not pictured is the crazy wind that was spraying water all over us!

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We were thankful for our buffs. My friend lizzy warned us we would want these for our travels, and she was so right! It’s a wind shield, sun shield, scarf, or cover for dirty hair – these things are great!

Paine Grande – where we paused for lunch before beginning our hike. This was one of the sites we couldn’t get a reservation for – otherwise we would have dropped out stuff here and hiked up to see Grey Glacier, then back for the night.

Starting out!

I wish the pictures showed how windy this first leg of the hike was! At first I thought it was just me being blown over, but when Kirk took the lead I watched as he struggled to keep his balance too! It was like walking in hurricane speed winds – impossible to walk straight. I don’t know how strong they were while we were there, but I read that the gusts reach up to 110 mph! I would have been fully blown over had I not had trekking poles!

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This picture didn’t turn out near as beautiful as the scenery looked! We were walking through a white forest speckled with clovers and yellow flowers. The white trees shone bright against the grey sky and green grass!

After we arrived at Frances, Kirk cooked. We had the best meals… since we stayed our first two nights at the same camp, we only had to carry most of our meals for the first 5 miles. Kirk packed in wine and made this delicious lentil curry with couscous for the first night!

Day 2: We left our big packs at the camp and went up the Frances Valley and then back to Frances. We actually didn’t make it all the way up the valley – the amount of uphill to the first look out wore me out! Our next day was the longest hike, so we opted to save my knees for when I was wearing the big pack. Even with our turning back early, this was my favorite lookout point. Every side was beautiful from the top!

One of the many rivers we crossed!

Climbing up the rocks to the first lookout.

Those people are sitting on the first lookout point. As we were walking up I kept wondering how much better the view could get because the mountains were so beautiful even far away…but man, the closer you get, the beauty just grows!

Mountains to the right of the lookout (the green trees were so vibrant!)

Us on the lookout with the aqua lake behind us! Everywhere you turned, as far as you could see, was gorgeous!

We walked on a little past the lookout and got some pictures of the river with the snowy mountains :).

❤

It started raining on us on the way back down, but it was only a mist! We hit the weather perfect on this trip – it was really raining days before we arrived and days after we left – we only ever got misted.

Day 3:

From Camp Frances to Chileno Refuge. In Frances we rented a tent and mats, but carried our own food and sleeping bags. Chileno, on the other hand, only lets you stay for full board – although you can still opt for a tent (which we did). This was our longest day hiking, but we knew we had a hot meal waiting when we arrived!

That view 😍

Crossing rivers was always a challenge for me with my little legs! Later this day I made a few wrong steps and my shoes got soaked!

This time I made it though 🙂

Our path this day led us right down to the lake. We skipped a few rocks and stared at the glossy blue.

We were informed when we got to the park that all the water in the rivers was safe to drink. We filled our bottles up in the steams and never got sick. It was the best water we’ve had all trip! Even the stuff we filter out of the sinks still tastes like chlorine, but this had no taste!

So many rivers! We never had to worry about running out of water!

This was towards the end of our hike this day. We walked through a bog (with much difficulty and no pictures) and then through an open field before arriving at our final mountain. We went up…

And found ourselves overlooking the river we would sleep next to that evening. This part of the trail was the most dangerous. We were next to the edge the whole time and the wind was almost as gusty as it was that first day!

This is us at the campsite. We were sitting, waiting on dinner when a person we’d encountered on the trail earlier that day walked up and said, “Do you have a camera?” Kirk said yes, and then person asked if we wanted a picture of ourselves. This is how it turned out 😂. I mean, we were pretty tired 🙂

This was our tent for the evening. The one the prior two nights was a little smaller, but also on a platform. We slept terribly the first two nights, but when we opened this tent, we were delighted…

Those mats might as well have been mattresses! They were super soft, and we couldn’t feel the ground at all! This place was significantly more expensive, but we ate a four course dinner, slept the whole night, woke up to breakfast already made for us, and were sent off with a packed lunch! We would have chosen the cheaper option had we had one, but a little luxury was nice to have forced upon us!

Day 4:

Hiking Chileno Refuge to the Torres Mirador and back. Then hiking from Chileno Refuge to the welcome center, bus from welcome center to Lago Amargo, and bus from Lago Amargo to Puerto Natales.

Final day! We really lucked out with the weather. Not only did the sun shine most of the time we were there, but it was in the 70’s! We were anticipating possible freezing temperatures (which it can actually get down to in the summer there!)

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The forest we walked through on the way to and from the towers was such a vibrant green!

The first 3 kilometers of our hike this day was a pretty even up and down, but the final kilometer went straight up! We climbed rocks for a least an hour before reaching our final destination.

The picture does not show the grandness of what is before you. This peaks are huge, the glacier is melting into tons of waterfalls (which are thin, but also very tall), and the water is a glowing teal, which particularly stands out against the mountain grays. We ate lunch sitting in front of of this :).

Selfie before heading back down. We went back to Chileno, grabbed our big bags and started down the mountain we had climbed the previous day.

On our way out we passed horses taking supplies up. A Gatorade at the top of the mountain was $10! Even more than beer ($8.50).

One of our final views of the mountains.

This is the hotel on the edge of the park. You pass it walking out to the welcome center and it is gorgeous! If you aren’t up for camping, and have some money to spare, you can stay here and take day hikes in! Although – this was the most windy place we walked. It’s the only time I was actually blown of the path (and the path was a road big enough for a car – it was so strong I just couldn’t walk against it! Kirk also had to chase his hat for a while here 😂)

Overall we had a wonderful time! If you are interested in hiking the W sometime, you are welcome to ask for advice! As I mentioned, we had a lot of trouble navigating the park and refuges from so far away – and even once we got in the park, we found the information to be incorrect (for example, you’d start a trail that said it was 9 km to the end, and at the end there would be a sign saying you walked 11 km 🤷🏼‍♀️) We also joked with a lot of fellow hikers about the “hiking time” listed on the signs (5 km, 2.5 hours). You’d think – 2.5 hours for two and a half miles – no problem, but we actually had trouble getting it done that fast! At first I thought Kirk and I weren’t making the times because of my knee, but it turned out that no one we got to know on the trail was making the time. One guy said he thinks they had a race and wrote the winners time on the sign 😂. For an average hiker with a pack, you can add at least a hour to the times they list – more if it’s majority up hill.

I leave you with a picture of a statue in Puerto Natales – the city is known for the discovery of a nearby cave with the remains of a giant prehistoric sloth – I think he looks like he dancing 😉

That’s all for now! We are currently in Punta Arenas resting and relaxing. We have about two weeks left before our time in South America is over – then onto New Zealand 🙂

I have never landed in an airport, looked out the window, and seen a place so beautiful as El Calafate. Most cities place their airports a little outside the city where there isn’t much to see, but right outside El Calafate are mountains, aqua lakes, and fields of flowers. It’s no surprise that El Calafate is also the most touristy place we been thus far. The city was a little more expensive than everywhere else we’ve visited, but the food was delicious, our accommodations were nice, and, perhaps most importantly, they had delicious ice cream :). The city was so geared towards tourists (and we saw so many tourists) that I think you’d be hard pressed to find jobs there that didn’t involve tourism. Kirk and I had to start being careful what we said around people because suddenly people could understand us again 😂😜.

This was our hotel. It was quite a walk from town, but right next to the lake! It was also the second cheapest place we could find! We think the rate might be lower because they aren’t in the town center, but we sure didn’t mind!

This was the view out our window 😍.

We had so much delicious food in El Calafate.

This is a traditional dish we ate at a restaurant called Isabel. Pretty much the entire menu there is made up of “cocina al disco” or “plow disc” meals. They are all made and served in the disc shown above and taste like some good down home cooking meal with great sauces and fresh bread to dip in it. Also, the butter that came with the bread was just butter mixed with green onion, which I’ve never considered doing, but it was quite tasty!

This is a lamb stew that we had at La Zorra – a taproom with the cheapest food we had in Calafate, and it was SO YUMMY!

This one was also posted on Instagram, but this is the campfire lamb that Patagonia is known for. It too was tasty!

On to some nature. I wish a picture captured all the beauty we saw!

The clouds this day looked so strange and beautiful!

This picture didn’t turn out well because I took it at dusk (10 pm here!) out one of our hotel windows, but it was my first time to see an owl not at the zoo! He was huge!

In town there were huge lavender plants (as tall as me!) that were always filled with bumblebees.

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This also isn’t the best picture, but it shows some of the fields of flowers we passed heading out of town.

The sunsets there lasted for hours. Coming to El Calafate after being on the equator two weeks ago made the difference between the two stand out immensely. When we watched the sunset in the amazon on the lake, I could turn my head away, say a sentence to Kirk, and look back and actually be able to tell the sun had “moved”. In Calafate, (at least during this season) that time before the sun sets when the sky is bright with color – it lasted well over an hour. We went from the sun setting around 5:30pm to the sun setting around 10 pm. It’s crazy how your position on the globe can affect your way of living so much – temperature, amount of daylight, foods that grow, animals that survive well.

Of course, the best part of El Calafate was visiting Perito Moreno, a glacier that is 70 km long and, at the part we saw, 70 meters high.

This was our first view of the glacier out the bus window.

And our fist view off the bus…Look at how far it goes!— The closer you got to the glacier, the less you noticed how far back it went, and rather, you focused on the height!

This was our view for lunch! We read on someone else’s blog that they brought wine, cheese, and crackers…we followed suit 🙂

Kirk on our lunch bench

We forgot the cork screw. Necessity is the mother of invention! We poked one of the prongs through to let some pressure out and the forced the rest down – just in case you are ever in the same bind ;). This is also a wine from the final winery we mentioned in the last blog! It wasn’t apart of our tasting, but this one was delicious too!

Our spreadable cheese ended up lacking in flavor a bit, but thankfully Kirk, of course, had some hot sauce packed :).

Several large pieces of ice fell off the glacier while we were there – and it was so loud when it did! Two times we saw chunks of ice, almost the entire height of the glacier fall! Those were the craziest – you would hear a loud crack, and then a big boom, followed by a giant splash! All the sounds echoed off the mountains! Between the branches above you can see some of the splash from a large piece of ice that fell. Kirk called it – he noticed the piece beginning to spilt when we arrived and guessed it would fall before we left. It took a couple of hours, but it did fall!

That boat was over four stories tall, but it looks tiny next to the glacier!

We walked around a bit to see different views of the glaciers, but for several hours we simply watched it. It was fascinating to hear and see the ice fall!

It was so beautiful and there was so much ice that had fallen!

I posted one of the worse pictures that was taken by a stranger on instagram – that was the one good shot we got :). Going to the glacier was truly amazing. Definitely go if you have the chance!

Our final night in El Calafate we walked down to the lake shore and tried to skip rocks. Kirk is an expert at it, but this was my first time to be successful! One of mine skipped three times even with the wind and waves!

—— It was beautiful!

In the morning we head out on the trail! You’ll hear from us afterwards!

Earlier this week we took a taxi from Chacras De Coria to Mendoza, an overnight bus from Mendoza to Buenos Aires, and an early morning flight from Buenos Aires to El Calafate. We were on the road almost 24 hours before reaching the land of glaciers, and as I write to you now, we have already moved on to Puerto Natales, our starting point for our four day hike on the W Trek, which we begin January 31st.

The amount of awesomeness we are experiencing so close together is actually a little overwhelming at times! Over the last couple of weeks we’ve decided to take our pace a little slower, not going to see all the sites, but focusing in on the biggest in the area. For example, in Calafate, there were several places to hike around natural preserves, national parks and glaciers, but we ended up just going to the main attraction to give ourselves some rest time before the bigger hike. I say rest, but we picked a hotel next to the lake and mountains, which put us a 50 minute walk into town. Man, it was beautiful though!

I’ll post more about that next time. Today I’m going to tell you about staying in the wine region. Y’all, we semi-accidentally did this thing right. Every time we book a place, we have no idea what it’s actually going to be like when we get there. We’ve had good and mediocre experiences with both Airbnb and booking.com, but this time worked out better than we could have imagined. We’ve stayed in a lot of small apartments and a few hostels, but for the first time we took a chance and booked a private room in someone’s house.

First, the house was beautiful. Unlike many of the blank canvases we’ve stayed in, this house was filled with art and was plenty spacious for us to share with strangers. It also had a pool, a big backyard, large back patio, and a dog we fell in love with – a huge Rottweiler with the personality of a well trained puppy. He never jumped on us, but loved to play and would literally melt when you started petting him…gradually leaning over on you until nothing was holding him up but you!

Kirk with Canelo by the pool.

Second, the house was in the perfect location. We’ve realized that our time spent in smaller towns has been much more restful than our time in large cities, so, though Mendoza itself is not huge, we opted to stay on the city skirts of Chacras De Coria, a small town outside of Mendoza. Our location put us a little in the country, a short walking distance from four wineries as well as from the city center. It was peaceful and so quiet at night!

Here are a few pics from our walk into town…

On a side note, this area looks a lot like Tuscany, Italy as far a greenery goes (the trees, vineyards, flowers and other plants are similar, though they probably can’t be seen as well in this picture), but instead of lush grass, it’s more like a desert beneath (shown pretty well here)! Which, as it turns out, sandy soil is pretty good for grape growing because grapes need good drainage. I was really surprised!

I loved this flower!

This isn’t the most impressive picture, but those snow covered mountains are what we walked towards everyday going into town!

Finally, our hostess! The owner of the house was warm and welcoming, and as it turns out, she was not only a social worker in Argentina, but she was a school social worker for 30 years! For those of you who don’t know me well, I recently got my masters in social work and being a school social worker is my dream job! I interned as a school social worker for a year while in grad school, and loved it! Talking with her about what social workers do in the States was my first try at conversational Spanish since we left. I needed help from Kirk and was nervous, but she understood me! Asking directions is one thing, but life talk… totally different! We also met three of her grown children while we were there and they were all just as wonderful!

This is us with our new friends 🙂 He was the only son who still lived at the house.

This family also helped us get a better understanding of parts of the culture. For example, most of the restaurants nearby didn’t open until 8:30 pm, and she and her family wouldn’t eat dinner until around 10:30-11 at night. As it turns out, Argentinians eat later in the summer because it’s so hot during the day (like, 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which is laughable to us, but at night it got cool enough for sweaters to come out, making evening very enjoyable!). She also saw us making breakfast one morning and invited us to try her breakfast- tea. She said most Argentinians just drink tea for breakfast and might have a small cracker or cookie with it. (If you’ve been following us on Facebook or insta, you probably saw the “included breakfast” one hotel gave us…a pack of 3 plain crackers..now we get it ). We also saw a lot of culture in the way we shared space. Kirk and I are pretty private and try to stay out of the way, but the culture here is all about community and being together. So, for example, it was strange to us for them to have a drum circle going near our window at 11pm, but it was probably strange to them that we didn’t come out and join. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out your place in a different culture, but it is really interesting to see it all at play!

The obvious other best part of this region is the wine and food. We visited 6 wineries and one olive oil/balsamic vinegar producer over three days. One of the wineries served us what was possibly the best meal I’ve ever had. I have pictures posted below, but the site of the food does not do all the hidden flavors within justice!

As far as the wineries, if you don’t know, Mendoza is known as the Malbec region, but they have plenty of other types of grapes too. We were surprised when one of our tours included a visit to a Cruzat, a sparkling wine winery, but it ended up being really interesting to hear how it was made (and delicious)!

The first place we visited was a very small winery that had a really delicious Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s was a small family owned vineyard and we tried a small samples straight out the barrel. Unfortunately, they have no way to send things to the states!

Bodega Pulmary, just a small place, but the owner was lovely and so excited to tell us about their work!

The second winery we visited (First winery of the tour we went on) was Cruzat, with the sparkling wine.

There were thousands of bottles in the cellar, and during the second process of fermentation, they have to swirl them all by hand every couple of months-I don’t remember why, but it has something to do with yeast! (Yeast eating sugar is what causes both fermentation and natural bubbles) Eventually they turn them upside down for the yeast to collect in the bottom. They then freeze the top to get the yeast out. Who knew?

A16 is the next winery we visited.

Here we tried a wine still in production- it was pretty terrible, but interesting to taste in an unfinished stage!

The next place we visited was a treat! Laur olive oil and balsamic vinegar producer. Tasting oils side by side was interesting and delicious!

We really liked the second and third bottles the most. We even ended up buying one to tote along with us for the next few months!

This is an old olive oil cold press! The olives would be picked (The tree behind it is an olive tree) and donkeys/horses would pull the stone in a circle to smush the oil out. Now its all done by machine, but this place had a museum of all the old equipment they used to use.

Olives :).Did you know that the only difference in green and black olives is that black olives stay on the tree longer? We had no idea!

Our next stop was lunch at Casa Vigil, a restaurant owned by the winery El Enemigo. Their approach to making wine is to focus on the soil (you can see the type of soil listed on the tags in the photo below). They don’t age their wine in barrels because they think it hides the soil flavors. Though they were good, their wines weren’t our favorite, lunch though…oh goodness it was good!

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To start, a small salad. The perfectly poached pear in this salad, combined with the roasted pepper, smoke flakes, salty pungent cheese, and spices…it was unbelievable!

Our entree, braised pork with mashed sweet potatoes that were nothing like potatoes in the states. Every sweet potato we’ve had here has been unbelievably delicious (it almost taste like a different vegetable entirely) and I’m not sure what they added to these, but oh man. Combining those with the salty marinated meat, grilled cabbage, sweetly pickled onions, dill, and roasted pumpkin with some floral aroma on it…😍. Unbelievable.

Finally, dessert. Warm chocolate cake with a Cabernet franc sauce, fresh cooked berries and, what really brought it all together – a light lemon poppyseed cream on top. I don’t always love chocolate and berry flavors together, but that lemon brought it together in a way that makes me want to try and replicate it at home! I wish I could send all these flavors to you instead of the pictures! I guess you’ll all just have to visit for yourselves! 🙂

The final winery we visited on the day we went with an actual tour company was Vista Alba, and they certainly saved the best for last. Above is a picture of Malbec grapes growing in their vineyard.

This is a picture going down into their cellar. That’s tumbleweed lights that make it so beautiful! We happened to come for a tour right after they had finished a premium tasting (the expensive stuff), and since they had some left over, they let us try for no additional charge! We loved all the wines here though, even the Cosecha Invernal, which was a sweet white wine, similar to a good ice wine. They also let us sample an olive oil they produce. This one actually turned out to be better than our previous tastings, but we were glad we had already purchased some since this was a little more pricey.

As a side note, at this place we sampled the olive oil, not with bread, but in a shot glass. They ask you to drink a sip and inhale to taste all the flavors. She warned us that it would be spicy at the back of our throats, and she was not kidding! I was shocked as how smooth it was in my mouth, but as soon at it hit my throat, it felt like I had inhaled pepper! Another lady and I coughed a lot – but something about it was still really enjoyable! On bread it would have been amazing!

The morning before we boarded the night bus to leave wine country, we decided to take one final visit to one of the wineries that was walking distance from our house, Weinert. It ended up being the most fascinating winery we visited. The building the winery is in was a winery in the late 1800s, but ended up closing. It sat vacant for about 50 years before Weinert bought it in the 1970s and began production again. All the other wineries we visited aged their wine in small barrels or steel or concrete tanks, but this place aged their wine in humongous barrels. Barrels so thick that they can be used for 100 years. The tour guide told us its an old French way to age wine, and its a good way, because this was some of the best we had. Something about wine aging in really large barrels makes the flavors very even and smooth. You can still taste the oak, but it’s not as sharp. Below are the wines we tried, and we loved them all.

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These are some of the huge barrels…but the biggest one…

Maybe this will give a better idea of the size…

He said this one had been there since the reopening in the 70’s – they added onto the building, moving this in first and then building around it! It was huge and beautiful!

This is us with the original building. Well over 100 years old!

Well, this post has turned longer than intended! Bravo if you stayed for the whole thing! I’ll try to post again soon about El Calafate. I need to fit it in before we are out of pocket, hiking. And on that note – you likely won’t be able to reach us the 31st-3rd, so don’t be alarmed if you try and are unsuccessful.

I wrote this yesterday (on my birthday) but the pictures finished uploading today! Just change the time frame in your mind accordingly 🙂

Today is my 30th birthday 🤗. Though I never imagined I’d be starting this new decade in the way that I am, I couldn’t be more excited! Last night we took an overnight bus from Buenos Aires to Mendoza. We are now in wine region and it looks like it’s going to be a good start to this new decade!

So far Argentinian food has been our favorite! Argentinians love their grilled meat and sausage (and so do we!) There is also a heavy European influence here, in particular, Italian, so there is wine, handmade pasta, pizza, and good cheese galore! Thankfully we’ve also been able to find more veggies in restaurants around here. We’ve had trouble finding a side item that isn’t a potato, rice, yucca, or bread in the other places we’ve been!

I’ve gotten a little behind on my blog writing, so I’m trying to catch up for the last three weeks in this one. This blog not only serves as my newsletter to you guys, but also as my travel journal, so if I don’t write something down, I’ll be missing it in the future! Here are the things I’ve yet to tell you about that we’ve done over the last three weeks (between New Years, Amazon, and now):

The rest of our time in Banos:

This picture, as well as the one below is Kirk with our favorite puppy, Douglas. He belonged to the owner of the hostel we stayed in in Banos, and we loved him! He was clumsy and fluffy and always so excited to see us. I heard Kirk tell Douglas one day that he was apart of the plan to convince me to get a dog😂. As cute as he was, it’s wouldn’t take much convincing!

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This (above) was our view walking from our hostel into town. Banos is a beautiful city planted in the middle of a valley. The views everywhere were great! One day we hiked up one of the smaller mountain paths there to a place called Bellavista. You could see the whole city!Us at the top 🙂This picture, as well as the next few, are some of my favorite art pieces around the city. —— —This is a view out of our hostel bedroom window. The snow covered one is a volcano!There are many waterfalls around Banos, but the only one we went to see was Devil’s Cauldron. It was quite large! Above and below are a couple of pics from our spa day. You can get hour long massages for around $20 in Banos! Kirk in the steam box. 🙂

In Quito:

We did far more hiking in Quito than touring the city, but I got a few pics of places we saw.

The Basilica

This is one of the plazas in the historical district of town called Independence Plaza. The statue you can see in the background is the Virgin of Quito, which is viewable from nearly everywhere in the city.

This is one of the streets in the historical district. It’s now one of the more touristy streets, but I thought it was beautiful.

On to hiking…One day we hiked up to the refuge on this Volcano. (We took a car to about midway up, but the part we did hike was put us close to 16,000 ft above sea level! The air was so thin! I walked at a snails pace, but I made it – and it even started snowing while we were up there!) We were actually aiming to reach the glacier that sits near the top of this mountain, but our guide ended up being less than honest and we weren’t able to go to the top :/. It was still beautiful though!

It was a young girl taking our photo in front of Cotopaxi. She said “Give a kiss!”Mountain man – or, I guess, volcano man 🙂

—— The refuge to which we hiked and ate lunch. This is the place that it snowed while we were there 🙂

The next day we headed to a different volcano (Pichincha) from which you can view other volcanoes in the area. It was a little to cloudy to see, but above is a picture of all the potential viewable volcanoes. The tall one in the middle (Cotopaxi) is where we were in the above photos.

This hike we also cheated on a little. A cable car carried us pretty far up and then we hiked around for the views. Still pretty high in elevation, but nothing compared to the day before! Here are some of the views:

—— Kirk switched backpacks with me this day so I could practice carrying the heavier one (we’ll be doing a four day trek with our big packs in a few weeks!). Also, this backpack is one of my favorite things we got for the trip. It’s a day pack that packs down smaller than one of those 8 oz cans of coke, but is incredibly comfortable and sturdy even with no padding. It’s nice when you don’t want to have to unpack another bag to carry around!

On to Buenos Aires:

We flew into Buenos Aires, Argentina on January 13th. We had hoped to visit some beaches, but it turns out that the nice beaches are not near the city. In fact, we went to one nature reserve that had a beach on the side of it and the water was as brown as a muddy river. There were signs posted saying it wasn’t safe to swim because of pollution 😬. We were a little disappointed to miss out on the beach, but spent our days there seeing some of the city sites.

Recoleta cemetery was the most interesting cemetery I’ve ever seen. I’ve been in graveyards with raised graves before, but these were especially tall and many were covered in statues. There are a few other pictures posted on Instagram and Facebook if you are interested.

This is Eva Peron’s grave. She is a former actress and First Lady of Argentina who, in her short life, made huge strides for women. She seems very loved by people here (it’s the only grave we saw covered in flowers) and many people attribute Argentina having already had a woman president to the strides made by Eva (often called Evita).

This is a picture from the nature reserve we visited in Buenos Aires.

This is Plaza De Mayo, which sits in front of the Pink Palace. We hear many protests go on here – which is pretty evident based on the political statements posted all over the Plaza.

I currently don’t remember what these buildings are but they are next to the Plaza and are beautiful!

Most of the cities we’ve been in have had a lot of political artwork all over the city. I like it- most of it anyway. Some of it shows the voice of the people while others show the nations history.

This pizza place has almost 7,000 positive reviews on trip advisor – open since 1932. It was, of course, delicious!

And just for kicks, here’s what we look like when we travel. One bag in front, one bag in back. Honestly, my front bag is almost entirely filled with snacks 😂. It’s fullness comes and goes :).

— That’s all for now! Whew, it feels good to be caught up!

It’s only been about two weeks, but so much has happened since I last posted a blog! We are currently in Buenos Aires Argentina, where we came from Quito, Ecuador, but Kirk and I started off the New Year in Banos, Ecuador where (after the big celebration I already posted about) we did some hiking and a spa day. We also had a two day setback because I got sick again – this time with some kind of sinus thing and a fever. (Seriously, in all my other travels, I never got sick like this!) We didn’t do much of anything those two days, but after I got better we boarded a bus and headed to Lago Agrio where we boarded another bus to Cuyabeno Reserve. There, we loaded our things onto a motorized canoe and set off down the river for a two hour journey to the Caiman Lodge in the middle of the amazon. The amazon is our topic for today.

If you’ve ever asked me if I have any regrets in life, I would have said that I tend to not regret much, but one of my biggest regrets was not going to the Peruvian Amazon when I was already in Peru and had the opportunity. Being a college student at the time, an extra $300 journey didn’t seem that appealing to me until people came back with pictures and I realized what I had missed! Well, this was my opportunity to make up for that (and for cheaper!), and the experience definitely lived up to the hype!

We were in the amazon for four days and three nights. There was no internet and we only had power from 6-10 pm (they ran generators so that we could charge our camera), but it was really nice to be away! This will be a long post, but continue on to hear how we spent our days and to see some pics of what we saw and did. (Apologies for grainy pictures! We only have our phones and a water camera and many of these were taken on a moving boat!)

Day one:

Two hour boat ride to the lodge. It poured down rain on us almost the entire ride, but somewhere in the middle of the downpours we spotted squirrel monkeys (which travel in groups of 100-200), a baby caiman (like, a crocodile), and lots of colorful birds! The scenery itself was amazing – lush greens, palms, and huge trees covered in vines/root systems from plants living on them. The small plants growing on the trees had roots that grew and grew until they reached the river below! It was beautiful!

In the rain, on the boat, in our provided ponchos

Cool vine tree!

After arriving at the lodge we rested and then got back on the boat to see the sunset in the nearby lagoon, where we also swam. This lagoon is also where pink river dolphins search for food. We didn’t see any this night but did later in our trip!

Here are some photos:

Our building- that’s kirk in the hammock on the bottom right.

Our fellow tourists and the lodge lookout tower

Our room with our mosquito nets (though there weren’t many mosquitoes – I let it down in hope of keeping out the tarantulas 😳 and it did 🙂 )

Swimming in the lagoon at sunset—

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Day 2:

We began the day with a nature walk – our tour guide, Washington, (who we later found out was the owner of the lodge) was amazing! He and another local named Luis toured a group of 23 of us around the jungle (which actually turned out to not be too many of us). I thought this might be some kind of hokey thing where they have animals planted somewhere (or they know the animal’s home) and we would just walk to them, but that was not the case. These guys would hear a noise and make everyone get silent and start searching. They spotted animals that I often had trouble seeing even when they were pointing at them! They could identify all the animals/birds by sound, and easily spotted insects on trees and leaves. We went off the beaten path for quite a while – crossing rivers when we found small fallen trees and treading through mud and swamp areas. (They provided boots, thankfully!). It was quite an adventure!

Monkeys we saw! They moved so fast it was hard to get a picture!

Mitad Del Mundo (Middle of the world- the equator) in the Amazon

They called these prehistoric stinky birds. Apparently these guys have two stomachs and the way in which they digest food makes them smelly enough to ward off predators. They are pretty big and can’t fly far.

We saw many colorful parrots, but this is the only one we got a picture of that you could actually see the color! He’s green, so he blends in, but he’s in the middle of the trunk if you have trouble finding him!

We saw many trails of leaf cutter ants. This is a terrible picture, but under each of those leaf pieces is a tiny ant carrying it! There’s a video on insta/facebook that gives a better look.

After the jungle walk we began our search for an anaconda. We’d heard one of the locals say the night before that there was an anaconda that was currently easy to get to because it’s shedding. I thought this might mean that you follow the skin to find it, but it actually means something quite different. Apparently, when anacondas shed they are very vulnerable. Their skin becomes sensitive, so they sort of hide out to protect themselves. So…we went to the anaconda’s hiding spot – in the middle of vine like trees, growing in knee deep muddy waters.

We didn’t walk for long before I gave up and let the water flood my boots. We waded for several minutes before one of the fellow tourists spotted it. The snake was just hanging out in the water, part of him wrapped around a branch with his head barely out of the water. We gathered around it like we were at the zoo – Kirk and I both within five feet of the head of this at least 13 foot long wild snake (the one they’d found the day before was over 20 feet!) One girl took a picture with her hand about 3 inches from this thing’s middle section. It just sat there – vulnerable. I’m still shocked you can get that close.

Can you see it?

Here’s some help if you are having trouble

This helps show how close we were…though it was bigger than it looks here.

That evening we went out on the boat looking for caimans. They feed at night and when you shine a light into the water near the banks, their eyes shine bright. We don’t have pictures, but it was a cool experience!

Day 3:

This was the most touristy day. We visited a nearby village where they painted our face with tribal designs and taught us how to make yucca bread. As a group we harvested, grated, and baked the bread. Really, the best part of the morning was our conversation with Washington. While the group was working on the bread we asked our guide about where he was from. While he is not Huaorani, it turns out that Washington’s father is the Godfather of the son of the man who killed Jim Elliot (End of the Spear). He said that half the Huaorani are now peaceful people while the other half split off and kill anyone who comes into their territory. It was fascinating hearing about the history of the tribe and how people there view this story that’s now famous in American Christian circles. He said that they don’t want to kill anyone, they just want to be left alone, and killing is one of the only ways they’ve been able to get their message across. Violence is a universal language. That half of the Huaorani people are now one of the only tribes of what is considered uncontacted/isolated peoples in Ecuador. They have no contact with the developed world and according to our guide, the reason is because of negative experiences with oil companies. And all judgements aside, it’s pretty fascinating that this group of people are the some of the only ones who have been able to hold back the all consuming influence of the modern world, even if it’s been through violence.

The “paint” is fruit!

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This is our guide, Luis, with the woman who taught us to make the bread. The plants near her are yucca plants and the part you eat is the root (seen in the next picture)

It pretty much tastes like potatoes.

After eating we headed to the Shawman, or healer of the community. He showed us some of his medicine tricks and Kirk volunteered for a demonstration. The shawman sang while hitting him in the back with a prickly plant (pictured below)

—This is the prickly plant!This is a picture of Kirks back after the demonstration (the guy sitting next to him volunteered too!) It looks painful, but they said it’s supposed to relax you. We don’t know what was in that plant, but by evening Kirk was saying he definitely felt more relaxed and he slept great that night.

After this we tested our luck with a blow dart. We both came close to the target!

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This is a swarm of butterflies we saw by the village.

After leaving the village we went with our guide to see if we could catch a piranha…he did…

Look at those teeth!

After watching the sunset again in the lagoon, we went on a night walk – a walk through the jungle to look for night creatures (i.e. creepy things). We saw tarantulas, giant wolf spiders, scorpion spiders, scorpions, and a leaf bug. Take a look at a few…

TarantulaLeaf (top) next to a bug that looks like a leaf. (How our guide spotted all these in the dark still baffles me)

That is a scorpion spider on my face. I volunteered when they said they aren’t dangerous, mostly because it reminded me of something out of Harry Potter😂. It started on top of my head, which seems a little less creepy, ha.

Day four:

We got up early to watch the sunrise in the lagoon and then did some bird watching before packing up for our two hour boat ride back!

Overall it was a fantastic trip! I’d recommend the Caiman lodge to anyone!

I leave you with another sunset picture 🙂

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Y’all. New Years in Ecuador is crazy interesting! (And sometimes just crazy!) We read about some of the traditions surrounding New Years here and decided to head to a small town to celebrate instead of staying in the capital in hopes of there being a little less chaos. I think our plan worked out well, because there was plenty of craziness here, even with the rain that went on all night!

It seems that perhaps the biggest New Years tradition here in Ecuador is the burning of grievances right at midnight when the New year begins – or at least this is the starting point for the other activities that occur. Don’t take the idea of burning your grievances too lightly in your mind though – it’s not a “write your grievances on a paper and burn it to forget about it” kind of deal, but rather more of a “dress a dummy up like a person you are mad at and set them on fire at midnight” kind of burning of grievances. People make piñatas and masks and sell them in advance for people to put outside their businesses and homes. Here is one store set up selling masks and piñatas:

And here is a business with a dummy all set up and the grievances listed (with additional peoples faces glued on to call them out as well:

The sign translates to “I carry the corruption”

Or how about this huge one with Pablo Escobar (Though you’d think someone would have aired their grievances earlier than just now?)

We think that translates indirectly to something like “money or bullets” (silver or lead)

There are also lots of regular and creepy looking piñatas outside of business, though they weren’t as interesting to get pictures of :). Lots of cartoon characters as well as several creepy clowns (I have a picture of one of those below) and Chucky/other movie killers. Here’s a huge one that we couldn’t figure out who it was:

At midnight, all these guys, big and small, are thrown into the middle of the street and set on fire. If you can’t tell, it was pouring down rain, but that didn’t stop the fires! They doused these guys in gasoline and lighter fluid and every street was shut down because there was a fire every 30 feet or so.

At the same time that these guys are being burned, people everywhere start setting off fireworks. In the street, on the sidewalk, from their hands – young and old. I saw one kid light a firework and throw it at another kid! In this small valley the explosions echoed off the mountains and came from everywhere! I watched people running trying to avoid being hit! It was crazy! Kirk turned to me and said, “This is why we have city ordinances against fireworks.” 😂

Strangely enough, this wasn’t the craziest part of the celebration though! The craziest part were the young men! It is also tradition in Ecuador for the young men to dress in drag to represent the widows of the men being burning that evening 😂. They don women’s clothes, wigs, fake body parts, and take to the streets. They put up road blocks (from what we saw, by dancing in the streets) and don’t move until people give them beer money to drink away their sorrows. It’s not only cars they stop either. Sometimes they circle around an individual walking down the street. As crazy as it was, it was also peaceful in the sense that they only stand in a person’s way- no violence. It’s such a tradition that everyone just goes along with it! It’s impossible to merely be a onlooker here – if you are out and about – you are participating! Here’s a group looking for someone to encircle:

Here’s one of the road blocks we encountered…thankfully, they don’t harass taxis! (Note the giant clown someone made too!)

The guy in the purple wig 😂.

By evening, traffic was basically stopped everywhere.

The smoke in the sky is where someone just shot a firework from the sidewalk.

Also, we haven’t figured out the tradition behind this, but the kids get in on the action too. I think its probably just them mimicking the young men, but also during the day and evening, kids put on costumes of all kinds and trap people until you give them candy or change. Kirk and I got tied up twice (literally!) in a rope. Here’s one group of kids who got us:

Here’s another kid we saw stopping cars using a rope tied to a pole:

It’s like Halloween, but being outside of your house is the equivalent to having your porch light on 😂!

The are other traditions we saw, but I don’t have pictures of them. For example, there are people selling grapes everywhere on the street because tradition says that if you eat 12 grapes at midnight you will have a good year. We got in on this action since were missing out on black eyed peas and cabbage this year :).

It’s also worth noting, when we are talking about currency – the change we handed over when we got caught in the kids rope and didn’t have candy – it was American change. Ecuador uses American currency. It was a little shocking when we first got here and realized we needed our own currency and it’s even more surprising the amount of half dollars and US dollar coins we’ve used daily. If you want to collect half dollars or those liberty lady dollar coins that never seemed to catch on (at least in the south) come to Ecuador!

Overall it was an unforgettable New Years – it even continued on to today. We visited the best known waterfall in the area and saw young men blocking the road, still in drag and a few costumes. In fact, on the way back to Banos, an approximately 8 mile bus ride took an hour and 45 minutes because these guys were blocking the road. Traffic was backed up for miles, but no one seemed to care. Each car gave them money as they drove by!

Even the maps showed everything stopped!

Anyway, that should give you a full enough picture of how we celebrated the New Year! I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the falls. They were huge and beautiful!

Happy New Year!!

Two days after Christmas we said goodbye to Colombia and hello to Ecuador. We are now in Banos, Ecuador preparing to celebrate the New Year (and by preparing, I mean napping – or atleast I will be after I post this 🙂 ) Prepare yourself for the next blog post, because the New Years traditions here are pretty interesting and I can’t wait to post some pictures!

Our final days in Colombia were filled with fun and relaxing. I’ll tell you about our final favorite experiences there and save our Ecuadorian adventures for next time. Since I last posted we visited a Coffee Finca (Coffee farm/plantation); played Tejo, a traditional Colombian game; toured a nature reserve; and rode horses down the mountains to a waterfall. These are certainly all more interesting with pictures, so I’ll narrate while posting a few.

The coffee tour was very interesting, but not in the way we thought it would be. I LOVE a good cup of coffee and could hardly wait to go to a finca, see how the coffee grows and is harvested, watch (and smell) them roast the beans, and then have a delicious, incredibly fresh cup of coffee! Though we only visited one farm, based on the terrible coffee we had throughout most of our time in Colombia, I’m thinking that for the most part, growers of coffee are good at growing good beans, while specialty roasters and baristas are best at perfecting the actual cup of coffee. As it turns out, most Colombians are drinking what is considered lower grade coffees because the farmers export all the higher grade beans. At one point in our tour the farm owner put the freshly harvested coffee beans in water to soak and showed us how they all sank. He said that there are usually some beans that float and those beans aren’t as high a quality as the sinkers. He said that all sinkers are exported, and all beans that float are used in country and either over roasted to hide the lack of taste, or turned into instant coffee. No wonder we had so much terrible coffee in a place known for coffee!

Here are a few pictures to document the experience:

The life of a bean:

Green= not ripe

Red and yellow = ripe (different colors because they come from different coffee varieties)

Black= overripe

When the red and yellow pods are squeezed, the whiteish beans come out. The beans have a naturally occurring sugar on them that is taken out by being soaked in water several times (this is where you see the sinkers and floaters). The beans are then sun dried and after they are dry, the outer peel comes off, leaving green beans, which is what is then shipped out to be roasted (or roasted on the spot).

On a side note – though there are tons of varieties of coffee grown in Colombia, it largely boils down to two groups – modern plants and traditional plants. From what we tasted, modern beans taste more like Folgers, and traditional beans taste more like coffee from a specialty shop in the states. And if you ever go to Colombia and want a delicious cup of coffee, go to Jesus Martinez in Salento – 😍. Juan Valdez has some pretty good coffees too, and you can find them everywhere (even some places in the States now)

A baby coffee plant.

The actual bean comes out of the ground and opens up into two green leaves.

Lots of coffee plants growing in the shade of banana trees (shade grown coffee)

Bugs prefer tobacco plants over coffee plants, so random tobacco plants are placed throughout the farm to keep the bugs away from the coffee.

Beans drying – Tipica and Bourbon are two of the delicious traditional varieties.

That’s enough about coffee for now. On to Tejo! Tejo is a game that is kind of like corn hole in the States, but it’s played with heavy metal pucks instead of bean bags, and you are throwing at a clay/mud pit. In the center of the pit are triangle papers filled with gun powder that are placed on top of the center metal ring. If you hit the packets right, there is an explosion. There are a few more rules and ways to gain points than making something explode, but the explosion is definitely the most fun part! I posted a video on insta, or here are a few terrible quality pics of us playing.

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One Christmas Eve we visited a nature reserve called Kasaguadua. These guys are doing some really cool work to take care of the forests native to Colombia. They have a small eco lodge set up in the reserve that is focused on finding ways for people to have as small of an impact on the environment as possible. The guy who led the tour was so knowledgeable about the plants, forests, and history of the area. If you are ever in Salento, this place is worth the visit. It’s a beautiful reserve and a great learning experience.

Our group and guide in the forest. Us 🙂The “bamboo” is huge (they don’t call it bamboo because its different than what we see at home, but similar!)I think the moss that grows on everything is beautiful!

Onto our final activity in Salento – horseback riding. We went horseback riding on Christmas Day to Santa Rita, a nearby waterfall. I’ve only ridden a horse two or three times in my life and riding one up and down a mountain was terrifying, but a really wonderful experience! Though I was terrified when we started, I felt really calm by the end. Kirk, of course, was a pro. All our pictures were taken by him or our guide because I had a death grip on the saddle 😳😂. Here are a few pics!

———Through the river! I was thankful for the boots they lent us!Through the tunnel! It was much cooler in person. This is an old train tunnel that was constructed, but the rails were never put in!The river that waterfall fell into.Some of the beautiful scenery we saw while riding!

Us at the waterfall 🙂

Overall it was a different Christmas than we expected, but filled with some really good memories. We originally planned on heading to the town square for Christmas Eve because we heard there would be a big celebration and the police would hand out presents to local kids (which I think sounds like a great idea!), but it ended up pouring down rain! We spent Christmas Eve with pizza and a bottle of wine at a nearby restaurant, followed by popcorn and a Netflix movie in our room, but it was wonderful all the same. Here’s a picture of some kid sized “Willys” and horses that kids could ride in around the square (before the downpour on Christmas Eve).

Okay, that’s more than enough catching up for now! Stay tuned for our New Years Eve Adventures. I’m sure it will be quite a night!

Yesterday we hiked Cocora Valley and it was AMAZING. We’ve been trying to figure out how far we hiked and at what elevation, and based on different articles we found on the internet, we guesstimate it was about 7.7 miles with approximately a 2000 ft rise in elevation. At the top we were close to 10,000 ft in elevation. I’m pretty sore today, but it was totally worth it! Pictures never seem to fully capture what you see, but we were impressed by how some of these turned out that were taken with our phones!

For those of you unfamiliar with the area, there is a trail that loops all the way through the valley. We were advised to take the loop counter clockwise, as to see the wax palms last (the big draw of the valley) and in the best sunlight. This also allowed us to take the steepest part of the mountain going up, rather than down, which we now know was an excellent decision.

The trail started with a pretty boring path, contained by barbed wire. The view gradually got better as we got closer to the mountains. We had no idea what was coming though!

We soon found ourselves in a jungle- and these pictures don’t do it justice. There were lush greens everywhere with exotic flowers and at least a 10 degree drop in temperature. There were moss covered vines, giant stones, and rustic bridges crossing over a rushing river that we were able to listen to and walk beside for several hours.

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The bridges reminded me of a trampoline. If we walked to different beats, we just bounced each other around!

Our first long stop was to have lunch at the hummingbird house!

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About two hours in, our first stop was a hummingbird house. There were several feeders set up to draw in the birds and the signs posted named ten different types of hummingbirds you could see – I’m pretty sure we saw them all! I stood within two feet of the feeders and the birds didn’t mind! They zoom around so quickly that it startled me several times when they came close to my head! The one with the long tail was SO beautiful! I posted a short video on insta that is a little cooler than these pictures. Even being so close, it’s difficult to get pictures because they come and go so quickly!

Our next stop – the top!

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Our next stop was the top of the mountain. It was a steep climb to get there, but we were greeted by a precious house with beautiful flowers (huge succulents!), and a picturesque view.

We than began our descent back down using the dirt road on the other side of the house (not near as beautiful as the jungle, but a much more gradual decline!) until we made it to the valley.

Y’all. It was beautiful! If you ever do this hike make sure you leave around 10-11am as to not miss this beautiful lighting! This is me next to one of the taller trees we saw 😳🤗. If you missed it in the last post, they grow up to 200ft tall!

———(I’m not currently injured. The knee brace was for protection from an injury long ago. It was easy on my knees going up the mountain, but hard coming down, and the brace offered some assurance!)

There’s no filter or editing on those pictures 🙂

Also, we didn’t get any good pictures, but we saw at least ten yellow eared parrots flying into their nests inside the wax tree trunks. We learned later that these beautiful birds are endangered and we are now surprised we saw any at all, and especially so many! At first they just looked like average dark colored birds flying together, but as they got closed and turned, the light shone on them, and their vibrant green feathers awed us! I must say, those are some pretty noisy creatures though 😂. They have quite the squawk!

We ended our day as we began it, riding a “Willy”. The only form of taxis in Salento are these very old Jeeps that are in pristine condition that they call Willys. Ours ended up having 14 people in and on it in total. It’s not great quality, but this is a picture of the one that left prior to ours.

I’m telling you, Salento is a charming place and it’s surrounded by so much beauty!

We made it to Salento last night and so far, we love it here! This is the first place that has felt truly restful to us, although that may just be because the hustle and bustle of city life isn’t what we are used to back home anyway. Either way, this is the first place we would highly recommend you visit! There is actual good coffee here (not just good, but excellent, double shade grown coffee!), the people are friendly, the vibe is relaxed, the scenery is beautiful, the temperature is currently 50’s at night and low 70’s in the day, and since it’s a village, you don’t have all the exhaust pollution you smell in the big cities. There are also several coffee farms you can visit and lots of places to hike, so we are most excited to be here a week!

Unfortunately, I ended up having a relapse of sickness right after I posted the last blog, but am on the up again now. It’s really hard to find food here that isn’t fried, and we think that contributed to it taking longer to recover than anticipated. Here’s hoping we are actually past it now! I’ve basically been ill a fourth of the days we’ve been gone!

Anyway, as promised, below are some of the foods we’ve been eating! We’ve actually found most Colombian food to not have as much flavor as many of the foods we’ve had in other places. They seem to use few spices, and to Kirk’s disappointment, nothing is spicy- it’s even difficult to find hot sauce or hot peppers in the store! We’ve still found a few things we like though!

We’ll start with one of my favorites, Caldo de Castillo (Rib Soup). This is a pretty simple breakfast soup that you can find everywhere – you can even get it to go in a little styrofoam cup from many street vendors. I haven’t looked up a recipe, but it seems to basically be a portion of beef with potatoes and cilantro, in a beef broth. It’s delicious. I never knew I could like soup for breakfast so much! Don’t be fooled by that coffee though – pretty much all the restaurants serve instant coffee.

Here’s another day I had the soup, but Kirk’s had eggs. Eggs with tomato and onion seem to be pretty traditional too. The white patties you see are arepas – pretty much a little corn patty. They come plain, stuffed or with cheese on top and they are the food I have seen most often. It’s also probably worth mentioning that Kirk and I can both eat breakfast here for $3–$4 total. Good stuff.

This is one of my favorite meals we had, though I don’t think it’s very traditional. We picked a restaurant to go to our first night in Santa Marta, grabbed a cab, and showed the driver where it was located on the map. He headed off in the opposite direction, drove about 20 minutes, and dropped us off while pointing to the left saying “it is there” (in Spanish). We got out of the car and to our surprise, there was a huge food truck area. It wasn’t where we planned on going, but it was delicious. We split a huge pile of grilled chicken, sausage, and beef, with sweet coleslaw on top, pieces of arepa, and a few fresh fries on the bottom. It was more than enough for the both of us and was about $8.

Here we have my real favorite that you can also find just about anywhere. Mango juice with milk. Nearly every menu has different fresh juice options that you can have with water or milk. We decided to try milk when it was suggested to us, and since we were unsure about drinking the water. I don’t know what’s in this, but I’m sure it’s terrible for you. It basically tastes like fresh mango juice and ice cream, and it’s always been served to me in a cup that large 😍.

Here is the meal we shared at La Puerta Falsa, a famous restaurant in Bogota that was founded in 1816, yeah, 200 years old. This is all really traditional food. Hot chocolate served with buttered bread, corn bread, and cheese (it seems to always come with this, and you dip the bread in the hot chocolate); a traditional Colombian tamale with a whole chicken leg in the middle; and Ajiaco, a traditional Colombian soup with corn, chicken, and capers as well as avocado, cream, and rice on the side. We love the tamale, but could leave the soup.

And finally, something not traditional at all, but delicious, this is a meal we had at a French restaurant in Santa Marta. Kirk had a “Seafood Casserole” that tasted like étouffée, and I had garlic shrimp with mashed potatoes, avocado, and fried plantains. SO good!

Other traditional things you find everywhere here that I don’t have pictures of – fried empanadas, papa rellena (a ball of mashed potatoes that are stuffed with meat and deep fried), fried plantains (yum!) , other fried things that I haven’t tried yet to tell you what they are, and then fish with coco rice (like I posted in the last blog).

Tonight we head to a food truck park that is here in Salento. I’m excited to see if the food at this one is as tasty as the one in Santa Marta. We’ll see!

I leave you with a picture of poinsettias that are outside of our hostel room. I didn’t know until today that poinsettias grow up to 15ft tall…yep.

We’ve now been traveling about a week and a half. So far, we’ve spent a little bit of time in the capital of Colombia, Bogota, sitting at coffee houses figuring out where to go and what to do next, and the rest of our days at the beaches in and around Santa Marta, Colombia, trying to relax. We are currently back in the capital for a few days before heading on to coffee country for Christmas, which is probably the part of Colombia I am most excited about :). We’ll be staying at a hostel connected to a coffee farm, and we’ll have free coffee and a tour of the farm to come with it! We plan on spending Christmas with people we meet at the hostel and possibly the owners of the farm. We’ll also probably do some hiking in the area too. The tallest palm trees in the world are in a valley right outside of the city and they reach up 200 ft!

So far our time in Colombia has been pretty eventful. It seems like something unexpected has happened just about everyday! We’ve been accidentally locked out of the bedroom in one of the apartments we rented with no key in existence (they broke the door handle off to get us back in and then took our keys to the entire apartment – still unsure if that was an accident or on purpose). In another lodging situation, the person tried to lodge us in a room in their personal house when we had paid to rent their apartment next door. We ended up in the apartment, but it turned out to be a little sketchy. Maybe the best summary is to say that there were used needles in the freezer of that apartment and eventually, rat droppings on the counter. We have also each spent one day of our travel days pretty seriously ill with stomach problems and another semi ill/in recovery (We are now finally on the up and up and in a precious apartment we love!)

Colombia itself is pretty interesting. It has a little bit of everything- beaches surrounded by mountains, mountains surrounded by valleys, and even a few deserts nearby. In one week we’ve traveled from 8,000 ft above sea level, to seaside and back again. The temperature has ranged from upper 30’s to 90’s. There is tourism here, but not in abundance. We’ve encountered less than a handful of Americans and very few English speakers, though there do seem to be a lot of people who vacation around Colombia from surrounding cities and countries – and some from Europe too. It’s been beautiful to see so much of the local culture still intact, and so many beaches and areas of beauty not overrun by salesmanship. Of course, there are some places that are more touristy than others, but it’s a different kind of touristy than back home.

Rodadero beach seems to be a popular beach for locals and tourists. We spent a few hours there on the end of the beach with fewer people, but found a beach a few blocks down to be much more peaceful (and cheaper!). The dog in the picture was a stray who was having such fun by himself chasing the waves :).

Salguero Beach was our favorite. It had huge waves and a couple of locals who had set up tents to rent ($5 for the whole day) as well as 2 local women who would cook fresh fish and deliver it to you on the beach. This was our tent one day.

These are us getting pelted by the huge waves there 😂

A couple of the beach itself

This is Taganga, where many of the locals go to eat fresh fish. We were there on Sunday, so it was very busy. You take a bus to Taganga and then a boat to the shore with restaurants.

This is us eating fish. It was the best fish we had by far! I had snapper and Kirk had a parrot fish. All the fish we had in and around Santa Marta came with coconut rice and fried plantains and sometimes a bowl of fish soup. The rice is delicious! It doesn’t have pieces of coconut in it, but has a strong coconut flavor. We are thinking maybe they cook it in coconut milk and then fry it? Maybe we’ll find a recipe to share :).

I posted a couple of pictures of Bogota on instagram if you’d like to see some of those. I’ll try to get some of our other food pictures up in the next blog. Then you’ll have an idea of some of the other traditional stuff around here!