almost 3 months...

Last Update of the trip with photos to come later!

Where to begin again…. I’ll start with the present and digress.  I am now with Sarah in San Pedro Guatemala on lake Atitlan.  I arrived here three days ago late, tired and with no Sarah in sight.  My flight was over booked, how they like to do things in Central America, so I ended up being about 4 hours late after a late connection in Costa Rica.  Sarah waited for about 3 hours and with no phone, Internet or news left.  I arrived and waited a half hour and took a taxi to where I thought she was.  After the taxi was nice enough to stop at 3 Mc Donald’s in Guatemala city to check for WiFi with no luck, each one telling me the next one had wireless I gave up and headed north to the lake.  I found a hostel with WiFi and checked my email.  Sarah was here but I didn’t know where so I wrote her and got some food.  I finally heard from her via email and all was good after a shitty stressful day.  Without cell phones….wow.

The lake here is beautiful but lake Tahoe might take the cake…its preference.  This one has volcanoes surrounding it with little towns all around the lake.  Sarah will be living here for who knows how long.  For the next two weeks we will travel around Guatemala.  Tikal and the jungle are tops on the list since I didn’t see much in South America and Maya ruins instead of Inca.  I also hear stories of underwater caves and zip lines in the rainforest…always wanted to do it but know they gut tourists for it.  After that I’ll be home…sending you more photos (if you like) let me know if you don’t want group email links to photos saving you that one extra click of the delete button a day.

Before I made my way up to Central America I was in Puerto Natales where I hiked in Torres Del Paine after I had been sick for about 5 days so the hike was cut in half but still I loved it despite the wind, rain and snow.  It was in the top 3 of the trip for sure.  I made plenty of friends in the town and hostel I stayed at before I left.

After Puerto Natales I took a bus to Punta Arenas, which is 10 hours north of the most southern city in the world.  I came here to catch a flight to Santiago Chile and see some penguins.  Enjoying the wind for the last time in Patagonia. 
Making it to Santiago on the 30th with a day to buy bad sunglasses and eat more ice cream before new years.  I went with Pita (a friend from Santiago) I stayed with her when I was sick the first time…anyway I went with her to her mom’s house to celebrate New Years with her mom and aunt.  They were so cute and it was nice to have someone to spend New Years with…. let alone a family (Chilean).  After midnight we took a taxi to Pitas house for a party and then a van came to pick me up for the airport at 4:30am.  After beer, wine, champagne and whiskey it was a great ride….ahhhh.  Getting into Lima Peru around 10am and off to bed at a shitty hostel with 4 other guys in the room, I hate dorms.  All I want to do is sleep and I’ve found the party hostel of Lima.  The next night I found my own room for way too much money but it was worth it!  And that brings me to Guatemala after flight delays and overbooking I found Sarah and the lake.  Good to be here.  I’ll be back soon and have an awesome home coming party so look out for invitations and you better come!

Love you all,

Hablar pronto!

e

Torres Del Paine….(left) The Torres at sunrise…what we could see of them.  Cloudy, cold windy and some snow, Still amazing.

Torres Del Paine….(left)

The Torres at sunrise…what we could see of them.  Cloudy, cold windy and some snow, Still amazing.


Hike up to the Torres…last day at 5am.  Amazing, but so cold and windy!

Hike up to the Torres…last day at 5am.  Amazing, but so cold and windy!


PATAGONIA This hostel in Puerto Natales Chile with the coolest owners from Oregon.  Where i was sick for days and they took care of me.

PATAGONIA

This hostel in Puerto Natales Chile with the coolest owners from Oregon.  Where i was sick for days and they took care of me.


The real update…make sure you look and read furthur below!

Ok, so the last post I did about 10 days ago and just published it.  I’m currently in Argentina (El Calafate)  I just got done with El Chalten where Fitz Roy is and it was amazing.  Ice climbing, glaciers and hiking.  I have a feeling majority of photos will be published well after they’re creation date.  I found it silly to be spending too much time working on images while I’m traveling….only editing.  I leave for Puerto Natales tonight and will start my treck in Torres Del Paine on the 18th.  I will be out in the mountains and glaciers for 8 days or so.  Going to be a challenge with a huge pack but worth it.  I will write before I head off and hopefully publish some more pics!

Love ya’ll

em

One more from Valparaiso!

One more from Valparaiso!


Valparaiso, Chile Valparaiso is about 1 1/2 hours from Santiago.  It’s a large port and has lot’s of art and culture.  Expensive and no beach…have to go north.  This is the city i tried to go surfing out of and no luck.  Overall cool place but wouldn’t go back anytime soon.  Cool old cars and graffiti.  Sorta the S.F. of Chile….but San Francisco in CA is better!

Valparaiso, Chile

Valparaiso is about 1 1/2 hours from Santiago.  It’s a large port and has lot’s of art and culture.  Expensive and no beach…have to go north.  This is the city i tried to go surfing out of and no luck.  Overall cool place but wouldn’t go back anytime soon.  Cool old cars and graffiti.  Sorta the S.F. of Chile….but San Francisco in CA is better!


Santiago, Chile The view of Santiago..(one side) from San Cristobal.  The highlight of the city.  This mountian has a zoo, swimming pools, a gondola and a Japanese garden!  I got to go out for a couple days when i wasn’t feeling like death while i was there and didn’t take any pictures really.  So here’s one for you*

Santiago, Chile

The view of Santiago..(one side) from San Cristobal.  The highlight of the city.  This mountian has a zoo, swimming pools, a gondola and a Japanese garden!  I got to go out for a couple days when i wasn’t feeling like death while i was there and didn’t take any pictures really.  So here’s one for you*


The pool that nearly killed me!  READ THIS BLOG IT’S NEW!  (well 10 days new) It´s been a while since my last post….i´ll try to remember all that´s happend since.  Last you all heard i was on my death bed for two weeks and i seem to be better now.  All that´s left is a nice cough that showed up after i was feeling good enough to go out and two nights was all it took to run me down again.  So aside from that i think i´m going to make it. After being in Santiago Chile for two weeks where i stayed with the sweetest girl that i met in Cusco Peru who is from Santiago.  After 3 days in the hostal with my illness i couldn´t hack it anymore and looked her up.  She saved me and wanted to tell you all about her.  After healing I headed west to the coast to a town called Valparaiso.  It is suppose to be like the San Francisco of Chile…being the largest port with hills and lots of art and culture it turned out to be pretty cool.  I spent 3 or 4 days there that consisted of a city tour, boat tour, a full day attempting to go surfing….The guy that i was hanging out with who is from Australia i met in Copacabana Bolivia, he was staying for 3 months to practice his music and of course live somewhere else for a while.  Anyways, we left in the morning after our hostels amazing breakie to a surf shop where we would meet a van that would take us to the beach and he would have lessons….we missed the bus because we wanted to have breakfast and ended up having to go to the beach to get his board…(a 3 hour ordeal) then caught another bus up north another for an hour to a better beach with shit waves.  He had a board and a suit so he went in and i just relaxed on the beach.  It was a long day of hunting for buses, riding them…with some beach in the middle and empenadas of course.After about 3 weeks in the city i was ready for something smaller.  I took a 12 hour bus south to Pucon from Valparaiso.  Pucon is a small lovely town in the mountains with a lot of lakes and volcanos.  There was lots of rafting, hiking, canopy tours….(whatever they can think of)  and something called hydro-speeding.  I never heard of it but wanted to try it since rafting makes me a nervous reck but i´m always so happy after i do it.  I´ll try to explain it but i´m sure if you look it up online you can see a picture of what it is i´m talking about.  It´s basically a little triangular boat that your fore arms rest on and it comes down to your stomach.  You go down the rapids on this little thing and hope you don´t flip or lose it.  I was sorta scared at times but after we made it through i was on cloud 9.  The next day we (me and a guy from Australia who lives in London) went hiking in a national park about 35km out of town.  It was beautiful forest with 3 lakes (Los Lagos trail) that we stopped at a long the way.  I could have spent more time out there for sure.  There was a dog that followed us the whole time and we named him lassie because he well…he looked like lassie.  That night we went to some hot springs about the same distance out of town.  There were 6 pools that you could relax in next to the river where we jumped in after getting too hot. We brought some wine and sat around for 2 hours in the toasty spring..(the Australian with two Isralies).  Finally there was a beach near the town that was amazing…it was called playa blanca on a beautiful lake with mountains surrounding it. I went to this beach twice while i was in Pucon because it was so nice.I´m at a bus stop right now waiting for my transfer in 2 hours to Bariloche.  I left Pucon this morning at 8 and stopped at 4 or so other bus stations before getting to this one to wait for a transfer.  It´s crazy half the time is spent stopping to pick up more people or drop someone off.  Gotta fill it up and pay for the gas!  I am planning on being in Bariloche for 5 days or so then its another long bus ride…about 26 hours down south to El Chalten, El Calafate and Puerto Natales…the gateway to patagonia and Torres Del Paine….Look up pictures for Torres Del Paine online…that´s where i´ll be hiking in 2 weeks!  I will try to upload more pictures when i find good internet connections but it´s tricky.  I´ll hold you over with a couple for now.

The pool that nearly killed me!  READ THIS BLOG IT’S NEW!  (well 10 days new)

It´s been a while since my last post….i´ll try to remember all that´s happend since.  Last you all heard i was on my death bed for two weeks and i seem to be better now.  All that´s left is a nice cough that showed up after i was feeling good enough to go out and two nights was all it took to run me down again.  So aside from that i think i´m going to make it.

After being in Santiago Chile for two weeks where i stayed with the sweetest girl that i met in Cusco Peru who is from Santiago.  After 3 days in the hostal with my illness i couldn´t hack it anymore and looked her up.  She saved me and wanted to tell you all about her.  After healing I headed west to the coast to a town called Valparaiso.  It is suppose to be like the San Francisco of Chile…being the largest port with hills and lots of art and culture it turned out to be pretty cool.  I spent 3 or 4 days there that consisted of a city tour, boat tour, a full day attempting to go surfing….The guy that i was hanging out with who is from Australia i met in Copacabana Bolivia, he was staying for 3 months to practice his music and of course live somewhere else for a while.  Anyways, we left in the morning after our hostels amazing breakie to a surf shop where we would meet a van that would take us to the beach and he would have lessons….we missed the bus because we wanted to have breakfast and ended up having to go to the beach to get his board…(a 3 hour ordeal) then caught another bus up north another for an hour to a better beach with shit waves.  He had a board and a suit so he went in and i just relaxed on the beach.  It was a long day of hunting for buses, riding them…with some beach in the middle and empenadas of course.

After about 3 weeks in the city i was ready for something smaller.  I took a 12 hour bus south to Pucon from Valparaiso.  Pucon is a small lovely town in the mountains with a lot of lakes and volcanos.  There was lots of rafting, hiking, canopy tours….(whatever they can think of)  and something called hydro-speeding.  I never heard of it but wanted to try it since rafting makes me a nervous reck but i´m always so happy after i do it.  I´ll try to explain it but i´m sure if you look it up online you can see a picture of what it is i´m talking about.  It´s basically a little triangular boat that your fore arms rest on and it comes down to your stomach.  You go down the rapids on this little thing and hope you don´t flip or lose it.  I was sorta scared at times but after we made it through i was on cloud 9.  The next day we (me and a guy from Australia who lives in London) went hiking in a national park about 35km out of town.  It was beautiful forest with 3 lakes (Los Lagos trail) that we stopped at a long the way.  I could have spent more time out there for sure.  There was a dog that followed us the whole time and we named him lassie because he well…he looked like lassie.  That night we went to some hot springs about the same distance out of town.  There were 6 pools that you could relax in next to the river where we jumped in after getting too hot. We brought some wine and sat around for 2 hours in the toasty spring..(the Australian with two Isralies).  Finally there was a beach near the town that was amazing…it was called playa blanca on a beautiful lake with mountains surrounding it. I went to this beach twice while i was in Pucon because it was so nice.

I´m at a bus stop right now waiting for my transfer in 2 hours to Bariloche.  I left Pucon this morning at 8 and stopped at 4 or so other bus stations before getting to this one to wait for a transfer.  It´s crazy half the time is spent stopping to pick up more people or drop someone off.  Gotta fill it up and pay for the gas!  I am planning on being in Bariloche for 5 days or so then its another long bus ride…about 26 hours down south to El Chalten, El Calafate and Puerto Natales…the gateway to patagonia and Torres Del Paine….Look up pictures for Torres Del Paine online…that´s where i´ll be hiking in 2 weeks!  I will try to upload more pictures when i find good internet connections but it´s tricky.  I´ll hold you over with a couple for now.


Full moom in San Pedro De Atacama desert (Chile)

Full moom in San Pedro De Atacama desert (Chile)