I have so many posts I want to write about some beautiful places we’ve been and people we’ve met. But first I want to write about coming home. I write these blogposts just as much for myself as I do for the thought of someone else reading it. It’s fun to reflect on the places we’ve been and the people we’ve met. Plus it’ll remind me of the good times when I’m old(er!) and gray(er!) š! And who knows? Maybe…
Tierra del Fuego means land of fire. The name Tierra del Fuego was given by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan while sailing for the Spanish Crown in 1520. The reason he gave it this name is because the indigenous people (the Yaghan) that lived there built lots of fires to keep themselves warm. It rains a lot in Patagonia and so rather than wear clothes that would have been wet or damp all the time, they just covered their bodies in animal grease (hmmm…
While we were in Santiago and Valparaiso, we saw a lot of evidence of what the Chilenos call the “Manifestations”. The manifestations are essentially large ongoing protests by the Chilean people about the inequality in their country. We have seen and heard so much about the situation here and it has really made an impact on me so I thought I would do a post about it. We haven’t felt like we were in danger here, but have seen a…
After we spent several days in Santiago, we decided to go out to the coast and visit Valparaiso and ViƱa Del Mar. We took a tour out to “Valpo” as they call it and then the tour company dropped us off at a really nice Marriott hotel in ViƱa Del Mar. We have saved up lots of Marriott rewards points over many years of traveling, so we have been able to stay at some really nice Marriott hotels for free….
We have a lot of blog catching up to do! We’ve been to the Galapagos Islands, Panama, Costa Rica, Los Angeles, Washington State, Atlanta, Pikeville (the Tennessee one, not the Kentucky one), Hilton Head, Crystal River and Miami since our last post! Oh! And by the way, we also got married!š„° One of these days I’m gonna go back in time and write about all of those things. But in the meantime, I’m going to start with what we’re doing…
Hi Everybody š! I have been super bad about our blog here lately. We have been taking Spanish lessons for the past 5 weeks (one week to go) and have made some great friends here in Montanita. We have also been volunteering (Ivan at a clinic and me at an orphanage – blogposts to come on this!) so things have been busy! To get back into the swing of things, I thought I would do a quick post about a…
We rode a bus from Mancora to Guayaquil, Ecuador and then to MontaƱita. The reason for coming to Montanita is to attend a Spanish school here. We have decided that our travels will be more fun and meaningful if we get our Spanish skills up to speed. So we have registered to start classes on Monday. We are staying at an airbnb in a small village named Manglaralto, which is about 2 miles south of MontaƱita. Itās peaceful here with…
We recently stayed at a beach town named Mancora in north Peru. We found a really cool hostel owned by a british man named Mark and his Peruvian wife Julia. The whole place was very whimsical and artistic and was all created by Mark and Juliaās imaginations. We booked it for 3 nights but ended up staying a week. The room was 99 Soles per night which equates to about $29 a night. We just loved it. Here are two…
Our new friends had told us about Peru Hop so we looked into it and decided it sounded like great fun. Itās basically a bus line that takes you on a route from Lima to Cusco with stops at some of the coolest places to see along the way. The whole route only costs $200 per person, which is probably more than double the cost if we had booked the bus tickets on a piecemeal basis, but it was well…
We havenāt had many stories to tell over the past 10 days or so because weāve been sick. Right after we arrived in Huanchaco (a beach town outside the big city of Trujillo) we both got Montezumaās Revenge (āthe revengeā). Ā It put us down for several days š¤¢š±. Ā Fortunately we had booked a small Airbnb apartment for a week so we had decent, private accommodations for this bout. Ā I had gotten sick with the revenge earlier on in our travels…