Lake titcaca pictures

Salt flat pictures

Pictures of machu pichuu

cant post photos now, but we will this week, so peep back

Bolivia-Was life created here?

Copacabana-
After Machu Picchu, we went to Lake titicaca in Bolivia, where the Inkas believe life was created on the Island of the Sun, in the middle of the big lake at 12000 ft. We spent a couple of days hiking around the island trying to answer the never known answer of where life was actually created while transcendentalizing ourselves mind, body and spirt. We were then ready to continue our voyage.

Uyuni, the endless salt falt?
Once upon a time 20000-40000 years ago, there was a gigantic salty lake situated in east southeast Bolivia at 14000 ft. the lake disappeared and now there is a giant salt flat in the middle of a marshen desert in the middle of nowhere Bolivia. The landscape was amazing an like nothing we had ever seen before. We spent four days explore this rugged area in a jeep and hiking around, each day discovering something new.

Walking with the Inkas

After leaving the teaching business, we headed off to Cusco and packed up or gear and headed out on a four day backpacking trip on the Inca trail arriving at Machu Pichuu. We went with a group of 13 others that included Swedes, Aussies, Canadians and Brits. We started walking the first day through amazing landscape with some of the greenest mountains we had ever seen shooting up all around us. We walked for about 4 hours and then reached our lunch spot. This is when we realized that this trip would be entirly different than any other camping trip we had ever done. When we arrived at our lunch spot, there was a tent set up with table and chairs and we were served a lunch cooked by a professional chef. At first we were wondering how all of this was possible, but we quickly realized that the 21 porters that were along the trail with us were carrying all of these things. The porters were some of the smallest men we have seen on our adventures, but they put incredibly large makeshift backpacks on their backs and take off running with all of our gear so they could beat us to camp and set up. Not only were they kick ass little dudes, but they were some of the nicest and friendliest little guys we have ever met. Almost all of the porters opted not to carry water, because it added extra weight. Instead of water, they stopped at stands along the way to buy the local corn beer and rest while they downed a pitcher of the stuff. The porters also loved receiving little snacks and treats. If we ever had leftover snacks or candies, we gave them to the porters, and watched their eyes light up as if they were little kids.

We walked for 2 more rainy days along a winding path that led us up, over, and around several mountain passes, and all the while we were constantly in awe because of the giant green peaks and scattered Inka Archeological sites that we continually discovered.
On our fourth and final day, we woke up several hours before the sun rose so that we could hike the last portion of the Inka trail and arrive at the scenic overlook over Machu Picchu just as the sun was rising. However,there were about 200 other hikers who had the same idea as our group, so the hike up to the overlook was more like a two hour long cattle herd up the side of a mountain, and instead of cattle, there were a bunch of grumpy tourists. We decided to run for the last two hours to try and reach the ruins before the herds of tourists. All in all, our plan actually worked and we reached Machu Picchu before the rest of the hikers and were able to get our hands on some tickets to climb up to waynapicchu the big mountain that is all of the pictures of the ruins. We spent the day wandering around in amazment of the work these people were able to do and the structures they were able to biuld. After awhile in the ruions we climbed to the top of waynapicchu which let us have some amazing views and spent the rest of our time on top of the mountain in awe. Tonight we are off to Bolivia.

Adios Teaching, Hello travel

As of yesterday, we are finished teaching english to giant classes of energy-filled peruvian kids. While we are glad to be back on the road again, we are also sad to leave behind the scores of entertaining situations that occurred each day. Although we could fill a book with funny anecdotes from our experiences, here are just a couple that stand out to us right now:

1.) Almost every class Matt and I (Jeff) would ask the students if they knew certain words in english that pertained to our respective lessons. Everytime the class would go quiet for a moment, then one brave student would venture a guess, which was usually a shortened version of the spanish word he was trying to guess. Almost instantaeously the class would erupt into a thunderous chant with every student acting like they knew the answer. When we finally got the class back in order and told the kids the correct answer, the kids laughed at and/or hit the kid who started the chant. One of our favorite chants occurred when I was asking the class if they knew how to say peach (durazno) in spanish, and in every class I was greeted with the chant, "Duraz, Duraz." Our other favorite chant happened one time when Matt asked the class if they knew any Greetings in English. Following the lead of one brave but terribly wrong student. The whole class started chanting "Blu-ay, Blu-ay." We have no idea why.

2.)In another instance, I (Matt) was writing on the whiteboard with my back to the class. I had only turned my back to the class for a little bit, but pretty soon a student was at my side, politely asking me a question. I bent down to hear his question: "How do you say, Peleado, in english?" Assuming this an innocent question, I told him--"fight." However, he immediately turned around and ran to the back of the class chanting, "Fight, fight, fight!" I looked behind me to see where he was headed, and sure enough, two other kids were in an all out brawl at the back of the class. The chant was soon taken up by the rest of the class, and while I walked back to break it up, I thought to myself, "At least they've learned one word during my time here that they won't forget.

Right now, we're getting ready to head off to hike the Inca Trail, and ultimately arrive at Machu Picchu a couple of days after Easter.

Kids are crazy

From Lima, we hopped a night bus to the city of Huancayo where we will spend four weeks teaching english to kids in 3rd-6th grade. We were greeted at the bus stop by a man named Aldo, who helped us cordinate this whole thing, but we quickly found out he was one of the strangest and most scatter brained people we have ever meet. After a few days of traing and constant changes to our schduels, we were thrown into a class of 40-50 over energetic elementary school kids. Here our reality was turn completly upside down, from anything we had ever experienced in a school setting. Each day we taught we would have countless interactions that would either severly suprised us, or have us restraining ourselves from brusting our laughing in class. First day, we walked in and asked the class to be silent, but one of the kids kept talking. The professor prompetly got up takes a belt, hits the kid in the face while the rest of the class cheers. We went on to find this kind of punishment routine with the teachers using, sticks, rulers, pulling the kids hair, or twisting there ears. However, sometimes the teacher would leave finding that when we were teaching it would be a good break for them. At that point we would each do our best to keep the kids under control while teaching them some basic englinsh.
For the time that we are here, we will be living with a local family. The family dynamics themselves are quite interesting and we still cant figure out who is related to who and whos kid belongs to what parent, it is really confusing. While we are here, one of the sisters cooks our meals and we eat what we are served, half the time not really knowing what we are eating. One lunch we were given this jello type substance for dessert. Seeing that we were rarely given desserts, we both dig in and immidiantly find oursleves spitting this substand back into the bowl. We quickly pulled out the dictionary and the two meanings of what we had just eaten were: foot or paw and duck. Upon asking what it was we found out it was ground up foot, cartilige and other parts of a chicken one normally would not eat.

Good bye Ecuador Hello Peru

After our adventures in Ecuador, we ventured south to the sunny beath town of Mancora, Peru, where we spent three days eating fresh seafood, chillin on the beach and getting incrediably sunburnt. We then continued onward to Lima, where we learned that Lima is for lovers. In the eight hours we spent in lima we saw more couples publicly displaying their affection for each other than either of us have ever seen in one place. Hanging around the main plaza at night became very difficult because every bench was taken up by multiple couples just going at it. We decided t obuy an ice cream, and realized that it was a better deal to buy a bowl we three scoops than it was to each buy a cone with a single scoop, we thought we were being smart shoppers. However, the workers at the ice cream shop thought it was really funny and we had no idea why at first so we just laughed along with them. It was not until we walked out of the store that we realized that the bowl was in the shape of a heart . We had ordered a dish ment for couples and the people at the ice cream store were laughing because theu thought we were some of Lima´s lovers. We only spent one day in Lima and then peaced

Sittin down in a little old town

We arrived in Huancayo, Peru on Wednesday morning. We´ll stay here for 4 weeks while we work as english teachers in a local public school. Stay tuned next week for more updates on the past couple of weeks, and what´s going on in Peru at the moment.

The Farthest point from the center of the earth

1. The clouds and our refuge
2. the refuge and the very first part of the trek
3. the view from the summit

Quito Pictures

1 and 2. Churchs in old town
3. the volcano
4. Us on top of the Volcano

Coropaxi Pictures

1. The volcano
2. Hut that we smoke ourselves out of
3. Matt and Danica, the canadian, walking up the 35km road
4. The three of us at the refuge

La Hesperia Photos

1. The general landscape at the reserve
2. One of the many very large and very interestly colored insects we saw
3. The lake on the property we would go swiming in
4. Machete masters´Jeffrey and Matt

We got higher than we´ve ever got before

From Baños it was off to try to summit Volcan Chimborazo, a massive snow-covered volcano that stands at 20,823ft. and happens to be the farthest point from the center of the earth, 2km farther than everest. We arrived at the first refuge (15,000ft.) at 2 in the afternoon, ate a quick lunch and walked up to the second refuge at 16,500ft. Here we were greeted by enormous clouds, snow pack, and cold temperatures. However, this time we had lots of warm clothes. No more dumb gringo pictures for us. After exploring around the refuge and drinking lots of warm tea, we went to bed around 7pm, knowing we had to get up in just 4 hours to begin our summit attempt. Sleep, however, was nearly impossible to come by. At 16,500ft. our hearts were working harder than ever to pump oxygen to our brains, so when we were just lying in bed doing nothing it sounded like our hearts were recovering from a 100yd dash.
After 4 restless hours, our two guides woke us up, we dressed, and quickly ate our breakfast before finishing our final preparations and heading out. Once we left the refuge we were soon stopped in awe by the night´s scenery. The monstrous clouds that sat next to us earlier that evening were all but gone, leaving in their wake a clear view of the mountain, and above the mountain shone millions upon millions of stars. Because of our proximity to the equator, we were able to see stars from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. After several minutes of stargazing, our guides decided it was time to start the walk, so we headed out unsure of what exactly we were about to do to ourselves.
Almost immediately after we started to hike we hit the snow fields and were told to put on our crampons and pull out our ice axes. After about a 30 second instruction, all in spanish, on how to best use the gear we started to trudge up the masssive ice fields. The millions of stars and our headlamps were our only source of light, so we could hardly see where we were headed. All we knew was that we were going up, and each breath seemed to fill our lungs with less and less oxygen. As exhaustion and altitude started to set in, we fell into a routine. Crampon, ice axe, other crampon, ice axe, crampon, ice axe, for hours and hours. We moved like zombies as our minds wandered to different places on our way up the massive peak. We soon heard sounds, and saw colors and objects that weren´t there. Ira kept thinking the rock trail markers were trolls.
Hours and hours of walking--we were still going up. Hours and hours more--we were still going up. Our guides told us we were getting closer, but nothing seemed to change except that we were more and more tired. We would walk, then take a break, then walk some more, straight up a pitch of 35-40 degrees at some points. After one break our guide said we were verey close, and began hiking at a rather ambitious pace. We didn´t believe hime, but we were, in fact, very close, and the slope leveled out a little to uncover the beginnings of a sunrise of a lifetime. We dropped our bags at the false summit, and hiked the saddle to the actual summit, driven only by the great view before us and a desire to see that little flag that marked the top of the world. After agonizing ove the last steep pitch, we reached the top and despite our exhaustion, were able to enjoy the 360 deree view of the rising sun.
Above every cloud in the sky, we could see almost all of the other ecuadorian vocanoes that were tall enough to break through the seemingly impenetrable layer of orange and red clouds below us. We had made it to the top of a 20,800 ft. peak despite being exhausted and loopy from the altitude. We were thrilled.

Baños--gringo land

Our next destination was Baños, a small town a couple of hours south of Quito, and a hotspot for pretty much any outdoor activity that a tourist would want to do. Nearly every street in the small town was lined with either hostals or outdoor adventure companies selling horse rides, rafting, hiking, or ATV rides.
Our first day in town we decided to rent mountain bikes and ride 40km or so down the highway past several huge waterfalls. Though the seats were painful and the bikes in poor shape, the ride was almost all downhill, so we could hardly complain.
After a day full of mountain biking we decided to go hit the town with some friends we had met in our hostel. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the week, and despite the munbers of tourists in the town, everything was quite dead. After walking around for a little bit, we did find some open joints, and eventually ended up in a discoteca learning how to salsa dance with the locals. We´re not experts quite yet, but we´re definitely getting better.
We got up the next day eager to get out of town, so we packed our bags and headed to the bus stop where we were able to sample some of the town´s famous taffy and sugar cane juice, squeezed entirely from the sugar canes with now water added. It is the perfect drink for any sugar-obsessed person who wants a quick-and-easy way to destroy their teeth in a matter of minutes.

Otavallo Pictures

The top picture is of the magic tree outside of Otavallo, and the others are from the animal market.

We are only going to put up a few from each part due to the amount of time it takes to put them up

Can´t find Fritos in Quito

We arrived in Quito a couple of weeks ago. After walking around the city for a half day or so, we saw someone meandering the streets of the old town area who looked unusually familiar. We ran up several flights of stairs pursuing him, and finally caught up with him. Turns out it was Matt´s brother, Ira, who happens to be travelling through South America too. It was a nice surprise, and we have been travelling with him ever since. After that, we spent a few days wandering through the streets of old town, climbing a volcano, and getting sprayed and dusted with this colored stuff that all of the locals seem to have during Carnival(the weeklong celebration before Lent begins.)
Wandering aroung Old Town was amazing. Not only were we walking through a 12,000ft. valley, but we were also walking in and around true colonial-era buildings and plazas. The churches that we were able to go through were landmarks themselves. While large businesses and corporations dot the skylines of cities in the US, Quito´s skyline was dominated by giant church spires and domes. On our first day in town, we were lucky enough to be spared the usual afternoon thunderstorm, so we walked to to El Panecillo (¨little bread loaf¨), a hill in the middle of the valley, and marvelled at the city as it snaked through the mountainous terrain for miles and miles.
After several days in the city, we set out for a little change of pace. We started out the day by riding up the Telefèrico, a gondola that took us 2.5 km out of town and up to 4100m above sea evel. From there we decided to hike to the summit of Volcan Pichincha, a 2-3 hour hike with 800m of altitude gain. No big deal, we thought. So we headed out in jeans and t-shirts because it was pretty hot down in Quito. The hike was simple and straight forward until the last section which became a mess of loose gravel and sand, and finished with some boulder scrambling. We arrived at the 15,400ft. summit, a bit loopy from the altitude, cold, and lack of water and food just as the wind picked up and it began to snow. So there we were again, three dumb gringos. We figured it was the end of summer on the Equator and it shouldn´t be snowing, but I guess altitude changes everything.
After some time in the clouds on the summit, we headed down, wet and cold. We returned to Quito, and spent one more day before heading out.

next time we get a fast connection we will post some pictures

Ecuador is a real country

Life in the middle of nowhere (phase 1)

We spent 3 weeks at a biological reserve in the middle of nowhere, Ecuador doing "conservation" and " reforestation" when in fact we think we destroyed more then we built, including a power line. We learned the art of the Machetes and cut down swaths of forest and spent the nights poking tarantulas with sticks while a friend filmed thier attacks and went on searches for the crazyest bugs we have ever seen, including a chrome beattle. On weekends we would either travel to the neighboring villages or go on hikes around the reserve. These hikes were no ordinary hikes. Half the time we spent remaking the trails with our newly aquired machete skills to make them passable and the other half we forged our way up rivers and small waterfalls. we would find vines to swing from tree to tree and would swim under large waterfals. We would then return to our house and play the waiting game when we tried to get our soaking clothes to dry in the cloud forest that was pretty much 97% humid all day every day.

Volcano Adventure (phase two)
Cotopaxi-
Along our way, we encountered a canadian girl named, Danica and the three of us decided to try and climb Cotopaxi volcano, 5800 meters tall, which happens to be the closest point on earth to the sun. We grabbed our gear not really knowing what we were getting outselves into and headed off. After catching a bus in Quito, we were droed off on the highway some 35km from the refuge on the volcano. We were offered a $25 truck ride to the refuge, but being frugal and stubborn travellers we declined and set out to walk the 35km with 6hrs of sunlight, no tent and very limited food. Along the path which turned out to be a 2 way dirt road, we ran into some park officials who told us about a free cabin we could stay in for the night. With the best news we had heard all day, we huffed it 20 plus milometers to the cabin and set up our sleeing stuff. The canadian girl was an unusually cold person, shich was odd because she was from Canada- a cold place. She insisted that we start a fire with wet wood and a make shift fireplace. So we made a fire and soon found ourselves shrouded in smoke with our eyes watering, because we had overlooked the importance of proer air ventalation in the cabin. We decided to give up the fire idea and all had a pretty cold night. Once morning arrived, we decided to walk the remaining 15km to the refuge. Apparently, everyone just drives up. Nobody told us that. So there we were us dumb gringos walking up the road in our board shorts and t-shirts with an unusually tan Canadian girl, while cars raced past us. After a couple of hours, it started snowing and we quickly became tourist attractions as locals driving down from the rerfuge took pictures of us walking up in our shorts. Danica was quickly becoming a victim of altitude sickness and was stumbling back and forth across the road. We reached 4500m and quickly relized that her mental state and our warmth were going down. we ran into this crazy dutchman and his significant other and hitched a ride down.

Otavalo

We succesfully arrived in Quito, two nights ago. We then traveled to the Biological Reserve we were planning on working at for three weeks. We found out that we got fridays and weekends off. We took off to a little town named Otavalo about three hours north of Quito. The Saturday market at Otavalo is one of the largest in Ecuador, so we decided to take a look. There were two different markets in the town, so we checked them both out. One was the more traditional market with artisan goods and food etc. However, the other was an animal farm, were the locals would go to buy there chickens, cows, guinea pigs, bunnies, and pigs for their weekly meals. It was quite an eye opening experience. We took a hike to the local magic tree, el lechero, and were healed and saved. Hope all is good on the home front.

Matt Liston- 100% Man Fiery

Height: 5’10’’
Weight: 145 lbs.
Age: 19

Shoots: Lefty

Favorite Video Game Hero: Sonic the Hedgehog

Bio: Born in Midwest America at the end the 1980 this notorious lad has accomplished every major fear when it comes to bear wrestling. He currently holds 7 world records and ranks as top bear wrestler in the world. This rough and tough man, burst onto the scene years ago with his untraditionally tactics and fearless fighting style. From there the rest is history. Going South Matthias hopes to test his hand in different styles of fighting and different animals to face. His one major goal is to pin a 25 foot anaconda. Besides training, Matt fills his time creating nasty tunes with his harmonica.

Jeffrey Judkins--watch out!

Height: 5'8"
Weight: 130 lb. (not kilos)
Age: 18
Bats: Right
Catches: Right
Spirit Animal: Puma

Bio: Born in the heartland of the USA in mid-1990, this prominent figure has made a name for himself in the lightweight boxing world. Currently ranked 5th in the nation, this fireball of a fighter is on his way up the ranks. His cutting edge shock collar training tactics are proving incredibly effective, and are quickly gaining popularity. However, promoters feared that his travels below the Equator may damage his fighting instincts. This young gun plans to learn the fighting tactics of the many indigenous tribes he will be interacting with, and upon returning, it is almost certain that he will be poised to take the national title.

packing

who knew the packing backpacks was such an art?

yo yo yiggity yo.