My Adventures and Travels

April 6, 2015 Part 2: The Journey You didn't think it would be that easy to get back to La Paz, did you? Now it is election day and it is illegal to be on the roads AT ALL. Despite that, our trusty driver came from wherever he had been to pick us back up.  The first part of the car ride was through a mountainous, and let's be honest, sketchy but again beautiful road. I think we took that route to avoid traffic stops and police. It had its own challenges... This is fine. Everything's fine...at one point we stopped, our driver and guy hopped out and grabbed the tools they had in the car for just this type of occasion, and widened the road a little bit. They asked us to get out of the car while they drove over the newly widened part. And we continued on our journey. When we got closer to the city, our driver grew increasingly nervous about being on the road. There was NOBODY on the roads. At one point we had to stop at a police checkpoint. They aske...

This is the cabin we stayed in. Well, it turns out I took a LOT of pictures of the place, and they didn't all fit in my last post! Here are some photos from our second day. After a leisurely morning drinking coffee and eating breakfast, we walked into the town of Belen. In these little towns, you have to learn how to entertain yourself! We stopped by a tiny craft fair, walked forever looking for the river, talked to a really old lady who spoke mostly Guarani, got some ice cream, walked through the cemetery, and walked through a lot of mud! All in all it was a good day.  The next morning we walked a few kilometers up to Belen. Belen's claim to fame is that the Tropic of Capricorn runs through it! Cemetary This is the guy that crawled out of the lake!

Our first long weekend of the year is Spring Break, in September. As with all long weekends in recent memory, epic rain was predicted, foiling our original plans. A group of 8 of us (5 teachers, 2 spouses, and 1 teaching from another school) was originally planning to visit a lake and beach in Paraguay called Laguna Blanca. However, Laguna Blanca is at the end of a 40 km. dirt road. If it rained, we'd be stranded out there-possibly for days. If we made it. Our backup plan was to visit an Ecolodge outside the town of Concepcion, which is up to the north. It took about 5 hours to get there. One interesting thing was this weekend coincided with a big event, the Trans-Chaco Rally, a 3-day car race, said to be one of the most difficult routes in the world. We did see some of the vehicles while we were driving. Paraguayan Traffic Jam As always, as soon as we got out of Asuncion the scenery changed drastically, and it was beautiful. I love driving through the "chaco"-it ...

On Sunday morning, we agreed to get to the falls reasonably early, make a morning of hiking, grab lunch in town, and hit the road to head back to Paraguay. That is what we did. Instead of viewing the falls from above, we went on a great hike to see the falls from below. It was incredibly beautiful. And wet. And we saw MONKEYS! By the time we got to the destination at the base of the falls, the light "pelo de gato" mist had turned into an all-out downpour. I was so glad I bought a mad scientist poncho! The funny thing is, normally that would've ruined a day of hiking and sightseeing. But I was just so in awe of everything, and in such a great mood, that I felt nothing could ruin it. Consider yourself warned. This was just a lame, puny falls in comparison  to what we'd see later. And this is where my jaw dropped. Kristi, Molly, and Ali are being troopers. Somewhere along this trip, having a waterproof camera became really ...

Iguazu Falls is one of those places that's a total cliche-pictures really *can't* do it justice. At the Garganta del Diablo, the sound is one of the most impressive parts of the experience! That, and you can't fit all there is to see in one frame. But here are some attempts I made, anyway. Janelle and I Me, Janelle, and JoAna We stayed at this lookout deck for a long time, taking pictures, videos, and pretty much standing around with our jaws wide open in awe. I have been a lot of places and this one ranks way up there on the list of favorites! Eventually we pried ourselves away, walked back over the long walkway and took the trains back down to the base. We were tired after getting 3-4 hours of sleep, running, and then walking all day! The evening was lovely and consisted of the 13 of us all rotating through our 2 showers, and bottles of wine and beer on the patio of our hotel, listening to music and talking.