Homeward Bound

The sad day finally came and went where I had to say my farewells to the PSF family. To be honest, that new job I had wasn´t that much fun and made leaving only a little bit easier. Nevertheless, my last couple weeks in the Pisco area were fantastic with some good ol´ grunt work, a camping trip to the Paracas reserve and some final party nights with the gang at home and Pisco Disco.
From Pisco, I joined an English couple to Lima on Saturday and stayed in a hostel near the beach in an effort to enjoy some last days of Peruvian waves. Unfortunately the waves were little to none so there wasn´t much fun.
Last night I had my first day of travel, flying out of Lima at 11pm to Buenos Aires for a 25 hour layover. That is too much time to spend in an airport, so after the 4 hour flight I got a Republic of Argentina stamp in my passport, picked up my bag and hopped on a bus for 2 hours into the center of the hip capital.
I know a few people who are living here and made plans to meet up with them, but that seemed to have fallen through so far so I have resorted to hanging out on the internet in hopes to hear from them soon via facebook.
Well that is a quick update. Here is to hoping I meet up with either Rowan, from South Africa, who I met in Ecuador, and/or Victoria, who was a long term PSF volunteer.

Home Sweet Home in Peru

Plaza de Armaz - Huaraz

Plaza de Armaz - Caraz

After the incredible Santa Cruz Trek and one last night in Huaraz, I enjoyed a tasty, grilled dinner with Dominique, Pierre-Luc, Saoia & Rocco, before hopping on my bus to Lima. It was time to make my way back to Pisco sin Fronteras, so 2 hours after arriving in the Peruvian capital, I was on another bus, this one bound for the southern pan-american. Because it was only Friday, I figured I would return to Pisco to start work on Monday, so decided to spend the weekend surfing Cerro Azul, a classic left break just north of Cañete.

I had a room on the beach for two nights and got to surf for 3 days. Though the waves were not the greatest, it was still a fun spot and I was able to observe sea otters, plenty of birds and dolphins while waiting between sets. At one point, dolphins were only 5m away from me and my board! Very neat.

The classic left at Cerro Azul.

After a morning session on Sunday, I gathered my gear and walked to the pan-am to hop another south-bound bus to Pisco. One and a half hours later, I was knocking on the PSF door; returning to my Peruvian home for the last month of my South American Adventures. I was lucky to have awesome room-mates save me a bed in the surfer dorm, despite my 2 week vacation having turned into 4 (2 Peruvian weeks I guess...).

Swimming in the Pacific after a roof pour.

So here I have been for nearly 3 weeks, volunteering and enjoying some more good times with the great people here. August 15th was the 2 year anniversary of the devastating earthquake that destroyed 80% of Pisco and killed 600 people. During the time coming up to the anniversary, PSF received some media recognition. There were interviews and even some coverage of PSF in action at a work site. After our moments of silence that day, we busied ourselves cleaning up the houses and preparing for the PSF one year anniversary (which happened to be the following day).

Sweet ride home, Felipe!

On Sunday the 16th, we were up early and gearing up for our day of celebrations. We headed to malecon on Pisco Playa to clean up garbage and set up chairs for a number of performances. People from the surrounding neighbourhood, intrigued by all the gringos in blue PSF shirts, joined in the festivities. With a live DJ we were treated to a BMX demo by the top two BMX bikers in Peru. Some of the volunteers did a dance of their own and some kids from the community also put on a performance.

BMX demo.

Following the performances and some touching speeches, the party began. There were soccer and volleyball matches, preparations for the burning man, and drinking of pisco, inca cola, wine and beers. This lasted until the afternoon, when many volunteers craved a ciesta to prepare for the after dark round of celebrations.
Sunset marked the highly anticipated PSF burning man, so the malecon attracted volunteers and community members again. By 6:30pm, the blonde, wooden PSF man was up in Flames and burning hot, thanks to burning man attandee, Jake of Michigan. It burned until about 8:30pm, which marked eat time.

Malecon park on the Pacific Ocean.

PSF anniversary face painting.

While many stayed up late drinking and looking forward to a Monday off work, I was in bed before midnight, stoked on a trip to Cerro Azul for some more wave riding. I was on a bus by 7:30 and in the surf/fish village by 9:30. The swell was MUCH bigger than my previous visit and a little daunting to be honest. In any case, I geared up and hopped into the water all on my own. The current was strong, so I only managed to get a few short rides before being nearly slammed into the pier. I went for three rounds, ate lunch, and caught a bus back to Pisco.

PSF Burning Man at sunset.

This past week I have been training to take over Dominics job as projects manager, since he is leaving tomorrow. I will do that for my last two weeks before TBC Dave makes his return. It is a really cool deal being the man who makes sure everyone has a job for the days to come.
So I will be here until the 6th of September, at which time I start my journey back to Canada. I leave Peru for Buenas Aires on the 8th, then to Sao Paulo on the 9th from where I fly back to North America, landing in Vancouver on te 10th.
That being said, this is likely one of my last blog posts of the Adventures. Maybe I will post some more pictures though. Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed! See you soon!

PSF burning man at sundown

Trek in the Cordillera Blanca

The Paramount Pictures Peak.

Sunday the 26th of July was an early start. Up at 5:30 and at the MontTrek tour agency at 6am to meet with the trek group, which I thought was only going to be 5 people but ended up being 12! There were 4 couples, one from Eastern Canada, one from Belgium, one from Lima and one from Ireland (who were initially from Italy and Spain). The other 4 included some girls from California doing a documentary on South American women, Thomas from France, and myself. Most of us piled into a big van, but we could not all fit so another vehicle was taken too. We drove for 6 hours deep into the Andes, stopping at certain spots along the way for photos of the incredible views. Between Huaraz (3000m) and Portachuelo (4770m), we observed mountain farmlands, glaciers and glacier fed lakes, and snow!

Mules--these ones without massive loads.

We arrived the small mountain village of Vaqueria at noon, had a small lunch and began our first day of hiking by 1pm. The climb was only a few hundred meters within 4 hours. In that time we had it all from sunshine, to overcast, to drizzle and at the time we reached our first camp it was torrential down pour. We were assured that rain wouldn´t be encountered, but luckily most of us were prepared fo it all anyway. The unfortunate part is that our guide and assistants set the tents up during the rain so everything was soaking wet for our first night. Needless to say, we were a little cold and quite miserable. To add to our misery, our guide was being lazy and didn´t have our dinner ready until nearly 10pm! Some of the group memebers gave up waiting because they were cold and tired, but those of us who waited were treated to a delicious dinner consisting of soup, chicken, potatoes and of course rice. Immediately following the meal, bed was in order.

Our first camp, which was very wet.

The night of rest was a bit wet but more or less warm and day 2 started at 7am. Breakfast was a classic Peruvian one with coca tea, bread with jam and aveena. Perhaps not quite the fuel we needed for our big day; 6 hours of hiking with a the Punta Union pass. The weather was similar to the first day, with mostly overcast skies. However, because of the altiude we were gaining, the precipitation we got was in form of snow! Very neat, and made me miss snowboarding a bit. Anyway, it was cold and though the view from the pass was amazing, it was too cold to stay for much longer than 15 minutes. Furthermore, the next valley we were meant to descend into was sunny and not the gloomy like the one we spent our first night in.

Ascending on the second day from the dark and wet valley.

The pass.

The otherside of the pass.

Thomas and I were the first to reach our second camp of Taullipampa which was situated at just over 4000m. We were able to enjoy a couple ours of sunshine while we set up camp, before the sun went down and the cold wind picked up. As the sky cleared, we were able to enjoy a very starry sky accented with a half full moon. Dinner was an hour earlier this night, and we were able to crawl into our warm sleeping bags earlier to escape the 2ºC air.

A horse that didn´t quite make it to the second camp...

For the third day, the sky remained clear which enabled us to enjoy the views of severs magnificent peaks, including the Paramount pictures peak (though it was hard to recognize without the stars around it). After a 3 hour detour to visit Laguna Arhuaycocha, we descended for another 3 hours to our third camp. It was also convienently located by some high altitude shops which sold beer so we could celebrate a few things. It was our last night in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru´s independance day and also our guides birthday (which we later found out to be a lie so he could get free drinks from us...tsk tsk). So at 3800m, we drank, sang and danced (mostly to keep warm) under the starry sky.

Laguna Arhuaycocha.

With some fuzzy heads, we were up at 7:30 and on our way down to Cashapampa (2900m) by 8:30am. It was only a 4 hour descent and with the sky still clear and altitude much lower, it was toasty warm. We waited an hour for the mules to arrive with our supplies, crammed into a smaller van than we had the first day (this time ALL of us too), and drove for 2 hours back to Huaraz.

Laguna Jatuncocha.

Getting ready to leave our final camps view.

Apart from some problems with the company and our guide, it was a wonderful trek with awesome scenery. The night we returned e went to a grill house to get a good fix of meat, said good-byes (or see ya laters) and returned to our hostels for a good night sleep in a bed.

The End

Surfing Fix Acquired

Puerto Chicama surf: the longest left point break in the world.

Apart from some mild homesickness from all the solo time, my time on the coast was exactly what the doctor ordered. I ended up staying the the beautiful, though often overcat, Huanchaco for the better part of two weeks, surfing everyday except one. I took this past Wednesday off to rest my shoulders and body so I wouldn´t be too tired for the record long wave in Puerto Chicama. Luckily, Thursday the swell picked up and myself along with Frenchman, Simon, and Deutchman, Ruud, took a cab to the world famous surf spot. The town was crawling with surfers that day (including South African friend, Rowan, who we met in Quito back in April) because the waves were working wonderfully. It was a lot of paddling and walking, but well worth it since I managed to get my longest ride EVER! It was oh so sweet, that moment when it officially became my longest continual time working a wave. Perma smile for sure. The sky was even clear and the sun shone strong. The only down side was some foot injuries from being barefoot.

The one and only sunset I witnessed in Huanchaco.

After spending about 5 hours surfing, we returned to a bizarre scene of sunshine and blue sky in Huanchaco. We arrived just in time to grab some large beers and watch the sunset. It was my first time seeing the sunset in the coastal town in my whole time there, and what a wonderful way to end my stay there.

A favorite lunch: ceviche, cicharron & Inca Kola, all for 9 soles ($3.25)!

That night, I hopped on a bus from Trujillo into the Andean city of Huaraz. The sky is blue here, though a bit colder because of elevation. It is similar to Cuzco in the sense that it is crawling with tourists and tour companies in a mountain setting, though not quite as hectic. With that said, it was tough for me to find a hostel that had room for one person, so with surfboard in tow, I zig-zagged through the streets searching for a desirable accomodation with a desirable price. After a solid half hour of bouncing back and forth between hostels and hotels, I scored a private room on the main drag for 30 soles per night. However, the owner decided to jack the price up today to 100 soles because of the local holiday! I was very unimpressed and quickly went to search for another place. Fortunately, I didn´t have to look for as long as I had the previous day and though the room I found wasn´t quite as nice, the price sure was.

Some festive costumes in a parade on the main drag of Huaraz.

Anyway, here in Huaraz there are plenty of things to do from rock climbing to treking to mountain biking and mountaineering and of course admiring some ancient ruins. I am going to start a 4 day trek in the Cordillera Blanca tomorrow before heading back to Pisco for another month of volunteer work. It is said to be some of the most beautiful scenery of the Andes with several snow capped peaks over 5000m. Hope the weather holds up as it has so far.

Oh, and on another note, once I got the word from Matt that he got a trim on his goatee, I went ahead and got a trim on mine. 6 months of growth was getting out of control, so I trimmed it rather than taking it off completely.

Surf Trip

Playa Makaja (near side) & Redondo (far side) seperated by the pier.

Playa Pampilla breaks right.

It was Monday, July 6th when I reluctantly left the home base of Pisco in search of waves. Sad to be away from the great volunteers there, but good news is that I found some great waves. Apparently the last weekend I spent in Pisco, a huge swell arrived to the coast of mid-southern Peru but I didn´t manage to get out for a paddle. However, since I arrived in Lima on Monday afternoon, I have managed to surf everyday apart from one when I had some stomach issues.
Lima has several beaches for surfing depending on swell conditions and direction. I didn´t venture out of Miraflores and surfed Makaja and Redondo this time. Last time I was in Lima I also tried the rights at Pampilla. Apart from the cost of staying and eating in Miraflores, there are always some waves.

Central Lima - Plaza de Armas

The day that I had a rotten gut, I tagged along with Riz (England), Clay (Wisconsin), and Sally and Leandra (Pennsylvania) to central Lima for some sight seeing. We went to China town for some grub, San Francisco Church to check out the extensive catacombs and some classic architecture.
On the night of Friday the 10th, I hopped on an overnight bus to Trujillo, where I then took a taxi to the nearby fishing village of Huanchaco. Like Lima, there are always some waves here, however I prefer it here for a few reasons. First of all, it is much cheaper; I pay 15 soles per night for a private room with hot water in my private bathroom, where I was paying 30 soles per night for a dorm room in Lima. Secondly, the shape of the beach favours left breaks and me being a goofy rider prefer riding with my frontside to the wave face.

Our guide playing the flute in the main Plaza of Chan Chan

Looking over traditional Huanchaco.

My life this past week and some has been very relaxing, consisting of surfing, reading, sleeping and of course plenty of eating. Here in Huanchacho, the hotel that I am staying at is only 2 blocks from the break so I usually go out twice a day. Between sessions, if I am not eating, sleeping or reading, I may be walking around checking out sites and such. On Tuesday, I checked out the nearby ruins of Chan Chan, the worlds largest adobe city. Most of the mud walls are eroding but restoration is ongoing and some of the main areas have been beautifully restored.
I am not sure when I shall return to Pisco. Originally it was meant to be this coming weekend, but the waves are so much fun that I want to get as much surf time in as possible before making my way to Brazil via Bolivia. So, I shall remain somewhere on the coast of Peru until I feel I have had my fix and find someone to adopt my surf equipment.

Holiday week at PSF

Volunteers hanging out in the plaza on a Sunday.

PSF has been nothing short of amazing these last 5 weeks. We have been pouring a lot of concrete and digging a lot of trenches. Two weeks ago, there was a group of us that went to a part of Pisco called Centro Pablado to dig some trenches. It involved smashing concrete and digging meter and a half deep holes connected with 2 foot deep trenches. That was a 2 day mission, so on day 3 we poured concrete to fill the lovely holes that we worked so hard to dig.

Ivan looks at what jobs need to be filled for the day.

Some good looking trenches.

Ollie and I made a brick wall out of some good looking trenches.

Just last week, two of us went back to continue with the project that is to be a bathroom and kitchen when finished; so we poured a bit of concrete and built a brick wall. It is so neat to see a project come so far in such a short time and to be able to be part of the transformation. All of this hands on work has made me start to seriously consider going into trades when I get back to Canada.

The holiday week started last Monday. It was a local fisherman holiday, so in respect we did not work that day and instead went to a small town just sout of Pisco called San Andres. There they had pisco and wine tasting, plenty of street vendors with churros, unidentified meat, ceviche and more, and for the kids a mini fair. Also, there were dozens of foosball tables set up for un sol games.

Fishermans day in San Andres.

Felipe, Billy, Andy and Jake playing foos.

Last week was also the beginning of July, as you know, so there was a wee celebration for Canada day and a big party for the 4th of July. On July 1st, there were only myself and Dominic (who emigrated from Hungary 10 years ago), which was nothing compared to how many Americans were part of PSF. In any case, we sang our national anthem at breakfast, raised the flag to wave wonderfully in the wind, went to work and then proceeded to have a little shin dig in the evening. It was good times for sure.

Getting ready for work on Canada Day.

Beach soccer wraps up on Pisco Playa.

July 2nd was the unofficial Mexican day, so we celebrated by having delicious Mexican food. Friday we followed up with another wonderful meal of pizza (in a brick oven) and BBQ kabobs & chorizos. This was all just a warm up for Saturday to come.
Being the north american summer, we have been getting huge numbers of people coming through for a couple of days to a few weeks to help out. With the high turnover of volunteers, things can tend to get pretty dirty, especially with the kind of reconstruction we do in Pisco. Most Saturday jobs were cancelled not because of Independance Day, but because we were meant to do a mass clean of the PSF houses. In our "nice" dorm, we found mice poop, old moldy clothes, some unidentifiable food and to top it off a scorpion! When Jen (project mangager) found this out, she made sure we had properly cleaning equipment and went at it for the day.
Later that evening, a homemade American flag was hoisted, the national anthem was sung and the party started. There was plenty of delicious chocolate based food, beer, fruit cocktails and we even had a fireworks display. It was another good time to wrap up the holiday week at PSF.
Sunday was a lazy day for most, with some more clean up and hanging out. I was meant to leave for Lima that day, but the thing with PSF is that it is much easier to just not leave, so I didn´t...until Monday.
I came here for a few reasons. Number one was to get some surf time in. In addition to that, I felt I needed a break from all the people there and need to start sorting out my last 2 months. I will probably return to Pisco this weekend if I don´t end up heading back to Northern Peru for some serious surfing. Depends if I have someone to go with I think.
That is the update for now. Thanks for reading!

Pisco Sin Fronteras

Arriving to a site by local transport.

Two weeks have passed since Matt and I have disjoined, and it has been 4 weeks that I have been volunteering with Pisco Sin Fronteras (click on the title to check out website). Though the weather is sunny only half the time (at best) and the surf is not right here in Pisco, the group here is filled with terrific people doing some amazing work.

In short, a massive earthquake hit the area in August of 2007 and caused immense damage. Like Matt mentioned, not a lot of funding reached Pisco. I heard that a lot of the international aid money went missing (aka was stolen) so funding for reconstruction is very limited and donations are crucial. Because there is such poverty, some of the reconstruction families are forced to do is not sustainable.

PSF is here to help communities and families however we can. We have people come to us to ask for a helping hand, or go wander communities assessing sites that we could do some work on. Most of the work needed is reconstruction, so we do everything from rubble removal and resurfacing to digging trenches and leveling ground to pouring concrete and building and/or moving houses. Also, some people go to play with high energy kids at a Unicef Play Centre. It is run by a lady as a place for children to play safely rather than in the streets or the rubble. Some Saturdays, local English teachers come to practice through conversation.

Brick laying

Andy, Dom, Dae and David moving walls of a modular house.

Putting the modular back-together again.

The turnover of volunteers is pretty freakin fast, but a few long term peeps keep it familiar and somewhat organized. It is a pretty laid back organization and I can honestly say I am not sure when I will leave. All in all, it has been one of the coolest things I have been involved with; great to help this community and great people to be around. Having said that, most of us are native english speakers, so my spanish hasn´t gotten much better, though I can understand most things quite well.

Dom, Andy, Felipe, Jake and Selene enjoying some icecream.

The school-yard hangout area.

Matt's Mission

Well I quickly learned that the greatest downfall of traveling alone is most palpable while waiting for buses. You can only play one player card games for so long before you lose your mind completely; so you can imagine my dismay when I discovered I was to spend 9 hours in Arica, Chile all by my lonesome. Lucky for me there was an internet cafe just across the street from the terminal and after some long chats with Robyn and my folks the nine hours didn't seem nearly as bad. I still played a great deal of one player card games though and departed some what lucid. However, this layover put some stress on me to reach Salta in time for my pick up on the 14th to head out to the Sayta Horse Ranch. I needed to quick departure from San Pedro, Chile, to Salta, Argentina, but of course, things do not always work out the way you need them to and the next bus to Salta was not until the next day. This actually was a fortunate turn of events in the end as I had no choice but to check out the cool little desert town of San Pedro and spend my first night in a bed in a few nights. San Pedro and the surrounding area is quite beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed its slendor on a mountain bike as I biked between rocky desert mountains, across mostly dried strems, and through a winding canyon with tight turns and low overhangs for 28KM. I loved every minute of it! Boy did my bum hurt afterwards though. Perhaps not the smartest activity just before heading to a horse ranch for three days, but well worth it.

As I did not have an alarm clock I hit the hay at 7:40 to ensure I would not sleep past my bus departure time. I was tired anyways, so it was an almost justifiable plan. After an amazing bus ride to Argentina filled with incredible flat expanses of desert, rocky protutions, salty, mostly frozen river beds, classic forking cacti, llamas, ducks, and small dear-like critters in which my eyes were glued to the window the entire ride, I arrived to Salta around 9:00PM and met up with my friend Cristina who is Ecuadorian but lives in Buenos Aires. We reminisced over Ecuadorian fun and then hit the hay to head out to the ranch bright and early.

Sayta Ranch was i n c r e d i b l e and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute there. The owner (Enrique) is a teenager trapped in a mid-fifty year old body who cracked a joke about sex every third sentence at least, the horses were well behaved and beautiful, the scenery and wildlife was amazing, the three resident dogs were great and definitely got a lot of attention from me, and I ate more steak of higher quality than I could have ever dreamed of eating. I think I ate more money in meat than I paid for my entire stay there. We also learned to gallop and post, jump on the horse without a saddle and ride bare back, and use a lasso. I told Enrique in two more days I would be a true gaucho (an Argentinian cowboy essentially) and he responded "tal vais dos mas vivas" which means maybe in two more lifetimes. A very fun man. It was definitely sad to leave the ranch after our short stay.

After three days on horse back we took out tender bums North with two other travelers from the ranch and headed to Permacarma where we hiked to view the Seven Coloured Mountains. I am not too sure how it happens, but apparently different compounds are compressed together in layers and upon exposure to the air they oxidize to form different colours. However it happens, it is very pretty. We then headed a little further north to Humahuacha where we hoped to see the White Mountains that our trusty Lonely Planet suggested... Not quite worth it. Sure they were a little white, but not very impressvie.

After our little hike Cris and I hopped on a bus to Buenos Aires (BA), or at least we thought it was to BA. Turns out the women who sold us the tickets decided to play a trick on us and lied to us to put us on a bus to Cordova. Needless to say we were unimpressed and made sure the bus company bought us our next tickets to BA like we were supposed to be traveling to. We arrived 6 hours later than we were supposed to, but we arrived! BA is gorgeous and full of opportunities. I am really looking forward to my couple weeks here. I'll keep you posted!

-Matt

The Oasis of Huacachina and Pisco Beyond

Casa de Arenas. Where we stayed our first visit to the oasis.

Well after some great times in the high altitude of Cusco, we set out to the desert town of Huacachina. The small oasis is a five minute drive from the large city of Ica, but the rising dunes all around the lagoon make it feel all the more remote. There are probably about 40 buildings in the community and at least half have pools. Our hostel was no exception and had a definite resort hotel feel to it with a pool side bar and a open air bar at the back with pool and foozeball tables. The only disappointment with the hostel was the staff who were rude, rarely smiling and seemed to make a point of not being accomodating. Not the best idea when you are in the accomodation business, but who are we to judge? All we know is that we would never go there again nor recommend it to anyone.

High velocity sand sledding.

Sandboarding!

The surrounding dunes were nothing shy of incredible and Mitch and I could not get enough of them. There was not a single evening that the dunes were not covered with silhouettes of tourists hiking the dune for the sunset and we definitely opted to enjoy the sight a night or two as well. From the top of the dunes you can see vast expanses of rolling sand mountains that not only served as a breath taking, picture perfect view but as a giant playground for dune buggies and quads and most hostels offered a dune buggie experience combined with sand boarding. Such a good time! The dune buggie ride is like a roller coaster and then it makes various stops at the tops of giant dunes for you to try your luck on a sand board. Mitch was a pro from his snow boarding experience where as I was much more so the neophyte. After smacking my head on the much-less-forgiving-than-snow sand on the small hills, I opted to ride down on my stomach like a toboggan and got to some intense speeds which I definitely prefered to the head ache. While fun, I still think I prefer sledding on snow.

Our driver and buggy looking over Haucachina.

A little sand in the shoes...

After four great days in Huacachina we decided to head off to the city of Pisco where we hoped to volunteer with an organization devoted to helping those affected by an earthquake two years back. The drive into Pisco shocked both Mitch and I and was evidence enough that a lot of work was needed to help repair the damage done. We are not too sure as to why Pisco received such little funding, but we have a feeling that the larger cities like Ica may have gotten the majority while Pisco was left unnoticed. We checked into the first hostel we found and after a short nap set out to find the volunteer organization called Pisco Sin Fronteras or PSF (roughly, Pisco without borders). We ended up finding a tourist agency that played soccer with them that very night and were invited to play against our soon to be co-workers. PSF is super laid back and it was extremely easy to get signed on with them and we started the very next day. After working one and a half days, it turned out the whole PSF crew was heading to Huacachina for the birthday of the director, Harold. Well as it turned out it was Mitch's birthday the day before Harold's so we decided what better place to celebrate than a wonderous desert oasis. It also turned out the PSF crew loves our hated hostel, so we stuck to our guns and did not stay with them. Another bonus was meeting us with our friend Brad from the Lost City Trek and our friend Jake from Montañita. It was a great weekend of reminiscing, dancing and more dune buggying and sand boarding, then back to the grind stone.

Sandboarding, Take 2.

Two weeks of hard and extremely rewarding work in which we worked to repair a playground, pour concrete for building wall foundations or floors, remove garbage from beaches, digging trenches and removing old walls, participating in a parade, and more just flew by. It was particularly easy to work hard when you are removing glass from a playground as you watch the cute kids run in bare foot, or when you are digging a trench for a family's new house when they are living in a tent on the site. I had intentions of visiting a gym not far from our housing, but definitely did not need it with all the manual labour I was putting in each day. Sadly, I had to leave today to make my way down to Chile briefly and then Argentina. After a busy morning in which Mitch and I cooked breakfast for everyone (a french toast special), I said my many many many good-byes and then packed my bags. It was particularly sad and decidedly weird leaving Mitch behind. While it is exciting and new to be traveling on my own, I sure am going to miss traveling with my buddy. We traveled five months together to the day and had an amazing adventure. From here on out you will be reading two separate stories as he continues to do amazing work in Pisco and I make my way south to Buenos Aires. We'll keep you posted, thanks for reading!