We have arrived

Hello all, Merry Christmas!
I hope you all had a wonderful white Christmas. I had the hottest and strangest Christmas of my life. We arrived in Santa Cruz on Tuesday morning at 9 from La Paz. We looked around a bit and then found our Bolivians waiting for us. We weren´t too sure of the plan but it was all cleared up for us. We got bus tickets and all of us but Allan headed to Camiri for Christmas. The bus ride here was beautiful. We are really in the jungle here and the view from the bus was really green and lush. The earth is also very red just like PEI so the contrast is very striking. We saw the lights of Camiri from a ways away and it reminded me a bit of coming into Cochrane from Calgary. Gustavo met us at the bus with his mini bus and we loaded all our stuff in. We drove around for a bit and then went for Pollo Sucre, the best chicken in Bolivia. It was pretty delicious and it was so good to see the Bolivians again. Lauren and I are staying at Brendas house so we got all settled in there and then went out to the bar for a bit. The next day was Christmas Eve which is the big celebration day here. We went to the pool because it was boiling hot. Then we had Christmas dinner with Brenda´s family. We had a whole pig and chicken and corn and a bunch of other things. The strange part was that they have dinner at midnight on Christmas Eve and then set off a whole bunch of fireworks. It was like the whole town was exploding. After that we went out to the bar again! We got there at around 2 (arrived in the torrential tropical downpour) and stayed until... 7 in the morning when they ran out of beer! The next day was pretty short because of the not going to bed until 7inthemorning. And then came yesterday. We decided to make ice cream cake because it is ridiculously hot here (like 30 to 40 degrees every day and humid) but the freezer is not very powerful so it took forever. We went to Sergio´s house to watch Little Miss Sunshine and then to the square. To explain what we did in the square you have to understand a little bit about the Camireños I know. They drink every day, and when there are holidays they drink even more. Also you need to understand the Plaza. Everyone goes to the plaza. There are no laws against drinking in the streets here so people go every night to the plaza to drink and dance and fight. There are different sections of the plaza for different groups of people. We were at the corner for all the kids who went to private school and Enna (one of the girls from the program) her brother was having a party to announce his New Years party. He had a cooler full of ice and lemon juice and liquor and sugar. This drink is from Brazil and is very sneaky. This is because it has a lot of alcohol but tastes really good and is really refreshing. They have a few cups and just keep filling them up. One of Dennis´friends Diana would keep taking our glasses, filling them up and saying "fifty fifty, I´ll drink half if you drink half" Even if you don´t want to drink, it is really hard not to. Anyways, we stayed for a while and then went home to sleep. Today the plan is to go up to a waterfall and hopefully go swimming. There is another party tonight but I am not going to drink until New Years. I have also been having some problems with my malaria meds cause they are making me feel really sick. I´m trying to figure out what to do about it and I think I´m going to go find a doctor. If anybody has any advice on Doxycyclin let me know cause it is knocking me out! I think the plan is to stay here until the 2nd and then to go to Santa Cruz for a couple of days. Then I´m heading to Uruguay to see my loverly friends there. I love and miss you all and I´ll see some of you pretty soon!
Anna

Traveling South

The last few days have been a bit of a blur. The program ended on Saturday morning and we had to say goodbye to Colin and Candice. We spent the day in Quito getting ready for our big trip. We had dinner with the other groups who were still there and then headed out on the night bus (9 hours) to Cuanca. It was a good bus but a bit hard to sleep especially because we didn´t get very much sleep the few nights before. I woke up Sunday morning to the mistyest most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. We got into Cuanca at about 7 or 8 and found a place to store our bags. We went on a breakfast hunt downtown. Unforutnately it was a Sunday morning and nothing was open except for church. We thought about oging and taking communion a few times but we found a restaurant eventually. The food was delicious and the waiter was my favourite so far. He was very sweet but was terrible at his job. He brought us bread which we ate and then asked us what kind of jam we wanted. He forgot to ask what kind of eggs we wanted and the chef had to come out to take our order. He was hilarious. We then wandered Cuanca until 4 when we got on another bus to Loja. This was a 6 hour and was probably the scariest bus I have ever been on. It was like the Trout Lake road with a cliff on one side and a cliff on the other. The road was very narrow and we were in a huge bus. We would pass other busses on corners and eventually I just gave up on the idea that we would survive the experience. We arrived in Loja ok and checked in at the first hostel we saw. We slept so well that night and got up the next morning to the beautiful weather. As we get farther south the weather gets warmer and warmer. Yesterday we travelled from Loja here to Vilcabamba. We are staying in the Madre Tierra hostel which is the most beautiful place I have ever been. We are surrounded by fruit trees, banana, mango, mandarin. There are flowers everywhere and an outdoor pool. We have all turned into puddles of relaxation. The food is delicious too but today we have to leave to cross into Peru. We are going to take another night bus tonight and cross the border at 4 in the morning. The bus doesn´t actually cross the border, we have to take the bus to the border, cross on a bridge and get a bus on the other side. We then start our multi-day trek by bus to the south of Peru and the border crossing into Bolivia. We will hopefully arrive in Santa Cruz on the 23rd of Dec. I am sending all my love and I apologize for not calling the people I should be calling. Phone access is few and far between. I´ll try to update this a little more often from now on.
Lots of love,
Anna

The Last Week in Peguche

It has come to the last week in Peguche. We leave here on the 9th and head back to Quito for some program debreifing and we all leave Quito on the 13th, some to go home but Sheena, Allan, Lauren, Humza, Raphael and I are heading off on an adventure. We are going to Santa Cruz, Bolivia for just after Christmas. We are going to stay there until just after New Years. Then we are heading back through Bolivia, to Peru. (the plan is to hike into Machu Pichu, to spend about a week on the beach in Peru just hanging out and hopefully surfing and then I catch a plane from Lima to Buenos Aires. I´ll be there for about 10 days and then I´ll head to Quito and then home. It is pretty exciting although I´m going to really miss Candice and Colin who aren´t going to come with us.
Now a little more about here. Work at the school has been good. I am ajusting to Ecuadorian child minding standards which are very different from Canadian ones. We have had some interesting food experiences including little beetles fried with salt and lemon (they just tasted like salt and lemon and were very crunchy) and on Saturday we went to a housewarming party and had sheeps blood soup. It was good except for the blood part. The party was interesting though. It is traditional at housewarming parties to bring some sort of alcohol and eggs. There was a lot of dancing and a lot of drunk people. We aren´t allowed to drink on the program and it was probably a good thing. People just go around with a bottle of beer/wine/hard alcohol/moonshine and pour shots. I was approached with alcohol approximately every 2 minutes. If I had accepted I wouldn´t have been able to walk home.
Otherwise things are going very well although I´m tired. I´m sure that once we get going on this big adventure I´ll get my energy back. I love you all and I´m going to try to put some pictures up. It is pretty slow though.
Love,
Anna