bolivia and a birthday!!

we left arequipa by bus and arrived at the town of puno, which is on lake titicaca on the peruvian side.  the next morning we took a bus across the border to bolivia.  this was quite frankly a bit stressful.  bolivia treats americans a bit differently than everyone else.  first of all the visa alone is $160 per person.  for just about every other nationality it is free or of minimal cost.  we had heard that this was because of the US participation in the eradication of coca plantations in bolivia and i was ready to shake a fist at nancy reagan and her war on drugs, but i looked it up. turns out when bolivia's president morales allowed americans to obtain visas in 2007 he set the visa cost is in retaliation to the cost that bolivians are required to pay for US visas (about $100).  so fair is fair i guess.
anyway in addition to the cash you also have to present proof of your hotel reservation, proof of a return ticket (we didn't have that...we just shrugged and they shrugged back), passport photos for each of us, and proof of yellow fever vaccination.  we had all of these things (i quickly had to take a passport like photo at a little stand conveniently right outside the immigration office).  they only accept crisp $20 bills with no flaws which we had obtained from our bank before leaving.  unfortunately we thought the cost was $135 per person so had to scramble for extra cash....they rejected four of the $20 bills which were 'flawed' and thankfully allowed us to make up the difference with both peruvian bills and bolivian bills.  to complicate it all their computer system was not working great plus our spanish isn't great and ultimately the process (for us) took so long that the bus finally just handed us our backpacks and left us (that part turned out not to be a big deal as we were able to hop a collectivo to copacabana which was only 10min away).  we finally made it thru.....not the most fun for sure!!!!  i don't anticipate any other border crossing along the way to be remotely that stressful.

in the end we found ourselves in the town of copacabana (not the famous one from the song but still) which we was just delightful.  lake titicaca sits at 12,602 ft (as we told the kids this is higher than mt.hood) so the elevation took a bit to adjust to (yay for altitude medicine!!)

we stayed for several days at this sweet little hostel on the hill....

....complete with a llama (brown) and an alpaca (white)

 ....and we were able to celebrate riley's birthday!!  riley turned 12 on the 12th at 12,000 ft.  pretty cool.  we bought some produce at the local market and fixed his favorite for breakfast....breakfast burritos!

then we ventured down to the beach.  it was very busy as it was the weekend and many bolivians were relaxing and playing on the beach (the next day on monday the beach was deserted)

i believe these two statues represent the sun and the moon. there are two islands nearby called isla del sol and isla de la luna and legends center on the creation of the sun and the moon here.

the kids rode one of these big blow up tube things. they were only supposed to get 15 min but the boat that towed them out broke down and so they ended up with a much longer ride.

we had lunch at one of the little tents lining the beach that cook up fresh lake titicaca trout. and it is fresh. we ordered and then the lady went down to the water and came back with the fish. it was so delicious!

and to top of the birthday boy's day he was able to find a pick-up game of soccer to play.  todd played too. they were certainly feeling all of those 12,000 ft, but what a happy boy.

we had dinner at the restaurant at our hostel.  they actually had chocolate fondue on the menu! so we sang and riley blew out a candle.

when the staff heard us sing to riley they made another dessert for him....a banana sundae!

sadly poor riley's birthday ended on a very low note. he was vomiting violently before midnight.  we can't figure out what he ate as we have all essentially been sharing all our plates of food.  both kids had an ice cream on the beach but all lucy had was a little loose stool and riley was very much actively vomiting for hours. not sure but not fun.

we were going to take a day trip out to the isla del sol but instead had a mellow day. riley basically slept and i watched over him.  lucy and todd adventured down into town and knocked on the door of the local highschool and asked it they could volunteer.  they were happily invited into a high school english class where they helped the students practice english.  the ice breaker was a round of 'head shoulders knees and toes'....pretty fun experience for lucy.

it was a lovely few days at copacabana and thankfully by the end of the evening riley was feeling much better and we will continue onto la paz tomorrow! hasta luego!!

peru! round one

well we safely made it to peru! a couple fairly long flights from portland (kids were troopers) and finally landed in lima late. i had arranged a taxi from our hostel to pick us up at the airport and he was there!! the short drive to our hostel was a great intro for the kids on how driving in foreign cities is a bit different as there was a little collision with another car....lucy's eyes got as big as saucers, the driver on the other hand didn't bat an eye.  we basically crashed one night in lima and then took a short flight the next morning down to the southern city of arequipa where we have been hanging out the past few days.

arequipa is a pretty big city but we stuck to the central historic district which was beautiful.  it is called the "white city' as all of the buildings are made from white stone. my favorite fun fact about arequipa is that in the native language of quechuan it means 'let's stay here', which is apparently what some inca ruler said upon arriving.  gotta love a city which basically means 'here's good'.

in the central plaza there were loads of pigeons and if you buy a little sack of rice the pigeons will land all over you......needless to say the kids loved this and we spent a couple evenings here.

we managed to find the farmers market which is always a must for todd.  the kids were blown away (as they should be!!) by the scope of a market in another country. we barely made it out of the fruit section because lucy wanted to buy all of it!

we walked thru a few churches. those catholics know how to build some amazing structures. anyway i don't want to bore you with pictures of churches but both todd and i found this particular painting pretty funny. i don't think davinci's version of the last supper had guinea pig as the main course!

one of the highlights for me was the monestary of santa cantalina. the monestary has been around since the late sixteenth century and has housed hundreds of cloistered nuns in its time. there are actually about thirty nuns still in residence who are sectioned off as the remaining monestary has been opened to the public. it was a stunning place, full of vivid colors and textures. i am not a photographer but my guess is that those folks love this place.

so now we are off to lake titicaca and bolivia! hasta luego!

packed up and off we go!!

packing for 6 months of traveling is challenging no matter what, but in our case we also had to fit four seasons of clothes into relatively small back packs. we brought outwear that includes puffy jackets, rain jackets and fleeces since we will be at elevation with cold temperatures. we also need thermal underwear, warm hats and gloves.  on the flip side we will be in rather warm weather and sometimes on the beaches, so we also have shorts, tank tops and swim suits.  i read lots (lots!) of travel blogs with packing lists and used those as my template.  i'm sure there will be something i wish i brought, but more likely i packed too much (despite my attempts to go pretty darn minimalist).
one of the best tips i read about again and again was to use packing cubes to keep everything organized and easy to manage in our packs......they are pretty amazing!

riley's stuff all laid out and then in packing cubes....

lucy's stuff....

my stuff....

ultimately we managed to get ourselves into one medium sized pack each (well todd's is a bit bigger). we weighed our packs and the kids came in at about 15lbs each and the adults at about 25lbs, pretty manageable really....

...........and here we are ready to board our plane for six months adventure in south america!!

my goal is to post about once a week (ish), so check in with us from time to time and follow along!!

spring has sprung

i know i have fallen far short of my new years resolution to blog more regularly. sorry about that.
as our departure for travel adventures nears i am sorting things out in the tech department.  i bought a little chrome book to take on our travels....so i am motivated to test things out to see how easy it is to blog and share pictures from this little lap top that could.

here is what we have been up to lately.
spring sports....riley plays both lacrosse and soccer (we have very very busy weekends!!)

both kids enjoyed a weekend with their momo....
riley's day involved a timber's game

this is a boy in love

lucy's day involved a mani-pedi....

there were some amazing wildflowers this spring....

we also had a visit from todd's mom judy and from his dad and step-mom jim and lynn this spring.....somehow i didn't take any pictures of either visit (bad stacey)

so as a bonus there is this fun picture of lucy...

we leave in just three weeks....since this is the first blog post i've managed in five months i doubt i'll post again until we are on the road.  so see ya in south america!!