El Capitan San Felipe

... 60 and enjoys reciting poetry to his students from memory. He has quite the memory. Seems like an interesting class. Will count towards Comparative Literature major.

-SPAN313, Spanish Conversation: a small class of four students focusing on conversation in Spanish. The professor is a bilingual Peruvian native who taught in Texas for three years. He reminds me of Tom Smykowski from Office Space (picture attached). Add Spanish accent and terrible ...

... already lost his sunglasses by this point on the last flight and kept leaving his wallet and meagre document collection on the airport floor). I thought this was quite amusing but fair as Ben seemed to be trying to lose everything as quickly as he possibly could. Luckily we reached Lima without further incident and although Ben placed all of his possessions into a movable luggage trolley while we waited for our bags a nice American lady pointed this out to him before ...

... for $6. Nice big ranch, where we could literally setup anywhere we wanted. Once setup, we took both Cai and Max out for a walk . .. Yes, even Max the cat walks on a leash—when he wants.

The night was bitter cold, but when the sun rose in the morning it was spectacular; warm and breathtaking with large trees and palms that ran the length of our site. We arrived in Loreto late in ...

... town is clearly engaging Puno in a run for its money. After all, if a traveler can use Desaguadero as a transit hub and settle border formalities in one fell swoop, why not!

However, I did not make it across this heavily-trafficked border without incident. I was never given my Departure Card when I entered Bolivia in late April at Villazon. The immigration official there kept the card and it slipped my mind, while sorting out my visa, that I should have ...

... I cannot find anything and it is annoying to have to unpack a whole suitcase just to find something at the bottom and then have to re-pack it again! 2. This city is SO much like San José, Costa Rica. I cannot believe how similar it is. The people drive crazy. They honk. The buildings look the same. There are "spikes" and gates. There are lots of stores. There are markets. I mean, it's just crazy. I love it already!!! 3. They have a ton of cool things here. Today we took a ...

... her Mother so that helped me remember the age difference! I would always recommend travelling alone to anyone considering it, it can be such a grat experience. You get to do what you want when you want and not have to compromise on anything. You also get more opportunites to meet interesting people as you are forced into making an effort when you are alone. You also learn to rely on yourself and I often suprise myself at my organisational abilities ...

... president's palace!

Toured the San Francisco monastary and catacombs complete with thousands of bones.

I have this theory that a Big Mac meal costs about the same (when converted to Australian dollars) in almost every country in the world, and I was pleased to see that the Peru Big Mac index was AU$6.

... road, we pulled over at Pete's Camp a few miles before town and had tacos and a couple of ice-cold Dos Equis. I guess I failed to tell Malin that the fish tacos in Baja are stupid good, so she ordered the beef... but once she bit into one of my super succulent tacos de pescado, she was hooked! It sucked for me though, now I had to eat the beef tacos. Of course we met a bunch of leathery over-served Vietnam vet expats who shared their wisdom with ...

... around eight hours. Not a bad drive- especially since there was so much to look at! I never realized how beautiful Baja California is. After finding a hotel in downtown San Felipe, my husband and I decided to explore. We never realized how much this city offered! We went snorkeling, swimming, hiking, bike riding and shopping. There is so much more to do as well! From atv-ing to horse back ...

... lost in the maze of unmarked streets and bemusedly enjoyed a one hour tour of Mexicali. I was a little shocked. Being at the U.S. border, I assumed Mexicali would be fairly modern but it can only be described as having an adventure-movie third-world flavor. I wouldn't have expected a city of 700,000 people only inches from the richest country in the world to have dirt streets infested with hundreds of diseased stray dogs. There were a few nicer neighborhoods and even a Mexican ...