It is raining in beautiful Bariloche, so I am heading back up to my favorite city in the world, Buenos f'n Aires. I guess I have a lot of updating to do so I will start from the beginning.
World's Deadliest Bike Ride- Man what a rush. Over 200 people died a year from their vehicles falling 400+ meters like the O'doyle family in Billy Madison until the road was closed in 2006. I along with 14 other people decided it would be a great idea to hurl myself down the road at 40mph inches from the ledge. It was more dangerous to break on the gravel than it was to just keep going, so it really was a near deadly ride. 3 people on my trip crashed, but luckily they crashed into the mountain and not the abyss.
Machu Piccu was a once in a lifetime experience. It was nice to see my dad and bro, and my brother's friend Steve. The people in my group were all super chill and I made some good friends from the trek. I highly recommend visiting if you get the chance, I've never seen anything like it. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
I climbed a 5,830 meter (19,000+ feet) volcano in Arequipa, Peru. It was probably the hardest thing I have done in my life. My dad accidently took my camera battery charger so I don't have any pictures, but I did make it to the summit, even though I have no proof. I definitely have some good stories from the journey, mainly due to my guide's complete lack of interest in safety. After trekking for 6 hours on day one we camped and went to bed at 6pm. We woke up at 1am to begin our next days hike to reach the summit. All five of us began, and like a bad horror movie, one by one everyone dropped off until only my guide and I made it to the top. The first victim felt sick an hour into the journey and was told to return to base camp. It was pitch black outside. She never made it back to the base camp...
I'm not kidding. She wondered around the mountain for 10 hours never finding the base camp. She was puking the whole time, and she said she slept on the side of the mountain for 5 hours. I am currently laughing at the ridiculous sounding nature of this, but every word is true. Scout's honor. My guide was frantic when we returned to base camp and she wasn't there. After an hour of running around the mountain screaming her name we found her. It was definitely not her fault, as our camp was 3 tents hidden by some big rocks on a huge mountain. Trying to find that with a little flashlight at 2 in the morning is like expecting the Rangers to finish above .500 this year. The next victim, who I thought was a goner from day 1 was a 60 year old Indian (feather not dot). I made it to the base camp 3 hours before him on day one, and actually trekked down for 45 minutes to carry his bag to base camp (while my guide chilled). While trekking on day 2 we were given no flashlights, so I used my own. Cool old Indian guy (COIG for short) was lagging behind really bad on day two. It could be because HE DIDNT HAVE A FLASHLIGHT. COIG was climbing the mountain in the middle of the night blind as a bat, and I was the only one who seemed to notice or care. I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I seriously thought he was going to fall and die. It wasnt incredibly steep or anything, but come on! My guide eventually made him sit in open space and wait for us to meet up with him after we made it to the top. I was just happy he lived. The last victim almost made it but she passed out 200 meters from the top. VICTORY IS MINE! What a trip. It was awesome to look down into a crater of an active volcano and see smoke billowing out. The volcano erupted 250 years ago and Eduardo'd* Arequipa. Cool to learn a little history while staring down into the heart of the beast. No pictures though, small tear emoticon. The best part was getting down. The fastest option is to slide on your ass straight down. It was really fun and effective, I managed to decend 600 vertical meters in about 5 minutes, but I completely shredded my jeans on one of the 100's of rocks I ran over on my journey to the bottom. No worries, it was worth it. So we all survived, and I spent the next two days recovering.
I am now in Bariloche, a beautiful town on a huge lake in the Patagonia region of Argentina. I took a Hurculean (sp?) bus journey to get down here, with a quick stop over in Mendoza for some life sustaning wine drinking. It was 12 hours from Cusco to Arequipa, 7 hours from Arequipa to Arica, Chile, and 34 hours from Arica to Mendoza. Add another 18 from Mendoza to Bariloche and in less than 10 days I spent three entire days on South American buses. Balls. However air travel was not even possible, so it had to be done. Yesterday I rented a car with some badass girls from NYC and a cool guy from SanFran. It reminded me of one of those bad Coca Cola 2 minute ads you see before your movie starts of some cross country trip in a Volkswagon. We put over 600 kilometers on our Little Red Coochie (the name of our VW) driving all over the lake district. It was honestly some of the best scenery I have seen in my life. However my favorite part was the advice I got about New York. I am so stoked to move there, it has now become this fire in my belly, this unshakeable feeling in my bones telling me that I need to be there. Have to be there.
Less than two weeks until I am back home. The time has really flown by and there is so much I still want to do. I guess I'll need to make a return trip in a few years. Natalie is coming to visit in Austin, so I am wayyyyy too excited about that. Poor girl has no clue all the exciting adventures I have in store. I think on the 24th I am going to plan a little meet and greet reunion at Crown and Anchor, first pitcher of Fireman's is on me. More details to come later. I lost my toiletries bag sometime during my 72 hours of bus journies and am currently about 2 weeks into a pretty awful molester-stauche. I am definitely looking like someone that Chris Hansen would ask if I take a seat over there, and will probably rock it until the end of my trip.
picture time
