Greg's Ecuadorian Adventure

Machu Picchu... Tourist Trap Hell of my Life This was, by far, my least favorite part of my entire trip. Again, I felt obliged to do this since I was going to be in Perú and was passing it on the way to Copacabana, Bolivia. This was the single-most arduous day of my travels. After getting a few short hours of sleep, I woke and gathered my prepacked gear and waited for an eternity for my morning pickup. After calling my tour agent a couple of times, because his instructions stated I would be picked up at 2:30 A.M. whereas I was picked up after 3 A.M., I was relieved that I hadn't been scammed out of a couple hundred dollars for something of which I was less than enthused already. The van delivered us to the train station, which is the only form of transportation aside from walking to reach Aguas Calientes. And the only way to visit Machu Picchu is to end up in Aguas Calientes. For those of you planning this adventure, do your research ahead of time. It is possible to do a ful...

By now, if you have read my blog at any point and for any duration, you know I always encounter some type of drama. Travel-related drama. Not necessarily brought on by myself but not prevented by myself either. I don't necessarily mind it, because it creates experiences that end up becoming the more memorable moments of my trips. Heck, they even get majority of the attention of my posts sometimes. This trip was no exception and I foresaw it from the start. Leaving El Salvador for Honduras When I arrived in Roatán at the start of my trip, I had sufficient time to make it to the  Útila Dream ferry office to purchase my ticket. When I arrived, I purchased a round-trip. I was handed the two tickets ( thankfully never lost ) and looked at the return time. "The return time is 10:10?" "Yes," replied the Ticketmaster. "I have a flight at 12:10 that day. I don't think that will be enough time." "You should be fine," with another positivel...

Growing up in Wisconsin and the Midwest has its perks. Access to the world's best cheeses, beer, and sausages. The World's Largest Music Festival , America's largest waterpark  and the world's greatest concentration of them . The proximity to the Great Lakes. The changing of the leaves in Autumn, which also lends itself to restocking on delectable venison. Being a short drive from urban centers like Chicago, and even closer to natural wonders, like Kettle Moraine forest for hiking through a stunning evidence of the last Ice Age. The pace of life is slow and the people are friendly ( even if it is a display of passive-aggressiveness ). The sendero to Pumpkin Hill It has its drawbacks, too. The pace of life is slow, for someone with a thirst for knowledge and experience. It's regularly viewed as a flyover zone and doesn't gain much national or international recognition; I almost always have to reference Chicago or Canada while describing its relative p...

"I mean how do you know what you're going to do until you do it? The answer is, you don't." Holden Caulfield, "Catcher in the Rye" By the time I was done with my week in Paraguay, I left super early  for Chile. Paraguay was nice and all but I was very much looking forward to the final leg of my trip. On the agenda was to visit Easter Island, go skiing in the Andes, visit Valparaiso, and make the most out of being in a major city. I accomplished one of those things. Mural honoring the history of the Mapuche, in a subway station Honestly , I am not even really excited about writing this post because I was in a dark place at this point in the trip. I spent too much time hopping from one place to the next, and not enough time staying in one place long enough to develop relationships with others. I was also incredibly over eating meals alone and being stared at by waiters, passerby-ers, and other patrons. I downloaded a couple of apps to my phone that w...

Before the Christmas break, I went to Cotacachi with my friend, Kara. We were hitting up all the stores in the pursuit of some authentic, Ecuadorian leather goods-- chaquetas and botas . I ended up walking away with a few pairs of shoes/boots and a new, black leather jacket... because somehow my old leather jacket went missing during summer break. At one point in the day, we stopped at a tienda to get some supplies. I began with the customary " Buenas tardes " and proceeded with asking for what I needed. The girl immediately responded to me in English, which is when I looked up and realized she was a gringa . I was so thrown off, I didn't even know how to respond so I am pretty sure I said a couple more words in Spanish before stuttering in my native tongue. We walked out, and Kara turned to me and said, "Next time, I want you to respond in German." Had I been a purely monolingual tourist from North America, I probably would have been ecstatic. But this is so...