Our travels have finally begun!

The day we got home from our rent a car trip, Kelsey and I packed up and moved out of our apartment, it was so weird actually leaving after living there for so long! We moved all of our things over to 2 Poniente to hang out for the night and get our things ready to head to the airport. At 4am we headed to the bus station in Vina and then we were on our way to Santiago. We check our suitcases, which weighed about 60lbs each and we were only allowed about 45lbs....but we got out of paying the overweight fee, go us! We arrived in Arica, Chile about mid day and headed to our hostel. Arica is the northern most city in Chile, and known for its beaches. We headed to the beach for 2 days and got our plans together. We met some great guys from London, who we ended up singing karaoke with at a bar that night!! We then hopped onto a train and headed across the border into Peru. We from there got on a bus to Lima, it was a 20 hour overnight bus....long ride! But we made it here to Lima, we are staying in a little suburb outside of the main city of Lima. It is located right on the coast and yesterday we watched paragliders cruise the coast and walked around the city and ate a great lunch. today we are packing up our huge suitcases to head to the airport to both check our heavy luggage and to meet Chris and Erika at the airport! We are so excited to have everyone arrive and to begin our travels around Peru and head to MacchuPicchu! I will make sure I keep you all updated on where we are going and what we are all up to!

Cajon de Maipo (Failed attempt at hotsprings!)

The day after Thanksgiving Kelsey, Amanda, Ganes and I all decided we really wanted to head up to Cajo de Maipo. It is a valley in between the Andes just a few hours outside of Santiago. We decided the easiest way to do this on our time was to rent a car.....who knew this would turn into the craziest 24 hour road trip ever! So we go to Alamo to rent a car, and they do not have th pathfinder we are looking for, so we settle for a 4 door compact Peagout......it was a comfy fit with the four of us and our luggage to say the least! So we head out, taking our time, and not exactly knowing the directions.....great start! After about 5 hours we finally get on the right track and stop for dinner. For some reason we weren't in a hurry, but we should have been because it was getting dark..whoops! We finally make it to the gravel road, this gravel road winds for at least 30 km, every bump, every rock, we all feel through the bottom of our little compact! About 20 km in, Kels realizes we are running out of gas....soon the gas light comes on and we are still going up! So we decide to keep going to see if we can make it, at this point it is dusk. We come to our first obstacle, a lake over the road, but Ganes gets out, does the rock test, and we continue on. About 20 minutes later, now it is really dark...... we come to a river crossing the road, this time the rock test doesn't turn out so well...we cant cross this river, our car is not high enough off the ground. So we turn around and decided to go about 50km back to the closest town to get gas and go from there. After making it to the gas station, PEWWWFF, we ask everyone in the town about getting a ride up there, even these 14 year old boys sitting on a truck (we offered them alcohol, turns out all they wanted was a Coke!)....no one can help..So we decide to park and at least enjoy the amazing stars for a few hours. So we all get outside and lay on the ground for a few hours. The stars were incredible, we each saw at least 5 shooting stars, YAY!! We then get a little bit scared to set up the tent, so we cruise around looking for a hostel or campsite.....long story short that was not successful! Oh yeah and the cars starts to sound like a rice rocket.....the muffler has fallen off....so Ganes gets out to temporarily fix it. We then get back in and are a little freaked out, so we decide we should sleep in the car where we can lock the doors. WHAT A NIGHT! 4 grown people sleeping in a compact car....haha the pictures sure sum it it! So we wake up in the morning and decide to head back to the river crossing, but we still cannot cross, so we head down, but the road we were on was well worth it, it was beautiful! All in all it was an amazing trip, well worth it, unfortunately we never made it to the actual hotsprings but we have a pretty good story to tell now!