Off the radar.. Into the jungle...

So while in La Paz, Bolivia we bumped into Tim, a fellow new jersian.. who happened to live in Somerville, NJ, about 20 min away from where we grew up (yes sometimes the world is that small). The next morning, we found ourselves on an 18 hour bus ride with Tim to the amazon basin. There we spent 3 days building a puma cage for Luna, a one and a half year old puma who will be the newest addition to inti warri yassi. Inti warri yassi is a VERY new park (its actually not even considered a park yet) that takes in any animals that people have taken from the wild and realize that they cant take care of it. The goal of the park is to rehabilitate the animals and release them into the wild. Unfortunately, for the pumas, it is too late for them so they give them the best life possible at the park. Simba and Leishu are the two pumas currently at the park. Volunteers who stay for long periods of time are able to work with them... play with them, walk them, and get kitty kisses (which apparently are extremely painful... like sandpaper scraping your skin over and over... but you cant really say no to a puma who wants a kiss i guess).

Our time there was spent doing some hardcore manual labor, eating ammaazzing vegetarian food, chewing coca leaves, embracing the sweat bees that were crawling all over us, drinking from and swimming in the creek, and sleeping off a long hard days work.. only to wake up at 7 am to do it all over again. It was awesome.

We didn´t take a lot of pictures because we were working so hard, but here a few that we managed to snap...

back of a pick-up truck

happy face!!

our first hike in the jungle

this is our friend tim... :)

the bus ride

until next time!

xoxo the traveling sisters...

Chile to Bolivia

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile... the driest place on earth

sandboarding, salt lakes, flamingos, and beautiful sunsets...

After missing the train to Oruro we had an unexpected, but pleasant visit to Tupiza, Bolivia. Famous for where butch cassidy and the sundance kid had allegedly met their maker...

We took a cabalgata trip out to see the surrounding area... dry, dusty, desert.. but beautiful. the rocks were rainbow colored :) we had a little buddy on our ride too.. just a few months old this calf was learning the trail for when he is one day old enough to take some gringas for a ride! and yes the hats came WITH our horseback riding tour...









standing at la puerta del diablo. look closely.. i am in that picture!!!

bolovia begins

On to the next leg of the trip... we are in our second month and we will be heading into Bolivia tonight or tomorrow morning.... we will be posting some new pics soon, but for now, we head into a new country... wish us luck!!

Valparaiso and Arte Urbano

About 2 weeks ago, we visited a place 1.5 hours west of Santiago, Chile. We had heard that it was not to be missed so we decided to go... The neighborhoods are made up of colorful houses, one stacked upon another strategically placed on cerros (hills) that surround the city at the bottom. Here is a small peek at the houses and the beautiful street art that makes this town quite unique.