Foreigners...?

We are not foreigners for the first time since the 27th of November when we left on what has been a trip to be remembered for ever. We decided to cough up the $50 change fee and cut our time in Mexico a few days short. We've actually been back for a couple nights, but could not let the allure of being in some exotic foreign place dis-illusion our faithful few blog followers, until we were able to get these last few posts up.

After a couple nights and days in San Blas, we opted for a few extra days in California before I head back to Oregon on Saturday. Had we stayed, we would've just kept busy and moving up until the minute we flew out, then the storm of responsibility would've come crashing down in a hurry. This way we have a little time to prepare and lay low at Vanessa's parents house in the Santa Cruz Mountains of beautiful Northern California. This time is to reflect on an amazing 10 weeks while organizing our thousands of pictures and stories for sharing.

The next chapters of our lives together will undoubtedly bring more change as Vanessa finds a new job, and I continually follow my ever evolving path through life. We are sad to be done with this adventure as it has definitely broadened our perspectives on our lives and the world that we are living in, but only that much more inspired for a life together of new adventures around every corner.

So, we thank everyone who has contributed to making this the truly amazing experience that it has been. It was a real treat to keep in touch with everyone throughout. Every few days when checking our e-mail, we were always excited to read every comment anyone put up as it was our main connection with friends and family. We each made 1 phone call on Christmas day to our parents, and that was the sum our verbal communication with the states.

We will get at least 1 more post with links to see our slide shows in their entirety, as those get cranked out here in the next couple days. Probably some hi-light pictures as well.

Hopefully we'll see you all soon. Thanks for keeping up.

XO

Vanessa and Max

Eat drink and be awesome

Food

• Best Steak: in Carmelo, Uruguay - Restaurant "Fey Fey" order - Lomo parilla, cocido rojo


• Best home cooked meal - Conchita's (homestay mom) soups and camarones dish


• Favorite time drinking with total strangers - Fernet and coke with Mendoza kids in the park


• Best Ceviche - Mantanita, Ecuador


• Best cheap lunch - Lomito's in Argentina, the Columbian joint in Cuenca, and tacos de camarones (shrimp) in Mexico
  


• Best cultural dish - Max: Alpaca kabob in Cuzco, guinie pig in Cuenca was fun to play with on plate. Vanessa: Potato Vegetable twice baked type dish in Cuzco....
  


• Most appreciated Gringo food - Jacks Cafe in Cuzco (Bacon, French Toast, and good Coffee)


• Best all around dinner - La Cabrera in Buenos Aires' Palermo District: Champage while waiting, awesome steak and sides, great pasta with great veggies, good wine, all incredibly too cheap

Vinos, Jugos, Y Bebidas

• Malbecs in Argentina


• Sauvignon Blanc in Chile


• Sangria in Montevideo


• Liters of Beer everywhere with everyone


• Warm Agua de Flores by Conchita every morning

Best Moments

Longest Airport Stay - Santiago 14 hrs


Longest Bus Ride - Puerto Iguazu to Cordoba = 23 hrs! 2nd place - BA to PI 21.5 hrs


Worst Night Sleep - Colonia, Uruguay Hostel Colonia and its sweat absorbing foam pads for the 97 degree heat wave


Best Night Sleep - First night in Pam and Mikes BA Hotel


Most Proud Spanish Speaking - Inka trail with the Españolas


Least proud Spanish Speaking- First day in Montevideo when we realized their euro-spanish was much faster and different


Favorite Purchase - Max: black hat in Cusco. V: White dress in Buenos Aires


Best Sunset - Colonia Del Sacramento, Uruguay

Worst Sunburns - V: from Hiking Waynu Picchu. M: Surfing in Mexico


Best Quotes:

"No, no, that flight does not exist" - the head of Aero Mexico regarding our confirmed 11 pm flight from Santiago to Mexico City that was on the reader board with a crowd waiting to check in. Just after the power in the whole airport went out, and they rescheduled us on a 6:00 am flight .... to Cancun.

"ese no carne, es jamon" (thats not meat, its ham) - Waitress in Mendoza answering Vanessa's concerns regarding the pile of ham on her vegetarian sandwich...

"I've been robbed! When I came to, all I had was some little orange pants!" Our friend Adam upon getting his belongings robbed (misplaced) and sobering up with someone elses little orange board shorts on, on Christmas Eve in Ecuador....





Most memorable moments in no particular order:

• Machu Picchu and Wayna Picchu = Best new years ever...


• Wine tasting on bikes in Mendoza with Jess Gaskil


• Kids in Fernet park in Mendoza


• Biking through tunnels to waterfalls in Baños, Ecuador with Philip the German


• Tango Shows, steaks and wine in Buenos Aires


• Surfing on Christmas day in Mantanita


• Pablo Nerudas house in Valparaiso


• Day trip to Parque Nacional Cajas


• Lazy Day in Vilcabamba serenaded by Adam the Aussie


• The pants party...
  


• Donkey riding in Villcabamba, Ecuador


• Tidepools in Mantanita


• A little waterfall I like to call Iguazu


• New years eve in Aguas Calientes

San Blas

Wedding week

Some mangled toes

Yoga on the beach? Check.

its tough being sooo sexy

Back on the Road

Nice spread for a week of lounging





The happy newly weds, Corey and Shawna

Wedding shenanigans

We had a smashing good week for Corey and Shawnas wedding. They are our good friends from Portland who moved to Amsterdam just before we embarked on this monster trip. It feels like they will be there when we get back, its sad to realize they live on the other side of the world now. Good way to do it. Instead of meeting everyone once in the buffet line, and for first impressions to be coupled with the influence of an open bar, we hung out for 5 days surfing, hiking, and lounging around together, and feel like we made some legitimate friends in the process (= couches to crash on in more places yet). We were in Sayulita for the whole week, staying at a nice resort style place that we set up with everyone in June when it all came together. Get us around a bunch of gringo friendst though, and there went our blogging motivation. We did however get to show off our newly acquired spanish skills a bit.

Now we are truely on the last push. Vanessa handled her budget to a T, as was expected, but mine on the other hand is all but blown, and stress about handling my life is the consequence. We have been in Puerto Vallerta for a day and a half and are about ready to leave this overpriced gringo haven. We even checked into changing flights, but it doesn`t pan out, so we`re stayin. Getting out of PV this afternoon though. A cheaper little beach town with less gringos and tourism a few hour bus ride up the coast, San Blas, is where we are pointing. There sounds like some neat day trips out of there. Crocodile`s, cheap jungle boat trips, exotic birds, and more...? thats what the books say. Good place for some inevitable meditating on re-re-evaluating my priorities, agendas, and life direction again so that I can hit the ground running when I get back to all my almost finished business at home.

Thats all. pictures soon...

xo


MaX

More Iguazu...

Pablo Neruda

Yesterday we wandered aimlessly around the city of Valporaiso, Chile. Beautiful hilly town sloping up in every direction from the port at the shore of a bay. We, for no particular reason, began following guirilla advertising type arrows painted on the curbs of a winding street, directing us to ¨La Sebastina¨. We kept on for quite a while until we turned to find that we were looking across town to where our neighborhood now was tiny and lost in a sea of colorful buildings covering the hillside. We finally arrived to the treasure at the end of the winding path, to find that it was not a meuseum as we expected, but rather the house of some famous Chilean. Pablo Neruda, an eccentric nobel prize winning Chilean poet. He was exiled for a while, however revered throughout his life for his poetry. His house was a sight to be seen. This went from being a nice walk in a beautiful Chilean port town, to one of my favorite afternoons of our time in South America (which now has only hours remaining). Beautiful mosaic tile work, detailed craftsman style wood working, round windows from a ship, recycled old doors, a carousel, a bar behind which only he was permitted, stairs leading to walls, spectacular views, and much more. After some standard confusion and ideas misdirected in translation, I found that the wide plank wood floors were a variety of pine from a place in the United States called Oregon! No pictures were permitted, so you will have to see it for yourself some day, but it comes with my high recommendation.

Oh yeah, on our way out, we also noticed at the last second that there was a joint poetry and art exhibit with an artist friend of Neruda´s also named Pablo. Pablo Picasso! pretty awesome. Original Picasso pieces in conjunction with poems by this Chilean poet pimp. Clearly, I was impressed with our decision to follow the rabbit of the obscure arrows on the curb.

iguazu...

Just a peek... it was pretty awesome!

cute littl dolls at street fair in MV

Uruguay

gringo toes in Punta del Este




Exit polls in Montevideo .... Asesino de niños = murderer of childeren.. world oppinion not looking so hot










Speed Chess in the street (ajedraz rapido en la calle)

Lo siento

To our dedicated reader(s?) Sorry about the delay in blog posts. We have been on the go, and I have been a bit stingy with the battery life of my Camera, as there are different plugs here, and I had not taken the time to find a converter. However, now after our stay in Mendoza has come to its last day, I got a good charge into it and pending that I allot some time here this afternoon, pictures will once again be posted. Quite a bit of reporting to do... Iguazu Falls, 24 hr bus rides, Mendoza, Wine tasting, hanging with our travelling idol and great friend Jess, and soo much more..

xo

MaX

The big and the beautiful

Just a quick report... Its 1:04 am and all is well in Buenas Aires. We just got home from an amazing tango performance and dinner at a super neat spot in the San Telmo district of beautiful Buenas Aires. Everything has been pretty cheap and awesome here My $5 steak was good, but not the best Ive had since being down here. The bottle of wine was a Malbec from Mendoza, and was really great. The tango show was the most impresive though. We opted over cabbing it, to walk 16 blocks back to the hotel, which is wonderfully located central to everything. It has a nice little kitchen and a living area which Vanessa used this morning for yoga. So nice to have a mini apartment of sorts to spread out in. This is such a big city with so much to do though, we barely have time to sleep in our fancy room. However now, I think a few hours are in order.

MaX and Vanessa

In Buenos Aires and Loving It

Oh, Buenos Aires... where to begin.
This city is a beautiful combo of Paris, London, and New York City. The buildings here are magnificent, and although the city contains 13 million people /WOW!/, it feels much smaller. Much like S.F. or Portland, it is broken down into districts, or barrios, which gives each area an identity and central feel. We went on a big tour yesterday of both the City Center, where we`re staying, thanks to Max`s oh so sweet Auntie Pam and Uncle Mike/thanks again guys!/, and the San Telmo tango district. TANGO! Dear god, tango is a sight to be seen! If you ever have the opportunity to see a tango show, do! It was fantastic. We went to this lovely place El Balcon/a Caio Bellas for you Calis on a more sophisticated level/ and saw a mindblowing show.
We will be exploring more in the next few days, so ´much to see, Içm already in love with this city and itçs only been one full day. And, as an added bonus, the weather is perfect, the food is good, and the vino, oh the vino is delicious/Malbec is popular down here from the Mendoza wine country to the west, which has never been my favorite wine, until now! Of course, as warned, the shopping here is fantastic, too. I will be purchasing either an extra bag or throwing out all my old clothes to get my new outfits home. Still need to get some shoes... hummm.
We will be posting pictures soon, its just that there is so much to do and so little time, 3 days left here I think. Max is at another internet place now, so Max, if I forgot anything, please continue from here...

We`re melting!!!!!

Dear god, it´s HOT here in Colonia, Uruguay! It was about 96 degrees all day yesterday and after the sun went down (at 9:15!) we hoped for a little break from the heat. Not the case. It was 92 in our room all night! Poor Alaska Max may never be the same. This morning we got as little break (88 degrees) and now we are deciding if we should splurge and go for the $12 a night hotel WITH A.C. or just move to another hostel for $10 that we´ve paid at the hostel last night and hope for a cooler room... We may even keep heading south tonight and stay in Carmelo where we´ll be heading out from to get to Buenas Aires mañana.
All from here for now. Beautiful sunset, cute town very much like Carmel in Cali, and unfortunantly that goes for the cost of most things here too (I know, $12 a night for a room isn´t too bad, but it´s everything else that´s the costly stuff.)
Vanessa y Max

Uruguay...

Just a quick note on Uruguay. What a difference from Northern Sur America.. Mu tranquilo but the city its self is large Where are all the peope we wonder... Sounds like there is a strike from Argentina to keep the tourism down here after a paper mill was planned to be built this year. It does make the town seem pretty empty, but is wonderful for us! I think there are much fewer travelers from North America and Europe than in other countries we ve visited. There are fewer english speaking people and menus and such are only in Spanish. To add to that, the Spanish here is quite different than in Ecuador and Peru, proably like visiting the south for those of us from the west coast. Makes things more interesting in our conquest to learn Spanish. Very european and cleaner here. The weather is wonderful!

Pacific to Atlantic

We made it to Montevideo this afternoon.. or morning depending which clock you are looking at. It is 6 hours ahead of Oregon time. We got into Santiago at 3ish am where we crashed (slept) in the airport for a few hrs. Our plane didnt take off till 10, and got into MV at 1 or so this afternoon, where we saw our second major Ocean of the day.

Upon a walk around the city, it seems like a quite likable place. Much different demographics here Vs Peru. More of a european lighter skinned crowd. We got a snack and a beer that led right into the late afternoon nap, which Im not convinced Vanessa will recover from.

For the good of the Capital Press and for the overall benefit of beef quality in Oregon, at the request of my uncle Mike, I am going to eat a similar cut of Steak in every town we grace throughout Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, and Chile. Strictly for the good of the beef eating world of course, I will take notes and reel off a list of rehearsed questions in Spanish.. All hopefuly starting tonight. Empese mi suerte.

Thats right. Paraguay might make lucky country number 7, as it is en route from Iguazu Falls to to Mendoza. We met a neat guy in Cusco who travelled with us to Lima. Hes from Paraguay, lives in New York and works for the UN. Super interesting job and life. He is going to be visiting his family in Asuncion and genuinely offered to take us in for a night and to show us around his home town.... so we might just take him up on the offer.

All for now

MaX

little hang up... and a bidet

Our flight from Cusco, got cancelled last night, so our whole marathon day of travel got pushed back a day. Initially it was kind of a bummer, but LAN airlines took it upon themselves to put us up in a 4 star hotel and feed us from the super fancy and nice hotel resteraunt for 3 meals while we wait. Last night we had dinner with a Canadian guy who has lived in Brazil and Peru for a few years, then just layed in our comfy beds (2) and watched some TV for the first time since we left. We caught the Iowa Caucaus stuff till Vanessa fell asleep, then I watched, Oh brother where art thou, with Spanish subtitles. Oh and I used a bidet for the first time... All in all, a nice unexpected resort treat for a night that beat sleeping (or not) in the Santiago Airport all night, which we will do tonight, but this was definately a nice recharge. Cancelled flights were just a part of life in Kodiak.

Take a step back...

The first day of my 29th year (being a 28 year old) is off to a smashing start. In the room we have had for the last few nights here in Cusco there is an uncovered skylight directly above the bed, so when the sun came up at 5:15 I found myself at the first fork of my day. I took the path to not squint my way back to sleep and explored the Cusco morning. It was beautifully crisp and quiet, however awakening. First I got my complimentary coca tea from the hostel and beat the owners kid to the TV lounge to catch a few minutes of CNN in English in attempt to keep in touch with the shenanigans surrounding the Iowa Caucases and other world news from the perspectives of american mainstream news, which I soon realized to not be missing.

I proceeded to walk to the other side of town practicing my spanish with locals along the way for directions and small talk (very small) along the way to the post office which actually was open when I arrived, only to learn that the possibility of sending a box of cheap alpaca sweaters, hats and blankets home is near non-existant at 85 soles/kilo (28 dollars). Then I got a breakfast sandwich at delicious little cafe called Jacks (fairly american however great for getting my fix of bacon and good coffee, neither of which we´ve seen any of here or in Ecuador. Ironic considering the heaps of great coffee that comes out of these countries..? mostly just dehydrated nes cafe, or as its coffee snob name is here ¨no es cafe¨). After chatting with an old guy from London, I had time to reflect a bit in my man log (not a diary!).

So its the 3rd of January and today I am going to travel from Cusco, Peru to Montevideo, Uruguay. Once more: I am going from Peru, where I have spent a truely breathtaking week hiking through ancient ruins, to Uruguay where we have almost a month to explore our way to Chilie. Non the less, I am doing all of this with my little sweetie love of my life, as we approach the midway point of our amazing 3 month trip through South America! Pretty freaking awesome. I am a truely fortunate person, and I am super thankful for all of the opportunities that have been afforded to me through the first 28 years of my life. I have a wonderful family who supports me in all that I take on, more sincere friends who truely care for me than I can count, and Vanessa, a truely amazing partner that tops the long lists of fortunes Ive been blessed with.

My most sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed to the awesomeness that is my life. I love it. Thanks.

MaX

Facebook...

We got talked into joining up with a facebook page by fellow travellers so sharing photos is super easy. If unfamiliar try going to: http://www.facebook.com/

then in the lower right search bar type my name (Max Holfert). If that doesnt work, sign up and try to figure it out... I have almost all our pictures on there for public viewing.

Max

from Wayna Picchu

mas...

only 486 pictures... in 1 day!

Machu Picchu por 2008 & Cuzco para el cumpliaños de Max!

What a way to end the año viejo and begin el año nuevo! On the 31st de Diciembre Max and I got up at5am to catch a bus to a train which took us to the 104 mile marker of the famous Inka trail to hike into Machu Picchu. It took us about 7 hours. It was AMAZING! The hike really was not all that difficult after being at relatively similar altitudes for the last month, we had no problems. It was beautiful as you´ll see from the pictures. It rained on us for a few hours but by the time we got to la Puerta del sol ¨the Sun Gate¨ the sky opened up to blue and we were able to get out of our funny rain ponchos. Una vista buena! We then hiked down to Machu Picchu and arrived just in time to snap off a few photos as dusk approached and hike down to Aguas Calientes por el noche. We had a nice dinner and then celebrated El Año Nuevo en la ciudad central con la gente de Aguas Calientes. We counted down to midnight in the town center with locals and tourists. It was a riot, lots of yellow, which brings good luck for the new year. We then headed back to the room just before 1 to awake at 5:00am on the first morning of 2008(4 hours of sleep). We were we stoked to be the first bus up the mountain (as promised) but it turned out our guide didn´t go home until later than us. He had to be woken up and was a bit ´resaca´(hungover), so needless to say we were a tad upset. Max was actually pacing in the street anxious to see the first light hit the sacred ruins. Regardless, we made it to M.P. by 7:30am, had a 2 hour tour explaining the ruins (which was very interesting) which were suprisingly intact, and then we had free time in which Max, a girl from our group and I used to hike to the top of the famous ¨Wayna Picchu¨ (huge mountain in back drop of all the famous pictures of Machu Picchu) which ´topped´ off our journey to this magical location. It was an awesome vertical ascent which included crawling through a little cave in order to reach the absolute summit. And, as an added bonus, I got a sunburn! Hurts, but how often can you say you got a sunburn on the first day of the year? (well, in North America at least.)

So, that brings us to today, Max´s 28th birthday!! Turns out it´s also a big day here, ¨Cuzco Day¨, so we enjoyed a wonderful desayuno (breakfast) and plan to explore a bit more today and celebrate en la noche.

Our Spanish has been coming along well, although we still make MANY mistakes which we need to work on. We had two women in our hiking group who were from Spain and only spoke Spanish, so we practiced a lot with them and our guide. We´ve actually been getting quite a few compliments of surprise on how well our Spanish is for only studying 3 weeks. This is great and inspires us to speak more and learn more. It is SO frustrating when we can´t get an idea across or understand someone, so that feeds the fire to keep learning.

Well, FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!! We wish you all a very wonderful new year and look forward to hearing from you all. Tomorrow we are off to Uruguay. Another LONG layover (30 + hours), but that´s part of traveling on a shoe string. :)
Vanessa y Max

We´re so high we barely know whats going on...

First of all, not to sound anti-American, but why do we insist on going against the grain? For example, the metric system. It turns out 1 meter actually equals 3.281 feet. So the standard factor of 3 is a bit off. With this new information, I figure the city of Cusco to be at 11,023 feet! However, Machu Picchu, which we are allegedly hiking up to, is lower at 2400 M (7874´)´. Other areas for comparrison sake: Aspen = 2422 M (7945´). Portland = just over 15 M (50´). Cuenca, Ecuador = 2579 M (8300´)

Then there is Farenheit. To convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, multiply by 1.8 and add 32 degrees. Now thats just silly. We let some sick girl use our thermometer, and it read 102 ish, which didnt alarm her in the least, as she was looking for something in the 37 -38 range. Celcius freezes at 0 and boils at 100. Im just sayin...

Last bit of did you know... The furthest point from the center of the earth is not Mt Everest, but rather Ecuadors Volcano Chimborazo. This is because of the ¨Equatorial Bulge¨ that occurs as a result of the constant rotation of the earth on its axis. Correct me if Im wrong, but I beleive it can be correctly deducted that: further from the center of the earth = closer to the sun...? If that is correct, and I dont see why it wouldnt be, then the beaches of Ecuador (where I was surfing on Christmas day) are closer to the sun than the peak of Mt Everest. Chew on that!

The breif thunder storm and rain burst that allowed me to ponder these thoughts in response to Annies ¨how high is it there¨ question, has passed, and Id best go wander the streets of this high land while Im here. Cheers!

MaX

Max y Vanessa en CUZCO!!

We've made it out of Ecuador after a full month and are now in Cusco, Peru! We traveled starting yesterday at 3pm and fly to the Lima airport where we set up shop and stayed up all night until our 5.30am flight, then we got into Cuzco at 7am tofind that our hostel reservation was crap! They had us in a horrible room for to much $ / 14 a night/. SO, we set out and found the LOKI hostel we're currently at, slept of 3 hours, then expored the city for another hostel, as we can only stay here for a night and it's bit out of town. We found one finally and hooked up with the travel company we're hiking Machu Picchu with and now we're trying to stay awake so our time frame doesnt get off for tomorrow. We did that once in Montinita and I was up at 2 am cleaning our room.
We are oriented here now and look forward to exploring morein the upcoming days. We had some coca tea for elivation and don't seem to have any problems.
til next post,
v and m

¿Donde estan nuestra familias?

Feliz Navidad from Montanita Ecuador!

Its getting a little weird not being around any family for christmas. Yesterday we successfully said good bye to Cuenca, our home town for the last, 3-1/2 weeks, and bussed our way for almost 8 hours through Guayaquill and up the coast a ways to a chill little beach town called Montanita. Sad to see Cuenca go, as we grew fond of that town and our friends there, but we are excited for what is to come. We will be here till the 26th, when we will head back to Guayaquill for a night and off to Peru on the 27th.

Today, being the 24th is celebrated as Christmas day in Ecuador. Yesterday, after a long bus ride, we had 1 beer with dinner and were in bed by 9. This morning we were both up early and walked down the beach in the Oregon-esque drizzley rain. We dont have any big plans for the rest of the day. We might try surfing this afternoon or tomorrow as the water is a bit warmer as you get south of Newport a ways. While vanessa stayed in Cuenca, I went to Cajas national park to hike around some lagoons in the high Andes (13000 ft) with some Aussies and Californians on saturday. good times. The internet is a tad expensive ( 1.50/hr), so I wont dilly too long.

We wish a pile of smiles upon everyone who should read this.

Merry Christmas,

MaX and Vanessa

Navidad on the beach