Saturday, December 4, 2010

Thank you Bolivia.


What a wonderful two years we had in Bolivia. We are so very thankful for everything. We will look back at this time and remember all the incredible relationships built, crazy adventures and experiences, and the love we felt during our time in Bolivia. Thank you to everyone who made this time so special for us.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Best Spring Break Trip Ever.

Salar de Uyuni

Party

The Crew

How we rolled

Check out the igneous rocks!

Laguna and Flamingos


Ladies at the Mt of 7 colors

Very windy there

Cool formations, but the green plant at the bottom is the neatest. You cut it, dry it, it burns longer then gas or carbon?

The desert is really very beautiful


Geysers

Our sign that we had reached civilization

Caporales

Hiking the pacific coast

NO! It's not snow, it's CACA.



Sunset on the beach in Arica



Liz, Wilo, and DMAC made a trip down to Bolivia and MADE it the best Spring Break ever for us. WOO WOO. Thanks guys for making us feel so special to come down and see us!!!

It was a wonderful week. We spent a day showing them all around Cochabamba, then boarded a bus to Southwest Bolivia to the famous Salar de Uyuni, or the Salt Flats. As you can see from the pics, it is just salt. Nothing but salt for hundreds of miles. It was incredible. They use some areas to actually make real salt you put on food, but it is a protected national park, and the place was beautiful. Because there is nothing there, there are no points of depth or distance, so you can take some really cool pics.

It was then on to the beautiful lagoons, geysers and hot springs. We had to wake up at 3:30 AM for the geyesers because they shoot the most stem from the ground at daybreak. It was freezing, so it was very nice to then be in a natural hot spring at 5:30 AM. We also got to see, not too close, an active volcano.

The lagoons were rediculous. Pink Flamingoes everywhere.

The third day we went from nothing but salt, nothing but lagooons, to nothing but sand. We entered the desert in the very Southern tip of Bolivia. Jenny loved all the geological formations of the rocks. Typical Earth Science teacher!!

We crossed into Chile and went to San Pedro de Atacama, which was the adventure capital of Chile. We saw about 5 cars and about 500 bikes. It was so cool. Wilo rented a mountain bike and went exploring but DMAC , Liz and Wilo all had an incredible time on our night in San Pedro. They went Sandboarding (like snowboarding) down 100 or so foot huge sand dunes right outside the city. The cool part, they did it at midninght when there was a full moon. They said it was perfect. They were pumped.

We then made it to the Pacific Ocean, the town Arica, Chile. My favorite part, they had a McDonalds!!! It's been 2 years and I love McDs!!! We were there for 3 days, I went 3 times!! Loved it!!

We took a lot of time in Arica to simply lay on the beach. It was nice. The sunsets over the Pacific were great. One day we went to the highest lookout point in the city to catch the sun and another we made sure we were on the beach to see it go down. We did a hike one day, but we were mostly in Arica to hang at the beach.

One night We got to see a performance by a bunch of people (over 50) dancing down the main road, doing a traditional South American Dance.

Leaving Arica, we flew back to La Paz on election day, which meant no cars on the road. It was a great day where we walked all around and shopped. La Paz is one city you can't describe, you just have to see.

Ended up with another early morning 4:30 AM wake-up call as Liz, DMAC and Wilo headed back to the States and me and Jenny back to Cochabamba for only 2 more months!!!!!

What a trip.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

School Spirit!!!

Pajama Day- We of course did the best we could to show as much spirit as possible. We had no problems teaching all day in pajama pants. And thankfully we have no problems looking like big dorks either.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Fun time with Teachers

Teacher bonding time. We don't get enough of each other during the week so we rented a bus and had a great Saturday exploring the Easternmost Incan ruins that are not too far from Cochabamba. It was a beautiful day where we had a 13-year old tour guide that knew everything about the Incas that had lived there many years ago. It was fun. There was some beautiful parts of our hike, including a huge waterfall.






After the ruins, we stopped at a Festival of the Guinea Pig!!!! It was great. Live bands, dancing, and a lot of cooked guinea pig. We have had it before, and it was fun to get about 5 of them and share among us. It was a good day.



Thursday, March 4, 2010

DAYS OFF!!

Nobody likes when school gets cancelled. Right??? For the past 2 days there have been civil unrest including roadblocks in Cochabamba, so school has been cancelled. The four teachers in this house yelled and danced around when we got the call that school was off. Jenny and I were able to stay up to about 2 AM watching about 15 episodes of 24 and last night our house had a battle of the sexes awesome game of dominoes. It was dang fun.

So today Ann and Jenny are off eating crepes and drinking coffee, Drew and I have started training for the Chatanooga Triathlon on July 11th. It will be my first in 5 years. I can't do much (or anything) yet because of my collarbone, but today we got in some good workout time.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Carnival!!!!

Carnival this year was fun. Better than last year, when we were the main target of every Bolivian armed with water balloons because of our gringoness. Whiteness. Non-Bolivianness.

This year we had some great organized water fights with the kids in our neighborhood, we love them all and it was just plain fun.

Jenny and Ann went out with all the other female teachers of the school for the No-Men Allowed Celebration of Madres, Celebraton of Women. They got pushed in a pool, danced, and loved spending time with their other female friends.




There is always a big celebration at school, kind of like a Mardi Gras celebration. Below is a pic of Jenny's 6th grae boys all costumed up. Jenny was the only teacher to dress up and dance with her class She was wonderful.

Monday, February 15, 2010

THE BROKEN BONES IN BOLIVIA CLUB

Last spring Bill got thrown off his horse and broke his ribs.
Last month Finn got thrown off his bicycle and broke his hip.
Friday I got thrown off my motorcycle and broke my collarbone!!!!!!

8 weeks on the DL for me. Bummer. It's been 3 days and I'm already bored out of my mind!! It hurts! But what will hurt more is selling "Blue Thunder!"


Sunday, February 14, 2010

Costa Rica Part 3

This was our third time to Costa Rica for our Master's degrees, one more to go. It was just real fun this time. Brooke and Alison are amazing and we are so thankful you let us stay with you, have fun with you, and eat your food.




Jenny, Brooke and Alison- Tres super chicas!!!



Thursday, February 11, 2010

MISSISSIPPI!!!!!

It was wonderful- both Jenny and John's parents met us at Lori and Bryan's house in Mississippi. It was so wonderful.









Sunday, February 7, 2010

Christmas Break Part 2- WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE. It was cool, probably won't go back soon.