Puno, Peru and Lake Titicaca

Hey guys!
So we finally made it west to Peru and have been here for about six days now. I´m currently living in a homestay in downtown Puno with two other girls from my team. Our mom runs a hostel while our dad works at a nearby hotel (He even speaks a little bit of english! But we don´t see him much; he works all the time.), and we also have a little sister who is 10 and has very little interest in the 3 older gringo girls who live upstairs... We eat rediculously often here - breakfast, lunch, another lunch around 4pm, and then dinner at 7ish. I am constantly uncomfortably full. It is rough. But I definitely can´t complain about the consistent supply of amazing fresh fruit!
During the week we have been volunteering at a orphanage about 15 minutes outside of downtown Puno. We are working on a plethora of murals, six altogether now, under the direction of an amazing local artist, Samuel. Samuel is a veteran of the Peruvian military and fought the Shining Light in the late 80´s and early 90´s and has an amazing story to tell. If anyone is interested, remind me about it when I get home! We also spend the afternoons hanging out with the kids and trying to practice our spanish with them. The kids are super friendly and interested in us, and love to help out with the painting whenever we give them jobs.
Last weekend we took a boat trip out on to Lake Titicaca to visit the floating islands of Uros and a couple other islands a couple hours away from Puno. Uros was really cool, but felt awkwardly touristy, as they dressed us up and then tried to sell us their crafts. I also managed to get super sick on Saturday and spent most of the 3 hour boat ride after Uros vomiting over the side of the boat. No joke. We stayed the night with a homestay that night, but I don´t really remember much of it due to the consistent vom'ing... But luckily I was feeling good enough the next morning to do a quick hike up a nearby island, as we try to prepare for our 4-day trek up to Maccu Picchu next week!
Overall, I am LOVING Peru. Puno is loud and bustleing, and everyone here is super friendly. We stay here until this Friday, when we move to Cuzco! Can´t wait.
Love and miss you all - keep those emails and facebook messages coming!
Burns

(Quick correction)

Hey guys! I just wanted to make a quick correction to my post below about the Amazon River Basin - during our Anaconda Hunting excursion we were never lost, it just felt like it to those of us who didn´t speak spanish... But the guides always knew where we were going! I just wanted to clarify!
More of an update to come when we get to Peru. Love to you all.

Rurrenabaque, Bolivia and the Amazon River Basin

I just got back from the sweatiest week of my life. We flew into Rurrenabaque, Bolivia which is a cute little town along the Beni River, which feeds into the Amazon. It was easily 90 degrees and at least 90% humidity. So of course, in my excitement about being back at less than 2000 feet above sea level, I went for a run. Because I am insane. It was horrible. Never run in the Amazon River Basin. It started the sweating that didn´t stop until this morning. That was last Wednesday.
Anyways, after a 3 hour van ride over dirt roads (as always) we reached our push off point for our canoe adventure. We spent 3 days and 2 nights at a small structure... I can´t even really call it a lodge... Doing lots of fun things up and down the river. We saw lots of monkeys, birds, caymen, alligators, dolphins, and turtles! (I told them that Cecil says hi). On a not-so-fun-note, Friday morning was (excuse my language) the morning from hell. We set off to go Anaconda hunting in the marsh land, which ended up with our whole group tromping through thigh deep water for over three hours, our guides getting pretty darn lost, and then a run-in with a wasp´s nest. I was lucky enough to avoid getting stung, but a few of the girls got it really bad. Then, our patience at zero at this point, we were approached by a huge cloud of insects, easily 200 or 300. Our guides quickly made us crouch down, hold still, and be super quiet. They told us later that the insects were a swarm of Killer Bees, and when one bee decides to sting then they all attack the victim at once, and they can easily kill large animals... Like humans. Very scary. But we all got back safe and sound, spent the rest of the day swimming with the Pink River Dolphins and looking at the stars.
We got back to Rurrenabaque yesterday and then flew back into La Paz this morning and are now in Copacobana, Bolivia. Copacobana is on the shores of Lake Titicaca and next to the boarder of Bolivia and Peru. We leave for Puno, Peru on Tuesday! I´ve really loved Bolivia, but I´m excited to be somewhere new! Here is our favorite saying about Bolivia: Everything is possible, nothing is certain.
Love to you all!

Salar de Uyuni (Salt flats jeep safari)

Last Wednesday we headed even further south to Uyuni, Bolivia on an overnight train, only to leave Uyuni on Thursday morning for a four day jeep safari through southern Bolivia. We drove all day for four days, stopping at different points along the way to take pictures and look around. We stopped at lots of different interesting rock formations, lakes, the base of a couple volcanos (including the volcano that borders Chile), and an active geyser! The whole area was very dry and rocky, but very beautiful. We stayed in very basic, middle-of-nowhere hostels every night- toilet paper became quite a hot commodity by the end of the trip! And I´ll just say that I´m getting very used to not showering often... But the stars were amazing- I haven´t seen the sky like that in years!
On the last day of our drive we made our final stop at Salar de Uyuni, the ENORMOUS salt flat that is just south of Uyuni. Since we´re at the tail end of the rainy season the whole area was under two to five inches of water and absolutely breathtaking. You could just barely see the mountains in the distance, but most of the time you couldn't tell where the ground ended and the sky began.
Last night we headed back to La Paz on an eleven hour overnight bus where the majority of the driving was still on dirt roads over dried up riverbeds and such. Luckily we were all so tired that by midnight we were all asleep and suddenly it was seven in the morning and we were in La Paz!
That´s all for now! On Wednesday we do our first trip to the Amazon for a boat excursion- wish me luck with the mosquitoes!
Love Burns

Aruro, Bolivia

Change of plans! We ended up having to leave Malcorancho a day early due to a transportation blockade that started all over Bolivia at midnight last night. Evo Morales has proposed a new anti-drunk driving policy that would hold transportation companies (such as taxis) responsible for any of their employee´s wrong-doings, and the transportation unions are up in arms. We´re super lucky that our leaders knew about the blockade in advance, or else we would have been stranded in Cochabamba until this weekend! We are now in Aruro, and plan on taking an overnight train to Uyuni, leaving at 7:30 tonight. Aruro is a small town in the middle of the country, though there still seem to be more internet cafes on every block than there are Starbucks in Seattle. There isn´t much to do here in Aruro so my fellow Garfield grad, Camille, and I spent last night teaching our teammates Thirteen, a fabulous card game that I´m sure many of you other GHSers know how to play. Today will be spent wandering around the local Anthropology museum before we head out.
That´s all for now! Lots of love to you all in the States.
Burns