k

SO I made the decision to return to south america before getting a job back home and im glad to say that i DEFINITELY made the right decision. Been here in Colombia for about 2 weeks and it has been a whirlwind awesome time. began in Bogota staying with a friend of mine that I had met at camp. Bogota was not a bad city. In comparison to other cities I actually prefer it than Quito (too dangerous and ugly) and than Lima (big and polluted and just crazy). Bogota is actually the 2 nd biggest city I think in the south, but its just so widely spread! SOmehow I dont feel as uncomfortable (not quite the right word, scared, anxious?) travelling around colombia, not as much as i was in the other countries. Alot of the population is mixed caucasian, hardly see indigenous which is so different to Peru or Ecuador. From Bogota I went to a small colonial town called Villa de Leyva. They have kept all of the old buildings there and it has remained unchanged over the years. Rode around on a bicycle visiting the different sites like – el fossil, pozos azules ( 5 blue pools of water) and other places I cant remember the name of. From there I went to San Gil which is a sporty type of place. There I did paragliding over tabacco and coffee fields – that was awesome! Also did rapelling whcih is basically abseiling down a waterfall. Enjoyed that so much, but forgot to take my camera. Ill get pics off someone else I met there. Also went to visit a small town called Barichara, and from there took a lovely 2 hour hike to Guane another small colonial town. Also in San Gil i ate ants. A popular dish was steak with ant sauce with a few whole ants ontop. The ants by themselves dont taste that great, crunchy like anything else fried and with a weird aftertaste. the steak was a while lot better but my friend said she could still taste the aftertaste! Then I spent one night in Bucaramanga and am now in Cartagena, a touristy place by the coast, warm weather and such a great pretty town.
Not quite sure what Im going to get up to today but Im sure Ill find something.
k

I made it into CANADA!! Just here for the day – have to say the canadian side of the Falls is so much better.. The view is great!
k

Time for another entry. Well the last week of camp was good. The kids left and we cleaned. That wasnt so fun because we scrubbed and sanitised everything – after kids had been using it for 8 weeks! we refilled ifrewood, dusted the rafters etc for the whole da! It was quite an exhausting way to end camp. But finally the time came for me to catch my 3.30am train up to New York! Luckily my friends Intrpid, Moxie and Rayray were nice enough to come with and send me off. Ny was surprisingly awesome. I expected it to be busy and difficult to get around (which i was during peak times). It turned out that my friend Majo (Colombian friend) also webnt up to NY for the week. She had a cousin and cousins friend who knew the place and showed us around and took us to the touristy sopts. Things I did in NY – went to a broadway show and saw The Lion King – yes it was super duper amazing!!, went to some museums – Moma and the Met and others i forget, took a boat ride to see the statue of liberty, went up to the Rockerfeller Tower and saw 360 degree views of the city, saw the empire state building, got lost in central park.. and i Shopped! Conclusions on NYC? Loved it as a tourist but probably wouldnt like to live there. but if i had to, would like to live in mid-town, the south end of central park. it kind of reminds me of Toorak back home.. haha

Bussed up to Boston. I love boston. it is easy, clean and extremely liveable. Not as big as Melbourne but still busy and pretty. Just like NYC there is a starbucks at every corner, and everyone there has a drink in their hand. I waslked the freedom trail – somtething about a revelution and something historic and important! I shopped, saw chruches and walked around. Went to Harvard Uni for the morning and Harvard Law School!! Now Im in Niagara falls. What to say aboiut this place.. its a little quiet, creepily eerie, and kind of deserted (the town.) But the actual falls – the tourist spot is busy. The falls, its nice and big and strong and powerfull. But this place can easily be done in a day.

Oh times up for my computer time. will continue later!

k

Well, I have been very negligent and have not written on this blog since week one of camp. That shows you that a) I am extremely lazy, or b) I have been extremely busy.
Well it is c) a combination of both a and b. During the 6 day week of camp we do not get much time off. campers arrive on sunday and they leave on friday evening.from monday to thursday staff get 2 hours of break. in that time we usually eat junk food, sleep, or are on a computer. Each day is filled with activities, actually each HOUR is filled with activities. A typical day for example is wake up counselors, wake up kids, breakfast, two hours of boats, one in crafts, lunch, rest hour, archery one hour , two hours climbing the wall. dinner, evening activities and showers. staff unit meeting, make sure kids are still in bed, take our own shower if we choose, then to bed usually around 12am. Its really an exhausting job!

- unfinished post!

Hello hello!!
So today is saturday and me and 2 other staff from camp have just competed in a mud race, 5 km run, organised by people from the Marines. we did it in a team of 3 beacuse one girl pulled out. it was so amazing running a 5km through mud, rivers, obstacle courses such as walls, crawling through tunnels, climbing mudhills with ropes and ending with a body crawl through 10 meters of muddy water under ropes. i want to do the race again and want there to be mud races in australia!! so if anybody knows of any mud running races in australia TELL ME ABOUT IT!!!
Tomorrow my campers come. My first week will be with children in grades 4 – 6. the session is called Splashtastic which means we will be swimming every single day. Im a Unit Leader on camp and I will be order other staff around.. no not really, but it means I have lots of paper work to do and have to organise the whole weeks schedule. Not sure if I am looking forward to the paperwork everyday. But it should be alot of fun. and definitely HARD WORK. Actually really reminds me of Legacy camp, although this will be for 8 weeks, and not 2, and each week I will have a different batch of campers, in different grades, and the session will be focusing on different things.
If I have time later there will be photos to follow, however I think that will be unlikely…
anyway peace out, bring on CAMP!!
k

Have arrived safely in the US and have just spent my first weekend at Impy’s house. Impy is a counsellor at camp who has been a girl scout since she was 8. Her neighbourhood in NorthCarolina is exactly what ive imagined the US to be like. Neat pretty houses, with matching letterboxes; Camp is exactly what I imagined it to be like, beautiful lake, green trees – the woods, great facilities – rock climbing wall, archery, pool,…  ITS BEAUTIFUL!! And moreover things here are cheap! Shoes are cheap, swiss army knives are cheap, some food is really cheap… im really liking the US. Camp training begins tomorrow for 2 weeks, then the kids come. So Im not too sure if I will keep this blog going… i think its unlikely but we’ll see.

I’ve :

Eaten Biscuits – bread type food very similar to an english muffin. Ate mine with egg bacon and cheese inside for breakfast. Think I prefer english Muffins!

Eaten dippin dots. Icecream in small round balls!!

Gone to Wallmart!!! they sell EVERYTHING there.. from grocerys to gold fish to camping gear to clothing!!

enough for now..

k

Last day in South America tomorrow.  Wow it has flown so fast! Im not sure why, but i am finding it difficult to remember what I did only last week..

Since the OT conference in Chile I returned to Lima and headed down the south coast to Nazca. Nazca is a small town with not much there except the Nazca Lines. I organised to fly over the Nazca lines in a small aeroplane and had no idea what to expect, except from the pictures advertised. There were 6 tourists in the plane and two guys flying the plane. It began well until we came to the very first picture and suddenly the captain took a sharp right and before we knew it we were all on our sides trying to look at whatever picture was beneath us.  The next picture was on our left and we took a sharp left.  The flight was 30 minutes and throughout the whole flight we were constantly rolling from left to right to left to right. Everyone was trying not to throw up whilst also trying to take photos of the famous nazca lines… To sum up.. it was an expensive experience in a light plane seeing very small pictures etched in the ground.

From nazca I took another bus down to Arequipa, a place i coundt wait to get to. One reason being that I wanted to do the Colca Canyon trek, and the other reason being that I hadfriends  who were volunteering there. On the bus to Arewuipa I met this lovely Swiss lady who later turned out to be a Physiotherapist!  We found a hostel to stay at and organised to do the Colca Canyon trek together. We did a 3 day trek, First day taking a bus at 3am till 9am, getting out to look at these huge condors (birds), then getting back in the bus to drive for another 2 hours. We reached a town called Cabanaconde, had luch there, then began our trek down into the canyon. It took 3.5 hours of steep down hill trekking to get to the bottom of the canyon. My legs began to ache a little and my knees were definitely getting week and shakey. We crossed a bridge then proceeded up hill for another 2 hours to a tiny, rundown hostel. Very basic with no hot water. Lovely! Stayed there for the night, had one little piece of cuy (guinea pig) for dinner.. which kind of made me sick just looking at it. Reason being that they had not shaved off all of its fur and there were chunks of fur on my bit. Day two we hiked long the canyon to a beautiful oasis filled with gorgeous blue swimming pools. Spend a few hours at one pool swimming in the cold, and eating a good lunch. Then we began our uphill ascent out of the canyon. Surprisingly it only took us 3.5 hours to get up to the top of the canyon, but we did hike at a fast pace and didnt have many breaks. It was TOUGH going!!! Spent the night at another hostel in the town Cabanaconde, then returned to arequipa the next day, after going to a lookout spot that morning.

Spent 2 days in Arequipa buying last minute souvenirs, sent a huge package home with clothing and stuff i DONT need in the US (summer) and then took a bus up to Ica. From Ica I went to Huacachina, an oasis surrounded by sand dunes OOhhh  YEAH!! Went sandboarding there.. almost killed myself after doing  awesomely. Hit my head and pelvis.. brised and battered but still kept on going! There I met these 2 Israeli guys who were also travelling back up to Lima and so I joined their group of two and we became three.

Lima, have been here for about 4 days now, can honestly say i havent done all that much. Good thing about travelling with other people is that its possible to go out at night time and experience a bit of the night life .. so thats what we did! Also managed to buy expensive tickets to AEROSMITH!!!! ohh yeaa !

Last day tomorrow in south america. Maybe Ill end it with paragliding over the beach…

k

The weekend finally! I have been in Santiago, Chile since Monday and hae just attended the 15th World Federation Occuational Therapy congress 2010. It has been difficult to get my head back into OT language since I havent needed it for the past 5 months, but has also been an amazing experience meeting OTs from all over the world and hearing about the recent research and findings. Everyday I attended presentations. There was a welcome reception on the first evening, and a gala dinner on the last evening. I now have this afternoon and tomorrow to explore a little of this city, then will return back to Lima, Peru on monday.
Halfway through my trip now!!!!

k