Looking for the salida sign...

My goodness, Copacabana was anything but relaxing.

Unfortunately for you guys, I haven't been able to process all the things that happened to us in the past week and therefore will not be relating all of my adventures just yet. Suffice it to say that Kira and I are now in La Paz, Bolivia, searching desperately for a way to be in Buenos Aires right now. We are escaping while we are still recognizable.

Before you get all worried, most of what we experienced was not bad. It was really quite good. We made some incredible friends in different corners of the world, and had experiences that I'm pretty sure no other tourist has had. A summary of the past week would include a lot about live music, good conversation, traveler's wisdom, late nights with amazing people, trying new things, and fireworks.

One of the hardest lessons for me to learn in the ongoing days of this journey is the fleeting nature of friendships. It is incredibly hard for me to believe that all of the amazing people with whom I have spent entire days or weeks will probably never enter in my life again. As traveler's lore goes, once you've got your community you see them everywhere. Maybe one day in the future I will stumble upon Sergio, the Chilean who talked fútbol to me for an hour, or Atahuallpa, the artesan that taught us macrame, or Carlos, the cynical Colombian who turned out to be a sweetheart. There is an amazing poem by someone I can't remember that wonders about the last times for everything, that somewhere in somecorner he said good day to someone he would never see again, and that somewhere in this world is a door that has already been closed to him. It was very strange to sit on the bus out of Copacabana and realize that I very well could never see it again, nor the friends that still waited within. How can I convince myself that I will never hear the voice of the person I spent the last 20 hours straight with?

I'm halfway through my wanderings now. Before I started, I thought that a month and a half was more than enough. Now, I can't believe that I ever thought to get to know any of these countries in that amount of time. I'll just have to come back!!

Here are some fotos, I think... they're taking forever to load recently. More to come from my adventures in Cusco and Copacabana, but hey, getting out of this country is more of a priority right now.

The sign we found at the top of the Incan stairs from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu... It said the same thing in English, Chinese, Spanish and Quechua, the local language.

The only tree on the compound... This is where the women used to tie their looms to make blankets, shawls, etc. Underneath this tree was found the only artifact on the entire site - a single gold bracelet.

The three windows... one of the more famous bits of the ruins. Just look at how amazingly they cut those rocks!

A view of the terraces...
The four of us before taking our incredibly satisfying siestas on Machu Picchu. Miss you, girls!