Well not me actually, I somehow have managed to stretch my savings to cover the next leg of travel... so instead of my food and malaria pills fund, I'm asking for donations to Big City Mountaineers and Summit for Someone, through which I'm going to climb Mt. Rainier this summer. BCM funds programs in cities across the country that "allow inner-city, urban teens a chance to experience the wonder of the wilderness for themselves".. which is a press quote that I think is supposed to appeal to adults with careers and rich friends, not actual "urban teens" such as myself. But I really appreciate what the experiences I had with Post (GHS's student-run outdoor program) gave me, and I'm definitely excited about giving my peers across the country the opportunity to develop the love of the outdoors and confidence in myself that I gained through Post. It may sound corny, but it really is a worthy cause, and one that I believe in.
I realize that these are hard economic times for everyone, and particularly the starving students among us may not have much extra cash lying around, but I'd really appreciate your everyone's support here. I've put down the $1000 deposit and now I'm asking your help to raise the $4000 in donations. Give what you can, ask your friends and parents, and definitely give me a heads up if you know any socially-minded businesses that might be willing to help or if you have ideas for fundraisers. And if anyone wants to sign up for me, I think there's still some spots left on the climb...!
It's really easy to donate online, just go to http://www.summitforsomeone.org/main.php?page=4&climber=6411 and click "donate." Or you can send checks or money orders (made out to Big City Mountaineers, with "SFS-Andrea Lindsay" in the memo space) to:
Big City Mountaineers
Attn: Summit for Someone
1667 Vine Street
Denver, CO 80206
Thanks so much for your support!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Sunday, December 21, 2008
I am home
My dad said yesterday that given the fact that people are theoretically reading this who I don't see frequently in Seattle, I should write a post now that I'm home.. so yes, I have returned and it's good to be back. There's maybe 6 inches of snow outside now and it's almost Christmas! At this point I have no plans for the spring (loooots of variables there), but I'll probably be leaving Seattle sometime the end of January? Or maybe February? And then the blog will probably return.. so stay tuned I guess. Happy snow in Seattle/holidays/travels!
Monday, December 15, 2008
last night..
..is way too much to process good thing I have a whole day in the Toronto airport. Here is what I know, it has been very hot and humid for the last three days in Lima and there are palm trees everywhere and beaches and apparently it snowed in Seattle.
Ummm last week in Cusco I got really overwhelmed by people trying to sell me thigns everywhere I went but still made it to a couple more museums I think and up to the Christo Blanco & Sacsayhuama Inca fortress on top of the hill.. various family dinners with the other volunters, bought too many pirated dvds and un monton de regalos. At the Yanapay school I ended up on my own with a class of 5ish 8 year olds trying to prepare an altar to explain the Islamic festival Eid Al Adha to the rest of the school, the kids got most excitd when they tried to act out Abraham sacrificing his son who was then changed into an animal by an angel at the last minute. Also we attempted to make a Christmas tree out of plastic bottles and paper mache and I stabbed myself with scissors.
My experience in Lima can be summed up as adventures in public transportation, starting with the trip into the city from the airport I´ve been trying to take collectivos everywhere and only occaisonally getting lost. I also went on a boat on a strange colored Pacific Ocean. I went to this church with catacombs where the bones were all weirdly sorted by body part, and also the place where the Inquisition was based in Lima that had semidisturbing models of people being totured and some legit dungeon ruins. Also Chinatown which was weirdly full of shops selling Christmas decorations, and these ruins outside the city in the middle of the desert that were started by the Lima culture to worship a wooden idol and added onto by successive civilizations up to the Incas, who built a big sun temple in the middle of the desert. What else the two different corners of the city with beaches, La Punta and Miraflores, I finally tried Ceviche, I still ahven´t been robbed so hopefully the next.. 5 hours until my flight will go okay KNOCK ON COMPUTER DESK
Ummm last week in Cusco I got really overwhelmed by people trying to sell me thigns everywhere I went but still made it to a couple more museums I think and up to the Christo Blanco & Sacsayhuama Inca fortress on top of the hill.. various family dinners with the other volunters, bought too many pirated dvds and un monton de regalos. At the Yanapay school I ended up on my own with a class of 5ish 8 year olds trying to prepare an altar to explain the Islamic festival Eid Al Adha to the rest of the school, the kids got most excitd when they tried to act out Abraham sacrificing his son who was then changed into an animal by an angel at the last minute. Also we attempted to make a Christmas tree out of plastic bottles and paper mache and I stabbed myself with scissors.
My experience in Lima can be summed up as adventures in public transportation, starting with the trip into the city from the airport I´ve been trying to take collectivos everywhere and only occaisonally getting lost. I also went on a boat on a strange colored Pacific Ocean. I went to this church with catacombs where the bones were all weirdly sorted by body part, and also the place where the Inquisition was based in Lima that had semidisturbing models of people being totured and some legit dungeon ruins. Also Chinatown which was weirdly full of shops selling Christmas decorations, and these ruins outside the city in the middle of the desert that were started by the Lima culture to worship a wooden idol and added onto by successive civilizations up to the Incas, who built a big sun temple in the middle of the desert. What else the two different corners of the city with beaches, La Punta and Miraflores, I finally tried Ceviche, I still ahven´t been robbed so hopefully the next.. 5 hours until my flight will go okay KNOCK ON COMPUTER DESK
Friday, December 12, 2008
fotossss
la paz from the mirador
i wish i had taken more pictures of all the signs like this in bolivia
my feet after walking through the mud slide
river valley in sorata (hike to the HP7 cave)
Copacabana
Copacabana sunset
Isla del Sol Inca ruins
Isla del Sol sunset
Cathedral in Puno (Peru)
traditional dancing in Puno
Uros floating islands, where they build everything out of reeds
sunset on Isla Amantani
sisters in the family we stayed with on Amantani
me on Isla Taquile
Fiesta Yanapay in the christams-decorated upper school
Machu Picchu from Huayna Picchu mountain
i wish i had taken more pictures of all the signs like this in bolivia
my feet after walking through the mud slide
river valley in sorata (hike to the HP7 cave)
Copacabana
Copacabana sunset
Isla del Sol Inca ruins
Isla del Sol sunset
Cathedral in Puno (Peru)
traditional dancing in Puno
Uros floating islands, where they build everything out of reeds
sunset on Isla Amantani
sisters in the family we stayed with on Amantani
me on Isla Taquile
Fiesta Yanapay in the christams-decorated upper school
Machu Picchu from Huayna Picchu mountain
Thursday, December 4, 2008
PERU
I´ve landed in Cusco for about two weeks, working with an organization called Aldea Yanapay in their school/daycare program and staying in a hostel with the other volunteers. So far Cusco is definitely really touristy, I can´t walk down the main streets or sit in the central plazas without someone trying to speak English and sell me something.. but it´s also a beautiful city, and I really like being in one place and having somewhere to come¨"home" to. I got here Monday night and was kind of surprised to find that they were actaully expecting me (given previous more...relaxed volunteer experiences) and that I had unknowingly left one of the other volunteers, Sharon, alone teaching our class that day. Oops.. but she was really nice about it and helped me figure things out pretty quick. This week we´re helping the kids with art for the first two hours (making Christmas decorations for the school) and then teaching an always-changing group of 10 year olds about Hindusim (!) for the next two. I guess the idea is to teach the different classes about other world cultures and religions with the theme of holiday celebrations in December (actually a pretty great idea, since Catholicism is so dominant here and I´m not sure if they learn much about other cultures in school). It´s been hard figuring out how much informtaion to give them, how to keep them interested, etc.. but in general they seem to be having fun with it, and the school and the hostel are pretty great places, so I feel lucky to have ended up here. School is from 3-7, so I´ve been using the mornings to explore the city, see some churches and museums and things.. and this weekend I´m going to Macchu Picchu!
Backtracking a bit to recap, before I got to Cusco I spent two more days on Lake Titicaca from Puno: took a boat Saturday morning to the Uros floating islands, which are made out of reeds and still inhabited, and although the people who live there seem pretty reliant on tourism at least they still live there.. which was pretty crazy to see/walk around on. Next we went to Amantani island, quite a bit farther out.. did a homestay with a family on the island for a night, watched another amazing sunset. In the morning on to Taquile, which was cool with lots of traditional dress and more beautiful views, back to Puno for the night and then on to Cusco.
I´ve been hogging the computer (free internet!!) for way to long, so hopefully pictures later! xoxo
Backtracking a bit to recap, before I got to Cusco I spent two more days on Lake Titicaca from Puno: took a boat Saturday morning to the Uros floating islands, which are made out of reeds and still inhabited, and although the people who live there seem pretty reliant on tourism at least they still live there.. which was pretty crazy to see/walk around on. Next we went to Amantani island, quite a bit farther out.. did a homestay with a family on the island for a night, watched another amazing sunset. In the morning on to Taquile, which was cool with lots of traditional dress and more beautiful views, back to Puno for the night and then on to Cusco.
I´ve been hogging the computer (free internet!!) for way to long, so hopefully pictures later! xoxo
Friday, November 28, 2008
last days in Bolivia
sooo I left Bolivia this afternoon and am now in Puno in Peru, a couple days to check out the lake from this side of the border and then on to Cusco and staying in one place and volunteering. So I´m trying to get used to the idea that my time in Bolivia/travelling alone is over.. anyway here´s what I´ve been up to this week.
After the climb I stayed in La Paz two more nights, attempting to understand Hebrew in the Israeli hostel and exploring some more of the city. Monday after having lunch w/ my friend Max from GHS (so weird/great to see someone from home!) I went to Sorata, a little town at the north end of the Cordillera Real about 3 hours away from La Paz. Definitely the most ¨Bolivian¨ bus ride so far, we were packed in a little minivan that took the downhill curves in the middle fo the road and honked to warn anyone coming the other way.. but lots of awesome mountain views, so I was happy! Sorata was really nice and peaceful and green (much lower than La Paz, although I don´t know the exact altitude), I had a relaxing couple of nights enjoying the views and did a hike out to la Gruta de San Pedro on the day in between. It was a pretty walk, a little exciting when I had to cross the mudslide that covered the whole road in one place.. and the cave itself was cool, not the most exciting in terms of stalactites or stalagmites or whatever but there were lots of bats and a lake that reminded me of where they found one of the horcruxes in HP7.
Two microvans, a boat, and a taxi ride from Sorata and I arrived in Copacabana on.. Wednesday. Nice (although very touristy) town on the shore of Lake Titicaca, I walked up the hill w/ stations of the cross (I swear there´s one in every city) to see an amazing sunset at night, and planned my venture to the lake the next day. Couple hours in a little boat to the north end of Isla del Sol, where I had lunch and tried to understand a really friendly Aymara woman explaining life in Cha´allapampa (the billage on the north end), then hiked up to see the Inca ruins/rock where the sun was born. Amazing views around the island and of the whole lake (which looks more like ocean/Puget Sound to me than a lake)´and the Cordillare Real, then I walked to the south end to spend the night in the village Yumani and watch another gorgeous sunset. Woke up in one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever been, back to Copacabana this morning, border crossing, now Puno and more lake!
After the climb I stayed in La Paz two more nights, attempting to understand Hebrew in the Israeli hostel and exploring some more of the city. Monday after having lunch w/ my friend Max from GHS (so weird/great to see someone from home!) I went to Sorata, a little town at the north end of the Cordillera Real about 3 hours away from La Paz. Definitely the most ¨Bolivian¨ bus ride so far, we were packed in a little minivan that took the downhill curves in the middle fo the road and honked to warn anyone coming the other way.. but lots of awesome mountain views, so I was happy! Sorata was really nice and peaceful and green (much lower than La Paz, although I don´t know the exact altitude), I had a relaxing couple of nights enjoying the views and did a hike out to la Gruta de San Pedro on the day in between. It was a pretty walk, a little exciting when I had to cross the mudslide that covered the whole road in one place.. and the cave itself was cool, not the most exciting in terms of stalactites or stalagmites or whatever but there were lots of bats and a lake that reminded me of where they found one of the horcruxes in HP7.
Two microvans, a boat, and a taxi ride from Sorata and I arrived in Copacabana on.. Wednesday. Nice (although very touristy) town on the shore of Lake Titicaca, I walked up the hill w/ stations of the cross (I swear there´s one in every city) to see an amazing sunset at night, and planned my venture to the lake the next day. Couple hours in a little boat to the north end of Isla del Sol, where I had lunch and tried to understand a really friendly Aymara woman explaining life in Cha´allapampa (the billage on the north end), then hiked up to see the Inca ruins/rock where the sun was born. Amazing views around the island and of the whole lake (which looks more like ocean/Puget Sound to me than a lake)´and the Cordillare Real, then I walked to the south end to spend the night in the village Yumani and watch another gorgeous sunset. Woke up in one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever been, back to Copacabana this morning, border crossing, now Puno and more lake!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
HUAYANA POTOSI (and La Paz and pictures)
first I have to rave: all the fresh fruit has to be one of the best things about Bolivia, I just had an amazing fruit salad with yogurt and honey and bannana and watermelon and apple and grapes and papaya and mango and lots I don´t even know for less than a dollar! mmm... anyway on to the main point.
Yesterday I climbed to the top of 6088 m (close to 20,000 ft) Huayana Potosi; I think it was the hardest thing I´ve ever done, we walked for 14 hours out of 24 and most of my body still hurts today but I´m so happy I DID IT!!!!! My mom at least has requested a blow-by-blow of the climb so I´m going to indulge..
Basically I got to La Paz kind of ready to get out of the city for a bit so I was walking around talking to the different agencies about trekking, and then someone mentioned Huayana Potosi, and all of a sudden it was one of those things I just had to do once I though of it. I signed up with a really good agency and paid $140 (more than my visa to get here!) and rested up to leave Thursday morning. Apparently there were supposed to be three of us but the American guy was too sick so it was just me and Rotem, a 21-year old Israeli girl with lots of trekking experience in SA but also without any technical climbing experience.
After getting set with some gear (clothes, ice axes, crampons) we drove up to the refugio at the base of the mountain, which was really cute and ski lodge-y. There was a big group getting ready to go up that day, but we got to mostly laze around and acclimatize to the higher altitude. We did hike up to some snow/ice to practice using the ice axes, which was really cool and also reassuring because we got to see how much our guide Mario knew about climbing in the snow. Basically we just tried climbing at different gradients with slightly different techniques, and at the end we got to rappel down! Like rock climbing but colder, but lots of fun for me.
The next day we hiked for about three and a half hours up and up and up (lots of scrambling over big rocks) to the tiny little middle refugio.. oh and at this point we were joined by Loik (sp?) a nice French guy and his guide, who had skipped the practice and were doing the climb in two days. At the second refugio we marvelled at the views (finally above the clouds) and ate even though we weren´t hungry and went to bed at 6.
We woke up at 12 in the middle of the night, drank a little coca tea, got all our gear on, and started climbing at about 12:30. Then 6 hours of walking uphill in the snow.. in the dark it was easy to kind of zone out and just concentrate on the little light from my headlamp, but then when the sun rose at like 5 and we could see what was ahead, it got a lot harder not to keep looking up at how much was left. I was really lucky and didn´t have any problems with the altitude besides difficulty breathing (which I would have had anyway just from the excercise) but I was definitely out of shape and was basically just really tired the whole time. I guess I just didn´t let myself consider the possibility of not getting to the top.. it also helped to be roped up (I felt like those kids you see in the mall tied to their mom) to Rotem and Mario; I knew if I stopped I´d be letting Rotem down, and Mario was amazing, going really slow and steady and letting us take breaks just when we really needed it. Songs I had stuck in my head: the Bolivian parade song that all the bad marching bands play, ¨Come On Over Baby,¨ ¨Back in Black¨, several random OC songs, that rock song with ¨we´re not gonna take it¨in the chorus; also I had a nice mantra going that was ¨"Tene.. (step).. mos.. (step).. suer.. (step).. te..(step)..pode..(step)..mos..(step)..hacer..(step)..lo" (we are lucky we can do it). Some parts were steeper than others, and occasionally we had to kind of climb up with the ice axes; the trickiest part was right before the top when we had to climb up kind of a rock/scree slope. And then maybe 15 more minutes of walking in the snow and we were there!! Anyone who knows me well will not be surprised to hear that I cried.. but it may have freaked Mario and Rotem out a bit. I was just so exhausted and so happy and amazed that we actually made it.. and I didn´t have enough oxygen in my brain, okay?
After all that we could only stay at the top for like 10 minutes because it was so sunny already and the snow was getting wet/sticky/dangerous. The descent took about 3 hours and we were slipping all the way down, with the snow clumping on our crampons.. I lost a waterbottle to the slope that Rotem almost slid down but luckily that was the only casualty. We rested a bit at the middle refuge and then went another hour and a half or so (down the bad rocky bit) to the base refuge.
Back to La Paz, I decided to go to the Israeli hostel w/Rotem b/c it´s cheap and central and for a different kind of cultural experience; we checked in and then went to a salsa class! And dinner and ice cream to celebrate and then I realized I had no energy left. It feels pretty surreal right now but I DID IT!!!!!
Pictures...I just checked the preview and somehow I messed up the captions again my b but oh well, it can be like a puzzle to figure out.
views when we finally got above the clouds (Illimani far away), the little refugio, la cumbre!
view from top w/lake titicaca in the distance, cordillera real!, me on the top! w/ my Israelita climbing buddy Rotem, w/our awesome guide Mario
s1600-h/IMG_1238%5B1%5D">
another view from the top, views on the way down, the bottom (Huayana Potosi park sign w/very peeling paint)
me in the Potosi mine, Jorge who showed me around Sucre posing with a sundial, castillo outside Sucre, llama foetuses in Cochabamba, my favorite snack: api (sweet hot and spicy) and pastel (fried dough w/melted cheese inside)
busy La Paz streets, crazy Valle de la Luna eroded snadstone landscapes outside town, me in Valle de la Luna, the cool Aymara guy playing music there that I chatted with
Yesterday I climbed to the top of 6088 m (close to 20,000 ft) Huayana Potosi; I think it was the hardest thing I´ve ever done, we walked for 14 hours out of 24 and most of my body still hurts today but I´m so happy I DID IT!!!!! My mom at least has requested a blow-by-blow of the climb so I´m going to indulge..
Basically I got to La Paz kind of ready to get out of the city for a bit so I was walking around talking to the different agencies about trekking, and then someone mentioned Huayana Potosi, and all of a sudden it was one of those things I just had to do once I though of it. I signed up with a really good agency and paid $140 (more than my visa to get here!) and rested up to leave Thursday morning. Apparently there were supposed to be three of us but the American guy was too sick so it was just me and Rotem, a 21-year old Israeli girl with lots of trekking experience in SA but also without any technical climbing experience.
After getting set with some gear (clothes, ice axes, crampons) we drove up to the refugio at the base of the mountain, which was really cute and ski lodge-y. There was a big group getting ready to go up that day, but we got to mostly laze around and acclimatize to the higher altitude. We did hike up to some snow/ice to practice using the ice axes, which was really cool and also reassuring because we got to see how much our guide Mario knew about climbing in the snow. Basically we just tried climbing at different gradients with slightly different techniques, and at the end we got to rappel down! Like rock climbing but colder, but lots of fun for me.
The next day we hiked for about three and a half hours up and up and up (lots of scrambling over big rocks) to the tiny little middle refugio.. oh and at this point we were joined by Loik (sp?) a nice French guy and his guide, who had skipped the practice and were doing the climb in two days. At the second refugio we marvelled at the views (finally above the clouds) and ate even though we weren´t hungry and went to bed at 6.
We woke up at 12 in the middle of the night, drank a little coca tea, got all our gear on, and started climbing at about 12:30. Then 6 hours of walking uphill in the snow.. in the dark it was easy to kind of zone out and just concentrate on the little light from my headlamp, but then when the sun rose at like 5 and we could see what was ahead, it got a lot harder not to keep looking up at how much was left. I was really lucky and didn´t have any problems with the altitude besides difficulty breathing (which I would have had anyway just from the excercise) but I was definitely out of shape and was basically just really tired the whole time. I guess I just didn´t let myself consider the possibility of not getting to the top.. it also helped to be roped up (I felt like those kids you see in the mall tied to their mom) to Rotem and Mario; I knew if I stopped I´d be letting Rotem down, and Mario was amazing, going really slow and steady and letting us take breaks just when we really needed it. Songs I had stuck in my head: the Bolivian parade song that all the bad marching bands play, ¨Come On Over Baby,¨ ¨Back in Black¨, several random OC songs, that rock song with ¨we´re not gonna take it¨in the chorus; also I had a nice mantra going that was ¨"Tene.. (step).. mos.. (step).. suer.. (step).. te..(step)..pode..(step)..mos..(step)..hacer..(step)..lo" (we are lucky we can do it). Some parts were steeper than others, and occasionally we had to kind of climb up with the ice axes; the trickiest part was right before the top when we had to climb up kind of a rock/scree slope. And then maybe 15 more minutes of walking in the snow and we were there!! Anyone who knows me well will not be surprised to hear that I cried.. but it may have freaked Mario and Rotem out a bit. I was just so exhausted and so happy and amazed that we actually made it.. and I didn´t have enough oxygen in my brain, okay?
After all that we could only stay at the top for like 10 minutes because it was so sunny already and the snow was getting wet/sticky/dangerous. The descent took about 3 hours and we were slipping all the way down, with the snow clumping on our crampons.. I lost a waterbottle to the slope that Rotem almost slid down but luckily that was the only casualty. We rested a bit at the middle refuge and then went another hour and a half or so (down the bad rocky bit) to the base refuge.
Back to La Paz, I decided to go to the Israeli hostel w/Rotem b/c it´s cheap and central and for a different kind of cultural experience; we checked in and then went to a salsa class! And dinner and ice cream to celebrate and then I realized I had no energy left. It feels pretty surreal right now but I DID IT!!!!!
Pictures...I just checked the preview and somehow I messed up the captions again my b but oh well, it can be like a puzzle to figure out.
views when we finally got above the clouds (Illimani far away), the little refugio, la cumbre!
view from top w/lake titicaca in the distance, cordillera real!, me on the top! w/ my Israelita climbing buddy Rotem, w/our awesome guide Mario
s1600-h/IMG_1238%5B1%5D">
another view from the top, views on the way down, the bottom (Huayana Potosi park sign w/very peeling paint)
me in the Potosi mine, Jorge who showed me around Sucre posing with a sundial, castillo outside Sucre, llama foetuses in Cochabamba, my favorite snack: api (sweet hot and spicy) and pastel (fried dough w/melted cheese inside)
busy La Paz streets, crazy Valle de la Luna eroded snadstone landscapes outside town, me in Valle de la Luna, the cool Aymara guy playing music there that I chatted with
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