Los Aventuras de Edmundo y Linda

Chaad woke us up early in the morning before he left for work for some sweet sweet goodbye cuddles before we left. We stayed at the Christiansen’s place in Kelowna, made dinner, went for a walk, talked to Mike’s mom and the fire alarm went off twice that day. We ended up driving the Christiansen’s boat and SUV back to Edmonton because they couldn’t.

We arrived in Edmonton late Aug 1st.  Its so awesome to be back among our friends and family but we both weren’t so excited to be back in Edmonton nor are we excited about having to deal with real life responsibilities again… well hopefully we will have another travel blog again soon.  Ha ha… looking at our bank accounts thats probably not likely!  Hope you enjoyed our blog, as you can probably see this was a trip of a lifetime for us!

Edmund and Linda

We left Seattle early morning to beat the lines at the border crossing. We visited Edmund’s uncle Norm & aunt Millie in North Vancouver, they took us out for an extraordinary lunch and we picked up our snowboard stuff that they so generously stored for us for the duration of our trip. We slept at Chaad’s during our stay in Vancouver and we did tons of things like… hanging out with Paul everyday, skimboarding, watched Chaad’s softball beer league named “Team Participation,” went to eat yummy sushi at “the eatery,” returned chaad’s stack of 6month old bottles to the depot and recycling, drove in Chaad’s sweet new ride, fixed Chaad’s toilet, played drums in Chaad’s room, saw “the dark knight,” made awesome pasta dinner, got Chaad a free TV from some dude on the street and watched the fireworks competition.

It was 8 hour drive from Valley of the Rogue to Seattle. The car broke down on the side of the highway but we were luckily able to fix it after 2 hours. We arrived to Joe’s place in Seattle and set up our tent in his apartment to dry. We met up with some of Joe’s friends and went out for some beers.

We went to Easy Street Records for an awesome breakfast and then we went to The Capital Hill Block Party. The block party was sweet! Bands like Girl Talk, Vampire Weekend, and Chromeo were there!!!! We got lots of free food and other stuff. Woot woot!!!

Woke up at 5:45am and drove for 12 hours along the I-5. We made it about 1 hour into Oregon and stayed at a state camp ground in the Valley of the Rogue. We did a short and uninteresting walk by a river and then crashed in our tent for a relaxing night with the sound of semi-trucks and cars driving by on the extremely nearby highway.

Left San Carlos super early.  We were very happy to get to the states and no longer have to pay for the highways at the frequent Mexican toll stations.  Mexico also has tons of military check-points and check-points to search your car for fruit.  The US did have some military checkpoints when we were driving close to the Mexican border and we could see the border patrol setting up barricades and huge lights to monitor the border at night.  We arrived in Arcadia at 1am Mexican time and 11pm Arcadia time after 17 hours of travelling.  Sylvie and Rosaline met us out in the hallway at the hotel and we were so happy to all be together that we all group hugged and danced around cheering quietly so not to wake up Paul who had to wake up early for work the next morning!

Throughout our two weeks at the hotel in Arcadia with Linda’s family we did a lot of relaxing by the pool and hotel. We did a hike through Santa Anita canyon to a waterfall, walked around Old Pasadena, visited Huntington Beach and saw the US Open Surf Competition (with dolphins swimming with the surfers and planes writing cool advertisements in the sky), went to Tapanga Beach, saw Val Kilmer with his little surfer son and then checked out the Tapanga lookout, Santa Monica beach and city (and saw the pier with the roller coasters and Zephyr’s skate shop from Dog Town), there was a huge lineup for the iPhone at the Apple Store, saw Wall-e (awesome!), walked around Arcadia, killed bed bugs in the hotel, met up with Jim and his friends at a comedy club in Manhattan Beach and then went out to a few bars and his backyard for some beers, and of course spent many hours in insane traffic on the freeways. All in all, we had an awesome time and wish we could hang out with Linda’s family longer.

Left Mazatlan early in the morning and drove for about 10 hours to San Carlos. We arrived early enough to go hang out at the beach and check out some cool lookout points. The San Carlos area is beautiful and the water is super warm! There was a huge grass hopper in the kitchen of our hotel room!

Left Luis’s just before noon and drove for 6 hours to Mazatlan. We found a cheap hotel on the main strip next to the ocean in Mazatlan and went out for some great tacos! Didn’t do much else.

After over 12 hours in planes and airports it was amazing to get to Mexico and hang out with friendly people, warm weather, and great food! We spent a couple nights at Nacho´s house and a couple at Luis´s. Thanks guys! They took really good care of us. We went and visited some cool ruins, some tasty taco stands, and some cool pubs. Our friend Poncho just got back from England so we had a reunion party! The car is making some strange sounds and there is a little smoke coming out of the engine but we´re feeling positive and are planning to drive to LA in 3 or 4 days.

We took a beautiful bus ride from Copacabana to La Paz. There were amazing views of Lake Titicaca and the city of La Paz. At one point we all had to get out of the bus and take a boat across part of Lake Titicaca and the bus got on a separate boat (check out the picture). We then took a cab to Patty´s house, one of the friendliest, most hospital people we have ever met. We met Patty´s son in Cusco, Peru and were invited by him. Patty spoiled us rotten for the two wonderful days we spent there. It was very relaxing and was just what we needed. Thanks Patty!

Took an early bus to Puno, Peru from Arequipa. The bus turned out to be a big piece of junk. The driver was a maniac and drove most of the trip in the wrong lane while passing semis around blind corners on the highway. After somehow surviving that bus ride we hopped on another substancially nicer and calmer bus accross the border to Copacabana, Bolivia. Checked into a nice hotel right on Lake Titicaca. We got a private room with a private bathroom (and 24 hours water) on the 5th floor for $11.50/night! Man, Bolivia is really cheap!

Had some more free breakfast at the hostel. Getting free breakfast is sweet but we have been eating bread, butter, jam, and tea every monring for the past 2 weeks and its getting a little old. We did a hike up a hill above the town. Beautiful views of the town and lake but the hike was extremely tiring due to the altitude. Took a boat ride to the Isla del Sol, which is where the Incas believe their civilization started. The boat took 1.5 hours each way because there was about 50 people on the boat and just a tiny outboard engine. We did a rushed hike up some Inca stairs to nearly the top of a huge hill on the island. The views of the lake and snow capped mountains were spectacular! We sped-walked back to the boat and then stopped at another part of the island to see some Inca ruins.