Posts

Month 20: Parading around South America

Image
Hey hey!!!! Making my way through the archives, so let’s get to May! We started off with a bang this month, heading to Bolivia for a quick girls trip. After spending a few days sandboarding in the dunes outside of Santa Cruz, hiking to a beautiful mountain lake on the outskirts of La Paz, exploring the city by a series of cable cars instead of buses (think ski gondolas instead of subways), and seeing some spectacular views, I cannot recommend Bolivia enough. Not only is it an affordable and beautiful place, but there is so much rich culture and history there.  We did have a bit of a hiccup during our travels, however. Due to protests over the current president, our travels from Santa Cruz to La Paz (the two capital cities of the country), were a bit interrupted.  Bolivia is a small country, and as such has one main highway running through the entire nation. Due to this, in order to protest, residents put up roadblocks outside of almost every major city to prevent buses or cars...
Post a Comment
Read more

Month 19: Charlas, Chipa, and Cumples

Image
Hi everyone!! Apologies for the wait, my computer went kaput on me, so I've had this month and the following ones backlogged for a while. April in Paraguay means a couple very important events; Semana Santa, my host mom and my best friends' birthdays, and a couple special holidays at school! For this April, it also involved the new school I started working at. Semana Santa: In case you forgot from last year, Semana Santa is Spanish for "Holy Week", and it's the week leading up to Easter Sunday. In many Latin American countries, and especially in Paraguay, this means celebrations all week long. The two most notable traditions we have in Paraguay is “Los Villacruces” (Stations of the cross), and “Chipa Apo”, in which the family gathers together to make chipa, a traditional Paraguayan bread with cheese. Below are some pictures from our Chipa Apo, as well as an example of one of the stations in the Villacruces. It’s common for a school or community to put on a live re...
Post a Comment
Read more

Month 17: Summer! South America version

Image
 Hello hellooooo!! So sorry about my extended absence. These past 2 months have been such a whirlwind. There's so much to catch you up on! February was a month that felt like it sped by in the blink of an eye. This was due to one main thing....I went on vacation for half of it. Yes, due to my first full month of summer without obligations, I decided to skip town for a bit and cross the border to the beautiful country of Brazil. This trip was for two main reasons...the cultural festival of Carnival....and seeing one of my favorite artists live in concert. We'll get to that in a second though. Before I embarked on this journey, I took a trip down South to visit my friends Sam and Rhayne. Not only was this due to the fact that I didn't want to watch the Super Bowl alone, it was also due to the fact that Sam and Rhayne have something very special in their site - the Jesuit Ruins. In 1588, the Jesuits arrived in Paraguay with  the permission of King Felipe II of Spain to impleme...
Post a Comment
Read more