How to: Find an apartment in San Francisco

I found an apartment in San Francisco, in 5 days.

This is a true story about apartment hunting in the Bay Area. I swear.

After creating a calendar loaded with apartment open houses it was time to prepare. In order to be successful in the apartment hunt, one must print credit reports, bank statements, FICO scores (yeah, don't know what that is? I didn't either), resumes (yes, your resume is very beneficial!), and pay stubs or offer letters (offer letters are normal because let's be real, everyone is a tech person). You then bring all of these goodies in a Google folder (the Google folder helps advertise how great you are because you or someone you are going to live with, Eric cough cough, works there) and then you put on the charm. I basically tried to shmooze with all of the realtor people as best I could. I smiled, I laughed, I told ridiculous stories about how responsible Eric and I are, and we still got rejected from places. It's so silly, having to sell yourself to someone to get an apartment and yet everyone does it.

The bright side is, after just 5 open houses, we snagged a place! It was in the bag! We got the call the next day, THE CALL, just kidding, but seriously we got the apartment. And let me tell you, it's perfect.

We are in walking distance to all of the greatest things, bars, restaurants, movie theaters (like cute old, historical ones, not an AMC people, although I like those too, I'm not a snob), Bi-Rite ice cream (it's no Molly Moons, but you can't have it all), 3 markets within 2 blocks of your apartment: 1 is like a Madison Market, very organic and fancy, 1 has the best beer and wine selection, and the other I have never been to, we are also conveniently located to lots of great coffee shops that I will later use to job hunt, when my apartment gets too small.

Everyone in our building are SO NICE. Not to mention, our building's dog friendly. What? DOG FRIENDLY. That's right people. My dream dog Muppet, to come later once I can convince Eric or surprise him with a puppy...Anyway, there's a dog named George who is a giant black Great Dane as well as a dog named Jasper who lives down the hall from me. Adorable. I'm basically in love with everything about our building and apartment. We are also located just one block from Alamo Square.

What's Alamo Square, you ask? Well it's our neighborhood and a park. What park, you ask? The one where the Full House houses are! Yep, pretty awesome. There's lots of dogs at the park too. I really like dogs.

Our apartment also has San Francisco bay windows and is a walk-up. This is my dream people, a historic San Francisco walk-up. ALSO, there's a bus stop right across the street from my house! So nice, and even nicer is that it is always late and always packed! That was sarcasm in case you didn't catch that.

In other news, I have begun the job hunt. 6 job applications, 4 networking situations, 1 informational interview, and 1 rejection later, that's where I'm at. I will prevail though! I'm extremely motivated by how poor I am (help me, I'm poor might be where I start in an interview) and how excited I am to get to work! Seriously, I'm excited. Is that weird? Whatever, I love social work and you all knew that sheesh.

I just wanted to write a quick update about my status in San Francisco. If things get real juicy in the job world I will post again. I mean I have plenty of time on my hands, obviously. In the meantime, I will finish unpacking my boxes (Eric is putting me to shame with all of his stuff unpacked and put away and I have 3 boxes left). Fun fact: last year I left one box unpacked the entire year. Nailing it.

With flowers in my hair,

Mandi

Ps. The stories are true. Everyone here is a tech person. I have seen more people wearing Google Glass (that is the dumbest invention in the universe in my opinion because you look like a douche wearing them) and more people out to dinner with their laptop than ever before. Not to mention you can overhear people talking at bars about their "domain names" and other nerd topics. You can throw a rock and someone works at Google or some small start-up that you and I both have probably never heard of. This is a whole different ball game down here people.

The Grand Finale

To preface: We wrote this in the Lima airport before our journey home, but are just now posting it. Sorry for the delay. We also have 1,800+ photos to eventually share, so be patient, but excited!

Our last stop on the South American Sweep was in Peru. Now, if you’ve been following the blog (which sheesh you better be!), then you know that we spent a day in Lima previously on a layover between Bolivia and Ecuador. Lima was nice, we got ceviche, checked out the hot spots, and then called it good. Cusco is an entirely different Universe than Lima.

Cusco, now if you want to imagine Cusco, think back to my description of La Paz (I know; now I’m just testing how many blogs you’ve read, GOTCHA!) Cusco is very similar in structure because it is seated in the center of a whole bunch of mountains and has a pretty high altitude as well, albeit lower than La Paz. Cusco has more flair though, in my humble opinion, plus is more developed than La Paz, likely due to the influx of tourists passing through en route to Machu Picchu. On our first day in Cusco we decided to see the sights, so what did we see you may be wondering? We saw churches silly! What else is there in old cities?! But seriously, churches are like the thing to do, so naturally we saw them all. It’s actually kind of tragic to see the churches because Spain conquered the Incas in Cusco and then forced Catholicism on them so the churches are sort of still a symbol of that harsh reality. Nevertheless, the churches were absolutely gorgeous with these gigantic bricks that are thousands of years old and giant bells in enormous bell towers that make you wonder where the hunchback is. Anyway, churches and that was that.

Let’s get to the main reason why we came to Cusco okay? The funny part is that when we planned this trip I had yet to convince Eric that Machu Picchu was a necessity. I will let you in on a little secret though; there was no way I was leaving South America without going to the big MP, whether Eric was coming with me or not. Not to worry, he was easily convinced by week two and was by my side on what turned out to be one of the most epic hikes we’ve ever been on. After choosing our tour company, which we would highly recommend for any future MP visitors out there, we rested, packed up, and were ready to rock and roll by 5:30am the next day. Now, you might be like “oh my gosh Mandi, did you hike the Inca trail?!” No ya punk, we hiked an “alternative” hike. This couple we met in one of the tour offices was so snotty about calling it an “alternative” hike that we just wanted to punch them in the face, but we didn’t because we have more class than that. ANYWAY, we hiked the Salkantay Trek, which is arguably more difficult and way cooler, although I’m biased as I have only ever done the one. We chose to do 5 days/4 nights, because really how many times are you going to hike to freaking Machu Picchu, plus there’s nothing to do in Cusco so we had some time to kill.

Day 1: We hiked into the Andes up a gradual hill to the base of the Salkantay glacier. It was an easy day compared to what was to come on day 2, but Eric and our guide Frank (seriously, his name is Frank, but he’s Peruvian, how hilarious is that? We called him Puma, but more on that later) convinced me to hike a little extra once getting to camp, to see a lagoon. I was told it would be only one more hour and it was pretty blah blah, so I was a sucker and said “sure”, even though I was pretty wiped from the hike to camp. We then proceed to hike up, up, and further up, to get to this damn lagoon. I literally thought my heart was going to peace out on me because it felt like it was beating out of my chest. My legs felt like jello and I was wishing I had brought myself an oxygen tank with the lack of oxygen up there (seriously, growing up at sea level is really not the bee’s knees). Eventually, after I thought I was going to pass out and die, I saw the lagoon, we had made it! You know when you see people in the desert and they think they see water and then it’s a mirage? I swear that could’ve happened to me the way I was feeling at that moment, but I have pictures to prove there was an actual lagoon, so it really did happen. And let’s be real here people, it was gorgeous and totally worth feeling like I was going to die to make it there.

Day 2: Let’s talk about how we started hiking on day 2 at 7:30am and didn’t stop hiking (except for a brief lunch break) until 5:00pm, WHAT. I know, I know, I’m a badass it’s cool. But seriously. WHAT. So we hiked up to the glacier, sure no big deal, I see it, it looks close, WRONG. We had a joke in our group, “The Cruising Pumas” (because we impressed our guide Frank with our speedy hiking and because Pumas are important animals in Peru), that we always only had “fifteen more minutes” to go. Frank said that sometimes guides will tell people that because they are used to the altitude and it only takes the guides fifteen minutes, but what takes the guide fifteen minutes could take the sea level people up to two hours. Seriously, this is true life at high altitudes. So anyway, once again I thought I was dying, actually I’m pretty sure I did die once or twice. This hill was HUGE. I mean it was basically climbing a mountain to get to this glacier, but it always looked so deceivingly close. Such a bad trick. The end height of the glacier was over 15,000 feet, 15,000 FEET. Yeah baby!!! Taller than Mount Whitney, which we plan to climb in early September, so we’re not even worried anymore. Piece of cake. We even were going so “fast” (I air quote that because we really weren’t going that fast, but considering everyone else’s speeds, we kind of were) that we passed other groups! Nailed. It.

So climbing to Salkantay was only the first half of the day. We climbed through this gorgeous valley after the glacier with just this stream in it that looked like we landed a part in Lord of the Rings (I know nerdy, whatever you love LOTR too don’t lie, Legolas, come on) or wound up in Scotland, it was so green and there were just streams and horses and fog, it was unreal. Here we stopped to have lunch and then carried on where the rest of the day was spent hiking through the jungle. The great thing about hiking to Machu Picchu is that you get a little taste of everything, you get jungle and the Andes, it’s pretty awesome. I mean whatever, I hiked through the Andes mountains, I mean right? That’s so cool! We slathered on bug spray and carried on through the jungle, through some unpleasant muddy parts, and popped out into what I would describe as a new movie set, possibly Tarzan.

Day 3: On day three we hiked down deeper into the jungle and followed a trail along a roaring river. Our treat at the end of this day was hot springs, so needless to say, we were motivated. We hiked through the jungle checking out creepy beetles, swatting away mosquitos, and sweating all of our layers off. It was an easy day compared to the day before, but we still hiked around ten miles just in the morning alone.

Now, let’s take a moment to talk about one of the highlights of our trek, the food. Seriously, the food was the best vegetarian food/any kind of food, I have ever eaten in my life. The trek was just Eric and I and our guide Frank (Puma) and then we had two other HUGE parts of the trek, Guido (I’m not making that up, like Jersey Shore, but pronounced “Ghee-Doh”) and Wilbur. Wilbur was our horseman, the horses, mules rather, carried all of our stuff besides our day packs. This sounds lame, whatever it’s not real backpacking, but I don’t think we could have carried all of our stuff at that altitude. Anyway so Wilbur who just nailed it all the time with the horses and would go way ahead of us to set up camp every time and then there was Guido, our chef. Guido is the best cook in the whole Universe. I’m not even exaggerating. The things he made just got better and better, I didn’t even think it would be possible after the last meal, but then the next meal would come and I would just drool. It was also probably more food than I have ever eaten in my life, but we needed the fuel for the ridiculously long and rigorous hikes we had each day. He made Causa (which is probably my new favorite food), cake, Sangria, empanadas, pancakes, crepes, French toast, rice mixtures, quinoa EVERYTHING, stuffed peppers, etc. I can’t even begin to tell you how this is even more impressive than a normal chef because he was doing this all on the road in little shacks that we would stop to eat at. How is that possible? I have no idea. He is the master. Eric and I told him to move to the US and open up a vegetarian restaurant because he could probably charge insane prices (I’m talking 3-4 price tags on Yelp) for his delicious cooking, everything just melted in your mouth.

Anyway, at the end of day three, we went to relax at these gorgeous hot springs that were literally just sitting at the edge of the roaring river we had just hiked along. They were the most refreshing thing ever on our aching muscles. Eric did make one huge mistake though, he got out of the hot springs for literally no more than five minutes, and was promptly eaten alive by mosquitos. Poor guy, but he really does have more self-control than me with itching so he’s going to survive. After that, we decided we obviously had to celebrate the Fourth of July, Peruvian style, so we had a campfire. Guido made us warm Sangria (seriously, who has ever had Sangria on a backpacking trip before?) and then we went to sit around a campfire, listened to Peruvian, Brazilian, and even American music and drank beers. The only hiccup to our Fourth of July was our scorpion sighting. That’s right, I said scorpion. I don’t think either of us had ever seen one in real life before and it sure didn’t help my sleep that night. I made Eric check and double check our tent and my sleeping bag before I could turn off my headlamp and sleep, but really I just lied awake thinking about how the scorpion was somehow going to claw its way into our tent, with its entire extended scorpion family, and eat me. After all, a spider had tried to share the dinner table with me earlier that evening (I’m talking a spider that scared even Eric and Frank away from the table and had me almost flip the entire table over in fear), it was a rough night for me. Thankfully, we made it through the night and more importantly, to breakfast the next morning.

Day 4: This was our last official day hiking because day 5 was the grand MP. Our goal on day 4 was to end our hike at Aguas Calientes, the town where all of the buses, trains, and hikes meet at the base of Machu Picchu. We hiked a winding, but flat trail along the railroad tracks. It was really beautiful because the whole way we could look up and see bits and pieces of Machu Picchu as we were winding our way around Machu Picchu Mountain.

So Frank, we called him Puma. This all started because he told us he hates his name, this was after I clarified that his name was actually Frank (I mean it doesn’t sound Peruvian, so I didn’t know if he was just trying to make it easier on us, I speak Spanish so I can handle a Spanish name). Anyway, so Frank tells us he hates his name and wished he had a more Quechua name. His brother apparently changed his name (William, apparently their dad loved American names and named Frank after Frank Sinatra and William after a famous American actor) to Amaru. Amaru means snake in Quechua and the snake is an extremely important animal in Incan history. Snakes, pumas, and condors are the three most important animals to Peruvians and we decided that Frank needed a name like his brother. And so, Frank became Puma and our team name became the “Cruising Pumas”.

Once we made it to Aguas Calientes, Eric and I passed out in a three hour coma of a nap. We were exhausted, I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since we left Cusco, and it was a real bed. We then decided to explore the town. There really wasn’t much to see besides a whole lot of tourists and people trying to sell us souvenirs we didn’t want or need. The town basically exists because of Machu Picchu. The trains bring tourists from Cusco, who didn’t choose to backpack, into the town every morning (10:00am is the first one) to see Machu Picchu. The train tracks literally go directly down the center of the town, it really is the weirdest place. We slept, we ate, and then we slept some more to rest up for our big arrival to Machu Picchu in the morning.

Day 5: MACHU PICCHU. No words can even describe the feeling you get when you first see Machu Picchu. We woke up at 4:00am to catch the first bus to Machu Picchu at 5:30am. Note: Eric deserves some acknowledgement for his abilities to wake up insanely early on this trip. For those of you who know Eric, you know that he stays awake until 4, 5, or 6:00am and doesn’t wake up until mid-afternoon. This is his preferred sleep schedule. On this trip, I have been so impressed with his abilities to wake up at 6:00am every morning of the hike (although this has always been easy for Eric as a hike is the only way to even get his butt out of bed), but also at odd hours like 3:00am or 4:30am to catch a flight, or even just 8:00am to have our free breakfasts. Now back to Machu Picchu.

We made it on the very first bus up the mountain to the ruins of the ancient Incan city. Our goal was to see the sunrise and watch as the sun first shines on Machu Picchu, it was absolutely spectacular. I would highly recommend seeing MP in this light; it really is the only way. Not only that, but knowing that we hiked four days just to see it was a great feeling of pride and accomplishment for us. Walking around Machu Picchu has an almost eerie feeling to it, you can imagine the Incas building it, stone by stone, and just how much time and energy it must’ve taken. It’s an incredible place with an immense amount of history that even the smartest of historians can’t figure out. Machu Picchu, to this day, is still a mystery for the most part. Puma did give us a two hour history and tour of MP, but it is all mostly speculation as no one truly knows what Machu Picchu was, how it was built in just 100 years, if it was built in just 100 years, and what happened to the last of the Incas. MP even has the llamas that you can see in pictures of it. Eric almost got killed by one that decided he wanted a closer look at us and leaped from a ledge above us to the one we were standing on.

After the two hour tour that Frank gave us, Eric and I decided to hike a little further up to the Sun Gate, this is the first sighting of Machu Picchu from the Inca Trail. It was gorgeous up there, seeing Machu Picchu as if it was a postcard. We sat up there in awe for a while until we decided that six hours at MP was enough and that we were starvation station, it was lunch time. We said our goodbyes to the magical place, and hopped a bus back to town.

Machu Picchu, I know that was brief, but I really cannot put into words how incredible of a place it is. I’ve seen Tical and I’ve seen Angkor Wat, but Machu Picchu is in a whole different world. It truly did not disappoint.

The ride home was delightful as we got to take one of the trains! I love trains, I think train is my favorite method of transportation. The train follows the river that we had hiked near the previous day and it was nice to just debrief and relax after a long, but memorable, five days.

So that was that. We wrapped up our South American Sweep with an unforgettable and epic trek to Machu Picchu. Now as we sit at the airport waiting for our redeye flight to Houston, we can properly reflect on the last six weeks. The last six weeks have been some of the best of my life and I think I can safely say the same for Eric. We have had the most fun ever together, laughing and being ridiculous, relying on each other as we never really had before. We got to meet so many people from all around the world: Australia, New Zealand, England, Isle of Man, Ireland, Slovakia, Peru, Bolivia, Norway, Ecuador, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Portugal, Canada, South Africa, and learn all about all of their cultures while immersing ourselves in cultures completely different than our own. I had my Spanish skills tested and even taught Eric some! We tried new foods, new adventures, and tested our limits on how long we can go without showering. We saw some of the most incredible scenery we have ever seen and challenged ourselves in all aspects both individually and in our relationship. We feel so lucky that the death road didn’t kill us, we never got sick from any food, and that nothing really that bad happened to us the entire time we were here. We are not sure how we got that lucky, but are so thankful that it was such a flawless trip, minus the almost-mugging that is. Not to mention how thankful we are that we got to go on such an incredible trip in the first place. It was the most amazing six weeks that we will always remember. Here’s hoping that we have many more like this to come.

And now drumroll please because we have decided to assign each country with an appropriate award as we have experienced it.

Best Public Transportation System: Chile

Best Beaches: Brazil

Most adventurous: Bolivia

Best food: Peru

Best wine: Argentina

Best people: Ecuador

Here's a picture of us with our guide Frank, from the top of the Salkantay Glacier! See how high we were?! Crazy.

Now the tricky part about getting home is dodging the crazy ladies at the airport. This lady working at the Cusco airport asked us about five times if we had anything flammable in our bags. We repeatedly shook our heads “NO”, but that didn’t seem to satisfy her. She then threatened that our bags would be x-rayed and that they would find anything we had that we weren’t supposed to. We must look pretty dodgy in order to get asked repeatedly if we have flammables or matches in our bags, oh well.

Thanks for all of your love and support throughout our trip, we truly appreciate all that you do for us. We are sad to leave South America, but excited to see all of our loved ones, that’s you! Look for our thousands of pictures to be posted on Facebook hopefully sooner rather than later for your viewing pleasure. We look forward to sharing more stories and adventures with you in person!

xoxo,

Mandi & Eric

Ps. I’m not sure if I’ll keep blogging since my year in New York is over and our trip to South America is complete. Stay tuned for possible blogs about the failures and struggles that come with apartment hunting and job searching and life in the real world. Who knows, my blogging career might just be beginning!

Equador

Oh Ecuador, how much I love it there. To get to return after three years was one of the most special things ever. If you didn't know, I spent the summer after my sophomore year in a little town called Cotacachi, Ecuador with three of the best girls, where we did all sorts of volunteering. Anyway, it's already been three years since that amazing summer and I've been itching to return ever since.

Ecuador, what to say about Ecuador. Well first, did you know it's on the equator? Seriously, if you didn't know that I sincerely think you need to enroll in a geography class or just a smart person class since Ecuador sounds like equator, it's pretty basic. A fun fact about Ecuador is that it has the highest point on the equator, which is why the French thought it was so great. I say this because obviously there are other towns and cities on the equator, but Ecuador gets the sweet name because it has the highest point on the equator! Cool beans huh? So we obviously went to the equator, Eric is a science nerd so he was LOVING it. I mean I love it too, I'm pretty nerdy myself, but he is one of those "doesn't believe it 'til he sees it" sort of guys, Santa must've been tough on him. Anyway, so we watched all of the equator experiments like watching water get flushed down a sink and how it doesn't spin either way (thanks physics)! We also went and took silly pictures leaping from hemisphere to hemisphere. I don't know why Mandy Moore didn't go to the equator to be in two places at once in A Walk to Remember, that would've been far more romantic. The journey to get to the Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world) was far from fun though. We took an hour and a half city bus all around town until thankfully we actually made it to the equator, but seriously we thought we were in a different country at this point. Also the extremely rude bus collecting money man, ripped us off. This really upset me because I mean, I have a deep love for Ecuador ever since my summer here and I would like to believe that people aren't mean and wouldn't do that, but in fact, he did. Our experience was saved a bit by the three extremely kind women who tried to stick up for us gringos, but alas we got ripped off nonetheless. Rude.

We also rode the teleferico up the Pichincha Volcano to see incredible views of Quito. Quito is massive so seeing it from above is rather helpful. Plus, the last time I was on the teleferico it was very cloudy and freezing and I could barely get glimpses of the city through the clouds. The day we went it was perfect. It was barely cold and you could see the entire city plus four volcanos, don't mind. Seriously Ecuador has I want to say something like 75 volcanos, WHAT. Now this is scary for me because, have you ever seen Dante's Peak? Let's talk about how I was far too young to watch that movie when I did and I will never watch it again. The grandma has to get left behind in the acid lake?! AN ACID LAKE?! Who wouldn't have nightmares about that? So living in the shadow of Mount Rainier is hard enough for a girl who has an intense fear of volcanos, but then to travel to the land of 75 volcanos?! That's madness. Also sorry, spoiler alert! I might've just ruined the ending to Dante's Peak for you. Go rent it, Pierce Brosnan is the main character so I mean that's a perk, but don't expect to sleep for months.

After spending two days in Quito exploring both Quito's colonial/historical side and its nature side, we hopped on a bus to the town of Otavalo. Otavalo is a 30 minute bus ride South of Cotacachi so it was the perfect place for us to post up for three nights. Not to mention our hostel in Otavalo was freaking adorable. It was on a hill so we got a rooftop view of the whole town. ADORABLE! Our first day there we were recommended to go to this restaurant called, wait for it...Taco Bello. TACO BELLO. Anna Hawryluk are you reading this? You love Taco Bell! Anyway, it wasn't Taco Bell, but it was this restaurant owned by a man who was from California (hands down the best state in the nation, duh) and he moved to Otavalo and so what did he have? Real, California Mexican food. I mean not really, but he tried his best. I ate guacamole if that's what you're wondering, and it was damn good.

The next two days we spent nonstop time with the incredible people of Cotacachi. It was literally the perfect time to visit because my brother Benji, was home for just this week from Aviation School! My Ecuadorian brother, the pilot! So proud. Anyway, so I introduced Eric to the whole family! My Ecuadorian mom made a delicious lunch and then we wandered around the streets of Cotacachi, pointing out various sites, things that have changed, where my favorite empanada lady is, where the internet cafe is that I emailed him from when I was there last, etc. Afterwards we ended up at the church where it just so happened that EVERYONE that I knew was there! So hugs all around and me trying to muster up my best Spanish to hold longer conversations. It was the best. The next day my two brothers, Jhona and Benji took us for a hike around Lake Cuicocha, a gorgeous lake that is in a crater of that's right, another damn volcano (Volcano Cotacachi). We hiked around on a perfect day, snapping pictures of Cotacachi, Otavalo, and Ibarra down below. Then we went to have lunch at Alfonso and Surley's house (this is the home that I spent the most time at when I lived in Cotacachi) and it was quite the party! They had invited over Alfonso's sister and her husband (who by the way we have the same hair, seriously we do!) and Benji and Jhona, and then their kids and Jimmy, and it was just a whole shindig. It was such a blast and I just felt so honored that these people care so much about me and were as excited to see me as I was to see them. Not to mention Surley is basically the best chef in town. She made us an authentic Ecuadorian feast and even remembered that I am a vegetarian! We sat outside and ate and talked and laughed about all sorts of things and just had the best time catching up, I miss everyone already. We ended the day with an evening at the church for youth group. Here we played games, sang Spanish worship songs (Eric naturally, loved this... Keeks, Allyss, and Santiago, we sang Todopodoroso! Do you remember when we sang that?!), and ate pizza. All in all, a magical Ecuadorian day.

We ended our time in Ecuador at the artisan market in Otavalo, where we wandered the streets and made fun of tourists in full-blown alpaca suits. Seriously, I'm not sure if tourists realize how ridiculous they look. Unfortunately, our backpacks are so small that we withheld from purchasing hoards of souvenirs and our own alpaca suits. There's always next time!

I will miss Ecuador dearly, once again having to part with the most gorgeous and green place I have ever been, but I will definitely be back if only to eat an empanada and see my family. In other news, we made it safely to Cusco, Peru and are leaving on a 5 day/4 night trek to Machu Picchu tomorrow! EEK! This is our final week on the South American Sweep so we're sure going to make it count!

Happy birthday America, this year you have a lot to celebrate, like reading our emails, this blog, and my Facebook...le sigh. Too bad we couldn't hang out with Snowdy (our nickname for Snowden) while we were in Quito since he's stuck in Russia! Our last blog post will be coming to you from Seattle. In the meantime, we'll be eating lots of churros (literally the best food on the planet that just so happens to be abundant in Peru), lots of chocolate (Peru is the 13th largest exporter of chocolate, om nom nom), and maybe some healthy food in there too!

Lastly, a photo for your enjoyment! Thankfully, my camera didn't get stolen this time so I actually have a picture of us at the equator! Phew.

xoxo,

Mandi & Eric