"Caminante, no hay puentes, se hace puentes al andar." - Gloria E. Anzaldua

I've been waiting to take this trip for years. I've been dreaming of what it would be like, trying to imagine what it would smell like here, what the people would be like, how I would feel once I was here. & I have arrived.  On this path, on my way, creating bridges as we walk. 

We arrived with no concrete plans.  All I know is that it took more than 6 months of working two jobs and any other odd jobs I could find.  Before leaving I was exhausted.  I loved both of my jobs, but it was too much.  Hopefully this trip will help clear somethings up, and help me prioritize.  My next goal: balance my life out!

The weeks before we left, we tried to see as many people as we could, soak in as much advise as we could, and prepare for the trip.  It felt as though we were leaving for years.  All in all we should only be gone about 11 weeks.  I had hoped it could be more, but we have so much to return to.  This is as much as we can do right now. I know this won´t be our last trip, together or alone, so we're trying to enjoy this as much as we can.

We´ve kind of just been figuring it out as we go.  We didn´t want to have everything planned out and feel restricted, so we´ve wandered many streets, stayed more nights than we though we would in bolivia, and talked to many people we didn´t know.   I´m not sure what I have learned yet, or how this is changing me.  I´ve tried to reflect every step of the way.  Me and Irina are keeping journals, and in the end we´ll see how it all feels. 

Irina has been sick for the past 6 days, she caught salmonella.  It´s been incredibly hard to deal with, she´s had really high fevers, hast thrown up almost everything she´s eaten, and been really tired.  We went to the hospital, she received meds, so she is recovering now.  She got an analysis done, and the doctor says the antibiotics are doing their thing so she should be all better by the time she finishes her treatment.  She´s still sick, but we hope she will be much better soon.  Every day I wake up thinking she´ll be better today.  I´ve decided to write to keep my mind sane. We stayed in Sucre 4 days more than we had planned for, just waiting for her infection to pass.  Today we decided we were leaving regardless of how things were.  Even though so many other people raved about how amazing Sucre was, we found that it wasn´t really our  city.  We're in Potosi now, hopefully on our way to Uyuni.  We´ll see how Irina wakes up tomorrow.  Uyuni is supposed to be freezing cold during this time of year, so we are trying to wait this out.
I´m sending prayers with the wind, in hopes that she´ll overcome this soon :)

Before we went to the hospital, we were reading my lonely planet guide.  It has a list of all kinds of illnesses you can catch when you´re traveling.  Every single one of them had the same symptoms.  All of which Irina apparently had.  We started freaking out! sooo we decided let´s just get it checked out.  Thankfully, its not worse.  Only wish the antibiotics worked faster!

We´ve had soo much delicious food while we´ve been here already, and we definately don´t hold back when it comes to street food and fruits and veggies.  We try to be careful and only drink bottled water but there is very little you can do if you want to take in everything.  Just hope, I don´t catch anything.  If it comes, we'll have to deal with it also.

My mom keeps hoping that I run out of money so that I can come home sooner.  Kenia is planning some kind of shin'ding for when I return, but we just got here.  I feel like I´ve barely had a chance to breathe in the air.  Sooo for now, if everything goes well, we´ll be in South America for two more months! Caminando...