home coming

Its all almost over.
The travel, the backpack, the hostel, the bus, but the journey will never end.
I can feel the movement on my back,
forced by the wind to sway back and forth.
I can feel the warmth on the side of my face,
shining through another sunset.
I can hear the force,
waves crushing the rocks into sand and sand into dust.
I can see.
I can see the world with one eye closed tight,
while the other stains to stay wide open.
The same songs force me to be creative.
These same clothes create a sense of comfort.
Thirty pounds carry my life wherever it goes.
The pages of two books can trace my path back in time,
even though my heart can remember every step.
There is a change happening.
It is inside me,
it is at home.
It is moving closer to peace.
My feet hurt from the sand and the sun,
but Im still walking.
My legs itch from little foreign friends,
but Im still smiling.
My heart may keep wandering,
but I am coming home.

so much dirty farm poo love

ok ok, havent posted for a while, and that last one was just to put something up. so i will blog while my pics are uploading to myspace (so those of you with m.s., check em out!!!!)
so, we have left patagonia :(
but have made it to the farm in Uruguay :)
Patagonia was amazing. Two of my favorite places we have been were in Patagonia. By far my favorite place was Bariloche. It is gorgeous and we stayed at the best hostel ever. The people were great, bfast was good, and the panoramic view of the lake and snow capped peaks from the balcony could take your breath away!
After that we went to hippy town argentina aka El bolson, and hiked up a mountain to a Refugio and stayed there for the night playing cards, running around in the dark and drinking their home brewed beer! all in all, pretty sweet.
Next we went to The Glacier Puerto Moreno, which is huge, beautiful, and millions of years old. Also its the only glacier that is exponentially growing. We not only took a boat ride to see it, but got to walk on it in crazy snow shoes, drank whisky on the rocks(glacier rocks), and saw a piece the size of a building fall off! Glaciers are my new favorite things ive decided.
first its was waterfalls, but now its glaciers.
We made it to the tip of the world ( croosing 4 border crossings, in and out of chile and argentina) and crossed the straight of magellan( i feel like a true explorer, now all i have to do is find some natives to slaughter and it will be real) (jk, thats awful, but thats what happened).
The tip, was...interesting, looked like middle earth from lord of the rings. we got stuck there for days and had to make the 12 hour journey of bordercrossings on the travel day from hell= no sleep, bus, wait 3 hours, plane, wait, ferry, bus
the finally to the FARM!!!!!
my god it took long enough!!!
but we are here in the fickly weathered Uruguay.
today was our first day, we overslept (cause i left my alarmclock on a rest. table the day before, go figure, had it the whole time till now, when we need it :)
then we cleaned up goat poop for a while, then cleaned the cute little wwoofer house we are staying in! seriously look as though it hadnt been deep cleaned for DAYS!
now we are in town getting provisions for the next two weeks!
then we get to start with the real farm work (gardening, paintng, construction, milking, making cheese, yogurt, butter) the works.
there is even a little farm puupy named pànda.....so cute
well this might be my last contact to everyone for a while
so ilove you
i am safe
happy
tired and
basically a big deal
so much dirty farm poo love,
bobina

the one thing i wish i was home for

ELECTION DAY 2008!!!!!
i cant believe that im missing the excitment, the build up, the anticipation.
dont get me wrong im feeling it here, but the us is gonna be crazy fo sho tonight!
but im going to walk on a enormous glacier and then get drunk at a pub and watch OBAMA WIN!
the im going to watch california allow gays and the like to marry!
i feel confident in these two things, for if there is anything that this trip has done for me, is to restore my faith in people just allitle bit more than ive had for years
i am there rallying in sonoma county, santa cruz county, and the city of san francisco with you all.
while in your celebration tonight,
toast a beer to the queers and obama for me, and one for you i guess
vote well
vote strong
vote gay
vote peace
vote obama
lets beat skeletor together,
bobina

patagonia

yep in patagonia
fallen in love
making way to the southern most city in the world
eat that antarctica
cant believe im missing halloween
wishing i was in the heat of the election
but not at the same time
over half way thru the trip
havent killed anyone yet
accept for that one yetty
but they deserved it
i swear
ok maybe i was irrational
but the snow makes me crazy
i think im moving to chicago
going on a road trip a couple months after im back
who wants to come
its gonna be saweet
stuck with me in a car
i know most of you would pay money for that shit
i officially dont like children
they are taking over the world and they cant even vote
whats that about
they make beer
not babies
but people
i drink it
same with wine
i dont sleep
but i do boogie down


wont you take me to, funky town

Argentina....Oktoberfest....

so basically argentina is amazing! they live on a crazy schedule....they wake up around 9 or 10, go to work, work untill around 12 or 1pm, then take a 4 hour long siesta(rest). Then they re open or go back to work untill 8 pm. go home do some stuff, eat dinner around 11pm, drink some espresso and go out to the bars or clubs around 2 am. get back around 6am, then do the same thing the very next day. I think that i gave finally got on the argentinian time scale, but for those of you who know me well, the siesta part isnt that far fetched.mmmmm. i love naps, especially after a steak lunch with a bottle of wine!

so.....the last two weeks were oktoberfest in Germany, but also in argentina? yep thats right. there is a small town called Villa General Belgrano which is highly populated by people of german decent and looks very germaninc in style. every year they have their own oktoberfest and this year yours truley was a participant. granted it was probably one of the more expensive days, it was well worth it to be able to drink an actuall beer, like an amber ale, not the usual pilsner that has no flavor. you had to pay an entrance fee, buy a cup that is saweet an i hope will make it home, but its me and a ceramic cup so who really knows (ive already almost broken it twicw and its been 4 days!?!), and then pay for beers and food. But we went with some people from the hostel, played cards, had a woodchip fight and got sufficiently inhebriated, all in all a good time and worth it...weird...but worth it.

now i am in Mendoza, aka argentinas wine country. it is glorious. tomorrow we are going trekking, repelling, and hot springs, and the day after that it is a wine tour with 4 wineries, a chocolate factory(mmmmmmm), a licour factory, and an olive oil factory all for about 40 bones. yeah i can handle that.

when we decided to cross over to go to oktoberfest we kind of went across the country when and now are in a weird place to get back to the other side to make it to the farm in uruguay. so as a trip always does, our plans are changing. we did meet some girls at the hostel here that are going to a wwoof farm that is an hour away from here that sounds really cool. its not their harvest but there is work to do and they are centered around holistic healing and that sort of hippy stuff. im totally down, we have also have a farm we have already talked to that is in the northern part of patagonia that we are going to check out. we might end up at the farm in uruguay, but who knows. i i knows is that we are still going to farm for at least 3 weeks.. pretty much because i will be out of funds if we dont. and this way we get to patagonia sooner and get to have buenos aires as our last week of the trip. that sounds like a good blowout goodbye to me!

its been about 7 weeks here. this is the longest that i have been truley away from home, in the sense of home and the states. it gets easier and harder as time goes by. luckily it gets easier, but as introspective as i was before has become tenfold. it is interesting because usually with trips that rock your mind, world and soul allow the introspective part to happen in the comfort of home, in your comfort zone. but when a trip is longer, you have to look inside yourself while still in the situation. i knew that i wanted both good and bad things about myself, the world and my place on this earth to arise, and i would have be somewhat dissapointed and jaded if they did not come. but you can never really be ready for these things when the expolde.
i feel as though this is one of the biggest personal tests that i have faced in my life. i am looking at my actions here, relationships at home, and the way that i interact with people and how i deal with stress, dissapointment as well as happiness and being spontaneous.
the best part and the biggest part of the test is to see if in these 2 months that i have left if can attempt to change the negaitve i see, as much or as little is possible. or if i will shy away from the truths i see, back down, let the negative back in and do nothing.
but i have a feeling that i can assure you I WILL PREVAIL and in whatever way it means, come back a better friend, daughter, sister, lover, companion and person in this world that desperatly needs positive people now more that ever.
peace and whatever that means,
christina bobina mary leslie

so many hotdogs its like a carnival!

ok so much has happened since my last blog. i dont actually remenber what i wrote last time so here goes. p.s. i dont know if you have noticed but i feel that listing things is a more efficient way for me to let you know the funny hap happs
ok
these are bu\y no means in order but
went to San Pedro de Aticama, Chile
did 3 tours in 2 days, one day waking up at 3 am to go see geysers and swim in thermal pools
got back at chicken
went on desert sand dune tour
ran down huge sand dune
sara lost her camera
went to Salta, Chile
stayed at shaddy hostel
went to a dance club where everyone was over the age of fourty and they played guns and roses!
rented a car
drove car to the cloud forest
very deep in the forest
only people in camp site
slept in car
woke up to a bird of prey on the windsheild
was scared of pumas while walking in jungle
held big stick for protection
finally did laundry after 3 weeks
road a bus for 22 hours straight
wasnt fed
ate cookies
dreamed of hotdogs
eat at least one hotdog every other day
they cost less than one dollar
layed by the pool all day
feel sunburned
dont worry mom i put sunscreen on!!!
going to drink a beer
goint to the Iguazu falls of Argentina
oh yea, im in |Argentina now
i love you all
im getting tan
and smarter
and prettier and taller
guess which of those are a lie
i can never figure out the question mark on these things
did i mention i love you all
yesterday was south america and my 5 week anniversary
guess what it gave me
















a hotdog
peace,
bobina

adios peru y hola chile

you know that saying; " its been real, and its been fun, buti cant say its been real fun." well that doesnt sum up peru at all.
Peru is a poor counrty where indigenous people use thier clothing, culture and everything else to make a sole( or a buck). I met an amazing pollish man. a histerical irish woman and an older and interesting english woman. We travelled as a pack for a little bit and I learned the joys and pains of meeting people and saying goodbye all in the name of a journey. We definatly got swindled a few times but i just chalk it up to south american lessons.
people dont turn the car off when they pump gas! i was convinced that we were going to blow up while our cabbie filled up the tank on the way into chile.
This trip has been going for a bout a month now. it seems like a day and a year at the same time. its not at all what i expected, but i dont really know what i was expecting anyways. Its almost like burning man, where its fun and im always laughing, but its hard and i find myself almost overly introspective.
Those people i was talking about...well, sara and i found a tour in Arequipa to go to Colca Canyon, a canyon bigger than the one in the us, and we convinced them all to come, we got a sweet deal and were all ready for some 3 day trekking.
first off they put us in a two day tour, even though we payed for three, sprung two meals on us that we had to pay for and then gave them to us for free because we( and by we i mean i because no one else spoke spanish) bitched them out untill they did.
then they dropped us off in a godfoprsaken town to wait for an hour and a half in the sun to find out that "we" were too late to do our trekking, and had to walk straight down the canyon(very dangerous), just to turn back the next morning at 2am to hike back up.
well we dealt by going down, swimming in the pools and of course drinking beer! i mean of course thats what you do before a strenuous hike at 2 am right?
needless to say i threw up within an hour of the hike, but made it up without the donkey that they told us we needed and woulkd cost 20 buck. booyah, thank you ODP for making keep walking even when i wanted to die!
after that we needed out of peru. so into chile we went.
guess what.
its chilean independence day, that actually is a huge fesitval that lasts all weekend.
amazing, i love how these things work out.
meat on sticks and fair games. i couldnt be happier, actually im just happy to be out of peru, but in retrospect..i kinda miss the simple life.ç
everyone here smokes and wears black and is sooooooo emo!
also, no ones clothes fit, its like no one bought new clothes after junior high, even though they have all had at least 3 babies since then. but im no fashion police so what the hey, do what you gotta do!
i am learning and growing in ways that i dont understand yet,
and im sorry that my bloggs are so scattered. im not a good blogger and i leave so much out and say things that dont need description, but hopefully i will get better.



on a different note... i feel that this needs to be said:

I recently learned the news that a highschool aquaintence died in a car accident last weekend. even though we were not the closest of friends i felt crushed and almost defeated that i couldnt be home to be with the ones i love. I cried and cried and sent emails filled with love and saddness. in the end it reinforced all the reasons that I came here even though for now my heart and soul are in santa cruz with all those that are hurting and struggling to make sense of the sensless.
RIP Chris, i know that you will be missed

much love to the world,
christina

I went for the tits, but all i got was caca

haha, just kidding. Lake Titicaca was awe inspiring, when you are on it you can hardley belive that you arent on the ocean(its cold enough to be the ocean)! I can safely say that it was a journey to get to the lake.first i will bullet point alittle:
1.ruins
2.stolen credit card number (they tried to buy$2000 worth of shazz from overstock.com, with my 900 limit, silly them)
3. three failed jungle tour attempts
4. Lamb on the bus
ok this one needs some explaination. taking busses in Peru is a cheap and semi fast way to get around the country. sometimes for short distances and some long. the short ones are very inexpensive, maybe 1.40 soles ( less that $1), and the longer are around $10, for about and 9 hour ride.
ok well on these long bus rides periodically through the towns people jump on (litterally jump on and off) with food and drinks to sell to the passengers.
I was so hungry...lika always, but i didnt buy the bag of potatoes and other stuff, no no, i was holding out. for what i do not know, so the next time someone came on I was all eyes on them. you know what I saw?
two women with a huge blanket with a bag inside with a whole, a WHOLE cooked lamb inside. some one asked for 5 soles worth and she picked up the leg and started hacking at it with a machette. seriously, it was as normal as apple pie.mmmmmm pie, anyways. yeah, ou know your in a thrid world country when....
5. was dressed by a peruvian woman in authentic clothes, i looked so peruvian. except that i didnt, but it was still fun.

all in all this is just the begining.
sara and i spent alot of time talking about the things that we left at home that we really should have brought, but hey, just more peruvian lessons. alot of other times we talk about what we are seeing in the context of our livein america. even when in went to ecuador i did not feel so deeply affected by the poverty and living conditions of people in developing countries. there is so much trash, and there is no system put into place to hadle the situation, or at leasnt not that we can see.
I am doing a lot of reflection as well as having a blast, but i wont bore you with all my life reflections just yet......give it a month.
the culture here is so different and most of the people we meet love to comment on how loud and friendly california girls are, but i think its just sara and me.
well long live love and whatnot,
your South american adventurer,
me

four letter word for fido´s bane= lima

ok ok, our flights went smooth, all the way to lima. oh yeah LIMA. we got in at 11 pm and our flight to cusco wasnt untill 6am, so what was the logical thing to do, post up in the food court and play cribbage and crossword puzzles. very exciting, at that point i don think that i had really slept for at least 20 hours. we got there and our hostel wasnt there to pick us up so tired smell and confused we got a taxi that over charged us and took us to the wrong place. lol. it made it more exciting! we then proceeded to sleep for an entire day and night, with only a four hour break for nurishment. then it was exploren time. cobblesone streets, stray dogs, markets, LLAMAS and goats everywhere. it is amazing.
Sara and I have made friends with some people and we are all going up to Machu picchu tomorrow at 6am. i know thats early, but i am willing to make sacrifices for one of the 7 woners of the world, i guess.
We have the next couple days planned and they are filled with ruins and trains and busses,on my! then my friends we are off to the amazon for a week, at Manu, check it out. I feel safe and secure and my spanish is flowing back like i cant believe. even Sara is learning some stuff, though it is always my job to talk, but i like it
running out of time,
i love you all

ok...yeah...so,,

alright. Its sunday and I am leaving at 7 am on tuesday morning. I just bugsprayed and water proofed all my stuff. I think that I have cried more in the last week that in the last 3 years(although I am always emotional so that might be a stretch!). I cant even listen to music anymore beacuse i get all nostalgic and weepy, seriously, especially simon and garfunkal, why, i do not know. I wore my backpack for less than an hour today and i was already being a baby about it. send good patience vibes to sara for me. I stopped washing my hair as much and wearing makeup, i would love to say its beacuse i was trying to get ready, but in reality im just lazy. oh well. I promise that these blogs will get more exciting as i go. I swear. much love to you all. if you want postcards email or leave your address in a comment!
im so nervous/excited/scared/ready for this.
watch out south america, bobinas movin in!

bloggsy woggsey

ok so i guess ium doing a blog. in reality this is just for my friends and family sans myspace, which is my easiest way to post pics and blogs, but you know what...boo on myspace anyways. so here goes. i leave in exactly a week. one week! im ......i dont even know what word to put there. in guess there is nothing too exciting yet since im still here. i love you all