Traveling has always been something I love to do
even if I do have a fear of flying. I
have been able to travel across the continental United States, as well as
Hawaii, Alaska, parts of Canada, France, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. I have chosen a couple places that left a
mark in my life and I think you will enjoy reading about. So sit back and relax
and enjoy the ride.
HAWAII: Hawaii
really is the land of paradise. It is
one of my favorite places in the world.
I was lucky that my parents were able to take me to Hawaii every
February because they find Hawaii very relaxing.
Our favorite destination
in Hawaii is Kauai, also known as, the Garden Isle (island). Kauai is our favorite island because the
whole island is relaxing. There is a
lot of activity when you look for it, but it is also full of white sandy
beaches, gorgeous waterfalls, and tropical rainforests.
Hawaii has many beautiful
sights and gorgeous sunsets, but it holds a historical moment in our U.S.
history. It holds Pearl Harbor.
Hawaii Links
Many people have traveled
to Hawaii and love it. The following
links are to help you book a trip[1].
FRANCE: The summer of 1999 I was
able to travel to France for six weeks; two weeks of traveling throughout
France and four weeks staying with a French family in the town of Albi, France,
which is about an hour south of Toulouse.
There
were five of us in my group that left San Francisco International headed to
Paris, France. When we arrived we were
very tired because none of us got any sleep, however, we didn’t get a chance to
rest because we were on a tight schedule.
We took taxis to our hotel, put our luggage in our rooms, waited for
another group of students from southern California to come to our hotel, after
the group got situated we all boarded a bus for a road tour of Paris.
PARIS: This was my second time visiting France, but Paris was
still unbelievable. There is so much to
do and see. I loved going to Notre Dame
Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, The Louvre, walking up and down the
Champs-Elysee which leads to the Arc de Triomphe, but also has some great
stores to stop in.
PROVENCE and AVIGNON: On our tour of France we stopped at these two
places. In Provence we stopped at a soap-making
factory and took a tour. We also were
also familiarized about lavender. In
Avignon we stopped at a place that made homemade dolls out of clay, as well as,
clothes for the dolls.
CANNES AND NICE:
I
enjoyed walking around, going to the beaches, and dancing at night with my
friends I made on the trip.
After
Nice and Cannes I went to Toulouse, France and was picked up by my new French
family that I’d be staying with for a couple weeks and then their daughter was
coming to stay with my family. The following
pictures are of the beautiful country land in the town of Loutrec, next to
Albi, France. This town was only about
two hours from Spain’s border.
SOUTH
AMERICA:
During
my senior year in high school I was given the opportunity to travel to South
America. I was so excited and I
couldn’t wait to go. When February 1st
hit I grew very anxious and nervous. A
couple days later around twenty of us boarded an airplane to Chile. Once we arrived in Santiago, Chile, we were
shuttled onto a rickety bus and drove to Punta Arenas, the southern most town
in Chile. When we arrived we put our
stuff away and were able to look around the town. A couple days later we left and drove to the bottom of some
mountains and we had to hike to the next place we were going to camp at. It was an adventure.
There
were various other activities we did on the trip, but the most memorable was
our trip on horseback up the Andes Mountains.
Below is a synopsis of this part of the journey.
The
reason I was able to go to visit the Andes Mountains was because my Senior Humanities
teacher had a person interest in the book Alive. For many years he had tried to put together a trip to visit the
crash site and finally he was able to arrange a trip. We were able to meet one of the survivors, Roberto Canessa. Click here for a synopsis of
the story Alive.
Our
group had to endure lots of hours, 6 hours, of horseback riding to finally
reach base camp. Once we reached base camp we all were hungry so we ate some
unidentified pieces of meat which I think was goat meat and tried to
communicate with the gauchos that were going to take us up the mountain to the
crash site. A few hours later we were
all tired and went to sleep in our pitched tents.
The
next morning came to early, however, this day was the day we had all been
waiting for. We all threw on as many
layers as we could, mounted the horses for another 3-4 hour horse ride. Once we got to the crash site it was so cold
and snowy- there was a storm that had been brewing and we were caught in the
middle of it. Little did we know at the
time that search and rescue was waiting in case we got stuck on the
mountain. It wouldn’t look good in newspapers
saying that American High School students were stuck in the snow on the Andes
Mountains, as well as the fact that we were the first group from anywhere to go
to the memorial. The survivors had
taken the trek before, however I think they were touched that students found
their struggle to stay alive inspirational, and allowed us to take the journey.
In
the cold, Father Martin gave a service at the memorial site. It was overpowering the emotion that was
felt. After about an hour we all loaded
back on to the horses, well most of us, a couple decided to walk. Once we made it back down to base camp we
all went in to our tents and took naps.
Some food was passed from tent to tent that the gauchos had made, the
best thing we had was dulce de leche, it tasted like caramel, but better. The next morning we all woke up to a snowy wonderland
because it had snowed and there was between three and six inches of snow on the
ground and on our tents. We packed up
and once again rode horses down the mountain to a bus that was waiting for us.
The pictures were either taken from me, www.google.com, or from sited websites.