So much for blogging: an open letter to my two faithful readers

I could blame it on the mountains I guess.

"There really wasn't an internet connection anywhere and when I could one it was on the library's 1998 tan, cracked Compaq... you know the kind from 7th grade computer class... and the guy who plays tetris on it stood by, picking at his stubbed, black-rimmed fingernails and sweating nervously over my shoulder until I finished checking my email and I mean, you know, could you blog under such nerve-wracking conditions??"

That's about 15% true. I'll admit to it. I'm a lazy blogger, my dear two readers, you need to know this before you jump into a blogging commitment with me. Also, I am not super keen on the length of time it takes to upload photos, so though I know this lowers my chance of you dear two readers actually reading my rare and scant blog updates by a frighteningly large percent, I must reiterate: I am a lazy blogger.

Here's where the actual update begins:
If I had been blogging all summer, I would have mostly been writing as I did in my previous post: star-struck by flora and fauna, you would have been regaled (I mean, you know, in this passive and unobtrusive way that we call blogging) with tales of beaver-sightings and bear poop and having to keep coyotes out of the sandbox where a particularly stupid rabbit built her nest of bunnies. I would have written about that rainbow, which became an almost daily sighting, and about eating a chanterelle pizza made entirely from the mushrooms found on the long hiking trail at Minekill Falls. OH and then I would get started on the food-- almost everything, from the sushi to the bluberry-lemon jam to the panini have been homemade. And delicious. Lee is an adventurous and undaunted chef, who, according to the cooking book that strikes his fancy, will go on these culinary themes for full summers. We picked a lucky summer to leech on to their kitchen-- this year is the summer of bread. Last year was pickles.

Now, we are less than a week from departing for South America. The part of me that has been climbing mountains and trekking woods and following rivers all summer is super excited and ready to be there; likewise the part of me wracked with the guilt of claiming Hispanic heritage and only a compositional (not really conversational) level of Spanish.

But then there is the part of me who had never voluntarily hiked a trail before this summer in her life (forced, family-friendly hikes fraught with frequent consultations of a tree-identification guide, sure) and whose only international travel over the age of 15 are tritely European (and exclusively in large academic groups) is a little nervous. When did I get old enough to plan and fund a trip to another continent? Itineraries always came ready-made with the check that was turned in to the school... I didn't even have to worry about keeping track of a plane ticket until we were at the security checkpoint and had counted off to 40, and nevermind holding on to hotel reservations or museum ticket stubs.. half the time I would sort of wake up as the bus stopped and groggily inquire which city we were even in.

Now, that lush kind of travel is long behind me, and I'm going to cities whose elevations reach 3600 m (when we were first hiking up the mountains here, we had mistakingly read that as feet and were patting ourselves on the back for the 3500 foot mountain we conquered here.. turns out, we're only prepared to be at a quarter of the elevation point in Bolivia) and whose guidebooks tell of phony police officers who will demand foreign fees and papers from gringos or a mugging chain whose cheif form of distraction is to spit on you.

We have to be prepared to identify real officials, money and modes of transport from their counterfeit counterparts. And, my favorite line from the guidebooks describes a city where "panthers stalk locals from trees." Now, I took all those years of Texas standardized testing and I excelled in reading comprehension in my SAT. But nowhere in this book can I determine if this is meant to caution or relieve: do the panthers strictly hunt locals? Am I in the clear? What do you think, dear two ones?

I will be blogging on my travels, from various internet cafes and hostels, as much as the availability and my dedication will allow. I therefore beseech you, my dear readers, to keep your faith in me. I will come back to you. I will deliver, queridas.