ANDES DANDY

Waking up at 7 in the morning on a Sunday felt wrong on so many different levels. I met Wilfred and Charlie at 8 AM and we hopped on a bus to Vilcabamba to go on a hike to a famous waterfall. The hike was physically and emotionally refreshing. The picturesque scenery continually stopped us, prompting ‘the lads’ to marvel at the beauty of nature. The sporadic showers and gringos (generic term for white people) hogging the path as they passed us on horses didn’t make the hike easier, but in the end those aren’t the things I will remember about yesterday. We got to the waterfall after walking for three hours. Wilfred even went under the waterfall saying “go on mate, it’s not that bad”, but even his face couldn’t hide how fresh and cold the water was. When we got back to Vilcabamba, we had some amazing ribs and craft beer, with Mandango (the mountain) in the background– the perfect way to end a perfect day. A.D. Here are some extra photos you might l

It’s interesting how I went to Waldorf school and my parents raised me quite liberally, yet nothing quite prepared me for the feeling of being a grownup. Let me explain. Yesterday, I was walking to the Sunday farmer’s market at around 10:30 in the morning, and I suddenly heard this voice in my head saying “oh, stop pretending like you’re a grownup! You’re still a kid. You should be binge-drinking your parents’ money away, claiming it’s some university social you must go to! You shouldn’t be getting up early in the morning just to go to the market and buying next week's vegetables…” At that moment, I really did feel like I was pretending to be a grownup, as if I was some little boy playing a more elaborate version of house with his friends. I think this feeling is mostly because I didn’t go to university and live in a dorm. I didn’t have a stage between living at my parents' cozy house, where toilet paper and food magically appeared if I wrote it on a shopping l