A Condor Taking Flight

We trudged into base camp, taking deep breaths to help us acclimatize to our new home, situated at 16,400 feet, under a beautiful snow-capped ridge in the uncanny shape of a condor spreading its wings for take-off. The girls immediately busied themselves setting up camp, expertly pitching their tents and making neat piles of group gear food. As I watched them, I could not help think how far we have come as a group from the first camping trip we embarked on almost 3 months ago in Ecuador, which was many of the girls' first time pitching a tent or sleeping outside. The 4 days we spent camped under the glacier was unforgettable. It was beautiful, humbling, and brought our climate change studies to a head. It took us 45 minutes of hiking over scree fields and squishy tundra from the base of the glacier to a lonely white post- marking the spot where the glacier's edge reached 9 years ago. Our guides informed us it is now melting at the rate of 6-9 meters per year. Whether an individual girls summitted the 17,500 foot glacier or not, all were challenged and in awe of nature's beauty. From the top, one could see the clouds blanketing the Amazon rainforest and the tallest mountains in Bolivia. Here are a few quotes from the girls on their individual journeys:

From Stacy:
"The climb started at 3 am and forced me to physically challenge myself like never before. Perseverance, discipline, and determination served as my teachers..."

From Helen:
"Climbing the glacier was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was also the most rewarding, beautiful experience of my life. Seeing the clouds far below me and the tallest mountains in the Andes above me was the most amazing sight."

From Lucy:
"Climbing the glacier was the hardest thing I've ever done. Reaching the summit evoked so many emotions within me: accomplishment, happiness, astonishment. I doubt I will ever forget the sight of the massive, snow-capped Andes encircling us as we stood atop the 17,500 foot summit."

From Kay:
"Stepping across the glacier was one of those experiences that makes you realize just how small you are in relation to the world..."

From Bobbi:
"Climbing the glacier is a day I will never forget. I have yet to challenge myself to such an extent. It was stunning, rewarding, physically demanding, and an overall beautiful experience. Our TTS days are coming to an end, and this 17,500 foot summit could not have been a better Zenith to our unforgettable semester."

From Bri:
"Sitting at base camp, I looked around at the beautiful snowy mountains and tried to contemplate what it looked like here 10 years ago..."

From Tate:
"It's humbling to be surrounded by some of Bolivia's highest peaks. There's few places where you can be absolutely at peace in one of the most spectacular places on earth. This was one of those places, and I'll never forget it."

From Payton:
"Reaching the summit after hours of trekking, putting one cramponed foot in front of the other, my eyes filled with tears. I've never worked harder in my life and I felt so accomplished and amazed when I had a 360 degree Andean Mountain view. I truly felt the power of nature when everywhere I looked, snow-capped peaks lingered in the midst of the clouds.."

From Liv:
"As I stood beneath the dazzling array of cloudless stars I felt that there was no place I would rather be. The Milky Way stretched across the entire expanse of the sky and I listened quietly as Juan Pavlo, one of our guides, pointed out the Southern Cross, Scorpio, Orion's Belt, and countless other constellations, telling the story behind each one. Shooting stars flashed across the sky and filled me with a quick jolt of ecstasy each time. It was one of the most awe-inspiring nights of the trip."

From Ina:
"Breathing deeply, I finally reached the summit. After over three months of traveling together, my friends greeted with hugs at the top. Smiling, I felt accomplished and proud of our group for succeeding in our final physical challenge."

From Sarah:
"Sitting under the glacial peaks in the warm sunshine of Bolivia's Andes was one of the most humbling and relaxing experiences..."

From Erica:
"I looked back and saw the glowing line of my companion's headlamps winding their way up the glacier and felt a mix of awe, sadness, and pride for my friends making this journey."

From Mary Katherine:
"One breath at a time- I did what I thought I could not. Now I am a slightly bigger person and the world is a slightly more beautiful place."

While everyone's final experience in the mountains was unique to them, we have all come together to share what made it special for us. The girls are busy today, their final day of the trip, shopping, packing, and writing one another positive affirmations. They shared so many beautiful words last night when we did our "web of appreciation" bracelet giving ceremony and talked through all our fears about returning home. Today and tonight we have a special graduation celebration and ceremony planned that will end with a nice dinner and awards for all. The fun begins in one hour when we will head to our mountaineering guide's house for food, soccer, and gifts. The girls are excited to be coming home, miss you all terribly, and are also nervous about making this big transition. Be gentle with your daughters and give them time and space to open up. Listen to their stories with compassion and interest. We are so very proud of these girls and know you will be too when you see the new light radiating from the center of each one of them. We love you and we will see you at the airport very soon.

-TTS 19

In Travel Journalism, the girls finished up their coursework with a gratifying stack of final drafts; professional, polished articles, accompanying photos, and query letters ready to send out for publication! Keep an eye out for their stories to appear this summer in your local paper and other publications. The Lovely Lit Ladies knocked finals out of the park with an Author's chair session of their impressive, detailed Magical Realism essays. All were exceptionally creative and well-written! In Science, the girls delivered dynamite presentations on Climate Change. After learning about the Andes' dwindling glaciers and their effects on city's water supplies in Peru and Bolivia, the scientists of TTS 19 were ready to take action. After doing extensive research on the issue and interviewing several locals, the girls teamed up to create and implement policy changes and research the latest green technologies. Their multi-genre projects were incredibly diverse, inspiring, well-researched, and passionately delivered. TTS 19 chicas finished up Global class by solidifying their Zenith Project and by practicing the final presentations that many of the girls will be giving to their home high schools a few days after returning home. We look forward to how they all turn out. Congratulations, chicas on finishing up finals and happy graduation from TTS 19! Tonight, we will have a celebratory ceremony to bring closure to our successful semester.

Traveling Thoughts....

The original author of ¨TTS Girl Problems¨ has written another interesting reflection for her Travel Journalism class. Helen does her best thinking on travel days and decided to compile descriptions a few of our semester´s most memorable moments in motion.... Enjoy!

Four Months, Three Countries, Nine Ways of Getting "There"
By Helen

*February 2, 10:30pm*
*Bus*
My first view of Ecuador came in images illuminated by streetlights
and dimly lit bulbs hanging in curbside tiendas. Glimpses of
late-night street goers flashed by as the bus gathered speed. Leaving
the lights of the Quito airport disappearing behind the glass dripping
with condensation, I sped into the unknown. Hours ago, I stood on
American soil that I would not see again for four months. Sitting in
the privacy the darkness offered, my face collapsed into a combination
of exhausted trepidation. A brief flash of light revealed seats
occupied by fifteen high school girls and four women, my Traveling
School classmates and teachers. Across from me, a face mirrored my
own, wearing an expression of weary excitement. I mentally stumbled
through the nineteen new names I learned only hours before, trying
to match the correct one to her unfamiliar face...

*February 11, 2:00pm*
*Truck *
Packed into the backseat, I gave up trying to avoid the inevitable
collisions with girls on either side of me. With every pothole, dip,
and bump in the road, our ponytails swung and bobbed, imitating the
Piña Colada air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror,
reflecting the tan face of the driver. As the car winds along, bare
concrete hut walls grow sparse. Cows outnumber trees, speckled across
hillsides that grow more barren as we increase in altitude. A woman
wearing a full skirt and characteristically indigenous embroidered
blouse cranes her neck, adorned with strands of gold-painted beads, to
observe the fleet of seven trucks bumbling along her rural road. Rain
comes and goes, but the grating Ecuadorian hip-hop continues to play
on repeat from the truck´s antique radio. Chickens run in front of its
wheels, teasing the flustered driver as we fruitlessly backspin in
knee-deep mud. Between exposed steel cable re-bar roof supports hangs
a clothesline, dripping with colorful garments. Pictures of rural
Ecuador flash before my fluttering eyelids as I fend off
pothole-induced nausea...

*March 4, 1:00pm*
*Bus*
Nothing broke up the valley´s bright green color other than the opaque
brown river and black highway- both twisting into the depths of the
Amazon basin. After weeks of breathing oxygen thinned by the Andean
altitude, the air in the bus felt thick with humidity. As I ate my
afternoon snack, the usual medley of raisins and walnuts, I
contemplated how the thick glass of the bus window and monotonous,
uneven asphalt were the only things preventing me from being swallowed
by the vegetation that filled my vision with green...

*March 11, 12:30pm*
* Inter-tube *
My lower body was cold. The water of the Napo River clung to my
exposed legs as I drifted down with the current. But I decided that
shifting my weight to raise my frigid body was too risky. Doing so
might capsize the black rubber inter-tube I shared with another girl,
the two us precariously perched on opposite rims. Somewhere within the
chain of strung-together tubes, someone began singing an 80s song.
By the time she was able to hit the chorus, we were belting out the lyrics
to "I Will Survive," our voices reverberating off the wall of rain forest
threatening to close in onto the river. It wouldn't be much longer until we
arrived downstream to our next jungle lodge...

*Galapagos Islands, Ecuador- March 18, 6:30pm*
*Boat*
With a resounding clang, the dinner bell of the ¨Golondrina¨ demanded
my presence under the deck. Despite the pangs of hunger growing in my
stomach, I wanted to be no place other than where I was. Frigate
bird´s sharp calls pierced the silence as I sat hand in hand with two
of the girls I have now known for a month and a half. We let the
orange sun´s last light brush our sunburned faces, our hair swept back
by the saline wind as the boat sailed forward. The bell rings again,
and with a last look at Bartolome Island slowly being obscured by
distance and darkness, we descend into the ship´s interior...

*April 2, 8:30am
* Foot*
Nothing but my feet carried me up the pass. Nothing but determination
propelled me against the weight of gravity pressing against my 50-pound
backpack. The pass competed with the horizon above me, rising
impossibly high. Pausing for water, I looked down at the progress I´d
made. What I remembered only as labored breaths and carefully placed
footfalls were dozens of switchbacks winding their way past blue glacier
lakes and black cliffs slick with snow that threatened to creep its way under
my rain jacket...

*April 5, 2:00am
*Night Bus*
The second story of the bus swayed as it turned a corner. We careened
around bends invisible to me for the curtain drawn tight across the
bus´s glass windows. The hum of the engine drowned out the sounds of
its sleeping passenger´s rhythmic breathing. My assumption that we had
many hours left to go was instantly proven with the lit up numbers of
my watch. I closed my eyes and flipped over the complimentary,
scratchy pillow. I lazily shifted with the bus, wishing I had taken a
nap between classes in Huaraz...

*April 13, 10:30am
*Train*
It wasn´t until twenty minutes after we took off that the train
accelerated to a speed faster than a leisurely jog. Gazing out the
window and sipping Coca tea, I watched a woman sitting on a passing
train. Her eyes bright with excitement, she, and her fellow
passengers, fidgeted in their seats, eager to reach their destination.
I had just come from Machu Picchu, but unlike the fresh faces on the
passing train, I arrived to the magnificent Inca ruin unshowered and
with a four day trek´s worth of mud caked into the soles of my boots.
The trains parted once again and I sat back, enjoying the leisure of
not having to carry myself across this
distance...

*April 21, 1:30pm
*Horseback*
Tornado threw her head back impatiently, waiting for my cue. I
responded with a gentle tightening of the reins. Behind us, the rest
of the group picked their way down the hill. A great expanse of land
stretched before me, stretching from Cusco, glittering in the afternoon
sun and curving up to the Andes that rose above the ancient city.
Among farmhouses and
sheep-riddled fields lay Inca ruins squalid with time and isolated
by rope fences and prominent informative signs. Sensing others behind
me, I nudged Tornado on and we rode through the fields separating us
from the next site...

*April 26, 11:00am
*Bus*
My row-mate shifted her weight, stirring me from my light sleep.
Around me, the girls I now knew like sisters propped themselves up on
compressible pillows and fleece jackets. Some slept open-mouthed,
headphones fallen loose from their once-attentive ears. Others read,
their eyes flickering between pages, as the Peruvian countryside sped
by. A sign marked the kilometers remaining until the border. Unable to
resist the temptation of a nap, my eyelids fluttered closed. Soon my
passport would include the ink of a Bolivia stamp...

*April 30, 12:30pm
*Water Taxi*
The bus rocked to a stop. Shaken from my pensive window-gazing, I
registered the lack of road before its wheels. Instead, a thin section
of Lake Titicaca lay between us and the other side of the road.
Bridging the distance was not a bridge, but a ferry resembling an
over-sized version of a raft I built in 7th grade. Led to a water taxi,
another raft, this one smaller but with walls and benches, I watched
in barely masked horror as the heavy bus backed slowly onto rickety
planks and the ferry tipped dangerously to one side. I thought of my
backpack, deep inside the inaccessible bus, stuffed with the items that
had sustained me for the past three months. I had come to think of it
as my little portable home, the one constant and tangible piece of my
life, which always moving, drifting, shifting, traveling. Chugging by
in a cloud of diesel smoke, I shielded my eyes from the sight of the
physics-defying bus that crossed the lake as if it was a perfectly
normal occurrence. Two weeks from this moment, I would be boarding a
plane to the United States, leaving behind the continent that has
become my home. I smiled, wondering what I would do with all the space
in my closet.

Vacation Homes - only two days left!

With springtime in the air... please let your friends and family know about our Vacation Home auction. Three generous Traveling School families have donated a week at their properties in the city in Paris, France; the scenic hills of North Carolina, and the fabulous Bridger Mountains outside of Bozeman, Montana. If a family vacation is on the to-do list for this upcoming year - check this out today! The auction ends Thursday!

And, thank you for your support!

http://ttsvacationpropertyauction.blogspot.com/