Old Stones, Magical Waters and Salt

Sitting in a classroom, reading a book; you usually learn a decent amount of information. You probably will be tested on it in some standardized form and will be asked to regurgitate what you have learned in an essay or two. Now I understand that this type of learning is important and I did do a lot of this while studying abroad. But I tend to believe that a hands on learning experience is much more beneficial, which is why I studied abroad in the first place. If you can combine these two types of learning, you are probably going to end up a genius, if you are not already one. If you have the money, time and opportunity to travel while you are studying abroad or to stay in the country after your classes are over, I recommend it. For two weeks after I had taken my last exams, all one hundred percent in Spanish, my roommate and I took off on a 32 hour non-stop bus ride from Cordoba, Argentina to Lima, Peru. Our plan was the take this time, while we were still in South America to travel through Peru and Bolivia, stopping along the way to see Machu Pichu, Lago Titicaca, the Salt Flats and basically whatever else came in our way. Although we had a few mishaps of a missed tour boat at Lago Titicaca, an egg sandwich with an excessive amount of hair in it and a drunken 4v4 driver who left us stranded in the middle of a Salt Flat in Bolivia, our trip was more of an education than I’ve ever received from sitting in a desk, listening to a professor drone on for hours.