¡Miguel y Jengibre han llegado! I met their 5:34am plane in La Paz yesterday and we tooled around the capital sipping coca tea (and hunting api y llaocha before boarding this 4:30pm bus for the Nor Yungas.

And yes, this is the same Mike that fell 3 stories in late January and broke 27 bones, including the C2 vertebrae. To say that we're lucky he's alive -- let alone traipsing around South America with fellow jet setter Ginger -- is an understatement. But he's not just alive, he's --como siempre-- full of life.

Igualmente nuestra amiga Jengibre. (Yeah, people who say ginger is good for travel don't know the half of it.) We head out this weekend for Sucre and Potosí in south central Bolivia, then return to Carmen Pampa for the last week of classes. I've been blessed with great friends and traveling companions during my time in Bolivia, but this double-trouble combo of Mike & Ginger might be hard to beat. (And when Margaret Post shows up from Boston a week from Tuesday, we'll form a Trekking Team like Bolivia has never seen -- at least when it comes to the caliber of trail mix and the ratio of laughter to sleep.)

PS: Good news for my friend Jess: she gets to leave the hospital and prepare for the bowel movement of the century at home. And there's a chance she may not need to have another brain shunt put in -- wahooo! (Jess' Caring Bridge website)