End of Thanksgiving in Pasadena

Went to Echo Mountain today. I haven't seen so many people on a hiking trail since Yosemite! 

Work out to pig out: Pre-Thanksgiving Mt Wilson Hike

I got up the Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving and ate an amazingly and filling breakfast burrito from Lucky Boy's, and started my Mt Wilson hike at 9:30 to get ready for Thanksgiving :)

Lucky Boy's famous breakfast burrito

hiking food

The first thing I saw when I arrived at the start of the Mt Wilson Trail was a warning sign about bears. Here's a brief summary of it: "Due to the drought and the lack of resources in their original habitat, some bears have been foraging in areas close to humans. Bears have been sighted in this area in late October. If you do encounter a bear, don't run away -- appear big and yell at the bear until it runs away."  Glad to know that after leaving Berkeley, I still get to be in bear territory... There were very few people on the trail, and the first 2 miles weren't in open areas, so I actually did think I might encounter a bear. That would've made a great story, but I'm really glad I didn't see any bears.

Fun little climb

Definitely the best part of the hike. FINALLY REACHED THE TOP! 

I was realllllly tired when I reached the top, considering it was more than 7 miles all uphill in the incredibly sunny Southern California, so I was unbelievably glad to be finished... Until I realized I still had to go downhill. Luckily I met two other girls at the top, so I got to talk to them the whole way down! 

So Berkeley

Had a relaxing weekend last week. Grocery shopping, running, gym, relaxing, and dressing up for costume parties... :)

my roommate's first time at Berkeley Bowl! 

Best part about coming home from Berkeley Bowl

breathtaking view

... just kidding, I was out of breath from running

Summer 2014 - SOS Tartarugas!

Note: I lost my previous post so I will be updating this shortly with a much more detailed description of life as a ranger shortly

I spent the past summer working as a wildlife ranger for SOS Tartarugas, a non-profit organization whose main mission is to deter hunters from hunting the Loggerhead Turtles in Cape Verde. As a ranger, I worked 6 days a week in a camp with a day off in a shared apartment in Santa Maria, where I was able to gorge myself on sweets and take a nice warm shower.

Work as a ranger was both mentally and physically taxing at first, as I wasn't used to being awake 1AM to 6AM, or walking in soft sand, but it was definitely worth it! In fact, I'd just found out that one of the other rangers from the summer lost 46 pounds during the 3 months he was there!

I lost my phone this summer, so I have very few photos now. Still, here are a few highlights from my summer:

It's no wonder that very few people have heard of Cape Verde.

Home

Meet Maria deGloria, the camp cook and Bucari, the camp happy person :)

Kitchen/living room

Toilet doodee

I celebrated my 20th birthday in Cape Verde!

Hiking

Amazing view. Every. Single. Day. 

We had work period everyday from 3:30 to 5PM, where we would do any task that comes up, be it cleaning a beach, making wooden marks (like Braden, Bucari, and Artur are doing here), or even making a volleyball net!

We did a lot of reading and learning in camp during the day :) Since we had so many people from different countries, we would often teach other our respective languages. During just my 2 months there, we had people from Portugal, Spain, Brazil, the Netherlands, China (me? ok not really), America, England, Italy, and many many more countries.

We often ate squid ("lula" in Creole) from the beach - it's delicious!!! 

We didn't just save turtles. One day in early July, a family of more than 10 Pilot Whales got stranded near our camp, so SOS Tartarugas, tourists, and locals worked together to push the whales back into the ocean. The whales that returned to the ocean kept coming back, because the smallest whale kept getting washed back, so pushing the whales back took more than 5 hours.

Meet Antonio - one of the luckiest people (and one of my favorite people) in camp!
This was around 5:30 AM - it's very rare to see Loggerheads during daylight. Antonio is the person I saw both my first turtle and first nest with. He's the person who taught me to metal tag turtles and later he was also the one who approved me to tag turtles without supervision.

Thanks Taz for the two amazing chocolate cakes!!
This was the day before I left camp.

Here are the trash bags from another camp's beach cleaning! 

Unfortunately, the last Loggerhead I saw of the season.

Sal Beach Club - one of the best hang out spots :)

Pollution is a serious problem everywhere.
Photo: Marcos

Hope to see you again soon, Santa Maria!

Unfortunately, I missed hatchling season by a week, but you can see many photos on their facebook page! www.facebook.com/sosturtles

2014 San Francisco Questival: RAINBOW SOX!

I did the San Francisco Questival (questival.cotopaxi.com) with my friends Markus, Eric and Nich. We used the 24 hours quite ambitiously - we spent at least 8 of those hours driving to and from Nevada, and those 8 hours don't even include the time Eric frantically tried to search for the Tahoe National Forest Sign on our way back from Reno (I was asleep... oops). I was so tired by the end of this that I slept almost 12 hours straight. 

We also got quite a few comments on our costume of Hawaiian shirts + rainbow socks. :P Here are some of the highlights of our trip, but you can see many more of our photos here: http://questivalteams.cotopaxi.com/the-wild-ones

Start of our adventure!

Arrived to the carousel a bit late, so we improvised

Stayed in Reno for a good 40 minutes :)

found the sign!

:)

Floating on an air mattress in the bay! Saturday 7:30 am, right after it rained

"Kiss at Mission Peak" 

incredibly tired, been running around for a few hours and haven't showered in over 24 hours, but the llama makes everything better :) 

Golden Gate Bridge. Only 30 minutes until the end and we were soooo tired 

Eric and Markus sprinted down from the Golden Gate Bridge to finish the last task with 4 minutes to go!

the end :)

The perfect Veteran's Day - Berkeley Hills Hike and Korean BBQ

I've been planning to have a nice hike on Veteran's Day since last week, so it didn't bother me one bit when my alarm went off at 7 in the morning. I took my time to relax and make breakfast - something I never do on weekdays. 

Honey wheat pancakes with Hachiya persimmon puree & chunks

    I left the house around 8:30 and biked to Clark Kerr. I walked up the hill to the Clark Kerr track from where I parked my bike and started my hike at the Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve. It was a cloudy day - perfect for a hike in the Berkeley Hills!

Start of the hike

it's amazing seeing the city from afar

The most human contact I had the whole hike 

I hiked for about 40 minutes and reached a spot shown to me by somebody a few months ago. It's right next to a trail, but nobody ever notices it. In fact, I sat there for 30 minutes and both couples who passed by me didn't realize there was a girl sitting on top on a tree watching them.

... Just kidding about the watching part. But seriously, you've gotta check this spot out.

Best seat ever.

Looks like some people had fun here

All I needed this morning: iPhone, headphones, snacks, water, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and an amazing view.

It actually ended up getting surprisingly windy, so I hopped off the tree and continued going uphill.

You can't see the trail, but there's quite a steep hill there... 

All about the hills

Great spot to sit and relax

Whenever I had the option to choose between 2 routes, I chose the one going uphill. I arrived at this barren land at some point and contemplated going back, but I just couldn't bear not knowing what was on the other side.

"where am I?"

I don't regret continuing one bit 

Abandoned

And here's the final picture I took of the hike. I turned back around since there were just roads and cars at this point. I exited the hike at Strawberry Canyon because I just didn't want to walk down steep downhills anymore. Hah!

next time (when I don't have my bike parked on the opposite side) I might just walk back home from here

I got home around 1PM with a rumbling stomach, but I didn't eat much because I remembered that I HAVE A KOREAN BBQ DATE WITH MY ROOMMATE! And her boyfriend... But that's irrelevant. Because of my lack of self control when it comes to food, I decided to just take a long nap until they pick me up. 

We went to Jong Ga House in Oakland at 6 for their $21 all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ. It was amaaaaaaazing and soooo flavorful and fulfilling, and the rice drink they give at the end is just perfect! But that may also be because I starved myself beforehand.

Will is third-wheeling us again 

16 incredibly blurry side dishes

We were all pretty full in the end, so we headed back home and here I am, writing this blog post after getting my brain fried from doing homework in preparation for tomorrow. :(

Maybe you can join me on my next hike!