La Belle Vie Holistic Living

"We need to talk..." I heard Michael's voice before I saw him. A moment later, he popped around the hedge to where I was sitting in the garden of our hostel in Cusco, Peru. I had just finished a five minute coughing fit and was doubled over holding my chest, which was raked with pain and - I was pretty positive - was building some pretty permanent scar tissue at this point. I was almost a week into a horrible upper respiratory illness that had me coughing so hard that I had lost my voice and that had left me with almost constant ringing in one ear. Apparently this was not too uncommon in Cusco where at 3,800 metres, the air was thin, the nights were cold, and the weather was dry. Michael sat down next to me and began telling me how his family of three had experienced something extraordinarily similar the last time they had visited. While he was sure that my upcoming travels to sea level in Colombia would bring the end of it, there might be something I wanted to try now. T...

Last year, as my 29th birthday loomed near, I decided to leave the country and the continent and all my friends and family and spend close to a year in South America. I travelled and hiked and almost got hit by lightening, came close to falling off cliffs, and was nearly lost in the Andes forever. But one of  my most difficult challenge s came while surrounded by beach and sun in Colombia.

Fun fact: I may or may not have a habit of almost getting struck by lightning...details details...! Here's a story of the second time it happened, and how I almost fell off a cliff while peeing in the middle of the night. xo Selene

“That was really unsafe. I think we almost died last night,” was Caleb’s morning greeting to me at our happenstance camp site in the Andes. I had just been thinking the same thing as I was surveying my tent, which I had unknowingly in the dark of night pitched precariously close to the edge of a cliff. Considering the complete lack of map or signs along the way, we had been lucky to find any camping spot the night before as we hiked in the dark and under threat of non-stop rain. Against the warnings of the park rangers, we were one day into a hike in Podocarpus National Park in South Ecuador attempting to reach the ever elusive, and we were beginning to suspect quite fabled, lagoons. Most of the hike took us along the ridge of the mountains where the view was spectacular, but one misstep would have you quite quickly falling to doom and gloom. Above the clouds, in the clouds, we are the clouds... Being in rainy season at an altitude of a couple of thousand feet, much of our hiking took ...

sunset in Minca Oh Minca...A beautiful town in the hills outside Santa Marta, Colombia in which there was nothing to eat. I had planned on staying longer to relax in hammocks with my newfound literary treasure (the entire Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies), take leisurely walks to waterfalls, and soak in the lush greenery of the place. However, after just two days, I hightailed it out of there grumpy from the endless mosquitoes and a diet consisting of plantain chips, peanuts, and crappy chocolate bars. rocking the beach hair in Tayrona Minca was the third foodless town I had come across in a row in the past two weeks and I was starving for anything green, leafy, or with any fibre. Tayrona Park - in all its glorious and unfathomable beauty - had me living off of corn pancakes called Arepas. In Taganga, - a steamy beach town full of macrame-peddling artisans and more than their share of armed robberies of visiting travellers - whenever I asked for the grocery store, I was pointed to o...

Raw cucumber rolls stuffed with beets, carrots, cilantro and avocado and drizzled with a tropical fruit coulis My first week in South America, I met a girl named Rebecca. Since then we had been trying to reconnect, but keep missing each other. In May we caught up again in Cusco and had a delicious raw dinner to celebrate. We made cucumber rolls and carrot dumplings both with a maracuya (passionfruit in non-south america speak) and papaya coulis. A great sweet and sour tropical flavour for these refreshing and savoury dishes. After a week of eating not very awesome and definitely not too health food in restaurants in Lima, this and the company of a great friend were just what I needed. The dumplings were incredibly easy to make but had that fancy look to them that excited and impressed onlookers as well as ourselves and our palates. The lighting was poor, so please excuse my pictures... Carrot dumplings drizzled with a tropical fruit coulis Raw feast in Cusco. From bottom left (clockwis...

While in Peru, a new traveller friend was upset about how her teen cousin had been gloating about his drinking saying "no good story ever began with eating salad." I countered jokingly that clearly he had never travelled to South America, where many a good story of delirious illness and 25 hour bus trips spent mostly on the ill-equiped and anything but luxurious or even adequate toilet began just that way. Indeed, as a travelling yoga teacher (oh hey, I'm now a yoga teacher! more about that in a later post), I have modified namaste for my fellow wanderlusters to mean "the parasite in me bows to the parasite in you." When in Cusco, a fellow Canadian suggested we get tested together - definitely a statement of true friendship, no? And so for three days, we pooped in cups and tried to inconspicuously carry them to the nearby clinic. One day the clinic was closed for lunch and as I was on my way to Reiki training, I had to awkwardly stow my sample in my bag for a fe...

(note about comment posting since I've been told it's a tad bit confusing...the link to post a comment is under the title of the post) Back in Ecuador, I discovered chocolate making. Ok, no, that's a lie. My history with making chocolate actually dates back to childhood. Since I can remember, I have loved creating culinary yum yums for those that I love. My parents for their wedding were given a chocolate cookbook and as a child I became a voracious reader of this miraculous book and tried numerous of its magical recipes. My favourite one to make and share was for decadent chocolate truffles. But in Ecuador, I bought a 10lb bag of cacao paste, and a 10lb bag of cacao butter, and went to town. Like, literally, I would make a ton of different types of chocolate and then go into town and hand them out to people (while, of course, eating a number myself for Quality Assurance purposes). My specialty was a raw peanut butter chocolate cup variety, which definitely won me many frie...

looking oh so classy roasting cacao beans with new friends at a chocolate workshop I've never been a great one at being guided by my intuition. My brain is too noisy for my heart to be heard and it's hard to trust myself. Although I should - when I've gone on base instinct, it's rarely steered me wrong. Luckily, lately the universe has been helping me out - pulling me back into my heart when I start to doubt it too much. In a rock, an uncovered love note, a new friend, all the amazingly supportive people I am so grateful to have in my life, a chocolate museum (more on that later), it's been showing me that the way I have chosen is indeed the right one for me, for right now. Although I came to Peru with a set plan and a heart bursting with excitement about completing my yoga teacher training at a school in Cusco, I started to be fraught with doubts and anxieties and strong desires to run away into the jungle. I am indecisive at best and my fickleness leads to anxiety...

I've moved! Visit my new blog Make Life Beautiful for more recipes and healthy living tips. Don't forget to update your bookmarks xo As some of you know, I recently visited Iceland. We started and ended in Reykjavik,driving along the South Coast for a couple of days in between. It was insanely beautiful, surreal and serene. Between the moss-covered lava fields and Jökulsárlón, the iceberg lagoon, we often felt like we were on another planet. When I told people that I was going to go to Iceland, many pondered at what I would eat while there. A common question was "don't they eat fermented shark? can you eat anything there?" As it turns out, it's quite easy being vegan and gluten-free in Iceland. Here are some of my fave photos and meal pics from the trip. Some travel tips and our itinerary follow. Tofu curry with carrots, onions and potatoes gluten-free brown rice pasta with tofu, canned tomatoes, broccoli, olives and raw vegan...