Friday, June 22nd – Day 12 – Cusco

We awoke around 7:30. The night was freezing and the beds were terrible, but I slept decent. We packed our stuff and moved it to the other hostal. Piccola Laconda was recommended to me by my friend Raechel who had been in Peru the year before, so we decided to try it out. The people at the desk were super nice, the place was awesome. 3 beds, a bath with hot water, a rooftop terrace overlooking the plaza. All the rooms have names and pictures of family members on the door, our room was their son's, Matteo. Fittingly, my name en espanol. It is clean, nice, and has everything we need. It is s/90-120 per night, but after we split it, it's only about $15 each.

We took nice, long hot showers and went out to do some shopping and get lunch. I bought some carabiners, socks and more souvenirs. We found a little pizza place to eat overlooking a small square where there was dancing and music. We ate on the balcon and the food was ok. I could have eaten a guinea pig, and I wish I did. Still haven't done it yet, but definitely a goal. Probably Tuesday. After lunch we hit up 2 museums and enjoyed more festivities walking around the squares and the plaza.

The Inka Museum (s/10) was pretty neat and the Pre-Columbian art museum (s/20) was okay as well. Both had a lot of ceramics, pottery and textiles. I'm a little more into art, sculpture and photography, but it was a good time.

After regrouping at the hotel, my brother had sent me some information I needed and I used the internet for a bit back at the hotel. After that, we decided to walk to a nearby neighborhood with a reputation for artists, food etc. It was a really cool walk, uphill and through small passages with seemingly endless amounts of shops and hostals. We saw the 12 sided mother stone made by the Inca on one of the buildings, looked in a few shops and went back to the hotel to get our things and went to the travel agency to get a briefing for the trip.

We were served coca tea and there were about 16 of us. All English speaking. A few from Arizona, some from California, others from England, and some, not sure. They broke down the hike for us, gave other instructions, info on amenities and so forth. We left afterwards and found a gyro place to eat dinner. It was delicious, a huge meal, and the falafel was great. And cheap! $14 for two big meals and 3 beers.

I have to rant though...As we were eating, two sets of English speakers came in and ordered takeout, or attempted to. No Spanish skills at all, and they thought by talking louder, the woman might understand a foreign language better. I could tell they were the types of guys with the “if they're in our country, they should speak our language” douchebags, and yet the rules don't apply to them. The second one ordered, waited 15 minutes for his food, then saw the worker take money, then touch the tortilla a few minutes after, and said in English, “You can't do that, love. Disgusting!” and left, telling me, “You speak Spanish, explain it to her.” I could have punched him in the face. All I said though, was, “This isn't England, dude.” I thought it was a pretty fancy place for Peru. She was wearing gloves. And the Spanish comment...learn your own fucking Spanish asshole. The gall.

Our meal was delicious, we paid and left. We got back to the hostal and made sure we were all packed and ready, I wrote, and now bed. Macchu Picchu tomorrow!! :) 4am. :(

Thursday, June 21st – Day 11 – Cusco-ish to Cusco (Winter Solstice)

After a few hours of driving I think we hit an open area and began to ascend in elevation. This means switchbacks, and in a bus this size means wide turns every 30 seconds tossing you about all night. It was awful. I slept for maybe an hour, was jostled awake, and that cycle repeated for the rest of the 18 hour bus ride. The sun came up a bit and we woke up and stopped for breakfast. We had chicken soup at a restaurant on the side of the road.

After a few hours riding some more, we arrived in Cusco. A brilliant place, beautiful, full of everything. A group of us English speakers got off the bus and decided to walk into town, stretch the legs a bit. We walked into the main square, Plaza de Armas. We found a hostal called Hostal Felix and for s/20 each we got a room with 3 beds, a bathroom and a balcony overlooking the plaza. Pretty cool considering the Inti Raymi is going on this whole week, with Sunday being the climax of the party during the winter solstice. All of the festivities centered around the plaza, and we have a pretty great view. Our new Dutch friends got a room down the hall, and our French friend, Elliott, got a cheaper room upstairs.

Mark and I showered up. First problem noticed. No hot water as advertised. So I showered in the community shower anyway, even though we paid extra for the private bath. When I came back to the room, Mark pointed out that the beds were hard as rocks and the room was freezing. Oh well, we only booked for one night. We went down to the square to check it out, have lunch, and do some shopping and people watching. The music, dancing and marching are continuous and beautiful. Food, people everywhere. You are constantly offered sunglasses, hats, massages or waved in to restaurants and stores. The city itself is very hilly. Stone streets and small corridors are everywhere. When the Spanish conquered the Inca, they started tearing down the buildings, but realized their buildings were built so well, they stopped and left the foundations. So, many buildings have Inca stone foundations with Spanish style building on top. Pretty crazy looking and awesome. We walked and shopped more, got some drinks and found a place for dinner.

I had Alpaca Chateaubriand with a red red wine foam sauce, and Mark tried Alpaca as well. It was delicious, I'd say sort of a mix between pork and beef, very lean, very tasty. I heard a bar playing Tool, so I had to go in, and we had a couple of beers before calling it a night. We found another hostal to stay at for tomorrow, so we were hoping we could bear Felix for the night.

Wednesday, June 20th – Day 10 – Huacachina to Cusco-ish

Woke up surprisingly early about 7:30 and got our things in order, ready to head out to Cusco today. We found that the buses only run at night, so we were stuck for a bit longer. Horrible, right? Stuck in paradise. It was too late to do a day trip at this point, otherwise we would have considered the Nasca line tour. So we hung out at the pool all day, taking in some sun. I left for awhile to walk around the lake and check out the town. I found Lorina down by the lake and we hung out for a bit, resting in the shade of a beautiful tree, then she was kind enough to translate the plaques that were around the area, that told the story of Huacachina. She is amazing, I'm very glad I got to meet her. I went back and continued to lay around at the pool. Finally, some of the others from the night before started coming out, Lauren, who had gotten up at 5 to go to Isla Ballestas, looked like death earlier, but returned from a 3 hour nap totally refreshed. Joey, the California guy who took a job at the hotel, pretty much just to hit on tourists night after night and party. He had hooked up with Anne the night before, a cute Asian?Australian from Melbourne.

We talked and laid around lazily and exchanged info until we had to go. Hopefully this is not the last time I'll see them. We plan on Lorina in Cusco in a couple days and maybe a bunch of us in La Paz eventually.......we'll see. Mark and I caught a taxi into Ica and went to the bus station. We met some new people there. Melanie and Yurum from the Netherlands and Carmel and Claire from England all going to Cusco as well. We English speaking folk seem to unite everywhere, and both Mark and I are outgoing enough to talk to anyone. We collectively decided to help each other out as Yurum and I spoke the best Spanish, and none of us were very familiar with the boarding practices here. We figured it out, and got on the bus to leave. It was a little bit less nice than the previous bus, Cruz del Sur, but still really nice. The sun went down and we settled in. War Horse was the movie and I got a few hours of sleep.

Tuesday, June 19th – Day 9 – Ica to Huacachina

Our van picked us up at 6:50am to go to Isla Ballestas. We rode with about 5 Peruvians, one who lives in New Jersey, and two girls from Austria. They were on a 7 month trip of Asia and South America. We drove through desert for really the first time on this trip and past vineyards and orange groves. We arrived at the waterfront and saw many boats and pelicans. We paid our boat tax and got on a medium sized speed boat that held about 30-40 people, 1 level. There was a group of English girls we sat by and one named Emma told me she had two cameras stolen in Argentina. Her first one, then she bought another, and that one a week later. She was on a several month trip as well. This seems like a very very young travel destination. We headed out in the Pacific Ocean and after about 20 minutes got to Isla Ballestas. Beautiful. Large rock cliff islands covered in guano, which the government comes and collects every 7 years evidently to use for fertilizer. There are arches in many of the rocks and there are 1000s of birds everywhere. Boobies, gulls and many other types. The highlights were the peguins and sea lions. We rode around the islands for about 30 minutes and then headed back. Back at port, they gave us about 30 more minutes to shop at the stands and I bought a couple of coin purses and some jewelry for souvenirs. I wanted a mask, but not sure if I have the room to carry it yet. May have to wait until Cusco.

Got back in the van and got dropped off @ the hostal in Ica again. About 1230pm, we checked out and got a mototaxi ride for s/4 to Huacachina (wok-a-chee-na). We heard you go sand dune surfing there, and decided to check it out. We arrived and after about 5 minutes realized we should have stayed here the night before. We checked the prices at a few hostals and picked Casa de Arena. It looked really nice and was only s/25 each, and booked a sand boarding excursion with them for s/40, but received a slight discount on the room for doing so. So for s/60 ($20 USD), we got a sweet pool, with a bar, a bunch of young people, double room, and the boarding tour. We dropped our stuff, and found a pub up the block. Huacachina is nice and much quieter and cleaner than Ica, no dogs, roosters or constant whistle blowing from 3am to 6am, and they obviously have a much better nightlife. It is an oasis town, literally. A lake in the desert, where they've built a tourist spot. Mark had a burger at the pub, I had skirt steak with rice, fires and grilled bananas. I saved a banana and got a scoop of ice cream for dessert, and made kind of a poor man's bananas foster.

Two of the workers at the pub, Mike, a graphic designer from England, and Diego, from Argentina, in advertising both only planned on being here a day or two, but got jobs at the bar and are staying for a few months. It;s pretty badass. We went back to the hostal to get some pool time before we went boarding. Met a great Australian girl named Lauren, who is traveling alone, now jobless, and going through a lot of Mexico and South America. A lot of people seem to quit their jobs, get rid of their possessions and travel, and a lot of them are in Peru. We got ready to board and loaded into a dune buggy that held about 10 people. We drove past the lake, and bombed up into the dunes, huge, hundreds of feet tall dunes at speeds of up to 40 mph. We got to the top of a dune, we stop and the driver gives us wooden “sandboards” and some wax. The boards have velcro straps that go over your shoes, and are just like crappy snowboards you find at Kmart. I went first, and it is a blast! So fun. At the bottom, you climb a little, up a small hill, and you're at the top of another dune drop. Repeat again, and then the buggy picks you up and takes you to another place to do it again. The dunes get progressively larger too. We were with 5 Israelis who were all pretty cool and we enjoyed our boarding experience a lot. Mark and I both agreed, totally worth it. Neither of us had ever been to a dune type terrain/environment, and it was just an amazing experience. The shapes, colors, and shadows alone all make amazing pictures, as well as the wonder of geology, of the “constantly shifting mountains” that change locations completely over time just by the wind. I was kick-ass at sandboarding, riding most of the way down if not all the way down on most every dune, and loved it. Our buggy ran out of gas and our driver siphoned some from another buggy and we were on our way. Another buggy broke down and we tried to help, but in the end, had to send for a new buggy to come pick them up. After watching the sun set over the dunes and taking some group photos, we headed back to town. The dunes provided a great overlook of the lake and other buggies were stopped for photo opps, but our buggy started sliding down past the other buggies, so we kept going, not sure if we didn't want to block the others' photos, were in a hurry, aor had to get help for the stalled buggy, but I would have loved to get a shot of that lake at sunset. Oh well, it's in here (points to head). Anyway, we get back to our hostal, I spend a little time writing, getting ready for the BBQ tonight. All-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink pisco and rum for s/25. I went to the BBQ and got a plate, we had beef and chicken with salad and noodles. The beef was awful. Toughest piece of meat in memory. I had to put it in my mouth and yank my head around like a dog to get a piece off and eat it. He chicken was good and the noodles were really good. We had access to unlimited pisco sours and took full advantage. We talked with Lorina and Lauren most of the time at the bar where we were eating. Lorina is from Portugal and has a masters in physical science, and Lauren is from Melbourne and is a scientist/mathematician. We also met some Kiwis, Cameron and Katrina and got along really with them also. Everyone started to feel the pisco and we decided to do after hours at the sister hotel down the road. Our group was pretty much the only ones in the bar dance area and we talked and drank and danced all night long. At one point, there was a quadruple kiss session, Lauren hanging from the rafters and Lorina samba'd the night away. Found my way back eventually and passed out.  

Monday, June 18th – Day 8 – Lima to Ica

Woke up, ate the usual breakfast at Casa Bella. I walked the main avenue and looked for a UPS or something to mail some stuff back home to myself. I found a DHL and they wanted $130 USD for sending one box, and they only offer express. After much walking and asking, I found Serpost, the post office, and sent it for $30 USD. It was quite the process and took about 20 stamps!

Mark and I then went to look for extra batteries for our cameras, I found mine, at a good price, but the system for buying things there is screwy. You have to go to three different stations most times, and we found ourselves in a line that allowed senior citizens and handicapped people to cut you no matter when they arrived in line. Interesting. Nice, but inconvenient for us when we didn't realize.

Mark forgot his camera, so we didn't know what battery he needed, so we headed back to wait for our laundry to get done and pack up. It had started to mist, and for some reason, all the sidewalks in Lima are slick, almost like polished stone. So with the rain, and mark in his flip-flops, he almost bit it several times, he had to walk in baby steps almost, it was crazy! Almost like walking on ice.

We got back, I charged my new batteries, showered and facebooked. Got a copy of my yellow fever inoculation that had been lost and printed them out. Also downloaded a Spanish app that didn't require an internet connection. Mark went back to the camera store only to find out that they didn't carry that kind any more. So we packed up, checked out, said goodbye to Marisol, mi amor Peruana, and caught a taxi to the bus station. Next stop, Ica! Mark had done some research and thought Ica would be the place to hub out of instead of Pisco b/c he read the nightlife was better. The bus was s/55, had a cabin attendant, recline-all-the-way-back seats, movies, wi-fi, and was nice. We rode 4 hours to Ica, got off @ the station and walked toward the main square. Ica seemed the median between Lima and Iquitos. Many mototaxis, but they had hard shells and some were even small cars, like an Aveo or something. We got to the main square, it's almost 9pm, and booked our day trip to Isla Ballestas, “The Peruvian Galapagos” (s/160)($53). After that, we walked around the square and surrounding streets, and found a hostal for the night. We checked several places and found one with a double room, wi-fi, and hot for s/45 for both of us ($15 total). We dropped our stuff and walked around town looking around and trying to find a bar and the “Ica nightlife”. None to be found. We found a pool hall that was mostly empty and sketchy. And a loud dance club with a bunch of 18 year olds dancing, and only about 20 people in the place. We went back home after 1 beer at the club. We couldn't get out of there fast enough. Went for a short walk to see some of the city, and called it a night at the hostal.

Sunday, June 17th – Day 7 – Iquitos to Lima

Woke up to a “wake-up” call at 6 am, saying the driver was here for us. I had asked for an earlier wake up call, but it either didn't happen, or we went back to bed and forgot all about it. We quickly got ready and got a ride to the airport. The ride was beautiful, seeing Iquitos at dawn, it is so poor and dirty, but beautiful as well. Pretty sure the two turkey vultures I saw saw near one of the many curbside trash piles were enjoying a dog meal. As plenty of the strays are consistently near their end. We checked into the airport after waiting seemingly forever for a group of 18 missionaries to check in all at once. This wouldn't be the last time they'd annoy. Once on the plane, we were seated behind a crying baby, and basically in the middle of the missionary group. Slightly hungover, the flying mixed with a loud snorer who fell asleep pre-takeoff and woke when we landed, audible headphone music that sucked, tapping, whistling and rude behavior were enough to call this my worst flight experience ever. My water bottle in my backpack had gotten pressurized and leaked a little bit from the overhead bin onto a lady a couple of rows up, so count me as rude as well. I also apologized profusely and she seemed to accept, I totally forgot there was still a little water in that bottle.

The Iquitos airport has only 4 gates, tarmac entry, and you have to wait for the plane before you to land and leave, so our plane was a little delayed, but our driver was in Lima ready for us. They misspelled my name on the sign again, a different way this time, which is always funny, and we took a different way to the hotel than we did the first time. Lots of signs painted on concrete walls, I saw a lot of political signs saying things about the president and the government, evidently put there by the government. Once at the hotel, I realized some of my travel documents had been in the stolen bag, so I emailed the embassy to report it and emailed the pharmacy to try and get records of my inoculations emailed over to me. We'll see...

We waited for our room to be ready and showered and set out for some errands in Lima. We found an amazing little mall in the cliffs by the ocean and ate at a nice restaurant. I had paella and some Yuquen balls and Mark had lasagna. Muy rico! Don't know if I mentioned it, but a few weird things here are: throwing away toilet paper instead of flushing it, not being able to drink tap water, very slick/polished sidewalks(not great for flip-flops in the rain as Mark found out), and people walk as crazy as they drive. There's no real system, everyone just cuts in and out where they can and if someone is playing chicken with you, you usually lose or you collide with them.

We walked back up to the shopping area of Miraflores after lunch and I looked for a SLR. This experience pushed my Spanish speaking limits and was slightly frustrating, as she showed me each camera, one by one locking the door after each one. She didn't know the cameras that well, and our language struggles made it worse. Sadly, I decided to basically replace my PAS and use that for the rest of the trip. The SLRs that were worth buying were too expensive and the ones I could afford were no netter than the PASs they had. I would have to sell it when I got home if I got an SLR, so I just bought a really good PAS that I would want to keep and hoped it would do the trick at Macchu Picchu. It turned out to be the right choice. It might have been a different story if I had one credit card with a few thousand available on it, but I had three different ones with about $1000 each. We went through the frustrating checkout process, hopping from station to station, and she had not given me the real price, the price listed was the “discount” price like if you had a mart card for the store. So the camera was s/200 more than expected. About $70. It ended up working out though, because for some reason the memory cards were cheaper than listed, but between bouncing around, trying to ask en espanol about megapixels, optical zoom, warranty, changing the menu language, seeing if the charger would work in the U.S., and seemingly having a bout a traveler's diarrhea on the way...it was a frustrating time. It's not what I had planned on having at Macchu Picchu, but I think it will be ok.

We hit a small craft store, I bought hats and magnets for the family, stopped and got some toiletries, and we walked back home.

Earlier, the sky was blue for the first time in Lima for us, and it was beautiful. So much better than grey with little visibility. And there were paragliders taking off in droves from the cliffs by the ocean. S/150 for a 10 minute ride, about $50. I thought about it, but wasn't sure how much I'd spend on a camera at that point, so decided against it. On the walk back, it became dark, but the place was still happy. Everyone seems to come outside here. Young, old and middle aged all mix in the same location. Lots of hanging out in then park, surfing, skateboarding, bikes, rollerblades, lovers, walkers, sitters, and everything under the sun. We strolled back, I was so tired, I laid down at 8ish after setting up my camera and slept until about 11. I had 2 days to write about and I am finishing now, about 1 am. Tomorrow, we wait for laundry to be done and figure out how we're getting around for the next few days. We'll visit the airline office, train station and bus station and will either go to Pisco or get ready to head out very early the following day. Buenos noches!

Saturday, June 16th – Day 6 – Amazon Jungle – Iquitos, Peru

I woke up to Ashuku tapping my foot and saying we were ready to go. I assumed this meant to go on the bird watching morning sunrise hike and I woke Mark as well, went to the main room and got my mud boots on and met some of the other group by the river. Ashuku was getting the frog out of the bag and “massaging” him until he secreted venom and it collected on his fingers, then he would wipe it on his knife. Ray Gonz and Molly Mulhern volunteered to try the experience. I was pretty close, but once I watched Ray do it, I was good. Ashuku took a stick, got it smoldering hot, and made 6 small burn dots on their biceps, then took the collected venom and rubbed it on the burns. They immediately turned red all over and sat down and then laid down after a 5 foot walk, they laid there and sweated. They both said they felt sick, like they had to purge, which is why Ashuku waited until morning, for an empty stomach. He said natives do it to “recharge”, get the blood moving, to clean the system. I was happy with my role as voyeur.

It only lasted about ten minutes, then we began our hike. It was thick and muddy and we stopped along the way to Ashuku point out some birds, iguanas and a termite nest. He took some termites in his hand, squished them and rubbed his hands together and it smelled like wood chips. He said it was a natural mosquito repellent. I let some crawl on me to get a look. We kept moving, seeing some of the jungle property on the way. The houses were basically a large platform that was a floor, open on all sides, with a sloped, thatched roof. Some had walls. When the water rose, the family still lived there, moving up into the rafters and the roof. The water rose 10-15 feet this last year. Crazy. We saw a man planting manioca, similar to tapioca or poi, and evidently you make a tea with human saliva mixed with it. We picked up a couple dog hitchhikers and made it to a swampy area to see more birds, before heading back to camp.

We had breakfast with bread and eggs and took a small rest break. Around 9 am we got in the boat and headed off to Monkey Island(La Isla del Monos), a place (not an island, by the way) where they have saved some monkeys who were injured, sick, etc. and the monkeys end up staying there afterwards. I immediately was the first one to pick one up and let them hang out in my arms and on my shoulders. They had spider monkeys, marmosets, and a few other varieties of monkey. It was awesome! And they all loved me. A few of them bit at some people. Molly got attacked a few times, nothing too horrible, but the monkeys seemed to have a dislike for women. Also one went after an African American who was scared to death of them. They were very interested in our things. They loved my water bottle, sunglasses, etc.

We went further into the “island” and two of the men working there went and found the 6 foot anaconda that was hiding in the bush, dragged it out and put it around a few of our necks for pictures. He was huge! And wild. He was not happy, he had a bulge near his tail end, where you could tell his last meal wasn't fully digested yet. Another man found a 3-4 foot python and grabbed it for us. He was hissing and snapping. We enjoyed the monkeys for a bit longer, gathered for a locally made alcohol drink. “7 roots” made of 7 roots, you guessed it, and fermented bee's honey. You could taste the honey, it was thick and had a spicy, cinnamon, nutmeggy taste to it. One of the monkeys had just peed on our boat, so the driver was washing it with water when we got back to the boat, and we sailed to a pennisula on the river to get in and swim in the Amazon.

The current was not super strong, but continuous, and when you got past where you could touch, it became quite a little workout. On my way back I felt a nibble on my leg, and the ground was thick, cold, soft mud. Both girls got bitten as well, with evident teeth marks that broke skin. Piranhas. We went back on the boat and tried to find the pink dolphins again to try and swim with them, but none got too close. We saw a few off in the distance, but nothing like the day before. Some of the guys took turns doing dives and flips off of the boat, and eventually we went back for lunch with meat and rice. Mark and I packed up, I collected the email addresses of my new friends and we said goodbye.

We left with Kaitlin, the girl who came by herself to attend the Huayawaska clinic, and we picked up a young indigenous woman on the hour long boat ride to give her a ride to the market where she was going to sell some bbq meat. She took photos of me and said she doesn't see many tourists. I think she was just keen on me. I talked with Jorge while Mark and Kaitlin slept in the hammocks. We talked about the economy and his dreams and goals of maybe owning his own tour company one day.

We got off back at the market on the riverfront and got back in the taxi. We decided after listening to some pricing and “amenities” to stay in the same place we had before. Solimos Hotel, I think it was called. We dropped our stuff, said hello to Jared again and took showers and then headed out to walk around. I found a rent-to-own type place with a cash window to change my dollars for soles. I realized I had left my ATM card in the machine the day before we left for the jungle, so I'm using my credit card to withdraw money and it only lets me get dollars. The city was happy tonight. It was Saturday night, and supposedly Friend's Day. Manana is Father's Day. The place was packed. We went down to the riverfront area, had a couple beers. I watched some guys do kappawea (sp?), the martial art invented to look like a dance to conceal it from the slave's masters back in the day. There were games and vendors, violinists, plays and a giant slide show with fine art. I bought a t-shirt, a homemade version of the main popular Peru shirt from a mouthy, witty, funny young Peruvian. We walked around the main circle for awhile before stopping at the Yellow Rose of Texas again. I also picked up a mask and a pen to take home at a little booth on a side street. We had some beers and I talked with my favorite Peruana bartender, Esther. Some friends we recognized from camp were there as well and we hung out with them all night. Joel from Australia, and Fran from Chile, a couple here for vacation as well.

We realized there are four main groups of travelers here: missionaries, druggies who want the huayawasca, hikers and older tourists. We stayed until 1, but I switched to water a bunch earlier and talked to Esther and we played American music. We said goodbye and all went back to the same hotel, they were staying at the same place, on Maniti's recommendation. I thought about staying up all night, but decided it wouldn't probably be the best decision.