Wrap up - Peru/Bolivia

What an amazing trip! Love, love, love. Some of the poorest countries in the world and yet so beautiful. Many times they are without basic necessities, or what we consider to be necessities anyway. It really gave me a whole new level in my perspective on a lot of things. Every place we went was as amazing as the last and the next. I wouldn't have traded it for anything. I could have stayed another 2 months, but I am also glad to be back. The travel bug is now burrowed so deeply within me, I dont think it can ever leave...

Thursday, July 5th – Day 25 – Kansas City to Omaha

Woke up at 830 and said “No way. I'm sleeping in today!” So I went back to bed until about noon. Kalie had to go to work, so Matt and I hung out around the house for a bit, I did some laundry, ate some leftover BBQ, and we watched the movie “Traitor” with Don Cheadle and had a pretty lazy day. About 3ish, we went to the Crossroads Art District and walked around. We saw some cool art, as it was the day before First Friday, which is when all the new show openings happen, and also it is All-Star week, and the the All-Star game and festivities are all in KC this year. We had a beer at a gay burger joint and bought some artisan chocolates at Christopher Elbow, then went home to meet Kalie. We arrived at the same time, got ready and went out to dinner at Blue Stem, a fancy place I've wanted to eat at for awhile. It did not disappoint, everything was fantastic! Hey brought out a full 1 and a half extra courses to treat us and afterward there were about 12 extra little desserts too! Every component was well executed. We were shown the kitchen and thanked the chefs, then we headed back home. I planned on driving back to Omaha immediately, but Matt turned on a Johnny Carson documentary and I stayed another 2 hours to watch that. I finally did leave, had a long, boring drive and arrived home about 1am.

Wednesday, July 4th – Day 24 – Miami to Kansas City

Woke up pretty early, but fell back asleep for a bit. By the time I got out the door, I had about 50 minutes until my flight left. The shuttle I hooped on stopped twice and I rushed through the airport rigamarole. I got incorrectly directed, costing me about 10 minutes, then had some really nice people help me and hurried through security, cutting some others like the late guy you always see in the airport. I got to the gate about 1 minute late. The plane was physically still there, but the walkway was being retracted and they wouldn't let me on. I was put on standby for the next flight and waited 2 hours more. There were 11 people on standby and I was the first. They kept saying the flight was pretty full. By the end of the nail biting wait, I was the only standby they let on. Whew! Lucky break. Another 2 hour layover in Dallas, and into KC. Arrived about 430pm and Kalie and Matt picked me up. We stopped home then went out to the river to Riverfest for July 4^th. Got some beers, hung out by the river, listened to some live music, then went to get some BBQ. I really wanted Oklahoma Joe's b/c it's the only one of the major KC BBQ joints I haven't been to, but they were closed for the holiday, so we went to Jack Stack, my current favorite. We all enjoyed a really nice meal, then we drove up to a lookout to watch the city's fireworks. Then we headed back home for an early night.  

Tuesday, July 3rd – Day 23 – La Paz to Miami

Woke up about 5 am to pack our stuff and to check and double check the room. Had a taxi waiting for us when I got downstairs, we had paid the night before and Mark and I squared up as well. The cab ride was only about 20 minutes, we had been told it was 45, so we were in good shape. The La Paz international airport was small and laid back. The bag search was not very thorough, and for some reason they did a search before the xray. We waited for 2 hours to board, there were a couple of cool things going on, but mostly it was boring. They were playing the Black Hole Sun video in the waiting room and giving out free tea samples. We had a 1:40 flight to Lima, we didn't have to go through everything again, just stayed in the international terminal, got a couple beers and some lunch while waiting the 3 hours for our next flight. Finally boarded the Miami bound plane. It was the best plane yet. Individual screens with a touch screen interface with music, movies, tv and more on demand. The flight went by quickly as I watched Hangover 2 and most of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr., both pretty good.

We arrived in Miami and immediately felt heat and humidity for the first time in awhile. Also, oxygen! Not thin, high altitude air. Grabbed a shuttle to the hotel, had the best shower ever with an awesome shower head and hot water with nice towels, and felt a/c for the first time in awhile. Flushed tp down the toilet for the first time in 3 weeks and listened to ESPN in english. Drank 2 glasses of water, straight from the tap, and then I went to join Mark in the bar. We found the worst cuban sandwich I've ever eaten and had some beers in the parking lot of the hotel before calling it a night.  

Monday, July 2nd – Day 22 – La Paz/Death Road

Woke up around 530 this morning and got ready. Mark was kind enough to set his iPod alarm b/c my phone was on its last leg and had died, as I thought it might, by the time it should have gone off. Been having charging issues with the charger I bought here. I grabbed all my stuff and checked if breakfast was going yet. Nope. Went to the lobby, still had 30 minutes before my cab came, so I got online to check if I could get any money out of my remaining cards. One is maxed, one won't allow any cash advances for some reason, couldn't tell why, and the other I didn't know the PIN. So I get online and chatted with a representative about obtaining or changing my PIN. They said it was impossible to do and they'd have to mail it to me. A lot of good that would do me in Bolivia. I said thanks a lot and that I'd be canceling my card as soon as I got back home.

The cab arrived and took me to the meeting place for Gravity, the tour company, it was a place called Cafe Alexander. I had the hotel arrange for a cab b/c I have no idea where I am in La Paz and it seemed far from the map I had. It was about 10 blocks away and the driver wanted Bs 10. I was not happy, argued with him for a bit, tossed the money on the seat and slammed the door. Totally ripped off. Not a great start to the day. I saw an ATM and tried my cards. The one that was nearly maxed let me get Bs 50, so that would last me at least for the day. I ordered huevos rancheros and apple juice and the others started filtering in as well. Some of them sounded English and they kept repeating themselves and speaking louder to the waitress. Always annoys me. As if speaking louder will make her understand a foreign language. All the others seemed fine and the guides arrived to take roll call. We finished our breakfasts and walked up the street to vans with bikes loaded on top. We took an hour or so ride to the mountains and got introduced to each other and to the guide, Lynn. She was about 40-45 ish and from South Africa and was very proper. We parked the van by a lake and went over fittings of helmets, gloves, jacket, pants and, of course, bikes. We had $2500 bikes with full suspensions. We headed off, it was very cold, I wore a thermal, tshirt, fleece, wind jacket, safety vest, thermal pants, 2 pairs of socks and regular pants. I had a stocking cap under my helmet, and my new neck/face cover that the tour gave us all. We headed out, the first 14km was paved road with just a bit of gravel and traffic. The views were amazing. We started at 3800m and bombed down the mountain, with turns and switchbacks. We made a few stops, paid a toll, and then arrived at the “Death Road”. The most dangerous road in the world because of the amount of deaths. It used to be basically a one lane road, mostly dirt/mud, with a 600 ft dropoff on one side and a vertical mountain face on the other. They have recently built another road, but some traffic still uses it. We saw a few vans, mostly for bike tours, ATVs, and some construction equipment. The road was dirt, gravel and rocks, and was a bit slippery. The road was 90% downhill, and it was so cool. I had to bail off my bike twice. Once when I tried to go over a dirt mound in the middle of the road and had my back brake engaged a little. The bike slid 90 degrees the wrong way and I had to jump off, ran a few steps and regained balance. The 2^nd time I was trying to shoot a video from my camera, and I hit my front brake only too hard b/c I had the camera in my rear brake hand. Oops. I had to jump over the handlebars to avoid a faceplant.

Such a cool ride though, so fast, you have the brakes on a lot of the time. Made some new friends and saw beautiful scenery, awesome vistas, waterfalls right on the road, little river crossings you had to bike across, abandoned towns, baby pigs, chickens and more. At times I was bombing down huge stretches and turns and other times I was clutching the brakes, either way, totally worth it.

We ended at a wildlife refuge where we got lunch and I got to pick up another monkey. They had turtles, macaws, parrots, monkeys and more. One monkey made a super creepy, low sound the whole time. After lunch, we got back in the van and drove back up the bumpy and shaky death road. That ride was more scary than the bike for sure. We seemed super close to the edge the whole time and then the sun started to go down as well. Beautiful. The ride was long, but the Bolivian driver was playing awesome music the whole day. Queens of the Stone Age, Green Day, Muse, Cake, Eminem, etc. So the ride wasn't all bad. We stopped back at the office and got a cd of pictures from the day and a t-shirt. Then, a couple and I took a cab back to our hotels. I met Mark in the room, we told each other about our days, went and had a beer at Oliver's and I called it early. Writing now, plans are to shower and pack...and that's pretty much it, South America!

Sunday, July 1st – Day 21 – La Paz, Bolivia

Woke up around 730, got ready, looked out our window at the beautiful city view and went up to the 8^th floor for “breakfast”. Just bread, jam, cookies, yogurt and juice. Not the best breakfast we've had here, but not the worst either. It was enough. I should eat lighter anyway. The view from the top floor was incredible though. We didn't have much planned for La Paz at all, so we decided to walk around the streets near our hotel and look for a travel agency to talk to about the Salt Flats at Uyuni and our other options for day trips as well. The one right by the hotel was closed on Sunday. We started worrying. Not knowing the schedules of the city we hoped this wouldn't be the case everywhere.

We found 2 more after a bit of walking through a crazy awesome market that had everything ever. It seemed like every street had a different theme. We walked down fresh produce street, pastry street, hardware street, clothing street, shoe street and so on. It went forever. It seemed the traditionally dressed women don't like their picture taken, pretty sure I got cussed out. Oh well. And the picture was blurry anyway. We finally found a few travel places and compared prices. Salt Flats were out of the question. :( Que lastima! We had an option for a hike, but both of us are a bit hiked out at this point, we decided to get a private tour of La Paz for 3 hours, for Bs 300 ($42).

Before the end, we hit up the witches market and I bought a llama fetus. Supposed to be good luck. Don't ask why, it was there and I thought it was cool.

Our guide, Albert, met us at our hotel. He was a Bolivian who lived in the Alto City (outer La Paz) and was about 25 years old. He spoke pretty good English, not perfect, but my Spanish helped with some confusion a couple of times, and his English was definitely better than my Spanish, so no complaints here. We got along swimmingly. First, he took us on a drive out of the city a bit to the Valley of the Moon. It is named this because it looks like the surface of the moon. It's terrain consists of stalagmite type formations from erosion and water. It was desert-y and supposedly there are rabbits that come out in the morning and jump around the treacherous terrain. We didn't see any, it was a bout noon. The formations were very beautiful though and the shadows they cast were intoxicating. He told us some background and a bit about the area. We took a few breaks and got to know him a bit, talking about wages and government and travel, etc. He was cool. We moved on and took a driving tour of neighborhoods for awhile. Very cool city, never seen anything like it, how steep it is built into the mountains, and almost all the mountain houses are red brick and blend in seamlessly with the landscape. We got to an overlook and got out for pictures. It was a 360 degree view of the city from the center, pretty neat. We made another stop after chilling there for awhile at a very colorful street preserved for historical purposes and a very popular tourist area. It had some museums. After that, we rode back to the hotel, just in time to walk down to Oliver's English puband see the championship soccer match between Spain and Italy. I was semi-interested, but mostly got some internet time in on my phone and ate lunch. I had roasted chicken with stuffing, peas and carrots, mashed potatoes and onion gravy. For dessert, I had a deep fried Mars bar with vanilla ice cream. The match was pretty much all Spain and it was 2-0 when I left to go book the Death Road mountain bike trip I had been waffling on.

They wouldn't take cards, so I went to an ATM, and had some trouble again, it wouldn't give me cash, so I went back and told them if they didn't take cards, I wouldn't book with them. Low and behold, they accepted cards (with a 5% charge). Oh well. I booked it. Excited. Little scared. Mark didn't have any interest, so tomorrow I'll be on my own for the day. From my research, there are barely any cars on the road anymore, but about 20 bikers have died since 1998, and about every 2 weeks someone gets seriously injured. But I'm more excited. And I have the option to zip line at the end as well. Anyway, walked back down to the pub to meet back up with Mark and Spain won 4-0. We also watched the end of a golf tournament where Tiger Woods won and with that win, went ahead of Jack Nicklaus for all-time wins, taking over second place behind Sam Snead. After the golf tournament and 2 beers, we grabbed some water and a bottle of wine and went back to the hotel for an early night. After pushing in the cork with the little guy design pen (work trip), we realized we had bought port. A fortified dessert wine. Whatever. I decided to write early tonight because I don't want to wait until after the port and our last j and have it sound stupid. We finished both and looked at each other's pictures from the trip and had a great conversation. I'm pretty impressed with Mark's eye for photos, was not not expecting it.  

Saturday, June 30th – Day 20 – Copacabana to La Paz

Woke up sluggishly, but in time for a good sunrise over the lake. Last night's sunset was amazing as well. Lake Titicaca is so beautiful. We got our stuff together and decided to get breakfast. Eggs with bacon and bread and banana/yogurt juice. My stomach is angry today. About the 5th time I've had the “traveler's diarrhea”. Nothing too serious that would hinder the trip very much, but it takes a little out of you. Culprit: probably the ice in the drinks last night. Anyway, we shopped most of the morning. I got an alpaca sweater, gloves, a magnet, all for about Bs 110 ($16). Totally worth it. I could have haggled better but I was sick of shopping. We got our stuff together and met the bus a few blocks up from the hotel. Not the most comfortable, the seats a bit narrower, but the ride is only 3.5 hours this time and the ticket was about $4. Breakfast was $2. Copacabana is so cheap. Bolivia is the poorest country in S.A. Partially b/c they have no coast. We had to stop after about an hour, get off the bus b/c the bus would be too heavy. The bus drove onto a ferry to cross the lake and the people rode in a boat separately.

Started getting near La Paz, the outskirts: shithole. Pardon my language. It is very poor. It looked like 10 miles straight were under construction slums, there are torn up roads, half finished buildings, trash, people doing laundry in the creek, and after that, miles of more slums. Supposedly, La Paz is the fastest growing city in S.A., just ahead of Lima, growing at 1.5 million a year. Crazy. It gets even crazier. There are farms all over and brownish easy going hills that just jump right into snowcapped mountain peaks, with seemingly little elevation change. It's very weird and hard to describe. The city of La Paz is built at about 13,000 feet, the highest capital in the world. It looks crazy. All the buildings are red brick, blending in with the mountains, and it is vast. Houses cover the hills and valleys on an impressive scale. Beautiful.

We got off the bus, looked at a map and got a cab to recommend us a hotel. We arrive at the hotel, check in and walk around the city for about 2 hours. There's a big festival going on in the main streets and there are thousands of people lined up along the main street. We heard there is a police protest for wages and the plaza we walked toward first was completely blocked off by cops in riot gear and there are protestors camping out in tents in the plazas. The people are a mix here. There are the traditional looking women with the hats and blankets around their shoulders, but now there are a lot of “regular” looking people as well, influenced by American/European style. We walked by the gay pride parade, not sure if the whole festival is for that, or if it is just a part of it. We walked down through a park and back up to find food. Steps! It's like Macchu Picchu again! So many steps at high elevation, we have to stop after a flight or two and breathe for a minute, and there are steps everywhere. I am starving, so we pick a random place and it turns out to be pretty good. I got a Coke b/c they didn't have water and ordered a beef tongue and potato dish. We hit up an English pub for Mark to have a beer on the way home and found out the soccer championship is on tomorrow and not Tuesday like we thought. So we'll probably be hanging out at the pub again tomorrow. Wires. The power lines are insane here. There are about 50 power lines coming off each pole and it looks completely disorganized, just all wrapped together with no separators. The dogs seem more energetic and well fed. I found out the Salt Flats I really wanted to go to are usually a 3-5 day tour, it's a 10 hour ride just to get there. So we may not be able to do it. :( We'll see. I'd love to try and pull it off, but right now, time for bed...

Friday, June 29th – Day 19 – Challapampa to Copacabana

Bolivia! Woke up at sunrise to see the beautiful sight. The sun rising over the town, donkeys, sheep and pigs roaming around by the lakefront. I took a walk around the town for about an hour or so, getting amazing pictures, and just enjoying the beauty around me, then went back to the room to meet the others.

We got a nice breakfast of bread, eggs, and tea and we went down to get our boat tickets taken care of and see some ruins on the island. We got to the ruins tax area and we didn't have enough Bolivianos on us, Branwen had forgotten her wallet, and the rest of us were seriously low. The woman would not take dollars or soles, so we changed our plans from hiking and seeing ruins to lying on the beach of Lake Titicaca and getting some sun. Mark and Alex went for a dip, Branwen and I just got our feet wet. It was freezing. Glad I didn't jump in. We took in some sun, watched some hippies do hippy stuff like swimming topless, camping on the beach, playing flute, guitar, etc. Skipped some stones for awhile, then went back to our room to get our bags and board the boat. Unlike earlier, there weren't any kids trying to get more money out of us. Nice change. We grabbed our bags, took in the last beautiful hilltop view and headed for the boat. We had a little time, so I bought a couple of beers, Pacena and Huari, to share between the 4 of us and a cheap little sandwich. Mine was basically a super flat burger with an egg on it. They call it mixto. We got on the boat, I immediately grabbed a seat up front downstairs and laid down. The others went to the upper deck. I slept probably 3 of the 3.5 hour ride. The other half hour I looked out the window at the scenery and enjoyed the mom and two little kids sitting next to me. Cute, perfectly behaved, especially for a 3.5 hour boat ride.

We got off, and spent the next hour hanging out by the lake at the same restaurant we were at the day before. I ordered nachos, which took a long time, and then got basically nacho cheese Doritos with a little cheese and meat, all stuck together, on a tiny plate, and the “guacamole” was a sliced avocado. Oh well. I decided to take the waiter up on his offer to sell me 2 joints, we said goodbye to Branwen and Alex, and Mark and I found a hotel overlooking the lake for a decent price. About Bs 160 ($23 USD). Total. It looked like a palace. Marble everything, huge rooms, nice woodwork, balcones, hot water, nice linens, etc!

Mark grabbed a bottle of wine, we pushed the cork in b/c we had no corkscrew. I drank a glass and hopped in the shower. Hot water is great. Mark showered as well and we decided to walk around Copacabana and get a feel for the town.

The main street is all touristy. Restaurants, travel agencies and shops. One street over is the “Bolivian” street, mostly street food. Up the hill, past the bus loading area, are a couple of plazas, one with a huge church. Pretty sure the sign on the church said “no race mixing”. We walked on up the hill, and the streets started getting a bit “dodgy”, so we headed back and stopped in this little bar we were coerced into. It was a little hippy place playing world music and decorated like a jungle. We had a beer each and met two students from Michigan, Mike studying archeology, and Caitlin studying anthropology. The four of us went to another place across the street and listened to some Argentinians jam for a bit and got fairly intoxicated on a local drink I can't remember the name of and could barely pronounce at the time. It tasted like a margarita, but with rum and had hand crushed ice in it. We racked up a Bs 340 bill ($48 USD) between the 4 of us, we said goodbye to our new friends, bought a bottle of wine and went back to the room. We smoked a j and drank the wine on the balcony and talked about how awesome the trip has been and why so many people don't do what we're doing. Are we the crazy ones? I don't think so. My quote of the night was,”Of you're crazy, you don't know you are, you just are.”

Thursday, June 28th – Day 18 – Puno-ish to Copacabana, Bolivia

Arrived by bus in Puno, Peru on Lake Titicaca for our surprise 1.5 hour layover and a bus switch. We took our stuff and grabbed a little breakfast and warmed my feet by the space heater in the restaurant. Mark told me how I had been rolling myself up into a little ball and kicking him in the legs. I said I was cold! Had an egg sandwich and pineapple juice and tried another card at the ATM for cash. I didn't think I'd know the PIN, but it worked! Problem solved for the trip. We got back on the bus for the 3 hour ride the rest of the way to Bolivia. The scenery was new. Wet, but still desert-y at the same time. Poor, lots of farms, hilly, rocky, colorful, lots more water and sheep and cows. We got off right before the Bolivian border, and exchanged some dollars into Bolivianos. About a 7 to 1 ratio, about 15 cents to the dollar. Besides a couple long lines to check out of Peru and check in to Bolivia, no real issues. I bought some candy and water and we got back on the bus for a short ride. My contact fell out while napping, and I had to hold it in my hand until we stopped and I could get my bag from under the bus. We got dropped off in Copacabana, a great little lake town, not very big, and after stopping 1 or 2 places, we bought tickets to go to Isla del Sol, an island with ruins about a 1.5 hour boat ride from shore.

We went down to the shore and had about 30 minutes before the boat left, so we got a quick bite to eat at a cool little place with outdoor seating right next to the lake. They said it would only take about 10 minutes for the trout to be ready, so I ordered it and the Bolivian version of Cusquena, Pacena to drink. It's a pilsner, a bit hoppy for me, but ok. I went into the bano, changed clothes and somehow got my contacts back into my eyes. When I got out, they were beginning to board the boat and I hadn't gotten my food yet. I went in and told the nice waitress I needed it to go, and I carried it onto the boat. A band played on the roof of the boat for a song or two, I ate my trout, and we were on our way. Not much for scenery. I started talking to Aisha, a girl from Manchester who was traveling for 3 months. They had just done the Inca hike as well and I chatted with them and got a quick nap. The view started getting very nice and we got dropped off on the south part of the island. Mark had heard that the north was the place to be, and everyone else was down to find out as well, so that was the plan.

We were immediately deluged before we could even get off the boat by 8 year olds trying to get us to stay at a certain hostal or to buy their crafts. Then we paid a bs5 tax to enter the island, and the bathroom was bs2 to use it and receive 6 sheets of tp. There's rumors that some locals will tax you for walking through their land. One girl got angry at the bathrooms, and I couldn't really blame her. A) they charge for them, fine, I've accepted that by now, extra $ for extra squares of tp. I learned how to conserve tp here for sure, as usually back home, 6 sheets is like 2 wipes. B) They never have change, and won't accept bills with any rip or defect at all, so you have to go get change somewhere else first, etc.

We had laid around the harbor for a bit and split a beer before I found a guy to take us in his boat to the north part of the island, a place called Challapampa. The ride was awesome, with great mountains all around the lake, snowcaps peeking out at us, and no one else but the 5 of us on the boat. Renee, the driver, gave me some good info and he said that he knew of a good family place to stay when I asked him. He also tried to sell me weed. Pretty common. Not quite as common as massage offers in Cusco, which I almost did one after the hike, but pretty common. We arrived at Challapampa and it was so cool.

The lake had greens and browns visible through the dark, clear blue water and we hiked up the hill off the dock to the driver's friend's place, high atop a cliff with about 12 rooms spaced out on the property. After the short climb we got to look around down on the island, and the view was second to none. We can see the whole town from up here, the lake on both sides, mountains and just beauty all over in general. We bought a bottle of wine to split and enjoy the view, I asked the owner some questions and found out all the info we needed, including the fact that there is no ATM on the island and 2 “restaurants” and no motorized vehicles besides boats.

We walked into town to see what we could find and the sun was beginning to set. There were pigs, cows and chickens all over and the beauty of the sun setting on the boats and mountains was indescribable. Even the non photo takers of the group were snapping away. We continued down the road and some locals were herding sheep back from pasture. The cutest thing ever was 3 little boys, about 8-10 years old, herding a small flock of sheep with about 6 little lambs. Don't worry, I got video. This place is great, there are a couple hostals here, but most people we have seen are locals and not touristy at all. No one has tried to sell us anything and we haven't had to pay any taxes. After walking around a bit, amazed by beauty, we find a restaurant shaped like a circular hut with a thatched roof and sat down to eat. The menu was written on graph paper, each one was different, and they were “laminated” with packing tape. I had asparagus soup and trout and we split another bottle of wine. Good meal. Afterward, we headed back up the hill in the dark, we all agreed we could stay here for a few days easy. So peaceful, beautiful, serene, non-touristy, just a great feel to it. We all agreed that Bolivia has gotten off to a great start at Challapampa! Goodnight.

Wednesday, June 27th – Day 17 – Cusco to Puno-ish

Fairly uneventful day. Arranged to meet Alex and Branwen at 1 to discuss possibly traveling together to Lake Titicaca. I planned on sleeping in until about 11, but woke up around 830 and went and got the continental breakfast at the hotel. Got on the internet to discover my payment had been taken from my bank and marked as paid, but funds were not available yet. And I was running out of cash. I decided to call the bank after I sent them an email. They said because it was a new account it wouldn't clear for about 5 days for a cash advance. Not happy. Mark and I took our stank-ass laundry down the street a bit and dropped it off for 3 hour laundry service for s/44, or s/4 per kilo. Then we went to meet Branwen and Alex in the square. I peeked into the cuy restaurant I wanted to eat at and they didn't accept cards. Getting fairly annoyed as I am almost out of cash. I decide to call the credit card company while our laundry was getting done. The company said to go to the bank and not the ATM, after I had to ask for the manger and explain my situation. I did that, but the bank only did cash advance fo Visa, I have a MC. Arrgh! I tried the ATM anyway, and this time it worked! I got a bunch of money this time, just in case and we went to Kusikuy, the cuy place I've had my eye on for days.

A really cool little place with a great view and a multi-colored glass ceiling. They said it would be an hour for roasted cuy, so I got the fried cuy and the others all got the “set menu”. They got soup, chicken with rice, dessert and a drink for s/20! Pretty sweet deal. I got my fried guinea pig, a stuffed pepper, soup and a tamale for s/60. Worth it. I ate the cuy and all the others tried it as well, I even tried some of the brain. The brain was not for me, but the rest was kinda like dark meat chicken. Mmmm....cuy.

After lunch, Mark and I went to get our Bolivian visas. We were told at the office that we needed more stuff to complete the process. I had everything before my bag was stolen in Lima, but everything I needed was accessible via internet, so we found an internet cafe around the corner from the consulate's office, I pulled up and printed an email, made some copies, made the $135 USD deposit required at the local bank, got the deposit slip, and the visas were ours. The office was in basically a house and the woman there had only like 2 things on her entire desk. It was weird. We caught a cab back to the square, met back up with the others and bought our bus tickets for the night. We decided to go with a cheaper place than before for s/45 each with cama seats and a direct route to Copacabana, Bolivia. Then we walked back towards a market we had seen on the way, and I got a great deal for myself and pretty much finished my souvenir shopping. I bought like 15 hats for like s/75! We had a last meal of sandwiches, avoided all the solicitors, and went back to catch the bus. Forgot to mention earlier, even the hotel we stayed at was cash only! So have access to lots of cash if you're in Peru! A lot of money now into cash advance fees. About $14 USD every time I take out money. And my card isn't working again! Oh well. Get back to the bus station to leave on the overnight at 10:30 to find out we were duped. Not the same seats we were shown in the pictures, the price printed on the tickets was less, not a direct route, etc. Lesson: Don't take the cut-rate company. And it was really cold by the window seat.

Tuesday June 26th – Day 16 – M.P. 7/8 to Cusco

Got up at 3:30 and had a quick pack up and a simple breakfast of toast and jam and caramel with tea and hot chocolate. I asked Marco how he slept and if the cook and porters were happy. He said the cook was. As we talked the night before for a long time, read the brochure and it said the porters expected about s/60 each, the cook about double, and the guides were up to us. We decided on s/70 each porter, s/200 for the cook, as the food was fantastic, and we ended up tipping the guides about s/450 each. I didn't tell anyone about our talk until much later b/c I didn't want to spoil their experience of Macchu Picchu, but not being from the country, no idea how to tip, not my currency, if they weren't going to be happy, then change the brochure! I asked Marco also why they were not happy, how much they usually receive. He said s/80-90. Put that in the brochure instead of s/60! Sorry porters!

Anyways, once we finished breakfast, we headed out, about a 5 minute hike to the checkpoint to wait for about an hour and a half for the gate to open. Kelly started a game where you pick a word and have to sing a song having to do with the word. First word, Sun, it went around a few times, and I won the round. Second, girl. Valerie won after a few passes. We did a third round, cars. The word car, truck, or any specific car or truck model could be in the song. We went around a few times, then quit b/c the gate opened. We went through, and hiked for about an hour or so in the dark with headlamps and watched the sun come up in the Sacred Valley until we reached the Sun Gate and got our first look at Macchu Picchu. It was amazing and so beautiful, so big. Compared to the other ruins we saw, we were overwhelmed at the size, placement, and how much of it was intact. The hike from the Sun Gate to the entrance was still a ½ hour, so we went down, took some group photos, lots of individual photos for sure and went through the ticketing process to get in. A lot of us were glad to see a toilet for the first time in a few days that you didn't have to squat in. I was feeling a bit bittersweet at that point, as there were droves of “train people” arriving. People that just took the train up, looking all clean and poser-y. I couldn't help but look down on them and felt like I/we deserved Macchu Picchu more. But the 1^st hour was still ok. Marco gave us our last tour in M.P. And we were free to walk around the ruins on our own. It was unbelievable, so cool. A few from the group left early to climb Huana Picchu, the large, steep mountain offering a different overlook to M.P. Me, Mark, Branwen and Alex finished looking around and caught the bus to Aguas Calientes where we were to meet for lunch with the group, tip the guides and get on the train back to Cusco. Beer never tasted so good, we had 2 each before most the group arrived, said some goodbyes, exchanged contact info, and headed out. We got on the train and Mark and I sat by an Australian and his Peruvian wife Carina and Dmetri. They were cool, and put up with our half drunk asses. We had a few more beers on the train and chatted with them. What a beautiful ride. Rocks 5 times as big as cars lining the flowing river most the way. We got off the train and switched to the Llama Path bus for the 2 hour bus ride back to Cusco. We used the bano quickly and met back at the bus.

After several minutes waiting, we were missing Alex, so we sent out a small search party and no one could find him. The town was tiny, we decided he must have gotten on a different bus or something, so we began to head out. On the way out of town, we spotted him and picked him up. He had missed the station and gotten lost. I slept the whole bus ride and we dropped off some of the other group that was splitting the bus with us. Courtney immediately perks up saying how big of assholes they were, talking about how we should have left Alex and how bad we smelled, etc. We all said we wished she would have said something earlier so we could have called them out, but too late now. We got back to the hotel we had stayed at previously and had left some of our stuff there. I immediately took a nap and Mark showered. When he came back to the room, he could finally smell what everyone else could for the last couple days. We stunk, he aired out the room and suggested I shower. I fought it until it got so cold in the room from the door being open that it woke me up and I stood in the shower so long just enjoying hot water rushing over my body. I smelled the smell when I went back to the room as well. It was rank. We got ready and went out to the bar where we met some of our hiking group to celebrate. It was an Irish pub off the square called Paddy's Pub, “the highest (elevation) 100% Irish owned bar in the world” I had 1 beer, 2 waters and a shepherd's pie. Solenn had met up with a couple of her friends, we talked and drank and enjoyed each other's company.

Courtney, Mary, Kelly and Lindsay took off around 11:30. I called it a night around 12. I was tired and still not 100% after drinks earlier in the restaurant and the train. So I went back to the hotel and to bed. Mark stayed out until about 4, partying with Solenn, whose flight was at 7, she didn't go to bed, stayed out dancing with Alex and Branwen dancing at Mama Africa in Cusco, a “dodgy” nightclub according to Alex. Dodgy is the American equivalent of sketchy. I'm gonna steal it.

Monday, June 25th – Day 15 – M.P. 2/3 to M.P. 7/8

Our group: Kelly and Lindsay, Courtney and Mary, Nick and Tanya, Robert and Valerie, Solenn, Alex and Branwen, Mark, myself, Miriam and Camilla.

Woke up to the most beautiful sunrise. The sun was hitting just the snowcapped peaks in the distsance to the west. We ate breakfast of toast, jam, omelet, fried plantains,and sausage (hot dog pieces). I quickly put in my contacts and we had our porter ceremony. We all stood out in a circle, freezing by the way, could barely feel my hands and dipping them in the hot water in the morning felt super weird. Anyway, we all stood in a circle, 3 guides:Marco, Eber and Ronnie, and 20 porters and 1 cook, and the 15 of us. We all said our name, age, and where we were from. A lot of the porters were from the same village and evidently walk 10 miles to a bus and then take a train to come to work and then carry 50 lbs on their backs up a mountain at least 4 days days a week, if not more. It was one of their birthdays, Juan, and we all said happy birthday to him. The llamas looked on as we all got acquainted and took a group photo.

We headed out after that and had a little bit of uphill climbing today. My muscles in my butt, thighs, knees and calves were very sore today and I got that good combination of pleasure and pain from working them and stretching them again. We had a snack after about 2 hours of hiking with an apple and a pack of strawberry frosted cookies that reminded me of iced animals. There are too many scenic views and vistas that are absolutely indescribable, so I won't even try, but just know that I've been immersed in beauty for three days straight now. Some of the 360 degree views are enough to make everyone in the group stop talking and just look around and breathe for several minutes at a time. The weather was clear and warm all morning and then we began our 2.5 hour descent to camp.

I talked to Mary, Courtney's mother, a woman of about 55 and in great shape for any age really. We talked about her son in the military, benefits, the Hurt Locker (movie), movies and life in general. I have had some really good one on onetime with a few of my fellow hikers. Alex and Branwen both go to Manchester U, and Alex studies zoology/conservation, Branwen studies biology and both are in Peru early before they meet up with a school trip on the Amazon. Solenn, a lovely 30 year old accountant from London, Lindsay and Kelly, both very nice upper twenty-something accountants from San Fransisco, Mary and Courtney, mother/daughter from Arizona, and Nick and Tanya, both originally from Belarus, but living in New York.

We arrived at an amazing Inca site with a dozen or more giant terraces. Before that, Eber gave us a talk about Incan beliefs and the main focuses of their belief system. Condor, puma and snake, reciprocity, work, learning, potatoes, corn and coca. He drew all this out with a stick in the dirt into something called the chacana. After that, we made it to the terraces. Some of the group gets split up a bit because we all walk at different speeds, so sometimes I'm near the back because I'm stopping to take take pictures a lot. I, by far, am taking the most of anyone, but I'm also fairly fast, so I catch back up to the front or, at least the middle usually. This allows me to get to know everyone a little bit as well. The group I'm usually with is me, Mark, Courtney, Mary, Kelly, Lindsay, Solenn, Nick, Tanya, Alex and Branwen. We arrived at the terraces and just marveled at the immensity and beauty. They are about 7 foot high and close to that wide, carved into a steep mountain, where if you look down, you get a little frightened at the steepness. There are probably 20-30 of them here and a building at the bottom. After a rest, I showed Branwen, Kelly and Lindsay some yoga postures and I sort of taught my first yoga class on the terraces near Macchu Picchu. We can actually see the back of the mountain where it is, but it's on the other side. The stretching of the yoga was exhilarating, especially my favorite position, pigeon, which stretches the hips.

Another 10 minutes down from where we are and we were at camp for the day. It was a short day, as it is only lunchtime, around 1pm. We had “mushroom ceviche” to start, toasted corn, quinoa soup, lomo saltado, rice, fried cauliflower, tuna stuffed yucca, an amazing chicken salad with pulled chicken, slightly toasted potatoes, a refreshing cucumber and tomato salad and Andean corn pizza. After mint tea, some of us had a nap. I took about an 1.5 hour nap and it began to rain, the sound of rain on a tent is very soothing white noise to me and it lulled me back to sleep. I woke up, it was dark, almost completely, and we all went on a short hike. The others started off as I was waking up and getting ready. Nick and Tanya were slightly behind as well, we were escorted by Juan, one of the porters, to join the rest of the group. The headlights were a necessity at this point. I couldn't see much, but it was another beautifully terraced site, and we had another Inca history lesson and headed back for happy hour and dinner.

We ate cake with a strawberry frosting and icing that read, “Welcome to Macchu Picchu”. The astounding thing to me is not so much the amazing food, which I would gladly eat anywhere, let alone on a 4 day hike, but that all this great stuff is made on camping equipment that is moved 2-3x a day! Ha made a cake! Evidently, they create a makeshift oven by using a large soup pot, putting a rack in it and covering it. It was a little bit dry, but I'm not trying to be a dick...it was a cake, it was good. I had my usual hot cocoa with coca leaves and milo, then we had dinner. Chicken kebobs stuck into a cabbage carved to look like a turtle, pasta, yucca, veggies, beef and an amazing apple pie with caramel frosting for dessert. A bit more mint tea, then we figured out the tipping as a group. We ended up giving each porter about s/70 and the chef about s/120, and we will tip the guides later. Each of us put in about s/100 for the tips.

We had another little circle outside and gave the tips to them. After that, a few of us talked to Marco and Eber for awhile and I handed out my business cards to everyone for contact info. Bedtime. Gotta get up at 330am tomorrow to see Macchu Picchu! What a great day! Less hiking, more relax, reflection and getting to know my new friends. And I got to walk around barefoot most of the day. I want a hot shower and a beer, but I wouldn't trade where I'm at right now for probably anything else in the world. Goodnight.

Sunday, June 24th – Day 14 – Macchu Picchu 1/3 to M.P. 2/3

Woke up to a little bustling about outside my tent. The porters were up and going, and they woke us up with a hot cup of coca tea. I put in my contacts without a mirror (rare and sort of difficult). Half the porters were staring at me doing it. Must be something sort of new for them to see. I had actually woken up a bit earlier because it was raining and I thought we might have to start our hike in the rain. It stopped before we left, so all good....We set off and had quite a difficult uphill hike for the first 4 hours. Halfway up it did start to rain again, so we stopped off, put on our rain gear and had a snack. It wasn't raining too hard but was a nice steady rain, it was kinda nice. I like rain though. We kept on. The hike up was difficult, climbed a lot of elevation quickly, and the oxygen is low b/c of the altitude, so I'd walk up about 30 steps and have to stop for a minute, and I was already going pretty slowly, taking like ½ steps. We finally got up to Dead Woman's Pass, the highest point of our hike, nearly 14000 feet. I treated myself to one of my Clif bars. The hike up was mostly rainforest type terrain, as opposed to Day 1, which was high desert-ish.

The way down wasn't any easier, really. The weather all day was cloudy, foggy and misty, but it was breathtaking views of the valleys with the clouds rolling through and the sun peeking in every now and then. On the way down, it was hundreds of stone steps, each one giving your knees a jar and having you concentrate on each rock you're about to step on so as not to fall. At the bottom, camp was set up and we were ready for lunch. There has been Robert and Valerie, who are much older and slower in our group, and this morning they left an hour before the rest of us to try and offset this. We passed them about ½ way up the hill, and they arrived about 1.5 hours after us at the lunch spot. Many of us were worried at this pace that they may not make it to night camp before dark, which would suck. We had another delicious meal and laid around the campsite. There was a beautiful waterfall right behind us and a mist covered valley in front of us, and a creek/waterfall going right through camp.

Forgot one thing, the poop I had to take this morning! May beat the record for worst place ever. It was a hole in the ground with a ceramic urinal of sorts, the floor was wet with mud/poop and super smelly, and I had to hover poop at about 430 am, great way to wake up though! Anyway...We left lunch camp and did another uphill climb, difficult, but not too crazy. At the top, there was a great view. I took a video and a panoramic photo set. We all climbed up a bit extra to take pictures of each other and had a good time. It hailed a little bit, just BB sized, but we all threw on our rain gear again anyway. It was almost like a fire drill, we all were geared up in about 20 seconds. After that, another big descent, steep and a bit slippery, but not as tough as the previous one. There were a couple of cool Inca ruin sites, and our guide, Marco, told us all about Inca history, culture and other good information. On the way down, we got to look around a larger Inca site, but didn't really get a tour of it. It was very impressive though. Many rooms, windows, terraces, all stone. What looked like ladders, bathrooms, waterfalls, rooms with tables, lookouts and all sorts of cool stuff. By far the biggest ruin we've seen yet. After that, a very short downhill hike through the rainforest as the sun is going down. Back to camp for the night. We had hot water waiting for us, the porters boiled it and set it in little tubs for you to wash up. I washed all my parts that needed washing, changed into my “Pjs”, which consisted of a base layer, fleece, thermal leggings, sweatpants, and fresh socks. I watched the sun go down and it was awesome. The clouds opened up a bit, and there was a giant “U” of huge, fluffy clouds as the colors slowly changed, it was magnificent. Then happy hour with tea, popcorn, and crab rangoons without the crab. Then a little talking and story time about the Inca, then dinner. Rice, zucchini, potato cakes, sliders, corn soup, chicken roulade and strawberry torte for dessert. The usual mint tea and a story from Marco.

He told us why the company is called Llama Path. The llamas were indigenous to the area and when the Inca came to build the trail, they basically followed the llamas to know where to put the path. 45 km of huge stone walkways. The llamas showed them the best places to build. We outside the tent and looked at the stars for awhile. One of the best stargazing places I've ever been. The southern cross, scorpion, and the whole milky way, space cloud/dust as well, all clearly visible. I called it a night after that, Mark talked with Alex and Branwen for awhile and then joined me in the tent.

Saturday, June 23rd – Day 13 – Cusco to 1/3 Macchu Picchu

Woke up somehow no alarm at 3:30. Probably so excited to start the hike. Got showered, finalized my pack and headed out. In the square, the party was still going strong, 100s of drunk people still singing and dancing and making out in the streets, most of them to the point of falling over. We met our bus at the small square and were served some coca tea. This is used to help acclimate to altitude. The drive was amazing, it was about 2 hours. I tried to sleep, but after 45 minutes woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. The sun was rising in the Andes, why sleep? We went through part of the Sacred Valley and in and out of little villages. Mostly farming villages. The roads through the villages were only wide enough for one car, and I thought we were going off the edge a few times, we also criss-crossed over train tracks the whole way. We stopped for breakfast after a bit. It was in one of the villages. The setup was very nice, open air style building with a thatched roof. We had eggs, bread, pancakes, fruit and more, as well as tea and fresh squeezed orange juice. They also had a little pen outside the building where they were raising guinea pigs.

Piled back in the bus after breakfast and drove to Mile 82, the beginning of the Inca trail. We loaded up, packed, used the bano, and dropped some of our stuff off with the porters. There are 15 total in the hiking group, and something like 20 staff. The hike is 4 days and 3 nights. Our group included Kelly and Lindsay from California, Solenn from England, and that;s all I know so far. But the ages range from about 22-60. USA, Belarus, England, Wales, Italy and Transylvania. We started at a checkpoint to show our passports and get our tickets and off we went. The beginning is a bridge over a rolling river. We all slowly got to know one another while following some donkeys and local townspeople who live in villages on the first part of the trail. The towns go about 13 km in, so we dodged turds and saw donkeys, one carrying a new window frame, dogs, we saw farms with chickens, horses and more. The views were absolutely breathtaking and the sky couldn't be better for photos, blue with dramatic white clouds. Most of the hike so far, the Andes are reddish and the terrain is desert with a bit of thickening forest. Small waterfalls all around, with the rushing river always there to our right. We stopped a few times for breaks and then for lunch. Lunch was amazing. It was at a small group of buildings along the trail, with views of a farm. Chickens, pigs, dogs, etc. all hanging out with us as we ate. The porters had went ahead of us, they are fast! And they each carry packs as big as themselves. They went ahead, set up a dining tent, and prepared lunch, all by the time we got there. We had soup, yum. Chicken, rice and vegetable. We had a tomato and cucumber salad, tomatoes stuffed with cheese, potatoes peas and carrots, garlic bread, breaded rainbow trout with a cream sauce, rice, corn on the cob, the corn is huge. Same corn they make corn nuts out of. Flour tortilla chips with fresh guacamole, and Andean pizza, which is a crispy tortilla with like a broccoli pesto, chicken and a little cheese. Sooo good, and unexpected! To end it, we had Andean mint tea and took short naps on the lawn. We saw new plants and flowers along the path, and I saw two hummingbirds. At the next checkpoint, I saw a girl with a CWS hat from another group and talked with her. She was from Omaha, just moved to Denver, was pretty cool and interesting. Small world. The hike is hard by the way. We hiked about 6 hours today, covered in sweat, smelly, but feeling good about the accomplishment and the exercise. The views are constantly indescribably beautiful. We went uphill the whole way for the last 2 hours and were glad to make it to camp day 1. We unpacked, got our beds ready, and went to “happy hour”. Tea and snacks. We had dessert crackers with crème de leche spread, it had a caramel taste (addictive!). We all loved it. Jam, hot chocolate, and of course, coca leaves. And some popcorn as well. We “showered” in the woods and changed clothes.

It's only about 6pm @ this point and everyone is getting tired. However, we asked our guide Eber some questions about culture, traditions and history, and several of us stayed and got to know each other betteras well. We then got dinner. Fried yucca, rice, beans, carrots, cauliflower, soup, chicken and bananas foster for dessert. Afterward, I was so tired and started getting a stuffy nose, so I went to my tent, wrote this, and am anxiously wanting sleep. Wake up at 5 am tomorrow and ascend to 14000 feet, to Dead Woman's Pass. What a day! Can't wait for tomorrow's adventure, not looking forward to the soreness. The temperature today ranged from about 80+ in the morning/afternoon to about 45-50 tonight.

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.

Friday, June 15th – Day 5 – Iquitos

Woke up really early, considering we went to bed around 1:30ish. Woke up about 5 am because we were freezing. (I know, in the Amazon, right?) The room had an A/C unit way up on the wall, and it was fine when we went to bed, but didn't shut off, and we didn't notice it had a remote on the bedside table. But it ran all night and all we had were sheets. I woke up freezing and walked out and down the hallway to see Iquitos just after daybreak for the first time in the light. It is lovely and poor and sad and glorious all at once. Beautiful people, very poor. The young hotel worker, Jared, said he would go with me to find a phone charger and we hailed a mototaxi and found one. On the ride there we talked about the differences between our countries including minimum wage, street maintenance, plumbing, trash collection, how much a job pays and how much things cost as well. He was a cool guy, probably about 22. We made it back to the hotel, packed up, got a breakfast of toast and jam with banana juice and our driver came and picked us up for our Amazon trip. We got dropped off down by the river after driving for about 15 minutes, passing a lot of construction. The project was for a city-wide sewage treatment system. Currently, all the sewage goes to the river, untreated. After the project, it will all be sanitized. We walked through a small market near the water with fresh fish and fruit. I think a lady didn't like us very much and said some things under her breath b/c we didn't buy her fish. We walked down a wooden plank dock to our boat, a 15 foot long wooden boat with benches along both sides and a wooden roof. There were 8 of us. Mark, myself, Ray from the Netherlands, Molly from North Carolina, Mike from Massachusetts, Ray from Wisconsin, and Benoit and Annabelle from France. We saw some amazing birds and were told what each of them were. I remember the turkey vulture. We then came to the point where 3 rivers merge into each other, 1 being the Amazon. You could clearly see 2 black colored rivers flowing into the “milky coffee” Amazon and here we saw some pink and grey bottlenose dolphins breaching all around us. Then we stopped at a small fishing village to see their caiman alligator farm with giant lily pads. I bought a beer from one of the locals and was amazed by the beauty of this place. Saw a macaw, chickens and roosters were running around. Very different here. For example, our camp down river, in the room we are sleeping, there is a goose in a box in the corner of the room incubating some eggs. We saw the alligators, giant lily pads, and huge fish before heading back to the boat and going down river to our camp. First thing we see when we get there is a man carving a boat and fresh fish being dried out on a rack made from sticks. The dock was just a couple of boards and mud steps and the walkway was boards for about a quarter mile so you wouldn't have to walk in mud. The house has a semi-large room with 3 hammocks and the whole thing is screened in for bug control. There is one solar powered light and 2 large picnic tables. There are a couple of lamp lights lit by kerosene and the outhouse bathroom that is lit by glowsticks. There are 3 main sleeping rooms, 2 have about 10 beds each and the third has 3 beds. All the beds have mosquito nets over them and if you were reading this on my notebook as I'm writing it, you'd see many mosquito smudges on my paper, because they're all over. We were served lunch which consisted of cucumbers, tomatoes, some amazon vegetable with chicken, rice, potatoes and lemonade. I took a nap in a hammock and when I woke up, we took a pretty long boat ride and fished for piranhas with rods made from branches and fishing line attached to them. The boat motor barely worked when starting and stopping. I caught 4 sabalus and Mark caught the only 2 piranhas of the group. All-in-all we caught about 25 fish. We tossed them in the bottom of the boat. We headed back as the sun set over the trees. It was amazing. We saw heron, bats, kingfishers and many other birds on the way back. Also, earlier I had gone to a tree down by the river at camp and saw leaf cutter ants all marching from the mud with fallen pieces of flower from the mud, up a small vine, straight vertical for about 4 feet, then across a huge branch, and up the tree trunk further than I could see, it looked like the Planet Earth documentary, very cool to see. Dinner was ready when we got back from fishing. Beef with gravy, rice and pasta. I think we are eating the fish we caught for lunch tomorrow.

After dinner we walked down to the beach to look at all the stars, which were amazing with no light pollution for miles and miles. We saw the Southern cross and the scorpion, constellations which are only visible in the southern hemisphere. Molly and Ray had some marijuana from Iquitos and we smoked it, then we were supposed to go look for the espinoza frog, a crazy cool bright green tree frog found only in the Amazon jungle and has DMT, a toxin it secretes from its skin, which can have a psychedelic effect on humans. Unbeknownst to a few of us, this required a boat ride. Buzzing from the weed, I was giggly and in absolute awe of the whole experience. This sounds like one of the best stories of my life, sounds like a movie. Taking a nighttime boat ride on the Amazon River, millions of stars, many shooting stars, trekking up a muddy hill in mud boots, nearly knee deep in mud at places, up into a clearing lit only by the moonlight, down to a swampy area to find these brilliant green frogs. Our guide caught 2 of them. He used his machete to clean off a branch and caught one with a stick off of a branch that was seemingly out of reach. It was awesome. We went back to camp with the frogs, and almost everyone went to bed except for me, Molly, Ray and Ashuku, our guide. We stayed up for about an hour asking him questions as I wrote this blog. Whew! I hope I didn't forget anything...what a great day!

Thursday, June 14th – Day 4 – Lima, Peru

ots of Amy Winehouse going on, again, @ breakfast and also there were Amy Winehouse quotes spray painted on walls in the city. And UH – WOW!!! I'm writing this at night after the day has happened, and UHHH.....WOW!

Woke up and got breakfast again at the hotel, Mark and I walked about a mile and found the airline office in Miraflores and bought our plane tickets from Lima to Iquitos, and we were so glad we waited to buy them until we got to South America. It was only $130 USD each for a roundtrip! The internet price back home was about $300+. We went back to the hotel, showered, packed and checked out. We hung out in the lobby talking to my favorite hostesses, Marisol and Ali. They were great. We booked our trip on the Amazon on the hotel computer, arranged for a ride to the airport and waited for our driver to show up. He arrived and we went to the Lima airport, checked in, and went to eat at a place called Manos Morenas in the food court, we had a wiatress, which was different for a food court, and I ordered lomo saltado, a Peruvian favorite. It's a dish with beef and veggies. It reminded me of asian stir fry. When we were done eating, I noticed my camera bag was missing. I racked my brain if I could have possibly left it in the bathroom or something, but I know I put it under my chair as Mark and I sat down and ate in the food court. It was stolen from under my chair as we ate. AARRRRRGGGH! Seriously! Whatever. Trying not to think about my missing $1000 camera, Ipod, chargers, batteries, memory cards I just bought, lenses, brand new camera bag, cash, receipts, list of places to visit while on vacation, and outlet adapters. But it's hard to forget that. Not gonna let it ruin my trip though...At the end of the day, it's just stuff, replaceable stuff. I wish I had those pictures on there though. FUCK! Whatever. I must be more careful from now on. Not safe enough. I contacted security, walked to the police station and filled out a report. They were very nice and helpful, definitely tested my Spanish skills. They said they are cameras in the airport, but that also they pan back and forth, and the thieves are generally so good that they know the timing, so I'm not holding out any hope for its return.

Anyway, we got on our flight, it was almost all indigenous Peruvians, and we met a nice man named Lucas. Matthew, Mark and Luke in the same row. (Christian joke, ha!) He was awesome. A food salesman who lives in Iquitos and he invited us to his restaurant. He spoke little to no English, so my Spanish is definitely getting tested today. He talked fast and quiet and my ear has been kinda plugged up since my shower today, but I understood about 60% of our conversation.

Our ride met us at the airport, you could feel the humidity as we walked down onto the tarmac and we took a twenty minute ride of culture shock/amazement to our hotel. Motos and mototaxis everywhere. Crazier driving than Lima, it is sort of what I had in my head that traffic in Thailand would be like. Dirt roads, poor outdoor shops with no A/C, no tall buildings, and its fabulous. We get to our hotel, our room is on the 2^nd floor, down a long hallway, near a wall that hides the shanty next door. A small, clean, quiet room with A/C, s/70 (70 Nuevo Soles) (about $20 USD total, 10 each) per night. We mention I'd like to try and find a camera, so a hotel employeetakes us around town to several shops looking for one, but the consensus is that there isn't a decent SLR in all of Iquitos. Everyone says to try Lima. Whatever. Now my Amazon pictures will be taken on my PAS (point and shoot), which is starting to have issues as well. Robert took us on a mototaxi, to several shops, an ATM, and we bought him a beer before saying gracias and goodnight to him. Many, many vendors and people on the street wanting to talk. The streets are in bad shape, there are homeless people, and many homeless dogs and cats. We found a place called the Yellow Rose of Texas and we enjoyed the company of the waitresses and Esther the bartender for a few drinks. They looked up music for us online and played it for us. I was listening to the White Stripes in an American owned sports bar in the Amazon while watching the Heat beat the Thunder in game 2 of the NBA finals. Finally, we walked back to the hotel and called it a night. Tomorrow, the Amazon River.

Wednesday, June 13th – Day 3 – Lima, Peru

Woke up early, got ready and headed down for breakfast. They had a nice continental setup. I tried a new fruit, at least in its original form. Passion fruit, looked like an orange on the outside but was full of seeds and a jelly-like milky filling as well. Sort of looked like a pomegranate but the seeds are grey, it was delicate, sweet and a little tart. The banana/plantain was good as well and I had a fried egg with ham and cheese on bread as well. They had multiple fresh juices, one was peach I believe. It tasted exactly like the juice in the can when you buy fruit cocktail. We had booked a driving tour of Lima the night before and we met with our guide and walked around the park we had been to the night before, Parque de Amor. The mayor had started a longest kissing contest in this park in the past because everyone would come here to make out. 42 minutes was the record! We also learned that Lima gets only 5-6” of rain a year because of thermal convection, and because of the sheer cliff banks formed by a tsunami 100+ years ago. The convection is where two wind currents meet, and the cliffs are so high from the tsunami it causes foggy, misty conditions a lot, but no rain. It was very grey and overcast today. We drove through Miraflores, San Ibismo and other districts. Lima is beautiful, crowded and the main things that stuck out were fences and bars on windows everywhere. Many houses had sharp barbs on the metal fences and some had electric fences also. Also, it looks very poor in some areas, with really old power boxes and wiring everywhere. Lima is growing at the rate of 1.5 million people per year! Crazy. The drivers are crazy. There doesn't seem to be rules of the road, everyone just goes.

We drove by olive trees in the park, some pre-Incan ruins, and went down to the Plaza de Armas to see the catacomb museum. We were slowed down quite a bit because many people were demonstrating in the park about not wanting to mine for gold and pollute the water, so they blocked the calle for several minutes as they slowly crossed the roads on their way to the park.

The plaza was neat. Beautiful architecture, very old. There were police everywhere b/c of the demonstration, full riot gear, horses, automatic weapons, etc. But it wasn't too scary. We took pictures with the police. There were some Australians in our group and a girl from Chicago that looked exactly like a friend of mine, Nicole Rhoades. Some schoolkids were giving the thumbs up as they walked in front of my camera for pictures and they loved that I said “hola” to them. The catacombs were neat. Old frescoes, Portuguese tile, beautiful gardens, domes, architecture, etc. Then we moved on. We regrouped back at the hotel and went out on foot to find La Mar, a restaurant I had researched, owned by a world renowned chef, Gaston Acurio. We found it eventually, after passing it and walking around for a bit, but not too much trouble. The hostess was maybe the most beautiful woman I had seen in Peru. She sat us at the bar to wait for a table. I ordered a pisco sour, the national drink, as pisco was invented in Peru. Our table was ready, we sat, I ordered a five course ceviche digustation and a potato dish called causas. Ceviche is basically the national dish. It was delicious. Very nice, swanky, world class restaurant, and the two of us ate for about $55 USD. We walked back along the ocean and went down to the beach for a bit. The steps down the steep cliff were hopefully good practice for Macchu Picchu. On a side note, found out that it is Macchu Picchu's 100 year anniversary of being rediscovered. We walked to the Miraflores shopping district. It was very busy, bustling and lively. I found sunscreen, or bloqueador, an adaptor, contact solution, and 2 types of memory cards for my cameras. We then went to have a beer, but were coerced to a tattoo shop by a big American fellow who was excited to see us and wanted us to get tats at his shop. We didn't. He seemed high on cocaine, but was nice, but also said that he had moved here to get away from the cops back home. He had a friend getting a tattoo and we met her outside as she was done. Andrea is a native Peruvian who goes to school in Pennsylvania and her parents made a lot of money in owning real estate in Miraflores and selling it. Miraflores and Lima in general are very high real estate prices. She joined us for a beer, and we talked about the trip mainly, then walked a bit with her until she got a cab and then we walked back to our hotel.

Back at the hotel, Ali, the front desk girl tried to help us get plane tickets to Iquitos, but no go. We got frustrated after the websites wouldn't accept our credit cards. We tried 4 different ones. Something about secure MC and verified visa, an international thing we had not anticipated. But Fernando, the super nice front desk guy, promised to help us figure it out in the morning since the airlines weren't answering their phones either. We figure worst case scenario is we get cash and go to the airport. We'll see... Took my first malaria pill today and looking forward to the morning! Side note: Our new friend told us that Lima is nicknamed “Donkey's Belly” because it is always grey, especially in the winter.