Lord of the Hand Dance

More fun in viral video land.

Best. "Commercial". Ever.

Pic of the day

Face to face with my dinner, a deep fried guinea pig.  They are called cuy in Peru and are widely eaten everywhere.  We once walked through a street fair with about 50 booths, all with several cooked cuy front and center on display to lure in passerby's.  We went to a nice restaurant for ours (David ate alpaca but it wasn't much of a photo op), although I bet the street fair ones would have tasted better.  Being deep fried, I can't comment much on taste, it was very greasy and had the consistency of chicken.  Not good, but not bad either.  It's the teeth that get me though.

Everything good must come to an end...

Our last early morning bus ride.  Though perhaps nostalgic, we went with the cheap option ($9 for a five hour ride) that left 90 minutes earlier, so it was also the least comfortable of our Peru busses, although still arguably better than most of the busses we took in Central America.  We are now back in Lima, just waiting for our 12:30am flight tonight to LAX, with a layover in Mexico City.

We had planned to see some museums (there is an old convent literally decorated with artistically arranged human bones from the catacombs), but David woke up feeling a bit ill, so we´ve just kept close to the hostel today.  We did go out for lunch, where I finally was able to order anticuchos, which is beef hearts cooked on a skewer.  They were delicious!  I expected such a strong muscle to be tough, but it was actually very tender.

Lima is grey and foggy, which is typical for this time of year.  We were just lucky that we had so much sunshine when we first came through.  But we are enjoying the coolness, as Las Vegas is forcasted to be 110 degrees tomorrow.  Welcome home!

This afternoon on TV we watched the second Harry Potter in spanish.  We had seen the first one months ago as well.  Kids movies in spanish, especially one you`ve seen before, isn`t a bad way to practice the language.  Unfortunately, Harry Potter has all that dang magic language, making it a poor choice I suppose.  Still it was that or Law and Order, and I can´t watch that show no matter how desperate I am for something to do.  And it was even in english!

We are both a little shell shocked that we are actually coming home.  With unlimited money and a ticket to another country, we could easily stay out longer.  But truth be told, we are also ready to come home.  I keep talking other people out here into becoming a nurse (best career ever), and I don´t mind saying I miss it.  Also I´m ready to play with all those neices and nephews at home, including a brand new baby girl I´ll get to meet tomorrow!  I don´t know where we are going to end up, we´ve got six cities on our possibilities list, but I do plan on sending out applications right away and we´ll see who wants to hire me.  Let me know if you know someone who is a nurse recruiter, or a nurse who works in the OR or oncology, which are the two specialties I am most interested in pursuing at the moment.  You never know where a job might come from!

Once I get home and start getting organized again, I´ll start posting pictures from Peru, and maybe get some Top Ten type lists or something like that up.  I´m sure going through all those pictures is going to bring back a lot of memories.  Cancun was only six months ago, but it seems so much longer, we have really managed to do a lot in these six months!

An oasis in the desert

For only the fourth time on our trip, we decided to take a night bus onward from Arequipa.  We were loathe to miss the amazing coastal desert scenery that we had enjoyed so much on the way in, but we were anticipating close to a 15 hour bus ride, and we hate arriving in new cities late at night, when things are more dangerous, more expensive, and hostels have a way of being already full.  So at 6:45pm we were all ready to go, even though the bus didn´t even arrive until a half hour after we were supposed to leave.

One thing I don´t think I´ve mentioned about the busses in Peru.  Just before they leave the station, a guy goes around with a video camera and makes a record of everyone on board.  This is sold as a safety measure, but when you start thinking about the implications it gets a little macabre.  We had, on the way to Colca Canyon, passed the beat up remains of a bus that had gone over the edge of the road, coming to rest on a switchback far below, conveniently in total view of traffic.  As we all craned our necks to see the twisted wreckage, our tour guide had been dismissive.  "Don´t worry, they were very lucky.  Only four people died."

So, all safe now that our faces were identifiable on video, our bus finally set off.  The busses in Peru are also kind enough to show movies, usually in Spanish but if they notice a gringo they will turn on the English subtitles.  The first movie they showed starred John Travolta and Robin Williams taking care of a couple of kids for a week.  Or something like that, it was hard to tell because though she did turn on the subtitles, and they were even in English, they were actually for the directors commentary.  So while we are listening to the spanish trying to figure out what is going on, the subtitles, which were impossible to ignore, are saying things like "Oh, I remember the day we shot this scene, Rita Wilson came up to me and asked if her character could have a lazy eye!".  It was generic enough we could sort of follow it, but eventually we just gave up and I started reading "Captains Courageous", which I picked up in Costa Rica for a moment just as this.  When the next movie started, I guess she felt we weren´t paying attention anyway, so she didn´t even bother to turn on the subtitles.  By now I was tired of reading, so tried in vain to watch a super weird movie where Steve Zahn and his girlfriend go camping on some Hawaiian island with several groups of people who may or may not be nefarious killers.  It was all very ominous, but in spanish kind of ridiculous, and the "twist ending" that I was able to grasp in two seconds not understanding a word played out for another fifteen minutes.  But I will be thankful that we weren´t treated with a repeat viewing of "Mandy and the Secret Tunnel" or "Cheetah Girls II", both of which we´ve seen on other busses.

Amazingly, we both slept, something we´ve been unable to do on other night busses.  Figures that just as we figure out the trick we are ready to head home.  In any case, we were shaken awake at about 6:00 am, a good three or four hours earlier than we had been expecting.  We sleepily grabbed our stuff and stumbled off the bus into the waiting arms of a trio of taximen, all desperate for our fare.  We just followed the first guy we saw, even as the others tried to undercut his price to steal us away, something I haven´t seen anywhere else.  We took us right to the hotel we wanted to stay in, and luckily they had a room open for us, and we fell back into bed for a few more hours.

We had arrived in Huacachina, an oasis surrounded by gigantic sand dunes.  The small lake (large pond?) used to be a resort town for the well to do Peruvians, but these days it serves local Peruvians and backpackers alike.  (It is even featured on the back of the S/50 bill.)  We first, of course, had to hike the big hill beside us, which was already spilling into the back of the property.  I really don´t understand how the town hasn´t just been covered by the sand several times over.  The wind blows, and the nature of sand dunes is to move with the wind.  The town is completely surrounded by the dunes, which on two sides come literally to and even over the edge of fences and roads, then climb steeply to the peak.  There is no way even a team of bulldozers could do anything about moving that much sand even if they wanted to.  But such is the nature of existence in countries like this.  You do what you can until you finally just can´t anymore.  No sense worrying about the inevitable, it will come when it comes.

We climbed up to the first peak, which even back at sea level was exhausting in the slippery sand, one step back for every two steps forward.  But what a view we were rewarded with, an endless sea of sand in one direction, the large city of Ica peeking out over the dunes in the other.  There were dune buggies full of tourists in the distance skidding madly over the sand, and what seemed mostly like local kids trekking up to the top to ride down again on modified snow boards.  We just sat and watched for a while, because children tumbling down steep sandy inclines is surprisingly entertaining.

We had two full days in Huacachina, and mostly we just chilled out.  While we have loved every second of the adventure we´ve been having, there also comes a time when it is nice to just rest!  We did take a tour of a couple of wineries, as this is a large wine center for Peru.  The grapes were not in season, but still it was interesting to see the old time wine presses, and hear about the technology used to make the wine.  I´m just a not-so-closeted nerd, and I´m always fascinated by how things get made.  Our cab driver who took us out kept up a steady stream of random conversation, and though it took great effort I was glad I was able to keep up with him.  We also both got massages.  I´ve been trying to do this since Guatemala, but there was always a reason not to, either it was too expensive or there was something else I wanted to do more.  Or, in the case of Cusco, it seemed like accepting an invitation for a massage might lead you to a whorehouse.  See, my very first massage was by an old, fat woman who might as well been named Olga.  She was no-nonsense and strong and gave me an incredible massage.  So when companies hire anemic looking skinny model waifs to advertise for them, well, lets just say that does not send the kind of message I want to hear.  But I took the plunge here, and my masseur turned out to be a big burly man, a pile of greasy curls tied into a ponytail.  He spoke English though, and though he looked like Rambo it turned out he had been trained at an Elizabeth Arden spa in Virginia.  It was terrific, and even though I tipped him 40%, the hour massage only cost me about $12.  Perfect.

Something to mention, in Central America I think most people assumed we were Americans.  Here though, everyone thinks we are Dutch.  The blonde hair I guess?  When we correct them they are always very surprised, which is confusing because we´ve met far more tourists here from the US than we ever did in Central America.  I assume it has something to do with our backpacks, that we are clearly not just here for a week as are most Americans.  Still it cracks me up.

The other thing is the fútbol, or soccer.  It is all anyone talks about here, and as soon as I do tell people I´m from the US they go into some big monologue about our soccer team.  The only reason I have any awareness of it at all is due to people´s status updates I keep seeing on Facebook talking about the games (and bad referees), but I don´t have any real understanding of how well we are actually doing.  So I just smile and let them go on, not really understanding but they seem to enjoy having a little bonding moment with a real live American.  Amazing how cross-culturally universal sport is.

Flight of the Condors

We arrived in Arequipa late, after a handful of typical delays (leaving late, stopping at random stops to pick up extra passengers, getting stopped by the police, detours and outright stops for road work) to find that the person from the hostel was still waiting for us.  Even better, she was patient and helped us figure out our plans in Arequipa so we could buy our bus ticket onward before we even left the bus station.

We stayed at Marlon´s House, a sister hostel to the one we had stayed at in Puno, and if the building wasn´t quite as new, the staff was just as friendly and showers just as hot.  Which, when it comes down to it, is all I really need.  I´ve had it with cold or, sometimes even worse, lukewarm showers.

The next morning we were up for a 2:30am pickup for a tour out to Colca Canyon, a six hour ride away.  There is some dispute between what the tour guide told us and what our guidebooks say, but I´m going to go out on a limb and say that Colca Canyon is the deepest canyon in the world, at something like 13,400 feet deep, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the US.  I guess there is something deeper in Nepal, but it is considered a gorge, not a canyon, or something like that.

After a few innocuous stops for stretches and snacks and plenty of chances to buy souveniers, we finally came to the point.  We got out of the van, hearing we had just missed them, but as soon as David and I situated ourselves on the lookout we saw them - the amazingly huge Andean Condors.  With a wingspan of between 9 and 11 feet (!), they were easily spotted as they rose out of the depths of the canyon and began making lazy circles first below then over us.  They gave us a show for almost 45 minutes, and we saw at least seven of them, males and females.  Truly spectacular.

The canyon, though far deeper, isn´t as picturesque as the Grand Canyon.  It just doesn´t have all the nooks and crannies, or that beautiful desert asthetic.  But the old Incan terracing, still used by locals for agriculture, was still impressive and we took quite a few photos. 

We made several more stops along the way home, giving no attention at all to the locals who had captured birds of prey (owls and eagles but no condors at least) hoping tourists would pay for a photo.  We did try some local cactus fruit, which though very seedy sort of tastes like kiwi, one of the more tasty fruits we´ve tried down here.  For lunch our tour bus took us to a typical tourist buffet, but David and I knew we could do better than $7.50 each so took off wandering the town.  We finally found a place and had a 3-course meal for less than a dollar each.  Granted, they were out of the two things we could read from the menu, so we had no idea what we eventually ordered, both of which turned out to be filling if unexciting.  (I THINK mine was pork.)  But still we felt proud of ourselves.  I´m very interested to weigh myself when I get home, my pants are all hanging off of me so I´m pretty sure I´ve lost a fair amount of weight, but without effort as I´ve never gone to bed hungry.  I think I´m just not stuffing myself like I would at home, and we have far less desserts.  I guess that is all it takes!

Along the way home we saw plenty of wild llamas and alpacas and vicunas, and stopped at another high pass, at 16,100 feet, where we built a little stone tower and made a wish.  (No, I´m not telling or it won´t come true!)  By this point we are pretty well used to the altitude.  Still, we knew it was downhill from here on out and were happy about that.

Fact: No matter how many times you say it, Titicaca never stops being funny!!

The problem is, apparently, that I am a five year old at heart, because I cannot, CANNOT, say Lake Titicaca without taking a moment to giggle to myself.  But, in my defense, the lake is called Titicaca for crying out loud!

We arrived in Puno after a surprisingly comfortable bus ride, where we met Linda, a retired nurse from Seattle.  She was travelling with a tour group also on our bus, but apparently we were far more interesting (or, given what she told us about herself, more likely she was) and we chatted for quite a while about her work and world travels.  To get to Lake Titicaca (HAHA) from Cusco, we crossed a pass that put us at 4335 meters, which according to the online converter is 14,222 feet and 5.29 inches.  Whew!

Before we left a tout had approached us in the bus station to sell us a hotel in Puno, and it was a relief to get off the bus and find a woman with our names on a sign.  She took us to the hotel, which was new and therefore desperate for business, so gave us a lovely room with a view of Lake Titicaca (snort) and a private bathroom for only S/40, or about $14.  Puno is the largest town on Lake Titicaca (giggle), and is the jumping off point for the areas attractions, so has a fairly decent tourist scene.  We had been warned that Puno wasn´t much of an attraction in itself, but David and I found it charming and quaint.  Our first order of business was getting some food, where I got a huge bowl of wanton soup, and as if that hadn´t completely filled me up, they then gave me a huge plate of chicken fried rice.  The local food here might not be the best I´ve had, but it is solid and filling, and that huge meal cost me all of $2.  We then walked through town, where we found a huge wall full of murals, which I always love.  These were funny though, in that the top panels were all scenes of war and fighting, while the bottom panels were of Donald Duck and the Little Mermaid.  What a contrast!

The next day we took a full day tour out to the islands.  We would have preferred to go out on our own, but with our limited time the tour let us see more than we could have managed otherwise.  And it actually turned out to be quite pleasant.  First up, we took a 45 minute or so boat ride to the famous floating islands.  Hundreds of years ago, a tribe of people wanted to get away from the warring tribes along the banks of Lake Titicaca (tee hee), so utilized a reed that grows in abundance on the lake, and which, conveniently, floats.  Bundled into platforms two meters thick, the "island" lasts for years, with new reeds laid down on top every two weeks to replace the ones rotting away at the bottom.  Each island was big enough for a couple of small houses, a kitchen, and a large flat area in the middle (for the tourists to sit).  In fact the islanders have since traded fishing for tourism as their main source of income, but if the visit was 100% staged and circusy, it was still fascinating to see such a different way of life.  (When we left, they all waved and cried "Hasta la vista, baby!"  Sigh.)  Besides building with the reeds, the islands also use them for weaving, and even for eating!  They call them the "bananas of the islands", although I can assure you they taste NOTHING like bananas.  Maybe celery.

Our boat had dropped us off at one of the islands, and then we were able to board a traditional boat made of the same reeds for a short row over to another island.  Though these boats are no longer made with only traditional materials (the bottom was, we were told, filled with empty water bottles for buoyancy), it was this style of boat that Thor Heyerdahl once sailed from the coast of Chile out to Easter Island, to give credence to his theory that Easter Island had been populated from the East and not from the West as had most of the other South Pacific isles.  In fact people from Titicaca (hehe) helped him build his boat.  Kon Tiki is the name of the book he wrote, which I would highly recommend.

We then had a three hour ride to the island of Taquile.  The island is covered in pre-Incan terracing, and has fantastic views across to the mountains in Bolivia.  It was hard to tell which was bluer, the water or the sky.  Titicaca (HA!) is divided between Peru and Bolivia, and the Peruvian guides like to say that Peru owns the Titi half, and Bolivia the caca.  I wish I could have gotten a Bolivians opinion on that, but again, the $140 visa was a deterrant for a day trip over.

We ate lunch at a local restaurant (fried lake trout and the delicious coca and mora tea) where they did some traditional dancing for us, and even pulled up yours truly to help with a sort of conga line/square dance section.  After we ate, we walked through the town and eventually back to the boat for the ride back to Puno, where we bid a very fond and touching farewell to the big, blue, and awesomely named Lake Titicaca.

Cusco and our energy

Our three days "stranded" in Cusco went pretty smoothly.  There was a big protest march the first day of the strike, with various groups of people seemingly protesting different things.  There were thousands of protesters marching up and down the streets, but it was all rather orderly, with huge sections of people holding signs and yelling slogans and all marching in neat single file up the street.  There were random piles of rocks to prevent people from driving, and once we saw a lone tire rolling down the street with no indication of where it had come from.

Most shops and tourist-oriented stores were closed, or at least it seemed that way at first.  The more we walked around, we would see the souvenier shops cautiously open their metal rolling doors part way, only to shut them again as soon as any of the protesters got near.  With some good timing, we were able to get into some and do a little shopping, although we got trapped in a few, having to wait until the protesters were safely past before we were allowed out again.

But that was just during the day.  In the evenings, all those same people were still out in the streets, but in colorful costumed parades instead.  Where the last time we were in Cusco we saw what seemed to be the dance recital for every young girl in Peru, this time we saw the exact same thing but for all the boys.  They were all dressed in various colorful traditional costumes, which we started to recognize after a while.  The youngest boys went first, and as the evening progressed the boys got older and more talented.  The favorite dance for them seemed to be the one where two boys would face off with long whips, and they would take turns taking swipes at their partners legs.  It clearly hurt, but not enough to stop being fun apparently as they all went at it with gleeful abandon.

We were able to walk just out of town to visit two nearby ruins, including the zigzag terraces of Sacsayhuaman (which everyone refers to as "sexy woman"), and another with a small cave just a few minutes farther out.  At that one, we were approached by a young man who told us he was just four weeks away from becoming a full-fledged shaman in his village, where his family had been shamans for generations.  He seemed quite proud of this, and asked us if we believed in "the energy".  He spoke in fairly decent english, although his choice of words sometimes made it hard to understand exactly what he meant.  I was intrigued by his teeth, several of which were, well I don´t know exactly how describe it, even though we´ve seen it on a few people.  It is like the teeth are outlined in silver, like with a perfect silver frame around the otherwise still white tooth.  It is really a frame, or is it a crown?  I don´t know, but it is a very unusual, interesting look.  Anyway, despite his interesting teeth, we were naturally reluctant to engage him at first, assuming he had an alterior motive.  But he assured us he just wanted to talk and did not want any money.  He had David put his hand on his heart and take a few deep slow breaths.  Just as David exhaled the last time, a beautiful falcon flew out of nowhere to land in a tree nearby.  The shaman smiled and told David this was a good sign and that he had very strong energy.  He had me put my hand on my navel and breathe, and although I didn´t conjure up an animal spirit guide, he still told me I also had good energy and added that I was in excellent health.  Afterwards he wished us well and just walked away, I´m still not quite sure why he had decided to approach us.  I guess he was just drawn to our strong energy!

Back to Cusco with a sweet old grandmother

Our next plan was to retrace our steps along the rail tracks, back to the town of Santa Teresa.  Though backtracking often seems to take longer than it did the first time around, we were still so high after our visit to Machu Picchu that our step must have been a little livlier, because we made it back to the train station, about 12 kilometers away in just two hours.  There we found a mini-van that wanted to take us back to Cusco for about $12, which would have been a good deal, but with our achy bones and muscles we wanted to stop in Santa Teresa, which the guidebook promised had a spectacular set of hot springs.  Not finding any other transportation, we just kept walking, another eight kilometers along a hot, dusty road.  Along the way we passed several groups of people walking the opposite direction towards Aguas Calientes, and we stopped and swapped info.  Thus we got a recommendation for a guesthouse and a restaurant in Santa Teresa, which we went straight to as soon as we arrived in town.  My lunch was particularly delicious.  For an appetizer I had a half an avacado, stuffed with pieces of carrot, green beans, cauliflower and tomato in some kind of mayonaise sauce.  It was soooo good.

After we ate, we went back to the hotel to pack up our swim suits, and on the way out asked the proprietor where the best place to find a cab would be to take us the couple of kilometers out of town to the hot springs.  He just looked at us sadly and said, "Oh, those washed away during the floods in January."  What?!?!  This was terrible news indeed, since we had just walked 20 kilometers specifically to come here FOR the hot springs.  But what can you do?  We adjusted our plans, and spent a pleasant evening walking around the small town.

The next day we got in a shared taxi to take us back to the town of Santa Maria, where we were going to catch a bus to Ollanta, a town in the Sacred Valley with some Incan ruins of its own.  A young man that shared our taxi struck up a conversation, one of the most satisfying conversations I´ve been able to carry out completely in Spanish.  He said his main job was as a nurse, but that he also worked as some kind of engineer.  After a while we mentioned we were heading to the Sacred Valley, and he said "Well don´t forget about the strike."  What?!?!  He elaborated that for the next two days there was going to be a transportation strike that would completely shut down all roads in the region.  We really wanted to see the ruins at Ollanta, but we knew it was a small town and did not want to be stranded there for three nights.  So once again we adjusted our plans, and in Santa Maria booked a ticket all the way back to Cusco.

The bus was full and we were very lucky that we were able to get two seats together, albeit in the very back row of the bus.  In front of us was sitting a kindly looking grandmother type, with grey hair and several missing teeth, who kept looking back and smiling at me.  She finally picked up a small package, a plastic shopping bag that was all taped up shut, and made to hand it to me.  She was saying something, but in a near whisper, making it impossible for me to understand what she wanted me to do.  Finally I heard the word "mochilla", which means backpack, so I confusedly started looking around for something that might be her luggage, when she gave up and turned back around.  David and I just shrugged.  A few minutes later we stop, and several policemen board and start searching the bus!  They smiled at us, barely checking under our seats for whatever it was they might be looking for.  But they were a little more thorough with others, and were looking around all the luggage in the overhead compartments, although oddly they didn´t actually open up any bags.  After they had worked their way up to the front of the bus, suddenly people all around us started pulling out taped up bags they had been sitting on and handed them back to the sweet old grandmother!  I have no idea what was in the bags, but for once I was glad for my lack of Spanish, which saved me from being the smuggling grandmothers mule.

Machu Picchu, a dream come true

You could blame it on the altitude, or the loud noises coming through the window from the train yard, or just the fact that we were about to do something we´ve been dreaming and talking about for years and years, but we were both wide awake long before the alarm went off at 4am.  We were dressed and standing in line by 4:30am, behind about 75 people even more hard core than we were.  At 5:30 we boarded a bus which whisked us the eight or so kilometers up the mountainside to the front gate of Machu Picchu.

I can´t even describe how excited we were.  We stumbled up a stone staircase and onto the first sets of terraces.  We cleared a corner around a stone hut and suddenly there she was, looking just like in the classic photograph.  Ruins on a hill surrounding a wide green plaza (with llamas!), with the peak of Wayna Picchu looming in the background.  We were out of breath from the hike and the altitude, but just being here was enough to take your breath away.

Being so early was deliberate, though surprisingly isn´t for the sunrise.  With the high mountains all around, though it was light by 6am when the front gates opened, the sun doesn´t actually clear the mountain tops until well after 7, so most people make it for that.  But to hike the peak of Wayna Picchu, you have to be one of the first 400 people to request a ticket, and we didn´t want to miss it.  We got a ticket in the 10am slot (the first group goes at 7) which was perfect, giving us plenty of time to enjoy the sunrise and just look around for a while.  We hiked along a few of the Incan trails (there are eight leading to the site from various directions, cutting across the mountainsides around us) and saw a version of an Incan drawbridge on one.

The peak of Wayna Picchu, which is about 1200 feet higher than the ruins, looks deceptively steep, and although it is a steep climb up innumberable stairs, it wasn´t technically hard, just tiring.  Every so often you would turn around to get an amazing view of the ruins and would have to snap a few photos, but then you would get a little higher and have to take a few more.  At the peak is a bunch of huge boulders that everyone crowded onto to catch their breath and enjoy the spectacular scenery of the quick moving river flowing through the deep valley all around us.  It was hard to believe we had been hiking down there just the day before, it seemed so far away!

The hike took about an hour to the top, where most people turn back.  But gluttons for punishment, David and I continued down the backside to the Temple of the Moon, a small but very well made temple in a natural cave.  We scaled some steep and narrow passages along the cliff wall and down long wooden ladders to get there, all of which took a breathless 90 minutes.  By the time we finally made it back to the ruins proper, we were exhausted, and we still had over half of the ruins to explore!

From the photos you usually see of the ruins, it is hard to get a perspective of where you actually get to walk and what you get to see.  But really the only thing off limits is the grassy plazas.  We saw temples and baths and even a prison.  Several times when we sat still for a few moments, we would see the chinchillas hiding in the rocks, which look like a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel.  They were quite brave and let us get rather close to take photos, but once we crossed that invisible line they would dart away in a flash.  There were llamas roaming the grounds as well, including several little ones.  At one point a dog started barking, and every llama in the place pricked up their ears, and then rushed to the scene to see what was happening.  We happened to have a good view of the whole ruin at the time, and it was weird watching them converge from all corners on this poor dog.  Once they arrived the dog calmed down, and they just slowly wandered off again.  The llamas were tame of course, but it was still startling when you would be standing there minding your own business and suddenly there would be one right next to you pushing past along the trail.

Besides all the hiking and exploring, there was plenty of just sitting and taking it all in.  I ended up taking almost a full 2Gb of photos and video, many of the photos almost identical to others, but I just couldn´t stop myself.  When we were finally bone weary from all the steps and sunshine, we made the typically questionable decision to skip the $7 bus ride back to town and instead walked back.  We didn´t reach the hotel until 5pm, it was a very full day, but one that we will never, ever forget.

The "backdoor route" to Aguas Calientes

We caught an early morning bus (how many times have I said that on this blog?) to head an hour and a half back up the dirt road leading to the small town of Santa Maria, where we needed to transfer to another dirt road to get another hour and a half to the small town of Santa Teresa.  We were hoping to catch a mini-van, but arriving so early in the morning, before the other backpackers coming from Cusco started arriving, there were none to be found.  We found a cab driver willing to take us, and waited about a half hour hoping someone else would arrive to split the fare with, but in the end we gave in and paid him about $12 to just get us going.  The road followed a river up the valley, and we passed several tiny villages along the way, admiring the striking mountain/valley scenery the whole way.  At least, when we weren´t trying not to notice how close we were driving to the steep drop off and how fast our driver took the blind corners.

But he delivered us to Santa Teresa, where we immediately hopped onto a mini-van which took us another hour or so to a hydroelectric station farther up the river.  Here there is a small train station which runs the 12 kilometers to Aguas Calientes, the jumping off point for visits to Machu Picchu.  The train leaves only once a day late in the afternoon, and is intended as local commuter train.  Everyone warned us that sometimes the staff would sell tickets to foreigners, sometimes they would flat refuse and there was nothing you could do about it.  Not wanting to deal with that kind of hassle, we made the trip one better - we simply walked the 12 kilometers, following the rail tracks the whole way.

The walk was beautiful, and even better almost totally flat.  We had condensed our belongings and had left one backpack back in Cusco, so we each had only one pack to deal with.  We walked over the river on an old rail bridge and passed small farms of bananas and coffee.  We even found a few bugs!  As we passed one of the farms, and old man coincidentally came out to also walk to town, and we chatted for a few minutes.  The conversation was simple, but it felt great to be able to communicate relatively easy in spanish!  He pointed up to the largest of the peaks on our left, and told us it was Waynu Picchu, which is the mountain peak that towers over Machu Picchu in the classic photos that you see.  We squinted up and could even see people walking around the top.  A few more curves around the mountain, and up in the distance there it was.  Incan terracing, with ruins on top.  We couldn´t make out much from so far below, but it was undeniably Machu Picchu.  It was so exciting I took a dozen photos that have no chance of turning out, but I couldn´t help myself.  We were almost there!

We thought we were walking pretty well, but with our necks craned up the old man soon left us in the dust.  Eventually we made it to another train station, where the path that had been leading along the tracks seemed to veer off  down to a road.  Our only instructions had been to follow the tracks, but we were leery of walking on the tracks directly.  But after only a moments hesitation we saw a group of guys walking down the tracks toward us.  We chatted briefly, they were headed back to a small waterfall we had passed, and told us the town was not much farther and that it was fine to just walk along the tracks.  We wished them well, and took off down the tracks, with the mountain on one side and a drop off on the other.  Just around the corner we came to a tunnel.  This seemed foolhardy at best, but we had come far enough that we didn´t want to just turn around, and we could easily see the other side of the tunnel maybe 25 yards or so away.  We listened for the sound of a train, and then as best we could sort of stumbled and ran through the dark tunnel to the other side.  Just past that we found a rock pile where we would be able to make it down to the road below, and decided to take it.  We didn´t want to tempt fate so close to something so awesome!  A hundred meters down the road we saw that the tracks went into another tunnel, this one much longer that the previous one.  Just as we were commenting on how we would not have enjoyed running through that one, the train came through!  I don´t want to imagine what might have happened if we hadn´t left the tracks when we did.  We later saw the guys who tried to kill us with their bad advice, but they were so friendly it was hard to hold a grudge.

The town of Aguas Calientes exists for pretty much one reason only - to separate tourists going to Machu Picchu with as much of their money as possible.  We did luck out and were able to find a room for a completely reasonable 40 Soles, about $13, although this was the last of the deals we were able to find.  Walking through town, which is quite lovely nestled in a steep valley where two rivers converge, we were assaulted by a barrage of touts competing for our patronage to their restaurants.  They offered lots of free drinks, and if you hesitated they would offer lower prices than stated on the menu.  One place told us that instead of free drinks (inevitably the pisco sour, a local coctail made with lime) we could have free nachos with guacamole, we caved.  We went in and made the order with our waitress, and they could not have been more delicious.  But when the bill came, we found that not only had we been charged a boggling $6 for them, we had also been charged a "tax" of about $7 on a bill of about $17!  (A reminder, in most cities we are able to eat lunch for $2-$3 each.)  When we told her we had been told the nachos were supposed to be free, her english suddenly got very poor and she said that we hadn´t specified that when we had ordered, and if we had she would have given us a smaller plate.  Obviously she must know her guy out front promises everyone free nachos, but she had us since we had neglected to specifically mention it to her when we ordered.  We had made sure to specify that our entrees were at half price, so she gave us that, we had just assumed the free nachos was understood.  Big mistake!  We eventually got her to knock down the price a little more than half.  The "tax", which is not charged anywhere else in Peru, we learned was also negotiable, as long as you negotiated paying it or not before you ordered.  She did eventually allow that the tax also included gratuity, so we ended up paying it but not a sole more.  We had been foolish, but at least the food had been undeniably good.

To Quillabamba

There are a couple of ways to see Machu Picchu.  Most people either do a four day hike along the Incan trail, which requires making reservations months in advance, or they just take the train to the town of Aguas Calientes, which lies far below in the valley.  There is only one train company though, so without any competition the prices are sky-high.  Just a few years ago however, a "backdoor" route opened up, which entails a few long bus rides and a fair amount of hiking, but is less than a quarter of the cheapest train ticket.  Of course David and I chose this option.

So from Cusco, we boarded a bus to Quillabamba, an out of the way city that hardly any tourists go to.  It was actually a little farther than we had to go, the road heading up and over a high peak in the Andes, and then plunging almost 11000 feet into the first signs of the jungle of the Amazon.  We hadn´t expected to see the Amazon on this trip, so couldn´t pass up the opportunity.  The bus, which was late and slow going, was at least comfortable enough, especially considering this wasn´t a tourist bus and David and I were the only gringos on board.  When we hit Ollanta we came to a road block.  We waited for 45 minutes without explanation, even driving the normally laid-back locals to shouting and banging the windows and floors to let their exasperation be known.  Finally we were led onto a detour, which took us right onto the train tracks.  I don´t know why the road was closed, but I guess we had to wait for the train to pass so we could drive a few miles literally down the tracks to get to the other side of town.

The climb up the mountains was breathtaking, with huge peaks filled with glaciers and snow gleaming in the sunshine over us.  We passed green Incan terracing, and saw llamas and other livestock in the fields.  At the peak a woman got on selling "papas relleñas", which was a hard boiled egg in the center of a glob of mashed potato that had been baked or more probably fried until it was crispy on the outside.  It sounds like an odd combination, but it cost about 30 cents and was absolutely delicious.  After crossing the pass we started our decent into the jungle, which was a little more nerve wracking as the bus now had gravity on its side and was careening down the narrow mountain road with as much speed as he could get.  Suddenly, the bus stopped and without a word everyone got off the bus.  We weren´t sure what was happening, but suddenly we noticed that everyone - men, women, old, young - were on the side of the road, peeing.  I guess it was time.  Since it was a nine hour bus ride, we took advantage of the opportunity as well.  When in Rome!

The bus was overfull, so there was a young kid, maybe 13 or so, standing in aisle next to us.  (Yes, standing for nine hours.  People do that here.)  We´ve noticed that the children here are generally very well behaved, even small children, on these long bus rides.  They just take it all in stride, always giving up their seats if an adult should board without complaint.  Anyway, I was admiring this kids calm disposition, when suddenly he walked over to a row with an open window, squeezed through the people sitting there to lean his head out the window just in time to barf.  The lady was kind enough to let him stand there for a while getting the fresh air, even though she had another kid in her lap.  I was just glad it wasn´t me.

We were pretty tired when we arrived in Quillabamba, but were able to ask directions to get oriented, and then made our way to a hostel.  The town was nice and comfortable, along a huge roaring river, but at 3200 feet it wasn´t quite the Amazon experience we had been led to expect.  (The guidebook starts with "Welcome to the jungle!")  At least it was warm.  We bought some ice cream and walked around, got some fruit in the market and found some dinner, but were ready to go the next morning.  While technically I do believe this was the Amazon, next time we come to South America we will do the Amazon right.

Cusco and Pisac

Cuzco is a place I´ve been dreaming of going for a long time.  We arrived at 6am after an uneventful night bus from Arequipa, and quickly jumped in a cab for a hostel.  We chose the silly Hostel Frankenstein, which promised "cold, dank rooms" just because it made us laugh.  Well, really we chose it because it was relatively cheap, but a laugh never hurts either.  We were just glad they had a room free when we arrived, we were so tired.  But not so tired to miss noticing the fireplace.  Score!

After a nap, we headed for the streets.  And the city did not disappoint.  Large plazas surrounded by churches, tiny cobblestone streets snaking off in all directions, atmospheric staircases climbing between buildings up the hills, and plenty of people, locals and tourists alike, percolating through it all.  The historic capital of the Incan empire, Cusco (or Cuzco, depending on your preference) now has a population of about 400,000.  We were glad to find that our few days in Arequipa had helped us adjust to the altitude, and even now at 10,800 feet we were breathing easy as explored the town.  We were also glad we had our new coats, cause while it was warm in the sunshine, it got cold when it went down!

Cusco is well positioned as the natural stop before heading up to see the infamous Machu Picchu, which means that just about every tourist who comes to Peru comes to Cusco.  And the city is well set up for them, with lots of shops and hotels and restaurants.  Cusco is also a city of festivals.  In our three days there, we saw at least one parade a day.  One seemed to be a sort of dance recital given by every dance studio in the city, with thousands of young girls doing extensive routines in elaborate traditional costumes.  Some of the girls were barefoot as they danced down the stone streets, and I felt for them, happy as I was in my newly purchased alpaca wool socks.  Another was a parade of religious floats that came out of the church and slowly - SLOWLY - circled the square.  The costumes and colors are amazing, but all the parades were sorely lacking in tempo.  lol  The floats were all carried around on the shoulders of about 20 men, which is I guess why they went so slow, because judging by the expressions of the men below, they were all extremely heavy.  Many of them had "alternates" who would follow them and tag people out to take a rest.  I enjoyed the bands that played, many of them oddly dressed in matching Hawaiian shirts.  They would march in to the square from all directions, stopping traffic wherever they went, which no one seemed to mind.

After an assortment of museums, our first Incan site was that of Pisac in the Sacred Valley.  We took a city bus out to the town, and then hired a cab to drive us up to the entrance at the top of a very steep hillside.  We arrived early in the morning, so there weren´t yet many people around which was nice.  We always face the dilemma of whether to hire a guide or not, but we decided to do it on our own.  The ruins are well preserved, featuring lots of the famous Inca stonework.  The Incas used no mortar when they built their stone walls, they just carved the rocks to fit together to well that even today you can´t fit a piece of paper between the stones, which have withstood centuries of weather and earthquake.  There were large terraces built into the hillsides below the buildings, which were used for agriculture.  It was all gorgeous, and we quickly wandered off up into the ruins, exploring every room and vantage point.  The tour groups with guides soon began arriving, and we noted with satisfaction that almost none of them entered the ruins like we had, sticking to the main and easy paths.  Guides can give great information and anecdotes, but it comes at the price of being free to explore at your leisure and fancy.  The guidebook told us we could hire the cab to wait for us for two hours, but instead we decided to walk back down the other side of the ruins back to town.  This turned out to be a good idea, because we were having so much fun climbing through Incan tunnels and admiring the massive valley below we spent almost four hours in total walking about.  The walk down was a bear with thousands of Incan steps, but we still enjoyed it.

Back in town we found a little restaurant to have lunch. We ordered shrimp chowder to start, but weren´t prepared for the red, whole shrimps floating in the soup, complete with antennae and claws.  How are you supposed to eat that? 

Heading into the Andes

[Note:  Forgive me if there are spelling mistakes in this post, this computer has its spell check set on spanish, so every single word is coming out underlined in red, so I´ve got no help!]

Arequipa surprised us with its size, spreading out in all directions through a huge valley surrounded by snow peaked mountains.  I´m not sure if the city is technically in the zone of the Andean mountains, but if not it is right on the doorstep.  We had come here for two reasons, the first being to give our bodies a chance to acclimate to the altitude.  We have been at high altitudes several times throughout the trip, and although we´ve never had a problem with altitude sickness, we have definitely noticed decreased endurance at times.  With all the hiking through high Incan ruins coming up, giving our bodies a few days to pump out extra red blood cells seemed prudent.

The second reason was Colca Canyon, which we intended on doing as an overnight trip.  But the Sarah´s let us know that June is a month of festivals in Cusco, and in a time when things are already busy, it gets even more crazy as the locals come in to celebrate.  Never afraid to change our plans, we decided just to stay two days in Arequipa and head straight to Cusco, hitting the canyon on the way back to Lima.

First we did a little shopping, buying some much needed Levi´s and coats to prepare us for that cold Andean air.  We hadn´t needed or wanted denim in the heat of Central America, but we were already feeling the chill through our lightweight pants and fleeces.  Then we did a little eating.  Along with the Sarah´s we went to a great restaurant up a massive amount of steps up to the roof of the building, overlooking the Plaza de Armas.  (It seems instead of calling the main square the Main Square, in Peru they are always called the Plaza de Armas.  There has been a lot of fighting in their history, obviously.)  The plaza was beautiful enough during the daytime, with a huge cathedral and arch on one side, the other three sides lined with columned buildings.  But overlooking the whole plaza at night all lit up was a spectacular view.  Being outside it was quite cold, even in our new blue jeans.  But the waiter was prepared, and brought us each a thick poncho to wear while we ate, and it made all the difference.

The menu was extensive, but David and I had our eyes (and stomachs) ready for something a little more unusual, cause it is always fun to eat the local fauna.  David ordered an alpaca steak, which pretty much tasted like beef.  I ordered cuy, which is guinea pig.  My food spanish is mediocre, so I wasn´t sure how it was going to be prepared, but much to our delight it came whole, head and all, just fried.  The Sarah´s had no intention of eating it, but they seemed to enjoy living vicariously through us.  Or at least they enjoyed laughing at us as we tried to pick the meat off the creature.  We took some photos of the poor thing, teeth and all, which I´ll post as soon as I can find a reliable internet connection.  All I can say was it tasted like chicken, although being fried it was so greasy that I can´t really give a good description.

We also joined the Sarah´s on a tour of a local convent.  The history of the convent was interesting.  When it opened up, it was custom for every family to send their second child, male or female, into the service of the church.  The families would send with their daughter a large dowry to cover her expenses.  This particular convent only selected novices from the most prostegious (and wealthy) families.  The nuns would then invite musicians and artists to give performances for them, and generally lived it up much as they had before they were nuns.  They even had slaves!  After 300 years the Pope finally sent someone to look things over.  All the money was sent back to Europe, and the slaves were freed - many of whom stayed on to become nuns themselves!  Anyway, today a few dozen nuns still live there, and instead of living off their wealthy families, they have opened up the majority of the convent to the public.  It cost a whopping $10 entrance fee, but we got to look around the old living quarters, kitchens and assorted other rooms.  Of course it was all ornate and beautiful.  One room was my favorite, the room where they used to lay out the nuns that had died.  Surrounding the room were paintings of the dead nuns, as it would have been unacceptable for the artist to paint a nun while she was still living.  The artist had like 24 hours or so with the body to make his painting, so they were all pretty basic.  But, kinda cool.  There was also the infirmary, complete with a wooden operating table.  And forgive me for being unsensitive to Catholicism, but apparently there are those who hurt themselves in order to remind themselves of their sins or something.  On display was underwear made of barbed wire that the nuns would wear.  I can´t imagine what that is about, but it seems completely horrible.

The other museum we went to was to see Juanita the Incan Ice Princess.  She was sacrificed to the mountain gods, where she laid frozen and preserved until a nearby volcanic eruption sent ash that melted the snow around her, revealing her to some archeologists.  She is a fantastically preserved mummy, complete with hair and clothes and most of her skin.  They keep her in a glass case that keeps her frozen solid, which isn´t always on display but we were lucky.  The rest of the museum was good too, just the right size to keep interesting without becoming repetitive.

Our last day we decided to get pizza for lunch.  It was a vegetarian restaurant, so we figured it would be good, and when it came it looked great, all melty with cheese and big slices of tomato.  When we started eating it something seemed weird though, until we realized that for the sauce, they had just used ketchup!

The bus to Arequipa

The next morning we were on another fancy bus to Arequipa.  Most tourists stick to night busses through this region, as distances are long and by travelling at night you save having to get a hotel for the night.  My problem with that, besides the fact that I just don´t sleep very well sitting up, is that I love watching the scenery.  Luckily we were able to find a day bus.  Better yet it was almost completely empty, so we got to sit in the very front seats on the top level, which gave us a great view besides some extra leg room.  It was great.

There were only about six people on the bus in total.  Two of them, an American and a Canadian both named Sarah, sat next to us in the front.  They were both working as teachers in Honduras, which was interesting enough in itself, and we had an entertaining ride talking with them as we all admired the striking desert and ocean scenery.  The desert was dry and mostly unvegetated, and then we would drive through cliffs that fell down to the huge waves battering the coast.  With little in the way of people or cities to fill the space, it just seemed so massive.  At one point David even pointed out a small pod of dolphins playing in the waves.  A few of the tiny, tiny "towns" we did pass were very humbling as we sped through in our luxury bus.  Many of the homes were nothing more than a 8`x8`shack made of woven mats.

We were coming down a long stretch when we saw traffic stopped up ahead, with lots of cars and trucks lining both sides of the road, which was odd considering the light traffic we´d seen so far.  As we got closer we saw that a semi-truck had lost its load of oranges, which were strewn in a massive heap along the side of the road.  Everyone passing by had stopped, not to help, but to grab all the free oranges they could carry!  Women were stuffing them in their purses, men were holding their shirts up in front to make a little basket with them.  I don´t know where the driver was, but I´m assuming he was having one of the worst days of his life as he watched his cargo being stolen.

Night fell before we reached Arequipa, and as we cleared a large hill, the lights of the city sprawled out before us.  It was a similar view coming into Albuquerque along I-40 from the west, except much bigger.  I had heard Arequipa was the second largest city in Peru, but somehow we were still surprised by the massive display of lights spread out amongst the hills.  The city makes a good stopover on the way to Cusco due to its altitude of 7800 feet, giving your body a chance to start to aclimate.  Many people suffer from altitude sickness coming to the Andes, and we don´t intend to be one of them.  There are meds you can take, specifically Diamox which can help by making you breathe a little deeper to get more oxygen.  But I know Diamox as a diuretic, and I don´t need to be peeing all the time, so we are hoping the stopover will be enough.

The Nazca Lines

Our bus this morning was a new experience for us.  It was a fancy, double decker luxury tourist bus, and the difference from Central American chicken busses could not have been more stark.  Our seats were comfy with fancy foot rests and tray tables.  We had a cabin steward who brought us pillows and blankets, and even a sandwich!  They played music in between movies, which were covers of 80´s pop songs like Material Girl and Blondie´s Touch Me and Sunday Bloody Sunday, but they were all orchestrated like they were from the 60's , in the style of The Girl From Impanema.  My favorite was the Carpenters Top Of The World.

Then there was the video, telling us about the location of the exits and how we should not steal the blankets and how the onboard toilets were ONLY FOR URINATION.  The woman who did the videos was notable for her ability to make handing someone a glass of water a sexual experience.  Every smile was full of very subtle yet startlingly effective innuendo.  Then she told us that seat belt use was mandatory (also a first down here), and that if we were caught without our seatbelts on, we would be "reported to the authorities".  Dang, these folks don´t mess around!

We headed out of Lima, and were quickly into the desert.  I guess I´ve seen enough James Bond movies that I know there are huge deserts down here, but I didn´t really appreciate the scope.  Hours and hours of nothing but sand, washing down from huge sand dunes (the largest sand dune in the world is somewhere around here) across the road and down into the sea, making for one heck of a huge beach.  I was loving the scenery so much, that I was almost disappointed when we arrived in the town of Nazca.

But not for long.  We got off the bus ready to brave the army of touts trying to take us to their hotel, when we saw one holding a sign for the hostel we wanted.  I love it when that happens!  We pointed to her so the others left us alone, and she led us to a (free) taxi that took us the three blocks to the hostel.  Perfect.

We were here, of course, to see the famous Nazca Lines, which were made between 200-700 AD.  Some of the lines are in the shapes of plants, or animals, and some are actual lines, perfectly straight stretching for kilometers across the desert floor.  None of the lines, however, are visible except from above, presenting interesting questions for the scientists who try and figure out how and why the people made them.  There all sorts of theories, involving the use of really long ropes, or hot air balloons, or aliens.  But no one really knows.  Interestingly, there were scientists at the site in the early 1900`s, finding pottery and stuff that was left behind.  But it wasn´t until the 1930`s that a plane flew overhead and the existance of the lines was discovered.  Can you imagine being the guy who was studying pottery shards for 30 years, and then suddenly you realize what you´ve been walking right on top of for years?

We assumed we would have to wait until the next morning to take a flight up and over, but the weather was so good that we were encouraged to go right away, which suited us fine.  Within an hour we were at the airport boarding a tiny 4-person plane.  It was just us and two pilots.  Not long ago, a pilot suffered a heart attack mid-flight causing a crash that killed all aboard.  So new safety procedures have been adopted, including the use of two pilots for every flight.  We took off into the sunny sky, and within a few minutes started making flybys of the various shapes.  It was fun to see the familiar, famous ones - the spider, the monkey, the astronaut.  The astronaut, by the way, was given that famous name by those who want to believe it was aliens that created the lines.  But researchers actually believe it is a priest with an owl head.  Still, the nickname persists.

The flight was turbulent in that tiny little plane, with our pilot doing circles around the lines so that the window pointed straight to the ground, for our optimal viewing pleasure no doubt.  Luckily in the rush we hadn´t had time to eat lunch.  Still, I was feeling a little queasy by the end of the half-hour flight.  Regardless, it was totally worth it.

The preservation of the lines is due to the almost total lack of wind or rain in the area.  One good rainstorm could literally wash them away, a humbling thought for us tourists who amble through, lucky to see something so unusual created so long ago.

Please google some pics, they are awesome.  But I´m down to my last memory card and just don´t trust these public computers anymore to upload any pics of my own.  Just a couple of more weeks and I´ll post the good ones.

Lima, South America

So why the sudden change in itinerary?  Well, David and I have been dreaming of going to Machu Picchu for years, we even came really close when we first came back from the Disney tour in Asia, but hesitated and let "common sense" tell us to wait.  We had been talking about it on and off all through this trip, and the only reason we kept saying no was the cost of the plane ticket, which to anywhere in South America is always expensive, even from nearby in Central America. 

Our excuse in the end was the deteriorating weather in Central America, which is coming into the rainy season.  But really we were just hungry for another taste of excitement and adventure.  Nicaragua was lovely, but after everything else we had seen in Guatemala it had a sense of the familiar about it, despite the significant differences.  We had intended on going into the jungle, which would have been a new experience, but once we found a reasonable ticket from San José to Lima and then home (for $800), we found we couldn´t resist the temptation of four weeks in South America.  Apologies to Panama, which I do feel bad about missing, not to mention the Corn Islands in Nicaragua and the Nicoya Penninsula in Costa Rica.  But flights to Costa Rica are always cheap, so I´m sure we will return to the region again one of these days.  Well, we will have to, because I already spent $3 on a Panama flag patch for my backpack, and I´m far too cheap to let that go to waste.  ;)

From our hostel in Alejuela, it was a five minute taxi to the San José International Airport.  (Travellers tip:  most people assume that they need to stay in San José to wait for flights, but the airport is actually in the city of Alejuela, where the hostels are literally minutes away.)  After changing our colones back into dollars - one dollar equalled 535 colones, which made calculating prices a challenge even for a math nerd like me - we were in the air and heading for Mexico City.

Now, for those of you who might have a vague sense of Central American geography, it might seem like Mexico City is in the exact opposite direction of Lima from San José.  And you would be right.  But those were the cheap tickets.  The cheapest direct ticket we could find was almost $600 more expensive!  In Mexico City we had a lovely seven hour layover.  They didn´t even have a Cinnabon to help the time pass (we had skipped the one in Costa Rica, because Cinnabon is not made for breakfast.)  They did have an interesting museum displaying some of the ruins and artifacts from different Mayan and Aztec and Olmec sights in Mexico.  But the best part was the flights in and out.  The city is just massive.  They estimate over 21 million people live there, and GDP of the city is higher than many other countries in the world, including Taiwan.  Someday I want to go back and see more than just the airport.

But with a flight to Peru, it was hard to feel melancholy at missing Mexico City.  Our flight to Lima was a bit odd.  The announcements were always made in Spanish, with a much abridged English version following.  Just after takeoff we heard them say something about Acapulco, which didn´t make much sense.  But 40 minutes later, we did, in fact, land in Acapulco.  It took a bit to figure out that we had stopped to refuel.  We were stopped about 45 minutes on the tarmac before we took off again.  Weird.  The view of the bay was sure impressive though.

Our flight was to arrive in Lima at 11:15pm, but with the refueling delay we didn´t arrive until 12:15am.  By the time we got through customs and immigration, it was well after 1am.  Luck was with us though, and just out of the gates we were approached by a taxi driver who actually gave us a decent price to get out to Miraflores, one of the nicer areas in Lima.  On the way we stopped at a red light, and a kid about 12 years old rushed into the intersection ahead of us, and began to juggle with sticks that were on fire.  While I was surprised to see someone so young at that time of night being so...resourseful, the fact was if I had had any small change in the local currency I would have given it to him, it was quite a show.  And I guess it wouldn´t have been so impressive in the daylight.  Anyway, we had emailed a hostel to tell them we were coming, but when we arrived they told us they were full.  (When I checked my email the next day there was an email from them saying they would have a room waiting for us.  Maybe the night watchman was too tired to pay attention?)  Our taxi driver was more than happy to take us to a place he knew, where he no doubt made a small commision for bringing us.  But while the place was $40 a night, more than the $25 we had been hoping to spend, it was now 2am and we were ready to take whatever there was.  The room was actually one of the nicer places we´ve stayed on the entire trip, with actual furniture in the room, big comfy beds and a scalding hot shower.  We didn´t notice much of it though, we fell straight into bed and were instantly asleep.

The next day we walked up the road and found a proper hostel to move to, which was still $30 a night, but big cities just tend to run more expensive.  Better yet, when we finally got into the room later that afternoon, we found we had been given a room with a private bathroom, when we had only paid for a shared bath!  Little things like that are the delight of the backpacker world.  We were also located right on the main square, closer to the shops and restaurants and with a great view from the common room of the hostel.

We were only planning on staying one day in Lima, having a few errands we wanted to get done.  But as we started walking around, we realized how much we were enjoying the city.  Lima is large and modern, with a population of over 8 million people.  Some big cities, such as Guatemala City and San Salvador, had seemed unfamiliar and therefore somewhat dangerous.  But Lima seems familiar somehow, sort of like if New York were on the Pacific coast.  And oh what a coast!  We walked down to the beach, where high cliffs look down onto rocky but vast beaches populated mostly (at this time of year, June is winter south of the equator!) by surfers.  We quickly realized we wanted to stay a day longer, just to have time to soak it all in and not just do a mad dash around doing errands.  So we relaxed our pace and just enjoyed exploring.  People were everywhere, we felt safe on every street (Miraflores is a fairly well to do neighborhood), and we just felt excited to be exploring a city in South America!  I´m not sure what it is, but every time one of us mentions the fact that we are in South America I get a charge of adrenaline.  It seems so exotic and exciting!

For lunch we have been going to these hole in the wall places, which all serve basically the same things.  You get a juice of the day, an appetizer, and a main course.  Ordering is a bit of a challenge, since we recognize only a small percentage of the menu.  Today David ordered what he hoped would be (and in fact was) calimari, as well as a pounded chicken with fries and a salad.  I had an amazing ceviche, which is fish that has been soaked in lime juice, which "cooks" the fish through a process of oxidation.  It is very tangy and acidic, and very delicious, served on a bed of red onions.  I didn´t know exactly what I was ordering, but I also ended up with a thin piece of steak with a fried egg on top.  Our juice, as best as we could tell, was blackberry juice infused with cloves.  It sounds weird, and actually was weird, but was also quite delicious.  For all that food, you pay 7 soles, which is just over $2.  Awesome!  There is nothing better than food that is both delicious and cheap, and we haven´t had the combination since we were in Mexico.  We´ve had a good look through the food section of our guidebook, and there are definitely some more things we want to try.  Did you know potatoes come from Peru?  They have over 5,000 varieties of potato, which is hard for me to comprehend, but I´m definitely hoping to try a few.  Actually, I did have a hunk of a sweet potato with my ceviche, which was bright orange with purple skin. 

This morning we went over to the archeological sight of Huaca Pucllana, which is in the city limits and was an easy walk for us.  We expected a little dumpy place, but it was actually quite impressive.  A huge temple structure, all made of adobe bricks.  The site isn´t Incan though, it was built by a matriarchal society called the Lima about 400AD.  The large temple and surrounding plaza is under heavy restoration, but even as the men with shovels and wheelbarows roll by you are allowed to walk around.  At one point we walked past a pair of plastic bags on the side of the trail, which our guide pointed out to us.  They were filled with pieces of pottery and dried up corn and other vegetables, all of which had been left as offerings and were now being uncovered by the workers.  It was all quite unexpected and fascinating.  The walls, which again are completely made of adobe (sand, water and crushed sea shells) have been so well constructed that they have withstood 1500 years of earthquakes.

A few other observations. 
- Where every other place we have been to has their share of stray dogs, in Lima it is cats.  They run around the parks by the dozen.  But they don´t seem feral, they seem friendly and we´ve seen several people feeding and petting them. 
- This evening we had a churro in the park, which had a caramel filling down the center.  Yum. 
- Down by the beach is a park called The Park of Love or something along those lines.  There is a gigantic statue of a couple laying down making out.  I´m always surprised by images like that in Latin America, which has such a reputation for being conservative, but we also saw a billboard ad with a woman with a breast hanging out.
- We keep running into the waiter who served us lunch our first day.  Not only around his restaurant, but also walking down streets across town.  He must think we are stalking him.

Tomorrow we bus to our next stop.  And it is a good one!

Goodbye, rich coast...

From Monteverde, we caught the early morning bus to the city of Alejuela, just outside of San Josè.  We had been expecting the bus ride to last over 5 hours, but we made it in less than four, which is always a treat.  We walked around for the afternoon, and found it to be pleasant and comfortable, if not particularly exciting.  There was more William Walker story to fuel my obsession however.  The town has a museum and a nice statue of Juan Santamarìa, the young man who is credited with the defeat of William Walker and his filibusters in Costa Rica by setting fire to the building where they were hiding, forcing them out into the open where they were killed or captured (or fled).  The statue depicts the young man with a long rifle in one arm and a flaming torch in the other.  Though he was killed in his efforts, he is still remembered and venerated today.  (In fact, the international airport is also named after him.)

And suddenly, our time in Costa Rica, and Central America, had come to an end.  The plan had originally been to go to Panama, but somehow we ended up on a flight to Lima, Peru.

More Costa Rica fun

[Dangit.  This post was supposed to have pics, but we´ve gotten another virus on our memory card.  How does anyone survive using a stupid PC?]

After our success at Monteverde, we were content to try something similar the next day.  Although rather than paying for an expensive park, we found a free trail to hike up to the top of a mountain where the radio antennas live.  We talked to an American couple in our hostel - indeed, it seems like everyone travels to Costa Rica in couples, whether romantic or not, everyone was in pairs - who had taken the hike the day before.  They warned us it was very steep and pretty muddy, but we still decided it sounded like a good idea.

It took us maybe a half hour to walk to the start of the trailhead, and right away we started finding good bugs.  The terrain was a bit different than the cloud forest, more open and drier, so although there was plenty of overlap, we also found things we hadn´t seen before.  And since we were still turning over leaves and peering into holes with our flashlight, our pace was slow enough that the trail, which was in fact quite steep, was hardly a consideration.

In addition to the beetles and caterpillars and such, David´s eagle eyes picked out one of the coolest bugs I have ever seen.  It was a variety of stickbug, which is cool enough.  You may remember the giant one of those we found back in Guatemala.  But all the stick bugs I´ve ever seen look like their name, little brown and grey twigs.  This little guy was green!  He looked like strands of moss bunched together.  He did his best to quiver and shake, imitating a piece of moss just blowing in the wind.  I know we are total nerds, but we were thrilled, what can I say?  A very exciting day of entomology.

Not long after that, we spotted a couple of white-faced Capuchin monkeys swinging in the trees.  They were pretty far off, but coming across wild monkeys never gets old.

As we neared the top, we heard a loud, deep rumbling sound.  It is a sound we have learned to recognize, that of an erupting volcano!  When we reached the top of the mountain, not too far off we could see the bottom half of what was clearly Volcan Arenal.  Unfortunately the top half was covered in clouds, obscuring what must have been a nice big puff of smoke and ash.  Central America has not been stingy with its volcanic activity, this was the fourth volcano we´ve seen (or in this case, heard) give a nice little eruption.

That night, nursing mild sunburns (and we were wearing sunblock!) we decided to skip cooking our own dinner in the hostel again, and instead splurged on a restaurant built up in a tree.  Actually, instead of paying the high prices of the actual treehouse, we went right next door, where the owner had wisely build his building right next to the big tree so that the branches still overswept the balcony where we sat.  There was only a small wrought iron fence sitting between us and another couple that were sitting in the actual treehouse, our food was great and we paid about half of what it would have been.  Now that is what I call backpacking with style!

The next day we went to another reserve for yet another hike.  This one was much denser forest, so we spotted only a few bugs here and there.  But don´t feel too sorry for us.  We walked out onto an overlook over a supremely green valley, and I jokingly said "And cue, toucans!"  Before I could even laugh at my own silly joke, David looks down and says "Toucan!".  Actually it wasn´t one toucan, it was a whole flock of at least seven or eight.  This was the Keel-Billed Toucan, a large black bird with a bright yellow face, chest and beak.  These were much closer than the ones we had seen in Guatemala, so seemed much bigger to me.  A little while later we stumbled onto a troop of coatimundis.  While we had seen others in Tikal, this group had three tiny little babies running around in their midst, which were adorable beyond words.  It did make us nervous though, because to continue on the trail we had to push through the group.  The babies were totally unconcerned with our presence, and kept running up to us to check us out.  But each time they did, we noticed the adults giving us the evil eye, and we really didn´t want an angry mother giving us rabies or something.  We moved slowly and loudly, and remained unmolested.

Later we came across a large group of those Capuchin monkeys.  It was impossible to count them the group was so large, and they were dancing in the trees all around us.  A few of them got rather close to check us out, before skittering away, flinging themselves out into the air off the edges of branches only to catch themselves on another tree.  The acrobatics were impressive.  Eventually though they decided we had worn out our welcome.  At first we noticed a few sticks and branches "falling" in our general vicinity.  Finally one of the older monkeys swung down, baring his teeth at us silently and creepily.  We took the hint and continued down the trail.

We also hiked down the valley to see three waterfalls, and saw a handful of other birds, including the beautiful turquoise browed motmot.  On the way home we stopped at a café run by the local cheese factory, and had some of their fresh ice cream.  Delicious.

Monteverde, Costa Rica

Santa Elena is a quiet little town, a triangle of three streets full of shops and restaurants that cater to the gringo tourists.  It reminds me of several other little towns like this we've been to, although this one has the distinct advantage of being surrounded by lush mountains and views over the Nicoya Peninsula down below.  As soon as we checked into our hostel, we were given the (wide) array of tour options we had.  Several different reserves for hiking and animal-searching, an aviary, an insect zoo, a "serpentarium", a bat zoo, and an assortment of coffee tours and cheese factory tours and, of course, the canopy zip line tours.

We, being us, remained non-committal and decided to skip the tours and just do our own thing.  The next morning, we took the public bus to the Monteverde reserve, which is the main reserve in the region.  We had heard lots of conflicting opinions about whether it was really the best, or whether the smaller ones were less crowded so offered a better experience overall, but we decided to just go for it.  Places get famous for a reason, and we were arriving early enough (7am as they opened) we hoped we could beat the crowds and have a good time.

The road from town to the reserve is only paved about half of the way.  Apparently as the reserve began gaining popularity, the locals were concerned that if access was too easy, so many people would come that the park would be overrun and the very thing people wanted to see would be destroyed.  So the roads remain unpaved.  We were dropped off about 15 minutes before the park opened, so we walked around and right away began finding totally awesome bugs.  Metallic silver beetles, huge hairy caterpillars; we were thrilled before we'd even walked in the gate.  Once they did open up, we were the first ones in the door.

The park is actually very well set up for visitors.  Right in the gate there are about four different trails leading off in different directions.  You tell the attendant how long you want to hike, and they draw you a route through the park, which helps break up any congestion.  Not that we had to worry about it, there are definite perks to coming in off-season, and we only saw maybe a dozen other people the entire time we were in the park.

The forest was beautiful.  A cloud forest is different from a rain forest, in that while it doesn't get near as much rain, the clouds roll through bringing lots of moisture.  The canopy overhead was dense, blocking out a good deal of the sunlight.  The relative darkness, combined with the fluctuating mist as clouds rolled through, actually make it difficult to spot much wildlife.  We could hear birds now and then, but rarely were able to see them unless they were actually flying around.  We soon realized that we were highly unlikely to see any sort of mammal (the park does have a few, such as sloths, but they are mostly nocturnal), and were probably not going to really see any birds either.  This was a little disappointing, as this was our last chance to see the infamous Resplendant Quetzal.  The Quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala, and was highly prized by the ancient Maya for its unusually long and colorful tail feathers, which they used to dress the king.  The birds are today endangered, as they only live in narrow bands of altitude in cloud forests, and quickly die in captivity, so you won't see one in a zoo.  For months we had been hoping to see one, but this was our first, and last, real opportunity, and it was pretty clear it wasn't going to happen.

With that realization, we turned our attention from the skies down to the dirt, and started hunting bugs.  We were quickly rewarded, and the fun kept coming.  We saw bugs and beetles of every color, delicate spiders, colonies of ants, huge millipedes, and all sorts of caterpillars.  Under every leaf a new little wonder would surprise us with an unusual shape or color combination.  This, of course, meant we were walking very slow.  Usually when we are told a hike will take us four hours, with our long strides it means we can cover the distance in two.  But turning over leaves and logs meant our four hour hike took us seven.  We'd planned ahead though and brought some sandwiches from a little bakery, so we were good.

Since I was trying to take pictures of the bugs, which was difficult to the low light, David often wandered up the trail ahead of me.  Just as I was finishing up with a particularly nice tortoise beetle, David comes running and yells a single word.  "Quetzals!  Quetzals!"  I caught up and we ran back up the trail, running into another couple who were, fortuitously, with a guide.  The guide was ridiculous, pointing into the dark tangle of trees after just a moments glance.  "There is a female!"  He had a great little telescope on a tripod and had it set up in two seconds, and with much grace they let David and I take a look as well.  The females aren't as colorful as the males, but we could see her bright red chest and green face and strange little tuft on her head.  More strikingly was the gigantic green and wiggling grub she had hanging from her mouth.  "She is waiting to take that back to the nest, but is checking things out to make sure the coast is clear," the guide told us.

There were at least four of them flying around, and although the guide pointed out the males for us, they were too quick to get the telescope focused on.  Still, we were pretty thrilled and thanked the couple and the guide profusely for helping us out.  It was so satisfying, when something you've been wanting and thinking about for months just suddenly happens.  We continued on down the trail a bit, chatting happily, when suddenly David looks up and sees another female.  This time it was close enough we could use our binoculars.  As we admired her, a male comes along and finds the perfect perch to let us admire him.  His tail feathers weren't particularly long, but he was still gorgeous.  We watched them for about ten minutes before they finally flew away.  We continue down the trail, marvelling at our luck, when another male comes along. He was singing away, and this one did indeed have the long emerald green tail feathers.  He gave us quite the show, again from a perfect little perch where we could watch him.

We felt like all our Christmases had come at once.  The birds were too far away to photograph unfortunately (google one, they are worth it!), but with the binoculars we had quite the performance.  For a shy bird that most people don't get to see at all, for us to see that many that well was really unusual, and we feel extremely fortunate.

But don't kid yourself.  We still kept looking for bugs.

Leon, Granada, San Juan del Sur, and at long last, Costa Rica!

We spent three days in Leon (I'm using a hybrid American/Spanish keyboard and can't figure out how to make the accent mark dangit), mostly near the pool in our hostel as the heat was intense.  We saw a lot of churches, and had some truly excellent pizza, the best we've had since we were in Xela.  We did go to a terrific museum, that had some Picasso and Chagal and Matisse, and a lot of great pieces by Central American artists.  I generally have a pretty low threshold for enjoying museums, but I really enjoyed this one.

We stayed at the Lazybones hostel, which overall was great (did I mention the pool?) however we did get some visitors in our room at night.  It was hot, so we weren't using the mosquito nets because they blocked the fan.  The first night David felt something crawling on him, which in his half asleep daze he thought seemed like a cat, although it was too small and there was certainly not a cat in our room.  I'm thinking it was a mouse, as there were some nibbles to some food we had.  The next night something hit my face.  Something fast and leathery.  A bat!  I actually think bats are pretty cool, but getting slapped in the face by one while you are trying to sleep is decidedly uncool.  Anyway, we used our nets after that, guess they were there for a reason, cause we didn't see any mosquitoes.

From Leon, we jumped in bus to the capital, Managua, where we stayed just long enough to get off the bus and get on another to Granada.  We sat next to a local guy named Alan, who is a medical student and spoke pretty good English.  He was getting ready to go to Germany to get his PhD, and was nervous because his german wasn't very good.  Can you imagine going to college in a third language?  But he got a scholarship, so that was his best option.  We asked about the weather, wondering if it would be as hot as it had been in Leon.  He said not as hot, but he promised it would be very dry. "We only get rain maybe twice a year."  Cue rain for the next three days straight.

Granada is a lovely colonial town, making comparisons with Antigua, Guatemala hard to avoid.  But it hasn't yet had quite as many coats of polish, and still retains a slightly grittier feel, in the good sense of the word.  It has had more coats of paint however, making it quite pleasing to look at.  We holed up at the Oasis, a sister-hostel to the Lazybones, also with a pool which we enjoyed.  I even met a friendly Peace Corps Volunteer who was taking a little vacation from her rural outpost, and I think I may have talked her into going to nursing school in Albuquerque when she finishes.  It is hard to resist such a great path!

Granada is on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, a huge freshwater lake.  The lake used to have maneating bull sharks in it, the only freshwater shark in the world.  But a lucrative trade in shark fin saw the quick decimation of the species, which supposedly still exist in small pockets down the river that leads to the Caribbean coast.  We rented bicycles and rode several miles down a peninsula.  It was raining a bit, and we got splattered with mud from the tires.  But at the end of the road we saw a family of howler monkeys, much bigger in size than the ones we saw in Guatemala, and a beautiful species of jaybirds that we've been coveting since we saw their picture in a bird book in Honduras.  It was a great ride.

From Granada we decided to head to the beaches of San Juan del Sur.  Though still overcast, our luck held and it didn't rain, giving us one last chance to get some sun.  You know how sometimes walking the beach you will see some dumb little fish washed up on shore?  Here we saw three pufferfish (still puffed up!) and a large parrot fish with a huge set of teeth on him.

We were up early the next day to head to the Costa Rican border.  We had been warned this would likely be our most difficult crossing, and indeed it was.  By far.  Approaching the border we passed miles and miles of semi-trucks, which were stopped along the side of the road, single file, inching so slowly toward the border that the drivers were wandering around the street in little groups.  I can't even imagine how long it takes them to get through, but I can't see how they would all get through in a day.

Once we got to the border, the usual group of "helpers" attached themselves to us hoping we would change money with them.  But they proved quite useful in navigating the maze to the immigration office.  After paying three different sets of "fees" (all of which were supposedly legit, according to our guidebook), we got flustered and jumped on an international bus.  These busses are far more comfortable than the chicken busses, and also far more expensive.  But we were confused and decided just to splurge for the convenience.  After waiting a bit for the people who came through on the bus to finish at Nicaraguan immigration, the bus drove us over to the Costa Rican side and we got in line.  Luckily the rain had stopped, because we were standing outside in line for over two hours. At one point, there was a mass movement as 50 - 75 people in line ahead of us suddenly left the line and walked away.  I have no idea what they were doing or where they were going, or why they all decided to leave at once.  But it probably saved us another hour of waiting, so we were grateful for the mystery. Once we finally made it into the building, we saw that there were exactly two officials moving people through.  They were friendly and efficient, but hopelessly backlogged.  There must be some rhyme or reason to why the Costa Rican government doesn't just hire a few more people, as this crossing is notorious for being long and awful, but I can't imagine what the reason is.  We made it through, the officials making a show of everyone on the bus getting their bags out to be inspected, but then just waved all the backpackers through without checking anything on us, though they did a cursory check of the locals.

Next came the intrigue of us finding our stop.  The bus was express to San Jose, but we wanted to get off before that at the turnoff to the cloud forest reserve of Monteverde.  The guy who sold us our ticket said it would be no problem, but of course he was now nowhere to be found.  We talked to who I thought was the driver and one of the assistants, but we didn't know the name of the place we wanted to be dropped off, and that seemed to be confusing them.  We weren't even really sure what would happen when we got dropped off on the side of the road, we just assumed that we would be able to find another form of transport to the reserve.  The drivers sort of smiled and nodded and blew us off, so as we took off we were stressed that they might not stop where we needed to go, but were also stressed that they would, because we weren't sure what we would do then.  Then the rain started, which is never a friend to a backpack.

But, as usual, it all worked out.  They dropped us off at the right place, just after the rain stopped.  A cabbie tried to get us to pay $50 to take us direct, but he also admitted the public bus would be by just over an hour later.  We waited (and looked at bugs, natch) until the bus came, and we paid about $3 for the ride to Santa Elena, the town outside of the reserve.

Sorry there are no pictures on this post (and I got a great one of the parrotfish!), but this afternoon I was checking out the camera and the bus hit a bump and I managed to format my camera card.  groan.  I'm pretty sure I will be able to recover the pics once I get home (at least I hope!), but there is no doing it from here.  Technology is the best thing ever, until it isn't.