I always knew getting to Machu Pichu was complicated and I kind of didn´t want to think about it.  Before I thought it was close to Cuzco, and it isn´t.  So you can get there by taking a train from Cuzco which is the priciest.  You can get yourself ot a little town called Ollantaytambo and then take the train, which is what we did.  You can walk the Inca Trail, but not in February because it is closed.  Or maybe you could hanglide into it, but I don´t know. 

We got on a little bus to go to Ollantaytambo in the morning.  As we got on another tourist couple got on.  THe man was confusing.  He was a big, tough guy, but had a bright red bandana tied around his neck.  Anyway, the bus was a classic ride.  Packed with people all over the aisles, huge sacks of potatoes, steep cliffs and steep turns.  The only thing we were missing were chickens.  The confusing guy was standing near us and he said in this loud, great, New York accent: Dis is worse dan da New Yawk Subway! It was great.  There we were on this little bus and there was a fellow New Yawkah.  We chatted a bit and then he got off and we continued on our way.

We got to Ollantaytambo and it was a very sweet little town with a huge Inca fortress looking over it.  We were getting ready to get on the train and who was there? Our English friend, Darren, from Lima.  We hung out one night with him in Lima and he cracked us up with his Scottish accent.  The train ride was very posh and amazing.  I got the front seat! And Edwin got a seat with 3 Swedish girls.  Who was happier? I´m not sure.  He told them stories the whole time and then they came up to see me and were like: Ohhh, Edwin is sooo smart! It was really funny.

Anyway, we pulled into Aguas Calientes which is the town at the foot of Machu Pichu and settled into the night with Darren, a nice Japanese girl and a bottle of rum.  It was a funny night at our hostel.

We pulled into Cuzco after a long 16 hour bus ride.  It was finally green in Peru.  Green, cool, and totally beautiful.  Cuzco is a fairly big town and very colonial.  It is also very, very high.  It is about 10,500 feet above sea level and notorious for soroche or altitude sickness.  Which seems to be what happened to me the first day we got there.  Whatever it was, I was in bed for the day.  Then worked the second day of Cuzco, so things were pretty quiet.

Finally on Thursday we got out to the ruins outside of Cuzco.  We went to Tumbo Machay, a water temple.  There Edwin made friends with a code-switching Quechua alpaca farmer who kept asking if we had chocolate.  We saw Puka Pukara and then headed down to Qénqo which is an altar and amphitheatre.  There was a guy there who was selling things and started talking to us.  He asked where we were from and Edwin said ¨colombia¨. Then he looked at me and said: But you are Colombian.  Colombians are pretty.  WHAT?? I didn´t hit him, but I should of.  Instead I went into the altar and cursed him and all of his artesanias.  I´ve got some mean witchcraft, so he better watch out…. anyway, this is how peruvians in general have treated me since I got here.  Mean, rude, and sometimes even cruel. 

Then we went to Saksaywayman which is this enormous old palace and temple area outside of Cuzco.  It was beautiful.  Then we took a taxi ride home and the taxi guy told us the story of why there are all of these strikes in Cuzco.  Machu Pichu has been shut down a couple of times in the last few weeks because the government wants to privatize the site.  Basically when this guy Toledo was president, he put the land up for sale and sold it to his friends and former presidents.  Now that they own it, they want to privatize it so they can take all the money the place earns…which is 50,000 dollars a day!!!! Well, i think that is strike worthy!

We were in Lima for about 3 days and it was a good, good time.  We rolled in early in the morning and found a place to stay.  It was time for me to get real about working and finishing the genre study, so that is what I did.  Edwin, in the meantime, caught up with his high school friend Diana and his Boston friend, Pablo.

Lima was full of philosophical conversations.  People were in that mood.  I talked about love with an English hooligan, age with a little Chilean, past lives with Diana, and just about everything else with Pablo.  I spent a lot of time talking…and working.  All good things.

Lima itself was really nice…well parts.  It is a big city and obviously has everything in it.  We stayed in Miraflores, of course.  THis is snobo gringo land filled with pitucos! THis is peruvian word for snob.  I went to the fancy shopping mall called Larcomar that has a STARBUCKS!!!! Did I go?? Did I?? Of course I did! I got a chai latte and listened to Aimee Mann sing and wrote in my snobby little mall about my snobby little life!  Also, there was Dunkin DOnuts! And they had CHOCOLATE COOLATAS!!!! Do you remember these things? I loved them about ten years ago, but they are disgusting.  I did not buy one of those, but it made me happy that they still exist.

We saw old town Lima which was really nice and went to this terrifying museum full of bones.  It was a church and really nice, beautiful, all fancy.  Then you went underneath the church and walked through the catacombs.  They have made these catacombs like a sorting chamber for bones.  There are piles of skulls everywhere! It is terrifying!

We left Lima yesterday and got down to Nasca.  We flew over the Nasca lines this morning.  TOtally amazing and out of control.  The plane was the size of my bathroom in NYC apartment so therefore totally scary.  But worth it! Tonight we are heading to Cuzco and will be there and around there for about 5 days or so.  I am really excited to get to the mountains! To get out of this desert heat!

Hope all is well! Write! Lots of love!

So it´s been two weeks today on the road.  Traveling around and sleeping in different places almost every night.  I realized that my life has once agin come down to the Triple B.  Only now it´s a little different.  Now it is all about buses, beds, and beer.  I think that is a pretty sweet life, so I will comment about my Triple B.

Buses: Long distance busrides have always appealed to me.  I like them.  I like being stationary and moving at the same time.  I like that it is this time when you can´t really do anything at all.  But all of this assumes that you are on a comfortable good bus.  THere are some of those down here, but not always.  Colombia has great, super comfortable buses.  Big chairs, soft music, bathrooms that are open all the time.  Then we got to Ecuador and I have to say that the only bad thing about that country was the buses.  They were weird.  First, the bathrooms were always locked and so you had to ask them to open them.  The bus helper always got kind of mad if he had to open it, so it was annoying.  Then often, the bathroom was actually broken and there was nothing to do then except they lied about it! You ask to open the bathroom and they say…yes yes, one second.  Then they wouldn´t open it until finally they said it was broken!  The music on the buses there was also insanely loud and they wouldn´t turn it down.  They blasted reggaeton, weird cumbia, baladas, everything and of course, Aventura.  Buses in Peru so far have been mixed.  Some have been good, some have not.  We are taking an overnight, double-decker bus to Lima tonight, so hopefully that will be good.  So, so far, Colombia wins the buses.

Beds: In 15 days we have slept in about 12 different beds and I must say I am becoming quite a flexible sleeper.. can you believe it? I can sleep in any bed, but so far the best ones have been in some hostels.  Thick mattresses always come without thick pillows.  Thick pillows always come with thin mattresses.  I even slept on a mattress with holes in it, big ones that they had stuffed with blankets! Wow!

Beer: I forgot how much I like beer.  I can´t really drink it, but I have been.  Colombia has Aguila in it´s yellow can.  Ecuador has Pilsener whose slogan is ¨Ecuatorianamente Refrescante¨which is pretty awesome.  It means Refreshing, Ecuadorian style.  More or less! But Peru is totally winning the beer test.  They have tons of beers and actually have dark beer that is made locally.  Ahhh. Cuzqueno!

So we´ll see who wins these little games we are playing.  These are the things we are checking…

Who has the best party? Who has the nicest, friendliest people? Best food? Best landscape? Best ocean? Best internet connections? Best hostel? Best fellow travelers? So we´ll see.  I will keep you up to date!

Well the last posting kind of sucked, for the computer techs that are reading this, please figure a new website where sharing pictures from abroad is not so complicated!! You could make a fortune! Well I guess from now on I will have to share few pictures and not slide shows. We got to ecuador about 2 weeks ago and it was wonderful. Ecuador has been for long time the underdog for Colombian snobs!. Usually regarded as backward,but I was happily surprised by a very organized, put together and proud country. Ecuador struck me with a very organized airport, bigger than Bogota’s, a clean and helpful city, and tons of tourist. For my fellow Colombians who won’t believe here are some picts to prove it!

Hello to everyone, Beca and I are finally in Peru. It has been a super interesting trip and we’ve been having a lot of fun. We are in a small Pacific beach called Huanchaco. Here we finally had the chance to write in the blog and try to upload some pictures. Hopefully you get to see them and enjoy them. this first set is of Panama. We spended few hours there and got a short glimpse of the city. It really reminded me of the South Bronx. Well what can I say? There is plenty of Panamenians in NYC!

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Here we are on the beach in the best hostel we have found so far.  It is right next to the beach with whitewashed walls, a turtle hanging out there who lets you pet it, great beds and generally really nice.  The clientelle is a little upscale though! I´m not so sure we belong.  Most people are surfers and are hanging out to surf, but in their spare time they read- Proust, Gogol, Faulkam´s Razer, and other really fancy books! I mean, are these people on vacation or are they working on a literary degree? The friendliness factor, therefore, is a little lower than it was before.  But in general people are nice

One shameful thing though… I am a wimp! A beach WIMP! I mean I grew up with the roaring Atlantic and could surf in the surf (not on a board) with the best of them.  But today I faced the Pacific and was scared! The caribbean weakened me or something.  I got too used to the lolling waves of the caribbean and now I am weak! How will I ride in the reed boats if I am too scared to swim??

Oh well, maybe I will just hole up with some Neitzche instead and fit in with this fancy-pants crowd!!

We made it out of Piura two days ago and arrived about 3 hours south in a little town called Chiclayo.  We drove through the dusty, sandy, Sechuran desert and I have to admit my ignorance. Peru has deserts??? I guess so and a lot of little desert towns which is what we have been in for the last few days.  We stayed the night in Chiclayo, realized that the reason we were there was closed, and watched cable TV! This morning we went to their famous Mercado de los Brujos, the witches market and were offered a number of hallucinogenic drugs.  Which, don´t worry, we didn´t buy.  We will leave that to the druggie travelers!

We jumped on a bus this afternoon to Trujillo.  This was not the nicest bus, but what can you do.  They showed a movie with The Rock, so I was happy.  YOu know I love that guy!  And we got, finally, after 3 dusty hot days to the ocean.  We pulled into the beach town of Huanchaco and immediately I felt better.  It is warm, but there is a breeze and the huge Pacific is crashing next to our hostel.  I cannot complain.  We will be here for a few days while we wait out the farming strike that has shut down the Panamerican highway south of here.  Hopefully we will make it into Lima at some point….

Our plans for the beach? Eat ceviche, drink beer, take a ride on the local fisherman´s boat made of reeds and then relax.  I also have to work! The plan is to finish the genre study by the end of the week! I hope so!

Write to us friends. Let us know how you are!

So we are officially in Peru now! We said goodbye to Ecuador with a strange overnight busride from Loja Ecuador.  The ride from Cuenca to Loja was about 5 hours through unbelievable countryside.  I´ve honestly never seen anything like it!

Ecuador was great and it was sad to leave.  The people there are so nice and helpful.  They love Aventura and Bachata music! IT was funny.  All over the streets was DR music blasting, but at a reasonable level because Ecuadorians aren´t that scandolous! The country is really organized and el campo is beautiful.  Outside of the cities, most people still use their traditional indigenous clothes and seem to live pretty comfortable lives.  Of course, it´s poverty, but it´s poverty with new houses and volleyball games and what seems like a life full of dignity.  We were in Quito, Banos, Riobamba, Alausi, Cuenca and Loja.  So we stuck pretty much in the Andes cordillera and enjoyed great weather, fun people, nice hostels and a generally great time

 We pulled into Peru about 4 in the morning in the pouring rain.  WE checked out of Ecuador and then ran across a bridge and into Peru.  We pulled into Piura, Peru, a desert town that is somewhere close to the middle of hell for me! It was hot and hot and hot with no breeze.  BUt we were picked up by Meadow´s friends and had a totally great time with them.  Dani, an australian, married Coco, a piureno, and have a beautiful baby girl Isabela.  THey were amazing hosts and had a bed and a cup of coffee waiting for us! We went to a local market and had amazing cebiche and fish and hung out with them for the day.  It was like a little respite in our trip with wonderful, generous hosts and a whole lot of kindness! THank you sweet friends!

Now we are somewhere on the coast….we will be in Lima soon! More coming!

So, we are a week into our trip and still in Ecuador.  We have been through the main attractions: thermal baths, volcanos, rickety train rides, and now in Cuenca.  We will miss the oldest town in Ecuador, where people live to 135 years, but we are moving on to Peru today.

One thing I didn´t expect at all was the totally wild people I would meet on this trip.  I thought it was going to be me and Edwin, the fantastic twosome, traveling alone.  We even brought playing cards! Isn´t that what married people do?  But we have yet to spend a night alone.  Staying in hostels is the wierdest thing I´ve ever experienced.  Everyone is super nice and all looking for friends and people to hang out with.  We have met some really great and kind of weird people.  I already talked about the Chilenos, and the crazy Gringo, and our sweet friend Carolina.  In Cuenca, we´ve met a nice Spanish guy and a Greek dude who has been traveling for a year! Following the drug trail.  It´s a little wacked out, but the man has taken drugs all over the world. 

We´ve talked about everything under the sun.  After 6 months stuck in Colombia, it´s been a relief to so freely talk about things that are deep and interesting.  Mostly the conversations are about God and Politics.  This seems to be the the way things go! So I am happy about this.  I´ve learned crazy things about other countries and have had some great nights.  All of this comes along with a lot of drinking and smoking, which I think will not be so good when we want to climb Machu Pichu, but we´ll see!

 Hope all is well with you guys! I´ll be writing more soon! And sending some pictures!