Cusco, Pêru

I´m here way up high in Cusco. We arrived yesterday morning at 8am after a 12 hour bus ride from Arequipa. We are staying at LOKI Hostel and it´snice here. The only problem is, the hostel is HUUUGE and it´s hard to not hog the computers. there is always a line of some sort.

I no longer have a fever which is AWESOME! I, still, however am only restricted to a very tiny bit of food each day and water with gatorade (ELECTROLYTE!!!)
I´m definately taking care of myself because I can! I don´t have to pressure my self to get to work.I stayed in bed ALL day yesterday and last night. Kevin went out with some people we met last night in the dorm room (10 person dorm room) pretty busy and hard to avoid meeting people. He´s still sleeping because I slept for 14 hours and he came in late last night or early morning. Can´t wait to hear his stories.
I will update the blogand back track a bit about the Colca Canyon Trek. It was beautiful and quite a calm town full of genuine locals.

Condor Lookout. Before the trek...

Colca Canyon Trek.

Day 1 after 9 hour bus ride. Not feeling well... Toughed it out and hiked 5 or 6 hours downhill with walking sticks.



starting the trek


Day 2: Much easier hike. We were able to stop through different towns, see the local school, the local hospital and the area where they celebrate and have a 3 to 4 day dance competition.





a town we stopped in

hiking




in another town a woman who served others corn alcohol and help our guide describe what was in the museum we saw from pre-inca times





before getting to the oasis and right before an uphill hike





the oasis pool we arrived to..
relaxing after a swim and before not eating dinner



Day 3: I had to take a mule up the hill. The third day is uphill only and with my illness and weak knees AND with our time constraint to catch the bus. The mule took me up. But afterwards we met back up in Cabanaconde where I saw many children just playing in the streets while their parents were out at work. Then Miguel took a picture of me with the lady who sells ice cream in Cabanaconde. We had lunch in some town on the way back to Arequipa. We stopped at another lookout point where there were SOO many stacked rocks and another adorable child!

the morning before the ride

the ride




kevin`s photo from his hike

It´s not Coca Cola It´s Colca Canyon

After a night starting at 5pm. I´m pretty sure I had a fever. I think I had altitude sickness.

We are preparing for our 3 day 2 night trek in Colca Canyon. In a few hours at 3am we will be picked up by a bus. Ride the bumpy roads for 5 hours. Hike from Chivay to Cruz del Condor where we will have lunch. from Cruz del Condor we trek to Pampa San Miguel and stay there overnight. The next morning Day 2 we trek or hike to Malata where there is an Oasis and hot springs. We stay the night here. Day 3 we wake up at 5am and hike all up hill. We will being going through the towns of Cabanaconde, Pinchollo, Maca, Achoma, Yanque and Chivay.

Just hangin out in the computer room listening to American music all day. Just finished listening to "Mister Roboto" Kevin and I were laughing the whole time.

Arequipa, Peru

So after traveling from Lima to Paracas, Paracas to Ica and Ica to here. We are currently in Arequipa. We have been town hopping south south and south.

Paracas: We were here for 4 hours and went on a boat tour to the Ballestas Islands and saw billions of birds, sea lions, penguins and more. The cutest and my favorite were the penguins. I´m pretty sure I will be able to put up the video soon!
im on a boat!




penguins

sea lions

Ica: We were here for 1 night. An amazing Oasis in the middle of a sand desert! SO shocking to see this in the middle of Peru. Seriously, beautiful to see an oasis lake in between mountains of sand. Kevin attempted to go sand boarding. I dont know what happened, but in combination with lack of time and a half broken board Kevin failed. He exchanged the board and failed again. I watched and took video :)We left this town at 830 pm for a 12 hour bus ride to Ica. The nice thing is we booked the overnight bus ride so we saved on what money we potentially would have paid on a night´s stay at any given hostel. We slept for the majority of the bus ride but often had dreams the bus was maneuvering around a turn and flew off a cliff (as this is what it felt like) Yes we did fork over more money for the included bathroom on the luxury bus. The video that played on the bus declared a list of given rules the bus had like always fastening your seatbelt. it also CLEARLY states and repeats: "Ürination only in the toilets." hilarious. People sadly did not follow the rules. Because the bus was so turbulent and bumpy when I got into the bathroom there was urine everywhere. I´ll stop the story there.
Kevin and I luckily laughed pretty hard at all the human extrements we were submitted to in the back of the bus. Luckily we made light of it and after maybe 1 hour and the bus attendant literally spraying air freshener we were able to fall asleep with our nose hairs burning. hahaha
here are pictures of Ica

this is the main oasis


this is a shot from our room of the pool and the sand mountain behind!!


Arequipa: Hot here, nice "southern california" weather. and it´s supposed to be winter right now. crazy.
Right when we got off the bus (used the ground bathroom and took forever to fight for our bags) We went out to the taxi area. There were four taxi driver men looking for customers. OUT WE CAME. the one closest to us and by order the one who was SUPPOSED to take us. Saw us. Turned around. A fellow taxi driver says "those are your customers" (in spanish) This man, as he turns away from us says "No me gusta" which means he didnt like us. Man.... Kevin and I laughed the whole taxi ride and tipped him, for actually taking us. hahaha
We are currently staying at Koala Hostel in Arequipa and it´s nice here. We got here so early this morning after our 12 hour bus ride we were in time for the complimentary breakfast. which is always nice. Nap we go.

What are they honking at?

It seems as though the taxi and bus drivers are constantly confused. So much honking. I just realized they honk to get your attention to offer you a ride. Also, in reverse technique they raise their hand out the window and at YOU for you to choose them as your means of transportation. If your shoelace is hanging in the street behind you they will honk. I´m sure.

We actually witnessed a car accident yesterday and in shock the driver who got hit, reasonably got out of his car to assess the damage and the collective bus (WITH NO TIME SCHEDULE TO ADHERE TO) honked for 3 minutes straight. What is the reason? Silly drivers.

Today we took a double decker tour through Lima which was an additional tour included in our original tour to see more Inca ruins. Anywho, on our way to the ruins there was a huge area for drivers to receive their license and the drivers practiced not individually but in a very car filled road in this educational driving center and Kevin and I joked. This is where they learn to honk. It must be true.

In one very fancy restaurant I went in (for bathroom use only) I noticed right as I entered the restroom facility there was a wall filled with hand towel dispensers, soap dispensers and what the heck? A toilet seat cover dispenser. The idea here is that the restaurant owners seek to suit their bathrooms for possibly Americans or Canadians. Whatever countries carry toilet seat covers. But THEIR dispenser was empty. They realized, in our countries we flush paper. This does not work for Peru. Hence, the empty dispencer looking like it knows what it´s doing on the wall by the entrance of the bathroom.

TACA TACA ALPACA

Yesterday we went to Lima Centro.
We saw historical buildings. The most impressive was the Basilica and Convent of San Francisco. This is now a museum and no pictures were allowed, so sadly I have NONE of the inside. The interior included amazing tiles imported from Sevilla, Spain. Ceiling woodwork with wood imported from both Nicaragua and Panama. The dressing rooms for the religious monks had large wooden drawers with personalized 2d etchings above each drawer. They had a beautiful, very impressive two story library where they only used natural skylights to read (to prevent fire from candle lit reading) There was so much more. One notable part of the Convent was the underground catacombs. These catacombs were the burial grounds for about 250,000 religious figures! They were creepy and had skulls and femurs on display throughout the full scale catacomb tour.

On a brighter note we walked through two major plaza´s in downtown Lima. One is the major man plaza and the other is called Plaza Saint Martin. They include large statues in the center and sometimes fountains. They were green with wonderful seating areas.

We got to try cebiche which was highly recommended and rightfully so. With a nice spicy kick it was fresh with a tastey lime base. This fancy restaurant we went to layed the cebiche dish over a sweet potato slice and the peruvian corn (huge kernels). Our lunch for two which included apetizer, main dish, dessert and soda FOR TWO was a total of $7 USD. Incredible deal!

We took a colleective bus there and back which is a whole other story in itself. This bussing system is truly unique!It is a municipal bus, a privately owned microbus or a collective minibus. The driver gets to ONLY drive which is nice because the streets are BUSY and FULL of honking. There is a person who hangs out the bus door which is actuall placed in the middle of the bus. He repetitively shouts the destination of the bus and a few minutes after hopefully succeeding at getting YOU to ride on his bus he collects the fair for the bus ride which again is either 1.5 or 2 soles. SUPER CHEAP! They also pretty much stop where-ever you want to get off. CONVENIENT!

On the way back we tried churros which were too buttery and Kevin tried these tiny hard boiled eggs. the shells were white with black speckles which we later found out were quail eggs. I did not try them, Kevin says they taste no different from regular eggs.

TODAY. no bus required we walked to Huaca Pucllana the only standing Pre-Inca remains. Kevin and I received a private tour in English (it was a slow wed. afternoon) by a Japanese Peruvian. It must have been a 2 hour tour around the remains with all the questions we asked. It was fascinating history.

We walked again to the Inca Markets after our informational historic tour where I bargained and bought an intricately hand embroidered wallet for $2 USD. The work the Incans and locals do to produce these purses, gloves, scarves, wallets and everything is so impressive.

We are taking a break before going to a local restaurant to try some recommended Lima local food. I will try the sweet potato dishes and I will let Kevin try Alpaca and GUinea PIG!! yikes!

Later we were told to try the local drink a "Pisco Sour" happy hour is soon approaching!

Miraflores, Lima, Peru

preincan ruins !!!

Well, the minute we were picked up by our hostel taxi and entered the town of Lima I could not put my camera down. Culture was everywhere. This town is so different from Costa Rica.

Each cube shaped house building has a rooftop floor with hanging laundry. The buildings similar to Costa Rica are painted bright cheerful colors. There are many buildings falling to crumbles and not being repaired.

On our way to Miraflores there was a major reconstruction phase for the beach and unlike San Diego (which usually has roads closed and cones everywhere) Lima had tons of workers doing visible work and repairs and painting buldings. It was nice to see such a huge effort to repair their city.

We passed a neighborhood VERY similar to La Jolla, San Diego and ended up in Miraflores in Lima. Miraflores is a safe town day and night which is comforting!

We trekked to the bank and through the town square. We walked down Inca Indian Market street where there are BILLIONS of crafts, jewelery, fabrics and knick knacks from Peru. It was so colorful and again full of history and culture.

Today is our first day waking up in Lima. We are staying at PIRWA HOSTAL and they served delicious free breakfast. Bananas warm rolls with strawberry jam with coffee and mango juice.

We are off to Downtown Lima to visit churches and old colonial buildings. Iglesia de San Francisco has catacombs too!

Santa Teresa de Cobano ....Mal Pais (Costa Rica)

Well we´ve been in Mal Pais for a few days now.
We are staying at Casa Del Mar which is 500 meters down from Tranquila Backpackers. There were no reviews for Casa Del Mar but we had a recommendation for this place from another hostel. The recommendation was correct. It´s a relaxing place full of surfers. The new owner and his wife are 30 something and live such a chill lifestyle of upkeeping the place (which includes letting their friends live there and clean and fix things in return) The place is FULL of hammocks and it is just SO relaxing here.

The MOMENT we arrived.... it was the first day we had been at a beach without rain so we quickly changed into our swimsuits and swam and layed out. We watched the sunset over the pacific beyond the low clouds and fog and soon the lightning and thunder began. It was all so perfect. For as many people as we see booked in hostels and walking around the town...the actual beaches are SO SURPRISINGLY vacant. Its so different from San Diego.

The crazy thing is the waves, here. You walk 5 feet past the water´s edge and there are INTENSE waves. The first time I got in the water I was confident the wave only a few feet in would be fine for me to walk towards and it pushed my feet behind me like in a cartoon scene ... face approaching the water straight in front of me. I had a great laugh. Good thing Kevin is a trained lifeguard. haha The 2nd day of swimming I also literally got knocked on my behind FROM A WAVE! fun.

Today will be a beautiful day again. I think the rain passed.
Today will include Kevin watching more than one soccer game on tv with the locals and hostel owners. Which means, I get to paint in my journal.

In each hostel there is a little area where you can use the things people have left behind and at THIS hostel someone left a travelers mini set of paints and it surely is awesome!! I´ve been enjoying just reading, writing and drawing. This is the life for me.

Tomorrow we head out to San Jose´Costa Rica, the main city... to prepare for our flight Monday morning at 10AM. From There we are off to Lima, Peru. It should actually be more settling there. In Costa Rica we´ve been rushing to get to every city we could because we had an 11 day deadline. In Peru we are very adamant about not hostel hopping as much and trying to relax and explore one town.