Welcome to the Jungle

So after we got back from the Pampas (the flatlands, see the two posts below for details on that), we had a night in Rurrenabarque and then headed out at 9am on the back of a motorcycle to the nearby river where we got on another, bigger boat that headed a different direction and took us into the jungle of the Bolivian Amazon basin.

The ride was fairly non-descript, except for beautiful scenery (including colorful macaw parrots that live in holes that the dig into the sides of the hills that line the river), until we reached a low part of the river where everyone had to jump out of the boat into rushing current and actually PUSH the boat upstream by hand...wasn´t expecting that. So the rest of the ride to camp was very wet. We arrived on shore after about 3 hours and then carried all of our stuff to the camp that was about 15 minutes walk from the river in the middle of the jungle.

Whereas the Pampas was all about seeing animals, this was mostly about seeing crazy jungle plants. It rained very hard a lot of the time so there was a cool dripping sound almost the entire time we were there. On our first hike around the area our guide showed us all kinds of cool things. At one point he stopped and chopped off this vine that he then tipped into our mouths...the best water that I have ever tasted flowed out into our mouths...nature`s water bottle. Another plant he grabbed and mashed up in his hands and after a while a blood-red juice came out and he painted our faces with it...natures face paint. At another spot a gigantic tree had a huge vine hanging down from it that we took turns swining on like tarzan...natures playground. Another huge tree he showed us apparently is filled with a sap that is toxic, the natives used to gather the sap and then would go ¨fishing¨ by just throwing the sap into the water and gathering the dead fish that would float to the top...nature´s version of dynamite fishing. Another tree bled this white sap that is a very effective glue which natives would use to bind wounds...nature´s bandaid. You get the idea. It was cool stuff, just not as amazing as the wildlife of the Pampas tour...UNTIL

UNTIL, we did a night hike. We walked around for about an hour with 3 other people. Two of whom were the most whiny, complaining people ever and all they did was bitch. We had a great guide who had a great sense of humor, he didnt speak any English, but was always making jokes in Spanish about how he didn´t know where he was and how we were going to die. Anyway, after an hour he was like ¨lets drop the crybabies off and I will show you something crazy.¨ So we left the whining couple at camp and set off on another trail. After about 5 minutes we got to a tree where lived the largest F-ING spider I have ever seen in my life and will ever see...this was out of Harry Potter 2...freaking huge. It was hiding in the roots of the tree, then the guide put a bug in front of it and it came all the way out...pounced all the way out was more like it. This thing was like a small football...a taranchula, but not the brown kind. This one was jet black and had 10 legs instead of 8. These things dont make webs because they are fast enough to just hunt their prey straight up, and their prey includes BIRDS. Needless to say, I was pooping and peeing in my pants at the same time. Although I think this actually helped my arachnaphobia because every other spider I will ever see just looks so tiny in comparison. It made the whole trip to the jungle worthwhile just to see this thing.

This trip was much shorter, just two days and one night so it was over before it began but it was worth it. The flight back to La Paz in the tiny 10 person plane was great until the last 15 minutes when mountain winds hit our plane at full force and we were thrown around the sky like a toy...I have never felt turbulance like that and the guy in front of us lost his cookies. Laura almost did but we made it down ok and after a few shaky minutes were back to normal. Between the Pampas and the jungle though, it was an incredibly memorable adventure.

Aligators, Pirhanas, and Pink Dolphins, Oh My!

So I just hopped on the internet to follow the Cal game against Oregon...bad idea...verrrry bad idea...so instead I will try to cheer myself up by telling you how awesome our trip to the Bolivian Amazon was.

I got really sick right before we left, with another fever of over 100 degrees. It was a miserable day and a half but luckily I was better by the time we left for the airport in La Paz at 7am. We got on the smallest plane that I have ever ridden in (we were in the vcry back and I felt like I could reach forward and mess around with the controls in the cockpit, it was that small)...very scary but amazingly beautiful views of snow-capped mountains that surrounded our plane. Then things got totally covered in fog and clouds and we decended into the `airport` in Rurrenabarque, which is really just a tiny stretch of mud and grass in the middle of the jungle that looks more or less like Jurassic Park. Suddenly we went from around 14,000 feet in La Paz, with chilly air and wind, to a steamy, hot jungle.

We then took at 2.5 hour jeep through the pooring rain on unpaved roads (the jeep in front of us spun out of control and got stranded on the side of the road, luckily we had a better driver) and finally made it to a river where we packed all of our stuff onto a little boat with 7 people and we were off down the river...this is where things got crazy.

This river was litterally teaming with huge aligators...we freaked out at the first one but soon realized that we would be seeing one literally every 5 to 10 feet. Most of them were in the water so you could only see their two creepy eyes staring at you, and many of them could slowly submerge themselves as we approached which was totally disconcerting. The other thing was that our guide was not afraid to get us within a pubic hair of these huge beasts. Literally he would steer the boat right up to them so that, if we had wanted to, we could have reached out and touched their pearly white teeth. Of course, we were discourged from putting our hands outside of the boat by stories about the aligators attack of choice which is called the `death roll`where the aligator clamps onto your hand or arm with its powerful jaws and then starts madly rolling its body so that after 3 rolls, your arm rips off your body...yikes...this was a pretty effective way of getting us to follow the hands in the boat rule.

In addition to the omnipresent aligators, the river was also full of all kinds of exotic looking birds. All of them were constantly diving down for fish and flipping wiggling fish into their long beaks which was pretty cool to watch. Then there were monkeys, the first of which immediately jumped onto the boat next to us and jumped from seat to seat...fish constantly jumping out of the water...and cute turles clinging to logs all over the place. Add in this animal called the Copibara, which is a HUGE (I mean huge) flat-nosed cousin of the rat and you get an idea of how chock full of amazing wildlife this river was.

The cherry on top though was the fact that PINK DOLPHINS also inhabit this river. No joke. I have no idea how they got there but they are there and there are lots of them. They pop up all the time and make a sound like a person who has been under water for too long and is gasping for air...such a human sound, it was very weird and amazing. The crazy thing is that the dolphins are able to thrive because they can see well under the water (aligators can´t) so they can kick the crap out of aligators with their noses. On the last day we were able to swim with the dolphins because they protect humans from aligators, pirhanas, and the other nasty things that live in the river. Swimming around in a river while you can make eye contact with a hungry looking aligator about 25 feet from your face, all the while knowing that you are being protected by pink dolphins, is a unique feeling, I assure you.

We stayed on the river for 2 nights at the camp site which had great food and hammocks with views of the river (and its own nearby aligators that we fed our leftovers to every morning...nothing like seeing an aligator stalk and then savagely attack with snapping jaws a piece of toast with jelly on it). The first morning we went on a 3 hour hike through waist high grasslands filled with crazy looking cows, horses, bees, wasps, birds, etc. All the while we were hunting for an Anaconda (yeah, the giant snake)...of course it was Laura that found one...she´ll tell you about that experience in another post. It was as big as me though and heavy as hell (we got to hold it by the tail).

We also did two different night rides in the boat down the river. Imagine pitch dark on all sides, expect the hundreds of fireflies that light up the tree line above you. Then, on all sides of us, through the overhanging vines and branches of the trees, you can see eyes of the lurking aligators. So many eyes. And we had red headlights so all the eyes are the brilliant, dark red. It was straight out of a disneyland ride, except it was real. At on point we passed an aligator nest filled with at least 25 newborn aligators and there were about 80 red eyes all gleaming out at us from the darkness...one of the coolest and also scariest things I have ever seen.

The whole time we had great company with people that we had actually met several days before in Copacabana, and also two guys from southern Germany who were really nice. Conversations at night got a little weird becuase everyone had mosquito nets over their beds so you couldnt see anyone else...we called these beds CEP´s (consequence eliminating pods) becuase you could say anything without anyone seeing you, so things ot a little weird needless to say. Anyway, great food and beers served both nights in front of a beautiful sunset made this one of the highlights of our trip for sure. Laura is going to put some pictures up so you can maybe get an idea of what this looked like.

Now we are in Sucre after an overnight bus that smelled like poop the entire time (from a combination of a USED diaper that somebody left on the leg rest of my seat and a live baby that was pooping its pants the whole time I´m sure)...but this is a beautiful city filled with white-washed buildings and red tile roofs, that used to be the capital. Tomorrow we head out to the largest market in Bolvia, then Monday we are signed up for a bike ride that ends at a nearby park that is the largest park in the world with preserved dinosaur footprints (cool?), then we are headed to the Potosi silver mines on Tuesday which is apparently a ghastly but amazing site to behold because the conditions are so awful. Finally, we will do a 3 day tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats which are the largest salt flats in South America...featuring a hotel made of salt (dont know how they do that) and colorful lagoon with flamingos. Then a day or two in La Paz and then we are home! So hopefully we are going out with a bang these next few days. Both of us are excited to get home and get our lives up and running, but its sad that our trip has gone by so fast. Hope everyone is doing well and, at least for those of you in Cali, we will see you soon!

I am the heir of Slytherin

Mike is right, I AM psychic, or the last heir of Slytherin. We just got back from a week in the pampas (flatlands) and jungle, which Mike is going to write about in great detail, but I get dibs on the anaconda day for reasons which will soon be obvious.

After waking up in our little CEPs (see Mike´s post), we had a delicious breakfast of pancakes and UFOs (unidentified fried objects) and set off to hike to the treeline where the anacondas apparently live. The anaconda-spotting rate is down to only 30% right now because it´s dry season, but I was optimistic and told Mike not to worry because I had had a vivid dream that I found the anaconda. Arrogant, I know. But dream Laura was already aware of my secret snake-whispering powers....

So after hours hiking we met up with another disillusioned tour group who had had no success in finding an anaconda. This Kiwi guy from the other group suggested we all split up to wade through the grass looking for the anacondas so that we cover more ground, because up until that point we were just tagging behind the guides. I told him I was not about to stumble through tall grass on my own with the largest species of snake looming down below, and that I was sticking to the trail.

And then it happened. Dream Laura took over and unleashed my Parcel Tongue abilities (Mike has finally gotten me to make Harry Potter references). With the Kiwi guy still walking next to me, I said "If I were a snake..... I would be..... right......" and I walked over to the tall grass, parted it, and said "HERE" only to find the anaconda sitting right before me!!!! The Kiwi guy and everyone around immediately thought I was a witch, but it didn´t matter because we got to hold the anaconda!

It was only 5 years old so it was smaller than I had imagined, especially after seeing the movie ANACONDA. But it was still about as long as myself, and it was creepy as hell holding it in the wild. I felt like the Crocodile Hunter, god rest his soul. Anyways, I know anyone readings this (which undoubtedly is only my mom, mike´s mom, and catherine) thinks I´m embellishing the facts for story-telling´s sake, but ask Mike or anyone who was there... it happened just as I explained it (except for the part when I said I speak Parcel Tongue).

This was the unedited account of my dream and real-life experience that brought me to the conclusion that I am the true heir of Slytherin. Watch out, Harry Potter.

We finally stopped being lame. Sort of.

So we are finally staying in a legit youth party hostel in La Paz. Up until now we have been acting like a middle-aged couple, going to bed at 10:00, waking up early, drinking alcohol only in moderation... Our hostel in La Paz has a bar that goes all night with theme parties and is packed with Euro smokers and drinkers. Mike and I have been doing our best to not be the lamos that are always the first to go to bed in the dorm, but we have failed miserably. Once 2:00 a.m. hits I have had all the smoke in my eyes and lungs that I can handle so we embarassingly walk down to bed while everyone else piles in cabs to go to the clubs, returning when mike and I are awaking. Oh well, at least we are going to bed in the a.m.

La Paz is a really cool city in a "bowl" of a valley between tall mountains, almost as impressively sprawling as Quito but almost cooler because the houses (slums)build way up onto the surrounding mountains. It is pretty clean for a large city. We have been walking around and doing the obligatory sight-seeing with some friends from the hostel. One of the weirdest things we saw were the baby lama fetuses in the witch´s market. People buy these to lay in the foundation when they built a house in hopes that it will keep earthquakes from destroying it. We´re thinking of bringing one back to help us out in San Francisco, but worried they´ll confiscate it when the airport security see a lama fetus shaped object in our bags. The second wierdest thing we´ve seen is the traffic police men, who all are made to wear zebra costumes because it is less likely that people will punch, argue with or try to run over a zebra than a police man.

Unfortunately Mike got salmonella AGAIN and was in bed all day yesterday with a fever. I went to the Coca museum with some other people, which was quite interesting even if all it really was was a fat booklet of all the information in the museum translated into english. We just sat on stools and read for about 2 hours, because the pictures inthe museum were difficult to match up with the info in the booklet. I then ate a piece of coca cake drizzled with coca liquer which was not the most delicious thing ever, but hey... it´s cool.

The most memorable incident was when we decided to order a pizza to the bar to split between us and two other people we had just met. The pizza arrived and the whole bar turned to stare as both sides of the french doors had to be opened to allow the two men to carry the pizza through... it was at least 4x4 feet and the pizza slices stretched an entire arms-length (I´ll post a `pic of it when I get it for you non-believers). Anyways, one of the girls we were splitting it with started yelling and freaking out because it was more expensive than she had thought (170 bolivianos, or about $25 dollars between the 4 of us... NOT expensive). Plus, consider these facts: 1) we only made her chip in 20 bolivianos, which is less than THREE DOLLARS
2) the 20 boliviano bill that she gave us was actually fake so the pizza man wouldn´t accept it, so mike and I ended up paying 150 of the 170 bolivianos
3) When someone in the bar said "it´s 3 freakin´dollars and you didn´t even us a real bill, so stop moaning) she started crying hysterically for about 15 minutes
4) despite the fact that she was making this huge scene, she decided against leaving and instead sat their sobbing for all to see
5) After she collected herself, she made me walk around the bar trying to sell of slices of our contintent-sized pizza, and I made us 30 bolivianos
6) She took all 30 bolivianos, meaning she made money off the whole thing

Worst person we have met on our trip, second only to the guy who robbed us. But we had a great time because we will never see a pizza so big for as long as we live.

We are flying to Rurrenabaque tomorrow to do a pampas tour (of the flatlands filled with animals... pink dolphins, anacondas, monkeys, aligators, etc) and of the jungle, so we wont be blogging until we get back in at least 5 days.

Miss you guys... can´t believe we are coming home so soon. P.S. it hailed today and it was the biggest hail I´ve ever seen, even though its not even cold here.

The Incas are Smarter Than You

Laura wrote about our Inca Trail experience (which you should read below) but I wanted to just throw in my two cents really quickly. First interesting thing is that the Inca people are actually called the Quechua. They are called Incas because Inca was their word for king...and when the Spanish arrived they were told by everyone to talk to the Inca...so with all those people saying that word they called them the Incans...whooops.

Anyway, the Quechua acheived things that simply blow the mind. First of all, look at the pictures that we have of Machu Pichu (which means Old Mountain in Quechua)...it is made with HUGE stones that all fit together perfectly...they didnt have any horses so these were all brought up to the Andes (thousands and thousands of feet above sea level) by PEOPLE. Second, these people´s understanding of the stars was crazy. For example, Machu Pichu has a Sun Temple that has two windows. On the Solstice and Equinox (I forget the exact days but its like Decemeber 20 and June 20) the sun shines EXACTLY through these two windows. This is to indicate to the people that is time to start planting crops because the rainy season is coming. It is sad that these people were basically completely wiped out and all of their knoweldge lost. The fact that their buildings still stand and are in such great shape is a testament to their genius.

Then consider that, without the wheel or horses, their empire ranged from Columbia in the North to Chile in the South...Laura and I have been busing around for more than a month and havent covered half of that area. Amamzing. Its crazy to think that such an advanced people could be conquered by a few hundered Spanish soldiers. Wacky.

The Other Copacabana

Greetings from Copacabana...not the one from the song, but the tiny little one 5 minutes from the Peru-Bolivia border. This is an awesome little town of 6,000 people nestled between two hills and right on Lake Titikaka (the highest navigable body of water in the world...although this is disputed, its still really cool). This is a huge lake, and you cannot see to the other side even remotely.

The best part of this town though is our hostel. It is perched on one of the hills, the main building is a huge white down painted with blue accents (what I imagine Greece to look like) with hammocks all over the place and great food, most comfortable bed that we have had so far, etc. Last night we hiked up to the top of the hill where there is a huge series of crosses and monuments sticking out of the rock and an amazing view of the sunset...I dont know if it is the altitude or what but the sunset here was the best that I have ever seen, the sun looks about 3 times larger than usual. Other than that, we have been on full vacation mode, resting and relaxing after the Inca Trail (which Laura is writing about but was one of the best things that either of us has ever done).

There was a festival in honor of some saint in town today and there was music and firecrackers going off all day. Tonight there is supposed to be a fireworks show up on the hill where we are staying so we have a bottle of wine and some fanta ready to make sangria to enjoy during the fireworks (our lives are very hard right now). Tomorrow we will do a hike to a port where you can catch a boat to Isla del Sol which is a large island in the middle of the lake. Supposedly good views and hiking on the island. Should be great. Both of our stomachs are doing well and the bug bites that we got during the Inca Trail are finally starting to go away. We stay in Copacabana for at least 2 more nights and then we are headed to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. So far this country is awesome and incredibly cheap...you get 7 bolivianos for each dollar so we will be heading home with lots of gifts.

Hope everyone is doing well. Great to see that Cal has steamrolled its first 2 opponents. Go Bears!

At first I was afraid, I was petrified...

But we survived! The four-day inca trail was more than we had ever anticipated. I was so freaked out about getting altitude sickness or food poisoning or breaking my leg (4 out of 12 people suffered one of these fates to the point where one lady had to turn back) but fortunately Mike and I escaped all that and left with only amazing memories, sore calves, great pictures, and an admiration for the andes and the history.

Our guides were fantastic: the head guide (Carlos) was one of the funniest people I've ever met and was so knowledgeable about the trails and the history. The other guide (Ramiro) was the of the quiter "artist" type but who surprised us all at tea time by asking "does anyone sing? I do!" and then awkwardly serenading us with two spanish love songs in his high castrati-like voice. Mike asked him if he sings professionally and he responded "no, jus in da shower, wit my friends"... but without sufficient pause between those two phrases. Ramiro was a little less capable at english so Carlos quickly took over all story-telling on the trail after Ramiro tried to tell a ghost story that was basically just a horribly sad story about a dad who had a heart attack on the trail and his son was crying because he couldn't wake him up. eeeeeeh. Carlos succeeded in scaring the s#$% out of us with a REAL ghost story to the point where all 12 of us hikers had to walk together to the dark scary inka toilets (a hole in the ground).

The scenery on the trail was breathtaking... words cannot describe how overpowering the andes mountains seem when you're walking in their shadows and up their steep surfaces, looking at glaciers in the distance and the roaring river below. Almost even more mesmerizing were the porters that carried all the stuff our camp required. We had 19 porters for our group of 12 hikers, and they each carried a massive pack of over 50 pounds on their small frames. They would wake us up with a cup of warm tea in our tent and a bowl of hot water and a towel to wash our face with. Then they would feed us a delicious pancake and egg breakfast in our dining tent. We would head off on the trail much before them while they broke down camp, and then 2 hours later they would come running by us in their sandaled feet and giant packs, running straight up the mountain, to go set up camp for lunch. Then they would do the same after lunch, passing us to set up camp for the night. We were exhausted every day after 8+ hours of hiking a day in high altitude, I cannot imagine how they must feel carrying so much weight. We had tea time with cookies before dinner (dessert before dinner is ALWAYS welcome) and then the most delicious dinners of our whole trip. I don{t know how they whipped up such delicious food with such limited resources in the middle of nowhere.

We saw many ruins along the way, each one progressively impressive, climaxing with Machu Pichu on the last day. It was bigger and more impressive than I had anticipated, such an awesome example of the Inca's design, skill and philosophy (EVERYTHING they built is oriented around the equinox and solstice). But Machu Pichu was just a great finish to the even more fulfilling experience of hiking there with a group of people that we got through it with together. I would do it over again in a heartbeat.

P.S. thanks liz and dave for recommending SAS. they are the best.

NO GRACIAS!

So we arrived in Cusco yesterday. No one ever told me it is the land of eternal solicitation. In the 10 waking hours we have walked around we have been asked to eat at restaurants 35 times, to buy a llama hat about 42 times, and to get a masage at least 50 times. I have never despised the words "no gracias" so much until now, because my brain and tongue are fatigued from saying them. I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said "no gracias" on it and I wanted to rip it from his body and put it on my own. That being said, Cusco is beautiful and we are still happy to be here.

By the way, the eternal solicitation works because after the 50th massage request, we accepted. We were led into an alley, up some stairs, into a dank room with a dude listening to rock, and asked to remove our clothes. As skethy as it sounds, it was. We made sure to keep all our stuff close to ourselves. Then the music switched to the Incan rendtition of "elevator music" which was all those same grocery-store tunes but with the pan flute as the lead instead of the saxaphone. Two small indigenous women came in to massage us. Their hands were as strong as they were freezing. It felt like I was being massaged by an industrial kitchen-aid mixer that had been chilled. Mike, somehow, enjoyed his massage although he admits that his legs have rug-burn on them due to the way they skimped on the baby oil. Oh, and Mike DID buy a llama hat. One with ridiculous pom-poms hanging on strings off the ends of the earflaps. I keep telling him that I´m walking so far behind him because the cobblestone sidewalks are so narrow...

Aside from the massage, yesterday we had a GREAT lunch after I insisted we not go in ANY place where the waiters were soliciting our patronage. We ended up at a place with a great menu of the day that included Alpaca (like the llama) as its main course. Thin slices of alpaca rolled around spinach, red pepper and cheese and then braised... delicious! I felt kind of bad about it later when a traditionally-dressed woman asked if I wanted to take a picture with her and her adorrable baby llama. Anyways, the restaurant just proved that we can´t go anywhere where people are begging for us to eat there. Had a great lunch today too, after saying "no gracias" 152 times to the other restaurants. Mike wants to go back to the first place so he can finally try roasted guinnea pig. P.S. the large "last supper" painting in the main cathedral has not fish as the depicted meal, but guinnea pig!

We are glad we got here early to acclimatize and get stuff in order for the Inka Trail. We are going white water rafting tomorrow which should be fun, and then we have two more days in Cusco to chill, rent our equipment for the trail, and get more massages...

Eating Cow Heart...Why Lima is a Great City

It´s been a great week of firsts...first surfing lessons (I went back for a second lesson and made it up without the help of the instructor which was great), first time eating cow heart, first time eating Llama, first injection in my ass from a Peruvian doctor, first time getting scammed (see below) and, soon, first (and last) hike on the Inca Trail! We are in Cusco, Peru now but my job is to summarize the 3 days that we spent in Lima. We weren´t expecting much since the guidebook said that Lima is a ´frenetic, polluted mess´ (it has a population of 7.6 million and no building is higher than 6 or 7 stories so you can imagine how vast it is) but by the end, the was probably my favorite city in South America so far.

Our hostel was pertty gross (3 out of 3 bathrooms were broken and the room smelled of moldy cheese) but it was in a great area called Miraflores which is the trendy area of Lima near the beachfront. We took a walk to the cliffs right above the beach and were blown away by park after beautiful park...lots of art and statutes...a perfectly clear sky and paragliders and hanggliders flying around everywhere (they take off right in front of you by jumping off the cliffs). I´d never seen anything quite like it.

That might we also managed to meet up with Phil Zackler...my college roomate and our longtime friend. We strolled around and went to a restaurant with an ocean view. I was still feeling a little shaky from my 102 degree fever of the day before (this is a whole other story but to summarize, the Peruvian medical system is awesome and a doc came to my room and gave me a shot in my ass and tons of drugs to help me beat the fever and upset stomach, all for about 35 bucks; what would that have cost in the US?), but we had a great time.

The next day we went to central Lima and the Plaza de Armas (every major Plaza in Peru is called Plaza de Armas). We had our best tour to date of the Lima Cathedral which has been knocked down at least twice by earthquakes in its 500 plus year history and was a weird amalgamation of colonial and modern architecture. We saw the grave of Pizzaro (the Spanish conqueror of Peru...who managed to defeat millions of natives with only a few hundred spanish soldiers), and all kinds of crazy religious relics.

We also got all Indiana Jones at the next spot, the San Francisco Monestery where we got to go down to the crypt which had been the public cemetery of Lima for like 200 years before they closed it down. Thousands of people were burried there at one point and we made our way arround the very low and very narrow corridors amonst piles of femurs, arm bones, and skulls. One room had a well that was filled with leg bones and skulls in a huge circle pattern...very creepy but very cool.

Food in Lima was also very good with the highlight being the barbeque place that we went to on the last night whose specialty was cow heart. I was a little scared to get it considering that I was like 2 days beyond my really bad illness, but it was the right decision because it was awesome...pretty much just like flanksteak.

The whole experience of Lima was slightly marred by the experience of our last night. We met a guy who said he knew a great place to get Pisco Sours (the traditional cocktail of Lima). We ended up sharing a drink with him which lasted like two and a half hours because when the drinks came they were freaking HUGE. Anyway, very, very long story short, at the end of the whole thing he suddenly got really weird and said that the bill was like 250 soles (something like 85 bucks)...keep in mind that is probably the cost of 3 or 4 nights at the hostels that we have been staying at. I threw down 200 soles in a rage and ran out of there with Laura. Then the women from the bar came running after us saying that we hadn´t paid at all. The guy had just pocketed the money and told the waitress that we were running out on the tab. In the end, police came over to see what the problem was...they went up and arrested to guy and put him in the back of their cop car. He of course only had 50 of our soles on him (keep in mind they literally strip searched him in the bar in front of people...crazy) so I guess he handed they money off to someone while we were outside. So, all told we lost about 60 bucks, but it could have been much worse. And the lesson was learned. You just cant trust anyone. We are now going to be far less trusting of people that we meet and will be much more on our guard so it wont happen again!

We ended up buying a flight from Lima to Cusco, which was great because it was an enjoyable 50 minutes flight rather than a 27 HOUR bus ride. We are adjusting to the altitude...its a beautiful setting high in the Andes but its horribly annoying because people come up to you every 10 seconds to sell a massage or art or whatever. Traveling in South America definitely taxes your spirit a lot more than Europe. But we are in high spirits becuase we are going river rafting tomorrow and probably doing a scooter tour the day after that and then on Monday we leave for our 4 day Inca Trail hike. It´s going to be a great week! Hope everyone is doing well...I´m sad to miss the first Cal game, I hope we stomp Maryland.

Argentinian Dance-Off

As expected the trip through northern Peru is much less exciting than the past two weeks simply because there is not much here and its a lot of bus-riding. But nevertheless we have some fun stuff to share.

We met a couple on the bus over the Ecuadorian/Peruvian border and have been traveling around with them the past 4-5 days as we make our way through the same route. They're great company, especially because they play cribbage and have english accents. In typical Laura Lively fashion, I completely chanegd the girl's name in my head and called her 'helen' instead of her real name 'alice' for the first two days and now it is stuck to the point that even her fiance and mike call her helen. So for all intents and purposes, their names are Helen and Dean.

The first two cities we have visited in Peru have been kind of lame because they are just border towns (Piura and Chiclayo), although Chiclayo had a great museum about the ruins of the temple of Sipan of the Moche tribe. It had some great artifacts, including vases used to educate the children about the lifecycle... so when a little boy asked his mom 'where did I come from?' he will be told to take a drink out of a vase with a woman with a crowning baby head coming out from between her legs. That's one way to teach 'em.

For the past 2 nights we've been in a great beach town called Huanchaco right outside Trujillo, Peru. Awesome hostel with great food, and besides our traveling companions there are some other fun travelers here (mostly surfers). Mike is actually getting surfing lessons with Dean right now, and Helen and I are about to go watch. I picture something less than gracefull, but I may be surprised.

Last night we hung out on the roof with a bunch of other travelers playing guitar until we heard loud drums and cheering at 2 a.m. So we all headed into the streets to see what was going on, only to find about 40 Argentinians chanting and dancing and singing at a nearby hostel. Apparently they are all here for an international dance competition tongight (which we are definitely going to now) and were just going crazy. So we of course decided to join in and immediately the argentinians swarmed us to show off their dance moves. At one point mike and I were goofing off and dancing like the idiots we usually dance like, and this enormous 6'5" argentinian tapped mike on the shoulder. When he had mike's full attention he proceeded to do a dance that could only be described as a crossbreed between the Fonz and Ricki Martin rubbing the booties of two invisible women. Then he looked at Mike with this huge, proud grin as if expecting utter amazement. We, of course, were genuinely amazed and gave him what he wanted, so everybody was happy. This set off a series of horrible but incredible dance-off moves while the open bar took its effect.

We have decided we LOVE Argentinians and are quite sad we wont be going there this trip. But it's on the list for next time.

We´re gonna live forever

Before I talk about where we are now I have to comment on Mike´s last post which stated that our newer hostel in Cuenca was "1,000 times better" than the first one. Correction: we ended up having to change rooms TWICE at the new hostel due to the muddy rain water that was pouring down on our beds while it rained outside. We finally decided to just leave Cuenca because the second room was flooding too and we had had enough at this point, despite the fact that we loved the city, the artist we met, the food, and more. So we got on a bus and headed to Vilcabamba, a lush mountain town famous for its temporate climate and the longevity of its inhabitants (attributed to the life-giving water here which, ironically, may also be blamed for my upset stomach).

We are staying at a BEAUTIFUL hosteria on top of the mountains overlooking the small town, and for $14 each a night we have a quiet room complete with a private balcony and hammock, a luxurious swimming pool, a free delicious breakfast of eggs, fruit and crepes, a outdoor bar with ping'pong, pool and movies, and a day-spa where we enjoyed a 75-minute full body massage yesterday for... get this... $18. Mike especially appreciated the massage after his horseback riding trip he took earlier that day. Those who know me don´t need an explanation for why I did not go on that trip. And seeing everyone who went wincing when they sit down today, I´m really glad I opted to lay in the hammock and read "Fountainhead" instead. But Mike said it was fun and he got to practice his spanish with the guide.

The absolute highlight of our stay (ít even surpasses a 75 minute massage) was meeting this middle-aged couple from Cuenca at dinner the first night. He is a violinist in the Cuenca orchestra and had brought his guitar, and his wife her ocarina. They invited us to a private concert that evening on a grassy hill, under the stars of vilcabamba, overlooking the city. He played and sang ecuadorian music for us, including both spanish-style and Andian music in quechua (the language here), and the wife introduced each song by explaining the origins and the poetry. She sang the harmony and played the ocarina and I swear, it was so incredibly magical listening to this live music in the darkness. Unfortunately words cannot really get across how amazing this was to us. Weirdly enough, it was almost so intimate an evening that the next day when we saw them at breakfast all of us had that "morning after" awkwardness as if it had been a one-nigh-stand. Mike and I were all fidgety and couldn´t make eye contact, and I think they were the same! oh well, the awkwardness was worth it.

So, between enjoying the view, riding horses, getting massages, reading in a hammock, enjoying the pool, avoiding dogs on hikes, meeting cool people, playing cribbage, and watching Lord of The Rings when it was raining... it´s safe to say we never want to leave and are dreading the long bus-ride to Peru tomorrow. But we are both really excited to get started in Peru and especially the Inca Trail. We´ll post again when theres something interesting to report, which wont be for at least 2-3 days!

Pictures from WEEK 1

Finally they are here. Sorry for duplicates but we don´t really have the energy to sift through them all right now! Love, Mclivelys.
http://picasaweb.google.com/LivelyLaura/SAWeek1?feat=directlink

Down in the dumps and talking birds

So last night we got into Cuenca, Ecuador´s third largest city, after an 8 hour bus ride. We took a taxi to our hostal and it was a freaking dump. We had to change rooms because the first one was so bad...carpets that were moldy and probably 80 years old and a sink that had water that didnt shut off. It was gross and we don´t have high standards. Then the next room we got, the beds were at like 70 degree angles and as soon as we turned off the lights, we could hear the guy in the next room snoring like a hacksaw. Needless to say, after a tiring busride, bad weather in Banos, and this horrible hostal, moral was low.

Luckily, this morning we woke up and explored around and Cuenca is a gorgeous town...the most European-looking of the cities that we have seen so far with mostly whitewashed buildings with red tile roofs and a rushing river that cuts through the middle of town. It also helped that we had one of the best breakfasts that we´ve had so far at this huge market in the middle of town. Breakfast empanadas with cheese and sugar on top, tomales with meat and eggs, coffee, etc. Then we found a new hostal which is 1,000 percent better than the old one. Today we spent the day walking around and the highlight was the city´s main museum.

This thing had an awesome exhibit where you walked through life size models of indigenous huts...the highlight was a room that was full of shrunken heads. The tribal people used to shrink the heads of anybody that they killed during battle. They apparently thought that this gave them the strength of their former enemy. Also (I´m just guessing here), they looked pretty bad-ass walking around with 25 little heads of people that they had killed. Probably pretty intimidating. So it was a cool museum and we were on our way out when the reception person told us that we still had one other part to see. They had this HUGE other area that had the foundations of Incan buildings that had been on the site thousands of years ago (only foundations because all of the former stones were taken and used to build colonial buldings after the Spanish took over). Anyway, it was beautiful with a huge garden surrounded by Incan ruins and bright blue sky. Best of all, the last part of the park featured a mini-zoo with a hill full of llamas (our first sighting) and exotic birds.

Bright green and red macaws, giant hawks, etc. We walked past this one cage full of green parrots and as we were walking by one of them did that cat-call whistle that men do when an attractive woman walks by. You know the one...wheee-WHOOO. So we stopped and started whistling back. He did it again and I laughed. Then the whole cage of about 20 parrots all started laughing at once...I´ve never heard anything like it...it was like they were all people. At the next cage, the parrots said ´hola´ as we walked up. Crazy.

We left feeling very happy, and stopped at a Colombian restaurant for what was the best meal that we have had on the trip so far. I had this stew with pinto beans, plaintains, avacado, and like a tomato sauce...it maybe sounds gross but it was incredible...with a side of Colombian corn tortillas and some of the best chorizo that I have had. Laura had awesome spinach soup, and rice with beef. All of this, with a juice made of tree-tomato and a beer, was 6 bucks. 6. Say what you will about South America, but you can eat amazing food here for practically nothing...I love it.

Tomorrow we are going to just take it easy around Cuenca. Then we head south to Loja the day after tomorrow (5 hour ride). We´ll stay in Loja for a day or two and then we take an overnight bus into Peru. Chances are we will take buses all the way to Lima where we will then catch a plane to Cusco. That´s the plan for now anyway. We´ll keep you posted.

A City Called Bathroom and 5 year old Hostal Owners

So when we left off last we weren´t sure how we were going to be continuing our trip...via plane or bus. We decided that we had to go by bus since the cheapest flight from Ecuador to Peru was like 1,000 bucks or something stupìd like that. So the next morning in Otavalo we woke up (to the sound of fireworks...which they apparrently set off every Sunday starting at 7am), and took a 2 hour bus south back to Quito. We then hopped into a taxi and rode to the south end of Qutio which took about 40 minutes or so but was much more fun because we rode with two people from Spain and chatted with them most of the time (thank god laura habla espanol). Then hopped on a 4 hour bus ride south to Banos...which I understand to be the spanish word for bathrooms...but it probably means ´baths´to them because there are some natural hotsprings around the town.

So we got off the bus in Banos, which is a very small and touristy town, and walked around to try to find a hostal. The first place we went to, there was nobody around, but a little girl of about 3 years of age was walking up the stairs to the reception desk at the same time that we were. Nobody was at the reception desk but the little girls turns to us and in this tiny voice, politely asks us in Spanish if we have a reservation. We laugh, and tell her that no we don´t. Then she asks us how many of us there will be. We tell her dos personas. We were about to ask her if she ran the hostal. Then she said ´hold on, let me go get my mommy.´ And walked to a nearby door and tried to get in. When it wouldn´t open she started crying loudly...after about 5 minutes the door quickly opened and someone let the little girl in and then slammed the door in our faces. I wonder what the mom was doing in there...hmmm

Anyway, this was all to weird and so we left and found a nice little place with a great mattress- which is VERY hard to find. Then we were going to go try out the hotsprings but the line to get in was about 500 people long...and when we realized that all these people we going to be heading into two tiny little pools of hot water, we decided to skip that. The night probably would have been a total bust but we walked passed a volleyball court.

I should explain that Ecuador is obsessed with volleyball...but it is totally different from the game that we know in the US. First of all, the net is like 5 feet HIGHER than the net in America. Which makes NO sense because the average Ecuadorian is about 5 feet shorter thant the average american. So when I first started watching I thought, ´these guys suck.´ But, I didnt realize that the ball is actually a soccer ball and about 3 times heavier than the ball we use. After watching for a while, Laura convinced me to put some shoes and and to head back to the courts (there were three of them lit up by lights) and try to get into a game.

Turns out that the games are played for money. I figured that it would be for a few bucks per game, but when we asked around, it turned about that they play for TWO HUNDRED dollars PER GAME. No wonder they were yelling at each other like crazy whenever somebody missed a pass or a set. Not wanted to lose money, I finally asked a couple of kids if I could play with them and ended up playing Ecuadorian volleyball for about an hour...let me tell you that it was a humbling experience. My arms still hurt because the freaking ball they use is like a rock and everytime I tried to spike it I just hit it into the net, and the kids would laugh at me and I would say ¨soy idiota¨...and so on for about an hour. Thanks to Laura pushing me, I got to have this totally unique experience and it totally made the night. Hopefully we can figure out how to upload pictures onto the blog so you can see how high the net is, etc.

Anyway, the next day we were going to go for a bike ride that was supposed to take all day and be great, but it was raining so instead we had to change our plans and hopped on an 8 hour bus ride to Cuenca which is where we are now. The next post will pick up from there!