South American Travels

My trip to the jungle began early Sunday morning with a flight from LaPaz to Rurrenabaque. Keep in mind that this is a short flight and the plane is pretty damn small,fitting about 20 passengers. It was an interesting flight as we flew over the snow-capped Andes mountains. I was nervous but could not help but look out the window and think of the movie ¨Alive¨. There was a rather chubby guy sitting across from me and I began to think if we crashed and he died...he´d be lunch...if he surved...he´d be Hurley

Of course, I survived, and it was pretty cool landing on an all-grass air strip. It was like a verrry long football field. Once in Rurrenabaque,it took forever to go to the tour office and then get to my hotel, but I finally arrived and went for a walk around this jungle town. I must be honest, I wasn´t that impressed. It reminded me of a much dirtier version of Cairns (near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia) because there were lots of tourist offices, but not much else. Luckily for me, it was their Independence Day so the town was pretty busy with a big fiesta. They played music ALL night right next to my hotel so I didn´t sleep much. Apparently it was the 2nd day in a row of fiesta with another 2 days to go!

Monday morning, we had a 7-hour canoe ride to the Chalalan Lodge in the middle of the Madidi National Park....pristine rainforest. It was a motorized canoe that kept getting stuck on the shallow riverbed and the guides had to keep getting out. Once we were finally there, we walked 2 km to the lodge and awaited our first attaction...the monkeys! Apparently, spider and capuchin monkeys pass by in the trees every day around 4 PM looking for food. We sat there and counted them as they passed. Total count: 55 spider monkeys, 32 capuchin monkeys!!

That night, we did a night hike. It was me and my guide Ricoberto. We saw a tarantula, another poisonous spider, nocturnal tree and ground frogs, the hugest ants in the world (whose bite hurts more than a bee sting and lasts up to a day!), and nocturnal monkeys. Another group saw a boa constrictor as well...sweet.

Nocturnal tree frog...notice the big black eyes!

Yesterday, lots of hiking aorund the jungle with Ricoberto. Won´t go into much detail, but we saw lots of birds (mcaws, parrots, toucans, hummingbirds, etc.), more spiders, fire ants, leaf cutter ants (possibly my favorite part because they are so damn cool), deer and wild boars.

Wild boar story......apparently, these pigs live in families of up to a 100 or more. THe local villagers hunt them, but occasionally, the pigs attack and kill the people. My guide knew 2 guys who were killed by the boars. After 5 minutes, there was nothing left of them! So, anyway, Ricoberto and I decide to stalk them for a while so I could geta picture. They are smelly, disgusting animals and a group of them walked within 10 feet of us. I was pretty nervous and already had eyed a tree which I planned to climb up if they charged us. One of them saw my shirt and freaked out,running away so the rest all followed suit. No picture either. We waited a little longer because sometimes, pumas or jaguars are seen following the pigs but we didn´t see anything.

Leaf cutter ants busy at work brings leaves back to their nest!

Last night, we went canoeing in the lake looking for cayman. We saw a bunch of smaller ones,around a meter or so, but apparently there are some over 10 feet long in the lake.

Then, this morning, it was back on teh very long canoe ride to another scary ride over the Andes. This time, we hit some bad turbulence which had me freaking out. Plus, there were three drunk, obnoxious girls next to me who were dancing in their seats the whole time. I´m just glad to be back on solid ground.

So before I end my final entry, I have this one last thing to add about my jungle experience. If you ever go to the Amazon,there are two experiences: jungle and pampas. I did the jungle tour but REALLY REALLY wish I had gone to the pampas, or the grasslands. That is where you have an opportunity to swim with pink dolphins, go fishing for pirhanas, go looking for anacondas and capybaras. I had a good time and the jungle flora nad fauna were great, but I really wanted to see anacondas and pirhanas. Oh well, maybe next time!

The beginning to my Lake Titicaca adventure had a rough start yesterday morning when first, the tour company forgot to come pick us up at our hotel...then made us take a taxi there and pay for it...and then when we finally found them, they acted like we weren´t supposed to be with them. Not bad enough? After we managed to weasle our way on the boat, it broke down about 20 minutes off short.

Granted, the scenery was nice and there are much worse places to be stranded, but there we were for about an hour and a half. Sure, a few boats stopped by to say hi and tried to jump us and yeah, it was kinda cool to see our ship captain waving the Peruvian flag as an SOS but we were all relieved when another boat arrived to pick us up and continue on our way.

Now, before I continue, it is often taught that Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. According to my handy dandy guidebook, this is not entirely true. This lake is around 3820 meters above sea level; there are lakes in Peru above 4000 meters that are navigable but Titicaca is the only one that has commercial vessels it seems. However, it is the largest lake in the world above 2000 meters.

Anyway, we had a 3-hour journey to our first island. On the way, we passed a small island with a 5 star hotel on it. Apparently, it used to be a prison like Alcatraz but now, you will need to pay $225 a night...no thanks. The first island we visited, Taquile, was amazing and indescribable. It was quite a long walk from the dock up to the village square. There was a festival going on with lots of women dancing and men playing instruments. There are 2 distinct things that make this island so very unique:

• Only the men know how to knit. They knit the hats that are worn by all males on the island. The women know how to weave. They are responsible for weaving these very cool belts for their husbands. If that wasn´t enough, they prove their love for their husbands by actually chopping off a bunch of their hair to help weave the belts. If the woman dies, the man always has a piece of her with him.

• Men who are married knit themselves a red hat and single men wear a red and white hat. Women also display their marital status by the color and size of their pong pongs on their dresses. Definitely makes meeting people easier!
  

Another cool thing about Taquile is that the men have a distinct way of saying hello to each other. They don´t hug or shake hands or anything like that. Rather, each guy has a little pouch of cocoa leaves...when they say hi to each other, the two men exchange cocoa leaves! Pretty cool I think.

After that island, we went to the island of Amantani, where we would be spending the night. Once we got off the boat, we were all introduced to our new moms. Tom, Vick and I decided to stay together, and our mom for the night was a lovely woman named Norma. She showed us to her house, which was quite neat. She had a few daughters who were not shy about saying ¨Hola¨ to us. We were then brought to our bedroom, and I must say I was shocked when I walked in. I´m not sure how Norma received these things but there was football curtains and a huge Britney Spears poster on the wall! I felt like I was back in the States!!

Hanging out with my new family on Amantani Island.

Once we settled in, Norma walked us up to the soccer pitch. We had a big game: locals vs tourists. We were all sucking wind (altitude) but we managed to defeat them 2-1 and I was the winning goalie! Now that we were all tired, we walked back with Norma, and she prepared an amazing dinner. The three of us were practicing our Quechua by watching over the baby and hanging out with her 2 daughters. They began drawing pictures of us, and then started doing math problems! So we did a bunch of addition, subtraction and division problems until food was ready...and it was DE-licious!

After dinner, they dressed us up in local attire, which means Tom and I wore this big poncho and poor Vick had to don the traditional (and very tight) woman´s dress and blouse. We were then brought up to the local cantina for a night of dancing. It was definitely one of those ¨you had to be there¨ moments but was great fun.

Dancing with Norma at the cantina.

We were awoken the next morning with breakfast in bed. We said goodbye to our new family and head off to the famous floating reed islands. It took us about 3 hours to get there and once we arrived, I could not believe how many islands there were. There are roughly 40 of the manmade islands, and they all looked very much the same. Now, I was told that the Uros people first did this to escape the Incas a long time ago. Nowadays, it is very much just a tourist attraction. Each island has loads of souvenirs for tourists and even a model island on the island to show us how it was made.

Rumor has it that the people don´t even live on the island, and that they take the boat to Puno each evening. I don´t really believe that because these islands have electricity and, oh yes, tv´s as well! Imaging a little reed hut with a tv inside. Anyway, the islands were pretty neat and we even got to ride on one of the huge reed boats to another island. One thing I found really neat was that one of the islands was the ´school island´and all the children go there for grammar school. As far as high school, the children actually took a boat each day to Puno for school (30 minute boat ride) and would return around 6 PM.

The famous Uros floating reed islands

Finally, yesterday, we left Puno and crossed the border into Bolivia. We spent the night in La Paz, the highest capital in the world! It is very weird because it´s built in a huge bowl in the mountains. There is actually a 1,000 meter difference between the top and bottom part. We had a farewell night last night as it was my last night on tour and am now on my own. We went to this one place with an oxygen bar and you could apparently get different flavored oxygen. We paid 5 dollars for 10 minutes and they put the oxygen masks over our mouths. I had strawberry and then vanilla oxygen and amazingly enough, it really smelled like them. Now that we had plenty of o2 in our lungs, I relaxed with our driver Skank and played some PlayStation!

I´m now in Rurrenbaque (the jungle) and depart tomorrow morning on my jungle trip. For the first time in about a month, it actually feels like summer! It´s about 90 degrees right now and I´m sweating like a pig in this small little internet cafe. It´s their Independence Day today so everything is really crazy right now. Off to get some lunch and a nice cold drink. adios!

Okay,

Before I begin, I must admit something right off the bat...I did NOT hike the Inca Trail. Going on this 4-day trek often done by the Incas themselves was a huge part of this trip for me. However, the Peruvian Government has put a limit of 500 people to begin the trek each day. Of those 500, only 200 are paying customers and the rest are guides, porters, etc. Due to the immense popularity of this trail, and despite the fact I tried booking back in January, I found out when I arrived here that I would not be hiking the Inca Trail. Rather, I did the 4-day Lares Trek.

This trek is considered the ¨cultural Inca Trail¨ because it passes through many villages that still live the simple Inca lifestyle. It has gorgeous scenery, and even though we were constantly at high elevations, there´s weren´t as many steep steep drops as compared to the Inca Trail...so I was not too upset! Let the story begin....

My 2 Bukima compadres and I met up with the 12 others four our great adventure. There was an Aussie couple, and a whole lot of Brits. (Oddly enough, there was another group who did the same hike though the same company but I didn´t talk with any of them until the last day...and most of their group was American.) The trek began with a hell of a long bus ride into the Sacred Valley.

We began walking from a small town and trekked for about 4 hours until we reached our first campsite, nestled in this cute little village surrounded by huge mountains on either side. A bunch of the little kids from the village hung around hoping to get some treats, and we were all suckers for it! We had some great food and got to know each other a little bit before heading to bed for a freezing night.

Having my picture taken with some local girls...in exchange for some Oreos

I got very little sleep that night the the weather was below freezing. We woke up to frost on our tent, but our AMAZING porters were nice enough to give us coca tea in bed.

--aside--you may have heard that locals chew coca leaves (origin of cocaine) to help aide with altitude sickness. There were ocassional times during the trek where I tried chewing it as well as drinking the tea. I can´t say I really noticed the effects too much but I wasn´t a big fan.--aside done--

Early that morning, we went inside one of the local houses near our campsite and met the family. It is absolutely undescribable what their life is like. They have a tiny little shack and the whole family lives inside. There is a little stove they use to cook and heat themselves with. During the morning, all the women gather around the stove and talk...just talk...and they were all very happy. The children were dirty and some didn´t have sandals or even pants to wear...yet they played with each other and were happy. It was great to see people without tv, internet, movies, etc and going on just fine with their lives. I must admit that they did have electricity and a radio though.

They lived by subsistence farming and grew mostly potatoes. I may have already mentioned this but Peru grows about 4,000 types of potatoes! They then take some of these to markets and try to barter with other people to get corn and meat. They also had some guinea pigs scurrying around inside as well as some pigs wandering around outside.

After leaving them, we set out on the most strenuous hike of my life. It was about 7 hours of strenuous, steep hiking. We needed to reach the highest point of 4,400 meters before we then trekked steep down til lunch and eventually to our campsite. That uphill hike was steeper than anything I´ve done before. Take that plus the fact that I was at a very high altitude (and less than half of the oxygen normally available to me) and the fact that I felt like I was going to have an asthma attack...plus the fact that I was stupid and carried my big hiking pack the whole time...and you can imagine why I was ready to collapse.

We made it to the summit at 4,400 meters!!

Unfortunately, it only got worse after reaching the top. I got this intense headache and felt really weak. I couldn´t just stay there so I hiked down to the lunch spot...where I ate very little...then another couple hours to the camping spot. Once I got there, I curled up in my tent and tried to take a nap to no avail. I took out my handy WFR guide and looked up the symptoms of altitude sickness: insomnia, intense headache, lack of appetite, and feeling of being ´hung over´. That was me to a tee! I crawled out of bed and had some coca tea, and my travel mate James gave me some altitude sickness pills. I felt a little bit better but still not great. I managed to drive everyone crazy with a bunch of riddles I do with my students and then we went to bed.

The next morning, we got up early and had a relatively easy hike. It was still about 4 hours but it was all relatively flat. We walked all the way to Ollantaytambo (home of the ruins that I visited a few days earlier). We then had lunch in a nice little cafe and all caught a train to Aguas Calientes. It is a cute little city at the base of the mountain containing Machu Picchu. It is very touristy with cafes and shops all over the place. It was raining when we got there so we checked into our hotel then walked down to the hot spring which wasn´t nearly as hot as we were all hoping. Later that night, we all hung out at one of the local pubs.

Early the next morning, we ate breakfast then took the 25-minute bus ride up to Machu Picchu. I must say that I absolutely hate driving on these roads because, due to steep elevations, there are a lot of switchbacks with STEEP drops. Well, the trip to Machu Picchu was no different and these drivers were the craziest of them all. I was almost involved in 2 head on crashes but both buses slammed on their brakes and missed each other by mere feet. Anyway--once we had our passports checked (and stamped!!) we began our tour of this amazing lost city with our guide Carlos.

Immediately after breakfast, we took a 25-minute bus ride up to Machu Picchu. Now, you all know how much I hate heights....and driving in Peru is tough because there are steep elevations so many of the roads are switchbacks...with very high and steep drops! Well, the ride up/down to Machu Picchu has been the worst yet. These drivers are freakin maniacs who haul ass but due to the switchbacks, they can´t see around each corner. I was almost involved in 2 separate head on collisions but each bus driver slammed on their brakes and just missed each other. Luckily, neither of us went over the edge!

Once at the top and having our passports checked (and stamped!!) we began our 2-hour tour with Carlos. It was real foggy for most of the time and when we first arrived, most of the lost city was shrouded in clouds. However, the fog eventually cleared enough for us to see how unbelievable and massive Machu Picchu really was. I could also see just how high up we were which was a bad thing.

Group photo at Machu Picchu!!

Carlos showed us around to all of the different rooms and sacred temples. There were many people who once lived there and no one knows for sure why it was abandoned. Some say malaria took over and killed many of them; some say that it became too difficult to trade their food with others. In any case, when it was ´discovered´ by Hiram Bingam in 1911, some local farmers knew about it and were actually using to terraces to cultivate crops.

People believe that there were many riches left behind including silver and gold, as well as the mummified bodies of prior Incan kings. However, the few locals who knew about it allegedly looted the place clean before Bingam arrived.

Huyana Picchu in the mist...can you believe most of the people in my group actually climbed that thing?!!!

During the tour, there was one point where we climbed higher up and I got pretty scared due to the steep drop. The group carried on but I went back the original way and met them at the bottom. A local Peruvian held my arm and walked me down actually because he could see I was nervous. Once at the bottom, he and another guy made me sit down for a while, even though I was quite fine.

After the tour, I went up a bunch of steps to the classical picture shot of Machu Picchu. Again, steep drop it seemed but I was not going to go to the edge to find out for sure. I hung out with a bunch of the local llamas and took some pics.

A nice happy llama enjoying my view up high of Machu Picchu!!

After taking some pics, I took the bus back down and hung out with a British girl named Claire while the others hiked Huayana Picchu or walked around. We then ate some lunch and took a train/bus back here to Cusco. Those of us with Bukima declared the next day ¨Bukima Pamper Day.¨ The three of us got amazing massages, hung out in the sauna and had really cool jacuzzis in these individual tubs with eucalyptus oils. Later that night, we met up with a bunch of the people from our trek and tomorrow, I´m off to Puno to see Lake Titicaca and the floating reed islands. Only 9 more days til I come home....

I can see my house from here!!!

After a very long last night in Arequipa (concluding arguing over a bar tab then being hit on by an older male local who tried unsuccessfully to follow my friend and I back to our hotel), we took a long drive to Chivay. I was feeling under the weather which did not help the fact that we were going up alot in elevation. Puerta Inca was at sea level and once in Chivay, we were over 4,000 meters high! That´s equivalent to roughly 12,000 feet which is far higher than I´ve ever been. People skydive from lower elevations!

Anyway, Chivay was bitterly cold at night and our hotel rooms had many layers of blankets to keep us nice and cozy. Unfortunately, there was no helping us the next morning when we left the hotel around 6 AM to visit the Colca Canyon. If it wasn´t below freezing, it was damn close! Tom, Vick and I were all bundled up and had to listen to our extremely talkative tour guide Luis for an hour en route to the canyon. Once there though, it was worth it as the scenery was gorgeous. Not many people realize it is the 2nd deepest canyon in the world and easily beats the Grand Canyon. Plus, it is home to the amazing condors.

Waiting patiently for the condors at the Colca Canyon

There was about 100 people all waiting patiently in the cold, waiting for the condors to make an appearance. Then, about 6 condors left their nest and began flying around us. Actually, these birds have a wing span of 3 meters (9 feet)! and do not flap their wings, they glide using the air currents. They were gigantic and then after about 30 minutes, they all took off in search of food. The one thing I do remember from my boy Luis is that the condors often go after farm animals and will eat their eyes, noses, ears, and genitals. Luckily, they don´t go after humans!

Our next day in Chivay was very chill and included a quick little taxi ride to the local hot spring. I was expecting a hole in the ground with hot water but this was more like the Roman baths with lots of people there. For some reason, locals and tourists were segregated from each other and each used different pools. The air was rather chilly but we relaxed in the outdoor pool for over and hour and it was just what the doctor ordered. Then, after our taxi failed to return, we walked the 3 km back to town and stopped for a nice little cappucino at a local cafe where the lady put on this dvd of old cheesy 80´s music to make us happy. She then danced around the tables and was very funny.

Monday morning, we left our hotel in Chivay at 5 am (it was even colder than the previous morning) as we had about a 12 hour drive to here in Cusco. The 3 of us in back were absolutely freezing and the fact that Tom broke a window the day earlier didn´t help us very much. We arrived here in the birthplace of the Inca Empire around 4 PM. We got sorted into our hotel and even though it is right in the heart on the Plaza de Arms, our rooms are freezing and the shower SUCKS!! Not only is it bitterly cold but my pal Vick got mildly electrocuted when she touched a metal part of the shower head. All I want is a nice, hot shower but it won´t happen for at least another week.

Yesterday, I took an all-day tour of the Sacred Valley. It was very interesting and we got to see some pretty cool Inca ruins. The one question in my head right now is, ¨Why the hell did the Incas have to build everything so high up with steep cliffs?!¨ We began with some local markets (where I spent loads of moolah on gifts and souvenirs) and then the ruins at Pisac. Now, these ruins were cool but being afraid of heights, I wasn´t exactly loving it.

The Sacred Valley of the Incas

The infamous terraces at the Pisac ruins

Next, we visited the ruins at Ollantaytambo. These were even more impressive with lots of terraces. It blows my mind how these crazy Incas used HUGE blocks of rock (some over 100 tons!)to build their buildings and these blocks of rock fit perfectly together...no mortar needed. Even after hundreds of earthquakes, these stones are still in tact. They were such great engineers that most cities now have built their building directly on top of old Inca foundations.

The Incas at Ollantaytambo believed this ¨man in the mountain¨was a powerful god...those are their storage rooms dug into the mountain on the right

Again, these ruins were built pretty high up and I was not liking it. Our guide then took us around a corner where the path was maybe 3 feet wide and the drop with a cliff straight down VERY far. I froze, my hands were all sweaty and my knees started to shake. I slowly walked back, hugging the wall at all times, and met them at the bottom.

Our tour ended with some more ruins in Chinchero. It wasn´t the most fascinating place but they still speak the native language of the Incas, Quechua. They also have a special ceremony in August where instead of praying to God (Peruvians are crazy Catholics over here...you can thank the Spanish for that), they will be praying to the god of the earth, the land, and the air.

Relaxing with some of the local girls and their sweet llamas after a long day

This brings me to today. It is a very busy day here in Cusco, especially around the Plaza de Arms. It is their Independence Day Friday and the square has been covered with thousands of Peruvians celebrating. It is really cool to see because all of the children are dressed in their different-colored uniforms and are either marching or playing in a band. It is apparently very important that these students learn how to march correctly adn they´ve been at it all day. I must admit, it´s pretty damn cool seeing all these little kids dressed in their uniforms and they are so well behaved, it blows my mind.

Local children practicing their skills for Peru´s Independence Day

This is my last day to relax before I begin the infamous Inca Trail tomorrow. You may be wondering to yourself how I plan to hike 32 km over 3 days through the Andes if I´m afraid of heights. My compadres here have asked me the same thing, and all I can say is "I´ll have to deal with it." If I were to say I wasn´t freaking out a little bit, I´d be lying but I´m hoping I´ll be so excited that the heights won´t bother me. Besides, when I wake up that next morning and walk through the gate to Machu Picchu, it will all be worth it! So here I am, about to begin the journey that brought me here in the first place. Bye for now and if you don´t hear from me in a week´s time, I´ll be chilling with Juanita!

Hola amigos!

Well, I got in to my hotel in Lima around 11 pm my first night. I met my 2 tour leaders, a guy from South Africa (Skank)and a girl from New Zealand (Sas). They´re both pretty cool and they told me that we have a very small group. In fact, besides me, there are only 2 others, a guy and girl from England (Tom and Vick)!!

We hung out around lima my first day, and it happened to be their Independence Day so there was a huge parade with lots of people dancing. We tried to watch the changing of the guards in front of the president´s house but they never changed. After that, we hit glorious KFC for some chicken (it was quite funny watching us 3 guys trying to order when none of us speak spanish...the girls were all laughing at us) then went grocery shopping to get food for our trip.

You can image my excitement when I realized there was a DUNKIN DONUTS in the supermarket!! Then you can imagine my sadness when I realized it only had donuts, no coffee! Looks like my daily large iced blueberry with cream and sugar will have to wait still.

Peru runs on Dunkin!

We left Lima EARLY the next morning and drove down to go on a boat ride around the Ballestas Islands. They were AMAZING. Picture 3 small steep islands with cliffs on all sides. Now, these islands are literally covered with thousands of different birds, small penguins, and sea lions. Great stuff! People say they are the "Galapagos of Peru." I'm not sure about that but they were pretty amazing nonetheless.

We then drove for a while longer to Huacachina, a small but really cool town with these MASSIVE sand dunes all over the place. We went dune bugging/sand boarding down these dunes. They were as steep as any ski hill Ive seen and you go barreling down either snowboarding or on your belly. I wiped out numerous times and banged my head a bunch but I survived. The dune buggies were actually scarier. These guys would go flying up these HUGE STEEP dunes and then flying down the other side. Imagine yourself barrelling towards this gigantic sand dune and thinking to yourself, "There's no way we're going up that dune...it's way too big!" and then you go flying up and over. I felt like I was on Superman the Ride! Crazy stuff.

Taking a break from dune bugging and sand boarding

You have no idea just how high these dunes are. We then watched the sunset, and they dropped us the four of us off with 2 guides in the middle of nowhere surrounded by steep dunes. We had an amazing bbq, some beers, and slept out under the stars...surrounded by sand dunes as far as the eye can see...very surreal to say the least!

We left early the next morning and arrived in Nazca early afternoon. This town is home to the famous Nazca Lines, which were apparently created by pre-Inca natives around 5000 BC. They are only really visible from the air and to this day, archaeologists still disagree on the reasoning behind the lines.

We chilled out by the pool and laid in the hammocks as we waited our turn to fly in a plane over the Nazca Lines. I had heard that the flight was rough and that about 1 in 4 people vomit during the flight. Being one who is deathly afraid of heights, I was pretty damn nervous about it. Having done it now, I can say that it was well worth my $60 USD and that it was an amazing experience but I'll never do it again! The flight was VERY bumpy and the pilot constantly swerved from side to side so everyone could take pictures of the lines. Like I said, it was amazing to see them and I am proud to say I did not get sick, though I was nauseous as hell the rest of the day.

The Nazca Lines...can you see the spider?!

We left the next morning and headed to Puerto Inca. En route, we stopped off at the famous Chauchilla Cemetery which is home to some Nazca mummies that were discovered in the desert. Many of the mummies were originally found scattered about due to looters searching for valuables. It was an interesting cemetery though the only thing that really remained on most of the skeletons were their hair adn fingernails.

Chauchilla mummies

Now...Puerto Inca...this was once inhabited by the Incas and acted as their main fishing port. There are still some remains there but not much. History tells us that once the fish was caught and cured here at Puerto Inca, a network of runners than carried it all the way to the Inca capital of Cusco. After walking around the ruins, I played some ping pong (and won of course) then we had a campfire and drinks and slept out in tents while listening to the waves crash against the shore.

We left Puerto Inca early yesterday morning and arrived in my favorite town thus far...Arequipa. This is the largest city I´ve seen since Lima and it is beautiful. Some parts of it almost remind me of Italy with little cafes on the street and beautiful scenery. It is referred to as the ¨White City¨ because most of is is actually composed of white volcanic rock. Cinder cone volcano El Misti looms in the horizon, towering over this city. It is just one of many volcanoes in the region and has partially destroyed this area on numerous occasions.

El Misti looms in the background of Arequipa

The Incas here used to sacrafice humans to the mountain gods whenever eruptions would occur to appease them. This leads me to Arequipa´s most famous attraction, the ice maiden, Juanita. This is the famous ice mummy that was discovered 11 years ago, and she is the most preserved ice mummy in the world. We went to her museum today to look at the remains and it is unbelievable. She is so well preserved that even her internal organs are still intact!!

Last night, everyone in my group went to a traditional restaurant and tried the local foods which included cuy, otherwise known as guinea pig! It tasted like slimy, dark chicken, was totally deep fried, and wasn´t very good. I also had alpaca steak with rice and that was pretty good believe it or not! Off tonight to try some more local foods and do a bit of dancing.

Deep fried Guinea pig.....yummy!

I have just set up my first travel blog which will be used when I travel to Peru and Bolivia this summer. My travels will run about a month as I hike the 4-day Inca Trail to the lost ruins of Machu Picchu. I also see the Nazca lines as well as many other sites such as Cuzco and Lake Titicaca. My trip ends with four days in the Amazonian rainforest in Bolivia. I've attached a picture of my tour map!