We've been exploring Cusco while we wait for our December first departure on the Inka Trail. Four days hiking, three nights camping and more Incan ruins than a llama can spit at.

Phil and I have walked, jogged and climbed the city of Cusco over the last few days. Our normal proceedure is to find our way out of the tourist areas as quickly as possible, Cusco has been no different in this reguard. The tourist areas are very expensive, vendors are unrelenting and you miss the true vibe of the city. In our explorations of this beautiful city we have found more chuches than there are people to fill them and a really good chicken shack (better than Howards if you can believe it), and Incan stone walls that would blow anyones' mind. We'll post more photos when we return from hiking the Inka Trail.

Just a side note: our guide to Mismi, in his infinite wisdom, gave us the incorrect elevation of Mismi mountain. We checked and found the true hight to be 16,668 feet. This explains why Phil was sucking wind the whole time!

Adios for now, Jeff.

Hi everyone and a belated Happy Thanksgiving,

Yesterday the 24th was our leaving day from Arequipa, heading to Cuzco. We bought bus tickets for the ten hour ride the day before so the morning would go smooth. In the past we have opted for the less expensive night ride, it only took us one overnighter to realize that it was not the best way to travel. The morning went smoothly enough, we both got on the same bus as our luggage and we were all going to the right place. About two hours into this marathon happybus ride we found ourselves stopped in the middle of the desert. Not an uncommon occurrence in theses parts, so not much thought went into it, we continued watching the Spanish version of Blue Streak. Twenty minutes later, we were not the only ones asking why we were still immobile. Using my best caveman Spanish I inquired as to the status of our current situation. The bus had broken down. After a considerable time spent brainstorming, the driver and his ticket collecting assistant decided to call for another bus to come from Arequipa. After the hour spent diagnosing, we now had a couple more hours to fill before our new bus rescued us.

Cuzco, as you know, is a very popular destination so we were not the only Gringoes on the bus. A moderately attractive German girl, a couple from Spain and a solo American man somewhere around sixty mixed up the hair colors on the bus. Greetings and other small talk commenced outside the bus while we all took advantage of the involuntary break to get off the bus. Very little information was exchanged outside as the gusting winds mixing with the sand made us feel like we were on the receiving end of a sandblast gun. Phil and I went to one of the six small, rectangular, concrete and tin roofed structures. Most were padlocked but two of them were open and were selling edible goods. We bought a package of crackers and a 2.25 liter bottle of Coke to add to our supply of water and M & M's.

As promised, our new bus arrived about two hours later. We all climbed onto the new bus, faces pressed against the windows to make sure that our backpacks made the switch with us. Close to an hour more passed as the (apparently) tedious task of moving luggage from one bus to another ensued. I practiced patience as best I could from inside the bus. When Phils' pack was still nowhere to be seen a half an hour later, I decided it was time to brave the sandstorm. I slipped through the arguing busmen heaving luggage and ducked into the cargo area under our original bus. Minimal climbing allowed me to spot the missing "mochilla." I grabbed it and handed it to the roofman who was piling everything liftable onto the roof of the new bus.

All of our belongings accounted for, we settled back into our seats and waited for departure. Three hours after our initial stop, the driver fired up the bus and we were on the road again. Not more than thirty minutes later the bus pulls over in front of a now familiar, crude, concrete structure offering arroz y pollo (rice and chicken). The new driver hadn´t eaten yet and decided to stop for some lunch. Mind you, this is supposed to be a 10 - 14 hour ride depending on variables. It didn't take long for some of the locals to begin protesting the drivers' decision. Much banging on windows and yelling not nice things in Spanish followed. Those contemplating going in themselves and filling their bellies for the twelve or so remaining hours, quickly sat back down. An older Peruvian man and his wife, who were clearly not happy about the additional delay, followed the driver into the cafe. Minutes later they all came out and the driver held no food in his hand. Vamos, vamos!! was the call and we were not so happily on our way once again. There is an old cliche´ that goes something like "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". I attribute the fact that we were not given any movies for the rest of the ten or so hour trip to that cliche´. If the driver was having no lunch, we were having no entertainment! Endless hours of darkness and silence on an uncomfortable bus ride through the mountains dampens the spirits.

It wasn´t all bad. Just before darkness had set in we had a major stop in a large town. I didn´t catch the name but if you look at a map it's the one just west of nowhere. With luggage being unloaded, we had a few minutes to get off the bus, stretch and look for some food, maybe hot food. The days supply of water, dry crackers, M & M's and Coke was getting low and we had many hours left to go. After fending off countless "salesmen", we mixed ourselves into the crowded street filled with vendors and rickshaw motorcycle taxis. Passing by several "beef on stick" vendors, Phil and I decided it would be best to not be sick on a multi hour bus ride. A local favorite is undercooked papas fritas, more recognizable to us as french fries. We spotted a cart selling the hot, bacteria free tidbits that would be our meal that night. With some mayonnaise and enough salt to preserve them for a year, we happily walked back towards the bus.

Outside the bus was the solo gringo man eating a bag of dry crackers. Phil and I were feeling like aristocrats, proudly enjoying our hot meal of hearty potatoes. The man said "Happy Thanksgiving." I paused and looked at Phil with a perplexed look. Phil said "yeah, it´s Thursday. It is Thanksgiving!"

Honestly, I haven´t looked at a calendar in over a month. To us, every day is Saturday. Signing into hostels I will check the date on my watch, so I was aware that it was getting toward the end of November and that Thanksgiving was near. It wasn´t until 6:30 on turkey day that I was made aware of what day it was. I know what most of you are saying and you can keep your comments to yourself.

We three Americans stood in the chilly street of this desolate Peruvian mountain village and celebrated our holiday, Phil and I thankful that we had something hot to eat that wouldn´t make us sick.

For those that I had promised a phone call on Thanksgiving, my apologies, it will be belated.

I hope the Holiday was happy for all back home. It was for us, the driver sped as often as he could and got us to Cuzco just after midnight. I can tell you after only one day that this is a very magical place and we can´t wait to share our upcoming experiences with you!

Hasta Luego,
Jeff

Once again we're in Arequipa, Peru, only this time, it's after five straight days of hiking in the northern Andes. This past Friday, we left Arequipa to go to Cañon del Colca. Cañon del Colca or Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world, and home to the extremely rare condor. Our trip consisted of five days. The first day, we took a bus to the small Andean village of Yanque where we met our guide, Octavio. We got our stuff set up in the hostel and went out for a hike. Yanque village is at an elevation of 10,500 feet, so the hike helped us get used to the altitude a bit. After the hike we landed ourselves in the public bath/hotsprings area. It was hard to get out of the hot water with the altitude-chilled air. Eventually, we made it back to the hostel for dinner and a partial night's rest. The next day we woke at 4:30 A.M. to catch a bus to Cruz del Condor. We managed to get on the work bus so we stood for about an hour packed onto this bus like sardines in a can. It was about six o'clock when we had breakfast at a remote condor watching spot. After we had breakfast, we meandered up to the main condor watching spot. When the tourists come, oh boy do they come fast. The viewing area went from virtually empty to overflowing in a matter of minutes. Apparently, that morning wasn't the morning to be out condor watching because we only saw three. An hour or so passed before we hopped onto a bus into a small town above the canyon. From there we hiked a very long 5 kilometers (3 miles) into a small oasis on the bottom of the canyon. About half of the trek was downhill, but after lunch on the bottom, it was a grab bag of flat and uphill. After eight hours, our group of five made it to the oasis. We swam in the pool, grabbed some dinner and hit the hay. Our guide had wanted to get up at 2 in the morning to hike to the top of the canyon but we protested and got to sleep in until 4:40. Pete, dad, and I made it to the top of the canyon in two and a half hours, but our guide and Martina took a bit longer. The uphill climb we endured for that time was 1,600 feet. We had breakfast in the small town atop the canyon wall and lazed around waiting for the eleven o'clock bus. Once the bus came, we rode for a few minutes to Cruz del Condor until the next bus to Chivay came. Little did we know when we clambered off the bus that, the bus to Chivay wasn't coming for another three hours. So, we waited while napping and discussing politics with our two Belgian friends. All that "condor watching" we did paid off because we finally saw one up close. They really are amazing birds. They have nine foot wingspans and are exclusive to the northern Andean area. Hours and a hat purchase later, the bus came. Ridiculously overcrowded (typical Peruvian fashion), the ride was about an hour with twists and turns and lots of standing. We all managed to find seats and I sat next to a couple of people, one from Spain and the other from Russia. We got back to the hostel in Yanque and cooked up some pasta while Octavio got our friends on a bus back to Arequipa. We cooked up some pasta and prepared for yet another 4:40 wake up. As expected the morning came all too fast, but we couldn't waste time as the two guides and donkey were waiting for us to start the trek up to Mismi Mountain. Mismi Mountain is the starting point of the Amazon River and also has water that flows into the Pacific. We were pretty excited to get going because it was our highest peak at 16,668 feet. It was a steady, uphill, 12 kilometer hike to basecamp. Once there we pretty much crashed. We didn't care that it was only six o'clock because we had been hiking for nine hours at altitude. We were awarded with not much sleep at all and another 4:40 A.M. wakeup. We left basecamp at 5:42 A.M. and made it to the summit at 8:42 A.M.; exactly three hours. It was a deceiving climb up due to the many, many false peaks of Mismi. When we did make it to the real peak, we took about a twenty minute break The whole hike up was breathtaking, partly because of the views, but more because of the altitude. After our break, Octavio, dad, and I started the descent. It was really fun sliding down the slopes of loose sand and rock, but once we got to the tricky part, the fun and games were put to an end. The hike down wasn't nearly as bad as the hike up. It took us about fives hours to get back to semi-civilization. From the small town outside of Yanque, we packed 13 people into a taxi that should've been holding no more than 5 people. It was a slightly (sarcasm there folks) uncomfortable ride to Chivay where we stayed the night and said goodbye to our guide, Octavio. Exhausted and beaten up, we went to bed at about seven after our dinner. We got to sleep in til 7 o'clock this morning and got the bus back to Arequipa. Here we got some food and are getting stuff done. All in all, it's been a pretty long six days, but we're no worse for the wear! We went to the bottom of the second deepest canyon in the world and climbed a 16,000 foot peak in a matter of four days. That's quite and accomplishment I'd say. The funniest part is that as we lay tired and beat in our beds, we listened to our guide tell us that he has to go take more clients out the next day. I guess he wasn't lying when he said that he hikes every day!

Phil

At the moment, we're in Arequipa, Peru. We will be here for a few days resting and recovering. Dad thinks that he may have broken his tailbone sandboarding. Not much you can do really for a broken tailbone but wait. We plan on hiking in Colca Canyon, the second deepest in the world, and hiking up Mismi volcano. Mismi is the mountain that the first drops of the Amazon river come from. It is almost 18,000 feet, so it will be our highest climb yet. I updated the site with several new blogs and pictures. Also, there are updates on the games page and on the interesting links page. Nothing special but feel free to check them out. I tweaked some things on the home page as well.

Today, we are in Nazca, Peru. We got in yesterday and booked a plane to see the lines. We actually got up and in the air this morning. It is amazing seeing something that's been around for thousands of years. The actual geoglyphs are what's advertised but there are hundreds of other lines and geometric shapes. The geoglyphs were quite a bit smaller than what I had pictured, but that didn't stop them from being amazing. I am currently writing a five page paper on the lines and hope to get that up in the near future. We are leaving Nazca tonight to go to Arequipa. We are taking the overnight bus and it's about a nine hour ride through the Andes. We will post when we are in Arequipa.

Phil

We are able to get online for a little bit here in Huacachina, Peru. Huacachina is a tiny oasis outside of the desert city, Ica. We are staying in the Casa de Arena hostal. It's an awesome place to be. There's a BBQ every night with free pisco sours and rum and cokes. There's a poolside bar too. We are at the foot of a gigantic dune here. Ica is the place to be for sandboarding. This evening we went out with a group of people in dune buggys sandboarding. The dune buggy was way better of a time than the actual sandboarding. We were ripping through dunes a high speeds and catchin' air. At the end we even raced another company back to the hostal. We were fortunate to have the craziest driver in the area. We are heading out tomorrow for Nazca to see the lines.
phil

Salut from Lima, Peru. We are here in the Flying Dog Hostel. We will be leaving today on a bus to Ica. We flew in to Lima yesterday and are heading out today. Wednesday, in Iquitos we took a boat to a reserve/zoo like thing. It was a cool place. We got to hold two-toed sloths, boa constrictors, and baby caimen. That was a really cool part. Also, there were macaws that we held. They had several kinds of monkeys there. They were cool but extremely dirty. It's amazing to see how they use their tails as another type of arm. There was a mountain lion there and two jaguars. There wasn't a whole lot to see there but we got to hold animals and still got to see the jaguars and pumas. Lima is an alright city but nothing special. I really felt like I was at home yesterday when we ate at KFC. We both got running shoes and went for a run along the beach last night. I stayed up til 1 in the morning playing PS2 with one of the guys that works here. That was pretty cool, too. I'll check in when we get to Ica!

Phil

Greetings from Iquitos, Peru. We got in from our jungle adventure last night. It was an amazing experience not soon to be forgotten. We left on Friday the 29th of October from Coca, Ecuador, and spent 11 nights on and around the Napo River making our way to Iquitos, Peru. It was tough at times with the mosquitos and the uncomfortable sleeping situations, but it was all worth it. We came out the other end with much more information and a new appreciation for "roughing it."
On Friday, we left coca and took a public boat for thirteen hours to the last town in Ecuador, Nuevo Rocafuerte. The boat was extremely cramped having everything you could think of on it. There were little puppies running around, baby chicks in boxes, roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing, a refrigerator, and all kinds of people. So after the thirteen hour boat ride, we stayed with Don Pepe. It turned out that Don Pepe knew everyone there was to know the whole stretch of the Napo River. The next day, we left Nuevo Rocafuerte for Yasuni National Park in Ecuador. On our way to the park, we visited an indegenous family. They were a Quichuan family. All of the indegenous homes are thatched roof huts. The roof is made of a tree called conambo. The floor is made of a strong type of palm tree. The family mainly eats smoked fish, but when they don't catch any fish, they just eat yuca. Yuca is a root similar to potatoe, except it is much drier. Most indegenous people grow banana, and yuca. After the indegenous family, we continued on the Yasani River to the park. We stopped at the mouth of a lake to go swimming and had some lunch. While our guide, Ramiro, and Don Pepe prepared lunch, our third guide, Julio, took Dad and I out in the "paddly boat." We paddled into the lake for a while and we got to see some giant otters catching and eating fish. They make a loud grunting or snorting noise to scare anyone from their meal. The otter will surround fish in a small lagoon or a mangrove swamp. The fish being cornered and not having anywhere to go, are eaten by the otter. Proceeding the otter sighting, we went back and had some lunch. Following lunch was a short hike to see the giant tree. It was a tree similar to the Pilon tree from Costa Rica. Completely straight and very tall. Later on that night, after setting up camp, we went out fishing for pirahna. The three guides all caught pirahna and Dad caught one. I caught a catfish, but I hooked it when I was reeling in and caught it's side. So needless to say the guides got a kick out of my faulty fishing abilities. While fishing for pirahna, we were fortunate enough to see a group of scarlet macaws flying over the river. If you love birds, then this is definately the place for you. The next two days were pretty laid back. We moved camp to a spot on the lake. During our paddling around and time in the picky picky boat, we saw a bunch of pink river dolphins, tucans, and a fish called peiche. Peiche is a fish that can get up to 18 feet long. The next day we went for a long hike in the jungle. We saw several types of plants and trees and also animals. There is the mouse candle which is a small tree that, at night, glows for up to six feet. The matapalo plant is a plant that kills trees. It's seed is eaten by birds and when the birds fly around to other trees, they drop the seeds on the other tree. The plant then completely surrounds the tree suffocating it and eventually kills it. As I said before, there are lots of birds in the amazonian jungle. One of those is the Florence Strotch. This bird has over 65 different songs. When a tree dies certain things have to break it down. There are two such worms that are delicassies to locals. One is the Mayun worm which is about two inches long and white in color. The other is the willian worm. it is smaller but equally as white. So as we sat watching Julio chop down two different trees to search for these worms, Ramiro explained certain things they do with the worms. Normally they put them all in a pan with oil and just fry them which we witnessed later on at camp. We returned to the boat after the two trees were completely chopped and all the worms had been collected. The next day, we went back to Nuevo Rocafuerte to restock our supplies and discuss the next part of our journey. I spent most of the time playing with Don Pepe's baby howler monkey.
After Nuevo Rocafuerte, we went to the first town in Peru, Pantoja. From there we went to a house built by the Quichua for tourists. We stayed there for two nights. One day we went for a hike through the jungle with Ramiro and Julio. We saw the capiberra hangout spots. They are essentially mudholes with a little bit of water on the top. The capiberra like to play here and bath. Also, they sometimes eat the mud. We did more fishing down river where Dad caught a bass and I caught a big fish. When I asked what kind of fish the guides just told me it was a special fish. We saw all kinds of animals though. For birds, we saw scarlet macaws, blue and yellow macaws, mealy parrots, yellow and black headed vultures, oropendulas, toucans, great tinamous, cacique birds, parakeets, kingfishers, greater anis, hoatzins, large-billed terns, lesser kiskadees, white-banded swallows, and white herons. There were the Mandi trees which turtles eat, andchoutillas which were spiky palm trees. We also saw squirrels, squirrel monkeys, giant otters, river dolphins, many fish, turtles, capuchin monkeys, tapirs, giant armadillo tracks, capiberra tracks, and balck agoutis. The amazon is definately a god place to see all sorts of animals. From the house, we went to Pantoja in Peru and switched our guides and our boat. We got a smaller boat to finish the last leg of our jungle trip. We were about to travel 900 kilometers down river in a boat with a ten horsepower motor.
Our first day on the river, we realized what it's going to be like. Long days on a boat with no cover so we will be baking in the sun. The first night we stayed with an indegenous family. We went to bed at 7:20 because there was nothing to do and it turns out that the family had a party and everyone got drunk. The next day was brutally hot, but when the sun goes down, it isn't all that bad. We stayed in some town that night. They had a party going on but we were banished to the boat. Our two guides got drunk and stayed up all night. We left at 5:30 the next morning. When we left the party was still going strong. To give an idea of how unsanitary the river is, our guide took a crap in there before we left. After he did that, a guy washed his face in that same spot and a kid jumped in and went swimming in that same spot. To them I suppose it's quite commonplace. In the morning, our propeller fell off and we spent well over an hour paddling to the next large town. One of our guides left us and stayed in this town and we continued with only Julio. The next night, we stared with one of Julio's friends, Jorge, and his father. Jorge lives in Iquitos, and both he and his father are mechanics. They also had a pet monkey but they didn't know what kind it was. The next day we took a considerable shortcut and cut hours off of our time. We took a motokar through a small river city and cut about four hours off of the travel time. We then took a boat into Iquitos.
Iquitos is a really cool city with an awesome vibe. Last night we watched the Pats get trounced by the colts on Monday Night Football. That wasn't the best thing to be welcomed with after 11 days in the jungle. The bar was cool. It was owned by a guy from Texas named Gerald. There was a bunch of gringoes in there and hanging out. If anyone watches the Motorcycle Diaries, Gerald is in several parts. The main part is when they are on a boat and Ché's friends plays cards with all the other people on the boat. Gerald is one of the people on the boat. Just a little tidbit for all. We have been getting things done today. We did laundry and got plane tickets to Lima. We are going to a zoo knock off tomorrow afternoon. That should be pretty fun and we'll let you know how that goes.

Phil