Peru

Part One: Getting There is Half the...

I started my 3 day journey to the Amazon basin on a combi bus from Chachapoyas to Pedro Ruiz. The combi looked promising which should have been a warning sign because it:

1. Stalled for 2 hours to wait for more passengers (Peruvian combis can't start their journey until there at least 6 people hanging off the roof)
2. Stalled for another hour because there was some kind of bizarre sea street festival going on with pirate men dancing with white horses.
3. Tried to bypass a truck on a windy cliff with everyone screaming for the driver to spare their lives.

Six hours later, I found myself in dusty Pedro Ruiz trying to flag down a bus for Tarapoto and all the buses kept flying past me (can you give a girl a BREAK?) until a local felt bad for me and showed me how it's done...stand in the middle of the road and yell at the top of your lungs for the driver to stop at which point he will either: stop, run you over, or try to pitch an empty soda bottle at your head. Luckily, the first happened and probably the third too and I got the next bus out. At 8 pm, right on schedule, we had the obligatory flat tire and I ended up in Tarapoto in the middle of the night instead of at noon, jumped in a mototaxi and flopped down to sleep at a nice family hospedaje with clean rooms and cold water.

The next morning, I tried to will the Peruvian transport system to be more efficient but that's like asking me to not be long winded. I thought I outsmarted the system by taking a taxi to my next destination, Yurimaguas, and although the driver promised me every half hour we would leave "pronto!", we left four hours later. No matter, in the meantime fellow taxi driver Johnny took me on a cab tour of Tarapoto, where we visited Grandma Elvira's garden where she has 60 different types of orchids and ate some delicious 3 sol ceviche. My taxi finally left and what was supposed to be a two hour journey lasted eight because there is a bridge in the middle of the way that is only open 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening. So I got to port town Yurimaguas in the evening to yet another family hospedaje. There, I was supposed to catch a cargo boat to Lagunas which is is a jungle town departing point for Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, a tranquil non touristy alternative to the jungle tourism mess in other parts of the country. I was luckily helped by a little Brazilian old man that had taken a liking to me, Sisan, who helped my buy a cheap hammock for the boat, helped me pick a boat, and helped calm my nerves when I realized I had no idea what I was doing by myself 3 days from the nearest city and heading on a cargo boat to the middle of the Peruvian jungle. Well, he actually just bought me an ice cream cone but that always seems to do the trick.

I caught the boat Linares the next day, hung my hammock next to 200 flapping chickens (the cow section is smellier, trust me), and settled down for the 1 day journey. I hadn't seen a single tourist for 3 days but then last minute, a group of British and French people got on and quickly convinced me to go on the jungle tour with them. We ended up in Lagunas that night where we fought through the crowd to scramble up a muddy cliff to meet the tour guide who led us to EcoLodge, a friendly and basic hostel in the middle of port Lagunas which has a total of 3 cars and no restaurants for 9,000 people.

Part Two: Where's My Mommmmmmy...

The next day we headed off, seven of us, with four guides down the Tibillo River which meets the Amazon River further up north. It was Andy and Ally, a British couple; Edward and Pamela, British singles; Pamela from France; and Ana from Lima with Cesar, Rupert, Hill, and Esteban as our guides. We sat in dugout canoes built by Cesar's dad with machetes and fishing spears fashioned by our guides rolling down the jungle river, strange trees and plants hanging over, monkeys all around, and insects the size of your head buzzing toward your head. Brilliant! On the way, we stopped to chop some fresh pineapple and saw a 3 toed sloth, otherwise known as "perezoso" (lazy) whose fastest speed is 3 meters per minute when its young is in danger. We ended up at camp that night where our guides quickly put up a makeshift shelter out of materials in the forest and we slept on the hard ground surrounded by basic mosquito nets. Esteban woke us up in the middle of the night to show us a cute baby crocodile that I cutely stayed away from.

The next day, we found a giant tarantula in someone's backpack and continued downriver deeper into the jungle. We went fishing along the way and I had no luck, just caught a billion piraniahs that chomp at you as they swing from the pole, which sent me off screaming almost capsizing me and Esteban from our canoe. That night, me and Ana helped with dinner, chopping vegetables on the canoe oars (for the record, I WON rock, paper, scissors but still let Ana chop the potatoes instead of the onions). After dinner, we went out on a pitch black canoe ride crocodile hunting. You wave your flashlight around until you see a pair of red eyes staring back at you. Creepy!

On the third day, we went for a walk in the jungle with Rupert and Esteban while they explained the medicinal uses of so many jungle plants, like the Tangarana Negra which cures malaria and the Heyho tree which has snake anti venom. Here is what I learned:

Recipe for a Snake Bite

1. Kill the snake that bit you. Chop up its meat.
2. Mix the meat with the flesh of a special kind toad
3. Apply it to the bite and, voila, venom out!

It was interesting the way the local people combine different world thoughtswithout a second thought. In the same sentence, Rupert would say that a certain tree aids diabetes and that its vines are made out of ant legs. It's a mix of western and indigenous science, really cool. On the way back, we met up with the highly venomous ergon snake and the choro monkey which shook the branches violently until we were forced to retreat. After that, me and Esteban left the group which was doing a 4 day trip while I wanted to go for six days into virgin, untouched jungle.

Me and Esteban headed off on our single canoe further downriver. On our way to camp as the sun was setting, Esteban taught me how to spear a fish. You find a nocturnal fish sleeping deep in the river marshes, stand up nice and tall in the canoe, aim the 8 foot spear and lunge at the fish. He first showed me how it's done, effortlessly spearing an 18" monster and then handed me the spear. Now mind you, after 3 days of jungle life, I was hoping I'd be a real jungle woman, but the only sign of this were my unshaven legs. I was still squealing like a girl at everything and was scared of even the little baby fish. So it was safe to say that both me and Esteban were prepared to laugh at my idiotic efforts. But then, alas, a miracle happened. I poised my spear and lunged at the water...and speared a one footer! We were both amazed enough to look at it in wonder for a moment and from then on, I was true jungle woman. When we got to the campsite to cook dinner, I scaled both fish and fed the guts to the swarming piraniahs. I'm sooooo hardcore, man.

The next two days, Esteban and I rowed deeper and deeper into the jungle. We met up with pink dolphins, giant otters, a paiche which is the largest freshwater fish in the world, and an anaconda. On the last night, I built the fire by myself and we slept right out in the elements with no tarp: a huge sky of stars above my head and unidentified breathing on all sides (apparently, a group of foxes). We rowed upriver back to Lagunas tired, dirty, and eternally happy.

Part Three: Is There a Taxi Around Here??

Getting off Lagunas was another story. No one in the village knows exactly when the next cargo boat will come and speculation runs high all day. At 10 o'clock, someone came racing to the hostel and told us the boat was here(!!) but when we scrambled down to the water, we still had to wait 6 hours and then push through the rioting crowd to get a hammock space. Crammed with 100 people, we ended up hanging our hammocks on top of each other and then 30 minutes later, there was a huge crashing sound. We scrambled to the deck to see our boat crashing into a cliff. Noone looked too concerned so we went back to sleep.

It took a day and a half to get to Iquitos, the largest city in the world only accessible by air or water. It's cool, nothing but jungle for 3 days and then a huge bustling town right on the AMAZON RIVER! I spent a few days there browsing the witches' markets full of bird and cobra blood potions and the floating shantytown of Belen and then bid the gang goodbye to fly back to Lima, shopped til I dropped (too much money), and then almost missed my flight home because of a little too much salsa dancing mayhem. That's right, home. Can you believe it? From the jungle of Peru to the jungle of New Jersey. I guess it's all the same in the end.

After a night bus ride being thoroughly entertained by a 1970's Mexican Western playing on the scratchy tv, Jacey and I arrived early morning in Trujillo, a bustling coastal town that starts the majestic ruins of Northern Peru. We joined up with Mary, a French Canadian who had trekked with us, to take a cab to Casa de Clara, a family run hostel with comfy beds and hot water, but a creepy dysfunctional family atmosphere. That day, we visited Chan Chan (meaning Sun Sun), the religious and political capital of the Chimus where nearly 100,000 people lived in the largest adobe citadel in the world. We walked for hours along a dizzying maze of tall adobe walls engraved with geometrical figures and mythical creatures, dead end pyramid passages, secret tunnels... so cool. This is all found in the middle of the city of Trujillo...the city just developed around these amazing fortresses. After that adventure, we went back to the center of town and started an official ceviche hunt. Ceviche is my favorite Peruvian dish, raw fish marinated in lemon and herb juice that cook it, making for a citrusy seafood feast. We asked the first person on the street where we should go for ceviche. A local favorite, Mar Picante. How far? 4 blocks. Great! After having walked 6 blocks, the restaurant was nowhere in sight. We asked a second person. Oh...3 more blocks. Fine. 3 more blocks and still no sign. This episode repeated itself 3 more times, until we had walked about 20 city blocks to reach Mar Picante. Tired, ravenous, and forever suspicious of Peruvian estimates of distance, we feasted on fish, crabs, lobster, clams, octopus, and snails, all raw but marinated in a delicious sauce. Yum!

The next day, we feasted on a breakfast we made consisting of quail eggs we had found, fresh fruit, cheese and crackers and avocado. I love food. We then hopped a cab to go visit the Huaca del Sol y la Luna (Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon), two huge pyramids crowned with mysterious tombs and ceremonial grounds . We entered Huaca de la Luna which was comprised of overlapping temples built right over each other. The first temple was built and painted with beautiful facades and then 100 years later, they built a second temple right on top of the first one, hiding the original facades with new ones. And so on and so forth to make 5 different layers. The brilliant thing about it is that archaelogists cannot see the previous layers...they would have to destroy each layer to see the previous one. Like the Russian babuschka dolls. The last layer is painted with beautiful red, blue, and green facades of warriors, mythical sea creatures, and scary serpent gods. And the previous facades...well, that will remain a mystery forever.

Feeling like true Indiana Joneses, we left Trujillo in the late afternoon, me, Jacey, Mary, and a Dutch filmmaker we had picked up named Peter and headed north to coastal Chiclayo, arriving late at night at Hostal Lido where we all got private rooms right on top of the roof overlooking the city. Well, the rooms were more like stuffy and unsavory closets but the view was worth it, and the family running the place, so nice. While we were in Chiclayo, there was a parade celebrating something every hour (save the rainforest, vote for Ollanta, hug Mickey Mouse, you want it, we got it!) so it was cool to have a bird´s eye view of it all. We got up early in the morning to continue our archaelogical adventure. We visited Tucume, a vast area which has 27 covered pyramids! They are just starting to excavate the area and they recently uncovered warrier tombs with pottery and gold. We snuck onto the construction site (one of the workers yelled "quick! before my boss comes!") and talked to one of the archaelogists who explained the excavation and preservation process. There's so much left undiscovered, it's amazing to think of what it´ll look like in 20 years when it's all been excavated. I felt proud that we were the first tourists to ever see the tombs.

The real highlight of Chiclayo was the Royal Tombs of Sipan. In 1987, an archaelogical team discovered in a series of pyramids a royal tomb belonging to the Lord of Sipan, governor of the Mochica civilization (1700 to 1900 years ago). In his tomb, they found a breathtaking collection of gold jewels, necklaces, breastplates, helmets, bracelets, as well as semiprecious stones. The museum is absolutely amazing, you can see the actual bones of the lord and his burial party as well as all these amazing gold crowns and necklaces with scary bird-god figurines and geometric figures. One of the best museums I've ever been to. Jacey and I spent the whole afternoon gawking at everything. Then it was time to go home, at which point we did the next best cultural thing we could do... we went to see "The Da Vinci Code". Except for the fact that the sound was mixed in with the fighting sounds of XMen playing next door, ruining several dramatic parts, it was a great experience. We then decided to go clubbing. Chiclayo is supposed to be famous for Afro-Latino beats but we when got to the club, it was just the usual reggatone. The place felt like a wedding with one big dance floor and people sitting around staring blankly at the dancers. We were the only gringitas in the place which got us enough attention to not even dare start to dance so eventually we moved to the more private basement where we were finally accepted by the basement Peruanos and had a jolly old time learning cumbias steps. I of course convinced Jacey to end the night at the casino where we each lost 1 sol, approximately 30 cents. She convinces me to go rock climbing and I convince her to gamble. Am I the bad influence??

The next day, it was off to the bustling market where I think I ate goat soup but I'm not quite sure. After lunch, we visited the Mercado de Las Brujas (witch's market) which is an actual witch's market, not a tourist trap, where they sell so many things I've never seen before I can't possibly cover them all: llama claws, bottles and bottles of roots, strangely colored powders, insect pollens. I didn't really understand any of it, I don't think I was supposed to. Dutchman Peter bought something and went to shake the guy's hand and the man did some kind of motion with his fingers, apparently a spell, and lo and behold, Peter kind of frigged out 20 minutes later flailing his hand around and straight out ran out of the market. I didn't see him again. So strange, I don't know what to think of it. Jacey and I spent our last afternoon together looking at the caged guinea pigs and rabbits that would be someone's dinner and shopping for 4 sol clothes which I think might be more dangerous than gambling. I left her sadly and caught an overnight bus to Chachapoyas, home of Kuelap, a mysterious fortress in the misty cloud forests that is called "The Machu Picchu of the North".

I arrived at 5 am, settled in my hostel, and hopped on a tour of the fortress. I got there by taxi on unpaved mountain roads, crammed in the car with four dentists from Nebraska. The dentists got out to hike up the mountain but I was feeling tired from my Santa Cruz trek (ok, I'm LAZY. Is that what you want to hear?? It's a 3 hour vertical hike and I'm LAZY!) so I went up the mountain with taxi cab driver Rubio. We had a nice talk about food and family and arrived at the top at the same time as the dentists, the road was that bad. Rubio was a professional though and treated his ´87 Pinto like a Jeep Wrangler, tailgating huge trucks around the cliffs and trying to run over unsuspecting cows. We toured Kuelap which is a moss covered treasure, full of circle stone houses, a compass, irrigation ditches, and ceremonial platforms, all surrounded by a thick fortress wall that has not detoriated the least bit in 900 years. The Spanish tried destroying it but COULDN'T. The only way the Incas were able to vanquish the Chachas' palace was by starving them out. It uses 3 times as much volume of stone as the Egyptian pyramids. It's quite an amazing place and what was more brilliant was that we were the only ones there. This is more well preserved than Machu Picchu but receives 10 tourists a day while MP receives 1,500. That's probably a good thing...makes it more special. We went halfway down the mountain, ate a yummy lunch of chicken soup and corn, and drove the violently bumpy 3 hour ride back to town.

The next morning, I started a two day journey in a combi to Pedro Ruiz, one of 3 modes of transport I would use to get to my next destination, the Amazon jungle. Of course you have to end this trip with the Amazon, I'm no fooooool.

I know, I know. This route is just getting too hot to handle.

After a long bus ride pretending to have motion sickness so Lucas sitting next to me would stop asking for my cell phone number, I arrived in Ica at 10 pm and took a cab to Casa de Arenas (House of the Sands), a hostel overrun by loud Israelis and a few creepy employees. The next day, I woke up to a huge blue pool, a bar with fresh fruit, and some shady palm trees all against the backdrop of HUGE brown sand dunes, the biggest in the world. So needless to say, the first day in Ica, or rather Huacachina, the resort town next to Ica, was spent lounging by the sunny pool recovering from too much fun. Keep the hate mail coming. I made friends with Laura (UK) and that afternoon, we set out together on the sand buggy tour. They strap you into a jeep (you know you're in trouble when you have to wear a seatbelt in Peru) and floor it down the road right into the towering sand dunes. Then they rev the engine and you go careening up the side of the dune and flying violently, nothing but air, over the top. Like a rollercoaster ride but with no guarantee that you will live. We finally screeched to a halt at one dune, took out the sandboards, and skied down a 10 meter drop. When I say ´ski´, I really mean standing on the board for five seconds, and then falling into sand and rolling down the hill at maximum speed. Being the wuss that I know I am, I was so scared at first, whimpering ¨I'm going to die, I´m going to die¨ until some Canadian hippie gave me a pep talk with phrases like ¨conquer the fear¨ and ¨you're a winner¨ and I finally careened off the edge of the sand cliff screaming for my mommy at the top of my lungs until I was pummeling down the mountain, eating 3 lbs of sand. And after that, it was a piece of cake. I was actually one of the better sandboarders, who knew! We sandboarded down several dunes, the largest one at the end being a near vertical 30 meters!, and then watched the red sun set over the dunes. What a nice day. Unfortunately, one week later, I am still finding sand in places that sand shouldn't be.

The rest of my days in Ica were spent, you can guess this, suntanning by the pool and eating too much chocolate ice cream against-the-doctor´s-orders-because-I'm-a-rebel with Laura, my two Swedish roommates Stina and Yelen, and Paul (UK). All too soon, it was time to go. I packed up my bags, bid the gang farewell, and took a bus to Lima, the capital of Peru. After my initial culture shock of seeing KFC! and Dunkin Donuts! at every corner, I settled into Miraflores, the ritzy neighborhood of Lima, at Casa de Mochilero, yet another Israeli hot spot but much quieter. Since there is not much touristy stuff to do in Lima, it was nice to have some down time. For three days, I watched Seinfeld reruns with Maayan and Sharon (Israel), spoke hebrew with Walter, the Peruvian 15 year old who can say ¨sababa¨ with the best of them, and made hourly trips to the supermarket to cook for every meal. One night, I went out to Baranco, the bohemian neighborhood by the beach, to visit Paul from Ica. We went to a seaside video arcade where I kicked some five year old butt at ski ball to win a pack of Spiderman playing cards. Amateurs. After a a BBQ at Paul's hostel, I went back ¨home¨ where Maayan was waiting impatiently (¨where have you BEEN!¨) to watch a movie. At the end of my stay in Lima, all the Israelis congratulated me on having entered the Israeli travelling world, a compact circle that you can't leave until you've stayed in all-Israeli hostels, eaten at restaurants that have all-Hebrew menus, and have felt paranoid 24-7 that some other Israeli, somewhere in the world, has gotten a better price than you. Help me. Help me now.

I thought Maayan and Sharon were kidding but when I took a 6 hour bus north to Huaraz, the hiking mecca of Peru, I found myself at Casa de Jaimes, a hostel with 30 Israelis and 1 poor French guy who couldn't figure out how he had gotten there. This is what my cousin Tomer was talking about...Little Israel. Jaimes greeted me a ¨shalom, ma nishma¨ and asked me whether I was having dinner at the Casa Judea that night. I was no longer in South America... the nightmare was complete. Outside the hostel, I hung out with Sharon and, that night, we had dinner in honor of Lag Ba´omer with pita and salad and that was real nice. But back at the hostel, the music was blaring at top volume and the Israeli girls were yelling at Jaimes about prices of trekking. I had wanted to do the famous Santa Cruz trek, a four day trek that is supposed to be one of the top hikes in the world, but I couldn't figure out how to do it stress-free. I am Israeli, yes, but most of these kids, we just have different circumstances. They´re on a tighter budget than the Americans and Europeans, so they argue about every sol. And they're younger and fresh out of the stressful army life, so they like to party a lot. These are generalizations, of course, there are so many great Israeli travellers out there but travelling with them has a chance of being stressful. Make sense? So I snuck out the next day and shopped around the different travel agencies, finally booking the Santa Cruz trek at an agency that had a nice balanced mix of Europeans, North Americans and Israelis. I guess the one advantage of being in the Israeli circle was that I got the Israeli price, half of what everyone else pays. But don't tell them that.

The next day, we headed out for our trek through the infamous Cordillera Blanca of Peru on a public minibus to Cachabambas, a 4 hour journey along windey mountain roads with one flat tire on the way. The group was a total of seven mostly experienced hikers, most notably Jacey, adventurous Colorado mountain girl, and Jacky and Ido, two goofy Israelis fresh out of the army. Our entourage was led by trusty guide Frial and burro (donkey) caretaker Augustino. The first day was a tough mountainous hike at 3600 meters and I had to stop every ten meters to gasp for air since there's very little at that altitude. I was kicking myself for signing up for this...I was definitely out of my league. But I made it just fine and we camped at a cow pasture that night. The tour agency had miscounted and brought one less sleeping bag so that night, I had to use a summer bag meant for warm weather...slightly cold but not a killer. The next day was a mostly flat walk through green pastures all along the thunderous river. We were heading straight for Taliarhuho, a snowy majesty standing over 6,000 meters tall. That night, we camped at a chilly 4,200 meters in another cow pasture where me, Jacey, Ido and Jacky tried to catch trout in the river with a few sticks and some worms Jacey had dug up. When you're facing a dinner of potatoes and rice, served over a mysterioso ¨red sauce¨, you'd be hunting for trout too. At night, we played cards over hot tea and of course, true to camping rules, Jacky and Ido made donkey noises outside the girls´ tent and attempted to topple it over. The third day was the most difficult. We began to climb the frosty cliffs leading up to Taliarhuho. My competitive spirit kicked in and I kept at the head of the pack, finishing the hike in half the time. Was there ever any doubt, people! Just kidding. We had reached Punto Union at 4,700 meters to have a gorgeous view of the towering snowy mountains all around us. The last night, we camped at a sheep pasture while Jacey drew with the village kids and I tried to teach them how to play War with my new and shiny Spiderman cards. They weren't too impressed with my efforts. That night, there was a mysteriously creepy wild cat noise outside the girls´ tent. The next morning found me and Jacey trying to lead an unwilling donkey into the boys' tent until it finally tried to kick us and stomped away irritably. Ahh... camping. We ended our four day hike in the mountain village of Huaribamba handing out caramels to the cute little kids before catching a 4 hour minibus back to Hauraz.

Now that I had my new group of trekking friends, I finally found my opportunity to escape the Casa de Jaimes. I snuck into the lobby , grabbed my bag and ran like mad across town to share Hostal Angel with Jacey, Jacky and Ido. We had dinner that night with the whole group and our token quiet Swiss guy got a few beers in him and willed the rest of us to dance on the tables and pull waiting cab drivers into the bar to join the dancing mayhem. It was fun. The next morning had a slow start but by the afternoon, Jacey had convinced me to go rock climbing with these two Dutch girls with guide Javier, who agreed to do the whole thing for free since he got to be alone with four girls. I climbed a 50 foot cliff without too much drama except when I got to the top I couldn't figure out how to get down so it took some encouraging words and loud threats from the group to get me to start rapelling back down. It was great fun. We ended up at Javier's bar "Cero Drama" for some pizza and homemade pisco sours.

After five days in Huaraz, it was time to continue north. That night, Jacey and I caught a 12 hour bus to Trujillo where the great ruins of Northern Peru officially start. North Peru is considered to be the Egypt of South America, packed with 2,000 year old temples, huge pyramids, and hidden tombs at every mountain side. Three weeks of this trip left...stay tuned!

My favorite "travelling associate" and I set out from Cusco one early morning on an unrecorded day of the week (hell, I don't know what month we're in) and took the 6 hour bus to Puno, which is on the edge of Lake Titicaca. This lake is shared by Bolivia and Peru and each side claims that the other is caca. Hey...don't shoot the messenger! The bus broke down halfway through at a little valley right before the train tracks but we had bought two whole chaplas (Cusqueno sweet bread 1 foot in diameter) so that was enough to keep us quiet and happy as the driver carried water from the nearby stream to pour into our engine. That always seems to do the trick! We finally arrived at the bus station to Dan's favorite part of every journey...the part where all the hostel owners surround us at the station and frighteningly yell at us to come with them. I hate this part...it's too stressful...but Dan likes the excitment of this game, especially when it gives us attention AND lowers our price, so we finally went with one woman to Hostel Kukimimu or something like that. That day, we explored Puno, a small but busy market town. We ate at a rundown chicken and fries place where we had the most delicious curry soup until we found a chicken foot in the bowl. But it was still good...I licked the bowl clean...keep the chicken feet coming, Rosa! We booked a tour to Puno's famous floating islands for 7:30 the next morning and went off to sleep.

The next morning, at 6:30 AM, we were awakened by a loud pounding on the door. "The bus is here, the bus is here!" yelled our hostel host. Apparently, we had been given the wrong time. We quickly got dressed and ran down to meet the bus, which took us to the port where we got on a boat with 20 other gringos... and Ryan, our roommate from La Paz! While Dan and Ryan and other Dan (Ryan's friend) caught up on their futbol talk, I took a nap on the upper deck and got completely sunburnt. So I have flea bites on every part of my body AND a sunburn. Bueno. Our first stop was Isla de Uros, one of over 50 islands made entirely of floating reeds...you could swim underneath the island...I mean, if you wanted to. The Uros people built these islands hundreds of years ago to get away from the Incas and other aggressive cultures. They speak only Aymara, a pre-incan language, and their whole life revolves around reeds...reed houses, reed boats, etc. When in Uros, do as the Uros, so we ate some reeds (I ate everyone else's...no one seemed to like them) and then took a reed boat that looked like a dragon to another neighboring island. It stopped halfway between the two islands to get money from us. I wonder what happens to people who don't pay? Ponderings...ponderings. In the afternoon, we took a 3 hour boat ride to Isla Taqila, an awful tourist trap of a place where you have to meet with the "village leader" so he can tell you in which restaurant you can eat your lunch. During a nice lunch of fried fish and rice, we learned the 3 Incan rules: don't steal, don't be lazy, and don't lie. Someone mentioned that "don't kill" wasn't on the list but I think that person was promptly thrown into the lake when we weren't looking. And then it was a 3 hour boat ride back to dry land, playing 20 victorious rounds of cards with Dan, Ryan, Dan, and Amy (USA). I had planned on leaving Puno to go into the Amazonas but only one person had heard of this mysterious route and she had mysteriously disappeared. So rather than end up in a Colombian guerilla jungle base and lose my mother's love, I decided to join Dan and Ryan and Dan on an adventure to Colca Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world (the first largest is down here too). That night, we all went out for dinner while I tried to shelter 18-year-old Amy from 25-year-old guy conversation. Unsuccessfully. To see pictures of Uros, go here: http://www.peru-pictures.org/fotos-peru-fotos-lago-titicaca-fotos-isla-uros/fotos-peru-fotos-lago-titicaca-fotos-isla-uros.shtml

The next morning it was bright and early to get the bus to Arequipa. Dan let us take a rickshaw bicycle down to the bus and this ride remains one of my favorite memories of this trip, almost getting run over by the taxis as we got pedaled down the hill. I am easily amused. Arequipa, Peru's second largest city and home of Colca Canyon, is graced with beautiful architecture, pure white colonial churches and buildings. We settled in at Casa de Reina, in a beautiful corner room with an open air balcony overlooking the white facades of the city. With the sun setting, it looked a lot like Jerusalem! The following two days, we visited Colca Canyon. We stopped at various lookout points, trekked down a windy country road as the boys tried to skip rocks on the lagoons below, and soaked in thermal waters under a sky of stars. That night, we slept under a tin roof in the dusty town of Chivay after playing a very competitive game of "I spy with my little eye" -- which I naturally won. Unfortunately, I found out that British people play the game entirely WRONG. They don't know that you're supposed to say "something starting with blue or red". Instead, they say "something starting with ´a´ or ´b´", a completely ridiculous and wrong version of the game. At times like these, I have to remind myself that it's not their fault they were raised in this awful way. I shudder to think how I would have turned out if I had grown up in a world that encourages letters instead of colors. Get with the program people!

The next morning, we woke up at 5 am and sped out for our first view of Colca Canyon. There were about 12 HUGE condors flying around from our lookout point and some even perched on the cliff right next to us. The wing span of condors is 9 feet! They were so graceful and beautiful...and CLOSE it looked they were coming in for the kill! Well I thought so anyway, so I ducked but noone else did. Apparently, they're scavengers, but you never really know. After this close encounter, we trekked around the top of this deep, deep canyon, think 3 km deep. Back in Arequipa that night, we went out for a dinner on a balcony looking over the brightly lit Plaza de Armas, musicians spicing up the air and hundreds of people strolling in the evening breeze. After that, it was off to play pool where we met Veira and Jackie, two arequipenas who took us out to Deja Vu, where we danced to cumbias, salsa, and rock until odd hours of the night. I got accosted by a drunk gypsie guitar player who insisted on singing "Born in the USA!" at the top of his lungs while I buried my head in my sweatshirt.

The next day, I had to bid Dan farewell. He was going to New Zealand and I was heading out on my own to Nazca where there are huge 2,000 year old field drawings of animals and trees that some people believe were caused by aliens (because you can only see them from the air and 2,000 years ago, no planes) but were probably created as agricultural calendars. It was very sad, this farewell from Dan, my longest travelling friend yet, so I won't linger on it. But it seems that Dan was my good luck charm because after leaving him, I missed my bus out of Arequipa, missed my tour to the field lines, AND ended up in the emergency room after eating some questionable but still delicious wonton soup (damn you, senor Wonton, so tricky!). All in a day's work. In the end, all I really saw of the lines was a sad little steel tower that Petre took me to after our more official tour of the ER (where I made the two nurses rolling their eyes hug me while they gave me a shot in the tucchus!). The worst part was that they told me I couldn't eat chocolate. For five days! Ridiculous advice. Must be a mis-translation. As soon as the red spots all over my body were gone, leaving me with my much cuter flea scars, I got out of Nazca ASAP and got a bus to sunny and gorgeous Ica, home of some of the largest sand dunes in the world. Poolside and sandboarding, here I come!

The latest image of my fabulous route.

Dan, Andrew, and I (Dan likes it when his name is the first word in my blog entry) took the 14 hour bus that left La Paz behind and barreled toward the Peruvian border, which happens to be right on gorgeous Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake on earth. This is the place where it is said that the first Incan king Manco Capaq and his sister queen were born right out of the water to begin the great Incan civilization. When we arrived at the border, we got our exit stamp from Bolivia and had to walk across the bridge to the town of Puno, Peru, to get our entrance stamp. This process was held up by 30 minutes because there was a ceremony celebrating the arrival of vaccinations to Puno, suited men making long speeches while on either side of the bridge, the impatient rickshaw motorcycle taxistas rang their ribboned bells as a hint to wrap things up. We finally crossed the bridge, were welcomed to lovely Peru, and got on the bus to complete the journey to Cusco. We arrived at the bus station at 11 pm and were surrounded by a crowd of loud hostel solicitors and, as we pushed our way to make phone calls, 60 year old Rene said to me, "Are you Israeli?". As a test, I said no, and she replied "well then, why so tough?!". Hmph!

We finally gave up on the public phone and went with Rene to a hostel on top of a hill, ate a sleepy dinner where Dan and Andrew corrected the waitress' English essay in pencil, and finally turned in for the night. Andrew got up in the morning to bid us goodbye, his family had come from England and he was embarking on a route none of us could ever dream of seeing: the 5-star hotel circuit. As I stupidly spend my money on finger puppets, I have to adjust my daily budget to new lows: I'm currently at $19 a day...jam sandwiches here I come! We sadly said goodbye, got up, and found a new hostel closer to the main plaza, Hostal Rojas. The next two days, Dan and I walked around beautiful Cusco, a dizzying mix of Spanish buildings built right on top of original Inca stone all along narrow cobblestone streets. I visited the enormous main cathedral, where you can see Christian paintings painted in Andean style ("The Last Supper" featuring hated conquistador Pizarro as Judas) and a black Jesus. Apparently, Jesus arrived white from Spain and the people started burning candles underneath him and saw that he was starting to look like them and so they burnt more and more candles until he WAS one of them. I love that story. One night, I met the owner of a restaurant in town, Alejandro, and went out with him and his friends to a local Peruvian discotech. We danced to Sonia Morales and other notables in a room with a big mirror, where everyone tries to outdo each other with ridiculous dance moves. I soooooo won. Any doubts, really?

One aim of being in Cusco was to visit one of the most famous places on the whole continent, Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas which the Spanish never, ever found. Being that there are no roads to Machu Picchu (after all these years, still so well hidden!), you are forced to take an expensive train, pay the entrance fee, plus hotels plus the bus up and down the mountain.

Tourist Train ..$105
Entrance Fee... $20
2 nights stay in Aguas Calientes...$40
Bus up-down mountain...$12

Seeing Machu Picchu? Damn expensive!

Needless to say, our sense of adventure and yes, laughable budgets, motivated us to find an alternate route. Here is what I found out from the trusty internet and interrogating random drunk people:

How to get to Machu Picchu the back way:

1. Take a local bus to Santa Teresa.
2. Walk across the draw bridge.
3. Hitch a ride to the hydroelectric plant.
4. Walk 2 hours along the train tracks or bribe the men driving VW's along the tracks to take you in return for 3 beers and some boiled corn.
5. Arrive in Aguas Calientes, the town below Machu Picchu
6. Climb up the mountain, after the third hut, make a right. This path will lead you to the ruins.

This story is of course bullshit. Sorry to all ye desperate souls who googled this entry in vain. Did I not learn from the Antarctica Chilean Navy ship disaster?? But nonetheless, desperate times call for desperate measures, so Dan and I set out early one morning with some hope in our hearts and coca tea in our stomachs, determined to beat the cruel, cruel system. We took a rickety local bus to lovely Urumbamba, ate "the best ice cream in the world" and then took another rickety local bus to Ollantantambo. We walked down to the train station to assess the situation. $45 USD to take the train to Aguas Calientes. I put on my best smile and asked a nearby local where the hydroelectric plant was and he chuckled and said, "Far." I guess that's a common question. So we vowed not to eat for the next week and bought tickets for the evening backpacker's train, leaving us the whole day in Ollantantambo. We had lunch in the sunny plaza with Marcelle and Natasha, a lovely diving couple from Holland. Every time we ordered something from the menu, we would see the waitress run like mad from the restaurant to the market to buy the ingredients fresh on the spot. I ordered a chicken sandwich and saw a naive little chicken being led into the kitchen, never to come out again. Sorry chicky! After lunch, Dan and I started climbing the Inca ruins in Ollanta, a mountain crowned with temples and irrigation channels built with the typical Incan stone craftsmanship: stones formed so perfectly, no cement was ever used. It is still a mystery how they did it. In the evening, we caught the train to Aguas Calientes, a touristy town with 800 restaurants at the bottom of the hill, and passed out in anticipation of waking up at 4:30 AM to beat the tour group crowds and catch the sunrise at the great Machu Picchu.

We did wake up at 4:30 (ok, fine, 4:55 am), jumped out of bed, and ran down the hill to buy student entrance tickets. We then caught the first bus up the hill, being among the first 20 people at the site (pretty good considering 1,500 visit every day). The gates opened at 6 am, and we entered and walked along the mountain where we could see nothing but heavy fog and mist. It was very mysterious and lonely...I rather liked it. We sat quietly on a rock for the next two hours. Surrounded by nothing but thick white clouds. Eventually, the mist cleared to reveal a great city of ruins below, temples and houses built on top of boulders, the whole majesty of it all hanging right on the steepest cliff I've ever seen. Completely surrounded by huge, looming mountains, it's no wonder the Spanish never found it. We walked through the jungly forest to see the Inca bridge, one foot of stone walkway set against nothing but cliff and a 500 meter pure vertical drop into the frightening Urubamba River. Can you imagine walking across that thing? We then walked down into the actual city with Marcelle and Natasha, admiring the perfect stonework built underneath huge boulders the Incas couldn't move, temples shaped like llamas and condors, water channels, square houses, torture chambers for dissidents. It is still unclear what Machu Picchu was actually used for, but there are clear signs of religious and agricultural activity, in the dozens of terraces everywhere and the stones shaped in honor of the Sun. Beautiful. Dan and I then decided to hike up Wayna Picchu, a huge mountain set in the midst of this. We hiked up a hard hour to arrive at the temple on top of the mountain, scary narrow stone walkways set against the cliff, absolutely nothing to hold on to. We had a lunch of M&M's and doritos on top, slipped back down the wet path and then decided to go down a lesser known trail to the Temple of the Moon. We only met 3 other people on the way, it was nice, and the path led us through green grottos, a real rainforest hike. We drank from the caves dripping pure mountain water and struggled along until we reached The Great Cave. Picture this: a huge dark cave hidden within the mountain. Right in the middle of the cave is a great big boulder shaped like a throne and 6 altars surround it, where people still leave coca leaves and offerings to the spirit of the mountain. Dan left a lemon sweet. The best thing about it was that we were the only ones there, so it really had a raw, unexplored feel to it. You know how I like things being all dramatic... definitely worth the arduous hike. Afterwards, I became convinced that the stone steps above the cave led to some other unknown place so I made us hike up for about 15 minutes until we realized we were just going up the same mountain we had already climbed so we returned to Machu Picchu. By this time, we were pretty much the only people left at the place so we got to explore it alone. So beautiful, I can't even describe it. Dan brought his juggling balls and that afternoon, he became the first person ever to juggle at Machu Picchu. This is a very important and distinguished title. At 5:30 pm, after TWELVE HOURS at Machu Picchu, we got kicked out by the whistling guards. We tried to board the last bus out but in our thrifty (and, hellooo, adventurous??) nature, we had not bought a return ticket so the bus left us in the dust to hike down the mountain in the dark. Stupid idea and we were so tired after 5 hours of hard climbing, our legs were shaking, but an hour later we were down the mountain and walking blindly toward the town of Aguas Calientes. We couldn't see anything but could hear the roar of the river to our right so we followed that (kendraly, just follow the river!) until we finally arrived into town, eating a hot pizza before COLLAPSING into bed at 8 pm. What a great day. It ended up costing $70 but to be honest, I would have paid hundreds anyway.

The next day, I woke up feeling like I had been run over by a Bolivian mini bus. Everything hurt! Plus I had flea bites again from the dodgy hostel bed. These fleas, they find me wherever I go. No one else seems to get bitten. I think it's because I'm extra sweet. Must be! We returned to Cusco, passed out at our hostel for a few hours, and in our delirium, met Marcelle and Natasha for a dinner of Indonesian and Malaysian food. Yum! Then we went back to sleep. This schedule of seeing incredible Incan ruins really wears you down, yknow?

The next day, we took a two hour local bus to Pisaq, home of a great outdoors market. Dan went off to call his sweetheart `mum` and I begged one of the Qechua market women to teach me how to do yarnwork. She tied me up in the yarn belt and I got a 20 minute lesson in pure Qechua (not of a word of Spanish) so I'm still a bit shaky on the logistics but I feel confident that I will soon be able to make Andean belts and sweaters and sell them on my newly established Andean-Belt-and-Sweater Ebay business. This is not like the others...I think I finally have the market cornered...will keep you posted. Then we climbed the ruins at Pisaq, which are supposed to be as well preserved as those at Machu Picchu. Dan took a sunny nap on an Incan wall while I struggled to the top and took pictures with random Peruvian teenagers. Because I made it to the top-top, I think this is the ultimate proof that I am a cooler and, overall, better person. That night, back in Cusco, I proudly found us a 10 sol ($3 US) restaurant menu but after we feasted on alpaca meat and pisco sours, we found out it was actually 10 DOLLARS. I'm still hearing about it And that was IT for Cusco. The next morning, we boarded a bus for Puno, home of the infamous floating islands made entirely out of reeds. You can eat reeds, they are a great source of fluoride, did you know that? I'll fedex some.