closure

there is a story about a guy who should have been gay and a karaoke bar, but its not that exciting and i have to leave (breathe dont panic) in 18 minutes. so ill do some summing up.

final count
inca ruins seen: 8
mountains walked over: 23 (approx.)
mosquito bites: 42
toilets clogged because i forgot you are not supposed to flush toilet paper: 1
words learned and remembered in quechua: siqui sapa, meaning big ass.
boys kissed while in a bar: 2
boys who kissed me while i was actively ducking: 3 (approx.)
times wished i wasnt surrounded exclusively by boys: 17
warnings about having my camera stolen: 96
times offered cocaine: 5
times heard shakira song my hips dont lie: 78
minutes spent doing whatever the hell i want: 43,200 (approx.)
look on bartenders face last night when i said i was a lesbian: priceless.

baila under the moonlight

i wish i knew who sings this song. i really like it. oh, i found out, the internet knows all. zucchero, in case you were wondering.

soo... i cant remember what was the last info i posted. yesterday i tried to go shopping but i didnt make it past the combi stop, as i was doubled over in pain from a mysterious stomach ache. i inform you of this so you can appreciate the ridiculousness of what followed. as i hobbled back in the direction of my hostal, i came accross a store that had bins chock full of hollister shirts, the thin comfy kind (if you dont know hollister think urban outfitters) for 50 cents each. years of bargain shopping insticts overcame my pain and i dug in. i swear i spent forty five minutes there, and this is a physical shopping experience you have to elbow people aside and literally dig through giant piles of clothes. i left with a large bundle that i can not fit into my backpack.

because it felt like a waste to go back and lie down like i really wanted to, i continued my pathetic excursion and walked toward the water. (i was also sore from the horseback riding so i was actually limping. for those who like to laugh at me i want you to have the full image.) i came accross the parque de los amantes which has a giant sculpture of two people making out surrounded by quite a few real life couples making out. so heres what i want to know. do people go to this park specifically to make out? if so, why there? just because of the sculpture? or do they happen to come accross it and suddenly become overwhelmed by the need to feel each other up? i dont get it. not that i have any problem with it, it makes me happy that people are happy. i just ... well i dont understand the mechanics of the park.

i tried to go to the artisans market but after ten minutes i took a cab back to my bed.

im feeling better today. so im having yeterday, take two. went for a run, and for the first time i wasnt the only one. (oh when i say run i really mean accelerated walk, just in case anyone should think im ... i dunno, in shape.) in el carmen i went running and this guy almost fell off his bike doing a double take. i imagine it must have been a shock. hes looking around, normal morning, dusty sidewalk, vendor setting up shop and a donkey parked outside someones house, and a white girl passes through his line of vision running down the street for no apparent reason.

anyway, i went to this area where they sell lots of clothes and textiles and shoes at a discount. i think foreigners are generally advised against going there, but what the hell. i got some shoes and im glad i went because i saw more of lima. i dont get why people dont like lima, they say its just another city but every city is different and chicago certainly doesnt have any place like the mercado gamorra.

home in two days. back to work in six. ewwww. last chance for requests, kids.

shake your booty

you know music comes from poor people when the main instruments are a box, a cowbell and a donkey´s jawbone. so last night there was a show at the hacienda, a sort of touristy deal but good nonetheless. they sang la bamba at the end, which shows you the vibe. then i went to have a drink with the tourguide from the hacienda who is a very interesting guy and outside the gates there was a procession going on for st martin de porres.

this morning i went to mass, which was interesting. the priest would speak in serious tones and then they´d break out into kick ass drumming. not like other catholic services i´ve been too.

later in the morning there was another show. there is a family here famous for dancing and they did a performance in their living room. it was great, and the greatest thing was that the toddlers who attended (i am with all old people and families here) were really getting down. they loved it.

i finally went horseback riding today too. the guide gave me the biggest compliment, which was to say that i actually knew how to ride. it was nice to have a horse that isnt all jaded from so many riders, it was slightly misbehaved and very fun. maybe some day i´ll live in a place like this and have a horse instead of a car.

i´m hoping to get a chance to go running before i leave for lima. there´s another dance show in an hour, i´m going to be all showed out. oh, there was a party last night in el carmen, exactly what i was looking for the whole time, and the people at the hacienda straight out lied to me and told me there was nothing going on. the horse guide told me i missed a great show. motherfucker. oh well, what can you do. i´m glad i stayed here, even if the sparkling clear blue waters of the north do keep calling me.

hacienda san jose

so, i decided to treat myself to a fancy hotel, and combine it with a historical education. this means i am staying at a converted hacienda, which used to be home to about a thousand slaves. i am creeped out by this. all the people staying here are white, and almost all the people working here are black. does nobody see a problem with this... i have been feeling shamelessly indignant while sipping pina coladas by the pool. they have photos of smiling waitstaff at the entrance. of all things. at least where i come from, we have the decency to be ashamed of our past and pretend nothing ever happened.

politics aside, i´m super pleased with my decision to splurge. i washed myself in a shower with TWO knobs, which means not only was their hot water, but i did not risk electric shock using it. (oh, during my several day streak of things not going my way, i got electrocuted by the first warm shower i had in days.) i even bought conditioner and used it. my hair had a dim recollection of such things, but by now was convinced they were a myth.

oh, and at the pool there were the brattiest kids, and i realized i had not been annoyed by brats in three weeks. rich kids are the worst, man. i was probably equally annoying. ok back to life in the lap of luxury.

i see black people

first of all, i just noticed that my right arm is about fifty percent more tanned than my left arm. this is most likely due to leaning out passenger side windows. its fairly severe, i look like the jungle fever poster when i hold my own hand. which, you know, i do all the time.

second of all, im in el carmen, which is supposed to be the center of black peru. it sort of is, its like going to the south side. suddenly everyones taller here. it soothes my homesickness to be hit on by sketchy black guys after all those sketchy ... brown guys. funny here everyones peruvian, but if i took them home with me suddenly theyd be different races.

still fighting off this damn cough. in chincha the day after i shopped and ate i went to bed at six pm. i probably havent done that since i was six years old. then i went to lunahuana, which according to lets go is an underappreciated jewel of the coast. it wasnt bad, but it seems to be a tradition there to offer things you cant get. food on the menu, horseback riding, i tried to do a lot of things and was turned away every time. i finally went to bed at sunset again, in a tent i rented from the campground i slept at. on the way to lunahuana i stopped in canete, which i think is a wild beach town during the summer but now is not really happening. i sunbathed on principle, since i was at the beach, but left when i was burnt and being harassed by twelve year olds and sixty year old retired professors who insisted on having their picture taken with me. then i had ceviche which was very good, although when clearing the table the waitress spilled the juice from the plate into my bag, so now my knitting and my camera bag smell like fish. its been that kind of few days.

this morning i got up at sunset and did what passes for yoga when no ones watching, which was lovely with a view of mountains and the river in the distance. i also went for a run and went whitewater rafting. the rafting was not all that intense, but it was fun nonetheless. the family i went with also wanted to have their picture taken with me. odd.

ive gotta think of something useful to do with myself for tomorrow. theres no music tonight, apparently friday does not count as the weekend. i wish i would have known that. i dont like looking forward to the next thing, it makes me feel like im wasting time in the present. oh well, life is still good, full of tiny moments of interest rather than all encompassing ones. tomorrow ill go running again and enjoy my lungs that though tragically weakened by disease are way stronger since the mountains. also, i just had an amazing dinner and dessert.

cruising

i´ve been walking up and down and around the streets of chincha for a couple hours now, eating. i´ve acquired so many things, both in my bag and in my stomach that i had to stop into the internet cafe and tell someone about it.

i could live here.

now to continue my cruising.

where´s the love y´all (currently playing)

yeah, i know, it´s early since my last post and i´m already online again. i´m a little at a loss today. well, i think i solved the problem i had i´m just waiting until i feel like doing anything about it. i came to chincha alta to hear music, and there is no music until the weekend. this means i have to choose between what i hear is a kickass afroperuvian music and dance show, and what i hear is one of the best beaches in south america. this is choice hell. i think i´ve opted for the music, since the beach is way north and i´m more likely to be there again someday than back in central peru. and there are beaches around here - i think i´m going to go to one to pass the time until the weekend. i guess life isn´t as cruel as i´ve been thinking it is. also holding me back is that i washed clothes last night, in a bucket of course, and i´m waiting on them to dry.

i finally found the street food of my dreams. for breakfast i had this plate of chicharron, which is not the crispy chicharron of my pilsen-visiting childhood but more like carnitas. carnitas with extra extra flavor, sweet potatoes, red onions and ahi (peruvian salsa). with a side of fresh bread and fresh orange and papaya juice. sigh. just took a moment to reminiss. (sp?) i´m totally full, and totally ready for seconds.

also holding me back is i´m not sure exactly where to go next. another day, another adventure in collectivo ride-landia.

another day, another disease

in chincha alta. arrived this evening.

the other day i noticed that my blog titles of late had been leaning toward the negative, so i thought it was a trend meant to be and kept it up. im losing my voice, but im actually fine. i went to the pharmacy to see if they had anything for me, and rather than hand me a strange illegal-in-the-states magical concoction they offered me antibiotics. so i left dissapointed and went on a quest for chicken soup. i love the random ethnic diversity here, rather than onions for the soup they had chives and instead of rice they have soba noodles.

i was in paracas national reserve today and we had lunch at a fish place on the dock where there was an afroperuvian guy playing the guitar and the box (its really a drum in the shape of a box). he was an awesome musician, and very determined to let us know he was playing black people music. he gave me some music recommendations. tomorrow im going cd shopping and im so excited.

anyway. i finally left huacachina at five this morning. i was going to leave last night .... but then i got high, then i got high, then i got hiiigh... remember that song? always makes me laugh. anyway i ran into some lesbians of the oberlin genre and i was so happy to see them (actually they were from santa cruz, the school i went to in my imagination) i hung out with them for the evening rather than get on the bus as i should have.

when i got back to my hostel after dinner i found out the last bus had already left so i went to the bar. this is life in huacachina. at the bar there was a baby monkey who crawled up my leg, buried his little face in my sweater and fell asleep. so there i was, with a monkey in one hand and a coca light in the other. when i was on my way back to bed, knowing i had to get up early, one of my british roommates accosted me and insisted i come down to the bar by the pool for just one drink. i had just one cuba libre but it lasted two hours. there i met this colombian professional paraglider who wont drink alcohol but is addicted to red bull, and claims to have sucessfully used the line "want to se my hairless cat?" to get women into his apartment. then one of my funny british roommates asked for a drink, without requesting anything in particular, and the bartender put a tequila sunrise in front of him and said "heres your faggot drink", out of the blue. which actually i am cracking up right now it was hilarious because it was so fucking random. this brit doesnt look the least bit gay. of course bartender got a lecture from me.

so politically, i think ive come to terms with exotification. i was contemplating it while i basked in the sun near thousands of migratory birds and sea lions in paracas. because whats wrong really with being interested in things that are different from you, right? that part is human nature. i guess its when people like things only because theyre different and not for their inherent worth that its irritating.

oh there were dolphins sufacing around the boat on the way to the islas ballestas. ive been feeling like it was a blah day and not much accomplished, but now that i am writing it down, i think i might be setting my expectations a little high. there were exposed mummies at the museum in paracas, creepy.

now im happy to report that im tired, and hopefully will be able to fall asleep soon. i bought amor en los tiempos del cholera but i havent made it past page five. i may actually read some of it now.

going to lie here and moan

this picture is the view from my window at sunrise back at the isla del sol. finally got a connection fast enough to upload something.

spent the day at the pool again, recovering from too many pisco sours and dodgy hotel food. went to ica for a few hours to the market. think i may generally like the cities better than the tiny towns. i´m more likely to get robbed, but there´s more to see and the farmacias take credit cards. it´s been interesting to go to the market in every city and see how the foods for sale change. i´m going to miss trying every kind of banana i can find. i had a lovely caldo de pollo, made by an afroperuvian woman. the landscape of people´s faces is changing also as i move up the coast.

so i´m a day behind schedule but nothing could be done. there are worse places to be ill. oh, i updated flickr somewhat.

desert oasis

is where i am right now. huacachina. went sandboarding and dune buggying this afternoon which totally kicked ass. the sand dunes here are like the sahara - giant white mountains of sand. also, they are like a giant natural roller coaster. and i hate roller coasters, but i just decided to scream like a little bitch when we went down steep hills and have fun. so down these steep dunes, you´re expected to strap a board on your feet and make it down alive... which actually isn´t that hard apparently since i did it. a lot of people go down on their stomachs on the board, but of course i accidentally found myself hanging with the snow boarder kids who all went down on their feet so of course i couldn´t be the only one going down the easy way. i think i invented a new sport - ass boarding. i went down the largest dune half on my feet, half on my ass, and wiped out a few times. wiping out involves flipping over and over down the hill until you stop yourself and you come out with a mask of sand all over your face and everywhere else. i had a race with a few of the guys and i won. ha. i kind of want to try snow boarding now. you know, on a bunny slope.

there is a pool in my hostel which i spent the day lying by. i felt sort of guilty not moving or doing anything cultural but the palm trees and hammocks called and there was nothing i could do. this place is awesome. not all that peruvian, but a lot of fun with all the travelers converging in one place. i just got ripped off paying for an all you can eat buffet with not very good food but i´ve made up for it by drinking my money´s worth of pisco sours and cuba libres.

oh, and chala was strange. rather than sea kayaking, i went to visit the grounds of a gold mine two hours into the middle of the desert. people live way past where there is any available water or vegetation of any sort - the owner of the mine brings barrels of water out periodically - and outside one of the makeshift shacks someone had flowers growing. i thought that was amazing that they used their water to make flowers grow. other people had a few stalks of corn growing. i wonder what you can do with a few stalks of corn.

i think tomorrow i´m going on a wine and pisco tour. of course, i´m so far from my parents and i still go visit churches and wineries.

boredom sets in

i stop moving for like five minutes and i´m totally helpless. i even bought a book to take to the beach and i´m not reading it because that´s too passive.

i wandered arequipa today. it was very good to be in a city again. this place reminds me of mexico a lot. not sure why. maybe it´s more colonial?

so between 10am and 5pm i managed to eat about fifteen empanadas, shopped in the market for mangos and bananas, visited a couple of churches, shopped for jewlery, met some surfer dudes, spent a couple hours in a gorgeous monastery, narrowly avoided being mugged and hung out with a retired military captain who bought me a candy and tamales. what else can i do to entertain myself?

i´m catching a bus at 8pm to go to chala, which arrives at some stupid hour of the morning. maybe what i need to do is drink in slight excess, and pass out on the ride. hmm. that sounds like a very safe idea.

oh and to my homofucker friend: i wear chanel, biatch.

(also, its a joni mitchell song.)

miss my clean white linens and fancy french cologne

i´m in arequipa. feeling peer pressured to get off this computer. i think i´d rather pay for the connection and not be all rushed.

isla de sol was beautiful. i walked accross and spent the night on the north of the island, where there is no running water at night and sparse electricty. i´ve never seen so many stars in my life, and the sound of the lake outside my window was soothing. still, i had an awful night´s sleep on the hardest, lumpiest mattress in the world and then in the morning i was awakened by a burro at 5:30 am. the sound a donkey makes is a combination of a squeaky door and someone being murdered. the boats leave from the other end of the island at 8am so i had to speed walk up a hill, getting stuck on a farmer´s land by accident, and back accross the island which is like a two and a half hour walk usually i think? maybe less. but i made it.

still, it was worth it, the views from the top ridge where the path is are of the lake and snow covered bolivian mountains in the distance. i felt like i was the only person in the world for most of the walk. just me and some sheep.

i´ve decided i want to keep a very large pig as a pet and tie it up outside my house.

i shared a bus ride with another random artisan dude i met in copacabana, who showed me how to make a little bracelet thing. i´m supposed to go meet his friend outside the cathedral today.

math is a useful skill

i am in bolivia. walked accross the border this afternoon, which was surreal. now i have to figure out the currency exchange for bolivianos, which i can´t get straight.

this morning i went to the uros islands which are manmade floating reed islands in lake titicaca. the boat ride was nice. but once you saw the islands there wasn´t much to do.

copacabana has a good vibe. wish i could stay longer. i feel like i saw so many things today, but they were all small, and boring to describe. a two hour collectivo ride next to a cute and very dirty indigenous baby, agrarian landscape for miles, changing currency at an informal booth in the middle of a town square.

oh and i can´t stop eating. for two days i´ve been eating everything i can get my hands on. this must end.

looking forward to my sleeping bag and my very pretty hostel room for 10 bolivianos.

informacion SI, pornografia NO

that´s the sign that´s up in this internet cafe. love it. i´m in puno. spent a lot of time on trains, combis and busses today - from aguas calientes to ollantaytambo to somewhere inbetween to cusco to get my stuff from storage to puno.

tomorrow the touristy floating islands then to the bolivian side of lake titicaca. i hear isla del sol is beautiful and i really want to go but also i really want to get my ass to the beach and lie there for days.

a couple things i forgot to mention about the trail:
- the food was fucking fantastic. i am currently in a state of withdrawal. also, how´s this for hard core camping, they woke us up at the buttcrack of dawn every day with a cup of coca tea delivered to the tent.
- i climbed huayna picchu in 33 minutes, it´s supposed to take 40. proud of self, considering how much i lagged behind previously.
- i have started speaking sporadically with an australian/british accent. not on purpose.

today i wandered around ollantaytambo a little and came accross some locals sitting on the side of the road hanging out. they invited me to drink warm beer out of the bottom of their communal cup and of course i couldn´t say no. they were celebrating this woman´s birthday. it was random. the one guy was very insistent that i tell him what beers they have in the united states and he couldn´t seem to understand that there were more than i could possibly ever name. i tried to answer more questions then i bought them another beer and went on my way.

bed calls.

going down is hardest on your knees

heh. i´m a little delirious right now. first of all, obviously, i´m alive. second of all, i´m exhausted. the trail was amazing. i can´t believe we walked over mountain after mountain. i needed to set up a before and after feel-up of my legs so i know this thighs of steel feeling is not in my head.

where do i even start? the night before i left i was feeling kind of ill, and a little panicky about the trek. we met at 5:45am, which was the latest i´ve woken up since. day one was hard, i took lots of drugs which i think made me tired even though it wasn´t even that steep. we walked for eight or nine hours i think, including breaks. sixteen kilometers, maybe?

day two is the hardest, it´s steep up and up to a place called dead woman´s pass which is 4000 meters up. i was struggling for oxygen until i started chewing coca leaves which helped. made my tongue tingly, and my lungs expand. maybe 12 kilometers and 1000 meters up and down...? could that be right? it was something ridiculous.

i want so badly to explain this but as i type i´m realizing there´s no way. i´ll sum up the walking and say days three and four were easier.

the views, oh my gosh, it´s like walking through a postcard. to the point that i had to remind myself not to take the scenery for granted because i got so used to peaks and valleys. we walked through at least four microclimates, everywhere from scrubby high altitude bushes to lush cloud forest. although the view i remember the most is the rocky path and dirt under my feet, because i was always looking down trying not to trip.

it rained every day. and there was always mist. which would suddenly clear and there´s be a mountain towering in front of you and you had no idea.

day two ended with a long long downhill section. doc martens, by the way, are not cut out for this. particularly, not for walking downhill it seems. halfway through day three, after limping way behind my group for two hours due to blisters all over my toes, i had a choice between taking a shortcut to get to camp or the long way to see some ruins. take a guess what i did? of course i took off my shoes, and hiked up to the ruins barefoot. much better. mud under feet, forest all around, hopping over rocks (which is awkward with a backpack). perfection.

lets see, what else. toilet conditions: nasty. hole in the floor, used by many other hikers. ew.

night of day three: pay for warm showers. campsite near a pseudo bar. many other hikers. a few danced. including me, first alone and then with a brazilian boy.

today we were rudely awakened (extra rude after three shots of tequila) at 4am. we lined up with the other trekkers to get to the sun gate at sunrise, but it was so cloudy you couldn´t see anything. people were taking pictures of white fog. funny. we walked a couple hours down to machu picchu (me in my flip flops) and toured the place before the busloads of tourists came.

machu picchu was massive, mystical and impressive. better than i ever imagined. i swore i was going to climb huaynapicchu, which is the mountain next to machu with an amazing view. it´s a 200 meter climb i think, aka high as hell especially with this exhausted body. but without a backpack it was a lot easier to climb. oh, and i climbed it barefoot again, because it was raining and muddy and flipflops would be dangerously slippery. the pic above is from the top. that´s machu picchu in the background, in case you couldn´t figure that out. at the end of the walk up you are right at the edge of a steep mountain and you have to go through a narrow tunnel to keep going up. so i got hit up with a fear of heights and closed spaces at the same time, while in a state of total sweat and exhaustion. and i loved it. at the very top, it´s nothing but a pile of giant rocks, a view and young people in different languages.

i was feeling like such a weakling during the hike because i was slow but then when i got to the top of dead woman´s pass my guide helped me take off my pack and he commented on how heavy it was. so i choose to feel hard core instead.

the guide by the way, was really fucking attractive. ay ay ay, i could listen to that man talk about the incas all day and all night.

oh and my group was awesome. everyone was so nice and supportive of each other. and right now, we all smell awful.

shit, i have to go meet a friend for coffee. but i want to say the best part: pushing my body to the point where my mind no longer wanders or is busy. just so concentrated on putting one foot ahead of the other that petty thoughts and worries dissapeared. indescribably wonderful feeling.

running off. or, walking sorely off.

dancing fool

back in cusco. seems like a bustling metropolis after quillabamba. last night we took a bottle of rum and a giant bottle of beer to the internet cafe as a way to start the evening. oh yeah, drunk internet.

(damn i am dizzy. i had just gotten used to the altitude and now i have to get used to it again.)

anyway, cameron thought it was a waste to be drunk and not do anything and i agreed so we went in search of a discoteque. and we found the most happening place in quillabamba on a sunday night.

i decided to pretend that cam was my boyfriend and that i didn´t speak any spanish. this led to an amusing and very simplified evening. first of all, they decided cam was my husband and i couldn´t correct them. i just kept shrugging and saying no entiendo with an accent george w bush would be proud of. boys though all up on me were significantly more respectful since i was some other guy´s property. and turns out cam is a good dancer and actually knows how to lead, which makes for a fantastic travel partner. they played a good variety of music: rock, reggeton, merengue, cumbia.

i saw a bunch of girls trying to copy my super cool american dance moves out of the corner of my eye.

going to a bar tonight where there is a free salsa lesson. tomorrow i sleep and search for more cushy socks. putting waterfall pics on flickr.

siete tinajas

siete tinajas is the name of the waterfall i was at today. not incredible like the last one, but really fun. its a place where the falling water has formed the rock into seven miniature bathtubs (little
pools), hence the name. it was raining so everything was slippery, but we climbed to the top of the waterfall anyway, which meant a lot of slipping and mud and grabbing hold of vines. some of the vines had spines and i regretted the instinct to grab hold. once we got to the top we hiked up the stream a bit, which was hard with my bag and camera and boots slung over my shoulder. there were flowers and palm trees and it looked like someone had landscaped it but im sure they hadnt. im making this assumption based on the fact that the proprietor was up a tree cutting down a branch using a machete which implies to me a lack of time to plant impatiens.

the fun part was the rope they had slung down the rocky part of the fall- you could climb up and down and swing around like tarzan. cam and i were sitting near the top and though we were the only people there for a while we watched an older couple approach the bottom part and back off when they realized theyd have to get their shoes wet. i said "and i thought i was a wuss" and cam laughed at me and said "youre not a wuss". sweet. im not a wuss.

okay enough about mountains. more commentary. what the fuck is up with all the fried food here? today i saw someone deep fry a hot dog. yes, a hot dog. and you know what food is the most common? fried chicken with a side of fries. dudes, so far mexico has peru seriously beat on decent street food. also, i think i see now why mexicans have such a reputation for vulgarity. peruvians dont seem to have quite the same grasp on the word chingar. de veras. no stoy chingando, guey. also amusing, people cant seem to place my accent in spanish. today a guy thought i was from argentina, someone else thought i was from brazil. nope, its just a fucked up american accent.

tomorrow morning im going back to cusco to rest up for the trail and buy more good socks.

awesome, the literal meaning

this internet connection is poor, so no picture today. im in quillabamba, which is very pretty and much less touristic than cusco. i survived the night bus ride, although it was definitely an adventure. we got to the bus station, which is not the main one, and we were the only non-cusceños around, and a mass of yelling women and men descended on us grabbing our bags our arms and whatever else they could get their hands on trying to get us to take their bus. "diez soles!" they were all yelling and one was saying there are no seats on that bus, and another was yelling yes there are! so we got on the first bus which was the opposite of luxury and settled in for a ten hour ride over dirt roads. everybody who has been to south america has warned me about how scary the bus rides can be so i wont be surprising anyone to comment on the six inches of mud between the bus and the edge of the mountain. i think it must have been a beautiful ride, but it was dark and raining and i have no way of knowing that for sure. i could see the types of trees change and feel the air get warmer as we went to a lower altitude and that was very cool. (mom youd be glad to know the bus driver was very cautious and slow.)

anyway, today i walked up a mountain. it isnt really the jungle here after all, its the seja de la selva, a term i love, but it is wild and beautiful nonetheless. you know how in pictures of far away places you see mountains and on them are long waterfalls way up that are the only break in the green? well, i was at one of those today. it was an hour walk up first the "highway" (really a rocky dirt road with chickens scattered all over) and then we crossed a bridge and it got narrow and harder and always up. we were climbing and i was watching my feet to be careful about where i put them then all of a sudden we came around a bend and i looked up and saw this awe inspiring waterfall and you know what is the first thing i said? "holy shit." ah, the eloquence. the water was coming from so high up that it created its own wind, and when we climbed up to the pool there was a circular rainbow in the mist.

we stripped (me to my bathing suit, cam to his boxers - we are decent people) and waded through the pool of water to the fall and stuck our heads under. it literally took my breath away to go under the water, its so heavy after travelling that distance and so cold. then we had a lunch of pineapple, mangos and bread and walked (braless, due to wet suit and lack of forethought) back down the mountain.

my feet hurt going down - im going to have horrible blisters on the inca trail. tomorrow im going to try better socks.

i am tired now, but excited for any other such hiking adventures. am used to being unathletic, but i like pushing myself in this way. i like that my very own legs got me from the bottom to the top.

besos a todos.

musings

cameron (i learned his name) and i are leaving for quillabamba this evening, and i´ve got nothing but time between now and then. shit, except for i was supposed to buy our tickets. shit. i guess i can do that when i´m done with this. anyway.

i was feeling mildly guilty about the occasional wish that i wasn´t travelling alone, but last night i had dinner with friends all of whom are alone and real travellers and they were feeling the same way. it was funny now that i think about it we all thought it would be nice not to be lonely but then everybody had horror stories about travelling with incompatible people. and i wouldn´t have met them if i wasn´t alone, and i do like aimless wandering with no one to answer to. i love it, actually. so we concluded that the ideal travel partner would be someone who would be independent and you could part ways and rejoin when you want to do different things.

another thing i´ve been thinking. it´s so nice to be doing something i´m good at. my brain is so much more built to be out in the tangible world than behind a desk. all my scrappiness, insanity, openness, obsessive thinking ahead... all these things are actually useful skills intead of funny little qualities for a month. i love it. even french is useful here.

i´m putting some pictures up on flickr. you can follow the link on the right of this blog. have you ever seen a toddler having his shoes shined before?

shopping day

today i wandered around cusco with a random friend i met on the roof in the morning. (this picture is from yesterday´s horse wanderings. so is the literal pain in my ass.) we went to like five different markets and i bought the two things i absolutely do not need more of: scarves and a bag. what can i say, i have a problem.

so tomorrow night i´m going to the rainforest, to quillabamba which is cheaper than where i was originally going to go. i even found a buddy, one of my australian roommates who´s name i´m convined is duncan but i´m wrong. i can´t remember his real name though. i´ve asked about four times. i´ve got my itinerary sort of figured out by the way.

on the 8th i go on the trail, which takes four days. then i´ll be in aguas calientes, then in ollantaytambo. then on to puno or maybe copacabana, which is in boliva, to see the islands on lake titicaca. isla del sol is supposed to be gorgeous and it´s on the bolivian side. then arequipa and the canyon and maybe some condors if i´m lucky. then bus up the coast, see the poor mans galapagos and eventually to the surfing town almost in ecuador. then fly back to lima, spend a couple nights partying then i´ll go home.

now i´m going to have a fruit salad and use my switchblade i bought on the street to conveniently cut my fruit. that´s right, i´m not only a scarf buyer, i´m hard core.

oh, shout outs to those who left me comments. i love you guys. and drinking with the aussies was brief, as we ended up in a bar where this man gave us a drink called alma de veinte plantas ( soul of twenty plants) that no cusqueno seems to know about besides this man. it came from a giant plastic jug and was reminiscent of cough syrup. i was wasted after half a glass and went to bed.

random friends

today as i was slipping up and down my hill i met this brazilian guy with a wild accent in spanish and this argentine guy, who just met in bolivia and are travelling together now and supporting themselves by selling jewlery they make. brazilian dude hasn´t been home in five years, he´s been wandering latin america all that time. i sat on the stairs with them and chilled for an hour. they share their food with me and gave me their email addresses so i could send them the pictures i took of them. even real vagabonds have email these days.

so i´m going to go meet up with my australians now. we´ve got a french guy who just moved into the room as well. gotta take a shower - i smell like a horse. which i rode for several hours today through mountains and around ruins and sheep and llamas, it was amazing. and i even briefly had a boyfriend, my guide friend who insists on calling me chica bonita, decided to be extra foward and have his arm over my shoulder and hold my hand. i told him fine, ten minutes. i checked the imaginary watch on my hand and pushed him off when time was up. and now i´m going to drink with the australians.