Photos from my Peru trip have been posted, along with photos from my 30th birthday party, which was a scant 9 months ago. Hope you like them.

I´m in the Lima airport, waiting for my flight back to NYC. The trip was quite good, despite the set back with the trek.

Yesterday was a bit of a strange day. It started out quite nicely; Eric has two friends in town who work for the Canadian government in Haiti. We went for a relaxing brunch at mall near Eric´s place. At 1pm we were picked up for a cruise to a sea lion colony, where you can swim with the sea lions. The boat was late, and seemed to be going very slowly. Eric´s friend Sorhab (¿sp?) got quite sea sick. The cruise was quite boring until we got to the colony. There are 8000 sea lions living on a small island. George Lucas used sea lions calls as the voice for Chewbacca, so it was like hearing 8000 wookies all screaming together. It was quite neat. There was a storm out a sea a few days ago, and the sea was very rough, too rough it turned out to go swimming with sea lions. I´m a bit glad they didn´t let us do it. The swell was really big, and as the water circulated around the island it created huge currents, smashing the water into the rocks. It would have been insane to go in, but if they had let us I would have still felt the urge to swim with the sea lions. We hung out there for about 20 minutes, then headed for home. On the way back in we saw about 20 dolphins, which was neat too.

The entire trip seemed to be quite slow. We were scheduled to be back by 6:30, which is about the time it gets dark in Lima (the sun sets at about 5:45). We didn´t arrive until about 8, and it seemed like we would be moving ahead slowly, and then they´d put the boat in neutral and we´d coast for a while. It turns out the water pump that cools the engine wasn´t working. Peru is a bit of a crazy country, where they have a different attitude toward risk than we do back home. There were some times when we traveled a safe distance around some very big rocks, with the sea pounding up against them. If the boat had conked out near some of these rocks it wouldn´t have taken very long for things to go very bad. But the boat worked, if slowly, and we all made it back safely (except maybe Sorhab, but he felt better once he was back on land).

Today Lissy is off to Huancayo for two weeks of volunteering. I should be home 2:30am tomorrow morning.

Good trip.

Lissy and I are back in Lima, at my brother Eric's place. We spent four days in the jungle around Puerto Maldonado, Peru. All in all I thought our time in the jungle was great, but it was a little strange too.

The touristy thing to do in Puerto Maldonado is to visit an eco-lodge. This means a lodge in the jungle, a little up or down river from PM, so you are surrounded by jungle. I'm not sure what's 'eco' about it, really it's just a lodge in the jungle. We had a problem finding a lodge with room for us. Even though we booked this in April, most of the lodges were booked up for July. We found a place called Inotawa, which wasn't our first choice, but looked good. It turns out that Inotawa was smaller and more rustic than other lodges, but I think also provided better service. Most other lodges had some kind of way to climb up in the canopy, and had more varied itineraries. We had a more restricted Itinerary, but also had a bungalow to ourselves, and a guide dedicated to us, where other lodges put people in groups of 6 or more for all the activities.

The day was mostly spent getting there. A 45 minute flight, 45 minute drive and 1.5 hours in a boat and we were at the lodge at about 2:30. We went for a walk in the jungle at sunset until it was quite dark and the night time creepy crawlies were out. We saw a bunch of large spiders, including a tarantula about the size of my hand.

The next day we woke early to visit a clay lick. Apparently most of the fruit that birds eat is slightly toxic, and in order to counter the toxin the birds need to eat clay each day which contains potassium and other minerals that neutralize the toxins (I don't pretend to understand this). Each morning parakeets, parrots and macaws meet some exposed clay in a cliff to eat the clay. We had some bad luck that day in that not as many birds a usual showed up, but we saw a few colourful birds.

Over the next two days we fished for piranhas, visited a waterfall in the jungle, spotted cayman at night, went on a few hikes, visited an amazon farm, saw jaguar prints and spotted squirrel monkeys several times.

The best part of the jungle, though, was just being there, in the jungle listening to the birds, seeing the crazy bugs, and feeling the humidity. Also, the lodge we were staying at had a pet red howler monkey named Pepe. Pepe was awesome.

Tomorrow is my last day in Peru. My brother is taking us on a boat to an island off of Lima inhabited by sea lions, where apparently you can swim with wild sea lions, which are the size of good size bears. I'm looking forward to not being mauled by a testy sea lion. I'll let you know how that goes.

Just to add some colour to a previous post, here's a photo of both the runway models from the train and the mustachioed trickster. Good stuff.

The past few days for Lissy and I have been a little low key. Since we bailed early on the trek we've had a few more days in Cusco than we planned. Friday we did a city tour of Cusco with a big group of backpackers. I think I'm getting old and jadded, or maybe just used to traveling without having to interact with random backpackers, because after a few hours of waiting for people to come back to the bus, and recounting boring backpacker stories (where have you been? where are you going? where are you from?) I was ready to be back on my own (or at least with just Lissy). I realize that that may sound petty or small or something, but I think after travelling by myself for three months three years ago and having that conversation 10 times a day, I'm happy having more money and a travel buddy.

Yesterday we just chilled out in Cusco. Today we hired a driver and went to Pisac, which has some nice Inca ruins and on Sunday has a lively market, a section of which is actually a legitimate Peruvian market, meaning real Peruvians buy and sell things, instead of just being filled with gringos. There was a nice selection of tchotchkies as well, and I bought two rather large statues. Not sure how I'm going to get them home, but I'll figure it out.

Tomorrow we head into the jungle. Not sure we'll have next access till Thursday, but I'll write more then.

The astute blog reader will notice that Lissy and I are supposed to be deep in the Andes today, visiting the ruins of Choquequirao. It turns out that the trek was quite hard, and both Lissy and I went into it injured. Too injured, it turned out, to finish the trek without possibly seriously injuring ourselves. But more on that later. I´ll start from where the last blog post left off, because we´ve had some strange experiences since then.

My last blog entry was from Aguas Calientes. Leaving AC, we took the train to Ollantaytambo, where our driver took us the rest of the way to Cusco (amp, feel free to insert funny comment here about our driver. Seriously, the comments were pretty funny). On the train to AC we were served a snack by a pair of train hosts/hostesses, and the trip was quite uneventful. The return journey started out the same way, but then one of the hosts put on a traditional Inca balaclava with a mustache embroidered on it and danced around with a stuffed llama, shaking the llama in our faces. This is some kind of traditional Inca/Andean thing, but was a tad annoying. Up to this point, though, Eric had prepared us for all of this. Next, Dancing Queen by Abba came on the sound system, and two of the hosts put on a fashion show up and down the aisle of the train, showing off Alpca wool fashions. This lasted for about 25 minutes. I don´t know how they advertise the job for the train host. They have to serve snacks, dance around with a stuffed llama and then put on a runway show. I have already submitted my application.

The next morning we rose early to head out on our trek. On July 8 and 9th the agricultural workers enacted a nation wide strike, shutting down the entire country by blocking all the roads. We left of the 8th, so we go out of Cusco at 5am hoping to beat the strikers. We didn´t. Parents reading this may want to skip this next part. We came upon a few rocks scattered across the highway by the protesters. Our driver had no problem avoiding these. Then we past a section of road that was half on fire; strikers had put straw in the road and set it on fire. We came upon the fire in total darkness, so it was quite impressive but only half the road was block so we kept on trucking. Next, just after sunrise, we were totally stopped because the protesters knocked a tree down across the road. This was no small tree, it was probably 18 inches in diameter. We must have arrived there just a few seconds after they knocked it down, because the car in front of us was on the other side. This happened near a toll booth, which had a police presence. The police walked down the road in front of us, pushing the protesters that way, and actually fired two shots into the air to scare the strikers away. Our guide and cook, along with about 15 other people, were able to move the tree enough for us to get by. We then drove past the police, then through the crowd of strikers. We had to drive slowly, since the road was filled with softball or larger sized rocks. Some kids threw rocks at the dump truck in front of us, but we made it through the crowd unscathed. From then on it was clear sailing to Cachora, where we started the trek.

The first half day of the trek was very easy. It was slightly up and down. After lunch we started to descend. The profile of this trek is a little different than most hikes: we started about 3000m, then descend to 1500m, then ascend back to 3000m to see the ruins of Choquequirao. Then you do it all in reverse. Each way is 32 km, meaning in 5 days, 4 of which you are actually on the trail, you do 64 km and 3000m up and 3000m down. Both Lissy and I have problems with our legs; she has a knee problem, and I have a hip problem. Going up actually is fine for us, but descending is tough on the joints. After about 200m descending, with a full view of what is in front of us, we decided to bail out. The trek included horses for our gear, and an emergency horse, in case we couldn´t keep walking. Unfortunately the emergency horse could only carry us up, not down, presumably because it´s bad for the horse´s knees too. So the emergency horse was useless to us. We were actually the only two people on the trek, so we had full discretion about quitting, so all of us: the guide, cook, horseman and horses, turned around. We spent one night camping in the Andes, near Cachora, and then spent yesterday in Cachora. We couldn´t leave because the strike was still underway and the roads weren´t clear.

We spent the day in Cachora, which is a very small village in a very poor part of Peru. It´s quaint, but boring. Finally at 6:30 we found a driver (insert driver joke here) who would take us part of the way back to Cusco. We would be picked up from that point the following day. Driving during the waning stages of the strike was interesting. We didn´t see anyone, except a few kids at one blockade, but the barricades that were erected were impressive. About every 500m there were rocks strewn across the highway. We saw boulders about 4 feet high in the middle of the road, trees knocked down, and most impressively, 5 tractor tires across the road all on fire. This last barricade almost stopped us. Eventually our driver squeezed by on the shoulder, but had to check his tires after we made it through to make sure he hadn´t melted them. The heat as we drove by was intense.

We spent last night at some hot springs, called Cconoc, and were picked up at about 11am and arrived in Cusco at 2. On the way in to Cusco we saw remnants of the blockades, but the police and army did an amazing job of cleaning it all up. At one point we passed a boulder on the side of the road that was bigger than our minibus, about 8 feet high and 12 feet long. Apparently the day before it was in the middle of the road. We have a few days here, before heading to the jungle on Monday.

I´ll close this post with an interesting trivia fact. Apparently in Quechua Machu Picchu means Old Mountain. But you have to pronounce both c´s in Picchu, like ´pict-chu´. Apparently ´peachu´, like how you´d expect it to be pronounced, means a ¨man´s private area¨, as our guide put it.

Lissy and I are in Machu Picchu today. Technically I´m writing this from Aguas Calientes the Niagra Falls-ish town next to Machu Picchu. We were out the door this morning at 5:25am and hiked the 400 metres to the entrance to Machu Picchu. This turned out to be an unpopular option, as most people too the bus. If we had left an hour earlier we would have beaten the crowds. As it was, we still got there for sun rise, and it was quite nice. There were a ton of people there, but it wasn´t as bad as I thought it would be. It´s big enough that the crowds aren´t too bad.

Tomorrow we start a 5 day trek in the Andes. We trek two days to ´Machu Picchu´s Sacred Sister´ (I´m pretty sure the Peru tourist board made that up), which is another Inca town on top of a mountain, like MP, but this one you can only hike to. We spend a day there, and it´s two more days back out. I think the trek is going to be tough, harder than anything I´ve ever done, at least as far as multi-day hikes go. And Lissy and I are both only at about 90%... It should be interesting.

I´d write more but I´m not sure anyone is reading this *sniff*. Somebody write a comment.

We are now in Ollantaytambo, at the end of the sacred valley, waiting for our bus to Aguas Calientes, which is the artificial town next to Macchu Pichu. We head there tonight, and then get up at the crack of Don to hike up to MP. Apparently it gets very busy by 10am, when the crowds from Cusco arrive, but we should be there by 6 or 7 am so we should get some good time in before the hoards arrive.

Yesterday we flew to Cusco with Eric and toured the sacred valley in with a car/driver that we hired. Then we stayed in a nice hotel in Ollantaytambo, and toured the ruins here this morning. Eric left at 11:30 to head back to Lima, and Lissy and I are now on our own. Having Eric help us out was a huge help. He organized so much stuff for us. I think that it´s impossible to buy tickets for the train to Macchu Pichu on your own. They have a website, but it´s broken. In order to get tickets Eric had to transfer money from a Peruvian bank account to the rail company. The only place to pickup the tickets is in Cusco, even though we are leaving from Ollantaytambo, and the office closes at noon. We had our hotel in Cusco pickup the tickets for us. Suffice it to say I couldn´t have organized all this without Eric.

Speaking of the train to Macchu Pichu, it´s a bit of a scam. It´s USD 110 for a round trip ticket, about 1 hour 45 minutes each way, and you can only bring 5 kilos of luggage per person. We are leaving our packs in Ollantaytambo and just bringing what we need for tonight and tomorrow (our hotel here is very helpful, yay Hostal Sauce!). Then when we get to MP it´s $45 entry fee, $50 for a guide, and hotels and food are super expensive. Not that I expected anything different, it´s just a bit nuts how much they gouge you.

It turns out I did pack my camera, I just put it in my big pack and didn´t realize it. So the whole camera emergencies was a bit of a false alarm.

Finally, it looks like the alert messages you are supposed to get when I update my blog don´t work. I might be able to fix it from Peru, but I doubt it. So check back often.

I am sitting in my brother Eric's apartment Mira Flores, the upscale neighbourhood of Lima, Peru. His apartment has a wall of glass overlooking the ocean, where there are surfers in the water below, and parasailers in the sky above. His living room is as big as my entire apartment in Brooklyn. Not too shabby.

Lissy and I have started our two week excursion to Peru. On the agenda is Cusco and the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, a 5 day trek in the Andes and four days in the Amazon.

Funny story. Two night before the trip I couldn't find my camera. I search my place the night before, but it seems to be gone. I had it in March when we went to the Dominican Republic and it looks like sometime between then and now it vanished. So, Thursday morning I headed off to J&R (big electronics store downtown NYC) and bought a new camera. A Nikon Coolpix P60 to be exact. I was in a rush, but I was really happy with the purchase. So why am I telling you this? While I was standing in line for security at JFK I realized I had forgotten something. Of course I forgot the new camera. Bummer.

More updates to come as the action in Peru unfolds.