Canyonero!

So I last left off in Arequipa I think. We took a 3 day tour into the Colca Canyon. Our guide Miguelito kept us entertained the whole trip. At the bottom of the canyon we stayed in these little villaged serviced by mule trains, quite an adventure. The hike though the distance wasn´t too great was pretty brutal. Lora took a mule up the last day and I attempted to go at it but was pretty winded at the top. On our return our bus travelled very slowly and had a flat. We arrived at the hostel with 15 minutes to get to our bus. We hauled ass and got a crazy cab driver to get us there five minutes late. We made it! On the bus every seat was full plus the driver stopped to jam the bus full of people in the aisles. As a result we were unable to sleep very well. We arrived at Cusco and learned not to take the aggressive cab drivers. He stopped at the bottom of a big hill and said our hostel was at the top. He then tried to get us to fork over more money to bring us to the front! In Cusco I managed to go out on the town after an interesting evening with a few English kids at the hostel bar. Not too exiting but out on the town nonetheless. After a day for me to recover and lora to feel better, today we walked around cusco and saw the sights, but i´ll have to leave that til another time.

Could I have another PISS-co sour?

So we booked an extra day at the hostel, but after checking out our travel possibilities it meant that we needed to wake up at 2 30 am to catch a 4:15 am bus. We decided to take the Cruz Del Sur which is supposedly peru´s most reputable (and expensive bus). We show up at Paracas with no plans or booking to see the Ballestas islands packed with birds, even penquins, and sea lions. We hop of the bus infront of a hotel and get on a tour for only 2 more dollars than the guide book said it was. They crammed some 30 or 36 of us on a tiny boat and took us out to see the animals. We then returned and hopped on a bus to Ica. In ica we took a cab ride to lake Huachina, a desert oasis surrounded by huge san dunes. The hostel we stayed at had a pool. That night we went to their dinner with all you can drink for an hour and a half. This really turned into about and hour or so with the british, australian, and irish folk behaving as predicted. It was enjoyable to try a pisco sour, but not to slam them in all you can drink manner as the egg got super heavy. Also fun was since it was mostly people who come from countries with a Union Jack on their flag, they spoke no spanish and refered to the pisco sours as ´PISS-co´sours. appetizing! The next day i got up and attemped to sand board down the dunes on their home made board, the first of which had bad bindings. It didn´t really work out as well as i hoped but i told myself if i had a real snowboard it would be ok. We hung around the bus all day and took a 8:30 pm bus to Arequipa last night. When we got in the bus it reeked of BO and we got the seats infront of the bathroom. I´m not sure if it was the speedy hair pin turns or the smell of human excrement, but needless to say i couldn´t sleep very well on that bus.

You guys took my birthday money, got me arrested, sent to Miami with no way home except to take down the country of Peru - and I'm being a dick?

So I´m now down in Peru. We arrived on our flight with no problems, less the $26 departure tax, and $14 hostel pickup. We are in the Miraflores district , which according to sources is wealthier, safer, etc than the main part of the city. My indications say this is true. Yesterday we did our basic grocery shopping and money grabbing which took 3 different ATMs to get one to spit out some money. A pleasant surprize has been that Peru looks to be much more affordable than Costa Rica is, yet our accomodations seem to be better than anything we had in CR for the same price. Today we walked around the downtown area. This required us to get one one of the little busses they have that drive around the city. The lady at the hostel told us to take the 5C which was written on the side mirror of the bus. We waited for a few minutes watching people get on and off but didn´t see ours. Each bus had a guy yelling out the destination and collecting the money and bringing in people. After some confusion, we see the one we´re looking for just as we were about to go and ask the hostel for help. The total of the trip was about 85 cents vs a $4 cab ride. In downtown we checked out the Iglesia San Francisco, which was a very European feeling old church, but had pile of exhumed bones from the catacombs below. We also partook in ´cebiche´which is their local raw fish in citrus juice dish which was pretty good in my book. Lora also took pictures of a lady selling this tiny eggs on the street, so i tried those to limit any hard feelings. No diarrhea so far. cross your fingers.

Thanks to Mayor Simpson, now we’re ALL taking golden showers!

So this morning is the beginning of the end of Costa Rica. We sucessfully got up and got outside to where the bus would come way too early today but i will consider it a sucess. I went to go take a leak in a bush to be sure i didn´t have to go on the 5 hr (which turned out to be 7 hr) bus ride back to San Jose, a dog hanging out decided that my backpack was a good place for him to do the same. Agh. Lora scared him away but he still managed to get a bit of my back pack wet, gross! The bus back was nice, air conditioned, baggage receipts, ferry fare included. This is to the contrary of what we had experienced. The last night at casa del mar was relaxing, watching mostly unentertaining soccer games, Spain-belgium, Brazil Argentina, Costa Rica Mexico, and not knowing the result of the US game until i just checked it 15 seconds ago. Lora and i took a nice walk in the afternoon down the mostly deserted beach as pretty much our final farwell to Costa Rica. We are now at another hostel in san jose which brought us here for free saving any haggling and arguing with taxi drivers, well worth it. it is much more gringo trail-ish but serving quite well. Until Peru, adios.

Sunny day at the beach at last.

After our monteverde stop, we once again have difficulties getting up and making our 6 am bus to puntarenas. There we hopped on a ferry, then onto another bus. We then arrive at a town and decide to finally splurge and take a taxi down the dirt road to mal pais and santa teresa. Here we go to a recommended place Casa Del Mar owned by a Spaniard and his wife. Most of the people here are primarily spanish speaking but nonetheless the place was relaxing. We finally found a sunny day to go down to the beach. After a quick swim we became fascinated with the literally thousands of hermitcrabs wandering around the beach. The next day we did a little tanning and sunset viewing(eventhough it was cloudy) We were excited to get in a little sun since it is the rainy season and rains quite often. When it rains we can hang out on the patio in hammocks which is quite relaxing. Today looks like a day of watching world cup qualifying although I doubt anyone will be watching the US game, rooting for costa rica to beat mexico would have a similar effect. Tomorrow we head back to San Jose to catch our flight to Peru. 12 days in costa rica just isn´t enough!

General Discomfort

I can't remember where i left off so i will start off in an arbitrary spot in my memory which has failed me with regularity so far on this trip. And i know what some of you may be thinking and no, i haven't been smoking pot on this trip. We woke up to head over to the waterfall by the arenal volcano (which has been hidden in the clouds the entire time we where hanging out in La Fortuna. The waterfall is this nice 70 meter drop into a turquoise pond and a easy hike. The locals realize it is a pretty sweet view and extort about $10 a head just to glimpse at the falls. The hike down the hill to the water fall base was moist and potentially ankle breaking but we made it there with little complaint.

We then took a trip to Monteverde whcih involved taking a car to a boat ot a car on a dirt road, but was supposedly twice as fast as taking the local bus....plus the lake was sweet. (still no views of the arenal volcano). The amuzing thing about this trip was there were 5 people doing this trip, us, a local, and 2 israeli's who we met at the waterfall. The bus and boats could handle maybe 10 people yet 2 different companies managed the trip. As a result, 3 of us were in one boat and the 2 girls were in the other. Monteverde is in the "cloud forests" which means there's almost a perpetual layer of fog, but not sweating my balls of is a plus. Today we took a hike into the forest, saw a small watefall and a monkey. Without a guide it's pretty tough to see any animals but we did ok. Similar to before, i set the alarm for 6:40 PM and we woke up late and had to rush out without all our supplies which made things difficult. There was an area with humming bird feeders and some 200 birds buzzing around. Pretty awesome. Tomorrow we head to the west coast to relax on the beach... Pray for good weather.

Eating and buying food so far has been interesting. Lora and my combination of spanish knowledge pretty much gets us where we need but there are of course the few things they do different. For example, the vegegtable counters require you to give them to someone to weigh. It is similar to europe, except they don't trust you to weigh it yourself. The non-corporate breat goods are often a crapshoot, but overall you end up with something tasty. To manage our budget we are trying to figure out the cheapest way to eat, which means breat, veggies and maybe beans for protein. I am doing ok so far, but we'll se after a while. Hopefully we can get under budget and eat out more, but until then pasta it is!