And then there were two...

Today is Friday and our last full day in Lima. Cari and I added a few extra days to the end of the trip and we´ve spent them just walking around and hanging. Cari hasn´t been feeling too well - she seems to have gotten the cold-like symptoms that Chris and I had - so we´ve kind of taken it easy. Which is nice since we´ve been on the go since the day we arrived.

Tuesday was the last stop on our tour before heading back on Wednesday to spend the night in Lima. We were in Puno which is in the southern part of Peru near the border with Bolivia. Actually, the border runs through the middle of Lake Titicaca where we took a boat ride to see the Uros people who live on islands made from reeds that grow in the lake. The all speak Quechua which is one of the native languages in the area and is a little different from the Spanish spoken by most on the mainland. Truly an amazing site.

The islands are about 35 minutes away from the city of Puno but the people seem to be living 100 years in the past. They literally live on floating islands that they build from scratch, anchor in the lake and continually rebuild as the reeds decompose.

They live in areas of the lake that aren´t very deep and use the root section of the reeds as buoys to support the islands. They cut large sections of the roots and wait for several weeks until they turn into a sort of cork which floats to the top. Once that happens they begin to bind all the root sections together to form the base of the island. Then they drag large amounts of the reeds onto the floating base and cover the island with layer after layer of the reeds. We were told they have to add a new layer of reeds once a week during the wet season.

The island we visited had 8 families living on it and included houses for them all as well as a kitchen house where they do all their cooking, a section where they actually grow potatoes, onions and some herbs, a small pond where they raise trout rather than having to catch them, and a pen for their ducklings. The government recently offered solar panels to all the islanders to allow them to have some electricity. This island had two panels that I could see. Keep in mind that all of this is on an island made out of reeds.

Because their diet consists mostly of fish and some vegetables we were told that bringing some fruit for the children would be a nice gesture. So we loaded up with bananas and apples before heading out. Once on the island we sat down for a short discussion about the people, their diet, how they lived, etc. We were all sitting on benches made from reeds and the children started to come out of the houses and sit with us. I had a little girl sit next to me for a little while and I was anxious to start giving out the fruit.

The children of Peru are amazingly cute and these kids were no different. They all had on traditional costumes (I call them costumes because they all changed into them as soon as they saw our boat heading for their island.) and were very polite when we handed out our fruit. Some of us had extra sunblock and we handed out that as well. Our guide told us the islanders needed it because the sun is relentless and many already have areas under their eyes that are really dark from being burned.

We walked around the island which was kind of like walking on mattresses. It was a bouncy feeling as the reeds gave quite a bit. Your footing was never quite solid but there wasn´t a threat of poking through to the water either.

At the end of the stay we were offered a ride on one of their reed boats and we all jumped at the chance. They aren´t made entirely of reeds as they used to be because now they utilize plastic bottles as floatation devices. This allows them to make the boats lighter and smaller. They also tend to last longer. Other than the bottles the rest of the boat is all reed. It was a short ride but pretty cool. They took us to one of the nearby islands and we disembarked with the help of the islanders who were all scrambling to get their "costumes" on.

Our regular boat picked us up and we headed back to the mainland. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me as I found it hard to believe these people lived the way they do in this day. They obviously know there is other technology out there yet they remain where they are. It´s kind of hard for me to understand.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped off for some lunch at a Pollo Brazaria which is like a rotisserie chicken restaurant. The lunch included a soup that consisted of parts of the chicken (heart, feet, kidney, etc) that weren´t used during the roasting of the chicken. Some of us decided against the soup but a few brave souls - including me - gave it a shot. When it came to the table it was a light green color and you could see the chicken "parts" kind of floating around. Our guide told us could eat the "parts" as a foot was hanging from his mouth, but I don´t think any of us did. I couldn´t make myself try the "parts". The broth however was amazing. I think it also had rice or some other grain in it. It was really good.

The rest of the meal was a 1/4 of a roasted chicken, french fries and a salad. The chicken was awesome and I think most of us really enjoyed this meal because it was as close to a meal that we would normally eat as we´d had in a long time. I know that doesn´t sound very adventurous but after nearly two weeks of eating things that aren´t regulars in your diet it´s nice to have something you know is going to be good. All that and a drink each for Cari and me and it cost us 20 soles which came to less than $7 total.

After heading back to the hotel for a little break we set out again to see our last ruin which was a fertility site. I think all the women wanted to see this one because the whole site was dedicated to the penis. It was a pretty small site and when we pulled up to it I thought it was a school playground because it was surrounded by a chainlink fence and I saw a few kids playing around. Once inside the roofless structure the size of a large living room you are met by several rows or what used to be phallic symbols but now look like small columns. Apparently, all the penises in the site used to be outside of the structure but were moved inside many years ago and buried upside down. So the head of the penis is in the ground. There are a few that are right side up and the women in our group made good use of them. I´ve got the pictures to prove it. The way Cari was hanging all over these things I wouldn´t be suprised if we have triplets when one of these days!!

In the end, the two guys in the group were coerced into taking some pictures too. The obligatory "look how big mine is" kind of photos. I have these pictures too but they won´t be made public.

Today we are schedule for a City Tour of Lima around 2:30, so hopefully Cari will feel well enough to go. After that we are just going to hang out and have dinner so we can rest up for the long travel day tomorrow. Our flight out of Lima leaves at 10:40 and after a nearly 3 hour layover in Miami we get into Alanta around 11:00 at night.

I think I speak for both of us when I say the trip was really incredible and we´ve seen some things that will stick with us for a long, long time. Peru is as beatiful as it is poor and the dichotomy is ever present. The one thing I noticed though was that the people of Peru seemed to mix in a way that transcended status and wealth. You saw people in traditional dress next to men in suits. I´d like to think this has something to do with their Incan heritage. You see, the Incans didn´t have any money and all that was grown or raised was not owned by any one person but was for the entire community. So everything that is Peru is made up of bits from all these different people and the beauty of Peru is for all to share.

See you guys at home.

B

A 7 hour bus ride and all I got was this....

Brian will tell you in detail what we have done, I´ll just do a brief version so I could say hi to everyone really and get out of the rain.

I am still on cloud nine and of course nothing will ever compare to Machu Picchu. We got back to Cuzco and had a free day on Sunday. So Brian and I got up and decided to have breakfast outside of the hotel finally. We had heard that there was a really good place called Jacks which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's a cute little place owned by an Australian lady and her son i 6 year old and his name is of course JACK. We had a wonderful breakfast of Huevos Rancheros (a tortilla with beans then cheese and 2 eggs on top, with a side of pancakes and some hash browns and a side of potatoes. It was great. I now have a request from Brain for Sunday morning when we get back for Huevos Rancheros. Go figure. We walked around and found a few things that we bought. Nothing had jumped out at us being that you see the same thing over and over and over and over etc. and nothing is authentic. But what we found is really cool and was made by a local artist.

We walked around some more and the headed back to the hotel to hang out for a while. We have been going so much it was kind of nice to relax for a few minutes. We went to dinner with our group and then came back to the hotel. Nothing exciting considering we had already been to Cuzco already.

We woke up and met the group to leave at 8:00 this morning for a long bus ride to Puno. We stopped at a few places (they really know where to stop, every place has people selling something to you, its crazy). We had lunch in the middle of nowhere at a place that had a buffet believe it or not. The highlight was this cute little white puppy that we were playing with. He was so cute he was leading an Alpaca around by a rope and jumping up and bighting at it, before it sat on him. It was so cute.

After leaving there we still had 4 more hours in the bus with the bumpiest roads. People drive crazy here. I think worse than NY actually. We passed thru this town that I think was the most disgusting place I have ever scene. It was so chaotic and dirty and people all over the place and did I say DIRTY. You almost couldn't believe 300,000 people would live there. And wouldn't you know it, that is were our plane takes off from on Wednesday back to Lima. After for more hours we finally made it to Puno and it is REALLY disappointing. It certainly want worth the 7 hour trip. Well I am going to cut this short, we need to head back to the hotel to meet everyone for dinner. Hope everyone is doing wonderful. We miss and love everyone.

Cari

Travel Day

Today we traveled from Cuzco to Puno in the south of Peru near the Bolivian border.

We hopped in the bus around 8;30 this morning and headed off. After about 40 minutes we stopped off at a beautiful church that was in the process of being restored. It was one of the oldest in the region and dated back to the Spanish conquest. We tagged along with another tour and got the scoop on the place. The highlight was Christ on the cross near the altar. He looked almost black. We were told the Spanish made Christ to look darker than most other depictions because they were trying to trick the Incans a bit. If the locals felt Christ was one of their own then they would find it easier to worship him.

Over the years they say he has gotten even darker and there are several theories but the one that most of the locals believe is that he loves the Peruvians so much he is taking on their color.

The whole trip to Puno took about 8 hours and it was an experience. First of all, once you get into the country (which is beautiful) the roads tend to deteriorate. Our driver was all over the road -- I think he spent at least half of the time on the wrong side of the road -- trying to avoid the potholes. It was like he was a LeMans driver going through chicanes the whole day. It got so funny that at one point we were all holding up our hands as if we were on a roller coaster at Six Flags.

Secondly, I think the exhaust pipe was somehow funneled back into the bus. We had the windows open and still you couldn´t help but suck in fumes the whole day. At first I thought it was just the other cars and trucks on the road but when we got out in the country and there weren´t many other vehicles around I realized we were slowly being poisoned by carbon monoxide from our own bus.

Apparently, Bolivian contraband is a big thing around these parts because we got pulled over twice at checkpoints. Our driver got out and talked with the cops and everything was ok, but that didn´t stop the cops from pulling over several other trucks and as we pulled out the first checkpoint we were told by our driver that they found contraband including cookies on one of the stopped trucks. C´mon, cookies!? These must be some pretty badass smugglers to be attempting a checkpoint crossing with a truckload of Chips Ahoy!

We passed through the only city in the area that has an airport and I gotta tell you it was disgusting. I think the name was Juliaca or something like that and our guide believes it´s the dirtiest city in Peru. There was garbage lining the middle of the road and most of the houses were not even finished. We were told that for some reason the people in this city don´t pay taxes and because of that the government doesn´t have the money to fix what needs fixing. Meanwhile, the biggest industry is, you guessed it, contraband. Everything from DVDs to gasoline is brought in from Bolivia where they are much cheaper and sold here for a profit. The city is a dump but the people are making decent money. Unfortunately we have to come back here to fly to Lima in a couple of days.

We arrived in Puno and got a glimpse at Lake Titicaca as we rolled into town. There was a green ring around the shore and our guide said that until recently the sewage was getting into the lake and causing this green stuff. They have fixed the sewage issue and are in the process of cleaning the damage that´s been done. Hopefully we won´t encounter too much of it when we head out on the lake tomorrow.

Well, I´d better get going because we are going to grab dinner soon.

More tomorrow.

B

P.S. The whole time I´ve been typing this the guy at this Internet cafe has been playing 80´s hair bands. I´ve heard some Scorpions and now it´s Europe with "The Final Countdown". Classic.

Pictures

The pictures are in the previous entries. Scroll down to the ones we have already done and the pictures have been attached.

Cari

We Have Pictures

I burned the photos on my first memory card onto a CD and was able to use that to download some pics from the first half of the trip. Hope these help give you an idea of what´s going on here.

The pics from Machu Picchu will have to wait till I get home.

B

Have you ever noticed...

Here are a few things that I´ve noticed along the way that I thought were kind of interesting.

Peruvians can whip the Irishs´ass in a potato fight -- Here the potato is King. Well ok, maybe corn is King but the potato is at least the Court Jester. You get it with every meal. Mashed, diced, french fried or formed into balls, you can expect a plate full of tubers with every meal. I´ve got so much starch in me I feel like I belong in a Chinese dry cleaners.

Move it or lose it -- Don´t mess around with the drivers around here. They are not joking. Unlike Vietnam where you step off the curb and the vehicles drive around you, here it looks like they aim for you. It´s like a real life game of Frogger. And they barrel down these little one-way cobblestoned side streets like they are highways. I´m sitting in the lobby of the hotel typing this and all I can see are blurs of the cars flying by outside.

My boogers are works of art -- Much like Russia, the emissions restrictions in this country are nil. I think all of the taxis are 1990 Ford Festivas that burn more oil than in Kuwait during Desert Storm. Even the train we took the other day sent out huge plumes of black smoke that made their way into the train cars. Because of this I´ve pulled things out of my nose that would impress any abstract artist. I´ve started to work with the local children to sell my boogers instead of postcards. It´s a niche market that hasn´t been tapped yet.

Bob Barker would hate it here -- The Humane Society needs to open up a branch office here to take care of the huge dog population that roams through the streets. They are all over. Everything from boxers, german shepherds and muts to what look like goldens just running all over the place. And I gotta tell you, some of these dogs are carrying a set on them that would make any female dog blush.

Everybody pees -- I´ve decided to write a companion book to "Everybody Poops" and "The Gas We Pass" entitled "Everybody Pees...in the Toilet" in the hope that I won´t have to pass another corner and see a middle aged man peeing in public. So far I´ve seen at least two or three men watering the walls around here, and at least that many on the side of the country roads.

More to come.

B

I can´t even set the clock on my VCR...

It´s Palm Sunday and we are back in Cuzco for the day. Cari and I got up this morning and decided to give the hotel breakfast of toast, bread or pita with what appears to be ham a pass and venture out to get a good hearty one insted. We walked through the square looking for a place called Jacks we´d heard about and saw all the locals coming from church with their palm fronds. There was even a little procession around the square lead by a few of the priests and followed by a band consisting of a trumpet, trombone, what looked like a sousaphone and a bass drum. They didn´t sound too good but they were giving it their all.

Jacks is run by an Australian woman who we met and talked with for a little while. She opened the place about 6 years ago and has a young son Jack who was riding his new bike through the restaurant. Cute little blonde haired kid who shifted easily from speaking English to Spanish.

We had the Huevos Rancheros (flat tortilla with beans, cheese, two fried eggs and cilantro), pancakes and a side of fried potatoes and bacon. It was the best breakfast we´ve had on the trip.

Yesterday was the highlight of the trip so far (one of the reasons is in Cari´s blog) as we got to see Machu Picchu in all its glory. What an amazing place. As Chris and Cari have written below, it really blows you away when you first see it. It´s larger than I expected and even more beautiful in person than in the pictures.

You enter the complex from the side on one of the middle terraces and from there you can see the majority of structures. They stretch across the top of Machu Picchu toward Wayna Picchu and since we were there early in the morning the clouds still covered some of the buildings which gave the place an even more magical feeling. I´m having a hard time describing it because it´s really more than a site it´s a feeling too. You really do stand there in awe trying to take it all in and wonder in amazement at the work the Incans put into this place.

You can only imagine what it looked like in its prime with all the terraces full of plantings and the water system sending fresh water from a spring several miles away through the city. We were shown how they built the aqueducts to filter out the water and zig zag through the city to slow the stream to reduce erosion. They were truly ahead of their time in many ways.

The buildings themselves were meticulously positioned so they faced east and met the sunrise. The Temple of the Sun had two windows in them, one that caught the rays of light on the first day of the rainy season and the other on the first day of the dry season. The light would stream into the temple and cover the alter. Amazing how much they knew about the sun. I can´t even set the clock on my VCR and these guys were able to build something that caught the light of the sunrise on two specific days of the year. Unreal.

It was interesting to see the different kind of stone they used for different types of buildings. The Temple of the Sun was built using finely cut and polished granite (which was said to have been competely white when the Incans lived here) stone that fit together seamlessly using no mortar. Next to temple was built the home of city´s astronomer. It´s stones were less finished and while they still fit together tightly their corners were curved and not as straight as that of the temple. What was really amazing was that the wall behind the temple and astonomer´s house transitioned from the more crude stone on the house to the finely cut stone as soon as the temple structure began. The most beautiful stone work was only for the temples and the homes of the royals.

We walked around the compex for a little while looking at several of the other areas - Temple of the Condor (the condor is said to take your spirit to the afterlife so that you can be reborn), the Hitching Post of the Sun (during one particularly harsh winter when the King thought the Sun God had deserted them he ordered the building of this structure where it was said the sun was tied to the two hitching stones ensuring that the sun would not leave them again) and the Caretaker´s Hut from which the classic pictures are taken of Machu Picchu with Wayna Picchu in the backround.

At one point several of us broke off from the group and climbed to the peak of Wayna Picchu which has several ruins as well as an amazing view of Machu Picchu. The hike was challenging and took about 40 minutes to the top, but it was all worth it once you got there. I took a bunch of pictures but I´m sure they won´t do this place justice. You feel like you´re on top of the world.

We stayed up there a while just soaking in the view and then headed back down to meet up with the rest of the group. That´s when I popped the question to Cari and happily she said yes. It would have been really embarassing if she had said no since there were a ton of people around.

We stayed for another hour or so and decided to head back as we had been there for about 6 hours. We could have stayed longer and seen more but we hadn´t eaten anything since 6 in the morning and we were all getting worn out.

On the bus ride back down the mountain we encountered a little boy on one of the switchbacks who waved at us and yelled "GOOOOOOODBYYYYYEEEE". We drove a little farther around another corner and there he was again, "GOOOOOOODBYYYYYEEEE" with a wave. Same thing around the next corner. And weren´t exactly going slowly either. Then we´d drive a stretch of about a minute or so and turn another corner and there he was waiting for us with the same routine. Turns out the kid was running straight down the mountain on trails cut by the locals and meeting the bus. When the bus reached the bottom of the mountain and crossed the bridge over the Urubamba River there was the boy again running across the bridge in front of us. On the other side the bus stopped and picked up the kid who stood at the front of the bus and yelled "GOOOOOOODBYYYYYEEEE, AAAAAAADIIIIIIOOOOOOS", "GRAAAAAAAACIAAAAAAAAASS" and then pulled out his purse and walked through the bus looking for tips! I´d read about this on several websites and totally forgot about it until the kid got on the bus. Cute kid but still, that was a little much.

The rest of the day was spent catching a train to Ollantaytambo and then a bus back to Cuzco. I listened to my iPod and slept most way.

Today is another free day and Cari and I are just going to walk around the city a bit and see if we can find something to buy.

Tomorrow we are off to Puno and Lake Titicaca for the last of our adventure.

B

A religious experience.....

Yesterday we arrived at 8 am at Machu Picchu. Once you pass through the entrance you are greeted by the vast beauty and wonder of it all. I literally cried when I saw it. It is truly the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Our tour guide, Roberto, was excellent, explained the purposes of the buildings, the temples, the details of how they carved religious symbols into stone. The sun seems to be the center of their practice. It is amazing to understand how they built what they did and aligned it to the sun. We walked and walked and hiked throughout the ruins, including a hike to a suspension bridge that people can no longer walk across because a few years ago a hiker did try to cross and fell to his death. We of course took the tourist photo from up top. There were thousands of people there as the day progressed and from all walks of life. On the bus ride up we met folks from North Carolina who were visiting their new born grandchild. At one point some of us found a relatively quiet place and meditated for a short while. Brian decided to do this hike up to the top of a nearby mountain and we were lucky to catch up with him and the others later in the day. I chose a rock at a high point and just sat in silence looking over it all. Truly breathtaking.
When we first arrived we were greeted by three folks from our tour group that had actually hiked the Inca trail. We cheered them on as they came down to meet us. They stunk pretty bad but we all were eager to hear of their adventure.
So.....we went back down to the town by bus, ate lunch and then took a train and then a bus to get back to Cusco by around 8 pm.
Today, we had hoped to go horseback riding but it is again raining. Roberto said we should make a wish that it will stop raining and then blow three times into the wind. I think Roberto has eaten too many coca leaves.
Wish you could have been here with us.....it was a religious experience for me.
Chris

The most magical place on earth...

Were are back in Cuzco and it is Sunday morning. Yesterday was one of the most memorable days ever. Machu Picchu is truely like no other and I will never forget it. I think its the most amazing place I have ever been. We took a 20 minute winding bus ride to the top of the mountain and when you enter Machu Picchu it´s one of those ¨Oh my god moments.¨ The mountains are surrounding you and all you see is this huge area of terraces and stone walls. It is breathtaking.

We had a guide named Roberto that took us all over and explained to us which areas were what and the meaning behind them. It was so interesting to hear why they built certain areas the way they did and why. I would go into it but my memory isn´t that great as all of you know, so I´ll leave it up to Brian to give you the details.

During the middle of walking around Brian and 4 others left the group to hike up Wayna Picchu which is a mountain higher than Machu Picchu and over looks it. It takes about 40 minutes to and hour to hike up and 40 minutes to hike back down, so I walked around with one of the girls on the trip and checked out the rest of the site.

Around 1:30 or so I was at the top of Machu Picchu and saw Brain walking up the stairs to get to the very top. I was actually glad I got to see him again, I was a little disappointed that I wasn´t going to get to experience seeing the entire place from the top with him. So we get almost to the top and we are standing on a terrace with Chris and Leslie next to us and all the other people visiting, tHe view was to die for, and Brian is saying "As we were hiking up the mountain, we went through a cave and I saw a vision that was very clear, I saw my future," and my response was "Oh great". He paused for a second so I just assumed he was telling a story and he said "And I can´t imagine you not in it" and YES my friends Brian got down on one knee and ASKED ME TO MARRY HIM. I was in such shock I think I stood there looking dumbfounded at first and the started crying of course. He put this ugly (yet oh so beautiful) large green stoen with a gold band on my finger that he got at a Halloween costune store.(He is getting the ring when we get back, he didnt want to carry the real thing with him here of course)

So with that being said I am the luckiest and happiest girl in the world. I couldn´t have asked for more...And the fairy tale continues. More to come at a later date. we´re off to breakfast.

PS
I have been dying to tell everyone but had a long trip back to cuzco so I couldn´t last night. I can´t believe I typed as much as I did without spilling the beans but I had to build it up some how.

Cari (Brian´s fiance, 1st time to wsay that one and it feel so good)