Adventures in Peru

mom: flight no. 767 and 320
darla: call my mom if you are still in van on the 19th.

life goals completed this year:
fly over the nazca lines.

biggest goal remaining:
run threw a field of camomile (in egypt).

email is not working…..

mom: i would love to be picked up. 4pm. is an early dinner with lucas possible?

siobh·n: 2 days.

jen: back at you, times two.

coby: not overwhelming, but i need strongbow and the above people.

the last day of carnival, some time after ash wednesday.

a peruvian girl started talking to me in the park. she had a petition, at first i thought she wanted me to sign it. she never asked, she only asked other peruvians. we walked until meeting up with her co-worker who had also made a friend. we all went and got drunk. then we had lunch.

went to the concert in the main plaza. several thousand people turned out.

for dinner we went to a karaoke bar and drank beer instead. then for dessert we drank sangria.

returned to the plaza for the last act. it ended with fireworks.

i think i will need to experience a full brazillian carnival while i still have a liver. i only imagine that it is more grand. that the party lasts more hours per day.

also. going out with peruvians is expensive. the girls do not pay a dime. with 3 guys and 5 girls the guys bought the drinks and payed for the cabs. even when everyone but one girl was done drinking, she ordered another round (for everyone.) then instead of paying for it, she demanded that i pay for it. i thought it was very comical. my spanish is terrible, but i knew what she was wanting me to do. that was one time that acting dumb was a great idea. i ended up chipping in a bit, only slightly more than the value of my drink.
note to bethany. you would LOVE northern peru. everything is turkey turkey turkey. it is on nearly every menu. at almost every sandwich shops. you can get a turkey sandwich 365 days a year. they also make all the traditional peruvian food with turkey substituted.

the ugly:
i lost my traveling hat. i lost it in trujillo. i am really hoping that i left it in the hostel i was at. but i think it fell off getting in or out of the cab to the bus station. i sat down on the bus, and went to take off my cap, it was GONE.

the bad:
i will not be going to iquitos. appearently if i am going to travel there with any baggage i can only do so from lima. the flights from northern peru, where i am, to iquitos are passanger only. who would have thought?
i also learnt that the slow boats are not just unpredictably slow, but it is not a good idea to carry anything onto them. everyone i have talked to that has done it, save for one, has had large amounts of stuff go missing. and me having just started my shopping spree.

the good:
i have no more rush. i get to move at the pase of me. i have as long as i want in cajamarca.
and when i go back to lima i will have a stop over in trujillo, i really hope that the hostel has my hat in a lost and found or something. i would love to get that hat back.

the story of the hat.
i have done many things to keep that hat. including long discussions with people who have stolen it, explaning how my late grandfather/dad/uncle gave me that hat. it worked everytime.
i had to punch an irish girl in the face. the was really determined to keep my hat. she almost liked it more than me. she kept telling me if i wanted it to fight her for it. after she shoved me a bit i punched her shoulder, she punched my face, i punched her face. she gave me that hat. she wasn’t expeting me to actually fight for the hat.
i have climbed over a cliff edge in the colca canyon to get it. the wind took it off my head, i was lucky because it had be caught by a ‘rock’. i removed my gear and climbed down the side of the cliff, grabbed my hat screaming and dropping it again. the same ‘rock’ caught my had again. i also had some thorns in my hand. this time a carefully removed the had to see that it was not ontop of a rock, but a small cactus! sweet jesus.
and now, with 2 weeks left, it is gone.

i spent some time in trujillo. that was good?
i did lots of shopping. they make it so easy, so enticing. closing off streets as it starts to get dark. people filling the streets, eating icecream, sandwiches, popcorn, cotton candy, and shopping. if they don’t have what you want, you are probably on the wrong street.
i also went to a bunch of ruins. chan chan was huge. the full area of ruins was acres and acres. the ’site’ is a partial restoration of the best preserved large ‘temple.’ the other big place i went to was called ‘hauca de la luna’. my guide explained that these people didn’t actualy worship the sun or the moon, they weren’t crazy! then i got to see illistrations depicting human sacriface, worshiping the nearest mountain and feeding bodies to voltures. the site was terrible for taking photos. everything was covered. support posts ran everywhich way. but, the site has not been restored in any way. it is all in the name of preservation.

now that i have shopped, i have 2 bags to carry around on transport days. i also have more than 20kgs. 20 is the magic number that is free. i haven’t ran into a problem on either bus, but the flights i have could be a bigger problem. the flight i would need to take to get into iquitos says no-baggage. we will see about that. i will talk with a travel agent.

the bus ride to trujillo was a trill. i took the cheapest local bus. twisty unpaved canyon roads. long curvy one lane tunels. a broken windscreen. the bus started out fine. throw your bag to the guy dancing on the roof; he might catch it, he might drop it. all that gets tied down and the bus loads with people. noone take the seat that matches the number on their tickets. shortly after the sweaty bus takes off people start to throw buckets of water at it…CARNIVAL. all the windows get closed.
we passes a control check point. the driver was not wearing his seat belt… that is again the law here. people in the front seat of a vehicle always need seatbelts on the highway. everyone else can do as they please. the ticketing proccess took awhile longer than it would in canada. it went at a relaxed pace.
then, this is the exciting part, kids run infront of the bus at full speed on the highway and throw water balloons directly at the oncoming bus. they bus driver slamms on the breaks, swerves around the road without crashing. both from windscreens are cracked in this proccess. the right one had a nice crack from the bottom left to about a quarter of the way up the right side. the driverside window developed an entire web of cracks. about one third of the window was covered with cracks.
this all slowed the journey considerably. we needed to get the policia, drive back to the scene, find the kids, find the parents, get statement, id, drive the police back and continue the journey at a slower pace! all this and we hadn’t even entered the canyon yet. this was on the paved part of road.

the greatest of all catholic holidaysóthe precursor to lent.
throwing buckets of water on people. water balloons everywere. generally boys throw balloons at pretty girls, and girl throw balloons at pretty boys. then you get the wet t-shirt contest. you know you are the hottest because you get the most balloons thrown at you!!!
walking down the street at 11am on a sunday and being offered beer buy multiple drunk old men. its always beer’o'clock during carnival.
the afternoon parade was amazing. it had floats for the army (not salvations), saving animals, supermarkets, banks, indigenous people, incas and other typically catholic things.

i dancedósoberóand i liked it.
i never really considered this as a possibility.

bus from ica to lima
departure date: jan 25

sandboarding was everything i remember it to be, and moreóthese dunes were even bigger. it took 20 minutes to walk up one of the midsized sand dunes, and about 1 to board down it. that was very time consuming, and almost not worth the output.
then i went on a dune buggie/sandboarding tour. that was amazing. dunes that took 2 minutes to board to the bottom (when standing up, if you used your board like a sled it takes half the time.) i took a great number of spills. i also would like to take this up as a regular sport. warm weather, and having fun, it might be heathy too!

the sunset from the sand dunes was top notch.