Posts
Ok. We're here. Salta, Argentina. What a great place! We hiked to the top of a hill above the city and are otherwise having a good time. We are SO glad to be out of Chile. I promised Ally this would be brief because she really wants to write a longer post. So anyway, we're in Argentina, going to Resistencia tomorrow, and OUR PHONE DOES NOT WORK HERE. Sorry if you've tried to call, we'll post our new number when we get it.
love you all,
Sam
2.23.2009
2.18.2009
chile
i have like 5 minutes left at the internet cafe so i can't be bothered to use punctuationorevenspaces.we'reokandinIquique.loveyouall.
2.15.2009
Leaving Arequipa
Well, this is it. We leave for Tacna on the southern border of Peru in about an hour. Tonight we'll probably stay in Tacna simply because we don't want to cross the border into Chile in the middle of the night. From there we'll go to Arica, a smallish beach town for a night, and then to Iquique for a few days. We're basically using Chile to get into Argentina without paying the $135 reciprocity tax to get into Bolivia (its a little more direct to go through Bolivia), but I am still excited to see new places in a new country.
It is sad to be leaving Peru. We had a lot of great experiences here, and even though we'll be back in May, I wish we had more time to devote to this amazing country. But since there's no sense in bemoaning a very positive experience, I think we'll go enjoy one last meal in Arequipa before heading to the bus station.
Los amo,
Sam
It is sad to be leaving Peru. We had a lot of great experiences here, and even though we'll be back in May, I wish we had more time to devote to this amazing country. But since there's no sense in bemoaning a very positive experience, I think we'll go enjoy one last meal in Arequipa before heading to the bus station.
Los amo,
Sam
2.09.2009
A typical day:
7:00-wake up
7:15-actually wake up
7:45-meet other volunteers and get on the bus
9:00-School starts at Intiwawa
11:00-20 minute break
12:30-walk back to the bus
1:00-hungrily find lunch, generally falafel or salad or grilled chicken $4
2:00-rest
4:00-walk around the city, sit in the Plaza, visit shops or museums
6:00-dinner, usually cheap fixed-price menus or pizza $4
7:30-actually pay for hostel $7/person
9:00-get a couple beers, dessert, visit other Intiwawa people $5 max
Total: $20 per day
This is truly a great place to live.
7:15-actually wake up
7:45-meet other volunteers and get on the bus
9:00-School starts at Intiwawa
11:00-20 minute break
12:30-walk back to the bus
1:00-hungrily find lunch, generally falafel or salad or grilled chicken $4
2:00-rest
4:00-walk around the city, sit in the Plaza, visit shops or museums
6:00-dinner, usually cheap fixed-price menus or pizza $4
7:30-actually pay for hostel $7/person
9:00-get a couple beers, dessert, visit other Intiwawa people $5 max
Total: $20 per day
This is truly a great place to live.
2.08.2009
2.06.2009
Coolest. Encounter. Ever.
I've just returned from a delicious lunch at Cafe Fez, a Middle Eastern retaurant with $2 falafel sandwiches (the quality of which is on par with the falafel I used to eat in Tel Aviv... and that's high praise). We sat next to a fellow English-speaker who also frequents what's become our favorite place to grab a bite. As I generally do, I struck up conversation and discovered that he, Simon, is from the UK (Bristol). He mentioned that he's going to see Radiohead perform in Buenos Aires in March. My ears immediately perked up as Radiohead is one of my favorite bands of all time AND we're going to be in Argentina during that time. 15 or 20 minutes into a fascinating discussion about music festivals and American/British/Peruvian culture, Simon revealed that his brother is the BAND MANAGER FOR RADIOHEAD. This is one of many incredibly serendipitous encounters I feel as though I've experienced since I've begun traveling. But I mean, seriously, I ended up eating falafel in Peru next to the brother of the manager of my favorite band?? Thank you, Universe! Even better, Simon humored us by enumerating the various personality traits of each of the band members, with whom he's been friends for quite some time. Except for Thom, who's apparently a jerk (which I pretty much expected). Simon began one anecdote with, "Back when I was still speaking with Thom..." To top things off, he said that if we have trouble snagging tickets to the BA show in March, he'll try to help us out, which means that we might be sittin' pretty in the VIP section of a Radiohead show!
Life's been pretty sweet in general. This volunteer experience (INTIWAWA) has been incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable. The kids are so sweet. Every morning begins with the volunteers being swarmed by children, each of whom greet every volunteer with a kiss on the cheek. It takes a while, but it's adorable. Every class day ends the exact same way. Last night, Sam & I went out to a discoteque with the volunteers -- my body is still aching from the hours of dancing, and Sam hasn't quite recovered from the huge buckets (literally) of cocktails we bought. Each mixed drink came with about a dozen straws and one person would hold it for a few minutes while twelve others suckled. Quite an experience. On Monday, we're beginning Spanish lessons with a private tutor ($3/hour each for the two of us) and on Tuesday, we're checking out Capoeira dance lessons with a few other volunteers. According to Wikipedia, Capoeira is "an Afro-Brazilian art form that makes a ritual of movements from martial arts, games, and dance."
I've recently had a mini-revelation regarding the next few years. As of this very moment, this is how I'd like my life trajectory to manifest (all subject to change):
-Work at a non-profit in New York for a year while continuing to learn Spanish
-Spend 6 months in Peru volunteering with INTIWAWA (teaching English)
-Peace Corps (ideally in Latin America)
-NYC Teaching Fellows (an intensive summer program that provides a teaching certification and then subsidizes an education masters, with the requirement that I teach in NYC for some period of time)
After that, no idea! For now, I'm going to enjoy the afternoon rain in Arequipa and practice my Spanish.
Love,
Ally
Life's been pretty sweet in general. This volunteer experience (INTIWAWA) has been incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable. The kids are so sweet. Every morning begins with the volunteers being swarmed by children, each of whom greet every volunteer with a kiss on the cheek. It takes a while, but it's adorable. Every class day ends the exact same way. Last night, Sam & I went out to a discoteque with the volunteers -- my body is still aching from the hours of dancing, and Sam hasn't quite recovered from the huge buckets (literally) of cocktails we bought. Each mixed drink came with about a dozen straws and one person would hold it for a few minutes while twelve others suckled. Quite an experience. On Monday, we're beginning Spanish lessons with a private tutor ($3/hour each for the two of us) and on Tuesday, we're checking out Capoeira dance lessons with a few other volunteers. According to Wikipedia, Capoeira is "an Afro-Brazilian art form that makes a ritual of movements from martial arts, games, and dance."
I've recently had a mini-revelation regarding the next few years. As of this very moment, this is how I'd like my life trajectory to manifest (all subject to change):
-Work at a non-profit in New York for a year while continuing to learn Spanish
-Spend 6 months in Peru volunteering with INTIWAWA (teaching English)
-Peace Corps (ideally in Latin America)
-NYC Teaching Fellows (an intensive summer program that provides a teaching certification and then subsidizes an education masters, with the requirement that I teach in NYC for some period of time)
After that, no idea! For now, I'm going to enjoy the afternoon rain in Arequipa and practice my Spanish.
Love,
Ally
2.05.2009
Arequipa
I miss my guitar with the passion of a thousand suns. The impact of music cannot be underestimated considering the mark it makes on our lives every time we pick up an instrument to play. When you hold a guitar or a flute or whatever day after day after day, your hands learn where to go, what to do, how to coax that special sound out of an otherwise inanimate object. My guitar is one of my best friends--I know its ins and outs, its strengths and weaknesses, its voice. A slab of wood with strings cannot produce music, it can only provide an easier way for two hansd ana soul to speak through it.
We are in Arequipa now, sitting at sunset on the Plaza de Armas as twilight transforms the white marble city into a gilded masterpiece of streetlamps and red-tinged light on the horizon. The Arequipeños mill about the Plaza, and every seat of every bench is taken. The city is drenched in a sense of calm, sensible history and pride--there is none of the rushing about of Lima or the frantic hustling of tourists we found so aggravating in Cusco. There is simply a sense of friendly cohabitation with everyone who calls the city home.
Although it is only a few minutes away by bus, the world of San Isidro and Intiwawa (the former is a town outisde Arequipa, the latter the organization with whom we are doing volunteer work to help educate women and children about their rights and end the endemic domestic violence that occurs in San Isidro) is so different and so separate from that of Arequipa. In Arequipa, we are the children, learning and being taken care of by our parents at the hostel and all around town as we inevitably make mistakes in judgment, the language, or simply get sick and need to be taken care of. We stand out as being more helpless than perhaps even the niños peruanos, and the city comes to our aid. At Intiwawa, the roles are entirely different. We, along with 20 other gringos and a smattering of peruanos are repsonsible for over 50 children over the course of 5 hours every morning. They listen to us as we instruct them to behave properly and think in specific ways. We must have all the answers, and even when we do not, we must appear as if we do lest we lose their respect. We teach them English despite their higher skill in Spanish and we require that they brush their teeth as we arrive, frequently with hangovers or without having washed ourselves.
I don't mean to imply that we aren't doing anything to help, only that the description of volunteer work sends the message that help, transferrence of knowledge, betterment of life, etc., only exist on a one-way street. These children teach us more in every moment we share than perhaps we can ever impart on them, and for this I am sad that we only have more or less another week with them.
I find myself worrying frequently about the lack of epiphanies or profound learning experiences that I have had on this journey thus far. I get depressed when I realize how few experiences have hit me just so such that I change my perspective and point my life in a different direction altogether. I waste time and anxiety worrying about these things and yet in the last few paragraphs I have described three very profound realizations that occurred to me only today.
I think perhaps we look in the wrong places for change to enter our lives, and sometimes simply by looking we blind ourselves to the change occuring around us. We live in such a dynamic world and we inhabit such dynamic bodies and souls that it would be a mistake to assume that just because we don't notice the change that none has actually ocurred. Truly, change is the only constant force in the universe: love, life, pain, joy, white sillar marble, all these will fade, increase or decrease with intensity or clarity or desirability. The only thing you can be sure of is that from this moment to the next, in the infinite matrix of information that is our universe, everything will change eventually.
Now. I think I'll go buy a guitar.
We are in Arequipa now, sitting at sunset on the Plaza de Armas as twilight transforms the white marble city into a gilded masterpiece of streetlamps and red-tinged light on the horizon. The Arequipeños mill about the Plaza, and every seat of every bench is taken. The city is drenched in a sense of calm, sensible history and pride--there is none of the rushing about of Lima or the frantic hustling of tourists we found so aggravating in Cusco. There is simply a sense of friendly cohabitation with everyone who calls the city home.
Although it is only a few minutes away by bus, the world of San Isidro and Intiwawa (the former is a town outisde Arequipa, the latter the organization with whom we are doing volunteer work to help educate women and children about their rights and end the endemic domestic violence that occurs in San Isidro) is so different and so separate from that of Arequipa. In Arequipa, we are the children, learning and being taken care of by our parents at the hostel and all around town as we inevitably make mistakes in judgment, the language, or simply get sick and need to be taken care of. We stand out as being more helpless than perhaps even the niños peruanos, and the city comes to our aid. At Intiwawa, the roles are entirely different. We, along with 20 other gringos and a smattering of peruanos are repsonsible for over 50 children over the course of 5 hours every morning. They listen to us as we instruct them to behave properly and think in specific ways. We must have all the answers, and even when we do not, we must appear as if we do lest we lose their respect. We teach them English despite their higher skill in Spanish and we require that they brush their teeth as we arrive, frequently with hangovers or without having washed ourselves.
I don't mean to imply that we aren't doing anything to help, only that the description of volunteer work sends the message that help, transferrence of knowledge, betterment of life, etc., only exist on a one-way street. These children teach us more in every moment we share than perhaps we can ever impart on them, and for this I am sad that we only have more or less another week with them.
I find myself worrying frequently about the lack of epiphanies or profound learning experiences that I have had on this journey thus far. I get depressed when I realize how few experiences have hit me just so such that I change my perspective and point my life in a different direction altogether. I waste time and anxiety worrying about these things and yet in the last few paragraphs I have described three very profound realizations that occurred to me only today.
I think perhaps we look in the wrong places for change to enter our lives, and sometimes simply by looking we blind ourselves to the change occuring around us. We live in such a dynamic world and we inhabit such dynamic bodies and souls that it would be a mistake to assume that just because we don't notice the change that none has actually ocurred. Truly, change is the only constant force in the universe: love, life, pain, joy, white sillar marble, all these will fade, increase or decrease with intensity or clarity or desirability. The only thing you can be sure of is that from this moment to the next, in the infinite matrix of information that is our universe, everything will change eventually.
Now. I think I'll go buy a guitar.
1.30.2009
Good news from the Universe
Just so you know beforehand, we live very simply and close with the land-- living in tents, bathing in the river, dealing with bugs and jungle creatures, and living communally with other volunteers and us. A typical day: we get up early, practice yoga and meditation (optional), start work after breakfast, go till midday, eat a big lunch, then have the afternoon to play in the river, do crafts, nap, personal projects, or whatever you like, then some gardening and watering the evening, and a light dinner before bed. Very simple and relaxed. We like people to be self-motivated and even create their own projects. You´ll see, we have lots of room for creativity, and practicality too!
This is the note we got from our WWOOFing host in Misiones, Argentina (It's right next to Iguazu falls...!!!). We start March 2nd. We end...who knows when. It sounds amazing and like such a wonderful opportunity to get in touch with the land and with ourselves and our inner work ethic and motivation. I know I'm especially excited about getting to know our hosts and the other workers on the farm, most of whom will be other foreigners from across the globe.
In other news, we're nearing the end of our stay on Lago Titicaca in the town of Puno. We just came back from a very ridiculous, if rewarding, trip out on the lake in which we toured the Uros Floating Islands and stayed overnight at the house of an indigenous family on the relatively untouched island of Amantani. The night was freezing and absolutely silent; there are no cars, televisions, or electricity on the island. We were up so high (over 4,000 meters) that the relatively mild hike up to Pachatata (a local holy site) took the wind out of all of us--as did the impromptu soccer game that broke out on the field below. Today we spent a few hours on the island of Taquile, a much more touristy island whose socialist government has decreed that tourist restaurants may only serve fresh grilled trout...seriously.
So why was the experience ridiculous? Mostly because of the obvious exploitation that occurred, both by the locals and implicitly by us, the tourists. Tourism only came to Amantani seven years ago, before which point they subsisted on a barter economy with little to no contact with the mainland. Now, even the host families try to sell you their wares and it is clear that the influence of electricity and oil companies has created a demand for their products that has not existed in the hundreds of years the community has been around. It was truly sad to get to the top of Pachatata with panoramic views of the island and the lake at sunset--the air is so clear and thin--and be assaulted by several small children selling simple bracelets for 1 sol each (around 33 cents). Not having brought my money--and not feeling compelled to buy compulsively--we tried to politely refuse, which elicited a reaction of anger, frustration, or persistence, depending on the child. This dependence on tourist cash for their existence saddens me, because I know that there is no other way for them to fulfill their lives at the moment and the trend is certainly to heed the desires of the outside world, which clearly state a need for an increase in tourism and a decrease in the traditional lifestyle.
The flipside of this is that they peddle their culture for our dollars in ways that make us feel that we are tapping into something genuine, such as the traditional dance they threw for us last night. We were somewhat forced to dress in the traditional garb and then danced with the locals somewhat obligatorily to traditional music. It felt weird not just because of the condoned social appropriation but also because it seemed that the locals were fulfilling some sort of contract that they had verbally signed by saying there would be a dance. There was no genuine interest on their part, and that absolutely affected the experience. I would have to say that besides the fact that we were able to pay our family directly for the service of staying at their house that this was a troubling and problematic tour at best.
We DID meet a lot of great travelers on the way, though, the most notable being the British couple who we shared a family with and whose travels include choosing a camper over a fancy hotel at a friend's wedding.
So. That was this morning. Right now we're back in our 35 sole room in Puno (that's $6 a night per person) waiting to go out to a local bar with some australians we met on the tour. I feel a bit odd being even a little sedentary after all the exercise we just experienced, and it will feel good to get out tonight and then to be on the road again tomorrow to Arequipa. Puno is generally unremarkable and besides the lake experience I cannot say I will have many memories of the place itself--good or bad.
That's it for now, more to come later, as always. Apparently I end all my posts with ¨stay tuned,¨ so don't even bother checking the gorgeous lake photos we will be uploading sometime in the next day or so.
(that was sarcasm. stay tuned.)
1.28.2009
Still Alive
yup. still alive. Ok so perhaps its a bit much to assume that you were worried in the least, especially considering the possible vast amounts of time (read: weeks) we may go without posting in the future. Anyway, We're in Puno, a town on Lake Titicaca. It's gorgeous and the police dance all day. Stay tuned for video proof.
Love you,
Sam
Love you,
Sam
1.23.2009
1.22.2009
Gastrointestinal Tract: who needs it, really?
This has been a trip of extremes so far. The extreme poverty of almost every city contrasted with the extreme beauty and austerity of the Andes and the self-sustaining terraced farms that cover each mountain like cartography. The extreme excitement of waking up every day compared with the extreme exhaustion we experience almost every night (perhaps we should slow down...). The extreme deliciousness of each bite of every dish we try compared with the extreme discomfort we feel almost without fail. Neither Ally nor I are particularly prone to intestinal discomfort, but perhaps as a polite farewell gesture the bug we had in Lima has decided to bite once more, albeit in a very attenuated form. We're taking it easy tonight and tomorrow, holed up in an expensive ($15/person) hotel with a TV in the room for the sake of our sanity (more on that in a bit) and our health.
The Cusco experience has been bizarre, to say the least. This is truly a tourist city, replete with hawkers on every corner and little girls dressed in indigenous garb holding llamas by a leash and asking for 1 sole (about 33 cents) to take a photo with them. We know that this is the way in which the overwhelmingly friendly and competent people here make a living, but it gets very stressful and frustrating at times.
We spent our first full night here with our first South American Couchsurfing host--or should I say, we spent it with the 12 other people he had graciously invited into his small home, we actually only ever saw him for perhaps 10 minutes. The group we met at Wilman's was diverse, interesting, and fun. The accomodations were spare and dirty. No hot water. No bed. No heat. Oh, and at night the temperature gets down to about 40 degrees. Not very much fun. So tonight, after a long day at the Pisac artisan's market (we both bought alpaca wool sweaters, so warm and fuzzy!), we're content to nurse our stomache aches in the comfort of a king-size bed and dubbed American television.
Love you all,
Sam
The Cusco experience has been bizarre, to say the least. This is truly a tourist city, replete with hawkers on every corner and little girls dressed in indigenous garb holding llamas by a leash and asking for 1 sole (about 33 cents) to take a photo with them. We know that this is the way in which the overwhelmingly friendly and competent people here make a living, but it gets very stressful and frustrating at times.
We spent our first full night here with our first South American Couchsurfing host--or should I say, we spent it with the 12 other people he had graciously invited into his small home, we actually only ever saw him for perhaps 10 minutes. The group we met at Wilman's was diverse, interesting, and fun. The accomodations were spare and dirty. No hot water. No bed. No heat. Oh, and at night the temperature gets down to about 40 degrees. Not very much fun. So tonight, after a long day at the Pisac artisan's market (we both bought alpaca wool sweaters, so warm and fuzzy!), we're content to nurse our stomache aches in the comfort of a king-size bed and dubbed American television.
Love you all,
Sam
1.20.2009
Cuzco
Whew.
We departed from Lima on Sunday at 6:00 PM. We got into Cuzco at 1:00 AM on Tuesday. The bus that we thought was going to take 20 hours ended up taking 31 and a different route than advertised. It felt somewhat like one of the upper circles of hell as we wound perilously and seemingly endlessly through the peruvian desert without air conditioning or water other than the small amount we had brought ourselves watching terrible hollywood movies with spanish dubbing while suffering from mild altitude sickness (nausea, shortness of breath, headaches) from climbing from sea level to over 12,000 feet, where we are now.
But we´re here now! Cuzco is an amazingly beautiful city, the Inca capital of the world, and ever so touristy. That element is something we could do without, but we are already having a blast staying with our first couchsurfing host, Wilman, who graciously opens his home up to 8 travelers at a time for free. We met several Americans staying with him and went out to an amazing (and, as always, cheap) vegetarian restaurant barely 3 blocks from the house.
Life is good. Besides the residual shortness of breath, we could not be happier. That despite the probability that we will not be going to Bolivia due to a $130 entrance fee. We´ve just contacted our first WWOOFing host and will probably be doing farm work near Iguazu Falls (do a quick google search) in Argentina. We´re also looking at volunteer opportunities in Pisco and Arequipa, helping with earthquake reconstruction and at women and chilrens shelters, respectively.
More to come later, the brisk Andean night calls!
Love you,
Sam
We departed from Lima on Sunday at 6:00 PM. We got into Cuzco at 1:00 AM on Tuesday. The bus that we thought was going to take 20 hours ended up taking 31 and a different route than advertised. It felt somewhat like one of the upper circles of hell as we wound perilously and seemingly endlessly through the peruvian desert without air conditioning or water other than the small amount we had brought ourselves watching terrible hollywood movies with spanish dubbing while suffering from mild altitude sickness (nausea, shortness of breath, headaches) from climbing from sea level to over 12,000 feet, where we are now.
But we´re here now! Cuzco is an amazingly beautiful city, the Inca capital of the world, and ever so touristy. That element is something we could do without, but we are already having a blast staying with our first couchsurfing host, Wilman, who graciously opens his home up to 8 travelers at a time for free. We met several Americans staying with him and went out to an amazing (and, as always, cheap) vegetarian restaurant barely 3 blocks from the house.
Life is good. Besides the residual shortness of breath, we could not be happier. That despite the probability that we will not be going to Bolivia due to a $130 entrance fee. We´ve just contacted our first WWOOFing host and will probably be doing farm work near Iguazu Falls (do a quick google search) in Argentina. We´re also looking at volunteer opportunities in Pisco and Arequipa, helping with earthquake reconstruction and at women and chilrens shelters, respectively.
More to come later, the brisk Andean night calls!
Love you,
Sam
1.18.2009
Health
Whew... we've just emerged from a day of incapacitating sickness. We made the ONE mistake everyone warns against while traveling in this region... we drank tap water. Not on purpose, though! Two days ago, we ate a fixed price lunch that included a glass of what I assumed was grape juice (they called it "chicha" -- turns out it's fermented corn milk). After a few sips, it occurred to us that the drink might contain tap water, so we ordered bottled sodas (I chose Inka Cola, and Sam went with the less imaginative Coca Cola). We went about the rest of the day as we normally would, going out that night with a few people who work at the hostel. At around 4 AM, though, I awoke from a very restful sleep to major gastrointestinal discomfort. The rest of the day progressed as you'd imagine. For both of us. We barely had enough energy to move around the hostel, and it wouldn't have been a good idea to stray too far from the bathroom. We basically collapsed in the TV room (we recognize how lucky we were to have gotten sick in such a nice & comfortable hostel) for the entire day. We went to sleep at around 9, after learning that the Nazca plans had been cancelled, which, considering our health, was probably for the best. But the good news: we're feeling great today! Thanks to antibiotics & lots of water... BOTTLED water. We're now in the process of figuring out exactly how to get to Cusco today, as our first choice bus company has no space left until tomorrow. Stay tuned for more...!
Love,
Ally
Love,
Ally
1.16.2009
I have a son we live for 5 years.
Google translator has become a mainstay of our journey. We are constantly emailing wwoofing farms and couchsurfers in spanish--which we can generally create without much help, gracias a dios--and receiving many in return, which inevitably get processed by google's algorithm, generally with hilarious results (see title).
So much has happened serendipitously in the last couple days that I am beginning to wonder if this is a very pleasant dream from which I must inevitably wake. Our friend we met in the airport, Olga, took us out to dinner last night with her friend Richard (they are both lawyers in Lima) and we have a date for sunday at 5:00 AM to drive to Nazca where we will fly above the Nazca Lines, beautiful pre-incan formations the purpose of which are as of yet unknown. I've always been fascinated by the mysterious nature of these gigantic, multi-kilometer drawings in the sand, and I feel like a little kid on his birthday when presented with that special guitar or remote control car or whatever it was that I yearned for silently until my parents divined the target of my desire.
Everything is falling into place, in a sense. The days in Miraflores pass quickly, almost too quickly, and it is hard to believe that we will be leaving Lima on Sunday for Nazca and eventually Cusco, where we will be staying for perhaps a week or more and experiencing our first couchsurfing stay of the trip. We are also hoping to trek to Machu Picchu while in Cusco, but we will be satisfied with a postponement until May if the trail is full, which it generally is.
Today we are set to explore Barranco, one of the oldest parts of Lima, which still sports colonial style houses and architecture and many, many, many nightclubs and bars frequented primarily by locals. We were also alerted to the presence of a used bookstore in Lima Centro which perhaps will consume most of the middle of our day as we search for the best way to hone and develop our spanish (we find that speaking it can get very exhausting and perhaps reading is the solution in the interim, especially in a hostel containing mostly english speakers).
But we must get to it now. Sorry for not posting photos directly to the blog, please follow the photobucket link to see our galleries. More to come later!
Love you All,
Sam
So much has happened serendipitously in the last couple days that I am beginning to wonder if this is a very pleasant dream from which I must inevitably wake. Our friend we met in the airport, Olga, took us out to dinner last night with her friend Richard (they are both lawyers in Lima) and we have a date for sunday at 5:00 AM to drive to Nazca where we will fly above the Nazca Lines, beautiful pre-incan formations the purpose of which are as of yet unknown. I've always been fascinated by the mysterious nature of these gigantic, multi-kilometer drawings in the sand, and I feel like a little kid on his birthday when presented with that special guitar or remote control car or whatever it was that I yearned for silently until my parents divined the target of my desire.
Everything is falling into place, in a sense. The days in Miraflores pass quickly, almost too quickly, and it is hard to believe that we will be leaving Lima on Sunday for Nazca and eventually Cusco, where we will be staying for perhaps a week or more and experiencing our first couchsurfing stay of the trip. We are also hoping to trek to Machu Picchu while in Cusco, but we will be satisfied with a postponement until May if the trail is full, which it generally is.
Today we are set to explore Barranco, one of the oldest parts of Lima, which still sports colonial style houses and architecture and many, many, many nightclubs and bars frequented primarily by locals. We were also alerted to the presence of a used bookstore in Lima Centro which perhaps will consume most of the middle of our day as we search for the best way to hone and develop our spanish (we find that speaking it can get very exhausting and perhaps reading is the solution in the interim, especially in a hostel containing mostly english speakers).
But we must get to it now. Sorry for not posting photos directly to the blog, please follow the photobucket link to see our galleries. More to come later!
Love you All,
Sam
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