Wow, lots to mention ..
arriving in lima. sleeping in the airport. flying to puno the next morning. walking around that day in puno, trying like mad to remember basic spanish, taking in all the sights, smells. feeling great to be somewhere new and exciting. walking around getting lost. taking an afternoon tour to the burial area of sillustani. back to trown. finding the local market and walking around at dusk buying local fruits. waking at 6am for desayuna, bread and jam, yoghurt with quinoa (this awesome grain with huge protein content). taking the boat out on lago titicaca (lake titicaca) to Los Islas Flotantes (the Uros Islands). amazed that these FLOATING islands are man-made, last 30 years, and some 2000 people live on the 35 islands. continuing on to the island of taquilli. nice hike in the sun, boat back to puno. spening the evening eating at one of the local food stalls (dinner cost me 60 CENTS) chatting with random stranges, not seeing any other tourists. Taking a 6 hour bus ride to Cuzco the next day, stopping along the way at local markets. Arriving in cuzco, meeting up with susanna. cuzco is much pretier than puno, but far more touristy as well. no blending in here, look non-peruvian and you´re approached constantly. spending the next day walking to 4 inca rouins, including ¨sexy woman¨among others. meeting that night with the tour group for the inca trail. the inca trail. what to say about the inca trail. i´ll summarize the inca trail in a separate blog to do it justice. beautiful. hard. amazing. diverted through aguas caliente due to mud slide, waking at 4 am to head to Machu Picchu. i´ve seen it in pictures, but in person, it´s just amazing. back to cuzco last night. had been fighting some kind of GI upset on and off for days, thought it was related to food, not sure. finally started cipro last night, didn´t eat for 24 hours, and can finally eat today. i am officially giving up beef for life. in lima today. exhausted. have been getting up anywhere from 4am to 6 am the entire trip. wandered around miraflores section on lima a it today. found 2 starbucks!! sick, i know. along the beach, elevated on a cliff, starting to read ¨The spirit catches you and you fall down.¨ last too tired to go into central lima and be a tourist today. just need a bit more down time. . .
Impressions:
1) poverty sucks
2) i like being outside of america, and i can´t explain why, and am not sure i need to
3) when on the inca trail, don´t look at how steep the trail is, just focus on the next step
4) i have a lot more material shit than i need in life
5) manners have gone by the wayside in the US.
i´m too tired to proof this, the web page is in spanish, and i don´t want to delete the thing by trying the spellcheck...
From Lima,
Brian
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