Homeward Bound

Flying back to Lima tonight, then headed back north tomorrow. For whoever might enjoy picking me up at the airport, I should be back in GP around 4:00 on Wednesday, Feb 29.

As for Buenos Aires, it´s a spectacular city. Very european ith some fantastic restaurants, great markets, cool architecture, it´s a really cool place to spend some time. Also, it´s fairly cheap for a big city and the weather is awesome! Went to a Tango show, did a dance lesson which has me convinced that Tango is basically the best dance ever. Visited the sights and had some wonderful meals, these guys do steak well. All told, Buenos Aires is just plain cool, visit it and enjoy.

Didn't Die in a Train Crash, Score!

So for those who have been paying attention there was a huge train crash in Buenos Aires today. Fortunately, neither me nor mine was injured. Also, BA is an incredible city and a fantastic place to visit. Just watch out for rogue trains.

So Long Bolivia

Since you last heard from me, I´ve been to the pleasant city of Sucre, which is a rich (by Bolivian standards), pretty colonial city. Went to a dinosaur museum and a cool old castle.

Then it was on to the silver mining town of Potosi. Pretty crazy place, you could tell that it used to be wealthy, but not so much anymore. We found a thermal lagoon outside of town that was cool and visited the former mint and current mines, which were interesting, but a bit sketchy and hard on the lungs. Also, they had a huge city-wide waterfight while we were there - awesome!

Grabbed a bus down to Tupiza and booked a 4 day tour of the salt flats and southern Bolivia. Lots and lots of driving, but some really cool scenery and lots of flamingoes. I´ll put some pictures up later.

As for now, heading off to Argentina this afternoon, should be cool, I can´t wait to have real steak again!

Back to the Future

Okay, so in reverse order, over the past 2 weeks, we went to Rurrenbaque to visit the jungle in the Amazon Basin. Pretty cool, saw tones of wildlife, though the 90% humidity nearly killed us. Saw some Maccaws,

Capibaras (giant beavers sans tail),

Monkeys and tons of other cool stuff.

Previously in my life, Matt and I biked the ´Death Road´, which was pretty wild.

Saw some Chiquilltos Wrestling, which is like WWE, but so terrible that its awesome.

La Paz itself is pretty nice, everywhere you go has nice views, and the city is incredibly lively and cheap! Two course lunch for $1 if you know where to look.

And before that, Isla del Sol was our destination. Nice place, good to get away from the crowds and traffic.

All told, pretty great couple of weeks. Heading down to southern Bolivia for a week then on to Argentina.

Take care all, more to come.

La Paz

So Bolivia is really cool. Everything is half as expensive as Peru and it´s way less touristy and is just really cool. La Paz is a surprisingly cool city built into a mountain valley. Matt and I successfully survived a bike trip down the ´Most Dangerous Road in the World´, which was pretty sweet. Looking into some jungle trips while we´re in the area.

All´s good and going awesome! Pictures to come!

Tour Peru

Hey all, ready for a whirlwind what-I´ve-been-up-to tour?

Started off in Lima, which is huge and daunting and incredibly Spanish



Headed off to Arequipa for a few days and enjoyed sitting indoors and not hiking while it rained all the time.



Then bussed out to Cusco, which is an incredibly gorgeous european-esque city with tons of Incan ruins in the vicinity and some cool museums, pedestrian streets and great restaurants. All told, great place to stay a while.



But not too long, after only 2 days, we went on the Salkantay trek, which crosses an incredibly high mountain pass (4630m), then down into the incomparable Machu Picchu.





Heading to Bolivia tonight, should be cool, going to hang out on Lake Titticaca for a few days.

Cusco

Hey all, doing well. We got into Cusco a couple days ago, our ten hour overnight bus trip turned into a 20 hour slog when some snow blocked a mountain pass, but thankfully we were riding in style on the most comfortable buses you´ve ever seen.
Cusco is a beautiful city, very european with steep, narrow streets, ancient ruins and cool musuems make it a good place to hang out once you come to terms with the 3300m altitude.
We´re headed on a 5 (!) day trek to Machu Picchu tomorrow morning, wish us luck!

IMPORTANT NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT

Arequipa very pretty city STOP Cool colonial architecture and crazy maze-like monastery that is fun to wander around STOP Matthew fully recovered from illness and feeling fine STOP Meri is incredibly smart and awsome STOP Heading out to Colca Canyon tomorrow FULL STOP

Peru!

So despite a 4 hour delay in GP, we all arrived in Lima in time for the New Year. First thing I did was find my visa card, so parents PLEASE DON NOT CANCEL MY VISA! Spent a few days wandering around the big city and arrived in Arequipa this morning. Matthew´s dying of some polio-tubercuosis-rabies disease, but asides from that things are going great. I´ll try to put up a better post and some pics when I find somewhere with a better keyboard.

That´s all for now!