SOME WACKY ENDEAVORS

Mysteriously out of breath.

abeille — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:53:00 GMT

Cusco is absolutely breathtaking. I guess the pun is intended.

Our means of getting here was a mixture of genius and complete stupidity.
We chose a 1-hour flight over a 30-hour bus ride. That was convenient, and gave us more time in Cusco, minus the scary mountain roads. Hurrah!

The night before however, we stayed out dancing until the wee hours at a small club in Lima called... La Vaca Del Vuelo? That wasn't the exact name, but anyways, it translated to Flying Cow.
We went with a friend we met in Lima at the start of our trip. His name was Luca and he was a great lot of fun. He gave Sarah and I each one of his bracelets.

The club was great.
We got back to our hostal at around 3am, slept till 7:30, and got on a plane to Cusco, where the elevation was so high we felt sick to our stomachs. The small hang-over did not help things, but we managed to muster the energy to try and walk around the city a little.

Crossing the street here is so peaceful, there are not nearly as many cars here as in Lima or Trujillo! The streets are cobbled, the sky is clear and gorgeous, and there are the most amazing old buildings here! Even the banks are situated in old colonial buildings, it makes the city look classy. (:
A small girl randomly started following us, and we wound up making friends with her. We gave her a few of Cody's Canada pencils, and she wound up watching TV at our hostal for a bit. We walked her home a little while later.

Kids aren't nearly as shy here as they are at home. It must be something to do with the culture, or the way they're raised, because they're all really confident and really friendly and surprisingly independant, this girl was 9 years old and she took taxis! She was really cute, and drew a picture of Thomas. (:

The lack of oxygen made us tired at a slight hill, and both Sarah and I had no appetite yesterday. We slept most of it away after our walks, and this morning I think we all feel a little better, especially after breakfast! It was a pleasant surprise that the hostal served complimentary breakfast. Yum!

Everything is much more expensive here than in any other city we've visited, all the cheapest hostals are full! I hope my money holds out. :P
Today, I only feel a little lightheaded. Hopefully this goes away soon, we have a trek to worry about!

Time enough!

abeille — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:53:00 GMT

I have had french fries for the past 5 meals.
This hostal has a cafe at the front, which is really convenient. What is inconvenient, is that they have the yummiest fries in the world and I keep ordering them.

But fear not Mom and any other health-enthusiasts, I have not been eating ONLY french fries. I have been eating omelettes and burritos and yummy pancakes too.
Today is our last day in Trujillo, we will be in Lima tomorrow to make our way to Cuzco. Since I am full in the belly, I'll update on what has happened since the boat to Yurimaguas (feels like forever ago!)

The boat was a cargo boat, transporting grain and, though I didn't see any, I'm sure there was livestock. The cabin we slept in was, according to Cody, illegal by Canada's standards. Bahahaha. Because it did not have windows (it had wooden grates like on some closets) and it was possible to lock it from the outside. It got so hot during the daytime, because it was like a tin box.

Sarah and I volunteered to share a bed, since it would save us all around $20 to pay for 3 beds instead of 4. Unfortunately we failed to realize that the beds were tiny. So tiny, in fact, that Cody couldn't fit in them at all because he was too tall. He slept in a hammock on deck, which I think was probably nicer anyways.

That aside, the boat ride wasn't as awful as we'd thought. We made friends with some children on the first day, as well as some of their siblings, anyone else who cared to see what the commotion surrounding our cabin was about, and the cook. We taught the kids a bit of english in return for some spanish, and we also tried to teach the cook, Christian, a bit.

Cody made friends with a little 8 year-old boy who introduced himself as "Marco Antonio", but his sister told us he was lying. We took to calling him "Marco Pollo" anyways (Pollo means 'chicken', as in the meat.) and he beat Cody up. He was really smart, and picked up card games really quickly. I was stunned, as I have trouble picking up card games even WITHOUT a language barrier. He had jumping contests with Thomas, and won.
He was ridiculous, we miss him now.
I'm making it sound like he died, he just got off the boat :P

In Yurimaguas, we found a beautiful lodge! Eight dollars a night for each of us, which wasn't that much more expensive than we normally paid for a hostal! There was a big German sheperd, a little orange cat, and an asshole parrot that ran around and harassed the other animals.

BETTER THAN TV.

The lady put out a bucket of food for the cat, and as the cat eats, the parrot RUNS up, DUMPS the bucket of food all over the floor and turns it away from the cat, and starts eating the food.
While he's eating, the parrot's just muttering incomprehensibly and the cat's standing there like "what do i do?"
Sweet.

Anyways, we had to take a bus at 4am the next morning, so we went to bed ASAP to make the most of the 4 hours sleep we could get. The dog barked all night. NO DOG NO.

The 28 hour bus ride was uneventful and tiring. We got to Trujillo at 6 in the morning next day.
Getting to the hostal in Trujillo at 6am, all we wanted to do was ind a bed and sleep in it. We found a hostal called Hotel Americano or something, which was HUGE, and passed out on their beds.

Two hours later, a bigass MARCHING BAND goes past right underneath our window. No sleep for you! We were too tired to be pissed off, instead it was just hilarity.

We have met some friends and some friends of friends and, it was.. strange? Nah, it was fun. Guys here are bizarrely macho, and can seem a little creepy sometimes, but it's just not what we're used to.

I waited too long to put a good deal of detail into this entry, so it's just a summary with highlights of what has happened until now. Today, we go surfing.

kay guys.

abeille — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 08:51:00 GMT

the boat ride was long and we didn't even have 12 hours to relax in Yurimaguas before we got on a bus to Trujillo, which took 28 hours. After 3 hours of sleep, that was kind of enraging.

Either way, I regret to say that at this time I lack the patience to tell the many many many MANY things that have occured since my last update, and so I will leave it for another time.

I am currently in Huanchaco, which is a town a 15 minute drive from Trujillo. It's quieter and costs less here.

Love!

fdsakl.

abeille — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:56:00 GMT

Tomorrow we board a boat to Yurimaguas, after a somewhat frustrating ordeal at the port today. Better spanish skillz would have been an asset, but we made it anyways, thanks to the taxi driver who helped (: taxi drivers are super nice here, it seems.

We are having a bit of trouble with Max, who is taking a long time to get back to us. We're looking up some alternative volunteer agencies to Ecotrackers in case it winds up taking too long to get to Puerto America.

ANYWAYS this computer is too slow to upload photos. Sorry!

fsdajkl

abeille — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 05:05:00 GMT

The jungle lodge was beautiful, except for the mosqitos.

Now, mosquitos can hardly be helped in the jungle. Cody's 98% deet did not fend them off, and they bit through two layers of clothing. I would have worn more layers but it was incredibly hot. Nothing you can do, they're ridiculous. After awhile you just learn to accept it.

I counted more than 400 mosquito bites on my body. I have never been so itchy. I had 57 bites on my left hand alone, along with bites on the palms of my hands.
Aside from that, the lodge was awesome. We saw so many different birds and bugs of all different colours, beauuuutiful trees and plantlife. Mammals and reptiles were harder to find, but we found a snake, some small lizards, lots of monkeys and bats and a sloth!
The last night we stayed there, our guides Jose and Douglas took us out in the canoe at night to go looking for alligators, and we caught a caiman! I am not sure how to spell this.
He was probably 12 inches from nose to tail tip, and the guides showed us how to hold him. It was amazing, he was a beautiful little creature :)

I keep forgetting to bring my camera to the internet cafe to upload pictures for everyone. SORRY GUYS.

Yesterday, we took a motor-canoe across the Amazon and saw river dolphions! We saw some grey dolphins and a pink one, which I think are harder to find because they live in really small groups. Anyways that was followed by a 2 or something hour trek with our backpacks under the hot-hot sun, which was certainly an experience. We all felt a little awful and everyone looked like they'd been thrown in a lake because they were drenched with sweat. I didn't sweat that much but I would have preferred to because I had gross pit-stains. Now I only have one pair of clothing left and laundromats are closed today because it's sunday. UGH.

YESTERDAY WAS THE BEST DAY EVER, THOUGH, FOR THIS REASON.

Because of the incredible itchiness, Sarah and I decided to visit a pharmacy to get anti-itch cream. While I watched a little girl kick around an inflatable beach ball, Sarah asked the guy for anti-itch cream for mosquito bites; partly in charades and partly in words. He nods, and grabs a box containing a small tube of cream. From behind Sarah, I caught a glimpse of the name of the medication:

TRIDENOVAG

The three last letters of the name both alarmed and amused me, so I tried and failed not to giggle as Sarah gulped back snickers and took the box.
After paying for our box of TRIDENOVAG, we ran out laughing and actually laughed all the way to the yellow rose of texas, which is a restaurant that serves very good ice cream. Thomas and Cody were waiting there.

Upon arriving, we were like "There is no way that he gave us vaginal cream. There is just no way he could have misinterpreted us THAT badly." I took out the instructions, which were all spanish.
If my spanish comprehension is as awesome as I think it is, i caught the words "fungal and bacterial infection" and also, the word "herpes".

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shortly afterwards, I read that it can be used for any skin itch anywhere that responds to steroids or something, which we know mosquito bites do, because you can use steroid cream for mosquito bites. So it was usable for our needs, we just thought it was amusing.

And so, we have named it "the vag cream."
Best part is, when we took it out to show Thomas and Cody, we forgot to take our tube of TRIDENOVAG off of the restaurant table.

Whoops!

Unreachable by road.

abeille — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:31:00 GMT

I had written a blog entry for everyone last night, but these internet cafe computers apparently can't take my high-level surfing, and it froze. Either way, I am back with some stories; today was fun.

Iquitos is beautiful. Because it rains so much here, the curbs are a foot high, at least! It's maddeningly hot and humid, and this is winter! It's quite a change from Lima. There are almost no cars here, everybody rides motorcycles. I saw a family of four riding on one motorcycle; a little boy in the front, mom and dad in the middle, and another little boy in the back!

The lanes on the road seem to be for decoration, really. I thought that people broke driving laws in Lima; here there don't even seem to be any! I like it though, it makes it more.. interesting. :)

Instead of taxi cars, taxis here are mototaxis, like three-wheeled vehicles that are like a motorcycle in the front where the driver is but a sort of rickshaw in the back. We rode around in those for awhile today down some dirt roads and saw some beautiful plant life; and also made friends with the drivers. I have videos of the drive but I don't think they'll do it any justice. It was totally exhilirating.

We visited Beher market today, which we read was a really cool floating market. We failed to realize that it only floats during wet season, and wound up trudging around in some dirt and mud through a totaly crowded marketplace that smelled like.. well.

Cody put it best when he said it smelled like everything.
It wasn't a teriffic smell.

People at stands sold meat, plucked chickens and pig legs with hooves attached. Apparently in wet season the market is way less filthy and you have to make your way around by canoe. The way we saw it, flies sampled the meat and children would play in the olives after chasing mangy dogs.

One sad thing about Iquitos is the amount of stray animals here. We named a cat Fernando, he was begging outside of our restaurant and was actually very cute. I saw a great big dog at the market, hair all matted, just laying by the side of the road, barely alive. It was awful. There are a lot of starving strays here. Some just sit in the middle of the busy sidewalk and stare into nowhere, like they wonder what kind of life they have. You can tell which dogs are the smarter ones because they just look depressed. I saw a dog on the way here who was just sitting on the sidewalk staring up at the sky.

Aside from that, it is beautiful here. The trees are very very green, and tomorrow we will be going to a jungle lodge for 4 days and 3 nights in the Amazon. Afterwards, we will catch the next boat to Yurimaguas and head to Puerto America to do some volunteering :)

I will upload photos when I am back from the jungle lodge, as I am sure I will have a lot to show you all.

Pisco sour

abeille — Fri, 6 Jul 2007 15:46:00 GMT

I wish I could take home some Pisco for you guys.

We tried pisco sour tonight at O'Murphy's Irish Pub.
We alsooooo tried to figure out the next leg of our trip. We think it will involve rivers.

M-M-M-Miraflores!

abeille — Thu, 5 Jul 2007 14:26:00 GMT

Two entries in one day!?

Today merits two entries. We had a lot of fun.
After breakfast, we decided to wander around Miraflores a little. We visited. oh. what was it called. It was a very neat huaca.. pucllyapa? I have forgotten the name.
Anyways, the tour guide was very nice. We met a man from Norway and three Peruvian hairless dogs. They were very sweet, and man, could they run! It was like, ZOOM. they're over there! ZOOM. they're over here! ZOOM!

The buses here are amazing! They are small but the frequency is ridiculous. They're everywhere! It's a lot of fun. We wandered around central Miraflores and ate vegetarien food, then Thomas got a haircut because he didn't bring shampoo.

Miraflores is very lively at night. I think there's more people out at night than in the daytime, there are vendors all over the place! We found a little market and i bought a cute bracelet for 2 soles but I dropped it very shortly afterwards. Luckily, 2 soles is only equal to about 66 cents. I am on the lookout for presents for people, if you have any suggestions please make them known to me. :)

Miraflores is nice at night. My spanish is improving a little, I can complete a corner-store transaction without the vendor knowing I don't speak much castellano. I can also understand what most people are saying to me, but still wind up just waving my hands trying to remember how to say things and smiling and apologizing a lot. I told vendors I spoke french, because that is much cooler. They'll never know I'm not, hahahaha. I always feel embarrassed when people just start talking in english. So, Maddy speaks no more english in Peru. Maddy speaks french and un poco de castellano (i don't know if that's right.)

Tomorrow night, we hit up some discos.

To Monique: Inca Kola tastes like bubblegum. It is pretty awesome. I hate to say i don't know if i can bring you any back, but... i don't think i can bring you any back. I can't bring it as carry-on, and if I put it in my bag it will explode when it opens because doubtless it will get shaken A LOT. Let me know <3

LEMME GET MA BEARINGS.

abeille — Thu, 5 Jul 2007 02:22:00 GMT

After an incredibly long period in transit, flight delays and thunderstorms and overpriced pizza huts, we arrived in Lima two hours later than expected and waited nervously to see where the airport had sent our baggage.

Everything arrived safe and sound, except for my camping mat, which fell off of my backpack in the transition. Sorry mom :(

Too tired to even think about Spanish, I accidentally spoke to our taxi driver in french and made a jerk of myself by forgetting how to introduce myself. Whoops :(

I havent seen much of it yet (forgive my lack of apostrophes and stuff, i havent figured out the spanish keyboard.) but from what I have seen I like Limas energy. Everyone is very vocal with their car horns, not in a rude way but a "beep beep! i am here!" sort of way. Everyone must be very good drivers because everyone drives like a maniac but everyone realizes that everyone else drives like a maniac, too. It took awhile to get a hang of crossing the street, which is a scary ordeal! We are quickly getting the hang of it.

Today we are doing some more exploring. The corner stores here are AWESOME. They sell stuff that we would find in a HIGH CLASS liquor store back home. Wooden shelves with all sorts of wine and fancy liqueur selections. A 26er of Smirnoff is like 14 dollars, when it is like 35 at home.

The hostal is very nice. I am trying to practice my spanish here, and there is a very cute puppy. She is very energetic and bounces off of things, but doesnt seem to like Cody very much. He and his shoes have been heavily harrassed. We are going to stay another night or two, we think.

I am rambling a little here, but there is a lot to tell since I have just arrived. I fell out of the bunk bed this morning, and my friends have agreed that I am not allowed to sleep on the top bunk anymore. Booooo. :(
Hope everybody is well at home!

So, basically...

abeille — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 17:30:00 GMT

Nine days officially, nine days until i'm WHOOSHED away on a wonderfully huge plane and brought to a place i've never been with some of the best people in the world.

i've bought my sleeping bag and my mosquito netting, and spent much of the evening parading around in my backpack trying to get it all properly adjusted. i'm anxious :)

i'm hoping my spanish will be remotely adequate, but, who am i kidding; it's going to be awful for the first bit. i'm hoping to pick it up quickly, but right now i can say "si" and "como estas" and, otherwise, flip through my handy-dandy phrasebook and say whatever it is i need to say, up to and including "can i borrow a mallet?"

this trip promises to be excellent. or at least remotely adequate. but most probably excellent.
i'm still here in good old british columbia, everyone, give me a ring or drop me a line and tell me how much you'll miss me. my fragile ego couldn't take it if you couldn't bother to bid me farewell. i hope you'll all come to the beach.