Nazca, Perù

Today Lizzie and I were awoken by the very friendly lady on the bus at the very early hour of 5 am. We waited in this small town for our tours to start. When Lizzie and I first decided to go to South America we had a nice dinner with my family at a Peruvian restaurant. The owner, Cèsar, told us all about the Nazca lines. This was a can't miss Peruvian sight. No one knows for sure the purpose of Las Lìnias de Nazca, but we do know they were created between 200 BC and 700 AD. They are an amazing collection of lines, geographic shapes, and animals. Some believe they were created by aliens, or used to communicate with them as they are only visible from the air. However, other theories suggest they were of religious origins, signs to communicate with gods and deities. It is possible that shaman who did some crazy mind altering drugs could ¨fly¨ to plan and see these shapes through the mind's eye. Who knows. All I can tell you is that it is truly an amazing sight. My favorite animal is the monkey. He has a very curvaceous tail, Liz is partial to the Hummingbird.
It's really cool. Liz and I both got VERY sick on the little Cessna flight. There was only room for 6 people including the pilot. We'd pass by a design on the right side, then he'd tip the plane quite hard to pass it again on the left. I think everyone on the plane got sick. It was only a half hour ride. When we landed they gave us alcohol on a cotton swab to sniff. Not sure that it helped, but it was a nice gesture.
We also visited a pre-incan grave site that held bodies from 1500 years ago. The graves had since been robbed by grave robbers, but they just wanted the ceramics and gold the people were buried with, not the bodies. So archaeologists have restored many of the grave sites so you can see into them, hair and all.


Nazca is a sleepy little town besides those main attractions. So we are boarding a second over night bus to Cusco! I can't wait.

Sorry to all those home in the midwest that are dealing with so much water. It seems like one natural disaster after another. We're thinking of you here.

Arequipa, Part 2

First off, thanks for the comments and emails, we love hearing from you!

Wednesday we woke up, took nice hot showers (we could get spoiled, we hear in Bolivia that they aren't as common) and started our day. We decided to do some sightseeing around the city. First stop, the Santa Catalina Monastery.

According to our guidebook, it was a place that wealthy girls moved to when they turned 18 so they could be taken care of for the rest of their lives and live the way that wealthy girls were supposed to. It made sound as though it was some kind of House of Ill Repute and that the Catholic Church did not have too much control over.

The monastery itself is huge, it takes up an entire city block. There are a number of large courtyards, a couple galleries filled with paintings of Catalina and other important people from the monstery. A larger room for some of the girls to bunk in and a ´bathing area` that looked more like a swimming pool. The dining room came complete with a pulpit. There are many rooms all over the grounds for all the women who had some kind of leadership position in the monastery. Some had private kitchen areas, most had private fireplaces, all had private altars.

The grounds were pretty amazing. All the bedroom areas had ceilings but since the weather here is so moderate, most other areas did not have a roof. It was pretty neat to see the channels built into the ground for the water runoff. There were gardens and planters just about everywhere, which was very beautiful.

Yesterday we took our whitewater rafting trip, it was really great.
We were picked up at our hostel at 9am by our safety kayak guide Gustavo and our raft guide Frank, and went on to pick up the 4 other rafters. We drove through town to get our boat and gear and a bumpy 25 minute ride later we arrived to the Chili River. No joke, that´s the name and thankfully for gear we recived a wetsuit top and bottom, helmet, shoes and lifejacket... the water was freezing!

Next up we were given our instructions. Forward! Backward! Stop! Get down (in the boat)! Positions (back out onto the sides of the boat)! Frank also explained that we were going to go down rapids up to class 4. Yikes! Did I mention this was my first time and Erin´s second?? After a few games on dry land we were ready!

The trip was awesome. The water cold. Erin and I agreed how weird that we seemed like the only ones that were paying attention when it came to paddling and paddling right. The British girls on board, were nice but didn´t quite get the cue to paddle and the other two people never seemed to get the idea of paddling in synch. No big deal though, we made it! Gustavo was the safety guide/cameraman. Every so often we´d pause at the top of a set of rapids, wait for him to get into position and then we´d go down so he could take pictures. Toward the end we wondered what would happen if someone did fall out and our safety guide was out of his boat shooting pics... but thankfully we stayed in the boat.

By far the best part was going down the class 4 rapids. There were actually 2 sets, the first set we had to get out and walk down the bank while Gustavo took his kayak and Frank bravely took the boat by himself. The second one, was all ours.

Erin and I were in front and unfortunaltey don´t remember all of it since we both had our eyes shut going down, but that´s irrelevant. We screamed, shut our eyes, opened our mouths screaming and enjoyed it!

Overall the trip down the river was 1hr 45 minutes with a water and chocolate break in between. (Rafting is hard work! Not really but I wanted to make it sound like we earned the choclolate:)It was so much fun and we cannot wait to do it again. Did I mention that Erin wants to be a rafting guide someday? Cause she does. One of her many plans!

Erin and I also decided to do some dancing at Dejavù last night. That was a blast! It was our first night out on the town. We've been too exhausted most nights, but we promised ourselves to go out at least once in Arquipa. There was a live band playing traditional latin music, plenty of locals to show us the moves, and even more cerveza Arequipeña flowing.
On to Nasca!

Cabanaconde

Upon finding out that we completely missed the fiesta of Arequipa we decided to board another bus for another adventure. Liz, Jeremy, and I woke up at 5 am and got on a bus to Cabanaconde. This is a small village high in the Andes - elevation 3191 meters. We had a lovely lunch in the town and decided to head out for a trek. We noticed that we were the only gringos with out a guide. Did this worry us? Yeah, for a minute. Then we decided we had the brains and brawn to make it on our own. We choose the 5 hour trek from our rudimentary map and headed out. We didn´t get very far before we realized we made a grave mistake and we should try an easier route. In the mean time we saw amazing breathtaking views. We headed back towards the town to start a new route. We choose a 2 hour route the second time. Not before long we were lost again. We found ourselves walking through the local's farms. All of a sudden we were being waved over by a family that was in the middle of a celebration of sorts. The kept waving us over and invited us to join their humble party. One woman, Tania, told us that this was her family´s plot of land and they were having an annual party to bring good luck as they planted their maiz (corn) called Sembrillo de Maiz. This was to ensure a good harvest. They had offerings of all sorts, bread, candy, soda, and CHICHA! This was my first experience with Chicha. Chicha is a traditional drink made from fermented corn. The had a big jug of it that they mixed with a power. I was convinced this powder was dirt, but Jeremy insists that it is ground corn. They pour a huge glass of it and pass it to me. I take it graciously, but slightly hesitant. I take a sip. I get a big chink of un mixed dirt/ground corn and have to choke it down. I pass the glass to Liz for her sip, but no. They begin to yell that it´s mine. All mine. Liz will get hers next! So I just chug the stuff to get it down. Jeremy and Liz keep asking how it is and of course I reply that it´s good. You should have seen the look on Liz´s face when she took her first sip! Priceless. She didn´t want to, but she choked it down too. It took her a little longer and I kept prompting her under my breath. It would be rude to not accept a offering like this - she attributed my ability to drink it so fast to my working in a bar and ability to chug anything!

Eventually we left the family after watching them plant the corn and headed on our way. They sent a 10 year old to be our guide for the first 15 minutes so we wouldn´t get lost again. We made our ever so painful trek down this mountain. We could see at the very bottom of the canyon what looked to be paradise. There were palm trees and green grass and even a pool. As it turns out it was paradise, Paraiso - the place we would be lodging at for the next two nights. It took us about 2 and a half hours to reach our destination. I can´t even explain the sights we saw on our way down. The Andes are so beautiful and more massive then anything I´ve ever seen. It was awesome. Going down hill wasn´t easy, but we knew we had a reward waiting at the bottom.

We were greeted near the end by a small woman and her baby that is wrapped in a blanket around her back. She walked us to our hut. A small hut put together by what looked like bamboo shoots, or maybe sticks. It had palm tree leaves as a roof. It was perfect. They made us a terrific dinner of Alpaca with veggies and rice - very common dish around here. We spent that night around the dinner table with a couple from Germany on a 14 month journey drinking our not so cold Arequipena beers. We went to bed at the dark hour of 8:30pm. We were exhausted!

The next day we enjoyed the views and relaxed. Jeremy and I went on a mini-hike to find a way to the river while Liz rested from her new found intestinal problems. We never made it down to the rio, but we came back and joined Liz in a refreshing swim in our pool. The rest of the afternoon consisted of lunch, cards, another swim in the pool and a quick(cold outdoor) shower before the sun went down behind the mountains and it started getting cold. We chatted with other travelers by a bonfire and Liz got a special tea made from leaves picked by our hosts. Dinner was spaghetti and you guessed it, Alpaca! Pretty chewy, but thankfully Jeremy didn´t mind finishing ours.

We were pretty tired after the long couple days and it was dark by 830p so we decided to go to bed. Also, our wake up call was at 6a as we had to start our trek out of the canyon before the sun made it to hot. Pity for the other travellers who were going to start their hike at 3a! We were smarter than that :)

In the middle of the night, Liz got up for a quick bathroom run. The stars and the moon were so bright where we were, you could almost make it without a flashlight, but due to rocks and ditches for water and a random wheelbarrow the kids of the owners played with as obstacles, a light was necessary. As she comes back in a hurry, and breathing heavy all she says is ¨there´s something out there and I don´t know what it is.¨

We decided to share a bed as we were both freaked out by whatever it was walking around outside our hut and we were freezing! We got some sleep but would wake anytime something made a noise. We'll never know just what was stalking Liz and I'm glad for that. (I forgot to tell you this little story that prompted our paranoia). The jail in Ica crumbled to the ground after the quake and set 700 convicts free. They've recaptured a staggering 27 prisoners!

Liz and I decided to take the journey back up on Monday morning by mule. Our muscles hurt and we were not prepared for the thin Andian air. Jeremy hustled up in under an hour and a half. I was scared out of my mind on the rocky ride up the mountain on a mule that wasn´t so sure footed as they claim. But we made it.

We are back in Arequipa and plan to spend a few days here getting the lay of the land. We are also learning quickly how to navigate the streets. When crossing the street we´ve found its in our best interest to get behind Peruvians and run across when they do. Otherwise we never seem to find the right time to go. There is a constant stream of cars 98% taxis that are very impatient and very daring. We´ve seen many almost accidents with in a few days!

Liz still needs some rest to recuperate from the intestinal parasites. But we are planning a white water rafting journey for tomorrow. We'll keep you posted as always! PS We´re trying to post pics but it is SLOW to upload. We´ll try again later.

Arequipa

Ok, so Liz and I are safe in Arequipa. We were supposed to board the bus at 6pm last night. We didn´t get on until 7:30 - nothing I´ve been told is ever on time. We are learning this quickly. Liz and I (for an unknown reason) got bumped up to first class! Our fellow American traveler friend, Jeremy, was waiting for us on the lower level. We were in a nice private room with two other passengers. Comfy seats that recline all the way. We were supposed to arrive in Arequipa at 8 am, but did not arrive until noon. Several times in the night the bus would pull over to the side of the road so that oncoming traffic could pass. We all had to wait our turn. The roads were full of debris from falling rocks and the in some parts the road had foot wide cracks from the quake. We drove through Pisco and Ica. Those were the towns most devistated by the earthquake. Peoples homes were crumbled to the ground. They had pulled matresses and refridgerators out side and were sitting by fires. It is very cold at night. But for the most part our journey was good. We watched a couple of movies, I took some dramamine and was out for the night.
The woman who ran our hostal in Lima said her brother would be waiting for us at the station. I hoped he wouldn´t be there since we were four hours late. But we were greeted by a sign for Elizabeth and Brin Tyrrell (so far no one can ´get´my name). I´m not sure why he even met us there, he didn´t have a car and just took a taxi with us. I am having a hard time understanding his spanish too, so it makes it hard to communicate. And poor Liz never has any idea what were saying until I remember to translate. Sometimes I make things up so that he thinks I understood hom, but I´ll tell Liz Í really have no idea what he´s saying... something about war´ for example. He helped us find our hostal and then took us on a little tour to some Portals at the edge of hte city. Very beautiful. We also had a great vantage point for the Misti Volcano. Don´t worry, it´s not active.
Arequipa is beauiful and the weather is awesome. We are heading out tomorrow though. Our next plan is to head up to go hiking in some canyons and swim in hot springs. But we will return to Arequipa for a few days before heading to Cusco.

TERREMOTO!!!

That´s right people we survived an earthquake. Coming from Chicago I´ve never experienced such a shock in my life. Liz and I were at the bus station buying our tickets to Ariquipa when the whole place started to shake. It felt like I was riding a moving bus. Everyone started screaming and running. We just looked at each other and decided we better run out of there as fast as we could. The buildings, windows, and bilboards were shaking. It was such a long tremour, probably 2 minutes long. Which seems like a long time. We have to catch a bus in a few hours so I don´t have much time to write, but I wanted you all to know that we are fine. The places hit harder are in the south, Ica and Pisco. When we arrive in Arequipa I will continue our Lima story. Since the big shake we have felt two more mini-quakes (they may be after shocks). It´s truly a unique experience!

Just know that we are safe. And we are very happy. Everyone here is so nice! Beyond belief. We are loving it.