Till then!

We woke up around 3:30 packed up our gear and scrammed for the airport. Check-in went fairly smoothly. Walking around the airport was pretty interesting as there were dozens of special handbags laying around with roosters in them that would crow (is that the right word for it?) when you walked by.

We played our first game of kemp while waiting for our flight which has now become a good contender to our games of Jin-Rummy, but is much more intense.

When our flight was finally ready to board, we got the bus that took us out to our plane on the tarmac so we could get on, which was a first for Noah. On the ride out there we tried to figure out who would have isle or window seats and tried to guess who else would be in our row, which was all overheard by Lizzy and Annabelle, who we’d meet later.

The rest of the flight to Cuzco was nothing short of ordinary until it came time to land. The city is surrounded by mountain peaks and so the pilot had to circle around it to come in at the right angle and gently bring the plane down in the valley between the two steep ridges. I had been told that this was a pretty spectacular thing before coming, but there really aren’t words enough to describe how scary/cool this was.

After landing and getting our bags, we headed for our hostel, paying 15/s for the ride, which is about 5x what it should have been, but still only works out to about $5. But that’s what we get for not knowing the going rate or how far it’d really be.

When we got there, the hostel was already really close to being over booked and so we got put on a wait list and had to come back around 1 to see if there was a spot for us or not, but it was very likely that there would be. This is when we first officially met Lizzy and Annabelle, although we had seen them at the Cuzco airport. We’ve been crossing paths ever since.

While we had about 3-4 hours to kill we figured that we’d go to town, finish paying for our Machu Pichu trip and try to make plans to go to the jungle. This of course required Dave, Noah, and myself to go to the ATM (which took forever to find) while Tom stayed back at the travel agency. Along the way we ended up seeing some sort of parade for a local patroned saint, which delayed us even more. So when we got back to the agent’s place Tom was standing outside pacing nervous that we’d be late to check into the hostel and could potentially lose our room, rightfully so since we thought it was 12:55 and it was quite a walk.

So we ran back up the hill to Hostel Loki (which is no short feat at this altitude), and went to the front desk, where they were very laid back and they gave us a tour and told us to relax for a bit and to check back a little after one. This seemed a little confusing to us until we re-checked the time 10 minutes later when we had settled into afore-mentioned hammocks and realized that it was only 12-10 or so and that we had just misread the clock earlier.

So we hung out, got some lunch at the hostel, checked in, showered and took a much deserved nap. We were planning on getting guinea pig for Thanksgiving dinner, but Tom found this ‘traditional’ Thanksgiving dinner that some other people from the hostel were going to so we decided to do that.

This turned out to be one of the better decisions of the trip thus far. They had eggnog, turkey, cranberry sauce (if you can call it that), apple and pumpkin pie and slices of corn on the cob (sort of weird). We all paired up with someone else, myself and Noah with Lizzy and Annabelle, and had a pretty good conversations over dinner and a good time all around.

After this we all went out to a near by club. When we walked in everyone was doing the specific line dances for whatever song was on at the time (think latin american dance music with specific dances like the Marcarana), but this quickly switched over to normal club like music. Noah, Lizzy, Annabell and I weren’t really feeling it all that much so we decided to head on back to the hostel.

On the way there we walked through one of the larger parks in the area and were immediately attacked by a swarm of Chicklet pushing 8 year olds. We gave in and game them 1/s ($0.33) for a pack and were immediately asked to share. We traded for a picture of all of them which I wish I could include here, but I still can’t upload photo’s yet. Noah danced with a dog, we had sliding contests in our socks by the fountain and road lama statues. Back at the hostel we played kemp, the girls went to bed, and Noah and I stayed up waiting for Dave and Tom, who had a few stories of their own, and then headed to bed. My kind of night.

We left for the airport last night at about 9pm, and things started off about the way we expected they would right from the start. We had our flight on Taca airlines, which was operated by United. So of course we went to the Taca terminal, which is on the opposite side of the airport than United and had to walk all the way across. We raced luggage carts and climbed walls to make some new long-cuts up, and so it was pretty fun.

Once in it turns out that there was some confusion over our flight. Apparently it was drastically oversold, so they tried to increase the size of the plane, and so we had to wait before we could check in. After a game of rummy this all went fine.

So through security we go and get to our gate and there´s near pandemonium. Apparently they didn´t increase the size of the plane and so they were looking for people to bump. They were only offering $400 though and our trip is already quite packed so we decided to just keep our seats.

The ride to El Salvador was incredibly smooth. So smooth in fact that I had fell asleep before we took off and didn´t wake up until we almost were ready to land. It was great. We got breakfast at the airport after landing and then caught our next plane.

Arriving in Lima around 2pm, we still had a lot to do. Our last minute attempts to reserver a spot to hike Machu Picchu were a failure because the limit for the days we wanted had already been reached. We swapped that and the jungle and tried some new dates, but still hadn´t heard back. On top of this, we weren´t able to book plane tickets to Cuzco because it was too last minute and so had to do that in person.

So right off the plane, Tom found someone to ´help´us. He treked us out of the airport, through the parking lot, and across the street to a travel agency. I was sort of ticked about this because I knew we were only going to get ripped off this way but was sort of out numbered. After 2 travel agencies and lots of bartering we actually got prices about the same as what we saw online and bought them. We checked our email and found that our new dates for Machu were good and that we needed to send them a deposit via Western Union and so we set off to do that.

Once that was complete we found a $8 taxi ride to the part of town 45 minutes away where we wanted to stay. We´re at this really awesome hostel called Loki´s Backpackers (the god of mischief and illusion? Not a bad place!). After dropping our stuff off we went out for a walk, got some Peruvians food, and hung out at a near by park before getting a proper dinner.

Now we´re all taking turns taking a shower and hanging out before having an early night to bed since we need to be at the airport tomorrow at 4am (which means getting up at 2:30-3:00), which is a real shame since its so nice here. But maybe we´ll visit again on our way back through here later on.

Anyways, the ´queue´for the computer is getting long so I´ll leave it at that! Till next time!

I’m not sure what else to say or where to start, probably because so little is already planned. We know we’re going to Peru. We’re going to hike Machu Picchu. We’re going to go to Lake Titicaca and hang out with some Uros on ancient man made reed islands. And after that we should find our way to some UFO landing strips known as the Nazca Lines. Other than that… We get there on the 21st… Come home on the 7th(?)… And are going to have a blast.

We’ve had lots of talks back and forth over the months on how much gear we want to bring. We’ve all agreed that we want to stay on the cheap, so avoiding hotels and even hostels when we can in favor of camping, so there are definitely sleeping bags in our packs. We’ve talked about going a light weight as just bivvy sacks and a single tarp for the 4 of us, and contemplated using tents. All of this probably would have gone really smoothly but Dave and Noah were on tour for the last month or so (just getting back tonight!), and so its been hard to get a hold of them, and so I haven’t a clue what I’ll need on this trip. Which leaves me with a dilemma.. What to pack?..

My answer? EVERY THING! Hah. I don’t think that I’ve ever packed this much stuff. At the check in counter I weighed 2 bags and a carry-on at a little over 100 lbs! I doubt I’ll take even 1/3 of this gear, but its best to have it all with me and be able to choose what to take from LA. I’ve got a tent, a bivvy, a tarp, 3 big packs, and 2 day bags, 5 water bottles, a camel back, stove, pots and pans…. you’ve got the picture. A lot of stuff.

Speaking of the stove. My fuel bottle for this was probably 1/2 full from my last camping trip, and when I got to my house I asked my dad if it was ok to dump it into my gas tank since I wasn’t sure if it was gasoline or Coleman’s white fuel. He basically called me a fool (rightfully so) for chancing risking ruining my car for a dollar’s worth fuel, and so I was going to dump it out. This is when I got side tracked of course and thought it’d be a good idea to take a picture of myself for the side of the milk cartons in case I go missing, and help my dad out with emailing some images to someone.

So there the bright red bottle is on the side of my bag as I ride to the airport, still 1/2 filled with fuel. I think of the best ways to dispose of this petroleum based liquid, but most of them end up with me getting arrested for trying to plant a bomb in the bushes outside the entry way.

When I got off of the bus, there was an elderly airport security officer in his bright yellow rain jacket and thick glasses, who I’m hesitant about asking what to do with this in fear that he might take it the wrong way and think I’m trying to pull something fishy. I figured this was better than lugging the bottle all around the airport with me and so I made up a small white lie and said that I was just going home after a camping trip and needed to get rid of it. I asked if I could pour it in a trash can or on a street drain, but he said that people throw so many cigarettes around there that that wasn’t a good idea. He said not to say that I heard it from him, but that I could just dump it down the drain in the bath room, which was what I had come up with as well, but also saw the off chance of someone thinking I was pulling the old ‘cherry bomb’ in the bathroom trick, so was glad to have someone that if worst came to worse that I might be able to fall back on to verify that I wasn’t a terrorist.

That was about it for excitement thus far. But that’s not a bad start for a rainy afternoon in a small New Hampshire airport. The people watching’s been good. Most entertaining has been a woman in her late 20’s/early 30’s who was sitting across from me. She was holding a magazine open and a bag of chips in one hand and stuffing them into her mouth with the other, the crumbs of which would fall onto her baby which was securely tied around her neck. This and the free wireless internet available here (WOO!) kept me entertained as I talked online and told my friends about the woman with the baby necklace.

All this while I’m supposed to be writing my last spec for work before leaving for vacation. Not as productive as an afternoon as I was planning but pretty good all the same. I’ve been so stressed about everything lately that it feels good to be able to sit back, relax, and just enjoy the little things in life. I made a few phone calls, heard from an old friend from high school, who I’ll unfortunately miss tonight (he’s just home for the holidays), and squeezed in a small amount work to boot, (not to mention writing this post).

And now they are boarding for my flight so off I go!