Trujillo

My last day in Trujillo, Mario and I tried to go see some of the touristy stuff. but wouldnt you know, it was all closed by the time we got there. It was one of those days... but still amazingly fun, yea for Mario! From the outside, two pyramids, el sol y la luna. They supposedly have amazing art inside, but they were pretty impressive from outside as well.

Then, I got to go and meet Mario´s girls. That was so much fun!

Chimbote

My last site in Peru, a very dirty little wetland. The place was surrounded by fishmeal factories, just imagine the smell! But, it was picturesque in its own way I even found this really cool little birds nest in the middle of it all I am REALLY sick of getting dirty
And this really did not help me get clean, especially if you knew where that water came from, but the sad thing was, it really was an improvement!

Huanchaco

I finally made it to Huanchaco! It is pretty darn cool what they do with my plant here! They make really cool little fishing boats called caballitos. And, they make a pretty picture on the beach ;)
Not just totora though, but at least they are recycling! Looks like a bit of work! They grow the totora in pits right on the edge of the ocean.We talked to this pescador (fisherman) and he gave me lots of tips on how to grow totora. He also let us colled data from his pits, very nice of him! His name was Javier. Here in the Trujillo area, I have had the help of the wonderful Mario. This great guy is really making my time here wonderful. Made me laugh with his stories of his three precocious daughters.

Lima

I made it to Lima, after a horribly looooooooong bus ride. Can you say 20 hours on a bus? And the really sad part was that I met another gringo that had been on his bus for 4 hours more than I, and we left the rest stop before him! Pobrecito, not sure when he got there, but it must have sucked!
Hector here has been helping me to get the permission to work in Peru.Again, I met some wonderful taxi drivers. This guy was the driver for the hotel I stayed at. He was so nice. We had a lot of fun talking. I also talked to a couple other drivers. It is so very exciting that my spanish is getting to the level I can actually carry on a conversation! Maybe not a real one with friend discussing the subtleties of some philosophy... but I can talk to a cabbie!!!!!

Laguna Huacarpay

In Cusco, I had the luck to find two angels to help me do my work. Meet Raffaele and Gabriel! The lake This place brought some adventures. I went to go into the water, took one step and it was up to my ankle, took another, innocent unsuspecting step, and WHAM! I was up to my shoulders! Raffaele said it was worth all the trouble of helping me. Good thing I could make him laugh like that, he went way out of his way to help me, on his rest day before doing the inca trail too! I was very greatful. And, it was pretty darn funny, if friking cold!

Machu Picchu

I got to go to Machu Picchu yesterday, talk about childhood dream. It was rather surreal. Especially the getting there part, argh! I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to get my tickets and get on the 6:15 train, but for some reason the line did not move. I sat in line for almost 3 hours with very little clue what was going on. It was excruciating, watching the train you wanted leave without you when you got there so early to buy a ticket! and I was literally the 10th person in line. I guess most of the people before me were from agencies and they were each buying many tickets. The machines were also horribly slow. But, I made it, even if I had to take a taxi to the next train station to catch another train. The taxi ride ended up being great, I shared it with a group of swiss girls who were very uninclined to include me in their conversation (though, I did have a moment of pride: for the first time, I had a conversation in spanish with people who spoke english - besides my Cesar, of course). I ended up starting to talk to the taxi driver and that was so much fun! He was a really cool guy, and I even mostly understood him! He was also really cool because he stopped to let us take pictures a couple of times. The area was really beautiful.
For breakfast:The train ride itself was excruciatingly slow, but it followed this amazing river that was some of the scariest whitewater I have ever seen (or foamy chocolate, if you talk about color).Machu Picchu itself was amazing. Again though, I both love and hate going to ruins in other countries because they let you go wherever you want, regardless of the damage to the site. It makes for a lot of fun, but with the volume of people doing it, it cant be good for anything.




I then got the stupid idea that I wanted to climb to the top of Wynapicchu, thats the mountain in the back of all the famous pictures. Dont mind that I was still slightly sick from whatever food I ate, and am terribly out of shape. The climb almost killed me, I literally had to sit down to avoid getting sick. But, by god! I made it to the top! The view was pretty cool, and I played my flute for a while. Not too shabby of a day!

On the way back down by bus, we had a kid following us, on foot, down the incredibly steep mountain... and he beat us! The road was a huge run of switchbacks and he would wait for us at each one and yell as the bus went by. He was all dressed up, and moved like the wind. At the bottom, before we even picked him up, people were pulling out their wallets, and when he got on, he got a huge cheer! It was tons of fun. Amazing kid.

Cusco

Well, I seem to have all the luck. Another flat tire on the bus, of course, but we did finally get to Cusco. While the bus was stopped, I went a little crazy taking pictures, `cause there was nothing else to do. It was fun though, even if we didnt stop in the most photogenic place.
More tiresWaiting...
Pretty flowerCusco itself is a pretty cool town, lots of fun to walk around in. I didnt really spend much time here, but enough to get a feel for it. It would be fun to have more time here, but thats my life, running around all the time!

Puno

Another day on lake Titicaca. Today we took a tour to the tourist traps of the Uros floating islands. Now, dont get me wrong because they are incredibly cool, and if they can milk us gullable tourists for all we are worth, good for them. This place held a special interest for me because they use my plant for EVERYTHING. Literally. The build their houses out of it, build their boats out of it, live on floating islands composed entirely of it, eat it, feed it to their animals, sell it to gringos....
We took the boat out of Puno harbor. Puno is a totally different world than Copacabana. Much bigger and dirtier. The harbor is pretty darn gross, I know the sewers go strait to the lake, and there is some pretty nasty stuff in those sewers by the smell of it. Houses
Boats!

Cute old men working outside their houses
Feeding animals Gringo fodder (yes, I did too buy one! They were cool, its my plant!) We got to ride the cool boat More cool boats
This kid went with us on the totora boat, he was an absolute blast! We played tickle games and laughed so hard.
Then, he tried to make the boat go all by himself!
Here is Katie and I on our last day together, walking on a floating island of my plant! By the way, Katie was the absolute best. I have always loved my primita, but this trip gave me a wonderful chance to really get to know her, travel induced grossness and all (you know what I mean, if youve ever travelled!). She really earned a honerary biologist title, and kicked butt with keeping me from totally loosing my head when thing got rough. So, everybody know, my primita rocks!

Later today, we got to experience the Puno supermercado. It was a wild place. Little cubicles with everyting for sale. The meat was expecially interesting, just out there for all to see and smell! We met up with another Californian here in Puno, her name was Sarah and she is staying here for a 6 month internship of sorts. She helped me find a place to collect, and generally was a blast. Here was the beautiful site. Remember, this is 4810 meters above sea level!!!!! Look! They really do feed it to all of their animals! So, now comes the funny story. See, we finally got a chance to do laundry here, and I decided to wash my work clothes because they were rather vile. Didnt expect to be able to work till tomorrow. Then, Sarah had a small window of time available and I had to take it. Unfortunately, the only clothes I had that werent being washed were my long pants, and a miniskirt that Katie gave me. Yeah. So, I collected totora in a miniskirt. It was hilarious! I got an audience too. A couple of kids came over to investigate, and a group of adults sat on the bank and laughed at me as I slipped and fell and splashed duckweed up my skirt!