Up and down in Peru

Well, Peru continues to have its ups and downs. Just before I left Cusco, Ihad the good fortune to see it at night. I never knew a city could be so beatiful at night. They really put some thought into their lighting.

Putting thought into things is nothing new to the Inca people. There is obviously a lot of pride in their past and present. There are many grandstatues of past Inca leaders as well as more recent war hereos. The Inca flag is more common than the Peruvian flag around Cusco. Much to their dismay, the gay commuity has decided to make the inca flage their own.I´d be insulted as well, they could at lest change one of the 7 colours.

NEVER TAKE A BUS FROM CUSCO TO LIMA!!!!!!! It took about 20 hours and twisted like no road has twisted before up and downmountains with almost no vegitation. The day I left, I took my anti Malariadrug which gives me nightmares the same night. After the first nightmare onthe bus, I was afraid to fall asleep. I´ve never experienced anything like itbefore. I could see that I was on the bus through my eyes moving in REM, butit felt like an evil spirit had entered my body and I had to fight it. I wastrying to scream for help, but I don´t think it came out, some sounds may have. I heard trywhat I was ing to say in my head as if it was 20 voicesspeaking at the same time. I kind of knew that I was dreaming, but could notwake up. It made a terrible bus ride horific.

The last part of the bus ride would have been ok if it didn´t smell of BO andif my joints didn´t ache from being still for so long. It was a vast desert,mostly without any sign of life whatsoever that extended to the ocean. Idon´t know how it doesn´t ever rain right next to the ocean. In some placesthere were a few cacti and there were a lot of places where they were experimenting with agriculture in the desert. I think it involved mosty chemical fertalizers although I saw the biggest compost pile I have ever seenin one place.

It´s interesting how much more the land is used for agriculture here. You mayno even notice at first glance, but the land is used much as possible. Nobody would think of mowing a lawn. That would be wasting a valuable resource. You can turn those lawnclippings into wool and lama steak. In city parks, even atmachu Pichu they have lamas grazing, keeping the lawn nice. Their little dearlike turds keep it fertilized as well.

I haven´t been in a national park where there were more than 5 people who livein the park, but there are many sheep, cattle and lamas grazing. Everywhereelse, if someone can grow their own food, they do. The deforestation isunfortunate, but it´s not like in Canada, where it is done only for money. Here, it is done so people don´t go hungry. Wood isn´t used much at all here, all houses are made from mud or brick.

Lima was the most dismal city I have ever seen. Dispite being sick of the bus, I got another ticket to get out. There is a permanent fog that blocksout the stars and sun, and every block looks like the last. I got a hotel room for a few hours because I didn´t even want to walk the streets. To save$1 I washed my shorts in the sink, broke it, and payed $20 to have it fixxed.

Now I am in Huaraz. It´s a small mountian city, and you can see Peru´shighest mountain from here. I did a couple of tours the past two days thatwere nice. I met a girl from New Jersey who was with her mom, sister andfriend hwho live in Lima. It was sure nice to have her to translate for me,and just nice to be ble to speak English to someone. They invited me to Lima,and it was tempting, but I need to move on, not back. When they were leaving,I didn´t have any liquid cash whatsoever, and owed the tour company and myhotel moeny. It was really hard to get a travelers cheque cashed here. Iwent about 20 hours without food and little water that I was rationing. I was really getting dizzy by time I did manage to get some cash. I went straight to a orange juice stand and had a couple of glasses of fresh squeezed juice.It was a lot more expensive than Bolivian orange juice, but I forked out the 35 cents a glass. Oranges sell for about $.50 a kilo here.

One of the tours I did with my adopted family was called Chavin. It was made in1200BC. It was largley in good shape until about 1945 when rain destroyed alot of it. I some ways I like it more than Machu pichu because you could goinside the temple and there was a large maze of halls and rooms. It´s hard tobelive I was in such a building that was made over 3000 years ago. There weretunnels made for carying voices long distances, and complex water canals aswell as fantastic carvings. What made Machu Pichu great was the that it wasnear the top of a mountian, and the views were spectacular. It was in aboutthe same shape a Chavin, but Chavin is about 2000 years older.

Another cool thing in the tour the day before was a natural spring. Therewere lots of bubbles coming up with the water and to drink the water was like drinking carbonated water. I don´t like carbonated water much, but it was an interesting natural thing to experience.

I´m going to make it to Equador as quickly as I can, then hopefully I can slow down, maybe spending some time on some nice Columbian beaches. Maybe I´ll even have time to see Angel Falls when I am in Venezuela. I bought a plane ticket to fly from Caracas to Sao Paulo at the end of October.