Monday, April 26, 2010

Cuzco and Machu Picchu

Been in Cuzco, Peru for awhile now... spent a few days hanging around the city and then booked the Salkantay tour which lasted 5 days 4 nights. I hiked over 50 miles and 3 mountain ranges... weeeeee.

The hike was amazing and I saw a lot of insane scenery. We hiked through valleys, over mountains, across rivers and through the jungle. It was quite amazing and I met a bunch of cool people. There were 16 people in my group and everyone was from all over the world.

The 4th day of the hike was by far the hardest... we hiked for about 4 hours in the poring rain over a mountain and through the mud and then hiked down hill for about 2 and 1/2 hours which killed my knees. We averaged about 10 hours of hiking per day. I am glad I am done with the trek and can relax but I am also really glad I did it and had a lot of fun.

Machu Picchu was really cool and I learned a lot from the guide about Machu Picchu and the Incas. The stone work is absolutely incredible on some of these buildings...

Here are a few pics of the trek/machu picchu. I took a ton more but don't really want to sit here and upload a whole bunch. Next stop is the floating islands and isle del sol at Lake Titicaca... I think we are heading there tomorrow.

Start of day 2 after camping out in this valley... the snow capped mountain is Salkantay:


The next day after hiking past Salkantay we hiked down into the jungle:


Kind of hard to see the scale of this waterfall we saw but it was absolutely huge:


The classic postcard shot of Machu Picchu. We woke up at 3:30 and hiked for about an hour and a half up really steep steps... I was the 2 person to get into Machu Picchu so was able to get a really good shot with no people around. The tall mountain in the back of Machu Picchu is called Wayna Picchu.


Proof I was there :)


This is one of the buildings in Machu Picchu. I liked how they left a lot of the natural rock structure and built into and on top of the boulders.


And of course after hiking 50 miles I had to hike to the top of Wayna Picchu to get a view of Machu Picchu from above:

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Aliens

Some say the Nazca lines were made by native tribes for religious practices but I am pretty sure that aliens made them.

The pictures were hard to take flying in this little bouncy thing:



But I managed to catch a few of these alien drawings on camera. These are only visible from the air and are really huge... they were created somewhere between 200 BC and 700 AD.







I'm heading to Cuzco tonight (bus leaves at 8pm) and will arrive sometime tomorrow morning. The bus is about 14 hours or so... sounds fun eh!?!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Sand Boarding... Weeeeeeee

Had an awesome last few days...

Before taking off from Lima we ate some really good sushi that was prepared at our hostel. It was definitely the best I have had (although that isn't saying much... only have had it 2 times before) but we ate way too much. That's Dave on the right
btw... and yeah, i'm burnt.



The next day after getting out Brazilian visas we headed straight for the bus station. We left Lima around 5:30ish and got to Huacachino at around 10:30ish. Huacachino is a very small town outside of Ica and is known for its sand boarding.



The next day we headed up the sand dunes in these big ass dune buggies. I must say... I think the dune buggy ride was more fun than the sand boarding (although the sand boarding was fun too...). The driver would go hauling ass over dunes and we'd launch into the air. Pretty crazy.





The view of the dunes was insane....




The sand boarding wasn't exactly what I imagined either. I thought I would be able to do it easily because I snowboard but that only gave me a slight advantage. I ate shit pretty hard quite a few times. Here I think I am about to fall...



And the aftermath:


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Woot!

Applied for our Brazilian visas yesterday and they said they will be in on Thursday. That means we can start traveling and seeing more of South America. I believe our next plan is to go from Lima to a city called Ica that is about 5 hours south of here by bus. We are going to make our way over to Machu Picchu fairly slowly just because we don't really want to take a 20+ hour bus ride. I think we will probably stop in 2 or 3 places on the way there.

I feel a bit relieved after finally figuring out how to apply for the visa... now I can relax a little more. I have seen most of Lima... at least the main areas (Central, Miraflores, and Barranco) and am ready for some new sights!

We met some crazy Australian and English guys that have been here for about a month... they brought us to some crazy club that had a fashion show going on in it. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea but it was pretty entertaining.

I have been trying to learn more Spanish. I can understand some people a bit but then others I can't figure out a damn thing they are saying to me. Today I bought "La Carretera" or "The Road" in Spanish and I am going to try to get through it with an English/Spanish dictionary. I would imagine this will help me learn at least something...

Anyways, here are some pics of a few more things I have seen. Lima is a pretty cool city with really amazing architecture. (I really suck at taking pictures... i'll work on getting some better shots)

A church in the main plaza in Barranco:


Plaza in Central Lima:


Plaza Central Lima:


Again:


A street in Central Lima:


This is what a lot of the food looks like down here. Pretty damn good... food ends up being between about 3 and 10 US$ depending on how nice of a restaurant you go to. Even the cheaper restaurants taste really good (unless you get pizza... or lazauna so i've heard):

Friday, April 9, 2010

Lima, Peru Cont.

Went to the Brazilian Embassy today to try and get a visa for Brazil. Kind of a pain the ass... we have to find a place with computers and a printer so that we can print out the application. This is much easier said than done.

We also went and saw some ruins in Miraflores... nothing incredibly spectacular but it was kinda cool to see.

After the ruins I had some really good fish. The plate was called pescado con salsa de mariscos. mmmmm.

I don't think I am going to keep updating this as much as I have been because it is a real pain to upload pictures every day... plus I am sure people will probably get sick of my updates. I think I will keep it to like once or twice a week.

Pictures!!!

Huaca Pucllana, pretty interesting... they built these structures in a way that helped minimize damage when earthquakes hit (spaces in blocks and kind of a zig zag design so only one area would crack rather than the whole wall). It kinds sucks that a lot of the temple was ruined 70 years ago when they tore it down to build modern buildings:






Ima eat this guy... well not him but probably a sibling of his:


Kowabunga dude:

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Lima, Peru

Well I made it to Lima. I had to change flights twice which I didn't even realize until I got my tickets... guess I should pay more attention when booking flights. The airports were pretty small that I changed over in and and it was really easy to find my gate. I switched planes in El Salvador and Costa Rica.

The taxi ride from the airport in Lima to Barranco (just a section of Lima) was insane. I wish I got pictures coming over... the area right around the airport is apparently the most dangerous and poor area. It was definitely interesting to say the least. The traffic here is absolutely crazy. Think L.A. without any rules about speed/changing lanes/etc. There was even one part where it was a two lane road and then all the sudden the one lane turned into a parking area for some auto shop w/o any warning. Craziness.

Enough writing. Here are some pics of Lima!

View from one window in my room (lol?):


View from other window:


Alley/walkway:


When you get to the bottom of those stairs in previous picture (lol):


Same area as above:


Close to the beach:


I am hopefully going to jump off of this (paraglide):


It would be cool to get some pictures of the less touristy local streets but I feel strange taking pictures.... I'm sure I will get some in the next few days I am here.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

South America, aqui vengo!

Haha, I don't even know if I said that right in the tittle... i'm so screwed.

Well, I have just a few days left before I head into the unknown. As of now I have almost everything I need besides a few minor things that i'm going to pick up in Billings before my plane leaves.

I am flying out of Billing, MT at about 6:30pm this coming Tuesday and arrive in LA around 8pm. My flight leaves from LA to Lima, Peru at 1:30am on Wednesday... not enough time to go do anything in LA really (with traffic and having to check in at least an hour before my flight). Five and a half hours might be a little long to hang out in the airport but I think it will be manageable.

Hopefully I keep this blog updated frequently with lots of pictures and a little text. I am planning on just writing a little bit about what I am doing and then posting a lot of pictures... after all, pictures are always more pleasant to look at than blocks of text right?!

Well, I don't have any cool pics yet because, well, I haven't left yet! So i'll just finish this post off with an image of what i'm bringing.

My main pack (46L Kelty Redwing) is just going to be holding clothes/toiletries and for my "day pack" to take around town is just a little canvas messenger type bag that will hold my laptop/sketchbook/books/camera/etc.