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I'm home in the states and missing blogging so I decided to write about my teaching experiences in Las Vegas. Today was already crazy. We met with the mayor who was an ex mob lawyer. He decided to run for mayor because he realized that he could be in charge of the movies and only give permits to film to directors who would include him in their movie. He also shot a playboy shoot. When asked by a group of grade schoolers what he would want with him if he could have one thing on a desert island he responded "a bottle of gin"
To keep my kids more anonymous I will start a new blog, change my name, and all of the students names.
Let me know if you want to know how to get there.

The Point of Entrance and Departure

I am back at the Point, the hostel in Lima where i spent the first two nights. It felt so familier and they even recognized us. Familier felt great after so much time on the road. It is not a feeling I get very often here.

I have been getting better at Taxis. For the first time our bus arrive really early. We had planned to arrive in Chiclayo at 5¨30 in the morning for our 10 am flight. We figured that really we would be there a little later and we would not have much time to wait in Chiclayo, and since we are on the equator almost the sun predictably comes up and down at six. Instead we got there at 3:40 am, in the dark, and were met with a sea of taxi drivers trying to scam tired passengers. Since I could not walk with my packback I agreed to be driven to the airport while Laura decided to wander and go to the big market. When I arrived at the airport it was dark and empty and the Taxi driver informed me that it would not open until seven adn that he should take me to a hotel. I was annoyed that he had not told me this earlier and thought it was suspicious. When he told me it was peligroso(dangerous) to wait I decided that he was trying to scam me. THe word Peligroso is the first sign of someone trying to take your money. I appproached the gate of teh airport and was let into the terminal immediately by the night watchman. I was glad to be inside because I did not want to be alone on the dark street without Laura and did nto want to have to check into a Hostel for three hours at four in the morning. I have never been in an airport so empty or dark. The chairs looked like some of teh most uncomfortable plastic retro shaped chairs I had seen in an airport and I tried to figure out a way to sleep. I realized i could sleep on top of them where the backs touched each other, which probably does not make much sense. Eventually I moved to the floor, spreading out my hammock, which has proved useful a million times. Eventually when people started arriving they told me I had to get off the hammock and out of my sleeping bag and I moved outside to the grass.
All in all I got a decent nights sleep.

When we arrived in the Lima airport we very politely told all the Taxi drivers that we did not need their help and would take a collectivo because it was only 2 soles. They told us it was Peligroso. We felt that we were much less likely to be scammed because we were in a van full of Peruvians who would complain if the car was driving in circles or doing something strange. We felt like we had learned so much since our first crazy night in Lima a month ago. We spent some time talking about what we had learned about traveling, life ourselves and what we would miss from here. We are both really excited for vegetables! We ended up arriving at the Hostel much faster and for only 5 soles each as opposed to 28 the first time after three hours of wandering and yelling in Spanish!

Jewerly for Peanuts

Laura and I arrived in Chiclayo early in the morning after one more all night bus trip. This time it really did have a bathroom! We had given up on asking and were pleasantly surprised to discover it.
We took a combi out to Piminetal where hte beach was and were disappointed to find and empty beach covered in hazy fog. It was not the beach bum time we had been expecting and after unsuccessfully trying to find a place to rent a surfboard we decided to hop onto another bus and ride 7 hours to the north, 7 hours closer to the equation and sunshine. Before leaving chiclayo we went to the amazing museum showing the real tomb of Sipan. The mummies and the beautiful gold things they were buried with made the museum one of the best I had ever been too. It helped relieve the disapointment at the grey beach.

We arrived at Mancora late at night, crawled into the first hostel we could find and fell asleep to the loud television. We decided we could pay a little more than 3 dollars a night and find a nicer hostel the next day.

The next morning after an excellent breakfast with fresh squeezed juice we found a place to rent surf boards and our next hostel. It had friendly people and some really nice guests. We got a surf lesson lined up with Manolo and made friends with a girl from Australia. We hit the beach almost immdiately and started playing in the waves. The waves here are huge, yesterday they were so big that we did not even play in them. It was quite a site to watch the surfers whip out in giant frothy white maddness taller than they were. When we do go out in the waves they catch us more than we catch them.
Today was a little better and we caught some more. Laura is doing amazingly well for her first real time surfing, body surfing and playing in large waves. She figured out how to dive under them really fast and is a really strong swimmer.
Today we bought jewerly from our surfing teacher Manolo in our Hotel. FOr 10 dollars we bought a neclace it took him 8 hours to make. It really was peanuts. Everything we need we find at the tips of our fingers. We{ve started talking about what we will miss and we know that when we return to the states we will not have everything we want when ever we want. today on the beach we were sold our lunch, great rolls with spinich and tomatoes in the middle. then a lady asked for some of our peanuts that we had been hauling around since Yurimaguas and slowly eating. We told her to take lots because we did not want to take them back to the states. She came back a little later to ask for more and we decided to give her the whole bag. She offered to trade us the jewerely she made for the bag and Laura got a braclet and Igot earrings. She told us that she loves peanuts but they do not sell them in Mancora. Laura and I were so excited that we finally got rid of the giant bag which we had bought for almost nothing and get some cool jewerely out of it. Everyone seemed pretty happy.

I am on my way home tonight, a night bus to CHiclayo, a morning flight to LIma, the next day a flight to Mexico, a day in Mexico city thanks to the airlines changing our flights, and then back to LAX then out to Vegas. Wow. I am going to be ready to sit still for ahwile!

Chachapoyos

I´m sitting in the internet Cafe in Chachapoyos, waiting for my bus to leave for Chicalyo and the beach. We just returned from three days of trekking(well kind of) to Kuelap on a pre Inca trail. Walking down the stone path which has been there for 1200 years towards a great ruined city seemed just like Macchu Pichu except that we were the only ones there. We did not see another tourist for the entire three day trek and when we wrote our names today in the guest book at Kuelap we confirmed that we were the only tourists on the site. But I suppose I should start at the beginning.
After spending a day relaxing in Chachapoyos(I guess it would have been more relaxing if someone had not stolen my credit card and I had not spent so many hours online thinking about it) we decided to get going again and booked a tour to walk from Lamud to Kuelap. We decided to go with a guide even though it is always more expensive when you have an all inclusive tour because we did not know if we would get lost on the trail. It turns out that two tourists went without a guide on the same trail and got lost in a giant cow pasture so I guess it was a good idea. We woke up at five in the morning to get started because we decided to do it in three days instead of four. Our first stop was sacophoguses high up on a cliff wall. Basically thse were upright coffins painted and shaped to look like persons. Insterestingly enough the Chachapoyans lived under the ground and buried their dead up high. I evaluated the cliff and decided that the rock was too crumbly to climb saftely so I accepted the guides theory that they lowered themsleves halfway down the cliff on ropes.
The path down to the Sarchophogi was wet and slippery and we hoped that the entire day would not be like this(it was).
Next we got back in the car and started down of the road the tour agency had told us that we could not rent taxis on(therefore needing their services). When they told us we were unconvinced that we could not pay someone to take us down the road, but they might have been right. Things were going fine, meaning the road was not worse than all the other horrible road we could not believe they took four door tin can cars on, until we reached a mud bog. The first bad sign was the giant six wheel truck, completely sunk in the mud on one half of the road, completely abandoned until the rains stopped. Laura and I figured our walk had begun but our guide and taxi driver were more determined. Did I mention that our guide was a precocious 17 year old who had already studied political science for two years at the University. Despite his book smarts and fancy job he was still a 17 year old boy who thought driving a small front wheel drive only car into a mud bog next to a giant truck was a good idea.
Laura and I just started laughing. Before driving in they did try to place a few stones and sticks on the path and drained a little of the water out. Nevertheless we were stuck as soon as we drove all the way in. Laura and I were not surprised. We wondered if they could understand that we were laughing at them even though we were speaking in English. Being macho they let us sit in the car for quite awhile while they tried to get the car out. We offered to leave to lessen the wait but they declined our assistance. Finally we had to go to the bathroom and they let us leave for that. When we returned(after sneakily taking a picture of the debacle) they were trying to push the car out. Without really asking we decided to take charge and go push with them. The car budged a little, and eventually with three pushers and one driver we were able to escape. We had no idea how the taxi driver was going to return once he dropped us off because there would be no one to push the car and he would be going uphill. We never found out what happened to him.

After driving a while more down the road we caught our fist glimse of the valley of Belen where a large river snaked across the green grass of the valley in a dramatic twisting fashion.
The Valley of Belen
We were glad to have the guide as we would have no idea were to start walking across the great green valley. It turns out that we definitely would not have gone the right was as we had to jump over numerous streams and finally ford a river barefoot to get to the start of the pre Inca trail we were going to follow. The rain kept starting and stopping so we alternated between carrying and wearing our ponchos.

As we started up the trail I had to ask our guide who put the stones there. He was like, oh yeah, i forgot to tell you that this road was built 800 years after Christ by the Chachapoyans. It seemed as if we were going to have to drag information out of him.
We stopped at a stunning view of a far off waterfall on our way up the mountain. We were occasionally passed by people and their mules weighed down with all sorts of things. One mule was carrying a large table strapped to his back. This was only the beginning of our experience with animal mistreatment. After 45 minutes or so of climbing up anchent crumbling steps and trails deep from years of horses and mules we started the descent which they had told us would last four hours but was not very steep. They made it sound like we would want to walk down hill for four hours as if it were easier. Given that the rain was now coming down more consistantly and that the rocks had been broken by mules I was not too excited about walking for four hourse. My knee with the help of some aleve seemed to be holding up fairly well though.
Carlos seemed to be driving a hard pace with little time for rest and after quite a few hours of walking through the cloud forest with rain I was starting to get tired.
I would drift of the back of the back as Laura and Carlos went on ahead. We had a few minutes to stop at our first Ruin which consisted of a number of circular houses overgrown with forest. They had once made up a city of thousands. Carlos presented us a piece of cake which we were delighted to eat at the ruins. After the ruins, as it continued to rain we discovered that our Ponchos were not actually waterproof and lamented that we had left our jackets at home because they had told us that they were providing ponchos. We should never trust the Peruvians! Matters got worse when I stepped down funny, my leg straighted all the way and my knee popped. It was only temporarily painful but it made me timid and eventually started to swell. My doctor had told me I could do anything as long as my knee did not swell so I faced the long steep descent in front of me with a fair amount of worry. As I limped down the trail, going twice as slow as my guide we were passed by a mother her son and three horses. I wished that I had them to ride but did not think it was possible on the path. To my surprise, she stopped and offered us a ride. I do not really believe in miracles but I thought this ladies kindness was a gift that would save my knee. I mounted the mule and started the very scary path down. The mule had to slide down slick mud, and jump down little staircases. I held on tight for the wild but breathtakingly beautiful descent to a small village. As we entered the village we walked past houses constructed of mud shelacked onto wodden walls. The little boy who was leading my mule threw rocks at an orange tree and ate them on the path. i was so impressed that this little boy of six or seven with leather sandles that slid of in the mud was doing a better job on the path than I was. We passed under trees with small red berry like fruits that Laura discovered were coffee beans. When we arrived everyone was gathered around a soccer field and our guide explained there was a grand fiesta going on. I gave the lady 20 soles in gratitude, or about a days salary for a teacher here. I wanted her to feel as lucky as I had when she offered me a horse. I knew if she had not let me ride I would still be slowly descending the mountain in the dark.

Over dinner I told our guide that I had a knee problem and would need a horse the next day. Horses were normally included in the tour but we had declined them thinking that we did not need to pay extra when we could walk. He had quite a time finding a horse, and loudly argued with various people about it in front of us. It was as if he forgot that we could understand Spanish when he started talking to other people in front of us. Laura reminded me frequently that he was only 17.

When the horse showed up the next day he took Laura´s backpack and put it in a saddle bag. I thought maybe we were getting two horses because the mule in front of me seemed much too small to carry me and the bags. There was no other horse. I easily mounted the mule and noticed that my feet almost touched the ground. I already felt guilty for riding it but I figured that most tourist choose this route so it isn´t a problem. The pequeno mula

The path started fairly well, with the guide pulling the rope tied around the mules head. Eventually he tired of pulling the mule along so he found a stick in the bushes gave me the rope and started whipping its back, yelling mula vamos mula. Even though he was not yelling at me it was consistant and always in my direction. My nerves were on edge and I felt bad for the horse. Every time he whipped it it jumped making it very hard to ride. Did I mention the stirrups were way to short so I could not really use them. Things were still going alright until we passed two other horses, a baby and her mom. Everyone got excited and my mule started chasing the other horeses around. If it really wanted to it could go fast, even though it was not willing to after being yelled at and whipped by Carlos. I did not really have any idea what to do but held on alright until it started running full speed under a low branch. I ducked just in time and got away with only scrapes on my back. If I had been a little less adept I would have been strung out to dry by my neck on that tree.
Laura eventually grabbed the rope attached to the horse and things were under control. Carlos did not seem quite as concerned about my physical saftey as the other guides who would not let me overexert myself.

We continuded down the trail which began with ups and downs. Things got really bad when we arrived at the climb. The mule continued to stop not wanding to go up steep stairs with a giant on its back. I felt incredibly guilty that it was being screamed at and whipped but knew that my knee was swollen and I would hurt myself to walk worse that the mule was. I could not imagine that tourists would do this if they did not have some medical problem keeping them from walking. I figured that they probably had a bigger horse, but later learned that my mule was typical even for men much larger than me. Every time it jumped up a step I feared the poorly attached saddle would fall of the back, luckily I would not have fallen very far off the animal. As it sunk into the mud I could often touch the ground with my feet. One time I feared I was stuck in a giant puddle when it sunk down to its belly in a large lake like puddle.

Once again I was having trouble with different cultures. I asked the guide if it was necessary to hit the mule and he said it was. Luckily after lunch another man joined us who spoke much more softly to the animal. It was worn out and often flat out refused to go up things. At these points I dismounted, climbed the stairs and remounted for the flats. This was not bad as I could go up on leg at a time, only using my good leg. Laura was way out ahead and I felt so bad for being a stupid tourist who got myself into something i could not handle. I had to remind myself that this was the first time my knee had been swollen the entire trip and that I had no way of knowing it would happen.

Finally we reached the top and in a few minutes a car came to pick us up. Did I mention that the entire path was breathtakingly beautiful? I tried to apprecaite it but felt more guilt.
Laura seemed to enjoy the trip and I was glad of that.
Laura stopping for lunch, the only time I was able to take a picture.
We drove to our hostel, were amazed to find it had hot showers. After showerig we feel asleep before dinner, woke up to eat, and then promptly went back to bed. I did notice the big dipper for the first time and was alarmed to see it upside down, pointing at the north star way below the horizon. It was strange to look at the stars and notice something was wrong and spend a minute or two figuring it out.
The next day we woke bright and early for Kuelap. We were literally the only people there except the workers who were working on restoration. The city was huge and facinating, well deseving of the advertisment slogan Macchu Pichu of the North. I could not beleive we were the only ones there.
Carlos gave us his speil as we walked around the fortress. The giant walled city was constructed to be extremely defensible and held Chachapoyans from 800 to 1500 when the Incas and Spanish took over in turn. Sadly, as in many places in Peru, the stones were stolen from many houses to build houses for the Spanish, but the remains were spectacular.
One of the houses of important people.

selva, agua del rio, mosquiteros, monos

I finally made to a place with no interent access. No phones, no bathrooms, no electricity, blankets and no TOURISTS(except me of course).

I wrote pages and pages about it with a good old pen and pencil in all the lazy hours I had by the side of the muddy jungle river. At some point I might type it all online, but for now probably not as I´ve just sent about a million emails, mostly to my parents concerning rent problems, someone stealing my credit card, transcripts for my job and all sorts of other life matters. I hate how life does not just go away when I leave. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to my parents. I do not know what I would do without them to look out for me. I owe all of them big time for managing my life, staying on the phone on hold forever with the retarded airlines, reading my mail, taking care of my money, delivering my flowers, helping me move out, coming to my graduation, paying for my life and college, supporting my wild trip to Peru, reading my blog, throwing me a graduation birthday party, and more. THANKS! I love you!

I should say a few words about the jungle here. Laura and I wandred along the banks of the river until we found a respectable looking ship to take us to Lagunas, the point of departure into the Pacima Shymara national park. Like usual there was a man more than willing to help the cute gringa girls. As we were eating lunch before departing Yurimaguaas for Lagunas we were approached by a man whose name was reccommended in our guidebook for Jungle tours. He had a book full of reccomendations, a man, and an official looking vest and we decided he was the first of many people we could trust and set up a tour with him. He tooks us to the store to buy hammocks and set us up on the boat, and even asked the nice girl in the restaurant if we could take pictures with her baby mono (monkey).

Laura and I set up hammocks in a huge deck full of hammocks, people and random goods of every kinds headed for Iquitos the great jungle port and the biggest city in the world not accessible by road.

After carefully counting our money we decided we had exactely enough for five days of jungle and the return tickets to Yurimaguas where we could find an ATM.

The boat was really exciting and surprisingly cool and pleasant. We had great views of flat expanses of green jungle all around us on the wide brown river. There were also about 25 crazy looking cows on the boat which were really fun to watch fight in their tiny little cage. We met a group of teachers from Lagunas who had taken the 12 hour boat ride to Yurimaguas to vote in the election. Voting is mandatory and there are stiff fines for failing to vote. They had to cancel school for three days to allow time for people to travel to Yurimaguas to vote. It seemed like they should have been able to send in a ballot by mail or something, it was such a huge hassle and expense for so many people. On the day of the ellection it was practically impossible to find cheap transportation as all of the trunks and vans were packed with people, closer than sardines all moving around to vote.(Alan Garcia won by the way, He was more a democratic and less millitant and favors lowering airline taxes to promote tourism)


We arrived at Lagunas at four in the morning and were met by a representative of the tour company and taken to his palm tree roof, dirt floor house to sleep. We got a bed, complete with a mosquitero(mosquito net). We slept for a few hours but were awakened before dawn by roosters and other various jungle noises.

After a breafast of eggs, plaintains and bread were were taken off in a moto taxi to the control station of the reserve. We had some trouble talking to them about food, trying to explain that we preferred not to have fried food. Everything is so complicated here, and just saying, ¨there is nothing actually wrong with fried food, and it tastes fine and i can eat it but I prefer baked or boiled food because it has less fat¨ seems like a a really hard concept to explain. As we discovered on the trip sometimes misunderstandings were more about cultural beliefs and what seemed normal to us or them based on how we had been raised. Even though I grew up on the banks of cottonwood creek, I had a hard time understanding and communicating with people who grew up on the banks of a huge river flowing into the Amazon.


When we first way our canoes we were a little surprised. They were carved out of a tree and when fully loaded only floated a few inches above the water. The guides were very concerned with us tipping them over and helped us get in and out every single time. They wanted us to lay in the bottom so that we would not tip them but we asked to paddle instead. We would learn that unless we asked to do something, absolutely everything was going to be done for us. After only a half our my guide asked if I was tired of paddling and told me to rest. Normally I would feel a little insulted that he thought I was so weak but given sleeping on a boat full of people, moving to a hut in the middle of the night for a few more hours, the extreme heat and the very heavy carved wooden paddle, I took him up on the offer and just laid back to relax and wait for him to point out animals for me. I have to note here that he was amazing at finding animals and I still have no idea how he noticed some of them.

Some of the first things we saw were monkeys playing in the tree and very pretty colorful birds. I really like the monkeys. There were always lots of them in a big pack and they were easy to find because they made lots of noise. They leaped between trees and slid down the trunks. It was like the zoo but better. Other animal highlights were a small anaconda and a black jungle cat and river otters.

At our first stop for lunch the guides put up our hammocks for us and cooked us lunch. If we wanted anything out of the canoes they got it for us and basically attended to our every need. I was shocked, I had been expecting the jungle to be difficult but I had two guides attending to my every need. Paddling for me, cooking for me, stringing up hammocks for me and insisting that I rest. It felt really weird after weeks of bare bones hostels and lots of work, but I decided that maybe I could accept it.

After a few days of being pampered we were starting to get a little bored. Our sleep debts had been paid off with day time naps and sleeping in while they caught and cooked breakfast for us. Breakfast was fish every day which sounds kind of weird but was actually pretty good. Lunch and dinner were also fish. We started to get a a little curious and Laura asked if we could help with the food and learn how to catch, clean and cook fish. He was using a net to catch fish and offered to take us with him in the canoe to set the net that night. We put a huge net accross the river and as we were doing it spotted the red eyes of a crocodile in the headlamp and spent an hour or so tryign to catch various crocociles unsuccessfully.
The next day Jose found some fish in the nets and showed us how to clean the fish. It was a little disturbing because the fish were still alive (more on that in a bit). We scraped the scales off of them, as their gills continued to flap, it was like being skinned alive. Then we slit open their stomachs to remove the intestines, gills, vital organs and such. One fish was split open with both sides laying face down on the dock and it was possible to see its heart beating still. I hope that it wasn´t actually conscious of what was going on. We learned that it was easier to just stick our hands in the fish to rip the guts out when our guide was able to clean fish three times as fast as us with our dainty knifes delicately removing innards without making a mess.

The next day we hiked through the jungle and learned all about medicinal plants. We learned about trees that could stop the pain of broken bones, cure hemmoroids, save people from deadly snakebites and more. We also learned about a bad spirt tree which avenges the death of murdered children. Just cut a hole in the tree, put the murdered child´s clothes inside and then murderer would be unable to go to the bathroom and swell up and die. The tree looked pregnant, with a big lump on one side, just like the bad man would. Our guide believed that trees enjoyed smoke and that it was good for them, so he smoked a cigarrette and blew the smoke on the trees. I believed that me breathing carbon dioxide on the trees was probably just as good, and that way I did not have to kill trees for the paper for the cigarettes. He seemed pretty convinced. I thougth a lot about culture, upbringing and beliefs on this trip.
The jungle was very wet and in many places our rubber boots sunk deep into the mud. We threw down small logs and carefully balenced on them to cross the mud bogs. At the end of this hot sweaty, but interesting trek we arrived at a small river teeming with fish. Jose explained that it was really warm water right now because there were not a lot of rain and the fish came to the top to try to be cooler. He pointed out a large fish that had no bones that he wanted to catch. This sounded exciting as I had been struggling to eat small fish, still complete with heads and all of their tiny bones.

He found a stick in the woods and attached a small hook and line that he had brought in his pocket. We asked if he had brough bait and he told us he was going to use a fish. We weren´t really sure where the fish was as it was not in the backpack of fruit we had brought. He surprised us by pulling a small bloody fish in a zip lock bag out of his pocket.

He caught a fish almost immediately, it seems that they are rather canibalistic.
Then he handed me the machete and asked me to kill it by wacking it over the head with the blunt end. This took me back for a few moments but I decided if I was willing to order fish at Creektown Cafe back in Walla Walla I probably should be willing to bludgeon the small animal flopping around in the jungle in front of me.
I tenatively whacked it with the machete and to my dismay it didn´t die. I whacked it again more forcefully and it was still alive. Four or five whacks later I figured that it was probably dead. Little did I know these fish are amazinly resiliant. Democrito, the other guide, strung a vine through it´s gills to carry it home and at this point I realized it was still breathing. The next time he pulled a fish out of the water it was Laura´s turn to whack it. She was equally unsuccessful at actually killing it. I whacked a few more fish and then Jose gave me the chance to try fishing. I think that my success was mainly due to the fact that the river was spilling over with fish, but within a few minutes I was flipping a fish out of the river over my head and almost onto Laura. Luckily she avoided it, and grabbed the pole to take her turn. Now I had to whack the fish I had caught, which the guides assured me had few bones and was very rico(delicious). I tried to whack it hard wanting to put it out of its misery, and when it flopped to one side I thought I had succeded. Laura caught a fish almost identical to mine and whacked it as well.
After stringing up the rest of the fish we began the two hour trek back to the control station where were were sleeping. THe guides tried to string up our hammocks for us but we insisted that we wanted to clean teh fish we had caught and bludgeoned. We got them on the dock of the control station and I dumped some water over them to rinse the dirt off. To my surprise the two little fish Laura and I had caught and whacked started moving after two hours of being strung through the gills and hauled through the jungle! We were a little disturbed and called Democrito over to show him. We thought that he did not believe the fish were still alive because he put them in the river to show us that they woudln´t swim away. We said we understood that they were done for but that they had been moving. Finally we figured out that he was trying to show us that they would move more if you put them in the river. They sadly flapped there side fins as other small manta ray looking fish started nibling their flesh. I tried whacking mine again because I didn´t want to skin another live fish. This didn´t work and as I began to scrape the scales off the gills were still moving. I was pretty disturbed by it all and asked Jose if he thought it was in pain. He answered yes, as if I was kind of dumb to wonder if it hurt to be whacked on the head, dragged aroudn the jungle with a vine strung through my respiratory system and skinned alive. He said that if I whacked them hard enough to kill them they wouldn´t be in pain any more. I felt guilty for not being a better bludgeoner.

Finally, as we sliced open the stomach and continued to whack the head the fish stopped moving. Though as I took a bite of it later, I did a quick check to make sure it was really dead.


Other point of major contention on this trip was water. When we had reached the small river where Laura and I caught the fish the guide went to wash the bananas in the river becuase they were mushed. The fruit was clearly exposed and it was obvious that we would injest river water. I inquired if this would be a problem as I have had to regretfully turn down all salads and washed fruit in Pere so far. He assured me the water was safe, but I´m not sure I believed him as I had been a bit sick the day before the trip started and had recieved a fair amount of mosquito bites trying to go to the bathroom frequently in the woods.
I ate the bananas because i figured there was not much we could do.

That night Laura was sick all night, sweating, making midnight bathroom runs from the control station, trying to avoid the giant spiders in the bathroom. The next day he served us the usual lunch time lemonade and when we finished it he refilled it with a bucket that did not seem to be filled with the bottled water we had been drinking. I asked, Is that water from the river? He said it was and I told him that Laura was at this very moment sick from river water and I couldn´t believe he was giving it to us. He told us it had lemons in it and I couldn´t figure out why I should care that he had put lemons in River water for us when we´d both been sick.
I tried to ask him about iodine, but I still didn´t know the word.
Later that day he asked us if we wanted him to boil bottled water for our usual nightly tea. We realized that he did not understand the difference between boiled and non boiled river water. We drank boiled river water to top of the river water lemonade. I thought I explained the difference between boiled and not boiled but the next day I realized I was wrong. He tried to serve us lemonade again, and I was a little confused, thinking that he should understand that we didn´t want to drink river water and increase the number of jungle bathroom trips which necessisated dodging spiders and getting at least three or four new mosquito bites per trip.

He said that it had lemon and explained that the lemon killed the bacteria. I looked skeptical. He said, do you understand what I´m saying. I said, yes I don´t understand but I don´t agree. So we didn´t drink the lemonade that day and I was left feeling frusterated with his belief the river water. I realized that it had a ton to do with beliefs. He has been drinking the water all of his life, just scooping it right out of the river with his hands. He thought Laura was sick from overexertion(considering that she almost made it to the Olympics I found that hard to believe). If someone told me the well on my farm was not safe I would not believe them either. The water issue was the only problem with the trip and I realized it was very much about cultural and linguistic misunderstandings and forgave the guides.


After we finsihed our river trip we made a mad dash to Chachapoyos. We took a River boat from Lagunas to Yurimaguas overnight, a pick up truck on the bumpy road from Yurimaguas to Tarapoto as the sun rose. There we restocked at an ATM and used the bathrrom in a restaurant to brush teeth and get more water.(WITH Iodine i might add).
We found a bus to Pedro Ruiz. We had learned about buses a little bit more and were a bit more savvy this time. We asked if there was a bathroom, the man told us yes, then we asked to get on the bus and look at it as the bus was right there. There was no bathroom and we asked him why he had lied to us. He told us no buses had bathrooms and so we asked him again why he would have told us that. I told him I wasn´t stupid just because i was blond and spoke Spanish badly. He told us the trip to Pedro Ruiz lasted six hours and left at noon. We told him we didn´t believe that either. After wandering around and realizing that this bus was the first one to leave we decided to take it despite the fact that he was clearly not telling us the truth. He offered us a 10 soles discount when we walked back, which seemed to annoy the ticket seller who wouldn´t believe the price we quoted. Of course the bus did not leave at noon. At a few minutes before noon I pointed out to him that no one was on the bus and that the driver had told me that the bus leaves at twelve thirty. He continued to insist that the bus would leave at 12 on the dot. At 12:03 I asked him what time it would leave, it still being empty and he insisted again that it would leave at 12. At this point we were looking at a clock. I asked him how many hours it really took to get there and asked if I could get a free ticket if it took longer. He promised me that I could. Of course it took a little more than 7 instead of the 6. I wasnt surprised but it did make it difficult to know when I needed to start paying attention to the stops. Luckily the lack of a bathroom was never a problem as the bus probably stopped every half an hour to pick up more people. In fact, if it saw people walkign down the road it honked and picked them up. In the beginnign Laura and I had the entire back to nap in but eventually they oversodl the bus and we were moved so that six people and a small chicken could have the five seats of the back. The chicken was making pleasant enough noises adn I did not really mind it. I was glad that they had removed the full grown chicken earlier that a different man had tried to smuggle on board against the posted no live animal rules.
Eventually the six people in five seats caused a problem and the bus stopped for half an hour to move people around and set up buckets in the aisle next too me for people to sit. I was starting to feel like it was time to pay 10 dollars for a bus instead of 7 to avoid all of this crazyness.
We watched some more bloody action movies typical of the buses, including predator with Arnold Swarznegger. People seem to really like him here and know that he is the new governer of California.

Finally we arrived in Pedro Ruiz and took a car on a road carved into the side of a cliff to Chachapoyos. I was really tired and was almost able to fall asleep in my cramped position.
Today we washed clothes and spent about four hours on the interent and tried to figure out a good way to go to some more ruins and the third highest waterfall in the world. We will be doing that for a few days. Hopefully there won´t be any more urgent credit card fraud emails in my inbox when I return! Man those are annoying.

Selva

Im using ridiculously slow internet only a hundred yards away from one of the large tributaries of the Amazon in Yurimaguas.
The last time I was at a computer I think was three or four towns ago. We successfully bought airline tickets from Lima after giving a Peruvian a huge tip to help us call the airlines. Our plane between Lima to Tarapoto left on time, which was great because we had arrived at the airport four hours early. We spent the time talking to Taxi drivers who finally figured out that they could not sell us a ride anywhere as we were leaving Lima. As we stepped out of the plane in Tarapoto a wave of humitidy and heat hit us, even though it was nine at night. Upon entering the airport we recieved the usual barrage of taxi drivers and hotel owners lying to us and trying to take our money. We walked past the main taxis and found a moto taxi to take us for a fourth of the price. A moto taxi is a small rickshaw type cart on the back of a motorcycle. Because of the heat and the expense of gas they seem to be the main form of transportation.
In tarapoto we found a hostel for 2 dollars a night. It felt like a prison and I was still scared of mosquitos because of reading warnings about them all over the place. I decided the only part of the hostel that I really could not live with was the creepy man living down the hall who just spoke in elaborate gesture to me as if I could not understand Spanish.

Tarapoto seemed kind of alike a different world with the moto taxis everywhere. We were sold a coconut on the street. A lady hacked it open with a machete and gave us two straws to drink it. We thought it was a good night cap and went to bed.

The next day we had quite a time trying to get to Yurimaguas as it was the eleccion and everyone was going everywhere. WE still do not know who won.

Selva

Im using ridiculously slow internet only a hundred yards away from one of the large tributaries of the Amazon in Yurimaguas.
The last time I was at a computer I think was three or four towns ago. We successfully bought airline tickets from Lima after giving a Peruvian a huge tip to help us call the airlines. Our plane between Lima to Tarapoto left on time, which was great because we had arrived at the airport four hours early. We spent the time talking to Taxi drivers who finally figured out that they could not sell us a ride anywhere as we were leaving Lima. As we stepped out of the plane in Tarapoto a wave of humitidy and heat hit us, even though it was nine at night. Upon entering the airport we recieved the usual barrage of taxi drivers and hotel owners lying to us and trying to take our money. We walked past the main taxis and found a moto taxi to take us for a fourth of the price. A moto taxi is a small rickshaw type cart on the back of a motorcycle. Because of the heat and the expense of gas they seem to be the main form of transportation.
In tarapoto we found a hostel for 2 dollars a night. It felt like a prison and I was still scared of mosquitos because of reading warnings about them all over the place. I decided the only part of the hostel that I really could not live with was the creepy man living down the hall who just spoke in elaborate gesture to me as if I could not understand Spanish.

Tarapoto seemed kind of alike a different world with the moto taxis everywhere. We were sold a coconut on the street. A lady hacked it open with a machete and gave us two straws to drink it. We thought it was a good night cap and went to bed.

The next day we had quite a time trying to get to Yurimaguas as it was the eleccion and everyone was going everywhere. WE still do not know who won.

Mentiras!

My goodness. Peru goes between relaxing, wonderful and interesting to difficult and frusterating. I guess the last time I wrote was before boarding the bus in Cuzco. Laura had randomly met two old ski team friends and we went to visit them in the morning. They had already spent two months in South America and gave us some deet, zinc for Lauras sore throat and some advice. They told us that none of their buses had bathrooms despite the fact that they had been told repeatedly that they would. Laura and I had purchased the medium price tickets and had been assured that their would be a bathroom on the 14 hour journey to Ica. I was a little concerned but figured that we had paid a bit more and deserved bathrooms. Upon arrival we found our bus and saw that there were no bathrooms. I asked the driver if we were in fact on the right bus and told him we had paid for bathrooms. He told me that there had been mechanical problems and the good bus was broken down. I then went inside to talk to the ticket agents and they told me that the bus with bathrooms had been sent to Arequipa instead. I should have called the man on the lie at this point, but in Spanish I am not that quick. I did insist that we had paid for bathrooms and should get a discount. He lowered the price from 60 soles each to 55 which was more than I expected. At this point we figured that we probably should not believe much more she had said. For example she had promised videos. When a man started turning the TV on we were like, wow she was telling the truth about that. We definitely spoke too soon. The movie was some sort of military thrillar with helicopter explosions and hot female cadets in skimpy clothing. Unfortunetely there were no words, neither the original English or the dubbed Spanish. It was just multilingual fuzzyness.
She had also told us that they would sell food. This was kind of true. We stopped at random markets in small villages along the way and had people shouting at us from the street to buy bread. Sometimes they let them on the bus where they went up and down the ailes trying to hassle you to buy something.
I decided not to drink any water for the 14 hours on the bus because i had no idea if we would stop for bathrooms. It turns out that we stopped a lot. And by a lot I mean that the trip took 20 hours. Another lie. I used one of the scariest bathrooms of my life. There was an old building that said bano, but there were no lights inside. A man asked me what I was looking for and I said el baño and he told me to follow him down a dark hall. I wasnt entirely convinced but when he reached the end, turned the light on and told me it was fine I decided to check it out. Indeed there were stalls, with holes in the concret floors labed with pictures of men and women like normal bathrooms. I was glad to get out of there without any crazy incidents. I could see why lots of the men were just randomly peeing in public around the bus station. (Did I mention that I was the only one with blonde hair on the entire bus, we were the only tourists)
20 hours later we stepped out of the bus in Ica and were immediately harrassed by multiple men selling hotel rooms, taxis and information. They told us everywhere was peligoros(dangerous) except where they wanted to take us. I stumbled around, still tired from not really sleeping and getting bus sick on all the corners, but refused to give them my money. We finally found a dirty gross place to eat breakfast and decided to go to the museum to escape the constant harrassment by taxi drivers and other salesmen. The museum was cool, quiet and free of anyone else. It also had a really clean bathroom where we were able to put iodine in the water and rehydrate after 20 hours of not drinking. It had a great exhibit on mummys, including a special place teaching about the study of diseases in ancient people with the appropriate x rays and bones. It was really cool. We also learned about trepidation where people had part of their skull removed. After the museum we decided to leave Ica promptly, happened upon a bus leaving for Pisco in five minutes and hopped aboard.
Laura sat next to a girl, and I had two seats to myself. A man with a black breifcase hopped aboard and set his things down next to me. He then stood up and proceeded to give some sort of speech to the bus about hard work, studying and other things I am not quite sure of. Then he showed me a box of mechanical pencils and began a sales pitch to the bus. He asked all of us what they were. They looked a lot like pens so everyone, including Laura and I told him they were pens. Then he announced, everyone, including the two tourists told me that these are pens. But they are really pencils. He proceeded to demonstrate everything you could ever want to know about mechanical pencils to the bus. He made squares and circles on a pad of paper. He showed how to make the lead go out and back in. He showed how to erase and add more lead. I got the impression that no one had ever seen a mechanical pencil before. Then he proceeded to walk up and down the bus selling them. I was so grateful that he was selling to someone other than me, he didnt even try to sell me a pencil. I was shocked at how many people bought one for 1 sol.(33 cents). It was way more successful than selling things to tourists.
Since I was holding his bag he kept handing me things and asking for things and called me his secretary much to the enjoyment of the rest of the bus.

Upon arrival in Pisco an hour later we were again bombarded by people selling hostels and taxis and tours but managed to make it away after awhile. We bought some tickets to tarapoto in the northen jungle area of peru. there were some more difficulties with those tickets today as we had to fax our credit card number and our passports to the airline, but were afraid to do so because people are constantly lying to us and I couldnt really just trust the email in broken English telling me I needed to send some random guy a copy of my passport and credit card. With the help of the women working in the internet cafe we managed to work it out.

This morning we decided to forgo taking a tour to the Paracas national wildlife reserve and take a collectivo instead. These are the buses that the locals take and we only spent 50 cents to go the 15 miles to the reserve. We decided to walk the three kilometers along the beach instead of taking the tour bus despite the best efforts of a tour guide to convince us this was a bad idea. 5 or 6 kilometers later we arrived at the museum and the wind started to pick up. We realized that walking back acrosss a desert landscape in the wind would be kind of hard on our eyes. We wanted a taxi and were in the middle of no where with no one trying to sell us anything. Luckily four Peruvian boys who were also tourists had a taxi and we convinced them to let us ride with them back to Pisco. We tried to sit in the back but they wouldnt let us. They also would not accept money. We could not understand what was going on. They were not whistling at us, asking us about our boyfriends or asking for our money. We decided it was because they had money and were upper class. No one else would hire a taxi to drive that far. I was so happy not to be lied to.
Soon we will be in the Jungle. There may or may not be more internet.