Alrighty then

Finally I´m here, the place that books say myth and fact intertwine, where the history of one civilization is built atop the one that came before it...I´m in Peru! The guy at the border almost didn´t want to let me across because of my provisional passport, but I just stood there long enough for him to decide that it was legit. The last couple days in Bolivia were awesome, and beautiful of course. We went from La Paz to Copacabana, and spent a night there. Copacabana was a little bit reminiscent of the town in Puebla where I got haunted, no joke, and the central square near the cathedral totally spooked me out. Won´t dwell on it, but there was definitely something going on there, and I didn´t like it. So Kenj and I walked around the town for a while, got to the outskirts, and hopped along these pretty huge rocks along the water´s edge for a couple hours. We saw some really ugly hogs that sounded like they wanted to eat us, walked past some houses and felt weird, like we were walking through someone´s back yard, until everyone smiled and said hello. People in Bolivia were really something. So anyway, we had to chase the sunset because I was thinking we could loop all the way around on these rocks and make it back to the docks of the town, but instead there was a cliff face and we had to run back before darkness fell and who knows what kind of boogie men would have come out.

Next day we woke up early to do this hike we had read about. We brought all our bags because the hike would have us end up in this other town with docks, from which we could get to the islands in the middle of the lake. The hike was 17 km, so like 10 miles or something, and there were a lot of hills and rocks and gravel to walk over, eucalyptus groves, and cliffs, plus we both had our two bags. The scenery rocked, just like the book said, and we were both pretty obsessed with ourselves for making it with the luggage. We met a couple girls from Denver, and took a boat to the Isla del Sol, Island of the Sun, with them. First off, the island was a draw for both me and Kendra because, in Inca mythology, it is the site of creation, and the birthplace of the sun. There are some ruins there, which we didn´t see because we´re goofballs, but being there was cool. It´s a decent sized island with a population of around 5,000, no cars, only gravel or cobblestone paths. Donkeys do the heavy lifting because the island is basically the peak of a mountain poking out from the lake... it´s steep! All around the island were those awesome-looking terraces, made from rock walls with no mortar. Hope you know what I´m talking about, otherwise I´ll just have to show you the pictures. The real treat though, was just the lake surrounding us with amazingly blue water, the snowy mountain tops in the distance, and the sunset with a few beers, from the top of this mountainous, mythical island at the end of the day. Perfect! Then we slowly made our way to Puno, Peru the next day. Border crossing, like I said, was pretty uneventful, and from Puno, we took a quick little tour to the Islas Flotantes, Floating Islands. I guess people have lived on these man-made floating islands for centuries. It started out as a means of defense against the Incas and other agressors but now they still live there, and it´s become really touristy. It was interesting anyway, to be walking around on them and seeing all their reed houses and reed boats and reed handicrafts. Everything was made from reeds except for the people.

And now I´m in Cuzco. I woke up this morning a little grouchy. We got here on the bus last night at 4am, got a hostel through this guy making rounds at the bus station, and even though we sorted mostly everything out (money-wise) before we passed out, I was still ready to get ripped off, thanks to what I´ve heard about Peru. So far, so good. But anyway, the mood passed before I even showered, when I went outside to grab an OJ from the guy across the street and stood there a minute to take in the scenery from the street outside the hostel, and appreciate the fact that SHIT, I´m in Cuzco! The city´s awesome, I had the best shower in probably 2 weeks this morning, then we explored. It´s always fun exploring with Kendra because we do the touristy bit really quick, snap our pictures, and then instantly find that we´ve wandered to the place where no tourists are around. Here, that meant this massive maze of street markets that radiate out from the Central Market of the city, which is just as awesome but a little more touristy from what we gathered. There, we just wandered around, marveling at all the meat and vegetables and fish... cow heads, stomachs, intestines, balls, sheep heads, pig hooves and ears, and of course the pieces that are more familiar to us. Then we stopped off in this one section with all the tropical fruits to get some juice. We each had a juice of aloe vera with egg white. It´s supposed to be good for your digestive tract. I hope it´s good for that because it´s not really good. Then, sitting there, I spotted the ceviche counter. One of my favorite foods, which I rarely eat, was sitting right in front of me. So obviously, I had to get knee dip into that, and it was sooooo damn good. It was different than other ceviche peruano I´ve had before- there was lettuce and red onion, the cured fish, THEN some fried squid, seawead, rice, then these toasted beans... holy hell, I was in heaven again.

So anyway, we´re here. Nightlife seems to be a little more interesting and varied than in Bolivia, so I might have to take advantage of my last couple weeks of real, fun night life (shakin it til the sun comes up) before I go back to Atlanta. Tomorrow we´re planning a day trip to a few different Inca sights, then Wednesday we´ll probably go to a couple more ruins on the way to Aguas Calientes, the jump-off point to Macchu Pichu. We decided to sleep there one night, even though we heard stupid things about the town, so that we could catch the first bus up the mountain, watch the sun rise before the buses of tourists come to ruin the scene, then stay as long as we want. Doing a trek up a trail will have to be on my next-time-list for a lot of reasons, but we´ll see what we came to see!

Well, that´s that. I´m here, I´m elated, I´m seeing some awesome shit and having a great time.