Monday, May 21, 2001

We got into Quito, Ecuador yesterday afternoon. The thing I love about international flights is the free alcohol!! Unfortunately it's such a short flight from Lima to Quito that I only managed to suck down one Pilsener (an ecuadorian beer that I have found to be much tastier than its peruvian counterparts).

We're currently at Casa de Eliza, a house cum hostal in the middle of Quito's New Town district. It seems like there are an endless run of kids who live there, but I haven't met the respective patriarch and matriarch...I'm not even sure if there are any. It's a large wooden house with a great yellow dog running around. It's definitely comfortable and at $5 per night, not a bad deal to boot.

Peru had lots of natural beauty, but horrible people...rude, loud, dumb...and not really any remarkable hallmark of their society; save the textiles. I have found Ecuador to the be opposite in every respect. Far more relaxed, mellow, and polite. I'm not trying to put down the people of Peru, just relaying my honest impression. It definitely feels good to be in ecuador...this place has some good mojo.

Today we went out to the middle of the earth...you can stand in both the north and south hemispheres. Kind of gimmicky, but I'm a huge sucker for those kinds of things. Before that we walked around Quito taking in the sites. I've noticed that most cities colonized by the Spanish look pretty much the same: some well trimmed plaza with an outlandishly ornate cathedral as its centerpiece and then a bunch of 16th and 17th century buildings sprawled throughout the downtown area. I've had my fill of that scene and am looking forward to visiting Otavallo tomorrow and then making our way to Puerto Lopez on the coast. Otavallo is an old indian village about 40 or so km north of Quito. Their big thing is supposed to be their animal and textiles markets. The coast what I'm really looking forward to...after all, equatorial waters are warm throughout the whole year. Puerto Lopez is the nearest town to the Machilla Parque, featuring the only coral formations in Ecuador, a couple islands (referred to as the "poor man's Galapagos"), and some fine snorkeling and whale watching opportunities.

Monday, May 21, 2001

Now that I have gotten over the pain I will attempt to relay some of what was in that post. I am now in Puno, Peru, home of lake Titicaca (snicker,snicker), the highest navigable lake in the world. So far so good with the altitude, I was actually higher than this day before yesterday. I guess the altitude pills are working. One thing though, I am feeling a little light-headed and short of breath when i walk around, up hills or up stairs.

So backing up to the lost but notforgotten post...As I mentioned in the itenerary, we started our trip in Pisco where we were able to head out to the islas ballestas. We stayed at a hostal named something like La Posada Hispana, which was owned by a man from Spain. It was one of the best hostals I have ever seen. The place looked like a little tiki hut on the inside and the room was 2 stories, so we had an upstairs area with two more beds. I felt like I was in Tahiti or something and the room only cost about $20 a night. The guys who owned the place, Juan, was extremely nice and our guide for the trip, Jesus, was equally as cool.

Once we made it back to the mainland, there was time to walk the main street, hit the bathrooms and head back on the mini-bus. The little town we were in, I think it was San Juan, had a few restaurants from what I could see and some dogs. I asked some little boy in spanish if his dog was friendly and he said no. Hmmmm.... Fine then. the only other thing I remember about the little area was that it was a fishing town and all the men there wokeup early to fish for a living. I saw a few working hard when we were headed out to the islands.

Once back in Pisco we had a little time to rest. I was feeling a little nauseous, so it was good for me to lay down. we had also woke up so early. Soon we were on our 4 hour bus to Nasca. This is when the fun really began. Up until this point everything was incredibly smooth, relaxing, exciting-some of the people had been rude, but you have toexpect that.

Boom!!! In comes Nasca.

Oh boy, I know Al wrote about this as well. Let me start by saying that Nasca makes no sense, the people are rude and unhelpful, and tourists are the freshest red meat they have ever seen--worse than anywhere I have ever been. I seldom feel scared when I am travelling, but I honestly thought that Nasca had the high potential of being my final resting place, or at least Al´s or the backpacks.

Let me frame this for you...

You have two pasty americans on a ratty old economy ticket bus. On the bus these americans meet a nice lady and gentleman (who I will talk about later) who happen to speak some english. Once the bus arrives in Nasca, everyone is happy to finally be at their destination. These smart little americans have it all figured out because they planned their trip so that someone would be at the bus station to pick themup.

Woops! No one is there, but I´ll tell you who is there, about 50,000 blood-sucking nascan travel agents or hostal placement people (I have no idea what their official title is, I don´t think they have one because I am pretty sure they could get arrested for what they were doing). The little american boy gets off the bus and heads for the side where the bags are stored, relatively unscathed. It is when the little american girl, thin from picky eating, heads down the stairs that the real fun and law-breaking begins. It´s like they could smell her coming from Pisco. Instantly she is surrounded by easily 20 or 30 people, grabbing her, pulling her, throwing their hands up their cards up, their credentials up, ¨I work for the estrella del sur,¨ ¨Nohe is lying, I work for the estrella del sur!¨ they were shouting. she couldn´t even make it to the side of the bus to get her bags. The boy in his mangled spanish begged the man to open up the compartment again as the girl struggled to make her way to translate for the boy. Finally they had their bags and she was instantly surrounded again. Shouting, pulling, screaming, yelling, tuggng, begging--the boy was pushing people left and right to break her free. Finally the friendly woman on the bus who had spoken a little english jumped in and scatterd most of the leeches away and she took the frazzled americans to their hostal. Of course this was not without a few of these ¨nascholes¨ (a new name Al and I made up) scurrying after them saying in their mangled english "Ok, you want to walk, that´s fine, we´ll walk."

Are they insane?

I could go on forever about what I learned regarding the lines as Al and I hung out with her a couple of times and attended her lecture regarding the lines. I think it´s best to follow one of Al´s links. One thing I thought was interesting about what she said was that there were people in the area trying to scare her to leave. Apparently, Maria Reiche has some peruvian adopted-daughter who likes to falsify documents and pretend her mother is still alive to get money. These are just not the things you run into on a daily basis in the U.S. Viva los Estados Unidos!

Turns out a few nights back someone was throwing rocks on top of her house to freak her out. You can´t miss her house. It´s painted yellow with black nasca lines all over it. they also destroyed her juarango tree (spelling?) which she dearly loves as it it a source of several things--food, water? You have to feel bad for the lady. She is working her butt off to preserve these people´s history and trying to find another source of water for them and they are torturing her. Strange...

Anyways, the other person we met wassome travel agent guy who seemed pretty nice. Thereisn´t a whole lot to say about him because he never came to give us the tour he talked about.

So...on to the room in nasca and the following day. The room was horrible. the toilet was broken so we had to continuously fill it with water and jiggle its insides to get it to flush. It was loud and it sounded like bombs were going off the whole night. When we woke up it wasn´t any better. The day was a mess from first light on. The little travel agent lady told us our Nasca flight would be delayed because of weather, which is fine--I hate to fly in good weather, much less bad weather. She offered me some over priced tours, we talked her down and chose the one to the aquaducts, geoglifico and the pedrones. We ate and headed out for this little tour in some guys little car. The first thing we saw wasthe aquaducts which was narrated in spanish by a guywith a rifle on his back. I really enjoyed seeingthem and the austrian lady we had met on the bus saidthat seeing the aquaducts would help us to betterunderstand the nasca lines. The aquaducts had beenthere for about 600 to 1200 years and were placedthere by the early Nasca people. Now they arecurrently building a high-priced hotel right next tothe aquaducts. Not good!

Next we headed for the geoglifico whichwas like a nasca line in the ground shaped like asewing loom. It was pretty cool but would have beeneasier to see from the air. Last was the pedroneswhich was an old incan temple. It is still inexcavation but you could make out some of the roomsand imagine what it would have been like to livethere.

We were supposed to head back at thispoint and head for the Nasca lines airport (I think itis aerocondor). But of course, Meri screwed it up. Iasked her abou it and the next hing I knew she wasgone. That happens a lot around here. You ask aquestion and people scurry away like little mice..itis so odd. We were supposed to leave a 7:30 AM butdue to weather we waited. It was 2 PM before we gotthere, eventhough she told us that we would go at12:30. They tell you in all the books not to fly inthe afternoon and that sometimes there aren´t evenflights because the wind is so bad and they are notjoking. I can´t stand flying but I did it anyway. Wegot in this little six- seater and headed for the sky. One thing they tell you before you do the flight isnot to eat because you will puke.

So I am in the plane, feeling the windtoss us about, praying to God, Allah, Buda, whoever toget us back in one piece. Al is in his seat turninggreen and we are trying to take pictures. It wasactually very cool to view the lines from the air, itis just that the guy kept taking his hands off thewheel to point out the lines. It was bumpy and veryhot so the transportation was definitely the mostdifficult, but we have some great photos for you andas soon as we find a fst connection we will uploadthem.

Safely back on the ground, we sat inthe grass for a few minutes collecting ourselves. Meri had brought us to the airport but had left beforewe boarded the plane saying she had told her friend toget us a cab. Next thing I know we are gettingattacked by a large peruvian girl in a mango-coloredshirt. She wants the airport tax from us. What?! Wehad paid for everything in advance so we didn´t haveto deal with this.

Necessitas pagarme!!! Over and overagain.

Finally some nice guy came over and hespoke english. He brought me a gauze pad so that Icould put water on it for my head. he told us thatMeri had not paid them and that we needed to but thathe would give us a receipt and possibly we could getreimbursed. He was very kind and apologetic. Rightabout the time he was explaining this to us, this fakelady pilot was screaming my name to hurry and get inthe cab. I was trying to close things out with thefriendly stranger and she continued, screaming likeand angey latin mother at two litle kids to hurry up. I was furious. I had had it at this point. I think Iwas so shocked by the treatment I didn´t know how toreact. Once back at the hotel I explained the issuesand we got reimbursed but you better believe we arejotting all this down so we can chew out the Limatravel agent when we get back there on Saturday.

By this time it was too late to doanything else. Meri had screwed up our whole day andwe missed seeing the coolest site in the city, theChauchilla Cemetery. We headed out for food later onand out of no where comes that fake pilot lady thing,passing us on the street. This is why I say it ispossible to run into someone you would normally expectto never see again.

Later that night we headed for the busstation with Meri´s little brother who was actuallycelebrating his 17th birthday and had to be a schoolat 7:30 AM the following day. What a nice sister.

We boarded the late 10 hour bus toArequipa and breathed a sigh of relief that we were onour way out of Nasca.

Now that we are in Puno I have somegreat Arequipa stories but I´ll save them for later. Arequipa is beautiful and we went on a great tour ofthe Colca Canyon.

Everything seems to be getting better,I´ll keep you posted.

¡Buenas Noches!

Monday, May 21, 2001

The post I just put up about Nasca was meant to be up in its entirety a week or so ago but due to problems with Blogger it was not so. It is out of chronological order but still rather entertaining if I may say so myself.