We Need a Vacation

The last day of our trip, and our last 4:30am wake-up.  Bleary eyed, we start the morning with a bumpy three-hour car ride - dozing most of the time, waking up intermittently to see crazy fog, our driver playing chicky with fuel trucks, and barren end-of-the-world looking landscapes.

Spend about an hour and a half at our first stop, the archeological site of El Brujo, which rose out of the desolate horizon shrouded in mist, a forbidding-looking concrete structure at its base.  This site is located in the Chicama Valley and consists of three pyramids wedged between vast sugar cane fields, the ocean, and the dusty "wasteland".

Next, a one-and-a-half hour drive to Huacas del Sol y de la Luna (two more pyramids).  At this point we realize that our day is running short on time - it is now about noon and we have three more stops and lunch before we have to be at the airport at 4:20pm!  Let the marathon pyramid-exploring continue...

Lunch is at a restaurant on Huanchaco Beach, a location we would have liked to spend some relaxing time at, but this was not in the itinerary ;)

A super quick stop after eating for a photo with the fishing boats, known locally as "seahorses"

Shuffled back into the van and off to Chan Chan - a site composed of nine pyramids, but we only have time to visit one.  (No great loss, at this point Mom and I are getting pyramided out haha)

Glazed look on my face = pyramid overload

With constant watch-checking we zip over to our last stop - the Golden/Rainbow/Dragon Temple (it seems they could not decide on a name, so picked them all)  I think that is the fastest our tour guide has ever shown any site in her entire life... clocking in at fifteen minutes.

With one flight already under our belts, we are currently sitting in the VIP Lounge at the Lima airport for our five hour layover before heading to Miami.  There I will sadly depart with Mom and continue on to San Francisco.

We hope that you have enjoyed our blog, and if there is no Friday post (which I can fairly confidently say there will not be) let me just be the first to give Nish a shout-out - Happy Birthday!!!

woot woot,
The End

p.s.  we need a vacation ;)    

Apologize for the Brevity

This is our second-to-last post, and I apologize in advance for its brevity.  It is almost 11pm now, and we have a 4:30am wake-up call tomorrow morning - which will be our last day here in Peru :(  Not only our last day, but also a travel day right from the depths of you-know-where, including three flights for yours truly.

Today we went to two archaeological sites and one museum in the Chiclayo area.

This is taken at the site of Sipan, where a bunch of dudes' tombs were found.  There are still excavations going on here, with pretty relevant cultural findings (as long as the looters don't get there first)

Unfortunately, I was so distracted with my new lenses and photography that I kept forgetting to take video footage!  duh.  Well, better late than never!

One more day... see you all stateside!  Will try and fill you in tomorrow on more details about today, as well as tomorrow's news, maybe if we have time between flights :)

woot woot

Return to Civilization - Day of Travel

It took us the entire day - 11am to 11pm - to get ourselves out of the rainforest and on to our next destination, Chiclayo.

Packing was more difficult than usual this morning, primarily due to the dampness of our luggage contents.

I spent a portion of the morning just trying to dry out my hat.  Btw, notice the "fire extinguisher" under the sink...

Stopped at Inkaterra's Butterfly Garden on the way out of Puerto Maldonado:

Think the netting that was keeping the butterflies in was also working to keep the mosquitos out, so that was a plus haha

Flight to flight to flight finally resulted in our arrival to Chiclayo, four hours later than initially planned.  Highlights of trip:
- I tried two things for the first time, Papa John's pizza and Inca Kola (a Peruvian soft drink) which tasted medicinal and looked like toxic urine.  Papa John's wasn't much of a winner either, especially since they insisted Mom put her passport number on the credit card receipt.  You can guess who won that battle...

That's it.  Next two days are gonna be C-R-A-Z-Y... sleep in tomorrow until 7:45am... gotta get to bed now seeing as how it is about 1am...

nighty nite!

back-post - Mon. Jan. 24th

Imagine this -

You stroll along the natural winding path, trees and plants blossoming with flowers of every color on either side of you, sun lighting up the fresh morning dew.  The audio is the wind rustling leaves and birds calling near and far.  Stepping off the path you arrive to your cabana, hammocks out front, fan whirring causing the fabric around your bed to flutter.  The rainforest?  Not that romantic notion at all.

You are speedwalking in the dim, overcast light swatting at bugs both real and imaginary.  Humidity out of control, everything you own, worn or not, is damp.  Feet slipping and sliding in bogs of mud, or splashing in pools of water from the 80" of rain.  Good thing the hotel provided galoshes, but they should have offered waders!  Electricity, as it turns out, is only offered for limited hours.  OFF becomes our new best friend, going everywhere.

Today starts at 5am.  At this time you cannot see the mosquitos, you can only hear them.  We have two excursions planned for today...

Hike to canoe Lake Sandoval:
We take a twenty minute boat ride to a 1.8mile hike through the muddy jungle to a half-submerged canoe which our guide, Jesus, bails out to take us on a one hour canoe trip around Lake Sandoval.

Anything has to be better than that hike

Since it is the rainy season we did not see as many animals as we thought we would.  However, we did get to glimpse some creatures - several beautiful bird species, including macaws, a red howler monkey, some prehistoric 10ft fish, and some long-nose bats.  Canoe ride over, we start the 1.8mile trek back again.  Every time we asked Jesus a question he would stop walking and the mosquitos would descend in swarms... our inquisitive natures were shortly put on hold.  I often walked with my head down, black coat closed up around my throat and hood over my head.  Every time I looked up I would seem swarms of mosquitos around Mom's head, and would see her blotting her face with a napkin as the rain caused the OFF to run into her eyes.  But we hoped for the rain to pour and pour, as at least that helped to keep the bugs at bay.

After lunch, back out again!  We were excited starting this second excursion since the rain had picked up even harder.

Canopy Walkway:
Pouring rain as we go traipsing off into the jungle's understory.  It was supposed to be an easy twenty minute walk to the canopy bridges, but Jesus had other ideas for us...  Not quite sure why, but Jesus decided that we had not had enough adventure so he improvised.

Trail?  What trail?

All of a sudden he stopped walking, claiming that the trail was blocked by fallen trees.  Would we like to attempt to continue on anyway?  he asks.  Mom and I look at each other, and with shrugs of "why the frick not" we follow Jesus as he machete-cuts his way through the underbrush.  Shortly we are balancing on slippery fallen tree limbs and clawing our way through branches, wading through water dangerously close to cascading into our knee-high galoshes.  No trail in sight.  (keep in mind, this is all done with me carrying my camera and full gear bag!  Mom has her own backpack, and my tripod, as well as an umbrella)  This goes on for some time until Jesus seems to reach an impasse - a pool of water that would clearly be waist deep should we attempt to go any further.  Jesus asks if we want to continue anyway (are you freakin' kidding?!?) and then says he might be able to find another way through.  We trek back over and under the trees, sloshing through the black water and muck, to the original trail which picks right back up again and we continue on our merry way to the canopy towers.  What just happened?!?

Only two canopy bridge systems in Peru - this is one of them!  

Seven cable-suspended walkways, the wooden slats slippery in the rain.  Didn't see much, but were fun to walk across (in a dangerous-going-to-slip-and-fall-to-my-death kind of way)

We survived the day to return to the lodge around 5pm, exhausted, satisfied with our accomplishments, and ready to get the heck out of the rainforest.

Despite the forty applications of insect repellent an hour, I still manage to get several bug bites.  Wish me luck that I don't contract any of the three major insect-related diseases common around Peru right now... (insert nervous laughter here)

woot woot

back-post -- Arrival in Amazon Sun. Jan. 23rd

We only took four photos on the idiot camera today (our arrival to Amazon, Jan. 23rd), and cannot agree on which one(s) to post.  As a result, there are no pictures to share - sorry!

Not much information to share either, haha.  As the plane landed in Puerto Maldonado there was jungle as far as the eye could see.  So muggy when we got off the plane that my camera lens fogged up, and took like twenty minutes to clear!

After a van drive and boat ride we reached the hotel, off the Madre de Dios river southbound in the Amazon rainforest, around 3pm.  Side note - we always got cold towels upon hotel arrivals, and as dutiful Americans used them to wash our hands.  Found out today that these towels are supposed to be used to cool the face and neck.  Wondered why they were always cold... haha

No excursion tonight - was supposed to go on a sunset boat cruise, but raining and overcast - no sun to set!

Sleep early for full day tomorrow :)

dead zone

hello all

gotta keep this short and sweet - mother and I are in a dead zone and god knows when this frail internet connection is going to kick the bucket...

in the rainforest for two nights - will send updated blog posts (and photos) when we get back to civilization

that is, if we survive the pouring rain, humidity, and intermittent electricity

not to mention the plethora of mosquitos and tiny spiders which are playing off of my phobia of small insects in large numbers... hey, at least I don't feel sick any longer haha

long day tomorrow - starting at 5am - planning on three excursions :)

be in touch in a couple days!  if you haven't heard from me by Wednesday call in the troops, armed with bug spray

woot

danielle + cusco = unhappiness

As soon as I woke up this morning I was feeling like crap.  That horrible feeling you get when you feel empty and shaky but not hungry... hot and cold... weak like a baby kitten... yeah, you know that feeling.  Not sure what is up - hoping it just has to do with the altitude and will be gone by tomorrow!  Needless to say I was less than on my game today, and napped in the van through more than one site.

However, Mom was the energizer bunny and greatly enjoyed the city tour of Cusco.  First stop was the Convento de Santo Domingo, where monks still reside today.  Next onto Sacsayhuaman, the largest completed Incan temple in Peru.

Mom at the zigzag walls - there are three parallel zigzag walls at this site.  There may be three because three is a sacred number to the Incans, but not sure why they are zigzag. This may symbolize one of the three sacred animals, the snake (the other two being the puma and the condor)

After this we went to Tambomachay, at 12,620ft, which is the Temple of the Water.  Relatively unimpressive, I think I took one photograph.

This is the point I called it quits.  Mom continued on to look at Kenko (the Temple of Mother Earth) while I napped in the van.

Later on she and I walked to the Plaza de Armas and saw La Basilica Catedral, which was large and very over-done.  Ate a late lunch in a cute organic restaurant called Greens that would fit in perfectly in San Francisco!  After some shopping headed back to the hotel, where we hung out in the bar for a bit before calling it a night.

Mom and her Chivas, me and my coca tea

9pm now and I still feel "off", hopefully tomorrow I will wake refreshed and ready to hit the Amazon at full force.

nite to all