Week 6: Lima y Cuzco, Peru

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  Lima y Cuzco, Peru
Monday, April 10, 2006

Well friends, when last we left you we were up to our elbows in monkeys, jaguars, TONS of birds of all sizes and colors and weird hairdoos, and loving it. Alas, we had to say 'adios' to ARCAS and head for higher ground...literally.

After leaving our furry and feathered friends, we set about to travel to the largest of Mayan ruins, Tikal (which you may also remember from Star Wars and will be featured in an upcoming Mel Gibson mega-flick). To say the least, these structures were amazing. Gigantic pyramids and palaces of stone and cement (a sand, water, egg mixture, who would have thought).

One might think that such small people (on average less than 5 feet) would at least have the good sense to make shorter steps, but then, their civilation did fail

01 Attach of the killer baby monkey

. Not because of the steps, most likely (although after climbing several temples I´m not convinced) but mostly because of lack of water. They had an elaborate system of irrigation and water collection where they have a definite rainy and dry season. After several years of drought, people moved elsewhere.

These temples mostly pay homage to ancient rulers, and the whole place (minus the MANY tourists) has the feel of walking on ancient hallowed ground, which, I suppose we were. Not to mention most of it is overgrown jungle where in the distance you hear what sounds like lions but in actuality are warring groups of howler monkeys. It was very cool to see all the animals we had just been working with in ARCAS out of cages and living a free life.

From Tikal it was on to Póptun to visit a backpacker friendly hotel-hostal-camping ground-farm called Finca Ixobel. It was a beautiful place with EXCELLENT and abundant food. We had some very rousing games of ping pong there (where James and I both learned we´re terrible at ping pong, but love it none-the-less).

Leaving Póptun, we took an overnight bus to the dreaded Guatemala City, of which we hadn´t heard anything good

02 Say hello to my little friend

. However, our experience there was very pleasant, barring a hotel operator who tried to take us for fools. It ended up to be a great experience because we found this cute little hostal named GuateFriends, run by a lovely little lady named Ana. We would recommend this place to anyone.

We also took the liberty of become slightly lighter travelers there. I, unfortunately before we left, was greedy. I just brought too much stuff, thinking, oh I'll need this, and this, and this. No, bad idea...but now our stuff is on its way to the States and we are VERY relieved.

After a month travelling about in Guatemala it was time to move on to a new continent for us both, South America.

Which finds us now in Peru. We spent two nights in Lima amid a presidential election, staying in a very interesting former mansion of a hotel one block from the governmental buildings. Needless to say, there were lots of police present in riot gear ready for protesters. Fortunately nothing happened.

We spent our one whole day there touring the cathedral, eating ice cream, finding ourselves in China-town (who knew there was one in Lima?), and visiting a franciscan monestary. One thing is for sure, these guys love bones. There are lots of them on display where poor people were buried en mass and all that is left are a few bones.

After our second night in Lima we had a very early flight to Cuzco (where we are currently), jumping off point to visit another magnificant ancient city, Machupicchu

03 Guacamaya (Scarlet Macaw)

. Not to mention it is also Semana Santa this week (Saints' Week, leading up to Easter), and while it is not as big here as say Antigua or Spain, it is still widely celebrated.

Cuzco is a beautiful city and very high, nearly 11,000 feet. It´s taken a day or so to get more used to the altitude, but it´s better everyday. There are lots of typical costumes here and women carrying baby alpacas and dragging llamas around the streets (though mostly for photo ops).

We haven´t done too many touristy things here. We´ve wandered around the main plaza (Plaza de Armas), had some Peruvian wine (which is incredibly sweet), seen some amazing door knockers and taxis, checked out the Sunday market, and just today witnessed the Semana Santa procession. It was very interesting to see indiginously dress people carrying around a statue of a black Jesus. Plus there were tons of police and military people on top of the toursits and locals crowding the streets.

BUT, the best is yet to come. Tomorrow morning around 4am we leave Cuzco for a 5 day-4 night hike to the heights of 15,000+ feet (hot springs included) culminating in a visit to Machupicchu (which I cannot spell, lo siento). Wish us luck.

Hope you all are wonderful. Miss you guys.

Besos y amor de Cuzco, Peru,

Audrey y James

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

04 This is they way we wash the clothes, seriously	05 James is too sexy for this bunk, too sexy...	06 Tikal: Coolest tree ever	07 Steps to Temple IV
08 The breath-taking view from Temple IV	09 Us perched a top Temple IV	10 Amazing Mayan writing	11 Gigantic steps
12 A Temple just after sunset	13 Taxi ride in a tuc tuc.	14 Finca Ixobel	15 Ana and Us in Guatemala City

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