Peru - Day Five

I am taking a break from my marathon of thesis writing (polishing, really, at this point) to blog. Can you believe it?


So, the next day we got up at some ungodly hour of the morning, like 5:30 or something (which is SUPER-early when you are on vacation) to catch a bus to the city of Puno. Now, I knew we were going to be taking a bus. And I figured it wasn't going to be the local kind of bus with chickens on top of it or whatever, so I was pleased that it was, in fact, a first-class motor coach. However, no one had told us exactly how long the bus trip would be. I thought 2-3 hours, tops. Imagine my surprise when our tour guide said (as we were starting to drive away, mind you), "It is a 9 hour drive to Puno." WHAAAAAAAT?!? Seriously, a nine-hour bus ride.


However, it was not as bad as it sounds. We stopped in five different places to do a little sightseeing, so that broke it up a little bit and gave us some time to stretch. We had a very pleasant lunch, although our guide did not speak English very well, and there was some confusion about which drinks were and were not included. "Cold drinks are included, but you have to pay." What? So, wait, cold drinks are NOT included? "That's what I said, cold drinks are included." Aaaaaah!

Anyway, the scenery was unbelievable. Peru is now in my top three of beautiful countries. It has the kind of landscape that just makes you want to walk all over it. So green and lush with little stone walls and running brooks. It's a pastoral heaven. Unfortunately I had serious altitude sickness that day, so I missed most of it. Every hour or so I would open my bleary eyes, though, and I was greeted with the stunning beauty of the Peruvian countryside.

Peru - Day Four

Our train didn't leave until 5:00, so we were stuck in the little tourist town that only exists because it's close to Machu Picchu. We spent the day shopping for souvenirs and eating a 3-hour lunch.

One of the funniest things that happened was that on the train trip, there were 4 Japanese guys who all pulled out their Nintendo DSs and started playing Mario Kart together. Jonathan then proceeded to whip his DS out and play with them. Bonding through video games!

Peru - Day Three

This is the day we went to Machu Picchu. We have some amazing pictures of it, but of course they are on our camera's memory card which we don't have a way to access right now. So, I am just going to include a picture that someone took of us walking around inside it. Disappointing, I know. This is the only day on the entire trip that it rained, and as soon as we left Machu Picchu, it stopped raining! Ah, well, it actually made the day seem like more of an adventure. As Jonathan said, "The rainforest is actually rainy!"

Peru - Day Two

On the second day of our trip, we flew to Cuzco which was a very pretty city, but very geared for tourists: lots of street vendors, beggars, and overpriced restaurants. But the scenery was impeccable! The afternoon that we got there, we took a tour of some ancient Incan and pre-Incan sites and stopped by a shop where they sold items that were guaranteed to be made of 100% alpaca. Apparently, the street vendors will tell you it's 100% alpaca when it's not. Go figure.

What Would My Kid Look Like?

I found this hilarious website today: http://www.morphthing.com/

It combines facial features from two different photos and morphs them together. I did mine and Jonathan's. Here's the result:

Not bad! This was back when I had short hair. That shadowing is because Jonathan's head was at an angle in the photo.

The website is free, so I thought I'd share. I want to take better pictures of us so there's less distortion in the photo. This picture was also taken from a scan of a real picture, so I bet a digital picture would come out much better. Sooooo fun!

Peru - Day One

So, we got a bunch of digital pictures from folks who spent a lot of time on the trip with us. Once our camera broke, they were so kind and took pictures of us with their cameras and e-mailed them to us. So, now I am ready to share.

We spent the first day in Lima. We started out in the most tourist-y place you can imagine because it was kind of close to our hotel. It was also close to the beach:

The place was called Larcomar, and it was basically a huge kitschy shopping mall. We got out of there as soon as possible and took a taxi to the Plaza de Armas in the center of town.

We ate lunch at a cute little cafe right off the main square, and unlike in Paris where you would pay almost twice as much for a meal by say, Notre Dame, than you would anywhere else in the city, this meal was just about the cheapest one we ate the whole time we were in Peru. We were also pretty much the only white tourists walking around.

We had heard before we went that Lima is a terrible city and we should leave as soon as we could. Our experience of it was completely different. I thought it was great! So, it's not incredibly tourist-y. People don't really speak English there. There are bad parts of town. That doesn't make it a horrible city! I don't know what people are talking about! We had a great day there!

Terrible Drug Name

I had the TV on the other day, and a drug commercial came on for Aciphex. I think it's a stomach acid drug. Anyway, I wasn't watching the TV, I was just listening to it, and it totally sounded like they were saying "Ass Effects." "If you have stomach acid, you should talk to your doctor about Ass Effects." Who let that through the marketing department?