O man.....

This just in: Today I was walking in the streets of Cusco and I stepped on something and slipped. I won't say I almost fell because that would mean I was lacking my cat-like reflexes that serve me so well, but I definitely slipped. One might think the cause of my imbalance was the classic banana peel. But it wasn't. It was a banana. A competely unsheathed, peel-free banana. Oh the irony.

Ok so it's time to admit it. I am bad at this blogging stuff. At first I was doing ok, but no more. I didn't post on Monday like I said I would. If it makes you feel better I chose not to blog and instead tried to go on a date with a cute Argentinean girl I met. It is now Friday. Since the last post I have hiked into and out of Colca Canyon, worked on a traditional Peruvian terrace-farm, learned how to count to ten in Quechua, stayed the night in the middle of Lake Titicaca, learned how to dance old school Peruvian style ( and I mean ooooold school), headed off on my own to a small mountain town, ridden on the back of a motor bike to a remote crazy-looking canyon, been accused of being a high way robber by an old Quechua women, sat in a bus terminal for over 6 hours freezing my 'stuff' off, and spent two long nights trying to sleep on buses. I am now in Cusco, kickin' it and waiting for my hike on the Inca trail to start. Did I mention I'm trying to grow a beard? Currently it looks like pubic hair. All of this and I never even finished talking about my time in Arequipa. The inherent problem is that this bloggin thing takes time. A lot of time. So in this post I am going to attempt to give the short version. If that is possible for me. If anything is unclear, you can always call me. O wait no you can't. Not only was my US phone stolen, I have also left my Peruvian phone in Arequipa. Would you expect anything less? However you can email me. You know the address and if you don't it's in a previous post. Below I am going to present an outline of the things I'd like to hit, as much for me as for you.

Arequipa
volunteering at the school
climbing
the other volunteers and the costume party

Ok so volunteering was a rewarding experience. I don't know if I mean that completely in the sense that helping people made me feel better. In reality, I just had a ton of fun and I am not absolutely sure I made that much of a difference. But I was only there for two weeks, I wish I had allotted more time for that protion of my trip. I am however, completely committed to the goals of the organization I volunteered with, Traveller Not Tourist. They focus on two projects: teaching english at a school they have built in a barrio outside the city and helping out a non-profit orphanage that receives kids from the government but virtually no aid. The unique thing about the group is that their idea is to allow people to incorporate volunteering into their travels for as long as they want for a very low cost. This leads to this symbiotic relationship where the traveller gets to stay somewhere for a while, meet cool people, and make a positive impact on the place they visit, and the organization furthers its goals of growing the school and helping the orphanage. The school, where I was placed, is located in this barrio called Flora Tristan, and while the kids seem happy, it is definitely a different standard of living. We would walk to get water everyday so we had enough to fill the tank of the toilet and flush it. Most of the people in the community, including the kids, throw rocks at the side of this huge-hill-almost-mountain right next the school in order to knock loose bigger rocks and dirt that they use to build their houses and fences. And like the group leaders told me, the biggest thing we did was just spend time with the younger kids, who don't always have much of a home life. This is just a characteristic of the communities that inhabit these 'pueblo jovenes' or 'young towns' like Flora Tristan. Additionally, speaking english can be a huge step up in a tourist area like Arequipa and in a country like Peru that relies on Westerners and Europeans for tourist income. I ended up teaching 'beginner adults' which consisted of people from around 15 to 22 who didn't speal that much english yet. If I thought I liked teaching before this just confirmed it. I also got to speak a ton of Spanish because the level of my students at times was just not high enough to explain rules or structure in English. On my last day I took all my students out for ice cream and eventually coffee. You could tell no one had ever done that for them before. The whole thing was just a good experience. Now pictures.

Flora Tristan

The outside of the school after class. Not a great picture but it shows a lot.

The inside of the school.

The garden.

The view from the school as we left each day. Wicked cool.

Ok so climbing. This was sort of one of the cooler things for me in Arequipa. Of course I've been trying to climb this trip and as a result I tried to check out this area I had read about on the internet. It was in this valley, actually the same valley I would raft through later. When I went to check it out it was too late and I couldn't do anything, but on the way back I noticed that on the opposite side of the valley from me there were huge boulders. The next time I went out I decided to check them out. I had to walk a long time on a dirt road becuase the taxi could only go so far, but it didn't matter because the rock was crappy quality, not climbable. I'm walking along being bummed and of course I look down the side of the valley instead of up like I had been. I see this giant boulder in the middle of this guy's farm. I take a while to work up the courage but I finally just yell at him (he's working in the field) and ask him in Spanish if I can climb his boulder. He says ya and shows me where to come down. Long story short, I found a boulder no one has ever climbed before and established two new lines on it. Unlike the other boulders, this one is a different type of rock and the two lines I found were good quality. I got video for those who are interested. One of the lines is a bloque problem, meaning I didn't take it to the top because it is wicked tall and I was by myself; instead I just hopped down at a logical conclusion to the line. In honor of the location I named the boulder 'El Granjero' which means 'The Farmer'. Here is the boulder. It was approximately 25-30 feet tall in total height by my estimation.

The corner furthest from the camera (in the shade) is the one I finished to the top and it is named 'Buena Cosecha' (Good Harvest). The other is the portion of the wall in the light and I named it 'Buena Tierra' (Good Earth). I think someone could do it to the top with a pad and a spotter. Moral of the story is: I got to walk around in a beautiful valley by myself, climb a boulder possibly no one has ever climbed before, and all around have an experience few to no other people have ever had, all because I have a passion like rock climbing.

Ok so the other volunteers. are awesome. I should have known given that everyone was there trying to do a pretty good thing. Everyone was super friendly and there was zero drama which was great. The time I didn't spend with my Couch Surfing friends I spent with the other volunteers. We had lots of birthday and going away parties and an amazing pot luck dinner where the food didn't all come out at the same time so it ended up as like nine courses. One of the parties was a costume party because costumes in Peru are common and really cheap to rent. We began at the house where a bunch of the volunteers live and then went out dancing. Let me tell you there is nothing more facilitating for dancing with Peruvian girls than dressing up as Zorro. Remember this for later guys, it probably also works in the States. My rafting trip and the trip to Colca canyon, as well as mini-outings around the city, were all down with the other volunteers. I think these two pictures sum it up (something I fail at).

So that was Arequipa. Tomorrow I am going to be short and sweet about my adventures in Colca Canyon, Lake Titicaca, and Ayaviri.

Are you ready... for to go to the racing!!???

A couple things first. If you haven't checked in for a while, which I would totally understand since I haven't posted for like 2 weeks, I have posted four (including this one) massive posts about my trip thus far. Start with the one titled ´From Lima with love' and work your way back up. If it's been a really long time, start earlier. Also of note, you can check out all of my pictures on my dropbox.com account. Email me if you want access because I have to give you the details and my code: czak24@gmail.com.

So you may be wondering just what exactly I mean by the title of this post. This is in, if my memory serves me correctly, the words I read on the side of a taxi here in Arequipa. One thing about the ' white city ' is that most of the big cab companies all use the same model of car, which are these little boxy hatchbacks probably made by Daewoo. But the funny thing is that ' taxistas', or cab drivers, like to put a bunch of after-market stuff on their taxis to make them look like street racing cars. Even if the words aren't exactly correct. The title of this post is a case in point. More cabby awesomeness can be found in these sort of crappy photos I took.

Notice the mini-spoiler and blue running light. There were more under the car.

Look cosely and you can see the hood scoop and racing stripes. Is that a roof scoop as well!?

Also funny is this guy, who I assume is always drunk, who dresses up like a green Santa Claus and stands in the middle of the street every night right outside my hostel and yells at the cars in an attempt to sell chewing gum.

So last post I talked about how I had all these thoughts my first day in Arequipa, but the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. That night I met my friend Alexa from Couch Surfing and through her I also met my friends Carlita and Aaron. Aaron is a fellow traveler from Spain while the two girls are both from Arequipa. We went to dinner and then had drinks and played pool on the hardest table I've ever seen. I think one game took 2 hours that's how tight the bumpers were and how bad we were collectively. Alexa is super cool and very nice and willing to help me with my Spanish but she has been pretty busy lately. Carlita is really cool and she has shown me lots of local places where young people go, as well as teaching me Arequipeñean etiquette. For example, the guy, boy friend or not, always walks on the street-side of the girl when on the sidewalk. I assume this is so that the guy can be used as a human shield should someone decide to run off the road. Obviously the minute a runaway car hit the guy it would stop and not even remotely hurt the girl. Makes sense. She and I also went over to a friend's hostel and cooked a traditional Arequipeñean dish called causa rellena.

Check it out, Carla is the one the far right. The other two people I just met that day.

The dish is like a cake made of a potatoe paste and stuffed with avocado and tuna, but you can do it with chicken. It was delicious, especially with homemade sangria.

All of last week and some of this one, I hung out with Aaron every day, which was great because my Spanish speaking skills got way better since all we spoke was Spanish the whole time. One crazy thing we also experienced together was this huge protest last week. So I'm finishing up school last wednesday (I'll talk way more about school in a bit) and my students, who are all young adults say they aren't going to be able to come the next day because all of the roads will be closed due to a city-wide protest and strike over the price Peruvians have to pay for oil. Even their regular school was cancelled. At the volunteer meeting that night the woman in charge of the program, Brenda (who is really cool), said this had happened before and that nothing would come of it, that we would probably still be able to go have school the next day. In this case, she was wrong. The protests were huge.

This was the first thing I saw when I left the hostel Thursday morning.

Aaron and I were in the plaza getting our mobile phones recharged (my phone from the states was stolen even after I bought a Peruvian phone to keep my US phone safe) when the bulk of the protests started. The store we were in immediately closed half of it's roll down door. After we left they closed the other half. The whole three hours over which the protests continued there was the sense that at any moment things could go really south. Aaron is an aspiring photo journalist and we went out and took photos pretty much the whole time. Many of the groups protesting were very leftist, communist or socialist. Che Gueverra flags and banners were everywhere. Leftist extremism, as much as it decimated many parts of the country two decades ago, is not dead. But that seems to be the South American way to a certain extent. Situations of extreme poverty and injustice illicit extreme reactions. They all have so much passion it makes American politics seem docile (in a good way). AS I've said before it's unclear how effective these protests are as political tools but they are hardcore. I watched at least four mock ups of the Peruvian president, Alan Garcia, be burned in effigy and the ashes stamped on. As I understand it the reason for this protest/strike is that Chileans can literally buy gas in Chile (some of the gas comes from Peru) and sell it to Peruvians for less than what they pay at the pump. That seems ridiculous if it's true but I don't know the whole story. And the reason for this strike is chump change compared to ther things the country has been through. Here are some of my favorite pics that I took:

So here's the deal. I have to go teach english now. I am going to post this because I won't get to post again until Monday. Obviously I have way more to say and show about Arequipa. It will have to wait until then, but by then I will also have gone to Colca Canyon. So much to talk about!! Hope you can hang on until then.

Deep thoughts by Jack Handy...errr I mean Casey Zak

So picking up where I left off with the last post. I am sitting in the Ica bus station waiting for my bus to Arequipa. I have sand in my nose and ears from busting several times while sand boarding. My bus is supposed to leave at 8 pm. I have it in my head that I will arrive in Arequipa around 3 am. I have even made plans with people from Couch Surfing to go horse back riding at 8 am. The bus doesn't arrive until 9:30 but I'm not worried becuase I've got time and I am going to sleep anyways.

What I had in my head that night was wrong. The rare, almost impossible, miscalculation on my part. The trip takes 11 hours easy. Imagine my surprise when I wake up and check my phone to see that it is 7 am and I am still in my bus seat. 'O crap.... I'm on my way to Cuzco.' I quickly ask the attendant where the heck we are, and she tells me we are almost to Arequipa. Now I am confused. This is a familiar feeling. I try to call my Couch Surfing friend to tell her I will be late but I can't. So I just go on.

I got to the station finally and made my way to the city center. Got a hold of Alexa and told her I wasn't going to make it. And thus began my time in Arequipa. Now that the segway is over let's talk about Arequipa. It's really cool. I like it here a lot. It is in the desert more or less but it is surrounded by three huge volcanoes, Chachani, Misti and Pichu pichu. They say that from the top of Misti it looks like the mountains actually arc over the city slightly, like it's in a giant bowl. It kind of reminds me of New Mexico, in the desert but with mountains very close. The sky is always clear and it's so dry I immediately developed a cold sore that is just now healing. The city is centered around the Plaza de Armas and all the buildings are made of a white limestone known as sillar. That's why they call it the 'ciudad blanca' or white city. The people here are very independent and assosciate themselves with Arequipa first and Peru second. Sound familiar? Maybe that's why I like it here, the pride. Or it could be that there's tons of stuff to do in the outdoors, as well as a decent bar and club scene. So far I have white water rafted and rock climbed, and this upcoming weekend I am going to backpack in Colca Canyon, the major outdoor attraction near Arequipa. It's twice as deep as the Grand Canyon although not as steep, and the villages in the bottom of the canyon preserve a tradicional Peruvian culture, complete with nature worship and llama rearing. Maybe it's just for the tourists but it seems legit.

Anyways, I wanted to do a post about Arequipa with some thoughts I had on the first day I was here. When I got to my hostel one block off of the Plaza, I couldn't check in so I just walked around. It was a Sunday. There are two things I really like about Peru. Sundays and old style VW beetles. I like Sundays here because Sunday is family day more or less in Peru, so everyone is out enjoying the day and doing fun stuff. The Plaza is beautiful and it was even nicer full of happy people. The people were only outnumbered by the pidgeons. You pretty much wade through pidgeons to get across the plaza.

It just makes you feel nice. Peruvians seems sort of fanatic about family and I don't know if I dig that, but the fact that it's just customary that one day a week everyone goes out and enjoys themselves is pretty sweet. I like the VW beetles because they are everywhere and typically in really good shape with nice looking pastel colors. Here's one I saw in Lima:

Generally I like the fact that Peruvians like bright colors. In their buildings nad cars and everything. Honestly, the brightly colored Bugs made me feel like I was in Cuba or something. That's just what I had in my head. But I'm not in Cuba. I'm in Peru. That's the problem. I like the bugs because they fulfill an expectation, they make me feel like I am somewhere exotic. It sort of sours the act of enjoying something while traveling because you can't separate your preconcieved notions about what traveling should be and what you should see while traveling from what you are actually seeing. This conflict between enjoyment due to expectation and enjoyment of unadultered experience continued. I was walking aroung the Plaza, which is framed by shops on three sides and a giant beautiful cathedral on the last side. The catheral didn't seem open so I went to an old looking church that was at the corner of the Plaza. It was quiet and very solemn inside. When I entered I stared at one of the ornate altars to some saint and tried to feel something. I realized I wanted it to be solemn, to be sacred, for it to be a spiritual experience. I tried to open my mind to simply take in what I was seeing without preconceived notions. And in fact, when I saw a man kneeling in front of an altar to Jesus I was drawn to kneel and pray as well. It felt good. I had not prayed in a long time and when I left the church I felt ' spiritualized '. But it was still unclear to me to what degree this feeling was caused by the sacred place and some higher power and not by my desire to have a spiritual experience, because that's just what you do when you travel.

So I go to this coffee shop right on the plaza and I'm contemplating this and also enjoying the place I'm in, a beautiful square in a foreign country drinking coffee. I have the overpowering urge to take a picture, to try and capture the ' coolness ' of the moment. I begin to write in my journal, letting my thoughts flow. I come to find that, for me, there are two paradoxes or conflicts or whatever with traveling and experience in general. The first is the paradox between enjoying something becuase it's cool or because it moved you strictly in the moment and enjoying something because you want to enjoy it or similarly because it's what you expected. E.g. the cool church and the VW beetles. The other is the struggle between enjoying the moment and spending your time trying to capture that enjoyment. Sometimes I walk around just trying to find a cool picture that captures my unique feelings and experiences. The problem is that in those moments I am no longer occupied with the experience, my mind is on creating something that later my friends will look at and say, 'O cool! '. None of this is actually important and some (cough Holly) might say I am just overanalyzing the situation. Even so, sometimes it is fun to doubt yourself and really try and figure out what's going on in your head.

Maybe that's enough for one post. Am I boring? I'll keep them coming and sum up (that implies brevity but I have a hard time with that) my time in Arequipa.

Ica

The word I would use to describe this portion of my trip is 'surreal'. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the other wordly landscape. Probably the sleep thing.

I first heard about Ica my second night in Lima. One of the guys at the front desk, my friend Andre, recommended that I do a dune buggie tour through the hostel's travel agency. He told me it was very exciting and said I seemed like an adventurous guy, probably because I had already asked how to get somewhere he had never heard of, so I could do something called 'rock climbing'. Ever my parents' child, I figured I would do some research on the internet to see if the listed price of 20 US dollars was reasonable. After some searching, I found out that the tours are actually from the small tourist village of Huacachina, situated just outside of Ica, which surrounds an oasis in the middle of a massive desert. I also had a friend explain to me that, not only was it awesome, it wasn't just a buggie ride; the buggies take you to the tops of the dunes and you sand board for half the time. He said it was easy to do on your own and recommended a company to do the tour with once I got there. It was with this small amount of info that I left Lima, at 5:30 in the morning on 2 hours of sleep, for the first unplanned detour of my trip.

The first weird (and lame) event of the day occured upon arriving in Ica, the closest large city to Huacachina. I was woken from my seat by a busline employee saying it was time for me to get off. I looked out the window at a seemingly upscale adobe building. Upon exiting the bus I found out that it was a hotel. Apparently the bus lines make two stops in Ica, the first one is for doofus travelers who then have to pay more than twice as much for a longer cab ride from a fru fru hotel instead of the bus station. Wha Wha Wha Whaaaaa.

As I said on the last post, the lack of sleep had put me in the unusual foul mood, and this didn't help. Neither did arriving in Huacachina, this beautiful place,

and finding out it was the biggest tourist trap I've ever been to. A person can't walk two feet with out being accosted about buying something and the town is literally comprised of hostels and resturants. No one actually lives there. So I'm all in this mood and I find a place to stash my stuff and just walk around a bit. It was nuts, the place was off the charts beautiful and I just couldn't really enjoy it because of the vibe and my mood. I walked to the 'back' of the little lake and found the place my friend Matt had recommended. It wasn't really even a building, just a plot of land with a fence between two other hostels with an outdoor bar and little huts for rooms. Actually, it looked like this:

They said the tours left at 4:30 and that they were only 30 soles, a little over 10 dollars. The place and the price lightened my mood somewhat. I cruised some more and grabbed some food. I checked my email. I arrived back at the place (the name had the word banana in it but that's all I remeber) a little early and began to chat with the other two dudes I was going to go with. One was from Israel and the other from France. The one from France said he'd done something like this in Chile and sand boarding wasn't that great, nothing like snowboarding. Now I knew even less about what to expect. We all speculated over whether we would be able to get the small buggie since there were only three of us. This was of course supposedly more sporty and adventurous.

When our driver finally did arrive, on Peruvian time (late), the surreal feeling continued because the guy was easily 70 years old. Based solely on appearances I would have guessed he was older than both of my grandfathers. His dress was plain, the way an old Peruvian man would dress in the city, with a jacket and everything. So we load up in the buggy (the small one) and roll out to the entrance to the dunes. The riding, even on the street, is crazy-jerky and the guy stalls it out a couple times. I'm like, 'what the crap...' but eventually we make it out to the dunes. It's at this point that our docile old man driver, rocking a stone-cold emotionless face, hits it like a bat out of hell up the first dune. He maintains this eerie facade as we essentailly ride a roller coaster up, down and around the dunes. After doing something particularly sketchy, he would turn and look directly at the French guy in the front seat (while still driving) and bust out this maniacal laugh like he had us all hostage. Which he did. All we could do was all look at each other and bust out laughing as well. It was awesome and super exciting and this first trip took us to this nice outlook where all the other tour companies had brought their people for photo ops. This is the desert of Huacachina:

This is our crazy awesome driver

This is the scale of the dunes in Ica (the car is a big-A twelve person dune buggie)


And this is another photo of our driver, probably one of my favorites of the trip so far

After the photo op, we went for another crazy ride to the place where we were going to sand board. Or so we thought. We spilled out of the buggy and were somewhat disappointed by the site. As big as the dunes were all around us, we were sitting atop little more than a hill, with two more gentle slopes that followed further down. Even so, myself and the other two guys strapped on our boards and headed down. The French guy, Pierre, was an experienced snow boarder and he got the nicest board, a real snowboard, and handled the hills with ease, as well as some disappointment. I also went down standing up snowboard-style although I had never done it before. It went alright. The Israeli guy had already opted to just lay on the board stomach first and sled down the hills. So we get down to the bottom and we start telling our driver that we want bigger hills.

Mischevious smile. Another exciting buggie run. A big hill. A really big hill. In a classic case of Casey Zak syndrome, wherein the victim is convinced that they know how to do something they don't, I decided that I was experienced enough to bomb this hill standing up. I think I made it a quarter of the way down before the board began to spin backwards and in an effort to correct it I wiped, and by wiped I mean I cartwheeled down the hill at mach speeds, getting unintended air and sand in private places. I also broke the straps on the board, tore my favorite shirt with my own finger and severly bruised my pride. As you might guess this was not the point I referred to in the previous blog where the cold chip on my shoulder was mercilessly ripped off. Instead this event sort of put me back in a bad mood and made me a little wary of going again. But a second mondo hill immediately followed the first. On this one I layed down but did so incorrectly and still wiped without getting much speed before meeting the sand with my chest. Even so, the other guys had done just fine and had a blast and they were looking for bigger dunes. Ever the dude and wanting to be along for the ride, I chimed in as well. Another mischevious smile from 'el conductor' . Another ride. The biggest dune I've ever seen in my life.

I have been snow skiing once. I don't think the ski runs were as tall as this bad boy and if they were they were not as steep. Here is a picture I took on our last run of the dune. The tinny black dots are the other two guys I was with.

We ended up doing that hill three times. Pierre rocked it like a champ, controlling the board and bringing himself down in a long winding path, looking every bit a snowboarder. He said with hills that big it really was similar too. The Israeli guy also had a blast. My first bomb down this hill was the one that tore away my bad mood and anxiety. I laid on the board incorrectly, yet again, and after actually gaining a lot of speed, it slipped out from under me and I flew down the remainder of the hill sand blasting my chest and stomach. But when I got up, I just couldn't be mad, or sad, or bummed or anything. The whole experience was just too cool. On the second go, I sufficiently mastered the simple task of riding a board down a hill on your stomach, after the old man actually laid down on the board and told me what to do. The next two runs were scary in the best way, like riding a rocket with little control but coming out alive in the end. As the light faded, we mounted the buggie for the last time and picked up a straggling local boarder who squeezed between the Israeli guy and I in the back seat. Roaring through that alien landscape, with darkness pretty much already upon us, was a mind blowing experience. I took pictures, but none came out well, as if what I saw was really just some crazy dream. I got back to Huacachina exhausted but happy ad a little bummed about my shirt. I found a cabby who was taking two Columbian girls back into town. After we dropped the girls off I chatted with the cab driver about how pretty they were, in Spanish. He dropped me off at the bus stop, my portal to my next stop Arequipa. I went across the street to the Peruvian version of a fast food joint (it's still not fast) called Norky's chicken I grabbed some food and used the bathroom to get the majority of the sand out of my butt and off my back and chest. The rest wouldn't come out for days. O how I love sand in my nose. Then I crossed the street again and waited. and waited. and waited.....for the next blog post suckas!

From Lima with Love

Ok so my bad. In my last post I said I would post the next day and I didn't. For like two weeks. Forgive me. In return for your forgiveness I offer words and pictures. I'm going to start with my adventures in Lima and work my way up to now with subsequent posts.

The pictures I posted most recently all came from the exciting remainder of time in Lima. In fac there are more that I will post here. I visited the down town of Lima, went to this super old ruin in the middle of the city called Huaca Pucllana, went out with friends from my hostel and school, and attempted to go climbing just outside the city. At the same time I was still taking spanish classes and cooking classes and a couple of salsa classes at my school after choosing to extend them for another week.

Salsa

Learning to cook and getting to eat traditional Peruvian food was really cool. Here is a picture of my friend Lukas cooking during the class. Can you tell he is tall?

At the school over the two weeks I was there I also attended this extra class called 'The Social and Economic Reality of Peru'. It was supposed to only be a one week thing but all the students asked so many questions that it spilled over to the next week. One thing that did hit home for me is the fact that Peru really does have everything, natural resources, tourism, young population. But they are not reaching their potential and are just now recovering from the crazy level of terrorism that was occuring in the late 80's and 90's. Also, corruption is so rampant that now the public desire is not for a lack of corruption in government, but instead for an acceptable level of corruption (maybe just less than the last group in office). At first I found this laffable and very different from home, but then I realized that the American reality is not much different in that respect. If you asked me if I truly thought the majority of our politicians were in some way abusing our system or breaking laws, I would have to say yes, as I think many people would. And I mean this in a full on illegal way, not like a, 'the democrats are going against the constitution and ruining our country' kind of way. It's interesting to be able to step back and really compare our system to others that in my mind I had deemed less stable or 'bad'.

Anyways, while I was in Lima, the guy who killed that American girl in Aruba and got away with it killed a Peruvian girl he picked up at a big poker tournament right down the street from my school. He got caught and I don't think he will make it through prison alive, if he can even get there. The general vibe is that the people want blood. My friend Lukas, who is from Germany, has Peruvian cousins and one of them sat at the same Poker table as this serial killer. Crazy. Also crazy is that this American woman who came to Peru to help one of the many leftist terrorist organizations in the 90's got out a jail while I was in Lima. She is very well off and smart, went to MIT in fact, and her Dad put her up in an apartment on the ocean right in Miraflores. As a result, every tenant of the building moved. That is the depth of pain this country has experienced at the hands of the terrosits groups.

One of my goals for my time in Lima was to go to the city center and check out the Plaza de Armas and the Parque de la Reserva. Getting to the Plaza ended up being a two day ordeal. The first day, I looked up the plaza on google maps and asked the guy at the front of the hostel to confirm the location, but he said it was somewhere completely different. I got kinda miffed becuase he was so adamant and a littel short with me, so when I left it was partially with the intention of proving this kid wrong. I felt like I could find my way to anywhere even if I got a little lost, especially with a map. I mean the internet is never wrong. Ever. Except this time. The kid was right. Arriving at the supposed location of the plaza and finding nothing really struck me and reminded me that technology is not as infallible as I'd like to think. It's sort of 1984ish. Google, arbiter of the internet (at least for me), gave me information and I believed it whole heartedly. Someday Google will tell us the Holocaust was a hoax and we will believe it becuase we trust the technology. Obviously this is an extreme example but I am trying to convey the depth to which that experience stuck in my mental brain-goo.

Darn. Off story again. Where was I? So I got to the the wrong place and decided to go to the right place. I got on a bus. I got off the bus at what I assumed had to be the Parque de la Reserva. Turns out I had already passed the Parque de la Reszerva, which was closed for maintanence for the entirety of my stay. The place I had arrived at was in fact the Parque de la Exposicion, where the picture of the crazy cube thing was taken. It was so cool I jut brushed off the other park and the plaza for another day. This is the power of traveling without a strict schedule. It is the places you don't expect to see that impact you the most. The unexpected experience. Granted, it is probably easier to have these when you are alone and half expecting to get completely lost all the time. I spent a wonderful afternoon/evening just cruising around the park and got to see a political protest. As far as I understand it these protests are really popular and integral to the political climate in Peru, but are not very effective. Wait till I talk about the ones in Arequipa. On the way home, I had the best street food I've ever had, a papa rellena (stuffed potato). Solid day.

Another thing I noticed while in Lima is that the American influence is everywhere. In Peru there are KFCs, Payless shoe stores, Starbucks and even Dunkin' Donuts. A lot of the words in commericals and on products are in english. The Spanish word for sunset, at least in Lima, is 'el sunset'. Sleeper colonialism. Forget about the army, send in the advertising agencies and we'll control a country with our consumer culture. Even here where the majority of people are dark skinned and have native physical features, the idolized woman is tall, blond and fair. I 'knew' this was our role in the world before I came to Peru, but now I understand better the extent to which a people might feel invaded everytime they turn on the TV screen. Obviously there is more to the issue than that, but it was interesting to observe my culture in a more foreign place than Europe.

The day after my failed attempt to make it to the plaza, I went to Huaca Pucllana, which is a ruin of a temple used by the Lima culture. The ruins themselves are not that interesting looking, pretty much like a giant hill becuase so much has broken down. The story, however, is pretty sweet. This culture existed even before the Incas, and way back then, thousands and thousands years ago, they developed sweet building technology that allowed them to cope with the frequent earthquakes. All of their walls were built with little mud bricks, which they called books, spaced apart slightly. The gaps allowed the structure to vibrate without breaking. Sorry I don't have a picture, I chose the Spanish speaking tour to practice my listening and my efforts were focused on translation at that point. It's just nuts becuase the 'giant hill' isn't just a hill; the whole thing was man made, and it took over two hundred years to make. I know there are lots of sites like this throughout the world, but going to this one hit the concept home. Here is a man-made site that is not only ages and ages older than my country, than my identity, but also required almost the life of my country to build. I feel like we have so much history, so much in fact it's hard to keep it all straight. Hell, most people in America don't even know what the war of 1812 was. And we're what, 250ish years old? To think about what has occurred since the Lima people were around and now. Mind blowing. The ruins were also where I saw the really crazy dogs from the last post. My climber friend in Lima has one as well but his is pure bred and lacks the crazy tufts of red hair that make it look like some sort of mutant crime fighting dog.

The next day I finally made it to the Plaza with my friend Ally. It was really cool, espcially at night.

The downtown was way more crowded than in Miraflores where I lived and studied. After the Plaza de Armas we worked our way back home through Plaza de San Martín. This is where my general lack of luck or common sense or both necessitated that, when I took my camera out of my jacket pocket, I should also drop the 100 soles bill I had hidden there. It took three minutes to realize what had happened and in that time it was gone. It was approximately 35 bucks so I treated it as a charitable gift and went on. What else is there to do? It was pretty funny though, in a sad sad kind of way.

Now for the rock climbing in Lima. For this we have to flash back becuase I actually went the weekend before. The moutains where I went butted up against the city, and I believe they are the major reason that during the winter Lima gets a crazy fog and overcast skies. On this particular day, the fog was all over the mountains and it was eerie wandering around just trying to find the darn valley with the boulders. Based on stories I had heard that hills outside of the cities could be dangerous, I clutched my pocket knife for protection. I'm not sure how much good it would have done but I felt prepared. Fear and apprehension melted away, however, the minute I crested the ridge and saw the boulders. For nonclimbers, there are few things that get you worked up more than finding climbing. I half ran/half fell down the hill side to the first one. Unfortunately every boulder was soaked by the fog and I climbed one very easy route after semi-drying it and excepting that I was going to get muddy. I filmed it of course. Filming yourself rock climibng is weird becuase you have to put up with feeling conceited if you really want to document the climbing in some way. Win some lose some. Over all, the day was a good experience and I always get a kick when I feel like I've gone out and done something on my own.

The rest of my time in Lima I really just spent enjoying the city with my new friends. Eating, drinking and just walking around. My last day there I finally went down to the ocean, which afforded me this sweet view of the city on the cliffs.


The beach was all smooth dark stones and there was this moss on the rocks that was so green it was practically glowing.

This wasn't the sort of beach where you go to play volleyball and check out people in their swim suits. I was the only person there and I liked it like that. It sort of made you feel alone in a good way. And oddly enough I hadn't smelled the sea from up in the city and it's always nice to smell that every once in a while. Afterwards, In a classic case of poor planning, I allowed my friends to convince me to go out the night before I had to be at the bus station at 5:30 in the morning. After having fun, I stayed up until 3 packing my stuff. I am not usually put in a foul mood by lack of sleep, but the napping and occasional movement required to get me to my next destination of Ica left me staring out at the beautiful oasis of Huacachina with squinty eyes and a slight chip on my shoulder. This chip would be mercilessly ripped from my shoulder as I busted butt on the side of giant sand dune while attempting to sand board, but more on that later.

Hold what you got

Here's the deal. I'm tired. I just sent like six bajillion couch surfing messages to people on Couch Surfing so I'll have people to hang out with in Arequipa next week. So I'm just posting pictures tonight and I'll write a sweet post tomorrow. I got some sweet thoughts already written down. Deal? That's what I thought.

That's right, it's a Peruvian hairless dog, the native dog breed of Peru. And no, you've haven't even seen a dog this friggin crazy looking.

Who is this handsome fellow and in what adventureous place could he be? (The place is Huaca Pucllana)

The mountains on the outskirts of Lima where the closest climbing is, shrouded in mist

A Protest in the streets of downtown Lima (apparently wicked common)

This pic is sweet. View from the inside of a combi.

I'm in a spanish-speaking latin american country and someone has ruined it by tagging the most drab american name ever. Hilarious.

Did I mention they have good food here? They do. The best. This papa rellena might be one of the greatest things I've ever eaten and it cost approximately 36 cents.

Cool artsy box a ma bob in Parque de la exposicion

Strange Days

Beautiful Lima Peru!

A typical "calle" in Miraflores

The awesome traffic in the streets (not even meant sarcastically, it really is cool)
Plumber´s crack immortalized in stone

The juxtaposition of Lima´s past and the technology of the present

The coast line at night

A sweet fountain at Ovalo Bolognese

The church near mi escuela

They have Scouts in Peru, and the building is wicked near my hostel. Weird.

The dishes I mentioned in the last blog post

Purple salad thing!!!!!!!!!

So I finally have some pics! I have been checking out Miraflores and practicing Spanish pretty much constantly. I met some climbers and hopefully next week I can go out of the city with them to climb. Some highlights thus far:

The buildings here are really cool. Most are just very blocky and stucco but they are still all in bright colors. Occasionally there are old colonial buildings and they are a sight to behold. The juxtaposition is what makes Lima so cool. Also the roads. I love the roads here. Everyone drives like a mad man and they use their horns all the time. Like "hey I am going to come up and pass you on your left because you pulled over without warning to pick up a passenger". The buses are small and the combis are smaller and buses are everywhere. It´s crazy because apparently the whole country didnt really have cars until like the 1990s. I still can´t understand anyone. It made me realize that, as hot stuff as I thought I was for knowing the Spanish I did just from high school, I really can´t do anything because I have no experience listening to or understanding Spanish. Some might argue that I have no experience listening period. Anyways the other night I walked all the way from my hostel to this neighborhood called Barranco and then walked around some more and by the end of the night there was no way I was going to walk back because the dogs were a barking. I decided to attempt to use Spanish and ride the bus and I couldn´t understand the guy collecting the money to save my life.

Oh about those guys. They are awesome. Any time the guy driving a bus or a combi (a wicked small potentially dangerous bus van thing) sees a person on the side walk they think might remotely want to ride (e.g. the person looks at them) they swerve violently over to the side of the road and another guy, the ticket guy, leans out the doorway and yells the names of the streets that the bus hits and generally tries to get the person to ride. Their intonation is hilarious and they sound like a commercial from Tejano radio.

Anyways. again. Do I get off track like this when I talk? So I get on the bus, I can´t understand the guy and I start freaking because it looks like we are heading way from Miraflores, and I´m like "crap, I´m gonna spend the night in some shady highway pit stop with a bunch of chickens." But then the bus started heading the right way but ended up really far from my hostel, so I still ended up walking wicked far. Good times.

Another highlight thus far was going to a market yesterday with my classmates from Spanish school. The market was nothing special, very similar to a hispanic market back home. Except that EVERYTHING is in Spanish, and, they have the craziest fuits I have ever seen. They have every fruit we have in Texas and then ones they have in California and then ones that don´t even make it to the states. I don´t have pictures of them tonight but I will. My favorite was the chirimolla. It is really sweet and delicious but the only crazy thing about that one is the texture of the meat. And that the outside looks kinda like a turtle shell. There were two really crazy fruits, the first one I can´t remember the name of but it was sort of brown on the outside and the meat was bright orange and it was so dry it was almost chalky. It was a little sweet but it made you want water it was so dry. In a fruit! The last was the grenadia, which looks like an orange but pretty much perfectly round and with a big green stalk. The skin is hard and brittle and when you break it there is this sac inside that looks the white stuff inside an orange. Inside the sack however, are a bunch of seeds held together by what is most adequately described as snot. It looks like a bunch of fish eyes all squished together. Don´t get me wrong it tastes really great, it is super sweet. But the consistency is a little too much to handle.

The last thing I wanted to post about is the changes I can sort of feel happening in my mind. Right now I speak Spanish super slowly because I think in English and translate, and I can´t understand anyone. But slowly, slowly, I can tell that some of my thoughts are sort of in Spanish. It is a crazy feeling. I will be thinking and a portion of my mind is coming up with Spanish words but most of my mind is confused and tired and wondering why the hell Im trying to think in Spanish. It actually makes it difficult to think of anything at all, as if the two languages are cancelling each other out in my head and nothing comes out. Ironically, this gives me hope because it indicates that I am getting closer to being able to express myself a little more fluidly in Espanol. We will see.