El turisto

Peru has been a little bit of a change for me and jim as we are doing more of the tourist thing. This has included going to the two big attractions in peru: Lake titicaca and machu piccu. while machu piccu cost a pretty penny everything else has been suprisingly cheap. Ive been living off street venders who sell awesome food like this Choclo (corn) pictured below. It is basicly a corn on the cob with huge kernals but is not sweet. it comes with a hunk of cheese too. other delightful items include fresh bread and shish kabob things that have a big potato on the end and some sort of meat below it. the meat may or may not be guinea pig which is a popular food item here. the most any of this cost is about 50 cents.

Lake titcaca is located about at 12,500 feet in the middle of the andes. Jim and I decided to take a boat tour of it that took us to a couple of islands. the tour was only 13 dollars and consisted mostly of boat time going to and from the islands. The first island we visited was the uros floating read village which is exactly what it sounds like. the people take the reeds from near the shore and build a huge island out of them. we got a cool 15 minute talk about the island and then were attacked by the villagers trying to sell us hand crafts. I decided to try a bite of the bottom of the reed that the islanders eat and call the titicaca banana. It didnt taste very good. After the floating village we visited a real island and had lunch there which was nice. The downside to doing the whole tourist thing is that everyone you meet is trying to sell you something so it is hard to really talk to any local person you meet.

After lake titcaca we took a bus to cusco which is the ancient capital of the incas as well as one of peru´s main cities today. Cusco is also the launching point for several inca related adventures including machu piccu. we decided to sign up for a tour of maccu pichu which was a good idea. the place is kind of a zoo and you can only get there by train. the tour we bought ended up being way cheaper than the only train tickets we found independantly. however this was because instead of just jumping on the train in cusco we were ushered through a series of guides, buses, and trains which we could have never figured out independantly. the guide service was quite an experience in its self. starting with being picked up at our hotel it was a constant stream of people meeting us and delivering us to our next guide/transport. when we had no idea what was going on a guy would always show up yelling our names and tell us what to do. Once at machu piccu we got a tour of the place from our man willy who when learning we came from chicago replied "whats up my homies." Maccu piccu was pretty cool mainly for the fact of its location. it is in the middle of absolutley no where on the top of a mountain with 1000 ft plus drops on every side.

Willy would periodicly stop the tour and tell us to "take picture now" and even tell us to pose. this is me pretending to touch the top of wyma piccu which is the mountan next to machu piccu and is in every photo ever taken of the place.

Peru at last

So After leaving the desert and San Pedro we headed north to the border town of Arica to get our selves together before crossing into Peru. Arica actually turned out to be rather pleasent. It was still more or less in the desert but is located on the coast. We were only there for about 24 hours but happened to catch this man pooping in a grassy island in the middle of a busy intersection. We were pleased to learn that our next destination puno, on the coast of lake titicaca, was supposedly only 4 hours away. We bought the ticket from the bus guy but we felt from the beggining that something funny was going on. When we showed up for our bus the next morning we were suprised not to find a huge bus waiting for us but a taxi driver with a pony tail and dragon ball z decals on his buick lesaber. Apparantly he was to drive us over the border to the next town in peru where we would catch a bus to puno. The drive went well enough and we passed into peru with no problems. However our taxi driver did disapear with our passports for several lengthy periods of time which made us a little uncomfortable. The second we stepped out of our taxi in the bus terminal in peru a man yelling james and joel told us to grab our bags and run. apparantly we only had 10 minutes to get on our bus that didnt even leave from the terminal but some other spot accross town. We ran and jumped into another taxi and started weaving through traffic accross town. When we got to the other bus terminal our bus was gone. The man who was rushing us around town would not settle for defeat. he got us back in the taxi and told the driver to chase the bus down outside of town. about 5 km later we caught the bus going up a steep hill just out of town. our helper guy waved the bus down and we got on. once on the bus we realized that things worked a little different in peru. there were people everywhere and half of them seemed to have the plauge. they were hacking and throwing up into grocery bags. we soon realized that this bus ride was not a mere 4 hour jaunt into the mountains. Puno was over 400km away through winding mountain roads. the roads we were on were like nothing ive seen before. at one point we were driving through a blizzard going over a 15000 ft pass. starting the day at sea level jim and i were both suffering from the alitutde change. gaining 15000 ft in 4 hours is no joke. at one point all i could do was close my eyes and take deep breaths to not pass out. After 10 hours of winding mountains roads, children throwing up in bags, one stop to fix the front bumber, and countless others so vendors could jump on the bus to sell us jello we finaly made it puno. So far it has been great here. both jim and i currently outfitting ourselves in full alpaca jump suits.

Colorado, cougers, myth busting and goose hunting

Where do I start? Let’s start with Myth #1: Vail is the second best ski area in North America behind Whistler. Truth be told: Vail sucks a fat one. It is not a skier’s mountain. It is flat, doesn't get much snow and if you are more than an advanced intermediate, it is a total bore; kind of like skiing a big bunny hill. But, if you like fake people that look like they have killed off a whole regions mink population for one coat, you are in heaven. Myth #2: People from Colorado have all these ski areas and are great skiers. Truth: I have never seen more terrible skiers in one place. Granted there are always a few diamonds in the rough, but shit, these people are all show and talk and no go. Myth #3: Vail is the Cougar capital. TRUE! I have a goose hunting date with a 38 year old divorced cougar with 3 pups. She owns a huge spread on the New Mexico border and I have an all expenses paid trip to hunt migratory birds and pheasant later in the week. The river that runs through the property is also famous for its fly fishing. I'm trying to find some time off of work as this could be the best adventure/story to date. I'll keep you updated. So here is the overall verdict on Colorado. There is great skiing if you go to Telluride, Crested Butte, or Silverton. Everything else blows. The people talk skiing and biking just like Montana folks, they are a little bit more put together, but unfortunately they suck ass once they get on skis. Colorado is cool as long as you know where to go. Stay out of the cities and the I-70 corridor and you will have a lot of fun. I'll keep everyone posted on the Cougar if the trip materializes.

Dale over and out

The Grey Wolf

I had my first Grey Wolf sighting on Saturday. As we rolled out for the Shoot Out the group of about 60 riders were attacked by the Grey Wolf. He describes his riding style as, "short and powerful." He was dressed just like he is in the picture and was riding his custom 12lb bike. He only rides the flats and will take a bus up the hill to his house. He has no need for water because he only drinks milk and coffee. His persona could easily be replicated by Pippo in the future. Just picture it Pippo attacking the Hell Ride group in Missoula.
The Shoot Out itself was super fun. There were a bunch of strong riders and the pace was pretty quick. The ride ends with a short uphill sprint. I finished with the lead group in a pack sprint. The Grey Wolf was then spotted at the U-district Starbucks sipping coffee. His legend lives on!

The desert

Its not really that the atacama desert is hot that makes it so intense. The temprature only really gets up to 85 degrees in the dead of summer. Its that at an altitude of over 9,000 ft in the valley it feels like you are only inches from the sun wherever you go. Even in the mornings when it is only 60 degrees you can feel the sun just pounding you relentlesly. The desert is flanked to the north and east by the andes mountains with countless peakes over 18,000 feet. The Atacama desert is also huge and there is litterly nothing out there except for a few copper mines and small oaisis towns. One of these towns is San Pedro de Atacama where me and Jim have been for the last few days. Its only a town of about 2000 people but dont let that fool you. San Pedro is the biggest tourist trap that we have been to so far. Every buisness in town is either selling crafts, excursions, or overpriced food. Its not only the food that is overpriced here. Everything is at least twice as expensive as anywhere else in chile and there is no way to find low budget stuff because the town is so small. Once you get passed the fact that your getting ripped off the place is pretty cool. There are a ton of cool things to see and do. One of these things is sandboarding which is basicly what is sounds like. you strap a snowboard on and ride down some big sand dunes. It was pretty fun except when you crash and get sand in ever crevice of your body. Our guide was actually pretty helpful eventhough he was super hung over and kept talking about how a girl busted her grill when she was drunk and he had to take care of her. The other cool thing about San Pedro is that we came during carnival week. Im not really sure what that means but random parades with marching bands and whatnot break out randomly. one passed our hostel last night at about 1 am.

The March North

Our march north continued with a stop in La Serena. I call it a march north becuase our real motivation is to get to peru and check out machu pichu, lake titicaca, and a smaller lake that jim told me about named lake poo poo (i dont konw if that one realy exists). However instead of taking a rediculous 2 day bus ride we have been breaking up the trip into small sections which is nice becuase you get to see alot more that way. La Serena has ended up being a nice touristy beach town. It has a nice 2 or so mile beach and all the ammenitys that tourists love such as horse rides on the beach which jim got really excited about.

I would have definatly been more excited about the beach too if i didnt get a insane sun burn in vina del mar a couple days ago. I took my shirt off at the beach and lay there for an hour but was to tired to put suntan lotion on. That night my stomach was a nice shade of hot pink. I guess thats what i get for trying to get golden when there is absolutley zero ozone layer. Another thing about staying in towns for a few days at a time is that it produces what we call street urchin days. We usually try to get the latest bus rides we can to the next town so we can just sleep all night on the bus. However when we have to be out of the hostel at 10am we are left with like 12 or so hours to just walk around the town with our huge backpacks like street urchins. There are some perks to this as we get to see alot of funny things like this llama.

and not to be outdone street preformers like this guy. His act in particular was not very original as i have seen this act in almost every city we have been in. However i have never seen someone spin as fast as this guy.

Valpo

Im becoming a sleep ninja. When I first got here all i could thing about was getting a comfortable sleep and not being woken up by infants crying or an uncomfortable bed. I can now sleep in almost any situation. Last nite i passed out for pretty much the whole night on a cramped bus then got a couple more hours of shut eye in a hostel while small children were running around screaming. Unfortunatley Jim has not aquired the same sleep skills and i dont think has slept more than 5 minutes in the last 30 hours. Today also marks the first day of the entire trip that we havent had immaculate sunny skies. The skies over Valporaiso are a dim gray but that has done nothing to diminish my excitement for the town. This place is beauitufl and consists of steep cobbled streets with all sorts of multi colered archetechture. Another great part about the city is that it is absolutley bustling. The downtown area feels like the center of some metropolitan and wordly city yet the population of Valpo is only 260,000. The downside to this is that things are pricey. My sandwich cost 7 dollars at lunch today. I cant complain to much though becuase i did see a tabloid newspaper where the front page is about a women with four breasts and around the corner was a bronze cowboy. I kept waiting for him to do something cool but he was playing with a digital camera or something.