Hanging at the hostel and a day-trip to Pisac

So much for saying that I felt absolutely great up in sky-high Cuzco. After walking around the Plaza de San Blas (San Blas being the neighborhood we're staying in) and Plaza de las armas, I started to feel really queasy around lunch time. Although my stomach had been feeling off the night before, I took that as a reaction to an early morning flight and a strange sleep schedule. By one, I felt like I was heading downhill quick so I hopped a cab to the hostel and chilled out there, thinking that the altitude was really starting to get to me. Instead of walking around the city somemore and making it to dinner, I just slept for a while, hung out all day and read a lot. My roommates not feeling up to much that night either decided to stay in after dinner as well. One plus to all this was that we found an awesome telenovela called Doña Bárbara, a bitter jungle cowboy girl who is seeking revenge on men who did her wrong when she was younger. Awesome.

Luckily, I woke up this morning feeling tons better. Turns out it wasn't so much the altitude that was getting to me but the anti-altitude pills I had been taking (I stopped taking them yesterday). Feeling rejuvinated, we decided to hed to a small city called Pisac, only about a 4o minute and 60 cent bus ride from Cuzco. The city's located in a valley in the Andes and had amazing views, including terrace style farming along the mountain sides. Although there are some ruins there that we may go back for, we spent our day at their big Sunday market with tons of fresh food and mostly artisan crafts. Don't worry, I got some souveniors for those who requested.

At about 4 we made our way back to Cuzco and relaxed a bit before heading out to get some dinner, making first this pitstop at an internet cafe. The rest of the plans for tonight are to grab a bite to eat, grab a Cusqueña or two (the beer, not people), and get into bed relatively early. We've got a crack-of-dawn wake up waiting for us to go visit Machu Picchu.

Chicago > NYC > Lima

Here starts the sharing of my adventures to a South American autum. The trip as planned consists of three major stops with day trips up for consideration: Lima and Cuzco in Peru and then Buenos Aires in Argentina. Although it is now the 29th of May, my trip starting the morning of the 26th, having a bit of a late start while trying to squeeze as much of Lima out as I could in two days. To catch everyone up to speed, I'll backtrack a bit and detail my over-extended trek to Lima and the days spent there. Since I forgot a camera chord, pics will have to come later.

Arriving at O'Hare at 11 am on Tuesday mornign, I was psyched to see that my trip was going to be smooth sailings, figuring leaving ORD on time in the middle of the afternoon would be the largest aerial feat to overcome. Little did I know that Lima is a very tricky airport to enter. Arriving at JFK airport in New York, I had hours to kill before my friends arrived for our 11:30 overnight flight. When Rachel arrived around 8:45, we were checked in and everything was good to go. Sara, however, arrived barely 20 minutes later and received the bad news: our flight had been delayed by over 3 HOURS, boarding at 2:45 am. Thank you, giant layer of fog that covers Lima.

Despite being slightly strung out due to a strange sleep schedule, we arrived just fine in Lima around 10ish that morning. Our hostel, located in the boho, seaside neighborhood Barranco, let us check in early and store our bags. We hed out and wandered the streets our of barrio which was known for its abundance of affordable restaurants and nightlife for young travelers and limeños alike. Perfect match for us. For the first day, we found some lunch and ate plenty of Peruvian dishes like causa (mashed potato dish layered with a filling close to a veggie or chicken salad) and different variations of arroz and fish or chicken.

Later that night we decided that the best way to see a city of nearly 8 million in two days was to start off with a 4 hour bus tour. We took it at night, taking us all around the city including a stop at a slightly ridiculous fountain park that had really intense water, laser, and epic music show. After that we cruised around the colonial Centro Lima, ritzy San Isidro and Miraflores, and many other neighborhoods ranging from museum villages to places where your average limeño calls home.

Coming back to the hostel, we figured that the first night was our only real chance to see what Lima nightlife has to offer, our departure flight taking off on the third morning at 5:40 am. We went to our room to take a break, and there we met our hostelmates, two girls from Ireland and the UK who were looking to get a tast of Barranco at night as well. Around midnight we headed out, grabbed some olive and cheese sandwhiches for a late dinner, went to a few bars, drank some pisco sours (something similar to a Peruvian brandy margarita with egg white foam, much tastier than my description sounds), and danced till about 5 am with some more friends we made a long the way. Overall, very successful night out in Lima.

The second day we woke up bright and early (for my schedule at least) and made our way to the old center of Lima. We visited the Plaza de Armas which exists in most old Spanish colonial cities, walked around plenty of pedestrian walkways and through many other impressive plazas. After a late lunch and realizing that all major museums were closed for the winter for rennovation, we headed back to Barranco and checked out the Pacific Ocean view. Suprisingly, despite it being in the low 60s and perpetually foggy, people were still making there way out to surf. We decided to finish the night off by eating at what Rachel's foody friend and Frommer's labeled the "best restaurant in Lima," Astrid y Gaston, our one splurge dinner planned for the trip. I decided to OD on seafood and got easily the best ceviche (raw seafood cocktail "cooked" by the acids in the lime juice) I ever had... scallops, clams, mussels, oysters, fish, mmmm. Overly satisfied, we headed back to our hostel to try and get a couple hours of sleep before our 3 am wake up for our flight to Cuzco.

Well, here I am now in the middle of our first day in the old Inca capital. The city is gorgeous, filled with cobbelstone strets and ean incredibly scenic view from our hilltop hostel with a room on the top floor. At a height of 11,000 feet with Sara having once experienced altitude sickness and told us her horror story, we've decided to make it an incredibly easy day, catching up on sleep and then walking around the main Plaza de las Armas (yep it has one too), and drinking plenty of coca tea. Besides feeling slightly short of breath, I feel great and am incredibly excited for the days to come.

I'll do my best to make it to some internet cafes and keep everyone updated, and definitly will hunt out an adapter to upload some photos.

Hasta luego.