Cusco, the city that takes your breath away....literally

At over 10,000 feet a flight of stairs can stop you dead in your tracks gasping. Aside from it´s lack of oxygen it has an abundance of colonial architecture and old world charm. It´s central Plaza de Armas is abustle during the day with international tourists and ubiquitous street vendors hawking everything from fingerpuppets to 5-day tours. Walking around at night in large third world cities is usually a no no except in tightly controlled tourist areas. Cusco is no exception but here the plazas and quaint cobbled back streets practically beg to be strolled in the evening before or after a great dinner in one of a thousand restaurants. Insert a llama for a donkey and the souvenirs are much the same as you would find in Mexico or Central America. The town is long accustomed to tourists to prices for crafts are higher than you would expect to pay in less visited areas. Cusco is a gateway to the Andes and many of Peru´s treasures, most notably the mountain redoubt of the Incas, Machupicchu. Cusco has several significant Inca ruins, some just a short hike into the surrounding hills and others incorporated into more modern structures. It has been the custom of the Spanish to build their cathedrals on top of existing Inca temples, this not before looting their culture to melt down the gold. The result being a sort of religious, cultural layer cake. It is truly thought provoking to see the Dominican houses of worship built on top of the distinctive masonry of the Incas. I didn´t say they were good thoughts. Hell, the Incas were no angels themselves. I guess every dog has it´s day. As an aside, the word dominican is derived from domini and canus, the guard dogs of god. I don´t know about you but it makes me want to carry pepper spray. Mark Next entry...photos of the ruins around Cuscoo

Sidetracked in South America

At 11:30 pm on a Saturday night we headed to the Bahia bus station for the first leg of our journey. At the bus station we met our friend Leni, a German student who was going home after months doing six months of community organizing in Bahia. Together we we shook rattled and rolled for six hours to Guayaquil, Ecuador. Our heads all bobbed in unison as we unsuccessfully tried to sleep through the cold and bumpy night. The next morning at an ungodly hour (around 4am) we were dumped off the bus bleary-eyed into the deserted urban blight of the Guayaquil bus station. The only other place open at such an uncivilized hour was the airport. Coffee did nothing to penetrate the fugue we were in and when we stretched out on the benches in the quieter end of the terminal we were abruptly told to sit up straight and that there would be no sleeping in their pretty new airport. Their sense of decorum was lost on the weary travelers we were. Soon the sun rose and we said goodbye to our friend( she actually had a reason to be at the aiport as she was off to the Galapagos), and lit out for the next leg of our journey. The twenty-four hour bus ride to Lima was punctuated by a border crossing and a few well lit beach towns along the coast. Liz at one point snapped a photo from inside the bus in the general direction of a Peruvian border policemen and was surprised when he boarded the bus to find out who the offender was. He seemed more bored than upset and forgot the whole thing as soon as his cell phone rang. The rest of the trip was third world subsistance farming, half finished buildings and then the most bleak and desolate moonscape that made the Arizona desert look like old growth rainforest. Lima was one of those schizophrenic cities where abject poverty snuggles with glitzy oceanside malls. Mud huts perched over garbage dumps ring the inner sanctum while the more well-heeled play tennis and drink Starbucks. Don´t think for a minute we didn´t enjoy that coffee after going a year without in the land of Nescafe. In a restaurant in a mall built into the side of a high bluff overlooking the Pacific, we were delighted by the para-penters soaring at eye-level. Their slip turns looked out of control but I suspected they were happy as condors up there.

The view from Miraflores in Lima

Bahia & Miguelito

I arrived back in Ecuador on September 26th and about a week later Mark and I were on the road once again this time to Peru. We did however have time in Bahia for me to get unpacked, host a really fun dinner party, do some walking and biking on the beach and see the famous Miguelito. Miguelito is a 100-year-old Galapagos turtle who lives at the local elementary school in Bahia de Caraquez (in case you haven´t been keeping up, this is where Scholarship is living for now). He is amazing and more amazing is the intense and genuine welcome we recieved from the kids and the administration. They are very proud or their resident and we even got to see the pictures from his 100th b-day party. Below, pictures from the beach (yes it´s pretty much always cloudy there and we love it after the sunny summer we had), as well as several of Miguelito and some of the cutest little boys in town. And for the record...the teacher made me sit on Miguelito. She practicaly held me down and then Mark convinced me he is like a coffee table once he is lying down, so no harm done I guess. That is all for now. Miss you all.
xo Liz

The rest of the photos from my trip home.....

Here are more photos from my trip to the states. I hope you all think it´s fun to be on the website. I sure like seeing someone else besides us all the time. I am actually writing this from Peru as we are on our way to Machu Piccu in the manana. Okay next blog..back to South America.

Below
1 with the girls at Richardsons....mmmmmm
2 liz and andie
3 keri and dan
4 my favorite new family..ames, kev and little aiden

Where Did September Go?

Seriously unless you are in my immediate family or one of the many people I visited while home this blog will seem uneventful. I left Mark in Ecuador for almost three weeks while I did a whirlwind tour of Wisconson, Minnesota and Phoenix. After living in such a small town it was a bit overwhleming at first, but I got right back into the swing of things and did lots of shopping and eating and general celebrating life during my visit. What was Mark doing you may ask? Well when we parted company in Quito he was on his way to Cotopaxi Volcano (18,000 ft. or so) to do some climbing. After that he made his way back to Bahia where Scholarship currently lives and did projects. I can say that it took him at least and hour to show me all he accomplished while I was at home. Don´t feel sorry for him though, I brought him 100 lbs worth of boat parts and pressies from the US. I know it was exactly 100 because I was still reshifting my baggage at Delta check in because that it the max they allow. Anyway it´s wonderful to be back home on Scholarship and Mark and I are leaving in the manana for a month long trip to Peru and perhaps Chile if we don´t get sick of strange beds too soon. Oh and I just got my first third world shot for yellow fever and Mark was filming..what gripping footage. Hasta Luego for now. Enjoy the pictures. You know who you are..... More photos in the next entry.

Otavalo

August and September have been extremely busy months for us. After we arrived in Ecuador we spent a few weeks getting settled and getting the engine repaired before we took our first long bus ride to Quito. After 9 hours on a bus (this time included climbing out of the bus window because the driver went in a ditch on a cliff) we arrived in the seedy Quito bus terminal at night, just in time to catch our next bus to Otavalo. Luckily after this long day we had reservation at a cute hotel with a very zen room (just a bed) and a bano social. Otavalo is a beautiful city and is best know for it huge Saturday market. You can buy everything here from Alpaca sweaters to Guinea pigs (for eating). We walked and walked and I shopped for days. At night, along with our friends from s/v Moonsong, we enjoyed the local folklorico music. More details later but here are a few pictures of our trip to Otavalo.

One of those places..

On the way to Ecuador from Costa Rica we stopped here. Isla Gamez, one of the most western islands of Panama. The sand was pristine white. The beach covered in coconuts that just begged to be chopped open with a macheti. We swam to shore and picked at the shells and smelled the wild orchids the color of vanilla ice cream. You would never know from this picture but it rained so hard I shampooed my hair on the deck. On the edge of the world where there is nothing but us that day. A kind of place everyone should experience at least once.