We´re in Huaraz now, and I´m feeling a lot better. I was so nervous for the bus ride here, but it was fine. And the bus was a million times nicer than the one we took two nights before. There was a difference in ticket price of about a dollar and the first one was three hours late, extremly uncomfortable (I swear I was sitting on a metal rod), had no bathroom (as we covered already) and stoped every 15 minutes to pick up more people, chickens, potato sacks and God knows what else. The seccond one had seats that reclined half way to the floor, a bathroom and made no extra stops and was therefor also on time. So yeah, even though we´re trying to do this cheap... sometimes that little extra money takes you a long ways, and it´s so worth it.

Tomorrow we´re leaving for a 4 days trekking trip. Should be fun, even though I´m not exactly the most outdoorsy person, I´m very excited for this one. Dylan kind of wanted to sign up for an 8 days one... which he could have, I would have been happy hanging out in Huaraz. But we don´t really have enough time to be here that long, and when the guide showed us pictures from the hike we´re about to do, it looked really sweet and I think Dylan is pretty pumped for this as well. Also, we didn´t know this till just a few hours ago, but Torunn and Travis (the couple we met in Mancora) are signed up for the same trip and will be in our group. So that´s even better.

Today we went up to a glacier in a national park about a 3 hour drive from here. It was cool. I was very glad I spent about a $30 on a rain jacket yesterday since it was hailing, windy and freezing cold up there. The altitude was 5400 m at the highest part we climped up to and I swear I have never been so out of breath just slowly walking uphill.... the altitude really gets to you. Me and Dylan both had massive head aches and felt kind of iffy, but we still finished the climb faster than the rest of the group =) and the whole day was well worth the spectacular view and the amazing scenery.

Right now we´re just hanging out at the hostel. I´m waiting for the manager to come back to unlock the room where they have their book exchange. I´ve been dying for some new reading material. Dylan is still waiting for "the best English book ever" to get good. He´s persistent, you´ve got to hand it to him. I´ve would have given up a long time ago.

no hot water in jail

We went to bed at 7:30 last night and when I woke up at pretty much that exact same time this morning, it was because the bathroom was calling my name.... So, nope. No signs of improvments on the stomach situation. After a cold shower (there´s no hot water when you´re in jail) we headed out to breakfast, I ordered tea and ate some saltines, figured that would be easy on the system.... but not easy enough, appearantly.
No we´re checking amazon.com for something to buy ourselves for a wedding present since we have a $100 gift certificate to spend. I want a blender. Dylan wants to watch espn.com instead so maybe I will just get the blender.

I am so not in a travel kind of mood right now. When you´re not feeling well, you want to just stay in (your own) bed, watch TV, eat familiar foods and take pepto.... Not rush around a new city, have to panic when there´s no bathroom in sight and argue with people in foreign languages about how much taxis are. It will be better. Hopefully soon. But right now, I wish I was home.

you can´t run from the runs, but run for the bus

It´s my turn to have the upset stomach now, and I´ve got it bad. The bus ride here to Trujillo was horrible, 11 hours, no bathroom on the bus and I was in constant misery. I had to make the bus stop to let me out three times and one time they left without me. I came out of the bathroom just in time to see the bus pull out and figured that with no money, no phone and very limited language skills, I did not want to be left alone in a random Peru-town at 1 am. So I started running.... and ran next to the bus for a while before Dylan (on the inside) could finally convinse the driver to stop and let me back on. And after that sprint, it didn´t take long before I had to go again....

Yeah, it sucks. We went here with Torunn and Travis, a Norweigan-Australian couple we met in Mancora and headed out to the Monchu ruins with them today, but I could only finish half the tour before I had to go hang out in the baños again, so in case I feel better we´ll do the rest of the temples tomorrow, otherwise Dylan will have to go on his own.

There has also been a slight change in our travel plans. It turns out the tickets we bought to fly from Lima to Santiago were in fact never bought at all. The airline company tryed to call Dylan´s cell phone in the US to have him confirm that we actually wanted them, and when they couldn´t get a hold of us, they just cancelled them. But in a way, that works out alright since we were going to have two weeks in Santiago to kill before the wedding, now we might just to southern Peru and parts of Bolivia before Santiago instead. Right now just the thought of getting on another bus makes me want to crawl underneath the covers and hide.... but we already have the tickets to tomorrow´s night bus so all I can do is hope my stomach gets more cooperative and that this bus has a toilet.
The fact that we´re staying in a hostel, described by the guide book in the following way "if you have ever visitied Alcatraz and found it cozy and appealing, this place is for you" also makes it easier to leave and less temting to crawl underneath the covers.

time to leave the beach

Thursday afternoon here in Mancora beach and we just bought our bus tickets, leaving tonight on a 8 hour bus ride to check out some ruins and stuff in Trujillo. Life on the beach has been a nice break but I´m getting really sick of sand everywhere and Dylan is getting really sun burned, so it seems like a good time to move on.

I started this day with yoga by the pool with this guy John, who´s a surf instructor/yoga guru from Hawaii. It was definitly better than the yoga I did in China (since I could understand what the instructor was saying) but I don´t know that yoga is quite my thing still. I just hate that there so much time devoted to focusing on your inner core and spiritual strength... I must not have a lot of that or it´s just really well hidden, because my mind just wanders and I think about breakfast, what I need to buy in the city and places we are going next. But my back liked it after carrying my backpack around.

Yesterday when we walked on the beach I saw this huge, black thing floating in the water just a few meters from shore. First I thought it was a rock but it turned out to be dead sea lion. The thing was huge and just bopping up and down in the waves. When it came closer we saw that someone had cut the head off (appearantly the teeth are worth money or something) but the rest of the body was just left there, intestines and stuff coming out of the neck. Pretty gross. There´s also quite a lot of dead birds and other animals lying around on the beach and voltures and crabs feeding on them. The circle of life.

spf 45

We finally made it to Peru after a border crossing I will definitly call the worst one yet. It was just set up to rip tourists off it seemed like. You get to Peru, oh but this is not where imigration is, you have to go get your passport stamped, no busses go there.....here, get in my taxi... and the most frustrating part was that everyone seemed to be in on it. From the cab driver to the money exchange-guy to the border officers.... no busses, no banks, no other option then going with just your services...? Yeah, right. But what is a gringo to do? We did the walk away a couple of times and managed to get the original price down to about a third of what they first wanted, but I still feel like we were ripped off pretty good.

Now we´re in Mancora, nothern Peru, right on the beach. It´s really nice here, very much surf capital of Peru and very touristy. This also means it´s kind of pricy. A million restaurants but no grocery stores or cheap street food. But it´s the off season and not too busy and it´s good to finally be at sea level and in the sun. The people at the hostel are also really cool, a girl from Norway, some Dutch people and some nice (but somewhat questionable) Estonians mixed with the usual Germans, Americans and Aussies. No Swedes yet, though.

Dylan wants to give surfing another shot, I guess enough time has passed since his last attempt in the Philippines, for him to forget how sore he was the next day and how hard it was. I, on the other hand, may be too much of a wuss to even try it, we´ll see. Either way, that will be a project for tomorrow, today´s agenda is full of getting back to the hostel, jumping on the trampoline in the pool and playing beach volley ball. Oh, and trying to catch the sunset, as I missed it yesterday. It´s a tough life.

Not always honey under the moon

Yesterday was another long day on the bus to get from Baños to Cuenca where we are now. It sucked too because we thought it would only be 4 hours but ended up being 8. It was also the most expensive ticket we have had to buy yet on this trip.
Also, I don´t know what Dylan did to piss Montesuma off, but the God of digestion is not happy with my dear husband so he has to pay a lot of long, frequent visits to the bathroom to pay for his sins. Because of that and the fact that it´s Sunday so Cuenca is pretty much all closed today, we haven´t decided yet if we are going to head out of here tomorrow and go to Peru or stay one more day.
I´m not a fan of the hotel we are staying at here either, it´s the cheapest yet.... but I much prefer sleeping in a clean dorm at a hostel with English speaking staff, a tv-room, a bathroom with toilet paper and towels than getting a private room with none of the above. I was in a really crappy mood this morning and was almost ready to just book a ticket home, but live music for breakfast (and the fact that I don´t even know where I would go) helped.

But yeah, this is no honey moon that´s for sure. In Baños we had a night that was almost a romantic dinner date. We went out to eat and since there was nobody else in the restaurant and we ended up ordering dessert and spending more than we planned on, when we left, we agreed to count it as a romatic dinner for two and eat only street food and crackers the next day.
We get to see and experience a lot of cool stuff and I know I´ll look back at this and be greatful we did it, but some days I really can´t wait to get to Chile and unpack our bags.

It was me Pinto and Hugo...

..and Valeria, Hugo´s horse, but she has little to do with the story.

So when I showed up at the horse renting place, much as I had expected, it was only me who had signed up for riding. My guide, Hugo was a nice older man who smelled of sweat and cigaretts and spoke absolutly no English. He did speak though, a lot. Only, I did not understand a lot. But I had signed up and payed for 3 hours of horse back riding and that was what I was set on doing. The first 2 hours and 45 minutes were great. Pinto, my horse was a nice old man just like Hugo and slowly and quietly took me up the volcano. Every once in a while Hugo would yell at Pinto to speed up and smack his butt, but Pinto was not having it and just looked at Hugo like "hey, when you´re not on my back you can´t tell me what to do" and I didn´t mind the not so rapido tiempo. I figured horses are smart animals and Pinto probably knew I was not a cowgirl and adjusted the speed acordingly.

When we got to the top of the path, we got off the horses and hiked a little ways further up. Hugo told me the volcano errupted two years ago. He told me A LOT of other stuff too, but that´s pretty much all I got. Then we drank water out of a spring with natural gas. That was really cool, I´ve never seen anything like that before. It was just like a little creak but the water was bubbling and when we drank with our hands it tasted just like bottled mineral water.

Then we headed back and had we only stuck to the same track we took up, I think everything would have been fine. But Hugo wanted to treat me to a little something extra. Pinto did not. Almost back in the city, we went up a really steep dirt trail filled with a bunch of rocks. I guess the view from the top was supposed to be good. But Pinto decided not to be a nice but rather grumpy old man and didn´t want to go. He started throwing his head back and forth and tried to bite my hands. I got major Guatemala flashbacks, which is last time I was on a horse and got bucked off, and got off before he could throw me off. Hugo felt super bad and convinced me to get back on. Not once, not twice but five times. But horses are stubborn animals and Pinto said no. Even to Hugo. So finally I road Valeria back to their barn while Hugo walked Pinto, calling him a lot of Spanish names that I think were not so nice....

Back in Baños, me and Dylan (who had a great time water rafting and now wants to be a professional white water rafting guide) went to the hot springs and now it´s pouring down rain and we are using the internet at a place that has Skype so Dylan could make some phone calls. I think we are spending tomorrow here in Baños as well, probably renting bikes or something inexpensive like that.

Even though we´re not looking for jobs before Chile, it´s nice to see that many places are looking for volunteers here. That could be a good way to spend time without spending money and we might look into that later. I think it would also be a good way to actually pick up some Spanish. We are getting by ok, Dylan is so excited he knows more Spanish already than he did Chinese when leaving China, but that does not mean much. I really want to learn it better, but it´s hard when all you have is a dictionary. (The dictionary is great though, thanks Mariah!)

Baños is the Yangshou of Ecuador. Very touristy, every other building is either a hostel, a restaurant or an agency for outdoor activites. Oh, or selling hand crafted goods, of course. But it´s still a cool place and today we are going to try the outdoors... Dylan already left for his rafting trip a little while ago and I have another 20 minutes till I have to go meet my horse and my guide. Later today we plan on hitting the hot springs.

As we got on the bus in Quito yesterday a police man walked through the bus before take off and told us we could not have our stuff in on the shelves over our heads since the vendors walking through the bus so easily could steal it. So we put it on the floor and when we got to Baños the bag was cut open and Dylan´s head lamp stolen. Good thing they didn´t get the money or the camera... But now we need to find a new bag. It´s anoying for sure, but I still feel lucky since they could have taken so much more. And now we now to be even more careful about where we put our stuff.

riots

Today as we walked up to the massive (well, one of them) church here in Quito, an American guy came up to us and asked if we knew what was going on with the riots. We didn´t understand what he was talking about but when he pointed down the street we saw a bunch of police with tear gas, helmets and huge shields. Dylan got super excited and after looking at the church real fast we had to go and try to get as close to the action as possible. More police and military were blocking of a lot of streets and the ones we could walk on had piles of burning coal on them and finally we came close enough to see peole behind fences throwing huge rocks at the police. We walked into a little corner store and bought water and asked the owner if he knew what was going on.. "Problemos" he said. Wise man. Still curious we got a little closer, Dylan was like a kid on Christmas, but then the police started fireing tear gas and we got scared and got the hell out of there.

Now were sitting at an internet cafe a good distance from the riots and from what we have been able to find out I guess the president here just dissolved the supreme court.... that´s why people are pissed.

But other than that, Quito is still a pretty cool place. However, I´m excited to head to Baños tomorrow. From what we hear they have some of the best outdoor stuff in Ecuador, I´m hoping to do some horse back riding and Dylan wants to go rafting. It will hopefully also be cheaper, Quito is somewhat pricy.
Now I´m going to go look for batteries for our alarm clock so we can get up in time mañana.

in Quito

The Ecuadorian capital is a much cleaner and more organized city than Bogota, by the look of it. Although, to be fair we did get here a whole 30 minutes ago so the first appearnce may be decieving.... but I don´t think so. We just dropped our stuff of at our hostel and is about to go explore but first Dylan wanted to see if his old friend from Moscow, Juan Carlos who lives here in Quito had gotten back to him. It would definitly be fun to have someone local show you the city.

It seems we live right next to a bull fighting ring. I doubt they have fights on Mondays.. but Dylan for some reason really wants to see a bull fight so at one point, even if it won´t be here, we might have to go witness one.

Yesterday we did some more hiking around Otavala and both mangaed to get pretty sun burned. Dylan also got to play some soccer on a dirt field on the foot of a volcano.... Gringo Tinto did well, but here is not quite the star he was in China. He´s still a giant though, as am I. South American ladies are pretty short... and I feel really tall walking around here. Tall and red, SPF 45 came out of the bag for the first time today.

In Ecuador

We spent another long day riding busses yesterday. Leaving at 7 am and comming in, four busses later, at 9pm we were both pretty sick of the Colombian and Ecuadorian mountain roads. This time it was worse for Dylan though, he handled the night bus way better than me but almost puked like ten times yesterday. And when we finally made it off the last bus he left me with all our bags standing alone in the street while he ran for the closest bathroom. Empanadas and tostadas may be delicious but not always easy on the system.

But anyways, now we´re in Otavalo, famous for their huge Saturday markets, which we experienced this morning. We both got pants, hats, bracelets and warm wool shirts. I got a blouse, Dylan got roasted pig. It was a good time.

Now we´re staying at a pretty remote hostel about 4 km up in the mountains from the city. It´s pretty up there, but there is no internet or anything so this will be the last I write before we go to Quito.
So far I like South America a lot, although I really feel like I need to learn some Spanish... but even with as little as we know now, it´s really pretty easy to get around. Using a dictionary, body language and common sense, you can get a long way. I actually had to pull out the dictionary at the border passing yesterday since the officer had never heard of Sweden and looked at me like I was claiming to be from Neverland.

And people here (in general) are honest, friendly and not as fascinated with you as they were in Asia. Today we walked through a field where some kids were watching the cows and they just yelled "Hey Gringos!!" to us and waived... not like in Asia, that´s for sure.

egg farts and hair cuts

Rather than going to the national park, which was the initional plan but didn´t work out since we couldn´t find enough people fo fill a jeep, today we went out to some local hot springs and went swiming in water so sulfuric that we still smell like egg farts. It was nice though, really remote out in the djungle and we had the place pretty much to ourselves.
Then tonight Dylan decided he really needed a hair cut so I went with him to the salon and got a pedicure while waiting. For that, a hair cut, a pedi and tip, we paid 6 dollars. Not a bad deal.
Tomorrow we´ll get up early and start riding buses again. We hope to cross the border into Ecuador on saturday. We could probaly get there late tomorrow night but it´s supposed to be way safer to cross during the day, so we´ll just do that.

Say cheese

So, the bus ride last night was better than the Philipines but worse than China. 13 hours and we lost so much in elevation that I had fluids come out of my ears. It was pretty rough, we came in at 6 this morning and went straight to a hostel, got a room and slept till 11.

What I`ve kind of learned is that I think small towns are way better than big cities, cheaper, safer and easier to get around. Popayan has a very colonial feel to it with a bunch of old churches and cool buildings and statues. I think Dylan is trying to post some pics on his facebook. This afternoon we spent just walking around, taking pictures and eating street food. I was happy to find that pineapple is only half as much here as in Bogota and they also have empanadas with just cheese. What more could you ask for?

A successful operation

Last night when we had dinner, the hostel staff posted notes informing us that they'd be fumigating all the rooms, starting at 8 am the next morning and that everyone would have to leave and not use their rooms or the kitchen (since the food could then be toxic) until noon. So we set the alarm for 7,30.
At 6 this morning there's a knock on the door.. Sorry, can you wake up please! We will fumigate now, in ten minutos.
We stumble out to find all the other guests in the same confused, newly awake state. The German dude said it best... -well, this seems a successful operation.

So now we're all sitting in the common room, tired, cold and hungry. I don't know when they'll let us back in the rooms again. I was hoping to take a shower today since we'll be on a night bus to Popayan tonight, but that may not happen.

Me and Dylan went for a walk a while ago, to kill time and also look for baby powder since he has a stinking problem going on in his sneakers, only to find that hardly any stores are open at 7 am. This seems odd since they all close at sunset, which is like 6 pm. Bogota is definitely something of a ghost town and even though we had job interviews set up today we have decided to get out of here.

So next stop is Popayan that is a much smaller town next to a national park. We'll probably travel down to Peru after that and October 5th we'll fly to Chile. Should be fun, I'm very excited about Chile.
Now I'm going to take a deep breath and run into our room and try to get my book out of there cause I feel like my internet time is long over due.

people are so strange

We left Musicology, the hostel we were staying at, this morning and moved down the street to one where we can get our own room for just three dollars more. I don't have a problem with dorms, at least not all of them, but this one really sucked. It was like time didn't exist in there, or maybe everyone else staying there were from a different time zone, cause people would be asleep in there all during the day so you'd have to tip toe around and feel bad about making any sound or turning the lights on. And then they'd be out all night, dropping in at various times in the a.m making it really hard to sleep.

There was also this kid from Israel who really rubbed me the wrong way. He had the much annoying I'm so cool you don't even understand^attitude found among many travellers. Every thing about him was just too long... His hair was too long, he talked about himself for too long, he used the internet for much too long, he took too long showers and too long poops that left a smell that lingered in my bedroom for too long.

Some people are just so strange. Right now I'm sitting next to a guy with head phones on who keeps laughing out loud and clapping his hands while looking at porn.. At a hostel.

But yeah, Dylan's birthday today and I think we are going to go have Cuban food tonight. The restaurant the ladies at Musicology recomended seemed better, but since we moved out of there I don't want to go back and ask for directions. Good thing he's not too picky about his food, my dearest.

Saturday night

My Saturday started pretty much the moment I went to bed last night as it was past midnight and it took me forever to fall asleep due to a number of circumstances.... I was freezing even though I slept with all my clothes on, I was right by the window facing the alley and all the drunk people walking home or to the bar, I was on the top bunk worried about falling down and finally people kept walking in and out of our dorm. But when I finally decided it was time for the day to kick off the sun was out and I was ready to see Bogota and give it a fare chance. The fact that I had to wash myself in cold water with a hand soap that smelled of old fruit punch did not discourage me, two crossiants and a cup of Colombian coffee later I was ready to go.

And, Bogota seems pretty cool and I think we are going to give it at least a month or so. We will probably look for another place to stay once our three nights at this place are over, but it seems like that should not be too hard. Hopefully we will pick up some Spanish too... it seems way easier than Chinese, although I keep saying little stupid frases in Chinese now when I try to say excuse me, sorry, I want, I dont like... and stuff like that.

Tomorrow is Sunday, all museums are appearantly free on Sundays so we will go check out a few of those and then I am taking Dylan out for his birthday, the girls at the hostel recomended a place for that occation so hopefully that will be nice.

But right now some warmer clothes are definitly on the top of my list, once the sun is gone, it gets freaking cold here. The hostel owner said Bogota has perpetual spring.

In Bogota

We just landed in Bogota, Colombia. I hate flying in at night, it seems like no matter how hard you try to turn off the flashing tourist sign on your forehead, you end up spending a rediculous amount of money on a taxi to your hostel and by the time you get there you dont even care anymore, you are just happy to be alive.

We are staying at a pretty cheap hostel that seems to hold some pretty nice people. But we are staying in bunk beds in different rooms and I am a little afraid I am going to fall out of my top bunk and land on the floor.... that would hurt and be embarassing.

Hopefylly the city looks a little less sketchy in day light and we can find some reliable people to help us figure stuff out. We dont know if we are going to try and stay here or move on but we have three nights at this hostel and then we will see.

Our last night in New York we finally got to see David, which was nice. He also introduced us to some of his friends who are actually from Colombia and we got a lot of phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Although I think most of them are to people who dont speak English so I guess it might be a while before we can call them.

so not productive

Yesterday was intense. Today is not. So far I managed to go out and buy bagels and coffee, bring it back and have breakfast. That's about it, oh and we're doing laundry. That's sort of productive I guess.... but yeah, we're extremely partied out. Dylan is laying flat on the bed with a zombieish look on his face, Mariah is asleep in the living room and Eric wants us to meet him for drinks later, which right now sounds like the most horrible idea ever.

Tomorrow we're off to Bogata. We reserved a hostel for three nights, hopefully that will be enough time to decide if we like it well enough to look for something a little more permanent or if we want to move on to another city or even country. I just hope it's somewhat safe. 

Mariah's b-day

We're getting ready for an intense day of celebration, Mariah is turning 25 today. The day is supposed to start off in Brooklyn with pizza and beer and then we're walking across the Brooklyn bridge (I'm pretty excited about that) to continue on Manhattan.

Last night we went to a Trivia thing at this sport's bar with Eric and Keith, which was a lot of fun. We also ended up winning the whole thing which added to the whole experience.

But yeah, two days left in the US now. Friday we're going to Colombia and it doesn't matter how many times I tell myself (or other people) that, it still doesn't seem real. It will all be good though, I'm not that worried.

I feel a little bad we haven't done hardly any touristy stuff since we got here. We went to the Sony space center yesterday, that's about it. And I wandered around Times Square for a few hours monday afternoon while Dylan was napping. But since we did most of it before, it's kind of nice to enjoy the city with people who actually live here and can take you around without a map.