Us on the River

...now with pictures!

Bruised and bitten, but having a great time

Hola!

We just got back from our river rafting trip and had a great time on
the rapids. On the first day we drove 5 hours on a dirt road through
the mountains. That was the bumpiest ride of my life. Dramamine
works great, by the way. When we finally got to the river we had
about 2 hours of training through very small rapids and then made
camp. The sun goes down about 5 or 5:30, so first we put up our tents
and then made a fire. The guides made us a wonderful dinner and we
chatted with our new friends. 12 total on the tour.

The second day was the long day. Before the day started, Mark got
stung by a scorpion that was hiding in his wetsuit. They aren't
poisonous, but the rest of us checked our wetsuits very well before
putting them on. We rode though everything from class 0 to class 4
rapids. There were some very technical spots, but we were having a
blast. The water was cold, but we were wearing wetsuits, helmets, and
a splash jacket, so we did not feel that cold. There was one class 5
and one class 6 that we had to walk while the guides took the boats
through. It was a 15 minute walk each through rocks and we were very
glad we bought new closed toe river sandals. On the class 6, the
cargo boat flipped (even though our guide said it was to heavy to ever
flip) and it took 4 of them to flip it back over. At camp that night,
the tents were wet as they were not in dry bags. Also, we found out
that our dry bag had a leak in the middle as our stuff was a bit wet
at the end of the day. We made camp early after 6 hours on the river.
We were sore, but happy. We dried everything out, had a wonderful
dinner and fire.

The third day was rather short at only 3 hours on the river, but we
got to ride though a class 5 rapid which was awesome. We did some
body rafting through a class 2 rapid which was an adrenaline rush,
too. The river is very different at water level and the whole way
down consisted of gulp air, hold breath for wave, gulp air, hold
breath for wave. =) We ended at our tour company's little house and
after lunch took a much shorter 2 hour bus ride back to Cusco.

Tomorrow we are off to the jungle for 4 days. Hasta luego.

Viva Peru

July 24 and July 25 were really one day for us. One day of travel and
recouping from the travel.

Thursday, our flight finally took off at 7pm (2.5 hours late) and the
flight was uneventful after that. We arrived in Lima around 2am or
so, and had no problems getting our luggage and getting through
immigration and customs. To get out of customs we had to press a
button that randomly gave either a red light or green light. Everyone
was getting green, but when Mark pressed the button, we got red. That
meant we had to get our luggage xrayed, but that only delayed us about
20 seconds or so. =)

Our flight to Cusco was at 5am, so we went to the LAN counter and
checked our bags. Then we headed for the gate. We had a variety of
food on Continental, and we were mostly just tired, but not really
hungry. Just before security we paid our airport tax. The airport
was not very busy at that time in the morning, but we only had 2 hours
so we decided to go right to the gate. At the gate, everyone had a
group of three chairs and were laid out sleeping. We read our books
and Joanna dozed, but starting around 3:30, they had a wake up call
and started announcing flights.

At boarding time we were surprised to see that we went outside and
into a bus that drove us to the plane. We slept the whole way to
Cusco. We woke up briefly for an airline breakfast and to see the
sunrise over the Andean mountains.

We arrived in Cusco at about 6:30 and got our bags with no problems.
Our Ollantaytambo hotel sent us a taxi. We found the driver with my
name on his sign and he told us it would be a 1 hour and 30 minute
drive to Ollantaytambo. Amazingly, we mostly stayed awake for the
ride.

The drive through Cusco was an eye opening experience. There are some
very poor areas. The houses were made out of clay bricks. Also,
there were hundreds of scruffy dogs wandering the streets. They moved
about just like people. Plenty of people were out and about as well
as it was the start of the work day. The streets appeared to have
very little by way of traffic control, and the drivers just did as
they pleased. We saw some pigs roaming the streets as well.

Once we were out of Cusco, the drive was mostly down to the valley.
The streets were bumpy, but not as bad as I had expected. The area is
beautiful with the mountains surrounding the valley and a very rural
setting of homes. We passed through the town of Urubamba before
getting to Ollantaytambo. In Ollantaytambo, the streets are
cobblestones and we arrived at our hostal quickly. We are staying at
Home Sweet Home. We arrived around 8:30 and the very nice owner
(Luis) told us that people were leaving, but a room was not quite
ready. We were ready to sleep, but we went out to the courtyard and
sat with others as they ate breakfast. We got some good travel tips
and then went to see when the room would be ready. Not yet.

So, we took a walk to town. The center of town was less than 5
minutes away. We were having no issues with altitude, but we took it
slow. As it turns out, we arrived for a celebration in the street. I
think all the kids of the area were dressed up in their school
uniforms and marching around the circle while an announcer spoke in
spanish. We saw many groups of kids in various little marching bands
with bugles, snare drums, and base drums. The kids were age 6 and up
to maybe 12 or 14. It wasn't very i n tune, but neat to watch. I
wished I had brought my camera, but oh well.

We came back to the hotel to find that we needed to wait one more
hour. Finally, though, our room was ready and we promptly fell right
to sleep. We slept for about 3 hours and woke at 2:30p much more
refreshed. We packed our bag and headed for the Ollantaytambo ruins
just down the street.

The ruins were very neat, but we didn't have a guide, so we could only
listen in on other people's guides. There were two types of Inca
stone. One was the grand no mortar type stone which you always hear
about. That was built only for the temple. Then the terraces were
built out of smaller stones with mortar as that was easier for the
very extensive terraces. The views were gorgeous and it was very
peaceful.

Afterwards we had dinner at Heart Café recommended by Luis. Joanna
felt a little sick and didn't eat much, but the carbonation in the
Inka Kola cleared it up. Mark had a typical Peruvian meal of soup, a
chicken and rice dish, and then dessert. Luis came by the restaurant
to wait tables and he told us we looked much better than we had in the
morning. That's good to hear.

We were already tired even though we finished at 7p, so we headed back
to shower and sleep. Mark found out that our water heater fuse was
dead and we were informed that there were no available extra fuses in
Ollantaytambo . So, we were told to take a really quick shower in a
neighboring empty room, but to keep it clean, because the occupants
were expected any minute.Two quick, and not that warm showers later,
we are here typing our journal and headed to bed.

It's been a relaxing day and tomorrow will have more activities.
Thanks for reading.

more delays

Our flight is coming from Denver, but due to weather, it was delayed
and routed to Austin. I'm not sure what weather was rerouting our
flight, but our flight is in Austin. So we are delayed now until 6pm.
Our flight was supposed to take off at 4pm.

We are in luck, though, because I planned for delays, and we have no
connecting flight to get to Lima. When we get to Lima we are going to
spend the night in the airport before our 5am flight, so we still have
plenty of time.

I heard someone next to me say, good thing we didn't book that
midnight jungle flight. =) good indeed.

We found an outlet and we are sitting here internetting on our phones
while they are plugged into the wall. I got a portable and foldable
keyboard for mine, and it is working out great!

by the time i finished this post we are now delayed to 6:35.

At the airport

We are at the airport and awaiting our late flight. Check in took about 5 minutes including security. =) I guess it's a nice slow day to fly.

Our flight has been delayed by 30 minutes. Everything else is great. The Houston rain has stopped and we are watching the planes come in.

Small update today. Hope everyone has a good day.

Packing for Peru

Sunday night we packed up our bags. We are trying to bring as little as possible. Our challenges with packing light include the need for cold weather gear (We will be seeing temperatures from 30 up to 80) and Joanna's need for camera gear.

See here to see everything we were planning to bring:



Then, I took out about 4kg worth of stuff (yes, some camera gear was pulled) and organized the items into packing cubes. The row shown on the back part of the bed is carryon/wearing. The stuff in the front is to be checked.



Finally, the items went into the duffel bags and the backpack.



There are still some last minute toiletries, paperwork, and the like, but the preliminary weights are 8kg and 9kg for the duffel bags. Then about 5kg for the carryon. There will be one more carryon backpack, and I imagine that we'll have probably 4kg per backpack in the end.

I'm very excited for our trip to start. =) Countdown to Thursday has begun.

New haircut

In preparation for the trip, I cut my hair short again. She did a
pretty good job of cutting my hair the way it wanted to go. Now it'll
be easy to maintain while rafting, hiking, and jungle-ing. I'm also
very excited that my hair is not in my eyes when I run around.

New hiking stick

Hiking sticks that are 6 feet long are hard to take on planes. We've done it before, but it was delayed as oversize luggage by a day. At that time, there was no problem with a day delay, but this time we'd like to avoid that. So, Mark came up with a way to "break" the hiking stick into 3 parts so we can pack it in our luggage.

Rather than do this to his real hiking stick, we started by purchasing a wooden rod at Home Depot. The 6 foot long piece was cut into 3 sections as shown here:



Then, Mark simply drilled holes in the ends, attached a threaded rod into one side, and voila, we had a wood hiking stick that can be taken apart and put back together.