Nazca part II and Cuzco

So we made it to Nazca where we checked into a hostel our book said was "new and modern" and didn't quite agree with the book. It did have hot water though, so we paid for two nights. We walked around the town for a little, there was a lot of street vendors that liked to charge gringos more for things and the little plaza was pretty. There was a group of little indigenous boys there from some school somewhere that would dance to the violin player they had with them, they were cute, especially the little ones that tried to keep up with the older boys. We ate lunch at a restaurant that was, for lack of a better word, 'authentic'. We had two courses there, the first being chicken soup. There were a few good pieces of chicken in mine before I got down to what I am going to assume was the neck, and decided to keep to the broth and pasta pieces. John was enjoying his until a little foot floated to the top of his bowl. We finished the soup at that point. The main course was normal enough, no strange animal parts there.
After lunch we talked to a travel guy about taking a plane over the Nazca lines and decided to do it the next day. We also looked up bus tickets to go to Cuzco, since aside from the lines, there was nothing really to do in Nazca. Then we found out that since the bus ride is 12-13 hrs long, they start at night. So I went back into the hostel to see if we could get our money back for the second night and the little woman (see picture) told me "No, the money's already in the bank." Never mind the fact that it was Sunday, and no bank is open on Sunday... We decided it was a good thing though, since we could stay in the hostel until 9:00pm when we had to go to the bus station and not have to lug our packs around with us.
For dinner that night we went to another little place that wasn't as "authentic," but the food was pretty blah.
The next morning at 8 we left for the airstrip where we were told it would take 1/2 an hour but really took more like an hour before we got in the little Cesna. It was us, a Japanese kid and the pilot. We got up in the air and did circles, lots of tight little circles, around all 13 figures drawn in the desert. I took lots of pictures, but we still can't upload them, sorry. So anyway, all of the circles were to the right, since that was the best side to be taking pictures from, which also happened to be my side of the plane. After about the 7th figure and 25th circle, I started to feel slightly nauseated. It didn't get much better, at one point I really thought I was going to pass out. I toughed it out and we finally had just finished the last figure and circle when I got sick. I think the pilot may have had a heart attack because he didn't realize initially that I had a bag and was not in fact revisiting my breakfast all over his backseat. Once we got to the ground, the travel guy asked if I had gotten sick and said that he could tell because I was so pale. Thanks...
So we spend the rest of the day recovering (well, me recovering, John resting) in the hotel room. We decided to go to the market to get some food and water for the trip and when we get back to the hotel, John runs to the bathroom and has a talk with Montezuma. So we rest some more, and drink the yoghurt with probiotics in it to help our systems. Then starts to have chills and aches all over, so I told him to get in the shower and it'll make him feel better, which it did 'til he got out of the shower and the other part of Montezuma's revenge took hold. All two hours before we had to leave for the bus. I was really worried about the poor kid and whether we would make it or not to the bus, so I gave him some Cipro and water and went to find some Gatorade or something like that. I went the pharmacy and came back with some electrolyte stuff that they told me John had to drink over 24 hours. I got back to the hotel and gave John the bottle and told him what they'd told me and he takes one sip of it and complains about how bad the stuff takes, nevermind the fact that he would be way worse off if he dehydrated (that's how I knew this wasn't life threatening). So after he assured me that he would be ok, we got a taxi to the bus station where we didn't leave until an hour after we were scheduled, an hour and a half after we had gotten there. I guess the bus had been running late from Lima or something. We get our packs on the bus and board and find that the bus smells more or less like used kitty litter. We (or I at least) got to eat dinner and the seats did recline sustantially, so that was nice. The ride was interesting to say the least. The man in front of us was polite enough to use a Breathe-Right strip to keep his snoring down to that of a lawn mower, and the kid a couple rows back only puked 5 times that night (thrice more the next morning). The road had been 'just repaved,' yet I wasn't sure that the bus still had tires after 6-7 hrs. Poor John suffered quietly in his seat, he only ate ibuprofen, water and the stuff he despised the whole time, so he wouldn't have to use the bathroom. :( After 14 very, very, very curvy hrs (we had to stop a couple of times for herds of cows and sheep and the occasional llama to clear the road), we finally arrived in Cuzco.
Cuzco is beautiful. Cobblestone streets, flowery plaza, beautiful churches, and nice cool weather too! Our hostel is my favorite we have stayed in yet, painted bright colors with a pretty terrace, and it supports two children groups. We saw churches today, we may see ruins tomorrow, depends how John feels (he is much improved by the way).
Miss and love you all!
<3
Lauren

Pisco, Paracas, and Nazca

Hello from Southern Peru!

For those of you reading/listening to the news, we were not involved in that bus wreck in Northern Peru, so you can stop worrying. For the rest of you, don´t start worrying, we´re fine. We decided to leave Lima and go south to Pisco, as recommended by one of the girls in the South American Explorers Club, so we got on the bus and watched bad American movies and listened to the vendor-lady on the bus "Gaseosa, sandwiches, gaseosa; gaseosa, galletas, gaseosa" (Soda, sandwiches, soda; soda, cookies, soda) for three hours. All without air-conditioning (although it was advertised). When we arrived in Pisco, we noticed that the girl at the club neglected to tell us that the entire little town was in ruins from an earthquake in 2007. It looked like it had been bombed; everyone lived in temporary housing (unless they weren´t hit that bad or were able to afford to rebuild quickly), and the "houses" were about 10´x10´. Our hostel on the other hand was really nice, it had a little pool, running hot water, TVs and ping pong and pool tables. It was a strange and saddening experience, because it looked like the town used to be really nice. So after one night we decided to move to a different town 15 minutes away by the beach called Paracas. It was cute, full of beach goers (I got pretty sunburned, I think the anti-malarials are making me more sesitive to the sun) and we took a boat tour of the Ballesta Islands, a few islands where millions of birds live and produce guano, a profitable agriculture aid we know as bird poop. There´s also a bunch of sea lions that live there as well. We only stayed there one night cause after the islands there wasn´t much else to see, the beaches were pretty dirty. We took a bus this morning to Nazca, where there are lots of giant animals and geometric crop circles things in the hills. We plan on getting on a little plane to see them tomorrow. Then we plan on going to Cusco, just to see the city, not to see Machu Piccchu yet.
Hope everyone is doing well, I miss and love you!
<3
Lauren

LIMA!!!

YAY!! Finally in Lima! It´s an interesting mix of Spain and Mexico. We´re staying in Miraflores, one of the nicer neighborhoods, near the beach. The weather here is nice and sunny (John got a little sunburned today) but pretty humid/smoggy. We plan on leaving here tomorrow for Pisco, a little city to the south of Lima for hopefully cleaner beaches and a little more quiet and relaxation.
Today we took a taxi to the center of Lima and watched the changing of the guards at the Governor´s palace. We then looked at the monestary of San Francisco where just about every important piece of religious furniture was coated in gold. It also had a catacomb with about 10,000 peoples-worth of bones. The graves in one section were 4 meters deep (about 13 feet deep) and there were supposedly 4 levels of graves! That´s a lot of bones. After that we went to a nearby restaurant where we ate lunch off the "menu economico." I had potatoes in cream sauce, John had a stuffed avocado, and we both had the arroz con pollo and a drink for s/6 or $2. We ate about 5 hours ago and I´m still not hungry!
John and I tried to up load some pictures today, but the connection or the computer or maybe both were a little too slow and would never really complete the uploading. Maybe we´ll have better luck next time.
Miss and love you all!
<3
Lauren