Biden's from Scranton, PA, I made a funny tshirt about it.

Biden's from Scranton, 'nuff said. by gurupundit
Design a personalized t-shirt On zazzle.com

NEED SOME CONTEXT? check out the scranton party video

Lima

Arrived in Lima yesterday from Cusco. Its a city of 8 million, one of the largest desert cities, although I dont quite understand how this is a desert right next to the Pacific Ocean. I am staying in Miraflores, which is the ONLY district in Limas 25-50 or so districts (people have given me different estimates) that anyone has reccomended within Peru or without. The parque kennedy square is littered with american fast food restaurants, pizza hut, macdonalds, KFC (where I posted up for dunch) in addition to malls, joyerias, and decently large crowds of people. I hired the hostels airport pickup service (US $15) to get to my hostel safely as friends had warned me of taxi scams and the general unsafeness of the 20 km between the airport and the affluent beachside district of Miraflores. At the airport the taxi driver picked up another passenger, which was unexpected, apparantly he knew her from before, an elderly Korean woman who spoke fluent spanish, japanese, among other languages. She mentioned that she had lived in New Jersey, but now lived in Chile and was visiting friends in Lima, her children had also entered the diaspora to other spanish speaking countries for school and work. mundo pequeno. After having some difficulty negotiating a few speed bumps (es. rompe muelle) we dropped her off and the drive and I had some conversations about expressiones idomaticas e.g. black sheep.

The hostel is like a fortress or barracks, thick concrete walls with barbed wire on top, sparse, but ample common areas, two tvs with lots of pirated dvds, table tennis, kitchen, etc. my room is one of three new portables constructed from wood slats, good construction, but not well sound proofed so I mustve woke up 6 or 7 times last nite from the sounds of big rigs rolling down the road, cars honking (remember that developing world honking etiquette is quite different from the US, I dont know about europe yet). In cusco it was dogs barking and bombas por la virgen carmen that woke me up every morning, here its sheer traffic.

Last nite after two Francas, a new Peruvian light light pale ale I hadnt seen on my travels till now, we went bowling at larcomar with some guys from the hostel. Well first we went to a bowling alley near the miraflores central square which was really an oversized pool hall with mini bolwing lanes of which only 2 were fully functional... we decided to head to the swankier larcomar mall on the coast and ecnountered lots of revelers and the first movie theater Ive seen so far in latin america, larcomar is a spitting image of an american mall, something like 3rd street promenade in santa monica. of course the bowling alley was black lit for cosmic bowl and the food was overpriced, so I went hungry.

The franca beers are large at a whopping 700 ml and only cost 3 soles each at the hostel! thats just a shade over a dollar for each beer... which opens up a new topic of culture and costs of different lodging options in Peru, maybe Ill devote a few lines to how I think it adds up in a subsequent post

hasta manana

Jon's Wedding in Yucay, Boda en Valle Segrada!

I'm at the Casona de Yucay hotel's internet lounge, this place is beautiful. It's right at the feet of many imposing sacred valley mountains which sometimes have gaps between them that reveal even taller more majestic snow capped cordillera mountains further in the distance. We just had our clothes pressed and since I woke up this morning I've picked up a pair of maroon dress shoes at the market in Urubamba (a bigger city north of Yucay) for the equivalent of $16 US, I probably should have got them for $10 but he'd asked for $20 so I don't feel too bad, yet. At the request of Jon's mother who's alergies were acting up due to smoke in the air Jon and I walked down the dusty main thoroughfare of this little town over to the compound of a local farmer who was burning a pile of wood and some crops, he invited us in and although I speak very little spanish I understood the whole conversation. They liked the quiet feel of Yucay, they'd lived in Cusco before, come back for fresh fruit on the trees if we had the chance, sure they'd put out the fire but the water didn't come back on until 9AM (it was 8:30). We offered them 10 soles for their kindness, the elderly farmer, Cecilio, kept saying I was bonito, hmm instead of guapo, and that he was very excited to see foreigners and that he loved diversity, we're all brothers he said. His wife Augusta was equally cordial and they invited us to stroll around the small compound, but we had to return to hotel.

At the pharmacia in Urubamba, I learned that you can't get pesudophederine without a prescription, you can get pretty much ANYTHING else at a Peruvian Botica... crazy international meth schemes...

The road from Cusco to Urubamba was quite smooth and the van that brought us here had great shock absorbers, very much UNLIKE my experiences on shitty inter state highways in India. More on the uncanny resemblence between Peru and India later... it's not just that there are buddhists and Hare Kirshna's here... or that Curry is a popualar dish in Cusco restaurants...

The wedding is in about an hour so I'm off to get ready.

First Week in Peru

Well, I´m finally writing again. Here are my key takeaways. Peru is a neat country with too much natural beauty and fascinating pre-colonial history. The colonial architecture in Cusco is awesome and the narrow, cobble stone streets of the artisan and tourist quarter of Cusco, known as San Blas, while they wind me every time I walk up to my hostal, are extremely pleasant. The first day we spent around the city center known as the Plaza De Armas, I felt pretty out of it due to the high altitude here (nearly 11,000ft). At first I was worried about water on the brain or the lungs, but towards the end of the day (last Wednesday) I was feeling much better and think I've acclimated to the altitude OK. On Thursday we climbed to an even higher altitude (12,566ft) when we took a bus to the south of Peru, Puno City on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The maximum altitude we've hit so far is around 14,000 ft! When you're that close to the sky the sun, moon, and clouds take on a different meaning. I can only imagine how things are above 20k on the snowy mountains we've seen along the way.

Here's another takeaway. Bolivia is not a tourist friendly country for Americans. It's also not too safe. But it's natural beauty is unparralled. More on Bolivia later.

A few other takeaways: 1)cell phone plans are expensive here, as expensive as $80 for 450 minutes, however, you only pay for the calls you make and txt messages are free, stupid USA nickle and diming for both receiving and sending calls and texts!! 2) You have to pay for your liqour and get a receipt (at the caja) before presenting it to the bar tender who then takes a long time to mix your drink 3) There's an indian restaurant in peru which claims to be the only curry house in Peru run by real Indians, I spoke with the owner and she said she had know idea how they ended up in Peru, it's really not part of the Indian diaspora's destination list...

I'm finally hitting up the Sacred Valley (lots of Incan Ruins) and Machu Picchu tomorrow thru Thursday.

Peru: Ante-Trip Scribbles

I'm embarking on my journey to Peru later this morning. Starting with a 6:30AM flight from Oakland. Roughly 26 hours later (non-timezone-adjusted) I'll bee in Cusco, and in the heart of the Incan Sacred Valley, very close to Machu Picchu. I began preparing for this trip by purchasing a ticket in late June, quite an early commitment for my usual tastes, but my friend Jon's wedding was far too compelling. Yes, the wedding is in Peru! But after purchasing the ticket my preparation largely halted, impeded by the usual San Francisco revelry and hot and cold summer weather. Preperations resumed more intensly over this past week and really I should be sleeping now, but I just wanted to get something written down here to kick things off. I must say I'm pretty excited about the trip, but also rather incredulous and therefore a bit nervous; it'll hit me when I get there. See, I haven't been out of the country for over 5 years, so international travel, viz. travel to a country outside of Asia where I do NOT have relatives, is quite a foreign concept to me. But I hope that will all change and that a travel bug (and not a mosquito carrying Dengue fever) will bite me and set me off on a course of international trips that I'll find fulfilling.

I've done little critical reading on Peru, however, I've purchased two small spanish language books to help me revive the Spanish I learned in Mrs. McGuire's class back in high school. I've also been doing a bit of internet reading to augment the Lonely Planet guide I plan to devour during my full day+ of travel and layovers (in Miami/Lima). Notably, I've found that Peru's most recent ex-president, no not the corruption-embroiled nihon-octagenarian Fujimori, but rather Alejandro Toledo, is a Stanford Alum (2 masters, PhD, gave the '03 commencement speech) who loves soccer and was back on "the farm" and living like a normal penninsulite as recently as mid 2007. Also notable is the discovery that a few hostels, roads, and other features of the Peruvian city, Cusco, have the name Amaru. Tupac Amaru, I recently learned from wikipedia, was the last of the line of Incan Kings pitted against the Spanish colonial presence in Peru. There's also a character who shares his name from the 1700's, who lead some type of resistence, but I don't know much about the latter Tupac yet. This brings me to the third and final Tupac, Tupac Amaru Shakur who was apparantly named after the second Tupac I mentioned...

Needless to say I will be collecting as many Tupac Amaru photos & trinkets as possible... but I didn't really intend to digress in such a crass way, it's just an interesting connection. OK, time to get at least 1 hour of sleep! Finally, congratulations to Jon and Guili, whose wedding I'll be attending August 16th in Yucay. And to those of you who read this post and read the one's to come, I hope you enjoy my travel-log... stardate... engage...