Greetings sports fans!
We find ourselves back in Lima for two days until Marc & I split for different adventures in separate parts of Peru. Yes, this dynamic duo will cease to double team the Peruvians..
We are back from Huarez and the Cordillera Blanca Mountains. This is the rainy season in Peru but somehow Marc & I imagined we would be exempt from bad weather. We weren’t. We stayed at a lodge much like the previous one with no electricity but the lodge was nestled beneath the largest mountain in Peru, Huascaran, at 22,000.’ You don’t go to this lodge for the amenities, you go for the view. In the span of three days, I saw this giant twice, for a few minutes each, due to it being overcast and rainy and that I don’t ever get out of bed in the morning.
It was usually sunny in the morning which was just plain trickery. We headed out to hike anyway. The first day we hiked into a mountain valley to see the second largest mountain, Hondoi, at 20,700’ which was stunning. Lots of blue glacier and tons of snow. I’ve never seen anything like it.
The second day we hiked up a massive mountain ridge with the idea that we would have a mind-blowing view of Huascaran. This is a great idea in theory, but allow me to paint the picture: Marc & I wheezed and panted, dragging ourselves up this ridge (stopping every few steps to recover or just sit down for a break so really this took hours) We got ¾ of the way up the ridge and then clouds came and surrounded us so that we could see only 50’ in front of us. Luckily then the rain came. We just sat down and ate an orange and rode it out. Only we didn’t ride it out. We called it & walked back down the ridge. I believe then we just drank heavily for the remainder of the day.
Yesterday we went to the “Smithsonian” of Lima, Peru, “The Museum Nacional,” only to find it completely closed due to renovation until 2009. We were very disappointed, to say the least. We went to a second museum, the Larco Museum, which housed “one of the largest ceramic collections to be found anywhere, a selection of gold & silver pieces, feathered textiles, and pre-columbian erotic pots..” (I copied that description out of the book because it’s far more eloquent than me saying we saw a bunch of perverted pots and some gold earrings.)
Our spanish is coming along nicely. We like to call it “caveman Spanish.” Marc does this thing where he walks up to someone with his nose buried in the Spanish phrasebook and starts to make this guttural noise, “Aaaaahhahahahahahah……” or “Oououoooooooooooo” as his segway, his “lead in” if you will.. It just plain scares people. He’s working on it.
While at the previous lodge we made friends with Tito & Luna. They are two young locals who cook for the lodge. They are saints. I say this because they were so patient as they rode through our caveman Spanish (we say things like, “Me like drink. You like drink?”) We sat at the counter as they cooked, and we had happy hour each night with them. It was a very special way to while away the hours during cold, rainy evenings again by candlelight.
So on Saturday Marc heads to Ariquipa, Peru to volunteer in an orphanage or community center, he waits to hear. Personally I hope he ends up in the orphanage, due to the fact that every child we’ve encountered in this country is enamored by Marc. (I picture him with three laughing children hanging off each arm.)
I head to Cusco, Peru, to volunteer in a public health clinic. I’m so excited for this, I’m sure I’ll have stories to share..
I’ll close with the llama. One day I paid .33 cents to be kissed by a cape wearing llama. This is the truth. I thought this wonderful Peruvian woman in the city square just wanted her llama to kiss me. Perhaps she thought I needed a kiss, a pick me up, if you will. Whatever, I let her Llama kiss me. Then she wanted money! She was a heckler, too, let me tell you.
Love to each of you!
Jessi
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Hello all,
Marc & I greet you from Huarez, the town from our previous blog, which we are using as base camp as we travel about the Cordillera Blancas. We have just returned from three days up in the mountains in a lodge called "The Way Inn" named for its prime location in a huge mountain range. At this lodge were were at 12,700'. It amused us that our lodge sat roughly 2,000' higher than Mt. Cleveland, the largest mtn. in Glacier.
We spent the first day hiking around a small mountain village trying to get acclimated. This was a great day, we got to see up close and personal the lives of the villagers working in their fields, women washing their clothes in streams, and the local ice cream man walking the cobblestone streets honking a bike horn carrying ice cream in a sack on his back.. Along this walk we had the pleasure of meeting a small eleven year old boy named Edgar who walked with us along our path, the same path he walked to and from school each day. We attempted to communicate and realized only after speaking with the lodge owner later that Edward spoke only the native language of the village, quechan.
We also met an elderly woman on our path who kept repeating the same phrase over and over that Marc & I were not understanding, to the point that she was yelling to us; it ended up being "what country are you from" while we thought she was warning us about bugs as she feverishly swatted & itched her legs..
The second day we hiked to an elevation roughly equal to the summit of Mt. Rainier, we reached 14,600'. It was a very dizzying, hard push with several stops to rest, and unfortunately almost all of this was done in the rain. All things said though, it was still a beautiful hike up to a waterfall.
The lodge itself was full of character. It was stone, with thatched roof. It had no electricity except for the 10 min. in the evening before dinner when the chef needed to use an electric appliance, so on came the generator. Our evening dinner, discussion and beer drinking were all done by candlelight, with a small fire in the fireplace.
One of the evenings we drank a few beers with two great guys from Holland. One had worked for Doctors Without Borders for several years, most recently returning from four months in Darfur. Late in the evening, we held up our glasses and toasted new experiences, friendship, and my dad's birthday. I told the men that I was sad that I didn't get to call my dad on his birthday, and they both, being about his age, reassured me that without a doubt, my dad knew I was thinking of him. Happy birthday, dad.
We now head back up into the mountains for a few days. We are headed to a lodge nestled between two giants-the largest mountain in Peru, Huascaran. This mtn is 22, 205' and the worlds highest tropical mountain. The other mountain, Huandoy Massif, is 20, 981. We will be doing some day hikes up there. We will come back with more amusing stories to share, I'm sure.
Hope each of you are well, we send our love!
Jess
Marc & I greet you from Huarez, the town from our previous blog, which we are using as base camp as we travel about the Cordillera Blancas. We have just returned from three days up in the mountains in a lodge called "The Way Inn" named for its prime location in a huge mountain range. At this lodge were were at 12,700'. It amused us that our lodge sat roughly 2,000' higher than Mt. Cleveland, the largest mtn. in Glacier.
We spent the first day hiking around a small mountain village trying to get acclimated. This was a great day, we got to see up close and personal the lives of the villagers working in their fields, women washing their clothes in streams, and the local ice cream man walking the cobblestone streets honking a bike horn carrying ice cream in a sack on his back.. Along this walk we had the pleasure of meeting a small eleven year old boy named Edgar who walked with us along our path, the same path he walked to and from school each day. We attempted to communicate and realized only after speaking with the lodge owner later that Edward spoke only the native language of the village, quechan.
We also met an elderly woman on our path who kept repeating the same phrase over and over that Marc & I were not understanding, to the point that she was yelling to us; it ended up being "what country are you from" while we thought she was warning us about bugs as she feverishly swatted & itched her legs..
The second day we hiked to an elevation roughly equal to the summit of Mt. Rainier, we reached 14,600'. It was a very dizzying, hard push with several stops to rest, and unfortunately almost all of this was done in the rain. All things said though, it was still a beautiful hike up to a waterfall.
The lodge itself was full of character. It was stone, with thatched roof. It had no electricity except for the 10 min. in the evening before dinner when the chef needed to use an electric appliance, so on came the generator. Our evening dinner, discussion and beer drinking were all done by candlelight, with a small fire in the fireplace.
One of the evenings we drank a few beers with two great guys from Holland. One had worked for Doctors Without Borders for several years, most recently returning from four months in Darfur. Late in the evening, we held up our glasses and toasted new experiences, friendship, and my dad's birthday. I told the men that I was sad that I didn't get to call my dad on his birthday, and they both, being about his age, reassured me that without a doubt, my dad knew I was thinking of him. Happy birthday, dad.
We now head back up into the mountains for a few days. We are headed to a lodge nestled between two giants-the largest mountain in Peru, Huascaran. This mtn is 22, 205' and the worlds highest tropical mountain. The other mountain, Huandoy Massif, is 20, 981. We will be doing some day hikes up there. We will come back with more amusing stories to share, I'm sure.
Hope each of you are well, we send our love!
Jess
Monday, October 20, 2008
Hi All!
My turn to write.. we left the bustling city of Lima on a tour bus headed north for Huarez, Peru, and the Cordillera Blanca. This is the second highest mountain range in the world, second only to the Himalayas. What you imagine when you read that sentence-what your mind paints for you-that's what this is. That's what surrounds us 360 degrees. The Rockies are but a distant memory!
So the 7 hr. bus ride here was surreal, a big bus on a small, windy mountain road where bus meets semi truck on hairpin curves and only the strongest survive! I breathe deep and chew my gum...(mom-totally kidding, that last part.) Anyway, all that said, we are safe and happy in the mountain city of Huarez, pop. 80,000.
Without a novel, it's hard to condense all of the adventures we've already had into a blog entry.
I will begin by humbly admitting that never in my life have I seen anything like the Lima we saw on our expensive tour bus exiting the city. Marc & I had the privlidge of staying in an area of the city called Miraflores. It was the "safe" part of the city. Needless to say, when we left the safety zone, my eyes were wide open and I was dumbfounded. I saw the city-the real Lima. The families, faces, people-the LIFE of Lima. The buildings were what the privlidged in the United States may refer to as squallor. Buildings were caked with the thick black residue of too much traffic and not enough rain, as the gray cloud of exhaust hung low in the air, making it hard to breathe. Dirt roads led in & out of neighborhoods with bars on every window and door. Women did their laundry in gutters along the highway, and lines of clothes of every color hung from lines on rooftops. I expected people to appear miserable! But that's just it-these people who live in these colorful buildings were happy, walking to the market, waiting for a bus, laughing and talking with friends & family. Marc & I were really moved.
We now find ourselves after a full day in Huarez thankful for seeing it and ready to move on. Today for the first time we witnessed the absence of the USDA; whole, plucked dead chickens, flies optional, strung up on clotheslines by their necks during mid day sun in markets ready to sell.
The people. I have seen Peruvian women with long, black braids and beautiful lines etched into their aged faces each line telling a different story. They wear fedora hats and beautiful full skirts, with shirts and shawls of every color of the rainbow. I will say too that so far it has been impossible for me to find a child in this country that is not beautiful. Thick black hair and huge brown eyes, each one I want to hold, but they all seem to be afraid, if not completely baffled by me. Marc, on the other hand, is another story. They look at with complete adoration and big smiles, laughter, the older children calling out to him, "hola!" They are so excited to see if this big one will talk. They are thrilled when he answers them. I should be so lucky.
Goodnight from Huarez,
Jess
My turn to write.. we left the bustling city of Lima on a tour bus headed north for Huarez, Peru, and the Cordillera Blanca. This is the second highest mountain range in the world, second only to the Himalayas. What you imagine when you read that sentence-what your mind paints for you-that's what this is. That's what surrounds us 360 degrees. The Rockies are but a distant memory!
So the 7 hr. bus ride here was surreal, a big bus on a small, windy mountain road where bus meets semi truck on hairpin curves and only the strongest survive! I breathe deep and chew my gum...(mom-totally kidding, that last part.) Anyway, all that said, we are safe and happy in the mountain city of Huarez, pop. 80,000.
Without a novel, it's hard to condense all of the adventures we've already had into a blog entry.
I will begin by humbly admitting that never in my life have I seen anything like the Lima we saw on our expensive tour bus exiting the city. Marc & I had the privlidge of staying in an area of the city called Miraflores. It was the "safe" part of the city. Needless to say, when we left the safety zone, my eyes were wide open and I was dumbfounded. I saw the city-the real Lima. The families, faces, people-the LIFE of Lima. The buildings were what the privlidged in the United States may refer to as squallor. Buildings were caked with the thick black residue of too much traffic and not enough rain, as the gray cloud of exhaust hung low in the air, making it hard to breathe. Dirt roads led in & out of neighborhoods with bars on every window and door. Women did their laundry in gutters along the highway, and lines of clothes of every color hung from lines on rooftops. I expected people to appear miserable! But that's just it-these people who live in these colorful buildings were happy, walking to the market, waiting for a bus, laughing and talking with friends & family. Marc & I were really moved.
We now find ourselves after a full day in Huarez thankful for seeing it and ready to move on. Today for the first time we witnessed the absence of the USDA; whole, plucked dead chickens, flies optional, strung up on clotheslines by their necks during mid day sun in markets ready to sell.
The people. I have seen Peruvian women with long, black braids and beautiful lines etched into their aged faces each line telling a different story. They wear fedora hats and beautiful full skirts, with shirts and shawls of every color of the rainbow. I will say too that so far it has been impossible for me to find a child in this country that is not beautiful. Thick black hair and huge brown eyes, each one I want to hold, but they all seem to be afraid, if not completely baffled by me. Marc, on the other hand, is another story. They look at with complete adoration and big smiles, laughter, the older children calling out to him, "hola!" They are so excited to see if this big one will talk. They are thrilled when he answers them. I should be so lucky.
Goodnight from Huarez,
Jess
Saturday, October 18, 2008
big, bald and white
i am a really big, bald, white guy in a world of tiny tan people. today was the day i have been waiting for all my life. i was a very serious minority. we went to a religious holiday in downtown on a saturday in lima, and then to their china town. it was like the biggest concert that you have ever been to in you life, all full of peruvians was letting out at every moment of the day. people were absolutly everywhere and i was really big, bald and white. god love travel. all is well and we are headed to the mountains tomorrow..
much love to all,
marc and jess
much love to all,
marc and jess
Friday, October 17, 2008
a day in mireflores, lima
hey, hey.......hola
so, i got my bags and all is right with the world...
jess and i slept in and then woke up for our hostel breakfast which was butter and jam on hamburger buns with coffee.
took a long walk through an area called miriflores which is the neighborhood that we are staying in and one of the nicer parts of town. it is still absolutely mind blowingly nuts. really, i´ll take that back. at first it all seems so crazy but i think it is the just franticness of the people and the driving. run down strange store fronts, etc. after a little while it just becomes kind of normal. the craziness of the drivers really covers this city in a feeling of like mad max meets cheap 4 cylinder car. people do what ever the living hell they want to in the road. i think the only rule is no driving on the sidewalk. and i´d say in the right situation that would be fine too. keeping in mind that the area we are in is one of the richest and nicest-safest in lima and this is what i´ve seen. can´t imagine what the bad neighborhood drivers are like. there is 8 million people here and they all drive like nuts. it´s kinda great!!!!
add to that that 1 in 7 cars is a taxi. that helps the craziness.
anyway enough about driving.
we had pisco sours in a small little local place. found out that they have egg white in them. they are amazing. like a margarita with liquer made from grapes, about 4 other ingrediants and egg white. quite wonderful. sat with a peruvian woman who lives in paris who is visiting family.
the coast is right here in this area. the city is situated on top of cliff-bluffs over looking the ocean. beautiful. supposedly you are not supposed to go down the bluffs to the ocean cause it is kinda sketchy when you get off the beaten path. hooligans about, i suppose.
oh, i don´t know why this entertained me so but there was a guy standing on top of a fire truck with the hose in his hand and they just drove along the street and he watered the plants and grass with the fire truck. you know, how ever you get it done. right
luckily things are very inexpensive as a whole. we are on a super tight budget, but we figured we should live it up while we are in the city. we had a nice dinner of shrimp in a resteraunt that is built into the cliffs over looking the pacific. entirely above our budget and worlds above our budget if it was anywhere other than peru. nice.
we are going to hang another day in lima tomorrow and check out further downtown. we have a bus ride set up to go to a town called huaraz. it is about 8 hours from here and is at the base of the cordillera blanca. that means the white mountains. they are that, 20,000 ft mountains covered in glaciers. one of the highest areas in the andes mountain range. will be a comlete 180 from lima.
so, i´ll be back tomorrow for more details. off to bed. i hope everyone is good...
much love,
be well,
marc and jess
so, i got my bags and all is right with the world...
jess and i slept in and then woke up for our hostel breakfast which was butter and jam on hamburger buns with coffee.
took a long walk through an area called miriflores which is the neighborhood that we are staying in and one of the nicer parts of town. it is still absolutely mind blowingly nuts. really, i´ll take that back. at first it all seems so crazy but i think it is the just franticness of the people and the driving. run down strange store fronts, etc. after a little while it just becomes kind of normal. the craziness of the drivers really covers this city in a feeling of like mad max meets cheap 4 cylinder car. people do what ever the living hell they want to in the road. i think the only rule is no driving on the sidewalk. and i´d say in the right situation that would be fine too. keeping in mind that the area we are in is one of the richest and nicest-safest in lima and this is what i´ve seen. can´t imagine what the bad neighborhood drivers are like. there is 8 million people here and they all drive like nuts. it´s kinda great!!!!
add to that that 1 in 7 cars is a taxi. that helps the craziness.
anyway enough about driving.
we had pisco sours in a small little local place. found out that they have egg white in them. they are amazing. like a margarita with liquer made from grapes, about 4 other ingrediants and egg white. quite wonderful. sat with a peruvian woman who lives in paris who is visiting family.
the coast is right here in this area. the city is situated on top of cliff-bluffs over looking the ocean. beautiful. supposedly you are not supposed to go down the bluffs to the ocean cause it is kinda sketchy when you get off the beaten path. hooligans about, i suppose.
oh, i don´t know why this entertained me so but there was a guy standing on top of a fire truck with the hose in his hand and they just drove along the street and he watered the plants and grass with the fire truck. you know, how ever you get it done. right
luckily things are very inexpensive as a whole. we are on a super tight budget, but we figured we should live it up while we are in the city. we had a nice dinner of shrimp in a resteraunt that is built into the cliffs over looking the pacific. entirely above our budget and worlds above our budget if it was anywhere other than peru. nice.
we are going to hang another day in lima tomorrow and check out further downtown. we have a bus ride set up to go to a town called huaraz. it is about 8 hours from here and is at the base of the cordillera blanca. that means the white mountains. they are that, 20,000 ft mountains covered in glaciers. one of the highest areas in the andes mountain range. will be a comlete 180 from lima.
so, i´ll be back tomorrow for more details. off to bed. i hope everyone is good...
much love,
be well,
marc and jess
made it to lima
so, were here! i would have written last night but i could not figure out how to make the @ symbol to sign on to the blog. obviously i found it but now i can´t figure out how to make things capitalized....crazy south american keyboards..
so, all in all everything is good. i mean that fact is that jess and i are safe and at the hostel and in south america. aside from that i just finished having the absolutely worst set of flights, connections and scheduling of my life. it would make your eyes roll in the back of your head if i told the whole story. so as of right now my bags are lost...it would be better if i wrote this last night since i just got an email from my mom that said that the airline has found my backpack. so not as big of a deal now.
just don´t go with cheaptickets.com. while for most of you that would be pretty obvious, i overlooked the obviousness of that idea in july when i was purchasing my ticket...
anyway, lima is wild. we had a craziest cab ride of our lives. i was delayed by 17 hours and god love her, but jess was still in the airport waiting. so i´m sure she is the one with the entertaining stories, really. but the traffic is nuts. imagine 4 to 5 cars driving on a 2 lane road through town. cops would not know who to pull over first for reckless opertion in the states. it is absolutly no holds barred driving.
our hostel is nice, quiet and surrounded by barbed wire ;-)
we have been brain storming on what to do for the days while my baggage showed up, but now that it has been found, i´m not sure that we will stay in lima any longer than we have to. it´s cool in a life experience, craziness way. but i don´t hang out in gary, indian, east st. louis, or compton normally. i probably could find places in peru that i am more interested in than lima. but it is wonderfully nuts
off to try and say anything correctly in spanish.. maybe use a banyo or two....
be well,
marc and jess
so, all in all everything is good. i mean that fact is that jess and i are safe and at the hostel and in south america. aside from that i just finished having the absolutely worst set of flights, connections and scheduling of my life. it would make your eyes roll in the back of your head if i told the whole story. so as of right now my bags are lost...it would be better if i wrote this last night since i just got an email from my mom that said that the airline has found my backpack. so not as big of a deal now.
just don´t go with cheaptickets.com. while for most of you that would be pretty obvious, i overlooked the obviousness of that idea in july when i was purchasing my ticket...
anyway, lima is wild. we had a craziest cab ride of our lives. i was delayed by 17 hours and god love her, but jess was still in the airport waiting. so i´m sure she is the one with the entertaining stories, really. but the traffic is nuts. imagine 4 to 5 cars driving on a 2 lane road through town. cops would not know who to pull over first for reckless opertion in the states. it is absolutly no holds barred driving.
our hostel is nice, quiet and surrounded by barbed wire ;-)
we have been brain storming on what to do for the days while my baggage showed up, but now that it has been found, i´m not sure that we will stay in lima any longer than we have to. it´s cool in a life experience, craziness way. but i don´t hang out in gary, indian, east st. louis, or compton normally. i probably could find places in peru that i am more interested in than lima. but it is wonderfully nuts
off to try and say anything correctly in spanish.. maybe use a banyo or two....
be well,
marc and jess
Monday, October 13, 2008
the last few days....
So, welcome to MJTRAVELER.BLOGSPOT.COM
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's lower case, but I'm excited!
I wanted to get a picture on this blog before we left the country. It will get much more difficult to post pictures while we are away. It is much easier to write a short narritive about the day or week without having to mess with downloading pictures on a hostel/hotel computer. So, from the slight amount of pictures that I could find on my moms computer that had both of us in them...I select this fine photo from Slide Lake in Glacier National Park. She is going to kill me for posting this photo...but folks need at least one picture to see who we are...know?
Well it is late night on Monday the 13th of October. We leave early evening on the 15th, for Lima, Peru. What about 36 hours now that we leave in...Crazy..
We both have to soak up the wonderful moments with our family and friends cause sooner than we know we are going to be in another galaxy. So to the last few days..May they be great and may we not forget something important when packing...
till next time,
Marc
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's lower case, but I'm excited!
I wanted to get a picture on this blog before we left the country. It will get much more difficult to post pictures while we are away. It is much easier to write a short narritive about the day or week without having to mess with downloading pictures on a hostel/hotel computer. So, from the slight amount of pictures that I could find on my moms computer that had both of us in them...I select this fine photo from Slide Lake in Glacier National Park. She is going to kill me for posting this photo...but folks need at least one picture to see who we are...know?
Well it is late night on Monday the 13th of October. We leave early evening on the 15th, for Lima, Peru. What about 36 hours now that we leave in...Crazy..
We both have to soak up the wonderful moments with our family and friends cause sooner than we know we are going to be in another galaxy. So to the last few days..May they be great and may we not forget something important when packing...
till next time,
Marc
Thursday, October 9, 2008
First Entry
Hello,
Just set up the blog... MJTraveler was the first blog address that I could get to work...All the good ideas were already taken...Ain't that life for ya...
This is the blog that will chronicle the travels of Jessi and Marc. Headed to South America...Yeah!!!
Just set up the blog... MJTraveler was the first blog address that I could get to work...All the good ideas were already taken...Ain't that life for ya...
This is the blog that will chronicle the travels of Jessi and Marc. Headed to South America...Yeah!!!
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