A little ketchup.

Laziness always comes back to kick me in the butt when I try to write blog posts. I find it easier to keep my thoughts straight in list format, so I´ll go with that. Sorry if my thoughts seem to have no sequence or relevance. Here goes....

1. Food.... We discovered early on during our time in Cuzco that the ubiquitous set menu meals found at most restaurants generally tend to be cheap, but also disgusting. After a couple nights, we had explored enough to know where to get the good deals without sacrificing taste. I ate some of the best salads of my life and didn´t really mind that they weren´t really all that Peruvian.

2. Entertainment.....Our hotel room had a TV where we watched a lot of Law and Order in our down time. We also continued our tradition of finding excellent movies to watch on TV including You, Me, and Dupree (I think maybe I already mentioned that but it was so good that it deserves another nod) and Hitch, featuring Will Smith. Reeeal good.

3. Machu Picchu.... just as fucking awesome as you would expect. It´s breathtaking, especially at 6 AM. After a brief and groggy period (we woke up at 4:45) when we were convinced that we would be able to climb (almost entirely) vertically up a mountain to get to MP, we came to our senses, turned back, and shelled out $7 each for the bus. Best decision of our lives; however, despite getting there at 5:30, we got on bus #22 heading up the mountain and there were about 600 people in front of us. Once we arrived, we got in line for limited tickets to climb the coveted ¨Huana Picchu¨(the large peak that is often seen in teh background of pictures of MP). Unfortunately, the 800th ticket was given away to the man directly in front of us in line, so we admitted defeat and walked off to explore, not all that disappointed. I ended up feeling pretty sick that day, so I basically just layed down on the grass and took occasional glances up at the scenery to remind myself of where I was. Jamie did some manly man hikes, one of which was (according to a Peruvian guide) way more badass than that sissy Huana Picchu.

4. Shopping.... I actually wrote a post the other day about shopping and then didn´t have time to finish/post it. When I went back to read it, I realized it was basically one giant rant that made me sound like an angry whiner. Let me just say, the other day we went on a little daytrip to a town outside of Cuzco called Pisac that has a weekly Sunday morning. After about 20 minutes, I thought I was going to ring the necks of just about every overbearing Peruvian salesperson. It is nearly impossible to just look at things in markets here, and for someone who likes to shop in peace without being constantly solicited, Latin America is not the place to come. I was in no mood. Another thing, I know these people may hate their terrible jobs of trying to squeeze money out of obnoxious and often clueless foreigners, but don´t tell me a hat is ¨hecho de mano¨(made by hand) when I´ve seen 20 of the same exact hats at the last 20 vendors and everywhere else in Peru. Puh-lease. My mama didn´t raise no fool.

Also regarding shopping, Jamie is going somewhat buck wild with the Peruvian currency, the nuevo soles. At the Sunday market he bought not one but TWO sweaters - one alpaca and the other baby alpaca. A couple days earlier he also bought not one but TWO hats of identical style but different colors. Who am I to stop him?

5. Lima.... today we flew there. We´d heard some not-so-impressive stuff about it just being kind of a big city with little going on, but it´s not all bad. We´re staying in a section of the city that is right on the Pacific Ocean, and there is an American style mall (meaning, there´s a Hooters) built right into the side of the coast so you can shop for baby alpaca sweaters while looking at the waves come crashing in. It looks like we´ll spend most of our time here walking around (maybe even running a little!) and eating. Luckily, our hostal has a kitchen and there are really nice grocery stores around so hopefully we can save some dinero and cook a little. It had been so long since I had been in a grocery store and I was so excited that I sort of had a Supermarket Sweep-type feeling earlier today. I bought cereal and soy milk and bananas and had an incredibly enjoyable dinner. In addition to eating (if anything else is worth mentioning), we´re also planning on hitting up the movie theaters and doing some parasailing in a couple days. There also seems to be Vegas-style casinos on every block that I´m itching to investigate. I´ll report back.

Four nights in Lima followed by four nights in Santiago and then I´m back in the homeland!