Who said vacations are relaxing? The second installment of my May visitors to Peru has just finished and with my sister has gone all my energy.

Two ten day vacationers back to back, both going to Cuzco, Machupicchu and Lima leaves no rest for the wicked, nor the host/guide/translator.

I can’t complain though…spending ten days with my little sister here in Peru, especially after not seeing her for almost two years, was absolutely great. She arrived here in Lima and we motored out on a 24 hour bus trip to Cuzco where we spent a day adjusting to the altitude and seeing the city a bit.

We decided to go to Machupicchu the cheap way…basically by avoiding the monopolistically expensive PeruRail train. We had planned to head to Aguas Calientes the ‘back way’ to MP, through Santa Maria and Santa Teresa…but a strike by local workers in Santa Maria blocked our plans. So we went the only other way possible…by taking a local bus as far in the Sacred Valley as we could, to Piscacucho, and then walking the train tracks down through the valley all the thirty kilometers to Aguas Calientes.

The walk started off pleasant enough…it was a nice day with nice things to look at, but for ten km we only had the rough rocks of the tracks to walk on. Later, a dirt trail followed the tracks, but by then our feet, not to mention our bodies, were done in and we moped, crawled and sold our souls to the Devil for the last ten km only to arrive after dark and have to get up before four a.m. in order to see the sunrise in Machupicchu. Such tough work traveling is, as Carlie found out…but she motored on like a champion. In fact, we didn’t arrive back in Cuzco until 12:30 a.m. the next morning in a marathon day of ruins, walking, crossing a river in a cable car motored by hand, and an eight hour car ride.



We left Cuzco the next day in order to see some other parts of Peru before Carlie had to fly back. We bussed it to Nazca, crawled up a paltry tower to see some oblique views of the Nazca Lines and then we drifted through the desert to Pisco where we had our first quality sleep in what seemed like an eternity. Pisco happens to be the jumping off point for the ‘poor man’s Galapagos’…Las Islas Ballestas - islands made famous by shit, bird shit to be exact.

In some places the guano is, or used to be 50 meters thick. Now, these shitty islands are visited by tourists because of the amazing seabird life and marine life. It was pretty amazing…birds in amazing numbers, lots of bird shit, beautiful islands dotted with natural arches with waves crashing into them and sea lions popping their heads out of the water in curiosity at the passing boat.

We then shot back up to Lima for one last day in the city whereupon we met some great people in the hostel. In fact, our roommate, who just recently found out she is pregnant, claims to have a shamanic penis growing inside her stomach, of which she is very happy and slightly disconcerted (about the penis part). She is also convinced that my beard is big enough that it may in fact be host to a slightly insane, coke addicted alcoholic woman who is an acquaintance of ours…ala Peter Griffin from Family Guy (see episode with bird in beard).