Day 3: Punta Hermosa, Peru

Well I´m sure none of you are going to believe this (yeah, right) but I fell asleep before everyone went out last night!  They didn´t even leave until midnight and stayed out until 4am...I think I fell asleep at like 10:30...which is actually pretty late for me!  So anyways, I missed out on the nightly activities! :(


Today was such an exciting and crazy day!! Woke up around 8:30 or so (TOTALLY been sleeping in way longer than I usually do) and went down for our "free breakfast" with Magdalena (26) from Prague, and her two friends, Carolina (24) and Augostina (23), both from Argentina.  They both speak Spanish (obviously) so they are great to have around!  Same thing for breakfast: toast and an egg, and I drank the juice again.  I´ve decided it must be fine and it always tastes SO good!!  After breakfast we changed in to swimsuits, packed a little bag, and headed for the beaches in Punta Hermosa, about an hour south of Lima.  We also picked up two other girls staying at the hostel around the corner, Polly (23) from the UK and Erin (25) from France.  (Just putting ages on there so you all know that I´m not the only crazy young girl who travels through foreign countries alone!!) 

 Okay I just have to throw this in here while I'm thinking about it...did you guys know that NO ONE freaking shaves down here!?  I mean seriously...it´s so disgusting!  Erin has more hair on her legs than any man I´ve ver seen...AND she doesn´t shave her armpits!!  UGH...SICK!!  The other girls don´t shave there legs either...and I think it´s gross if I don´t shave for like 2 days!!  Weird...  

Okay, so anyways, there are 6 of us, and we need to take a taxi down to the "bus station" to catch a bus to Punta Hermosa.  After exchanging our own currencies for Peruvian soles from some guy on the street corner (it's legi down here - that's how you do it I guess), we did some bartering (done by the Argentenian girls) and all piled in to a little taxi sitting on each others laps for the short ride down to the "bus station."  Cost us a whopping 1 soles each (3.5 soles is about $1). 

Turns out the "bus station" is on the  side of the road underneath a bridge along the highway...un-freakin-believable.  So we get down there and yes, there are buses all with one guy hanging out the side yelling out whatever place they are going to.  I can´t even describe how crazy it was!!  I mean a bus stop on a busy highway under a bridge with people yelling!?

Then one guy comes up and grabs us and says he will take us wherever we need to go...in a taxi!  WAY better than the smelly old packed-to-the-windows bus, so we agreed, for 6 soles each (the bus was only 3 soles, but come on, we´re talking about less than $2 here and it takes much less time in a taxi).  So in we pile again...Carolina and Augostina in the front seat, Erin, Magdalena, myself, and Polly sitting on each other in the back seat.  It wasn´t too hot yet and we had the windows down so it really wasn´t that bad. 

After about half an hour or so, we went through a little check-point kind of toll station thing.  And as soon as we got through it, there were cops standing all over in the middle of the highway stopping random cars for searches.  And OF COURSE the cop stands right in front of our car (as our driver is trying to get in a different lane to avoid him), sticks out both of his arms very forcefully and points to our car, and then directly to the side of the road.  LOL!!  I guess that is how they pull people over in Peru.  I´m pretty sure I would´ve just kept driving because he was on foot and there were cars everywhere but our driver reluctantly pulled over.  So I of course instantly get out my camera and start snapping pictures of the angry old cop walking up to our car.  Turns out the situation got a little more hostile - and getting pulled over in Peru isn´t quite as fun as I originally thought it was going to be!  He literally walked up to the drivers door, opened it, and yanked him out by his shirt.  Okay, kinda freaking out now, but definitly still have my camera out!  So he yells at me (no idea what he said) for taking pictures, and Carolina translates for me ¨you better put that thing away or it is going to be his¨.  So in the bag it went and the smiles quicly came off of our faces...haha.  The cop made the driver get all of his paperwork and licenses and all that stuff out, and he started yelling at him and showed him a number on the paperwork that showed how many people were allowed to be in the car legally and asked him what it said.  Driver said quatro (4) and then the cop yelled something to the effect of ¨and how many pepole are in your vehicle right now??¨  Siete (7) was his response.  So the jerk cop makes all of us girls get out of the car and stand on the side of the busy highway.  The driver is literally almost in tears now because I guess the cop threatened to take his license away and not let him drive and we were all going to be stuck on the side of the road.  NOT good.  So what do we do!?  Well we´re in Peru so we pay off the cop of course!!  And you´ll never believe this!!  Guess how much we paid him off with to let us go!?  ONE SOLES EACH!  The dude got about $2 and was happy enough to let us all pile back in the car illegally in front of him!  It was the weirdest thing ever, but whatever!!  I´ll pay that any day to avoid being either stuck on the side of a busy road or in a Peruvian jail anyday!! :)  So what a start to the day, huh!?  And what a good story...we paid off a cop in Peru to get through a checkpoint...LOL!!

So we finally get to Punta Hermosa, which turns out to be a complete shit-hole just like Lima.  Just filth and trash and dirt and stray animals everywhere (sorry Dieter...don´t hate me for trash-talking your home country!)  The driver just dropped us off on the side of the road where we couldn´t even see the ocean.  Thankfully we had Carolina with us who pretty much did all of the talking all day.  We set off on foot down some little dirt path through little shacks towards the beach ... supposedly. 

We literally walked through a landfill...seriously...and a little checkpoint with cops standing there to get to the beach.  It was worth it though!!  Beautiful beach with warm water and lots of sun! :) 

The first beach we stopped at did not have any surfboards to rent anywhere, so we walked about 15 minutes through some cliffs to get to the next beach over where there were surfers.  No one else was interested, but it was pretty much the only thing I wanted to do today, so they all went.  This beach was even better anyways!  So I rented a surfboard and paddled out FORever.  And there was only one other guy out there.  Let me remind you that I´ve never surfed before yesterday and I still have absolutely NO idea what I´m doing.  I probably paddled out WAY too far but I just went to where he was.  Ya know now that I think about it, it probably would´ve been a good move to take lessons, huh.  But that just wouldn´t be me...Miss Independent has to do it all herself...haha! ;)  So anyways, I chilled out there on the board and there were hardly any good waves (or breaks or whatever it is you surfers call them).  And I haven´t quite mastered how to get the board turned out quick enough to start paddling in with the wave, and then stand up at the right time.  It just wasn´t happening.  It´s just such a struggle...I mean surfing is a constant fight! Haha...I did manage to get up on my knees for a couple seconds, but that´s about it for today.  I had a pretty good crash (okay, let´s be honest, I had a pretty good crash every time a wave came) but the current was so strong and the waves are so powerful that the force or undercurrent pulled me under quite a ways and I hurt my back.  So that was about it for me.  I paddled and rode the board in and called it a day. 

We (the other five girls and myself) just hung out on the beach and got FRIED the rest of the day.  I´m as red as a tomato!  Even the tops of my feet...everything hurts.  I even had sunblock on, too...which is rare for me! ;)  Might be the worst sunburn I´ve ever had...wait, no, nothing will ever beat Cancun in 2006, but this has got to be a close 2nd!  The sun down here was just so powerful and we were out there ALL day.  I eventually put on my wet-suit top and board shorts because I could feel myself burning all over.  Got some great pics on the beach...it really was beautiful!  Polly and I were hungry so we ordered the only thing we could identify on the menu that wasn´t seafood - somthing that looked like french fries - for lunch.  They turned out to be big pieces of half-cooked potatoes just covered in grease, but they were edible and I was starving.  Snagged a bag of doritos for about 15 cents too...I love this place :) 

The taxi driver that dropped us off in Punta Hermosa said he would come back and pick us up at 5:30 and take us all the way back to our hostel in Miraflores (versus the ¨bus station¨ downtown) for 7 soles each.  Done deal for us.  So we hiked back up the cliffs and threw the rotten smelling landfill (seriously can´t even tell you how bad it smelled in the heat of the day...we all were gagging) and waited on the dirt road for our driver to come.  All along I thought it was crazy that he would come back and get us and risk getting in trouble again, but Carolina (the leader of the pack since she speaks the best Spanish and English) was just sure that he was going to come.  Well, at about 6:15 we had convinced her otherwise...the dude obviously was NOT coming back for us and it was getting dark.  Option B:  THE BUS!  WOW...that´s all I can even say about that experience!!  Okay not really...I´m sure I´ll write a novel about it because it was SO CRAZY!!  We crossed the road and immediately a crappy little run down bus pulled up and Carolina went to the guy hanging out the side of it yelling...it was apparently too full for her liking so despite the yelling man trying to grab her, we followed her about 5 feet to the next bus...they literally just come one after another after another.  This one wasn´t quite as full and it had a man yelling ¨Lima Lima!  Vaminos! Lima Lima!!¨ as he pounded on the side of the bus.  It honestly didn´t even look like it was going to make it to the end of the road, let alone LIMA over an hour away, but we all followed Carolina on anyways.  I sat down RIGHT by the door because I tend to get motion sickness very easy, especially on hot smelly packed buses.  Polly sat right behind me (she´s my new BFF ;) ) and the other four went to the back.  Not that it was a big bus or anything...by the back I mean like 6 feet away. 

So I´m thinking this isn´t so bad...I´ve got my window open and it isn´t packed at all...and it was only 3 soles (less than $1 to get us back to Lima)  Well that lasted about 1 minute.  We stopped about every 200 feet or so (for real) and the guy would swing open the door and hang out and yell the same thing over and over ¨Lima Lima!  Lima Lima!! Vaminos¨ as he just beat the crap out of the side of the bus (right by my head) to attract all the people to get on his bus...LOL!  I seriously think I´m going to hear that in my dreams tonight!  So this continues...for almost TWO HOURS.  All the while getting more and more packed with old smelly men getting off work and babies crying and you name it, they were on there. At one point (more than one actually) he bus was SO full that he couldn´t even shut the door...literally...he just kept pulling people on and shoving them in and he would just hang out the door.  Craziness I tell you.  The heat and smells and sounds were all just too much...talk about a sensory overload!  I eventually got out my little video camera and started recording the guy hanging out the bus yelling and banging.  I just can´t even describe it - the people all staring at me and Polly when they got on (the only two light skinned, light hair and eyes on the bus) was bad enough.  Well...it was all I could handle...and yep, I puked as soon as we stepped off the bus from hell underneath the bridge on the side of the road.  It was just too much for me...probably lack of food and water and heat exhaustion played a roll...but the smells and sound of it all was absolutely insane!!  I felt fine as soon as that was done. 

We grabbed a taxi back to our hostel and I hopped in the shower.  You know how bad it hurts to take a shower when your skin is on fire!?  Haha...it was the quickest shower I´ve ever had!!  The front of my legs and my butt are just completely fried...seriously.  The guys here at the hostel are now calling me ¨lobster¨ :)

The girls (minus Erin) and I just went out for dinner at this really cool area in Miraflores like two blocks from our hostel.  It is one road just lined with little bars and clubs and restaurants.  The people working totally gravitate towards us because they know we are tourists and practically yank us in to there restaurant.  They offered us everything from free beer and sangria to free dancing with some guy all night...haha!  We eventually found a place after Carolina´s bartering again and shared a pizza. 

The clubs looked SO fun so I think we are going out salsa dancing tonight!  I can´t wait...  I decided to just not sleep tonight because I am leaving at 3am for the airport for my 5:30 am flight to Cusco.  Thought that would be easier than trying to sleep at all.  That being said, not sure what the internet access will be like at the next place, so I may not be emailing for a few days.  (Yes mom, I will still send you a text every night to let you know I am okay!)  I have a crazy little plan that I am hoping works to get me to Maccu Piccu.  Since I am on a tight time schedule and the trains from Cusco to Aguas Calientes (access to Macchu Piccu) once a day, I am going to try to take bus (you´d think I would have learned my lesson about busses after today) from Cusco to Santa Maria, switch busses there and head to Santa Teresa, take a cable car across the river (I heard it´s totally scary!), hike for two hours to the electric plant (only thing out there I guess) and then follow the run down train tracks for another two hour hike to Aguas Calientes.  Sounds like a plan, huh!?  So that is why I´m not sure where I will be or if there will be internet access.  This trip has just been so easy-going so far that I thought it was time to throw some excitment in to the mix!! :)


Alright, that´s it for now...  I´m off to dance the night away!! 


TK

Day 2: Lima, Peru *UPDATE*

Day 1 in Lima!  I actually slept pretty good last night...bunk bed with one thin sheet and I guess what you would consider a pillow... ; )  It is really hot and humid here so the window was open.  And since this hostel is literally int he middle of Miraflores, it was ridiculously loud all night (sirens and horns honking and cats fighting - lots of stray cats and dogs around here), but I was so tired I didn´t care - woke up feeling pretty rested! The girls who I was bunking with got up early and left for Cuzco.  They were from France and seemed nice enough, but I didn´t really talk to them more than to roll over and say hi, where are you from. 

So a "free breakfast" is included in my hostel so I got my little coupon for it from the front desk and walked down the street and around the corner to the little restaurant, El Parqueitto. 

Turns out free breakfast is a glass of juice, two pieces of toast, and a fried egg.  Beats nothin´I guess!  You´d think I would´ve learned with all the travling not to drink anything that isn´t straight out of an unopened bottle, but the juice just looked so good (and it was) so I drank it - mango I think!  Doing fine so far so it must have been okay!! :)

After breakfast I set out on foot to see the area.  No one has been overly nice or welcoming here like some of the other places I´ve been, but they aren´t mean either and I haven´t felt unsafe or threatened at all.  I picked up a couple of girl hitchikers a few weeks back (in Tahoe) that happened to be from Lima and they told me not to wear shorts here.  They were right...I don´t think I´ve seen one girl with shorts on around here.  They practically wear nothing on top (short, tight tanktops) but always jeans or at least long capris.  So no shorts for me either.  And with my glasses on, I really don´t think I stick out at all! I walked around for awhile and looked in some shops, found a little grocery store and managed to buy some bottled water.  Spanish isn´t nearly as hard to understand and speak as some of the other languages.  I don´t think I even picked up one word of Vietnamese when I was in Vietnam.  Just too hard.  I´m doing okay with my Spanish...it´s coming back to me pretty quick :) Here are some pictures of where I walked in Lima...

After walking around, I went back to the hostel and changed for the beach and paragliding.  There was too strong of a cross-wind this morning, so while I was waiting around for them to decide if I could go or not, I did some shopping (of course).   Turns out the bikinis down here are a little on the skimpy side...LOL!  They pretty much have a non-existent butt...I mean it literally covered like not even half of mine!  So I opted for some board shorts and a couple of cute tank tops instead.  I know, I know...just what I needed huh...more clothes! :)  Anyways, the wind wasn´t changing so I went to a surf shop, rented a board and made a new friend, and hit the ocean.  The water was surprisingly warm, and surfing was surprisingly hard.  Even paddling out is a struggle!  Standing up is nearly impossible...although I did manage to make it up once for like .2 seconds. :)  I´m planning on going to another nicer beach about 30 minutes south of Lima tomorrow to maser my surfing skills! ;) 

I met a new girl here at the hostel named Magdalena from the Czeck Republic.  She is 26 and has been traveling through South America for almost a month now by herself - she´s going to go with me to surf tomorrow!  SEE!!  I´m not the only crazy girl out there who travels alone!  I did meet two older couples from California while in Lacomar (a shopping area on the beach) who asked ¨what a little girl from Kansas was doing in Peru by herself¨ I responded ¨seeing the city just like you¨and they just gave me a weird look...haha :)

I walked back to the hostel (making sure I knew who was walking behind me!) from the beach around 6pm (wanted to make it back before dark) and the paragliding people called and said the winds were changing so they would come pick me up at the hostel and take me to the cliff.  I asked how I would know who they were, and they just told me to wait on the curb...haha.  So there I was, just sitting on a curb in front of my hostel in Lima at 6pm - and every single freakin´car that drove by stopped and asked if I needed a taxi.  Finally a jeep pulled up with a white guy and a Peruvian girl and he said ¨Terri?¨ I nodded my head yes and he pointed to the back seat so I just hopped in!  The guy was Michael and the girl was Christina - they run this little paragliding operation I guess.  Michael´s mom is from Texas so he spoke pretty good English.  We got to the sight (the cliffs) right at sunset and it was just beautiful!  I got some pretty good pics! 

He got all of his equipment out, strapped me in with him, and we just jumped off a cliff right over the Pacific Ocean!!  SO COOL!  It wasn´t really all that exilerating, pretty slow ride to the beach, about 5 or 10 minutes or so I would guess, but it was still pretty cool! :)  They just dropped me off back here at the hostel...actually they dropped me off on the other side of Kennedy Park and asked me if I could walk back to the hostel.  Wasn´t too thrilled because it´s dark now but I said I could find my way...and thankfully I did!  It was only like 2 blocks away. :)

Okay - well I´m off to shower and then Magda and I are going out with some other people here at the hostel to some jazz club or something?  I don´t know, just along for the ride and some fun! :)

That´s it for today! I´ll write more tomorrow...

-TK

Day 1: Lima, Peru

Hola!  (Gotta practice my espanol) Just made it to my hostel in Lima, Peru, so thought I´d send out a quick email before I go to bed (it´s midnight...WAY past my bedtime!)  Thankfully they have one working (very slow and old) computer with internet access here!!

Left KC for Houston at 12:15 this afternoon on the smallest little puddle jumper plane I think I´ve ever been on.  I was taking my sweet time at the airport in Houston - got totally ripped off by the currency exchange place getting Peruvian money, walking around looking at things and eating lunch - and damn near missed my flight!  They boarded really early and by the time I lolly gagged around to the gate it was almost completely boarded.  So of course there was NO room on the plane for my two carry-on backpacks (all my luggage).  I did luck out and not have anyone in the middle seat next to me so I somehow managed to shove one under the middle seat and the other one the flight attendant took and had to put it in some closet up front I guess.  7 hour flight to Lima.  I watched a couple of movies:  Australia (pretty good but wouldn´t pay to see it in a theater) and Twlight (kind of weird but it´s a love story so it was okay :) )  We hit some pretty good turbulents over the Andes...pretty sure the plane dropped for a good two seconds at least...everyone was gasping and grabbing things.  LOL...Shannon you probably would´ve passed out!  Other than that, smooth flight and not as long as I thought it would be. 

When I got off the plane in Lima,  there was a HUGE line to get through immigration...it had like 9 switchbacks, each about 50 feet, just lined with people.  Took about 45 minutes to get to the front of the line, and when I did, the jerk immigration guy took one look at my little sheet I had filled out and circled this one line I had missed at the bottom and pointed to the back of the line. Oh hell no...I wasn´t about to go to the back for that.  So I move back out of the way a little bit and then realized I didn't have a pen.  So I go back and ask (and motion because I´m pretty sure he didn´t speak a lick of English) that I don´t have a pen.  He just shook his head no and pointed to the back of the line again.  I so would´ve kicked that guy if there wasn´t a desk right there!!  Some nice lady in line had a pen and was watching the whole thing...so I freaking wrote "USA" on the form and walked right back up to him.  Haha...he didn´t say anything, just stamped my passport and slid it back...jerk. ;)

So once I made it through the airport drama, it was on to the fun part...finding a taxi to take me to my hostel in Miraflores (an area of town)!  Haha...this is always the biggest challenge because there are some many people trying to rip you off (especially tourists) at the airport!  Luckily (I always get lucky on my crazy trips) I found a nice guy named Jorge to take me.  He had a cross and a picture of Jesus hanging from his rear view mirror so that made me feel a little better.  He seemed really nice so I got in : )  Turns out he didn´t speak english...LOL!  I think he asked me how my flight was and I said bien (good) and he just kept talking.  I kept saying ¨"no intiendo - no habla espanol - tu habla ingles¿" and he always laughed and said no and just kept talking in spanish!  What part of "I don´t understand - I don´t speak Spanish" did he not get!?  So anyways, I sat in the front seat because I get motion sickness pretty easy, and that was a mistake.  You think I´m a crazy driver!?  You should get in for a ride in Lima with THIS guy!  I totally should´ve just sat in the back seat, held on tight, and shut my eyes!  He literally drove down the middle of the road - I mean RIGHT down the middle.  And if there were two cars in the right lanes, he´d just honk his horn and split them.  Ya know I think I must have a sign on my back when I land in foreign countries that says "I want the craziest taxi driver there is" because I swear this always happens to me!  But whatever, we made it.  Lima is just another big city...pretty dirty, saw some beggers, some hookers, lots of graffiitti and some casinos.  They actually have Pizza Hut, Starbucks, TGI Fridays, Burger King and even Chili's!  Plenty of places to find some normal grub if Peruvian food turns out to not be good.  We drove right along the coast and since I had my window down so I didn´t throw up on Jorge my crazy driver, I could here the big waves crashing up on the shore...it was so nice! 

So my hostel is in the heart of Miraflores (the tourist district) and is called Flying Dog Hostel...haha...   Hey it´s $8 per night and I´sharing a room with three other girls (who are already asleep) so I´m not complaining. 

I think I'll hit the beach tomorrow and maybe paraglide off these beatufiul cliffs around here - heard it´s really cheap!  Then I'm thinking I might go to Cuzco on Tuesday to get to Macchu Picchu.  Who knows...it´s all kind of still up in the air for now...more fun that way...haha! I´ll keep ya posted : )

But I´m here and I´m safe and I´ve met some cool young people so I´m all good!  That´s all I really wanted to say...sorry it turned it to another one of my novels!  ; )  More to come...

-TK


PS - the keyboards down here are different (it´s so weird!?) and I´ve hit the wrong keys at least 50 times already so sorry if there are really bad punctuation errors! :)