Huaraz

I took an overnight bus last night to Huaraz. The bus ride was a little rough even though I got a semi-cama. It didn't help that they played two movies! I just wanted to sleep.

Huaraz is at an altitude of 3,031 meters (about 10,000 ft)! The interesting thing was that most of the bus ride was flat but the last couple of hours (the only ones during which I was sleeping) we did almost all of the ascent. When I woke up I really felt the altitude. I'm glad I took some decamethasone before leaving. It felt like something was holding back a more full-on altitude sickness.

Huaraz is actually quite a dirty city. I knew it wasn't going to be the most beautiful city ever since most of it was destroyed in an earthquake in 1970 but I was actually kind of suprised by how dirty it was. It's still pretty in its own way since it's nestled in the hills. I like it here. It kind of reminds me of Sarajevo, one of my favorite places of all time.

The river I'm NOT going to go rafting in!

Also, it's interesting to note that the people here speak Quechua (the indigenous lanuage) in addition to Spanish. About 45% of Peruvians are purely indigenous (Lonely Planet - Peru) which is very high compared with other countries in Latin America. About 13% of the population speaks Quechua (wikipedia).

This is a photo of a typical indigenous outfit (from wikipedia, I didn't want to hassle anyone for a photo of themself).

Leaving Huanchaco

After a few days of resting in Huanchaco it was time to move on. It was sad because I don't think that I have ever liked a hostel so much nor have I stayed at a single one so long, around 6 nights.

Next I am planning to go to Huaraz, a small town in the Andes where you can go on treks through the Cordilleras Blancas

Here's some more shots of Huanchaco. It's such an awesome place

Update

Lots of things have happened lately, I'm going to just briefly summarize them:

Getting sick

Something I ate made me incredibly sick. It was either the lunch at Otra Cosa or the fish that we ate that night (since I started to get sick late that night/early next morning). I don't think that fried fish and rice would make me sick so I'm guessing it was something in the food I got from Otra Cosa. Either way, to make a long story short it kept getting worse and worse until the point where I needed to see a doctor. I took a taxi from Huanchaco (small beach town we were at) to Trujillo (big city 20mins away) and went to see a doctor at the Clinica Peruano-Americano (Peruvian-American Clinic). Since I was vomiting pretty hard and losing water fast the doctor hooked me up to an IV to give me water and medicine and kept me there in a hospital room for two nights. Thanks to Sweeney for all of his help and for getting a picture of me passed out in the hospital bed (below)

Sweeney left

Chris had to fly back on the 9th so he left toward the end of my hospital stay. It was great to hang out with him and it was unfortunate that he spent a bunch of the time we had together taking care of me! He's a great friend.

Huanchaco

I went back to the hostel that I was at (Naylamp). I can't say enough good things about Hostal Naylamp. The lady in charge, Ivonne, helped me so much when I got sick. They also have a restaurant right there so while I was resting for a couple of days I just ate there. The food is great and I knew that it was clean so it was the perfect place to recover.

Here's the campground part of it we stayed at the first night

The vibe in the courtyard at Naylamp

Some of my buddies at Naylamp (Gene, don't know his name, Jaime, Paúl, Me, Milagros, Ivonne, Andy)

Waking up in Trujillo

We woke up around 6:30am when the bus arrived in Trujillo. Despite the fact that I randomly woke up in the middle of the night with my mind racing (mostly about the awesome trip ahead of me!) for a couple of hours, the bus ride was perfect. I'm really exicted about being able to overnight so much of my travel here. In Europe, we would overnight trips like the bus ride to Prague or the train ride to Belgrade, both maybe six hours, practially upright or crunched in a train cabin. You would end up only getting a couple hours of sleep. It was pretty pretty much pulling an all-nighter which I don't like to do unless I have to. When you borrow sleep from your body you have to pay it back at a high rate of interest.

When we got into Trujillo we were starving so we went and ate breakfast...actually two breakfasts



Breakfast in Peru is quite light.

Next, we hopped in a taxi and went to Huanchaco. It's a small town about 20 minutes outside of Trujillo. Trujillo seemed all right, but Huanchacho sounded like a nicer beach town.

We checked into a place called Hostal Nylamp. They only spots left were for camping. Not ideal but they did provide the tent and it was cheap. The camping area was pretty nice


Next I went and took a swim at the awesome beach while Chris went for a run. It's a very nice beach and the water isn't too cold.



After swimming we walked around a little and ate some food at a place called Otra Cosa nearby. I mention it by name because it will be important later. Stay tuned. (These posts are backdated as usual).



Some Americans (the girls) we met who were volunteering in Peru with the Presbyterian church. They were just passing through before going back to the US. The other guy is Andy. He was also staying at Nylamp. Nice guy.

Next we went back to the beach to check out the awesome sunset, which I have to admit, is second to the ridiculous, fire-in-the-sky Arizona sunsets. I don't know if you can beat those.



We met a pretty cool guy at the beach named Bart who's also staying at Nylamp. He's an actor in Spain and so he came to get away for a month. I think that he might be kind of a big deal there and doesn't want to get bothered everywhere he goes. We took some pictures of the beach and then got some food.

Ghost picture! (Chris, Bart, Me)

While we were eating, we saw this cool parade-like thing in the street. It has something to do with the three wiseman and the week after Christmas...not totally sure. I didn't totally understand what the waiter was saying. I'll post the video once I find a really fast internet connection.

Day in Lima

Chris and I got up a little late. I was pretty tired since I had to take an overnight bus to Chicago the night before leaving for my 8:30 flight out of Chicago.

We decided that we would head up to the north coast of Peru so after eating some lunch, we went to the bus station to book a ticket for Trujillo, the largest city on the coast.


Notice anything funny...look at how many milileters each is :)

We bummed around Lima for most of the day until it was time to take the bus (10pm overnight bus).


Lima

Plaza in Miraflores, Lima

The coast of Lima.


Getting some cerviche, a common Peruvian seafood dish

The bus we took (Cruz del Sur) was incredibly nice. Far nicer than anything that I've ever taken in the U.S. or Europe. Chris said that most buses in Peru are overnight buses since it's a pretty big country and if you're on a bus for a while you're going to be sleeping anyway.

The seats were semi-camas (semi-beds) and reclined most of the way.

Arriving in Peru!

I got into Lima, Peru around 11:30 on 1/5 and met Chris in the airport. We grabbed a taxi and went to the hostel, which (I wish I had a better picture to show it) was pretty much just someone's house. Here's one picture (below). By the time we got out to find food it was pretty late...1 am or so and the only thing still open in Miraflores (the suburb of Lima we were staying in) was McDonalds! Oh well, McDonalds is better in other countries anyway...still trying to figure that one out. More to come...