Still In Peru

Hi,

First, we would like to start by thanking all our friends and family who have sent us emails and made comments on this site in the last few weeks. The fact that you are all laughing along with our entries and admiring our pictures means a lot to us. By the way, we took about forty or fifty pictures of Machu Pichu alone, so there is more to see when we get home.

For those of you who were interested, Machu Pichu was a city built by the Incans around the year 1500 A.D. It is hidden on top of a mountain deep in the Peruvian jungle. No one knows why it was built, but it was most likely constructed in this rather strange location in order to be closer to the gods. Everything in the city was constructed with the gods in mind, it was a very holy place. The city was then abandonned and forgotten long before the Spaniards came, and was only rediscovered about a hundred years ago. Today all we have are the stone ruins, but as you can see, they are incredible. We have to say that visiting Machu Pichu (and the back-breaking hike up the mountain we made to get to get to it) has been the most rewarding and unforgetable experience of this trip so far.

Last time we left you in Cusco, a city in the Central-East of Peru. We are now in the small city of Tumbes, in the North-West of Peru, but how we got here is a story in itself. We left Cuzco on Monday night rather exhausted from our early mornings (another 5 am wake up call to catch the train back to Cusco). We got on the bus to Lima that night looking forward to reclining in our seats and getting a good night sleep (as it was an overnight bus). That was made pretty hard, both by the fact that our seats didn't recline, that we took the twistiest road possible and that there were a group of men behind us who assumed we didn't speak Spanish and continued to make degrading and immature comments about us the whole night. We were supposed to arrive into Lima around 10 in the morning. We had arranged to have lunch at our friend's house (she lives in Lima) and then catch our bus to Tumbes at 3 p.m. Well.... our bus didn't even arrive into the Lima bus terminal until 3 p.m. !!! We were rushing around trying to call the other bus company because their terminal was several blocks away (but nobody answered) and trying to get all our luggage together. We sped to the other bus terminal certain that our bus had already left and dreading the consequences. We arrived at 3:20......AND THE BUS WAS STILL THERE!!! We got on and left for Tumbes.

We got into Tumbes the next morning after a nice sleep. Tumbes was steaming hot (a nice change from the cooler, mountain climate of Cusco) and the beaches were beautiful. So, as we were unloading our bags from the bus, this taxi driver approached us and asked us if we wanted a ride. We gave him the name of the hotel we wanted to go to and he said it would be about one Sol, or 40 cents Canadian. We put all our stuff in the cab and drove off...but now there were two men in the car, not just the one. They started speaking to each other in rapid Spanish and then asked me to repeat the name of the hotel again. I did and then one of the guys said that that hotel wasn't in Tumbes, but the next town over, which seemed strange. Then they said they would take us to this other hotel that was a little far (10 soles), but on the beach. When we asked about the prices, they were vague. We got to this hotel (which was in the middle of nowhere) and found it was way to expensive. The guys also started telling us all about a fisherman's stike that was going to start the next day and which (they said) would block us from leaving Peru for a week. We started to get scared and freaked out by these two guys and told them to take us back to the city (by now we were out of the city). They got mad, but took us back anyways. Then they tried to take us to all these expensive hotels, but we kept telling them they were too expensive. When we finally got to a cheap place, the guys said it was now 20 soles EACH, which was crazy. They said that they had said from the begining (which they hadn't) that it was 10 soles EACH (not for both), and that now we had to pay double because they had to take us back into the town in the end. We argued with them for a long time about the price, but they wouldn't change it and were really starting to get mad. We just decided to pay the 6 dollars Canadian each and forget about it, but we were mad.

The hotel was ok....for what we are paying, which is about nothing, Canadian hahaha. But there are two small monkeys hanging around in the reception area... we are not kidding. And our room smells like pee.... We went to the bus station to see if the story about the strike is true. It is.... but we may be able to leave sooner than the guys had said. But we may be stuck in Peru for a few days.
We took this thing called a "moto" that everyone takes here, which is like a motorcycle with a little cart, kind of like a rickshaw, on the back. Very cute. We also took the local bus (more like a shitty van full of people) to the beach and spent the rest of the afternoon there. The beach was beautiful, but deserted and the water is so warm, like a bath. This city really reminds us of Cuba, the towns where the Cubans live, for those of you who have been to Cuba. We are trying to leave for Ecuador tomorrow evening, but if the strike blocks us, who knows....

We will keep you posted.

love

Alice and Tova