The Highest Navigable Lake on Planet Earth, Puno and Lake Titicaca June 10,11,12 2012
Macchu Picchu, Cusco and the Sacred Valley June 13,14,15,16,17,18,19 2012
12----
take bus most of the day...busses remind me of the trains in India with food vendors selling things at stops, I buy an empinada which is good.
-sit next to woman knitting
-talk about bus companies lying to us
-get some drinks and dinner at the bar and go to sleep
13---
we take a city tour self guided by my phone. we go to plaza armas and see a festival with kids dancing, Nick buys an alpaca hat, women gives of pins and we end up wearing them like a team.
we eat at the market like a local and get a soup, main course, and drink for ~ 1 dollar
get lunch for the next day and get a fruit juice at the market
spend the night watching fear and loathing in las vegas
talk about tattoos
14---
climbing and zipline tour
talk to girl running it and she was a spanish major living in peru..interesting life...shows me that there are literally limitless possibilites in life for what to do. YOu can take any path you want.
-me and Lea go on an ATM run, see a buy with face painted like a lion, and end up exploring the the ends of a festival. We buy a beer and drink it on the steps of a old cathedral people watching and talking about the fact that we'll both be home in two weeks. buy a potatoe thing and corn
-back at the bar we have a beer over cards (speed) playing the 'would you rather game' Would you rather, talk about what we get out of travel, what is means, people who seem to be able to draw others in and make them feel at home, sharing bits and pieces of things which seem important at the time. we laugh uncontrollably. This happens all the time with us.
-some others join and we play poker talking a mix of french Spanish and English.
-end up playing beer pong and beating everyone but a fat girl and her friend from Texas. Fun night.
-
15---
rest, listen to good music in a dimly lit bar drinking tea, book trip to Maccu Piccu, wach some eurocup France vs Ukraine, watch a movie called time about the limited time we all have in the world, talk to Nick about going home and whats next for us in the world
I need to buy a ticket home, buy a car, see my friends and family, get a job, the world I've come to love comes drifts away into something else
Nick might go on a bike tour of southern france, Lea needs to get a job and go back to school
16---
sacred valley tour
17---
maccu piccu
18---
19,20,21---
Lima, nothing
The Amazon Jungle, Iquitos June 21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,1,2 2012
22---
I fly into
sleptin airport for the night in airport chapel, got kicked out, found my way to floating hostel
This place is awesome!
 |
| The hostel |
 |
| hostel |
at some point I meet guys from
23---
met Americans studying malaria
hang out in hostel
Trip To A Jungle Slum, Belin June 24
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| Go back home! |
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| Guy carrying a huge fish in Belin |
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| Belin |
Deep In The Jungle, Somewhere in the Amazon Rainforest June 25,26,27
25---
jungle
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| Baby Anteater |
26---
jungle
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| The jungle |
27---
jungle
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| Fishing crew |
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| Catfish |
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| dinner in the jungle |
A Trip To The Spirit World With Ayahuasca, Somewhere outside Iquitos June 28,29
28---
At some point in Iquitos, I decide that I must do an Ayahuasca ceremony. It's an ancient spiritual ceremony which occurs in many regions throughout the Amazon basin. In indigenous times, Shamans were the most powerful members of society; after all, they were the ones that could communicate with the Gods. And the method they used to establish this communication was Ayahuasca also know as DMT (DiMethalTriptamine), one the most potent hallucinogens known to man. The shamans make this brew from a specific mix of jungle plants. In fact, the chemistry is so specific nobody really knows how the ancient people discovered it. I suppose this adds to the mystery.
Before I go on here, I want to qualify this experience First off, you don't do this for fun. In fact, there's nothing fun about it. You don't do it with your new jungle friends on a weekend night. You don't have a couple beers and do Ayahuasca, for example.
The ceremony begins with everyone sitting on the ground around a low table. There were about 9 other people with me; an old woman from Alabama, a young Russian girl, an older couple from somewhere in the US, a couple from France, a guy that I didn't talk to, the couple from Canada that I came with. The shaman lights a candle on the table and the ceremony begins. It dark outside and the jungle bugs are in full symphony.
Instinct is to fight it, to push it away. This is impossible though. The juxtopostion between the girl laughing uncontrolably and the crying uncontrolably is an odd felling.
It destroys anything familiar and normal and takes you to a place that is far different than anything you could imagine. trying to descibe what I saw with words s challenging.
29---
hang with boys and tell them about experience
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| Clouds in the Amazon |
30---
In the depths of my hammock, surrounded by water plants and lightning bugs, on a floating hostel at the nexus between an amazon city and the amazon jungle. I take one last look around. Orangle lights glow around the bamboo, leaf-thatched bungalow. I see a local woman playing with the street kittens. I listen to the chatter of people around me as the night begins. Music radiates out into the jungle from my home. I stare up at the night sky and realize tomorrow is the end of my adventure. I don't really want to talk to anyone, I just lay i my hammock and reflect on the crazy journey. I miss it already and I'm not even gone yet.
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| Hostel kitten |
I remember one night in Malaysia when one of my friends was at the end of his trip. He had been traveling all over Malaysia, Indonisia, Thialand, but now it was his time to return home to Canada. He had been away from home for about a year. It wasn't his first trip either. As the night went on, I could see a sadness descending over him. At one point he disappeared. Now I understand how he felt.
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| Amazon River sunset |
1---
leave for Lima
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