FINALLY CATCHING UP

So if there was ever any eloquence or inviting prose in prior entries, this entry will be lacking. Much to my dismay, I got out of the "blogging" and suddenly three days has turned into three weeks. So my friends, those of you that haven´t given up on me and my adventures, this will be another reader´s digest entry.

Backtrack to Germany... I had a WONDERFUL time with my aunt Marianna (Kit´s sister) and my cousin Abigail in Garmisch-Partinkeirken (no clue how to spell it). I enjoyed Easter with them at the church on the small US Military Base there. The 75-year-old priest from Chicago pulled out all the stops for the celebration and put on quite a show. It´s ironic that I used the phrase "pulled out all the stops", only because there was NO music to go along with the mass, aside from one 12 year old girl forced to lead all the songs accappella. So there was no music and the priest literally, I mean LITERALLY, gave his homily as if he were a southern bapist preacher at a revival. He would take his volume from soft and barely audible, to loud and yelling and slamming his hands down on the pews. Yes the pews, he was in fact walking the aisles, getting in people´s faces, and making no sense along the way. It was the strangest mass I´ve ever been to and I had a few moments where I expected the hidden camera to pop out on us.

We had a great brunch at friend´s of the Pratts and the weather was sunny with TONS of snowfall. On Monday I went skiing with those same friends. They, all much more experienced skiiers, faithfully led me through the motions. I did great until about mid-day when we partook in the German tradition of "huttas", pubs on the side of the ski mountain. It was fun all the same. That night I got a terrible cold/flu and still haven´t recovered entirely.

Atlanta was wonderful, saw my incredible parents. I think if I´d stayed any longer I wouldn´t have been able to leave again. We had three great nights with dinners with friends and LOTS of college basketball. I went to the airport on Saturday and waited to see if my Delta Buddy Pass would allow me to get on the plane or would have me bumped for Sunday. The flight attendants said it was overbooked, but at the last second I got on and go to go in FIRST CLASS!! Now every good thing must come to an end, and it did when I got to the Lima airport.

Surrounded by taxi drivers asking if I needed help, I diligently searched the names on boards from outstretched hands, but to no avail. Without any change, I couldn´t use the pay phone. So after exchanging some dollars, I was able to call my hotel and ask why on EARTH I was at the Lima airport at 12:00 am without a ride. The man I spoke to thought my name was Johnson, so I was yelling Y-O-U-N-G into the phone until he finally said someone would be there. An hour and half later, I arrived at my hotel.

It was a great hotel located in the Miraflores district of Lima, it´s apparently artsy and cool. I couldn´t tell from the short walk I took the pharmacy the next day, but I did spend the most of Sunday in bed. On Monday, I decided I´d try to walk to the beach. As I was getting directions, the woman at the desk told me that the two people (young english speaking white guy and girl) were going to the beach too. I finally got some courage and ran after them to see if I could tag along. I´m not usually the best at meeting random travelers, but I went for it, and I was so pleased with my leap of faith. We took a public bus to a four lane highway and then went under the under pass. I said "THIS is where we´re catching the bus?" they assured me this was what the woman at the desk had said. Then all the little busses started filling in and we finally found the one we needed. Only AFTER getting on this bus did I realize that the beach we were going to was in fact a beach town and it was an hour and half away. Ah well, at least I´ve got something to do I thought to myself.

The town had a small beach and a few beachside stands with food. We chilled out there all day, it was by no means white sandy beautiful, but it was a nice respite from the city and neat to see another way of life. We headed back to the hotel that night and I went to dinner with my new friends right on the main square in Miraflores. We went to a salsa place after dinner and shook a rug for a couple of hours, complete with lessons from "Antonio" who made it quite easy to feel like a latina dance machine. The next day we went down to the main square in downtown Lima and saw some historical stuff and ended the day out by the beach on the cliffs having dinner. Laura and Mandy arrived late that night and my new friends, Carrie and Brian, departed the next morning.

So suddenly I became the expert and showed Mandy and Laura around on their one day in Lima. I managed to find a place for lunch I´d been to the day before with a local we met. It was CLEARLY the place to be in Lima and we waited our turn, we were the only foreigners in the packed joint and quite pleased to know the inside scoop. We saw it all and did quite well for ourselves, aside from an evening bus tour that a local had recommended, it ended up being three hours in traffic with a woman describing things in spanish that we couldn´t understand or hear. We ditched the bus in order to make our dinner reservations at the other place to be in Lima, Rosa Nauticas. It´s definitely an expensive place, set on the ocean, literally, it´s out on a pier. It seemed to be catering to the rich Peruvians and the tourists. It was nice enough and then we headed back before our early departure the next morning to Cusco.

We got to Cusco and got settled at our AMAZING hostel. It´s two blocks from the main square which is soooo beautiful! It´s also near the art district, lots of great restaurants and bars. On Friday we took a day hike up to some ruins near Cusco called Saqsaywuaman, also remembered and pretty much pronounced as Sexywoman. It was good to start to get acclimated to the altitude, cause it is QUITE different. Basically any step you take in an uphill direction left me breathless. Whether that´s because of the cold I was recovering from, or the fact that I hadn´t run in MONTHS, I don´t know, but it was challenging all the same. The ruins were beautiful and got me really excited to hike to Machu Picchu and live in Cusco. Now continue reading to hear about Machu Picchu....