Kitties From Mars

2009-05-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

"There are not enough cats doing cute things on the Internet", is not a statement you are likely to hear ever. While I find my intention to fire up the blog again with a cat story a bit questionable seeing as how there is no shortage of cat stories/photos/videos on the Internet. I also see that while the Beatles created massive amounts of amazing Pop and Rock music it did not stop others from doing so too.

This is my cat, Josie she has long hair. This cat's hair is one of her best qualities while simultaneously being the worst attribute she has. Pros: Soft, warm, creates a pleasant petting environment, and makes her a pretty kitty, yes she is, just the prettiest kitty ever, cutie, cutie, oh sorry.... Cons: It's Everywhere. Kitty hair is in the carpet, floats in the air, Kitty hair in the food (yuck) Kitty hair in he bed, Kitty hair in my soul. And forget going to a nice event with a jacket and tie. Pop out the lint rollers to be used in the parking lot of the event you are attending because any lint rolling at home is the same kind of battle that Custer was familiar with.

So the solution to kitty hair. Well, kitty hair be gone of course. The cat was given "The Lion Cut" Yes I suppose we will still be eating kitty hair but at least it will be smaller and easier to digest. I do love the Lion Cut, while it mimics the look of a real lion (except maybe for the pom-pom at the end of the tail and the kitty booties) I feel if I were confronted with a real lion I would not have the overwhelming desire to laugh at it as I do my own kitty with a faux lion hair cut.

Stock Market

2009-01-05T14:20:00.000-08:00

I have been looking at the stock market as of late. I can not help it. I sit down at the computer with the intent of using it to check e-mail, or use Word or some other useful thing and I get stuck on looking at what the stock market is doing. Mostly because each company has it's own little story, and each story can change dramatically day to day and in this market from hour to hour. Like a cash soap opera, "Yahoo might get bought by Microsoft, because Yahoo is cash poor and Microsoft needs to keep up with Google, but Yahoo is holding out for a better price, only to find out Microsoft doesn't love Yahoo anymore and breaks off negotiations because it is having an affair with Intel. Meanwhile, Seagate go's into a coma and Cisco is having someones love child.
Yes, the market is endlessly fascinating to me because of the risk, drama, and stories of the stocks but recently, because of the economic upheaval, I have been reading many of the doomsday stories out there. "This is an economic Tsunami" The Economy is Crumbling", and so on. Used in the description of wealth and money are the words "Destruction, Devastation, Collapse, and Disaster." don't get me wrong, I have sniffled a bit while watching my 401K contract like a shrink-A-dink but just to keep our heads straight. When Goths and Huns invaded the Holy Roman Empire, that was a "Collapse", When General Sherman marched to the sea using the "scorched earth" policy, burning towns to the ground and salting the earth so crops would not grow that is "Destruction", and when George Lucas is allowed to make a prequel with a character named "Jar Jar Binks" THAT is a "Disaster" (yes, I know it was years ago and I should just let it go, but I NEVER will, NEVER let it go). I have sympathy for the people who have been hurt by the economy but still...A Hun is not burning your house and stealing you wife. Oh and the whole "Economic Tsunami" term, really needs to stop being used. A. It makes NO sense at all.. Economic destruction has washed over our shores? At best is means a mountain of cash forty feet high has flooded inland about a mile and half. That sounds pretty good to me. Although it is a good example of my point. Economic Tsunami: a scary sounding, but meaningless headline to freak people out about money issues we will all live through. Actual Tsunami: Over 250,000 people die in real Devastation.

Disney Market Land

2008-10-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

I hear they have a new ride at Disney Land that is based on the stock market. It's called "Crash Mountain" It's a roller coaster ride that plummets 300 to 600 poin...errrr feet a second until it evens out and flat lines for the next 3 years. It is a very long ride but people keep saying once you are at the bottom you might as well just stay on because you feel too sick to get off anyway.
Oh well enough about that. How about drinking and riding a bike in a costume.

Fort Collins is a Mecca of beer and breweries. New Belgium Brewing Company,Odell Brewing Company,Fort Collins Brewery, and of course Anheuser-Busch are just a few of the breweries around here. But it was not until a friend told us there was an opportunity to dress up in costumes...Drink...And ride our bikes around in a city wide parade that I realized what a great city we live in. New Belgium Brewing Company sponsors an event called "Tour de Fat" every year.

This is everyone dressed up and ready to go. I was told this year there were over six thousand people in the parade. It was very entertaining. Next are a few photos of the events...

so that's it, a little photo extravaganza, I think the photos tell the whole story. Lotta found JC at the end of the event and I think that is all a person can ask for.
Lots of luck for the start of this next week.

Back In Black

2008-10-04T10:12:00.000-07:00

Or back in Red as the stock market would be telling us. After a brief year break the blog is back. Lotta and I have moved to Colorado to enjoy the great out doors and here are a few images of that happening.
This is at the top of horse tooth, a bit of mountain that from afar looks like a horse tooth.
A friend that Lotta made at the top of the mountain. He is eating some crackers that Lotta gave him but soon after this she felt he needed some greens in his diet and gave him small bits of green pepper which he pushed out of the way so he could lick the rocks, so as to get any loose bits of cracker he might have missed. Our mission is to leave as small a footprint as possible while getting small mammals hooked on junk food.

Last weekend was up to the mountains to see the changing leaves. They did not disappoint, they are changed.

That is it for now, just a quick update but more outdoors to come

Halloween

2007-11-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

There has been an absence in the travel report latly but it was for a good cause. That cause being HALLOWEEN, and halloween recovery.

The build up for the Halloween party this year resembled in many ways the precaustions NASA takes before a shuttle launch. Much elbow greese and help from family and friends.

But WHY? well unknow to many people, there was a secret experiment in ther early 70's that determined that Halloween was the "bestest holiday EVER." O.K. so this is just my opinion but it is a great holiday to get dressed up set a creepy mood and make spooky theamed food dishes.

I see that every year there is more and more Halloween crap on sale and I could not be more happy about it. I think they should start making Halloween fireworks. Something that explodes in the shape of a pumpkin, a screeming witch cone, or maybe a flaming bottle of petrol being thrown at a car (God knows that would scare me).

Anyway, the party got started and we had a haunted house this year. We had a good turn out with a lot of fun people showing up and some scaredy cats who would not even go in the haunted house. But, far be it from me to judge. I heard on the radio this morning that Bush had petitioned to be alowed to run again in 2008 becasue he was not officially "elected" in 2000 (the supreme court appointed him during the re-count fiasco, strike three for democracy) And since the Republicans do not have very strong canidates this year, Bush was actually considering running AGAIN. This new story was played straight but of course it turned out to be a joke. Non the less, for a second it scared me more than a marathon of slasher movies ever could, or for that matter, it was more scarry that a REAL slasher attacking me. In all fairness Cheney is the really creepy guy. Be honest, no matter what your political view, if you came home, went to put your coat away and Dick Cheney came jumping out of the closet your heart would stop, O.K. his might stop too, but just the thought brrrrrrr.
Oppp's too much coffee this morning back to Halloween. Halloween started as a Gaelic holiday celebrating the havest.

They thought on Oct 31st the border between the living and the dead was weakend and they dead would come back an destroy crops and livstock so they did what they could to stop this: They got drunk and had a party, why can't we come up with solutions like this for our modern day problems? OH wait we DO it's called: The WEEKEND.
Halloween is of course the shortening of "all-hallow-even" celebrated by those wacky European Pagens until Pope Gregory the III changed it to "all-saints-day" There was a short period when instead of Halloween they called it "Saintsween" but many sacreligious jokes were made and even the Pope could not say it without a holy giggle so the chuch gave into Halloween.

It turns out that Trick-or-treating did not start until the 1950's in the U.S. Before this time children simply sat at home eating sugar cubes in funny looking costumes. The first forays into Trick-or-Treating were pioneered by the sons of mobster who would ask for booze and cash "OR ELSE" this slowly sofened into our moderen day Trick-Or-treating tradition.
No matter how it started it reigns as a really fun holiday now which I fully suport and enjoy, hopfully next year we can start decorating for Haloween the day after the 4th of July.
The party was a big hit and we even had some government officials there. Mayor McCheese and his wife came out, although I think it was just a political nessesity that forced him to show up and try and rebuild his reputation in the face of his recent scandel.

In case you do not know, the Mayor was recently involved in a controvery where he might have been soliciting sex in a McDonalds bathroom stall. While the Mayor had no comment a witness at the scene was asked if he could be sure it was Mayor McCheese and responded "Um he has an enormous burger head, Yhea I'm pretty sure it was him".

We also had some Cosmos come out and party down with us. What are Cosmos? Well, you should know by now but if not, they are members of Cosmopolitan International a group that raises money to help fight childrens diabeties. It is a great group that I am a member of so go out right now and give some money to them. Unless of course you have something against CHILDREN WITH DIABITIES. But, it is that time of the year to give a little so even if it is not for Cosmos at least help out the comunity or donate some food.

Ohhhh creepy creepy, hope everyone had a good time, until next year
Boo!

The Bluffs Are Alive With the Sound of Music

2007-10-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

A new event going on in Omaha is "Art In The Dark" where people gather at night and a movie is shown on the side of a building/museum. It was a fun event and this week was "The Sound of Music" I love the sound of music and have fond memories of watching it yearly with my family when I was growing up. We watched it on T.V., you know, when there were only four channels, and the VCR was not even invented yet. Oh my GOD I am becoming on of those old people who can remember when daily used technology was not even invented yet. I like to think this means that the world is just moving faster, NOT that I am getting older. Anyway, "The Sound of Music" is a wonderful musical movie that is historically misleading. When I was young I use to be soooooo happy that the Von Trap family made it into neutral Switzerland, peaceful, NEUTRAL Switzerland. A man can be SAFE in Switzerland, because once you cross that boarder NO ONE can get you in Switzerland. Craven, evil Nazis just run after you and once they hit the boarder of Switzerland they throw down their Luger's in disgust, raise their tiny fist toward the heavens and yell out "I'll GET YOU VON TRAP FAMILY SINGERS, If only you weren't in Neutral, neutral Switzerland!" Only years later did I learn (NOT at my worthless high school where the history teacher doubled as the football coach, OR more accurately the Football coach doubled as the history teacher) that Switzerland was not really the bastion of neutrality that the "Sound of Music" made it out to be. Uhhh got a little sidetracked there. Point is, with catchy songs I'm sure the Von Trap family could have ended the whole world war peacefully as soldiers from all sides laid down their weapons to join in a rousing variation of "Do-Ra-Mi".
So here I am years later watching "Sound Of Music" again and it really is a great movie although I have to ask "How many times does a man really need to sing "Edelweiss"? By the way the answer has been scientifically proven as: NONE.
Here is a photo of a friend who came along and had a hand puppet that would sing "Lonely Goatherd" it was the coolest puppet ever.

Even if it sometimes did not work as well as she wanted it too.

And on a last note, because it is always ascetically pleasing
Two Swedes in a field

Bolivia Bound

2007-10-11T10:00:00.001-07:00

As a continued public service, for your video pleasure I will shoot out some more videos from South America. We had just left Peru and entered Bolivia. No more of that guinea pig eating, no sir, down here in Bolivia we rise to a higher standard. So if you have just bought a house in Bolivia get yourself to the market and buy a dried baby llama fetus or DBLF if you will. Then bury it in your back yard for good luck. I have to admit that every time I have buried a DBLF in my back yard I have had good luck for a week, makes me consider opening the first DBLF store in Nebraska.
Onto road construction. I have not figured this one out yet. Bolivia is a pretty conservative country. For the most part women do not have hold regular jobs, except selling food or goods in the market. We ran across these women doing road construction, maybe the traditional part is that they have to do it in their dresses. Martha Stewart can make some dandy Halloween crafts but I'd like to see her construct a road, or at least pour some concrete.

After LaPaz our next stop in Bolivia was Sucre. Sucre is the political center of Bolivia. This means that for a long time it was the capital and in theory it still is but in reality the capital is LaPaz because that is where all of the government is and where most commerce is taking place. Sucre is a college town for the most part and has some wonderful whit washed buildings and many of the trapping of a college town anywhere on earth, like many coffee houses, hip bars, good art scene and of course torch wielding protesters who march on city hall and are surrounded by riot police.

Their main complaint is that the seat of the government is in LaPaz and they want it to be moved back to Sucre and I personally can think of no better enticement than throwing flaming torches at city hall.
If government were that girl that wouldn't go out with you in high school and you were a rioting mob, than throwing torches is the equivalent to sobbing and blubbering out "but I really love you, why don't you like me?". It's all going to end in heart ache for Sucre believe me you.
Anyhoo, that is it for now next time I think might be the mines that we went into in Potosi but Halloween is coming up here so it might be a Scarry update. take care until next time.

Sweden Is Coming, Sweden Is Coming

2007-09-27T06:36:00.000-07:00

Friends from Sweden came into town this week. Mostly they came to Omaha to see the well touristed interstate I-80, a legend in it's own time. Omaha has become the number one tourist destination for the Swedish people. Oh, and they are good friends with my wife but I do not think that had much to do with it.
So, my wife is stuck in the corporate world and working during the week while I have taken the road of self employment. This means that I was able to play the role of tour guide this week which ties in neatly to this blog. So where does one take a newly arrived Swede in Nebraska? Why, the General Crook House of course. "The What?..In where?" you might say. Or that is what I said before I did a little research and found out a little about our friend General Crook.

The General Crook House is a restored home on the Metro Campus in North Omaha. General Crook himself, went to the United States Military Academy where he graduated near the bottom of his class. He is the lowest ranked graduate ever, to rise to the rank of general. To me this says A: He did not fit in the academic structure and could only really fulfill his potential when applied to the realities of field command. or B: Slacker/First Hippie ever.
Once he graduated he served in Oregon and California fighting Native American tribes and started to gain a reputation as a "great Indian fighter"
He served under Ulysses S Grant in the civil war in West Virginia, where for several years in a row he won the prestigious "Most Crazy beard in The Union Award", and that is really saying something considering the beard growth at the time.

After the war he was sent to the Arizona territory to fight the Sioux, and then to Omaha in 1875 where he spoke out for Native American rights specifically for the Ponca tribe. He gained a reputation among the Native Americans as always keeping his word which was an easy reputation for him to dominate, as he was the only one to do so. He later went on to fight the Apaches in Arizona but ended up spending the rest of his days speaking out against the unjust treatment of the people he had been fighting against his whole life.
An interesting man and I am glad he had a cool house built right here in Omaha. Some fast facts: He did not like to wear his full uniform and the only time he was said to have put the whole thing on was at his funeral. He loved moccasins and wore them a lot because they were comfortable.
But onto the house. A photo of a Swede always makes an image look better.

The house itself was very nice as one might imagine. It is unusual to think of the wild frontier outside and this fancy house on the inside. Something that I found very stylish that I am thinking of putting in my own home? The Buffalo horn chair.

Nothing screams "COOL" more than a chair made out of buffalo horns. There was also a buffalo horn table and I think given time a man could make a buffalo horn candle obera, and a buffalo horn bath tub, although I will admit that water retention a pointy horns on naked skin could be the downfall of that latter.
There must have been a lot of "hanging out" back in the day, hanging out in full formal clothes. There was a reading room with some chair not made out of horns.

There was also a very pleasant garden outside.

I will conclude that the General Crook House was well worth the effort and a good chance to see a well restored home from 1875. A pleasant garden and an interesting man, just be sure to take someone from Sweden with you.

Peru Video

2007-09-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

O.K. back to our semi-regular feature of videos from South America. After much gasping and praying to God we reach the top of the highest part of the Inca trail called "Dead woman's Pass" How high? oh, just about 13,500 feet. Not unlike the first time you fall in love or 2000 presidential election: it took my breath away.

All of the porters on the Inca trail chewed Coca leaves. The history of coca chewing dates back at least to the sixth century. Coca leaves have been used in ceremonies, as offerings to the Gods and has practical applications as well. What are those? First they are full of vitamins and protein, they alleviate hunger, and give a boost to energy, not unlike a cup of coffee would. Coca can also help relive altitude sickness, it was used as an anaesthetic for operations during Inca times and when chewed long enough starts to numb the mouth exactly like Novocaine. Everyone knows about the history of Coca-Cola and Cocaine BUT did you know that Coke still imports tons of coca leaves to use as "a taste enhancer" in their peppy little soda.
Cocaine is NOT coca, the process to make cocaine is long and involved. Cocaine has only been around since 1860 when Albert Niemann made some in his lab. After discovering cocaine, later that night he painted his house, did some push-ups, and bought a Lamborghini. Cocaine is, crystalline tropane alkaloid. Cocaine sulfate is produced by macerating coca leaves along with water that has been acidulated with sulfuric acid, or an aromatic-based solvent, like kerosene or benzene. This is often accomplished by placing the ingredients into a vat and stomping on it, in a manner similar to the traditional method for crushing grapes.
I only point all of this out to make the distinction between how the natives use coca leaves and how coca is perceived in the U.S. The er ratification policy forced on Bolivia is seen as a personal attack by the natives by people who do not understand/care about their culture. I do not this destroying the coca crops is the answer, I think the question we must answer is why does the U.S.A. use so much cocaine in the first place and how can we cut down on demand. The U.S. accounts for 50% of ALL cocaine consumption worldwide.
WOW, I really started to rant about that coca leaf thing, must have had too much coffee. Anyhoo, the real question is how do the coca leaves taste? I think my wife can answer that question.

So, after the Inca trail we took a train down to Puno. On the train as we slept a group of Peruvians snuck in. Very quietly they moved through the train and came to a stop next to where we were seated and then.........

And then they wanted a tip, instead I gave them a demand "Give me back my hearing!"
Now a view from the train of a typical Peruvian town

And I will end up with a parade that was going on out side, kids parading around town very cute.

Tune in next time for a trip around Omaha

Colorado, That place with big hills

2007-09-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

Over the labor day weekend me and the wife took a trip out to Fort Collins Colorado, but first we had to get there. This entails a drive across the great state of Nebraska. Nebraska, "The Good Life" being the state motto should of course be changed to Nebraska, "Wow, I-80 sure is a long road to drive on through this state with not a whole lot to look at, Oh and the good life" I realize that the cost of making the signs bigger would break the budget, but since when has that stopped this state.

Me and the wife have friends in Colorado so we have made the trek several times but this time we found a way to make the trip fairly easy. We stopped half way. Yes, taking the night to sleep is a good idea on a trip though the grass lands. We ended up staying in North Platte and I have to give a thumbs up to the place we stayed at, Americas Best Value Inn was a friendly, clean place to stay on the cheap, about 45 bucks. I really like the name too, it gives me faith that all of those sushi places have not named their restaurant incorrectly but this is some sort of world wide advertising idea the places value on just throwing out a jumble of happy words at you. An example being I have seen sushi places called "Happy Number One Sushi", and "Sushi Number One Enjoy", and my favorite "Go Happy Number One Sushi" and yes, they ALL seem to be number one which begs the question "How sad it is to be Number Two Sushi?" OR they might be called "Very Sorry Unhappy Number Two Sushi"

Anyway, major sidebars aside, Americas Best Value "Happy Number One" Inn, may be just that so if you are rolling by North Platte give it a shot.

My other shout out to a place that surprise me on the way is Sterling, Colorado with a historic downtown and pleasant Northeastern Junior College campus we stopped by for breakfast at the J&L Cafe. We try to stop at local places as we go. It is the whole "avoid big chains and try to support local biz thing" This kind of philosophy can be trick as the quality of local places can vary wildly but that day we hit the jackpot. A small town feel with great service and non-greasy food (crazy but true.) I wish there was a place like this very close to me, like right outside my house. I also must say I am a sucker for any place that has a chef chasing a cow, pig AND a LOBSTER around with a cleaver. How Awesome is that, and that cow looks a little tired, tired enough to be dinner, HA.

So, back in the car and to Greeley Colorado our first stop before Fort Collins. Greeley is a nice town with a good downtown too, but the best thing and this gos for most of Colorado I would say, is the beer selection. I am a beer snob from way back, the smaller the micro brew, the more idiosyncratic the label, or the more pricey the beer the bigger sucker I am. Colorado is a heaven for this kind is indulgence. Sure they have bush, and old style but they put them in a corner where they are regularly beaten with sticks and made to clean the bathrooms. No, the real word of the day is "micro" in all of it's glory. New Belgium, Odell, Fort Collins Brewing, Big Horn Brewing, and so many more that Colorado is ranked third in the county for number of breweries, and brewpubs. Not only that but the selection of imported Belgian Ales is amazing, I love those ales, they are wonderful, they are great. I know this is not good writing but I am trying to make a point about the yummieness factor of Belgian ales. So, we bought some beer while in Colorado. The down side of beer is that sometimes it will make you do things like.....

In all fairness this friend of mine was NOT drunk or even drinking when he preformed the "Corn Dance" so it is up to you to decide if that is worse or not.

After a fun night in Greeley we headed up to Fort Collins, or the fifth most populous city in Colorado, that is their city tag line Fort Collins "The Fifth Most Populous City in Colorado, and the Good Life Also" it is a little belabored but at least factual.

In light of our recent South America trip, Fort Collins small 5000 feet was nothing although still enough to set off my ear non-popping issue that I brought back with me (thanks a lot for that South America!) Fort Collins turned out to be a great town with yet another cool downtown/old town area, beer, and trees all over the place. So, go there already and visit those big hills to the west I hear they are nice too. Next week Peru Videos.

I got to wear some big sunglasses too.

Back in the U.S.

2007-09-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

We are back!

Most people already know we are back but I thought I would blog it anyway. Back in Nebraska and while I love traveling there are a few things that I like about being back. 1. Traffic lights. Oh how I have not appreciated you for so long. Yes, part of the adventure of going to Peru and Bolivia is simply crossing the road but a person can grow tired of such advent re. Having a place to cross and being secure that no one will ignore the red light is something we should all appreciate.
2. Roads. I love roads, mostly paved ones, that do not have pot holes in them the size of Texas. 3.Bathrooms. I neglected to take a photo of a bathroom back here in the states but just go to ANY of them some time today and realize it is wonderful. I could live with the hole in the ground toilet that was provided throughout Bolivia but I came to hate the toilet, minus the seat. Why, What kind of leg muscles is a person suppose to have to use one of these things?4. My cat. I have, over the last few years slowly become a cat person. I thought I was a dog person but my cat has become the best pet EVER. I am not ashamed to say I missed my cat and was glad to see it when I got back

One of the top things that annoyed me when I got back

MY CAT! how she loves to claw everything and sit on anything I happen to be reading. ah the love/hate relationship. Bad kitty

Some of the many things that we both miss from the trip are: Everything. We would still be traveling if we could. It is great to touch home base but the thrill of traveling is wonderful. New places and things to see every day. Having a meal is an adventure and the next thing you experience has a one in three chance of being the coolest thing you have seen in your whole life. All that being said I have another thing that we seem to only have in Nebraska. It is a main feature of the state that no matter where I go I have not seen anywhere else in the world: The Weather.
Sure there are places in the world that get colder and places that get hotter, or more rain or more snow, BUT could all that happen in one month anywhere BUT Nebraska I think not. I personally give Nebraska the strangest weather award. To give evidence I show this photo.

There was a huge lightning storm, it rained all day, then in the evening the sky turned orange (why not). It may sound strange but I really do not thing anyone gets as varied weather as we do right here. Now I'm going home to wait for the hot lava tornado

O.K. There is one last thing that is just great about being back and that is the heat. Boy how I love the heat. 105 degrees out side. No problem just get out and try to keep cool and here is the best way to keep cool in heat like that.

Get yourself a damn slip'n'slid.

Well, that is it, next week we will have more videos from Peru and a home brewed travel log. We went all the way to Colorado over labor day weekend, I even got to go to the hospital, be sure to click back in.

Videoramma

2007-08-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

O.K. it only took me like two weeks but I have figured out how to put up some videos on the blog. As it takes more time then I thought it would i will not put up the twenty or so that I thought I was going to, but I will start out small with five or six and have this be a regular feature that breaks up the normal blogs with some videos until I run out of videos which should be right after peace is achieved in the middle east.
So, the first video comes from Cuzco, our first city in Peru. There were sidewalks.....sort of, but the cars ALWAYS have the right of way, OR you could pretend the cars do not have the right of way and wind up as a statistic. Sometimes the cars would lay claim to the narrow sidewalks as the video shows.

Next up is the Guinea Pig cook off. I have some video but for actual photos you have to back to that chapter in the blog, I have some photos of the baked guinea pig and they all look like they are screaming, ah the silence of the guinea pig.

That was the before and here is the after

One day while walking around town we just ran smack dab into a huge festival that lasted all day long. Here is just one of the "events" that was going on.

And that lasted for HOURS. In that order, 1. whip each other 2. some guy throws a bag at them and then jumps on one or both guys 3. both guys go up to the other guy in a pink dress, bow and walk away. 4. repeat for four hours.
I would also like to note that when they jump on each other and fall all over the place they are falling on STONE "Ouch".

Dressed up and carrying a saint back to his church.

And that is it for now. Next blog is all about coming back to the States and what I find good and bad about that.
Since I did not send out the link on the last e-mail I will this time but this is the last one, so be sure to save kitties from mars to you favorites. then check in about every two weeks I WILL update, do or die. Also check out the other blogs that I put in the Best of the Best spot, well worth the time.
Join us next time for "Readjustment".

Fun In the Sun

2007-08-13T07:32:00.001-07:00

We last left out intrepid adventures flying back to LaPaz. After flying up to the airport (the airport is the highest in the world so smaller airplanes are almost flying UP to land)we headed back to the city and spent a day watching a parade. The different universities in La Paz were having a... umm dance off? I don't know but that is what I am calling it. The students from different majors would dress up with themed costumes and dances and then be rated by judges. there were over sixty entries. We just stumbled upon this little celebration that took over the whole city for the entire day and well into the night. It was sooooo cool. I would recommend to anyone doing some traveling to look up what kind of festivals are going on and try to coordinate your travel time with said festival. I mention this because we just lucked out in hitting some party/holiday/let's-all-just-get-drunk-and-dance-because,-hey-it's-Wednesday-Right!, sort of occasions, and every one of these we witnessed was amazing. It is a great time because the locals are just having fun and are more likely to include YOU in the fun because you made an effort to be there. Plus it is a nice break from the local boys coming up to you in ski masks and offering/demanding to shine your shoes. They were the ski masks because shoe shiner does not command the respect of say... trash collector, social stigma and all. There is also the added effect of scaring the hell out of people by popping up and saying "SHOE SHINE" right in their face.
Buying medicine from Inca Pharm, where I acted out my illness and then they gave me drugs

While in the jungle I picked up a nice souvenir from a fellow traveler. A horrible hacking cough, which a few weeks later, because I am considerate and I care, I gave to my wife. For our one day in LaPaz it got a little worse, then we took the bus to Arequipa, a fantastic coastal town that is some two thousand meters below LaPaz. Can you say "pressure change", Yes for nine fun filled hours on the bus my ears refused to pop, not that the pressure didn't build up and make my head want to explode. Luckily, everyone had their own private misery on this bus, one of the few tourist buses we took. It had a bathroom on the bus, a good thing right! no, bathroom bad!! because the whole bus smelled like bathroom, and not like bathroom soap or bathroom cleaner, but you know, the BAD bathroom smell. Lotta had her traditional motion sickness that kept her in a good mood and Jason had gone out the night before to a bar, been offered a super-hero costume and danced at a disco until four A.M. dressed at the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.(no we don't have photos yet, but we may get some) What we learned from that is: Spider-Man's worst foe is not Doc Ock, The Sandman, or the Goblin. His worst enemy, the nebulous Excessive Booze combined with his partner Long Bus Ride. Anyway we all lived albeit groaning and moaning. Another travel tip, lots of snacks and water for long bus rides, our "breakfast" on the bus was a hard roll thrown at our heads by "I have a chip on my shoulder bus guy" and "lunch" was a mythical creature that only existed on the paper we read when we bought the ticket. Snacks saved the day.
So back to Peru in the form of the city of Arequipa, a wonderful town, we ate delightful food there, while being a bit more touristy than our average stop it was none the less enjoyable. Once there we booked a two day tour of the colca canyon, the DEEPEST CANYON IN THE WORLD you have to say that with a booming voice. On our way to the canyon we saw some more alpaca, llamas and vicunas Oh My!

Lotta made a personal friend with a pushy Llama

Some more of that pretty landscape stuff.

That night we went to a traditional Pena, a bar where they preform live folk music, and dance.

The dancing part is fun, the women dance around and act out little dramas and then they pull people from the audience, it was touristy but really very fun too.

There are condors there too, rare, big condors. Hundreds of people flock (sorry) to see the condors because they only come out at certain times of the day but when they do come out and if you are really quite (hundreds of people really quiet-right) they will come in really close and circle around over head. We were told that this behavior is meant to kill us. It works like this: The condor sees a cow or alpaca or something walking up the mountain. the condor is HUGE, so it circle very close to the animal. The animal looks up, follows the condor with its head moving in a circle's, gets dizzy, confused, and falls down the mountain and dies. The condor zips down and eats his fill of yummy tenderized cow.

Now you would have to at least as stupid as a cow to fall for this right? Our guide told us several times "don't get near the edge and watch the condor because people have fallen" so much for my theory of human superiority over cows.
The Condors really were worth it, I did not know that something that big could be so graceful and cool. simply mesmerizing to watch.

The first night we were on our tour we went to a hot springs, a hot spring that turned out to be how many drunk tourists can you fit in a pool? The tour we opted for turned out to follow the road most traveled. Every tour bus on earth stop ed at the same place, our quiet little hot spring was packed to say the least. None the less we relaxed in the curative powers of the natural hot spring water, spilled beer, and children's pee.
While I have been trying to take photos of the local people in their traditional clothing on this trip I had rarely considered what it would be like to be on the other side of that. I got my chance at the hot springs. Two Peruvian tourists, a mother and daughter asked Jason and me, while we were in our bathing trunks if she could take a photo of us. Why? because my natural color is not white, it is amazingly vivid, shockingly, super-nova white, and Jason is not far behind. I got this a little bit in south-east Asia but this was the first time in South America. We agreed, and the mother stood in between two sticks of human chalk while her daughter took a photo.
The stop take a photo now get back in the van tour was nice at this time because I was pretty sick anyway. It was a nice way to see things without making too much effort.

Once back in Arequipa we started to eat again right away, who kn owes when you will eat this well of so cheap. We spent our last day in a monastery.
A
huge monastery that takes up and entire city block, bright colors, maze like, and fascinating. It was a photographers dream, a man could drop his camera have it go off by accident and still get a great shot.
These nuns were the Martha Stewart of nunnery, but sometimes at penance they would wear barbed wire underwear, now is the right time to say "Ouch" in a high pitched voice.
A stop at the crepe factory, to stuff ourselves and back on the bus to Ica, once stop away from Lima.

A town with a lagoon in amidst sand dunes. We took a dune buggy which was driven straight up and straight down sand dunes to the delight of everyone on board.

Pure fun, then we were let off to go sand boarding down the dunes. Fairly hard to do without falling, which we all did a lot except Lotta who still fell sometimes but looked cool doing it.

Back to the hotel and cleared sand out of parts of the body that can not be talked about on this blog, we chilled out for a day and headed to Lima.
We had heard nothing but bad things about Lima, but once we got there we did not find it dangerous at all in fact it was worse than dangerous it was kind of dull. It could be that we were both sick by now, or that this time of year Lima is covered in a constant fog, or it was the last days of our trip and we got a bit melancholy but the small part of Lima we saw did not inspire us. Some last day hanging out. and then it was back on a plane to the U.S.
O.K. well, it is back to Omaha now. This is the last Blog I will send out to everyone, BUT the adventures continue at the same blog time (about every two weeks) and same blog channel (kittiesfrommars.blogspot.com) so for the love of Pete put this Blog on your favorites, there is more to come albeit more domestic and better like spelled and stuff. Next up is a "Video Ramma" as I figure out U-Tube and give a best of out short 10-30 second video clips from the trip, then I suppose a blog on how freaky it is to be back in the states. Don't miss it.

Last but on least, for those of you who are blog junkies, you should check out cliffedout.blogspot.com a brand spanking new blog. Moving is always tough and interesting you can read how moving from New York to the Midwest is. Well written and heart felt.
Also eatingthepavement.blogspot.com gives you the best of the week and a some fun tips on what is hip, cool, or just a little strange.
And the last one if you really like well written, funny, and insightful check out kappanohe.blogspot.com a Midwest girl who moved to Japan 10 years ago and give her perspective on Japan. very funny with photos!

Anyhoo, it has been fun and I hope everyone enjoyed the blog
Check back in for videos, they are short and easy to watch, just like reality T.V.

Welcome To The Jungle, We Have Fun And Games

2007-07-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Many people like to wax romantic about the jungle, an amazing place with vast amounts of different and unique animals and plants, a place that seems to be mystical in appearance and feel. A place where one can feel connected to the earth as they breath in the oxygen abundant air. I like to call it "The Most Itchy Place On Earth."
We based ourselves out of a town deep in the jungle called Rurrenbeque. Deep in the jungle but not so deep that we could not get a slice of pizza or shots of booze with 'funny' names like 'Dengue Fever'. Our first trip into the wilderness was actually into the Pampas, a water logged area where a person can walk around in the 'dry' season. To get there we first had to take a four hour jeep ride. This is the 'dry' season road.

During our ride the jeep broke down, but in a move that would make McGuiver proud, our driver fixed it, and I am not kidding, with a flip flop and a hammer which are now a permanent part of the jeep.

While we were waiting, we all got a chance to take in the local farm house we were stuck at and observed the "baby pig feeding hour", that put everyone who witnessed it off bacon.

Back into the jeep and a slightly bumpy ride to the river where we transferred all of our gear and waited a bit for our guide to be ready, this was to be our last pit stop for a few days. As we stood around waiting looking at the river wonder what animal we might see I noticed that there was an alligator on the river bank. I backed away from the water and wondered how long it would take for the alligator to eat me.

What I did not know yet was he was only one of the hundreds of alligators and camin we would see in the next few days. They lined the river banks on both sides, sometimes floating in the water, usually just board with us as we passed by.
Here we are in the boat

The amazing thing about Bolivia is the amount of diversity there. In all of the U.S. AND Canada there are 700 bird species, in the Maddied park in Bolivia, with one tenth of one percent of the land of the u.S. and Canada there are 1000 different bird species.

With that fact in hand I thought our trip would be a lot like an old Hitchcock movie with birds flying at us from all directions. This was not the case, we saw plenty of birds but the camin and alligators had to outnumber them 20 to 1.

We hung around the Pampus and it rained hard and heavy for a day, then we went swimming with dolphins. Yes, there are dolphins in the river, that crazy pampus. Pink river dolphins, apparently they keep the alligators away so it is O.K. to swim.
Here is a photo of the largest rodent in the world, they would hang out sometimes on the river banks also, but not in the numbers of the alligators.

I can not even start to think of how big the mouse trap would have to be in your kitchen if you found out your house was infested with these things. We thought they were wombats, but I am not sure if anyone knows, please let us know.
Here is a photo of the Alligator that came into our camp. He just wondered up from the river and hung out in front of the kitchen area and waited to be fed scraps from lunch.

He was pretty old and did not have a lot of teeth left but still, it was a little disheartening to look out side from lunch and see this.

On the last day we went for a walk into the Pampus, we were issued rubber boots that cam up to our knees, which was great until we walked through water that came up to our butts.

The water looked like the water from the first Star Wars film, you know the part where Luke, and Han and everyone are trapped in the Death Stars trash compacter, remember what that water looked like, well that was exactly the kind of water that was filling our boots, I just waited for someone to get dragged under by some outer space one-eyed monster. Not that the real life bugs and snakes were not creepy enough.

Here is a photo of Lotta, while we were Piranha fishing.

O.K. so out of the Pampus and back to town, then right into the jungle. The jungle really lived up to the hype, in that it was very much like a jungle. There were not nearly the number of bugs that I thought would be out there but the ones that WERE there could bite though a bullet poof vest. We took a boat out again, and here is a photo of our great captain, a wonderful man who jumped out and PULLED the boat forward a few times.

This is a photo of the caterpillar of whom our guide told us "Do not touch, if you touch you WILL go to the hospital."

The same could be said of the fire ants, the fire ants only stay on a specific tree. They live on that tree and the tree gives the ants some sort of sap that they live on, in return the fire ants attack anything that touches the tree for more than a half a second. Our guide told us that a long time ago, i.e. last week, jungle villages would tie men who stole or women who cheated on their husbands to the tree for fives minutes as punishment. I asked if men who cheated were also tied to the tree? "ha ha you are so funny gringo" he said. well he did not actually say that, but he did chuckle when he said "no".
A good rule to follow in the jungle, as well as an expensive pottery store or leper colony is: DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING.
A nice photo of the river and jungle.

The girls showing off their jewelry they made out of jungle seeds and the such.

I think the women would have been happy to just to make stuff for the whole trip. A good word for any man out there looking for love, show a woman how to make jewelry out of jungle seeds and you will own her heart.
Another cool thing in the jungle are leaf-cutter ants. They cut off part of a leaf and then take it back to home base on their backs. They form amazingly long lines from their tree to the ant hill. It looks a lot like leafs moving through the jungle, but after four days we had to go back into town. The town we would be stuck in for a bit. While the 17 hour bus ride was a lot of fun we decided to take a plane back to LaPaz, the plane ride is only one hour. Unless of course it rains because no planes can take off in the rain or even shortly after the rain because they have to wait for the runway to dry because the runway is grass. I am not a big fan of flying anyway so the 18 seat, grass runway thing made me a little nuts.
But we did not have to take off for some time because of the rain, we were lucky in that we were stuck with some good friends we made on our trip

and another dog wearing a sweater

After a day or two of Bolivian paperwork and weather we were off and it was a wonderful view that made it worth while.
Well, it is coming down to the wire, only a week of travel time left and it is feeling very short indeed. Next we head back to Peru, up the coast, to Lima and back home. I think we may be in for a case of reverse culture shock, as in cars will stop for red lights and stuff.

Road of intense super death and rock n roll

2007-07-16T10:03:00.001-07:00

Back in La Paz. After a bunch of running around we found ourselves in La Paz with a week before our friend Jason came to town. Just to update, me and Lotta met for the first time in our lives in Cambodia in 2003, when we were both traveling. This momentous meeting was created by our mutual friend, Jason, who we had both met at different times but on the same trip through south-east Asia. Flash forward to today. We had been e-mailing Jason, who is a native of and still lives in L.A., about our trip. It turned out he had about a month in which he could do some traveling and we thought it would be cool if he came on down to Bolivia, we said as much and he said "what the heck, I´ll be there." So, he was coming to La Paz on the 11th and we had a week to kill.
Lucky for us that La Paz is a great city. We decided to go to some ruins that were just outside of the city, only a day trip really. The ruins of Tiahuanaco, a pre-Inca civilization, were uhmm sort of boring. Apparently, this was a pretty great society and they did a bunch of stuff, and invented some farming and building methods and did some other stuff, but they should have put some more time into making things that were not so dull. The least they could have done was make their civilization "mysterious" or make some big, strange structures that no one understands. Maybe a 40 ton rat/lizard statue made out of rock, that could have been put here by U.F.O.´s hey, I don´t know, but something. O.K. I am not really being fair, the Tiahuanaco´s did have everything I am complaining they did not have but every society after them destroyed what they made so all that is left are some rocks and monoliths. The Monoliths are cool, I will have to admit. I suppose some of it is ruins burn out. After a while a person gets a bit burned out on the ruins. There really were some cool things there, for one thing they worshiped the Puma and had a bunch of statues of Patcha Puma, which is sort of like "mother Puma" but really it is just fun to say¨"Patcha Puma" a lot. I bout a small Patcha Puma statue for good luck. The natives think it will bring luck, but I am not so sure how much luck a non-practiced, completely destroyed religion will bring me. None-the-less I think a cartoon based on the life and times of "Patcha Puma" would be a big hit in the states. Sorry got a little side tracked there.
The Tiahuanaco people made a big pyramid, what no one told them is that in order to be remembered they have to make pyramids much higher. This "Pyramid was only about 16 meters tall, but very wide, about 200 sq meters. A good PR agency would have told the Tiahuanacoians that wide pyramids are soooo like 234 B.C.
One of the cool things they had was a basement, very modern at the time, decorated with faces, the first face is the most modern.

They also had a monolith that went on a rampage and started beating up monoliths from other excavation sites. Apparently, he was carved out of some poor quality rock, left out in the elements and was just never really cared for or given the support that other, much more responsible monoliths were given. Anyway, one night he had too much Chicha (a local corn beer) and he just went nuts and cut an Inca condor spirit statue, with a broken bottle. They caught him and threw him in this barbed wire cage, they also had some guards with jackhammers just in case.

O.K. although I never get tired of it, I suppose I should stop bagging on the Tiahuanaco civilization, I mean it is not like they do not have enough problems, I mean not existing anymore and all.
Just some random things about La Paz. McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy´s Watch out . Bolivia has it´s own fast food chain and it is coming for you. Soon my friends, on every coroner there will be bright, new Mega Burger. Right now this young up and comer busting out of it´s seams with over three locations, but I think it is only a matter of time before happy meals are a thing of the past and all kids are whining to their mothers to get a "Mega PicPoc" What is this? welllll a mega picpoc is a very large plastic cup with a cardboard divider on the top and a straw sticking out of it. On top your fries and chicken bits are divided and you suck on the straw to get your (divided from the food) drink on the bottom. It is really an amazing invention and easy to walk around with, hmmmm if you see a "Craig Burger" pop up just forget you saw this.

Banks in U.S. are backed up to 100,000.00 dollars so you have some security when you use the bank. Banks in Bolivia are back up by however many shots the guard with the machine gun or shotgun can get off on anyone stupid enough to try and rob the bank. Every bank we saw there were VERY armed guards outside.

I had sort of mixed feeling on this. On one hand I felt very secure, it is nice to have a lot of security around. On the other hand, WHY DO YOU NEED SO MANY GUARDS!.
We also ended up seeing the new Fantastic Four movie for like three dollars which was fun and the movie was made much better simply by seeing it in Bolivia, I recommend that if you have to see a bad movie you first go to a developing nation to watch it.
On a movie note we found a place that sold movies and we bought one, The Transformers. I think the movie had come out in the theaters about three hours earlier and now I hold the DVD in my hand for two dollars, God bless Bolivia.
So, we walked around, ate some stuff, and poked some things with a stick, but then Jason came in to town. He showed up in the middle of the night at our hostel in tip top shape after a very long trip from L.A. to Lima, to La Paz.

The next day checked out the city and ran into a guy who asked us if we wanted to check out the prison. This might seem like a bad idea but we read about it in the guide book. You can have a guide take you into a Bolivian prison and talk with some of the less dangerous inmates about their experiences. In a Bolivian prison you can live as well or poorly as you can afford. If you have 20 grand you can have your own apartment with catered food, a sauna if you want. Many inmates bring their family into the prison to live with them. If you have no money you have to do odd jobs to earn money to pay for your food or shower. Anyway, we thought it would be interesting. They guy we were talking to already had to English girls interested, so in our group of five we said yes. He lead us to the prison said it was five dollars each. We gave him the money and he went to the prison and came back and said we had to wait for two hours. He would meet us back here in two hours. Yes, it sounded like a scam and in fact it was a scam and we never saw that guy again. But, what would a trip to a different country be without having someone rip you off for five bucks. In all fairness I can not even blame the different country, the guy who ripped up off was obviously from the the U.S. Oh well.
That day we also booked a bike ride. The ride would be about 36 miles and would take at the end of it we would take a bus the rest of the way into the jungle. We wanted to take the bike ride because it is "THE MOST DANGEROUS ROAD IN THE WORLD". In those 36 miles you go from 12,000 feet to 6,000 feet.
We saw the tour company, mountain madness, that offer a mountain bike ride down "the most dangerous road in the world" but I took it with a grain of salt, I come from the U.S. the home of the over hyped non-event. In the U.S. a thing may be advertised as "most deadly", or "super-intense" but in the land of the sue-happy we all know that no matter how dangerous a thing may look it is perfectly safe because no one wants to get sued. What I learned quickly is that Bolivia is not really hip to advertising yet. The tourist industry is just starting to take off so when they call something "The most dangerous road in the world" it is no joke.

Also, keep in mind that by Bolivian standards a "safe" road is a one lane slightly washed out dirt mountain pass with rock slides and bandits.
How does a road get the moniker of "most dangerous"? It was given by an Inter-American Development Bank report. An average of 26 vehicles per year disappeared over the edge. The road is just 10 feet (3.2 meters) wide, most of it with 1800 foot (600 meter) drops, with waterfalls spilling over the dirt to make slippery mud in certain spots. Most of it is gravel with mid-sized rocks that sit around waiting to kill. The road use to be MUCH more dangerous about 8 months ago. A new paved road has been made and almost all vehicle traffic uses THAT road now. Before then, bike riders would have to hang out on the edge while trucks and buses drove by,because upcoming traffic gets to stay by the mountain.

We broke into two groups of four each and one guide. One group, the fast group and one slow. I was in the fast group but I was by far the slowest in the fast group. After going down the road I can say the only way it is NOT the most dangerous road is if there is another road made of LAVE, where tigers try to devour you and men sit in caves trying to sell you AMWAY. Only that road would be more dangerous

Ever since the new road was built, "DEATH" on the road has declined but don´t worry bikers still zip out over the edge just in time to think "ummmmmh oop´s" Our guide would stop us at certain spots to point out where "just last week two Germans were racing their bikes and ran into each other and both went over the edge" Some of the guys in our group complained that they wanted to go faster, where as I thought that walking might be too fast of a clip for me. Anyway we lived and it was very pretty.
Once down from the mountain we stayed in the town at the bottom, then we booked out tickets on the bus into the jungle.

We got to our "bus station" in the middle of no where at two in the afternoon. We waited for our bus until seven. The upshot was meeting two very nice sisters from Canada. At seven our bus got there and we started our 16 hour night bus, on what can only be considered the second most dangerous road in the world. With Bolivians sleeping literally underfoot, and on top of us the bus ride was.....an experience.
Happy to be in the jungle we showered and drank. Next stop.....Jungle
Drinking some beer in the jungle.

Can I Have Some Salt With That Flat?

2007-07-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

This week found us at Salar De Uyuni, or the great big salt flats. I must say that before coming to Bolivia that I did not really know much about it other than Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid got killed there. What I have found out so far is that Bolivia is one of the most amazing places on Earth. Highest, Largest, Most Bio diverse, these are all descriptions of landscapes that get tossed around all of the time here. It was Lotta who came up with the idea to go the salt flats. I was very enthusiastic about the idea "uhhh it´s a lot of salt, right" was my first jump up and down statement. After dragging my feet about going "ohhh can we go see the hot sauce lake, and the nacho valley next" we committed. Turns out this was good because there is nothing like this place on earth and to top it off the salt flat was really only the first day. We booked our tour with four other people: Michell from Colorado, Lucas from Australia, and Amanda and David from the U.K. Turned out that everyone was cool, good thing too because we spent every hour together for the next few days. The tour consisted of our driver/guide driving over the salt flats and pointing things out to us in Spanish.

Our first stop was a train graveyard-0000hhhhhhhh very scary, it is a place where all of the trains come to die.

O.K. I am not sure why they did the train thing but we snapped some picks anyway. By now we had all hear about the amazing Salt Flats. 3653 meters high, 12,106 Kilometers wide, a massive amount of nothing. A huge lake evaporated some 14,000 years ago leaving...well.. salt and some mini lakes. So, after the train thing we zipped right back into town to hang out in the jeep outside of the driver/guides house for.... well who knows what... while we passed the time hanging out in the jeep we got to see some lady butcher a sheep? cow? something in the back of her car.

Now it was time to hit the salt flats. They lived up to the hype, and there really was nothing there but salt (well duh) none the less I found myself just sort of looking around going "Wow". Here is most of our Salt flat crew.

Here is also Jeep we drove around in which Lucas aptly christened "The Bullet".

It was a great jeep that Alfredo, our Driver/guide would pop the hood up on every other time we stopped to gently massage the hamsters that kept the jeep running.
Here is Lotta on top of the world.

A photo of the two of us because nothing is more sexy than salt and lots of it.

I had to lick the salt too because I had to make sure as a matter of fact I had to lick a rock later and even a llama but it would not stand still.

But, salt was just a part of it, later that day we came to an island in the middle of the salt flat, an island full of cactus, somehow some water got out there.

Next we all sat down for some lunch, our guide made everything and it was good, he made some pasta, fried style, and it was fine after we used Lotta's secret: drown it in ketsup.

Then everyone got really creative and we took some goofy photos.

Back into the jeep and out of the salt flats. Into some amazing landscapes. It was like the MTV of landscapes, every hour an completely different one appeared, you would just space out for a little while, then look around and think "Am I on THIS planet?" Fist there was the nothing landscape.

Then we hit mountain, and strange rock formations.

Then a lake that looked red because of algae, plankton, and deposits of sodium, magnesium, and gypsum.

For all you people who love birds, we saw some flamingos. O.K. so that might not be so cool BUT, these flamingos live in icy lagoons at 5000 meters high, and they have developed a way to filter out the alkaline water of the lake from their food. So, these flamingos ROCK, alas I did not get a very good photo of them but you can see yet another funky colored lake.

Here is another great mountain and lake and the water is probably thick with Borax or micro fossils, or mayo or something.

The nights did get cold and once we reached the hotel, and I am being soooooo generous calling it a hotel. Really, more of an old army barracks, speaking of which while we were driving we got to see a bunch of military guys drilling for something, but I hope NOTHING because to be realistic Bolivia's military conquest record has been nothing short of CRAP. Sorry Bolivia but it is so true, it seems every time they get aggressive they actually end up loosing their own land. But we did see a lot of very tough looking Chuck Norris shoulder rolls going on.
So, two chilly nights later we were off on the bone shaking ride again. We found some snow and some of the strangest wind swept rocks I have seen.

Lucas made a snow Llama that was so cool I had to get some shots of it.

More rock filled roads and then another cold night where a rabbit hopped into where we were eating and chewed on a chicken bone, the creepy rabbit invaded our dreams, "bad bad scary rabbit."

We woke up very early to see the geyser basin. Bubbling mud pots, and bellowing sulfur, then after days of not showering we all endded up at a hot springs that was heated from the core of the earth. Never have I liked the core of the earth more.

Oh and with all of the amazing landscapes we also had come cookies with happy faces on them.

Overall we had a great time on that tour, our tour buddies made it just that much more fun. Once we got back into town we waited for our train that was leaving at midnight, we backtracked to Oruro and then worked our way back to La Paz, where we will be meeting up with a friend of ours from L.A. who is flying down

This has been a pretty photo intense blog because I have been able to find an Internet place that has a really good connection, if you have any comments or questions about anything in the blog feel free to ask. If you would like further information about the countries and have some complex political or historical questions I will be sure to make up something that sort of sounds right.

Bolivian Bingo

2007-07-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

Back on track, nothing can stop us now. We left the Bolivian capital of La Paz, which was originally named La Pez by the Spanish who noticed the Indians were licking a small hard candy off of each others necks. We took the bus down, or up as the case may be, to a town called Oruro, a mining town. Oruro is another town that is, big surprise, very high up. We went to a mining museum that was interesting. Learned that mining is difficult and dangerous. Next we went to the city of Sucre, a beautiful town that has preserved a lot of the colonial architecture. Such a nice city is Sucre that in 1991 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was in this city that Bolivia declared independence in 1825. It was also here that the Bolivian congress created the Bolivian constitution, an amazing document that provided freedom to the people and an organized and fair way to vote and usher in a new age of equality. A document that so effectively distributed freedoms among the people of Bolivia that it was almost immediately ignored, trampled on and manipulated for the next 180 years or so. From 1825, the year Bolivia declared Independence (Yea) to today Bolivia has had 188 coups (boooo) with the longest reign of any single government being in power for ten years, and THAT was a dictatorship. In that time none of the 192 different governments have had very much time in power to really get anything done, that is, other than sell off parts of the country for their own personal gain. At the start of Bolivian Independence, Bolivia was roughly double the size it is today. The big winners of Bolivia's political turmoil :Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, and anyone who was just wandering by Bolivia and decided to take a few thousand miles home as a souvenir. For some reason Bolivia´s long string of political luck seems to be changing. The current government seems to have the peoples best interest at heart and is moving to improve the standard of living of the average Bolivian. These are just some the interesting things we learned about in Sucre, the heart and soul of the most unstable, unlucky, is-it-Wednesday-it-must-be-time-for-a-military-junta themed, country in the world.
We don´t really have any photos of the history of this city, but wait... WE DO. Today Sucre is a university town with many students, students who happened to be protesting to get the government to move the seat of power from La Paz to Sucre. The students took to the street one night with torches.

It all seemed Innocent enough, until they got to the local government building where they started throwing the torches, and loud firecrackers at the building. I´m not sure about the message "Hey government come to Sucre so we uhhhhhh don´t have to travel as far to throw stuff at you" But, I´m sure it is more complicated than that.

I was fine with it as long as it was not "let´s protest against the blue eye, gringo, devil from Nebraska". Actually the mood of revolution was sweeping the crowd with such a powerful force that MY WIFE, Lotta got caught up in it. She grabbed a torch and started yelling "viva le revolution"

lucky for me there was a shoe store open and she lost interest in governmental overthrows in lieu of cheap shoes.
Here is an example of, oh I don´t know, EVERY TRUCK IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY. Take a deep breath.

The cars and trucks run a system here not unlike the U.S. where each car has a certain Horse Power. In Bolivia it is DHP, or Dead Horse Power, a power rating system where as in a car is put in a room with a bunch of horses. However many horses DIE from the exhaust, that is the rating of the car. This truck was rated 3 DHP, it gos up to 50.
But wait, there are dinosaurs in Sucre too. Well, just the foot prints but they are cool. A cement company was doing what cement companies do and they ran across some dino footprints. They carved out a mountain and there you go a bunch of dinos running, a 150 different species of dinosaur to be exact. How to get to the dino prints outside of town? why just take the truck with a dino head on it.

While the footprints were the main attraction they also created a dino park around it, with about 30 some life-size models of dinosaurs. We were a little leery of the dino park, but it was great, and not just by Bolivian standards but by any standards. The dinosaur models were very detailed and the layout was slick. Lotta made friends with a big meat eating dino and we plan to take him home.

After dino city it was time to move on, we jumped on the bus and headed off to Potosi. Potosi has a rich and sad history. The Spanish found very rich silver veins in the mountain there and started taking it out in 1544. So, much silver was extracted from Cerro Rico it is a wonder that it is still standing. In an unprecedented move, the Spanish, realizing the immense wealth in the mountain, created the town of Potosi in partnership with the Quechua people. While the work was dangerous and hard the Spanish rewarded the Quechua with proper schools, and an unheard of health care program that enabled the indigenous people to live a high standard of life that gave them a respect for the Spanish who lived in peace with the Quechua.........NOT. In reality, once the Spanish found the silver they enslaved every indigenous Quechua, and brought in African slaves, and faster than you can say "what human rights" they started a huge excavation. They required every slave over 18 to work in 12 hour shifts, but they did not leave the mine once their shift was over, they would stay down there for four months at a time. In the three hundred years the mine was owned by the Spanish, an estimated eight million slaves died in the mines. On the money side, Potosi became one of the richest cities in the world, wit more money than Paris or London. The Population grew to 200,000 making it one of the largest cities in the world. Then the silver started to run out and there was a crash. Today most mines are in the control of miner-owned cooperatives, but they still operate under conditions that have not changes much from the colonial times. Silver is still extracted but zinc, lead, and tin are the larger extracts now. Due to the history and amazing/depressing history Potosi has also been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A new thing the town is making money on are the tourists. A person can take a tour of a real life mine and see miners mining. Me and Lotta signed up. First we got suited up because mines are dirty and dark (just in case you did not know) then we went to the miners market to buy some gifts for the miners.

The miners do not make a lot of money so it is nice to give them something. We bought some soda, coca leaves, and dynamite to give away. The dynamite was cheap, only like 3 bucks. We bought a little extra because they would just blow it up for you later if you liked.

The coca leaves kill appetite, and give energy which is a good thing as the miners can not eat anything in the mines because of the dust and dangerous gasses.
Then we went to a processing area where they rocks that are taken out are broken down and processed.

Lotta was looking good in her outfit as was I, we had a group of eight people to go into the mine.

We walked into the small mine and about 200 yards in we came to an area with some devil dude (that is not the direct English translation)

We found that the miners believed that the devil lives in the mountain they are digging in and the best way to make friends with with devil is to give him things so the miners leave all sorts of things for him, I´m not sure how well this is working since the mortality rate is so high. And, "yes" the devil seems to be hung like a horse.

We would run through the mine quickly because every now and then a mine car would come zipping through and in certain areas there was no way to get out of the way, so as not to die you had to make sure you were not in one of these areas when the cart came though. We would get to an area where we could all sit down and gasp for breath through the dust. The thing with the mine tour is that it is a REAL mine, in NO WAY was it a tourist type thing, what this means is that it was pretty intense. Dust everywhere, and some of the highlighted gasses, please give a hand to: Silica Dust (the cause of silicosis), my buddy: arsenic gas, everyones favorite: acetylene vapors, and it would not be a mine without good old: asbestos deposits. The mine was amazingly dusty, we had to crawl over some mine carts full of rock and then we went further down to a place we had to crawl on our stomach, pulling ourselves forward with our hands. Travel is about self discovery, it is about finding how you will react in different situations, for example we found out that Lotta has a touch of claustrophobia, as I have a fear of flying, and dogs with pink sweaters. I personally do not blame her one bit, it was cramped and the dust and dark did not help. Lotta pulled back to the front of the cave with a guide the group went on. We got to see a real miner, he would work for four hours just to dig about 12 inches.

We then saw miners shovel rock into a basket to be pulled up out of the mine. Even though I assured the guide that I knew exactly how much shoveling rocks sucked, he insisted that I do a bit of shoveling.

After about three hours in the mine we left the mine. All in all two people had to leave early and one girl took off her hard had and instantly whacked her head on a low hanging pipe. It was very interesting and drove home the point that apart from the job of say..... landmine removal, sewer cleaner, or my last job, working in a mine is the worst job ever. I know that neither me or Lotta will forget the experience, very eye opening.

Next stop the largest salt flats on the face of the earth.

Down and Out in the Preuvian Hills

2007-06-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

I have been very lucky traveling all of these years. I have not really gotten sick at all, so when people would tell horror stories of how they got sick I would always think they must have done something wrong. I mean I have eaten strange foods, eaten from street vendors, and taken a few chances but have always come up on top. Well... this last week has been payback. Me and Lotta arrived to Lake Titticaca, a huge lake at the far south end of Peru, and the north of Bolivia. We went to the floating islands there, which have become floating islands/tourist trinket islands. We had read about when visiting the islands you should only give the (very poor) children pens or toys, but NOT candy, you think the U.S. has a health care program that is in disrepair, the slogan for the Bolivian dental program is "HEY Kids we don´t exist!" Once we got to the island we saw why the book recommended no candy, the kid´s teeth, or lack there of, were gnarled and twisted like the mouth of a fifty year old carny. The kids came up to a group of us and sang come cute songs, some gave candy, some pens, and me and Lotta gave some money. The kids left with our money and came back a few seconds later with more candy. The next day we bought apples and gave those to every kid we saw.
That night we went to a bar and had a drink and the next day we headed out to a small island where people have been living for thousands of years. We arranged to spend the night with a local family on that fantastic island. The locals were great and we ate our meals with them too. That morning we took the boat back and I slept the entire way back to Puno, the town we based out of. We got back to the hotel room and that is where I got to hang out for the next few days. Hmmmmm what did it? I lined up the suspects 1. Altitude Sickness: Headache-check, insomnia-check, poor digestion-(I suppose if THAT is what you want to call it)-check, Malaise- On a side note I like the word "malaise" although it sounds like something you might get just for a few minutes while summering with the queen after a rousing polo game, "Oh tut tut, I feel I have a touch of the malaise, shall we retire to the veranda and have some lemonade, jolly good" Personally I would have called it "groaning on your bed praying for the sweet dark embrace of death" but I suppose MALAISE will do- check. But, I do not think it was just the altitude sickness. No for the perfect vacation sickness recipe you should get a base of Altitude sickness, mix in a healthy portion of very rural local cooking, sprinkle in some dehydration, and to get it just right be sure to remember that night you had that drink at the bar, hmmm it had an ice cube in it didn´t it?
As a public service we have no photos of the sickness week. I did see the best site I have ever seen, much better than the Inca Trail, and cooler than any capital city, that would be: My wife LOTTA, thank God for her! she put up with me for a week and run to the store for any and all needs, I literally do not know how I would have made it if not for her.
Anyway this is me sticking my head out the rabbit hole for the first time and looking around La Paz the governmental capital of Bolivia.

The first real meal that I had when I could eat again? Burger King! I know it is kind of a sell out but I do not care, and it tasted great too. I was struck by the fact there do not seem to be any MacDonald's in either Peru or Bolivia and the Burger King we found was the ONLY western fast food place we have seen the entire time here.
Once healed up we took a short bus to a town called Oruro and then last night we took a very long bus, ten hours, to Sucre. The Bus left at 10:30 P.M. so it was a night bus packed with all Peruvians and two little gringo/gringas. We had two big seats so the trip was going to just be an overnight sleeping trip. But wait! this bus trip has entertainment in the form of two T.V.s. One T.V. is at the front of the bus and the second one is fastened to the side of the overhead luggage compartment so it is hanging in front of one seat in the middle of the bus.... you know.... MY SEAT, about twenty inches in front of my face. So, at about 11:00 P.M. with no where to look but at the screen what is the film sensation they show on the bus? "Karate Dog", featuring Pat Morita (who has the good sense to have his character die in the first five minutes) and gulp, Jon Voit, How? Why? The whole affair is dubbed in Spanish, but don´t worry, somehow I could still follow the plot, which involves a DOG who knows KARATE, and talks, sort of an Air Bud meets Chuck Norris. With "Karate Dog" blasting away in Spanish, my head twisting left to right looking for anything that is not a talking dog beating on ninjas I sudden realize what it is to be Alex in " A Clockwork Orange", I now get sick ever time I see a dog, or Karate, and forget talking karate dogs.
All of a sudden they turn the sound down very low on the movie, so I am really the only person on the bus that can even hear the movie, not that I am complaining but that is so ironic they should cram it into that Alantis Morrisette song, you know "it´s like rain on your wedding day, it´s like meeting the man of your dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife, it´s like being the only non-Spanish speaking person able to actually hear the Spanish dubbed movie on a bus load of 46 Peruvians." O.K. it is a bit long but it is still a lot more "Ironic" than any of her so called lyrics.
Speaking of dogs, Lotta and I were walking around town and we saw a dog, which is no big deal as the whole country is thick with them, but this dog happened to have a pink sweater on. Lotta used the zoom and got a photo of the funny dog, the funny dog that stoped waging it´s tail, started walking in our direction growling and barking. We just slowly but deliberately walked away and were fine. There is a relatively high degree of rabies in Bolivia and Peru so it is pretty scary when a big dog looks like it might bite you. What is about a thousand times worse than getting bit by a dog with rabies in Bolivia? Getting bitten by a dog with rabies in Bolivia that is wearing a pink sweater.

Here is a parting shot of some construction going on. I realize this blog was mostly about sickness and bus travel but that is all that has really happened, but we have big ticket adventure just over the hill. Take care all
Craig "Hot Night Bus"Vollmer

When Llamas Fight Back

2007-06-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

When last we left we had just crested the hill at sunrise to see Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas.

It really is a good pay off after the four day hike. Machu Picchu, or Much A Pinch You, as I like to call it while I am Pinching Lotta(she thinks it is just sooooo funny), is an amazing site. How the Incas built this on top of a mountain is just astounding. If there was a 700 year old South American culture based on the life of Craig it would be at the bottom of a mountain, shelter would be the shade of a tree, and the whole culture would go extinct in about sixty days because no one had invented the drive-thru window yet.

Some people think the Incas had contact with life from other planets, U.F.O.'s. These people think there is no way that the Incas could build all of these grand structures by themselves. I like to respect other people and their beliefs, who am I to question what people think? It is this kind of understanding and respect for thought that makes free nations great. That being said, the U.F.O. people are wrong. I have a little theory too, it is called "it's amazing what you can do with forced labor, and no concern for human life."

There were some llamas running around Machu Picchu, and they seemed to be having the best time, they would eat, jump over tourists, and pose for photos, love those llamas. There were also some sort of rabbit Squirrel creature there. I call them rabbirls.

The stone work lived up to it's rep, fine edges and put together to withstand earthquakes that have destroyed much more 'modern' buildings. I ended up climbing a near by mountain that also had ruins on it called Wayna Picchu. This was amazing, and very steep. Once I made it to the top I could see over the jungle. We were so high up and the cliff so steep that when I put my hand out over the edge I could feel the heat of the jungle rise up, very cool.

I would love to tell more about Machu Picchu, but our guide had an agenda of getting back to town and leaving. We did spend a few hours marching around the ruins and I did climb the big mountain in the background but we were all pretty tired so when our guide said we might want to get lunch in the town at the bottom of the hill we all agreed. At this point our guide who neglected to point out to us the Ceremonial baths, Temple of the Sun, Temple of the Condor, House of the High Priest, or Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock at Machu Picchu, made VERY CLEAR that when we got to the tourist town of Aguas Calientes we were to eat at the Hot Springs Restaurant. hmmmm my spider sense was tingling but after four long days it was a bit dulled. The Hot Springs Restaurant was a wonderful tourist trap of a place, where our very authentic Peruvian Pizza could only have it's price justified if the crust were made of solid gold. As the three of us ate our tiny, overpriced, craptastic pizza, I looked over to see our guide pounding down a meal fit for an Inca King, or Emperor, or President or whatever they had back then. I don't know what they were called because our guide told us nothing useful about the Incas. At this point my over tired brain thought "OH she must be getting a kick back for taking us here." Sure the cafe up at Machu Picchu was overpriced too but THAT overpriced cafe had a view of 500 year old Inca ruins that took us four days of hard hiking to get to, while the overpriced cafe we were eating at had a view of an Inca shot glass, a novelty pipe where you would smoke the end of a well endowed Inca warrior (very classy) and some Inca panties. Overall, it was a great experience, and Lotta is almost recovered (apparently, hiking for four days is not a new cure for the fly, who knew) next we are off to the floating islands oohhhh.
On a final note A photo of me doing the running man.

Much A Pinch You

2007-06-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

Machu Picchu is the cherry on top of the Peru cake, this is the place the vast majority of people come to see. A city that was made by the Incas and never found by the Spanish, it was "discovered" in 1911, as in it was discovered by white people, the local people have known about it for hundreds of years. The cool thing about Machu Picchu is the high quality of the stonework, huge stones fit together intricately. Was it for ceremonies? or was it a city for the 'chosen women'? or maybe a summer vacation home where the Inca elite playfully splashed each other with water, while betting on the highly popular llama races. NO ONE KNOWS! ohhhhhh. very mysterious. An undisputed fact is that Machu Picchu is a fantastic city on top of a mountain, and well worth seeing.
There is only one way to get to Machu Picchu, and that is a grueling four day hike over mountains (dead woman's pass) and valleys. No wait that is just what my wife let me think, until I read (long after we had booked a guide) you can also take a 45 minute bus to the top. The only way to hike the Inca trail is to book a guide, you can not do it along anymore. When you book a guide you are actually booking a guide, a porter, and a cook. The cook makes four course meals for you three times a day, in the kitchen tent that has been carried and set up by the porters. The guide sort of tells you about the trail.
So, we booked a guide four mouths in advance and in preparation for the long and hard hike Lotta got sick, with a kind of flu, the day before we left. The morning we left we told the agency that we might now be able to go and they jumped up and said "oh no you O.K." then they gave Lotta some pills that simple can not be legal on earth, either that or it is Nyquil in pill form. Lotta said she felt great, sure she saw a tree turn into a dragon and fly away but that is to be expected with 'Peruvian-get-you-well-fast-pill'. Here is a photo of the Porters getting ready.

The first day of the hike was good, give or take. We started with a little chaos but that is par for course here. Many group that go on the hike are 20 to 30 people, we decided to go with a smaller group as it is better for the porters and a bit better for the trail itself. Our group was suppose to be eight to ten people and it ended up being three, me, Lotta, and a Dutch girl named Eva. We had our small group and we could not have been happier with it. Lotta stared to feel better and better, I became her personal porter for the first day and carried her pack, once the pills kicked in she smiled a lot and chased a butterfly. here is happy Lotta.
The mountains in Peru are just like mountain in Peru. I was struck by the
uniqueness of the mountain. One would not mistake them for the Rockies, or Swiss Alps, they really look like the Andes.

Some of the things that I have learned on the Inca Trail, or Inca Trial as some call it. I have learned that the Porters are the second, maybe the firs most amazing thing about Peru. These are guys who backpack at least fifty pound, and up to sixty-five pounds on a mountain trail for four days. Not only that but they mostly only wear sandals, they ALWAYS pass the tourists, and they get paid about 12 dollars a day for this. But you say "12 dollars a day is a lot of money for people down there" ummm no it isn't, but it is more than they get paid as farmers, so that is what they end up doing. Yet, another reason to be thankful that we got lucky in where we were born. The cook carries a lot of things too but he is a little bit higher up on the food chain. The guide is even higher up and kind of runs the show.
Oh here is a photo of me sharing the road with some animals

The job of the guide on the Inca trail is to pass by interesting ruins in silence, when you come to a site that she knows something about she will stop the group and relate in half-broken English, information that contradicts the facts you just learned about in a book about Peru. Here is a photo of our guide telling me something that I am pretending to understand.

While it is true, when you go to another country you should be expected to know some of the local language and make an effort to know what the people around you are saying, it might also be true that if you hire a GUIDE, they might want to be able to ummm guide you. oh well, to make up for it Maria, our guide, was very nice and she helped out Lotta a whole Lotta when she was sick. We also had some really good conversations about what life is like now in Peru and what she personally thought about Peru, the U.S., and everyday life. That sort of made up for her underwhelming knowledge of the trek we were actually on.
This is a photo of Maria, Eva, and Lotta on our second day. The breakdown of the days was: Day 1 Easy (code for, not so easy if you are carrying your wife's backpack, and in Lotta's case if you have the flu) Day 2 Challenging ( code for, Inca Trail will break your gringo soul ha ha ha ha) Day 3 Amazing (code for, O.K. day three WAS amazing, but they lied to us when they said it was all down hill) Day 4 Unforgettable (Code for, well, yes day 4 was unforgettable, but in all fairness so was day 2 because I will never forget the day I wanted to die rather than walk another step) Oh by the way, Eva the Dutch girl was very nice and modest, from the first day on all she would say was "oh I hope I do not become too tired, I hope I have enough energy" That was fine because I am sure we all thought that the only difference is that she was always way ahead of us, mostly we would catch up to her while she was sitting resting.

This is a photo of the only thing Lotta and I saw for the whole hike.

Day two was the hardest and consisted of climbing to a height of 4198 meters. I really can't mention too much how high altitude will put a hurting on a person. Climbing a mountain in one day and coming back down is one thing but just living at a high altitude is another thing altogether. All day me and Lotta did the "ten step gasp'N'sit" This is not a bad way to climb really, because you get to sit down as see what you are climbing. Also, you can marvel at what the porters are taking with them, propane tanks, potsNpans, old women.
None the less we made it to the top, here is Lotta at the top of "Dead Woman's Pass" I would have preferred they call it "The Happy Go Lucky Pass of Joy and Fun" and then maybe put an amusement park up there, and a steak house, but that is just me.
Day 3 was an up and down affair, with a bunch of amazing mountain, they have no shortage of them. Day 4 the big pay off for the whole trip will have to wait as a tired Lotta has the look of "I need to eat" in here eyes. Hope all is well back on the home front.
A going away photo of one of our porters.

Gasping for Air In Cuzco

2007-06-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

In Cuzco, Peru at 3326 meters for those of you not in Europe that equals many many feet, or very high up, if you want to be exact. The reason we are here in this city is to aclimate to the altitude before we embark on a four day hike up a mountain to see the Inca runins of Machu Picchu. This first place we stayed at was a youth hostel called Loki hostel, here is Lotta sitting in the cool cafe with Cuzco in the background. It was the party place and and people from all over the world would drink untill the wee hours in the morning, I know becasue while we wanted to sleep they would play drinking games at three in the morning, which would be O.K. if I was participating in said drinking game but Lotta and I were trying to sleep. I intantly became a grummpy old man and started yelling "Durn you whipper snappers don´t you know people are trying to sleep" I even bought a cane so I could shake it at them. After a few nights we decided to hit another hotel and by then we were sort of use to the thin air so we took an overnight trip to a town close to Cuzco, called Pisac. We walked down to the local bus station which consisted of a thin sheet of tin hung over an ally with an opening cut for buses. After bouncing around in confusion the kind locals herded us to the ticket area and then onto the right bus. We sat in the wrong seat, and they diverted us to the correct seats. Much entertainment was had for the locals who must have been wondering "who are these loco gringos." In our effort to do it by ourselves we eskewed the big tour buses and took the loca bus for 60 cents. But, anytime we can bring a smile to bus load of Peruvians by being the only two bumbling gringos on board I feel we have really accomplished something.
Everyone was very nice to us and we got to Pisac, found a room and climbed a mountain to some Inca runins. Now for a fun little thing I like to call "Inca stuff I had no idea about." Now you Inca history buffs out there might laugh at me for my lack of previous knowledge about the Incas, and to you I say "bite me, there is a whole world out there and I don´t see how I can be expected to know about comicbooks, computer games, AND the Inca empire." Besides I usually just count on Lotta to know everything. Anyway, on to cool Inca thing number 1. The Incas were really only a large empire like power for a little less than a hundred years, from about 1438 to around 1532. Sure they had been around before then but just as some backwater village. In 1438 the Incas had a leader named Pachacutec who is described in a difficult to translated holy Inca text as "kicking ass". He is compared to Alexander the Great by some, becasue of his millitary expansion, not the simularity of thier hair style. In thirty years he took over an area that is roughly the size of continental Europe. Nutty Inca fact #2 The germs from the Spanish reached the Inca before the Spanish, Around 1527 a fatal epidemic killed almost half of the 25 million population. After that there was a devistating civil war (think U.S. civil war) with each side equaly matched. In 1532 the Spanish conquistadors, who lucked out by finding the Inca capital straight away, just mopped up what was left. It was not helpfull that the Conquistadors were big jerks, no really, it´s a historical fact. When the Inca´s first met the Spanish they gave them rooms full of gold and silver and all sorts of cool gifts like t-shirts that said "I went to the Inca kingdom in South America and all I got was this lousy T-shirt (and rooms full of gold and silver)". To reciprocate the Spanish gave the Incas a bible. So, lets say you give me 3 billion dollars, and I give you a book in a different language, and expect you to be really greatfull. The Incas responded correctly. O.K. that is enough history, this isn´t the history blog after all.
This is on top of the mountain we climbed, it was great and a lot of work. but the view was great. Once at the top we explored the sight among the bus loads of tourists that cheated by taking a bus to the top. After climbing an hour and half, gasping every inch of the way there is no way not to feel superior to the people who just had to sit until they got to the top, on the other hand I have been on the other side of that too and then I look at the sweating puffing fools who took the hard way while I took the smart way.
Lotta bought some sort of fuit at the market that tasted good and was refreshing to eat. You just have to peel off a bit of the outer layer and suck out the fruit. I don´t remember what it was called but the insides looked like rat guts, but I don´t think it is called rat gut fruit.
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So, we climbed back down the mountain went to a cool market, got up to speed on out hageling skills, spent the night, got on a bus and went back to Cuzco.

Once in Cuzco we went to our new hostel. I would like to take a second to put the spotlight on water conservation. It is very important for those of us in more developed nations not to drink bottled water it is silly, because for the most part the water out of our taps is perfectly fine, and by drinking bottled water we are creating more waste and using resources that developing countries, like Peru, are in desperate need of. O.K. that being said, I have wasted more water on this trip than in my whole life. Every place we stay at the shower has two controls for the water, one has a little red dot and the other has a little blue dot. You at home might be familiar with these colors as representing hot and cold. In Peru the red dot stand for water that is heated by the magma core of this very earth that we live on, the blue dot represents water that is mysticaly transported from the far dwarf planet of Pluto. Amazingly these two temperatures can not be mixes so as to produce a warm pleasent water of refreshment. Also, the temp can change for a reason that is only knowen to the angery and vengfull water gods of Peru. This has lead to a system of washing that entails standing BY a constant stream of shower water, soaping up and waiting for the opportunity to not be scalded or given frost bite by the water. All I can say to this is sorry water conservation, but really that bottled water thing is bad. Oh and even though it is near to actually freezing at night (it is winter here afterall) the hotels do not have heat. Here is a photo of us brushing our teeth.
O.K. last but not least, we were here just in time to see the Corpus Christi festival. WOW, huge parades with men holding up big, heavy floats of saits, with dancing guys in creepy skimasks, it was very cool. Then we ran acros what looked like a huge chili cook off, and this was not far from the truth. There were maybe 80 tents set up each one serving the exact same thing, but with thier own special touch I´m sure. What were they serving?
Well, some kind of corn bread, a sea weed like thing, some amazing cheese, chicken, some fish egg thing, and the main course, the food you crawled out of the jungle for, the yummy in your tummy....Roasted GUINEA PIG. It so happens the Peruvians have been eating Cuy (guinea pig) for hundreds of years, so what else can you do but belly up to the counter, plop down your 12 sol (four dollars) and eat some house hold pet. So, how does it taste? not like chicken, I can say that. I would have to say it tastes a little better than a hamster, but not as good at a gerible. Really, it has so may herbs and spice, it just tasted salty, but I can check it off the list and not eat it again thank you very much. 1%5D"> That was a long update, tommorrow we go off on a four day hike on the Inca trail. Wish us luck, and remember guinea pigs aren´t just pets anymore.

First Stop Peru

2007-06-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hola from Cuzco, Peru elevation 3326m. Me and Lotta are alive and well in this elevated city in the Andes. The trip really started in the county of Airportia, an expansive country covering every city in the world. We entered into Airportia at 5 a.m. Nebraska time. There is no need for a visa, or vaccination record to enter this country only a health skill to stand in lines, the ability to navigate chaos and of course an absence of all liquids.
Once on the plane we headed for New York. What! a connecting flight in New York that is headed for South America, all in the name of a cheap ticket my friend. So, a four hour layover in New York, then back on the plane to Lima. The long flight to Lima was nothing to look forward to but at least it had the promise of the only two things that I look forward to on these flights 1. a bunch of bad movies that I can look at on my personal entertainment center built right into the seat in front of me and 2.My favorite, free in flight drink, The Bloody Mary. I even had my wife, Lotta, who is not much of an in flight drinker, set up to order a drink that could be savored later. How surprised I was to find no entertainment screen in the seat in front of me. "oh" I said to Lotta "there must me some mistake", as I pawed at the seat hoping that some secret switch would open up my entertainment for the next nine hours. here is a photo of no entertainment. Then they announced with a little snicker that all drinks with booze in them would cost money. I shoot my tiny fists at the airline in rage. My wife did not care in the least and slept like a babe for most of the trip, but those of us with a rather larger fear of the plane crashing, as unwarranted as it may be, had to white knuckle it (even more without my beloved bloody marys to get me through.) Here is a photo of one of the life sustaining wings that I appreciate so much for not falling off.
None the less we touched down in Lima just fine at 10:30 P.M. now we only had to wait until 6 A.M. for our last flight to Cuzco. As, sleeping (or lack of) in an airport gos, it was not too bad. Of course that is on a different scale than other sleeping.
That scale being 1-the worst sleep you have had in your life and 10-you die in your sleep, so the best you can do is still not that great. So, the sleepy couple got up and took our last fight and ended up touching down in Cuzco at 10 A.M. While waiting for our luggage I took a photo of my wife from the back, there was a woman standing next to her. From the back they looked almost identical.
Once we got our backpacks we headed to get a taxi to take us to our hostel. Lotta said "it does not feel like we are in a different country." True words. From Omaha to New York to Lima to Cuzco, they ALL felt like the same place. Once we left the airport it was a little slap in the face that indeed we were in a different place.
And that is it for now, next outing will not dwell on the airport but be filled with interesting insights into the Peruvian lifestyle or pleas for ransom.

P.S. the spell check here with only catch spelling corrections for Spanish words, hence almost every single word I have written comes up as misspelled. So, I had to spell check my self and that can only lead to so-so spelling, so please be forgiving.