Fun In the Sun

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.