Tina's wanderings around the world

I forgot that I had written anything about the day we went to Macchu Pichu, so I re-wrote about all of it. And now I'm cutting it down again! Our next stop was the train station to catch the train to Aguas Calientes. I managed to squeeze in a cat nap on the way up. :) Then from Aguas Calientes, we took a bus up the famously switchbacked road to Macchu Pichu. And…finally…we made it to see one of the newest members of the seven wonders of the world—and it was absolutely stunning. Its setting up in the greenery-covered mountains is breath taking and I can easily say that it ranks as the top man-made site I’ve ever seen. (Oh look at me, I’m turning into a South American guidebook—it must be ranked as the best something.) I’m struck by how normal climbing around Macchu Pichu seemed. It didn’t even seem like we were doing anything out of the norm by climbing up the terraces (and revising our site-seeing trajectory to allow for a less strenuous route—I can’t even imagine having done the ...

Huacachina...I had read about Huacachina and seen pictures of this little oasis in the desert. I had also read (and told people!) about the deserts of Peru, and how dry they were, but I didn´t quite understand it until I saw the giant sand dunes on the taxi ride from the Ica bus station to Huacachina. Ica is one of the cities that was most affected by the earthquake here, and there are a lot of collapsed houses and walls...I just couldn´t bring myself to be touristy enough to take pictures of the demolished buildings, but needless to say there are a lot of people without homes. It´s a difficult thing to see, especially because I feel so helpless and don´t really know what I can do to help, which organizations will let me (after CARE basically denied my volunteer position). So I decided that pumping some of my tourist dollars into the local community is the least I can do. The first tour? Dune buggy and sandboarding. It was awesome! The dune buggy ride was really fun, and our driver (wh...

I've seen three Peruvian equivalents lately, but I only really remember two: Tyson Chapman (Thunder Chicken) Libby Brockman (though to be honest, it was just the side profile that looked so much like her) And while I'm still working on the other blog about Macchu Pichu, let me do a quick catch-up on yesterday. I went down south of Lima a bit with Bram and this guy we met in Mancora, Arturo, and Arturo's girlfriend Larena. The boys were doing their whole motorcycle riding/fixing thing while we girls chatted and got to know each other. We actually got along fabulously--she loves Grey's Anatomy, Dave Matthews and Gianmarco, though she thinks Scrubs is dumb. It's okay, I love her anyway. We rode the motorcycles down to some beaches in San Bartolo, one of which was quite reminiscent of a Grecian cliffside beach, though slightly more rundown with a smaller cliffside. It was really pretty, though. The motorcycle riding...well, that was a bit more frightening since I was ri...

(The Inca underwear rock...that's one they don't tell you about in the guidebooks...) Soo and I met eight years ago at the ever lovely Camp Waskowitz, during our inaugural year of MDA camp. We’ve talked about traveling together for quite some time, and I was quite the happy girl when Soo sent me the itinerary for her flight to Lima. Yay, my first visitor! Any of you who have heard me talk about MDA camp (or have actually gone) know that it can be a pretty intense affair where your boundaries are tested and your comfort zone becomes a very different place. In the process, you form solid bonds with those people you’re working with. Now, as any of you fellow travelers can attest to, finding a good traveling partner can be tricky business, what with budgets (is one of you super-frugal and the other more extravagant?), sight-seeing (do you both want to see the same things and does time allow?), shopping (how much time are you going to spend shopping?), food (how adventurous of an ea...