Catch-up

LECTORES ESTIMADOS

I've written plenty about our trip on my tablet, but poor wifi connections and limited timing have not allowed me to post as consistently as I intended. Here's a quick rundown so far, with a look toward our itinerary ahead. I will be posting a few more in-depth posts about these past two weeks soon.

We spent a week in Lima, seeing the city by day and hanging out with Matt and Perla by night. Brenny flew in from Quito on the 9th, and the five of us had two more nights of merriment, during which I was fortunate enough to meet up with my old Peruvian friend Pepe.

On Saturday, I went record-hunting with Pepe, before Ginny, Brendan and I boarded an overnight bus to Cusco, which wasn't that bad. The region around Cusco blew my mind with it's fertile beauty. We stayed at Casa de La Gringa and the following day I went up to Lesley Myburg's gorgeous garden with her son Simon. I drank San Pedro and had one groovy day looking at mountains, reflecting on my life, and hiking around Templo de le Luna with my fellow vision-questers. In Cusco, G and B and I had some great meals and pleasant evenings walking around Cusco, but we avoided other touristy stuff.

The last day was spent struggling with a combination of altitude sickness and some kind digestive infection that I inevitably pick up when in Latin America, despite every precaution I can think of. That night we hopped a miserable overnight bus from Cusco to Puno, where we transferred to a bus to Copacabana.

Getting into Bolivia was an ordeal, of which I will post about soon. But we had an excellent night in Copacabana.

From here on:
La Paz (3 days)
Cochabamba (3 days)
Oruro (3 days - Carnaval!)
Uyuni (1 day to see the Salt Flats)
Then onward to Argentina:
Humahuaca de Quebrada
Jujuy
Salta
And then we're going to plot some kind of route to Iguazù Falls that cirumvents the costly and ill-regarded Paraguay.
Then we will make our way down to Buenos Aires, where Brenny will show us his favorite haunts before getting on a plane for EEUU.
Ginny and I will then take a tour of Uruguay and perhaps visit our friend Paula in Rio de Janeiro, before heading back to Northern Argentina to spend the winter months Wwoofing around Salta.