PERU!!!!!!!!!!

OFF THE TOP: Since I had so many people telling me that they cannot understand what my blog says, since it is in German, I now put everything in English so that my family in the States, my friends in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Holland (aka Dutchland), Canad"i"a, Australia and elsewhere in the world can read about my experiences on my South America trip.

I started my PERU-BOLIVIA trip february 2nd. I flew from Buenos Aires with LAN to Lima. LAN is by the way the best airline I have ever flewn with, except for JAL (Japan Airline). Anyway. By chance I met Chuck again. He is an American guy who spent some days in the same hostel than all my Brasilian friends that took the Spanish classes with me at the "Universidad de la Republica" of Montevideo. We got into talking and figured that we are going to be doing the same trip and so he invited me in the group. It is Lena, a German girl, and Alex(andra), a Swiss girl, that also belong to our "international crazy group". It is a lot of fun to travel with them.

Chuck and I visited Miraflores and had an awesome buffett at the cliffs with an amazing sunset and a great view to the Pacific Ocean, the first day in Lima. Miraflores is the best part of the town. It is like a little suburb to the city. The second day Lena, Chuck and I went to see the city center. There was a long carnaval thing going on around the main plaza and we watched it for hours and got sunburned :)

4th february: We went downtown again so Alex, who just got there the night before, could see the city. We were lucky to be in the main square when a demonstration of Columbians passed and went in the city hall. We even got to see the major of Lima. Nice timing.

5th of february: The ruins of Puchamamac (or something like that...names are really funny here...) were kinda nice. It is said that you should have seen them before going to Machhu Pichu. After that, the minibus we went in was almost robbed and we were lucky not to be shot by some weird teenagers. Welcome to PERU! We went on until Pisco, a city that is famous for its wineries where they produce the famous PISCO SOUR. But since the last earthquakes in August 2007 destroyed most of the city, we didn't wanna stay there more than a night. Also, because of the nice bed bugs and blood suckers that were accompaning us at night....YAK!!!

6th of february: We went to Paracas halfisland and from there on a boat ride to Islas Ballestas. There were thousands of birds on the islands. There were also penguins and sea lions...it was amazing!!! In the afternoon we went to Ica and Huacachina. Huacachina is the only oasis in the great desert of Peru/South America. We had a funny experience at the first hostel there. I wanted to pay for the double room I shared with Alex and when I was paying with a 100 Soles bill (about 33 US$/25 Euro), the woman gave me a 50 and a 20 bill as change. Nothing wrong with the calculus: Just the bills were FALSE ones!!!! I told the woman that I would not accept those bills and that she should please give me right ones when she was trying to convince me that they were just old ones...ehm...yeah right...After having called my friends she was like: Yeah, if you don't want those, I can give you others...well...please do!! Then, about half an hour later, when Chuck wanted to pay for his double room, she tried the exact same thing! That was just so wack that we decided to change the hostel immidiately. It was a good choice, because we found such a nice hostel with a pool and a garden/pool bar and the rooms were great, too. We stayed in Huacachina for 2 nights, going sandboarding and driving with buggies through the desert one evening and just chilling 2 days. We took the night bus to Arequipa the 8th of february.

9th of february: We got to Arequipa...all tired because the bus wasn't way as cool as the ones in Argentina. I had some breakfast in the hostel, slept a while and then got stomache sick. Nice day for me...while the others went to visit the church and the city of Arequipa, I spent the day watching TV and sleeping.

10th of february: A two-day-trip to the deepest canyon of the world doesn't sound too exhausting, does it?!?!----well, it is if you're not accostumed to the altitud yet. We went with 24 people to Chivay, the city that is close to the Canyon. It was nice, because it is in the highlands of Peru. We went hiking to a pre-inca cemetery up in the mountains. Since the wheater is so dry there, the bones of the dead people were still in good shape and the sculls were touchable. "sweet". We had a nice bath in the hot springs and after that we had dinner in a restaurant with folk music. We danced three different Peruvian dances so that we would be lucky to see condors the next day. 5am, the receptionst of the hostel was waking us up. After having taking some diarrea and headache pills we had breakfast, where they serve coffee with milk without the milk. I still don't know what the deal is with that. Anyway. We went to Maca, this little town where people get up at 6am just to sell their heats and gloves and pullovers to the turists. We went on to another little town where everybody had a picture taken with this giant eagle on their heads. It was quite heavy. Next stop: The colca canyon. This is the deepest canyon in the world. Even deeper than Grand Canyon in the US. It is true. And the air is so thin at 4300m above sea level. we waited for some condors to fly above the canyon and we were lucky. We got some goot shots of them and the landscape is just amazing. Just the height and the food made us some trouble so that 4 outta 5 of the group were having diarrea and head aches and everything possible you can get in Peru. That is why we were booking two additional nights in Arequipa when we got back yesterday.

Tomorrow we are heading to Puno at lake Titicaca! YEAHI!!!