Yesterday, Megan and I woke up early and met with a tour group to ride bikes down the most dangerous road in the world. Or rather, the most dangerous pseudo road in the world. There is no longer any traffic on the road but it is still pretty intense. 18 people have flown over the edge to their death since they introduced bikes to the road. I wish I could leave you in suspense but the fact that I am typing this already lets you know we are okay. However, not everyone in our group made it down in one piece. We went with a total of 9 people in our group - 2 guys from Denmark that we made friends with when we booked the trip and 5 French guys. We were all piled into a minivan (along with all of Megan and my backpacks and stuff). Megan and I were the only ones that were staying in Coroico after the journey, everyone else planned to take the van back for 4 hours to la paz. So we drove to La Cumbre listening to a mix of 80´s music. It was great. Megan says they edit out all of the instrumental stuff in the music so you get about 1 minute long songs with just the catchy versus and choruses. Stevie Wonder´s "Part-time Lover" never sounded so good. There was ice on the ground and an amazing view of the cloud forest we were going to descend into at La Cumbre. We put on all of our gear and chose our bikes. Megan chose wrong and got a bike that wobbled the whole way down. Nobody was prepared for the first 10 minutes of the trip before breakfast. It was freezing cold out and we were speeding at 40mph through a cloud forest. By the time we got to our meeting point for breakfast, I was on the verge of tears because my hands hurt so bad. We ate a hardy breakfast of bread and hot water to get us ready for the trip. What a crock of shit. Anders, one of the Denmark guys, through a fit but the guides didn't do anything about it. Oh, I guess I could explain the itinerary. We were to bike for a total of 70KM or something like that. The first 2 hours was down a paved road, the next 2 hours would be down the unpaved most dangerous road, and the final hour would be flat and downhill until we reached a small town outside of Coroico. There were 3 guides. 1 would bike in front, 1 in the middle, and the final guide would drive the van with all of our bags inside. Everyone made it down the paved road okay. Once we got to the gravel part of the road with all the winding turns and 600 meter drop offs it got a little more difficult. I was racing down the road behind the two guys from Denmark but had to stop because the chain fell off my bike. I put the chain back on and road for maybe another minute or two before I came up to one of the guys laying on the ground holding his leg while the other was picking up pieces of a shattered helmet. The front brakes locked up on Peter´s bike and sent him head first into a rock wall. His helmet shattered on contact as the back of his head and back crashed into the wall. He had a gash on the back of his head and some nice cuts on his hand but otherwise seemed okay. Anders was riding behind him and saw the collision, which made him panic and bite it too. He landed on his hip and knee and suffered from the pain the rest of the way down the road. He was happy to pull down his pants to reveal his injury and speedo thong at any opportunity. It took a while for the van to finally make it down because the French guy riding in the back of the pack evidently bit it face first into the ground because he had a band aide covering a nasty gash from the side of his nose down through his upper lip. Those were really the only injuries from our group and I didn´t hear of any deaths from any other groups. The ride was so much fun and absolutely beautiful. We started out on the top of a dry, desolate mountain with el paca running around, rode through a cloud forest, under waterfalls, and ended up in a thick jungle. At the bottom, we all had drinks and returned the riding suits before leaving for Hotel Esmerelda in Coroico for our lunch buffet. This is also the hotel that Megan and I booked a honeymoon suite at so it all worked out well. Aside from the paper thin wall between the suite next to us, the room is amazing. Hotel Esmerelda is situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the camino muerte and jungle. We watched the clouds move over the mountains from our balcony last night. I can´t wait for the clouds to lift so we can see the glaciers in the distance. This is one of the few places we have stayed at that has had reliable hot water in the shower. i never realized how nice hot water is until being forced to take cold showers on this trip. I´ll send pictures as soon as I figure out how to get them on the computer or when I get home. Our next plan is to take a 14 hour bus up to Rurrenabacha to go on the pampas trip on a boat through the jungle. The Denmark guys did it and said they saw anacondas, monkeys, tons of birds, and swam with pink river dolphins. It´s going to be really touristy just like everything else but I`m looking forward to it.
This computer sucks so i am not going to bother fixing mistakes. So bare with me here... We are in Puno and just visited the floating islands in Lake Titicaca. interesting but terribly touristy and exploited. We are on our way to Copacabana in a few hours. Machu Picchu was an incredible trek. We hiked through glaciers and jungle and swam in hot springs. we hiked over 16K every day and it was quite difficult for the first couple of days. I would do the trek and forgot going to Aguas Calientes and Machu Piccu...terribly touristy but i guess the sight is worth looking at. I´ll talk more when i have a chance...maybe in a bus station. We slept surprisingly well on the bus to Puno last night but fell asleep o the boat back to Puno this morning. I´m also starving so we need to eat. My health is good as always and I have been purifying the water to save money and plastic. Megan has finally switched over to my method after using me as a guinea pig and seeing I didn´t get sick. She is finishing her giardia medication in a couple days and will hopefully start feeling normal again. News from Joe is he had giardia too, lol. Love to all 3 of you and I hope to talk to you soon.
My flights were "uneventful" as you would say, Mom. Everything was on time and the layovers weren't too bad, although I did spend 4 hours on the floor in the Lima airport. I made some friends in Panama as well as in Lima when I was waiting around to check in for my flight. I arrived in Cusco at 7am yesterday. There was a small, local flute band playing music in the baggage claim area. The airport was tiny and the music just added to the feel of the place. Cusco is sooo beautiful. It's pretty small in comparison to Lima and has mountains and glaciers in the distance surrounding the city. Megan was outside standing in a huge crowd waiting for me. I, of course, didn't see her so she had to yell at me and then ran over to greet me. I can't even tell you how pretty she looked. She was wearing a little black fleece with a white scarf and had a huge smile on her face. We had breakfast at a restaurant catered to western tastes that her Pro Peru colleagues recommended. I'm in Irish heaven here because they have over 250 different types of potatoes. I've only heard of papas and papasitas. As we walked by an alley that smelled like a port-o-potty, Megan told me that people just relieve themselves in the streets. She has seen so many Peruvian penises (peni?) that it doesn't even faze her anymore. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't type it that way. We went to Sacsaywaman (pronounced "sexy woman") and saw old Incan ruins and we sat below a large Jesus statue that overlooks the city (much like the one in Buenos Aires only smaller). We were supposed to meet Megan's Peruvian family that she has been living with at 2:30 for lunch so we rushed to find a cambio (van transport) to take us to Urubamba. The drive to Urubamba was amazing. We passed through small farm after small farm, all set up on the sides of rolling hills and a few rivers. It was nothing like our farmland in Iowa where it's all flat and 98% of the natural landscape is gone. Urubamba is situated in the foothills of the large mountain range and glaciers that I could see from Cusco. It is at about 9,000 feet elevation, a few thousand feet lower than Cusco. I had a little trouble breathing in Cusco because of the elevation and the coca tea was able to help. I have felt fine since I have been in Urubamba. We were almost an hour late for lunch and Megan got yelled at by her mom, Erma. Only one of the children was there and Megan's roommate from Pro Peru was out. We promised we would be back on time for dinner at 6:30. We packed Megan's stuff up and moved to a hostel a couple of blocks away. We got a room with a private bathroom for 35 soles or about $13. The room smelled funny and there were tangles of hair and pubic hair all over the bed. There was hot water so a nice, hot shower felt fantastic. I forgot to mention that it was freezing when I arrived in Cusco...probably about 40 degrees. Urubamba is much warmer because of the elevation difference. We went back for dinner with Megan's family at a little after 6:30. Megan said it would be okay because her mom's watch was set 10 minutes fast, lol. Dinner was more like dessert. We had something that was like a cross between Indian fry bread and a donut covered in maple syrup. It was pretty tasty. We also had purple corn mashed up into syrup called chicha morada. After dinner, we handed out all of the gifts that I purchased in the U.S. for the kids. I just got them some squirt guns, playdoh, crayons, and various kids stuff. The 13 year old girl is obsessed with My High School Musical so I got her some nail painting set or something. I didn't know what it was when I got it but she seemed to like it. We played with the kids for a little while and then said our goodbyes. For the rest of the night we wandered around Urubamba running into people that Megan has volunteered with so she could say goodbye. I cut out a little early because I was exhausted from being up all night the previous night.
Today, I think we're going to more ruins around Ollantaytambo and then to Cusco for the night. Friday, we are getting up at 4:30am to begin the Salkantay trail to Machu Picchu. We are going with another girl that Megan worked with and anywhere from 8-10 other people that will be added to our group. We hike 10K per day up a few thousand feet of elevation for a total of 5 days. I'm not really adjusted to the altitude yet so it's going to be a little struggle. And Megan has a beautiful combination of a UTI and giardia. So wish us luck and I'll send an email when I find time after we return from MP. We will probably stay in Cusco the Wednesday we get back from there and then leave for Copacabana on Lake Titicaca the following day.
on the road but it is still pretty intense. 18 people have flown over the edge to their death since they introduced bikes to the road. I wish I could leave you in suspense but the fact that I am typing this already lets you know we are okay. However, not everyone in our group made it down in one piece. We went with a total of 9 people in our group - 2 guys from Denmark that we made friends with when we booked the trip and 5 French guys. We were all piled into a minivan (along with all of Megan and my backpacks and stuff). Megan and I were the only ones that were staying in Coroico after the journey, everyone else planned to take the van back for 4 hours to la paz. So we drove to La Cumbre listening to a mix of 80´s music. It was great. Megan says they edit out all of the instrumental stuff in the music so you get about 1 minute long songs with just the catchy versus and choruses. Stevi
e Wonder´s "Part-time Lover" never sounded so good. There was ice on the ground and an amazing view of the cloud forest we were going to descend into at La Cumbre. We put on all of our gear and chose our bikes. Megan chose wrong and got a bike that wobbled the whole way down. Nobody was prepared for the first 10 minutes of the trip before breakfast. It was freezing cold out and we were speeding at 40mph through a cloud forest. By the time we got to our meeting point for breakfast, I was on the verge of tears because my hands hurt so bad. We ate a hardy breakfast of bread and hot water to get us ready for the trip. What a crock of shit. Anders, one of the Denmark guys, through a fit but the guides didn't do anything about it. Oh, I guess I could explain the itinerary. We were to bike for a total of 70KM or something like that. The first 2 hours was down a paved road, the next 2 hours would be down the unpaved most dangerous road, and the final hour would be flat and downhill until we reached a small town outside of Coroico. There were 3 guides. 1 would bike in front, 1 in the middle, and the final guide would drive the van with all of our bags inside. Everyone made it down the paved road okay. Once we got to the gravel part of the road with all the winding turns and 600 meter drop offs it got a little more difficult. I was racing down the road behind the two guys from Denmark but had to stop because the chain fell off my bike. I put the chain back on and road for maybe another minute or two before I came up to one of the guys laying on the ground holding his leg while the other was picking up pieces of a shattered helmet. The front brakes locked up on Peter´s bike and sent him head first into a rock wall. His helmet shattered on contact as the back of his head and back crashed into the wall. He had a gash on the back of his head and some nice cuts on his hand but otherwise seemed okay. Anders was riding behind him and saw the co
llision, which made him panic and bite it too. He landed on his hip and knee and suffered from the pain the rest of the way down the road. He was happy to pull down his pants to reveal his injury and speedo thong at any opportunity. It took a while for the van to finally make it down because the French guy riding in the back of the pack evidently bit it face first into the ground because he had a band aide covering a nasty gash from the side of his nose down through his upper lip. Those were really the only injuries from our group and I didn´t hear of any deaths from any other groups. The ride was so much fun and absolutely beautiful. We started out on the top of a dry, desolat
e mountain with el paca running around, rode through a cloud forest, under waterfalls, and ended up in a thick jungle. At the bottom, we all had drinks and returned the riding suits before leaving for Hotel Esmerelda in Coroico for our lunch buffet. This is also the hotel that Megan and I booked a honeymoon suite at so it all worked out well. Aside from the paper thin wall between the suite next to us, the room is amazing. Hotel Esmerelda is situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the camino muerte and jungle. We watched the clouds move over the mountains from our balcony last night. I can´t wait for the clouds to lift so we can see the glaciers in the distance. This is one of the few places we have stayed at that has had reliable hot water in 
the shower. i never realized how nice hot water is until being forced to take cold showers on this trip. I´ll send pictures as soon as I figure out how to get them on the computer or when I get home. Our next plan is to take a 14 hour bus up to Rurrenabacha to go on the pampas trip on a boat through the jungle. The Denmark guys did it and said they saw anacondas, monkeys, tons of birds, and swam with pink river dolphins. It´s going to be really touristy just like everything else but I`m looking forward to it.
