It’s Just Poison…

(This is the last day of the trip. Click Here for the first.)

I wound up not really sleeping on the plane (surprise!). We landed on time, and did the whole deplaning, getting of bags, going through customs rigormorand for the last time. There was one last joke played on me though, just to remind me that I shouldn’t relax yet. Right after customs, I went to the bathroom. Right as I undid the button on my shorts, the button popped off, ricocheted off the wall and landed right in the toilet. Great.

Lugging all of our stuff down the halls and upstairs, we check into our next flight, check our bags and go through security. I grabbed my stuff after the checkpoint and started walking to the gate. I carried my shoes figuring that I’d just put them on at the gate. Well, that didn’t really happen, because as soon as we got to the gate, we found out that they already started boarding, so we walked right on the plane. I sat in my exit row seat, and busted out the PSP. On the way home, I beat Super Bomberman 2. Yes…

We landed on time, but as usual with Laguardia’s traffic, we sat on the runway for about 20 minutes taxing and waiting for the other plane to get out of the gate. Oh yeah, when we landed, it was 20 degrees and snowing. Everything was white. Nice little welcome back from NY.

When we got home, Corrine was sleeping on the couch. We briefly talked about the trip and played with the cats for a while and then decided to go out to brunch. It was just before noon, and one of our favorite places (Sunburt Cow) was opening for brunch shortly. This is the first time we’ve ever been up early enough to beat the crown. I had eggs benedict and a bottomless screwdriver. I was celebrating being home =).

When I got home, I changed into some comfortable clothes and passed out on the couch around 3:30pm. I woke up at 9:00am on the dot and got ready for work. Feeling very rested and ready, I jumped on the subway and showed up for work relatively on time.

What a trip.

I woke up to what I thought was noon, what would have been the perfect wake-up time. But it was actually 11. Dammit.

Nicole was already up and ready to go. Our plans for today were simple. Go to the black market (that place that had everything bootleg), buy a bunch of DVDs, come back, watch some movies, catch a cab to the airport, check in, get on the plane home, fall asleep. Well, that’s they way it worked out. For the most part.

First stop was the black market. I found a guy that hooked me up for about $35 USD, I got 42 movies. I also purchased a CD/DVD book that held 48 movies. We then walked around to kill some time and pick up a couple cheap “i gotta have this, cuz I can only get it here things.” And a pair of socks. The ones I had were way too dirty =). While Nicole was haggling with some lady on the price of some Pisco, I bent down to sneak a photo of this chicks foot. I saw this out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t let it pass by (oh, and she’s an american, so i didn’t feel bad).

On the way back to the hostel, traffic was intense. The lines on the road are mere suggestions. The traffic lights? They represent more or less what you should do. I think the only thing that keeps people from going completely nuts and speeding all over the place are the random speed bumps. They place them all over the place in the road without much warning. Again, the rule of, “which ever road has more lanes has the right of way” existed. The other thing that stuck out were all the street vendors and beggars. They would sell anything, seriously. Calculators, ice cream, toy trucks, towels, whatever. Once, this kid came up to our window and mumbled something over and over (i guess asking for money) until the cabbie took off.

When I got back to the hostel, I took out all the DVD covers from the cases, and moved all the movies in book holder thing that I bought. Then I found a rock and tore up the case pretty well to make it look beaten up and pretty used. Anything that’ll make it easier to get through customs. I figure, it’s probably not a big deal, but why take a chance.

Finished with my workings, we went to the grocery store to grab some lunch / dinner. While we were there, we grabbed some liquor, and a couple photos of the meats area. This was too good to pass up. They stored a lot of their meat in open-air. Not wrapped. Free for people like me to cough and sneeze all over. Gross. They also had shrink-wrapped Guinea Pigs. Mmmmm.

The hostel we were staying at had a liquor license, so they forbid us to bring back our own liquor. No problem. I bought a cheap bottle of "Peru Cola" for about 30 cents, poured it out, and put it in there. Dinner was a repeat of yesterday, but it was still tasty =). Nicole had some veggie-meat patties. Looked disgusting, but she said it was pretty good.

After chowing down, I hung around the hostel to watch some movies, and Nicole went out to the beach to watch the sunset.

At 8:30pm, our cab to take us to the airport arrived. We piled in our bags and said goodbye (we wound up getting a free ride due to incompetence at the hostel =). On the way to the airport, it clicked as to why I was feeling so sick (soar throat and general crappiness). It was the pollution from all the cars and buses. I felt as if I was sucking on the end of an exhaust pipe. I was not going to miss Lima.

We got to the airport and checked in with Spirit. We wound up having to check 2 of our bags at a cost of $10 each. I charged them to my credit card, as we didn’t have any cash. Also, there was only one type of ATM at the airport (probably some deal made between the bank and the airport), and Nicoles debt card didn’t work in it. Whatever, we were almost out of here and $20 isn’t going to kill me.

Upstairs, we get into the next line, the airport tax line. There was a $30 airport tax fee that you have to pay manually before you’re allowed to go to the boarding area. When we get up to the teller, I hand her the boarding passes to get the stamps and my credit card. Then comes the beginning of a complete freak out…”We only accept cash”. WHAT?! A major international airport that charges everyone a departure fee only takes cash?! WTF?! Well, I certainly don’t have any cash, and Nicole doesn’t either, so I ask her what the hell we’re supposed to do. She informs us that we can go back to the Spirit checkin counter and pay with a credit card there. Arg! Fine… whatever. I just wanted out of here.

Back at the spirit counter, I skip the line and go up to the lady that checked us in. We explain. She looks confused and tells us that they can’t do it. Awesome. I can feel my blood pressure rising. “So what do we do?” She tells us that we can hang out there and pay for peoples luggage with my card and have them give us the cash. Great idea! “but the flight is pretty much all checked in, and most people payed in advance.”…*POP* &lt- my cool. “Then what the hell are we supposed to do? Nobody does cash-back purchases (asked) and all the money exchange places only exchange cash (asked)?! What happens if we miss our flight? It leaves in an hour and we haven’t even gotten through customs, let alone security!” Well, if we miss the flight, we forfeit our tickets (but our bags will make it to florida fine). We would then have to purchase new tickets (but the flights are booked, and we’re broke…awesome). For the cash problem, she had no suggestions and left us with a final answer of a shoulder shrug. My favorite response for any question. Especially when it means I’m going to be trapped in a foreign country with no money.

I then got an idea. We raced up the stairs to the food court and jumped to the front of the line. We then explained our situation to everyone in line and offered to buy their meals on my credit card in exchange for cash. Many of the people agreed to help. We needed to raise $60 (120 Soles) in about 20 minutes or we were seriously screwed. With most peoples order being around 5-10 soles, I had a feeling we might actually not make it. I ran to the book stores / souvenir shops to try there (larger ticket items being bought), but of course, everyone was paying with a credit card. I ran back to the food court. We were up to $40! People wound up just giving us money. That’s about the point Nicole broke. She couldn’t ask anymore. She left and sat down. Crap… now I’m limited to just english speaking people and we have almost no time left to spare! I didn’t give up. I skipped everyone in line and approached a smiling elderly american gentleman and told him our problem. He laughed, said how bad he felt for us, and gave us a $20 bill. I almost cried. I thanked him profusely, grabbed Nicole, and we ran for the airport tax line. It was about 40 people deep. Screw this. I moved all the little line thingies and walked right to the front. A window opened and a cut a lady off throwing her a gaze that she understood and stopped dead in her tracks.

I handed the lady the boarding passes and the $60. “Do you have 2 Soles?”… “What?! I just begged for this money, my flight is boarding right now, and you’re questioning me about 60 cents?!” She put the stamps on the tickets and we proceeded to customs. Great, another line. We tried to skip this one, but they made it pretty clear that we had to wait in line. So we did. We got out stamps to leave the country and then went through security. Thankfully, it was quick and short. Running to our gate (at the very end of course), we made it. Just in time to have our bags searched again by hand for liquids. Our government is plain dumb. I’m not even going to go into this one right now.

We got on the plane, and was greeted by two black women with sass. Yes! Home! I went to take my seat, and it was reached with dread, but not too much shock. It was a regular coach seat. There was no way in hell i was going to sit in a regular seat for 7 hours. I told the stewardess about my problem, and she told me to move to the exit row, no problem. So I did. I was happy. Finally, I everything was okay and my blood pressure resumed a normal level. We were to arrive in Fort Lauderdale at 6:30am tomorrow, and I have no idea when my connecting flight to New York is. And I don’t care. I try to go to sleep… didn’t really happen.

The first time I woke up, it was 5:50am. Why? Because I needed to blow my nose. For some reason, my body felt that blowing my nose was more important than sleeping. Stupid body. What made it fun was that I had to go outside, up a flight of stairs and make small talk with people that were still partying just to do so. Back to sleep.

It’s 9am and I’m up again. I don’t have to be up until 10am, but some girl in the room decided to make as much noise as possible while packing her bags. She finally left, and I returned to la la land.

10am, I wake up, pack my bag and sit outside to wait for Nicole to finish getting ready. 10:30 we leave and jump in a cab to go to the Airport. We were flying back to Lima. Check in. Go through security. Wait at the gate. Board the plane. Try to pass out. Fail. I wind up staring out the window the entire time. Lame. We land. Retrieve our bags. Get a cab. Check into hostel. Wait.

Why do we wait? Because it’s 3pm and our room isn’t ready yet. Crap. Sometime around 3:30, they let us in the room. I get our bags from storage, and then jump in the shower. Last time either of us had a shower was the last time we were in Lima, which I thing was 3 days ago.

While I was in the shower, Nicole passed out in the bed. I was tired, but I was also hungry. So I went to the grocery store, knowing that they sold food and that they took credit cards. Those were my two requirements. I got a whole rotisserie chicken, a giant side of fries, and a liter and a half of coke for around $7. I was pretty excited about this deal. When I got back to the hostel with my feast, I plopped down in the common area and watched a really cool movie about saving earth from a dying sun (Sunshine I think). When that one was over, I watch a really bad foreign film about war in Kosovo. Not bad in the good way either. Just plain bad. The movie was almost over when Nicole showed up wanting to get some food. I didn’t care to see the ending, so I shut it off and we left for the grocery store. She got some more cash, bought some grub, and then we went back to the hostel. Nicole ate while I repacked all my things. I had to get ready for the trip back to the US tomorrow. When we were done with that, we watched The Pick of Destiny with Jack Black. It was entertaining, and I now know where they got all the ideas for Guitar Hero 3. And all this time, I thought they came up with it on their own. Sheesh.

As usual, Nicole fell asleep before the movie ended. I finished packing up some loose odds and ends, and then went to bed myself. I tried to sleep, but the part seemed to be right outside my window. It was 1:30 in the morning and all I wanted to do was sleep. I put on my headphones, and watched Family Guy on my ipod until I was out cold.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK, “It’s 5am!” Bloody hell, am I ever going to get some sleep? We get out of bed and head to the dining area for some free breakfast. Bread, jelly, and tea. Nothing like a hearty breakfast before a long day of hiking in high altitudes. I had a piece of bread, a banana, and some water.

I grabbed my bag, and we walked down to the bus station to catch a ride to the top of a mountain where machu pichu is. That’s when we realize the price is listed in dollars, not soles. Back to the ATM. Got cash. Back to the bus station, bought our tickets, and got onto the bus. The bus ride to the top took about 15 minutes and was a winding, back and forth road (like that really curvy one in San Francisco), except up a freaking mountain with shear drops straight down with no railings. Some of the older people on the bus were a little worried as to how close to the edge the bus got.

At the top was a really nice, modern, lounge / cafe / thing. Wasn’t really expecting that. I guess they’re trying to cater to all the elderly / rich people that come here, and there’s a lot. I would say it’s about 70% over 40, and half of that is easily over 60.

I got my entrance ticket stamped and went through the turn styles to get into Machu Picu. Kinda reminded me of the turn styles used in Rome to get into the colosseum. Just weird to use them as gateway to some 2000+ year old outdoor area.

Anyway, describing what I saw is a little to difficult, so I’ll have to refer you to the photos for the majority of Machu Pichu.

There was one apparent rule, don’t cross into the roped areas. There was another, not so apparent, rule. Don’t climb on some stuff. I say some, because some things you have to to get to other places (ie higher terraces). But there are others, small walls that you’re not. Guess how I found this one out =)

I was trying to get the perfect photo of Machu Pichu, and it required me to stand up on a wall thing. I took stairs to get to it, so I didn’t think anything of it. Well, this bothered some little Peruvian guy that worked there. From about 50 yards away, this guy starts blowing a whistle, yelling something in Spanish, and running tops speed towards me while waving his arms in the air. My spanish isn’t so hot, but I was pretty sure that he was upset that I was on something I wasn’t supposed to be. I jumped down (after I took the photo of course) and apologized. He didn’t understand english. He kept yelling at me in Spanish, and I tried to look concerned. It was pretty hard not to laugh, but I did my best because I didn’t want to get kicked out yet for something this lame. I think I wasn’t supposed to be standing on it because there was a 10-15 foot drop on the one side. Still didn’t make too much sense, because the path from there has a sheer drop off the side of a mountain about 1000+ feet. Ah well… on with the tour.

More walking, more ruins, and a couple llamas here and there. The path came up to the entrance to Wynapichu (the big mountain in the background of all the Machu Pichu photos. I told Nicole that I would meet her back at the entrance when I was done. The sign said that it was about an hour hike. Nicole knew she wouldn’t make it, so she went off to check out the rest of the place and take some photos of the llamas. There was a baby llama, so I knew she’d be entertained for a while.

I entered the gate and had to sign in, I was number 64 for the day. I tucked my sweater into my bag, hooked up my ipod, selected some High on Fire, and jumped into the jungle.

I had no idea what I was in for. This hike was up the mountain on the original Incan stones used as stairs. In the beginning it wasn’t so bad. A couple wobbly steps and a dirt path. That ended pretty quick. Pretty much the entire way up, it was climbing on pieces of rock the jutted out from the mountain about 2 and a half feet and curved back and forth all the way up. It was a pretty simple design. Mountain face on one side to lean against, and absolutely nothing (except drop to the bottom of the mountain) on the other. So as long as you move upward and don’t lean the wrong way, slip, slide, loose balance, or something of that nature, you’re fine. Sometimes, the route got a little tricky and the stairs were either missing, only 6 inches or so wide, or covered in mud. Sometimes when that was the case, there were steel cables bolted to the side of the rock to hold onto for extra support. I took some photos of various places on the path to show a good example of what I was climbing.

I also took some photos of the amazing views that I saw as I ascended. It brought back memories of the wild cave tour I did in Mammoth Caves. It was really difficult (but fun), and because I took the hard route, I got to see some spectacular things that most humans will never see. That’s the kind of stuff that I find exciting.

I tried to scale the thing in one shot, but after about a half hour of the craziest stairmaster exercise ever, I needed a break. Also, the high altitudes with the lack of oxygen thing didn’t help either. A couple minutes of panting and sitting on the edge of a cliff, I continued on. I stayed focus on the ground for pretty much the entire trip up (didn’t want to take a bad step), but every once in a while, I’d look up to see how much I had left. I never saw the top. The foliage always blocked the view. At about 45 minutes of climbing, I came to an area that was all built out by the Incans. There were terraces, walls, and a couple building structures. It was amazing. All I could think of was, “Who the hell would want to live way up here?” and “How’d they get all the stones up here?” Each brick had to of weighed 60+ pounds, and there were thousands of them. Not a job I would volunteer for.

There was one area where there was a large stone jutting out over the edge. Seemed like a great photo-op. I asked a fellow hiker to take my picture and handed him my camera. I went out on the ledge, turned around, and squatted down. The guy went to take the photo, then asked if I wanted Machu Pichu in the background or the mountains. When I turned around to look, I lost my balance a little and almost went over the edge. I secured myself and told him that I really don’t care and to just hurry up. Click!

Now that I had some good adrenaline pumping through my body, I proceeded on with the hike. I figured I had to be near the top. The stairs were normal stairs again (well, respectively anyway), and I wasn’t on the edge of a cliff the whole time, so it was a little easier. Then I turned a corner and couldn’t believe where the path went. Into the mountain! There was a little cave to go through! And "little" is being generous. The entrance wasn’t too bad, I could squat / waddle through, and it was only about 30 feet deep. The exit on the other hand was a different story. I packed my camera and everything else on my into my bag and reached up the exit hole to put it outside. Then I laid on the ground / wall and slowly inched my way out, pushing with my left arm and trying to balance with my right. My legs were mainly for support as there wasn’t really any room to bend them. About a minute of squirming around, I popped out the other side. I thought that this is something that maybe they should tell people about before the set off on the hike. How pissed would you be if you get almost all the way to the top and then there’s a cave you either can’t fit through, or physically unable to get through. I enjoyed it, but on the way down I warned those that I thought needed it (fat people, elderly, and the couple that were wearing designer clothing… wtf?).

Once out of the cave, there were only a few stairs left to the top (100+ ish). Once the stairs ran out, there was just a wooden ladder that took you to the peak of the large pointed boulder that sat at the summit. It didn’t look so sturdy, but I wasn’t about to turn around this close. You’re reading this, so you know it held up. When I got on top of the rock, I just sat and stared off into the mountains. The view was breathtaking, and I was so excited to have made it. It was way more difficult than I ever imagined. Right before I left to start my descent, I asked a guy that was up there as well to snap a photo. This is my favorite photo, and I didn’t even take it.

The way down was actually more difficult than the way up. Not in the energy / endurance way, but in the balancing without falling of the edge of a cliff way. When I got back to the entrance, I was thrilled and had that feeling of just accomplishing something I didn’t know I could do. I had done it. Up and down in 1 hour 45 minutes (I guess the sign meant 1 hour each way). The last thing I wanted to do before leaving was check out the llamas. I got lost as hell trying to find them, and wound up jumping over a wall to get there (I made sure there were no little Peruvian people around). When I got to the llamas, they were all sleeping. How boring. I wanted to get a neat photo of a llama, but it just wasn’t going to happen. At this point, I didn’t really care. What I cared about was getting some water and food. That piece of bread and couple swigs of water about 5 hours ago just wasn’t lasting as long as I thought it would. Maybe that climb had something to do with it.

My new goal was to find the exit. The place is a freaking maze though once you’re in it. Thankfully I came across a stone arrow with "Salida" (Exit) painted on it. Following the arrows, I was out of Machu Pichu 10 minutes later. I met up with Nicole at the snack bar reading a book. I told her about the climb, and then bought some water and Doritos (luch of champions). While shoving chips in my mouth and downing water like a frat boy proving his manliness, I showed some of the photos I took.

It was time to head home. All the way home. That was officially the end of the trip. I must say that it was a perfect accidental ending to this vacation around South America. We boarded the bus and headed back down to the village around noon. We retrieved our bags from storage at the hostel, and went to the town square so I could mail a couple post cards and then grab some lunch. The place we ate at served up fresh guinea pig. Head and all. Deep fried I think. Not too sure, because I didn’t order it. I did order a Pizza, 3 cokes, and an Alpaca kabob. Nicole got a veggie lasagna.

1) The pizza was great. 2) The coke in a glass bottle is awesome! 3) Alpaca tastes similar to beef, but not quite the same. Still good though. 4) They have no clue how to cook lasagna. It looks like they took the noodles out of a box, boiled them for about 5 minutes and then through it into a stove for on high for another 5. Burned, crunchy, mostly uncooked veggie mess. Since I did have my credit card (thankfully I brought it in case of emergencies… like this), I paid the bill and then we headed for the train station to catch our 3:30pm train to Cuzco. No cabbie intervention this time.

This train wasn’t as nice as the last one, but I didn’t really care. I was tired and figured I’d just sleep the whole way. About ten minutes into the ride, they announce the details of the ride over the PA. This train ride was going to be 4 and a half hours. WHAT?! Yeah… I didn’t plan for that at all. My computer and ipod were dead, and I was too tired to read. I was also sitting across from two dutch people that we shared a table with, so I couldn’t sleep. Arg.

About half way through the ride, the train staff put on a skit and a fashion show with all the things you can make from Alpaca fur. The skit was a guy dressed up in an Ican clown outfit(?) dancing around with his stuffed pet alpaca. It was pretty entertaining. Not something you expect. The fashion show was also pretty interesting. Turns out, you can make a lot of clothing from alpaca fur. A lot of clothing. The show went on for about a half hour. If it wasn’t for the crazy Japanese tourist behind me freaking out every time the girl walked by I would have had to drugged myself asleep.

When the fashion show ended, I felt awake, so I started to read my book to kill some time. That’s when the train did something I didn’t think ever happened… It stopped, then started going backwards. What the hell? Did the train make a wrong turn somewhere? Is that even possible? A few moments later, the train continued in the forward direction. I’ll never know the mystery of the backwards train.

We arrived in Cuzco at 8:30pm, jumped in a cab to get to the hostel (about 5 minutes), checked in and dropped off our bags. We had to get cash to pay the bill (because South America doesn’t like credit cards), and grab some dinner. So, Nicole and I headed out into town. It was pretty cold and hard to breath (altitude again). We found an ATM a couple blocks away, and a nice restaurant across the street from it. Nicole had a shrimp fetichinni in a spicy alfredo sauce, and I had a pan seared steak spiced with 4 different types of peppers, banana chips, and a side of whipped fried potato barrels (fancy tater-tots), and a citrus fused salad. We didn’t order any wine because I didn’t want to have to deal with a headache tomorrow. So I ordered a couple gimlets, and Nicole a dirty martini. Dinner was delicious and well worth the $45 it costs. The us dollar sucks, but the Peruvian Sole is worse =).

When the bill came, I was going to pay it with my credit card, but I left my wallet back at the hostel. Crap. I told the waiter I’d be right back and Nicole stayed at the table. The hostel was only two blocks away, so it wasn’t a big deal. I tried to run to the hostel, but the high altitude canceled that one pretty quick. So I just walked fast. I returned, payed the bill, and then we both went back to the hostel to check out the bar there.

There were some, um… lively people… yeah. At the bar. Depending on your level of drunkenness, they ranged from "really cool people", to "damn you’re annoying" I chatted it up for a little while, but then just couldn’t take it anymore. I jumped on a computer for a little while to see what was going on in the world, and then headed downstairs to our room for the night. I think it was somewhere around 1am when I finally got to sleep.

Our cab showed up on time, and miraculously we were both up and ready for it. We had settled our bill the previous night, so we were all set to go. There was another guy that was sharing the cab with us that was going to columbia. He was hammered out of his mind. We all made it to the airport, but I doubt he made it out of the country. I don’t think he even knew his own name.

There were about 5 or 6 flights leaving between 5am and 6am all going to Cuzco. And these weren’t little prop-planes. Full 767′s. Man, Machu Pichu was popular.

Again, I tried to sleep on the plane. It was a short hour and a half flight, but I was freaking exhausted and needed sleep. Did I get it? Nope. I sure as hell tried though. I folded my body into Cirque De Soile positions trying to get comfortable. I got ‘nuthin. We landed, I was cranky.

We jumped in a cab and told him to take us to the train station. Both the lady back at the hostel, and the people on the airplane told us to haul ass to the train station to try and catch the last train to Aguas Calientes, otherwise we’d have to spend the night in here in Cuzco, which meant we’d get out trip to Machu Pichu cut short, and wouldn’t even have the possibility of climbing WynaPichu (that big mountain in the background of all the photos), as they only let 400 people per day in. Everything seemed ok, I wasn’t paying too much attention. Then we stop. Nicole tells me to get out of the cab. We’re not at a train station. I don’t even see a train station. I’m pissed, and I make it very clear that I am so. We’ve stopped at his friends travel office who’s going to "help" us. I look at nicole and tell her very firmly, “This is fucked. We need to get in the cab and tell him to take us to the train station now". She tells me that these guys are trying to help us. While this guy is giving us a geography lesson, I’m talking very loudly over everyone demanding that we leave and we leave immediately. Nicole manages to tell the guy to take us to the train station.

We arrive at the train station, run inside and inquire about the train to Aguas Calientes, and there is one… tomorrow. We missed the last train by 5 minutes. I’m fuming. I’m so pissed, I don’t say a word. I look at the cabbie that followed us in and want to tear is head off. Nicole then tells me that we have to go back to office we came from because the cabbie says it’s the only place we can get tickets for the next train. I say simply, “fuck that, we do it here.” Nicole freaks out, tells me to do it myself and storms off. Fine. I can handle this. So between the cabbie and the train guy (neither of which speak english), I devise a plan to take a cab (how convenient) for two hours to another city where we can take a train t Aguas Calientes today. The train ticket would be $100 usd (which I could buy right there…amazing). The cab fare would be $70 usd…awesome. So I settle on the decision solely on the fact that I’ll still be able to get to Aguas Calientes. I hate being scammed, and Nicole’s blind trust in everyone has worn thin. I go to the ATM, take out $200 cash for nicole and my train tickets (Nicole’s card didn’t work in the ATM), and we get back in the cab for our 2 hour drive to some small town in the middle of nowhere Peru. I want tell everyone to fuck off and just go back to Lima, but I’m set on climbing this damned mountain if it kills me.

Making lemonade out of the lemons, I saw some great Peruvian countryside and mountains on the trip to nowhere-land. Took some cool photos, and contemplated kicking the cabbie out of the car and leaving him on an mountain. The air was too thin, and it felt like my asthma was it full affect, so I passed on the idea and took some more photos. We were over 3,000 meters above sea level. That’s almost 2 miles up. Pretty intense.

around 9:30am, we arrive in the little town where we were to catch our train. We had about an hour to spare, so we walked around the town to look for nick-nacks to buy. I found a really cool necklace, so I grabbed that and a redbull. Needed the energy. On the way back to the train station, this ancient lady approached be selling bags of leaves. What the hell would I want a bag of leaves for. Then it clicked. These were cocoa leaves. Munch on these for a quick fix for altitude sickness, or a buzz. They also have Mate de Coco all over the place (cocoa leave tea). So I bought a bag. I think it ran about 67 cents.

Back at the train station, we saw a train arrive, and the gates opened to let people in (all tourists), so we figured it was our train and followed them in. Nope… not our train. So we follow some other tourist into what we thought was the waiting area until our train (the next one) showed up. Nope, not the waiting area. Turned out to be a private bed and breakfast for rich tourists (mainly european). We blended right in…

Our train finally showed up and we jumped on board. It took about 2 seconds to realize why the hour and a half train ride cost so much. All the rich tourists boarded right behind us. We apparently bought the last two tickets on a train that had porters, waitstaff, baggage handlers, all wearing matching bellman uniforms. We were on a fancy train. We even got lunch served to us. Crazy. This gave me the perfect time to try out the cocoa leaves. The didn’t smell too bad. They tasted… yucky. I tried to accept the taste, even put more in thinking if I enhance the flavor it’ll get better. Go figure, it made it worse. I tried to spit out the mushed up leaves out the window. Didn’t work out so well. Most went out the window. The rest, on me, in my beard, and some on Nicole. That was my first, and last experience with cocoa leaves.

The hostel that was booked ahead of time and paid in advance was to meet us at the train station with a little card that had our names on it. Well, in theory anyway. There were a lot of hotels / hostels picking up the passengers. All except us. Awesome. We leave the train station and try to find the hostel on foot (there’s no cars in Aguas Calientes… hence the train). A little asking around and some wrong turns, we find our hostel. It was actually really nice.

Next task was to get our tickets to Machu Pichu. We weren’t really sure if they limited entrance to the whole thing to 400 or just the mountain so we played it safe and made that our first stop. The town is about 400 people big and looks like a favela (those shanty towns in Rio), but clean, safe, and friendly (but pushy) people. We found the ticket office no problem. Well, kinda. We found it, but there wasn’t anyone there. Lunch time I guess. Nicole talked to a guy that worked next door and found out that they only take Soles’ (cash). Crap. Our next stop on this scavenger hunt would be an ATM. We found it. Yes, it. I grabbed my wallet, pulled out my debt card and took out some cash. Well, that’s what was supposed to happen. What really happened was: I pulled out my wallet and discovered that I had no debt card. Awesome. Looks like I left it in the ATM back in Cuzco. Sun of a bitch. While nicole was mailing some postcards I found an Internet place so I could look up the number to Citibank to call and cancel my card. The kicker? The electricity was out. Apparently it went out everywhere. Rock. I’m glad I’m not on a mountain, in a tiny village, out in the middle of nowhere, completely cut of by civilization, with no means of cash, and in desperate need of it. Oh wait…

Nicole took out the extra cash to cover my entrance. Today just got worse. Didn’t think it would / could happen. But it did. Hey, wanna make things more fun? Lets throw in some mosquitos. Not the american kind. The Machu Pichu kind. They’re tiny little things, the size of gnats, but they make a mean hole in your body. You don’t just get a little itchy bump. Blood actually drips from the holes. Throw in the possibility of malaria or some other jungle disease and you get a great dose of severe irritation. There was a lot of weight on my last straw, and I felt it snapping. I ran (literally) to the drug store and did the international charade for bug spray (slap your self silly, and then make a spraying motion), purchased some Off and doused myself. Guess what, bug spray on a healing tattoo burns… a lot.

Completely fed up, super hungry and unbearably tired, we head back toward the hostel to eat at the restaurant next door so we can stumble to it afterward. I had a pizza and cream of mushroom soup with a couple… ok few, pisco sours (S. American alcohol drink…yummy and strong). After dinner, we go to the hostel to lay down for a little nap.

I woke up about an hour later in a panic. Shit! We didn’t get the tickets! Nicole hands me the cash and her student ID. When we were there the first time, the guy said they might let her get her ticket at half off with her student ID, but since it didn’t have an expiration date, they might not accept it. I told Nicole to give me enough cash for 2 full priced tickets in case they didn’t take the ID. She told me she didn’t have any more cash. So I said she should come with me then in case she needs to explain her way through it (English isn’t so common around here). She refuses and made a big deal about it, so I said “fine, but if they don’t take it, you have to go get it yourself”. She agreed.

I walked down the hill to get the tickets. Guess what, the lady didn’t accept the student ID and as a bonus she didn’t speak English. Surprise! I march back up the hill (starting to rain now) to the hostel / bed. I’m so tired I seriously could curl up under a tree and pass out. When I got into the room, I told Nicole that she didn’t take the ID so she’d have to go down there and try to explain the deal. She handed me more cash and told me to go back to get a full priced ticket. Knowing how tired I was, I thought, maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe I misheard something. So I verified. “I asked for the cash before I went, you said you didn’t have it. So… ”

I’m walking back down the hill in the rain to get another ticket. I buy the ticket and go back up the hill in the heavier rain. I love being super tired walking up steep hills in the cold rain. Who needs sleep? Not this guy!

I drop the change and the ticket on the table, and pass out. I think it was somewhere around 9pm.

“BLARG!” That was the noise I heard. Nicole was vomiting in the toilet. I jump up to see if she’s ok. Looks like the altitude finally got to her. The drinks probably put her over the edge. Nicole gets altitude sickness. I ran downstairs and stole a water from the reception area (there wasn’t anyone there to pay and I wasn’t going to wait). I ran back up the stairs and gave it to her (don’t want to drink the water here). Feeling a little better she went back to sleep, as did I.

“BLARG!” Round 2. This time I ask what will actually help the problem. She asked me to get her some Mate de Coca to help settle her stomach. I was on it. I grabbed the change and ran downstairs. No on there, again. I run outside. It’s pouring rain, about 2 in the morning, and mostly everything is closed. I go up and down the mountain, down side street, and finally find a little store open. They had tea bags. Ok… I can work with this. I buy the bags and then jog back to the hostel. The altitude prevented me from actually running. At the hostel I go to where the owners were sleeping and wake them up to ask about an oven or microwave. The guy was really nice and understanding (broken spanish and charades got the point across). He let me use his microwave to heat up the water and make the tea. He even gave me his tea pot and a cup to use. I took it back up the the room and gave it to nicole. She felt better, I fell asleep.

Nicole woke me up around 8am. Not too bad. Got a little over 3 hours of sleep. I think that’s about par for this trip. Our flight to Lima was boarding in an hour, so we went to grab some breakfast (Dunkin Donuts). Nicole had some toast, and I had a satanic donut. Not really sure why they did it, but they were there, so I got 2 =)

We heard the announcement of the boarding of our flight, so we queued up and got on the plane. My backpack fit fine in the overhead. I dunno why they kept making me check the bag. Flying is always my favorite. Never comfortable, always tired. Too tired to do anything, too awake to sleep.

We landed in Lima around 11:30am and did the whole baggage claim, customs thing. I’m a pro at this. Passport, boarding pass, and customs papers in hand. “Hello”, “I’m here for 4 days”, “Nope”, “Nope”, “Gracias”. That’s all you need to know to get through customs in South America.

After getting through customs, we entered the baggage claim area. I grabbed some soles. Exchange rate is 3 soles to 1 usd. I thought it was pretty cool that there’s a country that deals totally in soles. Then Nicole killed it by telling me it’s pronounced So-Lays. Meh.

After grabbing our bags, we had to walk up to “the button”. This magical device is a high tech piece of equipment. You push this big green button and either a green or red light glows. If it’s green, you’re free to go. If it’s red, they go through all your stuff. I know there’s someone behind the curtain controlling it, but miraculously we both got green. We were the only ones there, so I figure they were just too lazy.

Leaving baggage claim begins the standard south american cabbie chaos. That’s what I call it anyway. Cabbie Chaos is where every cabbie in the city runs up to you and heckles you to hire them. “Taxi?”, “You need a cab?”, “Follow me!”. And that’s about the extent of their english. Try to talk about where you want to go or ask some questions, you get deer in headlights for a moment, then “Come, come…”. Once again, thankfully, Nicole comes to the rescue with her Spanish.

First thing I noticed about Lima…dirty. Well, at lease around the airport area… and on the way to the hostel… and around the hostel, other than that it could be great. I just didn’t see those parts.

The beach area looked nice along the ocean. But it was all dirt and rock. Zero vegetation… and it smelled. I can’t be positive, but judging by my nose, they dump their sewage into the ocean.

We arrived at the hostel, checked in and then talked about how we are to get to Machu Pichu. I was floored with the complexity and cost that was involved to get there. Unbelievable! We had to purchase a plane ticket to Cuzco ($200 usd), cab to the train station ($5), then take a train to Aguas Calientes ($100 usd), spend the night there ($20), then bus to Machu Pichu in the morning ($12), and the finale of the entrance fee into Machu Pichu ($40). I was already broke. Actually, broke is an exaggeration. I was really broke. Like… living on credit cards and overdraft protection, and I wasn’t going to be paid for a week. Oh, and rent was due in a week. Ahahaha… and christmas is right around the corner.

So sucked it up and made a the logical decision. I booked the trip. Fuck it. You only live once, and what’s money? I’ll make more later. Right now, I want to see Machu Pichu!

With more debt racked up on my life, I asked where I could find a place that sold DVDs (I needed to get Alien from Peru =). The lady at the counter gave me the name of a giant place that had cheap DVDs. They supposedly had everything. Sounded good.

I jumped in a cab and headed for a name on a piece of paper. When we arrived, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. It was a giant bootleg flea market. 3 floors of bootleg everything. And this is no exaggeration. They had everything. There were probably 50 DVD store-thingy’s alone! They each had these bolted books of DVD covers and thousands of DVD titles behind them. If you’ve ever been in NYC and you know those little mexican lady’s that sell the bootleg DVDs in the subway, it’s like that. But they’re copies of real DVDs, and the selection is amazing. There’s movie stands, TV series stands, Anime stands, video game stands, porn stands, music stands. Everything! The best part is that they cost about $2.50 each. At the second place I looked, I got my copy of Alien. A couple stands later, I got Critters 2, 3, and 4! These aren’t even released in the US! Rock! Nicole picked up a Dolce & Gabanna (sp?) bag for about $10.

After a little more exploration, we hailed another cab to take us back to the hostel. This would be the best cabbie ever.

This guy spoke Spanish (obviously), English (nice), and Japanese! WTF?! Yeah, so Nicole talked to him in Spanish, to me in Japanese, and through in a little English here and there. He was the only person in the cab that caught everything being said. It was pretty cool to talk to someone in a foreign language that I could understand. After two and a half weeks of struggling in Spanish, this was a great relief.

I dumped my movies in the room and then headed down the street to the supermarket so I could hit up the ATM. The hostel / travel agency for our Machu Pichu trip only takes cash (just like most of the rest of South America)… arg. On the way, I took a couple photos of the neighborhood. Some of the buildings were in a state of post-apocolyptic deterioration which was kinda cool. Felt like New Orleans caught on fire and forgotten about.

While in the grocery store, I saw some Peruvian snacks that I couldn’t pass by. The popular soda (besides Coke), Inca Cola, and some spicy chips that tasted / looked like Fritos.

On the way back, there was a dentists office that looked scary as hell. I wouldn’t go in there if my teeth were falling out. But I did have a strong urge to check it out because they offered “Dental Piercings”. I was and am very curious about this. The cartoon showed a tooth with bling on it, but was it a bling insert, or did they actually pierce the tooth? I will never know!

Back at the hostel, we ordered up some dinner. Nicole had a fruit salad and some crepes. I, a ham and cheese dipped in egg, fried on a skillet, and covered in baked beans. I ordered it because it was the craziest thing on the menu, and actually, it was pretty good =). While we were munching away, we were visited by a little friend.

This little bird kept flying in and eating jelly out of a little tray. Turns out this guy has been visiting the bar for over two months and they purposely put out the jelly for him now. Reminds me of the seagull that steals the chips from the store (google it if you don’t know what i’m talking about, it’s hilarious!).

Dinner was over, and we have to catch a cab at 3:30am tomorrow morning (or tonight, depending how you look at it) to go to the airport to fly to Cuzco, and I was pretty exhausted. Somewhere around midnight, I passed out… hard.

Our flight was at noon (take off time, boarding time is 11:30am). We had to be in the cab at 11am. We have a couple quick things to grab around town. It’s 10:30am. It’ll be tight, but it’s possible. The airport was only 10 to 15 minutes away.

In a hurry, we run downstairs, drop off our bags, pay the hotel, and run out the door. We stopped at a couple places and were pretty much done. It was now 10:55am. Nicole says she needs to go to one more place real quick, and I had to stop at a store to pick something up as well, so we split up and agreed to meet at the hotel.

I grabbed what I needed and then went to the hotel. The guy at the front desk called us a cab. Nicole wasnt’ there. The cab showed up about 10 minutes later (11:10 ish). No Nicole. I wait five minutes. No Nicole. So I ran to the store she said she needed to go into. No Nicole. I run back thinking I missed her somehow (it’s only two blocks away and one road). I check inside the cab and in the hotel. No Nicole. It’s 11:20 and the cabbie is wondering what’s going on. I explain to him that Nicole is in the bathroom (logical, and the only thing I knew how to say in Spanish). Around 11:30, Nicole shows up walking around the corner (turns out she went to another store). I was just waiting for my aneurism to happen. Nicole and time management don’t really go well together, which normally isn’t too much of an issue. Today is different. We are at the bottom of the world, our plane is taking off in 35 minutes, and we’re not at the airport. Here’s why today is a bad day to be late…

This flight is to take us back to Buenos Aires, which we then have to jump in a cab and go to the international airport (about 30-45 minutes away) for our flight 6 hours later to Santiago. Once in Santiago, we have a 9 hour layover until our flight to Lima Peru. We are then to spend the night in Lima then catch a plane to Cuzco Peru. Then jump in a train for four hours and arrive at Machu Pichu. If we miss this flight, the next one doesn’t leave for two days. Which means we miss all our other flights, don’t get to go to Machu Pichu, and have the lovely possibility of missing our flight from Peru to Fort Lauderdale in which case we miss the flight to New York (aka. Home). I was not a happy camper at this point.

The cabbie took his time to get to the airport (adding to the possible brain explosion). I didn’t think I was going to arrive at the airport alive, but I did.

We ran in, checked our bags (thankfully the lady let us check in), got in line to pay an airport tax, then got in the security line, and jumped on the plane. We just made it. Thankfully there was no one at the airport and it’s really small. Nicole thinks I was overreacting and it wasn’t that bad because we weren’t the last ones to board the plane. I put my noise canceling headphones on and fell asleep.

We landed in Buenos Aires around three in the afternoon. Grabbed our bags and jumped in a cab. It was really nice out. In the 70′s I’d say. And my allergies kicked in again. Oh well, I only had about an hour to deal it it. I could handle it. We showed up to the international airport with plenty of time on our hands. We grabbed some food, and sat around waiting for boarding to start around 8:30pm.

The flight to Santiago was somewhere around two and a half hours, so it wasn’t too bad. One good thing is that I beat Super Mario Cart =). We landed around midnight in Santiago and did the whole getting of bags, going through customs and leaving the airport. But, there was a twist, we had to go right back in because we had a flight to Lima Peru that left at 10am. The kicker? The airport checkin stuff wasn’t open. Which meant, no boarding passes, no checking of bags, and no sleeping at the gate. Apparently, no one would be at the checkin counter until 4:30am. Awesome.

Then I see a self-checking kiosk and tried that out for kicks. It worked! so we got our boarding passes and just said screw-it on checking the bags. They can take them at the gate and check them if they’re too big. We went through customs and then through security. This is when “the situation” began. “Ma’am, do you have a knife in your bag?” (in Spanish of course). Oops.

You see, Nicole bought a knife while in Ushuaia. And it wasn’t supposed to ever be a problem because we were going to be checking our bags. Welp, looks like we both forgot about it. She had to take her back to a holding area outside security and customs and then go back after 4:30am to check it in. I waited in the duty free area (just past security) and tried to kick some ass on F-Zero. Didn’t do so well. Apparently you get worse at video games as you get older. When Nicole came back through security again, we headed to our gate to try and catch some zzz’s. Nicole passed out almost immediately on the bench.

I found free wireless, so I played around on my computer until about 4am.

Trying to sleep on an airport floor with pop music / commercials blaring in the background isn’t as easy as it sounds. With the help of my ipod and extreme sleep deprivation, I managed to pass out.