Well haven’t updated for a while and this will most probably be my last before I start my trek home in 9 days.

A friend of Verónica’s had his birthday last weekend and they invited us to a Flamingo dancing concert, it was free which was surprising considering how good it was. Dancing isn’t really my thing but it was really entertaining, especially the guitarists, they were awesome. Afterwards we went back to their house to have something to eat and drink, it was quite a good night.

Greg & Helen, church friends from NZ, are currently traveling the world and they started in South America earlier this year. Just over a week ago they had made their way to Cusco, so they got to meet Verónica and we hung out with them a bit. It was really cool to see them

They flew out for Lima early this morning so we went out last night for dinner with them. They requested Cuy so Verónica organised a restaurant called Kusikuy to cook us up a couple. There wasn’t much to them really, the texture of the meat was similar to chicken and there wasn’t much taste. Still I’m happy I finally got to try it, have a look at the pics of the poor guys:

Well just got back from a few days in Máncora yesterday. Had a really good time, 5 of us ended up going Verónica, Gissel, Josh & Nadia and me.

Verónica and I took a flight to Lima from Cusco on the 16th in the morning, did some shopping and then went to the airport to meet Josh & Nadia. Their flight had some really rough turbulence (article: Iberia flight from Spain arrives to Peru with 23 injured passengers) so they were a bit shaken up (hahaha I’m so good) when they arrived. We went to Vero’s uncle and aunty’s house, where we stayed the night. They took us out for dinner to a really nice chinese restaurant close to their house. Our flight was at 4am the following morning so we got about 4 hours sleep before we were all heading to the airport again. The flight was to Piura in the north of Perú and we then caught a minivan to Máncora which was about a couple of hours.

We arrived and the weather was really warm, we booked into a hotel called Punta del Mar which Jesse had recommended.

Me ripping it up, ha

We relaxed a lot for the 5 days we were there, the surf was big enough after a new swell hit so Josh and I managed to hire some boards and go out for one surf at the point. The rest of the time we spent walking along the beach, swimming in the pool and lying in the sun. Oh and eating quite a bit of fresh seafood, mainly ceviche mmmmmmmm.

I recommend going there, there’s so many hotels to chose from and judging from the amount of development going on it will be a really popular holiday spot for people visiting Perú. Next time Jesse’s resort Loki del Mar will be finished so that’s where I’ll be staying.

We made our way back to Piura for our flight to Lima, Josh and Nadia were flying out for Mexico City that afternoon. It was a bit sad saying goodbye, being with them at the beach and surfing had made me quite homesick but I’m just glad I’ll be able to enjoy the NZ summer this year.

This past weekend was Veronica’s cousin Francine’s wedding to Sebastian. The ceremony was at a church in the main square and started at 10:30am. Here they have 2 ceremonies, the religious and the civil, it seems the government doesn’t recognise the ceremony at the church. So after the church ceremony we went to Club Cusco where the civil ceremony was held. Then we went to the reception at Hacienda Gloria (Gloria Estate) up near Sacsayhuamán. It was really nice, every table had a bottle of Black Label Johnnie Walker woohoo haha. The food was over and done with pretty quickly as it’s all about la música y el bailar. So the music and dancing went on for hours finishing around 9:30 10pm. I had never danced so much in my life and it wasn’t just the young people dancing, EVERYONE was. So I danced with the Aunties, uncles etc and Verónica’s dad hahaha it was awesome. Oh and Verónica’s aunty Norka said I danced really well, yeah that’s right the gringo can dance hahaha.

Jesse was having a party at his hostel that night and I really wanted to go but we were just too tired so we went home.

The next day the family had lunch together at a huge restaurant in San Jerome, about 15mins taxi from Cusco city. There were few tired looking faces heh.

The other night Verónica and I went to a pizzeria for dinner. While we were waiting for the bill I noticed a guy moved and sat behind Verónica and he keep looking down at her butt, I thought well fair enough hahaha I don’t blame him. But the more I looked at him the dodgier he seemed so I thought I better keep an eye on him. Then he takes his jacket off and lays it over his shoulder, and his head keeps looking down, up, down, up really nervously. Verónica’s handbag was beside her on the seat but i thought there’s no way he’d try and take it but yep the next thing I see is his hand come from under his jacket about to grab her bag. Well lets just say I pretty much lost it then, yelling at him (surprisingly no cursing heh not that he would understand) “What do you think you’re doing!!!”, he said some excuse in spanish so I jumped up and was going to lay into him but thought better of it as there were kids right beside us. Hahaha he was crapping himself, so I pointed to the door and told him “Get out!!!”, which he did thank goodness. This whole time Verónica was frozen wide-eyed and didn’t even turn around hahaha, when she finally spoke she said something like “Jamie! I’ve never seen you like that” hahaha it was quite funny although I was shaking quite a bit afterwards.

I couldn’t believe anyone could be so cheeky so I think that’s why I was so angry. It definitely got the adrenaline pumping though.

Well I managed over a month without getting really sick, so I lasted longer than I expected. Unfortunately last weekend was probably the most sick I’ve ever been, well the most uncomfortable. We went out to a town called Urubamba with Veronica’s family on Saturday afternoon. Veronica’s Dad’s friend has a house out there, it’s an amazing house, pretty huge. Well we had dinner with their family and I started to get pains in my stomach so I ended up going to bed.

Recovering

I never really got to sleep as I keep burbing, it was horrible, reminded me of the fermentation stage of brewing beer ha. So I ended up spending the majority of the night and morning in the bathroom. At 3am I got quite bad and Diego (Veronica’s brother) ended up getting Veronica to come look after me. She spent the next 3 hours trying to comfort me but the pains in my stomach were so bad I couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep. I think I finally fell asleep just after 6am so it was possibly the worst night I’ve had and I’m glad it’s over.

Well it hasn’t been all bad, the weekend before that was the stag/hens do for Veronica’s cousin and her fiancee. It was pretty much the same as any stag do here except everyone was speaking Spanish and I didn’t know most of them. Their wedding is on 13th September I think, it should be interesting.

Veronica and I have booked Josh, Nadia and our flights to Máncora for October 17th. We’ll spend 5 days there on the beach and then see them off to Mexico from Lima. We’re hoping Jesse’s Loki del Mar resort might be ready by then but if not there’s plenty of accommodation up there. So I’m really looking forward to going to the coast and hopefully getting some surfing done.

My Spanish lessons have been non-existent, I was going to start this week but because I got sick I didn’t. So next week I’m definitely going to start as I need something to do haha.
Oh and Veronica has told her boss that she’s planning on leaving the company and coming to NZ in February for a few months maybe woohoo! So a pretty big move for her as she’s been there for almost 9 years. So we’re deciding whether she should apply for a working or visitors visa. So if anyone has a job offer for a Industrial Designer with management experience that would great haha, well we’ll see what happens.

Tonight we’re probably going to watch Jesse’s band play hahaha should bring back memories.
So that’s it for now, I have some more photos I’ll upload later. Chau.

Unfortunately today I’ve become sick again with an upset stomach and more visits to the bathroom than I’d like. This time I’m prepared with some tablets from NZ but I think I should have bought more than one packet with me since I’ve only been here 13 days.
So far I’ve been staying with Veronica’s family in the spare room but we’ve just organised the same apartment I was staying in last time. I’m quite happy with that even though the price has gone up quite a lot as it’s the high season here. I move in on the 11th Aug.

The Start

We started the walk at about 10am at ~3500m it was all up hill and then it started to rain. At about 12 we arrive at a lake near the top of the mountain and pitch a tent to have lunch inside as it’s freezing cold and raining. I was looking around wondering where we were going head next, I was thinking surely not over the top but yep that’s what we had to do. That’s when I started to get worried, it was sooo high I was thinking I’m never going to make it to the top of that. James said it’ll only take 1/2hr and I was thinking what a load of bull crap. We started to climb up the mountain, it was horrible. The mud and water running down made it even harder, I would walk about 10-15 really small steps and have to stop to catch my breath. When we got near the top I started to feel dizzy, I just wanted to stop but I knew the only thing I could do was keep going. Veronica and Gissel started to ask if I was ok and I was like yeah sure. I started praying that I’ll get out of this that’s when I realised it must be bad. Later on they said they were really worried as I was white and when I answered their questions I was just mumbling, it must have been the altitude.

From near the top

We finally reached the top ~4400m about 2hrs after lunch and I was thinking it can’t be far to go but couldn’t see a town anywhere. We climbed down and down and down, we had to go off-trail a lot as it was so muddy. By now my legs were killing me and to top it off I was still fighting the diarrhea I’d been having, it was horrible.

Another 2hrs pass and we get to a really steep part next to a waterfall and there’s a couple of local guys standing talking, we ask if they can take our bags. Martin, one of the guys wraps all our bags in a blanket and lifts it onto his back, pretty amazing as he wasn’t a big guy. Apparently Veronica asked the Martin how much longer it would take us to get to Lares and he said 3hrs, I’m so glad I didn’t understand that.
It takes about 1/2hr to get to his home town where he gives us back our bags and we give him about 10 soles, I was ready to give up much more. So now we’re following the road to Lares and that’s when I ask Veronica how long to go, she says 2hrs. I was WHAT?! This is ridiculous!

The Waterfall – Martin is in the background

We leave the road after a couple kms on to a track, it now starts to get dark. The going is really slow now as the track is rocky and muddy and we need to use a torch. My legs are killing me, and Veronica starts to get really tired too. Her shoes aren’t suited to what we’re walking over and every so often she falls over or rolls on her ankle, each time she curses more and more at James. I get sooooo close to cursing at him too I’m glad I didn’t though.

At 8pm we walk through the gate to the hot pools, we’re so happy! We pitch our tent and go into the pools to soak are sore muscles and bones, finally we made it.

9th Feb – Ivette

We went to Veronica’s cousin Ivette’s house for dinner and some drinks (mmmmm Appletons). Then everyone went to El Muki discotec to dance (and yes amazingly I danced, Veronica says I’m quite good hahahaha) and we stayed until about 3am.

14th Feb – Veronica & Gissel

Well this day was a double-banger being Valentine’s Day and Veronica’s b’day. Veronica and Gissel’s friends came around to their house for dinner and some drinks. A guy that the girls knew had the same birthday as them, he lived down the street on the corner and was having a party. We all headed down there and the Pisco started flowing and inevitably the dancing started. So I was roped into dancing again, unbelievable. We headed back home at 3:30am, the girls had to be at work in 3 hours time hehehehehe.

17th Feb – Rosita

To celebrate Veronica’s friend Rosita’s birthday we headed out to a small town about an hours drive out of Cusco called Pisac. It was really great cos it was at a hotel which had an Olympic sized indoor pool with a glass roof. It was nice to have a swim, about as close to the beach as you can get in Cusco I guess. Then we had a BBQ for lunch. After that we headed to Rosita’s family’s house not far out of Pisac township, it’s a really nice house that looks out over huge cornfields (they export corn to Europe).

22nd – Me

For my birthday we went to a restaurant in Cusco (a pretty classy one actually) for dinner with Gissel, Ernesto & Cecilia. I had alpaca, as recommended by Ernesto, it was really really nice. After dinner we went to an Irish pub at the square and met some more friends there for drinks. At about 1am some of us went to another bar (where Veronica and I first met) and danced/talked until about 4:30, then headed home. Some pics:

24th – Vanne

Vanessa celebrated her birthday at her house, where we had really nice chicken for an early dinner and cheesecake for dessert. Of course the obligatory dancing started, there may even be some photos of me dancing floating around somewhere, lets hope they don’t surface. Veronica and I left at about 8pm as we were tired and she had work the next day.

Well another exciting thing that happened in February were the strikes in Cusco. These are nothing like what happens in NZ, here the whole city is supposed to stop work. There are no taxis as they’ll most likely get a rock through their window. There’s a march into the main square where sometimes there’s a burning of tyres, smashing of shop windows etc. Not sure why they destroy their fellow townsfolk property, some of them are just idiots I guess. They closed the airport as apparently 200 people stormed the airport so police fired tear gas at them. I’m praying they don’t organise another strike when it’s time for me to leave.
The bonus was Veronica didn’t have to work so we got to walk around the carless town in the sun.

Well that’s all I can remember from Feb, next update will be very soon as we just got back from the “Trek from Hell”
Does 10hrs walking in the cold rain, mud and over mountains at 4400m (Mt Cook is ~3700m) appeal to you?

The next day was Pisco Sour (the national drink) Day in Peru so we planned to go to a bar that serves about 10 different kinds of Pisco Sour. Firstly though I was finally going to catch up with Jess. Veronica and me met him up at his hostel (Loki Hostel Cusco) and had dinner and a couple of drinks. It was great to finally catch up with him. Their backpackers chain are planning a resort in Máncora with a point break right out front, woohoo!!!
We then made our way to meet Veronica’s friends and sample some Pisco Sours. I had 3 different types and may have slightly over done it
Then yesterday (Sunday) was Carnival, so one of Veronica’s friends invited us to go out to the Sacred Valley and celebrate. They celebrate Carnival here with a giant water fight wherever you go. So we bought some water balloons filled them up and 2 car-loads of us headed out to Urubamba. One of the cars was a Hilux with an open tray on the back, so 4 of the others were on the back and got soaked as we traveled through all the little towns. I wish I had of been on the back but I was expecting us to have a big water fight in Urubamba but it didn’t happen. We had lunch at a nice buffet restaurant then had a foam spray fight hahaha it was so funny, hopefully I get hold of some of the photos (oh that reminds me I lost Veronica’s camera so I have to buy a new one).