answer: the two mice who decided to vacation near the equator and not put on sunscreen!
people, we are a couple of crispy-fried mice!! but OH MY SOUL we are having such an amazing time!! after my last post on wednesday, we walked around lima and checked out a few places our host, helena, recommended. we walked around the miraflores neighborhood, which is extremely gorgeous. we walked along the ocean for miles. there were some great parks. one was called the ¨love park¨ because of the giant sculpture in the middles of two people making out. apparently that set the tone for everyone else because EVERYBODY was making out. sister mouse and i were the only people not sucking face with someone!! we also got the check out this cool ancient ruin in the middle of the city called huaca pucllana. we stopped at this street side taco stand and grabbed a delicious lunch before meeting up with our host, helena. she wanted to show us all her favorite parts of lima. we has such an amazingly great time with her. she is absolutly the best. in fact, we like her so much that no matter what state her apartment is in, we are going to stay with her the last two days of our trip. one of my favorite things we did in lima was ride on the CRAZY city buses. they are these tiny little buses that a person hangs off the side and yells where the bus is going to. and about 25 too many people are crammed on, and they are driven by crazy drivers, and i think it is wonderful! also everything is soooo cheap here. ours meal cost usually between $2 and $4 dollars. i love it!!
at sunset we walked to a park in a nearby neighborhood, barranco, and it was packed with people everywhere. it is carnival time here so the whole country is in one big party! we got some kind of strange and delicious dessert at an outdoor cart in the park. it was a mixture of two kinds of sweet rice, and some jam-like stuff made from purple corn with chunks of fruit in it. it was pretty tasty. Then we met up with one of helenas friends from couch surfing, Enco. he picked us up in his car and we went down to the beach. there was a restaurant on the ocean that had outdoor seating so we sat out there and helena and enco ordered us some tradional peruvian food they wanted us to try. potatos, corn (that is about 30 times bigger than our corn), and steak on skewers. there was fried cheese in corn tortilla, some kind of delicious chicken, and inca cola. helena and enco kept asking us what we thought of the beef. it was good, we said. do you know what it is, they said? Cow heart. yup. we ate cow heart. good thing i didn´t know before i ate! it tasted fine though. we walked along the beace for a bit after dinner, then enco took us back to helenas place. helena and i got dressed to go out and sister mouse decided to skip the club and sleep (given that we hadnt gotten much the night before). secretly i think she likes sleeping there with that mangy pooch (however, at some point during the night sister mouse must have tamed the wild beast because he didnt bother her too much). so helena and i headed out to meet some of her friend at a disco. it was a huge club and there were tons of people there from all over the world. apparently there was this really well-know peruvian band playing that night that played modern kumbia music (a kind of latin dance music). oh my soul we had so much fun! when we got to the club we greeted everyone in our group. (when you greet people in peru, you kiss them on the cheek). so i started kissing everybody with our group. helena grabs my arm and says, ¨you can stop kissing everybody now. you have already kissed everyone i know and now you are kissing people i dont know.¨ so i am a friendly american. what can you do... well we danced and danced and danced until about 2am, then we went back to her house to wake sister mouse, pack our bags and head out for our next destination. i had mentioned that we had changed plans in the last post, but we decided to change them back, so we had to catch a 4am flight to a town called puno. in my next post i will tell you about the amazing adventuire we had in puno, but for now i MUST SHOWER because we are pretty ripe by this point. anyways, ciao!
city and sister.
p.s. i only had one comment left from our last post. how do we know if you guys are reading this if you dont comment. if we dont have at least 5 comments before our next post we arent going to leave any more. yup, that´s a threat.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
bugs and bathwater
hola mi amigos y amigas!
city mouse and sister mouse have safely (as far as we can tell) arrived in lima. i`m not going to going to much detail here, because the computer i am typing on is a piece of caca from the spanish inquisition and it`s making me say cuss words.... however, we got in late last night. the flight from miami to lima was intersting.... sister mouse and i did not get to sit together. she got to set next to a cool guy named teddy who gave her lots of good travel suggestions...i got to set next to a strange peruvian woman with BAD gas and behind an american couple who were apparently on their honeymoon which they decided to start on the plane. i was about ready to tell themto cut it out or cut me in! we into the lima airport about 11pm, got our luggage,andtried (unsuccessfully) to negotiate with a cab driver a reasonable fare (according to instructionsof our host, Helena. I finally gave upand paid his price because i figured at least we were safe. i took forever to find our hosts house, but the taxi ride was an adventure for sure!! i got to see parts of the city in the middle of the night that i dont think i would want to see in the day. our host helena is great! she is so sweet and is very very helpful! her apartment however, is another story... lets just say it`s rough. (jessica, this place makes shoebilly inn look like a 4 star resort!) i can not describe it in justice, nor do i want to freak anyone out, becase we are safe!!, but i did take photos... i will post them later. also, sister mouse got the pleasure of sleeping with helenas little mangy pooch (that she has lovingly named psycho-dog), while he bit/licked/sniffed/yapped/gnawed on her all night! all you could hear all night was helena yelling, ^Jesus Christos, Poochy!!^ I had the priviledge? of sleeping on a couch that some french guy just slept on out in the ?living room?... hmmmmm....i`m glad i stold that fleece blanket from the airplane!!! that`s all i`m going to say about that! if you need an explanation on the `bugs and bathwater` title, you will have to ask sister mouse about her experience this morning.... weare now out exploring lima. we are meeting up with helena later for lunch and she is taking us out to a disco tonight top celebrate Carnival. tonight we are switching up our plans and hopping on a night bus to Ariquipa for a couple of days. all is well here! this place is so interesting and cheap!! take care,all. leave us messages so we know what you are up to. love love love, (and YES MOMS, we are being safe.)
City and Sister
(we smell kinda bad today)
city mouse and sister mouse have safely (as far as we can tell) arrived in lima. i`m not going to going to much detail here, because the computer i am typing on is a piece of caca from the spanish inquisition and it`s making me say cuss words.... however, we got in late last night. the flight from miami to lima was intersting.... sister mouse and i did not get to sit together. she got to set next to a cool guy named teddy who gave her lots of good travel suggestions...i got to set next to a strange peruvian woman with BAD gas and behind an american couple who were apparently on their honeymoon which they decided to start on the plane. i was about ready to tell themto cut it out or cut me in! we into the lima airport about 11pm, got our luggage,andtried (unsuccessfully) to negotiate with a cab driver a reasonable fare (according to instructionsof our host, Helena. I finally gave upand paid his price because i figured at least we were safe. i took forever to find our hosts house, but the taxi ride was an adventure for sure!! i got to see parts of the city in the middle of the night that i dont think i would want to see in the day. our host helena is great! she is so sweet and is very very helpful! her apartment however, is another story... lets just say it`s rough. (jessica, this place makes shoebilly inn look like a 4 star resort!) i can not describe it in justice, nor do i want to freak anyone out, becase we are safe!!, but i did take photos... i will post them later. also, sister mouse got the pleasure of sleeping with helenas little mangy pooch (that she has lovingly named psycho-dog), while he bit/licked/sniffed/yapped/gnawed on her all night! all you could hear all night was helena yelling, ^Jesus Christos, Poochy!!^ I had the priviledge? of sleeping on a couch that some french guy just slept on out in the ?living room?... hmmmmm....i`m glad i stold that fleece blanket from the airplane!!! that`s all i`m going to say about that! if you need an explanation on the `bugs and bathwater` title, you will have to ask sister mouse about her experience this morning.... weare now out exploring lima. we are meeting up with helena later for lunch and she is taking us out to a disco tonight top celebrate Carnival. tonight we are switching up our plans and hopping on a night bus to Ariquipa for a couple of days. all is well here! this place is so interesting and cheap!! take care,all. leave us messages so we know what you are up to. love love love, (and YES MOMS, we are being safe.)
City and Sister
(we smell kinda bad today)
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Heading south....
as i may have mentioned, I am heading to Peru tomorrow. before you ever start (matt), NOT peru, indiana. peru, south america...just to clear up any confusion. I am definitly blessed to be able to head out into the world so soon after my last adventure, this past oct./nov. i would like to thank everyone who makes my life possible: the academy, my family who hold down the fort while i'm gone and deal with all the false emergencies, and my awesome girls, kayla, lauren, tammy, and bev, who run my store for me while i am running around the amazon jungle. so thank you. i will bring you all peruvian presents.
on this installment of "traveling city-mouse-style" i will be joined by my dear friend and former roommate, stephanie moore compson. for this blogging journey she will be referred to as "sister mouse" because before she got married, her last name was also moore, so i refer to her in present-day-time as my sister. i want to give a shout-out to her husband, lee, for letting me kidnap her for two weeks. we will bring you back a nice peruvian present too.
a little synopsis of our upcoming journey... traveling around the capital city of lima; navigating the worlds highest elevated lake, lake titicaca, on the border of peru and bolivia; staying with a local indigenous family and working on their farm; couch surfing in cusco; hiking through macchu picchu; staying at an ecolodge on the mountain top, taking a peruvian cooking class; possibly paso horseback riding across the sacred valley; and a three day excursion to an ecolodge into the amazon jungle, participating in canopy walks, caimen sighting, night jungle hikes, piranha fishing, kayaking into the mano bioshere, parrots, monkeys, snakes, and sleeping in a treefort under a mosquito net. it sounds a bit "survivorish" but i think it will be incredible!i cannot begin to imagine what the next two weeks have in store for us. sister mouse, i hope you're ready for this!! game on.
city mouse
on this installment of "traveling city-mouse-style" i will be joined by my dear friend and former roommate, stephanie moore compson. for this blogging journey she will be referred to as "sister mouse" because before she got married, her last name was also moore, so i refer to her in present-day-time as my sister. i want to give a shout-out to her husband, lee, for letting me kidnap her for two weeks. we will bring you back a nice peruvian present too.
a little synopsis of our upcoming journey... traveling around the capital city of lima; navigating the worlds highest elevated lake, lake titicaca, on the border of peru and bolivia; staying with a local indigenous family and working on their farm; couch surfing in cusco; hiking through macchu picchu; staying at an ecolodge on the mountain top, taking a peruvian cooking class; possibly paso horseback riding across the sacred valley; and a three day excursion to an ecolodge into the amazon jungle, participating in canopy walks, caimen sighting, night jungle hikes, piranha fishing, kayaking into the mano bioshere, parrots, monkeys, snakes, and sleeping in a treefort under a mosquito net. it sounds a bit "survivorish" but i think it will be incredible!i cannot begin to imagine what the next two weeks have in store for us. sister mouse, i hope you're ready for this!! game on.
city mouse
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