Machu Picchu.

Funny. They haven't made any major changes since I was here two years ago.

If you'd perhaps like to hear more, you can visit Kat's blog: www.lil-texas.com. She actually writes things.

Cuzco.

In a few more years, materialism and massage parlours will have ruled Cuzco longer than the Incas did their empire. That bit of conquest only lasted about 40 years before the Spanish came and rearranged it, but the Inca capital is now firmly in the hands of the tourists and trinkets guild.

The hostel is unbearably loud; I'm only somewhat bearably sick; soon we start a four-day hike to Machu Picchu.

Arequipa.

A slow death - in both body and mind - awaits any who endeavor to survive an overnight trip on a cheap bus in Peru. All made worse if the ticket wasn't cheap. Overnights can break you apart as a person and leave you wishing to be anywhere else or to be able to do anything else. If the bus is nice; if the company is good; if the road is well paved, you may have a chance at sleep and something working toward a low-temperature contentment.

Our bus to Arequipa falls nowhere near the worst in the great scale I now have of Latin American bus rides, but I had expected a decent bus and instead received a night without sleep or comfort.

So this entry does not begin when we arrive at Arequipa. Instead it starts at 11am, after we woke up from the only sleep we'd had in 24 hours - after going to bed a little after 6am when we found our way to a place with beds.

So, the largest and most influential city in southern Peru:

We only spent a day in Arequipa. Kat didn't like it, and it rained despite averaging only 5 days of rain a year. We saw the monastery. The town is classic colonial. We left the next morning.

Huacachina.

I now know how to sand board. And Kat knows how to sand belly slide.

Huacachina is an oasis village that was repurposed into a resort town for Peru's rich that has now been repurposed into a hangout for backpackers. Full of the party hostel scene but not that expensive, the place is a great draw for travelers and fun to hang out in for a day, take dune buggies out into the desert and ride up dunes the size of mountains.

Little to say about the specifics here. We hang out by the swimming pool. I'm sore from wiping out on my sand board. We'll have sand in our things for the rest of the way.

Pisco. Sour.

In spring 2007 an earthquake struck the Pisco-Ica region of Peru. They're a common phenomenon in the country, but the quake two years ago decimated (more or less literally) the cities, bringing down historic buildings and upsetting infrastructure. In the intervening two years the government has done all of... nothing. Particularly in Pisco.

I always envisioned Pisco as a sort of verdant oasis near the beach, holding back the waves of the Pacific and the dunes of the Atacama with a stalwart blockade of vineyards and white-wash colonial architecture.

However, in place of my imagined realm of romance, fishing and wine, we found third-world conditions and poverty and decrepitude on unfortunate scales. Whether Pisco was ever the great city I thought it to be I can't say, but staring at the dusty, destroyed piles of mud bricks as they slowly returned to their original states and constituent elements without human intervention or care left me in a bit of despair.

And a little concernend about the people who were still trying to live within their confines, constructing makeshift roofs over walls that no longer earned their names.
...
And worried about those two guys over there. Dude, are they following us? Let's get the hell out of here.

Which we did. To Islas Ballestas and Parque Parracas.

A little more than 20 kilometers outside of Pisco, on the coast is a penninsula and its surrounding islands known for biodiversity - especially amongst its birds. The guide books call the area a "poor man's Galapogos," and I don't disagree. The islands are near to over-inhabited with sealions, cormorants, penguins and hundreds of other birds. They support a massive guano industry for Peru and make for a rather amazing birding area. The park is a massive desert stretching along the coast, with giant cliffs and an austere beauty.

These are the redeeming facets of an area cast down and never picked up. A strange land in which men barely even rule themselves, and the only good is to be found in nature. A sad state for such a beautiful environment.

Lima.

Arrival at 1am. Sleep at 3am.

Friday we woke up to a breakfast of fat and bread in a multi-storied, semi-cramped post colonial painted a relatively subdued pink. I spent the night on the roof in a small room with one window and a dentist chair. The bed had Dragon Ball Z sheets; I can still name all the characters.

After a slow process of acclimation and showering, the man we are staying with, Alberto, took us on a disorganized and at times confusing tour of the city center and the hill overlooking the city, Cerro San Cristobal. Lima is as I remembered it: beautiful, filthy and large. An uncoordinated beast crawling out of the ocean only to die on the desert. Think of it like this: You have to go there, but you don't want to stay.

Ice cream and ceviche followed our little excursion. Then I took a nap. Kat said she wasn't tired. Then she took a nap. For dinner, Alberto and his wife made us hot dogs fried in a pan with raw sausage ripped open and seared on two sides. They gave us milk as well.

Pray for my gastrointestinal system. Es probable que este´jodido.

Tonight we plan to go to a wine bar in Miraflores and then go to bed at some sort of decent hour.

We are here. It's a start.