So to give a picture on how important food is to my day lets look at how I spend my day while on vacation.

25% – Seeing cool shit like ruins, museums, convents, and various other things

25% – Walking around between these places

25% – Walking around looking into every place to eat and wondering if I am hungry enough to have a snack

25% – Eating or drinking something.

Ok so I might not actually spend 25% of my time eating, but I’m pretty sure I spend 50% of my time thinking about, searching for, or actually eating. Thats a low ball guess.

The post is more going to be a gallery and comment section that a direct retelling of everything I’ve eating.

Drinks

The Good

Caluma – Milk Smoothie

So this smoothie brought together three of my greatest loves. Weird Indigenous fruits (Caluma), Beer, and restraunt owners who want to engage the random tourist who wandered into the very local market. This simple $1.15 was probably the most fun culinary experiance I have had. I was wandering through the market, just past the whole section dedicated to potatos when I steped into the food area. A very cute young girl behind a counter piled with fresh fruit beckoned energetically for me.. well for any passerby, to come and sit. This was from probably 50 ft away. So I did, I saw water boiling in the back so I figured I probably wouldn’t regret it.. Thats what antibiotics are for anyways! Looking over the list I came to a couple fruits that I did recognized so of course I had to pick one of those. Caluma.. what the heck is that.. So I asked and they showed my a small round greenish brown fruit looking like a hairless kiwi. I smiled and nodded like I had a clue, bad habit. They told me it was good, so I went with it. She then set to work in a flurry of activity, freshly peeling the fruit and giving it a big glug of honey and a few other ingredients that I lost track of as I got out my notepad to write the name of Caluma

She even let me take a picture.. When I say let I mean got a stool and rearranged things out of the way and posed for the picture and reviewed it afterwards for approve. This is one of the rare times I take pictures of people I don’t know.

So this smoothie was awesome, the Caluma has a interesting custardy texture and flavor apparently that goes well with honey, evaporated milk, Grapes, and Beer.. Yes beer! The same beer thats on my worsts list, is a ingredient in my best.

Go figure.

Random Food From Comedors

Sopa de Trigo.. It was labeled soup.

So this doesn’t win the award for prettiest, or even the best tasting, but it does win the award for cheapest and very filling. Comedors are small essentially unmarked eateries that I don’t think I have ever seen another white person in. Here or in Mexico. They do look a little shady, but i’ve never gotten sick from them and they have kept my food budget in check on those days that I decide I need to drink a few extra beers or buy a bag of handmade chocolate.

Heres how it goes, most of the time theres a Menu de Hoy. It lists a soup and 1-3 entree options. You aknowledge the host and take your seat, they yell to the back for "SOPA" and a few minutes later your soup appears. Most of the places have sodas for sale, others just have possibly sketchy non sealed drinks. I avoid because I mean I have standards right? The soup has been pretty much, chicken broth, starchy somethings, chunks of potatos, and some little flecks of veges or carrot. More importantly, it’s rich, tastey, hot, and filling.

Then the main comes in this case it was a roasted steak of chicken, with rice, and roasted potatoes.

This time switch in a small portion of steak.

Thats it.. and when you finish your meal and ask to pay they tell you amounts that still make my head spin. 3 soles ($1.15) – 5 soles ($1.80) seems to be the normal range. Bump that up by one if you want a Coke, but don’t expect to get a diet coke. These places and thier $0.40 sodas are gonna get my back in that habit.

Cerveza Cusquena Machu Pichu

While the normal edition of the Cer. Cusquena was sweet and sickly tasting this one was much nicer. It was still a lager and on the touch sweeter side, but this time was nicely balanced with hops. I was a little worried, after the first encounter, but that proved to be unfounded.

So I guess anyone reading this knows I’m a touch… if not extremely absent minded. So in the first day in Cuzco while wandering around the Central Plaza (Plaza de Armas) in my new Marmot brand coat, I decided it would be a great idea to put my passport in the interior pocket. Well I did that, well except it didn’t make it into a pocket. It made it into the inside of the mesh liner of the exterior pocket…. I didn’t notice because it actually stayed put for awhile, I went about my Merry way and when I got checked in and was relaxing in my room I came to the sick revelation that it was missing. Really losing your passport has one step.

1. Do something stupid.

Okay so heres what you do to get a new passport while traveling in peru. It’s this is excited stuff..

1. Have a absolute panic attack and hyperventilate a bit.

2. Find the address for the nearest consulate or embassy and their hours

3. (Optional Step) – Go to consulate during their advertised hours, and find the office lady not their. Luckily find a nice security guard for the place and have them call her for you. Nothing like a guy with a gun to calm you down a bit.

4. Go file a police report with the tourist police who happened to have a office no where near the tourist areas.

5. Walk to the nearby bank to pay the fee for the copy of the report. Have a altitude sickness moment while waiting in line. Look like a totaly weirdo while leaning against anything solid. Manage to not pass out or throw up and walk VERY slowly back to the tourist police.

6. Get your report and find some food cause you are too freaking hungry to think after putting off lunch to deal with this.

7. (Optional) In my case go take a nap and deal with the rest tomorrow.

8. Get a Passport photo… Make sure its 2×2 or (5cm x 5cm). I didn’t and that meant I got to go back for another round of photos. It was 2.25 so what ever.

9. Go to the consulate.. fill out all your forms… pay the nearly150 in fees.

10. Walk to DHL and pay another 12.50 for the postage.

11. Walk BACK to the office and drop off your paperwork

12. Wait a week.. hope you didn’t need to leave soon

13. Go to thePeru  immigration office and get new stamps and forms.. Who knows how much this costs.

My final recommendation. Do lose your G-damn passport. Easy fix though.

Wow I’m finally here! I’ve been waiting to get here for 10 years, in fact Peru was the first guide book I ever purchased.

So Cuzco in winter is not searing cold, but it’s definatly not warm. I’m thinking it’s somewhere around 45-55 all day, but with a clear sky at times so the sun feels good on your back

On getting to the hostel I realized that Cuzco was not a properous area at least in the outlying parts. I later realized that I really wasn’t a properous area at all. So knowing me I loved it. Though not 100% sure about the feral dogs, fluffy yes..kinda scary maybe! THe host a tiny little native woman greated me and my town van mates at the door. Ushered us upstairs and had us relax on some nice soft couches while she busied herself making tea. The tea arrived in cups that I hope I can figure out how to bring home without breaking. If you look above you can see they were quite cute. THis was only about 7:30 in the morning and the rooms weren’t ready yet so out i went to see if the thin air wouldn’t kill me, by that of course I mean find some Adventure.

The streets were narrow and cobbled. Cars zoomed past barely a hairs width from you and the smells exaggerated by my rapid breating burned with exhuast fumes. Fortunatly after only a kilometer, it all opened up into this.

The fresh clean mountian air was finally available, if sparse, to my abused sense. These were the Basilica, and the other working churches and chapels of CUzco. It was service time so I could not go inside, and photos are not generally allowed in churches in Peru regardless.

Old crosses outside the Basilica

Stone work at the base of the columns

Front view of the Catherdral de Cuzco

Snack Time – Finally I was feeling the need for something, but I couldn’t decide. I had eating a large breakfast earlier on the plane so I wasn’t really hungry yet. So I got some fresh squeezed juice at YAJUU

I actually got Carrot Papaya (better than it sounds) which isn’t very photogenic so I snapped this one instead.

I wandered around a bit and found a convento that while still a functioning convent with 16 sisters living there, also had been restored to a museum. I couldn’t resist.

First I sat by this cute this fountain to finish my YAJUU.

So chatholic churchs are grand affairs, with gold leaf covering every surface that isn’t buffed and shined to a beautiful sheen. The priest are cleaned in silks, and some of the finest embroidery ever seen. All this is as befitting the house of good. A convent provided an amazing contrast, though this one had been mostly converted to a museum it was still stark and spare. It seemed almost inappropirate to do more than simply nod at any other guests as to break the quiet and reflective silence.

The Mourning Mary Statue in the mourning room, where the dead Nuns where displayed before being buried.

The confessionals where built into the walls of the Convent so that the nuns could confess their sins without even leaving the walls.

A table in which to eat in silence.

I took a few other photos, but the dim lighting rendered most of them too blury for my to post here.

In addition to the exhibits of convent life, the mueum was also full of to the brim of classical oil paintings b Cuzco artisits. Photos are not allowed of these so I will see that some were passing and others quite good. THe most odd and hopefully this wont offend anyone of a religous bent, was one called the I believe something along the lines of "The Holy Wine Press" and was a painting of Jesus on the cross still bleeding from the spear marks, while crushing grapes in a vat, while other figures from the bible look or or collect the juice below. That was made even more slightly odd by the fact that god is showing in the top corner turning a ghostly looking screw as if tightening the press.

Regardless below are a couple other photos of the day

A altar chest. This folds back up into a box.

While the nuns wore little more than white and black they produced all of the clothes and embroidery work for the priests and offcials and statues.

Okay breakfast time for me here. The rest of the day was interesting, but i’ll cover that in another post.

A first class breakfast!

I”m sitting at the Lima airport waiting to depart for Cuzco, and I remember just hours ago being worried and and nervous. Now after a night of sleep.. well part of a night, some sage advice from a over charging but helpful taxi driver, and a cup of coffee, and possibly a upgrade on my flight, I’m feeling a lot better.

Arriving in Lima was a rush. I was exhausted from travel, and still feeling unsure of my Spanish. I had before arriving foolishly assumed that staying in the airport all night wasn’t that bad of an idea, emphasis on the foolish. Part way through the flight I realized that was a horrid idea and that going without a shower, a clean and softish bed, and some security to merely save a $50 was a fools venture. Yes being frugal is one thing and I like to think that I’m not totally wasteful with my money, but sleeping on a floor in a foreign country. Meh! So leaving the airplane I slowly and confusedly made my way to the food court where I hoped and had heard there was free wifi. It was packed with people and my mind was cloudy from the trip, before getting food and was determined to accomplish this task… Unfortunately I couldn’t focus and felt odd and out of place surrounded by all the people eating at the tables with my giant backpack and empty table… Okay check that time for some food and a diet coke. Caffeine was a little short sighted, but I needed that little hit of caffeine and something cold to clear my mind a bit… So with all the offering on the menus in the food court I ended up getting…. a Cesar salad. Don’t hate it was $4 and I wasn’t that hungry, and it was that or fried rice which sounded a bit heavy at the time. After a bit of fighting with the computer and hunting various sites I found one of the places I had seen before I left. Hostal Victor, and business with rather mixed and lukewarm reviews . Taxi driver got me there is just about 10 minutes and offered good practice to warm up my tongue. I was surprised that just a few minutes of having to speak the language and my tongue started to remember how to shape the words and letters that I have been having trouble with at home. It’s funny how hard things seem when they aren’t required, but then when they are require.. well you just do it.

The hostal wasn’t too bad, clean and simple. I didn’t get any photos because I was too exhausted to even bother thinking about that. The part that made all of it worth it was the near SCALDING hot shower that I was able to take. I mean scalding in the most positive of ways. The bed was soft enough and the sheets clean. I sent a couple emails and messages and crashed until the oh so wonderful hour of 3:00 am.. When I got up repeated the shower and hustled back to the airport in the same Taxi.

It was during that taxi ride I received a piece of sage advice that I wasn’t expecting. I was talking with Jose about how I was worried about the altitude in Cuzco and how I had never been that high before and was worried that I would be sick. His response and probably one he had given many times. “If you keep thinking you will be sick, then you’re going to bed sick. If you think positively then you are a lot less likely to feel it.” Okay so that might not work for curing cancer, but it did stop me in my tracks a bit and made me remember to relax it’s vacation. I’m as prepared as I can be and just meet the challenges as they come.

Airport time grabbed some coffee at Dunkin Donuts, not bad really. Nice and strong and warmed me up. I was waiting in line for a bit to get my ticket and then got up to the counter and noticed something kinda odd. The attendant put my boarding pass in the executive pass folder and I was in row three. It was slightly peculiar, but I went with it. Turns out I was in first class, and it a three set row with only two of us. Wow that was a nice flight, including a very tasty breakfast and a neat conversation with a Columbian Herbalife sales rep who was visiting Machu Pichu after his conference in Lima. Cusco airport was quite small, and my ride was waiting for me there. That puts me to my day in Cuzco.. which was an adventure to say the least. I’ll get to that after dinner.

 It’s been awhile since I’ve been in the international terminal here at SFO. Over two years actually, and last time it was at a much more friendly hour. It’s 0445 in SFO and I can’t even clear the security gate until after 5:30, then my plane boards at 0620… So much for the benefits of getting here 3 hours early like a good boy. On the plus side I did get a emergancy exit row, so that takes the hurt out a little bit! Thats for both the San Salvador and Lima legs of the journey, then the real scary part… the 9 hour stopover in the Lima airport before I head to my final destination of Cuzco. I’ll make it, I’m tough like that. Cheers!

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So I guess I will finally get to the second and third days on the beach. I don’t have photos right now, because I don’t have a USB port on the computer I am using. So after a night with far too much sleep we work up on our second day in Zipolite and decided it was time to go check out the little cafe on the far side of the beach attached to the yoga retreat. Good solid stick to your ribs breakfast there and for one of the first times on the trip great an fun service. Then it was off on a walk about 2.5 miles in the oposite direction to head to a beach attached with the next town over.  Great walk along the small beach roads heading to that beach. Talk about beautiful though, a small yellow/white sand cove lined with restraunts and boat launches.

A ambitious server from one of the restraunts wandered over and caught out attention before we even got the whole way down the hill. What can i say americans are suckers for good service. Then started a wonderful couple hours of relaxing, getting a litte sunburned ( really only a little), I even conquered my fear of the ocean enough to jump in and snorkel for a little while, though other than  few really bright blue fish there wasn’t that much to keep my attention there. We also had a plate of AMAZING fish hard tacos. I think we saw the fish that was being eaten taken intot he restraunt just a couple minutes before that too! So that was pretty much the day after that, well actually we wandered back to Zipolite and sat on that beach and talked with some of the other guests at the hotel had another beer or two and headed to dinner at the upstairs restraunt of the hotel where we had eaten breakdast. Though it couldn’t have been anymore diffrent than night or day. The service was weak even by mexican standards and the food. Well mine was edible, but Scott who wanted soemthing clean and simple ordered the vegetarian curry and it was basically brown rice cooked to the almost porridge stage and then some veges boiled to barely the point of recognition, then a sauce that ALMOST reminds you of curry poured over it but really just tasted like salt.  Then it was time tog et some sleep and well that worked till about 1 am when some neighbors  decided to get a little loud… Oh well it’s still fun!

More later today.

Okay so I{m going to skip forward a couple of days to get some of the more stressful and frustrating of the days or our trip out of the way. The days when we really didn’t get much accomplished because of challenges in travel. . We did get to see the bus station and umm a hotel room in a couple extra places! woooo!!!!!!!!

So we got up in San Augstino on the morning we were gonna leave… Ill get to how we got there later so just relax. Well I should say Scott got up.. The first time he has ever ever beaten me out of bed in the morning. I couldn’t move. I hadnt been comfortable all night, I had eaten to much at dinner and my stomach hurt and was sore from the combo of trying to boogie board and swallowing lots and lots of water. Suffice to say I got about 4 hours of sleep.. Awesome right.

So I wake up sicker than a dog and really I just want to no move for a week, but its travel time. We gather everything up and get a taxi back into dirty pochutla and to the bus station thats supposed to have 8 trips a day to Acapulco where we are planning to go that next day..

To their credit they really did have 4-5 a day, but only one in the early morning when we had though they had 3-4.. The scedule didn’t match the postd on the wall either. I was sick and waiting 5 hours in a dirty bus station. (I’m not being mean this bus station was really pretty pedestrian) wasn’t realy a good idea for me. We wandered down and found a bus at a diffrent office leaving in 10 minutes for Puerto Escondido, a hour farter along atleast and a nicer town to have to hang out in.  SO that bus ride was painless and we found a cute hotel close ish to the beach to hang out in. It was a wonderful 6-7 room guest house. Bright airy and not that expensive. Really I would have loved to feel well enough to enjoy it.  So I slept….. all day and oh I frgot to mention.. The only good bus we found t get us to acapulco was a bus at 11:30 that night… So we were just using the room for the day. Comfy room and soon to be a very uncomfortalbe bus ride!

The start of the fall…

So just as we were getting showered and ready to head to the bus station the storm hit in earnest and the power went out! Fantastic, it was raining buckets, the hotel was on a cute pedestrain only street, the power was out, and we didn’t even get to shower..

Well it ended up being not a very big deal,  we got dressed by flashlight, we found a cab 1/2 a block away, and the power was only out in the couple parts of he town right next to the beach. Got to the station a little earlier than we wanted, but it beat a dark hotel room. Met some nice danes and got to talk about travel and politics a little.

The bus left on time, and was only half full. Though the people from the previous connections had colonized the seats assigned to Scott and I. No big deal really, we just picked another seat each. Mine seemed fine at first, until I noticed the drip drip drip drip of the emergency exit hatch on my head… I switch sides to avoid it only to be woken up later when the weather sealing on the window wasn’t quite up to par and another steady stream of drips was waking me up! Wonderful so I had to relegate myself to the only set of free dry seats left in the VERY VERY back next to the bathrooms. They worked atleast and I actually got a decent amount of sleep.

That got us to Acapulco and a quick taxi over to another bus station and a hour or so layover. I bought a shot glass, just to prove I was there. The rest of the trip was incidental to Taxco, easy quick shot into town and we found an amazing old converted Monastery to stay in. Thats for the next post… The rest is the stories of the frustration of travel.

After a day in Taxco it was time to catch the bus for Cuernavaca. One and a half hour of travel and no problems at all. Hung out there all day and jumped on the bus for Morelia…. 6 hours they said witha  quick stop in Mexico city.. So we would get in at 9 pm and find a hotel have time to get some dinner. Sounded like agood plan to us.. Well because of Mexico Cities rush hour traffic and a closed of tunnel. 8 hours later we arived , got dropped off in the wrong spot by a terrible taxi driver and we got into a decent little hotel right in our pricerange! Travel over for a couple days and all hard travel for the trip done!

Cheers

I’ll be catching up a lot over the next couple days and posting plent of photos so be prepared.

I like hammocks!

So I´m gonna get this one started, but becuase we really just relaxed on the beach as much as possible and because I had on the shorts and sandels and not my camera for most of the time there really isn´t much to blog about.

We got to the bus monday morning at 4 am.. It was a brutal 5. 5 hour drive through incredible and amazingly curvy roads to the little market town of Pochutla… Then got out of there ASAP it wasn´t a place you would really want to hang out. Headed of too Zipolite a 1.5 mile long beach with a town of sorts spread out along it on the southern coast of Oxa. We found an incredible room over looking the water with a hammock on the balacony and really that was about it for the day. We wandered around the beach and ate some snacks and umm well yeah. I had a coconut!

For dinner we smartly strayed away from the beach and found our was to a place recommended in the guide books normally a kiss of death, but the hostess had a great smile and the place looked decent. Well what a treat. Huge fish plates overflowing with food for about 5 dollars. Beer for a buck.. Really we almost felt bad getting out of there for under twenty dollars and bellies stuffed with well prepared and presented fish. Scott for a breaded and fried fillete and I got a fillete wrapped in foil with tropical fruits and steamed in the juices in the oven. Amazingly tender.

The cool little sitting area outside the room.

Thats day one.. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the hammocks and reading. Slept about 11 hours that night too!

So this is a view from the balcony of the room, pretty nice?

Moss Hanging off the Trees. It´s only for very specific parts of the trail so its considered quite special by the locals.

in a full week later and I´m finally going to tell the adventure of the final day of treking.. It was… um exciting. Well the trek itself was fantastic. Woke up after an amazing night of sleep in the little Cabanas in Latuvi and ate some of the snacks we bought the night before for breakfast. Was a perfect light snack to get started. Then it was down to the guide office to get going. The office guy greated us and then started the news… Well he said it was going to be troublesome for us because the little collective taxis that run between the villages.. Well they don´t actually run on sundays and since it was sunday well they really weren´t sure how we were going to get back. I asked a few questions and stayed as calm as possible and we figured otu that a bus left the town we would be hiking to at about 4 pm.. Not quite the 1pm we had hoped to get headed back to Oacaxa, but being in the middle of the mountains we didn´t really have much in the way of choices so we got started on the hike.  The hike was right away better for Scott and I because the woman who had been hiking with us the day before was headed in a diffrent dirrection so now it was time to turn on the gas and push ourselves a little. I think we also did because we held out a little hope the if we hussled we could make it to the village and that minibus would have really been canceled.

It started off with a nice 2 km drop down into a beautiful river canyon, lush and green and just starting to grown with the rainy season. In some areas what looked like spanish moss, but was a slightly diffrent central american version hung down 4 to 5 feet off of the trees. This was for about 8 km and you will see the interesting excerpts of it in my photos. The weathers in the canyon was amazing too, a perfect day for hiking. I think the guide was having fun too because we talked abotu native agriculture and substinence economics and we didn´t take breaks.

Nice View right?

The last part was what was sold to us has a hard 4 km climb. It was really about 2 km of challenging climb up small trails and then 2 km of gravel or even paved roads into town. Amatlan and it´s sister town were night and day to Latuvi the nigth before. Where Latuvi was a spread out very very poor substinence farming community. Amatlan was still quite poor but because of being inhabited by the spanish in the distance past it was graced with slightly more prosperity, a new government building, and a cute rural church.

The guide dropped us off and helped us confirm that the ONLY bus really wasn´t until about 4 that afternoon.  So we found the little comedor and had the plate of the day ssome egg and vege mix and to the greatest suprise also found out that the little cafe doubled as a internet cafe… in the middle of a mountain village ok well whatever works. The other big suprise was that the carne asada was served with the best salsa of the trip. I complimented the chef and got the recipe. Dried Chile de Arbol, Garlic, and rosted tomatillos or green tomatos…. I´m not really sure. So afterthat well we waited…. and waited.. and napped on a bench.. and waited a little more..

Crazy bug outside of the Comedor where we ate.

FOOD

The bus finally got moving and it was going to become quite a cattle car as it was the weekly municipal bus that takes the kids back to school for the week in the city. It was a long, slowly, badly driven, windy, 3 hour ride… fantastic.. In which we were dropped off somewhere sorta near the central station more or less. We then found our way to buy 4 am tickets to the coast and found some food in the Market… I had meat and veges and Scott got a terrible rendidtion of enfrioladas… kindle like enchiladas but these werent. The real treat was a cup of hot chocolate local style mixed with corn masa to make a almost pudding like consistency of goodness. Then it was back to the hostel and SLEEP… One more day down.