Argh, and other stories

Well, the first time I wrote this entry, the Argh stood for the fact that I will likely be missing the Phillies win the World Series tonight, since I'll be on a plane home. This time around, the Argh stands for the entry that this computer just lost, which took me 20 minutes to type. Argh argh argh.

I'll try to rewrite the best that I can. We're in the Lima Airport, waiting for our flight that's in a little less than 12 hours. Yes, 12 hours. The airport is just FULL of exciting things to do. Okay, that's a lie, it's not. It's a typical, boring, silly airport. They're playing Enya in the hallways right now. Why do the people who choose music in airports always have the worst taste in the world? The Atlanta airport music person apparently hasn't listened to music since about 1994, since every time I'm in it (which is quite often) I swear I hear songs that I haven't heard since I was in 8th grade.

Speaking of songs that I haven't heard since middle school. The first day of the trek, we were picked up in a tour van, and drove for about 3 1/2 hours (with a stop for breakfast in this Peruvian rural market that was incredibly interesting and somewhat unsanitary by my prudish American standards - i.e. there were women chopping the heads off cows (no joke) and skinning them out in the open with dirty dogs roaming around whenever they pleased...but whatever, at least these people are connected to their food, which is more than I can say for most Americans and their supermarkets full of food that was frozen and shipped 8+ hours).

During the drive, the drivers and the tour guide (Alfredo - he was awesome and I totally have a crush on him) put in a CD of their music. At first, the CD was playing some Peruvian rock music, which was totally cool and pretty much what I would expect to hear in Peru. However, after about an hour of that, they switched the disc, and suddenly we were listening to Extreme "More Than Words," and about six Guns N' Roses songs. Alfredo was super excited when I informed him that GNR is releasing Chinese Democracy in the next couple months, at long last. It was hilarious - I never expected to be driving through the rural Peruvian countryside listening to Extreme.

We stopped at a hot spring, which was really peaceful & quite interesting since it was frequented only by Peruvians. We were the only tourists there, and we got a lot of stares. Once we started on our trek, about an hour later, our muscles were nice and relaxed, which was a REALLY good thing, since we walked in total about 15+ miles, which included hiking up and up and up a mountain, until we hit the top and saw the most beautiful glacier ever. We were literally standing at the bottom of it.

Although I'd still like to do the Incan Trail, the Lares Trek was really cool - we got the chance to see so many things that most don't see when they visit Peru. We hiked through rural, rural, RURAL villages at the peaks of mountians - communities that have retained the traditional Andean culture, who still work on the land or with animals (herds of llama, alpaca, and sheep were a common sight by the end). We passed little children with cheeks ruddy from exposure, some of whom had likely never been our of their small village. It was also interesting to see how as we traveled down the mountain again, the closer we got to the bottom the less traditional the culture became. Once we reached the bottom - a little town near Ollaytaytambo - we saw tourists, Peruvians dressed in jeans, and cars. In the mountains, there were no roads - people walks miles and miles to get to their nearest neighbor, or ... don't. Kids who live about three miles uphill from the school in the valley walk down and back fro class every day. It was unbelievable - so different from anything that I've ever seen (even in Belize, Costa Rica, etc) that it almost didn't seem real to a certain extent.

I'll post pictures tomorrow once I'm home and out of the aeropuerto.

Next, California! (But first, home and lots and lots of hot showers and sleep.)