cuenca, ecuador

MY BAD on not blogging for days and days and days, apologies all around. since my last scribblings, i went to Puno, (Peru) and lived with a homestay family and worked in an orphanage. my homestay family was too adorable: our grandmother, who looks like she is about 20 years old, our 2 uncles one of whom practices gymnastics recreationally but is kinda pudgy, our aunt who is the mother of out sister Camila who is 6 years old and absolutely darling. or at least thats how i worked out the family tree, i couldve called camila my niece or something. camila rarely went to school, usually because she was cold. its ok though because she has the cutest little face that mesmerizes us at every meal. one time she ate a hamburger off the street (if there were a key that typed a skull and crossbones picture i would type it here!!!) that made her sick. camila also likes to dress up in costume frequently and for no reason. i also stayed there with my friend lucy, and i had strawberry shortcake bedsheets that said Älright! and Sweet Thing! our grandmother was our main caretaker, and came to know that we needed ketchup on every meal, we love french fries, lucy is very paticular about beverages, i prefer camomille tea with 4 spoons of sugar, lucy usually leaves a squished napkin on the chair after every meal that somehow made it under her butt, etc. one night lucy and i hosted a dinner party at our house and cooked the meal ourselves while wearing aprons. there was a big hulabaloo when i dumped french fries into the spaghetti sauce in the last minute without consulting anyone, but it turned out to be delicious as i predicted. the guest list: ben, casey, clam, and marco our peruvian friend who came wearing tweed and brought wine. desert was melon with soggy animal crackers. our grandmother absolutely loved us and thought we were absolutely the most hilarious people she´d ever met. on our last night she cooked us our favorite meal (french fries) and cried when she hugged us goodbye at the bus station. at the orphanage we played with the kids everyday, played with the piglets they have their and watch them all fight to feed off their mom, and fix up and paint murals for a swimming pool for them. on the last day we got to swim in the finished pool with all the kids. I´ve ridden every ferris wheel in Puno, and one time i almost puked on one after I accidentally ate a lot of mayonaise fast. The woman at the restaurant we went to wouldn´t give us adequate condiments (again, needing ketchup on every meal), and then she leaned over and said ominously "you have our cosmo." indeed, we had been at that restaurant A WEEK earlier and taken a cosmopolitan from their magazine collection. i tried to deny, deny, deny but we were obviously guilty. then i tried to buy our way out of the situation as had worked with getting more condiments but it turns out they have to special order cosmo. so when i get back to the states i have to mail them a new cosmo.

after the cosmo incident, we quickly left puno to climb to machu picchu. i tried to steal camila and put her in my backpack. we did a 4 day trek on the inca trail to get there, with our guide Edwin who frequently made weather predictions and said we could sacrifice him to the gods if they didnt come true. we also had a girl guide who helped untangle my hair. unlike the trek through the white mountains which was grueling and we ate mostly bread crouching, this trek was pleasant and we ate like kings. there were a team of porters with calves the size of roast beef who sprint down the trail with all our food, tents, and dining accessories on their backs. most of these guys are in their 40´s, and are some of the fittest, smelliest people i´ve ever met. apparently there is an annual race of the porters, where they run the entire four day trek in a matter of hours. i think the winner did it in 4. for the entire four days you basically see the same group of tourists at every camping site and rest area where you talk about how bad you have to pee how bad you want a chocolate how your bowels will never be the same etc. at the camping spot on the third night theres A DISCOTEC, there on the inca trail. not like anyone can dance with their legs at that point. weird. during one of our candlelight dinners in our tent a moth flew through a candle, caught on fire, and then flew into my friend guthries hair. machu picchu was beautiful and fake looking, like maybe it was built by walt disney. it was sprawling with europeans in trendy glasses. cost of a night in the 5 star resort directly next to machu picchu: $700 USD. each morning of the hike i was awoken by a porter outside my tent saying "TEA TIME" and serving me tea in my tent. then porters abandoned us foodless on the last day, when we woke up at 4 AM to hike the last part. i did this other hike called Waynupicchu that was basically verticle and almost passed out from hunger, and at the bottom this lovely woman from pittsburg gifted us a bag of candy.
song that was stuck in my head most of the trail: I´m in Love With a Stripper
things i´ve been meaning to google because they´ve come up and im wondering about: oedipus complex, charlamagne, does yogurt need to be refridgerated, shrimp
books im reading: letters from serial killers, running with scissors, the kite runner
letters from serial killers is fabulous, theres a chapter for unabomber, son of sam, jack the ripper, btk strangler, the zodiac... ive already seen the movie running with scissors which is kinda ruining it for me. also, i was almost done with on the road (i´ve been reading it aloud or having it read aloud to me the whole time) when it got stolen with my friends bag. the bag was literally right next to us in a crowded restaurant in lima, with a police officer sitting at the table behind us, and next thing we know this gigantic bag is gone. when i went to the airport to fly from cusco to lima i happened to see my friend sam harvey, who went to my school and was my lab partner freshmen year. i was in such disbelief to see him there that i was just thinking about how i needed to tell sam harvey he had a doppleganger in peru when it turned out to be actually him. he´s traveling with a group too, but they´re not allowed to drink or smoke cigarettes so 9 people got kicked off the trip and now its just 3 people in their group traveling. i was so happy to see him i couldnt stop smiling at him, and he turned out to be on my flight 2 rows ahead of me. its a crazy coincidence, but ive been told it could be a sign that im in the right place at the right time.

when i was sitting by myself on a park bench in lima, a canadian i had met on the inca trail plopped down next to me. we talked about his life and his grandmother and then went to go see the movie Death on a Farm with Ben. it was in english and i guess is called black sheep in the US but somehow translated to death on a farm. regardless, it was soooo funny. ben was feeding us cheesecake the entire time and the movie was filled with killer sheep. for some reason they also cut to sheep farting a lot. theres one part where theyre making their getaway, and throw a lighter right as a sheep farts and everything lights on fire. theres also a part where a sheep drives a pick up truck down a cliff.

after a brief stint in lima we took 2 overnight buses in a row (neck cramps for days) to get to mancora, a surf town with beautiful beaches and a swimming pool. i body boarded and got flipped by a lot of waves and it was like a vacation from a vacation. then i took more buses, crossed the border into slightly wealthier ecuador at what is apparently the sketchiest border crossing (they made my friend pay $35 for some sort of fake tribulation). pooping is no longer a pleasure, many of us have the big D (diarrhea) BAD. and the buses didnt have bathrooms which was nerve wracking. one bus we rode had a bathroom, but it turned out to be a no pooping bathroom. there was a cage over the toilet to prevent you from pooping and a man on the bus whose job i think was to stand by the bathroom and scare you into not pooping/check to make sure you didnt. there was also the a boy on the bus who crawled under the bus and tickled my feet for six hours straight. ecuador uses the american dollar and i still cant quite figure out why. to give you an idea of prices: meals cost 1-3 dollars if you eat at the local places, and we´re staying at a very nice hostal for 6 dollars a night.

pictures to come extremely soon the usb thing isnt working here for some reason. one hundred million hurrays for obama!!!!!!!!!! i watched the whole thing live at my friend´s homestay where there was a tv, and then did a small victory dance by myself in the empty streets. hallelujah. i wish i couldve been home for that