As with everything when I travel, my plans have been adjusted and rehashed to the point that they no longer really resemble where I thought I would be when I set out. I was planning to go to Bolivia, but flights to Peru were far cheaper so I am now traveling overland to Bolivia, and I was planning to see Machu Pichhu but now I´m traveling along the coast, bypassing the highlands where Machu Picchu is. We also may not stay in Bolivia until June. We might be heading to Argentina to volunteer there for a bit. In conclusion the only plan that is set is the ones that I have already carried out. The rest is subject to change... So allow me to describe what we have done.

We spent three days in Lima, exploring the city and trying to decide where we would go next. We stayed in a Hospedaje that gave us the cheap room on the roof. So we had our own unfurbished rooftop terrace which was quite enjoyable, even if it wasn´t five star quallity accomodation. The city is located on the coast and runs into cliffs that pear out over the beach below. You can spot the tiny figures of surfers in the waves and overhead are paragliders taking advantage of the sea breezes that create thermals ideal for paragliding. Most of our time was spent wandering through Miraflores and Central Lima exploring markets, shops, and interesting buildings.

On the third day we took a bus a few hours down the coast to Chincha because according to our guidebook it is a great place to hear Afro-Peruvian music. We had no real plan regarding where we would find a performance but were lucky enough to stumble upon a hostel run by a gregarious women by the name of Carmen who was more than willing to provide you with information and opinions on everything, even if you didn´t want it. She informed us that another American was staying at her hostel and was headed to a party that night where there was a music performance. We ran across him later and he turned out to be a Tufts student who was studying Afro-Peruvian music as part of a special project. That night we went with him to El Carmen, the next town over. He had been told to come at nine, and in true gringo spirit we arrived precisely at nine to discover that nothing was ready. Eventually we wound up waiting around in the living room of the family who was organizing the event while they prepared for dinner (at around ten) and chatting to a documentary film maker who was covering the family as part of a film about Peruvian music.

The party started at midnight, by which point we were all exhausted after waiting around for three hours. The party was more dancing to raggaetone and the much discussed music performance did not take place. We did get to do our best to mimick the hip swivels of the women who invited us to dance with them. Everyone was standing around in groups of girls or boys and they would have one large half liter bottle of beer and a small plastic cup. One person would drink beer from the small plastic cup as the person beside them held the beer. The cup was passed to the beer holder, who poured themselves a glass, and passed the beer to the next person in the circle. It continued around the circle until it was done and another bottle would appear. It was a good way to pace yourself and not drink too much. When we had danced for a while we decided to head back, never having seen a music performance but at least we enjoyed an off the beaten track dance party.

We worked our way down to Pisco and stayed here for a night in order to go to the Reserva National de Paracas, where there are floating islands used by thousands of birds as a breeding ground and migratory destination. The island were blanketed with cormorants, Peruvian boobies, penguins, vulutres, and a number of other birds. This is one of theplaces where all the guano(bird poo fertilizer) that made up Peru´s main export for a while came from. The rocky beaches were also home to colonies of sea lions. These were a favorite of mine as a kid watching the discovery channel so I found these really exciting to see up close.

That afternoon we hopped on a bus along the Pan American Highway and went to Huacachina, a tiny oasis of no more than 200 people that caters solely to toursits. They come for the towns location amid the massive sand dunes that stretch between the coast and the Cordilleres mountains. Most people come here to sandboard, but Lucy and I opted to be satisfied with simply climbing the massive dunes, which offered pretty amazing views. We also took advantage of the many Pisco and Vino bodegas around the area and did a short tour and got to taste Peruvian Pisco and vino, which is a bit strong and too sweet for my taste but the Pisco tastes exellent in a Pisco sour.

We skipped Nazca, long story, and headed on an overnight bus to Arequipa, 2,000 meters up in the mountains. Things are cooler and a bit more laid back here and we are taking our time before heading to do a short trek in the nearby Colca Canyon.

Ho Chi Minh to Da Lat

For the last week of our trip we planned to go north to the Central Highlands and came across the Easy Riders while reading places to go in our guidebook. This is a group of Vietnamese motorcycle riders who run tours through the backroads of Vietnam for anywhere between a day to twenty at a time, depending on how much time and money you are willing to commit. We decided on four days from Ho Chi Minh to Da Lat so the day after we arrived back in Ho Chi Minh from the Mekong Delta we met up with Tuan, one of the guides at the local version of Starbucks, Highlands Coffee to get a briefing on the four days on the back of a motorbike that were to follow.
We started the next morning and spent an hour weaving in and out of moto-clogged roads before leaving Ho Chi Minh city behind. We stopped at a Cao Dai and Buddhist temple for a briefing on the religions, the later of which is the predominant religion in Vietnam. We then headed further into the countryside so that we could make frequent pitstops to see family run rice paper, noodle, brick, chopstick, and innumerable other factories. There were also tons of coffee pit stops to give everyone a chance to rest after sitting on a motorcycle over roads that were anything but smooth. By the afternoon we had reached the Ho Chi Minh trail, which has been repaved and is not quite the same as the road that was once used to transport supplies to support the Viet Cong. This also called for multiple stops at the gargantuin roadside monuments to war veterans.
One of the greatest benefits of the trip was being able to ask any questions you wanted to Tuan or Lee who were driving the bikes. Being able to have everything explained from communist propaganda posters to the types of crops being grown in the fields we drove past was incredibly helpful. They were also able to pick out all the hole in the wall roadside restaurants I would have never gone to on my own. Vietnam has very little vegetarian food and navigating my way through the menus that I can neither read nor understand had limited most of my dining experiences to more touristy restaraunts. This time we found ourselves eating in the dingy open faced roadside eateries. I would love to say that I tasted amazing Vietnamese food that I never knew existed, but when it comes to vegetarian fair it is hard to branch out past garlic vegetables and the occasional tofu creation.
By the second day the air had cooled off a bit and we were winding our way through coffee and cashew plantations. It was coffee harvesting season and the berries could be found drying in the yards of every house we passed and people hauling bulging sacks of berries streamed out of the fields around evening. Vietnam is the second largest coffee exporter in the world, which I found very exciting given my coffee ediciton. Vietnamese coffee is served as a thick syrup-like concoction that is brewed in a small filter that perches atop your cup. I loved it until the bike trip, when I discovered that the Vietnamese like to have their beans roasted in copious amounts of butter, sugar, and chocolate. Yuck. Although I was a little jaded it was still an experience driving through the plantations and stopping along the way to see all the processing from picking to processing of the berries.
The second day was also when the incredible views of rolling hills began and these only got better as we got further up into the highlands. The road cut through pine forests and peaked over vallies of fields that resembled a patchwork quilt of varying patterns and green hughes. It was one of the many things on this trip that I stuggle to capture with words or photos. That is probably the main reason I enjoy traveling. Finding the moments that I cannot experience unless I am there because words and pictures fall short of the beauty of the real thing.
Arriving in Da Lat on day four Kara and I got our first taste of cold weather. It reminded us that it was December and reminded me that it was almost the holidays and time for me to head home. We caught a bus back overnight the next day and were back in Ho Chi Minh for a last few days of museums, shopping, and the restauraunts we wanted to visit one more time (one was actually an Indian restaraunt).