Earthquakes

So from Lima, we decided we needed a huge change of pace and that we would head to the beaches in the south of Peru. The people at the South American Explorers club failed to mention that the whole region was FLATTENED by a 7.9 mag earthquake in 2007. The first town we went to looked a little like Bagdad in April 2004. Almost every building was knocked down. people were living in shanty huts and wild packs of gnarly dogs roamed freely around the city. It made me want to go to some sort of resort. Also, I never realized how much desert there is in Peru. Its really rocky and dirty. At the beach in Paracas, Peru, we took a boat out to Isla Balletas. Here they have over 2 million birds on the island. It smelled like bird shit. They harvest the bird shit here every couple of years and it is a huge export item. In the colonial days Spain fought them for the poopy islands. I got to see penguins, boobies, pelicans, and TONS of sea lions here. Penguins were easily the coolest. Sea Lion in spanish translates to Fine Sea Wolf in english! After the beach came to Nazca, the city from which I am typing this. Its a little better in terms of 3rd worldness. Still it has a lot of earthquake damage. This town is famous for it´s ancient lines and artwork that is sprawled across the desert. We took a small Cessna airplane about 200 meters up to fly over the Nazca Lines. There are tons of them. They are pre Inca......so really really old. Nobody knows how they got there or what they are for. You can only see them from planes so it´s really hard to understand why they would be there. I´ve included some pictures of my favorite ones I saw.

Tonight we are taking a bus up to Cusco. This is the tourist capital of Peru. Its where you do the hike to Machu Pichu. We are going to wait till our trip back up the coast in april to do the hike. It will be less rainy then. I´m still having trouble with uploading pictures that I have taken but the place we are staying at in Cusco has a good computer and I´ll get it figured out there.

From here looks like this until Carnaval on Feb 20.

-Cuzco, Peru

-Lake Titicaca, Peru/ Bolivia

-La Paz, Bolivia (capital)

-Sucre, Bolivia

-Santa Cruz, Bolivia (newest big city.... very modern and safe) ¨Esta seguro para gringos¨ is my favorite phraze I have learned here. It means ïs it safe for gringos¨

-La Pantanal, Brazil (train here from Santa Cruz. There are two. One train is called the death train. We are taking the other one. They call it the death train because all the smugglers ride it with their contraband and they put their goods in the cabins and then sit on the roof of the train. The one we are taking is brand new and kind of luxury. Luxury here means really nice but its only like $25 for a ticket!!!

-To the beaches south of Rio de Janeiro

-Rio de Janeiro

Needless to say, we have an exciting month of travel ahead of us. We are on budget for the most part. I´m looking forward to updating in cuzco with some pictures. Also, I put a link to Lauren´s blog at the bottom of this one.

Adios

-John

P.S. I was a little sick in my stomach until my dad told me Carolina is now 0-2 in the ACC. Guess psycho tard couldn´t handle little ol´Wake. Feeling better now though!!!