Less Money, Mo´ Problems in Peru

So WE DID IT!!! WE SURVIVED THE INCA TRAIL and have some neat Apus Peru (our trekking company) tshirts, some massive blisters, and atrophying calf muscles to show for it :) Those of you that thought our two out of shape butts would never make it were almost right, but still..WRONG! To be honest, yeah it was a challenge, but totally not impossible considering we had 9 tiny peruvian men carring all of our crap (over 100lbs per porter) plus they would sprint past us to all of our camp sites where they´d set up a fancy dinner tent and cook us gourmet meals, ballin.
Highlights Include:
-The name of our guide: Big Willy
-Big Willy´s magic potions which involved rubbing something that smelled like teatree oil all over kelsey´s altitude sick head. greasy. and then clapping alot and making her smell his hands.
- Pooping in little holes in the ground.
- Unbelievably beautiful, clear starry nights
- The porters getting a little too close for comfort when thanking us for the generous tips (accidental boob squeeze?)
- Porters baked cake for mikhail´s birthday...how do you even do that in the woods
- Making friends (or enemies) through song: being recognized by the other 800 people hiking along the trail as the girls who sing (everything from motown medleys to showtunes) to keep themselves from jumping off the cliffs.
-abSURD blisters: a few days before hiking the inca trail we hiked a mountain in Huaraz national park to practice and acclimate. Unfortunately all it did for Kels was give her MASSIVE MOON CRATER BLISTERS on the backs of her ankles due to the new hiking boots
- Kelséy´s makeshift attempt to fix the blister problem by wearing one venus (4$ ecuadorian style chuck taylor) and one hiking shoe


The Ancient City was all we expected it to be and more, though our sheer exhaustion after the four day hike led to a midday machu picchu nap and yoga session. We also saw many bird spirits.

Since then we saw the floating islands of Lake Titicaca, man made islands constructed of reeds where entire communities have lived for hundreds of years, originally started as a way of evading Incan and Spanish conquerers...ingenious!
We´ve spent the last few days in the lovely little colonial city of Arequipa, Peru, catching our breath and trying to plan the next leg of our trip: some charms of the city--delicious alpaca steaks and lovely christmas themed tablecloths at our cozy hostal. Also, they sell candy (mojjjey???) covered skewered strawberries here, like apples at a church bazaar but better!

Last night we decided to nurture our culture craving souls with a seemingly highly regarded and well advertised argentinian ballet that turned out to be a live, amateur, soft core porn. GREAT. It would have been less awkward if i hadn´t graciously offered to buy an extra ticket for a lonesome 31 yr old civil rights lawyer who had just arrived in the city and was also staying in our hostal......

So now, our friends have gone, and the two of us broke college students are trying to figure out how the heck to get all the way to buenos aires without having to live on teh streets when we get there... suggestions would be GREATLY APPRECIATED.

off to lima to hitchhike back down south,


CATCH YOU ON THE FLIP SIDE!!!