jer runs and ed drops his pants

only a few hours drive from lima near the town of ica rise huge sahara-like dunes ripe for sliding down with snowboard-like devices and that eventually turn into sand tobogans

...and a little oasis in the middle

poised at the top to slide, fall, yelp and acquire sand in all bodily crevices on the way down

our pisco pal jose spent over an hour dipping bamboo sticks into vats of sweet wine and pisco (a tequila-like moonshine) ... sent us away stumbling with a bottle of wine in hand. jose admits that no other countries in the world like their peruvian wine because its so sweet so they just give it away to to smiling faces that show up on the doorstep
plaza de armas of Cuzco. spanish took over the former capital city of the incans and built cathedrals on top of just about every former incan building in the city.
zoom in and try to figure out whats going on here... we couldnt
machu picchu... maybe the biggest tourist trap in the world. serviced only by the Inca Trail that costs hundreds of dollars and a tourist train that costs an arm and a leg as well. solution for ed and jeremy... just walk along the train tracks. taking cheap little buses and vans we arrive at the tracks about 35 kms from our intended destination... while getting ready to start walking a little boy tells us we cant walk that way because there is police so we follow his advice and swing a big loop around the train station fording streams and walking through peoples backyards till we get to a fantastic trail that weaves on and off the train tracks through incan and pre-incan ruins.. camp happily the first evening in an old incan site under the most brilliant peruvian stars. start walking the next morning along the tracks till we come to a hault in front of two policemen and a lady in green. ¨private property¨ or something silly like that. they tell us we have to walk back and take the train. we walk outside and one of the cops whispers to us to walk back 200 yards and loop around so the lady in green cant see us. we follow his advice and run past when he whistles to us as a train occupies the lady in green. though somehow being seen in all this we are suddenly being tracked by several police officers and take off running. ed drops his pants... not the whole pant but just the zip off bottoms and is forced to go back, pretend to be a local playing soccer, and retreive them. cop finds him and fortunately, thanks to about a dollar in bribe, is told that he hasnt been seen and to keep moving. good ol´latin america for you.. a little ¨tip¨ goes a long
passing ruins like these as we trek along jumping into bushes to hide from trains. the little train cart of our friends the railway workers finds us and carts us along a ways and we finish that day hiking all the way up to picchus entrance and camping quietly nearby.wayvistas of glaciers and cacti along the way as well

first paying customers into picchu to wait for the sun to burn off the clouds and reveal the ruins and the most incredible and breathtaking backdrop for an incan city.
the burning fog also revealed jeremy wearing only his longjohns eds classic postcard shot

without wanting to shell out the dough for the train or walk the 30 kms back after a full day in the ruins, we decide to find or friends the railway workers. they tell us they will pick us up at 430 in the morning if we wait at km 107 and dont tell anyone. so we camp, play harmonicas and kick old tin cans next to the tracks that night at km 107. morning comes we hop on their little yellow train cart you can see in the top corner of the picture above and are disguised with their yellow construction hats as we fly along the tracks while the sun rises... all for a bag of oranges and a few bucks... a short morning walk and some lamb for breakfast and we´ve seen one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world for almost nothing. fantastic

we dont know what kind of flower this is but its damn cool.

raging streams built into the narrow cobblestone streets of a little town near cuzco.

freein the flops

How can we begin to describe our feelings towards Ecuador? Welp, to put it bluntly, it´s a shithole. Things all started to go downhill on our all-terrain train ride to the Narriz del Diablo (nose of the devil) when we were left behind for the devil´s nose, and then ran into a bunch of angry ecuadorians blocking the tracks on the way back. the end result was a 4 and a half hour, 30 km walk through rain and snow to a town with no hotels where the only people nice enough to put us up for the night were the police. Guess our St. Patty´s day turned out the only way a good one should...with a night in the police station.

all-terrain train riding! sick!

one of many roadblocks. we moved the boulders from the tracks and 2 minutes later they put them back. grrr

the cozy little town of riobamba, the best part of the ¨train incident¨and our last pleasant night in Ecuador

Getting all decked out in riot gear before going to force our way through some ecuadorian road blocks.

This is our new friend Suiza the Who from Whoville. Who new Dr. Suess wrote non-fiction?

We finally crossed the Peruvian-ecuadorian border giddy with excitement to be leaving the shitshow that is Ecuador and to discover the glory, the majesty, and the wonder that is Peru. No, seriously, Peru is a lot sweeter than ecuador. We spent a few days on gorgeous beaches watching old-school surfers ride some waves on these caballitos de tatoro. Not sure exactly what that means, but they´re these cool little fishing boats pictured above. There were millions of them on this beach, and only two gringos -- ed and jer.

Next up, the ruins of chan chan. and boy are they in ruins, let me tell ya! basically just lots of big mud piles that used to be walls and houses in the middle of the desert.

I think this used to be a kitchen. Or a burial room. Either way it still had that nice homey feel you get in a house made of mud.

We spent a long afternoon of drinking chicha - a local mooshine made from corn - with our buddy Loco and his amigos, and as you can see, things got just a little crazy. La la la la la bamba!

This is a reenactment of what´s becoming one of our favorite pasttimes in Peru, a little QT with the porcelain gods. This particular photo was taken on the main strip of the market in Chiclayo. They sure do love their toilets.

Peru is a rather large, somewhat undeveloped country with tons of cool stuff to see. That means lots of long busrides on bumpy roads through remote areas. The plus side is some spectacular views, driving above and below ginormous cliff, through tunnels, etc. The downside, is uh, lots of long bumpy busrides. Fortunately there are lots of local farmacies where you can find sleeping pills at the low, low price of 10 for 30 cents!

yummy

We checked out some ancient burial sites and some hot springs while in Cajamarca, up in the hills. This guy obviously spent too much time in the water.

Kuelap, an amazing pre-Incan site way up in the hills with lots of Alpaca and really big walls. We wandered around for hours and only saw three other tourists. very cool.

a little nap at our Kuelap breakfast nook

mmm, alpaca. looks tasty

hardcore rock(wall) climbing. they really are that big

we began our voyage in seach of adventure and truth, and bonus, we found Jesus!

tuk-tuks rule

The peruvian jungle is awesome. we borrowed a canoe from some locals on the shores of Laguna Azul, and spent the next few days paddling around the lake, camping, foraging for oranges and peppers in the forest, digging freshwater clams, and trading our goods for fish and coconuts to make some of the most scrumptulescent meals ever seen on this side of the equator.

the campsite

some jungle lawnmower engineering
street salons.the river crossing to laguna azul powered by the flow of the river

I finally had to say goodbye to my sandals. you´ll be missed guys. 100 bucks for anyone who sees them in Brazil

and finally, more splunking. we love splunking and saying splunking. splunking.