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.