Headin to Arequipa

Heya alls,

Headin to Arequipa, on the coast of Peru(or atleast pretty close) for the last days of my peru-bolivia travelin. Sights to be seen/eaten: Colca Canyon, a wicked deep canyon, and ceviche, some sort of fish dish like sushi? Not sure, we'll see.

Went to Machu Picchu. Well, back it up. Bri and I went on a four day "Inca Jungle Trail." Now this is different than the well known inca trail, in that it comes to machu picchu from a different direction, and is quite a bit less expensive. Day 1! My favorite day, they drove us to the top of this mountain pass, at 4300 meters, which is around 13000 feet, and dropped us off with mountain bikes. We spent the next three hours descending this crazy mountain road. Twas nuts! I took a lot of pictures(to be seen once I get back to the states). We started up near a glacier, and ended in the hot jungle. One of my favorite moments on the trip.

Day two, hiked for eight hours along a mountain ridge, hung out with a monkey and some weird beaver like creature. Not too sure what that was. Said monkey called Martin enjoyed going into my cargo pockets on my pants and stealing my gloves. In my experiance with monkeys, they are both mischevious and hilarious.

Day three! hiked to Aguas Calientes, the critically disliked machu picchu town. We climbed a mountain opposing the M-Peach, for fantastic sights and ridiculous ladders. Again, better when shown with pictures.

Day four! Hiked to Machu Picchu, by far the most interesting day. We woke up at 3 in the morning for the tour hour hike, in the dark, to the peach. Got there at 515, ran through to wayna picchu(a large mountain near the peach, where only the first 400 are allowed to climb). I was 31, not too shabby! Anywho, took a spanish tour of the place, which was quite interesting. The city itself is pretty hard to get to, and the valley below is pretty nice. Apparently, they decided to build the city on top of a mountain because they considered the mountains a sort of connection with the heavens, as they,re huge. While impractical, its really quite beautiful. Also, no one knows the actual name of the city, machu picchu is just the name of the nearby mountain. Why it was built, and consequently deserted is up to much spectulation. Our tour guide seemed to believe they deserted it to protect it from the spanish, similar to "hiding precious jewels". Others claim it was founded as a hidden city from the spanish, and others claim it was deserted because the springs ran dry. Needless to say, its pretty crazy.

Ok, gotta run and catch the overnight bus. Have a good one dearest reader.

-Brian

Oh, and grammatical or typographical errors can be attributed to spanish keyboards and internet cafes. The peach is also an official terms these days, feel free to use it in public with professors and intellectuals.