I woke to Mo knocking on my door raving about a poisonous jungle frog on the loose in her room. I don't know what kind of frog it was but the image of me spending my last day(s) in a Amazonian veterinary clinic posing as a hospital gasping my last breath didn't sound appealing so I used one of my small travel bags to capture the frog and put it out. Chances are the poisonous jungle frog was probably an ordinary tree frog with a complex created by the unwarranted discrimination by ignorant gringos like us. With the frog in his natural habitat and the security of the known civilized world restored we headed for breakfast. Not satisfied by the punishment and humiliation we had the previous day we returned to Lucy's to order food without a menu. A young guy was there and thankfully he had a sense of humor. If we ate chicken for lunch because didn't know the Spanish word for anything else that meant we were eating eggs for breakfast for exactly the same reason. We all had eggs with French fries because of our limited vocabulary. He brought bread and jam as well and we enjoyed our simple breakfast while watching one of the original Superman movies with Christopher Reeves. We then went to the laundry an hour early while hoping they'd done our laundry the night before. I told them we'd be there at 9 but it was only 8. They did in fact get them done the night before which proves how much different they are than I. I would have waited until the last minute and the other I (the one catching the bus) would have missed it. I'm glad others are punctual. We boarded our bus and headed for Quito once again. The ride back was just as amazing as the ride over but it took longer because Jaun Manual Fangio apparently had the day off. Six hours later we arrive in Quito. Thirty minutes after that we're at the airport getting ready to leave for Peru. My whole life I've wanted to visit Peru and in a few hours I'd be there.... We flew on LAN Peru which proved to be a nice airline. They gave us decent food for a 2 ½ flight which never happens in the states anymore. We landed in Lima at 10:00 and met our driver after waiting for nearly 40 minutes for him to arrive. It was Christmas eve and it looked like the city had a party because there were piles of garbage everywhere and some were even on fire. Later we learn that this is the way Lima always looks. As soon as we reach our hotel we hit the hay. We only have the next morning in Lima and I wanted to walk around to get a feel for the city.

Lima

I've never really heard anything good about Lima and if you haven't either then I won't be changing that much. Although for a monster South American city that were nice, plenty of colonial architecture and a marching procession. There were police on every corner and sometimes in between. We bought a large water from a street vendor but noticed the cap wasn't sealed so we tossed it out. After finding the market which was closed we stopped at a local eatery and had the menu which included a sandwich, some excellent juice for about $1.80. We each got our own small pitcher of fresh made juice, mine was Mango and Jade's Pineapple. Both were excellent. Time had run out and we walked by the river's edge, saw the train station, watched the men dressed up as toy soldiers march in the street and returned to the hotel to get the girls. The flight from Lima to Cusco was less than an hour. In the Lima airport we arranged for a transfer to our hostel so when we go there a lady holding a sign took us to a taxi.

I haven't written much about Lima because we really didn't stay here long but it's the king of colonial arechitecture so if you're interested in seeing this please visit my gallery as I took quite a lot of pictures (nearly 100 in a couple of hours) of buildings there. Lima Gallery

Cusco

The taxis in Cusco were extra small but we managed to get 6 people in one and most were full size adults. Images of the Mexicans in Pasco WA come to mind.

When I booked our hostel I went with opinions I found on the Internet and I knew it was up a hill but in a somewhat touristy district called San Blas. It turns out that cars can't actually drive to our hostel so we had a short walk. Veelma our airport transport hung around while we got our rooms set up then we talked. She set us up for a tour of the Incan Sacred Valley, city tour of Cusco and a tour of Machu Picchu. All four of us were $600 which was a lot but most of it was for Machu Picchu which is expensive. When she left we got acquainted with our surroundings. The Casa la Gringa is a cute hostel with private rooms. We got two doubles which were not large but just overflowing with character. To get to mine and Jade's room we had to climb a ladder. The room was in the peak of the house so we couldn't really stand up but it was neat nonetheless. I don't believe the hostel has heat though as it got quite cold that night. Mo started to feel ill so we all went to bed.