Machu Pichu Inca Jungle Trizzzek

I wrote this post about two weeks ago before officially giving up on the internet in Northern Peru/Ecuador. I'm back in Portland living it up!

In Galapagos now just woke up from a desperately needed 4 hour siesta. It is absolutely unreal here, it¥s been 2 days now and I¥ve seen less than 10% of the Islands yet, I¥ve already gone snorkeling, cliff jumping, seen so much crazy wildlife.... and did I mention SCUBA? Today I went to the world renowned Gordon¥s rock famous for it¥s... wait for it... schools of hammerhead sharks!! Here¥s a taste of what I seen so far....

Yes please!

Words cannot describe the feeling of seeing the first shark within 30 seconds of jumping in the water, or the hundereds of different types of fish, seals, sea lions, rays and turtles. BUT like my adventure here this post is yet to be finished... I¥ve only been to one of the eighteen main islands. Tomorrow more diving and on Wednesday to another island Isabela where I¥m planning more excursions(more surfing?) and general tomfoolery.

Enough with the Galapagos, here is the play by play to Machu Pichu

My trip started leaving Iquique, Chile traveling north two Arica, crossing the border into Peru and arriving in Arequipa, Peru. 12-14 hours on bus. 8 hours in Arequipa and one photo before getting back on the bus to Cuzco

Interesting side note... most busses are have tvs, and play american movies dubbed in spanish with spanish subtitles, really expanded my imagination and creativity on making up what¥s going on /being said. In addition to pelÌculas (movies) additional enterntainment is provided with games(bingo), salesman for vitamins and other junk. Additionally food is provided most of the time, however my bus from Arequipa to Cuzco(homebase for many travelers headed to Machu Pichu) no food was served however there was one other option...

Locals of towns we pass through hop on and sell there goods, this little beauty is called Chinichurra i believe, or something to that effect. It¥s pieces of roasted pork, pork fat, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn in a convienent plastic bag. Smart.

ROUND 2.

Making our way through windy dirty roads, with drivers rallying around turns is exciting, and nerve racking. Let¥s just say not much sleep was had...

Suckas!

Not bad views eh?

Vicious wild Llamas.

My neighbors on the bus had a friend in a Canvas bag. When I asked if I could take a picture they placed him on the seat next to me...

UNTIL... THIS HAPPENED

The bird fell on the floor and released it¥s bowels all over the floor. Where it stayed the remainder of the trip.

Arriving in Cuzco after a 20+ hour bus ride the hostal bar was like a oasis. Lots of fun was had unfortunately no pictures taken. My journey to Machu Pichu involved 4 days and 3 nights.

Day 1. BIKING.

Driving up to approximately 4,000 meters and we began our downhill descent of 3,000 meters. a 3 hour ride...

mad max meets special ed.

More biking NO jumps

More to come.
CHURZ

Surf First... Blog Later

Buenas mi amigas!

I just arrived in swampy Guayaquil, Ecuador aproximately 150 miles from the equator, a day away from the biodiverse Galapagos... but i´ll get to that later. I´m staying at the funky monkey hostel and having a beer with the hospitable owner Frey. 8 hours ago I was in another country, Mancora, Peru. But I´m afraid that we will have to rely on my new friends for pictures, for I was surfing most of the 3 or 4 days I was there. *Losing track of time is a nice side effect of traveling.

I was struggling with what to write about, between the sun(burn), getting thrashed in the waves, and a few late nights I have forgotten I´ve yet to write about my latest expeditions to the ancient city of Machu Pichu.

But alas it is late, I am tired, the pictures are only a quarter of the way finished uploading, and I´ve got a plane to catch in 5 hours to the Galapagos, diving, surfing, snorkeling and taking an extreme amount of pictures... still haven´t figured out how I´m going to share with you my underwater adventures...

B Reed

Backpack attack

Buenas Noches Muchachos y Muchachas.

If you want to get an idea of what the musics like here in Chile check this.

This REGGAETON-CUMBIA beat is huge in Chile - you can't walk down the street without hearing this beat. boom chikka bow bow boom- over and over. It is drilled into your head day and night, in the discoteque, on the street, in restaraunts, stores... everywhere. The beat is the same for most songs and often times you never know when one song ends and another begins.

I have to make this quick, need... sleep... badly... and I´ve got a 530am wake up tomorrow to begin my 4 day trek to Machu Pichu. Currently I´m at Hostel Loki Cuzco( http://www.lokihostel.com/en/cusco ) in Cuzco, Peru, but since I´m chronically behind here´s the story from last week.

After tooling around in the desert of San Pedro de Attacama, I took a short 6 hour bus ride to Iquique, Chile. The place I stayed at was a stones throw from the beach. Less than a minute walk and I was on the water. Plenty of surf sun and fun. oh yeah and did i mention i went paragliding? hollallalalalala. This computer is crap, so I'll try to post the a few pics and link to the album.

IT NO WORKY. I'll post the link to the album below.

Highlights
Met a german girl Motorcycling through south america, that picture of her bike is insane, stacked to the max.

Met 2 Argentinian brothers who bought a truck in Los Angeles and were making there way down the coast of Central and South America. Bad ass. Here's the link http://www.gauchosdelmar.com/ *cowboys of the sea

The hostel porches were the best.

Surfing was epic. Got thrashed around quite a bit. Afterwards I'm constantly amazed how much water can be stored in my sinuses.

Shooting photos while paragliding is hard, so dont judge. Also there would be more however batteries ran out halfway through the flight and I really didn't want to put a hole in someones head-house-car.

https://picasaweb.google.com/reed.brandon/Iquique?authkey=Gv1sRgCNySp63noInG-gE&feat=directlink

Bed time for bonzo.

Cheers and much love,
Brando

¿Como estai?

Wadup friends family and party people?

It´s been a while since I´ve blogged or as I like to call it trogged (travel-blogged). I hit a wall about halfway through my travels a mixture of homesicknesses, altitude sickness, hungover sickness and a looking at the map and thinking to myself what the eff am doing here... haha! Nothing that some great weather, good surf, chill people and rest can´t cure here in Iquique, Chile but I digress, I´m telling the story all wrong, I´ve skipped a chapter of my travels.

San Pedro de Attacama, an oasis in the desert. It´s like Tri Cities of Chile minus the river/radioactive waste site/hydroplanes/tumbleweeds and plus alpaccas/heeps(*austrailian) of tourists/mountains/sand dunes/and dirt roads. Quite a word picture, and maybe a bit of a stretch of a comparison. So I´ll go ahead and let the pictures do the talking.

Biking and snapping photos. Safe.

Fire

Much of the landscape looks like its something from mars, they actually have a place that was originally called Valle de Marte(Mars Valley) but gringos like myself pronounced it Valle de Muerte(Death Valley) and it stuck.

I had a chance to go sandboarding, like snowboarding... on sand... deep

Earn your turns

DROPPING

STEEEEEEZ

Later that day we hiked Valle De Luna or Moon Valley.... it was a long day

It was bad lighting but eh thats what photoshop is for.

Friends!

Dropped into some salt cave which was fun and all

Until the headlamp died.

4am the next day rolled out of bed and headed 2 hours into the mountains and checked out some geysers

Wheres the 22?

Hot sprangggggggggg

And FIN. Now it appears I´m on a bit of a budget both with time, flight is on July 3rd back in time for the 4th Amuriica, and I´m aware of a slight monetary pressure of starting a life when I return to the states. So I´m in Iquique with 23 days to cross 2 countries and hopefully spend around a week in the Galapagos islands and Machu Picchu, leaving + or - 16 days of traveling and more surfing. I got this! Hopefully I swing a few overnight buses not spent wasting away on buseos.

Anyways off to plan, most importantly shower, and eat palta(avacado)... LOVING PALTA

Oh and an extra special shout out to Jeff for rubbing it in he´s seeing my favorite band soon, the black lips. Which also just released their newest album Arabia Mountain, which I´m presently listening to at full blast (sorry mom and dad).