You Can't Take Me Anywhere

I've been flying back-and-forth to Warroad MN to visit my parents on the Marvin Windows corporate propeller plane since May. It's fun and I feel fancy every time and I love getting there in an hour and 15 minutes vs driving 6.5 hours.

Last month and for the first time I got to ride their jet. No propellers. Leather buttery seats. Fancy fancy. Oh man it goes fast! The same exact trip takes 45 minutes. But let me tell you the take off is terrifying. I have never felt such speed in my entire life and I have ridden the fastest train on earth (Shanghai Maglev China). Anyway it goes one million miles an hour and you go straight up. STRAIGHT up. Seriously. When we got up to cruising altitude I turned to the woman next to me and asked her "are we in space?". I was seated across from her children (this jet had a four-seat-face-each-other-thing) and they giggled the entire time and that was the only reason I didn't bawl my eyes out from sheer terror.

But that's not the point of my story. The point of my story is that when I first got in the jet I noticed that same woman in the very very back of the plane with one of her kids. She looked like she was confused and didn't know if she wanted to sit way back there with him and I am nosey and so I already knew from eavesdropping that she was traveling with her husband, two little boys and giant pregnant belly (which was filled with twins as I was to find out later). So I stuck my nose in even further and offered to take the way back so she could sit in the four seat thing with her whole family. I smugly went to take my hero's position all the way in the back. (Seat change explained below). I am SUCH a good person. Ask anyone. I couldn't find the seat belt though? I searched and searched.

Then a man came and sat right across from me and we were sitting so close to each other that our knees were intertwined. Face-to-face. I was like, "oh man I hope I like this guy because this is AWK.WARD." He had a book which was a good sign just in case. But his seat for sure had a seat belt. I stood to look better for my seat belt, which meant he had to stand too to let me look and turn around and stuff. Finally it dawned on me that the seat was probably flipped down and I needed to flip it up to find the seat belt.

NOPE. TOILET.

Just When you Thought China Had it Together

I'm so confused, because thusfar China has been so forward-thinking it its treatment of women! This is just WAY out in left-field.



 

 

"Women drivers when driving alone are not able to find the way to their destination, even if they’ve been there many times.”

 

The Story of My Lost Wallet

Some day I'll finally post about how amazing the Inca Trail was, but for now I just don't have the energy to type it.  Instead this is the long boring story of how I lost my wallet after a year-and-a-half of travel, eight days before I was scheduled to fly home.  HAHA

On the forth day of the Trail, the day when you wake up at 3:50am to walk into Machu Picchu, I lost my wallet.  It was the weirdest thing.  The night prior, we had a place to shower and get a beer, so I put my wallet in my front sweatshirt pocket in order to pay and stuff.  After my shower I put on my jammies, but because we had a big 'last' dinner, where we tipped all of our porters, I kept my sweatshirt/wallet handy for that too.  When it was time for bed and I was all tucked into my sleeping bag, I put my camera battery in my bra as usual (so it wouldn't drain from the cold) but got irritated that my wallet was still in my sweatshirt.  Typically, I was too lazy to do anything about it though.  In the morning, we had ten minutes to get ready and there were porter dudes right outside my tent trying to take my tent down.  When I arrived at breakfast I realized the wallet was gone.  I searched with a flashlight until we had to leave, and the porters unrolled sleeping bags and helped me look, but it was gone.  I think it got flipped into the grass or something.  I couldn't report the card missing for about four days and nobody used it.  So I gave my wallet to the Inca Trail.  I lost about $60US and my debit card and my drivers' license.

The point of that LONG story is that now, I am without a wallet on the road.  Thankfully, I had an extra Visa card and $135US in my passport holder.  But nobody takes Visa here in Puno Peru.  And the $135US is for my Bolivian Visa.  So more thankfully, Teri lent me $200 and 200 Peruvian Soles to get home on.  But the stupid hostel that I have been holed up in for 5 days, dying of cholera won't take Visa either even though they have Visa stickers ALL OVER THE PLACE, took $96 of that cash (I paid in Soles first) for my stay, laundry and an additional $50 for the 9 HOUR BOAT RIDE I have to take tomorrow morning at 5:20 to get into Bolivia.  Yah.  Apparently the roads are closed because of protesters and I can't take the $3 bus.  OK, so to recap:

I have $235 and 36 Soles ($12) to get home on.  The Bolivian Visa costs $135.  I have to pay $25 to exit Bolivia.  And I have to take a 9 hour boat when I'm very, very, very, very, like Peru Sick.
That leaves me $87 to get from Copacabana, Bolivia to La Paz, Bolivia, two nights lodging, ride to the airport, and food on the planes. 

I think I can do it.  Fortunately Bolivia is the cheapest country in the universe.  And I don't have any time to go to the salt flats anyways, or to do Isla del Sol.  I'm basically just entering Bolivia to get to the La Paz airport, because that's where I'm flying home from.

Here's hoping I can use the other Visa at the Lima/Miami/Chicago airports for food.

Food...

The food is surprisingly fantastic in Peru, and since I've been eating nothing but dry bread for the last few days, I thought this post would be particularly timely. 

Pork chops with potato fingers, corn and tamale with salad

Stuffed chilis with potato fingers and salad

Alpaca with quinoa and steamed veggies

Spinach stuffed chiken breast with potato puree

The Painted Veil

I can't believe I have only blogged 8 times so far this month.  That must be a record of inactivity for me.  (Sorry about that mom.)  Anyway I have a good reason.  As soon as I finished hiking the Inca Trail, I was overcome with fever and the Trots so bad I have done nothing but sleep and poop and watch movies.  I joked on facebook that I would love one of those handy cholera beds they had in the Painted Veil, you know, the one with the hole and the bucket?

Hopefully, since I'm headed back to Minnesota next week (!), sooner if I can get a hold of the airline, I'll have plenty of time to wax poetic about the last year-and-a-half of travel, mixed with some more of your favorite Hal-isms, which is 30% of the reason I love living with my parents.  (The other 70% being my mom's cooking.)
 
But first let's do a quick tutorial on being sick and alone in another country.

1. Get a private room.
2. Learn how to download movies.
3. Make the staff feel very very sorry for you. 

Some disgusting stats about the last 4 days:

1. There has been one shower.
2. I have brushed my teeth twice.
3. I have only eaten one piece of fish and four small bread rolls and part of one fried egg.
4. I have pooped out way more than the equivalent of that.  So what the what?
5. I watched a ton of Modern Family and a buncha movies, including Toy Story 3 which made me cry and cry.
6. I haven't changed my clothes.  Even to sleep.

I'm not even trying that hard to look pathetic.

The good news is my room is pretty comfortable and only $15.  My only complaint is that the pillow is a rock hard fat thing.  Oh, and the Runs.

We Did It!!!

At the start of the trail.  We were so innocent then.

Dead Women's pass.  Highest point at 4200m elevation.

Somewhere along the way.

Did you really think there wouldn't be a human pyramid at the top?

Peru So Far...And Commencing Radio Silence

OK, I'm freaking out because I have to wake up early, and I don't feel prepared.  To hike.  26 miles.  4 days.  Good thing I have 5 friends with me who remembered toilet paper and sunscreen and hand sanitizer. 

OMG, I just realized I won't be online for 5 days.  So, for your viewing pleasure, here's some of the photos I have taken so far in Peru.

The first is of my taxi driver from the airport to my hostel.  I told him in Spanish if he was planning on killing me, he should probably find my camera and delete this photo as well, otherwise it's STRAIGHT to jail.

And then we have the cute ladies and their cute baby llama that had poop all over it.  NO THANKS, LADIES, I DO NOT WANT TO HOLD THE POOPY LLAMA.

And here's the MP6 (Machu Picchu 6) getting pumped up for the big hike:

Left to right: Kasey, Wendy, Dan, Nicole, Teri, Kady

We took a little scooter tour around Cuzco today:

It's kind of funny that I drove and Kasey rode on the back.

The End.

A Mansion on Laguna de Apoyo

After the boat tour with the crazy monkey, we left Granada and went to stay on a Lagoon that was formed by a volcano.  It's completely surrounded by mountains (one of which is Mombacho) and has the clearest water ever.  We stayed in a rented house (only $150 per night, split between 10 people, or $15 each.)  Amazing.  Good food, good friends, good weather. 

The garden:

The view from the lenai:  (I got that word from the Golden Girls.  No idea how to spell it.)

The lounge/kitchen/spiral staircase:

The outdoor bathroom:

The view from the garden:

The infinity pool and the lagoon:

Dining room:

Additional blogs

I added a China blog and a Peru blog if anybody wants to read about previous trips...

Just click on VIEW MY COMPLETE PROFILE and then choose China 2007 or Peru 2004 to read them.