E'ta Lejo'

Me and Matt "Lost Cause" Rhody, your 'mbassadors to 'merica.

Alright folks, my email pestering days have come to an end and I find myself gingerly navegating this "blog" - I know I've been out of the loop for a while when new, ugly-sounding words start popping into the vernacular.

I find myself in the navel of the Incan empire, Cusco, the old capital of the Incan empire (and Quechua for bellybutton). It's been about a month of travel in LlamaLand, and though I'm yet to see a one-man band the llamas have popped up in the countryside, the sweaters and the soup. Peru is a mix of urban sprawl and soaring mountains, tropical forest, and coast, each with a distinct culture laid over the background of the trademark Latino friendliness. After fighting terrorism and inflation and corruption and drugs for years, a booming tourist industry has done a lot to stabilize the country - but it's still easy to take a turn off the gringo trail and find yourself in someone's kitchen/store/barroom hearing all about the family.

I'm still reeling from my time away from Panama, but I finally think I'm getting used to a new culture (primarily the difficult substitution of pisco for seco as my harsh transparent liquor of choice). I think the biggest change is the climate. Not only do those rarefied Andean breezes still chill my bones, they make for expensive firewood, funky hats, and - brace yo self - NO HAMMOCKS. You heard me right people. I don't get it either.

I've been hanging out on glaciers, sand dunes, canyons, and slave-built ruins for some time now, and will try to give you some of the surrealest snippets from the past and future of the trip. Tomorrow we're off to begin an 70 mile trek from Cuzco to the Incan ruins of Choquequirao and Macchu Picchu with Mateo "Si Le Gusta Caminar" Rhody. Que nos desee suerte!

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