The Urban Birds & The Tiny Lamb

Some Lima pictures-this is the area Lizzie calls Miami this is the city hall building in Lima

We left Lima, Lizzie lost it. She wasn´t ready to part with her first true love on the road. I yelled. We left.
Took a DELUXE bus to Arequipa. Dinner was delicious, they showed 3 movies. All of them were english movies, dubbed in spanish, with english subtitles. Kind of a mind fuck, but Shawshank Redemption was a soft one for both of us. sniffle.
We got blankets and pillows, and there were crazy people complaining all the time around us. I think this is going to be the worst culture shock.
We got to play bingo. Lizzie got 5 in a row, we yelled BINGOOOOOOOOO!. The lady told us you needed to have the whole card completed. We were embarassed.
We both got crap sleep and woke up and lizzie drank juice and passed out and I was stuck watching Chronicles of Narnia. WHACK.

Got to Arequipa, the man who ran our hotel was a trip. Really eager to please. go go go kind of guy. Had a scarface, big smile, fast talker, crazy. We ate at Gopal, good food, incredible fruit bowl (mangos, cantelope, honeydew, pinapple, bananas, apples, grapes, kiwis, and a strawberry on top). We went to the PLAZA DE ARMAS (every city has one) and i fed pigeons out of my hands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(some of you might not know that I really love pigeons)
After that, we lounged in a cafe, bought gypsy bracelets, walked, ate, walked, went back. (this is Arequipa)

Left the next morning for Puno (Lake Titicaca) which was a bout a 7 hour bus ride. We sat next to a nice couple that raved about Bolivia, and my stomach started rumbling (keep in mind you are NOT allowed to poo on the buses and they make NO stops...). We finally made it to the hostel. I stayed in the baño, lizzie ate dinner, i listened to radiohead, she smoked out the rooftop window.
Next day we took a boat out to the Uros Islands, which are made out of reeds and float and people live on them. Pretty cool.
this is a picture of the indiginous folk that live there and the houses on the right, Olga looked something like this
We took a boat there with a high school class and the boat had holes and water kept seeping in. Luckily the "captain"´s 6 year old son kept shoveling out pails of water and dumping them out the window to keep us afloat. First island was nice and they explained their culture, and Lizzie made friends with a large woman in hot pink named Olga (i wish google images had her). Olga showed us her hut and then we got to look at all the artesan crafts that they make for sale. Olga started hounding us and yelling for lizzie to buy her WAY OVERPRICED goods. Lizzie panicked. I laughed. Olga growled. Next island we just sat there. Then we proceeded back to mainland with the skipper shoveling water. Beautiful scenery. Got back, felt the altitude start getting to us. Shopped around and bought some gifts for the family. We ate dinner and went back to watch 40 year old virgin in spanish.
Puno is also where the altitude started to rough us up about, basically anything more than three flights of stairs and your start wondering if you´re old enough to have a heart attack, pressure headaches and bloody noses are also a newly acquired ailment, but contrary to what others may have predicted we can still smoke our lucky strikes, so it´s all good.
We left at 6am the next morning to Cusco. We bought coconut oreo things, some fruit, old bread and a GIANT fleece blanket with a St. Bernard (lizzie) and a calico cat (me)got on the bus and 7 hours later made it to Cusco. Got to Cusco, nice cute hostel (sorry matt, not Loki, the party reviews were scary), walked to the Plaza de armas, which was beautiful, but had a shitload of tourists. Ate some yogurt at Granja Heidi (don´t worry Andrew we´re going back tomorrow for a proper meal) which was quaint. Walked some more until Lizzie found a 2 week old lamb and payed 3 ladies to let her take her picture with it. Good god that thing was cute, and about the size of a tiny cat...love love. Then we went back to the plaza, put the ipod in, sparked a Lucky Strike and sat there listening to the entire Ram On album while the sunset and the street kids harassed us. It was lovely. this is where we sat
The we ate bad vegetarian food and here we are. We have one more day in Cusco, then we go up the magic mountain to Macchu Picchu. Then back through Arequipa to Arica (our first stop in Chile).

MISC-
*feed the fish!
*if you need Peruvian goods, write quickly
*Women wear purple during the month of october for the Lord of Miracles
*Inca Kola is not very good
*We bought Che brand cigarettes that are made here, and they "have a slogan, which other cigarettes don´t" (this was the selling point)
*most importanly, i forget what it feels like to not have violent gas.