Time Flies

Tuesday May 31st Ayacucho

I am feeling mucho mucho better. After escaping the hotel seemingly ventilated by combining the exhausts of several two stroke engines, and "passing" my stomach bug (with the aid of modern medicine) we have found a most pleasing spot to recline.

Yes, we are on the rooftop terrace of the Hosteria La Criollonesa. It is great. The beds are comfy, the water is not just warm, but actually hot. We have a great view of the city for the sunrise and three church steeples are within a stone's throw.

After a lazy meander through the streets and a tasty lunch of guinea pig we are now lounging about, drinking Peru's finest. It is once again, a ridiculously nice day- cool and sunny. Deceptively so, as we both got a little bit of a burn. Don't worry the aformentioned beer will cure what ails us. This is good. Now if they only had an elevator up to this fourth floor...

Patrick (&Bethany)

Monday May 30th Bumpy from Huancayo

Today is good. I am sure that I shall have have no more unintended bowel movements! Yay! Good thing too, time for a ten hour bus ride. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately (depending on the vicissitudes of my alimentary canal) we missed breakfast, but our hunger pains we easily distracted by the view out of the other side of the bus. Yes, the side we were not seated on. Hrumph! I hope that those unconscious in the good seats could see through their closed eyelids the grandeur we were passing. We got a good view of a lot of rock wall.

All was not lost, there were many streams that crossed the road, or perhaps which the crossed and a few interesting moments. Most buses in the US don't have shovels or pick axes, or three drivers. Hmm... ours did. All came into use. The first time we stopped, I got nervous, after seeing what was considered safe, anything the driver felt was questionable, was probably certain death. It just looked like a puddle, until I saw the dirt on the right side had given way (to the bottom of an endless chasm). They looked at it a bit, then they decided to do some preventative maintenance and divert the water away. We then proceeded and did not die. The second time was worse. Clearly the road had started to give way prior to our arrival. We would surely be the straw that broke the camel's back. But out came the pick axe to move a large boulder, and viola the road was wider and passable. Oh boy. Lastly, one driver hurriedly closed a window in front of us. We did the same not knowing what was going on. Well, that became clear in a moment. That window had opened out slightly. We didn't have room for slightly. The picture tells it all. Lets just say that they build to tight tolerances here.

(PICTURES WILL FOLLOW WHEN WE HAVE A FASTER CONNECTION)

Anyway, we were starving and road weary (ie. nearly dead) so, we found a seemingly nice spot to stay and went to get some pizza. Fed and tired, we returned to our Hostal Ayacuchano and tried to get ready for bed. After a few dizzying moments, we realized that we were being gassed. The windowless room was seemingly a vaccuumn for the exhaust of the 80 zillion buses, taxis and carbon bursting three wheeled noise machines. Headaches in tow, we left for a new hotel.

Patrick (&Bethany)

Sunday May 29th

Patrick's Shorts Entry

Nevermind the title. Stayed in bed all day. Sucked. Except for a nice outing to the Parque de la Identidad Huanca and a transfere to a nice new hotel (Hotel Los Balcones) which was cheaper than our crappy Casa de Abuela, this day was crap- literally.

Bethany's day

Brutal night's sleep. I am quite sure Patrick nearly died on several occasions. I couldn't sleep for all of the the wheezing and noises that were coming from him. I gave up on any hope of sleep and went to breakfast, where I met Mitsuko. She had exactly the same plans for her day, so we decided to pair up and head into town. The electricity was out across the city, so we ended up carrying our backpacks full of laundry all day. We scoped out the treasures of the market, but found no socks for Patrick (very specific socks he wanted). Lunch was disappointing, no yummy cebiche this time. Made a trip to the grocery store, and bus station for tickets and then a slight error in navigation on the return trip led to a police ride home. I went to go check on the corpse, but Patrick was chipper (Patrick: There are advantages to being able to edit this blog too). We gathered up our things (in the dark, dank cave that was our room) and went to the park, to the new hotel (wonderful!) and to do laundry and then have some really dry fried trout and potatoes for dinner. At last though, a marvelous comfortable bed.

Bethany (&Patrick)