one of my other roadtrips was an all-day excursion to nazca to see the mysterious nazca lines. it was quite hard to take any good pictures from my phone while flying above, but there were a few where you can see some of the lines. no one knows why they were drawn in the sand since no one except for those flying above could make them out. it wasn't until someone flew over them 50 or 60 years ago that they were even known to be there. i have a couple books and photobooks which should help give more information and sights than the photos i've tried to take and post below. if you click on the photos you can see them larger and try to make out some of the lines and shapes. there were some really cool lines that look like a monkey and a spider and such, but i'm not sure i got great photos myself. you can read more about the nazca lines from the websites i mentioned before.


this one you can sort of see what they call 'the astronaut' in the side of the mountain

here's a look at the plane i was in for the 30-minute trip over the nasca lines. it was a 6-person seater and i was up in front next to the pilot, hence the photo of the mechanics of the plane

this was the bus i rode for 7 hours to nasca and 7 hours back:

ok, i haven't had the energy to do anything the last several days. i think i caught some bug in peru. bleh. it's a great weight-loss program though. anyway, here are a few pictures from peru. i'll post more soon.

downtown lima



road trip to the recently found pyramids of caral, with some pictures of my friends nathan and julia, their baby malaya, and the peruvian friend and her two sons:

2am sprite

2am sprite, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

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photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

shave?

shave?, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

i'm back from peru. all is well. the time difference is minimal, two hours, and i got tons of sleep from the altitude sickness and all. stomach still grumbles a bit and a little congested, but i'm well. i'll post some pictures from the amazing sights of peru in the coming days when i have more time at my computer. catching back up at work and all it entails right now.

back from peru haggard and unshaven

back from peru haggard and unshaven, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

i am fine. do not worry. i am much better now that i have been in lima the last 24 hours. much better. it was mostly the altitude from the andes. i am waiting for my redeye flight tonight to take me home. i will post again from san francisco. all is well.

this is me partaking in lovely oxygen, which i partook as often as i could while in the andes mountains. i had a great difficulty catching my breath in cusco and machu picchu and was simply incredibly weak and tired the entire four days i was in the andes mountains area

and this is a picture of the wonderful women who took good care of me at the garden house in cusco, doris y maria:

and this is their beautiful inn:


oh yeah, and here's an obligatory picture of machu picchu:


i will say i was surrounded by gorgeous scenery throughout the mountains and i have tons of pictures of beautiful rivers and green mountains and mist. i just was very ill during the whole time...

thankfully i am back in lima. the andes mountain areas were very bad for me. very bad. there is such a thing as altitude sickness and i learned about it the hard way.

immediately upon arrival to cusco, i was incredibly tired, as i hadn't slept much in 24 hours, which is a big bad situation to begin with. so i went straight to bed at my lovely 'garden house' inn. very wonderful place with sweet people. i slept for a few hours, but i wanted to have dinner in cusco and see some of the city before i went to sleep. so i did, and just became more and more tired. my head hurt. and every step i took was three times the energy usually needed. the altitude takes away so much energy. i went back to my inn, slept, but had to wake up at 5am to catch my train to aquas calientes which is the town at the base of machu picchu. the train was wonderful. but i was exhausted once i arrived there and i immediately took a nap. i wanted to catch the last bus up the hill to machu picchu so i could see it a bit that night, and then return again in the morning for a full day of it.

but i was incredibly weak. very very weak. and my stomach was needing to explode. i got to machu picchu and the first thing there is a series of stairs and stairs and stairs up. i didn't think it was possible as weak as i was. and it pretty much wasn't. although i made it up to the top, i became violently ill at the top, violently, violently ill, at the top, where i was going to take a picture of myself at the top overlooking machu picchu. all i could do was find a rock that allowed me to sit next to a wall and try to breathe and try to relax. but it was no use. i couldn't even imagine heading back down the hill to go home, let alone trying to see machu picchu in its entirety. i managed one or two pictures, but i couldn't do much more. i was so sick, violently, did i mention violently?, yes violently, and it was a horrible experience i was to try my best to forget completely.

upon arriving back at my hotel, i slept for nearly 24 hours. i did not go back up the next morning as planned. i could not even get out of bed. i was so weak and tired. the only thing that got me out of my bed was needing to catch the train back to cusco that afternoon. and i did so, eating only a few crackers and drinking lots of water. i made it back to my inn in cusco where they were so sweet and took care of me. it's an inn run by two sisters and they considered me their son and treated me very well. they put me on oxygen several times, gave me tea, gatorade, and some toast, and put me to bed.

thankfully i am back in lima where i feel like i can breathe again. i feel much better. not completely, but much better. and i plan to take the next day pretty easy here in lima, resting in my suite (free upgrade!) and limiting food to chicken soup and stuff like that.

never mention machu picchu to me again. awful awful experience. it's not the place's fault. just a horrible experience for me. very sadly...

i am currently in cusco, peru. not much internet access here other than stopping at cafes. while traveling in the andes mountains the next few days, i probably will not be able to be online much. today is cusco, tomorrow is machu picchu, saturday is machu picchu and returning to cusco, sunday is back to lima where i will have more ability to update. all is going well. peru is lovely.

waiting for my flight to cusco rightnow. airport has wifi. been upan traveling since 3am wednesday. it is 530am now on thursday. had agreat bus trip back andforth to seethe nazca lines and fly over them. arrived backto my Lima hotel around midnight and just never had a chance to sleep before heading here to airport. upon arrival in cusco around 7am I can go to my b&b and sleep for a while. having fun, just so much to do in so little time

non stop traveling here in peru, and i'm exhausted. yesterday, as mentioned, i went to the pyramid archeological finds in caral and another place i forgot its name. both have only recently been discovered within the last 10-15 years and they are more archeological digs than full pyramids as of yet. they were simply found underneath the hills that are out in the desert as people started digging. also a very tiring trip though because i arrived in lima around 1am monday morning, went to bed at 2am, and we left for the trip to caral at 6am. then the trip was 3 hours there, a few hours traveling around, and then we returned to lima around 6pm. had dinner, went around the city of lima at night a bit, and finally got to bed very late last night. so with that, i slept in today and only did one major activity which was to go into central lima and see the church of san francisco which has underground catacombs. unfortunately they do not allow pictures in the church at all! so i can't show you my own photos, but i have a few postcards, but it's not the same. no pictures! bleh.

now i am going to bed early because in the morning tomorrow, at 3:30am, i am going to catch a bus for a 7-hour bus trip to nazca to fly over and see the nazca lines. then when that is over, i will take another 7-hour bus trip back to lima and return to my hotel around 11pm. then, on top of that, on thursday, i am also leaving around 3:30am to catch my flight to cusco. i hopefully will sleep in cusco thursday upon arrival! i am going to be so sleepy. my trip to machu picchu is friday and saturday and i'll have time to relax over those days. i return to lima on sunday for one last day... too short a trip and too much to do. i'll post pictures later when i have more time.

i have arrived in lima, peru, at the radisson hotel in miraflores area. i had a really nice flight from los angeles. i am getting better at flying... my friends are taking me to caral tomorrow early in the morning so we´ll what that is all about. i posted a link in a previous message about what and where caral is. i will be in touch. all is well.

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

so we had a different travel day yesterday that we thought. i had to wake up around 3am saturday morning to catch a shuttle to the airport for a very early morning flight to los angeles to catch my flight to peru. however, after checking in and going through security and being all set, the flight to los angeles was suddenly cancelled. so i had to go back out and start all over again, going through a long line of passengers who were upset about the flight being cancelled, and finally arriving at the teller who had me booked on a slighter later morning flight to los angeles, with enough time to still catch my peru flight. thankfully i had about 5 hours originally in los angeles to play around with being late.

then upon arriving to the international section in los angeles and waiting in line for my tickets to peru, i was approached by a handsome stranger, ha, just kidding, well, maybe he was, anyway, he said that they were needing volunteers to fly the same flight tomorrow because they were overbooked. they were offering $1200 worth of flights anywhere lan airlines flies and putting me up in a nice hotel in los angeles for the night with food vouchers. of course this would mean losing a day in peru and losing a day with my friends, but i kept thinking about how i would finally be able to see Rapa Nui/Easter Island in Chile because it costs a lot to go there (the flight from Chile to the island is around 500 on its own, but the flight to Chile). but with that size of flight voucher with lan (which is the only airline that flies there, as well as areas throughout southamerica, i could easily build a great free trip to southamerica later this year. so for one lost day of my peru trip, i'm getting a second full southamerica trip later.

so i took the deal. i contacted my friends in peru and let them know. they were having hotel troubles for my arrival anyway, so it was going to work out better arriving later. and i was shuttled to my hotel near lax, where i was given a big two room suite and vouchers for lunch and dinner and breakfast today, so much food, and i just have been resting and enjoying the hotel over the night. now i'm in preparations to go back to lax via the shuttle and get on my peruvian flight, where i'll arrive tonight and hopefully more rested than i would have been with traveling all day on saturday as had been originally planned.

l a hotel

l a hotel, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

Voy a Peru!

when i can, i'll post updates and photos here. don't know how often that will happen though. see you soon. :-)

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.