Vershun’s Brain Dump

OK so this was 2 years ago but I found a little writeup I did for the forums I post on. Hopefully someone will benefit from this.

Warning!  OK granted I wrote this but it was 2 years ago and I don’t feel like rewriting it so if parts are stupid blame my old self.

First flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina to pick up my best friend who’s been studying there.

Here’s our first night’s dinner (+ a chick we found) for $10:

Went to the mauseleum the next day, which is like an above-ground graveyard where, even in death, people get a plot of land.

roffle (yeah, I’m 8 years old).

Here’s an interesting story. This chick had epilepsy in the 40’s and she had a seizure and “died”. They threw her in a tomb and a couple days later they noticed it had moved. Turns out she was alive and woke up and tried to get out but the lid was too heavy (made of stone). Anyway, there were scratch marks and shit inside the coffin but she was dead from suffocation. New one was built.

GET OUT OF LIMA AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. SMELLS LIKE EXHAUST, LOOKS LIKE SHIT, SOUNDS LIKE BEING PENETRATED WITH A BIKE HORN.

A few days later we were in Pisco, Peru. Here’s a picture of a wall seperating our nice ass hostel from shitty ass Pisco. It’s depressing how removed tourists are from the real culture.

Did an awesome boat tour there and a bus ride around the desert.

Sexiest bathroom I’ve ever used.

Then it was sandboarding/wine tasting in Ica, where we found my friend’s twin (+ a little Napoleon Dynamite).

Colca Canyon near Arequipa is an unbelievable experience (second deepest canyon in the world), if you go to Peru, DO THIS TRAIL.

DO NOT PLAY SOCCER ON CRAZY BUMPY GROUND THE THE LOCALS WHEN YOU HAVE A 1500 METER ELEVATION GAIN HIKE THE NEXT MORNING!

Yeah, sprained my ankle pretty badly. The rest of the trip involved a lot of hobbling.

While you’re around Arequipa, might as well stop and watch the condors fly, biggest birds in the world with a wingspan of 12 ft. Our guide for Colca Canyon kept saying that if I couldn’t hike out I’d be food for his friend (the condors). I thought it was a joke, but he didn’t laugh when I did o.O.

We caught a flight to Puerto Maldonado which is still in Peru but nestled between Brazil and Bolivia. We only stayed here one night before our Amazon guides picked us up. If you plan on using this city as a jump before going into the Amazon, for Christ sake don’t you fucking dare stay there longer than you have to. It’s as hot as dog twat and smells like it too. Also, there’s bugs there that rhino would turn and run from. A neat part of the city though is there’s almost no cars, all motorcycle.

Ah the Amazon via InkaTerra. If you want class up the ass, go with InkaTerra. $240 for 3 days/2 nights (a lot on a poor college budget), but it was insanely worth it. You get pampered like crazy there and still get to go out into the Amazon a lot since there’s tons of tours all the time.

Roughing it in the Amazon.

Our frog friend we found in our bathroom. Nurga was huge (about the size of your outstretched hand).

Went to Cusco a few days later and explore the ruins there. The Incas were crazy bastards. Here’s some of their stonework.

Here’s up by SaqsayWaman (sp?). Couldn’t resist a picture (remember I’m 8).

SAS Travels fucked us over big time. Basically they woke us up 5 hours before we were supposed to go on the Inca Trail which we booked 4 months earlier to tell us they forgot to buy the permits. They offered us a different trek for like 50 bucks off (so $270). Still a bit drunk and tired as shit, we agreed.

The next morning we find out everyone that was going on that trek was paying $160, and our “special discount” was more of a “let’s see how much we can shove our penises into them.” So we said a big fuck you to the guys and they said they could refund some of our money but keep like $150 since we’re pulling out at the last minute.

Later that day we went to corporate and got a full refund.

Random picture of one of the main churches in Cusco

We hung out with this singer (left) for a while named Elias. These guys were way chill from Columbia and incredible musicians. If you’re in Cusco be sure you get your ass up to The Muse from enormous drinks and good music.

Since we had a couple extra days now since we go to Machu Picchu (fuck you SAS), we went to these caves up on the hill above SaqsayWaman. It’s not very touristy which is awesome and it’s really fun to explore. Tell your taxi from Cusco you want to go around 2-3 kms further up the road past SawsayWaman until you reach a sign for The Temple of the Moon. Go across the road and you’ll find lots of rocks which turn into caves and tunnels.

Picture from deep inside one of the caves only using the LEDs on my headlamp.

Aguas Calientes is a small town at the base of Machu Picchu and basically you have to go through it to get to Machu Picchu unless you’re going via the Inca Trail (fuck you SAS). This is probably the coolest mountain town I’ve ever been to (going to school in a mountain town for the past 2 years has kinda made me a bit of an elitest). If the Rocky Mountains are broad, the Andes are sheer. Actually some of the mountains there dwarf the Rockies, getting up to heights of 21,000 ft extremetely quickly.

Picture of Aguas Caliente.

Next day was Machu Picchu. THIS ALONE MAKES THE TRIP TO PERU WORTHWHILE. Make sure you get up at around 3:30 AM and hike up to Machu Picchu. You’ll get there around 6 AM right when it opens and being one of the first in to the park is absolutely incredible. The buses come quite quickly and Machu Picchu becomes Disney World later and loses a lot of its magic. When we went there was an early morning fog which made it that much cooler.

Machu Picchu in the morning.

View from the top of Huaynu Picchu (the tall peak). Took a while for the fog to clear up enough but well worth it.

Last picture of Machu Picchu before we left for the day ~3 PM

The next few days was a combination of traveling back to Lima, puking and consitantly feeling sick for the next couple days, flying to Buenos Aires, getting searched by random cops in the street, puking some more, and coming home yesterday.

Conclusion: Peru is pretty fun, we had a run of bad luck though. If you go be sure to do the Inca Trail (fuck you SAS), Colca Canyon, and the Amazon (InkaTerra if you can). Also, ALWAYS have a roll of toilet paper on you. There’s rarely toilet paper in any public bathrooms and be sure to remember to throw the toilet paper in the trash in the stall NOT in the toilet as their plumbing/sewage systems suck.