Back in the UT

Phew... we're home. Took us a couple days longer but we made it.

Homeward Bound

Huaraz has been great, along with the rest of Peru. Now it´s time to head home. We start our journey across oceans and the US today and should hopefully be home in the next couple days... cross your fingers for us. :D

Huaraz = Amazing

If I were to move to Peru, this would be my home. It´s absolutely gorgeous here. There are several glaciated peaks towering over the town. It took a couple days longer to get here, but the wait was definitely worth it. Once again the bus ride had me reviewing my life. If you ever travel down here I suggest you bring lots of dramamine and get all your life in order because you never know if the next curve in the road might be your last (this might be an over exageration, due to my paranoia of dying). The ride was definitely worth it! Being the starting point of many mountaineering treks, Huaraz provides a great place to relax and plan the next move. This morning we ate at a delicious little cafe called Cafe Andino which provided the best coffee and beautiful views of the white jagged mountain tops. Their banana pancake was delicious too. It was a little pricier than I would have liked, due to to it´s touristy nature, but what´s a few soles more for a taste of home?
Well we´re going to do a little planning today. Hopefully a small trek will come to fruition. See you back home around the 7th or 8th (if all the standby flights go as planned).

There are some pictures up!!

Slowly but surely pictures are being uploaded here's the website, http://lorenzo.smugmug.com/Joshi's/553594

We're in Trujillo resting until tomorrow when we plan on leaving for the mountains of Huaraz. Hopefully we'll be able to fit in a trek if our bank accounts allow. Now that were a week away from flying home I'm getting sad that it's coming to an end. What an amazing few weeks! I'll remember them always. This last week will definitely only add to the memories.

There are a couple things I'm excited for when I return:

• The concert series will be in full effect
• Bike riding
• Sunlight past 6pm
• Girl friends... not that I don't love Trent, Brad and Nyles.
• Not worrying about swallowing water in the shower... really! (SATC was spot on)
• Veggies... never figured I'd miss them
• My car- buses and taxis down here just don't cut it
• Hailey
• Stephanee's magical garden
• My bed and couch
• there are probably a few other things... I'll add them as they come to mind.

Things I will miss:

• Peru... yup... that's it... I could go into detail and say the beaches, rivers, waterfalls, mountains, ruins, jungle, people, food, and prices... but all in all it's great down here.

Kuelap- Hanging out with the people of the clouds

Yesterday was amazing! I don´t think I´ve fretted for my life quite as much as during the car ride up to Kuelap. Teetering on a dirt road who knows how many hundreds of feet above the river we climbed up to a ruin perched on top of a mountain. At one point the driver pointed to the ruin across the valley and thousands of feet above us... I didn´t /couldn´t believe that we were going to make it up to the top of that mountain. But, we did about an hour later. Kuelap is a ruin built by the Chachapoyan people before the Incas. They were able to make the structure blend perfectly into the surrounding landscape. Little is known about the people of the clouds because around 1500 the Chachapoyans were overtaken by the Incas. The ruins are still being unearthed today. It was truly amazing to see where these people lived. As usual I can´t wait to post pictures. Here´s a link to more information about the ruins, http://www.kuelap.org/kuelap/ .
Feistas Patrias is in a couple days on the 28th. It´s the country´s independence day. Hopefully we won´t be stuck in a bus during the festivities. We are heading to Chiclayo tomorrow then hope to catch a bus to Trujillo or maybe Cajamarca. A visit to Huaraz is in the works before we start our travels back home.

Lions and tigers and bears!! Oh my!

Well... not really. Although I did see some lions and tigers in the back of a truck (think circus) while on our way into Tarapoto. We´ve been here for a couple days enjoying the humidity... well not exactly enjoying it more tolorating it. Yesterday was great, we went rafting on the Rio Mayo. It was similar to the Moab daily, but hey... now I get to say I´ve rafted south of the equator! I´ve of course got pictures.. but you´ll have to wait to see them. There are also pictures of the waterfall we went to in the jungle!
Nyles is on a plane on his way home... I hope (crossing my fingers). It will be sad not having him around to make me laugh. Guess that Trent and Brad will have to kick it up a notch.
We´ve met some great people during our travels. There´s a girl we met on the river named Caitlin that we´re meeting up with for some grub in a few minutes, so I´d better get going. I promise I´ll try to update this more often with more detail... until then I´ll take as many pictures as possible so that you and I can enjoy this vacation of mine for weeks to come :D

It's a jungle out there

... or so I hear. We're heading out to Tarapoto which is in the north eastern part of Peru. It's the furthest into the jungle without flying or floating. Although, we hope to do some floating of the river rafting variety when we get there.
It's been pretty relaxing for the last day or two. Trent was a little under the weather with some funky stomach bug. He's better now... thankfully.
We'll be in Tarapoto for a couple days, it's supposedly a pretty large city so I may or may not be able to update this in the next couple of days. We're about to get onto a 20 hour bus ride... catch you on the flip side. Here are the pictures http://www.lorenzo.smugmug.com/Joshi´s until then.