16 hour bus rides are as fun as they sound

I´ve come to realize i´ll have quite a bit of morning time since apparently no one does anything here before 10 oclock am. This being said i´ll beef up these entries a little....but not much..that would mean i have a blog...and blogs are stupid.

So last we were in huacachina sandboarding which was a incredible. Then we headed to nazca to see the famous "nazca lines". Upon arriving in Nazca, we got into a cab which was to take us to the airport. Now, aaron and I typically just converse normally in english since for the most part no one around us can understand what we are saying. After we started heading to the airport, we realized we were going to be there 3 hours early, since we thought our flight was in the afternoon. I started trying to ask the cabbie, who had been arranged by the tour agency, what time our flight was¨..."a que hora es" (at what time is) then i look back at aaron and say "do you know the word for flight? The cab driver just looks over at us and then back at the road. Aaron says to me "I don´t think he is going to know, hes just the cab driver." So then i start trying to ask again...and our cab driver (carlos) turns and says in PERFECT english "oh, do you want to know what time your flight is?" jaw..floor..glad we kept our mouths shut. Carlos was cool.

the flight over the lines was alright, minus the fact that I was sitting in the co-pilots seat in a rickety old 5 seater cessna. I mean with all my flying experience i guess that makes sense. Then we were taken on a tour of these ancient lines which were probably quite interesting if our pilot wasn´t tilting the plane 90 degrees to each side and then screaming over the headsets which direction to look. "TO THE RIGHT TO THE RIGHT, ASTRONAUT TO THE RIGHT" oh really...so you didnt want me to actually look the the left, into space and see a real live astronaut...which...also..come on..your trying to tell me back in 500 AD these guys were drawing astronauts in the sand? Call it what it is...a bald dude waving at space. Calling it grandpa would be a decent description.

next we took a 16 hour bus ride to cusco. 16 hours to cover 300 miles. think about how many curves that is. Needless to say we didn´t get much sleep. Also, they only had one ticket in first class, and one regular so i let aaron take the first class since he is taller and peru isn´t really built for people his size. Although the two arent all that different there are two distinct differences. First is that the seats are much wider in first class, so im guessing he didnt have a very large peruvian man elbowing him at every turn. Second...i was the second row from the front on a two story bus with an all glass front. So as we twisted and turned through the fog on elevated mountain roads, i stared at our inevitable death while aaron wasn´t able to see this from the first class compartment on the first floor. neither of us slept much, and were pretty happy just to get here alive, and get some sleep.

Now we are in Cusco, which is a beautiful little city nestled in the mountains. cobblestone roads. beautiful blue skies and sun. We´ll be learning some spanish here, mountain biking, and heading out friday for a 4 day trek to macchu picchu. I´ve also fulfilled my life long dream of owning an alpaca wool hooded sweatshirt, with alpacas on it. Couldn´t be happier.

having issues with uploading pictures. apparently they have keyboard which can make signs like ¿¡Ñªº €ç but can´t download picasa to their computers. as soon as i can get them up i will. hope you are all doing well. im a blogger now i suppose. im so disappointed in myself. what a sell out.