Our time on the road seems to be moving forward with perpetual motion.  It feels like we just got to Peru and now we are already moving on to Bolivia.  In hindsight the route we took was a little bit backwards. Not geographically, as we planned it.  But rather the ideal way to enjoy Peru.  We spent the first half of our time lounging around the northern beaches and the second half toughing it out.

Even though we enjoyed kicking it on the beach and drinking rum, it always felt like there was this small to-do list hanging over our heads.  Not to mention it would have been nice to relax in the warm sun after our trek in the Colca Canyon and trip to Machu Picchu.  Peru gave us many things to be thankful for:  The bus system is excellent and their buses can be quite nice if you feel like treating yourself, as we always seemed to do.  The food in general was a good step up from Colombia (sorry Colombia) and there seemed to be a lot more variety of hostels.  Unfortunately, as with any place that is well-known to travelers, at times there was an overwhelming amount of tourists and the locals seemed to be just a bit burnt out on catering to them.  The locals also have been able to pick up English far better than our ability to learn Spanish and so we too easily found ourselves forcing conversations in English.  This completely destroyed our motivation to be diligent students and our Spanish practice time has all but disappeared.

Food:
Peru´s food is pretty damn good!  It is a little hard to say how good because we did come from Colombia where we weren´t overley impressed.  They put the time and energy into their food to create a large variety of local and foreign cuisine.  I found myself eating cevichie any chance I got and the Pisco Sour is a drink we will be attempting to implement into our circuit of drinks when we get home.  The variety of baked goods is enough to make anyone pack on a couple of pounds and they have seemed to perfect the baked empanada.  Fresh aji or picante is available at any restaurant you visit and the fresh-cut peppers, whipped into a sauce, is a nice additive to anything.

Beaches:
We spent a decent amount of time on the Mancora surf beaches and also stayed in Huanchaco for a while.  Mancora is nice to relax, play in the surf, and drink some rum.  Huanchaco beaches are not a place you want to spend an enormous amount of time but is a great place to learn how to surf.

Top Rated For The Trip:
Obviously when you dream of visiting a place for ten years+, it is going to be hard to not rate it at the top.  Machu Picchu was an amazing site to see and we both throughly enjoyed it.  Surprisingly Lima also makes it onto our list.  We don´t normally enjoy busy, non-firstworld, cities.  They are packed full of people, noise, dirt, and lack the amenities you find when visiting a city such as Berlin (for example).  However, Miraflores and Barranco (two rich neighborhoods in Lima) provide the cleanliness, efficiency, and excitement that make a big city enjoyable.

Random Trip Facts:

Items lost:
– Sally´s debit card (likely left in an ATM machine in Lima)                                                                                                                         – Bret´s sunglasses (again – left at hostel bar)                                                                                                            – 50 Soles (Sally´s trip to the store to get more booze by herself proved to be unsuccessful when the clerk ripped her on the change back).
– The taste of good coffee. Peru exports most of their coffee and leaves the locals sipping on instant coffee.  I am not a picky coffee drinker and have done my fair share of tipping back the instant.  However, I didn´t know it was possible to make instant taste even worse than it already does.  Some of the places we stayed made it as thick as motor oil.  Others left it out to get cold and provided a microwave for you to warm it back up.  Terrible blow…

Items acquired:
– Bret´s sunglasses (again) turned into the front desk at the hostel

Current Running Rummy Scores:
Games are played to 350 and scored by the face value of the card.  Aces are worth one and face cards are worth 10.

Sally – 17 games won

Bret – 12 games won

Highest Score – 507 (Sally)

Lowest Score – 104 (Sally)

Please note: If my ass continues to get handed to me this segment of the blog will not only no longer be carried on, I will remove this portion as well.  That is all.