HOME!!!

Made it home! pics and videos will be updated soon!!!!

vip lounge, woohhoo!!!!

Flew to Lima today and we have wifi again at the hostel, (yay Loki!) and we had a 4 hour layover in Chile, so we ponied up 30 bucks each for the vip lounge, and woot it was worth it!!
all you can drink alcohol, cable tv, shower's, food the works!!!! We watched a couple movies, took a shower got a little toasted and time flew by!
gonna have to do that again.

We are safe back in Lima, fly out in a couple days, to home. I have to say I'm looking forward to coming home and talking to folks who can understand me.

lane

La Cabrera - An Orgy of FOOD!

So we have heard about this restaurant in Peru several times and Bolivia as well. It has been written up in the new york times.

First off the service in Argentina restaurants are second to none. NEVER before have i had such a experience at a restaurant, these people SET the bar for waiters around the world, and I have never seen anything so close. WE have been several places and only once was their service "standard" like an American restaurant. everything else, including small dinners have AWESOME service.
So back to La Cabrera, we arrive and they have seating on the sidewalk in as well as inside, the Hostess says there is a 45 minute wait, we arrived at 10:30 at night. So we get on the list, ans she uncovers a champagne bucket and pours us both a glass of champagne while standing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant!! Couple glasses later, we get seated inside.
We are brought a bread basket with 5 different types of bread, and a a whole roasted head of garlic, and ricotta red bell pepper spread.
We ask what the best bottle bottle of wine the waiter recommends, and he says the cheapest is the best at 40 pesos, we say ok, then ask for a recommendation on the steak, and makes a recommendation, we say ok, and then I ask if I should order a side and he said, no it come with accompaniments. So he says the steak is big enough for 2.

WELL, we get this HUGE steak with 13 ramekins filled with hot and cold accompaniments, apple sauce, pickled garlic, green beans, some bean salad, heart of palm, and other yummy stuff, and splits this steak in half, each half fills the plate.
AMAZING STEAK.
Then we order the lava chocolate cake, come with 2 scoops of ice cream and the delicious berry jam stuff ever.
This entire meal costs like 200 pesos, this is the equivalent of 65 American dollars. 5 star dining.

I have a steak hangover this morning.

here is a picture of the setting

We are flying out soon.

Iguza Falls!!!!

Flew into Iguaza falls and stayed at this cute hotel, the room actually reminded me of my favorite house on Orcas island, it had a loft for the bed. We went on a extreme adventure tour, where we did rock climbing, repelling and went on 2 very high zip lines. We went on a jungle walk again, this time learning about traps, and then a boat ride where we saw Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina all meet at a fork in the river.

Then we wondered the town a bit, then up early the next morning for one of the 7 wonders of the natural world, the thing rated #1 on waterfalls.com, Iguaza Falls!
We ditched our tour guide and paid a boat operator to take us close to the falls, and they are AWESOME, so much water, so much power. I could go on and on, ill throw up a picture because i have not uploaded pictures very much, not much time. We walked the top part and devils throat was so amazing, and that is where i filled up my first 8gig memory card on the camera! A Hi-5 later I popped in another card(of course i have 2!!!)
It is butterfly season, and holy bugbomb batman, it was thick with butterflies, that exhibit at the Seattle center for butterfly's, it is like a sand box compared to the ocean. Every color, every shape, so much fun.
Back to the Buenos Aries!!

Lane

Welcome to Iguza Falls!!

Hola from Iguza falls!!



we arrived today and am at the hotel, we have not seen the falls yet but excited to see them tomorrow. we flew in today and tood a xtremem tour of the jungle, where we got demonstrations of jungle traps, then did some rock climbing then did these huge zip lines, then did some repelling down the place we climbed up, then went on a river tour where we saw uragway, brazil and argentina at once!!! where all 3 contries meet.



its tropical and nice here, we will tour the falls tomorrow, then we are back to boenis aires tomorrw for a day then off to lima for 2 days then back home!!



its been a fun trip but i am ready to talk to someone who speaks english.



one thing about bonis aires i absolutely LOVE is the subway system, it truely kicks ass and is a never endding amusement for me. i try to take it everyone, if only 4 blocks. its 92 cents to get in the subway system, once in you can switch subs to go every which way, and BTW 92 cents is a little less than 30 cents americaan.



we had the most truely spectaculat dinner ever last night in buenois aries, all you can eat steak, the best you ever had, all you can drink wine, which was excellent, well all you can eat everything with a tango show, for about 55 bucks each, that with tip.



well enough bragging for now, until next time, CIAO!

Welcome to Buenos Aires!!!

Well we flew into Buenos Aires last night and took the public bus to downtown area where we foud a hotel to stay at. They say that Buenos Aires is the Paris of South America, and i can tell you that I felt a immediate connection to this very cool city. There is some of the Best steak houses in the world here and I cant wait to sink my teeth into a few.
This bustling city is awesome so fay and has cool door knobs, we just ate lunch at this Aire Acondicionado Petite Restaurant.
The restaurant service here is incredible, its like service from a 5 star restaurant but we just spent about 30 bucks for a 3 course lunch.

we are trekking to Iguza falls soon but are on our way to a Sunday market.

until next time

CHOW!
Lane

Videos!!!!

I have started uploading videos to You Tube, here is the first from monkey island

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bS2xq4iJn0

Smuggled Across the Border into Bolvia!!!

So its like this, Bolivia is all buddy buddy with Venezuela, and now Bolivia does not like Americans much. So they enacted a 135 dollar visa fee for Americans! So we are talking to our travel agent and she is trying to sell us this 1 day tour into Copacabana to see lake titicaaca the highest navigable lake in the world and hey its Copacabana, the hottest spot north of Havana!. Well we tell her about the visa expense and she says no problem, no problem, we ask her several more times about the visa situation. She assures us its no problem because we are going for only 1 day and with a tour and that its ok and we don’t need a visa or pay the almost 300 bucks for the both of us.

Well we trusted this booking agent, because hey, its her job right? Well, , we get to the bus station to goto Bolivia and they start making fuss that we don’t have the visas. They start trying to get us to get the expensive visas for Bolivia and we start making a fuss that we want all our money back for this little trip to Bolivia, we call the booking agent but get the head office and have a translator and there is lots of talking then suddenly everything is OK, and they load our bags into the bus.
Well they basically smuggle us into Bolivia, yeah, illegal aliens in a country that is hostile towards Americans. I know, I know, not smart, but hey it was a little nerve-wracking fun.
We toured Lake Titicaca and the island of the sun (more ruins YAY) and then back, to one of the crappiest hotels we have yet to stay you are gonna LOVE the shower head with the raw wires going into it. We slept like crap and then the smuggled us back into Peru the next day.
So here we are at the Hotel El Buho (owl) and its like a palace compared to the craphole in Copacabana. Yeah and Copacabana is NOT the hottest spot north of Havana, I don’t give a flying fling WHAT Barry Manilow says!!!!!!!!!


We are safe and sound back in Peru which feels a whole lot more friendly now for some strange reason.


Lane

Spiders & Monkeys & Caimen OH MY!

Well we got back from our 4 day jungle tour and WOW it was freaking cool. got SOOO many photos and videos, thank goodness they had electricity from 5 too 9 everynight to charge my camera, cuz i ran it down a few time.
the jungle trip photos start here:

http://www.modmasters.net/southamerica/main.php?g2_itemId=1881&g2_page=122

there is over 1600 photos now!!! CRIKEY!

Well this is a brief posting to let you all know we are alive and are catching a bus to Puno in 45 minutes. Then to Copacabana, oh yeah, just like the song!!! Then back to puno, then we fly out to Lima to a connecting Flight to Buines aires Argentina, for the remainder of our trip.

Until then

Later

Lane

One crazy week!

SO we are still in Cusco, Peru awaiting our tour to leave to the amazons on Friday. The city is beautiful and the culture and architecture is amazing. That said,,, after Machu Pichhu I became seriously ill. Lane was the best at taking care of me. The hostal we are staying at is right in the Plaza de Armas. It is a nice,comfortable,place with a loving staff. They gave Lane a local Doctor to contact for me and we where able to get the prescriptions we needed from the pharmacy next door. The staff took great care, in checking in on us. The doctor even called us to make sure I was ok. I feel much better today, but we are taking it easy....
On another note. As stated earlier we are staying in the center of Cusco and there have been numerous protests. I was at awe at the 1st because they where so peacefull and it was a true statement of them taking stands to improve their way of life. They are getting more aggressive according to the news reports. See link here:http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43608
They are NOT becoming aggressive to any of the tourists in fact they want us to understand their distress with the cost of gas and living,,,,however I am glad to be departing on Friday to the jungle for time in the peace of nature.
Maggie

Bug Bites and Train Rides!

Before I start off on this little blog, I have acquired over 900 pictures on this trip, and there are a couple of folks who probably want to see more of them so i put them all online!!!
http://www.modmasters.net/southamerica



Agues Calientes is at the bottom of Machu Piccu, we took the train from Cusco, a 5 hour ride which is a good view,but a little cramped.
We arrived and got in our hostel it was a little smelly but the town was cute and 100% geared for tourists. You have to purchase you Machu Piccu ticket then you have to get a your bus ticket, there is a fleet of 20 buses that just go nonstop from the town up to Machu Piccu and back in a circle all day.

Well we rested up that night and got up at 4:45 am to catch the first 5:30 am bus because we wanted to see the sunrise. Well, , , when we got up there its was completely covered in fog and mist, but it was cool ! We found llamas roaming freely (llama's in the mist!!!) and petted them, and then it cleared up and BAM!!! What a sight to behold. I usually take a month to drain my camera battery, we drained it (it was freshly charged) that day I tell you, the pictures are endless; hence the new website I put a BUNCH of them up on. We spent about 10 hours trekking the ruins.

At one point Maggie and I laid down and fell asleep when we awoke there was a bunch of these weird vines that had covered our legs!! Here is the pic:

JUST KIDDING!!! I made the mistake of taking my pant legs off for about an hour (MAX). I was eaten ALIVE, Maggie said, "Lane, look at your legs!" It had no less then 20 of these sand flies thingies eagerly feeding off of my virgin white legs. They sure like us Seattle boys!!!!!!

Well it does look bad but they don't itch near as much as it looks, Maggie packed some benedryl so everything is gonna be ok. I have been used to Cusco which is in the high dessert, there are virtually no bugs, so I was unprepared for Machu Piccu (my bad).

We are headed into the amazon rain forest in the couple of days but FEAR NOT!! I have 100% DEET on standby for those little biting bastards!!!!!

Well we are back in Cusco now and planning out the rest of our trip. We are gonna go shoot down some rapids (Urubamba river) with a tour, one day, and then we are off to the amazon rainforest for a 4 day adventure with Eco Amazonia and then its back to Cusco, then off to Puno on Lake Titicaca, then off to La Paz, Bolivia then down to Argentia (if we don't run out of time) then fly back to Lima to head home....

until then, Chow!

Welcome to Cusco

Well we made it safe and sound to Cusco, this city is like 11,000 feet high. So getting off the plane you are gasping for breath, what fun. We arrive at our hostel, LOKI, and it's a huge building built in the 1400's, this place is OLD and ironically the wireless Internet connectivity is almost as old, which does not work. So I worked my networking magic and and could still not get it to work, HUMPH! this is on hodge-podge network, i=I did however get the cat5 network cable to work in our room after plugging in a few switches. HURRAY!!!!!

The altitude sickness is definitely gonna hit you HARD! This is not a fun time, you feel dizzy, short of breath and almost wanna throw up. I took my prescription meds (paid full price in the states, but its available here for a FRACTION of the price, oh well) and the meds kicked in, it causes parts of your body to tingle, yeah tingle, its a little wired, first it was my fingers then my toes then the heel of my feet were tingling . In fact they are tingling now as I write this blog. They offer us the cocoa tea that really does work in helpping ease the symptoms. It is a very flavorfull tea that definitley has helped with our ailments of altitude sickness. They keep an endless supply of the tea and an oxygen take due to the 1 in 20 chance od even an athelete getting mild to severe altitude illlness.



This town is AMAZING its sooooo old, this building the Loki hostel is over 400 years old! http://www.lokihostel.com/cusco/the_house/history amazing history and archetype. There are soooo many pics we have taken and I can't upload them all but we will try!!



We are gonna tray Cuy tomorrow (Guinea pig) :-)



So we are having lots of fun and then lots more. here are some pics!!!!

Protest in Cuzco over the incredible hike in prices due to tourism. We being tourists having breakfeast at the Plaza de Arms where a bit captivated and a little uneasy at what may happen. Maggie bravley srtormed the crowds for pictures and believe it or not they gladly led me ahead of the crowd to do this. The Andean culture is very friendly and I do feel it is unfair of the inflation of costs due to the escalation of tourism in Cuzsco!!

This is the main plaza where the protest happened but this is awesome shot Lane got with a bunch of pigeons flying around. They almost looked like they where having their own little protest.This is one of the many amazing churches in Cuzco. St. Theresa's Cathedral

This the view from our room!!!! yeah it was that cool. There is a cubbky hole in the window that is nice to ssit in and look over Cuzco out to the Andeas. The temperature here is very sunny and around the mid 70's, but dropps very cold in the evening.

This is a shot from the plane, this was the Andies mountain. very , ,, brown. So glad we elected to fly instead of a 22 hour bus rid of this brown landscape. With very dangerous and curvy mountainside streets.

Well that's it for now, we are off to Machu Picchu, tomorrow morning early!!! We will be blogging from Agues Calentes tomorrow hopefully!!!

Chow!

We are in Cusco!

Quick update to let you all know we are safe in Cusco. Lane has a touch of altitude sickness, but this place is the most amazing and spiritual place. We have many pics and stories to update. We are at the Loki Hostel and it is an amazing place to stay! We miss and love you all....promise we will update this blog ASAP!!

Welcome to Lima!!

Well we got up early in the morning with about 2 1/2 hours sleep after packing and headed to the airport for our 7am flight out of Miami for Ecuador then on to Peru. We arrived a couple of hours early for the plane and was killing time at the airport. At about 45 minutes before the flight left we wandered over to the loading gate and was hearing them say final call for our flight, and so we gave them our tickets, and they asked that we stand aside and wait. A little nervous we did so; then they presented us with our new Business Class tickets!

They upgraded us, and we are not sure of the reason, but WOW first class on a 4 hour flight was NICE!
They of course wait on you hand and foot, but the seats have crazy controls and even lay flat! I

have to say that LAN airlines is the best airlines I have ever flown.

Well we landed in Ecuador and had to wait for 5 hours, then off to Peru, here is a pic of Ecuador.There was no first class for this 2 hour leg of the trip, but where well rested from the first leg. When we landed we had a couch sufing buddy waiting for us at the airport, Oscar, he was AWESOME!!! We grabbed a Taxi back to his place where he had another couple of couch surfers staying at this large house. We actually got our own room! There was a little party that night at his house as it was Saturday night and his friends were over; everyone was drinking Pisco Sour's. Here is a photo of Oscar and another of our beds in Lima

The next morning we were up and went with Oscar to this restaurant and had our first Cevechi. This is fish that is soaked in this lemon or lime marinade for a few minutes. The Peruvian fruit has a special acidity that actually cooks the fish with no heat. It was yummy!

After that we went with Fernando and 2 of his friends to Miraflores, which is a section of the city. These are paintings that were for sale there. There were some awesome pieces of work there. Some were only 7 bucks!!

As you may or may not know Peru is mainly Catholic so Baroque architecture is very prevalent and extremely ornate in Peruvian culture.

This is the door of that church.

After that we walked around lots more we snapped this photo from my dying camera. We had more awesome food and then a off to bed. its late so I'm wrapping up and will post more later!!!!

Recovering...

Well I am definitley feeling much better than I was this morning. Lane took good care of me and beware of Wet Willie's " Call a Cab" drink!!
We did have a great time and I am glad Lane has a funny story to tell everyone now...
I have to Miami is definitley and eclectic place. I think the inventor of the bedazzler is from here...let's just say that there is somthing to be said about "Miami style". ( Pictures coming soon)
So we are packing away and catching an early AM flight to Peru... We enjoyed our adventure in Miami and are ready for the next chapter of this trip.
Here are a few more pictures from Miami and we will post more as we get setteled in.
The weather was not too bad for a tropical storm coming through. we really enjoyed the lightning storm!

Welcome to Miami!!

Well hello friends and family!! this is the new blog Maggie and I will use to keep you all up to date on our travels abroad!

I purchased a new laptop and it is TINY, the placement of the shift key is VERY awkward and hard to use so if i forget to capitalize a letter please forgive me.


SO
We took the red eye from Seattle to Miami, got on board our 737 (YAY BOEING!!) and discovered that we were in a emergency exit isle. This meant two things, first we had to memorize the escape card, and second our seats did not recline (SUCK!!!). so the flight could have been better but we landed safe and sound in Miami airport at 5:30 am. Took a taxi to our hotel in Miami south beach. the royal hotel is about 3 blocks from the beach and is a awesome price, but we think it was so good because of the fact there is no real lobby as they are rebuilding it.

We arrived at the hotel at like 6am, and could not check into a room until 8am, so we walked around for a couple hours, and saw the sunrise over the Atlantic ocean. a very welcoming sight, the ocean was warm and salty.

our hotel room is very, ,, arty. its totally white, everything is white, the bed, the furniture, the white cold marble floor, the drapes,everything. kinda weird. the furniture in this room looks like it came directly out of the movie beatlejuice, I expect the chair couch thingy to start walking away at any minute. here is a photo





























So here for the first night we went to this place called wet willies, they had more slushy style drinks then you can shake a stick at!! this place had these drinks called "call-a-cab" and this was no lie, we had 2 drinks each and we were done! things got silly after that.

this is the slushy style machines, there was 22 of them here alone. each one will put you on your kiester







Every restaurant on ocean drive has their dishes of food on display, so i got photos of me with the various beauties trying to entice people to eat that each place.



Well now its the next morning and Maggie is really not feeling well, she had a little to much slushy. so until I can post again.

WELCOME TO MIAMI!