Thanks to my wonderful mother and her negotiating skills, she got us a great deal at The Sheraton. After months of dumps, sleeping in crisp, white sheets and a choice of 5 pillows, I don´t give a shit how corporate Sheraton is…I was in heaven. Outdoor gym (complete with Turkish bath and sauna), swimming pool, cable TV..OMELETTE STATION..it was all a welcomed change.

There is really nothing to do in Medellin. We checked off most of the sites in one day and left ourselves shrugging with a “now what?” vibe. In reality, being in the hotel room with nice bottles of wine was fun enough. Most nights we were asleep by 11 and honestly, it couldn´t have been a better week. My birthday was spent poolside with my mom and these two great Irish girls I met in San Agustin. They came over with freshly made mojito mix and we didn´t leave the pool til the last drop. A great day followed by an interesting night out on the Medellin club scene. As a pre-party though we went to a nearby hostel where they were meeting up with some friends. The hostel was purchased a few years ago from a drug dealer that went to jail and I was joking that all they changed in the place were bunk beds and a sign on the door. The place is everything you would imagine a 1980´s drug dealers house would look like. . Tennis and basketball court, pool and pool house (which is now the hostel bar), lucite staircases, gold bathroom fixtures on burgundy sinks and tubs…just an amazing display of tacky.

That was the highlight though. Medellin is a boring place full of “wa, wah, wahhh” moments. The zen inspired barefoot park, more like a sandbox for kids. The park of lights, dim burnt out bulbs over an open concrete space. Just everything about the city is lackluster and insipid. To make matters worse, it is composed of just one highway on ramp to the next. It has to be the most pedestrian unfriendly place I have ever seen, making you feel trapped to your little area or in your car. I suppose that is why mega-malls are outrageously popular.  The important thing was being with my mom though. We had a Beverly Hillbillies joke about handwashing undergarments in the sink and hanging them through the window to dry, finding secluded sections of the parking garage-esque sunning deck so we could go topless, blowing smoke out the window, using every single towel and washcloth offered to us..oh the list goes on. She left today and I leave tonight for Bogota to cash in my birthday present of a flight back to Buenos Aires. As she left me this morning, she sang “You´ll have to pry me from the room” to the tune of Frank Sinatra´s “Fly me to the moon” and I´m still cracking up hours later. Thankfully prying wasn´t necessary and I´m leaving like a sophisticated lady that the staff here thinks I am….well, except for taking advantage of the free internet and coffee!

From Santa Marta, straight to Taganga where I splurged on a $17 a night room strictly based on the fact that it had a fan and more importantly, a pool. Even growing up through Florida summers couldn´t prepare me for the heat of Northern Colombia. The stifling, suffocating heat has everyone on the beach feeling like used  matches. The only relief comes from sitting in liquid, so from the ocean to the pool I commuted, only stopping for fresh smoothies and amazing fish. I had great meals in the shade of a lady´s hut on the beach. For $3, I feasted on fish soup, an entire grilled and very spicy fish, cooled down with sweet coconut rice, beans and fried plantains.  The sassy little lady, usually sipping rum and play fighting with her sisters was an added bonus.

A day in Taganga was enough so I headed to Parque Tayrona, a pristine beach about an hour and a half away. From the park entrance you can either rent a horse or hike the 2 hours to the first beach. The journey is steamy and tiring but is a great way to earn your privelige to be on such a lovely beach. When the palms part on the last leg of the trek and you see the crystal clear waters and white sand, it all makes sense. But who wants to settle for the first beach when there are more, less populated ones to discover? So another 45 minutes of trekking through forests with cicadas and howler monkeys competing in vocal ability. I also stopped to buy a coconut water from two Kogi Indian children who live up in the mountains of the park. Dressed in tatters with no other possesions besides coconuts and a machete, these kids took turns hacking open the fruit for me. Watching these skilled little kids weild that machete really makes you question the capability of children and how much we potentially limit that with safety concerns.

Anyway, there is nothing to do in Parque Tayrona except for eat, sleep, read and swim and I indulged in all but the eating since the only game in town serves gross and ridiculously overpriced food. The options for sleeping are tent or hammock so I chose hammock thinking it would be cooler. Now, falling asleep in a hammock while ocean breezes gently rock you to sleep is an undoubtedly luxurious feeling. Waking up a few hours later, however, is not. Hammocks are for napping, not a full night´s rest. I cocooned myself in my sheet and tried hard to tough it out as things flew by and went bump in the night. I got up to pee in the pitch darkness of the campgrounds and while doing my business behind a palm tree had the shit scared out of me (not literally) by a white horse, roaming through to graze. That same horse woke me up first thing in the morning looking a lot less ghostly in the daylight. A little too outdoorsy for me but an experience nonetheless.

From there, Cartagena which is even hotter than the others but with a gross beach and no breeze. The old city is absolutely spectacular but very touristy. I opted to spend my time with a 20 year old drug dealer who came to town for the weekend from Medellin to make some money to support his 6 year old! He introduced me to the really nice hookers (mostly trannies) working the block and to the cyclical nature of “cocaine tourism”…

A dealer sells coke to a gringo. Gringo walks away and dealer finds or calls a cop and gives a description of the gringo. The cop then finds said gringo, frisks him and finds the coke. He takes the coke, demands a bribe and then lets the gringo go. Cop returns to the dealer, gives him the drugs and a cut of the bribe money. If the cops dont find the drugs, they plant them anyway so its really a loose, loose situation there. It´s so hot and expensive in Cartagena so I was fine with just spending the two nights there drinking cold beers on the stoop of the hotel and taking it all in.

Niahm (pronounced Neeve) has a good friend back in Dublin who put her in touch with his family here. We made plans to go to a famous spot called “Andres Carne de Res” and decided to meet at their house for a few drinks before heading out. A 40 minute or so cab ride from Bogota later, we arrived to the gated home of this family. We were met by the father, (a succesful plastic surgeon), his lovely wife (an acupuncturist) and their two youngest of five; rediculously perky, identical twin, 19 year old girls (proudly displaying their fathers handiwork). The Aguagardiente (anis flavored grain alcohol) immediately began flowing and they were beyond happy to entertain such a good friend of their sons. The minutes turned to hours and one by one, friends of the sisters began showing up. Bottles upon bottles of Aguardiente and several fried empanadas later, we were antsy to check out Andres and leave the smokey kitchen full of drunken interrogators of our travels.  Not soon enough were on our way, in two car loads of kids ranging in age from 18 to 20.

“Andres Carne de Res” is a Colombian institution. About 15 years ago it was just a middle of nowhere steak joint owned by an eccentric guy, Andre. Now, its like a T.G.I. Fridays on acid compound with $20 cocktails and a loyal crowd of tourists and locals alike. Its sensory overload immediately with low ceilings full of bric a brac and bizarro artifacts. All drinks come served in coconuts or giant glasses that are too heavy to even hold.  Bowls of complimentary fresh and exotic fruits lay on every surface and masks from the sexy to grotesque are handed out as party favors. These very rich and slightly obnoxious teenagers kept passing us drinks to try and demanded we sip from yet another bottle of Aguaguardiente. The whole scene was  body shots level frat house but also a lot of fun. The staff really encourages people just to go nuts. I avoided dancing on table tops but getting down  in donkey and tiger masks and gorging ourselves on fruity cocktails was a blast. At last call, hundreds of paper hearts rain from the ceiling and the whole place just heaves with kitsch. They even have ¨Guardian Angels¨ who drive you and your friends home for about $70. One of the friends of the twins was the designated driver so we all had to cram into one car and go back to their place. The party was no where near ending at the house and more bottles of Aguaguardiente were introduced. It is because of this night, if I never drink it again, it will be too soon. Anyway, all of us nearing blinding drunk, woke up the parents and the dad was more than happy to come down and join the party. He is one of those kind of creepy parents you read about in newspapers who seem to live vicariously through his children and was beyond irritating in his demanding more rounds of shots and dancing. We had a mini Michael Jackson memorial in the kitchen by dancing to the hits and were sort of forced to entertain them as they kep the video camera rolling. Sometime around 4 or 5 am, the dad and I were salsa dancing, me in bare feet and him in my scarf, all of which is now documented. The highlight though was when one of the twins went to the garage for the two duffle bags of musical instruments. Everyone was handed at least one instrument (I got the maracas) and we jammed in the kitchen like a bunch of tone deaf, rhythmically challenged drunkards. It was a great moment but at this point, the sun was well in the sky and I was exhausted. Despite the heckling and peer pressure, I snuck away and found a bed in one of the spare rooms.

Noreen woke me at noon. We were all in bad shape and starving but since no one else was awake we didnt want to be rude and start foraging in their kitchen. We tried to make stirring noises and loudly as possible but to no avail. We watched ¨The Commitments¨in its entirety and the girls day dreamed about an Irish breakfast. I would have settled for coffee and a toothbrush. Anyway, around 2 the dad woke up and made us coffee and the saltiest eggs I have ever tasted to date. The girls got up around 4 and at this point we were just desperate to leave. The last band of the last day went on at 7 and at this pace and being an hour from Bogota there was no way we were making it. To add icing to the cake, the dad had sent someone for the ingredients for ajiaco. A soup which is the national dish in Bogota. I had mentioned the night before that I wanted to try it before I left the city so the dad took it upon himself to make it for me, claiming his was stellar. Ajiaco is not a simple soup so as you can imagine, we didn´t even taste it until 6. At this point, we had been with these people for about 20 hours and I was starting to feel trapped. Being in the clothes from the nigt before didnt help with that feeling and I was on the verge of tears wanting to leave. We continually threw hints into the conversation and kept using Rock El Parque as an excuse. That backfired completely when the mom suggested we all go together and the twins will drive us. They got horribly lost and by the time we were back in Bogota it was almost 8. They still wanted to go despite the fact that the concert was over and hundreds of thousands would be vacating the park. I said ¨no fucking way¨ and as soon as we pulled up in front of the hostel, I wished them luck getting home, thanked them graciously and dipped out. Noreen and Niahm joined my lead and we left them in the street looking hurt and rejected. They suggested going for a beer  and we just said no. I felt terrible but I really couldnt take another minute.

The next day I left Bogota. Great museums though…

I sat down next to a nice, 50 something year old guy. We chatted a bit about Cali and Colombia in general. He offered me a wafer cookie and that´s all I remember. Im pretty sure the drug was Scopolamine and its fairly common here as an aid in robbing people. My next memory plays out like a horror film..waking up in a vaguely familiar place and puking into the sink of an entirely white, tiled bathroom. Apparently, the police had to remove me from the bus and I must have told them the name of the hostel I wanted to go to or they found the list on me while looking through my stuff. I should have been taken to a hospital but that would be bad for tourism so instead they called a hostel to collect me and let me sleep it off. Whatever the case, Mike and Diana from Casa Blanca in Cali came to my rescue and brought me home with them.

After two days of rest, I still felt a bit naseous and had a massive headache but I came to Cali for one reason and that is to dance in the self-proclaimed salsa capital of the world. I was expecting a slighty modernized Cuba. A sexy, steamy, tropical town full of great street food and salsa blasting from every door. What I got instead was a pretty cheesy, late 90´s South Beach kind of place with an overabundance of Chinese take out joints. To be fair, I slept through Friday and Saturday nights and had to make do with a Sunday while being sober and over dressed in my jeans and tank top (the ladies wear borderline figure skating costumes but with 5 inch heels in lieu of ice skates). The dancing partners were slim pickins as well, with most guys averaging 5´8´´ and shrouded in clouds of hair gel and cologne. I made the effort though but didn´t have the experience I had gone there for. There´s always Medellin and Bogota….

Salento on the other hand…ahh…belisima! In the heart of the Zona Cafetera where Colombian coffee comes from. I´m happy to report, I´m finally getting decent grounds! I´m staying in a slightly too rustic plantation house overlooking the town and happy to be out of a big city. Last night, I met up with two Irish girls I met in San Agustin and an English girl from Cali and we went to the pool hall in town. By the looks of the guys in the place, women had never a) entered the establishment and b) attempted to play billiards there. A real dive full of bad lighting and old men that have probably been hanging out there their whole lives, it definitely had character. The scatchy, old standards that played on the speakers was muffled by the younger generation playing their drums in the plaza but no one seemed to mind. We played two terrible games, had some brandy in coffee and called in a night. Walking back up the hill, through the beautiful colonial town gave me an enormous sense of well being. This is the kind of town you come to Colombia for.

The next morning I began the 6 hour journey to San Augustin. The road there is so bumpy it is virtually impossible to read, write or even sleep and coming from a borderline narcoleptic like me that is saying alot. You have to keep your muscle very loose in order to avoid injury so everyone on the bus resembles epileptics flapping about with their eyes rolling back desperate for a few moments rest. The terrain, as usual, is stunning. Every pueblo has their makeshift futboll fields with sugarcane goals. White calla lillies grow by the road side and farms of strawberry fields, go on..well..forever. Roadblocks are common between the police and guerillas and the farmers take advantage of this captive bus audience to sell their delicious little wares.

Finally you arrive in the charming little town of San Agustin. Famous for its proximity to The Parque Arqueologico with over 100, unexplained Eastern  Island-esque statues some 3300 years old. It´s also famous for a type of mushroom, for which many believe the creators of these statues were on.

After checking into Casa de Francois, an amazing little mountain refuge on a small coffee farm, I wandered the grounds and then down to the town below. Francois is an older French hippie who has been living up there for the last 16 years. His gorgeous house is the perfect balance of roughing it and modern ammentities. Indoor plumbing under a thatched roof and cold beers from the fridge while lounging in a hammock..what more can you ask for?

The town is a little gem too. A real cowboy paradise. My first sight in the town was of two little boys sharing a horse and their older brother napping on another with a rump for a pillow. They offered me a tour of the town on horseback which I politely declined. Obviously they´ve been around horses all of their short lives and even though Im sure they´re deft handlers, something about riding around on a horse with a 7 year old doesn´t appeal to me.

I was sent out as a scout to find mushrooms for the trip to the Parque Arqueologico and ended up meeting a group of guys who had a farm where we could pick them ourselves. I went back to collect the four Irish people I had befriended and we all went on a mushroom picking adventure. We hung out on this farm drinking beers and dancing salsa on the porch with our new friends mustering the energy to go picking. We only found four though so the bounty was short but we did get to wander through coffee fields, orange and lemon groves, blackberry bushes and the roost of a 19 round undefeated champion cock fighter. I held him for a photo and got scratched so Im sure I have some kind of bird flu by now. Time will tell…

Tyler met me in Banos and we rented a buggy type vehicle and hauled ass around Banos and the route of the 7 waterfalls. We got incredibly lost which was half the fun and off roading downhill though the dirt, being chased by angry dogs and getting soaked going behind waterfalls made it one of the most fun days of late. That night we met up with a friend of his who told me the funniest story I have heard in quite some time so I will share it with you..While working at a bar in Ecuador for a while he discovered that many Ecuadorians believe that bats are old rats. Meaning when a rat beomes old it grows wings and become a bat until it dies. This guy, Mozz, found this incredulous and tried appealing to the younger, more educated people in the town. He would try to disprove the bats are old rats theory constantly and even showed them pictures online and info to prove them wrong. He became borderline obsessed with their theory and pulled aside the smartest of them one day and begged him to consider that bats and rats were seperate animals. The guy said he would get back to him and a few days later found Mozz in the bar. He walked in and said “Mozz, butterflies were once caterpillars”! Fucking brilliant comeback! Mozz had no way to argue and just left it at that.

Anyway, despite meeting a great group of people, I was antsy to get to Colombia though and left the next day for the 9 hour journey to the borders.

A disclaimer on bus travel in South America..

Like I have said before, I never thought a day would come where an entire day spent on a bus wasnt that big of a deal. Yes, the hours are often long, cramped and dirty with drivers seemingly on an impatient death wish. Yes, they blare the cumbia and reggaeton music or dubbed action flicks at deafening levels and the probability of getting robbed if you fall asleep is always high. That being said though, this is how you see, smell and taste a country. Some of the shit I have seen from the window of a bus will stay with me forever..cockfights, toddlers hitchhiking, women weaving and enough beasts of burden to keep the Rolling Stones in your head for days. The food as well has been an experience in and of itself. At every stop in Ecuador there are people immediately on the bus selling you something to try. They havent always been good but more often than not are pretty damn tasty (Except yesterday when I bought a bags of beans, onions, tomato and lime and wrapped them in what I thought was a tortilla but turnd out to be dried pig skin with hair, veins and all). Anyway, its these memories that will stay. Good and bad.

Coming into Colombia was absolutely stunning and pig skin free. The cumbia and reggaeton was replaced by an acceptable level of great salsa music and the countryside is a lush, tropical paradise. I was lucky enough to get a window seat that actually opened on the 7 hour ride to Popayan and the time was passed with a light misty rain keeping me cool. Columbia is so green. Not just one color green but every shade from deep emerald to chartreuse and its dotted with the most amazing flowers I have seen thus far. Coral colored hibiscus, fucsia buganvilias,  purples, lilacs and yellows exploding in clusters every few miles. Even the mountain shacks with their mud and bamboo walls and tin roofs weighted down with any randomly available heavy object are surrounded by these magnificent plants. Exotic fruit trees and tiendas with fading and peeling turquoise painted walls invite you to Colombia with a “See! Were not so bad” kind of vibe. At least that is how I feel thus far.

Not many people (Ecuadorians included) know about Mompiche so finding info on actually getting there was rough. Bus drivers would say “yeah, Im going there” and then drop you off 45 minutes later at a town that was closer to the route to Mompiche. We found a bus who could get us to a town called Chone but we would have to sleep there since transport for the night would be over by the time we arrived. Chone is so dangerous that the bus driver himself got off to ask a taxi driver to walk us the the “hotel” next door. The choice of having to sweat with the windows closed or leave them open with no screens on is never an easy one. Either way youre uncomfortable from the heat or from mosquitos and the restless sleep of thinking someone can climb in at any moment. I slept in my cotton cocoon, only mouth exposed for air and mace in my hand. The next morning we got a bus to Bahia de Caraquez. From there took a bicycle rickshaw, peddaled by a 15 year old to a boat. From the boat ride, a motorcycle rickshaw taxi to San Vicente. From San Vicente another bus and then a caro to an easily forgettable town. For those of you who have yet to experience budget travel in South America, a caro is a bus basically on top of a bus. We sat on sacks of rice on top of gas tanks on the roof of a packed bus. Its unbelievably dangerous and kids are constantly climbing off and on as the bus barely slows down for them. To add to the experience, it began to rain but that was sort of a nice relief to the heat. Apart from being physically uncomfortable, the ride was pretty lovely. Dusk through the lush, jungle parts of Ecuador. Birds singing, trees sagging with bananas and little roadside tiendas frying who knows what.

We got to this little town built on stilts over a bog and were told this was the closest we would be getting to Mompiche that night. We had a revolting meal on the porch of this family which consisted of some sort of hen or fowl washed down by a hot, tooth rottingly sweet fruit beverage. Since it was lovingly prepared for us by a woman and her daughters out of their kitchen and the only game in town, we ate it like champs and graciously thanked them. We stayed in the towns only hotel which was a little cabin with barely enough space for the two twin beds let alone our bags. The “toilets” were holes in the ground of this shack that dropped directly into the festering, bog below. In the middle of the night, I was awoken by a man snoring and in the blackness I thought he might be in bed with me. The walls were made of clapboard and I could feel every breath and movement he made. A horrible evening but our eyes were on the prize and all we needed to do was get through this night and make it to Mompiche.

Now in day two of travelling we took a bus to yet another unknown town. From there the cast of characters that got off and on was unbelievable. First we had these two adorable boys who we gave gum to and tried to teach them how to blow bubbles. We werent very good teachers with the little bit of gum so instead we smacked it and popped the gum, each time cracking them up. It never got old (for them) and each time they would squeal with laughter and stare at us in amazement. They were so into us that everytime we made a sharp curve (which on South American buses is every 40 seconds or so) one of the boys would use me to balance himself and then unconciously just rest his hand on mine. It was beyond adorable and Clare and I had to play it cool and not make that kind of sound that involuntarily comes out when women see cute shit like that. They left and in their place some barefoot guys with chainsaws and machetes got on. Not as cute. Luckily we were soon dropped off on a road in the middle of nowhere and were told to wait 45 minutes for a bus to Mompiche. Within a few minutes of waiting we saw a baby fall out of the cab of a large truck that was being loaded with supplies. Clare saw it, I only heard it and then saw the blood. The father scooped him up and the mother casually strolled over with a bottle of water to wash the blood away. Clare and I just stared in shock while the parents acted quickly, cool as cucumbers. At that moment a pickup truck drove by and we decided to hitchhike instead of waiting for the bus that might not even come. I prayed for that baby as we made our final journey to Mompiche.

Through the thick jungle and dirt roads the clearing finally approached..we had found Mompiche. A town of less than 100 people, Mompiche is what I imagine Costa Rica or Jamaica to have been like decades ago. Virtually all building are made of bamboo and when they arent fishing everyone just hangs out. We got a very basic little room right on the beach and just sunk into the forced relaxation of having nothing else to do. Napping, reading, strolling the beach and eating. Thats it folks. Sometimes we would drag ourselves to the juice shack and get a delicious smoothie and pour some Canon ($2 grain alcohol. No judgements..its all that was available) into it. We fell in love with this woman who has a little beach restaurant (just a gas stove and tables on the sand) and ate every meal with her and her family. When she isnt tending to her newborn baby she is cooking amazing seafood right from the ocean. Her dad has a table and a cooler with coconuts and when we wanted one she would whistle for him and he would momentarily stop shooting the shit with the fisherman, stroll over with his machete and hack us open a cold one. There are no menus, just whatever is caught that day and to our luck, langostinos were in season. Somewhere between a giant prawn and a crawfish but with the flavor of lobster, the langostino has to be one of the best things Ive tried in South America. She would make it in an ajillo sauce of butter, garlic and spices and with friend tostones and some rice and beans…its the kind of meal that makes you want to weep. After my first bite I got up and hugged her which everyone in her family thought was hilarious. Like all good things though, it had to come to an end and we had to get to Quito for Clares flight.

From Cusco we went to the little oasis town of Huacachina. As you approach the town it looks like a cartoon oasis village in the desert. You see the palm trees and lagoon and nothing else but miles of the largest sand dunes in the world spread out. There is nothing to do in this little town except smoke pot, lounge by a hotel pool and go sand boarding. Clare and I accomplished two out of three and sand boarding at sunset has to be one of the highlights of the trip for sure. To get to the top of the dunes, you take a dune buggy which feels like riding a roller coaster. The drivers are notoriously unsafe and like to impress gringa tourists with there maneuvering skills (IT WORKED). Clare and I were in the front seats and we just ear to ear grins and screams the whole time. Sand was in our noses, ears and clothes for days to come but worth every grain of it. From there we went to Ica for just a stop off at their museum which houses a fairly impressive mummy collection and a scale of the Nazca lines. The mummy collection in Peru is so outstanding and abundant some of these “museums” just have them in sort of glorified, empty fishtanks held together with packing tape and super glue. A lot of the displays look like diaramas from a middle school history fair and little importance is placed on their security. For example, you can take pictures with flash but you have to pay $2. Behind the museum, you can stand on a platform overlooking an empty, basketball court sized lot that has a made to scale reproduction of the Nazca lines, which was sufficient enough for us. We had bigger plans, like ceviche in Lima.

Central Lima looks like it could be any American city. For the first time in months, I saw KFC, McDonalds, Payless, T.G.I. Fridays, Applebees and the only one I had any kind of attraction to….Starbucks. It´s like a gross, corporate America chain restaurant fantasy land. Im happy we only went for amazing ceviche and an evening stroll before a night bus to Trujillo on the coast.

From Trujillo the beach spots become a blur of one after another. Mancora was lovely though. In the morning we ran on the beach and dodged the beautiful assortments of jewel-toned jellyfish that had beached themselves and watched the fishermen on their reed boats go out for the morning catch. We had a cute little beach shack for about $5 a day and made friends with a local beach hippy called “Lobo” (wolf) because of his wolverine beard. “Lobo” was like a perpetually stoned sitcom character..think Kramer meets Cheech..and he was not only a low talking, mumbler but his dialect was equally unintelligible. Most of the time Clare and I would just smile and nod and sort of laugh with him (and a little bit at him) while he cracked himself up over unbeknownst amusements. He also had a sidekick from I want to say New Zealand who had been robbed while sleeping on the beach. In order to make money Lobo and the guy made a crude form of sangria with aguaguardiente (basically, moonshine) and fresh fruit juices. Lobo also makes paper mache pins of random objects and I now have a lovely ice cream cone on my backpack to commemorate him.

The only inland place we went to from there was a town called Huancabamba. This town is famous for its lakes which claim to have magical healing powers. Every year tons of pilgrims flock to these lakes for ceremonies with “curanderos” or “maestros” who offer ritual services accompanied by hallucinogenic aids in the form of San Pedro cactus and/or ayahuasca. I had wanted to experience the shaman ritual and convinced Clare to join me. The journey from the coast is a nauseating, 8 hour bus ride over the mountains. Twisting and turning through dusty hills to the town of Huancabamba. From there, you choose your shaman and then leave with him in another vehicle for a 3 hour car ride to the highest part of the mountain. Then you take a donkey for 4 hours over the ridge and down into the steep valley where the lakes are. The ceremony begins around 3pm. You drink the sacred beverage and then the curandero works his magic on you. He chants and prays for you and removes whatever pains you may have from your body, spirit and mind. Then around 4 am, you go down to the lake and get cleansed in its curative (and freezing) waters. Sounds amazing, right? Well..we didnt make it very far past the bus ride. The bus station of the town had an office with a three ring binder full of laminated pages to choose your curandero. I realize its a big business there and people take this as seriously as finding a physician but I was expecting something a little more organic. I wanted a calm, Indian, grandfatherly figure to just be waiting for me.  No words would need to be exchanged, he would just be able to see into my soul and heal whatever known or unknown issues I might be suffering from and give me an unforgettable experience. Instead, what we got were sort of pushermen for the curanderos. Everyone sort of knew a guy who knew a guy kind of thing and we just got a bad vibe from the town.  When we would ask to meet these guys they showed up very used-car-salesmanish about it all. Cheap gold watches and keys to their Toyota corollas in their shakey hands. Certainly not the type of people you want to venture into the mountains with. Clare called it “Adams Family Peru” since everyone there was just a little bit creepy and slightly off. Some had a lazy eye, a hare lip, a limp, scars, pock marks, etc. Alot of places didnt turn there lights all the way on giving a dark, eery vibe to the whole town allowing people to lurk in the shadows while blatantly staring at us. We tried to find info on the web about a legit person but all I found was a blog about going to the towns radio station and asking a woman there. I finally found said radio station and the woman had gone to Lima and wouldnt be back for a week. We ended up getting some gamey rotisserie chicken and sleeping in a dumpy, creepy old house with a mad scientist kind of guy and his Quasimoto-esque assistant running it. All we could do was laugh about it. Well, I laughed, Clare stewed and Deet-ed the entire room. The next day, we left, uncured and suffering the 8 grueling hours back to the coast.

We thought we would save a fortune by doing the D.I.Y. path to Machu Picchu. After all said and done though we payed basically the same amount (close to $200) doing it on our own than a 4 day, 3 night all inclusive jungle version of the Inca Trail. Another factor was saving time but since we´re caught in a transit strike we´re stuck in this town anyway. So…we tried to make the best of it with 4×1 (you heard me, four for the price of one) happy hours and a thermal hot spring.  When you walk down these tiny streets, people hawk their deals and fight for your business. Clare and I actually stood between two restaurants while each of them auctioned off the free shit they would offer us. One side promised 4×1 and nachos, whereas the other was 4×1 and popcorn. “Sorry, nachos win” to which the other one says “ok, ok, nachos tambien”. Then the other one yells “nachos con guacamole” and that seals our fate. Guacamole definitely beats popcorn and we settle down with the winning bid. Two drinks into the 4×1 Clare and I are already giddy and working on the book idea I´ve had for a while. Ironically, it´s a book on nutrition and all around healthy living as we devour nachos and sugary cocktails. In mock, drunken slurs we have funny conversations that either attract other tourists or send them scurrying by faster. We´re obviously not your average beige and khaki wearing trekkers. We´re fun, accesorized, Brooklyn girls saying things under our breath like, “Where´s my third drink, honey? I ain´t here for the mirador (spanish for view point)”. Or my all time favorite to the wearisome travellers coming off the Inca Trail…”You walked here? Big deal. We´re writing a book”.

The next morning, Clare and I were on the 5:30 am bus to Machu Picchu. From the moment I woke up, I knew something was wrong. Go figure, after 4 months of adventurous, street meat meals I get food poisoning..from a restaurant..the day I want to hike Machu Picchu! Because we were the first 400 people to arrive we got the option of hiking the mountain that looks down on the site. By the time I was at the top, I felt like shit. By the time I was back at the bottom, I felt like death. I walked to the base of an Incan stairway and layed down. With the exception of leaning over the edge to vomit, I didn´t move from that spot for the rest of the day. I´m sure I ruined many a photo op for the rest of the travellers that day, especially considering Incan structures are tiny, I am not. My body barely fit on the step I was trying to perch on and the only position I could keep my legs in without them going numb was basically spread eagle. I forbade Clare to miss this opportunity too so she at least got to see the site as I drifted in and out of conciousness in between her check ups on me. Once the rains came, I knew I had missed my chance of hiking through Machu Picchu and got back onto the bus. Back to our gross, mildewy, $5 a day hostal we went. I didn´t even have the energy to take off my shoes, let alone move hostals so I layed there like a dehydrated mess breathing in mold and eavsdropping on the insanely loud and poorly dubbed action flick playing in the lobby. I had the kind of dreamless sleep where you don´t know if it´s been minutes or hours and only left that bed for violent fits of nausea in the bathroom. All I thought the whole time was a) I want my mommy and b) This wouldn´t be so bad if I were back in that Cusco hotel room with cable!