copious amounts of catching up

im incredibly ambicous right now. Its been over a month since i have last blogged. LOTS has happened since that day…. But, here i sit, with a few bottles of wine, ready to take on the daunting task of keeping YOU updated on the ULTIMATE ADVENTURES OF ASHLEY. (please, feel very special). also, please note, a lot has happened in over a month so this will be scatter-brained as i conjure up more memories as time went by... its just that, after my journal got stolen, i got a wee discouraged about keeping up on blogging since all my memories were taken away. but, im gonna keep it up this time i hope.



PIFO ECUADOR
-I spent some time in ecuador in the andes mountains.
-i climbed the 700 steps, had 5 beers (which are 600L each) at the top of this mountain which has llamas and then rode a horse, was preceded to be sexually assaulted by some ancient ecuadorian man. i freaked out at him in spanish and told him there was no way i was paying for the beers OR the horse ride.
-a couple days ago, a bus forgot to put on the E-brake and the bus rolled into a pay phone and killed a little girl.
-there was a dead body found in the park a few days before that which is only 2 blocks from where i am staying. comforting, right?
-met margo´s family
-watched Fay´s Christmas to celebrate the holidays while drinking cachaca we brought back from Brasil


I left Margaret in the town of Pifo about a week before Christmas because I didnt want to spend it with a family that wasnt my own. So, I headed north from Pifo Ecuador to another mountain village called Otavalo where i met up with a friend of mine from Alaska. together, ben and i decided to take on the world. we headed to another tiny town that i forgot the name of but i know it starts with a T where we met up with a french couple. we stayed the night on a farm eating tunas (the fruit) and chasing chickens around.

bus ride from QUITO to MANTA was horribly terrifying. want details? just ask.

from there, we all 4 headed to the coast and our first stop was....

MANTANITA- about 2 weeks
-This incredibly beautiful town on the beach with great surf and perfect waves.
-We rented an apartment in a hostel called the Galapagos which was RIGHT on the beach
-i bought too many pairs of pants
-i basically layed in my hammock all day outside and surfed and ate delicious food that the french couple would cook me. (they claim that french folk are the best cooks in the world so naturally i made them prove it to me.
-we spent countless hours watching the sunrise.
-for Christmas (MERRY CHRISTMAS!!), Chloe wrapped up gifts for each of us and we opened them up in the sun on the beach.
-ben and i surfed but it didnt last long when his shoulder popped out and i had to pop it back in for him. we called that one an early day.
-jean luc made special pancakes one morning but the french pancake is much different than the american pancake. also, did you know that the french are convinced that french toast is just toasted bread?
-met up with Bens college roomate, Cappo who was very burnt from the sun and who was taking malaria pills and it turns out, if you take those, your skin is incredibly sun sensitive. Jean-Luc and Chloe convinced him that he would be burnt and red forever. (over a month later, and he is STILL red)
-found an argentinian restaurant where this guy made us pasta from scratch (probably bens favorite memory) while we played UNO


we pressed on.
so the night before we left, we spent all night prancing around the beach and hanging out on cocktail ally and in peoples homes that actually looked more like dorm rooms. so the night was awesome. really, honestly out of control. but as smart and responsible as ben and i are, we called it a night since we needed to wake up early the next morning and pack and clean the apartment which was honestly trashed from 1 solid week of partying like rock stars. at one point in the night, one of jean-lucs skeezy aquantances came into our apartment all sneeky like and i caught him red handed. we think this is when jean-lucs camera went amiss. so the next thing i know, we are headed to the bus and we cant find jean-luc anywhere in site. the bus is about to pull away when i see him round the corner with his huge green pack, his digery doo, 2 beers in hand, a cig in his mouth, his Albert Einstein sunglasses, no shoes (he seemed to have lost them that night), his hair pulled back into a greesy ponytail, green tinsel wrapped around his neck, and limping towards us (he seemed to hurt his foot which lasted 3 weeks before it eventually healed). so, together we board the bus and the driver is yelling at him to leave the beers so he chugs one and hides the other. the bus was aparently overbooked so they stuck the 3 of us on the stairs to the bathroom in the middle of the bus. this was very cramped. jean luc cracks his other beer, spills it, and lays down in the middle of the isle while his clothes soaked up the sloshing beer in the isleway.


MANCORA, peru
-for new years eve.
-when we arrived, every single hostel was 100% booked. some, even overbooked. so, i went up and down the strip with ben thinking about our options. we ended up convincing a family that owned a hostel to let us sleep on the roof for a few days.
-i have never been to a bigger party in my life than the one in mancora for new years eve. it was out of control. over 80,000 people in a teeny tiny beach town that is only 1 strip. it was an all night, multiple day adventure at this place. the waves were braking perfectly as far out as i could see. there were multiple breaks as well so you could choose how big you wanted your wave to be and which one you wanted to ride out.
-Loki Hostel


HUANCHACO- over a week
-another beach town near Trajuillo in peru.
-i joined an argentinian band called La Fuser (you tube them)
-ate the most delicous chicken curry ever ever ever at this hostel called chill out
-was robbed (including ipod, waterproof videocamer, 2 journals, bens shorts, G harmonica, passport, credit card, cash, beach sarong, drivers license, etc.)
-became tight with the peruvian mafia
-rented a bike with ben and aussy nathan for 1 sol an hour and went to the Chan Chan ruins, ben and i both got flat tires half way there and ended up hitching a ride back
-saw the inca hairless dog with purple blood

MACHALA- 1 night
-just so happens to be the banana capital of the world
-stayed in the San Fransisco hotel (not recommened)
-learned that when my skin gets cold, the cold part gets covered in hives (this will be fun when i go back to alaska.....)


LIMA- 1 day
-ate a really really good icecream cone in the Plaza De Armas
-was trapped in the upstairs balcony of a very sketchy restaurant
-reapplied for my passport at the embassy
-


CUSCO- over a week
-found the best veggy restaurant ever that flooded downstairs while we were eating dinner upstairs and had to walk on chairs to get out of the restaurant
-met back up with Chloe
-met Hans who owns a hole in the wall veggie restaurant who took me and ben to his house with an increble view and the most bizaar plants you have ever seen surrounding his deck

LIMATAMBO- almost 2 weeks
-10 day Vipassana Meditation Retreat that was really 11 days
-practiced Noble Silence for 10 days
-became a vegetarian
-hung out in the town and walked by chocolate river
-went to mass and cried for the people in Haiti as 30 nuns sang so sweet
-ate a lot of miel (fresh honey) and avacados and chocolate

back to CUSCO- about a week
-met back up with Margaret
-met the prophets in white in the Plaza San Blas who arent from anywhere but are from everywhere
-we considered buying crystals to begin channeling our energy into the universe through others
-experienced very heavy rains
-experienced Peru´s natural Disaster first hand
-volunteered during the relief effort sorting clothes, food, etc.
-went to different mountain towns (Inca Punta Ttiopunca, Sancopacha, Pacruamba, Pachar, Wuancoyocampa, Ollantaytambo, and Yucay) and gave them water, food, and bags of clothes, assessed their health and the safety of their homes
-met Edgard who works as a Peruvian tour guide and has guided Leonardo DiCaprio, Arnold Schwarsenager, Cameron Diaz, Robert Kennedy, Fuji Mori (Perus pres. at one point) and even spains president, along with a much longer list of people. He also works for national geographic.
-moved in with Edgard
-got free tickets to all the museums and all the Inca ruin sites
-climbed 484 steps, a trash trail, and stumbled upon the Eucalyptus tree forest
-got kicked out of the ¨free¨ Qínko Inca ruins
-said goodbye to Ben as he took off to Lima

a typical email to the sisters
dear sisters,

if you dont already know, im in Peru.
margaret and i met up in cusco a couple days again after i got out of a 11 day Vipassana meditation retreat in a tiny peruvian mountain village about 1 1/2 hours outside cusco. After the retreat, i spent a few days climbing mountains and such around the village and easing my way back into civilazation slowly instead of jumping into the biggest and wealthiest city in peru right away. at vipassana, i wasnt allowed to talk, read, write, excersice, or communicate in any other fashion. i was only able to meditate, eat, and sleep while practicing what they called Noble Silence. Anyway, that was an interesting experience for sure.

While me, Ben, the french couple, and this Bengium girl that I am traveling with all were taking it easy in this village called Limatambo, it rained and rained and rained and some of the locals were even concerned about the amount of rain that was coming down even though it is rainy season. aparently, it was an unusual amount of rain because the banks of the rivers were being undercut at rapid rates and the amount of wash in the rivers such as whole entire trees.

we left the town and headed to cusco where i ended up meeting back up with margaret. on the bus ride from Limatambo to Cusco was sad. I watched in a cozy bus seat as all the families were running their cattle to safety, and attemps to evacuate their homes and land as safely, quickly and effeciently as they know how.

it is so incredibly interesting to be on the inside of one of these disasters that you see on cnn.

check out this link:
http://enperublog.com/2010/01/26/emergency-declared-in-cusco-heavy-rains-flood-the-region/

when it rains really hard, we have to walk through the streets in a bunch of water, but that is about it. and one time, we went out to dinner at this vegetarian restaurant and ate upstairs. a couple hours later, when we were leaving the restaurant, we had to step on a path of chairs to get to the door because the downstairs had over 2 feet of water in it. then, we walk out onto the streets and the circular storm drains in the middle of the roads were literally floating on top of a HUGE current of water under the drain. the roads here in cusco are mostly rivers.

the locals say it hasnt rained this hard in 14 years and the governent now calles this a NATURAL DISASTER.

but, other than that the city of cusco is relatively unaffected, but the surrounding villages are really taking it hard. houses are collapsing left and right, even in cusco! probably, or course, because they are made of mud and bricks and are all on the side of a mountain.

marg and her sister are so lucky they went to machu picchu last week because both bridges to aguas calientes (which is the village a couple hours away from here you have to enter right before entering machu piccu) are washed out and people are having to be helicoptered out and the town had over 2000 tourists in it and it isa tiny town and they have no food or water for all these people. good thing i decided not to go 2 days ago.

its really really sad to see. there are also a ton of stories that were told by tons of different tourists who had been stranded on machu picchu with no food or water for a couple days. there were 2000 people up there a couple days ago and now there is about 800 left. the government called for 4 helicopters to be running all day for the next couple days to get them out of there. 1 argentinian young girl died on her inca trail tour along with her tour guide. the death toll is now up to 8 in CUSCO ALONE with over 80 injured. this does not include ALL the towns around the cusco area and remember, cusco wasnt hit NEARLY as bad.


Its interesting, because cusco is the most wealthy town in peru and yet none of the money they get from tourists goes into some kind of reserve for the towns people for times like this, it goes to campaigns for politicians and there is an election coming up.... so, now they are having a collection on the church steps in the main Plaza De Armas and tourists feel so bad for the people, so they are donating, when in actuality the real people of the campo are pissed at their own gvoernment for relying on tourists emergency funds when they have so much money and dont help the people with it. it is crazy.

marg and I were planning to stick around here in Cusco and help with the relief effort instead of heading to Bolivia tomorrow as planned.
We are doing some research right now about road conditions since so many of the roads going in and out of cusco have been damaged too badly to navigate across and or are flooded. naturally, we arent that excited about going on a bus ride for any length of time if its any MORE sketchy than the roads around here already are....

love,
your favorite sister,
ash



PUNO, Peru- 4 days
-the festividad virgen maria de la candelaria
-rum and cokes
-non stop parades in the streets that literally were on every street and literally went all night for multiple nights in a row
-vodka and orange juice
-taxi rides taking us to lookouts with giant puma statues
-floating reed islands with free BBQ cheese and rice and beer in the middle of lake tit kaka
-the soccer stadium FULL of locals and dancing group after dancing group after dancing group performed on the field. when we left the stadium, we asked if we could get back in and the guard smiled in said in spanish, ¨of course, we will recognize you, you are the only gringos here.¨
-peruvian cotton candy
-wandering through a street market, i bought a cheese grater
-met a boy from UCLA who said and i quote, ¨ive got lots of money, i AM the american dream. this made me laugh.


NOTE- im gonna add to this often as i remember things that happened all along the way.

and now, off to BOLIVIA