Disculpeme...

Sorry for the lack of activity in recent days. After Machu Picchu and
Cusco, I traveled south to Puno, spent two days on islands in Lake
Titicaca, went trekking for three days in the Colca Canyon, and now
find myself in Nasca preparing for a flight over the Nasca Lines and
sandboading on Cerro Blanco (the world's tallest sand dune).

As the trip has become more rugged, wifi access has been limited so I
haven't been able to upload photos. I'm back home in a week though,
so stay tuned for full reports and lots of new photos soon!

Not sure why...

...but one photo didn't make it up yesterday, and everything was
posted out of order. Regardless, there are two pages of new posts and
pictures below to check out!

All's well that ends well

Despite some headaches, nothing can detract from how special a place
Machu Picchu is - one of the most awe-inspiring places I have ever seen.

¡Llamame!

This is a sequel to the playful buffalo picture I took in Yellowstone
last summer.

Machu Picchu from above

The fog lifted before long

But that makes it look dramatic!

Almost there!

After crossing over the mountain and descending through a cloud
forest, we only had a few more hours of walking along the river to
reach Machu Picchu.

It was a little foggy when we showed up

Mount Salkantay

This is the 4100 m high mountain we walked over on the way to Machu
Picchu.

Somos Peru - ¡Juntos Lo Podemos!

Unfortunately I think the above slogan refers to taking advntage of
tourists. Matthew and I signed up for a five-day trek over Mt
Salkantay to Machu Picchu, covering 78 km and crossing a 4100 m peak
en route. We had a number of lowlights, including:
- a leaky tent with a zipper that required four hands and 20 minutes
to close; two inconveniences during the rainy season in mosquito
country;
- a wet down sleeping bag without a working zipper; only an issue the
first night while trying to sleep above 3600 m;
- an anti-semetic tour guide; bad in general, more of an issue because
of the six Israelis in our group...
- a booking agency that failed to buy us return tickets from Machu
Picchu, but didn't tell us until 20 minutes before the last train was
supposed to leave; no one wanted to go back to Cusco (where there is
hot water, nice food, flush toilets and clean clothes) anyway.

But honestly, despite being a bit irritated by the hassle and lack of
service, the trip was amazing. The Peruvian countryside is lovely, and
I walked over a snow-capped mountain, through a cloud forest, and
along a river valley in just a few days. I saw stars, monkeys,
orchids, llamas, hot springs... All en route to Machu Picchu, which
was a site worth any amount of hassle to visit. Plus I learned a new
card game, Yanof, from the Israelis, my Spanish got better with lots
of help from Matthew, and I met some fun fellow travelers along the way.

¡Vale la pena! To prove it, some nice photos will follow this post...

Inca bound

I arrived in Cusco this morning, and after a hearty lunch of fried
trout and two mugs of tea I felt properly amped to plan my hike.

This photo is taken from the balcony of my hostel, which I'll be
leaving at 430 tomorrow morning to start hiking up to Machu Picchu.
The trek lasts five days, but I'll update photos and impressions when
I return to town next week.

Torres del Paine

The iPhone can do quite a bit, but it doesn't really do justice to the
color landscape, the scale of mountains, or the intensity of the sky
here. Still, it is better than nothing...

Hiked about 500 meters up the mountain in the foreground today, then
down an equal distance to a river for lunch before reversing course
and catching the bus back to town. Nice warm up for the multi-day
kayak and camp trip I am doing on Monday.

Big sky

Wow - the town is pretty tiny and remote (go figure) but I don't think
that it is an overstatement to call the scenery dramatic.

A la frontera

Crossed the border in to Chile today to spend five days hiking,
boating, and outdoorsy in general. I hope it was worth the six hour
bus ride along a mostly unpaved road - I'll report results when I can.

The cold part of the world

After five weeks in BsAs, it was something of a relief to get away
from the hectic pace of the city. Patagonia feels worlds away from
BaAs; outside of Alaska it is the biggest area of untouched land I
have seen.

Flying in to El Calafate, a small town on Lago Argentina that is the
closest outpost to Argentina's Glacier National Park, the only things
I could see were lakes, snow-capped peaks of the Andes, and brown
earth wiped flat by glaciers as the ice retreated at the end of the
last ice age.

The main attraction here is the Prieto Moreno glacier, one of the few
advancing glaciers in the world and part of the world's third-largest
ice field (after Antarctica and Greenland). I spent nearly an entire
day here watching the glacier from across the water. Spending six
hours stating at a block of ice might sound dull, but I loved it. The
sensation was a little like watching the tides - from dawn through the
early afternoon the view continued to evolve as the changing light
brought out different colors and tones in the ice.

The glacier moves in the same way a river with whitewater does - it
advances at different rates over obstacles and changing terrain,
creating turbulence and motion at the surface. The frozen rapids of
the glacier can be unstable - I was lucky enough to see several
iceberg-size chunks dislodge from the main glacier and crash into the
water below.

For Day 2, I joined a tour and went out on the glacier itself,
trekking about for several hours. Despite feeling worn out from hiking
(and sun exposure), it was great getting close to the ice.

Perito Moreno

I don't have much time or bandwith, but I wanted to get one photo up
quickly. Day 1 in Patagonia was spent gazing at glaciers, tomorrow we
will be trekking on the ice itself. More details when I can...