Goodbye Peru, Hello Ecuador

Was that really 17 days? It seems like we've been in Peru forever, yet not very long. Here are our Top 3 and some other notes from Peru...

Top 3 in Peru:

#1 - Machu Picchu. Obvious choice. If you have a bucket list, add this to it. Just get there early.

#2 - Amazon. Our blog about our time in the Amazon was pretty quick, and I don't think we really elaborated how much we enjoyed it. Sure, the monkeys were really fun (see a video of us with the monkeys HERE), and we got to see some cool things that we were hoping to see, but we were both really surprised by the beauty of the river. It's huge, flat, and not all that dramatic, but the size, people, wildlife, and surroundings truly were amazing.

Steph loves taking these "artsy" shots -  this one actually turned out good!

#3 - The first two were easy choices, and it's not to say that we didn't like Cusco, Arequipa, and Nazca, but as a "wildball" (as Steph calls it), our number 3 favorite thing in Peru was Inca Kola. Everyone I've ever known that went to Peru came home talking about this stuff, usually with a souvenir t-shirt. If you haven't had it, it's a really sweet, almost tutti-frutti flavored soda. It's almost too sweet to drink alone, but I had it with almost every meal while here. Over our last few days I went on overload because it would be my last chance to have it for years, then I got to Ecuador and they have it in the little shop across from our hostel. 

Thoughts on Peru:

- The Food: We are still getting used to eating food from street vendors and dirty little restaurants, so for most of Peru we stuck with what we know and thus didn't try too many Peruvian dishes. It was cheap at least - you could usually get a 2- or 3-course meal with drink for about $3-5. We tried some different soups that were okay, but the only Peruvian food that is worth mentioning is called Lomo Saltado. I read about it on WikiTravel, so I tried it and it was pretty good! It's beef tips (at the cheap places we ate, usually just strips of flank steak) sauteed with tomatoes, onions and spices, then served over french fries with a side of rice. Yeah, the french fries seemed a strange choice for me too, and didn't really seem to add anything to the dish. And wouldn't you serve it over rice with a side of french fries? Not in Peru, apparently. So, if anybody is wanting "a taste of Peru" (and come on, this isn't exactly exotic cuisine), maybe you should try Lomo Saltado for dinner tonight! I even looked up a recipe for you HERE.

- Speaking of the food, they do something kind of weird when eating at restaurants. When the meal is over, and the time comes to get the check, the server is nowhere to be found. You practically have to hunt them down to ask for the check - they will NOT bring it to you without asking. Apparently this is a South America thing and not just Peru, but it made our first few meals out very long...

- We were a little disappointed with how pushy all the people are that want you to eat at their restaurant or to sell you something. It's crazy. Pretty much every restaurant we walked by, there'd be somebody outside showing you the menu and trying to misdirect you to walk into their restaurant. Taxi drivers honk at every person they pass on the off chance that they actually want a taxi but haven't realized it yet. No telling how many times we said "no gracias" in 17 days...500?

- If we were to do a "Most Disappointing thing about Peru" it would probably be that we didn't get to see Lake Titicaca. It's supposed to be beautiful, with some really interesting native culture - some people (as I understand it) live on man-made islands of reed and even float around on reed boats and stuff. Surprisingly 17 days just isn't enough time to do even the highlights of Peru, so it'll give us an excuse to come back.

Budget  
I really don't even want to think about it, because we went way over. In fact, I'm not even going to calculate it out exactly, but by our estimations we averaged about $150 day. 50% over budget. Ouch. Over 17 days. Double ouch. But, we're not really that upset because we did two things that we knew were "splurges" but just had to do them - Machu Picchu and the Amazon. Both we did realtively cheap, but they are going to be pricey no matter what. Plus, we had to make 3 internal flights to make it all work, which we won't be doing most other places. We're confident we can make it up in Ecuador, Egypt, and Southeast Asia.

Hello, Ecuador

We've been in Quito for about 24 hours now and have really enjoyed it. We heard a lot of bad things about muggings and petty crimes, so have been taking extra precautions, but so far haven't had any problems. It's a really pretty city, set at a high elevation (about 10,000 feet) in a valley surrounded by mountains and even volcanos. Today we walked around the "Old Town", with some really nice cobblestone streets and old churches, then took public buses out to the "Mitad del Mundo" - the middle of the world! That's right, we joined most of you for lunch in the northern hemisphere! Actually I'm not sure we ever technically made it to the northern hemisphere, since the monument and little tourist trap that is Mitad del Mundo is actually a couple hundred meters off. Opps! I guess that's why you don't let missionaries do geography(??) for you. Supposedly the natives had already picked out a different spot, which eventually turned out to be right! We took a couple of the obligatory pictures strattling the equator, had lunch, and were out of there.

Old Town Quito

It's been a long time since Steph has gotten to shop at a real mall, so after the equator trip we visited the "new town" to see if we could find one. Sure enough we did, but it was straight out of the 70's and had nothing interesting to see. Sorry, Steph. Maybe in Santiago. We browsed around a craft market for a while, walked around a park where some old men were playing some weird version of bocce ball and a huge crowd had gathered to watch some overweight guys play some really pathetic volleyball (at least the old guys were good at bocce), then picked up a couple things at the grocery store and came back to the hostel. We're too afraid to go out at night so we're having Froot Loops for dinner! Just like home... Actually speaking of home, Ecuador uses the American dollar as it's currency. It's so nice get a break from trying to divide everything by 2.82. It's especially nice since everything is so cheap! Peru was pretty cheap, but this is even better. We had a really expensive lunch today in a touristy place for about 12 bucks. You can easily get a meal at a little mom and pop restaurant for under 2 dollars. I had a chocolate croissant thing this morning for 25 cents  (didn't say it was good..) and bottled cokes at the little store across the street are 30 cents. We can get used to this! Tomorrow we are going to somehow try to catch a bus that may or not take us the 3 hours to Banos, though we're hoping it will since it sounds great and we have 3 nights booked. They call their restrooms "banos" so we're really hoping there is no correlation...

these guys sucked at volleyball, so why did everyone want to watch?