Me , Myself, and Sexo

We´re back in Cuzco, headed to Morocco tomorrow (well, first to Lima for 12 hours, then Sao Paulo for 8 hours, then Rome for 2 hours, and finally Casablanca... cheap flights are wonderful, aren´t they?). We spent 5 days on the Inca Trail heading to Machu Picchu! Despite being exhausted, it was AMAZING and we highly recommend it to anyone. Either do the trek if you can handle ridiculously early mornings, 1200 meters gain all at once one morning, CRAZY guides who disappear for hours, and temperatures fluctuations that rival menopausal women (so we hear), otherwise, take the train - or, preferrably, take the ¨Hiram Bingham¨train for around 400 dollars and then stay in the Sanctuary Hotel for 700 dollars a night. But definitely go.

Since we´re only two weeks out of the educational system, and headed back in two months, here is what we learned:
- the Incas were better at everything
- chewing Coca leaves prevents diseases from diabetes to osteoporosis - it´s why the incas never died from anything but old age, they chewed it all the time (not because they died at 40, or anything)
- the incas liked to build terraces. sometimes they were for decoration, others for farming, others just for cultivating medicinal plants, others as retaining walls. while we couldn´t tell any differences between them, they had very specific functions. the incas knew best.
- while Hiram Bingham may have ¨discovered¨Machu Picchu, a young Quechuan boy pointed him in the right direction. Bingham just stole all the credit.
- only Peruvian archeologists know what´s right.
- when you really got to go, you will have no qualms about desecrating an Inca site. even the ¨priesthood site¨
- when your tour guide tells you to call him ¨Sexo¨, sleep in a separate tent
- when your tour guide speaks english as a third language, he will often inquire if you understand english - ¨virgins, you know, virgins?¨(we wanted to ask for a definition, but were afraid to ask ¨Sexo¨)
- alpalca tastes like chicken
- alpalca hats are warm
- apparently we´re not friends of the alpalcas
- sometimes 3 wool blankets is not enough. even inside.

That´s all for now! We´re off to pack and head to bed.
Solpike Pichicoes!! (We think that means ¨thank you, boys!¨ in Quechua, but as ¨Sexo¨told us, it may instead mean ¨F* off, nancy boys!¨)

P.S. Cary Mosley: we met one of your best friends from high school on the inca trail. he said he was from san diego and had a friend who went to pomona. we asked if it was you. it was.

A man a plan a canal panama ... and now PERU!

There are two of us, and though we are not men, we had a plan to spend twenty four hours in Panama and see the Canal.

We spent a day in Panama ... We saw the Canal.
We walked around.
We went to the hotel. There were already people in our new room. We got a new room. We watched an ER marathon. We went to bed at 7pm.
There was not much to see in Panama.

Check.

Now we are in Lima, Peru! There appears to be much more to see and do here already than in Panama.

At the airports in Panama and Lima, everyone was wearing surgical masks. And we had to fill out forms before we could get off the plane detailing where we had been and if we had any symptoms. Apparently they take their swine flu more seriously than JFK ... haha.
In Panama, we had to stand in front of a thermographic camera before we were allowed to go through immigration to make sure we weren´t febrile. They didn´t seem to care that we claimed we were bringing absolutely no money into the country, but the thermographic camera was clutch.

We´re in Peru for the next 7 days (including Amanda´s birthday in the Cloud Forest in Machu Picchu!) ...

More to come.