ideas for cheap stuff

You may be pulling out your hair at the rhyming and pun horror, but at the moment I´m on a roll due to being in a town called Alousï and therefore being unable to stop the, ¨What Alousï idea/statue/bus/dress!¨ Sorry if Tonge comes back a little bit frazzled and in need of mental aid. Karen, you´ll keep an eye on her, won´t ya?
So back to what I´ve been up to the last few weeks cos even if ye don´t care, I get to look back on this over the years when my memory fails. There should be while before that happens though, right? So after Tonge and I parted ways on Sunday 17th August I headed for Arequipa and arrived on the Monday morning having had an awful nights sleep due to the cold and also the fact that there was a film on, though the tv screen was broken, with a screaming child and man called, wait for it, Señor Reilly. I was so on edge from the screaming and crying, coupled with an inability to understand what it was for and I´d no ear plugs…but its ok, its in the past now. I found a really cheap room for 2 Euro and headed out to find out about tours to Colca Canyon and to do rafting on Rio Chilli cos Dee, Lids, Fee and Colma had recommended it. I ended up missing the first rafting trip that day and went to visit Santa Catalina Convent, which, due to being a closed cloister until 1970 from its foundation in 16th century, has a fantastic range of architecture. The life of the nuns was not one I´d choose for myself now, but I suppose it was the safest life for an unmarried or widowed woman. Nuns were never allowed to see their family once joining, they could be visited once a month for an hour, but their conversations were overheard by another nun, and took place through wooden grills with the nun faced away from the family. Otherwise, their lives were conducted in silence and prayer. Good times! It was a gorgeous enclosure of protected buildings, though a tad depressing. After lunch I met my group for the rafting tour. I was the only girl with 5 Chilean guys in my boat, which was a lot of fun since they decided I needed to be soaked! They were really sweet guys, but a tad, ¨Me Tarzan, you Jane¨, which ye can guess I simply love. I hadn´t been white-water rafting in ages, and we covered grade 2 to 4, which means ya get better rapids as ya go. Definitely worth doing. I was pretty shattered afterwards and had to go straight to bed as, in my overtired madness, I´d agreed to book the 2 day trek, meaning I had to wake up at midnight and then get a bus to a breakfast point before starting on a 8/9 hour walk at 09:00. Yep, I am that crazy! We descended into the canyon, on the way I dropped my sunglasses and thought that was it for pair number 5, but further down the track there they were waiting on me, and not at all broken. Maybe this is the pair that´ll stay with me through thick and thin! I won´t hold my breath though. It was a lovely trek, though the group wasn´t all that easy-going, I was just really shattered by this time. We got to our log cabins for the night in the Oasis and after a quick dip in the thermal baths there in the dark it was straight to bed, and then rise and shine at 03:00 to start ascending the steep canyon side so we´d make it to the Condor viewing point early enough. God, that ascent was seriously tough. I hadn´t fully recouped from the Inca Trial and then I did this to myself! Only I could be that stupid! It was worth it though when I got to sit for ages in the sun at the viewing point watching the majestic and terrifying condors soar up on heat waves rising from the valley floor up above our heads to hunt. They can have a 3 metre wingspan and metre body length! Blew my mind to watch them.
It was a nice easy paced journey back to Arequipa, but there´s obviously no rest for the wicked, or the short of time, because after I collected my bag it was straight to the bus station to catch a late bus to Nazca so I´d arrive in the morning to organise a flight over the Nazca LInes (ye would´ve seen them in Indiana 4 if ya never heard of them before!). Arequipa´s bus station was absolute luxury though, I ended up waiting at the station for 2 hours, and a guy came in to open up the bar there and everything for me and this other Peruvian that were waiting. Score! After that I slept well on the bus. We got into Nazca around 07:30 and I left my bag at the station and headed to the airport. When there I went desk to desk. Loads of them were saying at the start that I´d have to wait till 13:30 to get a flight and that it would be $80, but I kept going around and hmming and hawing and finally wrangled myself a flight at 09:30, once the mist cleared, and for $60. Pretty happy with myself, especially as I was told turbulence gets much worse there after 10:00. I was skeptical that I´d enjoy it as much as I did, but the wee little plane, being co-pilot up the front, and viewing from the air these massive shapes drawn for a purpose that no one knows for sure was simply breath-taking, though I would not recommend it to those who suffer from travel sickness. The theories as to their purpose are varied, a German named Maria Reiche studied them for the longest period and deduced they were an astrological calendar, though current interpretations state they are fertility symbols etched into Mother Earth. Then there´s the theory that they are alien landing sites, which is the one I go for. Afterwards it was onto another bus and off I went to Ica, where I found a nice room, a tour for the next day, and then lay my weary bones to rest.
So Friday 22nd I went on a tour to Las Ballestas, or the poor man´s Galapogas in the morning to look at seals and birds, such as the Peruvian Booby and Humboldt Penguin. Straight after I was brought to Huacachina for the afternoon to enjoy the oases like lake village in the middle of huge sand dunes and a spot of solo sand-boarding. I found myself totally unable to move downhill while standing on the board, but sure sitting on it was fine enough too. I was shattered, again, after dragging my board up and down the sand dunes. After dinner, I headed out on a two-hour dune-buggy tour, which was pretty hair-raising I must say! I really loved zooming around in the back of the car, and the adrealine rush from reaching a peak of sand and then driving down an almost vertical drop. We also did some sand-boarding, which was a lot less tiring then going up and down yourself, plus you got a lot braver, though I did most of the boarding lying face down on my stomach. After a beautiful sunset I was dropped back into Ica only to discover my mobile gone, so after locating Rosin´s number in Ayacucho on the internet I rang her and Tonge to tell them I´d arrive at 04:00, but possibly an hour or two later due to the company I was traveling with. When I arrived in Ayacucho at 06:00 on Saturday morning a guy picked me up to stay in a hotel till the girls would come and bring me to Harri and Rosin´s place at 11:00. Then began my seriously lazy time, which I haven´t really finished with yet. The weekend in Ayacucho was really good. We caught up with Rosin, who fell in love with a Peruvian guy Harri, who is simply awesome, and has been living with him and his family for a few months now. They´re hoping to get to Ireland in the next few months, but it´d be hard to leave the dry climate and easy-going lifestyle they have there. None of us have been very good at going out on mad ones, but we managed to stay out for a drink or two and to listen to a band that Saturday night, plus I ate Cuy, or in English, Guinea Pig! Cute little claws and face, but not much meat! Sunday was indeed a day of rest, and one to talk to the family over Skype. Poor Harri was having serious withdrawl symptoms from the computer when I was finished talking to all the family! We left Rosin and Harri on Monday morning and headed for LIma.
We got into Lima just in time to meet up with my mate Calum from CouchSurfing, and a Peruvian girl, also from CS, Zulema. That night was a serious party night, the likes of which I haven´t seen in, well, many a month! Tonge and I hid out at the hostel watching movies the next day, and then met up with Calum again on Tuesday night. He was heading home to Dublin at 04:00 on Wednesday morning, but Zulema and I kept him company till he got the taxi. Later that Wednesday, after seeing the X-Files movie, we got the bus to Piura in the north, arriving on Thursday morning and after a good night´s sleep it was another bus over the boarder to Ecuador. We chose to go across here to Loja, because this boarder is less like hell on earth compared to the one to the west. Once in Loja it was another bus to Vilcabamba, where the water is fabled to be the secret to the long life expectancy of the locals. After 3 nights there we came to the conclusion that the lengthy life expectancy is due to the laid-back lifestyle. Its a major gringo hub now, but its still got that chilled, ¨don´t worry, be happy¨, vibe. I spent the Saturday morning walking, exchanging books, and soaking up the atmosphere, then we went to see a Pink Floyd tribute band, drank lots of wine, and chilled Sunday away. Yesterday, it was yet another bus to Cuenca, where we could only spend the night before arriving in Alousï town today. We´re here to do the Devil´s Nose train journey and we´ll end up in Riobambe tomorrow, then its go go go for whale watching, jungle trip, and Tonge leaving. We´re gonna spend a lot of time in buses over the next two weeks, and then I´ll be hunting for somewhere to stay put, and hang tight for a few weeks. Ah, that´ll be the life! Till next time!