cuenca

buenas dias,
well here i am, still in cuenca. not a lot has happend except some good parties. my classmates are pretty cool with the acception of a few that i dont know how would ever think of coming on a trip like this... i mean they are just so damn boring! haha oh well. there is already a subculture that has formed out of the rest of the class, its actually quite funny, i am seeing culteral seperation within my own class. tonight i am going to a fiesta with my new brother (host brother) Omar. he is a wicked guy and he is going to show me some Ecuadorian chicas tonight. So i will let you know how the party goes. Meanwhile i got my camera fixed... AGAIN... so here are a couple pics from the trek or we will see how much time i have to put pictures on. it can take awhile. my camera broke halfway through the first day of the trek so theres not much. the one pick is from the peak of a mountain that took 4 long hours to walk up. those mountains just keep goin and going. the other is from a waterfall a couple hours into the trek. the pictures really dont do it justice. there are two pics from both sides of the peak. Thats all for me...

i hate school

well here i am in cuenca settling down for a few weeks and going to school. ugh it sucks. try goinig around peru then going right into school, not fun. i had my first class today and i am with a couple of geeks from u of l. i may snap on them if they get any dorkier soon. ok done with being an ass, so i also have a host family i am staying with here. it is really good cause the kid that lives there is 18 and can talk pretty good english so we are helping each other out. he is taking me to a soccer game then were doing up cuenca on the weekend. his 18 year old chicas are going to be all over me... haha. soo i dont know how much interesting things will happen the next bit but if i have a great story from a night at i will be sure to put it one here... especially for you adam. and my camera is not fixed hence the zero picutres, sorry. i just a normal, non digital camera now. ok gots to run. take care and talk to you soon.

lake titicaka/puno

hola amigos,
well here i am in puno right beside lake titicaka. yesterday lauren and i went on a day long boat trip to see the indiginous people that live on islands on the lake. it was very cool because they make their own islands and live on them. they use this floating bamboo and tie it together and then put more bamboo on top of that. they did this to get away from the spaniards taking over way back then and are still living on them. pretty interesting stuff. i did get sick for the first time last night, man was that a shitty night. i dont know what it was exactly but today has been better so that is good. tonight we are flying out of here and going to tumbes by ecuador to hang out on the beach. should be good. i have been spending the perfect amount of time in each place cause i am always ready to move on so that is good. well that is all for now. i will let you know how the flights and the beaches are. take care friends.
chau

trekkin in the andes

hola amigos,
well just want to say thanks to mis amigos and family who have left some comments. love it. the trip has been amazing. i just got back from a 7 day trekk in the andes and the things i have seen i have never even dreamed of. i wasnt expecting an intense trekk, but it really was. we climbed up to 5000 meters at one point. it was amazing. we saw some amazing glaciers, natural springs, and andean communities. it was wild. oh and one of our cooks gave me his peru soccer jersey which was awesome as well. he played on one of the top teams in lima and we swapped jerseys. i had a spain one that i bought for 3 bucks and he wanted to trade. i was happy about that trade. yesterday we got a little touristy and finished the trekk in machu pichhu. that was also amazing. the keep the ruins well preserved and minus the copius amounts of people it was just beautiful. i finished the afternoon by climbing machu picchu mountain that over looks all the riuns. it was a 2 hour hike with drop offs that were straight down. it was actually pretty scary sometimes but i made it safe and sound. the view was the best i have ever seen over looking the ruins and the surrounding mountains. there was no one else on the trail which surprised me so i was able to view the top without others which made it even more spectacular. it was a perfectly clear day with not one cloud so that made it even better. now i am back in cuzco and waiting to go river rafting tomorrow. that should be fun. tomorrow night lauren and i are heading to lake titicaka and then flying to the best beach and warm waters in peru, its called mancora. i am excited for it all. it will be nice to chill on a beach for a bit too. the weather here can get fairly cold at night sometimes dropping to around zero but the days get up to 25. pretty drastic changes. well i will update when i can. take care everyone. hope all is well.