“Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—Something lost in the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!” --Rudyard Kipling, “The Explorer” It’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated my blog largely because until this past week, life in Peru has been fairly uninspiring and routine—until I went to Cusco and Machu Picchu. Heading to Cusco—the Inca Capital I headed to Cusco, the closest large city to Machu Picchu with some American friends here in Lima who also wanted to explore Peru’s most well-known ruins and tourist spot. At over 10,000 feet above sea level, my first concern even before heading to Cusco was whether I’d handle the altitude well and not get a bad case of altitude sickness, or “soroche,” as it is called in Spanish. I remember being in ... read more

One of my objectives in heading to Ecuador was to find a relatively cheap package to the Galapagos Islands. However, finding a package, within the price range I wanted, and within the time frame I wanted to be there, was next to impossible. You can simply fly to the Galapagos for about $350 roundtrip but you risk either not finding a package within your budget or you end up having to wait several days before being able to explore the islands. It is virtually impossible to tour the Galapagos without being on a guided tour (usually by a small boat with cabins and all meals included) and I wasn’t willing to sit in some town on the islands with all the wildlife so close, yet so far! So, I sat in my hotel room in Guayaquil, ... read more

Hello from Lima, Peru! I’m traveling in South America for the next two months so this blog will temporarily be a “South America” blog instead of a Costa Rica blog. I’ve never had two months off to travel, so this should be an adventure! I picked Lima as my home base, and from here, I hope to visit more of Peru, then Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia (not necessarily in that order). When? Where exactly? For how long will I travel in each country? These are questions I cannot answer at the moment as I’m making no specific plans. I’ll get up and go when I’m ready, stay as long or as little in one place, and then move on. It’s all about exploring and deciding for once in my life, where and when I want to ... read more

This blog entry has many pictures and little text, particularly to compensate for the lack of pictures in my last blog entry and because I took so many pictures from our recent birthday party (more on this below). We decided to have a big birthday bash for our terrific cleaning lady, Karol, and our great neighbor, Fernando, since their birthdays fall around the same time. It was also a good time to “celebrate” the beginning of the rainy season (called “green season” by the national tourist board). We also decided we would go all out and ordered several trays of vegetable and meat lasagna from the man who owns the local Italian restaurant. It was definitely terrific! In addition, we had our neighbors and friends bring dishes so with about 40 or so guests, we had ... read more