Mark copolo

Writing you from the last left of our trip and the third installment of our series 'Engagement Honeymoon in Peru', this installment is called 'Mancora Beach Getaway' . After a stopover in the not-so-pleasant Machala, we continued on back over the border into Peru - and it might sound like sarcasm but I swear its not - I had missed Peru. My time in Ecuador was marred with parasites and I know it was too rushed to make a proper judgement, so I will make an improper judgement: I like Peru much more than Ecuador. Other than being a little pricey, Ecuador came off as very American-wanna-be (tons of 'American Clothing' stores, using US currency, etc) and Peru has an undeniable character that her Ecuadorian brother has lost is his search for the American dream. The ... read more

We've reached a few milestones in our trip - we have started a second country, started our third container of peanut butter, finished our second bottle of pepto bismol, and so many more show-stoppers! Keep reading for other more-than-you-wanted-to-know gems.. We last left off with our heroes crossing the international bridge to Ecuador. Our trip took two days and the route was as follows: Chachapoyas Bagua Grande Jean San Ignacio (spend the night here) San Igacio La Balsa to cross the border Zumba Vilcabamba The rides were relatively uneventful and included lots of busses, taxis, combis. San Ignacio was relatively uneventful - we found a cheap simple hotel and wandered the streets hoping for vegetarian food. After many places saying they had no vegetarian food (what does that mean? you ... read more

Our visit to the Amazon Jungle has been incredible so far and we are sad to be moving on, though the mosquito bites are helping ease our sadness. ((warning - the pictures don´t line up with the text, to see the rest of the photos scroll down and hit 2 or next (then scroll to the bottom of that page))). We arrived a week ago and within minutes fell in love with Iquitos - our flight was easy and certainly made it hard to accept that we were far far away from any other city. In fact, Iquitos is the largest city in the world this inaccessible - you can´t drive here, you can only fly in or take a boat (a looong boat ride). I was feeling kind of sick so we really just spent ... read more

So much has happened that this blog is doomed to be super long so no introduction and I´ll probably skim over the things that happened that have no photos... mostly because I suspect people only look at photos anyway. (I had some trouble uploading the photos so they may not be in the correct order or correspond with the text nearby, sorry). 17/06 Not much to do in Lima, I spent my time waiting to pick up Sara from the airport but luckily, Roxana invited me out to lunch that day. She and her friend Juan and I went to a very fancy seafood restaurant and I ate some things that I can´t quite translate but everything was excellent. Highlights: a purple juice made from purple corn called Chicha (can be alcoholic but this wasnt), Yuka ... read more

Hola! Buenos Dias! Its been a while since I last wrote and a lot has happened - this will be a long update so I'll try to jazz it up with lots of fun pictures, enjoy! 6/9 - I met Walter early at my hotel and we took a taxi to the spot where all the Colectivos (private owned, route-specific 15 passenger vans that seem to be in a competition with each other over exactly how many people can fit into a 15 passenger van) leave from. Then we took a Colectivo to the peninsula where Karine is. The bus is full of Aymara-speaking Peruvians, which is the local language and culture of this peninsula. Walter writes me a short list of Aymara phrases, with the help of some of the other passangers. Most of the ... read more