Lima, Peru

Hi. Im alive. It always makes me nervous arriving at places so late at night. I didnt want to risk my safety so I took the official taxi from the airport and had the driver take me to a reasonable hotel. I am in Miraflores of Lima. I think this place is called the El Executivo. I am 3 hours ahead of you people back home and its 2am here. Surprisingly, Im not freezing my ass off. Not particularily as cold as I thought. Around 63 degrees. My phone is able to recieve text messages, but apparently I cant make calls or send any out for some reason.

Anyways, tomorrow Candice is comming. Good night.

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Peru 2009

MY 5th wonder of the world. Whew. I've got two more after this one.

So Candice is coming with me on this little ten day adventure. I am leaving this Sunday Aug 9th, and she is coming on Monday. We couldn't get on the same flight because, well that's a really long story. I was originally supposed to be going on this trip as a school project to bring medical supplies to people in the Amazon jungle, but the whole thing became a mess and I was stuck with a plane ticket. Anyways, I think I am still going to have a blast.

We are arriving in Lima, the capital of Peru. We are not going to be there long because we want to get to Cuzco where we are going to embark on a hiking/camping deal to get to Machu Picchu. We are prepared for the trip as we have bought new hiking shoes, water purification tablets, first aid kit, flashlights, sleeping bag, wool socks, waterproof jacket, protein bars, and of course camera. This trip is a little different because I am actually going to be camping. And of course whatever we bring in our packs, we must take on the hiking trip. It is crucial to pack light!

After Cuzco, we are going to either Lake Titicaca (yes, said exactly like "titty" lol), or we may just head back over to Lima and spend a day or two there. I hear they have some nice beaches.

So that's it... Leavin' in 6 days... write ya'll from Peru!

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China Trip 2008

This trip was a rare trip in which I had a travel buddy.  Briana, a friend of a friend decided that she wanted to play tag along on my trip to China.  We left August 12 and stayed for two weeks approx.  The fun part about this trip was also the fact that it was during the Summer Olympic games. 

Overview of our route:

Hong Kong

Shenzen

Chengdu

Xian

Beijing (Great Wall!!!) 

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I Travel

I've created this blog to to tell my story about the places that I've been.  While I have a long way to go until I can say that I'm an avid traveler, I have tried to take a trip once a year.  

My ultimate goal in my lifetime is to visit all 7 wonders of the new world.  If you don't know what they are:

1.  The Colosseum, Italy

2. The Great Wall of China

3. The Taj Mahal, India

4. Chitzen Itza, Mexico

5.  Machu Picchu, Peru

6. Petra, Jordan

7.  Christ the Redeemer, Brasil

I am well on my way, at this point of my life, I have seen the first four.  I hope that you all enjoy my travel blogs.  

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Squat Toilet

For anyone that's ever been to Asia, you would understand the true meaning of the fabulous squat toilet. I first encountered mine when I went to Thailand. The worst is on the train. The stuff inside, if it gets clogged starts sloshing around due to the speed of the train and low and behold, you have pee and poo all over the floor.

Here is my picture of a squat toilet. One that I encountered on the train in Thailand.

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Lil' titbits on China

I didn't really have the chance to conclude on my trip to China. When I got home, I realized that not only did i have tonsilitis, but i also had 550 pictures. Wow.

Here are some at the weekend market called Panj---something in Beijing.





This is Mao Zedong...a huge statue.


As always, I bought a painting from a local artist.




Can you believe that they sell passports at the market?


Does anyone know what instrument this is?




So the question that everyone keeps asking is whether or not Briana and I went to the Olympics. Well, we actually got tickets to see Men's Diving before we left. But when we got there, we found out that they were fraudulent. We complained to the Olympic committee, and were able to get tickets to just get inside the Olympic Green.



This was the remarkable line just to get inside the doors of the official Olympic Store. Inside the store, it was complete madness. There were people shoving and carrying Costco sized baskets of souviners around. I managed to get a few key chains and T-shirts.


Of course, the only thing to eat in the Olympic Village.








Somehow, this picture came out so cool. I am in focus, and everything else is not.


Just something that I thought was interesting was the ticket scalpers. Outside the Olympic subway station, you could find literally, a ticket market with people selling tickets at 1000 times the price of the face value. Yes, you read right. There were people selling tickets at outrageously high prices, and there were signs that said no ticket re-sales. One man said that he got arrested on the first day for buying, but they didn't keep him in jail long and it didn't stop him from going back.





Things I remember:
Every time we took a taxi, there was an automated voice that would say "Hello passenger, thank you for taking my taxi."
I was addicted to these apple pear things.
Everyday Briana and I would miss the Vegas dry heat and come back to the hostel aching for a shower.
The pollution wasn't as bad as I thought.
Once, we stood in line for the bathroom and soon realized that the people standing in line were waiting for the squat toilet, while no one was using the Western toilet.

All in all, China was amazing. I have some wonderful new memories.

Here we are as we leave Beijing with all of our stuff. The trip to the airport wasn't too fun. Long story short, we were those people you occasionally see running through the airport. We were late because we took the wrong subway, and then took a taxi and got stuck in traffic. Then we got dropped off at the wrong terminal. Haha, what more could go wrong? With minutes to spare we made it, thank god.

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THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA

I am speechless at what to write about the Great Wall. It was an absolutely amazing and beautiful day. I figure that I will let my pictures do most of the talking.

Many of the watch towers that we crossed were crumbling to pieces and were very steep. Using two hands was a good idea.

At some watch towers or sections of the wall, there would be a green "X" indicating that we were supposed to walk down and around that section of the wall because it was too dangerous.

One thing I have to mention is the dozens of Mongolians that roam on the wall waiting for tourists to come by. Their soul purpose is to get money from us by having us buy something or by acting as a tour guide. I personally believe that many of them live in the watchtowers along the wall, as there were sleeping bags laid out in many of the towers.

Our hike was approximately 10 km (6 miles). Trust me when I tell you it was hot. There was no sun, thank god, but it was hot hiking up and down all those steep stairs and rocks. When we reached the end, we had the choice to walk down the stairs off the wall or to zip line down, then take a boat. Why would we want to walk?

Here is the wooden bridge we crossed to get to the zip line.

Tons of these guys on the wall.

I also wanted to mention this site: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/walkingthewall/index.php/2006/05/

These two people walked the entire 4,160 miles of the Great Wall and wrote an amazing blog about their journey. It is a blog of great pictures and inspiration.

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