Decided not to start trekking tomorrow yet, but to do a half day hike instead, to get more used to the altitude. On Monday then I will start the three or four day trek and won´t be able to update this blog for a while. I guess I´ve bought enough food for the trek now. Pasta, tomato sauce, soy meat, nuts, dried fruits, muesli... I´ve decided not to be a sissy and to carry my own backack. I think it weighs about 11 kg.

I have to say i´m really pleasantly suprised with the food here. There´s fake meat in the supermarkets! I counted at least four vegetarian restaurants in the small city I´m in now, and I´ve eaten some pretty good meals, for one or two dollars. Life is pretty cheap here. There´s some strange health consciouness going around here... There´s some sort of bars where you can get healthy drinks, and there´s lots of street stalls and carts advertising drinks that are protective against this and that disease...
Speaking of street sellers, it´s really sad to see sometimes how people are trying to eke out a living. They are selling everything on the streets, from toilet paper, disgusting candy, to Harry Potter and Codigo Da Vinci.

adios
T

Time for a pic. Isnt technology wonderful?

Tomorrow its time for a first small hike. More news later...

'Only the mountains can heal our souls'... My father wrote it on a photograph of some Himalaya scenery that was hanging in our living room. I have arrived in Huarazm, a village at 3000 meter, surrounded by mountains. And indeed, seeing mountains is always awe-inspiring but also soothing.
We got here after a 7 hour trip from Lima - very nice and comfortable bus, not expensive. I´m feeling a slight headache, probably because of the altitude, and Heather is lying on her bed, a bit dizzy. I right away felt great in this place. The plan is to find someone or some people to trek with - I guess i have found someone already, David, from England, who was on our bus. He plans to do the same treks as I. We have to get used to the altitude first of course, and would start on Sunday. The first hike would be four days. Dont know yet if I will carry my big backpack myself, or wether I´ll support the local economy and hire a burro with an arriero, or a donkey and driver.
Yesterday was a nice day in Lima. The cab dropped us off at the wrong museum. Entrance was a suprisingly high 8 dollars. Heather had to pay only half that, thanks to a long expired student card. I tried to convince the guy that I was a student of the erotic arts (there was an erotic art section in the museum) but he didn´t buy it.
That night we had dinner with volunteers from a local animal rights/vegetarian organisation. Very nice people. They paid for our food, a vegetarian version of ceviche, the national seafood dish. The best thing was that this was only the first dish and that it was unexpectedly followed by the main course. The kind of surprise me and my stomach love!
I´ll try to upload some pics to this blog tomorrow perhaps.

hasta pronto, amigos!

Lima, 9am. Hardly slept last night, because of the time difference. Waited up for Heather and we talked till it was the Belgian time to get out of bed, so I guess my sleeping rhythm is kind of screwed up. Anyway, it was of course great to see her again. It's been two years since I last saw her (in California). She's 26 now and hasn't changed a bit (which in her case is A Good Thing). She still sleeping now so I'm blogging :-) Looks like we'll already split up tomorrow, as she has to meet someone in the south, while I want to go North first. We'll see about that later today. Hasta pronto.

It seems like I will survive today as a vegan. Right next to my hotel is vegetarian restaurant. Not exactly a cosy place. The interior kind of looks like a chemist's and the place advertises itself as a "natural centre". I had a strange plate consisting of: a mountain of lettuce and carrots (which I ate, in spite of guides recommending not to eat raw veggies - damn vaccinations better do their job), a slab of rather dry seitan (but still: seitan!), a lot of cooked potatoes and, finally, corn on the cob, which, unfortunately, seemed to be of the cattle-feed rather than the sweet variety. 2,5 euros for a very big plate, not bad.
The hotel owner is... Dutch :-)

¡Lima!
To say that the flight can only be described as uneventful would be untrue: I can also call it LONG and BORING :-) No hijackings, no crashes, no weirdos, nobody even as much as puking on the plane. Only a kind of annoying Japanese guy who kept wanting to gaze through MY window. I travelled about 28 hours in total. Minced soymeat in my vegan dish¡
Heather is arriving around eleven tonight so i am kind of just killing time. Nobody thinks highly of Lima, and we'll get out of here asap, probably after a lunch with people from the local vegetarian society.

abrazo para todos

Leaving in a couple of hours. Slept remarkably well. Only thing that remains to be seen is wether I can stuff all my stuff in my backpack...

I'll try to be mindful of this quote that my roomie wrote on a byebye card:

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not"

It's by RW Emerson. Wonder if this guy ever said anything trite or stupid :-)

hasta la vista!