End of Blog

This is the end of this blog. I'm not in South America anymore. You all know what I'll be doing now that I'm back in the USA. I hope you all enjoyed sharing this adventure with me.

I had an itch to travel for a long time. I think this trip to south america did just the trick.


ttfn.

What Now

So, now that I'm back in New York...


I'm looking forward to starting graduate school in the fall. Until then, I'll try to find some work in Rochester.

I'm working at Rohrbachs (my favorite microbrewery) two days a week for a month, but it's a volunteer gig. They might hire me on after the internship is over, if they need me. I'm trying to get a job at the High Falls Brewery also, but I haven't heard back from them yet.

Aside from working at breweries, I guess I'll take a temporary job doing whatever for the summer. I bet some sort of work will surface in the next month or so.

For Graduate School -- I accepted a teaching assistantship at the University of Maryland Baltimore County starting this fall. I'm entering the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering program there, but I'll be doing a lot of work with chemical sensors, particularly sensors that could be used for brewing.

Yikes!

I escaped a kidnapping attempt last night. That was 4 seconds I'll never forget. Anyway, I'm safe in the Quito airport now waiting for my flight. They've got WiFi, so I thought I'd share last night's exciting activities. My only regret is that I couldn't find a brick to throw through the kidnappers' car window. They deserve to get smashed up.

Winding Down

Things are coming to a close now. Today is my last day in South America. I have a 6:30am flight back to NYC tomorrow morning. I'll let you all know how things end up for me back at home. It looks like I'll be working at a brewery (hopefully two breweries) this summer. Then, I'll be going to graduate school in the fall. I'll fill you all in on the details next week. Then, this blog will be finished.

After Lima

I travelled north and stayed in a beach town for a day. I could have spent another day there, but I thought it would be prudent to get to Quito a couple days beofre my flight back home. I'm in Quito, Ecuador now sitting in a coffee shop.

Lima

Went to Lima. I was there for a day, then I left. I went to a museum while I was there. They had some Inca pottery among other things.

Classic Picture

Here's the classic postacrd picture of Machu Picchu, but with me in it. Waynu Picchu is in the background. There's also a picture of me trying to do a "move" and falling.

Waynu Picchu

Waynu Picchu means "Big Mountain" and it overlooks Machu Picchu, "Little Mountain"

Machu Picchu

Inca Jungle Trail, Day 3

Day three started with a cable car ride across the canyon river. The rest of the day was a more hiking.

How's That Bread?

Inca Jungle Trail, Day 2

The second day was all hiking. It included a small stretch of ancient Inca Trail. At the end of the day, we relaxed at a hot springs resort in the middle of the Andes maountains. It was perfect.

Inca Jungle Trail, Day One

The first day of the Inca Jungle Trail tour was on mountain bikes. It started out very cold and rainy, but as we descended it warmed up. It was rainy for much of the time though. We were touring at the end of the rainy season.

Back from Macchu Pichu

I'm back, but I've got to move on to the next place. So you'll have to wait for pictures at least until tomorrow.

Inca Jungle Trek

You won't hear a peep out of me for the next several days. I'm going on a 4 day, 3 night trek to Machu Picchu. It sounds pretty cool. It's not the famous Inca Trail, but one of the segments of the trek does use old Inca stone roads.

Qorikancha: Inca Temple

The foundation of the most extravagant Inca temple is still in tact in Cusco. A cathedral was built over top of the looted temple by the Spanish conquistadores. Cusco used to be the center of the Inca civilization. Now it's a tourist hub to Macchu Piccu. There used to be ridiculous amounts of gold and silver cladding covering the temple, as well as solid gold & silver cerimonial artifacts. All were looted and melted down by the spanish. But, look at the insane stonework craftmanship on the temple walls. You can't swipe a credit card between the perfectly fitted stones that's for sure!

My Never Ending Quest

I have a never ending quest to try any new beer that I come into contact with. Here's some Peruvian coca beer that I tried. It was interesting. I don't think I'll buy it again though.

Tililaca & Huillanopampa Islands

We also visited some permanent islands where there are indegenous people living. There were about 2-3 thousand people living on each island. These islands are more isolated than the mainland, but less so than the floating islands.

Floating Islands

Lake Titicaca

I was at Lake Titicaca for a few days. I went on a boat tour of some of the islands. There is one tribe of indigenous people that live on floating reed islands which they construct themselves. They have done this historically to isolate themselves from outsiders. Intermarriage with outsiders is very rare. But today, they are very open to tourism.

It seems like tourism has spoiled a lot of the indegenous people here. Not just with the floating islanders, but also with the permanent islanders. Today, these groups have an economy that seems to be half subsistance farming/fishing and half tourism. I think tourism has really changed these places. A lot of the time, I felt like we we're getting a show of "what the tourists want to see". But, maybe not.

Our tour group was split up, and we each spent a night on the permanent island with a host family. At night, there was a party. Our families dressed us up in native clothing, and we all danced at the "town hall" with some live native music... That was weird to say the least.

Arequipa at Night

I left Arequipa earlier this week. Arequipa is the 2nd largest city in Peru. I liked it there. It was a nice place, and also very cheap. They had lots of trips for tourists to take, and good shopping too. Here's a picture of the Plaza de Armas at night. All of the buildings are built from a white volcanic stone that is bountiful around El Misti.

Mountain Pictures, Day 2, Back Down

Mountain Pictures, Day 2, Reaching the Summit