Lima – I was very anxious when I landed knowing that I was in a new place and cetainly didn’t speak much of the language. Went on a rollercoaster taxi ride from the airport to my hostel in the Mira Flores district where I met up with Scott. We enjoyed an authentic local dish for dinner, walked around the city, enjoyed a couple Cusqueños at the hostel and called it a night.

Huacachina – The next day we departed early on a bus for Ica. We arrived after a short 4 hour bus ride and immediately took a quick cab ride to the desert oasis called Huacachina. This is a strange little Oasis city is surrounded by miles of massive sand dunes. The city itself consists of nothing more than a small oasis or pond surrounded by hostels, restaurants and craft vendors. This was a fun stop! Scott and I took a trip out to the dunes on a buggy and did a little sandboarding. It was so much fun, but also very dangerous. Let’s just say these buggys were a little ghetto. They had seatbelts were fastened with a simple overhand knot. Felt really secure as we tore through the desert. Sandboarding was great also. Sure it was fun to stand on a handmade snowboard shaped piece of wood and go down the sand, but if you wanted to go really fast you layed on your stomach. So that’s what we all did and whew dis we fly down the dunes. If you ever get to Huacachina you must give it a go!

Paracas – The next day was split between Paracas and Ica. We woke up early and took a bus from Huacachina out to the ocean-side village of Paracas for a boat tour of the Islas Ballestas. These island host a wide variety of animals that I have never seen before. There were sea lions, dolphins, pelicans, and lots of boobies. Of course I’m talking about the birds, you know masked boobies and blue-footed boobies. Oh and most importantly I got to see penguins! So great.

Ica- After our tour of the islands that morning Scott and I headed back to Ica. We spent our time negotiating bus travel to Cusco which is a little difficult when there are some serious riots going on in cities along the bus routes. We found a bus that didn’t go near these areas. After this Scott and I enjoyed lunch and pisco sours in one of Ica’s most historic restaurants. Pisco is a local liquor made from fermented and distilled grape skins left over from the production of wine. These are quite tasty but I think they give me weird dreams.

From Ica we took a long 25 hour bus ride to Cusco. Uggghhhh such a long journey. But it was worth it because Cusco is amazing! I will tell you more about this city very soon.

Today I am trying something new. It is Friday and I am riding the bus to work. I got up about an hour earlier than usual and rode my bike to the bus stop which was not only a great ride but also provided for a little exercise. First bus had no room for my bike so I had to wait a bit for the next. Might be a bit late but it is Friday and I’m sure I’ll end up staying a little late anyway.

So yeah. Here I am sitting on the bus. I’m saving some gas which was one of my goals for the new year and I’m getting Zen! My book is patiently waiting on my lap as it has been waiting on my shelf for two years. The Little White Bird by J.M. Barrie is a book that I have started to read four times now. I shouldn’t keep it waiting any longer. Here are a couple pictures:

UPDATE:  After writting this post on the bus it began raining like crazy.  Biked about a mile in the rain to the office and showed up to work a little late and totally soaked.  I loved every second of it!

This adventure began on a dirt road on the North Shore of Big Bear Lake right as the sun was setting a couple of weeks ago.  Ruthi and I had loaded up the earlier that day with no plans other than climbing.  We had a couple of ideas for places we had never been and certainly no guide book or direction for getting there.  So we started out on this dirt road and drove for about a half hour into the fading light until we found a campsite.  The campground was empty except for one other small group.   We made sure our site was far enough away so they couldn’t make fun of us for running around in the middle of the night with our headlamps.

We were in no hurry to wake up that morning, as it is the time of year when everything moves a little slower in the morning.  After stoking a morning fire out of a few twigs and pine cones that I scavanged we were able to warm up enough to find some rocks.  This was the easy part.  There were lots of rocks, but without a proper guidebook there would be no story to tell.

Ruthi got attacked by the rope

Good fortune came upon us when we found two other climbers that didn’t put up a fight when I instructed Ruthi to begin taking pictures of the necessary pages in the book.

Borrowed treasure map

Coyotes at Sunset (5.8)

Having these stolen pages helped us some, but not much.  We  wandered for most of the day trying a couple climbs here and there until we finally found something that just fit.  It was the last climb of the day, 100 ft sport climb called Coyotes at Sunset.  The climb is only rated 5.8 but, it helped me to remember that the reason I started climbing in the first place was because it allowed me to hang onto something real and allowed me to feel so much smaller than everything around me.