Bloody mess...

Alright, so back to Cuzco. Its a lovely city, but a bit touristy. All the stores are restaurants, photoshops, gear shops (for the inca trail), or massage parlors (also for people who do the inca trail). These girls stand in the street and the only word in english they know is massage, and they say it about ten to twenty thousand million times a day. Its legit massages though, not like the ones I will discuss later in this post. The inca trail kicks your ass from what I hear, and so hikers hit it up to recover before their flights home (the inca trail is a 5 day hike to Maccu Piccu).

I was staying at Loki which is one of the worlds best hostels, and for sure where the party is at. There is no such thing as a sober or early night there. Not possible. As a gringo if you go out to the night clubs the local girls slip you roofies when your not looking and rob you so its kind of dodgy. Not knowing this, but wanting to party we went to a bar with all peruvians called Caos, and had a really good time. I cought a girl pouring something into my glass, and made her drink it all... lol.

The next day we wanted to go to Maccu Piccu the cheap way so we rode a chicken bus with the worst seats (might have been intentional), but saved a bunch of cash vs. the gringo route which is pretty lame. We got stuck in this town called Otallatantambo (I think), which was pretty cool. The woman at the hostel really (and I mean really) liked to talk, so by the time I left we had a 7 hour conversation, and it was around 2 in the morning. Boy, if you ever need a crash course in south american politics, Karen is perfect. I learned about che guevera, pablo escobar (who apparently isnt really dead, or so all of colombia believes so), every corrupt president, chavez, evo moralez, bush, the FARC, the shining path, etc...

Alright, so let me explain a little about peru because this is more interesting than anything else. Fifteen years ago the elitists from Lima (the capital), were real assholes to everybody else in the country, especially if they had dark skin (including non-indigenous). The light skinned Limeñas had control of the police, and had them playing like puppets to whatever they needed. The police (trained in Lima with the this mentality)were super rude to the poor, and raped and beat the indigenous, and people from the countryside. There was a japanese president Fujimori who redistributed the land to the poor to try and save the country, and in turn the rich bribed the police to kill the indigenous living on that land so that the rich could claim it was inhabited and reclaim back what the president redistributed. Police would kill whole villages, and have mass burials which to this day are still being found. Needless to say during the 70s and 80s the government policy was nearly 100% in favor of the light skinned creollas (a ethnic group defined as pure spanish blood that never mixed, as opposed to mestizos)

With that being said the people started to fight back. The main group responsible is the Sendero Luminoso (translated to shining path). They learned terrorist and guerrilla tactics and started wreaking havoc in Lima. Their message was clear that they wanted justice for what was being done, and that the people of the country need the respect that they deserve.

Karens parents owned a small shop in Lima at the time. With their dark skin they were always considered outcasts. One day a cop asked for a pack of cigarettes, but Karens dad who only sold them one by one told the cop he couldnt sell a whole pack. The cop told him ¨do you know who I am, you &%$"! (she went off naming like a hundred spanish curses that I dont understand¨, beat him with a police baton, spit on his face, and arrested him for one day. Just because he sold cigarettes one by one as oppposed to a pack. This is just one example she gave.

Ok, so the shining path with the help of the people of the countryside were wreaking havoc in Lima, and slowly the people of Lima started to fear the people from the countryside. Before there was no sign of curtesy between the groups, but today if there is an exchange of words a person from Lima will have limited words of curtesy, but they will be there nonetheless. This is in fact because they are scared more than anything else of people from the countryside. This is crazy!

Alright, so during this time the president was Alan Garcia (1985 - 1990). Around 1990 the four main prisons collaborated and underwent a massive cleansing campaign of terrorists. Around 400 to 500 prisoners were killed per jail (around 2k total), and buried without a word to the public. Once this leaked the country was outraged, and Garcia had to step down. How could the president allow this?

Well in 2006 Garcia came back out of exile, and won the popular election. The reason for this was because his opponent in the election (I dont know the name) was a military general who let it be clearly known his intentions. He told the country that he was going to investigate every MNC and look into every contract with other countries. This being known all those companies who were getting away with murder under a careless and corrupt regime flowed the word down to the individual employees that if they voted for the military candidate that they would lose their jobs. Basically the country was duped into blackmail. Garcia won the election in 3 of the 24 provinces of Peru (the most populous, with Lima counting for two of those three), and was put into power. The only reason they allowed him to comeback is because in that mass murder of the ¨terrorists¨, all those jail wardens in the four jails were murdered shortly thereafter. Garcia claimed that they all conspired together to perform the murders, and he was not aware of this. With all the wardens murdered, there is no way to prove if he is lying or not. Everybody in Peru thinks he is lying.

Ok, now to the wardens. Karens sister was married to a guy who went to the university of san carlos in Lima. There was a conspiracy that was never found to be true that anyone who goes to san carlos is part of a collaboration with the shining path, and there was a cloud of suspicion over anyone that attended that university. One day the shining path detonated a bomb very close to where Karens sisters husband and brother were. The two of them ran to get away from the explosion, and when this happened the police blamed the two of them. They were sent to jail innocently. Quite obviously they didnt do it. The shining path are experts and were nowhere near the location of the detonation. They would not make mistakes like that and get caught. So these two guys (Karens sisters husband and brother) were in the jail that got the worst of the mass murders. They were killed among the other 500. Because of this Karens sister went mad and told everyone she was going to kill that warden. She went into the jungle in search of the shining path, and wasnt heard for two weeks. When they next heard from her it was when she was all over the news. She was trained by the shining path, and one day followed the warden, pulled in front of his car at a stop light, shot him in the head and drove away. Nuts!

So I also learned about the protests that I witnessed in Aeroquepa. The one communist party that you can see in the picture with the doll of bush is patria roja. They are very dangerous, and when I showed Karen the picture her face went white. She thought I was crazy for being around them and taking their picture. They are a terrorist organization, and they wanted the government to know they are not happy. The second presidency of Alan Garcia has seen a deal made with Chile and the US to export Peruvian food. Previously all exports of agriculture have been of vegetables that are not used in Peruvian cuisine. With sucess here the president signed contracts to sell everything that the Peruvians use in their dishes. This has a whole lot of side effects, most noteably food shortages in Peru because they cant meet the demand, as well as a steep increase in cost of those vegetables.

Next day went to Macch Piccu, the lost city of the incas. Pretty sweet. Story here is that it was a city of the elite, and its heyday was during the reign of the 9th inca king around 1400. Basically the spanish came, and the incas were all murdered or killed by smallpox. On the way out they cut off any signs of civilizations, and nobody knew about macchu piccu till 1920s when a local farmer gave an ancient incan coin to an english explorer.

Killin it, double dragon style. We also have Lion King, and Thursday night in Cuzco.

Yeah, your seeing that right. Thats a llama taking a leak

My new buddy

They needed to sacrifice a virgin, so I was chosen because of how pure my actions are.

Got wasted in Cuzco that night. Had a really crazy night. Like really crazy. . Next day sobered up, and headed out to Lima the next day to fly to Argentina. For some reason that day I found my way to a female police barracks, and drove one of their police motorcycles. Pretty cool. In Lima I hit the old haunts (casino, my favorite bar in mira flores). At my bar I met up with the people I partied with two weeks earlier when I first got to Lima. Really fun. I showed these Irish guys the ropes when it comes to Lima, and hit the clubs in Barranco with these girls. Barranco is a barrio of Lima which is as beautiful as the touristy areas but is more for locals. The clubs there are electric.

Next day flew to Buenos Aires. Its hard to tell a tourist from a local, which is a lil weird. I cant get my bearings. I cant tell if I should speak spanish or english. I went around BA for a while, and went to the presidential palace where Eva Peron used to give her speeches to the masses. Also went to her grave. They really dig her here... (your supposed to laugh). The hostel I was at was all brazilians, who have near perfect english, and no spanish. Its hillarious, they struggle so much with spanish that I have to speak for them. They really took me to school on brazillian women, bush, and soccer. I told them about what Diogo did to that poor girl on the beach (maybe Mike T is pos the only one who knows this story), but they told me that Brazilians are nothing like this. They arent sex craved crazies. They are actually humble with an aire of cockyness because of their looks, but other than that are pretty normal people.

So my first night here we went to Palermo (barrio with good parties), and went to this place crobar. You may know the name because theres a sister club in NYC. That had to be the craziest party ive been to. Well to start, they dont go out here till 3 in the morning. Secondly the place I went to had to be packed with 4,000 people. Third the music was amazing. Robby Rivera (big time house DJ) was killing it. Fourth, the party goes till 11 in the morning. Fourth - no shit on the way out there were straight up fully naked hookers waiting to get picked up. Im not talking ragged junkies either, these were porn star status. The Brazillian girls were even shocked. I was raging, but the brazillian girls were beat so we blew that taco stand at 8 in the morning. Now I have done my fare share of partying, but I think Ive made it to see the sunrise under a dozen times in my life. That shit is a daily occurence here. Yesterday went to some bar slash dance club with the brazillians again, and learned to salsa (an ounce), and then talked politics and dirty socks with those girls till ten.

Not crying for Argentina. Casa Roja is where Eva gave all her famous speeches.

This is what happens when you think BA is going to be priced like Peru

Their capital building is modeled after ours

All this walking around made me tired, and I needed to take a nap...

This man was painting with his feet. You cant deny him props for that

Id imagine Id find more time to read the news if our newspapers were like this...

At 11 I was woken up, and told I had to get out of the hostel beacuse I didnt have a reservation. I packed up and being really hungover and in need of sleep, posted up and got some sleep on the street. Theres a lesson to be learned here. Next time you see someone face down in the street dead asleep treat them with respect because you never know if they are a bum or a professional engineer.

Another funny note. I tell cabbies im an engineer, and like almost 20% of the time they tell me they are too, and they ask for my card so I can get them a job. Ridic.

Oh yeah, what they say about Argentina having steak everywhere for cheap, this is 100% true. Whole cows sit on barbeques ready to dish it out. In the food courts of malls almost every restaurant has a full steak menu (as opposed to sbarros, you get a huge ribeye). BA is more western than anywhere I have been. The drinks are cold, theres heat in the buildings, hot water (wait, just having water all the time is a big step), and a public transport system that makes sense. The people here are a bit cocky, their spanish is totally different to the rest of south america, and they look more european than south american. There also is a total lack of indigenous people. Its interesting, and I like it. Prices have gone way up recently (last 1.5 years), so its definately no match for the bargains you can find in Peru. Gotta watch the wallet and not carried away.

Tonight I take a bus to Iguazu Falls. The seat folds flat like a bed which is nice considering its a 22 hour ride. To compare it to others, its much bigger than Niagra with 275 falls, and wider (although not as tall) as Victoria Falls in Africa. Victoria is 100 meters tall, and Iguazu is 82 (good enough for me).