We Rented a Car!

 Adventures on the way to Barreal

 The amazing Rock fetching furry friend.

 Thanksgiving dinner, with one burner and a toaster oven!

 The uninvited guests

Aconagua- the highest peak in the americas at around 7,000 meters.  This is as close as we got.

Park national Leoncita.  "If you see a puma, don´t run.  Gather your children.  Wave your arms. Growl???

Santa Maria, Northwest Argentina

This trip had been an exercise in flexibility.  Don´t get us wrong, we have met wonderful people, seen beautiful things, definitely eaten well (especially since arriving in argentia- ooooh the icecream)  But despite our best laid plans, our itinerary looks like this:

sorry, its sideways, the blogspot technology is not advanced enough for rotation, but you get the point.  Some of the changes have been our initiative.  We decided to go to Cotopaxi instead of Quilotoa, Cusco and Machu Picchu instead of northern Peru, got a little sick and slowed down, sped through less interesting cities.  We´re pretty happy with these decisions, and things look different from the ground.  Then there´s the sheep farm near Jujuy that cancelled on us when we asked for directions to the farm, the organic vineyard in Cafayate, where we spent a week . . . mostly waiting for the owner to wake up and assign us a ten minute task. Though we had an excellent time getting to know and eating empanadas with a wonderful, creative Brasilian girl, Guaira.  Now, sadly, what we´ve most been looking forward to, 3 months on an estancia in southern Patagonia, is also a flop.  Unfortunately they had to hire permanent help when some of the volunteers weren´t working out.

So now . . . the skys the limit!  We seem to have done alot of rushing South, missing some sights we would have liked to see in order to fulfill promises to farms that seem to back out or be not what we expected.  Without the 3 month chunk of time in El Calafate, we will probably be heading home a bit sooner.  So now, in the hypnotic atmosphere of tranquil little Santa Maria, we are rethinking our travel priorities a bit.  We´ve camped here a couple of nights, met wonderful people who all seem to want to chat and get to know us and tell us about the region.  We´ve had delicious coffee, icecream, and food, enjoyed the slow paced life, mountain scenery, folk dancing festival.  After all, we have the rest of our lives to farm, might as well take advantage of natural parks and tranquil little villiages in the mountains.  Its a little contagious, the small town mentality here.  Are plans from here are to go to La Rioja, then one of two national parks with outrageous red rock formations, canyons and fossils, taste some olive oils and wines around San Juan, enjoy Barreal, a small town in the green valley of Calingasta between the mutlicolored precordillera and snow-capped Andes.  Ride bikes, maybe horses.  Enjoy Mendoza, and if they will take us for such a short time,  work on a farm south of Mendoza for a week before heading down to Bariloche to meet my mom.  It feels more than a little indulgent, all the sightseeing and the inevitable spending on hostels, but if not now, when?

And, don´t get us wrong, it has been beautiful and exciting and fun up to now.  Here are some more photos of the highlights: 

 

intriguing gutter system in Cusco

Hanging out in Quito with Ana Cris, and her . . . friends.

Lupins in Cotopaxi national park

Camping in Rumi Wilco nature reserve, Vilcabamba Equador

Surprising sweet potatoes.

beautiful stonework in Cusco.

And clever graffiti by London street artist, Banksy

Scenic bus rides through baren and almost baren landscapes in northern Chile.

 The pretty much defunct winery in Cafayate, all empty :(

 Contemplative breakfasts in the lush park of Sta Maria (lush park is in the other direction)  a result of disapointing news.  Hmmm where shall we go now?

And the obvious answer:  to eat empanadas. lots and lots of delicious empanadas!

Misadventures

Just to preface, we are both alive and well and back in Cusco, waiting for our bus to Arequipa.  Well, we are "well-ish"  both a little sore.  As it happens, Ollantaytambo is slightly more than 15 miles from Aguas Calientes. 
We started out, like good hikers, with lots of water, bananas, cookies, some stretching.  Our friends in Cusco said it was an 8 hour walk, difficult but doable and very pretty.  It was a nice walk through countryside with corn plantations (in every stage of development, Tom noted- no growing season here) fields of gladiolas, cows, snow capped mountains.  We walked along the Urubamba river following the train tracks- easy enough, pretty flat and slightly downhill.  We weren´t making terrible time, even though we got passed by an abuela or two. We stopped for a coke and another bottle of water at a shack along the tracks, where we met up with the peruvians who motored past us a few kilometers before. We kindly asked the shack owner how much further to Aguas Calientes, he responded "igual". At this point it was nearing 4 in the afternoon, meaning two more hours of daylight


ooops . . .

So with 4hours left to go, a few ibuprofens and some caffeine, we picked up our pace.  The sun was lower, it was cooler and easier to walk, we turned a bend and entered really beautiful cloud forest.  The kilometers were streaming behind us.  But not fast enough.  Darkness came slowly.  Just a couple more kilometers, we kept thinking, even as we had to resort to the screen of the digital camera to guide us. 
10 hours after leaving we stumble into Aguas Calientes- so exhausted and achy we can barely take off our boots- only to find out, nope its not 15 miles.  Closer to 26, in fact.

TWENTY SIX MILES.  I have never walked that far in my life.  Actually, techinically I still haven´t-  I got a piggy back ride part of the way (shhh).  But 26 miles!  i know marathon runners might think lightly of this, but you all should be congratulating us, especially for not getting eaten by jaguars in the jungle at night.

Oh, and Machu Picchu was beautiful. We have lots of pretty pictures, and it really is the most impressive thing we´ve seen.  I don´t think there was ever a city with better views- stunning green mountains- improbably steep, swooping blue swallows, stone work whose joints you couldn´t fit a pin into.  But we are almost as excited to sleep for a long long time on our luxury bus rides down to Arequipa, Arica and on to Jujuy.  I just hope we are moving less like grannys and more akin to the spry young people we once were by the time we arrive at the farm.

 terraces in Machu Picchu

 Hannah and the beautiful banana bread

 walking in the mountains Ollantaytambo, Peru-- while we still liked walking

bet yall can guess where this is .  . .

Vilcabamba, Ecuador

Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador

Las Lajas Cathedral in Southern Columbia

Ollantaytambo

ha! say that five times fast.  That is where we are, in oh yay tay tombo, which i think tom should be excited about because its like the whole little town is very happy to see him. But its really oh Yan tay tombo.  Sad to say we haven´t found a computor that will read my camera´s memory chip, so, no pictures. you will just have to read my descriptions.
We´ve been in Cusco the past week.  Cusco is really beautiful.  Yes, there may be more gringos than peruvians, but it seems there is a reason for this.  The streets are mostly narrow with walls and cobblestone streets built by the incas.  We were staying at a wonderful little hostal up on a hill by the plaza de San Blas and I am continually fascinated by the gutters.  There are gutters built in all over the hill with fishhead spouts and sometimes when they go downhill the gutters wind about and have big naturaly shaped rocks incorporated into them.  sometimes stones are left sticking out of the side of the building, kinda of like the incas though ¨"this one sure is pretty, lets just leave it here"  or conversely " this one sure is heavy, it would be a pain in the butt to move"  Either way, they are aesthetically pleasing.  As are these nubby bits that the incas left sticking off of otherwise perfectly carved fitted stone walls.  My favorite wall is this one http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/61046/61046,1190750338,2/stock-photo-inca-stone-wall-cusco-5650960.jpg  In real life it has a kind of greenish tint and there are images of a serpent, condor and puma built in.  in the picture you can see the head of the puma with his trapezoidal ear (he is looking to the left). 
Cusco is by far the most pleasant city we have visited.  Going through cities has been unavoidable and the experience is usually less than thrilling.  Cusco is however very pleasant to walk around, with its narrow streets it has less traffic and less pollution.  Also all the tourists inspire lots of cafes and restaurants which aren´t exactly unwelcome.  We´re also staying in a lovely hostal with lots of very nice people, and views, and a girl, Hannah who is starting a bannana bread baking enterprise . . . mmmmm.

But now we are in Ollantaytambo.  The town is pretty fascinating.  It was built by the Incas, or perhaps before them, and all of the waterways still run through town.  Theres a babbling stream on practically every street.  The town´s in the middle of incredible high mountains, most of them terraced.  Yesterday we started wandering upstream and couldn´t stop.  We ended up miles outside of town and both probly got a little sunstroke.  But the scenery was beautiful, and oddly deserted.  We also saw a GIGANTIC hummingbird.  really it was enormous and a little scary.  I thought it was a swallow at first. 
  Tomorrow we plan to walk about 15 miles along the river to aguas calientes, enjoy the hot springs, then go to Machu Pichu in the morning.  Then back to Cusco before headint to Arequipa, through the northern part of Chile and east to Jujuy for a month with the gauchos working on a sheep farm and dairy.  Clearly we´ve done a great job sticking to the wonderfully drawn itinerary i made. 
hopefully we will get the chance to post pictures soon!