Chrysalis Adventures Blog Update

We left our little home in Cuenca, Ecuador at the end of February and continued our trek south. We took an overnight bus crossing into Peru. We were quite groggy at 3am checking into Peru getting off and back onto the bus. Just falling back to sleep when we reached our destination Mancora, Peru. As we came off the bus again disoriented and in the dark we were greeted my multiple guides wanting to sign us up for a tour or sell us something or change money for us. After saying NO many times they left us alone sitting on the sidewalk in the dark in an unknown little not so clean or safe looking town and it was 5am. First priority get off the street! We hired a Tuk Tuk (a three wheeled motorcycle with a canvas roof) to take us to our hostel. Again it was 5:30 in the morning and the only thing around our hostel, which was fenced in, was dirt. Thankfully our driver knew where the call button was and we were able to check in very early. After a nice nap we got up and checked things out. Our hostel was a bungalow with lots of bamboo and other than a few ants trying to eat my sandwich before I did and a couple cockroaches it was fine. After a dip in the pool, 15×20, but hey it was cool, we headed down to the beach. The beach was a short walk and we walked on the sand down toward town. The water here is quite cool because of the Humboldt current bringing cold water up from the Antarctic so we were not tempted to jump in. We found a little grass hut to have drinks and a little to eat while we watched the local surfers. We walked the town a bit, not much to see, mainly a surfer hangout and a poor tourist town. We made plans to catch a bus the next day and headed back to the hostel. The next day we headed out to Piura, a short two hour trip. We had booked a night at a hostel which turned out to be a pretty nice place. Piura had about as much appeal as Guayaquil in Ecuador. Big, dirty and not to safe looking. We found a modern mall to our surprise and had a nice dinner at a Chile’s restaurant which we also did not expect to see. We had dinner and took a taxi back to the hostel. We had booked a flight to Cuzco from Piura as we found that the Northern Peruvian coast was mostly desert all the way to Lima (the view doesn't change much) and the cost to fly was about the same. We arrived in Cuzco without issues and a taxi took us to the hostel we had booked. It was a shock going from night time temps in the 80's to overnight temps in the 40's. Cuzco is at 11,400 feet so it's cold! In the day time when it's not raining it's nice in the 70's. It is weird to see snow in the mountains so near the equator. We spent two days in our little hostel before finding more permanent housing. Leiann found a house totally furnished for $600 soles ($175 US)! Our house is 350 years old built in colonial times, the walls are built of adobe and are 3 foot thick! We really liked living in a historic place but soon found out that the home has not heat (as most old homes) and we were freezing at night even with four heavy wool blankets. So we began to look for another place. Leiann found a place advertised for $94 month for a room with a fully stocked kitchen! We had lived in a “flat” with other people in Medellin and found it fun so we had not qualms about renting just a room. When we got to the place it had security fences, under ground parking and an elevator, it looked pretty up scale. We were scratching our heads, this for $94? When we into the apartment we really looked at each other, it looked brand new, fully furnished, huge kitchen, new furniture and china on the table with a full pitcher of water? Something was definitely not right here. The owner spoke broken English. We asked again how much was this place? She said $25 a day! That's $750 a month. We told her our budget would not allow for us to pay that and she asked how much could we pay. We told her $500 max. She said that if we allowed her to rent the other room out for $25 a night when she could she would give it to us for $500. So we have a totally modern apartment (with A/C and heat)! So if any one wants to come down you can rent the other room for $300 for a month. Pretty good deal when you consider you have full kitchen that you would not have in a hotel not to mention $50 a day at a hotel adds up fast. We have been exploring our new playground and there is lots to see. The town is the oldest continuously occupied city in all the Americas so there's lots of history here. We have hit seven museums, squares, little cafes and three churches so far. The famous perfectly jointed stone wall is right in town (see pics) as well many other stone walls made of Inca stones that were stolen from various Inca sites. Nearly all important religious Inca sites have been torn down and a Catholic church built on the foundations. We plan to visit Machu Picchu in the end of April when rainy season is over. We will be visiting many ruin sites soon a well as traveling up to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. Lake Titicaca (say that three times fast) is the highest lake in the world at 13,000 feet. So stay tuned for more Chrysalis Adventures and be sure to check out the photo gallery.