Por Favor

So my Travels started at this little place ^ called Peru and ended in a cold place called Chile. I was gone for a total of two weeks and felt like 20 minutes went by when i was on my plan home from Chile to Bs.As. I will say it did feel amazing to see the Pacific for the first time in months. it really is a site to see. I am not going to take it for granted anymore when I return home to CA.

This is in the middle of nowhere in Peru. This mountain was about the size of Mt. Rubidoux and I went straight down it. The hardest part was making the journey up to the peak, because the sand was so hot and i had to go barefoot. I do not remember the name of the little town this mountain was in, but i do remember no running water or electricity. I also had this platter of food that consisted of duck, some piece of a pig, and i hate to say it but i did try this little dish that came with the platter: guinea pig. I did feel sad since we did have one of those cute little furry critters for a little while running around in our house. (I did not taste well at all) The whole platter which also consisted of some vegetables and one beer cost me 11 soles which is equal to about 2.90 US. Crazy right?

These photos consist of Lima and this cool little hippie beach town called Huanchaco. ¡Lima has the worst drivers! Lima was cool but to much of a dirty run down city for except for this barrio called Barrancho, it was amazing. The beach was super cool I´m kinda bummed i don´t have any pictures of the surf it was really good. Super long lefts that would go about as far as 2-3 jetties lengths in Newport, and the locals there considered that to be ¨sectiony not lined up¨ as I called it. They said on a god day or even a decent day you could ride one wave for close to 10 minutes.

I will have a new post probably up tomorrow of Chile so hope to see ya´ll soon. I´m in a little hurry right now for the soccer game...I know i can´t believe it either I am racing home to go watch a futbol match. chau chau

nice things

Alrighty here we are probably on one of the last blogs I´ll do for the next three weeks. Granted that I will be travelling between Peru and Chile during those weeks. Something that I am looking forward to extremely. I have two friends one in Lima, Peru and the other in Santiago, Chile where they have invited me to stay at their houses. I am pretty stoked about that, since I am traveling by myself I don´t have to join the rest of the people fighting for hostel beds and super tours. Instead both of the these dudes (Oscar-Peru and Cristian-Chile) have both decided to take the week off of work to show me around and go exploring for themselves as well. Super cool people I must mention.

Well, Mara left about an hour ago and here I am sitting in my little computer cafe. While she was here (she is the little red thing in the picture above) we managed to go out every night, went to Boca twice, a trip to the province of Tucuman, we managed to go see a soccer game, and walked the city for sometime. I also played in a soccer game the other day, I must say for never playing soccer in my life and playing against my buddies who were brought up with it, you couldn´t really tell who never played and who has played their whole life, even ask Mara if you don´t believe me.

Here is Tucuman Mara and I took a tour that involved going through the city,a rain forest, a mountain peak at about 10,000 feet, and to the high desert where an ancient Inca civilization lived 800 years ago. Tucuman very very humid almost unbearable especially with the heat. in fact worse humidity I have ever been in.

This is just after coming down the mountain that was at first a rain forest.

Here is what is left of the empire, only the current furry creatures are its cohabitants now. At its peak it housed more than 6,000 people, something very humbling hits you when you arrive at a place like this.

A night out in the city of Tucuman, accompanied with Mara´s ghost.

Another little tour that was more close to the city, a nice little place I must say.

San Telmo street Fair and the Botanical Gardens across the street form my house

Buena Onda

¡Pretty weird I leave soon! School is now over and I have much more time on my hands. So lately during the extremely hot and humid days we´ve been having, i tend to make my way to the park. It has been averaging 35 that is like almost a hundred, and humidity to go with it. As soon as i step out my front door I feel like somebody has just lacquered me with that humid feeling. I for one am for the humidity, i really dig it. It´s better than those hot windy dry summers i grew up with in Riverside.

Alrighty so the one on the left is this "¿art house?" I have been helping them put together art installations, and even sat in with everyone to decide which band we want to play on certain nights. Everyone there is super friendly and they always want to practice their English with me. The name of the place is Arte de 2 Corazones. It is a super sweet place with nice people. Dave came over one night and pulled out his sax rooftop style, on a very pleasingly warm night -2 in the morning, that's still night time- total good time. The makeup of the house is very hard to explain and I know this picture does not do it justice, but it´s very San Francisco style. And another funny thing is my band is playing there, not really my band, it´s Gulas I just play the cajon peruano. Still pretty cool to be able to play with folks. The picture on the right is from the rooftop of my buddy Cesars house. Hopefully you can get a good idea of just how grand this city is, the other view points you have are just the same, except when looking one direction Uruguay is waving its hand hello to you. It is unbelievable. We tend to spend a lot of time at this spot, it is very hard to leave.

Here is one of the "beaches." Its called Peru Beach, it is in the barrio of Martinez, about twenty minutes by car and no traffic. I went with my friends Carolina and Areal, and then decided to make more friends there, by the days end. It was a great time, a beautiful place, and perfect weather.

This is the little park I tend to be attracted to. I like a lot. Full of dogs conversing, people playing, and the sun smiling. I don´t know the name of the park, but it is next to the Japanese Gardens.

I was trying to sneak up on him while he was sleeping. He actually scared me pretty good when I was real close to his face and looking through the camera screen watch his eyes open and teeth showing. Pretty fierce looking dog, but a sweetheart.

So my plans to for to the "bottom of the world" have changed. It is pretty expensive and not really cracked up to be all that cool. So Mara and I are going to Puerto Madryn instead, to watch the Orcas come into town. One really cool thing about this event is you don´t have to get on a boat. The whales come right u to the shore and try to eat some penguins or seals. At night I guess you can her them breathing you stay so close to them. I can´t wait. Then after that I am going to Chile and Peru for a 2 week stint, and eventually making it back to CA. Chau Chicos, besos y abrazos. Check out my friend sofia, amazing http://www.myspace.com/sofiaviola22

no driving for 3 months now

Here are some pictures at a club called JET. Did not like it tom much, but when going out with my Porteno buddies, I tend to get in for free with them. So it was a good time. Another nice thing about it was that it was right on the the Rio de La Plata, as you can see.

A little taste of what I saw the whole time in Cordoba during Oktuberfest. It was a ton of fun. There were people from all over the world there. Lots of tourists, but at the same time I think I meet someone from a different continent while I was there.

Here is our little cabana view, kinda looks like Hawaii right? The picture next to it is all of us and our neighbors who were kind enough to take me with them in their car the first day of the festival. I asked nicely in castalleno if I could go with them, since the cabs here for some reason would not allow for one extra person to squeeze into the car. So I nominated myself the odd-man out of our group and went to our neighbors for a ride. And as you can see by the next day we were all buds.

So that next day I was talking about, this is what we ate with our neighbors. I know that looks like a baby seal in the back of the burner, but that is just one slab of meat. The asados (or in the US BBQ) are the best. It takes a while granted because, we use wood here, but with the time waiting for the food you begin to make new friendships around the mutual idea of stuffing you face with just about every piece of the cow. It also took a while to eat even between 15 people.

Here's my buddy Mike at he entrance of the fiesta de cervezas. It was extremely hot this day around 30 Celsius. But, later that it poured on us which added its own fun to the event as well. We managed to meet people there and make a party at our little domicile as the rain continued, it was a very good time there, I must say.

Here is the sunsetting on our to the city of Cordoba. I have to take pictures of the sunsets, because the lack of them I see.

This is the job I want here. I would to do this, walk dogs for a living. This is also a little below average on the number of dogs. The most I've seen around one person is 14, but there is a rumor around school that someone counted 18.

View form our balcony with the moon. I went and saw that band Onda Vaga who I have been talking so much about, And they were super good live. They played in a tiny place which made it even better. The house music that was playing before they went on was Devendra Banhart, pretty cool. These guys love Devendra as I would later find out, as i got the chance to hangout with them one night and a few times since. Mainly, because like I said, the dudes who are my buds here kinda know a lot of people.

The next place I'm going to will be the bottom of the world, or also known as Tierra del Fuego with my friend Mara who is coming down from Newport. I also must mention I had contact with a fellow Riversidian by the name of David. Super sweet to see a familiar face on the other side of the equator.I also do have one confesion to make... I am staring to like soccer, I don't know go figure right? But, there are certain aspects that I do like now about the game.