the breakneck speed at which ian and i have been takin in as much as peru as possible has finally slowed down. we´ve been takin her easy in lima for a few days, surfing in freezing cold water, takin in peruvian history, and celebrating our successes with a bucket from kfc, which was rougher on the ol digestive tract than any of the local food we´ve had, which includes ceviche, ie little chunks of raw fish in a pile. tonite ian heads home and i head to buenos aires, sans my heterosexual life partner whom i have been relying on a little too heavily to speak spanish, plan trips, and generally do everything of importance. let the great experiment begin!

this past week, most certainly the lowpoint of my trip thus far, we took an ill-advised cheap over-night bus ride to arequipa, hopin to save a few soles. when we stepped on the bus and saw it packed with farmers with their huge blankets (and sacks of potatoes), murmouring about the ¨silly gringos,¨ we should have suspected something. turns out it was going down to -18 degrees that night, so needless to say, we froze our juevos off. winter in peru, well it´s still near the equator isn´t it? yeah i thought so too, turns out winter is winter, especially in the andes. thank god my mom bought me some new thermal underwear before i left, but i only packed one hoodie (which hasn´t been off for more than a few hours at a time, save our wonderful beach town excursion). the driver musta been freezing too, cause our bus ride from hell (frozen over) brought us into arequipa early, around 4am, giving us a couple hours extra in the fantastically smelling bus station before our tour to colca canyon. the world´s deepest canyon is something to behold though (grand canyon = apparently not so grand), as were the gigantic condors circling overhead. and arequipa itself, the white city, is pretty striking… i forget what we did there though…

oh oh, yesterday we went to this amazing shopping mall, and while i normally detest shopping malls with a passion reserved only for hootie (i have no problem with the blowfish, but i hate you hootie), this mall was a little different, all little booths full of illegal dvds, video games, and various clothing. my mom will be so proud, i bought dress shoes and shirts (dolce and gabanna, stolen i hope, but probably knockoff), as well as running shoes (will they ever be used? it´s doubtful). i also got another hoodie (the rotation back home will now be 6 days), a pile of dvds and ps2 games, and a duffle bag to carry all my ridiculously cheap loot.

well i´m off to buenos aires, wish me luck. if you don´t hear from me… just wait longer.

whew, the only grammatical way i can think of describing my trip right now is a long rambly sentence that just might express the ´every day seems about 50 hours long´ feeling im experiencing these days. let´s see how much i can remember, i know i left out our stop in trijuillo (which just so happened to be celebrating corpus christi day) last time…

so: since i last saw you, me and ian returned to lima for a night of dancing, cocktails, and a bottle of tequila we bartered to get from the owner of the cuban bar we were partying at with some of ian´s friends before we got on our 4am flight to cuzco where we began our epic 8 day ¨lares trek¨ hike appropriately titled ¨quest of the gods¨ in which our rag-tag group of british, scottish, german, swedish, obnoxious american (the fat one needed a donkey to get up the steep parts) and fellow canuck huffed and puffed for a few days through the high altitude mountains around the sacred valley, camping among the locals, llamas and el pacas, in places like ollaytaytambo, stopping for chicha (alcohol made from fermented corn or strawberry), guinea pig (a delicacy) and hot springs, eventually arriving at the awe-inspiring lost city of the incas, machu picchu, in which i brought the led out (zeppelin that is) to hike up wayna picchu (which overlooks manu picchu) to listen to a few new white stripes tracks (good choice on ´conquest´kukla, though 300 mph torrential outpour blues and little cream soda are my favourites) while beholding one of the wonders of the world before we headed back to cuzco to celebrate our victory over the andes with a well-earned night out at the pub, where a series of grande cusquenos (much better than the cristal) resulted in a wrestling match at the plaza de armas (the town´s main square), which i won — according to the peruvian man who gave my opponent the 3 count — with a stunning figure four leg lock, before we headed to the club for some dancing (alicia, i thought of you when mr jones unexpectedly came on), which left us too drunk to find our way home, but some kind policia saved us from the sketchy streets at 4am, finding us a cab that knew our hotel, where we took a day off before heading onward and upward to puno, from which we toured lake titicaca (still garnering a teeheehee at every moment), taking in the floating reed islands (the south american ingenuity never ceases to amaze) and lodging with a local family on one of the many stunning islands before returning to puno. then we had some ice cream and here i am!

hopefully the next update won´t be so far off, but everytime i get on the internet i waste what little time i have watching the white stripes on youtube. i can´t get enough of this new album.

the big bottles of peruvian beer which cost about 2 canadian dollars that is. not doing much for the wicked combination of cold (must have been the 4 flights of recycled air), sunburnt patches (it will all add up in the end…), and err uhh tap ass that im battling with right now, but the beautiful beach town of mancora we´re in is certainly making sick feel like paradise.

since lima (where we partied in appropriate south american fashion: all night), we went to huaraz, which is a mountain town in the andes. im not sure what my opinion of our adventure there is yet. its one of two, im sure you can figure out which was pre-summit and which was post-summit:

- glorious trek up a glacier to the top of a mountain for a majestic panorama view of part of the world´s tallest mountain range other than the himalayas

- 7 hour viet-cong death march with heavy spiked boots up to a 5800 metre summit for a lousy photo op.

only time will tell.
off to machu picchu.

edit: i forgot to mention that we started the trek at midnite (yes apparently midnite is not just for staying up past anymore, you can also wake up at midnite), which made it glorious for being a moonlit hike (i sang ¨good morning starshine to myself¨ quite a bit) with the sun eventually rising behind the mountains, but also intolerably cold.
edit2: thanks to a certain furry little polack (love you), i now have the new white stripes album on my ipod which i´m saving till im at the top of machu picchu.

instead, i got a 29% on one of the tests and now i’m in peru and clueless. luckily i have ian to do all the talkin, but the last 10 days when im on my own will be an experience. a solitary experience, with lots of gesturing and confusion. anywho, we’re in lima, and we went surfing with a friend of ian’s in the bitterly cold ocean. considering how close lima is to the equator you think it would be sweltering hot even in the winter, but alas, its like 15 and the water was freezing even with wetsuits. but no matter, we had a good time even if our hands and feet were purple by the end. now we’re headin downtown for a friend of a friend’s birthday celebration. cant wait to try as many peruvian beers as i can, making the 8 hour bus ride to huaraz tomorrow morning just peachy i’m sure. typically, a travel message like this would sign off with a phrase in the language of the current country, but i actually don’t even know how to say goodbye in spanish. its that bad. instead, i will leave you with the one expression i remember from first year spanish.

mon pero es fuego!

If travel is searching
And home has been found
I’m not stopping
I’m going hunting

finished my paper (apparently to be published) and saw bjork and arcade fire on consecutive nights. i lost my shit to declare independence and no cars go, respectively. thankfully, youtube captures these moments. this one is a tad short, but gives a glimpse of the bjork insanity

(hyperballad was incredible too, and a much better video)

and i like to think one of the bony girl arms you see waving around in this video is mine

i also just got back from a 5 day trek to saskatooon to drink beers and talk rhizomes with fellow “colleagues” at a conference. now im off to south america to drink wine and have a beard competition with this jerkoff. the summer of dewaard is in full effect.

I’m the hunter
I’ll bring back the goods
But I don’t know when