Tlön, Uqbar, Puerto Lopez...

We got off the plane in Lima covered in bites of all shapes, colours and sizes. My favourite was Jen's abdominal bedbug masterpiece shaped not unlike Perú. There are two main options for tourists visiting Lima; one is to stay near the old center of the city, and the other is to stay in an affluent suburb called Miraflores which is filled with coffee bars, malls, and overpriced groceries. We stayed in Miraflores - we came to South America for its malls.

We spent the first day wandering through the mall perched on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean. It was actually an interesting concept, and unlike most malls, it didn't give me that special barfing feeling. It did give Jen that feeling, but for different reasons perhaps.

We made our way to the best museum in town on foot, which took quite a while and gave us a feel for greater Lima. It's busy, there are lots of wide roads and banks, and it is pretty clean, surprisingly. We expected a shit-hole, but were pleasantly surprised... it was a grunge-pit. The museum was cool; lots of pre-Columbian artifacts and miniatures of famous ruin sites. We felt like judges for a grade 5 diorama competition. At this point I have included a photo taken from the back seat of a combi (Toyota HiAce) containing about 16 people for your enjoyment.

After the museum we took a cab to the old town and hung out in the plaza for a while, reading about the various old buildings facing it. The best story involved a statue of Saint Whoever; the Spanish aristocrat who ordered the work requested that the saint be given A MAJESTIC CROWN OF FLAMES (una corona de llamas). The mestizo artist who executed the orders gave the statue A MAJESTIC CROWN OF LLAMAS! They're really cute, marching around the brim of the crown...

Our next destination was Trujillo, a 9 hour bus-ride north, on the coast of Perú. This town was remarkable for its utter lack of restaurants. We walked and walked, and only found one. Fortunately it served exquisite barbecued chicken and Pilsener.

The pre-Inca mud-brick city of Chan Chan (capital of the Chimú people), is the main attraction around Trujillo. The ruins were fascinating; the city originally covered some 25 square kilometers. There is an extensive restoration of certain parts of the ruins underway now, but a complete restoration would be prohibitively expensive, and much of the site has been built on anyway. We met an endangered native dog species, whose forebears were treated like royalty by the civilizations at Chan Chan. The dogs have no molars (nice breeding, dudes), and no hair (what's wrong with mutts again?), but seem fairly good-natured considering.

We found an interesting contemporary art museum on the outskirts of Trujillo and spend a great afternoon exploring the art and museum grounds. That's where the photo of the strange statue was taken. There were nice birds in the garden as well.

The next challenge was to cross the Perú-Ecuador border in a famously dodgy spot, between Aguas Verdes and Huaquillas. We weren't disappointed; it was dodgy and so much more. We were adopted by a young guy who showed us how to clear customs on both sides of the bridge separating the countries, and what bus companies to use, and how to get to Cuenca, our first Ecuadorian destination.

After wandering through the unpoliced no-man's land for about an hour, and becoming increasingly curious as to why our new youth friend was being so helpful, we learned that striking miners had set up multiple blockades on the road to Cuenca! So much for Cuenca... we changed our plans and went to the largest city in Ecuador instead, called Guayaquil. We had only barely heard of it before being diverted there, and we prepared for the worst.

When we were mostly organized and resigned to our new fate, our special escort told us that "the price" was $20 US for his services. We explained that for tourists, announcing the price of your service upfront is very considerate as it affords the consumer the opportunity to accept or decline. He said that without the $20 US, he wouldn't be able to cover the bribes for the border officials that would allow him to continue doing his job. I pulled out a $1 bill. He said that there was a very established system, and that $20 was the price, and that he would be thrown in jail and tortured if we didn't pay up. This type of NA vs. SA banter went on for a while, and eventually we managed to extricate ourselves from the dude and jumped on a bus out of that god-forsaken town. All the guidebooks say to avoid it, but we thought we were smarter than the guidebooks. Nope. Dumber!

We ended up staying in Guayaquil for five days, which was much longer that we expected to be there for. In fact, we hadn't expected to be there at all. It was a busy large city at the mouth of a wide inlet. The city had invested a huge amount of money into rebuilding the Malecón (boardwalk on the riverfront), so we would wander down there quite a bit, and also climbed Cerro Santa Anna, which is a little hill covered in interesting colonial buildings and topped by a lighthouse (with posters describing the evolution of the lighthouse lens, similar to the kind of work my brother Jon does).

The undisputed highlight of the city of Guayaquil was the city park full of iguanas. It was totally ridiculous. There were little girls tying bows on their tails, old men talking to them earnestly about failed investments, and teenagers smoking cigarettes with them. The ridiculous picture at right sums it up pretty well.

We also managed to catch a funky show put on by a stringy old guy with a hat (guitar, vocals), young hotshot bassist (he needed five strings) and other youngish guys. It seemed kind of like a university art teacher put together a band, and the audience was full of his (totally wasted) students.

Part of the reason we stayed so long in Guayaquil was to get a look at the Mangrove forest to the southeast of the city.We bussed down to the national park there, paid the $10 fee, then learned from the drunk/sleepy guard that there was no way of accessing the mangrove forests without a guide, and that he was unable to guide us! So we walked up the side of the mountain behind the park station, got totally mauled by mosquitos, and narrowly avoided being eaten by the same gigantic spiders we saw in northern Argentina! We did hear howler monkeys from the top of the hill, partly redeeming an otherwise grody and overpriced excursion.

Next stop: Puerto Lopez, a fishing town just south of Parque Machalillas, which contains Ilsa de la Plata, one of about 50 islands on the west coast of South America described as "the poor man's Galapagos". Well, we are poor, and one of us is a man... We imagined the spectrum of poor man's galapagoses: Totally destitute man's Galapagos, with a sick, brown-footed Booby? Welfare Galapagos with stuffed marble-eyed iguanas and seagulls atop landfill?

We had a great time in Puerto Lopez, walking along the beach and watching the fishermen haul in their nets and process their fish. One highlight was watching the marlin get dragged in, beheaded, untailed and generally hacked with giant knives. A good sized marlin would be sold to the local fish market for $25. We fantasized about buying a fish like that in Canada for $25, and having a really huge party. It would take about 100 people to eat one.

I AM NOW THE TYPE OF PERSON THAT HAS BEEN SHIT ON BY BIRDS!!! As you can see, the skies were totally filled with frigate birds, pelicans, and other interesting shorebirds, so I was really tempting fate. Frigate birds are huge... and you know what they say about the shit of big birds.

We were staying at a great place called Hotel Mandála, owned by a delightful Swiss and Italian couple with a passion for wood art and gardening! They have built the most incredible spot, and it only took them 8 years! It looks like it´s been there forever. The place was magic, filled with the most creative art.

I had a life-changing moment leafing through a book they had open at the front desk - a fictitious encylopaedia describing a fictitious world written in a fictitious language. At first I thought that some clever group of people had decided to realize elements from Jorge Luis Borges' story Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (in which a secret society compiles a comprehensive encylopaedia describing a non-existant world which supplants reality) but they hadn't. I will leave it to the reader to search for this book themselves; I wouldn't want to deny anyone the great pleasure that comes with its discovery.

We went on a tour of Isla de la Plata the next morning, which involved a high-speed, high-octane boat trip over rough waters. We arrived on the island and had the choice between a couple of paths. We chose the Booby-rich route, and were not disappointed! We also got to hang out with a couple of albatrosses. They were pretty awesome.

The island was surprisingly dry considering how much water vapour there was in the air. For the most part, the trees were as leafless as Canadian trees in winter. We also saw blue-footed, Nasca, and masked boobies up close. Birds here are accustomed to humans, and also suffer from the Galapagos disease of never having to contend with natural predators.

After a very exciting 10-minute snorkel, in which we saw trumpet fish, and a whole whack of other beautiful bright things, we set out to do some whale-watching. We managed to catch up with a couple of humpback whales and saw them surface and blow four or five times, but there were no full-breech explosive whale launches (like we see in BC once every couple of days). Oh well.

The sun came out just as we were leaving Puerto Lopez... I enjoyed the highly atmospheric overcast weather, but poor Jen cursed the heavens with shaking fist. Our next stop was Cuenca, where we would meet up with our friend Francis Yang! Stay tuned...