A little quake

Yesterday morning I woke up to another quake. This time it was just a 5.5- things certainly were shaking in my apartment, but most importantly there was no widespread damage as with the quake last fall.

http://www.livinginperu.com/news-6055-natural-disasters-lima-two-earthquakes-hit-perus-capital-city

Sacred Valley & Cusco

Out of order, but here are photos from Cusco and the Sacred Valley.

Here are 2 MP3s of
1. Andean music in airport
2. Blind man playing harp in Sacred Valley

To clarify the itinerary: we started in Lima-> flew to Cusco-> 2 days in Cusco to acclimate to altitude, one day went to Sacred Valley-> 4 days on Incan Trail which ended at Machu Picchu (those photos are next for posting)-> flew to Puerto Maldenado-> 3 hours up river to Amazon lodge for 5 days-> back to Lima



Here is the album put to the music


download album at

Sacred Valley & Cusco

The Amazon

After Machu Picchu, we said goodbye to Kalian & Min and 5 of us went on to spend 4 nights in the Amazon near the Bolivian border.



you can download the album here, which also has a video clip of the leaf-cutter ants

Puerto Maldenado- Amazon

Lobos marinos- swimming with the sea lions

On March 10 a group of us chartered a boat to go to some uninhabited islands off of Lima with a company I'd highly recommend http://www.maradentroexcursiones.com/contenido.htm

These uninhabited islands used to be home to Peru's version of Alcatraz prison and previously were used by pirates. Now there are just birds and colonies of sea lions, which are "lobos marinos"- sea wolves- in Spanish.



you can download the album here

Lobos Marinos- swimming with the sea lions

Graffiti around Miraflores, Lima

For some reason the graffiti around my apartment in Lima is less offensive and more playful than in the US; I quite enjoy a lot of it.

Download album here:

Lima_Grafitti