Peru Day 5, part 1...Awestruck.
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Day 5, Wednesday, Jan 30th

 Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu, Peru

Harsh alarm. It's 4:15am. The white noise that is the Urubamba river murmurs below our window. It lulls me back to sleep, briefly. A dim glow of the day to come suffuses the canyon in a blue grey haze.

 I stumble from bed, hastily shower, finish packing, and head down to a hardy breakfast at the hotel restaurant.  Eggs, fruit, coffee, sausage.

 5:30am. Our bags will wait at the hotel until the evening when we'll head back to Cusco on the train. 15 minutes later we're at the entrance. In spite of the tourists and guides, there is a chill silence blanketting the mountains. A sirene fog muffles every noise, and shelters the city to a vague transluscence just beyond your senses. Photos can wait.

 In fleeting glimpses the spires of the surrounding range of ancient juggernauts jut from the mists. Soon the sanctuary is visible across the way. A short hike brings us to the ancient Inca trail, the very end of it a simple but imposing doorway into this abandoned haven of beauty and mysteries. 

 Intricate walls form steppes, over a kilometer down the mountainside. Crops once grew here, stored in the Thatched roof buildings on the outermost edge of the city. A channel, or dry moat cuts through the two sections, in reality a fault line, on which they built nothing.

  Across the gap, the door. The Temple of the Sun stands tall farther east, a pyramid blended into the natural chaotic design of the rock. Its dial pointing north, south east and west, a projection on the base pointing to magnetic north. From  the Temple, the ritual grounds stretch from east to west, dividing the housing districts. The opposite side holding the Temple of the Condor, home to the rituals of death and live sacrifices of llama and alpaca. 

A huge stone sits atop a pedestal, the spirit of Pachamama, calling to the few who would journey to the mountaintops of the guardian spires above the sanctuary. The spirit of the mountain, Apu leads her in her calls to those travellers...I will make the climb. 

Peru Day 2...winded.
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Day 2, Sunday, Jan. 27th

Cusco, Peru

Got up WAY too early, ate breakfast and zipped to Lima airport. Coffee, groggy, sleepy, waiting.

Stepping down, we eagerly head towards the terminal (still in progress), Suddenly realizing that Cusco is over 1000 ft higher than quito...over 10,000 ft. *pant* Rambling banter from a over zelous cab driver makes me twitch, but he serves his purpose and more proividing us with tickets and processing for the train ride, bus ride and entry to Machu Picchu that we will need in the days to come.

Colonial Spanish architecture lines the small streets, made long ago for carriages and horses. The spanish did well anihilating most any remembrance of the majesty that was the heart of the incan empire. Go western culture. A-holes.

Remnants of the ingenius design of walls and bass work still holds the ground level of many of the buildings...so much to take in. Ornate balconies line the upper levels, in traditional 1500´s european style. Our hotel is no exception.

 All in all an uneventful day as far as touring is concerned. We did however wander the city in search of food, and found that every restaurant serves the exact same menu. So, like true south americans, we wandered into the slummy part of town and found us some good ol fashioned peruvian cuisine. Menestre y pollo brosterisado.

 Eat that. Its delicious. More tomorrow. OOOO!!! Goobles and whispers of legend flicker in my periferal...woooot says the old inca.

Peru Day 1
Now Playing: Eldar

Day 1, Saturday, January 26

Reference from journal of rock:

Left quito at about 9:30pm, Arriving in Lima, Peru at around 11 or so. Got a taxi to the cheapy hotel we reserved to sleep the night there, heading out to Cusco in the morning. Dog barked all night. Lima is one giant beach town. And i mean GIANT. Smells like fish and sewage in the morning. Meh.

Not much to say about Lima, wouldnt care to go back, unless its to go to Cusco again.

 The majesty begins tomorrow, and Tuesday...we shall hike into the cloud forest and see what mysteries these ancient mountains hold.

Blockage
Spoot. that is waht i say. and the h and a in that order. So here i am, knowing more or less where this is going and not the slightest how to begin! this will be of little consiquence soon, as i will burn all art work i own in frustration....with tp fire balls. and for the record, i bought the softest most comfiest pillow in the known multiverse. what a comic! doesnt even have a beginning! pluh!

IT LIVES!!!
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And so it rises from the mists of doodoo to soar above the internettal plains; a mighty Tallyhawk, epic and only slightly disproportional! The gliches are fewer than they've been..yes, there is yet work to be done...but the gallery is functional in all browsers...FINALLY! Eat soup. Maybe someday when I'm older, wiser and more Odin-ish, I'll call into being the great works of the comic this site is supposed to be!!! We'll see how that goes homies. VIKING POWER!