After a 17hrs in the bus from Costa Rica to Panama City, a mountain of border crossing scares where we didn´t have the right papers, buying these papers from the window of bus in the back of a building, and a sleepless night in a freezing airport, we made it to Lima where we were picked up by our first couch surfing host, Jose. He lives with his family, who also happens to love to cook Peruvian cuisine for all their guests. Good thing I am not trying to be a vegetarian on this trip, because Peru loves meat and that is what we have for every lunch and dinner.
Jose showed Christina and I all around Lima, and one night we were able to take a bus to a mountain and see all of Lima at night. Jose also is the owner of Destination Peru, a tourism business, so in trade for being showed all around Lima with our personal guide, Christina and I took photos with a blue Destination Peru sign at every beautiful place we visited. We felt a bit silly at times, but being able to meet Jose and his family, and being shown around Lima was all worth it.
Really ready to leave the city, Christina and I successfully navigated the insane city buses of Lima, and made our way to Miraflores where we would spend the day and take a bus to Tingo Maria, our next destination, that night. Miraflores is a really wealthy part of Lima on the ocean, and incredibly beautiful. We met with another couch surfing host who showed us around, and we finally got to ride in one the mototaxis. There are a three wheeled motorcycle with a shell on the back, what putter around on all the cities of Peru.
We arrived that night to our bus station, which of course was in the middle of nowhere and a bit sketchy. It was supposed to be a 12 hr overnight bus, but the bus ended up being 2 hrs late and then showed up to our destination 3 hrs late. This was a problem because we were staying with another couch surfing host who we had told we would meet at 700 am, and no way to let hime know where we were. When we were almost to Tingo Maria, we got stopped in traffic, and our entire bus was swarmed by women trying to sell food, and then a man got on the bus pointed at us, and told us to come with him. I was not for it, but Christina got out to talk to him, and he apparently was our couch surfing host, we all headed down the road, and then cross a bridge into the jungle (the whole time I was not really sure about this who thing), then we arrived at the Tingo Maria National Park headquarters, where we were going to be able to stay for free in one of their cabins.
Tingo Maria used to be a really scary drug trafficking area, but now that the gangs are all gone, it is a really safe and beautiful area in the jungle. Unfortunately, it is still has a bad reputation, and by having us come stay with them via couch surfing, was the park staff´s way of bring tourists back into Tingo. For three days we stayed at the headquarters with the rest of the staff. They were an incredible group of people, and every day they had planned for us walks to waterfalls, caves, and plantations.
Every meal was also provided for free, and everyday we got to eat mountains of Peruvian dishes Similarly with our stay with Jose, they wanted to have photos of Americans visiting the national park so they could spread the word that it was safe to come again. Christina and I must have had hundreds of photos taken of us and Julia (a park volunteer from Brazil) smelling flowers, holding coco fruits, jumping into waterfalls, holding butterflies. It was so much fun, and visiting the park with the park rangers had some huge benefits.
On my favorite day, we visited the Cueva de la Lechuza, a really huge cave filled with parrots and in the very back a bird called a guacharo. They look a bit like owls, are nocturnal, and nest in the roof of the caves. When we reached with end of the path, there was still about 200 feet of cave, and Juan Carlos, another of the park workers, told us to jump the gate and walk to the back of the cave. We ground was covered in about 3 meters deep of seeds from the fruit the guacharo´s eat, and thousands of giant cockroaches. It felt right out of Indiana Jones as we crunched our way across seeds and bugs with giant birds screeching a clicking our heads.
There is so much I can´t possibly right, but I am running out of internet time,
Kate
