ready to head south

Hey everyone we are writing to you again from Lima. We are packing our backpacks to head south. We spent the last week relaxing in style at the Mayorga's Beach house about 1 hour south of Lima. We had a great time eating amazing food and meeting lots of the Mayorga extended family. Pedro and I even purchased some boogie boards to ride some of the really huge waves. We paid about $15 per board at a roadside stand which seemed to be a great deal until we got to the beach. We realized there were some holes in the boards (that needed to be duck taped) and they barely floated our bodies. Nonetheless we still had a great time with them. We are now planning to head south to Puno, Peru (next to LAKE TITICACA) where we will celebrate "Carnival". We also have some really exciting news that Pedro has extended his flight and is going to take on some traveling with us! It will be great to have a great friend and fluent spanish speaker along for a portion of our trip. I am not sure the next time we will have internet to blog but hopefully it will be soon.

Below are some pictures of the Mayorga beach house and the last week in Peru!


Much love to all,
Hunt, Kim and Pedrito

Latest Posts

Hi Everyone. We are having trouble updating our blog because of slow internet here in Peru. Start at Vivas Los Mayorgas Part One. Sorry about the confusion! 

Vivas Los Mayorgas Part 4

For lunch we ate at a restaurant called El Crusesero. By the number of customers it seemed to be a local favorite. There were only three items on the menu. Hen soup with wheat grains, Cuy (which is deep fried GUINEA PIG) and a dish called churky which is deep fried pork slices that look like jerky. LoLo ended up ordering a few of everything for all of us to share. At this type of restaurant your food can take between 1-2 hours to arrive since the guinea pig is alive when you order it. We ordered some beers and started playing a Peruvian game called Sopito (meaning frog). The object of the game is to throw copper coins at holes in a board for different amounts of points. Kim ended up scoring the most and winning the game!

Our first dish of wheat grain and hen soup arrived. Next up was the famous CUY (guinea pig). This was graphic and new for Kim and I but we both agreed to try it. CUY tasted similar to duck or rabbit. The Cuy still had the head and teeth attached. We have to admit it was not our favorite Peruvian dish.
The following day we woke up early to head back to Lima and decided to stop in Barranca, Peru. This beachside town is about 200 km from Lima. We stopped here at a Ceevicheria right on the beach. We ordered ceeviche and Tacu tacu (which is rice pan fried with pea’s and fried seafood). We soon learned that we were eating octopus, sea snail, and a variety of local white fish. It was VERY good.

After leaving Barranca Peru, LoLo asked us if we would like to take a 90 min detour and go see the original city of Caral. Caral is the OLDEST civilization in all of South America. They Caralino’s lived from around 3000 bc to 1800 bc. There is a whole village being excavated here from when it was discovered in the 1960’s. They have been excavating this site since 1994 and they probably have another 30-40 years before everything is uncovered. Another neat fact about this civilization is there were lots of artifacts found. They found flutes and horns made from stone, as well as combs made from shell. The unique thing about this civilization unlike other civilization’s of this era, is the Caralinos had no weapons or signs of military presence. The buildings of Caral where made using vegetable meal and fibers to create adobe bricks. This allowed their buildings to last over 5,000 years. 

We headed back to modern Lima later that afternoon. Weren’t resting long before we went out in the Barranco district to Celebrate Hunts birthday. We ate on a balcony with some friends over looking the famous Bridge of Sighs. We stayed up very late that evening and paid for it the next day. In the morning we stocked up Pennys car with food and spirits and headed off for some relaxation at the Mayorga’s new beach house. We were astonished when we walked into their mind-blowing beachfront property. It has a truly spectacular ocean view with HUGE sand dunes in the background. We have been cooking tons, drinking’s tropical fresh fruit drinks, and getting lots of sun. Penny made the best bloody Mary mix from scratch. It was a process for her to make but it tasted simply amazing. She brought them to us on the beach. You can see how much we enjoyed them in the picture below. 

We are having a great time here in Peru (much thanks to the wonderful Mayorga family!!!!!!!) and getting such a lifetime experience thus far on our trip. We have become VERY accustomed to the “siesta” (afternoon nap). We both now require one every day.

We are so lucky to have such great friends and family to help us along the way. After dealing with a loss of Hunt’s best friend this week we truly know why we are making the most out of every amazing day on this earth. Carpe Diem! We know we are so blessed and lucky! We are consistently working on our Spanish and getting better every day.

Until next time
Hunt and Kim

Vivas Los Mayorgas Part 3

The village of Yunguy and Lake Llangunuco

Yunguy is a small village that was wiped out by a massive mudslide in the early 70’s. Pedro’s great aunt was one of only 92 survivors (2500 parished) from the village. We got to see what remained from the area on our way up to Lake Llangunuco. The only building to survive was the front wall of a church and a few palm trees next to it. If you look close you are able to see them in the picture below. 

Lake Llangunuco is on of the most beautiful lakes we have ever seen. The lake is located in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. The actual lake is in the picturesque Huascaran National Park. The lakes have emerald colored water and huge glaciered mountains around it. We rented a boat and got to see the surrounding mountains from the middle of the lake. It was simply fascinating.

The following day we woke up at 8 am to have a great breakfast of local egg’s and cheese prepared in an omelet by Lolo. Our breakfast also include fresh Mango’s and bread from the market. All of the food from the market comes from the surrounding farms. Some farmers lie their produce on tarps and sit on the street while others have  more official stands. Most people in Caras don’t use refrigerators so they buy fresh local food often. Kim and I ate anything offered to us trying to be as careful as possible about not drinking the local water. This was ironic because we ate almost everything the Mayorga’s ate but at the end of the trip LoLo and his brother Chino were the ones with a stomach bug.

Later that day LoLo wanted to show us a farmhouse that has been in their family for years. This property originally had multiple working plots of farmland neighboring it. All the plots have since been sold off. Now the only part still in the family is the house.

The property was several miles outside of town but we decided to take in the scenery and walk along one of the village’s dirt road. On the way we stopped at our first old Inca ruin built around 1430. This ruin was a fortress strategically built on a large hill overlooking the whole valley. This placement allowed the Incas to control the population below. You could see the whole valley of villages and farms. (PICTURES BELOW).

The scenic walk had many picture worthy points including massive Agave plants. Kim used her photography skills to take some amazing shots of flowers.

One of the main differences we have noticed in Peru is all the street dogs. In almost every city or village there are dogs running around free, some alone and some in packs. This was tough for the both of us as dog lovers because we wanted to pet and hold every one. Many of these dogs have lived on the streets for years and don’t have homes. They live off scraps from the market or restaurants. Some are protective over their area and some are scared of humans.  It was very hard but we learned it was in our best interest to ignore them so we didn’t get bit. 

Vivas Los Mayorgas Part 2

The next day we woke up at 6am to drive to the Mayorga’s Mountain house in Caraz, Peru. It was around a ten-hour drive. We had no_­­ clue what to expect but knew the Mayorga’s would not steer us wrong. We picked up Pedro’s uncle “chino” and began the ten-hour trek. In the back seat was Pedro, Kim, and myself all sitting cozy. The drive had the most incredible scenery we have ever seen.

 When leaving Lima the first thing we noticed was how large and sprawling the city was. On the very outskirts of Lima we saw how many people live in adobe shacks with one room and no running water. After exiting Lima we hit a large desert, which looked like a scene from the Middle East. There where many l­­arge rolling sand hills with huge snowy mountains in the background. The desert contained many sugarcane fields with the Andes Mountain range in the background..

 While heading up further we saw one of the biggest mountains I have seen to date. On the roads we noticed all the agriculture as well as the gorgeous tradition wardrobe of the Peruvian woman. The drive had been relatively easy until we got about 50 KM outside of Caraz where the roads were littered with deep potholes. This made the last couple hours very bumpy. We stopped at amazing restaurant called Alpaymo. We ate in their outdoor patio, which was surrounded by fruit trees and tropical birds. Kim and I both ordered an amazing flat cilantro chicken filet. Pedro got the goat, and Chino got the Cuy (which we will describe more later). 

We hoped in the car again to make the last stretch to the house. We reached Caraz, which was an extremely cute Mountain town. It’s population was estimated at about 20,000 people. It is about 1800 meters above sea level. This was a change of pace for us because we were the only “Gringos” in town. We would walk down the street and people would literally stop to watch us pass. We arrived at the Mayorga family house located four blocks from the center of town, very close to the market.

A little background on the house….

The original part of the house was originally purchased somewhere around 1870. It has developed into a 9 bedroom 4 bathroom home. The “guest house” we stayed in was originally used as a donkey hold while villagers would go to the market. Later it was transformed into a bakery and the fresh bread was sold daily at the market. Then before it was a guest house it was a refrigerator for flowers that were picked on the farms above. It was really neat to see what this property had transformed to over 100 years.

At the mountain house we met Pedro’s 92 year old great uncle who did not speak any English. He is the only one currently living on the mountain property. He welcomed us and seemed happy to have us there. He still drinks beer and smokes cigarettes’  in his old age. 

Vivas Los Mayorgas Part 1

We have only been away from our families and in South America for a little over a week now. We feel like we have been in Peru much longer. We had very high hopes for Peru and they have been fully exceeded in just one week. We have seen more of Peru in a week than some people get to see in a month. We miss our families and friends but week one has really shown us why we made the drastic decision to explore South America.

It only took us a total of 7 hrs with two flights one from NYC to Bogota and from Bogota to Lima. We were on a Colombian airline (wine is complimentary J) and arrived in Lima around 5:00pm. We were greeted at the airport by lovely Penny and Pedro Mayorga. The Mayorga family has played a huge part in our trip to Peru so I will give you a little background on their fine family. Pedro was a good friend of mine starting in high school. His mom Penny (a beautiful Welch lady) worked at my high school in the English department. When I moved to Boulder Colorado I became close friends with Juan Mayorga (Pedro’s older brother) who also ended up moving to Portland Oregon. He is a very good friend of Kim and I. Juan was a big factor in helping plan our South American adventure. He is a full time guide for Youths for Adventure trips in Peru. Eleodoro (nickname LoLo) is father of the Mayorga family. He is Peruvian though he has traveled the entire world himself. He has been a huge help with our trip thus far. The Mayorga family becomes complete with Fran, Pedro’s twin sister who now lives in London.
The first thing we noticed when we were picked up in Lima was the driving and how different it is from the States. Peruvians put a whole new meaning on aggressive drivers. If you are not an aggressive driver here you will be stuck standing in one position for hours. Penny had adapted great to the driving. She drove us through some of Lima and then along a coastal highway where we arrived in Barranco. This is the oldest district in Lima and filled with cute shops and lots of bars. After checking out the ocean view from the end of the Mayorga’s street, we arrived at a beautiful paradise which they call home. This property has been in the Mayorga family for years, even keeping it when they moved to the States in 1992. The first thing we noticed about their house was the amazing variety of plants everywhere. The house open’s up into a huge beautiful courtyard with exotic plants and a cute little fishpond. We got the grand tour of their gorgeous home covered in stunning mahogany wood. Here we even have our own bedroom overlooking the courtyard. The Mayorga home has a marvelous rooftop deck overlooking the Garden where we spent the next few hours catching up with Pedro, Penny, and LoLo.
The next day Pedro was eager to show us Lima so we decided to take the town by foot. We walked to Mira Flores, the next district over, with great shopping and entertainment. We walked along the ocean on a scenic view path with Pedro telling us a little about each place. We ended up walking for about 4 miles. We found a really neat semi precious stone shop with tons of beautiful pieces from near and far.

After walking around for a bit we met up with Pedro’s mom Penny to have our first taste of a classic Peruvian lunch cuisine called Ceeviche. We ate at a beautiful restaurant called Del Final Mar where she generously treated us to one of our favorite meals we have ever had. Ceeviche is raw fish cooked with onions in citrus. The acidy from the citrus lightly cooks the fish. Our mouths dropped to the floor after trying one bite of this amazing dish. Our meal also included a fried seafood plate, scallops with melted parmesan cheese and tamales (PICTURES BELOW). After a filling lunch we walked to an Inca market where we saw tons of beautiful silver jewelry and alpaca fur products. We ended our first day with a wonderful family dinner at the Mayorga home. Penny made an original Peruvian dish called Arroz con Pollo. Kim begged Penny for the recipe. It tasted so unique and wonderful.

coast to coast

1/3/2011

This is Hunt here writing to you on a nice sunny day from the lower east side of Mahattan NY.  I wanted to check in with our blog and talk a bit about our adventures the past few months and share some highlights. Overall, our experience has been simply amazing for Kim and I. An experience we both will both never forget.

Goodbye Portland

October 1^st was our last day in Portland. We moved out of our amazing house we shared with Anne and Logan at 3558 Morrison St. We moved our best friends into their new house only a few blocks away. Anne and Logan played a huge part in our trip by generously offering to store our belongings in their garage. This easily saved us hundreds of dollars that will really come in handy in South America.

Bend, Oregon and my Great Aunt Dorothy

After saying good-bye to our amazing crew in Portland we headed off to Bend Oregon to say goodbye to some of the great people who had changed my life. (Kim had yet to sell her car that had been on the market for 2 weeks and had several buyers fall through). We stayed with Derek and Megan as well as other wonderful people in Bend before we starting making our way to McKenzie Bridge OR. This is where my Great Aunt Dorothy lives. I had not seen my great Aunt in 10+ years and I was nervous and excited about the experience.  We pulled up to Dorothy’s house down an amazing Oregon driveway with 150 foot tall tree’s covered in bright green moss. Following her long driveway we ended up at a gorgeous house that was hand built by my great uncle Preston. As we walked up to the house we found an extremely young looking and acting 84 year old woman. As aunt Dorothy poured us a glass of wine she gave us the grand tour of her house (every room and piece of furniture had a story). Dorothy had moved from California to Oregon in 1974 on a school bus and bought this piece of land with little money to build. Over the years they saved money and her husband press built a one bedroom cabin where they slept on a loft above the kitchen. After 30 years of hard work her husband built this breathtaking 4 bedroom home.  Kim and I agreed Dorothy was an inspiration to us on what the important things are in life. She made us realize how lucky and excited we were to have great families, friends, and the ability to travel.  We spent an amazing night at Dorothy’s house where we stayed up late sharing stories about her travels and listening to Eric Clapton. 

 

California and Oregon Coast

 From Dorothy’s home we traveled down the west coast. We spent a good amount of time camping on the beach and seeing all the sites along the way. We even ended up pulling over on a beach and Kim selling her car via her phone while being 500 miles away. With the last stress of selling her car off her back we heading to Sebastopol  California (Wine Country). There we stayed with Kim’s close friend Joe from college. We ended up spending a few weeks in wine country at Joe’s amazing home making homemade margarita’s and BLTS using lemons and tomatoes from Joe’s garden. He had an amazing outdoor garden where he grew over 70 types of vegetables. We spent the next few weeks seeing friends old and new up and down the California coast from Arcata to San Francisco. We got a chance to catch up with both Kim and my friends (Carlos, Joe, Josh, Lane, Vanessa, Oli, Dante, Cam, Krista, Cassy, Tyler, Wiseman and more) and it was really great to spend some quality time with all these people. 

California to Colorado Drive

From there we headed east to spend some time with our families before heading to South America.  While leaving California we saw a sign for Ocean City Maryland at 2,386 miles away. It made me think how neat it was to have our feet in the Pacific Ocean one day and the Atlantic Ocean in less than a month. It was crazy to think we were going from one side of the country to the other.

We stayed a night in Lake Tahoe California which I had never been to. It was snowing a few inches and we even ended up winning $40 at the Roulette table betting on Kim’s and my birthdays. We continued on to Colorado taking 2 days to get there and stopping in Evanston Wyoming.

Colorado

When we got to Colorado we felt well embraced by friends of ours. We had many friends take us out to dinner as well as invite us to dinner at their homes. I can’t explain how much this helped us. Big thanks to Brandon and Demema, Brian, Riley and Liz, Bret and everyone else. We spent some days staying at friend’s mountain houses covered in snow and some days in a high rise in Denver over looking the Rocky Mountains. I realized while visiting Colorado why it had become so special to me in the 5 years I lived there.

 

Nebraska and Chicago

After a wonderful week in Colorado we headed to Omaha, Nebraska where Kim’s amazing sister Katie lives. Katie has always been really great to me and her boyfriend Ned continued the hospitality while in Omaha Nebraska. We said our goodbyes to “Kato” and told her we would see her in a few days in Chicago for Thanksgiving. We woke up early and made the drive to Chicago to be met with open arms by Kim’s one of a kind parents. We were met with Kim’s favorite Aurelios Pizza and a case of our favorite wines hand picked and tasted by her Dad. Kirk and Pat wined and dined us and even took us to a hockey game. Once Thanksgiving came we were really excited for the food and to get to see Kim’s Grandparents and family. It was my first Thanksgiving with another family and it was really fun to try their new food and see their traditions. We spent the next few nights hanging out with Kirk, Pat, Katie, and Ned. We played card games and bowled on their Wii.  It was great to spend some quality time there.

            

Annapolis, Maryland

We then begrudgingly decided it was time for us to continue to head east to take on some part time work and Kim’s Jewelry show in Annapolis.  I was very excited to see my parents and the next day was spent prepping Kim’s display for her show and making a few last moment pieces. Her first show went well and it even landed her an open trunk show inside a boutique called Lilac in downtown Annapolis. After the two shows, selling to family and friends for Christmas presents and a few pieces along the way Kim had sold over 30 pieces and made a solid chunk of money to help her with her travels (big thanks to anyone who purchased a piece of her jewelry). We then spent several great nights with my parents and my sister Danielle and her boyfriend Billy. We even went bar hopping with the parents a few times.  Once Christmas rolled around we had a great time helping my mom in the kitchen and both of us really learning a thing or two about cooking. We made Quiche for breakfast and Kim made a amazing Rum Cake! We followed my family’s recent tradition of waiting till midnight on Christmas Eve to open all of our presents.  We both received tons of great gifts from both our parents and family members (THANK YOU SO MUCH).  We then woke up late on Christmas day and spent the whole day in our Pajamas. We even ate Christmas dinner in our PJ’s which was a brand new tradition that I really liked! We spent the following days making about 7 trips to REI getting the proper gear 

            

 

New York- New Years-  Phish

Our last leg was to head to New York for the New Year to see my favorite band Phish. We got to see a bunch of great friends in the process. Kim’s great friend Nate was VERY generous and gave us the keys to his Manhattan apartment while he was away for the New Year. This housing saved us financially and made it possible to be in NYC before we departed for SA. Phish put on an amazing New Years run of concerts and we had a BLAST with all of our friends. The Highlight of the shows were on New Years night when Phish was playing their song Meatstick when all of the sudden a Mexican mariachi band came on stage and sang the lyrics in Spanish then a Swedish group and followed by several other nationality’s all singing Phish’s “meatstick” and doing the meatstick dance. This turned into a huge orchestrated Broadway production of style, song, and dance. All of the sudden Phish appeared at the back of Madison Square Garden riding in a Giant HOT DOG with all four members of the band. They returned to the stage for a giant balloon drop and their version of Eric Clapton’s After Midnight.  

The concert’s ended and I said goodbye to some of our great friends and was wished best of luck by many. We then spent the next two days getting ready and hanging out with Nate who had returned from Montréal. We are just about to ship our cell phones and a package of things back to my parents before we are off. We have everything we need in our backpacks and are ready to go. I am pretty confident we did’t forget anything because Kim is so organized. We had 200 lists and checked them 500 times. So I feel very excited and well prepared. I know that all our loved ones are nervous and excited for our trip. I can assure you that we will make every move thinking about safety first.  We promise to be smart travelers.  I will make it my job to make sure Kim is safe and protected in every situation.

 

While writing this and reflecting over the past few days Kim and I both realized how truly lucky we are to have the best families and friends possible. We know we could not have done this without you guys and we are forever grateful. This is going to be a once in a lifetime experience that will shape the rest of our lives. We are truly blessed to have the opportunity to make a trip like this and we are going to do our best to learn as much as possible and make every day count.

We will try to keep our blog updated at least once a month if not every week.

We will be checking email so if you need to reach us just shoot us a line.

Hunt

Huntfrye@gmail.com

Kim

thompsonkimk@gmail.com

-This has all been wonderful but now were on our way - Phish