I thought my trip back to the States would be uneventful. I was wrong.

It deserves a post of its own.

My flight was supposed to be ~2:30PM, connecting in San Jose, Costa Rica and arriving at JFK the next day ~2AM. When I checked in online, it turned out my flight had been moved to ~10:30AM, connecting in San Jose, Costa Rica and San Salvador, El Salvador. The change didn't affect my schedule, but I was certainly glad I found out about it. I ended up not being able to check in online anyway, receiving some vague and opaque message instead. 

After 10,000+ miles, 8,000+ pictures, 2 months without a haircut, and way too many days without a shower, it's time to drag myself back home on a curiously long 16+ hour series of flights. 

Check back over the next few weeks as I'll be uploading the rest of my photos. Thanks for following and reading!

And now, back to your local programming...restaurant reviews, random rants, more detailed HuffPo travel posts, and...TBD

One more photo (queso!) from the Amazon with Otorongo's owner, Anthony. I can't believe that was almost a month ago!

It was 7:30AM when I woke up to the sunlight seeping through the curtains. After a quick continental breakfast and a chat with a German couple, I headed to the Plaza de Constitución of Huancayo. 

Before heading to the Cruz Del Sur station, I stopped by the bakery Aasiyah and I visited the day before to grab an empanada for breakfast, as well as three rolls of bread for the bus ride (all for only 3 soles).

The ride back to Lima was about 9.5 hours, taking us through rustic landscapes similar to what I had seen on my Llupa to Pitec hike. The trip would had been shorter had we not been stuck in Lima traffic for 1.5 hours. As usual, there was plenty of entertainment on the bus to keep us either asleep or entertained. Movies included Taken 2 and Brave. Shorter clips included the Canadian gag show Just for Laughs. And who knew Bingo was also on the list of activities. 

I had nothing planned for my last full day in Huaraz. In the morning, I dropped by a cafe to grab breakfast. It was only 8AM, but as I approached the main street that led to the Plaza de Armas, groups of children dressed in distinct uniforms and holding various instruments came into view.

We were out the door and at Avenida Gamarra by 7AM. I met Francois, a Canadian trekker, the previous night, and we decided to hike up to Lake Churup together.

The combi wasn't leaving until 7:20, waiting for more passengers before heading off. The driver wanted to charge us 5 soles, but we were insistent on paying only 3. Once we started rolling, the combi picked up an additional 20 or so mostly local passengers, cramming everyone into the tiniest space available. Thirty minutes later, we got dropped off at the far edge of the town of Llupa. With what appeared to be only two parallel streets, Llupa was less of a town and more of a village. From Llupa, we hiked 40 minutes upwards on rock and gravel until we reached Pitec, where the path to Lake Churup began.

Huanchaco is a World Surfing Reserve, so it isn't a surprise to see dozens of surfers on the beach and in the sea. After a quick 9 soles breakfast at Huanchakero, I spent most of the day either people watching on the cold, windy beach or in Otra Cosa eating.

After nine hours, the bus pulled into the Cruz Del Sur Trujillo station at 8:30AM. I was staying the night in Huanchaco, a beach town with a mellow vibe located 15-20 minutes away from Trujillo by taxi, but wanted to explore a little of Trujillo - the culture capital of Peru - before heading out.

At Plaza de Armas, I found myself one of the few people who were up and about. Lined by colonial and republican styled buildings, the square's centerpiece is the Freedom Monument. This sculpture symbolizes Trujillo's process of independence from Spain in the early 19th century. It was in the square where the initial declaration was declared.

If Lima's known for one thing in my book, it is it's culinary scene. If Lima's culinary scene is known for one thing in my book, it is it's cebiche.

Just a block from Chifa Union is Canta Rana, a restaurant whose walls are decorated by frames upon frames of various pictures that I currently have no recollection of. With too many choices to choose from, I went the easy route and got the cebiche mixto and a glass of chicha morada. Rather than being given bread, I got a small bowl of deliciously roasted corn and one of warm beans soaked in some type of clear liquid (some type of oil).

Two of the most popular districts in Lima are Miraflores and Barranco. Miraflores is one the wealthiest districts, with perfectly manicured parks, shopping centers, cafes, and hotels within reach. Barranco, on the other hand, is a more subdued (at least during daytime) and bohemian district. The most popular attraction in Barranco is likely the Bridge of Sighs, a wooden bridge that hovers over Bajada de Baños (a stone walkway that cuts through Barranco, ending at the Pacific Ocean).

Like the trains in the US, the Cuzco airport didn't display gate information for each flight until roughly boarding time (airlines don't appear to be assigned a gate, more of a first come first serve kind of deal). In fact, there wasn't a display inside the security checkpoint area. It's a small terminal though, so it's easy to listen for any calls for your flight.

Touching down in Lima, I quickly made my way outside, where a taxi driver from Barranco's Backpackers was waiting for me. For $19 and after a 40 minute drive through Lima, I found myself in front of a green gated home.

After climbing back down Wayna Picchu and taking another walk through Machu Picchu, Liz, Michael, and I (the only ones from our group who did the former) headed for the bus that would take us to Aguas Calientes.

There was literally a bus that ran every five minutes, swallowing up tourists like they were candy. After 20 minutes of winding roads down to the valley, we hopped off at Aguas Calientes.

About a hundred meters away, I could see little figures running about. The dim light of the 4:30AM morning prevented me from seeing much else. As I got closer, I saw a couple people carrying the instantly recognizable red Llama Path duffel bags. Once I got to Regocijo Plaza, I handed my Llama Path duffel bag to one of the porters. In return, I was handed a hot cup of water to warm up my freezing body. 

One by one, the fifteen of us tourists slowly piled onto the bus, at the back of which already sat the 21 porters and 1 chef who would be with us. The bus was cold, but most of us sought to catch some additional sleep during the 2 hours' drive to Ollayataytambo. There, we had breakfast (the coffee is highly not recommended as it looked more like sludge than anything; go for the coca tea). Afterwards, it was another hour to kilometer 82 (2720 meters above sea level), where we each got our sleeping bags to pack into our duffel bags.

The Sacred Valley of the Incas is a collection of cities that are home to various Inca ruins. It is located in the Andes, within the Cuzco region. For 35 soles, I was up and ready in a Sacred Valley tour bus at 8:30 in the morning. With no heat on the bus and the temperature in the 30's, we were all basically relying on our collective body heat to warm up the bus.

We drove for a couple hours outside of Cuzco to the Inca town of Pisac, where we had to purchase a ticket to enter the various Sacred Valley sites. A partial ticket cost 70 soles, allowing entrance to four (Moray, Pisac, Chinchero, and Ollantaytambo) of the Sacred Valley sites.

Cuzco, the former capital of the Inca Empire and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, sits approximately 3,400 meters above sea level. As a result, most visitors often experience altitude sickness as their bodies adapt to the higher elevation. Taking preventative medicine (e.g., Diamox) and drinking coca tea had fortunately warded off most of the symptoms of altitude sickness for me.

When tourists first arrive in Cuzco, it's easy to mistake the city as a super liberal haven due to the multiple rainbow colored flags draped and hung around everywhere. However, the colors depict the flag of Cuzco and not a statement on gay rights. The flags do add a dash of color to the orange-red hue that seems to tint everything in and around the Cuzco area due to the rusty color of the surrounding mountain ranges.

I shared a taxi with Kelly, the traveler I met the previous night, to the Iquitos airport since we were heading out at the same time. At the airport, we lost track of each other; however, I bumped into Alain and Soche (sp), the San Diego couple I had met at Otorongo. Small world!

(Offline for a couple days for a trek to a ruined city that sounds like the name of a Pokemon)

Otorongo, a local word meaning jaguar, is located 2,000 miles from where the Marañón and Ucayali rivers meet, forming the great Amazon river.

With its roots beginning in 2005, Otorongo was started by Anthony Giardenelli, an upstate New Yorker, and his wife, Ivonne, a native of Iquitos. It is a twelve room lodge surrounded by spacious open gardens where various plants are grown and where the lodge's macaws, chickens, and ducks roam about. At one end of the rooms is a large dining area. At the opposite end is a hammock room where ~6 hammocks are set up in a semicircle ready to encapsulate their residents. 

Makako was only a short ten minute ride to the airport. I tried checking in, but the woman at the counter wouldn't give me my tickets until I got my tax exemption from the office located in the corner across the check in area. Returning to the counter, I handed her my stamped passport and exemption paper, and she handed me 70 Colombian pesos. I had bought a one-way ticket out of Colombia, and that seemed to have triggered the airline to charge me a $39 resident tax, which was the 70 COP she handed back to me. Of course, I was leaving Colombia, so then I had even more money I couldn't spend. 

(Back to the jungle, next post in a few days!)

I took off my backpack and threw it into the back of the taxi. Telling the driver I wanted to go to the bus station, I was propelled backwards as the taxi lurched forward. Fifteen minutes and 5,000 pesos later, I was directed by a man to the Brasilia bus ticket office. Using cash saved me 5,000 pesos, paying 25K pesos for my ticket back to Cartagena rather than the 30K I had paid for the trip to Santa Marta. 

I've learned that the bus exterior gives no indication as to which company it belongs to. On each ticket receipt, the cashier at the ticket office hand writes the bus number for the corresponding trip. Though I traveled with Brasilia both ways, both buses had the markings of another bus company on its external facade. The bus numbers, however, were dead accurate.

Santa Marta is a commercial port city bustling with traffic - both cars and pedestrians. Unlike Cartagena's walled city, Santa Marta lacks the sophistication and elegance that give Cartagena its characteristic charm. The city, at least in the area I was in, was heavily policed, with officers occasionally stopping the locals to conduct a body search. The streets were dirty and at times exuded a smell unpleasant to the nose. The people seemed to prefer to keep their distance, whether it was from everyone or just the tourists I don't know.

However, Santa Marta's temperatures are considerably cooler than Cartagena's; and the city's beach faces west, giving an open view of magnificent sunsets that light up the Caribbean Sea like an underwater fire and bring life to the whispers of clouds overhead.