October 5, 2011
Well since I last wrote last night we were to meet this woman at 8pm who was to give us this deal of $33US each to see many far off places. It was 7:30pm and it was pissing down rain so me being the sweet, loving and caring individual I am told Eugene and Megan that maybe they should go over by themselves and get the details of where to meet the next day etc... and then report back to me at my hotel room where I would be getting a couple more hours beauty sleep. So they happily go off into the rain and basically come back to my hotel room at 10pm and tell me there has been a snag in our plans since the woman wasn't there and the person there said she was stuck somewhere else and couldn't get back. I think to myself that this is just so typical. So we plan to just meet up for coffee tomorrow at 7am and regroup and go to plan B where instead we will do the waterfall today and make arrangements for the rest of the places when we get back.
So we meet up in the morning and Eugene and Megan are already having instant coffee so I go to the pastry nazi's place since he is the only guy I know who serves good filtered coffee along with expresso's and cappachinos. Yesterday morning I had gone to a fancy restaurant next to the hotel and asked the young woman if they served "cafe Americano" and she nodded her head confidently that they do so I order a cup. She brings back a big cup (1 1/2 cup size) with coffee and I am very excited. I take one sip and think that either this is the most weakest coffee or that it is probably instant coffee (I am betting on the latter). I call the woman over and ask her again is this "Cafe Americano?" and she nods saying yes. So I tell her that I want to see the coffee machine myself and get her to lead me straight into the kitchen where she triumpantly pulls out a jar of Nescafe instant coffee and shows me with a big smile on her face at which point my head collapses to my chest as I try to tell her that it is not "cafe americano" that is just plain old powdered instant coffee. I realize there is a huge culture difference that she won't understand and think maybe I should make an analogy that she might understand and think what is big with the spanish culture and think a bit..... Ummm.... Ahhhh..... BURRITOS!! Imagine you love your home made burritos and I open a restaurant saying I sell "Peruvian burritos" and you order it and they don't taste as good as you remember back home and then I show you that my burritos are the store bought and frozen type with packaging and you know they are not the homemade burritos you are used to but I show you the package that says "Made in Peru" to prove to you they are. That is just the closest analogy I could make. IT AIN"T THE SAME!!! OK, sorry to waste a full paragraph on coffee but these issues are important and must be "aired". OK moving right along....
We meet up at 7am and I decide I need a coffee pronto so I head to the pastry nazi's place for some good cup of coffee and to my surprise he is closed along with all the other stores in town so I look around the main square and find a really nice coffee place called "Karajia cafe" with good coffee and cappacino machines and I am very impressed with how modern it looks compared to all the other places around it. I had been to this place yesterday and sat down and waited for 10 minutes and no one was around so I just left. He later told me he shuts down for awhile during the day but his place was open. Anyhow I arrive and am greeted by a very friendly young guy who shakes my hand and introduces himself and I order some "cafe americano" (The real stuff) and he starts the machine and puts in the whole beans which get grinded along with some water and presto I have my coffee. When I had first walked in he had his laptop on and was researching "cafes" on youtube so he really knows his coffee. He has really good quality coffee beans and also has certain liquors you can put into them. He tells me to punch into youtube my favourite music so I punch in "1980's music" and presto I have 80's music playing on the big speakers throughout his coffee shop and for the first time I feel like I am home listening to 80's tunes while sipping my morning coffee. Life just doesn't get any better.
The water fall- Gocta
After coffee we go to the minivan that takes 7 of us to the waterfall. It is an hour drive through the crevasses of the giant mountains that surround this place and it is quite scenic. They drop us off at a little village and we have a spanish guide that doesn't do us a lot of good but the main thing was that we got a good price! It was a 2 hour walk to the waterfall and I think we went up and down 2 mountains before getting there. We had no idea where this water was coming from since it looked like just a big mountain top that the water was pouring off of and the water was basically vapour by the time it hit the ground and we could feel the spray while we stood around it. The 2 hour hike back was pretty exhaustive and I had to stop for little breaks along the way as we were sweating like crazy in the sun. When we got back we had our little dinner at the local village that was prearranged before we left on our hike.
We are back at the hotel and making arrangements for the other few sites we want to see and trying to get a special tour package for that. My legs are pretty tired and am going to chill out tonight and then hopefully tomorrow we are off on a 2 day excursion and will probably leave our bags at the hotel.
Well since I last wrote last night we were to meet this woman at 8pm who was to give us this deal of $33US each to see many far off places. It was 7:30pm and it was pissing down rain so me being the sweet, loving and caring individual I am told Eugene and Megan that maybe they should go over by themselves and get the details of where to meet the next day etc... and then report back to me at my hotel room where I would be getting a couple more hours beauty sleep. So they happily go off into the rain and basically come back to my hotel room at 10pm and tell me there has been a snag in our plans since the woman wasn't there and the person there said she was stuck somewhere else and couldn't get back. I think to myself that this is just so typical. So we plan to just meet up for coffee tomorrow at 7am and regroup and go to plan B where instead we will do the waterfall today and make arrangements for the rest of the places when we get back.
So we meet up in the morning and Eugene and Megan are already having instant coffee so I go to the pastry nazi's place since he is the only guy I know who serves good filtered coffee along with expresso's and cappachinos. Yesterday morning I had gone to a fancy restaurant next to the hotel and asked the young woman if they served "cafe Americano" and she nodded her head confidently that they do so I order a cup. She brings back a big cup (1 1/2 cup size) with coffee and I am very excited. I take one sip and think that either this is the most weakest coffee or that it is probably instant coffee (I am betting on the latter). I call the woman over and ask her again is this "Cafe Americano?" and she nods saying yes. So I tell her that I want to see the coffee machine myself and get her to lead me straight into the kitchen where she triumpantly pulls out a jar of Nescafe instant coffee and shows me with a big smile on her face at which point my head collapses to my chest as I try to tell her that it is not "cafe americano" that is just plain old powdered instant coffee. I realize there is a huge culture difference that she won't understand and think maybe I should make an analogy that she might understand and think what is big with the spanish culture and think a bit..... Ummm.... Ahhhh..... BURRITOS!! Imagine you love your home made burritos and I open a restaurant saying I sell "Peruvian burritos" and you order it and they don't taste as good as you remember back home and then I show you that my burritos are the store bought and frozen type with packaging and you know they are not the homemade burritos you are used to but I show you the package that says "Made in Peru" to prove to you they are. That is just the closest analogy I could make. IT AIN"T THE SAME!!! OK, sorry to waste a full paragraph on coffee but these issues are important and must be "aired". OK moving right along....
We meet up at 7am and I decide I need a coffee pronto so I head to the pastry nazi's place for some good cup of coffee and to my surprise he is closed along with all the other stores in town so I look around the main square and find a really nice coffee place called "Karajia cafe" with good coffee and cappacino machines and I am very impressed with how modern it looks compared to all the other places around it. I had been to this place yesterday and sat down and waited for 10 minutes and no one was around so I just left. He later told me he shuts down for awhile during the day but his place was open. Anyhow I arrive and am greeted by a very friendly young guy who shakes my hand and introduces himself and I order some "cafe americano" (The real stuff) and he starts the machine and puts in the whole beans which get grinded along with some water and presto I have my coffee. When I had first walked in he had his laptop on and was researching "cafes" on youtube so he really knows his coffee. He has really good quality coffee beans and also has certain liquors you can put into them. He tells me to punch into youtube my favourite music so I punch in "1980's music" and presto I have 80's music playing on the big speakers throughout his coffee shop and for the first time I feel like I am home listening to 80's tunes while sipping my morning coffee. Life just doesn't get any better.
The water fall- Gocta
After coffee we go to the minivan that takes 7 of us to the waterfall. It is an hour drive through the crevasses of the giant mountains that surround this place and it is quite scenic. They drop us off at a little village and we have a spanish guide that doesn't do us a lot of good but the main thing was that we got a good price! It was a 2 hour walk to the waterfall and I think we went up and down 2 mountains before getting there. We had no idea where this water was coming from since it looked like just a big mountain top that the water was pouring off of and the water was basically vapour by the time it hit the ground and we could feel the spray while we stood around it. The 2 hour hike back was pretty exhaustive and I had to stop for little breaks along the way as we were sweating like crazy in the sun. When we got back we had our little dinner at the local village that was prearranged before we left on our hike.
We are back at the hotel and making arrangements for the other few sites we want to see and trying to get a special tour package for that. My legs are pretty tired and am going to chill out tonight and then hopefully tomorrow we are off on a 2 day excursion and will probably leave our bags at the hotel.
