I can´t believe the americas trip is coming to an end soon. On Oct 1st, I fly back to Taiwan to see my family and then to NYC on Oct 25th.  Having not been back in 16 years, I am so excited to see my family and the country.

I remember meeting three tourists from Taiwan in Peru and they said that my Mandarin has some sort of accent.  I always thought my Chinese pronunciation was spot on.  I now don’t speak any languages without an accent
Quito is another city great for language schools, so instead of traveling fast through the last few days, I decided to take some French classes here – getting ready for trip part II Europe next year.  But who knows? It´s still far away; obviously a lot of things can happen between now and then. I could start working in which case no more traveling or green card regulations could change.

Not that traveling fatigue has set in, but not being able to go to Bolivia and Argentina was quite a bummer, to say the least.  Regardless, my last week in South America will be filled a lot of salsa dancing, samba and french classes   And that makes me happy.

From 20080913_ecu_alausi

And they all sell the same thing at the same price!

There are twenty stalls. Between every other stall, the exact same ten or so offerings are listed with the exact same price. Each stall is individually owned.
The fact that each stall only has enough seating for four explains a bit of the homogeneity of the place. Still, I found the sameness of the Alausi market unbelievable.

The attraction at Alausi is something called Nariz del Diablo or Devil’s nose, name for part of a old train ride around the mountain range to see the nearby volcanoes. 

From 20080913_ecu_alausi

After seeing the candors and the deep Colca canyon in Peru, the train ride to see Nariz del Diablo was kind of sleepy although it was refreshing to ride on the top of the train.

From 20080913_ecu_alausi

From 20080913_ecu_alausi

And I found another street drink – this time complete with fresh Alovera and twenty other herb concoctions made by this Peruvian-immigrant street doctor. Delicious!

From 20080913_ecu_alausi

From 20080913_ecu_alausi

 

And this alfafa elixir

From 20080913_ecu_alausi

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

  Over the last few days, I have been traveling pretty fast up from Lima, Trujillo, Mancora and then Puerto Lopez in Ecuador.  Whenever I can, I travel long distances at night by bus.  Luckily for me, the bed buses, whose beds lie ALL THE WAY back, have been pretty luxuious. After watching a Jackie Chen and Jet Li flick in Spanish, I slept like a baby.

In just about every city in Peru where I visited, there were protests of some sort in the street.  But according to one of the locals I talked to, the protests never really get them anything.  

When I got to Trujillio, I found the public bus transport was not only on strike, they have blocked off the road to the Chimu ruins to all other public transport such as taxis. 

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

The blockade was pretty primitive as far as blockades go, but get this, the bus drivers with bricks in hand demand money from any car that tries to pass. Of course, the police stood by the side of the road; they didn´t want to deal with the bus drivers either.
Our taxis dropped us right before the blockade and we walked the last few km to the ruins. The Chimu ruins seem pale compared to Mayan temples or Machu Pichü

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

The only public transport available to was out of the city. So after finding my last Peruvian culinary experience Cuy, guinea pig, I headed up to Puerto Lopez to try to find some whales. Cuy, by the way, is fatty and tasty – imagine a mix of chicken and fatty pork round.

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

Our boat went out in calm waters, but for the longest time all we saw was this.

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

Occassionally, we caught little something in the distance but by the time the boat moved there, the whales were gone. We were just about to head back when we saw another two boats gathered around what looked like a dead whale upside down in the ocean. When we got closer, we saw this!

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

The whale was alive! Actually, by the size, the capitan said a baby whale has just been born probably only a few hours before. The mother whale was upside down to breast feed the baby whale. How cool! You can see the two whales in this picture.

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

I was in awe looking at them. The mother whale stayed very still in one place in the water unlike other fish. Occassionally, it blew mists of water into the air.

And then just like that, they were gone.

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

Leaving a trail like this on the surface…

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez

From 20080911_ecu_puerto_lopez