South American Blunders

Hello friends, here's an update that, given my lack of traveling, will be brief.
The past 2 weeks I've been living with the old Spanish couple, Pepe and Therese, and their 14 year old son Sergi. Life there is somewhat hard but wholesome, sweat filled but happy. In my time there, with many bug bites and much sweat, I have built 2 composts (1 for organic things like vegetables and the other for the toilets) a gate of bamboo, a wall of bamboo for climbing ivy, and a 'green house' of sorts that was instantly torn to shreds by the god damned puppy Garelle. It was pretty glamorous at first, chopping down bamboo in the forest to use in construction but this glamour soon wore off. The benefits to living there, however, are enormous and I think have had a profound effect on how I want to live my life in the future.
1. The river (to say nothing of the private beach I cross to get to it) is paradise. The temperature, the soft sand, the strong current, and the beauty all make it something I could sit in for hours. It's especially wonderful once gallons of sweat and dirt have been accumulated. But it's ESPECIALLY wonderful at 5:30 when the sun begins to set and the forest erupts in a symphony of birds and bugs that lasts only 30 minutes.
2. Most every night is punctuated with an animated conversation over a delicious, fresh meal. Pepe loves to rant about the 'sweetness of life' and other such cheesy, feel good topics that seem so appropriate in that setting.
3. Smoothies. There is no electricity or running water, which means very few luxury and no refrigeration. However, I can go to the market in the morning and buy fresh yogurt and fruit. Back at the house there is a crank blender with which I can make delicious, relatively cold fruit smoothies. Each one is the greatest drink I've ever had.
Included (I hope) is a picture of the couple I've been living with as well as one of me with Ashley at that same house. Ashley was one of the 2 researchers that convinced me to go visit Pepe and Therese in the first place. There's a picture of me on top of the observation tower at CICRA and another of me bailing out one of the aged, pseudo-buoyant canoes that 6 of us took down the river at night (amazing experience).
MG has given me her small digital camera and thereby I will be able to take pictures and upload them here, a happy day.
Monday night I took the advice of Therese and Pepe and went to Shaman Eduard to drink Iowaska under his watchful eye. Iowaska is a psycho-delic (tropic?) drink of three herbs that has been used for centuries in a certain ceremony by a certain tribe. I went to him at 8:30 and, when no one else showed up, took a tall shot of black sludge with him. I spent the remainder of the night in a pitch black room, curled into a ball and trying to prevent venomous creatures from stealing my reason and unsuccessfully trying to convince myself that everything was okay and death was not upon me. Worst night of my life, enough said.
I am now back at CICRA for the weekend and seeing MG again was nicer than I could have expected. Monday I'll go back to Pepe's house for long enough to skip rocks with Sergi and have one last dinner with the happy couple. Tuesday will be day one of a three day bus ride to the border of Ecuador and Peru. On the 25th I start my internship with Planetdrumfoundation in Bahia Carazquez.
Monday sort of shook me to the core but I'm once again beginning to feel reckless and excited, as it should be. Here at CICRA I plan to sit in a hammock and read (I'm learning to lucid dream, kind of exciting) and try and relax to a point that seems inappropriate. I still don't have addresses for the vast majority of you. Send me them and your love.

Xnay on the pictures for now, I"ll be able to upload them when I have a better connection in the future.

I have to try and keep this brief as I need to get to the market and find a taxi before it gets dark.

I took a painfully long bus ride from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado on the 25th and stayed the night in a run down little hostal in this extremely ugly city. It rivals phoenix in it´s appalling heat and appearance, only it has more dust than tar. The difference being that tar doesn´t stick to your sweaty skin and make you feel like you´re suffocating. Almost all the taxis are motorcycles (there´s hundreds of them) and I got to ride my first one, pretty exciting.
The next morning I crammed myself into a little car with 9 other people (3 in the trunk, 4 across the seat, 1 between the driver and passenger seats) and arrived in Laberinto from where I caught a boat up river. This boat moved at about .5 miles an hour and was so loaded with people, baggage, and animals that the sides of it barely stayed above the surface of the water (and several times didn´t). I rode 11 hours in this damn boat and got urinated on by both a puppy and a sheep. Towards the end the children had taken a liking to the gringo and I was teaching them math and giving them multiplication quizzes towards the end of it (I know, the worst gringo to be teaching math on the planet). They listened to my ipod and were fascinated by anything I pulled out of my bag (so I generally opted not to open my bag). Overall it was a pretty good if a little harrowing Birthday.
I was dropped off in the pitch black on the bank where, lucky for me, MG had come down to meet me. This was a good thing seeing as how I had no idea where to go, there are apparently Caymans (like crocodiles) all over those banks, and there was a Bushmaster on the stairs I had to take (super deadly). I spent the next 3 days with MG in the middle of the beautiful rainforest, taking walks with her to catalogue plants and getting to know a slew of amazing, intelligent, interesting people. I climbed a huge observation tower that went above the canopy, saw a ton of monkeys and tropical birds everywhere I went, and ascended a 90ft. tree with ascenders (and had an awesome repel down). Sorry mom, that´s just the way it is. The whole stay was truly life changing and I didn´t want to leave.
Yesterday I caught the boat back in the morning (a faster, better, more comfortable boat) and was invited by two of the researchers there to stay the night with them at a friends house in Puerto. I decided I could put off my trip to Bolivia and the monkey reserve for a day and opted to join them. This "house" is 25min. outside of horrible Puerto Maldonado and is paradise. It´s completely secluded within the rainforeset and right on the river (which is the perfect temperature, I´m about to go buy an innertube). It´s actually an ecological education center/lodge that has ambitions of an organic garden, green house, and many other big picture projects. There are hammocks everywhere and 5 different cabanas. No electricity, no running water-just compost toilets and a small solar panel that offers enough power for a stove and some light in 1 room at night. It is lived in by this sweet old, Spanish couple that built the place. They are some of the most animated, energetic and happy people I have ever met. They get impassioned and should about globalizaton and socialism and various life philosophies and don´t speak any English. So, when they said they were looking for volunteers to stay there and help undertake some of these projects I of course put down my heavy backpack and declared myself their volunteer. I´ll be here 3 weeks until my internship in Ecuador begins on Oct. 25th. There´s a ton of work to do but also a lot of time to sit in a hammock and try to spot monkeys, I´ll also be able to go back to the research station and visit MG.
Thus far everything has been really amazing. I´m covered in bug bites and itch everywhere but am as happy as can be but for my lack of a camera (stolen from a train on the way back from Macchu Picchu).

I arrived in Lima at midnight and at 5 the next morning flew to Cusco to meet Becca Maxwell. This went surprisingly smoothly as i found her in the plaza, right where i was supposed to and right on time. Yesterday (the day after I arrived) we went to Machu Picchu and it was breathtaking, spectacular, etc. The ruins themselves were amazing but it was the views from up there in the clouds that were so staggering.
We then killed 4.5 hours in the little town at the foot of the mountain until our train came. Then, at 4:30, we left our spot and missed our train by 5 minutes...of course. Got back on a later train and I saw Becca off at 4 this morning. I´ve got one more day in Cusco and hopefully tomorrow I´m setting out to find my friend MG at her remote jungle research station. Below are the instructions I´ve received on how exactly to get there...should be interesting. I plan to spend a few days there and then head to the Bolivian monkey reserve that I´ve mentioned to some of you.
Cusco is really a neat little town. Most of the architecture consists of ruins from the early 16th century. Most of the women wear top hats and ruffly skirts and the altitude is brutal. If I wash my hair with too much rigor I find myself panting and my heart pounding (literally, that happened this morning after almost 3 days here).
My trip is just starting and I have a long way to go so e-mail me and tell me you haven´t forgotten me because, though it´ll be lifechanging and exciting, this is a pretty lonesome undertaking and I find myself sappily missing all of my friends and family.
alright, that was relatively painless. Hugs and drugs, peaches and orgasms, fight the good fight. Much love.
Aaron/J
MG´s instructions:
...you can share a taxi with 5 other people. This way it is cheaper. You should be at the taxi at 6, so that you
get to Laberento around 7. Once in Laberento, ask where the boats
leave from. It is only a two block walk, maybe less, to get there
(laberento is super small). Then, when you get to the boats, ask
which one is going to "San Juan" or "Boca Amigo" or "Colorado". This
is the one you want to get on. Tell them that you are going to
CICRA.. that is the name of the field station I work at. If they
don't know where CICRA is, tell them that it is right after Boca
Amigo, and on the right side of the river. The boat will cost you 30
soles one way, and you pay when you get off. It is often really
really full of people, and takes at least 11 hours but often stops
over night in little villages. If you get stuck in Boca Amigo, ask
for Betty and tell her that you know me (but you have to say Marjorie,
not MG, because they only know me as Marjorie) and tell her you are
stranded there for the night. There are no hotels in these little
towns, so if you get stuck you are at the mercy of the people who live
there, who are often very very very nice. When you get to CICRA, you
will see boats and a sign that says something like "CICRA- Biological
Concession for the Conservation of the Amazon". Then, you will have
to walk up about 300 stairs (in the dark too, so pack your head lamp)
and then you will be at the field station! Just ask for me and they
will get me, there aren't very many people here.