totally tentative, totally flexible, partial itinerary of trip

DAY ONE: arrive in Lima at the butt crack of dawn. Find Deens dead asleep hunched over her luggage in the terminal. Scare the shit out of her when Wade wakes her up. Find a hostel, walk around with jaws dropped in city center. See pretty buildings, churches, museums.

DAY TWO-FOUR: leave Lima going south. This way we can return to Lima after Machu Picchu and do "civilized" things like shop and eat at tables. Possible things to stop on our way down: Chilca, where they have a mineral-rich lagoon; Pisco-Paracas, where they have a lovely national reserve park and you can take a boat out to Islas Ballestas and see wild animals and guano, yes guano, which is one of their NATIONAL EXPORTS; Ica, where there is a cool city and neat museums that showcase "scarily well-preserved mummies of everything from children to a small macaw, trepanned skulls and shrunken trophy heads, enormous wigs and tresses of hair, plus a fascinating scientific display on what can be discovered from examining the skeletal remains" HOW FUCKING AWESOME; Huacachina, which is that lagoon oasis in the middle of sand dunes where you can sand-board; Nazca, where there are those cool lines etched in the ground that you can see from an airplane (or from here); Sacaco, a beach made with crushed shells and fossilized crocodile teeth.

DAY FIVE-SIX: Hit Arequipa, the white colonial city at the base of the Andes. From here we can do a one-two day long mini-trek to go to Canon del Coca, the deep deep canyon. On this trek there are other cool things, like the condor watch, thermal hot springs, snow-capped volcanos.

DAY SEVEN-EIGHT: Lake Titicaca and area, plus travel time. Acclimation to high altitude. This country is huge, man.

DAY NINE: Cuzco, the ancient colonial and Inca city. Acclimation to high altitude.

DAY TEN-FOURTEEN: Inca trail and Maccu Picchu.

Shit, we have run out of time. My plane leaves any second. Fly back to Lima. Maybe we could spend less time on the south coast. FYI it takes 16 hours by bus to go from Lima to Arequipa.

Alternatively, we can start in Lima and go immediately to Cuzco (a 30 hour bus ride, barf), do the Inca Trail first, and then meander from the southern tip back up the coast and fly back to Lima from Arequipa. Hmm. I will think about this. Although the prospect of going to a mummy museum is AWESOME, I think it would be neater to spend more time in the Andes. They are the fucking Andes, after all.