My Trip to Ecuador and Peru

So, thanks to Mom and Dad, I found myself embarking on a 24 day trip to Ecuador and Peru on Dec 14th, 2007. Here's how it went down.

• Day 1 - travel, planes, Houston, Quito, Ecuador, etc.
• Day 2 - Quito
• We hit up this church that was under construction. I found myself looking at a corridor under construction with a walk way and I said, "It'd be cool if we could go down there." We did. And then we scaled all the towers of the church.
• Day 2 and 3 - the village of Otavalo
• We stayed at a nice little hotel.
• Jake and I went to the cock fights. Soon to be illegal in Ecuador! It was a little less eventful of an experience than I had expected. The fights were not to the death, but observing all the people (the handlers of the cocks) was really something. It was wild to think how these people live for this event every Saturday night.
• All the while Pam and Mom made friends with the band.
  
• Dad and I jogged to a waterfall.
• Day 3 - travel from Otavalo to Papallacta
• We stopped at the Equator! Equator. Ecuador. Equator. Ecuador. Get it?
  
• Day 3 and 4 - we stayed at the hot springs of Las Termas
• We played some cribbage and Dad and I ran up a hill.
• Day 5 and 6 - we stayed at our friend Larry's place. He runs Small World Adventures.
• We went on a bit of a jungle hike.
  
• Lili, the chef, made us some sushi when we got back.
• Larry is a world class kayaker and he taught Dad, Jake and I a few things.
• We went to a sugar cane farm and grinded sugar cane into juice - Conan the Barbarian style.
• Then we hit one giant waterfall.
• Dad lifted some weights.
• And then we hit another giant waterfall.
• Day 7 and 8 - we drove to the jungle city of Tena
• We hit the zoo and saw some flying monkeys.
• So then we pulled into a hotel called La Isla de Monos (Monkey Island). The thing about this hotel is the monkeys just roam the hotel grounds. One of them is nice: Lucho. The others are NOT. This little guy ended up biting Jake twice, biting Jake's mom, Chris and going after Dad as well.
  
• On the other hand, we did get to use their pool to try to learn how to roll kayaks.
• We also did a little paddle rafting.
• Day 9 and 10 - back to Larry's
• Mark played the role of Papa Noel (Santa) for Memo's (our driver) son Hector.
• Lili and the crew prepared us a ridiculous Christmas dinner.
• Days 11-13 - we hit the Peruvian jungle by way of Puerto Maldonado
• We rode in a thatched roof van and then ate some rice on a boat ride out to our inobtrusive hotel.
  
• The hotel was really something. There were no doors on the rooms, just curtains and cold showers only. We later found out that the cold showers were awesome because we were in the Peruvian f'ing jungle and basically never stopped sweating.
• We walked up the canopy tower which had a pretty decent view.
• We got up at 4am (seriously) the next morning and took a boat tour of Oxbow Lake where we bird watched and such.
• We also fished for piranha.
• Later we went to visit the Shaman and checked out his lab.
• The next morning we observed parrots as they licked clay off the "clay lick" (weird, right?).
• Then we flew out of an airport that seemed appropriate for the jungle.
• Days 13-15 - Cusco, Peru and some nearby ruins
• They have 1.1 liter beers in Cusco.
• We met some locals on our way to the ruins of Pisac. This was the first of many archaeological sites we'd see in the next few days.
• Dad and I had a beer while others shopped. Take note of the dead chicken being stuff in the sack.
  
• We stopped at a crazy lunch buffet spot and drank Pisco Sours, Peru's alcoholic drank that is crazy high proof.
• Next stop was Ollantaytambo which features the "Man in the Mountain".
• We stopped somewhere else for some Chicha, the corn beer that the locals love.
• Pam beat us all at the bar game called Sapo (which means frog).
• Check out all the guinea pigs that will some day be eaten for dinner.
• Day 2, we hit Saqsaywaman. This place has quite a history. And the rock work is unbelievable. This rock we're standing in front of weighs hundreds of tons if I remember right.
• Later we hit the local market where Jake bought and distributed some "Robin Hood" bread.
• Days 16-18 - Machu Picchu!
• You can only go to Machu Picchu by train.
• I found this sign humorous. Notice that the most important part of the whole sign was put in parentheses for some odd reason.
• After a bus ride and a few steps, we're here.
• Allegedly this rock gives off some kind of positive juju.
  
• The Force! Okay, story time. So when we were staying in the jungle, the hotel was very ... unobtrusive ... which is to say you were pretty much living and sleeping with everyone in the hotel. Well this Asian Indian family had a lot of kids. A lot. And they thoroughly enjoyed stomping (not walking) everywhere they went, accidentally barging into your room thinking it was their own and complaining about the heat late into the night. So instead of bitching silently to myself, I eventually decided to accept their dominance of the hotel and started referring to them as "The Force" (as in a force to be reckoned with). I'm proud to say that my entire crew took to this nickname and we ended up seeing The Force at many locations in Peru other than the Jungle ... which makes sense because they are after all The Force.
• We walked over to the Inca Bridge.
• I stepped on a crazy centipede (or millipede. Who knows really?).
• We hiked to the Sun Gate: the end of the Inca Trail and the first entrance to Machu Picchu.
• Jake ate guinea pig or cuy al horno.
• We lined up to hike to the top of Waynapichu.
  
• We took a few pictures at the top.
• Dad hiked to the top of this monster.
  
• We played some of the longest games of pool ever due to what we're sure very small pool table pockets.
• Dad and I hiked to the top of Putukusi. There were some ladders that helped us. The view from the top ain't bad.
• Lindsey Lohan endorses the Internet Cafe in Agua Caliente.
• A scary dude danced in the aisle on the train ride home.
• Day 18 and 19 - New Years in Cusco
• We got shot glass necklaces.
• Jake shot off a lot of fireworks.
• So did everyone else in the entire friggin' city.
• Day 20 - 22 - Our last adventure on Lake Titicaca
• We ate lunch by the coolest llama ever. Or maybe it's an alpaca, who knows really?
• I found the lamps to be comically close to the tables at our hotel.
• We hit the lake and went to the floating islands of the Uros. These people make islands that literally float on the water. And they live on these islands their whole lives. Yes, it's crazy.
  
• We learned how to make a floating island.
• We played dress up. A lot.
• We took a boat ride.
• We headed for Tequile Island. This island has 2,000 inhabitants that live and work here their whole lives.
• We stayed in tiny little rooms.
  
• We hiked to the top of the island.
• Dad saw a sunrise rainbow.
• We thanked Pam! Thanks, Pam!

So that's it. 25 days or so wrapped in ~500 photos and a few bullet points. Every day was like a new personal episode of National Geographic. It was a great trip. South America! It's easily the 2nd best America!

Recurring Comedy

Something I hear myself say every so often is "that kind of joke is always funny to me." So here's my best attempt at listing all "those kinds" of jokes that I can think of right now.

1. Taking a historical or hypothetical situation and paraphrasing it into casual conversation.
• Example from Chuck Klosterman's book IV: Chuck is writing about the viability of whether or not, in today's day, the US really even could overthrow its government assuming it wanted to. In discussing this, he hearkens back to our forefathers and the possible reason for writing the "right to bear arms" amendment. Klosterman says and I quote: "'Future citizens will need muskets to assassinate their oppressive viceroys,' James Madison might have hypothetically remarked during the intermission of a slave auction. 'In fact, this is probably the second most important freedom any of us will be able to come up with. Somebody should write this shit down.'"
• A joke like that is brilliant and hilarious. And I'm telling you, if you present me with a joke built on this same premise of a hypothetical (and almost definitely completely implausible) conversation, I will most likely laugh.
  
2. Repetition
• Look, you find something funny and run it at me over and over again, I'm probably gonna break eventually. Family Guy does this all the f'ing time. They take something sorta funny, and then repeat it about 10 times or for 10 seconds too long and I laugh.
• Here's a decent example from a current commercial. The key to this commercial is when the dog swtiches from the plural to the singular. In other words, this commercial had me at "Sausage!"
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3. Non-sense
• See: Will Ferrell. The man has pretty much created and mastered the world of non-sense comedy. You just speak confidently and make no sense at all while doing so and you're all set.
  
• See his latest Semi-Pro / Old Spice commercials:
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• Or see any of his doctor sketches from the old SNL days. Or any of his Harry Carey impersonations. Or the movie Anchorman. See what I mean? He's cornered the entire market.
  
4. Just the punch line -> raucous laughter
   
• I'm referring to jokes typically delivered on TV shows or movies where you break in on someone telling a joke and only hear the punch line.
• Joke examples that I can think of off the top of my head:
1. Tommy Boy: "So I said rectum? Damn near killed 'em!" "HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
2. Dumb and Dumber: "So she said 'Do you love me?' And I said 'No ... but that's a real nice ski mask!" "HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
• Really selling the raucous laughter is key. I've actually done a variation on this joke in real life a lot. I'll make a really bad joke about something and then laugh like mad. There have been times when I've sold the laughter so hard that people really thought I thought my joke was legitimately funny and not ironically funny. This is how hard you should be selling the laughter.
  
• Another great variation of this joke is the ending to the fake news story. This is where you're watching the news on a TV show or in a movie (get my drift?) and they only show you the very end of the story.
• Example from Hot Rod: they cut to the news caster and she says "... and then the dog walked itself home, ate a whole pizza and took a nap."
  
5. Cussing
• That's pretty much all there is to it. I find cussing to be humorous in many many circumstances.
• Example: Dane Cook. I know the man has come under fire with his recent ridiculous rise in popularity, but there was a time when I felt like he was writing all his jokes just for me. And most of them were funny cuz the dude really sold the cussing. If anyone saw him do stand-up before the idea of "Employee of the Month" was even thinking about being turned into an actual movie, I think you know what I mean.
• Horribly off color example from an episode of South Park about touret's syndrome ... here it is. Be advised that this clip IS NOT office safe and furthermore I should say that when I laugh at this clip, I'm not laughing at the syndrome or anyone who has the syndrome or even the idea of the syndrome. I'm just laughing at the cussing ... and then eventually crying from laughter:
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[Editor's note: holy crap I already wrote about this in December, 2006. I don't quite know what it says about this blog or about me if I've now reached the point where I'm plagiarizing myself. Huh.]

Caution

So I walk through the gate that leads to my office today and come across this sign:

Apparently, both English and Spanish speaking people alike should be on guard since my office may be swarming with these:

Thanks.