I`m on a bus to Cusco, traveling east through the mountains after spending a night in Ventanilla. I`m using an onboard computer with WIFI with the company Cruz del Sur, the best bus service I�ve ever experienced (excellent, authentic food, arroz con pollo, for dinner, and even a game of Bingo to pass the time)

Soon, I`ll be walking the Camino of the Incas, or a 4 day hiking trail leading to the ruins of Machu Picchu in the heart of the Andes Mountains. This is after experiencing culture shock for the umpteenth time by returning to the country my parents left so many years ago.

The extreme poverty of the habitations around Lima still strikes me: ramshackle affairs of houses thrown together on dunes of dirt, hardly a walk`s away from oil refineries spewing smoke. I`m here with a friend I met at IES, Sam Hodges, and we`ve been discussing how those effects of rampant neoliberalism manifest themselves here like the gnarled flipside of a seemingly pretty coin.

Traveling is interesting in how it affects you, and when I say �you� of course that means me.

I gain a better understanding of the world, which is odd because that understanding amounts to a realization of how absurdly complex it really is, and how it becomes even moreso the more I see.

I`m going to post this entry before we lose Internet access; we`re climbing higher and reception will cut out soon.

I`ll say one last thing: the darkness outside the window is absolute. No streetlights. No buildings. Every once in a while, we see another car, though that`s not often. It`s a bit eerie how, when I look through the glass, there`s absolutely nothing out there.

Location: Andes Mountains, Peru