Heading To Peru, Part I

Spent a night at Hospedaje Maria Estar with Florian and Hanes, two German brothers that I met in Ibañez -- a great couple of guys to talk with.  Florian studied economics in school (loves environmental micro-economics, hates the macro stuff), has traveled extensively and has a great grasp of European history.  We talked about the EU at great length along with the high-tech scene in Seattle.  Florian carries a Psion palmtop (similar to this one) with him and it's held up well considering the banging it gets on these roads.  He can transfer info from the Psion to a computer at an internet shop and then copy/paste it into email.  Much faster than typing it all while paying by the hour.  He gets about 30 hours out of two AA batteries.  I guess I would also want to be able to upload images, etc. if I were to be trying this web-on-the-road idea.

It looks like Jen will be coming down here at the end of March with her bike.  It'll be interesting to see how that changes dynamics, especially if we hook up with Amy and Chip again.  Amy will no longer be the shortest!  And I'll be able to verify if the overwhelming desire to plan to the smallest detail is a female thing or just Amy.  It's a hard balance to maintain: spontaneity and planning.  Without some amount of advanced planning, we would have starved somewhere during the four days riding into Torres del Paine plus six days of hiking.  But we allowed ourselves some spontaneity, staying an extra day when we could restock our food supply.

I think they've started checking for my flight.  One more beer and I'll head down.  I hope Jen doesn't think I'm a hopless drunk after traveling with me for a couple weeks!  But her arrival solves the problem of what to do with the half-empty box of wine at the end of the day...

And one of these days I'll figure out why people insist on sitting next to me and smoking when there's a ton of free tables all over the place.