gravel in my boots

I am starting to get antsy to get on the road again. I think that I will up my plans to leaving the middle of August and spending a couple of months traveling before getting on the plane. Now that I have a leaving plan I am finding myself feeling more and more like hanging out in Ollantaytambo is just waiting to leave. I will need to get my things in order and decide what to send home and what to put in a backpack for traveling. At first I was dreaming of taking only my small pack with me and I will still try, but because I will be going to some vastly different weather climates, I may need more room than the small pack would give me. Also things like the charger for my Steri-Pen takes up lots of room. I am looking forward to this packing adventure though as the other ones seemed so hard and now I feel like I have a much better idea about what I actually need as opposed to what I might need. I think this is a good life lesson. I bought a new camera after dropping the old one but it turns out that I don´t have the right charging cable so until I go to Cusco to buy one I will be without a camera. As much as I don´t enjoy going to Cusco, I recognize that I better do this sooner than later or I will end up with no pictures of the end of my stay in Ollantay.

My friend Amy is flying in on August 6 so I will spend some time with her here in Ollantay when she gets here and maybe do a little traveling before she starts language school in Cusco and I head out on the road around the 17th. I think I will start in Puno (Titicaca) and head to Aerequipa for Colca Canyon and keep heading north along the coast to visit my friend Dave who is in Pisco doing earthquake relief and then see how my time takes me. I want to spend at least another week in Canoa in Ecuador lounging on the warm beach before hitting Oregon in late October. When I was coming into Peru I was really scared about traveling especially by myself but now that my language skills and cultural skills are so much better, I am looking foward to it. The only sticks in the plan will be how the strikes are affecting transportation, but with so much time I think I wont worry about that.

Hope everybody is well,
Maryjane