Ambrosia Software Web Board: My vacation - Ambrosia Software Web Board

I'm leaving for Peru today and I'll be gone until Jan. 3. I'll be able to check up on the boards occasionally, but I'd appreciate if you could take care of the chrons until I get back, Avatara.

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Slayer's guide to Cythera:
[url="http://"http://www.macclassics.com/cythera/cythera.htm"]http://www.macclassi...era/cythera.htm[/url]

Okay, though with the holiday season my active computer time is going to be drastically reduced. (odd how that works)

Enjoy your trip!

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"What we do not know, we cannot begin to understand."

Have a good time man... quite a coincidence, a friend of mine is going to Chile, I think, for Christmas. He might have even been going to Peru, I forget.

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Bronze: the other gold metal.   | |   And so the space toaster hardened the outer layers of the doughy, ooey-gooey ancient Earth...
Bacchus Publishing: [url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/show.pl?product=evo&category=guides&display=date&file=ChroniclesByJake101.sit.hqx"]Chronicles by Jake101: the unposted chapters[/url].

I submitted a Chron a couple days ago, and it's not up yet. How long is the delay for Cythera Chrons?

Yeah, off topic, enjoy your vacation great and powerful Slayer!

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Jingle Bells, Windoze smells, [url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum61/HTML/001202.html"]The Blue Mushroom Pub[/url] rocks (all 25+ pages worth)!
How are you gentlemen!! [url="http://"http://www.allyourbasearebelongtous.com"]All your base are belong to us![/url] You are on ze way to destruction. You will have no chance to survive make your time...Mwa ha ha ha...
-ZeroWing CATS, [url="http://"http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/"]All your Base[/url]

Have a good time and don't forget to pick us all up a llama or two while you're there.

-Pufer

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If a tree falls in the forest and then springs back upright as a joke, do the squirrels freak out?

[quote]Originally posted by Pufer:
Have a good time and don't forget to pick us all up a llama or two while you're there.  

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Yet another meaningless post
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Hi have i nice time and lifeknight
you asked how long it takes before a chron is brought out.
it is brought in a week. so be patience

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It's almost a week today...

Good luck on the chron-of-the-month constest!

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[url="http://"http://www.lordofthecows.com/ambrosiamemberstonight/"]Ambrosia Members Tonight![/url] | [url="http://"http://www.lordofthecows.com/music/board_members/spamguy/moderatorsong.mp3"]The Moderator Song[/url] / [url="http://"http://www.lordofthecows.com/music/board_members/evula/evula.mp3"]EVula[/url] / [url="http://"http://www.evula.com/"]The real EVula.com[/url]
Jingle Bells, Windoze smells, [url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum61/HTML/001202.html"]The Blue Mushroom Pub[/url] rocks (all 25+ pages worth)!
How are you gentlemen!! [url="http://"http://www.allyourbasearebelongtous.com"]All your base are belong to us![/url] You are on ze way to destruction. You will have no chance to survive make your time...Mwa ha ha ha...
-ZeroWing CATS, [url="http://"http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/"]All your Base[/url]

Yeah yeah, I'm late. I'll do it tomorrow.

And there'll still be time to squeeze one in on the 31st.

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"What we do not know, we cannot begin to understand."

My trip's getting close to over, so I'll write it up now for those who are interested. I've been having quite a trip here. I've never seen so many ruins and cathedrals before.

The flight to Lima was long but largely uneventful. Some guy got sick, or had a heart attack, or somthing, so I was worried that we'd have to stop in Panama, but we continued on. My luggage was some of the last to come out in Lima, so I missed my connecting flight to my girlfriend's home town of Cusco. Luckily, I was able to get it rescheduled for a couple hours later. When I arrived in Cusco, I could tell that the altitude was getting to me. The rest of the day I was pretty sick. Mostly I just rested at my girlfriend's grandmother's house.

The second day (Dec. 23), I was still pretty sick, but feeling better. We ate at my girlfriend's grandfather's house, where we had soup and Cuy(guinea pig). I couldn't quite bring myself to eat the meat, but the soup was good. Aside from that, we just hung out with her friends.

Christmas Eve was a lot of fun. In the main square in Cusco there were tons of people buying and selling things. It was really crowded, but there were some incredible deals. I got a really nice chess set with Incas and conquistadors for only 10 soles(about $3). I think that something like that could easily cost more than $50 in the US. I got a simple local game called Bolero, which is basically a ball attached by a string to a small cup. You hold the cup and try to get the ball into it. I bought some other souvenirs too, but the chess set was by far the best.

In Peru, people stay up past midnight on Christmas Eve, kind of like New Year's Eve in the US. I spent a lot of the night at my girlfriend's uncle's house to celebrate. They use a lot of fireworks here to celebrate. They had lots of sparklers and firecrackers. Other people had fireworks called "Rata Blanca"(White Rat) that are really loud, so we heard a lot of those. In general, it was a lot of fun.

On Christmas, I went to some ruins called Saqsay Waman that are just above Cusco. The ruins were in kind of rough shape, but there were some parts that were still fairly intact. There are some slides carved into the rock and a fair number of stairs still exist. There are also a couple of temples to the sun and moon. In those temples are carvings of a variety of animals.

On the 26th we started our trip to Machu Picchu. We took a taxi to a small town called Ollanta and from there took a train to Machu Picchu. The taxi only cost 50 soles(about $16). While we waited for the train we looked at some really impressive ruins. I was pretty worn out from being at high altitudes, I got by okay. These ruins were a lot more complete than the ones at Saqsay Waman. A large portion of it consisted of Andenes which are basically flat tiers so that it's possible to grow stuff on the side of a mountain. There was also a large face of an Inca carved into the side of the mountain. It looked like there were also lots of dwellings there. It was dark by the time our train left so we couldn't really see much of the Andes on our way to Machu Picchu, but it was easy to hear the raging river next to the tracks. When we got to the town below Machu Picchu we found a nice 2-star hotel. We got the best room in the hotel and it only cost 70 Soles(about $20). After we got the room we ate dinner. The restaurant wasn't that great, but I got to try some new food. I had Alpaca steak, and my girlfriend convinced me to finally try mayo on my fries. Both were fairly good.

On the 27th, I finally got to see Machu Picchu. The Andes in that area are incredible. The mountains are almost completely green with vegetation(the mountains I had seen so far were mostly just red rock with light plant cover). The Machu Picchu ruins were easily the most spectacular I had seen so far. As you may be aware, it's along the top of a mountain, so there are some huge drops. I'd describe the ruins but I'm not sure I could really do them justice. I took a lot of pictures, though. Just today I consumed two disposable cameras with 27 photos each. This broughts me up to a total of 162 pictures taken. Again, I was pretty worn out from the high altitude. We had to ride separate trains back to Ollanta because my girlfriend is a Peruvian national and can get a huge discount on the train tickets that I couldn't. Her train got in a couple hours after mine, and it ran half an hour late, so I started to get kind of concerned, but she showed up eventually. We rode a taxi back to Cusco for 45 Soles.

On the 28th both we were pretty worn out from wandering around ruins, so we pretty much just hung out with her friends.

On the 29th we visited various cathedrals and museums around Cusco. Unfortunately, pictures weren't allowed in most of the places we went, but I got some cool pictures of the buildings. It's probably a good thing that pictures were disallowed, because otherwise I would have consumed half a dozen disposable cameras. I got to see a lot of ancient Inca artifacts in one of the first museum we visited. After that, we went to a museum of modern art. There were a few interesting paintings and sculptures in there that I could get pictures of. Then we went to what appeared to be a monastery. There were lots of religious artifacts and paintings. Also, it had been built over Inca ruins, so we got to see some of those, too. The next cathedral was arguably the most impressive church I had ever seen. They had countless huge monuments to various saints and such. That is where I probably would have used most of my pictures if I could have. They also had some sort of large vehicle used to parade around catholic artifacts, and all of it was covered in silver. I had never seen so much silver in one place before. Actually, that was probably more silver than I'd seen the entire rest of my life combined. We went to some more cathedrals, but most of them were like that one, just with less stuff.

Yesterday(Dec. 30) we went to Lake Titicaca, known the world over for its silly name. It was a five hour drive from Cusco, but it was worth it. It's a very large lake, so naturally I didn't get to see all of it. There is actually a village built on top of the lake called Uros. Nearly everything is made from certain plants that can float on the water. It was really cool to see.

The differences between Peru and the U.S. are pretty interesting. A lot of the things we take for granted are rare, or at least not as prevalent as I'd sometimes like. The most noticeable difference is in the restroom facilities. If the bathroom has a toilet seat, you should consider yourself lucky. Few of the bathrooms have soap, toilet paper, or towels, and the only bathroom I found with hot running water was in my hotel room at Machu Picchu. Frequently the bathrooms, even in restaurants, have showers in them. The line where the shower stall ends and the rest of the bathroom begins is sometimes very ill defined. Most of the time, there is no shower curtain. Sometimes, the shower can even hit the sink.

Many of the roads in town are paved with bricks and stones, but the major roads are paved with asphalt. Towards the center of Cusco, some of the roads aren't significantly wider than the spaces between buildings. You could literally reach out your window on either side of the car and touch the buildings. Traffic seems much more chaotic here, too. At many large intersections, the lanes aren't cleary defined, so everyone is driving everywhere. Traffic signals are pretty uncommon. People honk a lot more here, too. Surprisingly, collisions are fairly rare.

Floor coverings in houses are kind of rare here, too. A few of the houses I've seen just have bare cement floors. I think I've seen some dirt floors, but I haven't looked real closely.

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Slayer's guide to Cythera:
[url="http://"http://www.macclassics.com/cythera/cythera.htm"]http://www.macclassi...era/cythera.htm[/url]

Glad to see you enjoyed your vacation. And congratulations on rejecting the guinea pig (oh great and powerful Slayer)!

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[url="http://"http://www.lordofthecows.com/ambrosiamemberstonight/"]Ambrosia Members Tonight![/url] | [url="http://"http://www.lordofthecows.com/music/board_members/spamguy/moderatorsong.mp3"]The Moderator Song[/url] / [url="http://"http://www.lordofthecows.com/music/board_members/evula/evula.mp3"]EVula[/url] / [url="http://"http://www.evula.com/"]The real EVula.com[/url]
Jingle Bells, Windoze smells, [url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum61/HTML/001202.html"]The Blue Mushroom Pub[/url] rocks (all 25+ pages worth)!
How are you gentlemen!! [url="http://"http://www.allyourbasearebelongtous.com"]All your base are belong to us![/url] You are on ze way to destruction. You will have no chance to survive make your time...Mwa ha ha ha...
-ZeroWing CATS, [url="http://"http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/"]All your Base[/url]

Sounds like you had a really good time, Slayer. World travel is something I've always wanted to do, but for you it seems you have multiple reasons (good luck!).

I apologize for not doing any chronicles in the last ten days. I had some stuff come up, and big projects have a slightly higher priority than correcting spelling and grammar in pending chronicles. :/

If you want to run a chronicle of the month, you can do it - though maybe we should make it bimonthly (december/january?). We have the chronicles, I just wasn't home on the 31st to get one out in time.

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"Everything is connected, but we don't realize it."