How will we adjust to Van Life in Peru? - First days in a new country.
if you didn't watch our last video then you don't know we're in a city trying to find cell phone cards and we're in like one of these moto taxi talk talks i got issued flying through the sky in my parachute dancing on the couch like i'm tommy cruz on a one-man mission trying to see it through yeah i got the password yeah i finally got the password added up the numbers now the math works i got the way to make the path work all these i'm the best laughing cause i got the cheat code the life and we all gonna be alright so come again all right as usual it is difficult to get our sim cards in a new country we think we're working but we've got good help so i'm not sure if we told you the peru masks are still required by the government so they're back on in most places anyway but we're working on getting our new sim cards every country we will have to go through this process as soon as we cross the border it's kind of a pain not the funnest thing but got to be done so we have internet we've been here probably about 30 minutes i think this is probably going to take us about an hour to get done then we'll head back to the van part of it first thing in the morning we have to go to the vehicle insurance office insurance is required on your vehicle in peru then the fun can start a cell phone plan with 14 gigs of data free facebook instagram and whatsapp it's gonna cost us 12.25 a month each just so you all know how much data costs down here we're up and at them bright and early curtis driving through the crazy moto taxi chaos to get to the insurance company so we can get van insurance and be legal then we'll be heading for somewhere fun how is it driving in this mess kirk ah these motors just run around take home where they want to they're crazy it's funny i like the motorcycles in beta jean except they're bigger we're four wide i mean they're just like whipping in and out so yeah yeah that's crazy we left our camp in a hurry this morning to be at the insurance place at eight o'clock when they opened and we did that we were here five minutes early actually kurt is inside he went in right at 8 o'clock it's 8 15 now i'm curious how long this is going to take it can be difficult in some countries and a pain in the butt in some countries but while he was inside i cleaned up the van a little bit and look peter manuel antonio miss odessa there he is well there's 279 soaps which is about 75 or 25 a month she'll message us tomorrow when the underwriters get it back and approved and we'll have to come by and pick it up so we'll be here for well we'll be here tomorrow night tonight tomorrow night probably yeah i have not told them that yet uh so right now it's 8 53 so the whole process took just under an hour and kurt had messaged me while he was in there and this is not something they issue on the spot anymore because of the pandemic everything's done in the bigger cities so we will get our insurance tomorrow which means we're going to go back to our campsite by the river and edit and we'll pick back up with you guys when we're leaving this town so if you're stuck waiting on vehicle insurance when you first enter peru for a day or two at least there's good food to try so this is wrapped in a corn husk and it's kind of like a dough almost like a tamale doll dough i think it's just corn maybe their version of like a cornbread it is but it's like a cornbread but it definitely has more of a corn taste so really maybe just like ground up corn i don't know what bites are together water it's good tasty the theme tonight is finger food on account of we're probably going to be racing the dark for our camp spot tonight yeah but they set up shop literally right behind the van we've got to try it so here goes an empanada now to be completely honest i've already had one because we had to go back and get more so i know these are good we should get like a dozen to go they're good and we got the first batch that were cooked for the night so that was pretty cool too all right a couple things these moto taxis look kind of like model t cars but in any event they're everywhere it's crazy and we are here by the side of the road where we have been for the last couple hours waiting on our insurance this is where the ladies have set up to cook but any of them right here 5 30 is what they're telling us now and over here is where i got the little empanada and the empanadas and the little corn tamale all right we've just had a crash how we haven't seen one already i don't know these two women that were in the median holding the babies were actually in that car hopped out holding their babies they seemed okay there was definitely a crash right here in front of us these little moto taxis drive absolutely crazy i hope everybody's all right looks like a motorcycle and a moto taxi there were two policies right here they ran over and began to help i definitely think everybody's okay but i can't tell for sure i'm really glad those two women with babies are okay they looked terrified when they jumped out i didn't have the camera going yet i think everybody is okay which is good news especially for those two mamas we got a soap electronica so we got what we need we have insurance on the van let's get out of this that's craziness all right just to get you all caught up it is 5 15. the insurance was late but we are still hitting the road getting out of this town it's not the most comfortable place to have to hang out we're going to try to get about an hour down the road we're out guys this really is a necessary stop if you come in through the border that we came in and also you need to plan on staying an extra night we didn't film a lot of the little camp spot we had down by the river but it had mango trees and starfruit trees and the birds would come around and play with the kitties anyway it worked out as a place to stay not a destination other than getting insurance but the culture in peru it's amazing we've just crossed the border and all the differences we're seeing in the culture super rich and super cool yeah excited for peru all these busy people hurrying alone if they're not on the phone they're all worried something's wrong making it important to be the first in line so when the cookie crumbles the best piece they will find somehow hidden in plain sight and we are racing to red lights don't get me wrong i'm not trying to swear free just as bad as you and sometimes words you see it but all this crazy right i'm looking for the breaks come join me in the search i think that's what it takes it has been a long time since we have chased a sunset but here we are our first few days in peru strangers in a strange land and this is a beautiful countryside we're coming right down through the rice fields right along the river here as the sun comes down we're definitely starting to see more palm trees and it's definitely getting hotter and that little town we just stayed at is what 90 degrees at 95 during the day our campsites aren't always glamorous we rolled into this gas station last night right as the sun was setting the owner was super friendly pointed us to a place back in the back we're shielded from the road of the noise and i gotta say this may be the best gas station parking lot ever because look at what entertainment we have for the kitties there are birds chirping everywhere at least three peacocks guineas a rabbit chickens these guys don't ever want to leave here but it is just a gas station parking lot so we are leaving right after breakfast headed on down the road this time not just to a campsite but hopefully to our next destination we are on the road we are driving east we have about a two and a half hour drive to what we hope is our next destination and campsite and there's something super cool to see there or something we've never seen so we're super excited about that but i thought this would be a good time to pop in and tell y'all peru is big it is long and everything we want to see is kind of spread out all over the country and unfortunately it looks like there will be several areas throughout peru that are just long driving days with a lot of desert straight roads but that's okay because each spot we get to after those drives is amazing so peru is loaded with good stuff it's just there's subsections where there's just going to be some driving and that's where we're at right now so we're only going to pop back in if there's something exciting to show y'all other than that we will see you at the next location with something super cool so so far in peru it has kind of been a pain in the butt to find potable water you can't just pull up to a you know a faucet at a store or a hotel and fill up here the water's not safe to drink so we have to find the big five gallon jugs of water and pour it into our tank and we've struggled to do that honestly since we've crossed the border we were able to find one one five gallon thing after driving around for like 30 minutes in that town of hayan where we were waiting for the insurance and now we've drove around for maybe an hour this morning in the past 10 minutes circling around the little streets of this town i think this town is um waga grande but we think we just found a store that it looks like looking through the window has five or six big five gallon jugs of water got it done she was real curious about where we were going so it was just really nice to meet her she kind of started off with a grumpy little look and ended up with a smile so it kind of made my day and our tanks are full our shower's full so we're ready to go all full of water and you guys know kurt has a way of making people be happier so we left the city area where we got the water we drove through really pretty rice-filled areas we would have loved to pop up the drone but it was raining because it was cool they run all those little stair steps and then the rain came and was flooding the fields it was really pretty but now we are climbing up into the mountains going through kind of a canyon area i think her ultimate destination today should be around five or six thousand feet which will get us out of the heat and hopefully up into some trees at least in this northeast corner of peru they struggle with the landslides and the mudslides and the rock slides and the floods just like colombia and ecuador did but you can definitely tell that it's now that it's dry season it looks like they're starting to repair or at least try to do some repairs on the worst parts we've passed a few construction zones but there's also just some bad sections of road where it just buckles where they struggle with water all right so we were supposed to veer to the left but there's a river down there that is where the road used to be that we were supposed to be on so we have gone right i guess hoping that they've built some way for us to get around the washed out road and get back to our destination there was definitely no road there anymore a bridge washed out into the river it's been about 10 minutes we're still on our detour road who knows what's gonna happen when we get to the other side of this there's a long line of cars waiting that's probably maybe a three or four mile construction zone through there kurt yeah definitely 30 minutes yeah so i think we just realized we got lucky when we didn't get stopped at the other side and got waved on through however it looks like there's another might be a long day two and a half hours of driving later we arrived at a closed gate kurt managed to walk in there and find somebody but our hopeful camp spot is a no-go and what we were so excited to see see on the top of that side that cool hummingbird with those cool things that hook onto the back of his long tail that's what we would have saw here but you suggested a restaurant by a lake down the road we're going to head that way all right when plan a fails what do you do plan b they got some watermelons here we're in this little town you can see there's some cows lots of big roosters and chickens running around here we've seen turkeys and a lot of these structures there you can see one that's going down that's brick that one's wood over here i guess they're kind of a cross between a waddle and dab and a log cabin they kind of got some bigger logs in them and these are probably made of some sort of mud structures as well they just have to stucco over them so the stucco is made with mud and a finer straw and kind of goes over it and protects the adobe or the wattle and dab but here is plan b right here and this is a lake i'm not quite sure the name of it because we didn't really research this the last place we stopped said there's space around the lake so that's where we're headed all right we are in florida and one thing that has remained prevalent as we've traveled through peru is these little moto taxis these model t moto taxis look they got a band playing up there just no either maybe lunch or like at a restaurant a little fruit stand all right we're in the market area it doesn't matter now is the time to slow down a little bit yeah oh she's making oh we're gonna have some lunch she's making some good food this guy pulling around the concrete mixer and he gotta push him up the hill he knew he jumped right off of that thing to push so this town is built kind of on a steep slope so a lot of these buildings you're looking at right now are actually two or three stories but they go down the mountain uh these may not but we saw some back there yeah they definitely do waddling dab right there and you can actually see the stucco on the outside too another interesting little community the secondary roads through here basically rough and bouncy dirt roads which you may see firsthand right here and very fascinating place in some ways i feel like i was we're in the wild wild west like kind of picture in those some of those movies and look at this road we get to turn down ah never a dull moment do you know how who cares reach out for me take my hand and lead even when i disagree for how i love when it rains outside and it's okay to slow the ride discover books i forget about close the curtains reach out for me maybe in my bed is um reach out for all right i did not see a whole heck of a lot of birds i saw these little sort of brown ground birds that i've seen around here a lot sort of like little sparrows but there's all these flowers along here and they're beautiful they look kind of like wildflowers but they're all sort of going to seed right now so those little birds are having a heyday picking away at the seeds and also the grass seeds there's also some birds out with the cows and it's funny watching those graves it's kind of marshy land so the grass is real green and rich and the cows are just eating and pooping and eating and pooping anyway nice relaxing morning head back to the van i'm gonna pop up the drone and give you a high level view of this area before we head on to our next spot so so our plan b was okay but we did not spot the really cool hummingbird looks like we're not going to but kurt is putting in our next destination which is an amazing place so we have about a two and a half hour drive this morning to our next destination it's mostly downhill 6500 feet elevation is the starting point we're gonna get down around 2500 2000 but the thing about these roads that wrap around the mountains you guys have seen us on in several countries now these unlike the others it's like they have half caves they have carved away the side of the mountain for the roads so like the falling rocks instead of driving next to them places you're actually driving under them it's kind of i don't know creepy creepy crazy but also beautiful so anyway enjoy the ride they got a tilapia at the bottom shirt well there's one mix in here what's the chocolate so that's oh that's chocolate yeah see i almost got that one kurt then we could split them up so this is juice i have the peruvian version of a stir-fried rice some pork some chorizo some eggs and vegetables it's really flavorful and tasty we have basically no idea what's in here we think chicken and rice and chicken we're about to find out how you gonna attack that thing i don't know i'm gonna cut it right down the middle it's like a big onion bloom oh it's it's hard i think that's a piece of chicken sticking up there she doesn't know what to do snow is struggling right now she's peeling around the exterior it's like a rice ball so it's like chicken i think they kind of coat it and they pack rice in around it that's what they do they pack the rice around the chicken put it in some kind of wrap and then steam it almost like a tamale it's a ton of food all right guys we're gonna dig in and oh by the way i'm loving this cacao juice we have made it to our next campsite we are very very pleased we are parked right back there behind me we just had a yummy lunch we tried some authentic food we are in the amazon region of northern peru and we're going to stay here for a couple of days and do some tours around this area get you guys out into the amazon but first we need to show you around this amazing place we're staying at a place that has this beautiful lake a pool a restaurant good music good vibes and in the back corner they even have some cool animals let's go see if we can find them so snow just stumbled across this little termite trail and it's across actually the walking path and you can see the termites have made sort of like tunnels so when you walk across you don't step on them and they have the tunnels going all the way up now i've seen those on the trees before and i'll show you here in a minute but there are some giant termite nests here look at those things so we're down here in the amazon but you see us in long sleeve shirts and that's cause there's mosquitoes here yeah well the good with the bad right so so that right there is a blue morph butterfly so inside of his wings if he opens them up they're like this fluorescent blue color they're so cool i can even see his little tongue there i don't know if you guys can see how are that hi buddy so i've made friends but so has curt see red but kurt has made a friend too oh look at there foreign really you still what a fun little place in the back corner of this eco lodge now we don't normally visit zoo type places where this is more of an informal familia zoo family zoo we've got little um little kids showing us around so there's australian emus these boars they're like little dogs so friendly a couple of mccalls that i think were probably rescued here the big tortoises cool place and all the nice friendly little kids como teams adriana we've made good friends today they like the korean music bts michael jackson and some electronica music and they all stay out here and help take care of all these fun animals and they're very friendly yes and they told us that those nut-looking things up in those trees are actually like a fruit that you eat we came to this destination knowing thanks to some lovely ladies this place was probably going to be pretty good but i think it actually even turned out better we got to hang out with all these cool exotic different animals but even better was all these little kids and the family and they were proud to show everything that they had around there and then on top of it they broke out their english homework homework and snow had a good time connecting with the little kids and so it was just a really beautiful authentic experience and out here in the nature in the jungle and as i say this i'm looking out like a giant tarantula creepy so we gotta get a shot of that i've made a buddy i think he's gonna walk me home so occasionally we get asked do we ever tilt the solar why don't we tilt the solar more and to be honest down here in central america close to the equator we just really haven't needed to tilt but today yesterday we spent the day under the trees and today's a day you can see we're here in the sun kind of under the trees so we're situated where it's best to tilt the solar panels also this kind of gives where our fans are a bit more shade so it doesn't super heat sort of the attic it gives us air flow through there allows us to cool the van off nice we were just sitting here and all of a sudden some manatees showed up right outside our window monkeys i don't know if you can see them she definitely sees them they're little tiny monkeys snow's trying to grab the big camera so the monkeys have moved down this tree line now we can see through the trees there's water on the other side so snow's up here trying to get them so they're definitely hanging out here one's jumping over there off the trees so i think the geese must have heard them because they're coming up here walking trying to run them off and you got snow here i think she's on them guys i think she is on them look at that little one you have it on auto you're good they're all the way up in the tall palm trees i wonder oh maybe they're eating that palm fruit the monkeys are literally right up there and here's our van door vana do you see the mono tts so the sun's getting ready to set the little mono tt teeny tiny monkeys have settled in in the palm tree literally just above our van we're going to be sleeping under the monkeys tonight this villa maria has been fantastic we've gotten a few days of editing done we've been able to relax we've had some yummy tasty meals went for a few dips in the swimming pool i woke up this morning and i saw these monkeys everywhere these things are little and they run around quick so it's hard to get them they're mostly the mono tt monkeys the tiny ones but there's also some cappuccinos so basically the same ones we saw tomorrow yesterday they're everywhere we slept under the monkeys last night for sure because the sun has come up and there are still monkeys everywhere they're so cute they're they're tiny probably smaller than a squirrel if you don't count their tail a little squirrel a florida squirrel oh but they're adorable they're little white faces and they move so fast oh and they're getting these fruits off this tree a curt one's eating right here oh look at how cute they are what a special way to wake up and they're running through the trees right by these peacocks that are sleeping up here this place has several peacocks five maybe more six oh how adorable i hope you'll enjoy it as much as we do if you like this video be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell so you guys know when we put out new videos and don't forget you can always follow us over on instagram to see what's going on in between videos cheers guys
2022-07-12 10:55
