Peru!

We’re almost home. Minneapolis to be exact. We left Lima last night around 11:00 and slept for most of the flight. We even got a chance to finish watching the movies we started on the flight down. We arrived to Newark about 20 minutes late and thought that we had missed our connecting flight. But thankfully after running through customs, immigration, and security we made it to our plane! (It was delayed due to some mechanical problems) We waited on the plane for another 30 minutes so the airport people could bring us milk for our Honey Nut Cheerios and then finally took off.

Now we’re waiting for our ride so we can get to Green Bay. We’ll be back around midnight tonight.

Our last day in Lima was fantastic. I’m a little too tired to tell all the details right now. But I will say that it included gorging ourselves on a mountain of desserts, paragliding off the cliffs of Miraflores, and playing in the waves of the Pacific Ocean.

The first stage of my nasty legs. These are huge painful bug bites. Anne and Liz are probably tired of hearing me try to self diagnose myself, but I like to think it´s Dengue Fever.

Cuy, or Guinea Pig, a little hairy and questionable.

We made the mistake of taking a look underneath. Ribs and much much more.

We named him Charlie.

This is from the monestary that we visited. These are barbed wire tools the nuns used to hurt themselves. Think The Davinci Code.

Sorry, I couldn´t get it to turn the right way. But this is for Ken. It´s the bathroom that Saint Ana used. We´ve used many squats, but never had the pleasure of taking a picture.

A picture from the monestary

I just wrote a post last night, but it´s now 6:00 a.m., everyone in the hostel is asleep except for me and the orange cat that I´ve named “Calabaza,” and to the best I can tell by looking out the window, Lima itself has finally gone to bed, save the occasional passing car or stray dog. So I thought I´d post a few disorganized ramblings about a few of the many things I like about Peru, and about traveling abroad in general.

I love to be reminded that the whole world isn´t composed of big-box stores. When I want envelopes here, I don´t drive to Wal-Mart to wade through the aisles of clothes, food, hunting equipment and pens until I finally find envelopes. I just walk a block or two to the nearest Papeleria and ask for them. And when I need five envelopes, I don`t have to buy a box of 40 or 100. I can buy just 5 envelopes.

I love to be in a place where people spend time outside, conversing in a central city square or walking around in the streets. In my town in Wisconsin and I suspect across the United States, people´s lives take place in their houses. They watch TV, play video games, surf the net, read, putter, etc., all inside the confines of their homes. People venture outside only because they have to get somewhere or because they have a specific task that needs doing, like mowing the lawn. Here, people live much more outside their homes, socializing, seeing and being seen, engaging in outrageous displays of PDA and just being. It´s a little bit what I think America may have been like 50-plus years ago in the days of front porches and before Ed McMahon and the others brought everyone inside.

I love the varied geography. If we had a little more time here, we could explore the jungles and the deserts and the canyons and the coast. As it was, we saw amazing mountain vistas and looked up at snow-covered peaks and down at clouds. I don´t get motion sick, but the others took Dramamine to prevent motion sickness on the crazy bus rides through low-lying rock hills. We took a boat ride on a lake with a maze of reeds that hide the man-made islands they are used to make.

The food has been spectacular. They cook a lot with fish and avocados, not to mention potatoes, meat, onions, etc. I adore fish and avocados. If I had to choose one food to eat for the rest of my life, it very well may be avocado. And the cakes, rice puddings and other sweets are impossible to resist. My one complaint is that despite three tries, I still haven´t had a good flan.

The architecture in Cuzco, Lima and Arequipa is stunning. Lots of elegant colonial buildings, with overhanging balconies, columns, and engraved facades, in various shades of white or of bright colors.

So I´m going to miss it here. I would give a lot to be able to stay a few more weeks. Maybe my bosses would understand, but probably not. So I´ll see you all soon.

Anne

After a harrowing 6-hour bus ride from Puno to Arequipa, during which Liz and I had the privilege of sitting in the first row of the two-story bus, poised perfectly to view every pedestrian, sheep and taxi we barely missed, we enjoyed nearly 24 hours in Arequipa. We all agreed that Arequipa is a lovely city. With the buildings in the main square (which is dubbed the “Plaza de Armas” in every city of Peru) constructed entirely of the white rock quarried locally and with the ornate carvings on many of the buildings, Arequipa has a very classic and elegant feel. This morning we visited the Inca mummy museum, which is dedicated to the young Juanita and two other ice mummies who were recently discovered on a local mountainside. All three were sacrifices made by the Incas approximately 500 years ago to appease the mountain gods in order to prevent them from destruction by volcano, earthquake, etc. The sacrifices were generally from royal families, had to be younger than 15 and considered it a great honor and privilege to sacrifice themselves. The crown jewel of the museum? Juanita herself, in a glass-walled freezer. Macabre but incredibly interesting.

After the museum, we visited the stunning Santa Catalina monastery. It´s practically an entire city onto itself, with bright red and blue walls and lots of hidden passageways. We got lost a few times. There are still around 30 nuns living there, but most of the monastery is now open to tourists and includes the living quarters of nuns from a bygone era, old kitchens, art galleries, courtyards with fountains and even an old-fashioned WC with the commode setting in a wooden throne.

The other thing worth noting about Arequipa is that it is the city where Kari and Liz (the two non-semi-vegetarians on the trip) finally tried “cuy¨(guinea pig, for the uninitiated). My understanding is that they generally really liked the flavor but were freaked out by the legs and the little eyes and teeth . I took several pictures of their various reactions and will share them later.

We´re now in Lima, which is huge, busy and noisy. Tomorrow we´ll check out a few things in town, including the gargantuan Plaza de Armas, and then scootch over to the airport late in the evening for our flight home. All of us wish we could stay longer.

One final note, since none of us have yet written about Puno. Lake Titicaca was intriguing. The first round of the floating islands, made not from earth but man-made from the local totora reed growing in the lake, is touristy but still fascinating. It´s an entire village of people living on home-made islands and reminded me a little of the movie “Waterworld.” Naturally, they capitalize on the tourists but selling various homemade crafts and by selling rides on the totora boats they have made. We wanted to get a flavor for the “real” lifestyle of the islanders, however, so we hired a private boat to take us out to an untouristed island. It was much further away and we never would have found it without a guide, as it´s through a never-ending labyrinth of the reeds. The island we visited had 4 families living on it. They make their living by fishing, and on the day we visited, they had three huge tarps with fish laid out in anticipation of trading them for potatoes and quinoa at the next day´s San Pedro festival. The fish were tiny and were ones that we would have thrown back at home. They were making a fire in an outdoor oven, also made from totora, to smoke the fish. The island elder brought out a couple of small, brown shriveled fish for us to try, and we actually really liked it as it had a nice smoky flavor. All of the buildings on the island were made out of totora reeds, and they included sleeping quarters, a kitchen and a church. There was no electricity, cell phones or i-pods. They did have a dog, though. The people were friendly and seemed fairly non-plussed by our arrival. They spoke Aymara, but a few of them also spoke some Spanish. I conversed with them the best I could, and they laughed at me when I said “Wow!”

The girls are waiting for me, so I have to go. We´ll see all of our respective people soon. Hasta luego. Anne

Here are a few pictures from our trek and the last few days.

This is the entrance to the Inca Trail. We look like sheep being led to slaughter.

This picture is deceiving. We just finished the hardest hike of our lives: Dead Woman´s Pass. This is also just the morning of Day 2, we still had several miles and mountains to go.

This is on the way down from the Second Pass. I think this more accurately captures our mood.

This is the night of Day 2. We´re super excited because the worst was over!

I rule the world!

Alpaca Butt at Machu Picchu!

Meet the reason we woke up each morning. Our sexy trek guide Claudio.

The floating reed islands of Lake Titicaca. Check out the solar panel!

Throughout much of the trek, I both looked and felt like an old lady. On the last day, the walking sticks that were my saving grace going both up and down the VERY steep and VERY uneven stone steps looked more like the canes of a woman who had just had a full hip replacement. The second day of the trek was a grueling 4 or 5 hours uphill in high altitudes (up to 13,776 feet) and a knee-jarring 2 or 3 hours downhill. The night of the second day was bitterly cold (damn the woman at REI who convinced me to buy a sleeping bag that is comfortable only to 25 degrees rather than to one comfortable to 0 degrees). I spent the large part of the night alternating between a somewhat warmer fetal position and a much colder back position where I could stretch out my tired legs. But I had a real sense of accomplishment that night. I was also so excited about the third day of the trek – which was supposed to be much easier and filled with Incan ruins – that I was awake and dressed well before the porters “knocked” on our tent at the leisurely hour of 6:00 a.m. to announce it was time for Wake Up Tea. And the fact that I woke up well before the alarm that day, as well as several days in Cusco, excited about exploring this great country, reminds me of all the times I woke up early on Christmas morning when I was a kid. So I suppose I´m not that old after all.

The third day of the trek was astonishing. It was a simple 4-hour hike, mostly downhill, through cloud forest and a number of visually stunning Incan ruins hugging the hillside. And we arrived at the campsite for lunch, hot showers (!!) and had plenty of time to buy a couple of beers at this well-equipped site and then head off to visit another ruin. It was heaven.

On the fourth day, we heard the Wake Up Tea call at 4:00 a.m. so that we could get to Machu Picchu as the sun was rising. Yes, Machu Picchu is spectacular, and I hope you can all see it some day. But honestly, we were so exhausted from the trek and had spent the past three days overloaded with indescribable views of snow-capped mountains, cloud forests, mountain jungle and Incan ruins, that we frankly weren´t as moved as we expected. But it really is something.

On a side note, the food on the trek was amazing. The porters carried up fresh vegetables and meats, and we had a 3 or 4-course dinner every night. It was the best food we´ve had here, and we´ve had some damn good food.

After hot springs and heavenly massages at Aguas Calientes, the town just down the hill from Machu Picchu, we took a train back to Cusco. This morning, we hopped a bus to Puno and are now at this city along the shore of Lake Titicaca. There was a little mix-up at the bus terminal and we apparently missed the bus we were supposed to take, but some other bus company took our tickets and gave us new ones for the next bus. I don´t always understand everything that´s going on here, but the one thing that is crystal clear is that the people are helpful and friendly. I´ve really enjoyed trying out my Spanish and very few people have pointed and laughed. Oh, and after the food we ate on the trek, it didn´t even surprise me that a lady brought practically a whole pig onto the bus, which she chopped right there with her huge cleaver and sold to our fellow passengers.

Tomorrow are the floating reed islands of Lake Titicaca, the next day we head to Arequipa, and from there we fly to Lima on the Lan Peru flight at 3:00 p.m. on June 30. We hope to post some more photos soon, but not tonight. Tonight we are tired and headed for bed. After all, we just finished the practically super-human feat of trekking the Inca Trail. And we´re proud of ourselves. We discussed it and decided it was a good thing our parents didn´t come along, because they never would have made it. They´re even older than I am.

Love to you all. Anne

In the weeks leading up to our trip, I admit to feeling a little apprehensive about traveling with two girls young enough to be my daughters (admittedly, I would have had to have given birth at an early age, but to someone who went to high school with 4 girls who became pregnant in the ninth grade, it´s not outside the realm of possibility). I just decided, though, to let this trip be a return to my youth, to a time when my age began with a “2” instead of a “3.” time before I had a real job or a house. And for the most part, I´m able to do that. But I keep getting little reminders of my age. The guy at passport control in Minneapolis said to me when he saw my birthdate on my passport “I didn´t think you were that old.” And I realized when we saw the list of fellow trekkers that I, along with a girl named Gayle (who fortuitously will be my tentmate), that I´m the oldest one on the trek. And seeing things through Liz´s young and untraveled eyes reminds me that I´ve been around the block a few times.

But Peru is a new block for me, and I´m really enjoying it. I love the colonial architecture, parades, ladies in traditional dress and the food. I´d also love to write a little more, but Kari just came to tell me it´s 5:15 (5 minutes before we leave on our trek), although my brand new Peruvian watch tells me it´s only 5:00. So more later folks.

Anne

A cool Peruvian guy showed us a 13 sided Incan stone. Our travel book says that the most is 12.

Pisac Market!

Yep, that´s Trout. Liz found an eye in hers!

Crazy taxi ride up the mountain to the Pisac ruins. We got motion sick not too long after this picture.

Following the local boy up the mountain to avoid paying a 40 soles entrance fee. Liz is about dead right here, hyperventilating. It was an amazing hike.

Hey everyone,

Tomorrow morning (way too early) we´re leaving for our hike. We had a meeting at the trek company today and met everyone else in our group and found out a bunch of details about it. It´s gonna be brutal. And amazing!

Today we climbed a mountain. Well, almost. I can´t get into too many details here, but I can tell you that we snuck into a historical ruin by paying a kid to lead us through a mountain side. (Don´t worry mom, it wasn´t as bad as it sounds)

We also booked our bus to Puno and our hostel in Puno. Here is the info.

We are spending the night of the 26th in Cusco at our previous hostel.

The bus leaves at 8am on the 27th. The company is Sunshine Travel. Sunshinetravelpuno.com

We are staying at El Manzano Hostel in Puno. www.gratisweb.com\peru_lodgemanzano\hospedaje.htm

I really can´t type much more. This keyboard is horrible. It has the letters taped on with little pieces of paper and the space bar is broken in half.

Anyway, we´re having fun and not being too crazy. Don´t worry!

Kari

yesterday we did a lot of shopping i got a ton of clothes and anne got suckered by the kids selling paintings on the street a total of 7 times. we climbed san blas which was a definite preparation for the trek, we stopped several times just to breath. the altitude is pretty hard to get used to. we´re huffing and puffing a lot on this trip.

today we´re going to saqsaywaman…yes it´s pronounced sexy women…which is an ¨immense ruin of both religious and military significance¨ so i´m pretty pumped about that. also today we are going to pisac which includes two parts, the village and an inca fortress.

since this is my first trip out of the country there are quite a few things that i have to get used to but i´m doing pretty good.
mom if you´re reading this i sent lauren a message and told her to tell you guys i made it alive and it´s very difficult to make international calls but i love you all and miss you. see you soon!

Liz