Finally, the photos have caught up to the blog!.. All the pictures are posted up through the Colca Canyon Trek; hopefully I can keep things pretty updated from now.
…I also added the photos from Nicaragua to site as well…
http://drinkinginflipflops.shutterfly.com/?role=-1
After arriving in Arequipa we decided to do a 3-day trek through part of the Colca Canyon, supposedly the second deepest canyon in the world (the deepest canyon is also nearby in Peru). Supposedly there are a bunch of tours to the canyon offered by companies in Arequipa, but for the most part I don’t think they actually hike down INTO the canyon, so we decided to do it on our own as we’ve talked to plenty of people who said it was easy to do… Normally people take a bus to the tiny village of Cabanaconde, and from there they hike down to an area called the Oasis, then the following day hike back up; and then either on the way to or from Cabanaconde they stop at a mirador to spot Andean condors.
We decided to try something a little different, an attempt at a 3-day trek from the top of the canyon to the small town of Tapay on the other side, then onto Sangalle (the Oasis) and then up early in the morning to catch a bus out of Cabanaconde…
We caught an early, and I mean EARLY bus out of Arequipa at 3:00 am, and then slept for a few hours before waking up, passing through the high, windy plains. Llamas and vicunas (smaller, endangered cousins of the llama and alpaca) dotted the grassy slopes at the bottom of the mountains. We passed through a few smaller pueblos before being dropped off at the Cruz del Condor viewing site. This roadside viewing station has one (or several, I’m not sure), condor nests nearby and it’s rare not to see the condors flying about. We didn’t see any condors close up here, but we did see two floating high above the hillsides about 1km away…
To get to the start of our proposed trek we were told that we had to walk a few kilometres down the road, past the next mirador, and then head down the canyon. Easy enough, so off we went. Once at the next mirador we took a break to take a few photos of the canyon; now this may be one of the deepest canyons in the world and at some point twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, but it isn’t as spectacular or posses the beauty of the later. In fact if no one told you, you wouldn’t really know. Colca Canyon looks just like any other valley running through the mountains, it is not like stepping up to the Grand Canyon and staring into it’s gaping maw… As we resting a condor flew past us a little way below the viewing station and then circled up above us, again and again off into the distance. It was quite awe-inspiring as you could hear the wind whooshing through it’s feathers and see the enormity of the bird.
We headed off to the start of the trail to Tapay, only we couldn’t find it. We had been told it was about 1 km past the mirador, and had a sign, but we saw nothing. I actually think that you may have had to start the trek from the mirador, but it was too late for that so we continued for about 8 miles to Cabanaconde where we had lunch and decided to head down to the Oasis and come up with a plan there.
The hike down into the canyon was about 3 steep hours through the late afternoon sun. The trail was easy to follow, but was what one might expect a long slog down a gravel pit to be like; loose stones and rock dust everywhere. By the end of it we appeared to be covered in ash, and the dust was so thick that taking a drink of water left you with a thin coating of mud and slime across your tongue. Large flowering cacti covered the sides as soon as we began our decent, only to give way to several large palm trees at the bottom: the ‘Oasis.’
The Oasis, while having the requisite palm trees, is really nothing more than a collection of shacks (hovels really), arranged around several man-made pools of what I assume to be water from the Colca river. We had already arranged for a place to stay once we arrived, and were quickly shown to our abode. We were put up in a bamboo thatch hut with a dusty, dirty floor and a bed to one side with a large amount of vines and creepers invading the overhead space from the outside. It really wasn’t too bad (the bed was pretty comfortable), but anything that touched the floor instantly turned dark grey…
We took a quick dip in the pool as the sun was starting to go down and it was beginning to cool down for the evening, then had a beer before retiring for the day. Earlier, on our way down the canyon, we had thought about doing our proposed trip in reverse, but we really couldn’t find a way to justify it too ourselves as we could see the towns we were thinking of visiting and we just didn’t think there would be anything to do at them. The next morning we woke up and began our 1000 metre ascent back to the top and Cabanaconde, where we planned to spend the night before heading back to Arequipa in time to celebrate New Year’s Eve…
Feliz navidad from Caraz, Perú! Today is basically a rest day for us as we weren´t sure what would be happening here on Christams. Turns out just about everything in town is open and it´s not too diferent from any other day. We probably could have done the Santa Cruz trek and found some form of transportation back, but probably better that we didn´t risk it…
Tomorrow we have a bus bright and early to Lima and then an overnight bus down to Arequipa shortly there after… We´re still hoping to get a little trekking done there (Colca Canyon), and we might take a week of Spanish classes. (i was going to try to summit a higher peak, but it seems that most of the guiding agencies are on vacation through january…)
…Merry Christmas everyone!
We spent the majority of our first day in Caraz wandering abou the mercado looking for foodstuffs to take with us on our 4-day hike through the Cordillera Blanca, via the Santa Cruz Trek. We were even able to buy a map from a local tour company/outfitter and white gas for the camping stove from the local hardwear shop. Even though it’s the rainy season we were going to make an attempt at the trail and the 4700 metre high pass; we’re here now and unfortunately weren’t able to plan everything around the right seasons… With all of our gear packed up and ready to go and the stove tested I began to look around the room for my shoes. Alas, they were nowhere to be found! (and these were the shoes I just bought in Bogota because my pair before that fell apart). Elisha remembers seeing them under the bed back in Cajamarca and I’m sure they’re still there…
Thus our hike was cancelled (because even if I found a new pair we were a bit leary about finding return transport on Christmas day if we postponed it by a day, and we already had our bus tickets to head to Arequipa on the 26), and we had to spend the next day shopping in Huaraz. Once again I was a bit on edge about looking for shoes as the good imported stuff tends to be quite a bit more expensive than back home. While wandering around Huaraz looking for some stores mentioned in our guidebook we came across a branch of Tatoo Adventure Gear, which seems to be a South American Outdoor chain; they carry imported stuff as well as their own clothes. I was in luck, as they had a nice pair of Keens for the same price back home (they also had sales on other coats and jackets, and I was tempted to pick upa Marmot softshell but I didn’t really need it…). With my feet newly shod we returned to the tranquil confines of miniature Caraz.
Elisha and I both agreed that we made an excellent choice by avoiding Huaraz in favor of Caraz, with it’s small palm lined plaza. (to be fair though, we really didn’t see much of Huaraz, but neither of us are really big fans of most big cities these days). The mountains closing us in from all directions is also a nice touch. While we can’t really see the tops of the White mountains due to the almost continual cloud cover, we can see a bit of the Black mountains, and I’m sure the view is even more spectacular in the summer.
The following day I decided to go on a mountain bike trip up into Huascaran National Park (the Cordillera Blancas). I rented a bike and had a taxi drive me for two glorious hours up into the mountains to the pass of Portochuelo at close to 4800 metres. As we were still in the drier, browner lowlands I got my first glimps of the snow-capped peaks that had been hiding amongst the clouds for the past three days. I almost peed my pants I was so excited! Every turn in the road brought a better view of the peaks and surrounding areas. Once dropped off at the high point my driver departed and left me alone in the silence and wind to stare in awe and amazment. I was hardly able to make it down on the bike as I kept trying to look up at the mountains until I careened to the edge and had to swerve back onto the road. One side of the valley would clear of cloud cover and the peaks would shine down on me, and then a bit later it would cover itself back up and the opposite range would reveal itself. I could hardly believe it. I was a bit dissapointed at myself for having left my shoes, making us unable to trek through all this countryside; but the view was still spectacular. I think it may have been better than Glacier National Park back in Montana. And if Patagonia is anything close to this it will be amazing…
Winding my way down the mountian, with shear cliffs dripping with waterfalls, I was in heaven. About halfway back to the park entrance I passed to milky-blue glacier fed lakes that reminded me of one back in Glacier. I actually passed a guy biking UP the road, which I thought was crazy. I was winded on the straight stretch and minor uphill that I had to contend with; I have no idea how he managed to pedal his way over up and over the pass…
The following day we were going to do a day hike to Lago Paron, a short bus ride and hike form Caraz, but Elisha wasn’t feeling well and we postponed it for the following day. We woke up at 5am to catch the 6am bus and on our walk to and from the station we noticed that for the first time the high snowy peaks of the Cordillera Blanca were visible from the plaza. And almost everywhere in town. The clouds had even pulled back from the top of the Cordillera Negra and we could see that they had a sprinkling of snow crowning them as well. Well, at least if we couldn’t hike I could sit on our balcony and stare at their majesty… On the way back to the hostel we saw a woman sitting on the side of the street with a large mesh bag of guinea pigs, someone is getting cuy for Christmas!..
Once again we woke up early to try to find the early collectivo to Pueblo Paron in order to walk to the lake. We had been informed by everyone that there was a collectivo leaving at 6am; however, once there we were informed it wouldn´t be until 7am. We decided not to wait any longer and caught a cab up the mountian. Again the road was just barely big enough for the taxi, and we probably could have used 4WD. Numerous snowy peaks began to appear as we wound our way upwards, and I was excited to be back up in the mountains again.
Once at the hamlet we cornered by an apparent park employee and were told we had to sign the log book and pay a 10 soles entrance fee. No big deal but all we had was a 100 soles bill and he had no change. We left him the 100 and he told us that he´d be waiting for us when we returned, so we headed off wondering if we´d ever see our change again…
The walk was pretty spectacular with the high mountain walls draped in thin ribbons of water, and the shear faces reaching towards heaven. Some of the peaks reminded me of Zion National Park in Utah. We continued walking for aboiut 4 hours before we decided to turn back and head for the pueblo. We had read varying accounts of the time it took to walk to the lake (between 4-6 hours), but the ast collectivo headed down the mountain between either 1pm or 2pm and we didn´t want to miss it. Even though we never saw the lake, we did see several spectacular mountains and had a great walk…
Back at Parón the bus didn´t leave at 1, so I guess we could have hiked a bi longer and possibly seen the lake IF it was only a 4 hour walk (which I don´t think it was). No sooner had we crossed out of the park, the gatekeeper came up to us with our 80 soles change! Not bad. Then after lounging about on the grass for a bit the minibus pulled up, disgorged it´s current passenger load and we hopped on for our most crowded bus ride to date: in our 13 passeger van, we crammed in 25 people (we counted!) with 5 more young boys on the roof along with stacks of firewood and other pckages! And to be quite honest, I think we could have fit in another 4-5 people easily…
We arrived in Cajamarca after a long day on buses, and after shopping around for a decently priced hostel we headed out to find some dinner. From just the taxi ride from the bus stop to the Plaza de Armas, we both agreed that Cajamarca was going to be a better town than Chachapoyas. The town is loaded with quaint colonial style buildings and is built on the side of a hill with several cobbled- and tree-lined streets closed to traffic…
There were supposedly a few sites to see around town and in town itself, and as Elisha is ever so ready to point out, I can’t pass up the opportunity to try to look at some old rocks or churches… Thus established, I found a colectivo bus to take me to the site of “Ventanillas de Otuzco.” These are pre-incan (I think) burial sites carved into the side of a mountain. There is a cliff covered in 1m x 1 m x 1m squares carved out of the solid rock, that at one time were filled with either bones or mummies, I’m not sure. The site was nice, although the short ride through the country side and dairy farms helped. Supposedly there is a second similar and nicer site about 30 km outside of town, but the only way to get to those really is on an organized tour; and as the tour companies had no one else signed up to go it would have been expensive…
Our plan was to get to the tiny town of Caraz back up high in the Andes to try to do some trekking in the Cordillera Blanca if the weather held out. It’s the rainy season now, so we’re not sure what the weather will actually be like in the mountains. I wanted to take the lesser used route through the Canon del Pato, so we needed to be in Chimbote before 8am in order to catch it. We thought that we would have no problems doing so, catching an early bus to Trujillo and then onto Chimbote for a night and then up bright and early for the bus. Our plan was derailed however when we found out our laundry wouldn’t be finished early enough, but we got lucky and managed to find a direct bus to Chimbote (thus saving us a night there) that should arrive just time.
Our ride from Cajamarca to Chimbote was, I think, probably the worst bus ride we had been on. The bus itself wasn’t so bad, but we sat in the very front which turned out to have limited leg room as the buses are built for the considerably shorter Peruvians. It also felt as if the bus driver just gave up on the road and decided to just point it in the direction we needed to go and covered the majority of the route off-roading. Either that or he found a set of stairs to drive down. I don’t think I fell asleep until the ride was almost finished and I was too exhausted to care anymore…
We pulled into Chimbote and easily found the bus heading up the Canon del Pato. This was our second pass through Chimbote (Elisha got her 3-chicken foot soup right outside town on our first pass South), and I believe we were lucky not to have stayed the night. The town is permeated with the smell of fish from the multitude of nearby fish factories. The beginning of the trip through town and the outskirts was uneventful and I managed to catch a few moments of sleep.
Once again we started to enter the dry ascent to the mountains, only this time there was nary a green thing in site. The road, the mountain side, the houses and the air were all a dung colored brown and dry as death; and below us the river raged passed a thin grafite smear through the countryside. At some points the air was so filled with dust that you couldn’t see out the windy and we were covered in a brown grime; after taking a drink of water you were left with a thin mud coating in your mountain. We continued upwards with the occasional mud brick house randomly placed alongside the road, more mud bricks drying in the front yard. As the bus rounded corners you could feel the back wheels sliding out from behind us as the tires spun in the slag heap of a road. We rounded corners just wind enough for one vehicle only to find that part of the shoulder was eroded off into the water below, and I could picture the tire stretching to maintain its fickle grasp on the dirt and air barely keeping us from plunging over… This was the most nervous I’ve been on any bus ride so far. Creeping higher into the mountains the canyon became so steep and so close together (maybe 15-20 metres wide at some parts), that the engineers had constructed over 35 hand-carved tunnels through the rock. Most of them only a few bus lengths long, but a few so long they had to carve holes into the side and out the canyon to let in the light. I’m not sure what would have happened had we been whipping through the tunnels and came across another bus or truck as there wasn’t room in the tunnel for us to pass a person standing sideways, let alone a vehicle.
We crept along slowly making our way higher. Eventually you could see past the dry mountain tops next to us and make out the base of the high peaks ahead, their heads buried under a thick blanket of clouds. As we continued the scenery slowly started to change and a few cacti and other shrubs appeared beside us. Finally we shot out of the last tunnel and onto tarmac, and with that the mountain burst into lushness: mango and other trees appeared in the valley and a light mist fell down on us and cooled off the air. After almost 15 hours on buses we pulled into Caraz, happy to finally be amongst the snow covered peaks of the Cordillera Blanca…
We had read in the guidebook that road we planned to travel from Chachapoyas to Cajamarca would traverese some hellish dirt roads across two high mountain passes, and would entail us stopping for the night in Celendin after 16 hours only to continue on the following day for another five. This, fortunately, was not to be…
We woke up at the ungodly early hour of 4am in order to catch the 5am bus from Chachappyas to Celendin. Once onboard the bus we decided to may two passes through the town for no apparent reason before we finally got on our way. Since we had already been on part of the road before, we both slept for teh first hour and a half unti lwe arrived in the small village of Leymebamba. The town appeared quite pleasant, sent on the side of verdant green mountains. There was hardly any vars in town and the town itself seemed infinitely better than Chachapoyas appeared. Elisha and I both agreed that had we known what Leymebamba was like we would have spent the last several nights here instead… As we were walking about on our 15 minute break, we noticed a sign for Movil Tours (another bus company) that stated it had a bus leaving at 8am from Leymebamba. This came as a bit of a surprise as we thought there was only one bus company heading that way, and we were already on it.
Pulling out of Leymebamba we passed small mud brick houses lining the side of the road before gaining greater altitude, twisting and turning our way forward up the mountian. The views of the surrounding peaks and countryside, with its lush tapestry of shimmering greens was well worth the upcoming long hours on the bus. After another hour or so we passed a road crew with a grader and roller making sure the road remained smooth (this was one of three such crews we would pass along the way), and then we came to a stop in front of a small shack purchased on the side of the mountian. This is where we would eat breakfast and use the bathroom. Well, sort of… The bathroom was located another 50 metres down the road: a tin-roofed latrine also perched on the edge of the world…
We continued along for another four hours with nary a bump in the road, arriving in Celendin around 2pm (had the guidebook been correct we wouldn´t have pulled in for another 3 to 4 hours. Originally we thought we would stay in Celendin for the night and catch an early morning bus on to Cajamarca, but just down the road from our bus company we spotted the Movil Tours office and went to check it out. Sure enough, they had a bus leaving for Cajamarca at 3pm and would arrive before 6 (apparently they have a bus leaving Chachapoyas at 6am, and after a breif break in Celendin it continues on to Cajamarca). Without any hesitation we bought our tickets.
The Movil Tours ride was a little more comfortable as we were able to get the front seats with more leg room; however teh bus smelled of vomit. We shortly figured out this was due to the old lady in the back, as the bus´offsider had to run back to her a few times to deliver a few emergency plastic bags and newspapers. The scenery was similar to the previous bus ride, but the mountains began to take on a golden hue as the sun lowered itself in the sky… At one point we stopped to pick up an aged indigenous woman, and as she was tossing her bundles aboard the bus a donkey loaded down with large tin milk jugs raised his head to watch, obstinately chewing his cud…
After spending a day in Lima we decided to head North to the little beach town of Huanchaco. Here we settled in for a few days of relaxing: sunbathing on the beach and otherwise really just doing nothing. It was nice to be away from all the touts of Cusco and Nazca and just be able to relax; although there were people selling trinkets on the side of the road they left us completely alone. The one odd thing about the beach were the naked, grey mountains poking their heads up behind town. It was quite a different beach experience from the beaches we had previously visited in Colombia and Venezuela. After giving our road weary bones a bit of break we decided to head a little farther North and back into the Andes…
We caught the only night bus from Trujillo to Chachapoyas, teh capital of the Amazonas province. We arrived bright and early in the morning and after settling into our hostel I decided I would try to make good use of the day. Our next destination is the city of Celendin, a remote and hard to get to town, supposedly over rough but spectacular scenery; since buses were said to be infrequent I searched out the bus station and bought tickets for 5am on Wednesday morning (our other option was on Friday morning). Tickets in hand I decided to head off to the sarcophogi of Karajía… Immediately I found a collectivo taxi leaving town on the first leg of the journey to the small village of Luya, our barely held together little Toyota hatch-back tackling routes fit only for 4WD vehicles. Once there it was another 45 minute wait for the taxi to fill up to head to the next village of Cruzpata.
A little over half way to Cruzpata we were stopped in some intermidiary town due to an assembly taking place in the town square. There was also another cab there trying to get through to Cruzpata, so our driver had me and another gentleman hop into that cab and then we had to crosscounty up and down barely there roads in order to circumvent the plaza. (we ended up driving through part of it anyway, so I´m not sure why we had to make the original detour in the first place).
In Cruzpata, which was more of a ramshackle collection of mud-brick shantys than a village, my driver told me he would leave town at 4pm and meet me right where I was dropped off at. Return transportation secured, I paid my 3 soles admission fee and started my kilometre trek to the sarcophogi… The sarcophogi were more interesting than I had anticipated, they were about 2-3 metres tall with elongated heads and with symbols painted in red ochre across the bodies. It was nice being the only one at the site, and after an hour I made my return to town. I spent the remaining our waiting for the driver, and as it turns out he and his wife (who I had thought was just another passenger before) were visiting family for a nephews birthday party. At a little after 4 we piled back in the car for the ride back and the search for more paying fares… On teh outskirts of town we found what we were looking for: a whole family! In the back of the station wagon piled in two young boys, next to me sat a young girl and following her in the car was the mother with another baby under her left arm and chicken under the right! Thus fully loaded we proceeded without incident back to Luya…
The following day Elisha and I decided to go see the main attraction in the area: the ruins of Kuelap. Built by the Chachapoyas people prior to Incas, the site was rumored to be second only to Macchu Picchu. Our guidebook said that there were collectivos to the village of Kuelap just below the ruins, but everyone we talked to in the area they were supposed to leave from denied there existence, so we hopped a car to Tingo about halfway to Kuelap where we hoped to find ongoing transportation or hike up the 6 hour trail to the ruins. When we got dropped off there weren´t any waiting cars to take us further up the mountains and no one seemed to when, if at all, any would come along. As our taxi driver was less than helpful with any knowledge of the trail up we decided to ask police officer standing nearby; he didn´t know, but he started to ask another person standing there. As she was trying to figure it out the officer pointed at a nearby truck loaded with bags of cement and said they´re heading to Maria (a town a 2 hour walk from Kuelap), you can ride with them. The officer walked over to the driver and his helper and ionformed them of what they were going to do. At first the offsider said that there wasn´t any room in the truck for two additional people, so the cop pointed to the back and said we could ride there. With that sorted out we hopped in the back of the truck as it started to rumble and shake its way up the dirt path…
From what I can gather, Kuelap is about 40 km from Tingo, and it took us three hours to go the first 30 km to Maria in the back of the jostling truck. When we got to Maria we were dissapointed to discover no further form of transport, and we started walking up the road. After a few kilometres a lady with 2 hourses pulled up next to us and asked us if we wanted to ride them to the top. Even after our last horse riding experience we inquired as to the cost and time savings. The cost was 15 soles per horse, but apparently they walk no faster than me because she said it would still take the 2 hours we were planning, so we passed. Turned out to be a good idea as they were never more than 100 metres ahead of us, and the horses sounded like they were panting just doing that pace… The road to the top was long, dusty and hot with a marker every kilometre so we knew just how much longer we had until we hit the ruins. We were a little nervous as we hadn´t seen a single vehicle pass us heading up to the ruins all day, although we met two guys coming down from the site that claimed there were two minibuses up there. It looked like we would reach the top at about 3pm, and if we couldn´t find a ride back we would either ahve to hike the trail down to Tingo and try to catch a ride back from there (and we were told the collectivos leave Tingo at 6pm and it was at least a 3 hour hike down), or be stranded somewhere in the mountains and try to find a way back the following day. Just then an absolutely jam-packed minibus passed us heading down the mountian. Great. Just one left at the top. Then just as we were rounding the final bend up to the entrance area another fully pakced minibus pulled into the parking lot, but it didn´t look like they would have room for us on the way down. As soon as we got in the parking lot I headed for the one other minibus and asked if they had space to take us back to Chachapoyas with us. The driver said yes, but that his group was already on their way back from the site, so we wouldn´t have time to see it ourselves. Shit! We came all this way and would have to settle for a picture of the fortress from the parking lot! After weighing our odds on the chance of getting another car down or hiking out in time we decided to skip the ruins, cut our losses and head down with the minibus. Oh well, something to look forward to see next trip to Perú!..
Tomorrow our supposedly beautifully horrific 14 hour butt-slapping ride through two high Andean passes to Celendin…
We headed back to Lima with my parents and said our goodbyes at their hotel as they were heading for the airport at the crack of 4am the following morning…
We decided to hangout in Lima for another two days before heading North again to see some of the sights we missed on our marathon rush to meet up with my parents in the first place. We also needed some time to just relax and do nothing as my parents are always on the go when they’re on vacation. I don’t know how they do it… We stayed in the more up-scale Miraflores district of Lima where there really aren’t a whole lot of sites to see, so we took a cab into the center of town to check out some of the older architecture, churches and government buildings. The one site that we were most interested in seeing was an old church that housed catacombs beneath it. The tour of the church was pretty nice and we were lucky enough to catch it on the day of it’s patron Saint, so there was quite a show and parade going on. Later on we passed a movie theater and decided to watch “2012″ (it also may have been the only one showing in English…), and it was an OK movie enough to pass the time…
One of the other things that entertained us in Lima were the giant cow statues placed in parks throughout the town. The cows were set up as an art exhibit sponsored by a Peruvian dairy company. Most of the cows were fairly identical except for the paint jobs, but some of the artisits really went out of their way to make their cows stand out…
We headed back to Cusco where we planned to pass a few more days hanging out with my parents. By the time we got back Elisha and I had spent well over a week in town and we were getting a bit worn out on it. The cathedrals and architecture in town are magnificent. The remaining Inca stonework is incredible; the fact that it can survive multiple earthquakes unharmed while everything else around them crumbles is pretty amazing. But the touts are a royal pain in the ass. People constantly asking if you want a massage, if you want to buy a maybe alpaca hat or sweater, begging for money from tourists or not letting you pass by a single restaurant without shoving a menu in your face. we even tried to avoid them by walking through the open plaza, but they would cross the street to try to sell us something. Cusco is nice for a few days, but after that you need to get the hell out…
Another reason we planned to be in Cusco at this time was to spend my birthday with my parents and have cuy. Yes, we were going to have roast guinea pig for my birthday! (although as it turns out we didn’t have it until the following afternoon). We did have dinner at a restaurant called “Chi Cha” which was quite spectacular, which included a bottle of Peruvian wine (Tacama, I think), that was recommend to my parents by another traveler they met on the train to Macchu Picchu and turned out to be quite tasty. When we finally had the cuy (well, just my mom and I, my parents had tried cuy earlier in their trip and my dad wasn’t feeling up to it again, and Elisha refused on account of her childhood pet guinea pig: Buttercup). But let me tell you, Buttercup would have been proud, those little piggies aren’t that bad!
My parents left a day early to head to lake Titicaca and some reed islands and Elisha and I took an overnight bus to Nazca in order to meet my parents there so we could see the famous Nazca lines together. Being in the middle of the desert we enjoyed two rather hot and dry days. We also received the benefit of lesser touts (other than the guy at our hotel, no one asked us about any flights)… My parents were scheduled to arrive at their hotel around 8pm so about 8:30 Elisha and I caught a cab out to their place, which ended up being out in the middle of nowhere, but turned out to be quite nice. Finally about 10pm they arrived, and we had a sandwich and beer together before we took off. In the morning we met back up with them to head to the airport for our flyover of the lines. If you’ve ever seen a picture of the Nazca lines they look pretty amazing and clear, but I’m not sure how they got those pictures as our pilot decided to do barrel-rolls and wing-pivots over set of lines and I was racked with nausea for almost the entire flight. I did manage to see clearly see the set of lines called “Spaceman” or “Astronaut” and the monkey drawing. While they were nice, they didn’t look like I had imagined…
We woke up bright and early Friday morning to meet the rest of our group to head off to start the infamous Inca Trail. The 13 of us loaded into a the company’s bus and pushed off out of Cusco. The route took us to Ollaytaytambo through rolling hillsides with snow-capped mountains weaving in and out of our view (well mostly mine, I think everyone else was already back to sleep for the majority of the ride)… Once we arrived in Ollayataytambo we stopped for breakfast at a little place with guinea pig hutch; unfortunately for these guys they weren’t the household pets! After a quick breakfast (no guinea pig this time though) we piled back in the bus and made it the rest of the way to the beginning of the Inca Trail where we had to show our passports and tickets at entrance station.
Our first day we didn’t have it too tough. We hiked on fairly flat terrain and passed a few lesser known Inca ruins. I was a little worried about seeing all of these additional sites as I didn’t want to be in ruin overload before we actually made it to Macchu Picchu; it would have sucked to have gotten there and been like, “great, another pile of rocks…”. The surrounding high peaks were magnificent and I kept waiting for the larger snow-capped ones to peak through the clouds, but unfortunately this didn’t happen. At lunch time our 18 porters and chef (yes, for the 13 tourists in our group (and there we quite a few groups on the trail) we had 1 guide, an assistant guide, 18 porters and 1 chef!) were already at the pre-arranged lunch site and had the table, chairs and tent set up with bowls of hot water waiting for our dirty little paws. We were living pretty rough during our hike… And lunch consisted of fresh trout from the nearby trout farm. Later on we increased our elevation a bit and camped under more magnificent peaks…
The second day was the hardest day. After a gradual climb through moss-covered trees through a cloud forest, we passed grazing llamas and prepared ourselves for our 4200 meter pass by placing a huge wad of coca leaf chew in our cheeks. After an easier than anticipated climb up the switchbacks we arrived at “dead woman” pass. Unfortunately the clouds had once again moved in and our views were quite limited… At a somewhat lower altitude we prepared ourselves for lunch, but I had to excuse myself as just the smell of lunch made me nauseous. Fortunately this stop on the trail had actual toilet bowls (as opposed to the squat toilets present elsewhere), and I threw up, feeling much better. Once again on our way up a second pass my stomach started to disagree with me again and I had to make myself throw up in order to feel well enough to continue on. Shortly before our arrival to the second nights camp I started to feel better; however, I took a nap shortly after arrival and when Elisha tried to bring me some dinner I felt nauseous again and couldn’t eat anything. Later that night I did wake up and vomited a third time…
At our third camp we saw ruins of winaywina, which was pretty spectacular. We were told it was probably the most impressive site after Macchu Picchu as it wasn’t discovered until the mid 1940’s. Apparently they discover new sites almost every year. The best part of these ruins were that there were very few other people there and you felt like you were the first ones discovering the ruins… That night we had a perfectly clear sky with an almost full moon delicately hanging over the snowy top of Picchu Veronica. The next morning we were up before the sun wandering around in the dark with our headlamps. Our camp was set on the edge of a 10′ drop, and as Elisha was getting ready she stepped too close to it and fell off landing on in the midst of the porters. She popped right up wiht nothing seriously wrong with her, but the staff from the trekking company just sort of gawked at her and weren’t sure what they should do. It was about 3 hours before the guide asked if she was OK…
The 2 hour walk from the last camp to Macchu Picchu was pretty uneventful, but was similar to a cattle stampede. As you leave the last site you have to pass through a check point as a group and they check everyone’s ticket, then once on the trail everyone starts to go as fast as they can in order to try to be the first ones; I’m not exactly sure where they’re trying to be the first ones to as once you hit the sun gate it’s still not the picture perfect view you’re looking for. We made it to the sun gate (about a 40 minute hike from the city), and we got our first view of the fabled Macchu Picchu. I thought that this would be the view that we were waiting for, but we were still a ways off and the view wasn’t that good…
Macchu Picchu was quite spectacular once we arrived closer to the ruins. Coming around a curve to some steps we got the view we were looking for, the city rising up out of the mountains with the three fabled peaks surrounding it. It was amazing and was made all the better by the walk through the mountains to get there. After taking the obligatory photos we headed down into the city itself and were given a tour by our guide Alex. We had arranged to meet my parents at the main entrance at 10am, so when the appointed time came we left our group and made our way to the entrance. As soon as we walked through we could see my dad towering above all of the local Peruvians, although my mom was still waving as if we couldn’t find them…
It was great to see my parents again after our 3 months on the road (almost to the day). We entered the ruins again and started to tour the important places. We were quite fortunate as it was a beautiful sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky. As we made our way through the site Elisha started to feel nauseous and headed back to the entrance to use the bathroom and wait for us (as a side note, probably about 10 of the 13 participants on our trip ended up getting some kind of stomach ailment).
After seeing enough of the city we caught our bus down to the town of Aguas Calientes, the city at the base of the ruins. We had made arrangements to spend an extra night in town before heading back to Cusco, which in the end was probably a good idea because of Elisha’s upset stomach, but there isn’t really anything to keep you in town any longer than you need to be there (except maybe the restaurant Indio Feliz)…
