Month: February 2016

We began our tour bright and early Sunday morning by going to the mini Jesus on top of a hill in Cusco.  We then proceeded by van to a village by the name of Caccaccollo which is run by Planetterra. They work with the local women to ensure they can make a living of their own and be independent. We got a demonstration of llama wool being formed, dyed and weaved into something. All of the dyes that they use were made of natural plants and minerals, which I thought was really cool! I bought a hat and mitts from the ladies to use on the Lares trek.

After Caccaccollo we drove to Pisac to visit the local archeological site and the market. Unfortunately since it is the rainy season, some boulders had come loose a few days earlier and killed a young girl. The archeological site was closed until the next day so the government could make sure it was safe. We instead wandered around the market, where I bought a really neat felt hat! We then drove straight on to Ollantaytambo, and visited the open archeological site that was only 500m from our hostel! It was mostly made of steps so it was a good warmup for the Lares trek. It started violently raining shortly after our arrival, which is good becuase most people fled down the mountain, leaving it emptier for us when the rain stopped 15 minutes later. It was amazing feeling the difference walking up hill at 2700m and only being somewhat out of breath, versus a week ago in Arequipa (2300m) losing your breath walking across a flat surface. We clambered around the site for a bit, enjoying the mountain views before headed back to the hotel to prepare for the next day.

We started the Lares trek bright and early Monday morning. I’m still kind of in shock that I actually managed to complete the trek, and really have no idea how to describe the experience, so I’ll begin by stating the facts. Overall we hiked 33 km in one full day and two half days. We began at 3200m, reached 4800 m at the peak, and finished at 2800m. The Lares trek is quite possibly the most challenging thing I’ve ever attempted and it was worth every lost breath, every aching muscle and even this stupid cold I just can’t seem to shake. The second day was the most challenging, a 16km stretch beginning at 3200m, reaching 4800m and ending at 3600m. Luckily I had my roommate walk with me every bit of the up hill were I wasn’t 100% sure if I could make it. One gentlemen suffered from food poisoning (not from our trekking food) and had to spend most of the second day on a horse. I am so proud that I did the whole trek on my own two feet,even if there were a couple times I thought it would be less painful to just chop them off.

At about 4600 m we met another couple traveling in the opposite direction from us. I reasured them that it was all downhill for them, and they very quickly zeroed in on my accent asking where i was from. It turns out they were from Red Deer! I only managed to chat for a little bit because I knew if i waited around too long i would simply collapse on the spot and never get up again. So we said our goodbyes and headed off in opposite directions while I contemplated  hacking off an arm so i would have less weight to carry up the mountain. Luckily talking to Canadians gave me a tenmporary boost of energy and I walked the next 50m with a slight spring in my step. We had the most amazing cook, guide, horsemen and waiter. Seriously though, I rarely left a scrap of our two course meal on my plate (which is quite an accomplishment for me) and they brought coca tea directly to our tents in the morning (which made the 5:30 am wake up times a little easier). I seriously still have trouble believing everything we did, so if you want to here more about the trek you’ll have to ask me in person.

We drove back to Ollantaytambo right after lunch where our beautiful friends we had left behind had a room saved for a hot shower and a beer each awaiting our arrival. We relaxed for two hours them hopped onto the train to Aguas Caliente. The scenery was beautiful, towering mountains and swollen rivers but it was a little difficult to fully enjoy since every part of my body was aching. We went out for pizza upon arrival in Aguas Caliente at which time I was waddling instead of walking thanks to the pain in my hips.

Thursday morning I set a new all time record and managed to get ready and pack in 9 minutes, extending my sleep in until 5:40. After breakfast we were queuing for the bus to Machu Pichu by 6:30.  When we got to the top it was fairly foggy, but Machu Pichu was exactly as I remember it. The only difference is tourists no longer have free range of the site, there are ropes ensuring you stay on the predetermined circuits. We took the typical tourist picture at the view point with most of the site obscured by mist but still loved every minute of it. After that we had a two hour tour which was a little difficult to pay attention to since most of the information he told us, had already been told to us by our guide from the Lares trek. We finished around 10:30 and had a spare two hours to explore ourselves. Half of our group was still too tired to continue on and opted to head back down the mountain, while the other half (myself included) decided we could handle a bit more scampering around the mountain.

Tanja and I decided to hike up to the sun gate together. In the end David managed to hiker to the Inca bridge, the sun gate and beginning back to the bottom before Tanja and I made it to the top of the sun gate, but we went our own pace and when we did get to the top it was worth it. I vaguely remember climbing somewhere when I went to Machu Pichu in 2007 with my family, and beating them (and feeling super proud) to the top. I originally thought I was remembering reaching the top of the sungate, but after doing it this time around  I believe I was remembering climbing up to the  first viewpoint where everyone takes pictures. Its a five minutes hike vs an hour long hike. Shortly after reaching the sungate, catching our breath and taking a couple photos we had to hightail it back down the mountain to ensure we weren’t late for the train.  We made it to the restaurant meeting point with plenty of time to order food.

Same old routine, train back to Ollantaytambo, bus back to Cusco and finally exhaustion. We have a couple days off in Cusco to relax and catch up. Originally we were all going to go white water rafting together, but unfortunately the river is too high right now for that. So we’ve settled for some shopping, rest, relaxation and good food (I had cannelloni yesterday that physically moved me to tears).

Now its time for me to go to bed early so I can attend the parade at 8:30 am.

Ciao!

Alex

PS- listen to Hearts like ours by The Naked and Famous

Our arrival in Arequipa marked the first time in our tour that we a a brush with the dreaded “altitude sickness” that you hear about so very often. At 2300 m above sea level there is noticeably less oxygen in the air, since everyone starting huffing and puffing after carrying our luggage up the slight incline 20 m to our hotel.  But we took it slow and allowed our bodies to acclimatize to the reduced oxygen. Arequipa still has many Spanish influences, so the city in many spots looks like you could be in the middle of Spain. Or conversely, you could also appear to be in the middle of Cuba with it’s colonial style buildings. Take your pick! The city is also adjacent to three volcanos ( only one is semi-active) meaning that Arequipa sometimes has small earthquakes. We had an extremely relaxed day, spent most of it getting used to the altitude and indulging in some happy hour chilcanos (two for 15 soles!) later that evening. 

Bright and early Thursday morning we hopped on a bus to Chevay. We made several stops along the way for Coca tea, sight seeing and to ensure we were getting used to the increasing altitude. Now I was feeling fairly cocky at this point, because I somewhat remember not being affected by the altitude whatsoever when I came to Peru at age 13. Before this trip I was worried that I have changed enough in eight years that my reaction to altitude would be much worse. After hanging around in Arequipa at 2300m I assumed that I was going to get off Scott free, but this was because I failed to take into account how another kilometer straight up might feel on my body. During our drive we stopped at the highest spot of our whole trip at 4910m. I was still being fairly cocky, taking jumping photos (even though one jump was enough to send your heart racing) and walking all around the rest stop. A few other members of our group were not so lucky and only made it out of the van long enough to take a group photo.  We arrived in Chevay (3600m)  just in time for lunch, and when everyone else started to feel better I hit a giant wall. Immediately I lost all of my energy and anything resembling an appetite. My best guess is a delayed reaction to the high altitudes. It wasn’t quite altitude sickness, but I sure felt awful. After shoveling a few meagre servings from the buffet into my mouth, I nearly fell asleep in my food. I felt really stupid for jumping around and saying how fine I felt when we were at 4910m, but hindsight is 20/20!

Luckily after lunch we had R&R time so I napped for a whole hour and a half, until it was time to go to the hot springs!  We were going to some really rustic and natural hot springs around 30 minutes away from Chevay. However just as we were in sight of the hot springs and headed down the mountain side to cross the river, our driver realized that there was no bridge, and no hot springs! It turns out that sometime within the past week there had been a flash flood that had washed away the bridge and flooded majority of the pools we had been hoping the relax in. We then did a three point turn right then and there on the mountain side. I’m not sure if you have ever sat in the back of a huge passenger van in the middle of a three point turn on the side of a mountain, with two extremely nervous passengers screaming that they want to get out, while you’re looking out the window watching the cliffs edge creep closer and closer the tires, but I would reccomend you try it at least once in your life. We headed back to Chevay safe and sound and went to the public hot spring instead.

I felt like rubbish the rest of Thursday evening, had quite possibly the worst sleep of my entire life (which is saying something because I’ve had some pretty awful sleeps) that night and unsurprisingly wasn’t feeling much better come Friday morning. We left the hotel at 6am in order to drive to the Colca Canyon to see the Condors. Our first stop along the way was to take some pictures of the farming terraces, many of which date back to Incan times. I reached into my backpack for my camera and couldn’t find it. Deciding I was still too sleep deprived and sick to function, I went out and enjoyed the views. When we got back to the bus I doubled checked, and then got my roommate to triple check and realized very quickly that I was in fact missing my camera. Through the process of elimination I figured out I must have left it in the hotel by accident and our ultra amazing tour leader phoned the hotel and confirmed that I had some how left it under the bed! Luckily we had to travel back through Chevay,  I had a minimal heart attack when I figured out it was missing and I was only separated from my camera for four hours! We saw only two condors in the end, but quite a lot of amazing scenery.

We stopped in Chevay for lunch and to pick up my Camera and proceeded to drive back to Arequipa. Upon arriving in Arequipa we all noticed how much easier it was to breath, having begun acclimatizing to 3600m, 2300 m was no problem! I spent the afternoon at the Santa Catalina monastery, which appeared to because a small town in itself, separated from the outside world by tall walls. We had crepes for dinner and then I went back to the hotel to write a blog post, while everyone else went out for happy hour again. The entrance to our room is double doors, which could only be locked by key (which I really didn’t want to do in case of emergency in the middle of the night) or chain, so we went with the latter option. I woke up in the middle of the night to someone trying to shake open our door, twice. I probably should have been more alarmed at the thought of someone trying to get into our room, but after the dreadful sleep I got the night before I was having a hard time caring enough to investigate. I wasn’t until this morning when we compared notes with everyone else that we realized we had experienced some tremors thanks to good old Misti volcano! For most on the trip this was their first earthquake.

We had a short one hour flight to Cusco this morning, where we did a quick tour of the city squares and the famous market that has anything and everything you could ever think of, before spending the rest of the afternoon relaxing. My roommate and I went to the central square to do some people watching and were approached by 11 different people in 15 minutes, all trying to sell us something. For dinner we went to a burger place and I found a burger that I love even more than the hamburgeusa double; the hamburgeusa papaso. Ingredients include bacon, an onion ring, blue cheese sauce and did I mention bacon? The burger was at least 15cm tall and looked good enough to worship. Once again, everyone else ate their burgers with a fork and knife, while I devoured mine with the ferocity of a lion who hasn’t eaten in a week. I had to use three napkins to clean the resulting mess, but I had no regrets.

Tomorrow we are driving to Ollantaytambo and spending the night before we begin Lares trek the next day. Once we complete the trek we take the train to Augas Caliente, spend the next morning at Machu Pichu and then we return to Cusco. It is highly unlikely I will have much internet access until we return to Cusco so don’t be surprised by my radio silence. Also it may take me even more days to regain control of my body after the Lares trek so who knows if a blog post will even be possible! Wish me luck!

Ciao

Alex

Ps- Despair by yeah yeah yeahs.

Sorry I’m running a bit behind but since we have started our tour things have been very go go go! I booked my hostel a tad last minute, but it turned out I accidentally booked a hostel only a block away from where our G adventures tour met up! The cheap side of me was very pleased that I could simply walk to my next hotel instead of having to pay for a taxi. Because its the rainy season in Peru, our tour group is smaller than average, with only six people. There’s one other Canadian, three from the UK and one from Germany. We went out for dinner  and I very quickly found my new favorite dish of all time, ceviche. It combines raw fish and lime juice, making it slightly better then sushi. I found out that I am the youngest on this trip, but I am very much NOT the least mature.  The rest of the group has accused me of being the responsible mother type figure several times since our tour has started.

Immediately Sunday morning we left Lima for Paracas. We arrived around four, still slightly too early to eat, so we wandered around town for a bit. We came across a restaurant, claiming to be in possession of a time machine (with a weeping angel poster to prove it), and decided to check it out. We ended up in a circular elevator that totated and went up and down in order to display various videos and diaramas detailing the incan history around the town. The best part was when the room went pitch black during transitions and several of our group members started screaming their heads off.

On Monday we wasted no time getting down to business and seeing the things to be seen. Some of our group did a boat tour of the local wildlife reservation (whose exact name I can’t recall, but it has been called the poor mans Galapagos),while the rest (myself included) did a quad tour of Paracas. We first stopped at the beach bordering the wildlife reserve and spotted some pelicans, flamingos and terns,  then we bummed around some sand dunes for a bit (I got air a couple times) and finally taking a short break in front of a monument dedicated to one of the Argentinian generals who aided in Peru’s independance. After a quick dip in the pool and we were on to the bus to Ica to check out the Pisco distillery! Pisco is a Peruvian alcohol made from grapes, but distilled until it can be considered a hard alcohol. It also happens to be the main ingredient in two of my new favorite drinks (Pisco sour and chilcano). We got a short tour of the distillery, including explanations of how they made it in ancient times vs present. We very quickly moved on to the main event, the taste test. Six shots later we were back on the bus headed to the next town for lunch. We had the option of sand boarding, since the town was the only oasis surrounded by dunes, but our group elected to chill by the pool and eat our meal at a very leisurely pace. We set off shortly after our (late) lunch to Nazca.

We made a short stop at a road side fruit stand, bought a watermelon together and named him Walter (Walter will be important later on). For anyone who doesn’t know, Nazca is very famous for the Nazca lines. They are images in the desert preserved by the dry climate, made in ancient times. It is believed the lines were made by the nazca people (who came before the Incas), because many of the pieces of pottery found with Nazca mummies carried the exact same images (ex the monkey has nine fingers instead of ten). We stopped ten minutes outside of Nazca to climb a tower to view the Tree and the Chicken lines. Although archeologists are mostly sure the Nazca people made the lines, they have yet to find any tools that could possibly explain how the Nazca people made the lines. After viewing only two of the lines right at sunset, I can say, it is a very awe inspiring mystery.

I generally try not to eat western food much when I’m traveling , but when we went for dinner there was a hamburger that was just calling my name. The hamburgeusa doble, with two patties and a fried egg appealed to my inner carnivore too much to pass up. Three of us got one, but the other two ate theirs with a fork and knife, while I dove in like the proper Canadian cave woman that I am. Finishing that burger gave me the feeling of 1000 Spartan warriors raining death upon their enemy.

On Tuesday we had a fairly low key day in Nazca. In the morning we visited a Nazca cemetery called Chauchilla. The cemetery was pillaged by grave robbers between 1950-1980, who would dig up the graves, pilfer some expensive pottery, and toss the mummies where ever they landed. Archeologists came later and cleaned up the cemetery , placing mummies back into graves. They are many more dips in the land which are probably more mummies and artifacts,but there is no funding from the government to continue excavation. I think the most interesting part however, was that the cemetery was left in the same condition that the archeologists put it in, with the mummies  sitting unprotected in their old graves and the occasional bone on the ground from when the grave robbers were less than careful with a mummy. Many of the mummies were still in remarkable condition, with dreadlocks and occaxionally visible skin tissue, thanks to the dry desert and the mummification process.

Right after Chauchilla, we visited a pottery shop run by the nephew of the guywho had rediscovered the tradiontional Nazca method for making pottery. The process involved minerals for the colours and specific heating times, meaning the colours will never fade and the pottery itself is supremely durable. Having seen some pottery left in the graves at Chauchilla, I can believe it!

The rest of the day we hung out at our hotel, waiting to board our night bus to Arequipa. So naturally we spent all day hanging out by the pool, maybe consuming some vino blanco. Now think back to several paragraphs ago when I told you about Walter. Walter the watermelon (or Waltermelon for short) was eight kg and eight sols (approx $3) when he came into our lives.  We dressed him up with a hat, sunglasses and a lipgloss smile and he was our collective child for about 20 hours. I don’t know if you dear friends have ever had the opportunity to consumr eight kilos of watermelon between 5 people, but let me tell you,it’s most definitely a challenge. In the end I was so determined to finish off Walter I must have eaten four out of the eight kilos. It was for naught, for there were still  three pieces left by the time we had to rush off to catch the night bus. I don’t quite feel as accomplished as I did after the hamburgeusa double, but I am still quite proud at the solid effort we put it.

My next post will start from Arequipa, and the beginnings of altitude sickness!

Ciao!

Alex

PS- listen Aurora Borealis by Griswolds to while reading this blog post

The seven hour flight from Toronto to Lima felt like the longest flight of my entire life. The only benefit was the lack of light pollution (except for over a couple islands we flew over) meant the stars shone particularly bright. I kept smashing my face in the window like a  kid trying to get a peak into a candy store. I arrived in Lima at 1 am local time, found a bench, stacked my backpacks and promptly fell asleep. I alternated reading and sleeping until 7 am, at which point I finished my first book of the trip and decided it was time to take a taxi to my hostel. It´s difficult to know which Taxi driver to go with, but I found one who said that I could wait until Miraflores (the more touristy district my hostel was in) to take out currency, so I wouldn´t have to pay the airport fees. Well this suited me just fine, so I hopped along with him, after he assured me MULTIPLE times that his taxi was totally legit, and there were police around so I was safe (he was wearing a uniform just like all the other Taxi drivers so I didn´t think he needed to reassure me QUITE so many times). Once we got to my hostel and I tried to jump out to see if my hostel had an ATM, I very quickly found out that when I had been saying ATM, ATM, he had just been nodding his head, and was expecting to be paid in American cash that very instant. Well I was dragged down the street to an ATM and I paid him on the spot in sols. My hostel was just behind us, down the (one way) street,  so he asked me to walk back which I agreed to. Then he tired to drive away with my backpack still in the back seat which I DID NOT find very amusing!