So we've finally landed in Sur America! We flew into Lima on the 8th and made our way across the city to Sandro´s house. He and Thai knew each other from Tahoe when she worked as a ski lift operator for a season in '02. They kept in contact through e-mail all this time, but they hadn´t seen each other since. We arrived on his doorstep while he was still at work; his mother, Flavia, greeted us at the door with a warm welcome and showed us to our room. For the first time since we left the States we have a semblance of home, which inspires both comfort and meloncholy. It's hard to sink in here without thinking about our family, friends, and city (oh, Portland!) waiting up North.
We were promptly treated to a snack while we waited for Sandro to arrive. In the meantime, we also met his father, Pedro, and Justa, their kind but soft-spoken maid. In the early evening, Thai was reunited with her long-lost friend from the mountain who was equally excited to see us and hear our plans for Peru. We talked about the last six years, the possibilities of the next few to come, and the must-see sites of our first South American stop. In total, we had about a month to kill in the country - which, I might add, is a lot larger than either of us had realized. As a rough guess, I would say Peru is equal in length, North to South, as the West Coast of the US.
For the next five days, we toured the main districts of the capitol city, seeing the upscale Miraflores and historic Downtown. We also got acquainted with Sandro's neighborhood of Surco. We went out for Pisco Sours - THE drink of Peru - which we enjoyed a bit too much. Thai even got to see three other Peruvians that she had met in Tahoe which was an unexpected surprise.
The following Monday, we set out on a circuit tour of the South starting with a 15-hour bus ride to Arequipa - the second largest city in Peru. Set in the desert amidst three snow-capped volcanoes, its central plazas do not hint at its size. It certainly demonstrates just how large Lima is in comparison to the cities and villages of the rest of the country (40% of the population live in the capitol). The most interesting site in Arequipa is the Monastary of Santa Catalina - a city within a city that was closed to the public from its creation somewhere in the first century all the way through to the 1970's. The fortress was home to an order of nuns who were hidden away from the outside world except for carfully monitored communication from select visitors that took place through obscured grates. Walking through the streets and buildings of the complex is both stifling and whimsical - brightly colored walls cut odd lines, staircases that seem to go nowhere but do... The monastary still houses nuns, but in a small portion of the complex. The rest is now open for tours.
From Arequipa, we took a two-day, one-night tour of nearby Colca Canyon. The canyon - deepest in the world seconded only to the nearby Ventana del Colca - is home to a handful of small farming villages as well as the endangered Andean Condor. We stayed in Chivay, the largest of the villages, where we got to relax in hotsprings and take in a sample of the local song and dance over dinner. We both got roped into some of the wierdest 'traditional' dancing we've ever seen - whipping one another, sitting on faces, and all of it way cleaner than it sounds... The culmination of the tour was a trip up to the Cruz del Condor lookout where we sat and watched some of the world´s largest birds glide over the nearly 10,000 ft deep rift below. It was an impressive sight. Condors can weigh 80 lbs and have a 9 ft wingspan. They also only lay one egg every two years, which probably accounts for their scarcity. On our trip through the canyon, we also discovered that high altitudes do not play nice with Thai, who sat up all night in Chivay breathing heavily and complaining of bad chest pains. The locals chew Coca leaves or drink Coca tea to combat these effects, but neither helped too much. Luckily, modern medicine triumphed where Andean wisdom fell short and we found a pharmacy upon returning to Arequipa.
The next morning, we jumped on a five-hour busride to Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca. At 3,800 meters (something like 11,400 ft), it is the highest navigable lake in the world - a fact which Thai was, for obvious reasons, less than thrilled about. Puno itself had next to nothing to do, but since it serves as the main port by which to access the islands in the lake, it sees routine tourist traffic. After only one night on the mainland, we jumped on a ship for a two-day island hop. Our first stop were the Floating Islands of Uros - a series of islands which are actually constructed by hand out of the surrounding reeds and anchored out on the lake. They... Are... Amazing... Each island houses about five to seven families and comes complete with its own chief. During the day, everyone gathers for the daily slog of tourist ships which bring a considerable amount of money for their community and childrens' education. Then the men set out to fish while the women spin, knit, stitch, and construct crafts for future visitors. Every three to four months, they gather more reeds to construct a new layer of the island, as the bottom rots out continually. We spent about an hour and a half on Uros before moving on to Amantanì - an island (stone, for a change) set more in the middle of Titicaca. We spent the night there with a local family who invited us into their home and cooked for us. The food was less than stellar (Peru is home to more than 2,500 varieties of potatoes, which amounts to a plethora of boiled starch), but the experience was wonderful. That night, everyone marched to the top of Pachatata - the highest point on the island - to watch the sunset over the lake. The mount is home to an early pre-Incan ruin where rituals are still held yearly, steeped in the local blend of old- and new-world practices. The shaman sanctifies the ceremony with a rosary and Catholic prayer before purifying the site by burning an aborted llama fetus among other artifacts... We were also treated to a dance by firelight, for which we were required to dress in local attire. The next morning, after saying a quick goodbye to our host families, we also visited Taquìle - another island - on the way back to Puno. Other than lunch, though, there wasn't much to be done there other than wonder, so we sat in the main square until the boat picked us up.
That night we made our way to Cusco, the former capitol of the Incan empire and the doorstep of Machu Picchu. Now gripped in the height of the tourist season, the city was teaming with visitors. Despite this, we still managed to have a great time, and even met some great people because of it. While we were expecting a quaint mountain town, what we found was anything but. The Cusco of today is a bustling city set about its numerous historic buildings and sites - a busy, modern pace amidst ancient churches and Incan foundations. Saksaywamàn, the site of indigenous religious rites even today, crowns the hill overlooking the bars and fine restaurants of the central plaza. Admittedly, we had a blast bar hopping with our fellow hostal mates, but we also fell in with the quieter pace of the San Blas district which is literally built upon the remaining stones of Incan buildings ravaged by the invading Conquistadors.
After a couple of days in the city, we made our way for Machu Picchu. While we had originally planned on taking the train directly from Cusco (there isn´t any road), we had to leave from nearby Ollantaytambo when we discovered just how busy the site gets during tourist season. People literally book their train tickets up to six months in advance! Luckily, there exists a secondary, less direct but also less costly route taken by locals and ill-prepared travelers alike. After spending the night in Ollantaytambo, we jumped aboard the train at 5:30 AM for the hour and a half ride before transfering to a bus for the final 20-minute push up to the summit on which the ruins sit. In the spirit of honesty, I will admit to a certain level of skepticism about Machu Picchu during our journey. Everyone gets so saturated by its characteristic image and mystique before they reach it - hell, before they even leave home! - that I was afraid it wouldn´t live up to the hype. Was Machu Picchu the 'Lost Citadel of the Incas' or the gaudily-bedecked and heinously over-ridden Peruvian cash cow? I didn´t know. So I tried to bite my tongue, especially around Thai for whom the site was to be the planned pinnacle of this entire trip, and waited to see for myself.
... I can guarantee, without a doubt, that all of my doubts were extinguished upon entering the grounds... The pictures, though they try, just don´t do justice to its size! The stonework of the temple walls is so understated yet completely mesmorizing, you could spend a remarkable amount of time just tracing the intersecting joints between the rocks of a single wall. The surrounding hillsides are something to behold in themselves - ruins aside! The whole site just possesses an energy that is difficult to define. The fact that we had seen numerous ruins along the way down here before reaching Machu Picchu did not diminish its immensity or weight in the slightest. It WAS the reason for the entire journey in our time there. I was even lucky enough to make it up Wayna Picchu - the spire-like mount that sits in the background of most images of the ruins that you come across. Only 400 people a day are allowed up its side due to its confined spaces at the top. But the view from the temple at the summit was spactacular and well worth the trouble of the hike (which is a ridiculously strenuous hour). When we left for the return train to Ollantaytambo, we left thoroughly satisfied.
After a few more days in Cusco, we caught a return bus to Lima to meet up with Sandro and a few of his friends for an extended weekend up North. Independence day for Peru falls on the 28th of July; they also receive the following day off which gave everyone four days to play. While we thought it was going to be a 'few' friends, we quickly discovered that we were caravaning in a group of 14. Despite the inconveniences of organizing the movements of such a large group, the trip was a blast. We traveled north through Huaraz and spent the first two nights in Caraz amidst the peaks of the White and Black Ranges (Cordilleras Blanca y Negra), including the highest mountain in Peru. There we took in the craziest fireworks display that I think I´ve ever seen. The small town constructed a 60 ft tower meticulously built out of lengths of bamboo and twine over the course of four hours. The 'castillo,' or castle, swayed like it would tople over at any moment. Somehow, it held its ground, along with its dangling managerie of home-made fireworks constructed out of simple rockets and various of contraptions of bamboo, paper, twine, etc. As a brass band played, the wick was lit and layer by layer the plumes of sparks and whiring bobbles ascended the tower until, half way up, the whole thing went off in a chaotic spray of flame and color and noise crowned by a smoldering '¡Viva El Peru!' I didn´t see any injuries personally, but there had to have been some burns as rogue rockets freed themselves from their moorings and shot off into the crowd. It was a blast in every sense of the word.
Amidst the festivities, we also toured a series of nearby lagoons and mountain vistas. We drove the whole caravan over the Cordillera Blanca through Punta Olympica, the highest navigable pass in the country at nearly 15,000 ft. Navigable is a term I use lightly, because the road was one of the worst we´ve seen along this entire trip. It was also only wide enough for a single car in most places which made passing oncoming traffic while perched on the side of a sheer mountain face a less than graceful experience. After another day of touring the small villages of the area, we returned to Lima. I don´t know how relaxing the whole experience was for those who had jobs to come back to, but it was definitely an adventure.
Now we're back in the capitol catching up on rest and blogging. Tomorrow we leave on a bus for a two-day trip to see the Nazca Lines out in the desert. Should be fun. Otherwise we´ve gotta lay a bit low for the next week as money is a bit tight and we still have several more months to plan for! Then again, Thai´s birthday is coming around (August 6th) so we can´t just sit inside the whole time! We'll see. Oh! As a note, we've added a bunch of pics to our PhotoBucket, so take a look if you can! Otherwise, nothing but the best to all of you at home. Ciao for now.
We were promptly treated to a snack while we waited for Sandro to arrive. In the meantime, we also met his father, Pedro, and Justa, their kind but soft-spoken maid. In the early evening, Thai was reunited with her long-lost friend from the mountain who was equally excited to see us and hear our plans for Peru. We talked about the last six years, the possibilities of the next few to come, and the must-see sites of our first South American stop. In total, we had about a month to kill in the country - which, I might add, is a lot larger than either of us had realized. As a rough guess, I would say Peru is equal in length, North to South, as the West Coast of the US.
For the next five days, we toured the main districts of the capitol city, seeing the upscale Miraflores and historic Downtown. We also got acquainted with Sandro's neighborhood of Surco. We went out for Pisco Sours - THE drink of Peru - which we enjoyed a bit too much. Thai even got to see three other Peruvians that she had met in Tahoe which was an unexpected surprise.
The following Monday, we set out on a circuit tour of the South starting with a 15-hour bus ride to Arequipa - the second largest city in Peru. Set in the desert amidst three snow-capped volcanoes, its central plazas do not hint at its size. It certainly demonstrates just how large Lima is in comparison to the cities and villages of the rest of the country (40% of the population live in the capitol). The most interesting site in Arequipa is the Monastary of Santa Catalina - a city within a city that was closed to the public from its creation somewhere in the first century all the way through to the 1970's. The fortress was home to an order of nuns who were hidden away from the outside world except for carfully monitored communication from select visitors that took place through obscured grates. Walking through the streets and buildings of the complex is both stifling and whimsical - brightly colored walls cut odd lines, staircases that seem to go nowhere but do... The monastary still houses nuns, but in a small portion of the complex. The rest is now open for tours.
From Arequipa, we took a two-day, one-night tour of nearby Colca Canyon. The canyon - deepest in the world seconded only to the nearby Ventana del Colca - is home to a handful of small farming villages as well as the endangered Andean Condor. We stayed in Chivay, the largest of the villages, where we got to relax in hotsprings and take in a sample of the local song and dance over dinner. We both got roped into some of the wierdest 'traditional' dancing we've ever seen - whipping one another, sitting on faces, and all of it way cleaner than it sounds... The culmination of the tour was a trip up to the Cruz del Condor lookout where we sat and watched some of the world´s largest birds glide over the nearly 10,000 ft deep rift below. It was an impressive sight. Condors can weigh 80 lbs and have a 9 ft wingspan. They also only lay one egg every two years, which probably accounts for their scarcity. On our trip through the canyon, we also discovered that high altitudes do not play nice with Thai, who sat up all night in Chivay breathing heavily and complaining of bad chest pains. The locals chew Coca leaves or drink Coca tea to combat these effects, but neither helped too much. Luckily, modern medicine triumphed where Andean wisdom fell short and we found a pharmacy upon returning to Arequipa.
The next morning, we jumped on a five-hour busride to Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca. At 3,800 meters (something like 11,400 ft), it is the highest navigable lake in the world - a fact which Thai was, for obvious reasons, less than thrilled about. Puno itself had next to nothing to do, but since it serves as the main port by which to access the islands in the lake, it sees routine tourist traffic. After only one night on the mainland, we jumped on a ship for a two-day island hop. Our first stop were the Floating Islands of Uros - a series of islands which are actually constructed by hand out of the surrounding reeds and anchored out on the lake. They... Are... Amazing... Each island houses about five to seven families and comes complete with its own chief. During the day, everyone gathers for the daily slog of tourist ships which bring a considerable amount of money for their community and childrens' education. Then the men set out to fish while the women spin, knit, stitch, and construct crafts for future visitors. Every three to four months, they gather more reeds to construct a new layer of the island, as the bottom rots out continually. We spent about an hour and a half on Uros before moving on to Amantanì - an island (stone, for a change) set more in the middle of Titicaca. We spent the night there with a local family who invited us into their home and cooked for us. The food was less than stellar (Peru is home to more than 2,500 varieties of potatoes, which amounts to a plethora of boiled starch), but the experience was wonderful. That night, everyone marched to the top of Pachatata - the highest point on the island - to watch the sunset over the lake. The mount is home to an early pre-Incan ruin where rituals are still held yearly, steeped in the local blend of old- and new-world practices. The shaman sanctifies the ceremony with a rosary and Catholic prayer before purifying the site by burning an aborted llama fetus among other artifacts... We were also treated to a dance by firelight, for which we were required to dress in local attire. The next morning, after saying a quick goodbye to our host families, we also visited Taquìle - another island - on the way back to Puno. Other than lunch, though, there wasn't much to be done there other than wonder, so we sat in the main square until the boat picked us up.
That night we made our way to Cusco, the former capitol of the Incan empire and the doorstep of Machu Picchu. Now gripped in the height of the tourist season, the city was teaming with visitors. Despite this, we still managed to have a great time, and even met some great people because of it. While we were expecting a quaint mountain town, what we found was anything but. The Cusco of today is a bustling city set about its numerous historic buildings and sites - a busy, modern pace amidst ancient churches and Incan foundations. Saksaywamàn, the site of indigenous religious rites even today, crowns the hill overlooking the bars and fine restaurants of the central plaza. Admittedly, we had a blast bar hopping with our fellow hostal mates, but we also fell in with the quieter pace of the San Blas district which is literally built upon the remaining stones of Incan buildings ravaged by the invading Conquistadors.
After a couple of days in the city, we made our way for Machu Picchu. While we had originally planned on taking the train directly from Cusco (there isn´t any road), we had to leave from nearby Ollantaytambo when we discovered just how busy the site gets during tourist season. People literally book their train tickets up to six months in advance! Luckily, there exists a secondary, less direct but also less costly route taken by locals and ill-prepared travelers alike. After spending the night in Ollantaytambo, we jumped aboard the train at 5:30 AM for the hour and a half ride before transfering to a bus for the final 20-minute push up to the summit on which the ruins sit. In the spirit of honesty, I will admit to a certain level of skepticism about Machu Picchu during our journey. Everyone gets so saturated by its characteristic image and mystique before they reach it - hell, before they even leave home! - that I was afraid it wouldn´t live up to the hype. Was Machu Picchu the 'Lost Citadel of the Incas' or the gaudily-bedecked and heinously over-ridden Peruvian cash cow? I didn´t know. So I tried to bite my tongue, especially around Thai for whom the site was to be the planned pinnacle of this entire trip, and waited to see for myself.
... I can guarantee, without a doubt, that all of my doubts were extinguished upon entering the grounds... The pictures, though they try, just don´t do justice to its size! The stonework of the temple walls is so understated yet completely mesmorizing, you could spend a remarkable amount of time just tracing the intersecting joints between the rocks of a single wall. The surrounding hillsides are something to behold in themselves - ruins aside! The whole site just possesses an energy that is difficult to define. The fact that we had seen numerous ruins along the way down here before reaching Machu Picchu did not diminish its immensity or weight in the slightest. It WAS the reason for the entire journey in our time there. I was even lucky enough to make it up Wayna Picchu - the spire-like mount that sits in the background of most images of the ruins that you come across. Only 400 people a day are allowed up its side due to its confined spaces at the top. But the view from the temple at the summit was spactacular and well worth the trouble of the hike (which is a ridiculously strenuous hour). When we left for the return train to Ollantaytambo, we left thoroughly satisfied.
After a few more days in Cusco, we caught a return bus to Lima to meet up with Sandro and a few of his friends for an extended weekend up North. Independence day for Peru falls on the 28th of July; they also receive the following day off which gave everyone four days to play. While we thought it was going to be a 'few' friends, we quickly discovered that we were caravaning in a group of 14. Despite the inconveniences of organizing the movements of such a large group, the trip was a blast. We traveled north through Huaraz and spent the first two nights in Caraz amidst the peaks of the White and Black Ranges (Cordilleras Blanca y Negra), including the highest mountain in Peru. There we took in the craziest fireworks display that I think I´ve ever seen. The small town constructed a 60 ft tower meticulously built out of lengths of bamboo and twine over the course of four hours. The 'castillo,' or castle, swayed like it would tople over at any moment. Somehow, it held its ground, along with its dangling managerie of home-made fireworks constructed out of simple rockets and various of contraptions of bamboo, paper, twine, etc. As a brass band played, the wick was lit and layer by layer the plumes of sparks and whiring bobbles ascended the tower until, half way up, the whole thing went off in a chaotic spray of flame and color and noise crowned by a smoldering '¡Viva El Peru!' I didn´t see any injuries personally, but there had to have been some burns as rogue rockets freed themselves from their moorings and shot off into the crowd. It was a blast in every sense of the word.
Amidst the festivities, we also toured a series of nearby lagoons and mountain vistas. We drove the whole caravan over the Cordillera Blanca through Punta Olympica, the highest navigable pass in the country at nearly 15,000 ft. Navigable is a term I use lightly, because the road was one of the worst we´ve seen along this entire trip. It was also only wide enough for a single car in most places which made passing oncoming traffic while perched on the side of a sheer mountain face a less than graceful experience. After another day of touring the small villages of the area, we returned to Lima. I don´t know how relaxing the whole experience was for those who had jobs to come back to, but it was definitely an adventure.
Now we're back in the capitol catching up on rest and blogging. Tomorrow we leave on a bus for a two-day trip to see the Nazca Lines out in the desert. Should be fun. Otherwise we´ve gotta lay a bit low for the next week as money is a bit tight and we still have several more months to plan for! Then again, Thai´s birthday is coming around (August 6th) so we can´t just sit inside the whole time! We'll see. Oh! As a note, we've added a bunch of pics to our PhotoBucket, so take a look if you can! Otherwise, nothing but the best to all of you at home. Ciao for now.
