June 10, 2005
Notes from Peru I
Hello from Peru!
Well where do I start? I met up with Dave and Guang in Costa Rica and we had just enough time to go to the Inca gold museum in San Jose before our connection flight. They had a very impressive collection of pieces and also old Coast Rican coins. One of the main highlights was the very large nugget they had on display that was looked to be about 4 or 5 pounds. We also noticed the large collection of us companies that have propagated in the downtown area- Burger King, McDonalds, Carl´s Jr, payless shoes, etc.
We arrived in Lima Peru at about 9 at night and were met by a very enthusiastic and Peruvian holding a sign with our name on it. Leneno and his brother were there to pick us up and take us to a hotel and dinner. We dropped our bags off at a hotel for $12 for the three of us then went back to Leneno´s house where his mother was slaving away on a first class meal! We gave Leneno a backpack full of camping gear that we had brought him from a friend of his that live in Santa Ana and looked at photos of a trip he did turing peru to give us a taste of what was to come.
The next morning we took an early plane to Arequipa. The plane left before sun up and I had a great window seat and watched the sun rise over The Andes Mountains. There was a thin layer of mist that covered the lowlands like a sheet of silk. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. When we arrived in Arequipa we arranged lodging and took an hour for a rest then hit the city. We toured the main plaza area arranged for a tour of the famous Cholca Canyon (It is the deepest canyon in the world and more the twice the depth of the Grand Canyon) and met the guy who discovered Juanita a frozen mummy found in the mountains above the city in 1996. He made the cover of the National Geographic. We also had lunch at a great little restaurant that only served seafood this was on awesome meal of ceviche, soup, and fish(trout ceviche is great!).
We decided to make the highlight of the touring day the Santa Catalina Nunnery. The nunnery has been around for hundreds of years and has survived all the earthquakes while the city around it has crumbled. It was a fairly large place spanning about four city blocks. On our tour we met the USA ambassador to Peru, great guy from Fresno.
For dinner we escorted three lovely Peruvian women to dinner. For dinner I had alpaca steak (close relative of the lama) and Guinea Pig (rodent also fun fur pets that happen to taste good) They all spoke English to some degree and all had business degrees. One of them was a part owner of the largest chain of casinos in Peru.
The next morning after an extended sleep time of about 2 hours we left for Cholca canyon at 2 am. We start with a 6 hour bus ride, then had breakfast, met our guide and hit the trail. This canyon was very impressive. At the rim the guide pointed out where we would be going and seeing. There were three villages that were mostly abandoned but still had 25 families living in them and hundreds of small fields cut into the sides of the step hillsides. They grew fruits, cactus, corn, and anything else they need to be self-sufficient, including raising alpacas, guinea pigs, chickens, and pigs. The hike down into the canyon was nothing short of amazing! I have never hiked anything so steep for so long, at any given time there was a sheer cliff dropping thousands of feet on one side of you or another. There were pack animals on the trail but it was so steep that we were barely able to descend.
At the bottom we looked at what we had just descended with wonder and awe. The trail was seemingly carved out of a sheer cliff. We had lunch at one of the villages and then hit the trail again…grudgingly. The down hill hike had worn us out, but we hiked for another 3 hours to get to an oasis in the canyon and to tour through the towns. That night we went to bed just after dinner 7pm.
Next morning we had to hike back out of the canyon so we left at 3 am and wisely hired a mule to bring our bags to the top. Our guide Edison, says he like to leave early so you stay focused on the steps in front of you and don’t keep looking up at the overwhelming task at hand(thanks for letting be borrow the head lamp Dad). We got out of the canyon in time to catch the 7am bus and see the Peruvian Condors. They are a close cousin of the California Condors, huge graceful birds. Then we settled in for a long bus ride back to the city with the only highlight being that we travelled over a high pass of about 16500 feet on the road, the diesel bus was not doing so well up there. We got back to town checked into the same hotel, and went to dinner and Internet. Tomorrow we will be meeting the Peruvian women again and will tour with them then take a late bus to Puno, the city on the shores of Lake Tittychaka (did I spell that wrong?). Any way it is just fun to say...
Posted by DaveDTC at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)
Notes from Peru II
Hello from Cusco Peru!
Since my last notes we have done a lot...
We spent the day with the three Peruvian women. We met them at an alpaca wool sale that only happens once a year and then went to their houses. I was surprised by the amount of hardwoods used in the houses. After that we went to lunch at a very nice cafe. I think that they think that we like to live large based on the places they choose for us to eat. We spent the rest of the evening with them before we had to catch a bus. The last place we were with them was an Irish pub directly across the alley way from the back entrance to the main catholic church. We reluctantly left for our bus at 9:00pm and said goodbye to the girls.
The bus ride sucked and we arrived in Puno on the shores of lake Titikaka at 3:00 am and got a hotel for the rest of the night. First thing in the morning we booked a tour to a pre-Inca ceremonial grave site about an hour taxi ride from Puno. We passed sever small town mostly make of mud brick and either tin or thatch roofs. I continue to be amazed at how populated the countryside is. It seems that there are mud huts and small towns every few miles. There are always locals walking along the road side; the women are dressed with dirty dresses and always have a blanket with a bundle of stuff or a baby on their backs; they also have almost without exception a bowler hat that is way to small.
When we arrived at the site it was not very exciting so since it was located on a small lake we decided to fish for a while. On our return trip one of the main towns we had passed through before was very alive with calibrations of their labor day. The main and only through street of the town was totally blocked bay a parade that stretched the entire length of the town. All the towns people and it looked like all the people from the surrounding communities had converged and were dressed in their Sunday best. We spent a short time with them before we decided to go. It took us about 30 minutes to get past the town that we drove through in less the 30 seconds before.
When we got back we had lunch the took a tour to the Uros, the famous floating islands of Lago Titikaka. I did not know what to expect, but I was very surprised by what I saw. These islands are made of reeds, lots of reeds. They are about 6 feet thick and range in size from the size of 1/2 a basketball court to the size of a football field! They are constantly adding reeds to the top to replenish the reeds that decay and fall to the bottom of the lake. There are over 1500 people living on the islands with some fairly large structures. There are several schools, and enough huts to support the entire population. We visited just of couple of the islands and took a boat made of reeds to go between them.
One of the islands we visited was primarily residences, but they had a large area set aside for a volleyball court, and they were pretty good! We were free to walk around anywhere on the islands and you could find thin spots if you looked. We stayed on the islands for only a few hours then hopped our boat back to Puno. We had dinner then hopped another crappy bus for Cusco.
Cusco is the backpacker hub of Peru and the base city for Machupicchu. Since we arrived early in the morning(4am) we booked a hotel and slept in a bit. We spent several hours finding and booking our tour to the ruins, then spent the rest of the day wondering around the city. We had to be up early for the 4 hour train ride to get to the town at the bottom of the canyon below Machupicchu. We wanted to trek into the ruins but there was a new regulation enacted 2 days before we arrived that prohibited more then 500 people from being on the trail at any one time, so the soonest booking we could find put us past our departure date. So we had a one day pass and got a train and bus ride to the ruins.
When we arrived the sun was out and it was an amazing site. I got separated from Guan and David due to us all wandering in different directions. You could pretty much go wherever you wanted. I walked up the Inca trail for about 30 minutes to get a better view of the whole area. The Inca Trail is a trail the is about 6 feet wide paved in rocks; where it was steep, very well made stairs were either carved in the bedrock or made with large similar rocks. In many places along the trail and around the ruins one miss step would resulted in a fall of several thousand feet.
I finally met up with Guan and Dave again about 3 hours later at the top of the mountain that is in all the pictures you have seen of the ruins. That was an amazingly steep trail; for the most part the clime was about a 60% grade. We spent some time up there enjoying the views and met several other Americans there (there are not many Americans in Peru, up to this point we had only ran into 3 others including the ambassador). I took about 70 photos in all of the ruins.
Just before we had to leave a short light rain came through and produced an intense rainbow that sprang off the top of the ruins and dropped deep into the canyon. It was a good ay to finish our time at the ruins. We got in late last night and had a quick dinner then I hit the hay. Today we slept in until 7:30 then had a quick breakfast and got on a mini-bus (mini-van with 15 cramped seats) and headed out into rural Peru. Our destination today was a river about 3 hours from Cusco. We went rafting on a class 3-4 river for the day.
The day went pretty smooth with only one moment of high adrenalin. If any of you have rafted before you know it is not a good sign when the guide yells "Rock side left, Rock side right, Rock side left....!!!) We were in the middle of a class 4 and got stuck in a spinning torrent of white water and nearly flipped the boat 4 or 5 times! We were stuck in it for about 45 seconds, but it seamed much longer. When we got to the bottom of that rapid set the guide apologized to me for that, and I replied "That was great! Are we gong to have any other opportunities to do that?" At the end of the day we all had a great time and the mini-bus ride back to Cusco was not too bad because of the incredible views along the way.
I still was just amazed by the amount of terracing of the mountains all through Peru. It seems that no hill or mountain is missed no matter how steep it is. We decided to eat cheap for dinner to night and found a street vender selling fresh skewers of meat with a potato on the end of each. Dinner set us back about a dollar. After that we wondered into an area that is very populated but totally void of tourists and had desert at an apparent local favorite. They were surprised to see us and excited at the same time. It was a good way to end a spectacular day.
Until next time...
Posted by DaveDTC at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
Final Notes from Peru
Hello,
Our trip definitely began to wind down the last few days in Peru. The day after the white water rafting, we went horseback riding in the mountains above Cusco. The horses were for the most part very stubborn and would not follow commands from the riders. Dave’s horse was particularly rude and made sure Dave knew who was in charge: the horse! When ever Dave attempted to mount the horse it would kick at him and physically attack him. Dave can still move fast when he wants too… After most of the day, Dave and I traded horses and the horse was much more amiable to me.
We had a guide for the day that took us on a tour of several Inca ruins around the hills above the city. The best part about the ride was the wonderful blue skies and the incredible views of the city and the sculpted hillsides. We walked back to the city from the ranch and had a late lunch at which point a cold that was threatening me all day hit me full force and I wanted nothing more then to go back to the hotel and take a nap.
Three hours later I awoke and only Gaung was around, David had gone off to do some exploring of the city. Guang and I set out to get a small late dinner and as usual were attacked by a hoard of street venders trying to get us to eat at their restraints, use their tourist services, buy their finger puppets, cigarettes, candy, and trinkets. We eluded them and had a skewer at the same place we ate at the night before. For desert I had a chocolate bar and finally a 15 year old kid selling postcards succeed in his attack. We wound up taking him to dinner at a restaurant off the beaten path.
We learned a lot about the school system, and the different hats that the women of Peru sport. Apparently you can tell what region a women is from by the type of hat that she has. The next morning we got a late start, which was good because I had a head cold that was slowing me down and David managed to get some sort of a bug and had him praying to the porcelain god.
For the day we hired a taxi to take us to a near by valley were there were some hot springs. When we arrived we were the only ones at the hot springs and got right into the big pool. The water was not hot, but it did not have the familiar sulfur smell I usually associate with hot springs either. The water did in fact have an unusual amount of iron in it though, which gave it a strong red tint. Two hours in the soothing warts rejuvenated both Dave and I quite a bit. On the way back we stopped at a small town for lunch and ate fresh trout at place that had some real flare. The trout was probably the best that I have ever had, and the entertainment of the old Peruvian restaurateur battling it out with the local dogs armed with a spray bottle, made for a memorable experience.
The next morning we had hired a taxi driver to take us fishing to a local river about 90 minutes outside of Cusco, but apparently 4:30 was a bit too early that day and he never showed. So we went back to bed and slept in.
This was our last day in Cusco before the journey home started so we set out to the main food market to get some fruit. This time we explored the whole market and found that you could buy anything from fruit to frogs to caterpillars to beef shouts. We debated as to whether or not to get lunch at one of the many venders selling hot meals but decided against it on the grounds that we did not want to significantly boost Imodium AD’s year end results.
That afternoon, we hopped a plane back to Lima and were met at the airport by Lenino. He informed us that his mother had a meal ready for us back at the house. It started with a large plate of civeche and finished with an even larger plate of beans rice and chicken. After the early dinner Leneno took us on a quick tour of the city of Lima. There was not too much of interest to mention except for a vista that overlooked the city from about 1000 feet up, and a walkway beside the Lima River where there was a small market and venders selling a variety of fresh pastries made while you watch, and several small arenas where performers entertained crowds of people.
The next morning Guang and David had to catch their flight back to the states. I had a late afternoon departure so Leneno and I went out to do some last minute shopping and get some take home for lunch. It was Mother’s Day, and Lenino did not his mom to cook at all. We got a traditional Peruvian seafood lunch that was absolutely wonderful. When it was time for me to leave, the family and I loaded into Leneno’s VW Golf and headed to the airport where we said our goodbyes. Well that just about raps it up.
I hope you enjoyed my Notes From The Road!
Posted by DaveDTC at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)