Hey, It's Only an Hour Hike

¡Hola familia y amigos!

We made it to Machu Picchu!

We started our trip with an early rise  (7:00am is pretty early for us now) in order to catch our van up to Hydroelectrica, the point where we start our hike into Aguas Calientes.

The decision for the bus trip came down to expenses. While taking a train costs upwards of $120.00 US one way, the bus option was an affordable $87.00 roundtrip, with three meals, a hotel, and the park entrance included! Talk about thrift shopping! The only, minor catch was that we needed to put in some leg work hiking to and from locations. We have been hiking for the past three months, so we figured this wouldn't be too much of an issue...

After a ride through the Sacred Valley we began to ascend the mountain. The twists and turns were terrifying. Other trucks would pass us at break neck speeds with only inches to spare. If that wasn't enough, we also had to pass through dozens of water hazards.

At the beginning of the drive into the mountains (before I was terrified) I noticed beautiful waterfalls that were cascading down in the distance. As we got further up in altitude, the waterfalls became closer, until finally they were literally right next to the road and would spill onto the path! Sometimes we would slow down to cross the stream in the middle of the road, and sometimes we would not and just hydroplane a little...

About the time I started ignoring the views (and the drops) and started reading my book was when we crossed the most sketchy bridge I have seen a vehicle safely pass over. It appeared to be a series of wooden planks, really really thin planks, and gave us about half a foot clearance on either side of the van when we crossed. A hush fell over the occupants of the van, and I was not the only one to look away from the window as we cheated death. After the bridge, we had about an hour or so left of the trek, but on unpaved roads. Yikes!

Thankfully we made it to Hydroelectrica in one piece. If you haven't guessed it already, Hydroeletrica is just a huge hydroelectric damn that is a landmark for the start of a three-hour trail to Aguas Calientes (the town directly below Machu Picchu). The trail itself was pretty flat, but for the most part it was essentially a railroad track. Dozens of hikers, including us, stomped along the rocky tracks amongst signs warning travelers that walking on the tracks was extremely dangerous. To save about $70.00 roundtrip, we braved the 'trail'.

We got to Aguas Calientes in the evening, and after a quick dinner and a drink or two, we headed to bed so we could get an early start at 4:30 in the morning.

Our guide mentioned that our hike from Aguas Calientes to the entrance of Machu Picchu would take about an hour. After hitting the snooze button a few times we finally made it out of the door at 5:20, giving us seventy minutes to meet our guide and group at the entrance. We vastly underestimated the hike.

Starting at 1800m (about 5,400ft) we hiked to the entrance at 3100m (about 9,300ft). Yes, we hiked about 4,000ft up a mountain in an hour. Exhausted doesn't begin to describe how we felt once we reached the top. And then we had our whole tour of Machu Picchu itself!

The sights of Machu Picchu quickly dissolved our weariness as we walked around the ancient site. Between the ruins, the views, and the misty fog that mysteriously lay over sections of the park, it is hard to describe how impressive Machu Picchu is. So I refer you to the pictures so you can glimpse what we experienced.

After a couple more hikes in the park proper, we were running out of time and needed to high tail it out of the mountain if we were to get back to Hydroelectrica in time. The hike back took us about 3 hours, and after a full day of trekking  (our step counter put us at just under 20 miles) we were utterly spent and significantly dehydrated. We tumbled into the van and unsuccessfully tried to snooze in the cumbersome, uncomfortable seats.

It was the mix of dehydration and lack of sleep that caused me to have a massive migraine halfway down the twists and turns of the mountain. The culmination of which had me with my head out of the window of the van while it was in motion and vomiting what little water I had left in my body. Yuck.

Machu Picchu was magnificent, but it definitely took its toll on me and my lack or preparedness in regards to hydration.

One good night's rest, and we both felt better. Our next destination is to leave Cusco and head into our fourth and last country of our journey, Chile!

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for our Chilean adventure!

-Rob

Hey, Sexy woman

Actually, it's not what you think...

 We arrived in Cusco just in time for holy week celebrations. We stayed at The Point Hostal located about three blocks off of the main square. This hostel, like many others in the area, created a chain based off of backpacker inclinations toward a party. Unlucky for me, the guy in the bunk above me was one of those partiers. He would sleep all day and come in as a wrecking ball at five or six in the morning. Once, he brought a lady home... ear plugs don't stop the shaking... I assume he was vigorously  praying with her.

The Horny Llama is both The Point Hostal's bar and restaurant with American  priced food and drinks so we stayed away in the evenings. The breakfast consisted of bread jam and butter, but better yet, drip coffee! We've had so many conversations about the instant coffee crap South Americans give to unexpecting Americans with a cup of hot water--they grow it here, but they don't drink it here. 

Anyway, Cusco has hundreds of ruins surrounding it and dotting the sacred valley. A tourist ticket will set you back 40 bucks (130 soles) but is good at 16 museums and archeological sites so well worth it if you've got a couple days.

Being that we wanted to see the holy week festivals, we chose the ticket good at a few of the sites. Which brings me to sexy woman--

Sacsaywaman (pronounced kinda like Sexy Woman) is an impressive facility on a hill behind the city. There you can truly feel the importance that Cusco once had for the Inca people. The ruin itself is in ruins, yuck yuck, but the stones are colossal for what remains. Blocks weighing 120 tons were not only moved, but were also lifted into place. Per usual for the Incas, the seams of the rocks are so tight that a piece of paper couldn't slip between.

Three other sites followed. First, a fifteen min walk from Sacsaywaman lays a terrific rock fort that would have been the ultimate playground for a young Inca due to the stairs on top and the caves beneith, yet Q'enqo was  designed for religious purposes. Last time I was in Cusco they let you on top, but this time they'd closed it off so goofy tourists like us don't go running around them up and down stairs and potentially  fall off.

Senior del Huerto bus company drives right past Q'enqo up toward Pisac every few minutes. We hopped aboard and 15 minutes later we were at Puka Pukara, our second site of the day. This one stands high over a valley like a castle. Its main purpose was to guard an important road into Cusco and to ward off any trouble before it got to the Inca capital. I read the blocks are not the perfectly fitted ones you see in other ruins because it was constructed hastily toward the end of the empire.

Finally, we walked the short distance down the road to Tambomachay. A couple hundred yards off the road lays this temple dedicated to water. It may have served as a spa for the kingdom with its many water features. We were excited to see the path to the site was lined with the same trees we saw in the magical forest of Cajas National Park in Ecuador. The aqueducts built by the Incas still function today to feed these truly unique trees. Ironically, the only water features we've seen working in pools, parks, etc have been the ones built 600+ years ago. The ones built recently are broken.

 I recalled that Cusco was a lively city always willing to through down for festivals. Easter week the city's biggest series of festivals of the year. I lost count of churches we visited on the Thursday before Easter when they all open their doors to the public. Their congregations spend an amazing amount of time decorating the altars and preparing their patrons for processions through the street.

Everyone shows up for these processions, excluding the guy sleeping in the bunk above me. The military even took a turn carrying one of the floats, as did the city's firefighters, not to mention the hoards of others who also helped. Each church had a procession and bands were in short supply, so at the conclusion of one the band would tear off to another engagement.

Night after night, the churches brought out different holy relics or they used the same statues with entirely different adornments as the week progressed. The cumulation of the week was on Saturday night when the entire town, except the partier, was quiet. Easter Sunday had two masses, one in Quechua and one in Spanish. Finally, Rob dressed in accordance with the dress code (no shorts or tank tops / girls cannot show knees with their dress) so we could attend mass in Quechua (because it was later). 

We're off tomorrow to Machu Picchu. I'm excited to get back there again (my mom, aunt and uncle went in 2007) This time though, we're going by car instead of the famous IncaTrail I took last time or the super touristy, and super expensive train there.

Hey, Lazy Big Bird

Arequipa is Peru's second city with over a million inhabitants. It is known as the white city not for the abundance of colonial whitewashed houses, but instead for the high concentrations of gringos and expats.

We stayed at the Areqipay Backpacker House on the edge of town. The restored house hosts travelers and offers tours and amusements such as billiards, foosball, two kitchens, two TV rooms, ping pong and many other comfortable lounge areas.

The city's holy week celebrations were in full swing. Thousands of people attended processions throughout town. They followed their patron saint their churches Virgen, or their Señior as the bearers swayed like elephants in unison to move the altars through the streets. Often they'd stop for a breather and for other members of the congregation to replace them. The churches adorned the altars with lights, impressive bouquet of flowers, fruits, and the heavy statues and carried them on their backs. Some were dressed in cloaks according to tradition and others were regiments of only women.

Arequipa prides itself for being a progressive melting ground for cultures and the food may have driven this melding more so than any other factor. Picanterias are traditional restaurants where they'll seat all tables with multiple families, you never eat alone and there is no concept  of "your" table. They are good, very good,  and everybody knows this so rich or poor, brown or white you go and find the food as your invitation to break down stigmas. Picanterias are only open for lunch, which ironically was the perfect  time for their slightly bitter winelike chicha fermented corn drink. What better way to go back to work than after a few jugs of this amazing beverage? 

We were on a mission to find the regional dish Rocoto Relleno which is a stuffed pepper served with a potato casserole. Inside it's got all the goods: steak, rice, hard boiled egg pieces, raisins, peppers, olives, onion salsa and of course cheese. This dish single-handedly reversed my feelings that all South American food is bland, fried and tasteless. This, in one word, was delicious.

A few hours outside of the city is the Colca Canyon which is known for its impressive depth (twice as deep as the grand canyon). The canyons air currents are perfect for the 9 feet wingspan of the lazy Andean condor. I say lazy because they don't  fly, they glide and they don't hunt they scavenge.  The canyon itself I found beautiful, but I must say, it's not really a canyon and it is more of a steep-sided valley between two colossal mountains. I think Arizona and Utah have it beat hands down in beauty.

On the trip to the canyon we stopped at several towns for dreaded tourist breaks. One stop was particularly interesting because in the distance a volcano was spewing smoke high into the sky which made me realize how fragile Arequipa was.

Looming at 6800 meters high, the snow-capped Misty volcano is only 18 miles away from the city. If it blew up the city would be gone in an instant. The Incas knew that their lives rested on the fury of this snowcapped neighbor. In 1995, by accident, a mummy was discovered in an area exposed due to ice melt on a particularly bad El Niño year. Juanita was the first of four perfectly preserved mummies found on the mountain as offerings. The city has a museum with her or one of the others on display in a freezer. She was 15 when taken to the mountain by foot, and on her own will, to be sacrificed. She and the others knew of their fate since birth. 

Hey, Aliens

¡Hola familia y amigos!

After sandboarding in Huacachina, we bolted further south to Peru's second largest city, Arequipa.

However, before we could leave the area we were in we made a quick stop in Ica to go to a pisco distillery. Pisco is Peru's national drink and it is essentially fermented grape skins. The area of Ica is renowned for their Pisco, and since tours are free we went to check out the process and sample some pisco.

The distillery was pretty standard. They had a stomping station  (think wine stomping) that lead to several steps before finally being placed into a large concrete cube for fermentation. Since the pisco and wine making processes are similar, we also got a glimpse into that as well!

The best part of the tour was the sampling station. We tried four different types of pisco (distinguished by the grapes used) and they even had a pisco cream similar to Bailey's. Next came the wine, which were tasty but very, very sweet. We ended up springing for a bottle of wine, but unfortunately, have been unable to open due to our lack of a corkscrew...

Feeling slightly tipsy we hopped on a bus to our next stop, Nazca.

If you have been following, you know that we have had peculiar bus issues on this trip. While the trip to Nazca was blessedly uneventful, it was very cramped. With our knees digging into the seats in front of us, and elbows jabbing one another in the stomach we rode three hours in a bus with literally no space inside for two, normal sized Americans. We always knew that Peruvians were a small people, but this was our first experience trying to physically compact ourselves to mimic them.

Brandt expertly spotted our stop outside of the town of Nazca where we could see the famous Nazca Lines! The Nazca Lines are a series of giant geometric and swirled shapes made in the sand. The precision of the lines, as well as the mystery behind their purpose, has spurred many alien theories. While we didn't find any aliens, we did see a few of the shapes on the viewing tower.

After we had our fill of the Lines, we caught a bus into Nazca proper and booked a night bus to Arequipa. We spent the next several hours before our departure touring some of the ruins surrounding Nazca. From adobe walls to Incan spiraled wells, we found Naza pleasantly interesting.

As the day ended we grabbed a quick dinner then hopped onto the bus headed for Arequipa!

Stay tuned for more adventures, and as always thank you for reading.

-Rob

Hey, Oasis

So Rob is being a good boy and working on his online job editing papers, so I am hijacking his post.

We left Lima in search of a Pisco sour in Pisco, however, we found out in route that the majority of Pisco comes from Ica, so we went there instead. I am glad we did because the sight of Pisco was quite rough from the bus as we passed it.

We heard of a town just outside Ica called Huacachina. Only one road goes there and towering dunes surround 350° of the town. Traditionally a Malecon is a sea boardwalk, but here the boardwalk partially surrounds a lake and palm beaches finish the way around. The curative properties of this desert oasis are sought after as a perfect escape from the heat of Ica.

The first night we attended a BBQ at a nearby hostel and danced the night away until the early morning. Without much sleep, we climbed the 1500 foot dune out of the back door of our hostel. The climb was a mixture of steps forward and subsequent sliding backwards, but nevertheless, we made it to the peak before sunrise.

Dunes for miles...we couldn't see the end of them. Once again my perfect planning left my cell phone dead in my pocket and my other camera back in the hostel. The day immediately started heating up so we raced straight down the dune at a full sprint. The dune cushions every step making it nearly impossible to fall.

Upon return to the hostel El Bolevard I emptied my pockets of the handfuls of sand, my dead phone, and other effects, yet something was missing.  Of course, the key to my locker at the hostel was a splendid donation to the dune. I slumped into bed....that's tomorrow's problem.

We awoke a few hours later and found the dude to open my locker. We walked to Desert Nights hostel for some killer chicken wings--ended up booking a dune buggy tour too.

My heart raced as I boarded the iron skeleton go-cart. I imagined we were in for the best roller coaster of our lives, and as it turns out, I was right. Full throttle the driver would bank, skim, burnt-out, skid, and jump through the dunes.

The driver stopped on a dune with the back wheels teetering on the ridge. He told us to get out, he went to the trunk and pulled out some sandboards. I grabbed the first one he waxed, plopped on my belly and tobogganed to the bottom. The others followed  suit. The driver scooped us up, turned and smiled asking one question "more  big?" We all screamed yes. He raced to another location and let us out again. One at a time we went with the excitement pulsing through the group. Again  the driver smiled and asked "more big?" He took us to the final location a 1000 foot dizzying hill that looked impossible. We went slowly one at a time because after each person went, they laid in the lane pondering how they didn't die for several seconds before clearing out so another person could go. Seriously it was the best 15.00 I've ever spent, for two hours...

The morning of our final day our goal was a vineyard. Ica produces both wine and Pisco. We hired a cab for the day to take us out to the famous vineyards that produce my favorite frozen beverage. They took us on a free tour where we saw the process of the stomp, the initial fermentation, and the final distillation using a fire burning still.