Hey, We're headed back north

Having traveled north to south on the Pacific coast of the continent, we begin a mad dash back North to catch our flight home from Bogota. Our first step was exiting Chile which means we must say goodbye to toilet seats, soap in bathrooms, printing our own produce labels, and high cost of living.

We flew back from Puente Arenas to Santiago after searching the city for a car wash that was open on a rainy day. Why you ask? After the long trip to the national park we'd caked on some crazy mud and we needed to get rid of the evidence that we'd probably not been their ideal customers. Plus, the rental company has a 45 dollar cleaning fee that also applies to getting the car washed.

We only had about ten hours in Santiago before we were again headed north. Courtesy of my former position the Holiday Inn Airport hotel was affordable and extremely convenient because it's right in front of the terminal.

Once again Sky airlines came through with an amazing deal. A bus to the Peru boarder from Santiago takes approximately thirty straight hours and runs about 45 dollars. Our flight took two and a half hours and cost 30 bucks plus tax. Clearly it was worth every dollar to spring for the flight to Arica and the bus across the boarder back to Tacna and onward to Ariquipa. Yes, to a certain  extent we're being guided by our stomachs. That Ricotto Relleno at La Mundial is so good that we've based our entire journey back north around a pit stop in Arequipa 😎.

Mondays mean chacque in the restaurants. This weird soup consists of a huge hunk of lamb, entrails, pumpkin and potatoes. Remarkably the resulting mixture was delicious, once you get over the chewy texture of the intestines. The bowls are brimming with a bountiful array of spices and just the perfect level of spicy. Rob made the mistake of taking a bite out of one of the chilis, and he quickly downed the rest of the chicha to put out the fire.

Back to the market we went for our nightly meals and even braved eating at one of the local restaurant stalls in the midst of all the bustling. These ladies mean business and they are quite cut throat with how they pull in new business. The server is tasked with herding business onto the sushi bar style stools in front of the chef. Rarely do you see a menu and often just point to what you want. You cant go wrong, they all have the same food.

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, My vacation's in ruins!

Franciso Pizarro found his favorite city in the midst of a barren and sand dune ridden desert.  He founded the town of Trujillo because he enjoyed the access it gave his troops to the supply lines of the Andes and the food.  We stayed at the Strenua- Las Quintanas a nondescript lovely place ten minutes out of the center of the Historic center.   Trujillo was the logical next stop for us on our journey to avoid a ridiculously long bus ride to Lima.

The city is beautiful despite being destroyed completely multiple times due to earthquakes and fires.  They have restored the colonial charm and polished the main square to gleam in the sunlight.  It is a nice departure from the often rubbish ridden city squares that we've seen in the other cities. The beach (2.5 miles from the center), on the other hand, was complete crap.

Rob was certain that the city would be nothing other than a stopover, but I had been doing my reading and found that this area has historically been an important trade center for seven different cultures over the past three thousand years.

I Suggested we hop in a cab 10k to the north of the city to the ruins of Chan Chan. The complex of Chan Chan is 15 acres today, and once was much larger when it was the capital city of the Moche culture.  The entire city is made of adobe which makes it the largest adobe structure in the world, by a lot. Regrettably El Nino is visibly affecting the complex and slowly melting the walls back into the sand. Adobe was the perfect construction material for this arid region but has recently seen unusual rainfall due to the phenomenon.

The walls are still strong; they are 30 feet tall in some areas and 10 feet thick. UNESCO has declared the area a world heritage site which allows it access to funding for roofing and some reconstruction. The Incas brought the proud Chamu to submission not by breaching the walls, but instead,  by cutting off water to the city by diverting an entire river.

After lunch, sunscreen and air conditioning we went 13km south of the city for more ruins I had read about. Huacas del Luna y Sol were built by the Moche for religious ceremonies. The Huacas are really just huge mountains built by millions of bricks.  The weather has also started to melt these structures. They once stood tall in the desert with a plaster facade that was neatly decorated.  Dunes protected the facade from the elements as they piled up and slowly covered and hid the frescos.  The restoration has started removing the dunes and once again exposing the magnificently colored and detailed reliefs.