I bet you all have been anxiously awaiting this new entry (wink, wink). so, we arrived in Lima at about 6 in the morning, tired and cranky. It didn't help us any that the hotel wouldn't let us into a room without a voucher that Tucan travel was supposed to have given us, but that we couldn't find. After rechecking our emails, we found the voucher and were allowed to rest. I desperately wanted a shower, being on a smelly bus for 10 hours will do that to you. After i had gotten everything ready for the shower and was about to turn the water on, i realized that the lights didn't work. i guess i should have suspected something when we walked down the half lit hallway and our room happened to been right at the start of the darkened half. Needless to say, i didn't feel like trying to find my shampoo in the dark, so we called down to reception who sent up a porter that messed around with the circuit breakers for a bit before saying, "un momento" and scurrying away. robby and i waited in the doorway until he can back with a smaller guy who effectively turned on the hall lights and every other light in the place, but not our room. i think it was the tiredness that made the situation that much more entertaining. The poor porter would flip a switch and yell to us, "lampo?" and we'd say, "nope." eventually the front desk asked us if we would like to switch rooms and i said , "yes, unless you have some candles."
Refreshed by a hot shower and a little nap, robby and i went to wander the city again. i really wanted to find Arroz con Leche which is like a rice puddling, but i took a wrong turn somewhere and couldn't find the place Oriana had taken us to the last time we were in Lima. we ended up at a bakery where you ate on top of the pastry counter. very odd. Of course i wasn't satisfied with a small empanada, so we munched on some churrios from a street vender and eventually found a small food stand inside the central market that sold sandwiches. the central market is the place where all the Peruvians buy their good. it's stocked with aisles of toiletries, bags of grains, rows of hanging animal flesh (that really stink and make me want to permanently become a vegetarian), and numerous other goods. our food stand was a small square with three stools on two of the sides and two people behind the counter making drinks and sandwiches. it's the kind of place that most Gringos would steer clear of for fear of bad bowel syndrome. But not Robby and I. It said 1 Sol hot chocolate and we were sold. i got the sandwich as a side note after spotting it in the hands of my seat mate who was very sweet and a little entertainment by the fact that two white girls had sat down next to her. the hot chocolate turned out to be the best we'd get in Peru and the cheapest.
At 4pm we waited in the lobby of the hotel to meet the rest of the Tucan Travel group that we would be with for the remainder of our journey through Peru. It turned out that there were only 8 of us staying in Lima and that we would meet the rest of the group when we flew to Puerto Maldanado the following day. Miriam, the local tour guide, took us, the 5 Brits (Ana, Lauren, Andrew, Claire, and Sarah), and Hien (The Vietamese Aussie) on a tour of Downtown Lima (most of the places that we had already been, but whatever) showing us the sights. We ended up walking through The Wall Park which has a piece of the wall that used to surround the rich section of Lima about 60 years ago. One King built it and then another ordered it destroyed, but the destroyer was lazy and decided to only tear down 90% of the wall, therefore leaving the part in the park. The Peruvian King wasn't happy at first, but now Peruvians are happy because they have a piece of their history still around.
There was a small carnival happening at the park and i found my Arroz con Leche, which made me extremely happy. i tried get the others to eat some, but they looked scared. Afterall it was their first time in Peru and some of their first times ever traveling and they were sketchy about eating things from venders off the streets. Robby and i don't care anymore. if the locals can eat it, then so can we. if we're going to get sick so be it. so far the only food that has made us sick had been the tourist restaurant food. at the carnival there was also two small (about the size of a large hamster) fuzzy blobs moving about in the distance. one had on a sweater that was way too large for it. i made everyone go see what they were. they were the cutest, smallest puppies i'd ever seen. one looked like a pint size Chow. it just sat on the ground and stared at you like you were an alien, while the other one resembled a mini guerrilla because it had a smushed nose and walked all bone legged. it was the cutest thing. we wanted to keep them, but their 7 year old owner was having none of that.
Our tour ended at a semi expensive (for Peru) restaurant. Apparently our tour would only be going to medium-high priced touristy restaurants and if Robby and i wanted to keep eating cheaply we were going to be eating by ourselves. so it was camaraderie or cheap. we chose to go with the group. I forgot that earlier on the tour we spotted Pervian doughnuts and as we were waiting for them to cook, one of the chefs decided he wanted to show us a church he looked after. it happened to be a burnt and broken down church that i found very gothic and a great place to film a scary religious movie. they had a door to the catacombs and a path that lead all the way into parliament. it was very cool.
We arrived in the lobby at six thirty in the morning the following day to catch our 8 thirty flight to the Amazon. Miriam said that the bus would be arriving then to take us to the airport, but as seven thirty rolled around all of us started to get a little antsy. we had at least a 20 minute drive and then the line to check our luggage and to pay the airport tax before boarding the plane. at ten to 8 we found out that the taxi driver had a family emergency and so they would be sending a new taxi as soon as they could. we got to the airport at 8:15am and did the whole Home Alone thing of running through the terminal going, "hold the plane!". But first we were refused access to the bag check and had to carry on all our huge backpacking backpacks that would have not been a problem had most of us not had knives on us. the security people confiscated all of them and dropped them into a giant glass box piled halfway full of knives, scissors, nail clippers, etc. it was a little sad and upsetting, but we managed to make our flight, stuffing our backpacks into the overhead bins with the help of other passengers and snickering laughs.
We briefly landed in Cusco to pick up the rest of our group and some other passengers before continuing on to the jungle. both flights lasted a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes. Once off the plane we all met everyone else from the trip. There were about 9 others that had all been traveling lower Peru together for the last week. They all seemed to be a nice big family and now us 8 had to infiltrate their little clique. It turned out not to be too hard. everyone was extremely nice. There were two older Canadian couples- Joyce and Gary and Joan and Dale, the late 20's Aussie couple- Neil and Alexi, the Kiwi Jamie, the Brit Ian, and the Canadian Maureen. Our tour leader was Paul.
We were all stuffed into a mini bus by the Amazon tour guides, Two young ladies, Natalia and Erika, who gave us some background information on the jungle and the city of Puerto Maldanado. Puerto Maldanado is a small city where many people live out in the boonies and work off the land. It's on the cusp of the Jungle and the farther you venture into the jungle the less people, electricity and normal amenities you'll find. The town is the main place to buy and sell vegetables, spices, household items. The main transportation is motorbikes. there were so many that it puts Sturgis to shame.
First stop on the tour was the Guides office in town. The 8 of us from Lima had to ditch our big backpacks and only take with us a small daypack because we would be going on a boat to the campsite and it couldn't carry much. Since robby and i didn't know that we would be needing a small overnight bag for a lot of the Tucan Tour places, we ended up becoming the "bag ladies" and using shopping bags from the local market. It looked a little silly, but did the trick. Natalia and Erika broke us up into two groups and took us around the local market pointing out their native fruits- a papaya thing that tastes like semi sweet water, and various nuts and grains. Robby and i ended up purchasing a huge container of candy coated Brazil nuts for 4 Sols (about 1.2$). great deal. After everyone had stocked up on goodies for the hour and a half bus ride through the jungle and then an hour and a half boat ride to the nature reserve we would be camping at, we loaded back on the bus and started our journey.
The Amazon is totally not what i expected. When i think jungle, i think monkey's swinging from vines, Tarzan, wild animals scurrying about, thick brush... but this part of the jungle looks like a bunch of random trees and bushes that don't seem to fit together all growing wildly for 100's of miles. most of the trees were brownish, like the last of the summer season. i wanted to take photos, but everything seemed so ugly that i couldn't find the right shot. a little disappointing, but all was made up for in the day to come. The bus parked at the edge of a river where all of us loaded into a long canoe like boat with an awning. It was a little cozy, but very relaxing.
Once at the camp, we had to hike up a small, but steep hill that opened to a grassy null surrounded by a series of wooden cabins. We were all lead into the dinning cabin for a welcome drink of the nasty local papaya fruit and an introduction to the camp. We were staying in a nature reserve where we would go on a few hikes and learn about the animals. there was no electricity, so we got to walk around with flashlights and candles. There were mosquito nets in all the rooms, so we would be ok as long as we put on bug spray and slept in the nets.
Erika said that we would all be going on a night walk to see what nocturnal creatures we could find in the jungle and if we hurried getting settled into our cabins, we could watch the sunset at one of the lookout points. We were given our cabin keys and set out to inspect our new home. The cabins were a wooden buildings consisting of four side-by-side 2-3 bed rooms. Robby and I got the corner room, but it didn’t really matter as the building was made from logs tied side by side and so you could hear everything in and out of the rooms and see some things through the cracks in the logs. Very rustic, but definitely not for the people wanting privacy.
Everyone met back up at the dinning room after 20 minutes to begin the 5 min walk to the edge of the cliff. We arrived just as the sun was descending behind a small hill. Since there isn’t much pollution in the Jungle, the colors of the sky weren’t too fantastic, but the fact that I was watching the sun disappear around a bend in the river with a caiman (small alligator animal) chilling on a rock and monkey’s swinging through the trees behind me, kind of made up for the lack of colors. I was in the Jungle…the Amazon jungle!
When the last of the sun could be seen, we divided into three groups of 6. Robby, Ian, Paul, Hien, Maureen, and me wandered into the unknown with Natalia. We were on the lookout for spiders, frogs, creepy crawlies, monkeys, tapins, and anything else that might happen to cross our path. Natalia had grown up in the Amazon and so she knew the sounds of numerous creatures and where to find them. We saw a bunch of spiders, including very colorful ones. It’s said that the more colorful an animal, the more dangerous. The color is to attract prey and then when it comes close, the predator strikes. We spotted a lime green spider blending in to a green leaf. Very pretty, but I wasn’t going to get too close.
Our favorite find in the Jungle was little froggy’s that like to hide in the km marking poles. The poles stuck into the ground and had a round opening of 1/2 inch across. We would shine our flashlights into the opening and two large eyes would stare back. We found a pole that had two little froggy’s in it. I don’t know how they found it comfortable to squish on top of each other, but they didn’t seem bothered.
Natalia also thought it wise to inform us about the giant black ants that are worse than army ants and about an inch long. She said that if one of these suckers bites you it is an intense pain that can lead to temporary paralysis and a huge welt. I tucked my pant legs into my socks and found myself countlessly shining my flashlight up and down my legs looking for any unwanted visitors. I had a small scare with a giant flying something or other, but it was quickly flung into the oblivion.
We ended our night hike an hour or so later and went to have a Jungle feast. I have to say that the Jungle food was one of the best dishes I’d had this whole trip, but that could be because I’d had chicken and French fries for the past 9 days. There was soup, then a main dish and then desert – fruit salad. Of course the nasty papaya thing was included, so I decided I didn’t need desert. Everyone talked about the animals that they all got to see in the jungle. One group waited for a tarantula to emerge from it’s webby home. She did, along with a few of her babies. I would have loved to have seen that as I like larger spiders, but I got to see the little froggy’s and they didn’t. We all talked for another 1/2 hour before retiring back to our cabins. We had to get up at 4:30am to start a 5km nature hike to a Lake. I tucked myself into the mosquito net, trying to get it securely under me, before drifting off.
4:30am came too soon, but I doubt I would have been able to sleep any longer as a whooping monkey decided to be really chatty around 5am. If I had a sling shot I would have probably tried to kill it. At least there was coffee to settle my nerves a bit and wipe the dew from my eyes. The sun was just coming up and it was a relatively cool out. Robby, Hien, Gary, Joyce, and I ended up being in a group as Erika led us through the trees to the Lake. We spotted tucan (ominous of the trip?) chilling on a tree branch way off into the distance. We all need binoculars to see it, but Erika had managed to spot it without them. She’s definitely a Jungle person. A whole clan of little money’s resembling lemurs jumped across our path. We tried to take a good picture of them, but they stayed just outside my camera’s zoom range. I now have a picture of a Monkey butt, but you have to look closely to see anything other than dense foliage. A Tarpin ran across Erika and my path. It looked like a giant reddish blob.
We were first to arrive at the bird watching cabin set on the lake. We sat and had some snacks that Erika had brought with her. Gary decided that it was more beneficial to feed the piranhas with his crackers than to eat them. He had us throwing in bits and pieces so he could try and snap a picture of the flesh eating fishies, but they were too quick. Up, grab food, and gone again. I found it beneficial to eat my snacks, Robby’s snacks, a granola bar from Hien, and trail mix from Joyce. Apparently that 5 Km walk worked up an appetite in me. Everyone on the tour group teases Ian about eating enough food for 2-3 people, but now I think they are starting to believe he has some serious competition.
We sat and enjoyed the cool breeze and the serene lake for a bit before clamoring into a rickety canoe that was crawling with hidden spiders. As Erika paddled us out into the lake, I fretted about checking how close the spiders were to me. I could see a few crawling around the front of the boat (I was at the back), but for the most part, there weren’t any near me. Now, I don’t mind spiders if they stay to themselves, but I really don’t like the small ones because when they climb on you, you can’t feel them and half the time you can’t see them. I was trying to relax and enjoy the canoe ride, but the spiders had me a little on edge. About two were climbing on Erika, but she just said she didn’t care. I wish I was like her.
We floated close to the shore, checking the trees for birds and the rocks for Caimans. We spotted a couple birds in a tree up ahead, but they took flight as we approached. It could have been Gary and Joyce bickering about who had the best shot or it could be the fact that the ores made noise in the water. But we didn’t have to worry as we came across a tree full of turkey looking birds with yellow peacock looking heads. They just starred at us as we took pictures, to the point of annoyance. We wanted action photos, so we started to yell at them until they flew away. I now have a few ok shots of the in-flight birdies.
The sun was starting to get warmer and the other groups had now joined us at the bird watching post, so we decided to head back to camp. We said bye to the other groups who were now just starting their canoe adventures and ventured into the woods again. Erika was a fast walker, which didn’t bode too well for Joyce and Gary, who wanted to see some of the random insects, but I just wanted to sit in the shade and so I didn’t mind. We made it back to the dinning cabin about an hour before anyone else. We sat and chatted, waiting for the other groups to come back so we could discuss the animals that they saw, but what we didn’t realize is that some of the people had been back for a while and had already taken showers and cleaned up. By lunch time, we were the smelly group of the bunch. Oh well, I had planned on playing soccer with the locals after lunch and so I didn’t really want to take a shower and then get all dirty again anyhow.
After lunch we had about 4 hours of free time. The locals wouldn’t be available to play soccer until four, so that left me 2 1/2 hours to reads or rest. I managed a small nap before coming outside to chill with Jamie and Hien. I felt really clammy, so I ended up taking a shower and by the time the guys started to play soccer, I didn’t really want to. I felt clean and content. It wasn’t until everyone I passed said, “hey, I thought you were going to play soccer?” that I decided I had to. I had put up such a stink about it, I now had to follow through.
Robby and Hien decided to join me. We walked out onto the field and were joined my three of the locals. It was a three on three game for a while. Robby, Hien and a local VS me and 2 locals. They decided to play full field instead of half, so by 5 minutes in I was very tired and my clean shirt wasn’t so clean anymore. Sara came out and played for about 8 minutes after Hien mysterious left the field. Our game last about 20 minutes with all the girls scoring a goal and everyone in camp cheering us on. Joan said that just the fact that we got out there and attempted to play was a great achievement. I guess I was happy I had played after all. I later found out that Hien realized too late that she should not eat before playing soccer. I still give her credit for playing a little bit.
After soccer we went on a Caiman hunting boat ride. Caimans are nocturnal, but if you shine a light in their eyes, they reflect back red, making them easy to spot. They are very sensitive to sound, so we had to all shut up and wait for Erika to spot a caiman with her flashlight. We managed to spot one large one out of the water, but as we approached in the boat it slid beneath the water. The four others that we managed to find were just eyes and part of a nose popping out of the river. If you didn’t know it was an animal, you would have though it a small dead tree branch floating on the surface. Many of the tour people thought it was still worthy of a picture and so the poor creature was not only frightened by our presence, but also probably blinded. I can’t wait for people to get their pictures back because they will probably be like, “why the hell did I take a picture of trees in a murky lake?”
We had a farewell buffet feast for dinner that night with some of the best vegetable dishes we’d ever had. Apparently Peru doesn’t believe in vegetables very much. Most of their diets consist of meat and potatoes. So, the fact that we got some nutrition, that actually tasted good, was amazing. Of course Ian had 2nds and thirds. I just wanted everyone’s desert cake. We all stayed up chatting for a bit before turning in early. It seems that every since I ended up in Peru I’ve gotten up really early, 4, 5, and 6 am and gone to bed around 9 or 10pm. I guess traveling changes your habits.
We awoke, had our coffee and said goodbye to the Amazon camp. Natalia, Erika and Listen (another camp guide) followed us all the way to the airport to say bye. It was a heartfelt goodbye and we took a group picture before boarding the small plane back to Cusco. I was a little worried before arriving in Cusco because Cusco was the start of the high elevation cities that we would be traveling through. Cusco lies at about 3200 meters high, roughly 10,500 feet. Since the air is thin people tend to get mass headaches and feel nauseous. I didn’t want that to happen. As it turned out, I was one of the lucky ones. Robby and Hien fell prey to Altitude Sickness while I seemed to gather crazy energy. I was all antsy and jumpy, but I would get out of breath quicker when climbing the hills of Cusco. Who ever thought of putting lots of stairs in a high elevation city was just cruel.
We put all our stuff into our hotel, located off the main square in Cusco, before taking an orientation walk with Paul. It was Robby, Hien and the five Brits that went on the walk as everyone else had already been in Cusco prior to the Amazon. Paul took us first to the Happy Plaza and then to the Weeping Plaza. Both looked like square parks with a fountain in the middle and stupid names. Not sure where the name comes from. When we were at the Main Plaza I decided that smiling, happy pictures were not going to cut it and so I made people do jumping pictures. Of course everyone starred at me like I was crazy, but after they saw how funny the first one Robby and I took, everyone wanted to be a part of the fun. We all realized Hien is a brilliant jumper as she got great height. She did a jumping picture with Paul where it looks like she’s kicking his ass and he’s flying backwards. Makes me laugh every time I see it.
Continuing on from our breathless fun, Paul decided we should climb a large hill of steps to get a grand view of Cusco. I think I was one of the only ones who made it up the hill still jubilant. Everyone else dragged himself or herself forward. The view was worth it though. Cusco is a city of red shingled roofed building spread across a vast valley and up unto the hillside. The Spanish invaded sometime in the Incan times and left their mark on the town square and numerous buildings. Paul decided that we should have lunch at 2Nations, a restaurant owned by an Aussie that came to Cusco, fell in love with it and stayed. The food was very good.
After the tour we all went our separate ways. Paul went back to the hotel to finish some paperwork, while the Brits went to find postcards and Robby, Hien and I went to look at all the souvenirs. Hien teaches little kids as a side job and so she wanted something special to give them. We came across small, and slightly hideous finger puppets in one store. Since they were only 1 sol each, after bargaining them down from 2 sols apiece, the storeowner spread them on a blanket on the floor for us to weed through. Hien only wanted Lions, tigers and bears or other “jungle” animals. I found a disturbing Spiderman and a freaky lady that I tried to sneak into Hien’s purchasing pile, but she found them and threw them back into the discard pile. She went from wanting 40 puppets to 60 to 80 to finally buying 107. We made the storeowner’s day with the purchase and the amusement of us on our knees picking through his supply.
When we got back to the hotel to tell people what we’d bought, Joan informed us that we got ripped off. We had apparently found the expensive shops and she had found the cheap market. Robby bought an Alpacka hat for 15 sols that was only 5-7 sols in the cheap market. Well, you have to learn some time about getting ripped off. We vowed to find the cheaper stores the next day to buy souvenirs for everyone back home.
By dinnertime Robby and Hien had succumb to altitude sickness and were in bed by 8pm. That left me hungry and without people to hang out with. I decided to chill with the “old folks” as I called them. They were Gary and Joyce and Joan and Dale. I liked the stories they told about the places they’d been in all their years traveling. They didn’t really have a plan on where to eat, so we hooked up with the British girls (Andrew was sick as well) and head to a place that said they had live music. We arrived to a near empty restaurant that was ecstatic to have us as patrons. They even went as far as to go outside and find a band to play for us inside. The music wasn’t so bad, but I resented the fact that they came around our table asking for tips afterwards.
The next day, Robby, Hien and I went to breakfast at a little place we found that sold crepes. Hien thought that Peruvian crepes would be like normal sized crepes and so she ordered two. When the first one came out it was huge and Hien asked the Waiter if it was both crepes made into one. The waiter said, “Yes.” As Hien was finishing the last bite of the crepe, that Robby and I had to help her eat, the waiter brought out another crepe. Apparently he didn’t understand her question before. He started subtly laughing at us as Hien’s mouth dropped open and her head shaking in bewilderment. We managed to get the crepe to go and it was an effective means to awaking Ian. Free food and he’s there. Since he was now awake, he willingly chose to coming shopping with us girls. Brave soul.
We all headed to the cheap market that Joan had told us about the previous day and discovered that everyone else was already there. We also discovered that we had to wear our backpacks on our fronts because Dale was almost pick pocketed by two old ladies. One lady pretended to pick lint off Dales arm while the other reached into his pants pocket for the wallet. The only reason they didn’t succeed is that the wallet was attached to a cord. Dale kind of just stared at the old ladies, but would you really want to hit a grandmother for trying to steal your wallet. He let them off with a stern warning about them being bad.
Robby stayed with Ian as he tried to find some warm gloves that weren’t too ugly while I helped Hien find a Traditional outfit. She was adamant about finding something that the locals wore for a Halloween costume, but everything the locals wore were layers of ill fitting skirts and shirts. Their dance outfits were comprised of brightly colored stitches in ill-conceived patterns. Truly ugly. Robby and I found numerous little gifts, including my new lime green and black stripped Alpacka sweater. I look like an escaped convict, but I can be easily spotted for the brightness of the green. It’s an awesome sweater.
After leaving the Market we wandered through the streets browsing many of the street vendors carts and looking for a hot chocolate shop. Robby and I had had some amazing hot chocolate in Peru and we wanted Ian and Hien to try it. They melt real Peruvian chocolate in milk and serve it piping hot. We eventually came to a hole in the wall bakery that had the drink as well as delicious looking cakes. One slice of cake was five layers high, so when we asked anyone if they wanted to split a piece, they all misinterpreted and so we ended up sitting at a two person table, crowded with 4 cups of chocolate or coffee, and three plates of cakes. Our chairs and backpacks stuck out in the walking path making the other customers stare at us. We asked why no one wanted to share our giant piece of cake and Ian said that, “woman always say they’ll share a piece of cake, just take a small bite, but next thing you know, the cakes gone and the woman’s like, ‘opps, I didn’t know I was that hungry.’” I guess he’s right.
Since we didn’t know where we were and we knew that we were trying to find another market off Ave del Sol, we asked the bakery lady where we were. She stared at our guidebook map for a bit before saying we were somewhere off the map and down. Lucky us to have wandered where the tour books don’t go. She pointed us back in the direction of town that we eventually headed toward, but not before first hiking the remainder of the hill we were currently on. We started up the hill because of a church we’d seen at the top and we were determined to see said church. Of course the church turned out to be a school, but we’d made it to the top of the hill with out too much loss of breath.
After a few jumping pictures, we were set to find the main section of town. We spent the next several hours jumping from small bazaar to small bazaar. They all sold the same junk: key chains, sweaters, pants, alpacka, hats, etc. If we bargained enough we got the right price, but even if we didn’t everything was incredibly cheap. We headed back to the hotel to drop off all our shopping bags and to figure out what we wanted to do next. Robby decided that she wanted a haircut and Hien wanted her legs waxed, so that left me and Ian wandering around the Main square and back up to the lookout point Paul had taken us to previously.
I had become fascinated by the doors and windows of Peru because of their beautiful brokenness. Most everything in Peru is damaged in someway, either slightly off kiltered or with a missing piece, yet still functional and in use. I stopped to take a picture of a spray painted window between a barbed wire fenced in alleyway. Ian looked at me like I was nuts and said that we were going to get mugged if we didn’t get a move on. The alley was between a drop off cliff above people’s homes and a school. We were perfectly safe, but I found his worrying amusing. Later Ian went on to tease me about taking pictures of doors. Every time we came across a weird door Ian would go, “hey Em, you want to take a picture of this?” Most of the time I would.
We met back up with Robby, Hien and a couple of the others for dinner. We ended up at this very nice restaurant with wooden tables outside. They served free Pisco Sours, the natural alcoholic drink of Peru. It tasted like a margarita, but a little tangier. I really liked them. Hien ended up ordering Alpacka and she let me try some. Yea, it’s gross, but probably not to you meat lovers. Tasted like salty pork.
We headed back to the hotel so everyone, but Robby, myself and Jamie could get a good nights rest. Everyone, but us and the “old folks”, were leaving to hike the Inca Trail or the Lourdes Trek the following morning. Robby and I had decided to skip the three-day trek for an extra couple of days to explore the archaeological sites surrounding Cusco. It was a slightly hard decision, as I had always wanted to hike the Inca Trail to say I had, but then I didn’t know the next time I would be in Cusco and there was so much I wanted to see. Jamie had missed the cut off to join the hike and so she was in Cusco like the rest of us.
As the hikers set out to trek, Jamie, Robby, Joyce, Gary and myself hopped on a river rafting tour. So I can’t say that I’ve hiked Manchu Picchu, but I can say that I river rafted through the river at the base of the mountain. We were in a group of 15, but us five got a raft to ourselves. There were three rafts in total. One raft we named Switzerland because they wanted to remain innocent in the water battles and mind their own business. Their rafting guide even threw up a white flag. The other raft was the evil raft. Their guide was intent on war. He would steer them towards our boats in hast. We were soaked within 5 minutes of being in the water. At least we had on skintight wetsuits that made everyone look like fat seals. They were also kind enough to supply us with red, blue and yellow designed water jackets that added to the illusion of us being seal parachutes. We didn’t look at all flattering and it didn’t help that my wetsuit had two big holes in the butt. Grrr.
We drifted down the river for a bit waiting for some rapids. We had thought the rapids would be class 3’s and 4’s (class one being still water, 2 – little bumps, 3 – we now have some white water, 4- avoid the rocks and try not to fall out, 5- always wear a helmet and hold on, and 6 – did he survive?) but they turned out to be 2’s and 3’s. The rapids were disappointing, but it was fun to be out on the water with other people and to try and avoid kamikaze rafters jumping into our raft from the evil raft and trying to pull us into the water.
After rafting ended at an abandoned looking house, we all scouted out spots to change back into our normal clothes. Robby unfortunately chose a spot right off the main road. Some random guy decided to walk extremely slow up the road that I went to find a new hiding spot. When we were all dressed and set to go, the guides told us we would have to hike up a 500-meter driveway because the bus couldn’t make it up the hill weighed down with people and gear. While waiting at the main road for the bus, Robby managed to capture a brilliant jumping photo of Gary, Joyce, Jamie and I in mid-flight between the rest of the rafters who were all stationary. Jamie did a Gene Kelly tap jump for me and then we were headed back to Cusco.
For dinner we had convinced Gary, Joyce and Jamie to come to a Vegetarian Japanese place. The place was cute, but I’m not sure Gary liked it. Since we were a group of five, the waitress told us to sit upstairs. Of course upstairs didn’t have chairs. We sat on pillows on the floor. Gary, all 6’2” of him, was not exactly comfortable. It didn’t help that our waitress had forgotten about us and I had to call down to her and say we were ready to order. I think it took us 45 minutes to get silverware and an hour to get drinks, but the food was good and I was entertained by the absurdity of the situations. After dinner, Jamie, Robby and I went to find desert and hot chocolate up the street. If you’re willing to eat in an off the wall local place, the food is cheap and usually delicious. For half the price of one of our meals that night, all three of us had cake and coffee.
Robby and I had organized a trip to see the Sacred Valley. Pisaq, and Ollanyantambo for the morning. Some tour lady brought us to a tour bus at 8:30 am and then proceeded to instruct the bus driver to drive in circles while she periodically jumped out to pick up more passengers. I think we passed our pick up spot four times. We wished we would have know so we could have slept in for an extra hour. As the tour bus started to fill up, we noticed that everyone was Spanish speaking. I really didn’t want to be on another all Spanish speaking tour. Three times was enough. Eventually the bus was filled and our tour guide started to talk. He was extremely happy that everyone spoke Spanish, that was until a couple of people pointed at us, and then he alternated between rapid Spanish that went on forever and a few sentences of English that if I wasn’t listening closely I would have missed.
As we drove out of town I learned about the height of Cusco and the basic animals that lived throughout the countryside. Our guide had a tendency to say the same thing over again, that by the time we came to Pisaq I could have been the tour leader in saying it’s 1 city within close proximity to three others all built on the side of a hill. We were going to spend an hour and a half walking to and around Pisaq before heading back to the bus.
Now I feel I should said that Peru is beautiful and filled with many amazing archaeological wonders, but it is a little irksome that because Cusco is the main city next to Peru’s largest tourist attraction, Manchu Picchu, it has the balls to charge a fortune to see said sites. Everywhere else in Peru, you just have to pay an entrance fee to the archaeological sites and museums, but in Cusco and the surrounding areas, you have to pay for a 1 day or 10 day tourist visa. So on top of the pricy entrance tickets to all the entrance sites, we had to pay 70 sols. If we wanted to see more of a particular site another day, we would have to pay another 70 sols, unless we brought the 10-day pass for 130 sols.
Now this fee wouldn’t have been too much of a problem had our tour actually allowed us to see the entirety of the sites we went to. Pisaq covers a good 1/2 mile of land and we saw about 1/4 of it’s town, not to mention, none of the surround ruins. When we went to Ollanyantambo, the city that I had planned to see instead of going on the Inca trail, we got to climb the giant steps to one of it plateaus so we could see a tall wall built by some indigenous group other than the Inca’s, who build Ollanyantambo, before climbing back down.
Ollanyantambo stretches pretty far up the hillside and then some on the opposite hillside. Practically halfway up the other hill’s side there is a two-story building that archaeologist believe was either a Church, school, hospital, jail, or storage unit. Hell, I don’t think anyone would go to a hospital that took a good 1/2 hour to hike to and most of the prisoners captured by the Inca’s were sacrificed to the Gods, so I’m pretty sure they didn’t need a jail. They might have stored food there as it was a good location with pristine climate control and maybe the children needed a little exercise before their lessons, but I doubt we’ll ever know for sure.
Last stop on the tour was supposed to be the ruins of Chinchero, a circular group of tiers, but it was actually the town of Chinchero where Quechua women made alpacka sweaters. We all crammed into a small hut where a group of Quechua woman showed us how they spun the alpacka wool into string and then used variously plants and even a bug, to dye the string. It was not a ruin, but interesting none the same. When it was over we were offered 15 minutes to look around the small room at their wares for sale. I would have bought something if the prices weren’t jacked up exceedingly high.
We ended the long day disappointed in not being able to see much of the ruins and having a vague idea of what we had seen. About a 3rd of the way through the day our tour guide had given up on relaying most of his information in English. There would be very long bouts of Spanish and a few sentences of English to accompany it that I strained to hear what other English speaking tour guides that were nearby had to say. Yeah, no more tours. Next time Robby and I are going to do the ruin thing on our own and maybe hire a local guide at the entrance,
We met up with Jamie for dinner and then a massage. Jamie had gotten one earlier and had found it extremely refreshing that I felt compelled to get one and I really don’t like to be touched much. We all ended up in one room together with three beds. We each had our own masseuse and an hour to be pampered. I had really wanted my back and shoulders worked on because they hurt the most from carrying my backpacking backpack, but for some reason the masseuse felt it necessary to pulverize my right calf for 15 minutes and then work her way up my thigh. I think by the time she was done with my legs, she had 10 minutes left for my upper body. It wouldn’t have mattered anyhow as her version of “strong massage” felt like a trickling stream – very soft and smooth. I wanted her to dig for fingers in and work out the knots, but that wasn’t going to happen. I ended the massage feeling just as tight as I started, excepted for a few added burses on my calves. Yep, I definitely hate massages.
Ok, I’m sure by now you’re exhausted from reading so much and on your second cup of coffee, so I will end here. Until next time, the Manchu Picchu adventure, take care.
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