After resting our muscles from the wear-and-tear of the Inca Trail, Mary and I have begun to notice that our plans seem so much smaller in light of our recent experiences. We’d been talking about the idea of finding a volunteer opportunity somewheres along the way, but hadn’t settled on anything. We were both moved by the trail to give something back to the gorgeous country of Peru. [Actually, Mary had always wanted to have a chance to volunteer and it only took 7 weeks to convince me.] Regardless, we’ve found a fantastic organization and have decided to switch directions — head back North, through Lima to Huaraz, Peru. We have tickets on the safest bus-cama company, Oremeño, to leave Cuzco tomorrow morning (Friday) for the 30 hour ride back to Lima via Puno, Arequipa, Nazca and Ica. We should arrive in Lima round about 3PM on Saturday, spend the night in Lima and then swoop up to Huaraz.
We’ve been in contact with Isabelle, of Seeds of Hope, Peru, to arrange our time and brief us on their school program. Check them out on the web and specifically their section on International Volunteers.
Unfortunately, our decision to switch directions will mean that we will miss out on plans to head down to Patagonia. We may still visit Copacabana, La Paz and the Bolivian Salt Flats, but will head very quickly through Argentina. Our tickets remain solid to fly out from Buenos Aires in January, but think it’s totally worth switching directions to lend a hand at S.O.H. I don’t think that we’d expected to enjoy Peru so much and are both REALLY excited to have this opportunity.
Mary and I got back late last night from our 4 day trek to Machu Picchu. We hiked the Inca Trail and camped along the way, arriving to Machu Picchu via the Sun Gate just after sunrise. It was a fantastic experience and we are so fortunate to have been able to make the pilgrimage. We are working on getting the pictures and videos organized/uploaded. Once these are done, we’ll post more specific links to Flickr and YouTube.
In the meantime, we’ve been adding thoughts to our Inca Trail to Machu Picchu page (link also on the right-hand sidebar). One thing that’s clear is our love for the Peru Treks company, our porters, cooks and guides along the trail. Our guides, Hubert and Ricardo, were extremely knowledgeable, passionate and great friends during our four days on the trail. If you’re interested in Machu Picchu, or other Peruvian Treks, please consider Peru Treks as your adventure companions.
We’re getting ready to head off on our much-anticipated trek from Cuzco to Machu Picchu, tomorrow. As such, we’ll be incommunicado for the next 5 days, but wanted to recap our last few days in Cuzco. We’re having a great time cooking and chatting with other travelers, here in our hostel in Cuzco’s San Blas neighborhood. Two types of people are here: those prepping for their trip to Machu Picchu and those who have just returned. We’ve gotten alot of good advice from the folks just coming off the trail and are getting totally amped with the others making similar preparations.
We got into town and immediately ran into our old friend Will, from Australia, John, Ashley and Ariel all from the Secret Garden in Quito. Will was just heading out on the Inca Trail and we got together with him last night for a debriefing. We’ve been acclimatizing, since leaving sea level, by hiking around, drinking the Coca Tea and getting enough sleep. We bought a Boleto Touristico from the tourism office and set off to visit some of the 16 sites. Our first stop were to the four ruins located closest to Cuzco: Tambomachay, Puka Pukara, Q’enqo and Sacsaywaman (pronounced Sexy Woman, no joke). These sites were increasingly interesting and we thought that Sacsaywaman would have been a good place to retain the services of a guide. This site forms the head of a puma, which is outlined in the layout of Cuzco, like this:
We are still not entirely certainly the tourist ticket was worth the 130 Soles (roughly $45 USD), since it only lasts for 10 days and we’ll be away on the Inca Trail for 5 of them. To make us less-sure about it’s value, the Peruvian government recently doubled the price, which would have been very manageable back when it only cost $22 per person.
On Sunday, we took a combi (shared van/bus) from Cuzco to Pisaq and checked out the market. It was a big deal, but was smaller than our memory of the Otavalo Market in Ecuador. The market was a big deal, but we were in Pisaq for some hiking and to visit the ruins above the town. After spying a sign for free tourist information, we snagged a map of the ruins and set off, straight up some old Incan terraces. After 90 minutes uphill, the trail leveled off and we had an excellent view of nearly a dozen ruins and the valley below.
In the meantime, while we’re not visiting ruins, we’ve been chilling in Cuzco and watching all the craziness, dodging the occasional hail, checking out the museums, cooking (and eating very well) and passing through the Plaza de Armas about 30 times a day. Since there are a nearly-overwhelming number of gringos in Cuzco, it’s a challenge to walk for 20 feet in this town without being offered a message, llama hat, woven belt, menu of several restaurants or flyers for a late night bar/party. One one of our trips through the plaza, we caught a parade/dance recital right in front of the cathedral. Check out the videos:
Cuzco Dance Recital 1
We stumbled upon a dance recital/parade right in front of the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco Peru… this went on for a long while and this is the first video of the dances/music.
Cuzco Dance Recital 2
These kids have on some WILD costumes and there were thousands of dancers!
Wow - it’s been a while since a good, meaty post. Sorry about that. I think we were a bit hung over from our experience in Chachapoyas and coming down to sea level was almost just as jolting, if not more so, than acclimatizig.
We have yet to write about our 5-day trek around Chachapoyas, so I will attempt to do so now. We definitely had an experience that will be hard to describe in words, but I think the pictures help.
The trip was basically a journey to visit several ruin sites left behind by the Chachapoyoans–a group of people who lived in the northern highlands of Peru for thousands of years and a group that was never really dominated by the Inkas (who came along around 1300 to 1500). I always just thought about the Inkas, but it turns out there were tons of distinct civilizations in Peru over the years. It was only much later that a group who called their leaders Inkas came along and dominated a region covering from Ecuador, through Peru and Bolivia, and into northern Argentina and Chile, before the Spanish came along in the eraly 1500s and decided to dominate everyone. Inkas is actually a term they never used for themselves, but one that historians, archaelogists, etc. have put on them.
Unlike Machu Piccu and the Sacred Valley, the ruins in northern Peru have been very little studied, but likely equal the southern ruins. It was amazing to walk over roads through the forest built by these people thousands of years ago and stumble upon their communities up in the hilltops that are now all overgrown by the jungle, without seeing another tourist all day long. There was no ticket office or ropes to keep us from touching anything, rather we could still see some of the bones, pottery, and textiles in the burial sites, and we got the impression that all the hillsides in the area are full of the same communities, many yet to really be refound.
Overgrown Ruins at Pirquilla
It turns out that the local people always knew about many of these ruins but either didn’t know that they were extremely old and thus very important, or were afraid to go near them because of spirits. A local guy named Jose was the first person it seems to have really started promoting a lot of these places after he brought a series of foreign travelers to them who voiced how amazing they are, but a lot of Peruvians still do not know that these places exist–let alone international tourists.
Here’s a run down on the day to day. It all started almost two weeks ago–Saturday, October 25. We set off with Catherine (a great German who accompanied us for the entire trip), Daniel (an Aussie just with us for the day), Rulo (our trusty driver for the first two days), and Solina (our guide for the day, who is the daughter of Jose, the local guy who “discovered” many of the ruins that we visited).
We first went to Pueblo de los Muertos, a ceremony and burial site built right into a cliff side with a series of round houses for various ceremonies (birthdays, funerals, who knows–the Chachapoyans didn’t have a written laguage so most of it is just guessing). There we thankfully avoided falling over the cliffside and appreciated the amazing view of the valleys surrounding us–including a view of Gotca Falls, which are waterfalls with the third longest drop in the world (just “discovered” about 5 years ago). It was a hot walk straight uphill to get out of there.
Patrick negotiates the cliff at Pueblo de los Muertos
View of Gotca Falls from Pueblo de los Muertos
That afternoon, we walked into a HUGE cavern called Cavernas de Quiloctoa that served as a burial site and ceremony site for thousands of years. The local people were afraid to go in it which I completely understand given the place is pitch black (we had a light charged by a car battery to show our way) and full of bats. But our guide, Solina, dispelled the evil spirits before we entered by spitting agua de florida into the entrance and asking Pachamama (mother earth) to bless our entrance. It was eery and beautiful, full of stalagtites and stalagmites, and some old bones from the water uncovering burial sites.
At the entrance to the cavern, in our boots
That night we stayed in the town of Lamud, which was celebrating the festival of El Senor de Milagros with processions, music, and fireworks through the streets–for what seemed like all night. We had an awesome dinner and were recounted with all the legends of the surrounding area by our nine year old storyteller, Gina.
The next morning, we met up with Edgar, our guide for the remainder of the trek, and Geert, an excellent Dutch man who also joined for the remainder. That morning, we went to burial site called Ayachachi, where we again saw sarcophogai and bones fallen in among the cracks in the rocks. In the afternoon, we went to a very important archaelogical site called Karajia, where the sarcophogais are different than any others in the area and are thought to house to most important leaders of the Chachapoyans. The Chachapoyans always built their burial sites into high cliff sides with amazing, sweeping vistas of valleys and mountains. They wanted people to spend eternity in tranquil and beautiful places.
Karajia
The first two days were spent going from site to site in a car driven by a very friendly and knowledgable man Rulo, with some walking to get the rest of the way to the sites. But at the end of the second day, we were sad that Rulo had to leave us, but happen that we had arrived to the Valley of Belen. The valley is electric green with a river snaking through the whole thing–the valley is only 9 km long but given all the curves of the river, the river measures 23 km.
View of Vilaya de Belen
The Valley is actually “owned” by a town that is quite a distance away, but the townspeople use it to graze their cattle and horses, only coming to check on their herds every 10 days or so. The valley has a few shacks for people to stay in to check on the animals and we stayed in one of these. It was very rustic–dirt floor, bunks, huge cow pies everywhere. It was really out there and I’d be deceptive if I didn’t admit that I was a bit skeptical at first. But the night as great–Edgar made us an awesome dinner of a really full stew with tons of vegetable and chicken, and the five of us played cards, shared some rum, and bonded over the only entertainment–the cows, which all tried to huddle as close as possible under the roof of our shack when it rained over night.
Our cows for the night
The next morning, we packed up and headed off on rough stone roads over the mountains that had been built by the Chachapoyans. After we had been walking for a few hours, Edgar literally ducked off the path into a thicket of the rainforest and it appeared we had arrived to Pirquilla–a pre-Inca village that has more than 250 stone round houses now covered by the jungle. There’s no way we would have seen it without a guide. The ruins were exactly what one would imagine–totally overgrown by moss, trees, and vines–and without another visitor in sight. Pirquilla was once quite a large town that was probably built around 500 AD. It was amazing to be able to see the ruins in this element.
The pre-Inca Trail
After walking for several hours more, we arrived in Congon where we spent the night. I don’t believe that this town is actually connected anywhere by the road–just old school horses and mules to get out of there. It seemed very remote and quite poor. We stayed in the home of a family who lived downstairs and kept a couple rooms upstairs for guests like us. Their farm grows excellent coffee. The entertainment that night was the chickens that liked to climb up into the trees, the giant bugs that were attracted to an overhead porch light (I’m not kidding, you could make a meal out of these bugs), and the cuy (guinea pigs) running around the kitchen floor. The civilizations in South America domesticated many varieties of guinea pig thousands of years ago for a main source of meat (the Euros brought chickens). They are so docile that they actually live under the stove that they will be cooked in and can run around with the kitchen door wide open and never run away. A good dinner, and good night sleep–except for the old man sleeping below us whose snoring sounded like he was in a lot of pain.
Congon, Peru
We headed out early the next morning on horses (actually, I had a mule) over a mountain path that took my breath away to be doing on an animal I had only just met. The path was filled with really steep downhills and uphills that were amazing to see how these horses could do them without falling. My mule had a bit of an inferiority complex and therefore constantly wanted to race ahead of any horse who dared go in front of it, at times choosing to make the rapid pace on super steep terrain. For the first three hours, the mule was the greatest animal I had ever encountered, but the last two hours were hellish. We again found ruins by ducking off the path. These were called Lanche and though smaller than those of Pirquilla (only 85 circular houses), there was an amazingly intact outer wall for the whole town that was massive. We had lunch at the only only house we saw the whole day, incredibly tucked away among the clouds. It was the most amazing vegetarian food we’ve had down here (and maybe ever), all grown on their farm.
Overgrown ruins at Lanche
Mary´s wretched mule
We continued by foot down the mountain to the village of Congon–there were no tears of sadness on leaving my mule. Unfortunately Pat’s stomach started acting up on the way down the mountain, but the owner of the place we stayed, Roberto, was sure that anything could be healed by coca tea–upset stomach, missing toe, whatever We shared a great meal and passed around the Chuchuwasi–an indiginous liquor made from the bark of a tree, honey, and whole bunch of herbs.
Choctomal, Peru
The next morning we went to Kuelap, which is considered the Machu Piccu of the north. It was an amazing fortress built at something like 9,500 feet with a incredible 360 degree view of all the surrounding territory. They actually found Kuelap 60 years before Machu Piccu in around 1950, but it seems that due to the relative inaccesability it still only gets a handful of visitors every day. It was a massive place that can only be done justice with a visit–really well preserved houses, an incredible protective wall around the whole thing, and so much history to still be learned. It was a very spiritual place where one can literally feel how much life passed in this place that we now know so little about.
Wall surrounding Kuelap
Kuelap´s Back Door
In total, we definitely and without a doubt would reccommend a visit to Chachapoyas and doing a trek around there. It’s beautiful and you won’t see any other tourists while visiting places that have been little touched for hundreds of years. And it is really cheap–for now at least (particularly compared to anything around Cusco where we now are).
Our Awesome Group - Patrick, Mary, Edgar, Geert, Catherine
We went through Hotel Revash (Andes Tours)–our guide Edgar was awesome, really knowledgeable and passionate about the area, and a very good person. The company did screw things around on our last day it appeared to get a little more money, but it’s not big enough to write about here.
Sadly we have left Chachapoyas, and spent four nights on the coast. Two in Huanchaco outside of Trujillo and two in Lima. The most exciting part was watching the elections in Lima. The least exciting thing was being in the desert. The most brag-worthy thing that that we spent a total of 46 hours on the bus in a week–all overnight.
To our elation, we returned to the mountains on Thursday and are now in Cusco. It is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful city, but there are more tourists here than anywhere else we’ve been and a lot more annoyance from people trying to sell us things because of it. We are staying in the San Blas neighborhood which is up on a hill overlooking the city. We even ran into friends here last night–Will, who we’ve seen five times since Quito, and a few others we met in Quito. We have six whole days until starting the Inca Trail, and we plan on exploring many other sites in the Sacred Valley before then. It is super high here–something like 10,500 feet–so we will also be acclimatizing.
Sorry we hadn’t written in a while and for the length–hope to be more timely, and shorter, over the coming week.
Today is election day in the US and the entire world is watching (some more anxiously) to see what Americans decide. It’s been wild talking to foreigners that we’ve met on our trip who have flat out told us what it means to them about our upcoming choice. Today is the day so bike, run or drag your neighbors to your polling place and VOTE.
If, after all this time, you’re still not sure who to vote for, we’ll sponsor a what-would-a-foreigner-do campaign and instruct you to vote for Obama. Even if you slant towards McCain, please vote and make sure that everyone knows that you’ve voted.
This is the backpack that I’ve been slogging around South America with… Vote Obama, today!
Also, if you march into a Starbucks today and tell them you voted, the coffee’s on them.
We have a surprisingly good Wifi connection at our hostel and have been busy waiting for the sunshine by uploading pictures and videos from our first 2 weeks in Peru. During the time we spent in Chachas and trekking, we took 175 photos in the Peru 2008 set on Flickr:
Also, we’ve posted more videos onto YouTube from our time so far in Peru. Here’s a couple videos to whet your proverbial whistles:
Kuelap Peanut Fiasco
Mary and Edgar making peanut butter in Kuelap… Patrick is only interested in having a snack.
Mary and her Mule
Mary rode a mule (named Macho) up a mountain, they became fast friends.
Cows in the Valle de Belen
Cows being crazy in the Valle de Belen, drinking our water and saying hello.
We made it back from our five day trek last night. We had an amazing time, saw all kinds of beautiful places and hidden treasures, and met great people. We are headed out on an overnight bus to Trujillo tonight, so no stories to post yet but definitely more to come in the following days.
[Note - We had wanted to write about people´s feelings down here on the elections but haven´t had a chance to yet. With them coming up so soon, I´ll just have to put it shortly that after many conversations with Ecuadorians, Peruvians, Europeans, and others, it is pretty clear that the world would vote for Obama if they could. Our votes matter to far more people than just ourselves.]
PeruWe´re finally leaving for the big trip to the ruins tomorrow. I know, this is the third post we´ve mentioned it, but we are REALLY excited.
We´ve spent the last three whole days in Chachapoyas, and that is about two days and a half more than there is anything to do here in the town itself. The market is superb and by far the best thing to visit here in town. Beautiful rows of all the produce you could ever want to imagine — grapes, mandarins, all different varieties of beans, avocados, yucca, carrots, rice, a whole bunch of fruits and veggies I´ve never even seen. But other than the market… Pat and I actually did attempt walking up and down every street in town, both horizontally and vertically, but still not too much to see — a lot of white buildings, work shops of every variety, tiny restaurants and store fronts.
We had put the trip off for a day because Pat came down with a slight case of the “never drink the juices at the market when you can smell the raw meat.” We feared having to cancel the trip to the ruins entirely, but we switched hotels this morning and got an awesome room where we gluttonously watched TV so Pat could recoup — great movie channel. The R&R seems to have done the trick so we´re staying on course to head off to the ruins tomorrow. So this is really it - see you next week.
Mary and I are planning on doing a 5 day trek starting on Saturday, October 25th and lasting through the evening of Wednesday, October 29th. As such, we will be incommunicado while we galavant in the moutains. During the trip, we will visit several archealogical sites and historical towns with evidence of Incan and pre-Incan civilizations. This kind of trek is why we came all the way out to Chachapoyas and should be exciting for its vistas and the lack of tourists. We are definitely more off the beaten path than our time in Peru, but there will be a couple other tourists on our trek, which is being organized by the Andes Tours company here in town.
No Internet. No Email. No Phones.
Hiking. Montañas. Horses.
Wow–we are in Peru. One country down and several more to go.
After two full days of travel, we have spent the day relaxing in Chachapoyas, Peru, otherwise know as Chachas. What a border crossing. I’m not sure if they’ll all be as crazy/tiring/long as the one we just completed, but we shall see.
There are three border crossings between Ecuador and Peru. One is on the coast and is the most traveled, and also rumored to be the most rife with pick pockets. The second (Macara) is inland in the mountains, and quite simple because you can take a single bus from Loja, Ecuador right through the border (getting off for a few minutes for the border formalities) and then back on the same bus to Piura, Peru, a sizable city on the coast.
We decided not to do either of these borders, but instead to cross at La Balsa, which might, MIGHT see about ten foreigners go across it per day, and a handful more Peruvians and Ecuadorians. Why did we go for this one? No good reason. But we are definitely off the Gringo Trail now.
The journey began with a 9:30 am bus out of Vilcabamba, Ecuador. The bus crossed through beautiful mountains, tiny towns, lots of cloud forests, and waterfalls. We met a very friendly Ecuadorian man on the bus who had tons of questions, more so than most–what religion we are, how we are able to travel for so long, what we think about the world economic crisis (yes, people are talking about it everywhere). We were probably some of the few foreigners he crosses paths with, unlike other places more heavily visited in Ecuador, and he was therefore quite curious. The vistas on the drive were incredible, as were the remarkable drop offs on the side of the road. We are definitely in the Andes.
We arrived in Zumba, Ecuador at about 3 pm, where we had planned to wait for a truck to take us the the border. Unfortunately, we were informed that the next truck would not be there until 5:30 pm, bringing us to the border by 7 pm when it would already be dark. Some guys hanging around in pick-up trucks offered to bring us for $20, but we passed. Here we met one of the three foreigners we would cross for the next two days–Jeremy, from Colorado.
Jeremy is one of those Americans that freaks me out down here. He’s totally jaded by the U.S., believes thousands of people will be dying of starvation in the U.S. in just a couple months due to the economic troubles, government watching up with “chips,” etc. Well he’s come down her to “start a ecotourism business” but he’s having “visa issues,” meaning he’s not really legal in Ecuador anymore. I get the sense he may actually be a fugitive from the U.S. Anyway, he’s also headed to Peru (just for a couple days to throw the Ecuadorian visa police off his path), but he’s not waiting for the truck to take us to the border and decides to start walking.
Pat and I start start a card game when two other foreigners show up - Xavier and Matthew from France. Xavier and Matthew are all about paying one of the pick-up trucks to take us to the border and approach us to see if we’ll share the cost. I manage to get the price down by five dollars and we’re off. Xavier and Matthew are SUPER bottom dollar travelers. They’ll stay anywhere as long as it costs $3. By this point, Jeremy has managed to make it quite a distance down the road but we pick him up as we pass.
We make it to the border by about 5:30 pm, which is great because it’s still light outside (I hate arriving new places, particularly borders, in the dark). On the Ecuadorian side, we show our passports so they can mark down that we’ve left. It’s basically just a bunch of boys, about 20 years old each, guarding the border—with machine guns. It takes two of them to make any sense out of my passport even with me showing them where my name and passport number is. I have a feeling they haven’t done this too many times.
I should back up and explain that this border crossing has only been open since 1998. In that year, Peru and Ecuador signed a peace treaty ending a decades long aggression over who controlled that particular bit of territory. There actually may still be landmines in the area, which was sort of crazy for us being the first places we’ve traveled like that. [Note to the moms: we checked on the safety of passing and everything is totally fine to do so. The only concern would be if you got really off the road, which we didn't.]
Anyway, we made it over to the Peru side, and these border guys were totally different. They all seemed like they had enjoyed the afternoon with a few beers, wanted to let me know that I was pretty–several times, and wanted to know whether or not I was married. By this point, I was full up on all day with the men—all men on the bus to Zumba, our pick up truck with crazy Jeremy and the Frenchies, and now these less than professional border guards. Thank goodness at least for one man though—Patrick.
We all got our passports stamped and had to take yet another taxi over an hour and a half, bumpy as anything dirt road to San Ignacio, Peru where we would finally spend the night. We arrived by about 9:30 pm—12 hours after starting. Jeremy had some “friends” to stay with so he bailed, while Patrick, the Frenchies, and I stayed at Hostal La Posada for $2.50 each. It had walls that were literally paper thin, made all the more obvious when some small Peruvian children started playing soccer in the hallway at 6:30 am. You pay for what you get.
The next morning (Tuesday), Patrick, Xavier, Matthew and I got into a colectivo (sort of like a big van with a roof rack for luggage) for a three hour drive to Jaen, Peru. We arrived in Jaen and I thought I was in South East Asia. There were barely any cars on the road, but instead the roads were completely filled with moto taxis with covered two seater wagons in the back like one would imagine bringing you to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. We got some awesome lunch in Jaen (also heavily Asian influenced), and then took another colectivo to Bagua Grandes, about an hour away. In Bagua Grandes, the four of us piled into a taxi (after taking moto taxis to get us to the Chachas taxis) for the remaining three hour drive to Chachas. By 5:30 pm we had finally arrived—the border crossing was over!!!
In summary, one bus, a border, two regular car taxis, one moto taxi, two colectivos, and a lot of dudes. God bless any females who attempt this route solo.
We had the greatest dinner of the entire trip last night at Restaurant Chacha–I had real filet of chicken with a sauces of tons of onions and tomatoes. And again today we had good food with a lot of veggies. The food is so much better here–and even cheaper! A full lunch today was just $1.15 each. It makes me want to just keep eating.
So why did we come here anyways? Chachapoyas is surrounded by lots of forest with pre-Incan archaelogical ruins that are just now being discovered. The biggest is called Kuelap, which I have understood is on the scale of Macchu Piccu and some have said could end up to be the most important ruin site in South America. And they are literally still discovering new sites in the forests around here. Very few tourists come because the aforementioned trip is not the most comfortable, and there is no alternative (no airport here). I can´t wait to get out there in it. I imagine jungle ruins covered with orchids and vines, with monkeys holding court.
It looks like we´re going to have a dead zone over the next week or so. Pat and I will take off on a five day trek on Friday to go check out some of these ruins, including Kuelap. We´ll have copious stories and pics when we get back, so until then…
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