Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Exploring Arequipa

This was the only town in our travels where we planned ahead and ordered a taxi to pick us up at the airport. A lot of blogs warned against the taxi drivers in the town, so we took heed. It was a long ride from the airport to historical center, about 25 minutes, and as we started to see the architecture change I knew we were close.
Our hotel was only about 2 blocks from the center square, and once again- there were cobblestone roads everywhere. The town had a very colonial feel to it, which was present everywhere in the building and church structures. The Plaza de Armas with the fountain in the surrounding buildings was pretty during the day, but beautiful at night.
We spent the day walking through part of the town. We wandered over to the Municipal market, which was shutting down as we got there. There were several groups bunched outside of the marketplace, and vendors selling their foods. We opted to share a chicken kabob. I couldn't talk myself into the chicken heart, yet. The city was very tourist in the historical center, and several side streets offered craft fairs. One of the biggest attractions in the town were the churches, and they were definitely all unique in their styles.
Before it got dark, we had heard from someone that the bridges were beautiful, so we made our way to the bridges traversing the high way. On the way, under one of the bridges, a rap concert was occurring at a skate park. We didn't stay for too long, but we did cross the bridge and stumbled across a picturesque view of the next bridges, a stream, and the two active volcanoes in the background. After crossing the second bridge we found a huge super market. It gave us the opportunity to stock up on some of the small things we needed, such as chap-stick and need sneakers for me. My sneakers were making this awful squeaking noise, and it was finally driving my dad and me crazy. Fun fact, my foot size is very large for women in Peru, a 10 US size, and I didn't fit into the largest women's shoe size they had- a 40. Thus, I finally gave in and bought a pair of bright red men's sneakers.
As we circled the town to find a place to eat, and I tried to weed through the restaurant peddlers selling their menu, it was actually my dad who found the perfect place. He walked over to me and said that the place had a 2 plated for 20 pesos special. I thought to myself- no way, maybe he didn't understand since he doesn't speak Spanish. Low and behold, the waitress confirmed that there were two pages to the menu and you choose one from each side. We each had a soup, I got a chicken soup and he got veggie cream one, and then for main dishes we got a rice and beef meal. The view was overlooking the center square, which was incredible with the cathedral lit up. A live band joined for a few songs as well.


Colca Canyon- Descent and Ascent

Once again, we crowded into a van before the sun rose and began a hiking journey. This was our only over-night trekking trip of the vacation, so we opted for the interesting option of staying in huts that night and hiking out by headlamp light...but we'll get to that.
Our group was an assortment of English speaking travelers from England, Italy, Holland, Malaysia, the USA, and France. We all didn't talk too much until lunch that day, but they were definitely my favorite group of travelers that I might while traveling for the three weeks.
We reached the Condor Lookout point, and luckily were able to spot 5 condors circling the mountains. Some of the birds actually came pretty close to the platform, which gave a real sense of their grand size. No picture or video that I took could do it justice, but they were beautiful catching the wind on their wings.
You would think that the journey down would be a piece of cake, but the trails were so dusty that every footstep kicking up dust left a parched and dry throat. We arrived to the canyon entrance, prepared ourselves, and all started the switchbacks down. It was about two hours of descent passing by interesting rock-side cliffs and cacti that we finally reached a river and bridge. The river cutting through the canyon was incredibly green. That's also where we started to really see the villages that speckle the canyon. Our guide told us that there are only about 300 people who live among the villages, and their only transportation out of the villages and canyon is walking or paying for a horse ride, and horses only became an option a few years ago.
From there, we did a bit of ascending to get to the house where we had lunch. Even with the heat, lunch is still a customary appetizer. We also enjoyed some alpaca, rice, and avocado (they grow 80 variations of avocado trees in Peru).
The next part of the journey was more filled with close-by spectacles, such as man-made irrigation systems, a pool of water, a horse, and some village houses. By this point, we had reached the other side of the mountain and we were traversing into the bottom of the canyon. Our last marker before our hostel village was a waterfall and another bridge on a different part of the river. The sun was just setting as we exited the trail into our hostel sitting area, which had several huts for groups and pairs, bathroom huts, a restaurant/bar and a pool. We waited eagerly to find out how the sleeping arrangements would be arranged. Our guide asked for all the couples to notify him, and after he had counted off all the people who raised their hands he looked right at my dad and I. This was about the fourth time in the trip that we were confused for a couple, and I again had to clear up the confusion. All of the non-couples were put together in dorm style cabins that fit five people.
We still had about 3 hours to kill before dinner time, and there wasn't much there to do except drink and talk. Some brave souls tried out the pool, but the water was cold to start with and it was cold with the sun set. I opted for a pisco sour (the national drink of Peru) and conversation with our travel buddies. After a few beers, dinner was ready and we all munched down hungrily. Our guide announced that we had a 4:30 am wake up meeting time, so we headed to bed soon after dinner was over.
We packed our things, turned on our headlamps, and started up the trail. The ascent up Colca Canyon was estimated to be three hours of switchbacks, and travelers we met in Machu Picchu told us that it wouldn't be an easy journey up. The first 30 minutes of following our guide's quick pace felt endless. Finally, we took and break and he told us that he would meet us at the top and to go our own pace. I stuck with my dad as we took turns leading. I admit that I felt very jealous every time someone passed by on a horse, but I also felt very proud to be tackling the challenge. It took us about 2.5 hours to reach the summit, and half of our group was up there waiting. We bought some Gatorade and bananas from the vendor woman, and I admit that maybe it wasn't smart to do the climb on an empty stomach. We made it though. My dad and I also agreed that it would be our last big hike of the trip, which it was.
When we collected everyone from the group, we walked to the nearest village and got our traditional bread and tea breakfast from a house cafe nearby. Our next bus ride led us to natural thermal pools, which was a relief on our aching muscles. The water was a lot warmer than I expected, and we enjoyed the pools for an hour. The water was so hot where it entered the pool that we had to move away from it. Afterwards, we once again boarded the bus and this time went to a point where you could see 6 active volcanoes and the Andes Mountains chain. It was windy and cold though, so we boarded the bus quickly again. From there, we only had about 1.5 hours of a drive back to Arequipa.
It was during that drive back to town where my sickness finally really hit me. I remember leaving the bus and not being able to speak clearly and feeling that I ran into a brick wall. We checked back into our hotel, and then tried to find our way back to the supermarket. We got a bit lost. Then I had to try and explain our symptoms and what I wanted... in Spanish. It was more than my sick self could handle at that moment. Eventually though, we headed back to our hotel and passed by a large celebration for Arequipa Day. I couldn't function very well though, so I went to sleep pretty soon after and didn't give much thought to the large celebration.

Machu Picchu

This was my dad's one "must see" ticket item for our vacation- Machu Picchu. I think that he watched enough videos in preparation to be the tour guide himself. Thus, we didn't hire a guide, and we went at the adventure solo. We bought tickets for the morning entrance to the park and the Machu Picchu Mountain hike.
One of the easiest ways to get to Aguas Caliente, the town surrounding Machu Picchu, is to take a train. We took a taxi for 100 Peruvian Pesos from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo, and then the train from there. Our taxi driver stopped in a small town on the way and we listened to a teenage girl and her family describe the wool dying and weaving process. Then, onward to Ollantaytambo we went. The town was very small, but had a set of ruins to explore as well. Instead, we went to a panoramic view restaurants, and we were the only family there for an hour. I had an alpaca ravioli, which I liked better than the thick cut of alpaca meat because it was easier to few and eat. We also explored down by the river to the railroad tracks and a small neighboring village. Finally, it was night time and our train arrived.
By time that we arrived in Aguas Caliente it was almost 9 pm. The town was intriguing in the fact that the train tracks ran straight through a majority of the town. We had to asked a local market where our hostel was, and when we got there our hostel person instructed to first go to the bus ticket booth before it closed. He advised that in the mornings, the line for the bus to get to Machu Picchu begins at 4 am and the bus leaves at 5:30 am, but that there would be a long line to buy bus tickets and board the bus. The office to buy bus tickets closed at 9, but they still accepted everyone in line even after that time. We waited about 25 families for our turn, and I'm glad we bought them the night before because he wasn't exaggerating about the line for boarding the bus.
The next morning we got up around 5 am to prepare for the day, and our hostel made us eggs to order, which was a nice surprise. We bundled up, more than we had to unfortunately, and made our way to the 3 block length line for the bus. Although it was a long line, they had multiple buses going at once and he boarded quicker than I expected. The drive was five minutes to the outskirts of town and fifteen minutes of switchbacks up the hills, which led directly to the entrance of the park.
We partially wandered around the park, even though you're supposed to stay on the circuit trail. One of our first turn offs led us to alpacas, whom we took selfies with for a solid thirty minutes. Afterwards, my dad gave us the tour of the ruins, which he knew from all of his youtube research on the ruins. The ruins were by far larger than any we had seen in Peru, during any part of our trip, and it was incredible to think of the city nestled between the mountains and left undiscovered until fairly recently. We circled our way through the park, we were ushered out, and then reentered the park because we had tickets to climb Machu Picchu Mountain. The line waited outside of the trail entrance until our 9 am entrance period, and the clump of people quickly dispersed along the trail as we made the quickly ascent step path. For two hours of so we battled the altitude and climbed our way up. Luckily, there were look out points that we could stop and breath all along the way. That altitude was no joke. It turned what might have been a tiring, but easy, hike into a gasping for air and breaking breaks journey. We made it up and enjoyed the panoramic view for about 30 minutes, and then made our descent. Our second loop through the park wasn't as slow paced, but we still stopped to admire some views.
The line for the bus ride home was longer than the line to get to the park. The line went on for at least a football field, and it felt almost like a sport to find the ending point of the line. That night we took it easy, and after getting dinner in town we called it a night.

Rainbow Mountain

No one warned us that there would be snow. I figured that Peru could get cold in the Winter (the Brazilian relativity for "cold" that is), but I forgot that the altitude was an additional factor. We waited in the alley at 3 am for our guide to pick us up, and we got hopeful every time that a car passed by. Hearing our names finally being asked was one of the biggest reliefs. Except, we booked the excursion through our hostel, and the tour guide only had one name written down. It all worked out. So, we loaded the vans and drove around winding roads to the beginning of our hike. It was a slushy mess, and I only really wiped out hard about three times. When we got to the last twenty minutes of the hike it was a fast elevation change and the hardest part. We had to stop every few minutes to try and suck in wind, which made sense since we were 5,000 meters up and hiking a mountain. We did it though. Just as everyone says, the colors are not as bright in person, BUT- we had snow covered mountains on one side and color streaked mountains on the others. We had made it to one of the lookout points, but there was another to climb yet, which was every stepper. Getting up was the easier part, but coming back down I literally sat down on my bum and inch my way on the icy downhill slope. I had a very cold bum and hands afterwards. The hike back was a bit easier since the sun had dried up some of the mud. Standing at the summit through and looking at the contrasting scenery that surrounded me was astounding. The snowy mountains reminded me of the Swiss Alps, but the dry rocky section reminded me of Arizona.

Exploring Cuzco

Cuzco and it's gravel roads are not what I expected from the city. A low lying, colorful patching of rooftops, and several markets connect the city. We had a mix up of days for scheduling, so instead of horseback riding the first day we explored the city by foot. We walked towards the Municipal Market, tried chicken on a stick (I chickened out of the heart kabob), and got lost as we trekked our way to Cristo Blanco. We finally climbed our way up through a residential area to find the Jesus statue that overlooks the city. That night we had one of my favorite meals of the trip- a sample platter that included alpaca, guinea pig, trout, quinoa, mandioca, and some other miscellaneous foods. Our hostel that night was only $7 each, so you know it wasn't living the high life. It was in the back of the building with no windows, and the smell was so bad that my dad refused to use our shared bathroom, but I wanted to give my dad the true inexpensive hostel "experience".
That night we had one of my favorite meals of the trip. It was on the second floor of shop in the center square, and we had a view overlooking the square cathedral and fountain. We decided to split the sampler platter, which included trout chicharron, quinoa, fried mandioca, alpaca, guinea pig, and an assortment of other side dishes. Watching my dad's reaction as he ate the guinea pig was priceless. It was a small clump on the plate, which we discovered still had the bones and all. It was incredibly salty. We decided never again for guinea pig. Alpaca was also an adventure- it was so tough and hard to eat. I literally had a hard time cutting it to eat, and it almost flew off my plate in desperate attempts to cut it apart.

Presenting At ConectaIFB, Diplomatic Meeting, and EdUSA Fair

Such a big and tiring day. Amanda (my co-worker) and I met up with professor Fabricio at the metro station at 9 am, and because of traffic w...