Paracas (Peru - Part 7 - Conclusion)

After more than four weeks traveling in Peru, we were ready for a little bit of luxury.   So for three nights we stayed at a resort on the coast that cost about 5x our normal budget per night.   The resort was walled off from the streets, offered western food, and the staff spoke English, so it was very comfortable (but not so authentic).    The main attraction here was the islands offshore - home to millions of birds (covering every square inch of the barren rock islands).   They even have penguins.

The other big attraction was the Nazca lines.  You may have heard about these ancient "geoglyphs" in the desert - they are giant shapes of monkeys, birds, etc traced in the desert floor - so large (200 meters across) they can only be seen from the air.  Our favorite is called the Astronaut - an odd bubble-headed humanoid waving up to the sky.  In addition to the figures, the desert is also criss-crossed with long straight lines, triangles, and trapezoids.   They may have been made to summon water from the mountains or to worship in some way.

This is where our journey ends, and the trip home begins.   After 3 hours by bus, we arrive in Lima to explore for the afternoon before our flight.  It is a modern city along the coast, but a persistent marine layer makes it kind of grey in the winter (our summer).  

As we begin to think about home, I really miss some of my material possessions:  My mountain bike, our jacuzzi, the camper van (and all its self contained luxuries).  Plus clean air - without smoke, exhaust, or sewer smells.  Also, the emotional impact of American music, which we haven't heard for awhile.  And comfort food:  chicken tikka masala, Thai crunch salad, En fuego burger, VGs donuts, and sushi all come immediately to mind.   Surprisingly, I don't miss TV (except for "the Newsroom" on HBO).

Ever notice the older we get, the faster life speeds by?  Want the antidote?  It is travel!  We have experienced so much in the last five weeks that it feels like we've lived a whole year there.  Just stepping outside of the routine stretches out time.  The world contains so much amazing variety!  New experiences.  New challenges.  ...just new.

In closing, I'd like to acknowledge that Eileen planned this whole trip for us.  Many months were spent considering destinations and choosing hotels (guided by Trip Adviser and Lonely Planet).  I am eternally grateful to have her as a travel partner - to confront the little challenges together, to share the amazement, and to have her support (even warming my body with hers while I suffered with altitude sickness chills inside our tent).   

Thanks for following along with us.

Huaraz (Peru - Part 6)

Huaraz is a mountain climber's mecca, with many jagged peaks above 20k ft -including the tallest mountain in South America.  We connected with a local mountain bike guide who took us for three days of exploring the surrounding area.  The trails were scrappy, but always framed by a beautiful panorama of jagged white peaks.  Aggressive dogs were present whenever the trails passed through areas of homes, and even sweet Eileen learned how to stare them down - they were all bark and no bite.

Our other goal for the area was the four-day Santa Cruz trek.   Camping and hiking among the massive 20k peaks was stunning.  It would be a phenomenal place to paraglide - to effortlessly traverse the valleys and explore the massive walls up close (another trip I suppose).  Our second day involved hiking over a 15.7k pass, and the air was so thin our pace slowed to near a crawl.   My initial euphoria at the top was eventually replaced with a bit of nausea and headache, and eventually that night at the 13k ft camp, chills.  I guess I was not acclimatized enough for this altitude (especially after four days in the jungle at sea level).  I even had a bit of lower chest  pain, which I dismissed until I felt it again the next day at a 15k ft scenic lake.  Could this be the start of mild pulmonary edema? I don't know, but I don't think I'll plan to trek above 15k again in the future - that is probably my safe limit.  (Note that Eileen did not suffer from altitude sickness at any point - she's a better mountaineer than I.)

Fortunately, I felt better the next day, so I could enjoy the magnificent scenery.  Back to town, and on to our next destination (via taxi, plane, taxi, bus, and taxi)...

Deep into the Amazon jungle... (Peru - Part 5)

Getting there:  A one hour flight followed by two hours in a taxi, much of it on a rough dirt road fording many streams.  Ten minutes for a boat crossing of  a large river that has no bridge, then find another taxi for another hour through the jungle.  We finally reach the end of the road, and get in a small wooden boat and head upstream for almost six hours  ...in the pitch black of night!

In case that isn't vivid enough, let me paint a picture:  One guy sits on the front with a flashlight and gives commands to the guy working the motor at the back ...only he keeps the light off half the time to save batteries, and the river has lots of giant exposed fallen trees and even some small rapids.   Very scary when the engine dies and we drift backwards down the rapids while they change tanks in the complete darkness!  All we can see is the stars and a silhouette of the shoreline.

Eventually we arrive at the lodge, a former research station with no electricity -only candles and flashlights.  We are very remote: 30 miles farther up the river live indigenous naked people who sometimes shoot arrows at passing boats - glad we stopped here!  We see lots of wildlife:  Macaws, parrots, toucans, hawks, vultures, and too many other birds to remember.  We also saw cayman, snakes, frogs, spiders, giant otters, and three kinds of monkeys - Spider, Squirrel, and Capuchin (we also heard Howler monkeys, but never saw them).

One local oddity is the Tapir, the latest animal in the Amazon - a funky waist high four legged hoofed creature with an odd "snout."  We waited in the dark for hours hoping to see these nocturnal creatures at a remote clay lick they come to for salt.    Kind of surreal to be sitting under individual mosquito nets in the pitch black listening for horse-like sounds deep in the jungle.  We couldn't whisper above the din of the insects, or use our flashlights, so after a few hours we weren't 100 percent sure if the guide was even still with us.   It was a bust, but thankfully we saw a Tapir the next morning by the river bank tromping thru the mud and eventually swimming across the river in front of our boat.  Cool.

Cusco and Machu Picchu (Peru - part 4)

Eight more hours by bus brought us to Cusco, but that included a couple of interesting tour stops along the way.   Cusco is the staging area for the Inca trail, so there were lots of tourists and eclectic restaurants to serve them (us).  We did some mountain biking in the area; despite being an adventure destination, the trails were very "scrappy."  Rather than flowy single track, it was a combination of donkey paths, dirt roads, open grassy pastures, irrigation ditches, and even plowed fields!  Nonetheless the scenery was usually quite good, passing Inca ruins, rolling farmland, and sometimes spectacular cliff-edge trails.  We even passed a salt mine that had been operating since before Inca times - a mosaic of thousands of evaporating pools.

We connected with my cousin and his family to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.   This four day hike took us up high again (13700 ft), but I had acclimatized sufficiently by this time.  The trail is mostly a series of steep steps built by the Incas for a spiritual journey to Machu Picchu, and it was difficult.  I tried chewing coca leaves like the locals do for extra energy (with the special alkali activator).  It made my mouth a bit numb, and Eileen says I was extra energetic.  Machu Picchu was of course awe inspiring (but you had to overlook the hoards of tourists -a bit too Disneyland at this point I'm afraid).  For the record, we both got travelers D. on the trek, as did about half the group.  I guess sanitation is a challenge on the trail (and I've never seen worse bathrooms in my life - enough said).

It was great to reconnect with my cousin and his wife and their kids after too many years.  And they brought a few of their neighbor friends on the trip - a really great group to hang with -we're glad we met them.

After the trek, we had a nice relaxing day in the sacred valley, except for a wild ride ride in a collectivo(?).   In true clown car fashion, there were 14 of us packed inside a minivan - many were crouch-standing because there was no room to sit of course.  I had many strangers' butts and backs in my face for the short ride.   That's going local!

Lake Titicaca (Peru - part 3)

Another big bus ride (6 hrs) took us to the edge of Lake Titicaca - the highest navigable lake in the world (12.5k ft).   This was mostly a cultural excursion, but there is something a bit surreal about the lake, sky, and surrounding terrain.  I can't really explain it but it was beautiful somehow - perhaps it was just knowing how high we were, or maybe the thin and clean mountain air.  From here we could see Bolivia - snow capped mountains on the horizon.

We visited the island of Taquile - an isolated culture where the men are knitters and the women are weavers.  Kind of odd to walk through a village and see all the young men knitting -with amazingly fast and dexterous hands.  We learned interesting things about their clothing.  Like many groups in Peru, the hats are distinct and play a special role.  On Taquile, an interested young woman will steal a young man's hat to test it for quality - to see if it is tightly woven enough to hold water.  Recently the men have learned the trick of coating the inside with a bit of animal fat to seal any imperfections.  Modern technology :-)

We also visited another culture that builds floating mats of reeds to live on.  About the size of a basketball court, they house several families, each with a small hut built on top.  The mat is a bit squishy to walk around on, but you do stay dry.   They must constantly add fresh new reeds on top, and eventually the mat reaches several meters deep under the water.   Needless to say the teenagers usually leave this life once old enough.  Even the introduction of solar panels and TV are not enough to keep them - understandably.  I'm not sure I could imagine a tougher life.

Colca Canyon

Our first excursion is a five hour bus ride up into the mountains, including a 15.5k ft pass (higher than any mountain peak in the continental US).    This is after spending less than 48 hours at elevation (8k in Arequipa).  Perhaps you can guess why all the detail about elevations - In spite of taking Diamox, I got altitude sickness:  headache, nausea, and teeth-chattering chills.  I also experienced weakness, diarrhea, sore throat, and a cough at the same time, but that could have been from bad food, Chili River contamination, or some airborne contagion on the stuffy bus.  Yes, it was an unpleasant time  :-(

We saw an amazingly deep and scenic canyon, and watched Andean Condors soar the ridges with their prehistoric 10 foot wingspan.  We also went for a mountain bike ride through some very small towns along the canyon.  There are Inca terraces everywhere - as far as the eye can see sometimes.  It is inconceivable the they sculpted as much land as they did (and that it has lasted until now).   I wish I could say more but I really wasn't able to fully enjoy things for a few days.  Back in Arequipa a local doctor prescribed Cipro ($35 visit + $2 medicine), and I started to feel better (also lower altitude).

While recovering in Arequipa, we felt an earthquake.  Apparently not uncommon here, but this one triggered a landslide a Colca Canyon and a few people were killed.

One interesting side note about this excursion:  Buying bus tickets requires a visit to the bus station across town the day before travel.  Kind of inconvenient, and believe it or not the five hour bus was

Back in the Saddle Again...

After a few years back in the workforce, we are gratefully back to world travel again.  This time our destination is Peru, where we'll explore for five weeks:  Trekking, camping, mountain biking, sightseeing, and who knows what else.  (Note: the photos are all Eileen's so you may not see as much of her pictured.  Also, you may notice I shaved my head - partly for convenience and partly to mark the flights.)

We arrived in Arequipa, Peru after more than 24 hours of traveling.  The scenery is dominated by a looming conical volcano (19k ft) and another similarly high and snow peaked range.  Both were so tall and so close that they rose abnormally high in the sky- impressive!  Our inexpensive ($35) hotel room framed the volcano perfectly with a large picture window.  The only downside was climbing four flights of stairs in the thin air (elevation 7600 ft).

Arequipa is called the white city because it was settled by the Spaniards, and as result it has attractive colonial architecture - including a very colorful monastery.  We ate at some nice restaurants and tried local specialties like alpaca and ceviche - both were good.  We did not try the "cuy" (aka guinea pig).

Walking the streets we learned why renting a car was not recommended for this trip: 90% of the cars were taxis, there are no defined lanes, and stop signs are completely ignored.  Seriously, cars just bully their way through four-way intersections without stopping.  Looks like chaos, but we didn't see any accidents.  Pedestrians do not have the right of way of course.

We spent one afternoon whitewater rafting on the local Chili River - a very technical descent (ie, lots of big rocks to navigate).  It was great fun, but a bit cold (glacial fed river), and I had my nasal passages well flushed by the gushing rapids.  Another afternoon was spent at a museum of Incan artifacts including the "ice maiden," a well-preserved mummy recently discovered - she was sacrificed and buried on top of one of the highest mountains in the 1500s.