Monthly Archives: October 2005

Santa Cruz Trek Day 2 of 4

October 5, 2005
Day 7

I didn't sleep very well our first night of camping. I was warm enough, but the tent was set up on uneven ground, and I had the sensation that I was falling the entire night. I was glad when the sun started coming up and I could get out of the tent. We ate a simple breakfast similar to porridge, gathered up our gear, and took off at about 8:00 AM.

The trek was difficult from the beginning. Yesterday we walked mostly either downhill or on flat ground, but the first four hours of today's trek were uphill. We kept passing other trekkers who were going in the opposite direction. We never seemed to be able to get a good idea of how long it would take to get to Punta Union, the highest point of the trek. Our guide kept saying "two more hours," but it was obvious he didn't know what he was talking about because he said that for two hours straight.

As we walked higher and higher, it got colder and colder. After awhile we got to the point where there was snow on the ground. I never thought I would see snow so close to the equator.

Eventually, it got to the point where our group was stopping every five minutes. When we could see Punta Union, we started splitting up. All I cared about at that point was making it to the top. I imagine that it wouldn't have been very difficult doing the same trek at home, but this was my first time at a high altitude, so I got fatigued very quickly. In the first four hours of the hike, we went from an altitude of 3870 meters (12,697 feet) at our camp to 4750 meters (15,584 feet) at Punta Union. Nevertheless, one by one, we all made it to the top.

When I reached the highest point and was finally able to see the other side of the mountain, I gasped. The lagoons and mountains looked like they were taken out of a postcard. After looking in awe at the natural beauty that surrounded me, I took some pictures and ate lunch.

After staying at the top for about thirty minutes, our group began our descent. Our guide pushed on at a very quick pace. I got a headache and started to feel really week. The altitude was getting to me because I didn't drink enough water. I eventually had to take a break and down a liter of water to get some energy back. Almost everyone in our group felt the same way. Nothing really bad happened, but I can only imagine how bad it would've been had we been even higher. Maybe we were just a bunch of spoiled brats, but it was still tough.

After walking downhill for two hours, we reached our camp at an altitude of 4250 meters (13,944) feet. I immediately went to my tent and passed out. After waking up an hour later, I felt good. After drinking some mate de coca, I felt even better. Our group ate supper and talked for awhile. Some interesting conversations about money and politics developed because we were all from different countries.

Later that night, a few people started talking about cutting the trip a day short. Our third day would involve four hours of hiking, followed by two more on day four. Some people had a limited amount of time to travel, so they figured it would be worthwhile to save a day by walking the entire six hours on day three. Our guide was worried that he´d get into trouble if some of his group left, but eventually he accepted that cutting out the fourth day was possible.

I went to bed at 10:00, later than any other night of the trip.

The complete photo album for this entry is here.

Santa Cruz Trek Day 1 of 4

October 4, 2005
Day 6

It was a long day. I had to get up at 6:00 AM to meet up with the rest of the people for my trek. After being up late the last several nights, getting up at sunrise was really rough. There was good news, though. I thought I was going to have to take my big backpack for the trip because one of the shoulder straps on my daypack ripped apart on my flight to Peru. I took it to a tailor the night before, but I didn't think I'd be able to pick it up in time. However, not only was the tailor awake, but he had fixed my backpack, and he only charged me 1 Sol (30 cents) for the privilege.

After throwing a few items in my newly-fixed daypack and putting together a bag for the donkeys to carry, I headed out to the tour agency to meet everyone and get our gear together. The tour would consist of seven people besides me:

Morad, from France, who had been traveling with me to this point
Erik, from France, who is currently living in Australia, but thinks he is Bolivian
Mickey, from Israel, who despite not speaking Spanish has an uncanny ability to bargain for everything from this trip to a night's stay in a hostel
Benjamin, from Germany, who will be returning to Berlin soon to continue studying electrical engineering
Carolina, from Switzerland, who has been traveling around the Americas for over a year
Gregorio, our quiet 18 year old guide
Our donkey man

Everyone in the group was traveling independently, which made it easy to get to know each other. Also, everyone except me spoke at least three languages, so I'm pretty sure they were all talking about me in French or German behind my back the whole time.

To start our trip from Huaraz, we rode a typical Peruvian bus for an hour to a small town where we ate breakfast. No sooner than we had gotten there, Benjamin was nowhere to be found. It turned out that he had just gotten into Huaraz that morning and hadn't gotten a chance to do such essential things as go to the bathroom or use the Internet. Morad went looking for him, but then he didn't come back. One by one, people kept disappearing. It was like one of those cheesy horror movies from the '80s where the killer just sat back and waited for people to leave the main group. I decided to stay put. After finally getting everyone rounded up, we ate sandwiches with beef and onions at eight in the morning, and took off in another bus.

Most Peruvian buses aren't buses as we know them in the US. They are really just ten-passenger vans that are not made for people more than five feet tall. I counted thirteen people in our bus for the majority of our trip, but I was told that it would take twenty people to meet the Peruvian definition of "full."

We rode the bus for three hours. The majority of the trip was up a mountain. There were no guardrails on the narrow gravel road, so I got a little freaked out at times. Everyone else seemed calm, though, so it was probably a safe road, at least relatively speaking. The road kept twisting and turning up the mountain, slowly but surely. Along the way, we passed a majestic lagoon and some of the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen, but we never stopped. I was told that the bus driver was in a hurry. The way the road wound up the mountain, I kept seeing the same scenery over and over, smaller and smaller. Finally, we got to the top of the mountain and began our descent. We had to go back down the other side of the mountain for thirty minutes until we reached the start of our trek.

After the three hour bus ride, we arrived at Vaqueria, our starting point. The only problem was that our donkeys had not yet arrived. This tour already seemed very unorganized. I guess that's what you get for going the cheap route. We ended up waiting for over an hour before being able to depart. Why were we in such a hurry to get there that we couldn't even stop to take a few pictures?

The first few hours of the trek took us through several native villages. There were people doing laundry, farmers working in fields, local children following us, and of course lots of animals being herded. It was very interesting to see how the native farmers go about their daily lives.

After walking across rivers, through forests, around lagoons, and past mountains, we arrived at our camp. We walked for a total of four hours. The walk itself wasn't very difficult, but there was little daylight left when we got to camp. That's when I really noticed how disorganized the tour was.

With dark setting in and the temperature quickly dropping to below freezing, our guide and donkey guy worked quickly to get the tents set up and cook dinner. The only problem was that they didn't have a flashlight, a pocket knife, a scissors, or enough silverware for everyone. We had to stand around with our flashlights and give them enough light to cook. There also were no chairs, so we had to eat on the ground.

Despite the few problems I had with the lack or organization, I still enjoyed my day. I saw some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen, and I got to enjoy getting away from civilization for awhile. The group was still in good spirit going into day two, which would prove to be the toughest day of the trip.

The complete photo album for this entry is here.

Preparing for Trekking

October 3, 2005
Day 5

I started out my day with a trip to the Museo de Antropologia in the center of Huaraz. Like the museum in Lima, there were lots of artifacts from the prehispanic civilizations here. I'm so fascinated with the various cultures. It's strange how the Incas basically enslaved the other cultures of this continent and forced them to change their cultures, only to have the same thing be done to them one hundred years later by the Spaniards. A taste of their own medicine I guess. This time, I had a guide who showed me the whole museum. We chatted a lot about life in Peru and the US, the similarities and the differences. We talked entirely in Spanish, and surprisingly, I was able to understand 75% of it. It's weird how fast you can pick up a language when you are actually travelling in a foreign country (of course, I knew a lot of Spanish before my trip, but I hadn't used it in seven years).

After the museum visit, I met with Morad and we went to get breakfast. It just so happened that the owner of the shop we went to was from France and everyone in the place spoke French except me. It was a very bizarre experience when I had to think about two foreign languages at the same time. I eventually just zoned out and watched the boob tube while everyone else was chatting away.

In the afternoon, we walked to a lookout point near the city. It was a long hike up, but I held my own. The only problem was that we went around 4:00 PM. This time of year, it always rains at 4:00. I didn't get very good pictures, but the view was still pretty good, despite being so wet.

On the way back down, we noticed an interesting restaurant. We decided to get lunch and discovered that one of their main menu items was "cuy," which means "guinea pig" in Spanish. Both of us wanted to try it, so we each got 1/2 of a fried cuy. There wasn't much meat on it, and it was a little dry, but believe it or not, it tasted like chicken. Luckily, I got a huge soup, or I would've left that place hungry.

After doing some shopping around, I decided to go with Morad on a 4 day, 3 night trek in an area called "Santa Cruz." We'll be going with 3 other people I haven't met yet. It should be an amazing experience, as the area I'm in is home to the world's highest tropical mountains. I won't be able to get on the Internet until at least Thursday, probably Friday, so I'm just getting caught up tonight. Check back in a few days. I'll probably have lots of great pictures and stories to tell.

Stroll Through Huaraz

October 2, 2005
Day 4

After we got of the bus, a tout lead (a guy who tries to get you to go to his hostel) Morad and I to his guest house in Huaraz. It turned out to be a nice, cozy, quiet place owned by the guy's family. We got our own room with a private bathroom for only a little more than $3 per night. I'm liking this place already.

After watching the sunrise from the guest house, I immediately went to my room and crashed for a few hours. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well on the bus.

Morad and I walked through the town this morning. There was an interesting procession going on in the Plaza de Armas. The city is much more peaceful than Lima.

As I was walking around, I noticed two women dressed in traditional native costumes with alpacas. I gave them half a sol (16 cents) each, and they let me pose with the alpacas. While getting ready for the picture, I made a big mistake. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently alpacas don't like to be bossed around. As I attempted to move the taller one into position, he turned his head toward me. I still didn't think anything was out of the ordinary until I heard a familiar "hocking" sound. Next thing I knew, my face was covered in alpaca phlegm. While everyone around the plaza had a good laugh at the gringo who just got spat on, I shook it off and still managed to eek out a smile for the picture. Next time I'll try to be more careful.

After dooming myself to smelling like alpaca spit for the rest of the day, I walked through the town, including a fascinating market. I would have loved to have taken hundreds of pictures of all of the food and natives in their Quechua garb, but I was told that it would be very disrespectful to do so. Just trust me, it was a great experience.

I'll probably spend a day or two acclimatizing to the altitude (which really just means being lazy) in Huaraz before going trekking in the surrounding mountains. We are going to try to meet up with Tom and Henry, the Brits we were hanging out with in Lima, and hire a guide. Going in a group of four or so is probably the best happy medium. We will be able to split the cost of a guide, yet we won't be in a huge group, which I think would take away from the experience.

Leaving Lima

October 1, 2005
Day 3

I started out my day by taking a walk through the streets of Miraflores. There are lots of old houses and interesting buildings to see, and it's one of the few places in Lima where I feel completely safe to walk around. I took a stroll through a touristy market where clothes and souvenirs were sold at highly marked up prices. Then I walked past the house of Ricardo Palma, a famous Peruvian author. There was a museum there, but it was closed. I did a little more walking around, then returned to the hostel.

After my leisurely morning, Morad informed me that the bus tickets we wanted to get for Huaraz were sold out, so we would have to go with a different company. We took a taxi to the ticket place and got an overnight ride that goes from 9 PM to 5 AM. The good news is that the ticket only cost about $7, which is less than half of what I was expecting to pay. On top of that, I don't have to pay for accommodation and I'll get to wake up ready to explore a new city, at least in theory.

After purchasing the ticket, I took a taxi to the Museo de la Nacion, which had several exhibits about the pre-Hispanic and pre-Inca cultures of Peru. There were Wari masks, punctured skulls, shrunken heads, and all sorts of interesting tidbits from the long-forgotten cultures of this land.

After I had gotten my museum fix taken care of, I bought some food from the supermarket, hung out in the hostel for awhile, got all of my stuff together, and got ready to go on a long bus trip.

Morad and I got to the bus station about 8:30 for our 9:00 departure, and from the first minute we set foot inside, it was a horrible experience. There were about forty people waiting to get onto various buses out of town (we were the only foreigners). There were also about thirty people trying to sell us shit. One by one, they would walk up to us, stick their complete garbage items that nobody would ever want to buy in our faces, and hold them there for about ten seconds before moving on. For me, it was an exercise in extreme restraint.

At one point, a guy stuck one of those noise makers that you roll between your palms from Karate Kid II about one inch from my nose and started making noise with it. BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM! Why would I ever want to buy that? It took every bit of focus I could muster to keep myself from grabbing it and beating him over the head with it. After awhile I perfected the stare-blindly-into-space-and-pretend-they-don't-exist look. Even worse, I thought it was just the gringos they were bugging, but then I looked to my left to see a guy relentlessly waving a noise-making stuffed animal in someone's face. It's very frustrating for me too, because while I get thoroughly annoyed by these things, I realize that this is the only way these people can survive. I just wish they would try to sell food, or something someone else might want, instead. I guess I should just accept it as part of the culture. Life is more than skittles and beer.

The bus left about thirty minutes late, which isn't too bad I'm told. Upon embarking, we drove around Lima for about two hours picking people up. At first, there were only three people besides us on the bus, but eventually it got completely full. The rest of the trip wasn't too bad, even though my knees were pressed against the seat in front of me the whole time, there wasn't a bathroom or any bathroom breaks, and we climbed from sea level to 10,000 feet, so we were constantly moving uphill around hairpin curves, all while attempting to sleep because it was the middle of the night.

We got to Huaraz shortly before sunrise. When it got light enough to see outside, the first thing I noticed was how beautiful the scenery was. Huaraz is a small city that is surrounded by mountains. It's far removed from the noisy, polluted city of Lima. I think I will like it a lot better here.

Central Lima

Written September 30, 2005
Day 2

I got up early today and ate a simple breakfast at my hostel. Afterwards, I went with Tom and Henry from Britain and Mored from France to the center of Lima. The Plaza de Armas was an interesting place surrounded by churches and government buildings. The four of us walked a few blocks down to a market that sold fresh meat and fish. I was fascinated by the constant hustle and bustle lifestyle that characterized the area, yet it was a little frightening at the same time. With so many people moving in every direction, I constantly had to stay vigilant to protect myself. I would have loved to have become invisible to take a few good street photos, but I guess I'll have to settle for the quick shots I got with my point and shoot camera.

After the market, we walked through Chinatown. It wasn't very big and I didn't see even one person who looked even remotely Chinese, but at least there were plenty of places to eat. After lunch, we walked to the bull fighting arena, but it was closed. We had to walk through some pretty dodgy areas to get there, too. After we had enough walking around, we caught a cab back home.

Downtown Lima didn't impress me. It was a big, loud, and smelly area without any major attractions. Don't get me wrong, it was still fun to walk around and observe the city lifestyle, but there weren't many great places to enjoy for an afternoon, and there are plenty of areas that I'm told are far too dangerous to walk through, even during the day. Miraflores (the district where I am staying, a few miles from the center of Lima) is a lot nicer, but there still doesn't seem to be much tourism here. I didn't go on this trip to be a tourist, but on the other hand, I like learning about other cultures, and I have yet to find a place here that can help me do that, other than observing life on the street.

I still have a lot of time before my Inca Trail tour, so I've decided to go north for a week or so. Morad and I are going to try to find a bus ticket to Huaraz, a city about eight hours north of here. There are lots of mountains and treks to take near there. From there, I'll make my way south until I get to Cuzco.

Tomorrow I'd like to find the Museo de la nacion, which has models of the ruins of Peru. Hopefully, that will fill my cultural fix for awhile.

Oh yeah, I may not be able to post anything for a few days because I'll be on the move, so don't get too worried if you don't see anything new here.