Cusco, Machu picchu y Salkantay

We can pretty much say that we know southern Peru very well now haha. The past 2 weeks have flown by! Arriving in Cusco, we were immediately shocked at how clean and beautiful (the center) was. We were picked up by this lady in the bus station promising us a hostel for 20 soles a night, an amazing price! We get to the hostel, get all unpacked in our room, and then she demands 20 soles per person! Needless to say, we only staye one night. We had met a really nice 45 year old backpacker who we went out to dinner with and he told us all the stories of his backpacking on 7 continents! Stacen had the most amazing alpaca steak in the world. The guy was very nice, but very clear that he had been travelling alone for way too long...he told us multiple times that he had nothing to go back to in the US.
The next morning we found a cheaper hostel in a 420 year old building with an AMAZING view of the entire city from our room. We spent the day walking around, taking in the sights, and of course, shopping for yet more souvenirs. We had a pretty good day of purchases. But then, that night we created the best 4 topping pizza in the world at this cozy little pizza place: chorizo, garlic, spinach, and avocado! It was an amazing day of food, because earlier that afternoon we had found an all you can eat indian buffet!!
The next morning began our super-touristy 8 days. We had bought a Cusco-Machu Picchu tour package, and so moved to our fancy 2 star hostel, and awaited the arrival of our friends Marissa, Sarah, and Chris. After the hellos were said we took them out to give them a good authentic peru experience. That night we introduced them to Pisco sours, and there are now 3 more Pisco addicts in the world. The next day our official city tour began. We were carted into tourist vans and spoken english to. We were taken to several incan temple ruins, learned how the spaniards really sucked and destroyed everything. One of the sites was called Saksayhuaman, pronounced quite similarly to ¨sexy woman¨. We ended the day with a tour of a silver jewelry making shop and then a tour of the overpriced shop. We were also tought to feel the difference between alpaca, baby alpaca, llama, vicuña (descendants of undomesticated llamas), a mix, and synthetic. The next day was white water rafting! Everyone said it definetly wasn´t the most intense rafting they have ever done, but we all had a great time. Our guide flipped the raft on purpose once, pushed us both out another time, and tought us to literally stand up and dance while doing the rapids. The water was COLD. And all our wetsuits were very used and had holes in them. There was a sauna at camp, which we all had an amazing time warming up in. Then lunch and back to Cusco, where we all collapsed in exhaustion.
The next day began our hiking tour. We took a van into the Sacred Valley and began our hike down a pretty boring road, but the view was gorgeous. We had mules to carry our stuff, so we just had daybags. We had an awesome guide, Alex, and two cooks who were brother and about 4 and a half feet tall. We also had 2 horsemen who also took care of our tents, and never talked to us. That was it. We camped that night underneath several glaciars, and it was COLD. Below freezing. No aliens. We slept well considering, and got up at 5:30 for breakfast and to start our trek, what was to be the longest of the trip, 20 km. We hiked all morning above the treeline until we got to the pass between 2 19,000 ft mountains. We were at an altitude of about 15,000 feet, the highest we´ve ever hiked. Thank god we are already acclimated! We witnessed 2 miniature avalanches, and tried unsuccessfully yodelled to create some more. The whole afternoon consisted of us walking downhill, ending up in the rainforest that evening! The rest of our trip was in the Amazon. We camped that night in a much warmer and greener place, full of very annoying roosters. The cooks served amazing food, especially the popcorn snack every afternoon. We were such pampered hikers it was a little ridiculous. At least we hiked the thing. Day 3 was thankfully flat, lots more jungle. Sadly, we witnessed some rainforest destruction by way of roads and cornfields. We had a break in a place with an extremely aggressive and ugly rooster. We camped that evening in an actual village that had a shower! We got clean, hung out by the river, and by far the most memorable experience of the night, witnessed the slaying, gutting, preparing, and cooking of a pig to feed 2 adjoining campsites. We watched the first 3 steps right before our own dinner, which we didn´t eat very much of. It was even warmer here, and we didn´t need to sleep in our sweaters!
Day 4 we, Sarah, and Alex started up this massive hill covered in coffee and yuca farms. After 3 hours up we got to the top, the truly incredible untouched rainforest, hiked a little more past incan ruins that were enveloped by the forest, to a clearing where we got our first view of Machu Picchu! After a break, we hiked down through intermittent sugar cane fields to the river, and met up with Marissa and Chris at the hydroelectric plant that is right next to Machu Picchu. They had taken the road around the mountain, and a 2 person non-mechanized cable car 150 feet over the river that we still haven´t seen the pictures of yet. We decided to hike the 10 km more to Aguas Calientes (Hot waters), the town everyone who goes to Machu Picchu spends the night in. As you can guess, there wasn´t a single authentic thing there, it was tourist world. We took a HOT shower, ate dinner, and passed out at 9. We had hiked 45 miles in 4 days, all above 8,000 feet!
And then, Machu Picchu! We didn´t hear our wake up call because it consisted of a single knock on the door so as ¨not to wake up the other patrons¨. Nicole got very Latina mean when she found this out, which caused the poor reception girls to be extra nice to us the rest of our stay. We took a bus up the mountain and at about 7, we arrived...in a cloud bank. You couldn´t see a thing. We actually did the famous picture of Machu Picchu with the clouds so you could see. But Alex told us the clouds came and went, took us to the best spot, and we waited while he gave us a history lesson. 15 minutes later the clouds cleared (sorta) and we got the famous picture! We descended the steps and spent the next 4 hours touring the place. It is HUGE, and the reason it is so famous is because it was never found by the Spaniards, so it is in amazing condition. The city was not a regular city, only adults lived there, and it is thought that it was either religious or astronomical (Machu Picchu is perfectly lined up with the sun and stars on certain solstices). But our question is, why would they choose such a cloudy place for astronomical observation? No one knows for sure why it was abandoned, but some amazonian disease is suspected. And of course, they have llamas up there, who pose for pictures!
That afternoon, back in town, we found out that the aguas calientes were not so hot, and the water was kinda gross, so we didn´t go in. We hung out in a restaurant all afternoon playing cards before our train/bus back to Cusco. And thus our fancy tour ended. We have spent the past 3 days doing yet more souvenir shopping, eating amazing food, going to an incredible happy hour that had a classic rock cover band, and digesting. Our friends left this morning, and we have moped around all day trying to figure out where to go next. That is all for now. The trek has been our favorite part of South America, so we aren´t sure how to top it. We´ll be in touch!

Five hours by mule, six hours by bus from civilization... Colca Canyon!

Making our way to Colca Canyon was in itself an adventure. Being the smart and free-hippie backpackers that we now are, we headed to the Arequipa bus station at midnight to catch the 1am bus to Cabanaconde, the launching point to the Colca Canyon trek (the second deepest canyon in the world!). We hadn´t bought a ticket yet, but there are always a ton of seats available. Not this time!

The 1am bus was sold out, as was the 3am... we might not even catch the 11am! So, while Stacen slept onthe bus station floor (covered in a fleece blanket bought by Nicole in cold desperation at 2am), Nicole battled. She elbowed her way past 30 Peruvians, so happy she is at least a foot taller than everyone around her, and succesfully bought the last two tickets on the 6am bus!

A bumpy six hour ride later, we arrived at Cabanaconde, a little town with a few shops and hostels for trekers. We got some food, then started our trek down a hill for a 1100 meters descent, then back up another 450 meters to Malata, a tiny village with mud huts, no running water, and beautiful views. On the way up to the town, Stacen became incredibly weak and faint, stumbling happily into the arms of Modesto and Victoria, a kind older couple who would take us in (unknown to us!)for the next 3 days. Stacen quickly developed a fever and felt the wrath of some pretty vicious bugs (remember, just an outhouse!). The following day, he fluctuated between fevers and chills, and hefty tummy aches. Nicole dutifully cared for the ailing husband, reading outloud for about eight hours ¨Autobiography of a Yogi,¨ a pretty groovy book. Modesto and Victoria (the happy ones weaving in the pictures) kept us fed with a steady stream of eucolyptus tea and soups.

Sidenote: Stacen hates potatoes. With a ridiculous passion. In Peru (home to the potato), there are over 4000 varieties! Nicole has delightfully watched as Stacen has tried many of them. He also hates Peruvian rice. As you can imagine, the soups are always potato soup, with a serving of potato and rice as a second course :)

On the second full day in Malata, Stacen´s fever broke and he walked for half an hour! Nicole continued to read outloud for hours, and eat soup (she was getting pretty tired of soup too).

On the third day in Colca Canyon, we finally headed on an all day walk, to the town of Llatica, an even smaller and more remote town. When we asked where to go to the bathroom, we got got a smile and a point to the field. Nicole felt like she back home in Chirikayen again! We were served by an incredibly industrious woman in town, who ran the only store and restaurant in town. She also grew cuys... guinea pigs!! To our surprise we have learned that cuys are quite the Peruvian delicacy... we haven´t dared try them yet.

In Llatica, eveything is made out of mud, except for their beautiful, government built elementary school, where one dedicated (and incredibly nice) teacher teaches first through sixth grades to all the children in the village... all ten of them!We luckily had lunch with her, and got permission to use the sink and bathroom in the school. For the first time in almost five days we performed a ¨shower,¨ scrubbing ourselves in whatever way possibly with the cold water, absolutely loving it. We were actually able to show up dinner that night ¨clean¨!!! (which meant we could smell eachother by just sitting next to eachother). We had a great egg and rice dinner-no potato- happily chatting with the restaurant owner. She was especially intrigued by prices and how much things cost in the USA. Most awesomely, she let us play with her cuys, all 35 of them. Stacen also cooed at a four month old kitten that sat herself down in the middle of the cuy´s food. He loves his kitties.

The following morning, we woke up at 5am, on a mission to finally dominate the canyon. Breakfast took a while to get ready, at at 6am we got it: tuna and potato fried with rice on the side. Stacen also hates tuna.

We then headed to the town Lluhaur, a paradise of tourism (it had running water!)and hot water pools. We undressed and jumped in, delighting in the warm water.It was like a shower! Nicole especially enjoyed it, since she had been ravaged by moquitoes, broken out in hives and itchy bumps, which then had erupted in yellow blisters. So really, the water was NICE.

We then began our five hour climb 1100 meters back up the canyon. It was hard, but our booties are finally in shape! We were also tickled the whole way by the fact that every local we passed gave us times at least half asmuch as they were in reality. For example, gettin up a certain hill? The nice man with a donkey would say 15 minutes. In reality, 45 minutes! We are definetly not true canyon peaople just yet. Finally around 4pm, we arrived back in Cabanaconde, sad to leave the beutiful canyon behind. We had loved the kind canyon people: all friendly, curious, and none trying to mooch off our money! It was wonderful just to be around nice, humble people.

In Cabanaconde, we arrived starved, ready to devour a pizza. Nicole became angry and mean when we got our pizza-- it was microwaved, the crust was two pieces of bread stuck together, and it took a looong time. She bought a chocolate bar to cheer herself up. We then headed to an incredibly fancy hotel to check our email, and wound up hanging out in the hotel lobby for 3 hours playing cards (they were super nice there, even offering us tea!), until our 9pm bus back to wonderful Arequipa. We arrived at 4am, and happily returned to the lovely Santa Catalina Hostal...

Peru y la Ciudad Magica... Arequipa

AREQUIPA! Our winding bus journey through the Peruvian highlands brought us down into a valley that sees 360 days of sunshine a year...Nicole was in her element! Arriving into the bus station we had to fight off the taxi drivers so we could figure out where we were going, and finally settled on this place in the center of town that had a rooftop terrace and HOT WATER 24 hours a day in the showers! We quickly discovered that this is one of the places that tourists visit when they come to Peru to visit Machu Picchu, because there were Americans (and Europeans) everywhere! There were dozens of beautiful restaurants, some on ¨restaurant street¨, and about 10 of them with balconies overlooking the Plaza de Armas (every city seems to have a Plaza de Armas). There were people and pigeons everywhere, and at least in this part of the city, it was CLEAN! And also, all the historical buildings are built out of a white pumice-like rock that looks like styrofoam! It´s called the white city (La ciudad blanca). We spent the first day just walking around, and hit up the supermarket so that we could make our first dinner in weeks! That evening, sitting in the terrace of the hostel, we felt a tremor! Apparently Arequipa is one of the most sizemically active places in South America, with tremors several times a week. Turns out there was an earthquake 100 miles south, but no one was hurt.
The next morning we set out for the most famous attraction in the city--El convento de Santa Catalina. Built in 1579, it´s doors were closed to the outside world until 1970. Inside is a maze of streets, a city within a city, everything in bright colors and the cool rock again. The nuns certainly lived well...each one had a minimum of 2 servants, and they drank tea from solid gold teasets. It was the home of a few saints, so it is a kind of pilgrimmage site. We ended up spending 3 hours there! We walked around all afternoon again. That night while we were making dinner, Stacen was attempting to cut a carrot with a ridiculously dull knife. One of the guys who worked at the hostel asked what was wrong, and then called the other guy over to show that indeed the knife literally was not cutting. The guy pretty much said, ¨yes it does¨, then walked away. Stacen then turned to Nicole and said, ¨this knife is stupid¨. The first hostel worker, still sitting nearby, suddenly sayd, what country are you from? We say the United States and he goes ¨ahhhhhh¨. With trepidation, we ask why the ahhhhhh, and he answers, ¨I like to know where people are from who think they are better than me¨. Well you can guess that we were pretty shocked at this, and turns out he thought he spoke english and that we were insulting the hostel owner. Needless to say, it put Stacen in a pretty bad mood. We are on this trip in part with the mission of giving Americans a good name. The fact that Stacen speaks spanish has pleasantly surprised most people. It is ridiculously frustrating to encounter people with pre-determined and ill-founded ideas. So anyway, we will just have to keep trying for our remaining, get this, six weeks in South America.
During the remaining 5 days we spent about half that time on the terrace of the hostel, playing cards (Nicole is on a 2 week winning streak), reading, eating, and talking. One night we went out for some traditional Peruvian food and got Pisco sours! Pisco is a peruvian brandy, and the drink is addictive. After 2 sips, Nicole had declared them better than margaritas and Stacen had declared them his favorite mixed drink ever. We were inspired and the next night went to the store, bought the ingredients, and then made WAY too much that night haha, and Nicole made some sick guacamole even though the peppers she put in were crazy latino spicy.
We tried to go see a mummy, an human sacrifice of a little girl from several thousand years ago found on top of a nearby volcano, but the woman inside refused to believe that we spoke spanish, which was so frustrating that we left. You can see the mummy on google anytime.
On our last day, we got some school stuff done for back home, then went out to eat some amazing ¨soy meat¨, which we can only hope was tofu. Quickly afterwards, Stacen´s stomach began to voice it´s disapproval, but that is a story that will be continued in the next entry. We went to Colca Canyon soon after, and were gone from Arequipa for 5 days. Upon return, we took a much-needed nap, and went to an AMAZING restaurant, where we stayed eating and drinking for almost 5 hours. It was so nice to finally have some GOOD food, we had both lost quite a lot of weight in the canyon. We made a quick trip to the grovery store, dropped it off at the hostel, and then went out for pizza! It was an amazing cute little restaurant with tons of ambiance, and they were playing all kinds of alt rock, which gave us plenty to talk about all evening. We went back to the hostel, slept, and the next morning caught our 11 hous bus to Cusco! The only thing we will say now is that we were sitting in the very front, with a HUGE window in front of us the entire time. We had a blast. We´re in Cusco now and won´t be writing until after we see Machu Picchu next week. Until then!