Conditions improved on day 2, but it was still a bit foggy and wet. As we worked down the mountain it started to dry up and the sun came out. We only trekked until lunch time when we reached what would be our second campsite. It was in a flat valley dropped down right between several mountains. The scene could not have been better. We had an amazing lunch that included fresh rainbow trout caught in the mountain river that day.
I also had a very interesting encounter with a mother hen. Our tents were set on the interior of a rectangular stone fence and the only exit access point was a fence far and away to the left of the site. The outhouse, which was not actually an outhouse rather than a three-piece sheet metal building with a plywood roof, was located off and to the right, so it was quite an unnecessary journey to walk all the way to the gate and then back to the outhouse, especially since the 3 1/2 foot wall along the right side was easily scaleable. The only drawback was that the narrow path between the right side of the wall and a small wooden hut was the resting place for a mother hen and several of her newborn chicks. After I climbed over the wall, the hen turned abruptly and flared her wings up at me, making a distasteful sound. I tried to calm her worries with soothing talk, but as it turns out, the chicken family is not one that has keenly developed reasoning skills. She came at me in a flurry, and not knowing what to do and wearing flip flops, I did what any 6'0", athletic male would do when attacked by a 1' female chicken: I yelled like a little girl. This only made her more angry and she got a good strong peck in at my foot, which was exposed due to my wearing of flip-flops at the time, and she even drew blood. It was actually incredibly funny, even when it happened, but I was really shocked because out of all the things that you may lay awake at night and consider what you would do if confronted with that situation, the attack of an angry chicken somehow never came up.
With the chicken incident behind us, we headed down the mountain to a natural hot spring down near the river. The springs were extremely hot, and one was practically unbearable, which lead Justin and I to climb down the slope and into the mountain river. This was less than stellar idea. The water was the coldest I have ever felt in my life and it was rushing rapidly. It cooled us off from the unbearable heat of the spring, but I'm surprised it didn't set off cardiac arrest due to extreme shock. We quickly ran back to the warm pool and spent the rest of the time there sharing a box of wine and some more good stories.
Showing posts with label Peru. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peru. Show all posts
1/21/08
1/18/08
Peru - Chapter 5
We decided to take it easy that night and get some actual rest. Our big 5 day trek was coming up Monday morning and we wanted to try to conserve our energy. We ambled around the square, had some local pizza for dinner, and watched some TV back at the hostal. On Sunday before we were set to meet our guide, we spoke with Amerigo, the coordinator, who was a native Peruvian but spoke with an English accent. It was very interesting, because he grew up in Cusco, but had been dealing with tourists for so long that he had developed his English with an accent commensurate to someone from the Commonwealth. We also met Tim, a 22 year old South African student who would be joining along with our group. Tim was a perfect fit. He was a slight fellow, even a bit gangly, but only about 5'9". He had long, stringy pale blonde hair and a few long whiskers on his chin. His demeanor was unparalleled to anyone I've ever met. He was extremely pleasant, always happy, very sharp, low key, and quite funny. He could not have been a better addition to our excursion. I hope the feeling was reciprocated.
The real prize though was Jaime, our trek guide. Jaime was a short, athletic, middle-aged native of Cusco who was as full of life as anyone can be. His straight black hair fell down on his forehead as he spoke animatedly, introducing us to the rigors of the trail and he would flail his head back and whip the hair out of his face with his fingers and laugh. "Es crazy, no?" was the end to nearly every sentence, and from the minute he met us, he only referred to us as "my friends".
When telling us about our stops along the trail, he would pause, become very passionate and say, "And then my friends, we will come to our first stop for the day, and then......a-llluuuunch." He was adamant that we understood when and where we would be stopping for lunch each day of the trek. Even for the fourth day out, he made sure to tell us when and where the lunch break would be. It was quite the schedule, which by the way, was completely broken by the end of day 2. In fact, as the trek ended we really did not get to our destination via the original plans whatsoever. At least the effort was there. So with every step of our lives for the next 5 days planned out, just like Derrell liked it, we set off to get some sleep. The bus would be arriving to pick us up at our hostel at 4:30 a.m. the next day, not that that is early or anything. When it did arrive, we were ready to roll. It was very cold there the entire time, but 4:30 a.m. is about as cold as it gets at an altitude of 11,000 feet.
Bundled up and tired as possible, we got on the bus and embarked for the trail head. Sleeping most of the way the first half of the trip, we stopped at a house that doubled as a convenient store/restaurant in a sparse mountain village around 6:30 a.m. for some fresh breakfast. This was the beginning of what would be some of the most enjoyable prepared meals I've ever experienced. We were introduced to the deliciousness that were Peruvian panqueques, grilled pancakes that were made from some sort of sweet batter. We also had fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh coffee, coca tea, and we saw a room full of guinea pigs that were bred to later become what is considered a Peruvian delicacy. We did eventually obtain first hand experience of this delicacy and it was honestly the most disappointing part of the trip. As it turns out, guinea pig is about 5 times more expensive any other entree and about 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times as enjoyable. No worries though, in case you were, because we didn't experience that horror until after the trek. It was better that we saw all the cute, living guinea pigs as a high note to begin the trip because as it turns out, a fully intact boiled guinea pig is not awesome.After the delightful breakfast we got back on the bus to finish the second half of the mountain ascent. Daylight was starting to break through the fog and we were getting our first real looks at some amazing terrain. This would also be our first experience with the less than domestic mountain roads, which were really not roads at all, more just dirt clearings, sort of, but it would certainly not be our last. Several times going up the mountain our cook, Laurinito, had to get off the bus to create small bridges over gaps in the path with rocks and sundry available mountain items in order to navigate the bus over the rugged terrain. After 4 1/2 long, hard hours, hours that proved to be harder than most of the physical trekking through the mountains themselves, we arrived at the trail head, unloaded the gear, loaded up the burroughs with the tents and heavy equipment, and headed up the path.
I remember looking up through the first mountain pass and being totally mesmerized. The pass was wide open and the mountains came gracefully down from each side to create a perfect opening to crystal blue sky.
In the distance we could see the snow capped glacier that was the water source to that entire portion of the Andes and it was amazing. Our first climb was a steady, very gradual incline, but we were all immediately struggling for breathe. The combination of the extreme altitude, the first physical activity in some time, and probably a few too many Lucky Strikes in the immediately previous days added up to a rough first hour or so. We did soon find a rhythm and were making our way steadily up the mountain. The first day climb was the most challenging regardless as we covered the most ground (13 km) and ascended to our highest peak (almost 15,000 ft).
By the time we reached the high point of the pass, I had an incredible altitude headache. We took some great pictures by the Salkantay Pass sign, had a shot of whiskey courtesy of Jaime, and even had a small ceremony with some rocks we had collected from the mountain along the way. I can't be sure what the ceremony signified exactly, so if any of my colleagues do in fact recall, please leave it as a comment on this post.
Also at the top of the pass, the fog had rolled in extremely thick and it was really not possible to see more than a few feet in front of yourself in any direction. We trudged along and started to descend immediately, which turns out it much more difficult on the legs, particularly the knees, than climbing the inclines. But it was a great deal of fun and very challenging. At one point, we passed through a large open portion of the pass that was almost like a field, but again, the fog was so thick, unless you stayed right behind the person in front of you it was hard to determine where they had gone. This became mildly distressing for a moment as after we passed the area and were back into the narrow mountain passes, we seemed to have lost Derrell. He had fallen behind and then been amiss as to what path to take through the open area. Eventually Jaime used some whistle calls to track him down, and we were all back together. When we got to our first camp point, the rain was coming down very steadily and it was extremely cold. We were fortunate to have great equipment men who got our tents and food tent set up rapidly and got us warm and dry with a propane heat lamp. By the time we reached camp though, I had such a bad altitude headache I could barely stand and could not even think about eating. I curled up in the tent and slept for a few moments until the meal was prepared, but the second I had a cup of hot Coca tea, it was like an instant cure. It was amazing. We drank Coca tea and chewed the leaves the rest of the trip, and I have honestly never felt naturally better. Coca leaves produce a very low level stimulant, but they are very important to the Peruvian mountain dwellers. They literally use them as a cure all as they help with everything from aches, pains, headaches, and illness to digestion and mental alertness. Like I said, amazing. We had another great meal and Jaime took this opportunity to tell us a few mountain ghost stories. We also talked about all the different nationalities of people he had met and all the different ages. He said he once guided a man in his 80's on the Inca trail and it took an extraordinarily long time to finish each day of trekking because of how slow his pace was, but he did in fact make it the entire way. We also got to know Tim much better and Jaime deemed him "the Sacrifice" because he was the youngest of the group. The rest of the trip, he never called Tim anything except "the Sacrifice". I would venture to say there was at least a small portion of this that made Tim uncomfortable because we all knew that Jaime was borderline shit crazy. It was very entertaining.
12/23/07
Peru - Chapter 4
We awoke early Sunday morning and in a sort of daze, managed to find our way to our designated bus stop in the Plaze de Armes for the Sacred Valley Tour. We were all a bit groggy and had to try and find our focus on the bus trip out across the Peruvian mountain landscape. We crossed through valleys and rode over high passes of the mountains as we saw the natural beauty of the country's landscape unfold before us with each passing mile. Though before the glorious natural wonders was the half hour of crawling through the city of Cusco on the last of the busy season weekend days for the tourist types. The street was saturated with an odor of exhaust and panhandling, and there was some sort of band or military march taking place as well. It was almost exactly the type of chaos one might expect going to a place like Cusco; it was a great experience.
The four of us took our seats on the last row of the bus; an adjacent five-seat row. We thought we were in business, as the bus departed the Plaza exactly one passenger shy of full capacity; the empty seat being the one between Derrell and me. But moments later, around the corner from the pick-up location, we picked up one last passenger. He sat between our pair of twos, awkwardly dividing the group at first. But as the ride went on, we became conversational. His name was Gaston and he was a Doctoral student at San Diego State University. He was in Peru studying the architecture of the ancient South American civilizations, most notably the Incans. He had a soft and approachable demeanor, and he was genuinely interested in what each and person who talked to him had to say. He noted that the 4 of us were good representatives for U.S. travelers and he had run across more than a few obnoxious, book-shelf climbing, course Americans along his way.
Our first stop was a small collection of ruins sitting a top a tiered section of the mountains high above a village in the valley. The ruins sat right on the cliffs' edge and when we got up there, the wind was blowing fiercely and ice cold rain was coming in nearly sideways. None of us had raincoats or slickers (of all things not to bring) and unabashedly ran back to the bus for cover, leaving the rest of the tour group to battle the elements. Eventually it calmed down and being the soft Americans we are, we rejoined the tour once the harsher elements had subsided.
After we got back on the bus our tour guide, Ronnie, talked about the agricultural aspects of Peru, and he loved to talk about potatoes. I would guess that out of the 5-6 hours that Ronnie talked that day, he spent roughly 33% of that time talking about potatoes. He even passed several potatoes around the bus for us to look at. Apparently, Peru has over 4,000 types of indigenous potatoes. How do you even begin to categorize that? None the less, this would not be the last time we were told about the plethora of potatoes the Peruvian agricultural system had to offer. Bizarre, considering none of us had ever heard specifically of a Peruvian potato.
We stopped at more small village marketplaces with the locals pedaling their wares; a common theme in the country, and had an excellent buffet lunch at a local establishment tucked away in a mountain town.
Derrell developed an affinity for Inca Cola, a yellow soda flavored much like bubble-gum, and when we got home, Adrienne had finally received her suitcase. Best wardrobe change of all time.
The four of us took our seats on the last row of the bus; an adjacent five-seat row. We thought we were in business, as the bus departed the Plaza exactly one passenger shy of full capacity; the empty seat being the one between Derrell and me. But moments later, around the corner from the pick-up location, we picked up one last passenger. He sat between our pair of twos, awkwardly dividing the group at first. But as the ride went on, we became conversational. His name was Gaston and he was a Doctoral student at San Diego State University. He was in Peru studying the architecture of the ancient South American civilizations, most notably the Incans. He had a soft and approachable demeanor, and he was genuinely interested in what each and person who talked to him had to say. He noted that the 4 of us were good representatives for U.S. travelers and he had run across more than a few obnoxious, book-shelf climbing, course Americans along his way.
Our first stop was a small collection of ruins sitting a top a tiered section of the mountains high above a village in the valley. The ruins sat right on the cliffs' edge and when we got up there, the wind was blowing fiercely and ice cold rain was coming in nearly sideways. None of us had raincoats or slickers (of all things not to bring) and unabashedly ran back to the bus for cover, leaving the rest of the tour group to battle the elements. Eventually it calmed down and being the soft Americans we are, we rejoined the tour once the harsher elements had subsided.
After we got back on the bus our tour guide, Ronnie, talked about the agricultural aspects of Peru, and he loved to talk about potatoes. I would guess that out of the 5-6 hours that Ronnie talked that day, he spent roughly 33% of that time talking about potatoes. He even passed several potatoes around the bus for us to look at. Apparently, Peru has over 4,000 types of indigenous potatoes. How do you even begin to categorize that? None the less, this would not be the last time we were told about the plethora of potatoes the Peruvian agricultural system had to offer. Bizarre, considering none of us had ever heard specifically of a Peruvian potato.
We stopped at more small village marketplaces with the locals pedaling their wares; a common theme in the country, and had an excellent buffet lunch at a local establishment tucked away in a mountain town.
Derrell developed an affinity for Inca Cola, a yellow soda flavored much like bubble-gum, and when we got home, Adrienne had finally received her suitcase. Best wardrobe change of all time.
11/18/07
Peru - Chapter 3
As we sat and played our three-person game of beer hockey, a simple game where you spin a coin and call another person's name so that person attempts to knock the coin off someone else’s beer bottle thus making the person whose bottle they hit drink from said bottle for the duration of a subsequent spin of the coin, we were approached by the manager of the hostel, a young Englishman named Tom.
Tom was a slight, good-looking guy with a charming air. He walked up to our table and told us we could go upstairs and play in the hostel bar; a sort of lounge room with couches, a tv, pool table, and sure enough, a bar. We told him the game could get quite messy and loud and didn't want to distract others who may be using the room less for recreation than for leisure. He assured us loud, messy distractions were nothing short of condoned in The Point Hostel bar and that he thought our game looked brilliant and would like to learn. We agreed to meet him upstairs to teach him after he closed up the office and we got a bite to eat.
We walked the shortest distance imaginable for dinner. It would have taken us longer to walk up to the kitchen in the hostel to get food our chosen sustenance source was so close. We walked out the front door of the hostel and there was a small Peruvian manning a grill in a walk-up order window directly across the narrow street. We each got a cheeseburger for 2 soles ($.66), but for what it was worth, the meat was thinner than a pancake and likely did not come from an actual cow. Content, we headed upstairs to start our game.
Tom seemed very excited to learn, and like all good beer hockey rookies, was easily exploited for some time. We were hitting loads of shots at his bottle, and he was easily two full 1 Liter beers down before the rest of us had been through our first. This led to mayhem, as we eventually added two Irishmen, Eoin and Eorin, and Tom was smashing people’s bottles right and left. We played for about two good hours, and we were ready for bed.
A long day of travel, longer for some than others, led us to a weary end of the evening. The four of us brushed our teeth, put on the pjs, and went to bed. We were probably in bed for 5 minutes when the Irishmen burst in and tried to roust us. They were unsuccessful in their first and mostly half-hearted attempt. We weathered the first wave of being called weak Americans and all dozed off. Moments after we had all found a peaceful medium in the rich and welcoming darkness of the hostel bunk beds, Tom came in and disrupted our temporary Xanadu. With a flash of the lights and biting comments in a layered English accent, I was convinced this onslaught would not stop until we committed to spend the rest of the night with our newest acquaintances. I popped out of bed and threw my pants back on, encouraging Justin to do the same. He is bear-like in many ways, and the near state of hibernation was no exception. He grumbled and again mentioned how much he hated something; a surprisingly common theme for one of the more amiable guys I’ve ever been around, and begrudgingly got dressed to go. Adrienne followed suit in a light-hearted manner, but no one was less enthused than Derrell. Perfectly content under the covers with his reading headlamp and notebook, Derrell’s eyes alone conveyed he was more displeased than a certain mother hen you will find out about later in this tale, with the notion of being displaced from his current state. But, in the true spirit of “no man left behind”, we got him out and he came with.
We were corralled back to the bar, where Tom bought us all a terrible drink, then set us up with some wristbands for the “disco-techas”, which I’m still not sure exactly how much good they did us, and set us up with a cab. The moment we walked out the door to the street to get a cab, there was a young Peruvian man standing on the opposite side of the street literally urinating in the street. He was facing right toward us, pants down, going in the street. It was one of the most bizarre things I have ever witnessed. People were just walking by him as if nothing about the situation was abnormal, but it seemed to me that was all the entire setting was.
Next we piled 6 deep into the smallest cab you can imagine. It was literally like a clown car. Derrell, the tallest among us, ended up sitting on Eoin’s lap in the front seat with the manual transmission stick located far too close to an area that was understandably too close for any sort of comfort. Eorin was having a brilliant time in the back seat, making jokes about confines of the vehicle and other nonsensical comments one might expect of a heavy drinking Irishman. It didn’t take us long to reach our destination, but I would venture to say it took exactly the length of the car ride too long for Derrell. If he wasn’t perturbed before,..
The good news is, we made finally made it in. At that point though, all the fun had been had. The journey was truly best part, and after a very short time, we left the Irishmen to their wiles and headed back to the warmth and relative seclusion of our hostel beds.
We awoke early the following morning to board a bus to the Sacred Valley. About the time we got back from our tour at 5:30 pm, Eoin and Eorin were finding their way out of bed for the first time that day. More on what happened in between next time.
Tom was a slight, good-looking guy with a charming air. He walked up to our table and told us we could go upstairs and play in the hostel bar; a sort of lounge room with couches, a tv, pool table, and sure enough, a bar. We told him the game could get quite messy and loud and didn't want to distract others who may be using the room less for recreation than for leisure. He assured us loud, messy distractions were nothing short of condoned in The Point Hostel bar and that he thought our game looked brilliant and would like to learn. We agreed to meet him upstairs to teach him after he closed up the office and we got a bite to eat.
We walked the shortest distance imaginable for dinner. It would have taken us longer to walk up to the kitchen in the hostel to get food our chosen sustenance source was so close. We walked out the front door of the hostel and there was a small Peruvian manning a grill in a walk-up order window directly across the narrow street. We each got a cheeseburger for 2 soles ($.66), but for what it was worth, the meat was thinner than a pancake and likely did not come from an actual cow. Content, we headed upstairs to start our game.
Tom seemed very excited to learn, and like all good beer hockey rookies, was easily exploited for some time. We were hitting loads of shots at his bottle, and he was easily two full 1 Liter beers down before the rest of us had been through our first. This led to mayhem, as we eventually added two Irishmen, Eoin and Eorin, and Tom was smashing people’s bottles right and left. We played for about two good hours, and we were ready for bed.
A long day of travel, longer for some than others, led us to a weary end of the evening. The four of us brushed our teeth, put on the pjs, and went to bed. We were probably in bed for 5 minutes when the Irishmen burst in and tried to roust us. They were unsuccessful in their first and mostly half-hearted attempt. We weathered the first wave of being called weak Americans and all dozed off. Moments after we had all found a peaceful medium in the rich and welcoming darkness of the hostel bunk beds, Tom came in and disrupted our temporary Xanadu. With a flash of the lights and biting comments in a layered English accent, I was convinced this onslaught would not stop until we committed to spend the rest of the night with our newest acquaintances. I popped out of bed and threw my pants back on, encouraging Justin to do the same. He is bear-like in many ways, and the near state of hibernation was no exception. He grumbled and again mentioned how much he hated something; a surprisingly common theme for one of the more amiable guys I’ve ever been around, and begrudgingly got dressed to go. Adrienne followed suit in a light-hearted manner, but no one was less enthused than Derrell. Perfectly content under the covers with his reading headlamp and notebook, Derrell’s eyes alone conveyed he was more displeased than a certain mother hen you will find out about later in this tale, with the notion of being displaced from his current state. But, in the true spirit of “no man left behind”, we got him out and he came with.
We were corralled back to the bar, where Tom bought us all a terrible drink, then set us up with some wristbands for the “disco-techas”, which I’m still not sure exactly how much good they did us, and set us up with a cab. The moment we walked out the door to the street to get a cab, there was a young Peruvian man standing on the opposite side of the street literally urinating in the street. He was facing right toward us, pants down, going in the street. It was one of the most bizarre things I have ever witnessed. People were just walking by him as if nothing about the situation was abnormal, but it seemed to me that was all the entire setting was.
Next we piled 6 deep into the smallest cab you can imagine. It was literally like a clown car. Derrell, the tallest among us, ended up sitting on Eoin’s lap in the front seat with the manual transmission stick located far too close to an area that was understandably too close for any sort of comfort. Eorin was having a brilliant time in the back seat, making jokes about confines of the vehicle and other nonsensical comments one might expect of a heavy drinking Irishman. It didn’t take us long to reach our destination, but I would venture to say it took exactly the length of the car ride too long for Derrell. If he wasn’t perturbed before,..
The good news is, we made finally made it in. At that point though, all the fun had been had. The journey was truly best part, and after a very short time, we left the Irishmen to their wiles and headed back to the warmth and relative seclusion of our hostel beds.
We awoke early the following morning to board a bus to the Sacred Valley. About the time we got back from our tour at 5:30 pm, Eoin and Eorin were finding their way out of bed for the first time that day. More on what happened in between next time.
11/6/07
Peru - Chapter 2
Allow me to digress from the forward momentum of the tale for only a moment to share a few comical moments that befell us early in the trip due to our lack of familiarity with our surroundings.
First, as we were going through immigration and having our passports stamped, I was called to the booth when it was my turn. For no apparent reason, when I went to set my passport on the counter, I also reached to move the stamp out of the way, though it was not really necessarily in the way. It might have been a move of delirium, as it was 5 am and I had had very little sleep due to the staying up and watching of Shrek 3 on the plane. Not a wise move on so many levels. The next unwise move was reaching for that stamp, because as quick as I had gotten into this country, I thought I was about to get thrown out. The clerk snatched the stamp out of my reach with one swift, abrupt manuever, and gave me a glare I have ne'er experienced. I raised my hands in submission and declared, "Lo siento amigo". Luckily no harm was done.
Next, we were walking from baggage claim to the customs check, we walked up to the this sort of doorway facade, and there was a button we had to push before we could walk through. I pushed the button and a light turned green, so I proceeded through the door, quite confused as to what the point of the whole thing was. It seemed perfectly reasonable that we could just walk through this arch, there wasn't much to the situation. It puzzled me for some time. As it turned out, it was a random screening facilitator. If the light turned red, you had to be pulled aside for extra screening. This is a good system, except of course in the case where you want to profile someone...
Lastly, and by far the best, was when we deboarded the plane in Cusco to be met by a barrage of taxi drivers all trying to take us to the Plaza de Armas. We agreed to go with a guy and his driver for 15 soles (roughly $5), and go with a guy and his driver is exactly what we did. We loaded up into a random car that in no way resembled a taxi, our large backpacks in the trunk. These cars were not big by the way. I jump up front with the driver, and Justin and Derrel into the back seat...the very small back seat. Then, suddenly, the other guy who was with the driver, arbitrarily crams into the back, pushing Justin, the biggest of all of us, into the middle of this tiny back seat. We drove the whole way into town with the guy talking non stop about going to stay at this other place he was promoting instead of the hostal we had already booked. We staved him off and got to our hostal, which ended up being the best move of the trip. We quickly came to find out that a cab ride from the airport should have only been about 5 soles, so we found out we were had, and proceeded to haggle every cabbie for the rest of the trip.
After, for some of us more than others, a long spell of traveling, we were ready to take it easy and call our first night in Cusco an early one.
Around 8 pm or so, Justin, Adrienne, and I found ourselves relaxing around one of the plastic lawn tables in the courtyard vestibule in the middle of the hostal, playing some version of a newly learned drinking game called beer hockey. You can already see where this is going; check in next post to find out what happened.
First, as we were going through immigration and having our passports stamped, I was called to the booth when it was my turn. For no apparent reason, when I went to set my passport on the counter, I also reached to move the stamp out of the way, though it was not really necessarily in the way. It might have been a move of delirium, as it was 5 am and I had had very little sleep due to the staying up and watching of Shrek 3 on the plane. Not a wise move on so many levels. The next unwise move was reaching for that stamp, because as quick as I had gotten into this country, I thought I was about to get thrown out. The clerk snatched the stamp out of my reach with one swift, abrupt manuever, and gave me a glare I have ne'er experienced. I raised my hands in submission and declared, "Lo siento amigo". Luckily no harm was done.
Next, we were walking from baggage claim to the customs check, we walked up to the this sort of doorway facade, and there was a button we had to push before we could walk through. I pushed the button and a light turned green, so I proceeded through the door, quite confused as to what the point of the whole thing was. It seemed perfectly reasonable that we could just walk through this arch, there wasn't much to the situation. It puzzled me for some time. As it turned out, it was a random screening facilitator. If the light turned red, you had to be pulled aside for extra screening. This is a good system, except of course in the case where you want to profile someone...
Lastly, and by far the best, was when we deboarded the plane in Cusco to be met by a barrage of taxi drivers all trying to take us to the Plaza de Armas. We agreed to go with a guy and his driver for 15 soles (roughly $5), and go with a guy and his driver is exactly what we did. We loaded up into a random car that in no way resembled a taxi, our large backpacks in the trunk. These cars were not big by the way. I jump up front with the driver, and Justin and Derrel into the back seat...the very small back seat. Then, suddenly, the other guy who was with the driver, arbitrarily crams into the back, pushing Justin, the biggest of all of us, into the middle of this tiny back seat. We drove the whole way into town with the guy talking non stop about going to stay at this other place he was promoting instead of the hostal we had already booked. We staved him off and got to our hostal, which ended up being the best move of the trip. We quickly came to find out that a cab ride from the airport should have only been about 5 soles, so we found out we were had, and proceeded to haggle every cabbie for the rest of the trip.
After, for some of us more than others, a long spell of traveling, we were ready to take it easy and call our first night in Cusco an early one.
Around 8 pm or so, Justin, Adrienne, and I found ourselves relaxing around one of the plastic lawn tables in the courtyard vestibule in the middle of the hostal, playing some version of a newly learned drinking game called beer hockey. You can already see where this is going; check in next post to find out what happened.
10/30/07
Peru - Chapter 1
I recently took a trip to the ecologically bountiful nation of Peru and what a trip it was.
It began with a flight to Miami to meet the rest of my traveling companions whom I would spend the forthcoming two weeks with. Only one of the other three people did I know, as all of us were affiliated through the same man, one Justin Peltier.
Justin is an established traveler and a recent friend. We became closer through our last year at Texas A&M via my roommate Jeff. Justin is as lovable a character as you will meet, though I did find on this trip he has quite a distaste for Jared the Subway guy and hot drinks. But a better traveling companion there is not.
Justin's other two friends, Derrell and Adrienne were also a brilliant pair. Derrell a seasoned traveler of Europe himself, and Adrienne a globetrotter, I was the neophyte of the group, fending for my bearings in a completely foreign culture for the first time in my life. The four of us together softened the blow, as well as the numerous other travelers we met along the way.
I met up with the group in Miami National Airport on the evening of September the 21st. As we waited for our overnight flight into Lima, we got to know each other a bit. There was an instant comfortability amongst the group and we soon talked like we were old friends.
Soon we boarded for a six hour flight, nearly due south. We landed in Lima around 6 in the morning and immediately shuffled onto our next flight over to Cusco. The only glitch was that somehow the three guys got bumped to a different flight than Adrienne, whose plane did not leave until nearly 4 hours after ours. Not bad, considering she had only been in an airport since Wednesday evening. Adrienne had flown from Juneau, Alaska to Seattle to Miami starting late afternoon of Wednesday, September 19th. She landed in Miami mid-day Thursday and slept in the airport until Friday morning, where she then waited all day in one of the less glamorous International airports in America for 12 more hours when we got there.
Then a simple 6 hour overnight flight later, and she was delayed in Lima for 4 more hours. The best part, of course, was that somewhere along the way of layovers and switches, the airlines had misplaced her luggage. So after finally reaching our hostel late Saturday morning, she had no change of clothes until Sunday night. She could not have been more graceful about the entire situation, having a great sense of humor about it all and never once getting upset. You stay classy San Diego.
We got settled in to the hostal and spent most of the first day just cruising around the Plazas of Cusco. More to come on what all we found.
It began with a flight to Miami to meet the rest of my traveling companions whom I would spend the forthcoming two weeks with. Only one of the other three people did I know, as all of us were affiliated through the same man, one Justin Peltier.
Justin is an established traveler and a recent friend. We became closer through our last year at Texas A&M via my roommate Jeff. Justin is as lovable a character as you will meet, though I did find on this trip he has quite a distaste for Jared the Subway guy and hot drinks. But a better traveling companion there is not.
Justin's other two friends, Derrell and Adrienne were also a brilliant pair. Derrell a seasoned traveler of Europe himself, and Adrienne a globetrotter, I was the neophyte of the group, fending for my bearings in a completely foreign culture for the first time in my life. The four of us together softened the blow, as well as the numerous other travelers we met along the way.
I met up with the group in Miami National Airport on the evening of September the 21st. As we waited for our overnight flight into Lima, we got to know each other a bit. There was an instant comfortability amongst the group and we soon talked like we were old friends.
Soon we boarded for a six hour flight, nearly due south. We landed in Lima around 6 in the morning and immediately shuffled onto our next flight over to Cusco. The only glitch was that somehow the three guys got bumped to a different flight than Adrienne, whose plane did not leave until nearly 4 hours after ours. Not bad, considering she had only been in an airport since Wednesday evening. Adrienne had flown from Juneau, Alaska to Seattle to Miami starting late afternoon of Wednesday, September 19th. She landed in Miami mid-day Thursday and slept in the airport until Friday morning, where she then waited all day in one of the less glamorous International airports in America for 12 more hours when we got there.
Then a simple 6 hour overnight flight later, and she was delayed in Lima for 4 more hours. The best part, of course, was that somewhere along the way of layovers and switches, the airlines had misplaced her luggage. So after finally reaching our hostel late Saturday morning, she had no change of clothes until Sunday night. She could not have been more graceful about the entire situation, having a great sense of humor about it all and never once getting upset. You stay classy San Diego.
We got settled in to the hostal and spent most of the first day just cruising around the Plazas of Cusco. More to come on what all we found.
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