Hiking in Peru

Hello again,

This post is coming from a place of pretty profound contentment! I am writing from Cusco, Peru, which is a charming city despite the hourdes of foreigners here. It is impossible to walk anywhere without being offered a ¨Lady massage¨ but that is just about the only annoyance of this city.

Peru in general has been quite a joy. It is rainy season so we have had a few bus delays, but the people are always quite encouraging and friendly. On our way to Cabanaconde our bus got stuck trying to cross a stream. As shown in the photo below, we all had to pile out and then attempt to throw rocks haphazardly under the bus so that it could drive out of the water. There were many laughs and it was amazing to see everyone gather together to get the bus out. There was no shortage of smiles at this impromtu bathroom break (which was neccesary for getting the bus moving but also to allow us to pee at the side of the road, there are no toilets on these buses)!


Shortly after the bus was successfully rolling down the highway again, we were dropped off in Cabanaconde and found our way to Pachamama Hostel. This hostel was so great, with extremely welcoming staff and a hopping pub-restaurant. The town itself was very quiet and small, with only about 3000 inhabitants. We really enjoyed relaxing in the hammocks and doing some small day hikes out of town. Here is where I endured a second round of food poisoning in the comfort of the hostel, and recovered with a day of playing scrabble and reading. Nathan and I had shared a pizza for dinner and shared a traditional Peruvian meal for lunch... so we cannot quite figure out why it was just me who was up shaking and sick in the middle of the night again! Luckily this time I was not spouting out my insides for 30 hours, by about 15 hours I was holding down some crackers. I guess that Nathan really does have a much stronger stomach than I do!

Once I had a day to gain energy we decided to make our way down into Colca Canyon for two days and a night. Our original plan was to hike for about 6 hours into the canyon and then up the other side to a town called Tapay. When we arrived in Tapay we were greated by a disgruntled little boy who could not find his donkey... but just about no one else! We wandered for a while before spotting an older woman walking up the street ahead of us. We followed her and little did we know she was leading up to a restaurant and hostel. We bought some water here (which was very expensive because the only way to this town is by donkey or by foot) but decided to continue on to a town called Sangalle for night which was about three hours further.

Sangalle means Oasis, and boy was it ever! It is located right on the rushing Colca River and the protection from the canyon creates a unique microclimate down there. It is much warmer than Cabanaconde, and there are lots of fruit trees and crops grown there that cannot be grown in other towns of the same altitude. Our lodging was little hut by the river (it is amoungst the trees on the left of the photograph below). We really enjoyed our night here and slept so soundly from the long hike of the day. We woke up early the next morning to begin our ascent out of the canyon. This was surely one of the most difficult hikes that we have ever done. It was a climb of 1300 meters that took only almost four hours, but when we were done we were completely spent! The climb was steep and the sun was strong. At the top of the canyon we rewarded ourselves with a delicious fresh mango, Lays potatoe chips, and a luke warm (no one seems to have fridges for their drinks) Inca Cola, which is a very sweet soft drink that tastes somewhere between Cream Soda and white freezies. This stretch of adventure was a definite highlight as the views from in the Colca Canyon and on its edge were spectacular. We were also blessed with the sighting of six condors, which are huge birds in the vulture family that have wing spans reaching over three meters! We really enjoying seeing them soaring on the hot air rising from the canyon. Their flying style is so unique as they are so heavy that the only way they can take flight is by jumping off the edge of a cliff and catching warm currents. They do not even really flap their wings. Quite spectacular really!

We spent one more night in Cabanaconde after the hike before heading to Cusco to meet Linda. This last evening there ended up being a time of real connection between Nathan and I and a couple we met from Kamloops. We met them in the town square and ended up enjoying dinner together and some great fellowship. We said goodbye to them and left the next morning for Cusco. After about 20 hours we made it there, very tired but captivated by the city. The roads are cobblestone and many of the buildings are also made of stone. It is really amazing architecture and has a quite magical vibe. Sometimes though it does feel that you are in Disney Land or something, as men dressed in neon Inca warrior costumes ask you to take photos with them or women in exaggerated traditional dress walk the streets with llamas and ask for money in exchange for a photo. Another interesting thing about this city is that many of the police officers ¨roam¨ the streets on segways!

We met Linda in Cusco, which ended up being a bit of a funny story. We told her that we would not meet her at the airport but last minute decided to go meet her anyway. We were standing outside the airport for a while when the taxi driver who brought us there drove up and called our names. He proceeded to try and explain something to us and then let us talk on his cell phone... to our hostel receptionist... who said Linda was already there! It turns out that she caught an earlier flight and so we missed her! We returned to the hostel and spent the day giddily chatting and interrupting eachother. It was so wonderful to talk about familiar people and familiar things. We have been totally enjoying Linda´s company. We decided to have a picnic in the plaza together and catch up over wine, fruit, and crackers. We had our blanket spread out under us and our food spread out around us when a police man rolled up and informed us that the grass was not for sitting! The result was a picnic on the stone sidewalk, which was enjoyable too but definitely caused us to get some strange glances!

After a few days of Linda acclimatizing to the altitude we headed out on the four day Inca Trail trek to Machu Picchu. This was such an amazing adventure. Our group ended up being the three of us, one man from the United States (four others had cancelled), our guide Miguel, and six porters. That is right, SIX porters for the five of us non porters! They were remarkable men, who would swiftly run the trail as we trudged along. We would arrive at camp to find our tents set up, food on the way, and warm Chicha Morada (a sweet purple corn drink) ready to enjoy. These men would carry 25 kilos each in packs the same size as them (Peruvians are quite short people) and always have a smile for us on arrival.

The hike was by no means an easy one, but also not nearly as difficult as the Colca Canyon trek. That was a good one to do first as preparation (but having said that, Linda did not do the Colca Canyon and she still managed the Inca Trail with flying colours). The trickiest part of the Inca Trail was the stair cases. Sometimes it felt like you were climbing a stone ladder! The rain also made the stones slippery which yielded cautious climbers. We walked through sections where all the vegetation constisted of were cacti, and other sections were rainforest, and some mountain top lakes. It was phenomenal! We also had pretty great weather, with rain only on one afternoon and the final day.

On our fourth day of hiking we arose bright and early at 4 am. We ate breakfast and made our way towards Intipuncu, or the Sun Gate, which is supposed to be a spectacular view of Machi Picchu from above. It rained the whole two hours until we got there and so all we could see was grey clouds from Intipuncu. We hiked about an hour more to reach Machu Picchu itself. The picture below shows what we saw for most of the day as we explored the ancient Inca city. Even shrowded in clouds it captivated Linda, Nathan, and I. We did a guided tour of the city with a very knowledgable guide who had great energy. He spoke with such vigor that spit collected on his lips and his umbrella or hands were often raised in the air for emphasis. We learnt a lot about the mystery of the Inca peoples and their ability to build such amazing structures with such primitive tools. They built walls out of stones with no mortar or cement. The stones were huge (many bigger than one cubic meter) and were cut to perfectly fit together.


The clouds cleared for about forty minutes in the afternoon and we were able to capture some of the more classic postcard Machu Picchu pictures (one is below...). It was really a site to see, despite the weather, and we would reccomend it to anyone.

Now Nathan and I are spending two days relaxing in Cusco as Linda visits Lake Titicaca. She is meeting up with us again on the 29th and we will head towards the coast of Peru. We plan on visting Nazca together to see the Nazca lines, then on to Huacachina where we will try our luck at sand boarding.

Big love to you all at home, we hope you are enjoying the onset of spring!

Chloe (and Nathan)

ps. We are heading home in less than two months now, and are very excited to get some hugs from some familiar people!

Greetings from Peru!

Hello again dear people,

I am writing from Arequipa, Peru, an incredibly architecturaly beautiful and modern city. We have been here for two days and it is our favorite large city so far on the whole trip. There is so much to see and so much to do. But, before I get into all of that let´s flash back to La Paz.

We were there for three full days and spent most of the time just walking around the city. We did not make it out to any museums (we hoped to go to the coca museum), as our first day we spent just settling in and then the next two days happened to be a Sunday and a Monday... when all the museums are closed! The city was very hustling and bustling, and the most shocking thing to see was all of the shoe shine boys who run around wearing ski masks covering their faces and shining peoples shoes. Other than dodging the mask clad shoe shiners, we spent much of our time in the food and craft markets. The other adventures of La Paz involved a couple of things at our hostel... It was a ´party hostel´ that had a pub downstairs and a connected microbrew. The perks of this included a free home brew every evening and some great evenings playing Yahtzee, Pass the Pigs, Cribbage, and Nuscht. But, the downfall was the craziness that ensues when people have a bar in the same building as their bed. We ended up changing rooms once due to a lot of ´nighttime activity´in our dorm (I won´t go into detail) and by accident left our iPod hidden in the pillow. By the time I remembered I hustled back to our old room, to find that my bed had already been made. When I asked at the reception if housekeeping had found an iPod the slightly rude receptionist told me that if it had been found it would have been given to him. He said we were out of luck. His refusal to even look into it was slightly upsetting so we took it a level higher to the reception at the associated bed and breakfast located just next door. The woman there made some calls and had the iPod in five minutes! Not that our iPod is vital to our trip, but it was nice to have it back and to see that someone was willing to help us out.

When we left La Paz we went to Copacabana, which is a great little city nestled between mountains on the shore of Lago Titicaca. Here we sought out the cheapest accomodation in town (which was still clean and had great views of the lake and only had private rooms) and almost ended up paying for it! We went out for dinner one evening and were cold so we hustled back to our room to grab sweaters... where we met the hotel owner in our room with the door closed! He said that he was changing the plastic under the mattress, which was a lousy cover because there was not plastic under the mattress. Nathan and I had difficulty dealing with this situation because clearly he is in a desperate situation, and he is also clearly dealing with guilt about it because he pleaded to us that he really wasn´t a bad man at his core. This experience was a great chance to practice Spanish, and also practice forgiveness. We ended up staying there one more night (but not without ´boobie trapping´our room with carefully placed socks and pencils so as to detect any activity when we went out for the day) and after that only had positive experiences.

From Copacabana we took a boat over to Isla del Sol, and decided at this point it was wise to switch hostels so that we could leave our large backpacks somewhere secure for the two days and one night that we would spend on the island. The island was incredible, and the five hour hike across it was quite breathtaking! The altitude was over 4000 metres and we were easily out of breath, but the incredible views of the lake and exploring the Inca ruins were worth it completely. As we entered the town at the South end of the Island, called Yumani, there were little broods of children calling us to stay at their mothers places. We ended up going with a ten year old boy named Allan, who was thrilled when I told him that my Grandfather shared his name. He was great, and so was his mother. We felt very welcomed there and the only nuissance was the ´hee-haw´ noise of donkeys that rang throughout the whole town at all hours.

Once we returned to Copacabana we semi-promptly left for Peru, heading to Arequipa. The bus ride was only about nine hours, but it turned into eleven. As we entered Peru our bus stopped and the driver stood up and said ´you are going to have to get out, put on your bags, and walk for five to eight kilometers'. There was no explanation, but once we exited the bus we saw that the road was blocked by piles of boulders and later rows of sitting people. We had no idea what the protest was about, but strapped on our packs and started walking. We just had to be thankful that it was the middle of the day and not raining! The scenery was incredible but it was a little difficult to appreciate when the local people were hollering and giggling at us, using the classic name of ´gringo´. It was a bit of a hostile welcome to the country because we felt like the laughing stalk of hourdes of people. After walking for about an hour we met up with another bus that was luckily waiting to pick us up. Once entering this bus, and then transferring in Puno to another bus, Nathan and I were sitting across the aisle from a mother, father, and baby. They were so incredibly kind and sweet that it completely changed the mood of our day. They gave us some of the plums that they were eating and really showed us hospitality. Then, as we were driving into Arequipa, we witnessed the most incredible sunset. The sun illuminated all of the volcanoes and hills in orange and the whole sky was lit with a completely indescribable colour. Once we arrived we packed into a small taxi with four other tourists and headed for the hostel (seven adults and six huge back packs in one car was quite a site and experience). We found a great place to stay and have spent the last few days exploring.

Today was a day that felt like home! Nathan and I began the day by walking the city looking for a mass or church service to join in on, and ended up in a spectacular cathedral off of the main plaza. Neither of us have been to many Catholic services, but we really enjoyed this one. The juxtaposition of the priest in ornate robes and the young man doing collection wearing a KISS jacket was wonderful. There was also a toddling girl who kept marching up the finely marbled aisle and raising her arms with conviction. After the mass we walked around the city and wound up sitting on a blanket in a park enjoying a picnic and a few rounds of cribbage (in which I crushed Nathan every time I might add). It was a georgous park and was full of families playing and even some traditional dancers putting on a bit of a show! One woman came up to us and asked me to hold up my cardigan in front of her, and she then proceeded to take of her blouse and trousers in exchange for the traditional blouse and heavy skirt and then she promptly joined the dance! We also had many little kids running by our blanket practicing the English that they knew, 'hello'! Then the clouds started to gather and darken, so we made our way to a cafe... called Cusco Coffee. It resembled Starbucks quite startlingly... kind of eerie really! We relaxed their over warm beverages and safety from the rain, enjoying our books. This cafe also provided us with the nicest bathrooms we have used in weeks!

Tomorrow we plan on escaping the luxury of the big city and heading to Cabanaconde, which is a town of three thousand perched on the edge of Colca Canyon. We will do a trek down into the canyon, spend a night there, hopefully see some condors, and then return to civilization. We are super excited for this chapter of our trip as in just over a week we meet up with our dear Winnipeg friend Linda in Cusco! It will be great to see one familiar face, as we miss all of you loads and buckets worth.

Big big love to you back home,

Chloe (and Nathan)

The Altiplano

Hello friends,

We are having a wonderful time in Bolivia. Our frightening bus ride beginning has not been repeated, and we have experienced some of the most beautiful places!

After our last post in Tarija we headed to the bus terminal to try and buy bus tickets to Tupiza, which is only a few hundred kilometers away. We were advised not to go directly because the road is extremely dangerous during the rainy season (and we ended up not going at all because it would be a full 24 hours bus if we did the detour). Instead we headed North to a city called Potosi. It is ¨the highest city in the world¨ and comes in at a whopping 4090 meters above sea level. It is on the altiplano, which means high plain in Spanish. It is a region of the Andes that is very wide and very flat and very elevated. As we rode the eight hour bus to get to Potosi we found our ears popping and our heads start throbbing. After arriving in Potosi we started drinking coca tea and I started chewing the coca leaves to help deal with the elevation. By our second day there we were doing much much better with the elevation. We stayed at a wonderful hostel, with loads of blankets (which are vital on the extremely cold nights) and with hot water during the mornings (which is really wonderful to help deal with the chilly temperatures).

On our first full day there we did something else to combat the cold, visiting a natural thermal pool in the mountains outside of Potosi. We took a local micro (a minivan that works as a bus) for about twenty minutes until the local people on the bus told us to get off. We then followed a gravel road for about ten minutes on foot, when we reached the Ojo de Inca, a perfectly round pool that is about 100 meters in diameter and is full of steaming green water. The Inca people used to travel here to get refreshed and for healing purposes. We spent a few hours swimming in the hot water and enjoying the incredible surroundings. It was a truly amazing experience, and we only were sharing it with about twenty others!

Potosi is a town that was built up by the Spanish as they exploited a neighboring mountain, called Cerro Rico (the one in the photograph below), for silver. They had many Aboriginal slaves, as well as African slaves, that worked in the mine. Many millions have died since the mines were opened in 1546 due to the terrible conditions, lack of safety measures, and exposure to asbesthos and other toxic minerals and gases. The mountain is now essentially emptied of silver, and miners work independantly in the mine searching for other minerals. What ever they find they sell for themselves. Now the mines are also a huge tourist attraction and there are hoards of companies offering tours. It was a difficult choice to go on a tour, but I decided to go. Nathan decided to spend the five hours wandering the city, touring a convent, and going to a local barber as an alternative due to his claustraphobic tendancies. I ended up taking the tour with an ex miner named Senon who took a group of us from the same hostel. He was very hush hush about it as he was technially not allowed to take us because the hostel had its own tour company that did the tours (but this way he could give us a discount and pocket the cash). The tour made me slightly uncomfortable as we just stooped throughout this maze of small tunnels full of water and dust, bringing gifts of potent alcohol (96%), coca leaves, soda, and cigarettes to the miners working the grueling conditions. I learned a lot from the experience, but would definitely not recount it as fun or entertaining. The photograph below was taken by Nathan from the roof of the convent he toured while I was deep in the mountain. The history of this beautiful city is extremely interesting and in ways very terrible. One interesting thing that Nathan learned while walking around is that all of the Spanish churches face the moutain as it is the source of their wealth, while all of the Native churches face away from the mountain as it is the source of their death.

After departing from Potosi we went to a town called Uyuni. It is located in the desert of the Altiplano and is completely overrun with tourists. This is because it is the point of departure for tours of the Salar (salt flats) and the surrounding area. We ended up doing a three day tour with four other lovely people in a Toyota Land Cruiser from the 1980´s. It surprisingly held up great (go Toyota)! The first day of the tour took us to the Salar, which is covered in two to five centimeters of water due to the rainy season. This means that instead of just seeing kilometers and kilometers of blindingly white salt (which would also be quite a site), you see the sky reflected in the thin and expansive lake. It was an absolutely phenominal site, especially from the roof of the vehicle where our driver let us ride.

The next day we drove through the desert, which is cold with almost no vegetation because of the altitude. The beauty of it was well complimented with dozens of volcanoes dotting the skyline. The below photo is of some rock formations (of which there are many) that formed after the volcanoes errupted and the lava was carved by the wind whipping across the desert.

We also stopped at many lakes of many different colours. The one below is called Laguna Verde.

What added to the spectacular nature was the thousands of flamingos that called the lakes home. In one of the lakes, called Laguna Colorada (at 4300 meters), there are as many as twenty five thousand flamingos! It was the most beautiful place I have ever seen, with red water, pink flamingos, and green moss, and a backdrop of volcanoes. The photographs really do not even come remotely near to conveying the beauty. It was amazing. The one thing that could have been better about the tour is if it was two weeks instead of three days, and if I was on a bicycle instead of an SUV... then lapping it all up would have been more possible.

We got home from the jeep tour last night at about six, quickly gobbled a pizza in Uyuni, then jumped onto a night bus to La Paz. We plan on being here for three days more before heading to Lago Titicaca. We spent today napping and exploring an incredible market. To give you a taste of Bolivia I will run down what we had for lunch: peanut soup with vegetables and noodles (classic Bolivian almuerzo, set lunch, that you can buy from street stalls), freshly made mango juice made with milk (better than any milkshake I have ever had), follwed by two pastries (one coconut and one chocolate). This cost us a total of fourteen Bolivianos, which is two Canadian dollars. We really love eating in the local markets and not only for the price. The food is outrageously delicious and you get to sit along benches in tight spaces and chat with whoever happens to sit next to you. It is a wonderful way to eat and meet and enjoy.

Thanks for reading and thanks for caring!

Big love,
Chloe (and Nathan)