Cuzco
PERU
Life Lessons
By LYNDI
Saturday, October 18, 2008
I remember when I was about 7 years old, my mom sat me down to teach me some very important life lessons. Now, I won’t go into those here – but what I will say is that it definitely did not cover three very important things that I had to figure out on my own on a fateful trip to Cuzco, Peru…
After a marathon bus journey from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Lima, Peru (25 hours according to the bus company – 35 according to all those onboard), Aaron and I made it to Lima just in time to greet my brother and sister who had just flown in from Portland, Oregon. The original plan had been to meet up with Erica and Cal in Cuzco where Aaron and I would have already found a nice hostel and possibly some good options for getting to Machu Picchu. As it turned out, we were having too much fun on the Galapagos and met them at midnight in the Lima Airport enroute to Cuzco.
Seeing as how we’d had a less than fabulous day and a half on the bus where we were treated to Michael Bolton songs for hours on end, we felt like we needed to treat ourselves. So with the help of Papa John’s Pizza and a bottle of rum, we felt much better by the time Erica and Cal arrived from the US. Since our flight to Cuzco was at 5am the next morning, we all decided to just stay up, drink rum, and be completely exhausted for our first day in Cuzco. Okay, well, the first two of the three sounded like a good idea. The third was a rather unintended repercussion.
We arrived in Cuzco around 7am and took a cab straight to Hostel Samanapata which had been recommended to us by a couple that had already passed through. The hostel was great – they put the four of us in a private room with a gorgeous view of the Plaza de Armas. We all four crashed pretty hard for a few hours, showered, and then were ready to hit the town. Since my siblings only had 10 days in Peru, our first priority was to find a way to get to Machu Picchu. After visiting 5 different travel agencies, we realized that they all offer the exact same thing. In order to avoid hearing the same story and same details and same prices anymore, we went and signed up to do the 4-day Jungle Trek with one of the bazillion agencies in town. For $175 each, we would be treated to a day of mountain biking, two days of hiking, and a final day to explore Machu Picchu and catch the train home. Sounded like a plan to us.
Since Cuzco sits at a rather uncomfortable altitude of over 10,000 feet, we took it easy the first day just exploring the town and trying to avoid all the massage and picture sellers. And since it was the inaugural day for each of us in Peru, we wanted to do something distinctly Peruvian…. So we hit up Oktoberfest! The German band, the accordions, and the lederhosen weren’t exactly the Peruvian cultural experience we sought – but what a good time nonetheless. At one point, Erica and I were dancing with a guy with a handlebar mustache and Cal and Aaron were having a speed drinking contest to win a t-shirt. Good times were had by all, and to further enrich our cultural experience, we ended the night at a nice Irish bar.
After two days of acclimating to the altitude in Cuzco, we thought we were ready for our four day trek. This brings me to our first important life lesson:
1. I will never be in shape to trek four days at 10,000 feet.
Granted, it’s been awhile since I laced up my running shoes, but this was tough. We were picked up on our first day around 7am and transported in a little minivan to Abra la Raya, the top of a mountain pass where we would begin our descent on bikes. It was absolutely freezing at the top, so after a thorough safety test consisting of ensuring the seats were at a proper height, we took off downhill. And much like Aaron and my experience in Cotopaxi, Ecuador – I brought up the rear. Even my littler older sister was dominating me! In horrible embarrassment, I let go of the brakes (well, either that, or my frozen hands wouldn’t allow me to physically press the brakes) and caught up to my sister. Or she waited up for me, but I like the first version better. After several hours of passing herds of mountain goats, the random llama, several landslides, and miles and miles of stunning scenery of the valley below, we all caught up to our awaiting minivan that transported us to Santa Maria where we would spend our first night.
Aaron and Cal went to play soccer at a nearby field with our guide Alex, while Erica and I enjoyed a few cold, tasty brews with our fellow trekkers Matt, Mark, and Paul. The hostel that we stayed at was fairly nice – considering we were in a town consisting of 100 people, so after dinner we all sat around and played a few cards before retiring to bed. The next morning I would awake to learn Life Lesson number 2 – Always, always, always wear bug spray when trekking to Machu Picchu.
Luckily I had worn long sleeves and long pants the night before, but left my feet exposed. So the horrible, nasty sandflies that inhabit the Sacred Valley went to town on the bottoms of my feet. And it’s not like mosquito bites that itch for a day or so, leave a little bump, then disappear into oblivion. These bites bleed and itch for days on end. However, what I got on my feet was nothing compared to what Cal suffered all over his legs – it honestly looked like his legs had an acute case of chicken pox – which people would continue to remind him of for the remainder of the trip.
So we set out at 7am for our first day of trekking… uphill for 30km (see Life Lesson 1). Holy crap – it was hard. The nice part was that both Aaron and I and Cal and Erica had paired up and only packed one backpack per pair. Well, actually, the nice part was that the guys carried the backpacks for the vast majority of the trek. I tried to volunteer on several occasions and was only granted a backpack for a few hours. A group consensus ruled Erica out from any backpack carrying due to the fact that she’s a shorty and the bag wouldn’t physically fit. At any rate, the first two hours or so were really nice, relatively flat, and right along the Rio Urumbamba framed by the steep cliffs of the Sacred Valley. After a bit of uphill, we stopped at our first breakpoint that – luckily – had a pet monkey and capybara (no idea how to spell that….). Oh yeah, and she sold much needed water and Gatorade. So we took an hour break to rest in hammocks, re-hydrate, and play with monkeys while constantly trying to fend off the devil’s pet sandflies.
Feeling much better we headed off again – uphill, naturally. Even though we were already tired and hot, this was probably the best part of the trek. The narrow path we followed was carved into the mountainside. Granted, one mis-step and it would have been a long trip down, but it was absolutely beautiful scenery. Plus it was an ancient Inca Trail – well, not the Inca Trail, but a route used to access Machu Picchu nonetheless.
After a nice long lunch break where we were randomly surrounded by turkeys, we hiked another 4 hours of so to the hot springs outside of the village of Santa Theresa. Most people in our tour group jumped in the hot springs, but Erica and I just relaxed and rested our weary feet. Cal, however, took the opportunity to have the rest of his body eaten alive by the horrible sandflies to match his legs from the previous night. It was hilarious – his entire torso, arms, and legs were covered with swollen, red bites. Good look.
After our break at the hot springs, we ended up at Santa Theresa. This town was a little bigger than Santa Maria with quite a few nice choices of hostels, restaurants, and even an internet cafe. So we walked through the town, past many nice, comfortable looking hotels – all the way to the end of town where we settled into the crappiest place in town. But it did have a bed and a shower for me – which was all I really wanted after 9 hours and 30km of hiking.
Our final day of trekking proved to be a breeze compared to the previous day’s trek up Everest. We followed the Rio Urubamba again, but unfortunately, we also followed train tracks most of the 20km to Aguas Calientes. It was fun at first, but the novelty quickly wore off once we discovered that you couldn’t look up to enjoy the breathtaking scenery because you had to ensure your feet landed on a train tie. After 5 hours of hiking, we made the final ascent to the city that lies at the foot of Machu Picchu – Aguas Calientes. We found we had a pretty nice hotel waiting for us there, so we ate, gorged ourselves on cheap hamburgers, and then went in search of a good happy hour. And luckily, good happy hours are very easy to come by in Aguas Calientes. A lot of places advertise 3 x 1 drinks – but we were able to talk them into 4 x 1 drinks and happily spent the evening sipping drinks that probably had zero alcoholic content and enjoying the company of all our fellow trekkers.
But the next morning was a life highlight. Well, not the hiking 1,700 steps up to Machu Picchu, but the Machu Picchu part. And here’s Life Lesson 3: The older I get and the more I travel, the less I know.
I don’t know if that makes any sense at all, but when you’re standing at a lookout point over an ancient Incan city shrouded in mystery as dawn breaks over the Sacred Valley below, you realize how small you are. How unimportant. Really, how irrelevant. I’ve heard a thousand times that words can’t describe the beauty of a certain place, and that certainly applies to Machu Picchu. Once we finally surfaced from the incredibly difficult hike up from Aguas Calientes, Cal and I ran to the “postcard shot” location with Huayna Picchu towering over the “Lost City of the Incas” to get as many pictures as we could before his camera ran out of batteries. We only got one or two shots with his camera, but luckily Aaron and Erica were wandering around on their own with cameras – and batteries.
After claiming our tickets for the 10am group to climb Huayna Picchu (why not climb up 800 more stairs?) we began our tour of the city with Alex. Since Machu Picchu was only 3/4 finished when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1532 (and quickly abandoned to prevent the Spanish from finding it), there is considerable debate as to what exactly the purpose of the city really was. And considering the Spanish slaughtered millions of Incas – especially soldiers and those of high ranking – it’s no surprise the true meaning has been lost to history. Today the leading theory is that it was to be a summer refuge for royalty, although some others think it’s the infamous “Lost City” where they stored silver and gold, or even a farming epicenter. At any rate, it was important enough that the Incas were able to lead the Spanish away from the city by destroying any paths to the city – which is why it stands to this day.
According to Alex, during the conquest, anybody speaking Quechua (the language of the Incas) was instantly murdered. Today Quechua is making a comeback among indigenous Peruvians, but the fascinating method of “written” Quechua which consisted of rope and knot sequences – nothing actually written at all – no longer exists and can never be recovered. Machu Picchu was only rediscovered by the western world when Hiram Bingham found it in 1911 – and hardly a stone out of place. The most impressive thing about the building of Machu Picchu isn’t just that thousands and thousands of workers had to carry thousands of stones up the same painful path that I was whining about earlier, but they were put together without any mortar. All of these structures that I was now gazing at had survived centuries by the ingenuity of the Incans – every single stone was cut and polished so tightly together that not even a knifeblade can fit between the stones. In addition, all the buildings were built in a trapezoidal shape rather than in squares, corners were rounded, and the mortar-free stones were able to slide gently which is how the city has survived countless earthquakes and the passing of time.
Like a lot of Mayan structures we’ve seen in our travels through Latin America, the buildings, windows, and shadows were all created in accordance with the solstices and position of the sun and stars. Alex also told us about the Incan religious beliefs – a very important part of their lives (including the virgin “holding tank” that they had onsite in case they needed to sacrifice one – or two – in the event that there wasn’t enough rain. This, by the way, was a great honor, which explains why all the little Incan girls didn’t go all Alyssa Milano on those handsome warriors). One of the most interesting parts I found was that the Incans figured out how to have a constant supply of fresh water – unheard of to this day in many parts of the world.
I found the tour fascinating but of course, thought an hour and a half wasn’t enough. However, come 8:30am, Alex parted and left us to wander around for a bit on our own. But come 9:30, the clouds had really rolled in and it was pretty hard to see anything. We decided to summit Huayna Picchu anyways in the hopes that all the clouds would burn off. Erica cleverly decided to stay put and not climb nearly 1000 more stairs – knowing quite well that we wouldn’t be able to see a darn thing from the top. And she was right. The ascent was pretty good – though slippery and including a bit of ladder climbing and tunnel crawling – before we reached the top. And saw absolutely nothing. Lots of clouds though – which was really great. At one point, we could see through the fog enough to get a glimpse of the city of Machu Picchu below, but the clouds quickly covered it back up.
Once we reached the bottom of Huayna Picchu, the clouds hadn’t moved, so we made the sound decision to bid our tour of Machu Picchu goodbye. When we arrived back in Aguas Calientes, where Cal somehow got lost on the only way down, Erica had saved us seats at a Mexican food restaurant. Starving, we devoured our food, then crashed on the couches of the hostel we’d stayed at the night before. The train ride back to Ollantaytambo was good – but since we left Aguas Calientes at 6pm, we really couldn’t see that much. From there we took a bus back to Cuzco and our friends at Hostel Samanapata had saved a room for us where we quickly fell asleep after four days we would never forget.
And if we thought we’d never forget Machu Picchu – we were in store for another treat when we left the next morning for Puno – the base town for Lake Titicaca. We were all pretty keen on going to the lake for a quick trip (Cal especially – since the name of the lake includes both the nickname for breasts and butts), so we boarded a bus at 8am and headed south.
We didn’t get very far. A local riot meant that a police escort of 10 vehicles and about 80 policemen had to lead us around unhappy Peruvians who had thrown boulders, burning logs, and tons and tons of rocks in the road to make them impassable for any vehicles. After 6 hours of what should have been a 2 hour trip to Sicuani, the four of us made the executive decision of getting off the bus and trying to find a way to get back to Cuzco. Since we only had two days at the lake to begin with, and we clearly wouldn’t get in to Puno (if we got in at all) until the wee hours of the morning, it didn’t seem like it would be worth it.
However, once we disembarked in Sicuani – it was like a ghost town. All shops, hotels, and restaurants were boarded up in order to please the protesters that had put a stop to anybody working. So when we got to the local bus station, it was closed – no surprise there. In fact, there were backpackers in the same situation as us that had been there for two days. Nobody was driving anywhere – they were all too scared of the protesters (who Cal saw push over a man on a bike selling food). We had no idea what to do. Cal and Erica had to get back to Cuzco in about 30 hours time – and by the sounds of it, there was no way to get there.
And so we waited. And waited. False promises of buses sneaking through or taxis risking the trip never surfaced. And so we waited some more, getting just a bit more worried. Finally, after about 5 hours of waiting, a big cattle truck drove through the town – the only vehicle we’d seen in hours – and told everyone going to Cuzco to hop in. People flooded the vehicle and rushed us along. If the protesters found out the driver was smuggling passengers, he could have been stopped, injured, or worse. Somehow, the four of us got in line to board the truck behind a guy with one leg (I don’t get it either), so by the time we boarded, we were basically shoved in and the truck took off.
So here we were. 55 people, young and old, foreign and local, sitting in the back of a cattle truck, sharing a bottle of rum, watching the stars pass above us. And I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a night in Peru. Granted, at one point the driver slammed on the brakes hard and both Aaron and Cal rammed elbows into my head – knocking me stupid for a few minutes – but what an experience nonetheless.
And finally, Life Lesson number 4 – Life Happens.
Not only did we not get to Lake Titicaca because of a random riot where we had to be smuggled back to Cuzco in a cattle truck behind a one-legged guy, but life for Aaron and I changed rapidly once we got back. The four of us spent our final day in Cuzco relaxing, shopping a bit, and getting in any last minute tourist things. We said goodbye to Erica and Cal early on a Saturday morning as they headed back to the States – after an awesome trip in Cuzco – and Aaron and I headed to a bar to watch some American football games (hard to come by outside of the US, by the way). After a few hours of games and talking to the bartender, she offered me a job. I took her up on the offer and the next day was the full time bartender at Nick’s Sports Bar. Well, since I was working all day, Aaron was pretty bored so started applying for jobs as well – and landed a great job as the accountant for a well respected travel agency in town, Tucan Travel. So, with an 18 month contract – here we are. Temporary Peruvians.
Life happens that way. Or at least it’s better that way. No matter how well I plan things out, God always plans them better. What began as a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel through Latin America for a year has now become a once in a lifetime opportunity to live in Peru for a year and a half.
So I don’t know what’s next in life – nor would I want to – but unfortunately I do know what’s next for this blog…. not much. Aaron gets to go to Rio for Carnaval (an unbelievable experience, stay tuned for that), and we’ll definitely be exploring more of South America in the future – just not as frequently for now. So I’m signing off for awhile, but check back every once in awhile. And certainly in Summer 2010 – cuz then we’re off again!
