bred's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member bred on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/bred en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 29 Aug 2006 02:05:16 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Photos — Waukesha, Wisconsin, United States http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1156831380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1156831380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1156831380/tpod.html Tue, 29 Aug 2006 02:05:16 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Waukesha, Wisconsin, United States

I've finally uploaded (almost) all of my photos from the trip. Here's the link to a website where you can see them:

http://bred.shutterfly.com

Enjoy.
]]> I'm home — Waukesha, Wisconsin, United States http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1156421280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1156421280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1156421280/tpod.html Thu, 24 Aug 2006 08:10:17 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Waukesha, Wisconsin, United States

I'm home and not sleeping. The flight was uneventful and relatively quick. I'll work on uploading all (there are a lot) of the pictures I took to shutterfly or somesuch site that I can post a link to. Goodnight.
]]> Lunch with the boys — Sucre, Bolivia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1156134000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1156134000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1156134000/tpod.html Mon, 21 Aug 2006 00:39:42 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Sucre, Bolivia

And now, a brief entry about my morning/early afternoon today in Sucre (which is a great city to hang out in--I'm staying in a great place with a courtyard and it's a great place to read).

(Side note: I didn't post any pictures of Laguna Colorada (a red lake) or Laguna Verde (a green lake) in my last post because doing so would take more time than I'm willing to donate, but if I find some time tomorrow in Santa Cruz, I will do so. They're some pretty cool-looking lakes.)

Here's the story from this morning:

I was sittng in Sucre´s very pleasant main plaza under the shade of a palm tree readng this morning when a shoeshine boy posted up in front of me and asked me which country I´m from. I was asked this twice last night by similar boys--they responded that Washington is the capital and expected to be given some money for their knowledge. The first boy received 5 Bolivianos. The second was told that I had already heard that one just a few minutes earlier. Anyhow, I told the boy this morning to guess where I am from, and despite my (seemingly) obvious clues, I had to tell him. We struck up a conversation consisting of him asking me to let him shine my shoes (which are really just sandals with a rubber front), and me asking him which soccer teams he likes, etc. Soon enough four of his colleagues had joined him and I was conversing with all of them in a similar fashion. When they figured out that I wasn´t going to budge on the shoe shine idea they began telling me that they were very hungry, and would I please give them money for food? This was a bit more interesting, but I really wanted to read. So I did what every sane person would have done: I told them to come back in an hour (noon) and we´d go to the central market and get lunch. This set off a frenzy of chatter and smiles. One of the boys laid on his back and started convulsing--I think it was a pathetic attempt at breakdancing. Anyway, they left me alone for the next 30 minutes and I read in peace. (I should mention here that I really really like sucre. It may just be that it´s the weekend, but it´s a very laid-back place with great buildings and the main plaza is a wonderful place to pass some time. My hotel is also very nice, with a courtyard and comfortable rooms and a rooftop terrace--used for laundry and cleaning supply storage, but I like it nonetheless. It´s a little expensive (70 Bs., which is $8.75) but I´m at the end of the trip and I decided to splurge a little.) Alright, back to the story. The boys came back at 11:30 and then 11:40, when they told me that lots of people eat at the market at noon and we wouldn´t be able to get a table if we waited. I caved and we left, our walking broken by excited jumping and laughing, etc. So we all ate big meals of soup and meat with noodles and salad, and shared 2 liters of Pepsi, and then they conned me into buying them new shoe shine cream. In all I spent less than $10 (Bolivia is so cheap). But the boys were really nice and appreciative (they said thank you twice each after both the soup and the main). I had a fun time hanging out with them, although I´m now carefully monitoring my digestive tract for signs of distress; with what looked like less than sanitary cooking conditions (not to mention a the entire lower leg of a hen, foot/claw and all, in my soup--Molly, you'd have loved it) and a small grimy-faced speechless child putting his hands on the back of my neck, then on my face and rubbing my beard, I think my chances of getting something increased ten-fold over the course of the meal. As long as I don´t die I´d say it was worth it.

Anyway, that's the story, and I posted a picture of the boys. All in all not a bad way to pass the lunch hour.
]]> Uyuni and its not-so-immediate vicinity — Uyuni, Bolivia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155955620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155955620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155955620/tpod.html Mon, 21 Aug 2006 00:29:27 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Uyuni, Bolivia

So I'm actually writing this from Sucre, but it's been awhile and I've been in a few cities since La Paz, so I thought I'd make the travelogue reflect the geography.

I left La Paz on a night bus for Uyuni, which I almost missed. I took my sweet time running a few errands (like going to the ATM) and getting dinner, then for the first time in South America, I found it impossible to hail a cab--and I was walking along La Paz's main road with my big backpack on. I reached the bus terminal angry and sweaty, and worried that the bus had left without me. But as Elena, the old woman I sat next to on the bus put it, nothing in Bolivia runs on time. (I found out later that this is not true of buses in Uyuni, but that's a story for later.) Elena and I talked for a bit about how she houses volunteers who work with orphans in La Paz, and about how she has had two tall pretty Dutch girls living with her the past few weeks (maybe I should stay down here and do some volunteering). Anyhow, the bus ride took around 12.5 hours and the leg room was once again designed for South Americans so I found it convenient to stand up every half hour or so and do some stretching in the aisle. In addition to the nasty cramps in the muscles around my knees, the temperature dropped considerably as we ventured into southern Bolivia, away from the Equator. But the bus company was considerate enough to provide each of us with what seems to be the official blanket of Bolivia, Polar Frazadas. They've been in every hostel I've stayed at here. (I was determined to buy a couple after they all but saved my life on the freezing flatlands around Uyuni, and did so successfully in Potosí. So I've been lugging those around for a couple of days--good thing I only have two more days in South America.)

We arrived in Uyuni around 7:30am the following day. I walked around sleepily looking for a place to crash for the day, where I could sleep for a bit and find a tour for the next three days in the afternoon. Uyuni is not what I´d call a sprawling metropolis. I'd call it more of a dusty cold town that supports itself mostly on tourism and has few buildings over one storey. After finding no vacancy and three of the places recommended in my Lonely Planet guide, I finally found a place that was a bit sketchy, if not altogether unsafe. This was enough to make me more hungry than tired, so I ventured back out and was accosted by representatives from various tour agencies as soon as I set foot in the main plaza. Upon hearing that the tours all left around 11 that morning, I decided not to stick around Uyuni for the day and to just go ahead and book a tour right away. Which I did. It was much cheaper than I expected, so I went to get breakfast feeling quite please with myself. (I found out later that, as with most things, you get what you pay for, i.e. a jeep that barely makes it back to Uyuni on the last day of the tour.)

The tour left almost on time, and our group of six got along really well. We were all under 25, and represented France (Judith and Pauline), Australia (Michael), Switzerland (Rafael), Bolivia (Roberto), and the US (me). We got along well enough that the people alone made the three days worth the money. The amazing scenery and the feeling that I was on a different planet each day made the trip worth more than what I paid.

The first day we drove to Bolivia´s Cemeterio de Trenes, where there were all sorts of neat things like rusting box cars, rusting springs, and a rusting locomotive engine with Einstein's Field Equation from General Relativity spray-painted on it (see picture--I'm not sure if any physics people read this but I think everyone can appreciate it just as well). After the cemetary, we drove to the edge of Salar de Uyuni, a huge salt flat that was left when a prehistoric salt lake dried up. It's one of the most bizarrely beautiful places on Earth. We spent some time there before driving to la Isla del Pescado, an island of coral out in the middle of Salar. We ate lunch there and started talking to the driver and cook, who informed us that we weren´t going to be staying on the Salar for sunset. After getting back in the jeep (I should note here that the majority of the tour is sitting in the jeep looking out the window, talking to the other tourists, and listening to Reggaeton. Good times.) I was designated as the official Tourists´ Right to See Sunset from Salar represpentative, and engaged in a (heated) conversation with the cook. She told me first that it was cloudy so the sunset wouldn´t be very good. When I objected, she then told me that we had to get to San Juan before all the other tour groups so that we had a place to stay for the night. I told her I was not happy at all, and when we neared the edge of the Salar, the driver stopped and they told us that we could stay for sunset (1.5 hours away still), but that if we had to spend the night in the jeep, it wasn´t their problem.

We cheered and piled out of the jeep and into the stinging wind and biting cold. We spent the hour and a half running around playing tag, laying on the ground to escape the wind, singing, dancing, and all around acting like children. Good times. When the sun neared its destination, Roberto and Rafael retrieved a bottle of Bolivian wine (surprisingly good), which we drank as colors spread out over the horizon. Check out the pictures I took.

The rest of the tour went a lot like this: sit in the jeep for a couple of hours, get out and see some amazing other-worldly scenery, get back in the jeep, repeat--except for the last day, when we stopped every 30 minutes or so and waited for the driver to perform some repairs to the jeep. We got back 3 hours late. But it was a great three days.

Our late return to Uyuni caused me to miss the night bus to Potosi, so I got a ticket for the bus that left at 10am the next day. The five of us remaining from the tour (Michael went to Chile) got dinner and stayed at the same hostel.

Roberto and Rafael were planning to ride the same bus to Potosi and continue on to Tarija, Bolivia's wine-making capital. We got up in the morning and ate breakfast, then burned some time talking to Judith and Pauline, who had slept in and only wanted Oreos for breakfast. Apparently we spent too much time talking because when I went ahead to the bus station, where I was to wait for Roberto and Rafael, the bus was driving away down the street--it had left on time. I ran after it, caught it at a stop, was yelled at by the driver's assistant while he threw my backpack in the back storage compartment, and climbed aboard only to find my seat occupied by someone who also had a ticket for that seat. So I spent the six hours standing in the aisle, which fluctuated between packed and guy-laying-on-the-floor-with-his-head-at-my-feet. But I had a fully-charged iPod and was able to do some reading while I held on for dear life (the road was bumpy and windy and unpaved) so it passed quickly enough.

Potosi is a mining town that used to be the largest in South America because of the once-huge silver deposit in a hill next to it. The natives have been exploited for a long time, first by Spaniards seeking silver, now by companies of other nationalities seeking coal, nickel and other metals. Most workers die within 10 years of beginning work there. There is a popular mine tour that goes through one of the coal mines, which I boycotted thanks to the advice of Natalie (from Cuzco). I spent about 24 hours in Potosi, which was enough time to acquire a couple of Polar Frazadas (those great blankets), then got a bus for Sucre, where I am now, and about which I will now write a separate post.
]]> A mountain and a lack of sleep — La Paz, Bolivia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155581820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155581820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155581820/tpod.html Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:24:29 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
La Paz, Bolivia

I´m writing again from La Paz, where I´ll be for another 4 hours. I have a bus at 7pm for Uyuni, where from what I hear, there is not much. But it is the launching point for tours of Salar de Uyuni, a giant salt plain which is all that remains of a prehistoric salt lake. Everyone I´ve talked to down here has said that it´s one of the best places they´ve visited. I´m hoping I will say the same after I´m done, while I´m scrambling across southern/central Bolivia to get to Santa Cruz for my flight home in 9 days.

I need to add a note to my previous entry (it´s probably not significant to anyone but me and Eric Adamson): my hostel is located on a street where EVERY shop is a barber shop. I´m not sure how the market supports this (there are at least 12 on the block). This also means that business is usually slow, so every time I walked to my hostel I would get calls of ¨Pase, pase¨ (¨Come in, come in¨). Apparently they thought my beard (which was puffing by then) didn´t look good. I finally caved in on Friday night and let a barber trim my beard. I don´t get told to come in as much anymore.

Anyhow, I spend Saturday and Sunday climbing Huayna Potosí, a 6088-meter mountain just outside of La Paz. I booked the climb with an agency that told me that doing the climb in two days is normal, as opposed to the three day option, where you spend a day getting acclimatized and practicing with your ice axe and crampons on a glacier. When I got to the base camp I discovered that I was the only person there doing the two-day option, which I also discovered meant no practicing with ice axes and crampons. I´d have to list myself as ´novice´ (¨Zero, nothing, whatever the system is.¨) when it comes to using things such as these. But no matter, I learned as I went and I think I used them correctly (there are only so many things you can do with an ice axe, especially when you´re climbing a mountain).

We got to the base camp (4750m I think) where I had lunch and repacked my backpack with climbing gear (snow pants, snow jacket, big mittens, crampons, etc.). I then hiked from base camp to the refuge (5200m), where I met up with the group I´d be climbing with. They had spent the previous day practicing on the glacier and the previous night sleeping at base camp. We hung out for a little bit and ate again before going to bed around 6:30pm. From then until 12:30am I spent my time in my sleeping bag trying to sleep, but to no avail. I occupied the time by clearing my throat whenever someone started snoring (there were two snorers), covering my face with my sleeping bag to protect myself from the dripping ceiling, monitoring my acclimatization status, and gasping for breath every 15 seconds or so when for some reason I would forget to breath. I think it was the altitude.

We woke up at 12:30am and left around 2. Our group of 5 had three guides, and I was paired with a German named Matheus. Our guide´s name was Felix. We climbed for about 4.5 hours and summited just before the sun broke the horizon. The climb wasn´t very difficult except for the last 200m, which was something like a 60-degree slope of ice with a little snow and required use of the ice axe. I feel comfortable saying that it was one of the hardest physical activities I´ve undertaken, but at no point did I feel that my body could not continue. I also feel that it would have been much easier had I chosen the three-day option, but being on the crunched schedule that I am, it was worth it.

After climbing back down and riding in a jeep back to La Paz, I was ready for some sleep (I had been awake for around 30 hours). But then I remembered that there was a soccer game between The Strongest and Bolívar. Not only are they two of Bolivia´s best teams, they are both based in La Paz. So I showered and caught a bus to the stadium. The game was exciting and mostly well-played (a little sloppy), and the fans from both sides were great. Despite my nearly falling asleep a few times, I enjoyed the game.

I finally got some sleep (about 12 hours) last night, and I bought the bus ticket for Uyuni this morning. Anyway, that´s about it for now. I´m off to get ready for the bus and get some food.
]]> Tres mercados negros — La Paz, Bolivia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155349260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155349260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155349260/tpod.html Fri, 11 Aug 2006 23:09:11 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
La Paz, Bolivia

I'm in La Paz, Bolivia now after an arduous 19-hour hus ride (they told me it would be 16 and I'd only have to change buses once, as opposed to the three times we actually did). It's crowded here but I like the atmosphere and the prices (i.e. everything's really cheap).

I've been reminded to write about my activities for the rest of the day after my last post. After I finished writing/uploading pictures, I met Natalie to go to Cuzco's very own El Molino--more on this in a second. Writing/uploading took longer than planned and I was about 20 minutes late (Natalie, correct me if I'm wrong) for the meeting. When I got to the meeting spot, Natalie was surrounded by (sometimes over-) friendly Peruvian children including one named Sylvester (obviulsy a very Peruvian name) who, as she puts it, ''delights in putting his grubby little paws up the back of my t-shirt whilst simultaneously wiping his nose on the front in several fluid movements.'' Good times for everybody.

After disentangling Natalie from countless arms (and faces) we headed for El Molino. El Molino is a market where you can buy pretty much anything you want for very cheap prices. The very cheap prices may or may not be a result of one or more of the following: 1) theft of the item for sale from previous owner; 2) imitation products bearing the official logos and designs of popular american/british companies--I'm still not sure if the Quiksilver t-shirt I bought for $5 is authentic or not. I know the Patagonia down vest I got for $10 for when I'm in the freezing temperatures of southwestern Bolivia is not authentic--but it's warm; 3) some other method(s) of acquiring things cheaply enough to sell them in El Molino which are beyond my area of knowledge. The items on sale here include exact copies of DVDs of popular films for around $1. I'll just say that my movie collection has grown a little from my visit to El Molino. My apologies to anyone in the movie industry--Tom Harrits, that means you, even though you probably don't read this. Anyway, the cramped aisles of El Molino were a welcome change to the usual sights in Cuzco--nobody in El Molino even acknowledged your presence until you asked a question, whereas you can't walk three steps in Cuzco without being told that you want a massage, a movie, a tour, a picture of ''the famous rock, it's even more famous than me.'' In fact, there were a number of vendors asleep in their stalls. Additionally, I think there were only three other non-Peruvians there besides Natalie and me. The only problem I had with the whole thing were the frighteningly non-Peruvian, non-human looking manequins on which clothes were displayed (Natalie can back me up on this). But we seemed to be the only ones who were frightened, as the girl in a baby clothes stall gave me an icy look when I made a joke about the manequin there scaring me. The look was almost as scary so we moved on quickly.

After about an hour and a half of wandering and occasionally buying something in El Molino, we decided to go back to touristy Cuzco and get an early dinner (early because there was another pub quiz run by Natalie's group at 7:30--early enough for me to get in a few rounds before hopping on the bus). Apparently it's required that you eat alpaca (if you're not a vegetarian, or as South Americans put it, ''eres normal'') when you visit Peru, and as it was my last night in Peru I had to eat alpaca. I had an alpaca sirloin steak with steamed veggies. It was by far the best meal I've had this trip, and rivals anything I've eaten in the States. It even left a good taste in my mouth for a good hour--I challenge you to find a steak that does that. I think Molly would even like it, but she would definitely think about the little sunglasses-wearing alpacas that hang out with their owners in Huaraz and in Cuzco.

Anyhow, as the title of this post implies, I visited three black markets. El Molino was the first. The second was a black market of a different kind: black as in black magic. The Witches Market in La Paz is a block and a half away from my hostel. There are lots of herbs and spices and strange looking cures for various things. The strangest--and most famous--are the llama fetuses which (I think) newlyweds are supposed to bury under their houses for good luck. I know of two weddings I'll be attending when I get home... Anyway, I'll post some pictures of that when I get a chance.

The third black market is actually called 'El Mercado Negro' in La Paz, but it wasn't was good as El Molino and I got lost a lot. The market finally spit me out a lot further north than I was expecting, and it took me a good five minutes to figure out where I was. I didn't make any major purchases--just a few more movies.

I spent most of today walking around the city seeing what I could see, and hiring a guide to climb Huayna Potosi, a 6000+m mountain near La Paz. I'm leaving at 9 am tomorrow and if all goes well, I will return on Sunday around noon. Wish me luck. With that, I'm off to bed to get some sleep for the climb.
]]> Lots of Inca ruins — Cuzco, Peru http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155147000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155147000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1155147000/tpod.html Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:42:18 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Cuzco, Peru

Okay first of all, I should answer Molly's urgent question about the guide who was attacked by the bull: he was fine; no blood, no broken bones, only a little pain in his back--or so he claimed. He even got up and threw a rock at the bull after it had walked a little further away. But he had terrible throwing form and the bull gave him an are-you-kidding-me look, then kept walking.

Now that that´s been cleared up, a brief recap of my activities since my last posting:
-After spending Friday in Lima I went out with three Peruvian girls in Barranco--what my Lonely Planet guidebook describes as, ''Lima's Bohemian district.'' I'm not really sure what made it Bohemian, but it was a cool little area with lots of bars and live music, etc. It was a fun night which ended with a trip to a late-night fastfood place in Miraflores. Somethings are the same all over the world.
-I took a flight from Lima to Cuzco on Saturday morning (it was an hour, as opposed to a 20-hour bus ride, and cost roughly $40 more--a good deal if you ask me. Which I guess is why I flew). I got to my hostel around noon and got my things organized, then spent the afternoon wandering around the city. It´s a great place--despite everything being targeted at the huge numbers of tourists here--with lots of colonial churches and plazas. And there´s really good hot chocolate. Anyway, I had read about this Irish bar here and was craving a Guiness so I went there around 5pm, only to find that a Guiness costs S./ 15, which ridiculous for a beer here. But I really want a Guiness so I might go have one before I leave tonight (I´m taking a 16-hour bus to La Paz, Bolivia at 10pm tonight). So instead of a delicious Guiness I had a not-as-delicious Cusqueña, which is brewed right here in Cuzco. The place wasn´t very crowded and I struck up a conversation with the English bartender, Glenn (he's volunteering here, building an orphanage in the mornings). Long story short he's a very friendly guy and I met a few other people through him, including Natalie, Linda, Claire, and Jody, who are volunteering here (they help get underpriveliged children up to par on reading/writing/arithmetic/etc. so they can get into the state school system). I ended up hanging out with them that night for dinner, which was great seeing as they're good people and the alternative was eating alone.
-I left Sunday morning on a bus for Ollantaytambo, where there is a large Inca ruin (I´ll upload some pictures). It's a pretty cool place--lots of tourists again, but I found a path running away from the main site which climbed high above. I hiked up that to a small ruin, which looked like it may have been a ceremonial site. There were only two people up there--a Peruvian guy who had hiked up there when he was five (he was at least 30 now) and his girlfriend/wife. I kept going up and got a great view of the valley and the river below.
-I took the evening train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, from where you can go up to Machu Picchu. I don´t have much to say about Aguas Calientes, other than that everything is overpriced and you can´t walk down the street without being accosted by the people who stand outside their restaurants and shove their menus in your face.
-I woke up around 5:30am on Monday morning so that I could change my return train ticket and then walk up to Machu Picchu. Changing the ticket took longer than expected so I didn´t leave Aguas Calientes until 7:15. The guidebook says it's supposed to take an hour and a half to walk to Machu Picchu--because I was running behind (I wanted to see the site before the sun burned off all the mist) I considered taking the bus (20 minutes), but then came to my senses when I saw that it costs $15. So I decided to walk quickly. Aguas Calientes is at the very bottom of the valley, and Machu Picchu is on top of one of the mountains there. The walk up is a seemingly endless set of stone stairs which don't bother to use the switchback technique employed by the road. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) I was sweating profusely after about 15 steps. But I ended getting to Machu Picchu jus after 8:00 so I was happy with the effort.
-I really can't say anything to truly capture the beauty of Machu Picchu, especially in the morning. I got past the ticket gate and walked up a short steep path to have the entire site revealed. The mist was suspended just above while the sun sat off to the right and Huayna Picchu rose up like a tooth behind the city. I headed for Huayna Picchu since they only let 400 of the permitted 1000 visitors go up every day. After another steep climb up endless stone steps, I was rewarded with an elevated view of the entire city of Machu Picchu. I spent some time perched on a rock at the top sitting and admiring (along with about 10 other tourists) before heading down a trail which goes down the backside of the mountain to the Temple of the Moon. The Temple of the Moon is underwhelming compared to the rest of the site but as I walked into the clearing in which it sits, I got a sudden vision of ceremonies being held here at night. It was obvioulsy my imagination, but the site is wrought with a mysterious atmosphere in which it is easy to imagine fires and drums and shadows and sacrifices.
-After the Temple of the Moon I returned to the main site of Machu Picchu and spent a couple of hours walking around and pirating pieces of information from the tour groups suffocating the area.
-I left the site after spending nearly 6 hours there feeling tired, sunburned, dehydrated, and coated with dirt sticking to dried sweat. In other words, I felt great--which is probably why I paid the 15 soles for a sandwich (compared to the 6 or 7 one would cost in Cuzco) and another 7 for a small bottle of water. This was the cheapest option available at the top; to satisfy my curiosity, I asked how much the posh buffet cost--$27 per person. I hope the hostess didn´t think I was laughing at her after she told me this.
-I walked back down to Aguas Calientes, where I found a 3-for-1 Happy Hour special on Cusqueña while I waited for my train back to Ollantaytambo. On the way back down the steps I was passed by a brightly-dressed boy every five minutes or so. It took three boys running by shouting, ''¡Hola!'' before I decided to get my camera out, and before I figured out what they were doing: they were racing the buses to the bottom, where there is a bridge across the river.
-I rode the train back to Ollantaytambo, got a colectivo (a cheap shared taxi that doesn´t leave until it is full) to Cuzco, and walked back to the hostel (I should note here that the hostel is not accesible by car because of the steep steps leading to it. Between this and Machu Picchu, I don´t think I´ve ever walked up so many steps in my whole life.) Anyway, I got to the hostel ready for a shower and a change of clothes. I had made a reservation with the older man who works there before I left, when I left my big backpack in their storage area. But Mumbles (the old man who works there) told me that there wasn´t any room there and that I didn´t have a reservation--that's the short version. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out what exactly he was saying, which also included that there was a similar hostel just down the road. So, slightly annoyed, I walked there and found a very pleasant family-run hostel which was cheaper and nicer. I guess I lucked out. I showered and changed clothes and headed for a bar near the main plaza where Glenn and Natalie & Co. had told me there would be a pub quiz night (popular in England--Stanford people, it´s just like the one at Rose & Crown--good times) to raise money for the school where Natalie & Co. volunteer. I got there a little late but Glenn´s team needed another person so I joined and had fun hanging out and guessing at the answers to questions I had no idea about.
-I slept in yesterday (Tuesday) and spent the day exploring more of the city, calling home (finally), getting a bus ticket and going to three bookstores before settling on a Ray Bradbury book (Something Wicked This Way Comes--the choice of books in English leaves something to be desired), then getting dinner with Glenn and Natalie at a really good Israeli restaurant which is hidden on a side street--it doesn´t have a sign outside.
-I'm hanging out this afternoon after going up to an Inca ruin just above Cuzco, Sacsayhuaman, this morning. My bus to La Paz leaves at 10pm, so hopefully I'll have that Guiness before I leave.
-Finally, thanks to everyone who has sent me emails--I like reading about what´s going on in everyone else's lives so please keep sending them. Okay, I'll try to upload some pictures.
]]> Another day in Lima — Lima, Peru http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1154721060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1154721060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1154721060/tpod.html Fri, 04 Aug 2006 17:15:24 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Lima, Peru

I´m in Lima, and as I said in the last posting, I rode an overnight bus here from Huaraz. It was in no way comfortable--hot, stuffy, and not a lot of leg room. But I got to Lima alright, and after arguing with a taxi driver about where my hostel was, I got a few hours of sleep--i.e. 3.5. Anyway, I´m using today as a sort of regrouping day after spending four days in the most gorgeous mountains I´ve ever seen (I´m hoping that I´ll be successful uploading pictures today, they´re unbelievable). I´m flying to Cuzco tomorrow morning, where I´ll hang out a little (I´ve been told multiple times that it´s a really cool city), then head up to Ollantaytambo (where there is an old Inca fortress), from where I´ll ride a train to Aguas Calientes, the town nearest to Machu Picchu. I´m hoping to watch the sun rise at Machu Picchu on Monday morning.

Anyway, enough about where I will be going--I´ve done quite a bit in the past ten days or so since my last detailed posting. I went from Loja, Ecuador to Piura, Peru on a bus. We crossed the border at Macará. The officials from both countries were relaxed and fairly friendly, and I had no problem crossing into Peru. I then spent a day in Piura, which is a pretty nice town to spend a day in. It´s dry and gets hot in the afternoon. You can tell what time of day it is by the number of people walking around--once the sun got high and the temperature rose, the streets were dead. People sat in the shade or in heladerías (ice cream shops) until later in the afternoon, when it cooled off. At night the streets are full of people walking to dinner or around the main plaza, where I saw some street performers do a comedy routine. It was pretty hilarious, and there was a big crowd standing around watching.

I got there on July 26th, two days before Peruvian independence day, and the start of Las Fiestas Patrias, which lasted until the 29th. Although I couldn´t see them, I heard quite a few fireworks (nothing like the US) being launched all over the city.

I was glad to leave on the morning of the 28th, as I had walked past every shop in an eight-block radius at least three times. I flew to Lima, but arrived a little too late to make it to the city center to see the inauguration of Alan García, but I watched the military parade on a TV while I ate lunch at a little place near the hostel I stayed at. I stayed in Miraflores, just south of Lima, where it´s a little more upscale and safer. I found the whole place a little too touristy and a little too much like LA, so I decided to go to Huaraz the next day. It turned out to be a great decision.

I got a bus to Huaraz at 1pm the next day (Saturday), and arrived in time to check into a nice hostel and get some dinner. The hostel arranged a day hike for Sunday around Laguna Llaganuco, a beautiful lake in the mountains about three hours away from Huaraz. The hike was easy, but a good way to get re-acclimatized after spending a few days down at sea level. I also met a couple of girls from Lima who were there on holiday (sorry, I´m picking up some words from all of the Brits I´ve been hanging out with), and I´m going out with them and their friends tonight.

After we got back from the hike, I headed for the center of Huaraz (which is a really cool mountain town--lots of people there for trekking) to find a guide agency for a three- or four-day trek. The most popular trek in the area is the Llaganuco-Santa Cruz trek, which usually takes four days and climbs up to a pass at 4750m on the second day. There was one leaving the next day, and the price and timing were right, so I signed up. For $100 I was part of a group that got good guides, transportation to and from the trail, food, donkeys to carry everything except our day packs (it made the trek a LOT easier), and tents.

The four days I spent hiking and camping in the Cordillera Blanca were some of the most amazing days I have ever had. The first day was an easy slightly uphill hike to the first campsite, which was at 3850m. The second day was the hardest, climbing 900m to Punta Unión, a pass at 4750m. I reached it in 2.5 hours, then waited for the others to join me. We had lunch there but it was cold, cloudy, windy, and it began to snow so we didn´t stay long after that. The rest of the day was a descent to the campsite at 4250m. That night was by far the coldest, but the views more than made up for it. The third day of the trek was almost all downhill or flat valleys, except for the morning, when we hiked to the base camp of Alpamayo, a beautiful peak which is very difficult to climb (or so I am told). After the base camp and a glacial lake just above it at 4500m, the day was filled with beautiful flat valleys. A lot of farms from the Huaraz area bring their cattle to these valleys to graze, and we passed by a lot of cows and sheep. Towards the end of the day, another guy in the group, Jerry, and I were a bit ahead of the rest. To the left of the trail was a bull just like many others we had passed, which was grazing peacefully. The trail bent across a stream about 10 yards in front of the bull, and Jerry and I said hello to a Peruvian guide crossing the stream in the other direction. I had taken about three steps away from the stream when I heard a clattering, and I turned around thinking that the guide had slipped and fell. This was not the case. For one reason or another (our guides think he taunted the bull), the bull charged the guide (not ours). The guide said he saw the bull coming and turned to face it. This is about the time I heard the clattering and turned around. The man was completely off the ground, riding the bull´s head. The bull ran with him for about five yards before throwing him to the ground in the creek, and trying to gore the guide with his horns. The whole thing lasted no more than six seconds, whereupon the bull stood menacingly a few feet away from the fallen guide, who laid in the creek bed moaning. Jerry and I had run uphill away from the bull by this time, and the rocks we picked up gave us some sense of security. We told the guy to wait until our guide arrived, who then hurled rocks at the bull until it moved away. Getting hit in the head with a big rock made the bull extremely angry--it hoofed the ground and bellowed and I thought it was ready to charge again. Anyway, we moved around it carefully and reached camp safely, but I still can´t believe that it happened. What´s even more disturbing is that the guide waited to let me cross the creek first, and had he not it very well could have been me riding the bull´s head to the rocky creek bed.

The fourth day was short and uneventful, and we got back to Huaraz around 3pm. I got a room with a hot shower until 10pm, when my bus left for Lima. I went out for beers and dinner with a few people from the trek. It was a good way to end my stay there.

I think that´s about it for now--I´ll try to post a few pictures from the trek.
]]> A quick update — Huaraz, Peru http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1154642700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1154642700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1154642700/tpod.html Thu, 03 Aug 2006 18:08:58 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Huaraz, Peru

I´m in Huaraz waiting for Happy Hour to start after a four-day trek through the Cordillera Blanca, in the Peruvian Andes. It was a lot of fun and I saw some things I´ve never seen before--huge glacier-capped mountain peaks, huge flat valleys, and a bull attacking a guide going in the other direction. I´ll post a more detailed account of the last week or so tomorrow from Lima. I´m taking an 8-hour night bus from Huaraz to Lima, then I´m going to Cuzco on Saturday. More tomorrow.
]]> Waiting for a bus in Loja — Loja, Ecuador http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1153927500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1153927500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bred/sa_andes_2006/1153927500/tpod.html Wed, 26 Jul 2006 12:23:47 -0400 A guy with a red beard wanders through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Loja, Ecuador

My bus for Piura, Peru doesn´t leave until 1pm, so I thought I´d spend some time on a post.

I went hiking in Cajas National Park, near Cuenca, on Monday. The guidebook and the tourist information center said to plan to be done hiking by 4pm because fog comes in and makes it easy to get lost. Well, the trail I chose to hike made it easy to get lost even without the fog. By ´trail´ I mean ´one-foot wide path of dirt which disappeared every time the long grass stopped and a marshy area began. It was not well-marked, and the high páramo grass made it easy to lose. Anyway, it should have taken about 3-3.5 hours to hike, but I had to double back and do all sorts of off-trail hiking (for which I am very sorry to the National Park, but maybe they should keep their trails in better condition), so it took me neary 5 hours round trip. It was a great hike though--besides the frustration of losing the trail every five minutes--that weaved between mountain lakes and climbed up (one of) the highest peaks in the park, at about 4200m. I had lunch at the top before descending along a route of... well... I´m not sure how to characterize it. I would best describe it as dangerous and I´m still not sure how I got down without at least a broken ankle. I´ll post pictures when I get a chance. There were a couple of areas I used to get down that during the wet season would have been waterfalls.

Anyhow, getting down took so long that it was after the recommended stopping time--I think it was about 5pm. It wasn´t too foggy yet, so I walked to the entrance where I had been dropped off and asked when the next bus to Cuenca would be passing by. The guy there told me that a bus went buy every 30 minutes. So I walked to the road, where I was subsequently passed by 5 buses, at the last of which I yelled some unpleasantries (in English--I don´t really know any bad words in Spanish). I returned to the entrance and told the guy my situation. He actually was of negative assistance, if that´s possible. He said, ¨The buses just passed without stopping?¨ and I said, ¨Yes, that´s why I´m still here.¨ We then stared at each other in silence for five minutes, after which I decided to start walking.

It was just about 6pm at this point, and sure enough, the fog came rolling in. It didn´t so much roll as drop, but it was preceded by a light cold rain. It wasn´t dark yet so I felt safe enough walking along the side (the ¨shoulder¨ was about a foot and a half wide), hopping up onto the grass/gravel/large rocks next to the road whenever a large truck or occasional bus--which didn´t even honk at me like the trucks did, let alone pick me up--passed. Here are some things that made my safe return to Cuenca possible: an ample supply of Clif bars (thanks to Cary, who made a late-night run to the grocery store the night before I left for SA and picked those up for me), a bag of 10 mandarins (which I bought at the bus station for $1 that morning, and without which I would have become severely dehydrated), my hat and gloves, my rain jacket, my anger at the buses (7 of them by the end--they fueled a furious pace), my headlamp (yet again. It became dark after 30 minutes of walking), the fact that the entire walk was downhill, the police checkpoint at the park boundary (where I was allowed to wait for a bus--they were required to stop there, so logically they MUST let me on, right?), and two kind souls named Alejandro and Luli (only 40% sure of the spelling on the second name).

I had been waiting for awhile at the police checkpoint and no buses had come. I was just happy not to be walking along the side of a winding moutain road anymore, but I could tell I was making the guard or whatever they guy at the checkpoint was sort of nervous. So when a white SUV with at least three tall houseplants in the back pulled up and asked the guy if I needed a ride to Cuenca, he made sure I took it. Obviously I would have taken it without his prodding, but it was easy to see that the guard was glad to be rid of the American who had been sitting on the curb for the past 25 minutes. Anyway, Alejandro and Luli were on their way back from the coastal city of Guayaquil--one I am sad I did not visit--to their home in Cuenca. From what I could gather, Luli is Alejandro´s daughter, but there were a few things said implying that they were not related (such as, ¨That´s his name,¨ with regard to the name of the street my hotel was on being the same as Alejandro´s surname). But I´ll disregard them and assume that they were father and daughter (the age difference was appropriate). Alejandro is a math teacher--they both were pretty excited when I told them that I study physics--and Luli is a psychology student. More importantly, they were very kind and good conversation (I hadn´t done much talking besides ordering food and bus tickets and hostel rooms in a couple of days), and they dropped me off near my hostel in Cuenca. Thank you Alejandro and Luli.

After that adventure, and some unkind treatment in a restaurant in Cuenca, I was happy to get on a bus for a five-hour ride to Loja. It´s in the far south of Ecuador, and I´m taking an eight-hour bus ride south of the border to Piura, Peru. I have a flight to Lima on the morning of Friday, July 28th. I booked this at home not knowing that not only is July 28th the Peruvian independence day, but this July 28th is also the inauguration of the new Peruvian president. I´m excited for this, and I will hopefully see some really interesting celebrations/rallies/prostests(?) Anyway, that´s it for now. I think I´ve passed enough time that I can go get some lunch before hopping on the bus. Hasta luego.
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