Peru on a Shoestring

Hello hello! Salaam alaykum, hola, bonjour, gutentag, jambo, how ya goin! I'm currently writing to you from a barge just off the east coast of Saudi in the Arabian Gulf. Lucky for me, I dragged some satellite equipment out here with me to prevent mammoth boredom and also to keep in touch with the rest of the planet. And since the weather can only be described as 'severely sandy,' we're on standby time and therefore, I'm on writing time. I'm also currently listening to Caddyshack on in the background, so this post is bound to be disjointed, distracting, wandering, and of course, not interesting.

My last post ended with me about to travel to America de Sur for a January excursion in Peru. Well, let's start there. I had booked this trip through a company called 'G Adventures,' which markets themselves as an adventure tour company for 20-somethings. They also try to help out the local areas as much as they can. So our group was made up of a nice healthy mix of people from the commonwealth countries: 6 Australians, 1 New Zealander, 1 Briton, 2 Canadians, and 3 Americans. One of the American guys actually lives but a few short blocks away from our old family stomping grounds outside of Detroit. He was a hilarious kid who we'll call 'Grunt' for this blog and we ended up rooming together for most of the trip. Our group first descended on Lima, the capital of Peru and by far its largest city. The day I got there was the opening day of the Dakar Rally, which is almost a continent-wide race of motorcycles, trucks, cars and quads. There was a big commotion along the main raceway downtown and people were pretty excited. Naturally, I missed all the actual cars going by, but did manage to stroll down by and explore the beach. I also took a guided bus tour around Lima, which took us all around the main 'tourist' sites. Lima itself was not tremendously touristy, as it was basically just a big city. However, that night I finally met the rest of our group and our awesome tour guide Pepe. We had a nice dinner followed by a multitude of drinks. Good start to the adventure since the group was friendly, funny, outgoing, and seemed pretty adventurous.

Beachside in Lima

At the Parque De Amor (Love Park)

Some Ancient Incan burial temple in Lima

It was still Xmas time in South America!

Our next morning involved buying plenty of goodies for a long bus ride to Nazca, mainly chips and vodka. Everybody chatted for a while, some bad movies were shown on the ride, and of course we dabbled in the alcohol arts. Nazca is famous for it's massive Nazca Lines, which depict a bunch of random animals, shapes, and even an 'astronaut.' Experts seem to think the Lines were made between like 400-600 A.D. by the local Nazca people. No one really seems to know why these shapes, which are only about 4-6 inches dug into the ground, were created, but naturally conspiracy theorists propose they were used for extraterrestrial communication. Either way, we arrived late that night to Nazca, and chilled by the pool and drank and played cards, eventually getting some sleep for a big day ahead of us. We woke up the next morning and decided to hop on a few small planes to check out the 'Lines.'

Already breaking rules

Fine looking group getting ready for the flight

And we're airborne

Some scholars think these might be agriculturally relevant

Others think astronomical

Not sure what this guy is thinking

I swear there's a bird in there

Could it be...irrigation?

Tree and Hands

Apparently they're hands

Some people take their weigh-ins too seriously

After checking out the Lines, a few of us decided to take a not-as-short-as-advertised trip out to go see some Incan mummies. Due to the extremely dry, arid desert landscape around Nazca, the bodies are actually preserved quite well even when left outdoors. Teeth, hair, skin, and a little bit of flesh were all visible.

I thought my toes were weird

That very well could be an alien

FOOT

After we checked out the mummies, we all headed back to our hotel and discovered that our next adventure was ready to begin: dune buggies. There were 2 giant buggies waiting for our entire group at the hotel, so we hopped in, strapped ourselves in, turned on Grunt's GoPro, and starting an awesome journey out into the desert. We drove past an ancient Nazca temple, as well as a cemetery with a superfluous amount of exposed skeletons. Then we found our way to these massive sand dunes, where we all tried out our skills either dune-boarding or sand-boarding, whatever you want to call it. I lacked the necessary balance skills, so I stuck to going down on my stomach. I also accidentally ran into a branch that was sticking out of the sand and ripped a fair bit of skin off. Luckily I survived.

Time to buggy

Temple time

Someone didn't floss enough

Hittin the dunes

The desert dunes around Nazca

Good form

Spectacular duning

Survival

When we all recovered from our duning experience, we headed back to the hotel for a pachamanca ceremony, or traditional Nazca meal. The food is prepared by being set on hot coals and then literally buried underground for a couple hours. Myself and one of the girls of the group, AP as we'll call her, were elected 'Godfather' and 'Godmother' for the ceremony where we blessed the food and begun unearthing it. The food was quite a mix of meats and vegetables and luckily our guide Pepe brought some Nazca wine as well. A delicious experience right before the next bus ride of ours, down to the second-largest city in Peru; Arequipa.

Pachamanca

Once dug up

Delectable delicacies

Arequipa is known as 'The White City' due to the prevalence of white marble and stone used in the architecture of the buildings there. It sits at over 6000 feet high, and as such it is also surrounded by three enormous volcanoes line the far outskirts of the city; Misti, Pikchu Pikchu, and Chachani, each of which are over 18,500 feet. Our first day we basically just walked around the town square, had a lovely vino-centric lunch at a rooftop cafe, and did a touch of indoor climbing at the sketchiest climbing gym of all time with holds that would randomly fall off and also with the dog of the owner casually peeing on the mat beneath the bouldering walls.  Me and some of the crew also got very casually drunk before touring the old Santa Catalina convent for nuns. The nuns of yesteryear had a fairly difficult life, not bathing but a few times a year, and forced to remain in silence for years. They did manage to eventually gain more individual rights such as being able to leave the convent, although usually in groups of at least 2. The convent did look amazing at nighttime though as the lights reflected off the white to make the entire place glow. That evening, I managed to finally taste guinea pig, which was both not very satisfying and pretty wretched looking. Anyway, glad I did it. Won't do it again.

'White City'

There were a lot worse things to see in the meat market. Trust me

There were a lot of amazing fruits and veggies though

Right next to the city center

Finally got to see a llama!

Inside the convent

Convent at night

Not-so-yummy guinea pig

Very unsatisfying

The next day we went out to the backside of the surrounding mountains into the Colca region. We drove to the town of Chivay, which is the traditional jumping off point for people to check out the whole Colca Canyon. The town of Chivay had a lot of strange statues put up along their main town square depicting locals at various times in their history. Some were funny, some were downright creepy. You can decide below. The group also headed out to some natural hot springs just a stone's throw outside the city where we were served a healthy amount of pisco sours and beers while soaking in the steam.

Additionally that evening we went to a popular restaurant in Chivay complete with live Peruvian music, including tons of pan-flute. They also featured live dancers whose dance told a story of a forbidden love between a high-born woman and the carpenter that she fell in love with. It was great, as the woman would pluck people from the crowd for dancing, including yours truly, before eventually getting everybody involved at the end of the night. Tons of fun.

Misti volcano

Still lookin good

High peaks

Big valleys

Sleazy statues

Creepy statues

She is the lord of the dance

He is the lord of sleaze

Our group got special treatment

Until everyone joined in

We woke up and headed out to the Colca Canyon to check out the famous candors there. En route, we stopped in a small city whose name I can't remember (it might've even been Chivay, but who knows, I'm an idiot anyway). We learned about the different ways that local tribes actually influenced the shapes of skulls of their children with small pieces of wood. That helped them to distinguish tribes. Afterwards, we drove through the canyon, which apparently is the most terraced canyon in the world. It was quite evident, as agriculture was heavy throughout the whole valley, but the terraces did make it especially beautiful. Upon reaching the mirador where all the condors were, we were pretty excited. There were 5 or 6 that were flying very close to us, so everyone's inner birdwatcher took over and went wild with cameras.

The skulls of the Collague

The canyon

Again

Condors were pretty close

And pretty large

Typical

Afterwards, we took the long bus trip back to Arequipa so we could catch a night bus to Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incan empire, and the longest continuously inhabited city in South America. It is also a very elevated city at around 11,200 feet, and is the most popular tourist city in Peru. It definitely showed, as there were 'travelers' from all over the world descending on the city, which is close to the popular Inca Trail.  Like all of our stops, we walked around the city for a while just to get a feel for it, with some people going shopping, some of us relaxing while feasting on wine and bread. That night I also consumed without a doubt the largest cheeseburger I've ever seen. I was motivated in part by one of the other guys in the group who had ordered it and finished and I decided to test my gastrointestinal limits. It was honestly the most difficult food experience I've ever had, and that includes jalapeno eating contests. Eating it also basically knocked me out as I couldn't muster an ounce of strength for going out in Cusco that night.

Capital of the Incan Empire

Random dog (named Pedro by us) who followed us around for a day

Delicious bread

Wine, bread, peanut butter, cheese, awesomeness

My life's greatest challenge

After a night in Cuzco, our group moved onward to the city of Ollantaytambo, which was an important Incan city back in the day, built as a royal estate for the conquering emperor Pachacuti. It also is even more of a gateway to the Inca trail. For us, it served as a stopping off point before we headed to the small valley village of Ccaccaccollo, where we would be staying in a homestead. We headed up a small muddy mountain road to arrive at this village, where they led very simple lives, making homemade textiles and farming for themselves. Our group was broken up into 4 or 5 groups to disperse with families throughout the community. Me, Grunt, AP and another girl ended up staying with the same family, under the house mom, Teodora. She was a super nice older Peruvian woman, and we had no problem helping her around the house: cleaning dishes, feeding their barn of guinea pigs, setting the table. We were all also given our decorative Peruvian garb to wear as we all headed out to the garden to till some soil and remove rocks so they could plant seeds. Lucky for us, the rain held off until we were through tilling. After the rain stopped, we played some soccer with the local kids, who promptly schooled this gringo manning the net. That evening, we put our garb back on after a nice dinner with Teodora and her husband (name unknown), and headed down to the town hall for a little local dancing. Naturally, mine was uncoordinated and Caucasian, but I think the whole group had fun, especially dancing with all of our hosts. The next morning we went to the local markets to see what the women had prepared. The women showed us how they dyed all their textiles and we met some friendly llamas and alpacas. Then sadly, we were forced to say our goodbyes, but then headed back to Ollantaytambo for the start of our trek on the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu!

Ollantaytambo

Our homestead in Ccaccaccollo

We found our clothes!

Grunt and I had to get a practice dance or two in

Dripping with testosterone

Heading to the fields

Bano llama!

Happy llama

AP loves her some llamas

Dyeing the textiles

Singing us a goodbye song

Teodora and gringo fool

So we began our trek to the most famous Incan ruins in the world. Similar to my Kilimanjaro trek, we had a legion of porters to help us/feed us throughout our journey. We also were greeted with stamps at every main camp along the trail. Our main guide, Javier, was a descendant of the Incan peoples themselves, and he took every opportunity to remind us of all the great things the 'nice Spanish people' did when they came over from Europe. Some of these things include slaughtering thousands of indigenous people, destroying their temples and replacing them with churches, and just generally causing mayhem during their 'conquest' of Peru. Javier was with us the entire trek and did manage to give us a lot of good information about the ruins, the Incan way of life, traditions, and stories as well. The scenery was quite green, as we were in the middle of essentially a high-altitude tropical forest, but we were always excited as we came upon the occasional ruin. The first day ended with a standard delicious meal prepared by the porters and we continued to play euchre late into the late, as Grunt and I had taught a bunch of the other group members how to play.

Start of the trail

After but an hour or two we spotted our first ruins

Meat, potatoes, euchre

Camp the first night

We woke up with information that the next campsite we were destined for that night was at a high risk of landslides due to the previous rainfall, so we made the decision to basically pack a day and a half of hiking into one, ending at night where we would be at lunchtime the next day. The hike was pretty steep and myself, the Kiwi, and the Briton ended up moving far ahead of the rest of the group as we plunged towards Dead Woman's Pass, which was the highest point along the trail at 13,800 feet. Luckily we had been slowly acclimatizing for the past week, going to gradually higher and higher places (Lima, Arequipa, Cusco, Ollantaytambo), so by that time a lot of us were pretty immune to the effects of high altitude. We hit our highest point in half the time that Javier had planned for us, so the three of us who got there enjoyed the sunshine at the top alone while everyone else caught up. Javier was nice to let us pretty much go at whatever pace we wanted, and those of us wanting a workout definitely got it.

We headed downhill from Dead Woman's Pass, which was actually probably more trying on the legs just because of the drastic change of angle and the fact that we were pretty torched from the climb up. As we descended further into the cloud forest, we saw a few more ruins and got a little sweatier. We did manage to camp out that evening at an excellent viewing point of the distant mountain ranges, with crisp snow-capped peaks looking down on us as we continued our feasting and euchre-ing.

Heading up to Dead Woman's Pass

Sweaty

@4200 meters

The group caught up

Quads no longer burning, calves seriously burning

AP checkin out some ruins

Calves

Hey, that's not Macchu Picchu!

But it IS Phuyupatamarca

The next day we woke up with friendly messages written in syrup on our pancakes, courtesy of our guides. We heartily enjoyed them as we savored the mountain air and views. We creeped further into the cloud forest that morning, as it really really lived up to its name. The air was cold at that altitude, but also very moist. We passed a few more ruins on the way, including Winay Wayna, which eerily appeared out of the layers of mist. We passed what would've been our final campsite, where our guides made us an astonishingly scrumptious cake at lunch. Our trek took us up a little ways to the 'Sun Gate' where you are supposed to get your first views of Macchu Picchu, but due to the thick, thick clouds and fog. It was nowhere to be seen. So, we trekked on in the style of Hiram Bingham, the man who re-discovered Macchu Picchu for the outside world back in 1911. So as we plodded along this high valley pass along the Urubamba River, the clouds slowly but surely faded and this haunting gray figure of an ancient civilization began to make itself known to us. We'd arrived at Macchu Picchu.

Excellent campsite

The entire crew, including porters and cooks

Fashion police would have a field day

Winay Wayna

Same same 

Taking a break to enjoy the Urubamba river valley

Excellent group

I'm literally drooling right now thinking about this

Could it be...?

Macchu Picchu first rears its haunting head our way

I can tell you it really was a magical experience as I first laid eyes on it. It was perched high on this ridge a couple thousand feet above the Urubamba River and the one thought that kept crossing my mind was 'what a ridiculous place to have a city.' But it was beautiful and completely worth the sweat, lack of showering, questionable lavatorial facilities, burning quads, and persistent rain.We inched closer to the city itself, which was once a resort-type location for the high-class Incans. We all snapped some group pics and a couple selfies, but we knew we'd be back in the morning for our formal tour with Javier. After our brief encounter with Macchu Picchu that day, we went down to the city of Aguas Calientes down along the Urubamba River and sacked up at a hotel. The entire group was very thankful of our first shower in a few days and some of us discovered laundry places right around the corner. Grunt and I even decided to get some massages, which were much-needed after all the hiking we'd done. Our group then had our final feast with our porters. I prepared a quick speech for them, and luckily Javier translated, hopefully truthfully. A few of us had our usual wine indulgences and passed out, resting well knowing we made it through the trail.

Cloud forest finally parted a little

AP likes the Picchu

Macchu Picchu and there's actually more ruins up at the top of that mount, called Huayna Picchu

Usain Bolting all the way up to Huayna Picchu

Groupie

Gross

The next day we took the bus up to Macchu Picchu, which was nice after hiking for 3 days. A little relaxation was nice. The cloud forest lived up to its name again as foggy haze hovered across the whole city in the hours of the morning we were there. It's haunting serenity was quite desirable. Javier took us all throughout the entire city, stopping us at a lot of note-worthy places including temples, houses, amazingly comfortable walls, monuments, sundials, bathhouses, and of course, many an excellent photo-op. After Javier's very detailed tour, everybody had some free time to roam as they pleased, with some people going back to the city to rest/shop. Myself, AP and a few of the others decided to check out the 'Inca Bridge' which was a little additional hike behind the entrance. We had to sign a waiver before entering because there really weren't any safety rails and it was definitely possible to injure oneself or worse. The bridge itself was off-limits since it was nothing more than a few long pieces of lumber thrown across some rocks. However, the walk and the views were quite spectacular. Afterwards, AP and I decided to indulge in our peanut butter and throw ourselves a Picchu picnic, complete with Oreo-like cookies (totally don't remember what they're called. Maybe 'pig' something?). We savored our Picchu diabetes-fest and then said our goodbye to Picchu and headed down to Aguas Calientes for some shopping and drinking.

Eerie and beautiful in the morning mist

Probably thinking about pisco sours

Inside one of the homes. They had thatch roofs

Cloud Forest of course

Group shot once again

At the Condor Temple

Great views at the Inca Bridge

AP's and my Picchu Peanut Butter Picnic (triple score in Scattergories)

The temple of the Sun

Most comfortable stone wall ever. Don't believe me? Ask Hiram Bingham

Our group enjoyed a fairly drunken lunch (and even some much-needed wifi) before hopping on a train to Ollantaytambo, where Grunt and I taught a couple girls from one of the other G Adventure groups all about euchre. They also taught us a fairly ridiculous card game too and I was temporarily the worst player (and probably the drunkest). The ensuing bus ride from Ollantaytambo to Cusco was one of my best memories of the trip, with an excellent playlist and subsequent sing-a-long from Grunt, as well as a streetside bathroom break where my nether-regions were almost attacked by a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth dog, likely owned by the people living in the huts next to which we were peeing. Good news is, just as my arms survived Nazca's tree stumps, my nether regions survived crazy fast-moving dog. Our group tried to make it out that night in Cuzco, but we started off at the restaurant owned by our guide, and I think the volume of delicious food we received there and a couple free drinks kept us pretty low to the ground. Most of us just had a few drinks at this Irish bar and went to sleep by midnight.

The second to last day in Peru was definitely a fun one. Grunt, myself, the Canadians, and one of the Aussie girls decided to book a white-water rafting trip down the Urubamba River. None of us were tremendously hungover, so I think we held our own in the water pretty well. The rapids we were doing were Class 3+ and in some places Class 4, which means fairly turbulent, but not deadly. Grunt threw on his GoPro and the resulting video was pretty awesome. We were both hoping we could flip the raft, but the girls were pretty adamant about not letting that happen. Buzzkill. Either way, we slugged through and Grunt even grabbed me right before I almost went overboard, so I owe him some props for that. We enjoyed a healthy lunch after the fantastic workout, and were encountered by two enormous Saint Bernards, who we obviously named Beethoven and The Beast. Then some quick zip-lining across the river just to say we did, and we hopped on a bus back to Cuzco for our final night together as a group.

Looking ready for rafting

Beethoven

The Beast is clearly hungry

Big time douched with water

Lesser douche-ing

Dizzy paddle!

Still pumped up

Zip-lining. Lame, but relaxing

We started out that evening at a restaurant that was clearly not ready to handle a group of our size, although its ambiance made everyone feel at home, with country flags from everywhere dotting the ceiling. We headed back to Pepe's restaurant for some delicious dragon fruit shots, among others. Then we traversed to a dance club, where we proceeded to sweat and drink until the wee hours of the night. It was a great last night for our whole group. Greater for some than others....

AP showing she's an American at heart, despite the Aussie accent

Free drinks. Thanks Pepe!

She's mastered the Usain Bolt

Twas quite a loud club

Our next morning was certainly a painful reminder of how old we were getting, as hangovers abounded. That coupled with the pressing need for packing as well as last minute shopping made it less-than-pleasing. At the end of the day however, a few of us had very hearty goodbyes, with promises of Facebook pics to be posted and future meet-ups to arrange. I got to know a few of the kids in the group really really well, and AP and I have since gotten closer as well. It was a fantastic trip, certainly one I'll cherish for a lifetime. I highly recommend G Adventures for anyone who wants to do adventure vacationing. They gave us both freedom to explore at our own pace certain places and also things to do together as a group. I'll definitely consider them for future vacations I go on. They've got high-end, middle-end, and low-cost travel too.

Anyway, enough of the sales pitch. I flew back to the US and picked up my Saudi visa and eventually headed back to the Kingdom. My hitch went by pretty quickly, as I was out in lovely Khurais once again doing jobs. I also had the unenviable  task of replacing our Engineer-In-Charge, who was back in the US nursing a knee injury. Unfortunately, his replacement was back in the US with visa delays, and HIS replacement went home to India for days off, so I was once again stuck in a role that I was fairly underqualified for. Luckily, we managed to hold the cell together and nothing burned to the ground. My buddy Nic, who I hadn't seen since my first SLB school back in June 2011 came to Saudi for a month to train for ACTive. It was absolutely awesome to catch up with him and even teach him a few things en route to him breaking out as a standalone specialist before heading back to Norway.

My next big vacation was set for the end of March, and I'd be able to finally check off one of my 'must-see' countries: New Zealand. I also planned to visit Australia for the first time since 2007, but this time I'd be going to see a girl...