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Published: July 16th 2007
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Greetings from Quito. It has been many days since we've updated all of of you, so you've missed out on plenty of action, including lots of altitude sickness and food poisonings. Here goes....
We last left you in Cusco, where we were going to see some Incan ruins via motorcycle. That didn't happen because D got food poisoning. Next, we left on a 5 day/4 night trek to Machu Picchu. Day 1 was quite an adventure. We took a bus for about 4 hours before we began our trek. We stoped to have breakfast at a little house/restaurant, where we saw a bunch of cute guinea pigs (cuy in Spanish). We soon learned that they were not pets. Cuy is a staple in the Andean diet. After the bus ride, we hiked for about 4 hours uphill until we reached our campsite at Pampa Salkantay (elev 3900 meters). That is really high and was directly below a giant glacier. Needless to say,it was cold and miserable, especially for Nat, who had the altitude sickness. Going to the famed "toilet tent" in the middle o0f the night was no fun. Day 2 saw us trek up to 4600 meters, with
a little help from Augosto the emergency horse. After the 2 hour trek up, we headed down for 5 hours and camped at about 2500 meters, which was much more pleasant. On day 3, we hiked to Santa Theresa, home of some natural hot springs. We were quite pleased with the hot springs, but less pleased when we pulled up to our campsite and saw two Peruvians butchering a cow on a slab of concrete. We opted for the vegetarian meal that evening. Day 4 had us hiking on some railroad tracks into Aguas Calientes, the tourist town adjacent to Machu Picchu. Nat and I sang just about every song from Stand By Me that afternoon. The next morning, we painfully hiked for 90 minutes uphill at 5am to arrive at Machu Picchu for the sunrise. We were so tired that we could barely comprehend the 2 hour tour of the site. Later that afternoon, we returned to Cusco in order to plan the rest of our stay in Peru.
On July 4, we flew from Cusco to Lima, then took a bus for 5 hours down the coast of Peru to the small town of Huacachina. Huacachina is
a man-made oasis in the middle of the Peruvian desert, a small lake surrounded by huge sand dunes. After a night of overpirced and awful tourist food at our hotel, we took a bus for two hours to the town of Nasca, where we flew in a 4 seat plane over the myterious Nasca Lines. Bascially, there are some huge, pre-Incan designs that were drawn in the sand around 1500 years ago. No one really knows that they are all about - they were wither ritual drawings of the local peoples, or designs drawn by aliens. Regardless, flying in a Peruvian 4-seater was good fun - our photos of the Nasca Lines aren't the best, so look them up. The next day, we took a fun tour of the sand dunes on a giant dune buggy, which included some attempts at sand surfing. The surfing didn't go so well. Sand got everywhere....After that, we jumped on a bus and headed back to Lima for the night. After spending the day in Miraflores, we heading to Quito, ending our time in Peru....
Quito started off with a bang - more altitude sickness for both of us. Quito has an old
Colonial town and a new town (aka Gringolandia). Guess where we are staying? There are lots of churches in the old town, and plenty of trendy bars and restaurants in Gringoland. After a few days in Quito, we headed on a mountain-biking trek down Volcan Cotopaxi, an active volcano 2 hours from Quito. That was amazing. After a mediocre night at a Hacienda, we headed 4 hours west into the Quilotoa Loop. Along the way, we stopped in Saquisili, best known for its thriving animal market. For the record, all of the animals at the marking were living, for the moment at least. After a very bumpy ride on a dirt road, we arrived at the Eco-friendly Black Sheep Inn in the tiny farming town of Chugchilan. This Eco-lodge was pretty amazing - our stay included organic vegetarian meals, compostable toilets, a zip-line and plenty of llamas and sheep that you could feed. From the Black Sheep, we took a horse ride up a tiny cheese factory and continued on to a cloud forrest, which looked like it could have been a set from Lord of the Rings. Our guide for the horse trek was a 11 year-old boy named
Ricardo who was on summer vacation from school. The next day, we road in the back of a truck for an hour (and ate lots of dirt) to reach Lago Quilotoa, a gigantic volcanic crater lake at elevation 3900 meters. The 5 hour hike back to the Black Sheep was beautiful, albeit a bit dangerous at times. The next day, we took a bumpy bus ride to a little town called Banos, which sits right next to another active volcano. Although known for their natural hot springs, the scene at the public hot bath was sadly overcrowded. The water was also, very, very brown, so we passed. Then, Natalie got food poisoing, so we just headed back to Quito and are awaiting our early morning flight to Vilcabamba in the South of Ecuador. We are going to chill out at a spa for a few days before heading to the Galapagos on Friday. Hopefully, we won't get sea sick.
This will likely be the last blog update. If you want to see pictures of us swimming with sea lions in the Galapagos (or vomiting off the side of our boat) give us a shout. We're looking forward to seeing
everyone again very soon in the Northern Hemisphere.
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dharma
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Obviously an unusual experience. I LOVED the one with D on the horse(girl) and the baby feeding... Keep having fun!!! no more "sick" see you soon