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Published: November 22nd 2009
In late October I met up with two friends. Mark has been living in Buenos Aires for the past year and was traveling North making his way back to the US. His girlfriend Sarah got time off of work to come down and meet us. The three of us booked a trip on the Inca Trail some time in July. I was still in Costa Rica and up until then had not made any plans this far in advance, but being in Peru by late October seemed like a good thing to shoot for. Mark and I know each other because we studied abroad together in Buenos Aires a few years ago and I of course met Sarah through Mark.
We met up in Cusco a few days before the hike to get acclimated. The night before we went out for dinner and had been talking about trying the local dish, "Cuy" or Guinea Pig. Mark and I shared one while Sarah, very intelligently, only had a bite or two. The first day of hiking was only five hours and not supposed to be too difficult. Unfortunately Mark was feeling sick that day, but we all made it
to camp that night. In the middle of the night I became pretty sick as well. The details of this do not need to be more specific, but I woke up the next morning feeling pretty drained and dehydrated. On top of this, the second day of hiking is the most difficult of the four days because it is all uphill the entire day. We went from 8,858 feet to 13,779 feet, where we crossed Dead Woman's Pass. Back at the campsite that morning we were still right next to a small clinic, so the guide went and woke up the nurse and we discussed options. It came down to me choosing between drinking Gatorade throughout the day, and that maybe helping, or getting an IV that would work faster. I opted for the stronger stuff and paid 60 soles, roughly 20 bucks, and waited an hour for the IV to empty. This was kind of a sketchy setting to get a needle stuck in your arm by a guy that is barely awake while you’re in the middle of the Andes in Peru, but I didn't care. The guide and the rest of the group had to press on
and could not wait. After I got the medication it was my call as to whether continue or head back with our assistant guide, Naomi. Needless to say I felt terrible, but wanted to try and continue. We started hiking and for the first hour or so I really thought it wasn't going to happen. At some point I started to feel a little better so Naomi and I just kept walking little by little. I ended up only missing the group by about 20 minutes at the top of the pass. Our campsite that night was an hour and a half down hill. I got in there shortly after the rest of the group and we all had lunch around 3pm. The next morning I felt much better and very glad I did not turn back. Cesar, our guide, was really good. He spoke English well and was extremely informative about anything we wanted to know along the trail. Our third day of hiking was the longest, but not nearly as much uphill as the day before. This was Cesar's favorite day because we saw three or four different Inca ruins along the way as well as crossing two
First Ruin Site
Pisaq just outside of Cuscomountain passes. It was all incredible and after the day before the bits of uphill we did have were not that bad. The final night was spent about two hours from Machu Picchu. We had to wake up around 3:30am and wait in line to get into the Park at 5:30am. Up until this morning we had had great weather during the days. Our hiking was done mostly in sunshine with a short drizzle every once in a while and some stronger rain at night. That final morning we were stuck in a huge cloud with non-stop rain. We hiked the hour and a half to the Sun Gate where you usually see Machu Picchu for the first time, but unfortunately all we saw were clouds. We got down to the entrance of Machu Picchu and sat at the tourist cafe for an hour and hopefully let the weather pass. Around 8am the rain stopped and it appeared as if the clouds were going to burn off. Sitting around the cafe nobody wanted to say it out loud, but we were all a little down. Luckily when Cesar started guiding us around, the clouds did begin to clear and by
the end of the three hour tour everything was looking pretty good. After the tour we had time on our own to walk around. A group of us went back to a few places and then hiked back up a ways to get the full view which we missed earlier that morning. It all worked out great.
We had a really good group. There were about 16 of us in total. We were made up of some English, French-Canadian, regular Canadians and other Americans. The youngest person was my tent mate who is a junior at USC while the oldest people were a French Canadian couple in their mid-fifties. Everyone pulled through bruised and battered a bit, but we all made it. The service we had along the trail was also pretty amazing. When we got to camp each afternoon our tents were always set up as well as the food tent. The meals were also extraordinary. We had 22 porters in all carrying tents, sleeping bags, food, supplies and even a propane tank so we could have a light in the food tent at night. The porters were incredible. They mostly spoke Quechua, the local language, and
knew only formalities in Spanish. Everyone was more than happy to give them, as well as the guides, a good tip at the end of the trail.
It is difficult to go into more details about the hike because the scenery around us was so dramatic. The trail was 26 miles long. Although there were other groups on the trail it never detracted from the experience. We were in the middle of nowhere hiking through mountains on a trail that used to connect Machu Picchu to the rest of the Incan civilization. It was a truly amazing experience all the way around.
From there Mark, Sarah and I booked a quick trip to the Amazon. Puerto Maldonado was a very short flight straight east from Cuzco. We stayed in an eco-lodge about an hour down river from the main town. We had three nights there. Our first night we got in a boat and floated the banks of the river spotting Caiman Alligators, which we saw about a dozen of. The next day was a long nature hike mixed with some paddling in a dugout canoe through a lagoon. We saw some birds, and our guide
Victor was great at telling us about the plants. The lodge itself was pretty good. We had another good group; it was the three of us along with a German couple, a Swedish couple and two Irish girls. By the end of the three days every single one of us had gotten food poisoning. Some got it the second day, and the rest of us got it the final day. Other than that it was a good trip and really food poisoning in the Amazon doesn't sound that far out of the ordinary.
We flew back to Cuzco from Puerto Maldonado. The next day Sarah caught her flight back to the US. Mark and I headed on to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru. It has beautiful white buildings there, but the most impressive thing we visited was an old Monastery. This place was truly unique. Back when it started, probably the 17th century, the nuns there mostly came from the wealthy families in town. It was a custom for them to send their second born child to the Church. These were cloistered nuns, which meant they never left the Monastery and never interacted with ordinary people.
They were of the Dominican order as well. Anyway it was a pretty weird situation because although these wealthy women became nuns the families could still build them their own houses inside the monastery. This place was more like a huge walled in fortress, or a town within a town. The women used fine china and European tea sets that the families sent them as well as their own kitchens so they ate alone and some even had servants. Eventually the Reformation came around and put an end to all this. It is still a functioning monastery today, but most of it is open to the public now as a museum. The nuns live in a dormitory and have a group dining hall. The old houses from the wealthy nuns were part of the tour as well as some fine china and other things. The place was gorgeous inside as you can see from the pictures. Each street was named after a town in Spain because whoever decided to name the walkways also felt that each little street reminded him of a different city in Spain.
From Arequipa Mark and I headed to Nazca and saw some ancient
figures made in the desert there from some pre-Colombian civilization. They aren't really sure who did it, but you take a thirty minute plane ride to see all the figures, which look more like crop circles. Some of the figures are just plane shapes like triangles, but others are more elaborate like spiders and birds. It was pretty interesting, but not amazing, plus the plane ride was pretty rough. I was able to sit co-pilot, but two Belgian ladies behind me had to use their sick bags.
Mark and I didn't spend the night in Nazca, we headed on to Paracas. This was a nice little beach town about three hours South of Lima. Mark and I spend a couple days here. We took a boat ride to some islands and saw some penguins, sea lions and birds similar to what I saw on the Galapagos. A nickname for these islands is “The Poor Man’s Galapagos” because it was about 15 bucks for the tour. From there we headed on to Lima where Mark caught his flight back to the US.
On my own again I flew to Santiago the same night he left. I spent
my first night in a town about 90 minutes south of Santiago on the coast called Viña del Mar. This was a nice little city on the coast and was connected to the better known town of Valparaiso. This city is compared to San Francisco a lot because it is quite hilly and has some nice architecture. I spent two nights here and mostly spent my time walking around taking pictures because there wasn't much else to do and it was an extremely photogenic city. I also had some ridiculously good food there.
To finish off my time in Chile I spent my final three nights in Santiago. One day I just walked around the city center and visited the Bellas Artes Museum, which was a little disappointing. The next day I visited one of Pablo Neruda's three houses in Chile. The famous poet's favorite house, which is also where he is buried, is in the town of Isla Negra. This was a great day trip. The house was really unique and looked on to the Pacific. He had a lot of unusual collections, the best of which were Bowsprits. He had those from Europe, Asia and even
an old one from Massachusetts.
The only hitch with Chile is the way they speak Spanish. I had read about this before I got here, but did not think it would be that bad. Well, they mumble. Of course there are exceptions, but the majority of people in Chile just mumble everything. I was constantly asking people to repeat themselves, in a polite way. I'm sure if I spent a month here my ear would get used to it and things would be easier to understand, but they really like to just jumble things together. It's kind of funny because all of South America rips on people from Buenos Aires for their accent, but theirs comes off as pretentious. They do have a very distinct accent and towards other South Americans they may act a little arrogant, but I don't know why this Chilean lack of pronunciation isn't more widely known. After talking to my friend in Buenos Aires I felt a little better because she says she can’t understand Chileans either.
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RiverNuts&t Bongochics
non-member comment
Wow
That was just to much fun to read. Great job. I have got to do that. Wow. You lucky dog.