Advertisement
Published: June 12th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Mountains
On the drive there... My weekend was so amazing that I´m in a bit of denial that it´s actually over.
But first! Happy anniversary mom and dad....yes....I maybe did forget. And I´m really sorry. But congrats! Hope it was fantastic. (I love you).
Ok. So the jungle:
We left Friday morning. Passed through mountain ranges, drove by llama farms....we passed over one range where we drove incredibly high up-switch backs all the way. The land was really barren; no civilization, no trees, freezing cold. All the sudden our driver shouts out ¨¡mira!¨and we look over and see three wild alpacas amongst the rocks. (Apparently a very rare siting). All the sudden, in my little flowery dress and red shoes, we´re outside the truck on a wildlife expedition...jumping over rocks and hiding behind boulders in order to catch a closer glimpse of the animals. I managed to snap a few pictures. I felt very National Geographic-like.
Anyways, once we got back in the car and came down the other side of the range I really began to feel like I was entering the jungle. Everything was suddenly so green and lush; bright flowers everywhere. As we descended into this little town called
Ovejas
Oh the sheep. Tarma we could barely keep ourselves in our seats: it was absolutely gorgeous. The sides of the mountains were terraced and colorful-little stone houses with thatched roofs hanging onto the sides of the steep hills.
We got out and ate in Tarma. Lots of palm trees and fountains. I couldn´t believe how much better I could breath.
We arrived at our cave destination around 3 in the afternoon. A giant cave up on the side of the mountain. We turned on our flashlights and headed in. Being Americans, we expected to see paths and handrails, but this of course was certainly not the case. I soon found myself (seriously) climbing up the steep rock sides in the dark...scaling the sides of the cave with only a simple rope tied to a rock. No helmets, no training...we just started scaling and repelling and there wasn´t much we could do except to make a huge adventure of it and laugh and look at the huge cave walls around us (some of which had ancient paintings...). We all made it out alive. Surprising...seriously. But we did.
After lunch we continued our trek....more and more switchbacks into more and more wild forests until it
Alpaca
One of the photos I shot of the wild alpaca... got dark. (These switchbacks by the way are pretty frightening...big old trucks swinging all over the place. I kept holding my breath around each corner). Finally, the truck turned off the main road and headed down a little dirt path. We got out and gushed over our little jungle habitacion-little thatched roof buildings in the middle of the trees. The sound of the frogs and the nearby river...humid warm air....no lights and thus a giant sky full of stars....the whole ambience was so exciting. Anyways, we made up a campfire by the river and sat around drinking sangria and guessing what things were going to look like when we woke up in the morning.
Morning was absolutely beautiful. I woke up dawn with a very annoying rooster and headed out the door to find myself surrounded by mountains covered in thick canopy and vines. I walked over to the little outdoor water pump to wash up (I know I´ve been roughing it when I viewed this little outhouse as a luxury...it was so clean and cute).....big thick trees with infinite roots, exotic flowers....and giant rodents? These giant guinea pig-like animals were grazing nearby-scurried off quickly when I came by. I
Montanas
Terraced mountains. think they were capabaras? Anyways....after washing up I headed down to the river which was breathtaking. Really one of the moments you could classify as life-changing. It was so calm (except for the sound of the birds)...and the mist was rising off the mountains. I walked along the bank for awhile. There was this giant rock half-submerged in the water that looked like a little whale...so of course I climbed on it and, you know, pretended I was riding a whale which was really entertaining until I noticed a couple of men across the river donned in loin clothes. It was strangely symbolic how the river separated us....my how we live such incredibly different lives. I waved, they waved back...and then they slipped back into the forest.
After a breakfast of yuka plant and fried plantains, we headed a short ways down the river to where there´s a cable car. We whistled and shouted across the river for a few minutes, and then finally two men scrambled down the side of the mountain and started heading across the rio in their squeaky (and a little scary) cable car. We all hopped on and headed over to the other side.
We
Cave
The cave of death. spent the day hiking through the jungle. We literally climbed, using all fours, up the side of steep mossy cliffs.....vines and trees everywhere.....finally made it up to a series of waterfalls. The most challenging (and beautiful) hike I´ve ever had, so we all rewarded ourselves by getting underneath the water and cooling off which was hiliarious fun. Later, we got back down the side of the mountain and went swimming again in a little lake that had a palm tree-covered island in the middle. (Yes, there were no crocodiles...although I was a little nervous and thus didn´t swim much). There were little parrots around...a friendly calico cat...a weird Peruvian bear in a cage-a pet of the cable car man apparently....
Ok...I´ll try to speed things up. We went to a botanical garden after that-beautiful exotic flowers and trees and unfortunately crocodiles. Umm, let´s see...that night, after taking a long rest, we went out to a club and drank lots of pisco sours...then danced ´til about 3 in the morning which was fantastic. We got up the next morning and headed off to another waterfall...this one was much much bigger and we spent a couple of hours there swimming and enjoying
Luxury
Our little outhouse...(yesh I took a picture of the outhouse). the sun. (There was a little cave behind the waterfall too which I sat in for a long time...thinking about how mysterious this all is (and also thinking about sitting in that little cave behind the waterfall in Mexico with my family...which was one of our greatest moments I think)).
By the time we hiked back down the side of the mountain to our truck we were pretty exhausted and I ended up falling asleep. When I awoke I was in some little tribal community...(yes, I didn´t feel like I had actually woken up) and suddenly some little old lady who only spoke quechua grabbed me and put me in a costume made up of a brown robe, lots of beads and a feather headress. Then they painted my face.....and pretty soon I was dancing around these native men who were playing flutes and drums. I´m not making it up. I don´t think I could make that up....
Umm, right....so I bought some feather earrings from a little native lady for about 50 cents and we headed back to our little lodging for lunch...
Ahh! Internet cafe is closing...need to leave.
So that was my weekend. It was weird and
Lodging
Our little lodge. amazing and warm and lovely and I still wish I was there because Huancayo is cold and there is NO running water at all anymore (we have to wash our faces with bottled water)...but there still is a little part of me that´s happy to be back. I missed all my little kiddos....really missed all my little kiddos....
Love love love! I´ll write more later. Check out the pictures from my last entry if you haven´t already....
Ciao.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.238s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0344s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Laura
non-member comment
oh paigey poo i miss you
hi deary - i'm done with school and i'm bored and i can't stop thinking about how much i wish you were here or i was there... you know. from your entries, your trip sounds amazing - i tend to have high expectations for those sorts of things and this sounds like it went beyond anything imaginable. i love that i can picture you exactly from the journal entries you write - especially riding the whale. :) i'm very envious/proud that you are doing all this by yourself - you're quiiiite an amazing lady paige... i miss you like a monkey misses his banana!