Peru Pt. 3 - Arequipa (Pictures)

Peru Pt. 3 - Arequipa

My first day in Peru's second largest city was a giant mess. We had gone from relative sea level to 7600+ feet above sea level. I believe it was a combination of the change in elevation and whatever fish I'd eaten the night before, threw my stomach for a loop. That, coupled with a 30 degree drop in temperature from the previous day had me hating my decision to come here.

But, I didn't really have a reason to complain. It's not like I was working.

We had arrived on our overnight bus around 6am. We checked into our hostel and sat there sipping crap instant coffee and desperately needing a shower. The need for better coffee prevailed, however, so we went in search of something better along with a bite to eat. We found a nice little place that had steak and eggs. When the woman took our order I asked for coffee, and much to my dismay, when she came back, she was carrying a can of Nescafe.

In one of the best coffee growing regions in the world, all I can get is a fucking can of instant coffee.

Our big highlight for the day was going into the monastery and wandering around for a good hour and a half. It gave us an opportunity for some photos, but little else. Neither Andrew or I were too interested in getting a guided tour. It's a) another religious thing - we've already seen plenty of those - and b) a monastery.

By now it was mid afternoon and my combination of altitude sickness/diarrhea/godknowswhatelse had put me down. I had some Coca tea and went to bed.

The next day wasn't filled with much in the way of travelling highlights either. I spent most of it watching the AFC & NFC Championship games. However, before those games I went to lunch with a couple girls who were interested in trying Coy. For those of you that don't know what Coy is, it's Guinea Pig. And it comes fried and you get the whole thing on your plate. Even the head.

It may sound gross, but it's considered a delicacy in Peru (and can be quite expensive). It's actually quite good too. It tastes a bit like Quail. And naturally, the most delicious part is the head.

Waking up early has become more natural for me on this trip than any other time in my life. My alarm for the third day was set for 240am, yet I woke up twenty minutes early. It’s a very bizarre thing waking up that early but a necessary evil if you want to trek to Colca Canyon and see the condors, which is the sole reason I even went to Arequipa.

The bus left at 3am and it took a good 4 hours to get up to the canyon. We had signed up for the one day trip rather than the two day hike which, as the day went on, I began to regret. It started as we got to the entrance to the canyon. We were required to pay an additional $25, which I was not informed of, just to enter. As we bussed up the canyon towards the Condor pass, we drove by some amazing scenery. The hills were covered in plantation tiers all separated by old stone walls. It looked like I imagine it did hundreds of years ago.

The Colca Canyon is one of the deepest in the world, roughly some 13,500 feet deep. At one point, the walls of the canyon become very vertical and narrow. This is where the Andean Condors nest. It’s so common to see one that the local joke for tourists is that if you haven’t seen one within 10 minutes, lie down and play dead. However, as we got to the top of the pass, our tour guide says “there will be no Condor’s today, it’s too cloudy.”

Wait. What?

My sole purpose of going to Arequipa is to see a bird with a 10 ft wingspan. I was not happy. So we went through the motions and walked around the “viewpoint” for 30 minutes before getting back on the bus. We continue to drive on and proceed to drop off the two day trekkers for their hike. For some reason, I was under the assumption that the one day trek would include a hike. Again I was wrong.

The plan for the one day trek was to pick up more people who were heading back to Arequipa, then stop at a few view points along the way to take pictures. At this point, I’m just holding back my anger. I came all this way for absolutely nothing.

On the drive back, just as we were about to pass a viewpoint, the guide points into the sky.

“Look, Condors!”

So we pull over, take pictures for ten minutes, and hop back in the car. Was I glad to see Condors? Duh. Was the whole trek worth it? Eh. The rest of the trip took us back to Chivay, the main town in the canyon, for lunch. Then we had a few other photo-op pit stops before finally returning to Arequipa.

The following morning, Andrew and I went to the bus station to buy our tickets for that nights bus to Cusco. As previously mentioned, driving in Peru is insane. Cab drivers are the worst. Although I’m sure it wont be the last time on this trip that I come across a cab drive that could be categorized as clinically insane.

After we bought our bus tickets, we wandered around the local market. Instead of department stores or anything like that, everyone goes to the main market, where you can buy absolutely anything you need. Each area of the market, and surrounding streets, is sectioned off by category. Each category is then broken down into a subsection. This continues until every storefront is specialized to just one thing. Ie, I passed a store that was selling rope. Nothing else, just rope.

The rest of the day was spent lounging around our hostel until it was time for our bus (which would inevitably a nightmare of a bus ride for me).

Peru Pt. 2 - Huacachina & Nazca (Pictures)

Peru Pt. 2 - Huacachina & Nazca

My first bus ride of the trip was from Lima to Nazca. I’m not one for buses, but as far as they go, this one was pretty tame. The touring buses in South America are vastly different from those in the United States. For starters, they’re almost all double deckers. The top floor is much like a standard Greyhound bus, but the bottom floor has seats that are about the size of a first class airplane seat and recline to 160 degrees. You also get meals, but they’re on par with, if not worse than, airline food.

We sat up front and got a birds eye view of how the bus interacts with traffic. Drivers in Lima, and most of Peru, are batshit crazy. There are almost no rules to the road. When you come to an intersection, you don’t stop. You honk to let cross traffic know you’re coming. There are also no lanes, so streets get crammed with four or five cars wide. It’s bizarrely third world in a country that has many first world amenities.

Except for the toilets. Like many countries in South America, the plumbing is old and weak. Therefore, when you wipe your ass, you don’t flush it down the toilet…you throw it in the garbage.

Right. Anyways.

We arrived in Huacachina in the evening. There isn’t a whole lot to do in this little community, so we went to bed. The next day was pretty much more of the same. Andrew and I hung at the pool for much of the day. There’s really only one reason you come to Huacachina. Sandboarding.

Around 430pm, as the sun is on its way down to the horizon, all the tourists hop into a dune buggy and go roaring up into the dunes.  If you’ve never been, it’s an absolute must. It’s highly exhilarating. You go up, down and practically sideways, to the point that you think you’re gonna go tumbling over. They take you up to a series of progressively larger dunes, so you can board down. It had been a good nine years since I’d gotten on a snowboard, and let’s just say it’s not like riding a bicycle.

The first dune I fell on my ass a good ten times. The second dune I made sure I got down the entire dune in one try, so I went face first. And the final dune I made another attempt at descending legitimately. Well, I did a little better than the first time, but I still ass-planted a few times. None of it mattered. I was having a lot of fun.

I had already booked an early morning bus ride to Nazca the next day, so I was off to bed early. However, around 4am, a series of pops went off. I tried to put it behind me and go back to sleep, however after another five or ten minutes had passed, another few pops could be heard. Again I was up and again I tried to put it behind me. A few minutes later a man was in the courtyard clapping his hands. This time, both Andrew and I were up. Something was definitely amiss.

Andrew asked “did you hear the gunshots?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

More clapping could be heard in the courtyard. Finally someone walked out of one of the bungalows.

“You speak Spanish?” the clapping man said.

And then it went silent. I lied back down; eyes wide open, waiting for some sort of resolution. But there was nothing. A good ten minutes passed with nary a peep from the outside world. My eyes closed and the next thing I remember was sunlight peeking through the window. I guess I’ll never know what went on that night.

My bus the next morning was on time. However it arrived 45 minutes later than scheduled. Figures.

I high tailed it to the airport, where the man from the touring company was awaiting me.

“Matthew Porter?” he said as I stepped out of the cab.

Fifteen minutes later I was climbing into the back of one of those rinky dink six seater prop planes. And when I say six seater, I mean only six. Any more and that plane wasn’t taking off.

The actual Nazca lines were pretty cool. Hundreds of years ago, or so they think, the Nazca tribes put these figures into the earth where they would cultivate. No one really knows how or why they’re there. Regardless, it’s pretty impressive to see these shapes from up in the sky.

But, let’s face it, the best part is going up in the sky in a tiny little tin can. We would get near one figure then bank hard to the right around it, then bank hard left so the people on the other side of the plane could see it. Occasionally we’d hit a little turbulence and drop a few feet. It was a pretty wild ride.

The rest of my day was filled with a whole lot of nothing. Nazca is a very small town with little else to do than see the lines. So I sat down in the town square and wrote. At one point, I was approached by a young local girl. She spoke very little English, but persistently tried to communicate with me. After about twenty minutes, I finally realized she was studying English at a local university and wanted some help. So for the next hour or two we communicated by pantomiming, writing in her notebook, and using her English handouts. We covered tenses, sentence construction, and pronunciation. For someone who speaks English fluently, it’s not exactly easy to teach someone who speaks a different language. English has very few rules that can’t be broken. Hell, I don’t even understand how it works. I more or less know what I’m doing because I’ve been using it my entire life.

Peru Pt. 1 - Lima (Pictures)

Peru Pt. 1 - Lima

For the most part, every hostel I’ve stayed in has been fairly nice. My layover in Cartagena, however, was not. Having spent two days in Santa Marta, I had to get back to Cartagena for my early morning flight the next day. I found a cheap hostel and booked it for just a night. What a mistake.

The hostel’s atmosphere was cool and most people were American. However, a 12 person dorm room had barely enough floor space for beds and baggage. You literally had to climb over other people’s backpacks to get into bed. When I awoke at 530am, there were 13 people in this room. Someone had pulled out a mattress and was sleeping in the middle of the floor. It was hard not to step on him as I climbed out of the room.

I stepped into the reception area to find all the lights off, no one awake and the gate to the front door padlocked. My first thought:

            “How the hell am I going to get out of here?”

My second thought:

            “If there’s a fire, we’re all fucked.”

I looked around to find another group of five or six people asleep on the floor of the common area. After about five minutes of searching to find a way out, the hostel receptionist woke up and came out of the common area. She unlocked the door, called me a cab and I was finally on my way. If there’s one good thing about this whole adventure, it’s that getting up at 530am allows you to watch the sunrise over the city. Awesome.

One flight to Bogota, one flight to Lima and my passport was stamped yet again. But I’m just going to be brutally honest about Lima here. It sucks.

From the cab ride to the hostel in Miraflores (the nicer part of town), I had made my decision: I wasn’t gonna waste more than a day here.

At the hostel I met Andrew, another American, who had just arrived and was also headed south in Peru. So, we did what any sensible person who’s travelling alone does. We started travelling together.

My one full day in Peru consisted of really only two things: The catacombs at the Franciscan church and Larcomar. After breakfast, Andrew and I hopped on the Metropolitano (aka. The bus) and took the 45 minute ride to downtown. This is where we quickly realized how much this was just another dirty South American city. We wandered around the main square where the capitol building is and saw the changing of the guard (which wasn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds). The square was bustling with people and there were even performers, as the city was setting up for a big anniversary celebration that evening. What’s the anniversary? 477 years…

The Franciscan church and catacombs were actually kind of cool. The building had been there for nearly 500 years and some parts were even dated as such. The whole place was a very serene setting in such an insane city, but the most interesting part was the catacombs. I’d never seen skeletons. Now I’ve seen a good hundred.

Andrew and I had lunch at a nearby tavern that’s famous for their Pisco Sour, which is the big Peruvian drink. Pisco is a liquor made from grapes, which is then mixed with sour mix and raw egg. It’s nothing special. We kept wandering around downtown, including Chinatown, and bussed back to Miraflores.

The next event we did was walk down to Larcomar around 630pm to watch the sunset and wander the shops. For those unfamiliar with Lima, the city is built along a bluff that overlooks the ocean. Larcomar is an outdoor shopping mall that’s built into the bluff. From the streets, you walk up to it then down inside. It’s a pretty cool design, but it’s just another westernized mall.

We went back to the hostel for dinner, then hung out for a little bit before heading back to Larcomar to go clubbing. South American girls have a much better knack for dancing than the American style of grinding. Whatever is bred into their culture allows for girls to have no qualms about taking lead. They’re always on a 3 step beat, rather than the back and forth two step that is more common in America. This makes for an some odd missteps at times when dancing.

The next day, Andrew and I were off to the little desert oasis of Huacachina.