One Year of Matrimonial Bliss and off to the Land of Red Meat and Wine!

Valparaiso, Chile

Dave and I spent our one year anniversary in Valparaíso, Chile, enjoying a nicely appointed bed and breakfast in the quirky city.  What a TREAT to stay at Hostel Morgan and totally relax.  The majority of places that we stay aren´t that great to just hang out in the room...better to be in the common areas of the hostels.  Our room was beautiful, warm, and sunny with an adjacent terrace = fantastic.

Valparaíso is a colorful city that is a port town and jets straight up from the ocean.  The streets and steep and windy full of beautifully colored houses, acensores, ice cream stores, empanada stands, and sleepy stray dogs.  There´s a bit of a bohemian flare from the youth of the city who seem to be politically active and more counter-culture.  I went to Valparaiso with my friend Natalie 5 years ago when we travelled through Chile together and enjoyed going back! 

We spent 3 nights and 4 days enjoying the local Chilean food, sleeping in, and wandering the streets...finding fun nooks and crannies all over.  On our actual anniversary night, we went to a beautiful restaurant called La Colombina that overlooked the harbor where you could see twinkling lights reflect off the water.  We had wine and meat...perfect!  It didn´t take us very long to realize how unhealthy Chileans and Argentinians eat, but the food is good, nevertheless.  The plato tipico of Valparaiso is called Chorillana.  It consists of a huge heap of greasy french fries, grilled onion with scrambled egg, sauteed meat pieces, chorizo sausage, with while sauce all over.  Gut wrencher.  We ordered one at a super typical chilean hangout restaurant as a recommendation from the waitress.  WOW. 

Chileans love their completos...as in the last blog post...hotdog, tomato, avocado, and heaps of condiments including the everpresent slop of mayo.  Dave learned to love completos in Chile also...especially because it´s kind of fun to say and you hear it from all around when vendors have little street stands.  Chileans also love their sweets, a recipe for disaster for me.  Many specialize in homemade ice cream....mmmmm. 

Our weather in Valparaiso was (for the most part) really nice and we had some bright, sunny days.  While walking around the city, Dave and I took as many ascensores as possible.  Ascensores are small carts that run up and down 45-50 degree slopes on opposite tracks.  They essentially do the work for eachother.  Fun though for a quick ride that costs about 20 cents. 

We decided that our trajectory would change after Valparaiso. Instead of heading further south in Chile, we crossed over to Mendoza, Argentina through a beautiful mountain range and up a crazy curvy road.  Mendoza is wine country in Argentina...and we took full advantage of this by doing the typical tourist activity of renting bikes and riding around the countryside and to taste the wines.  We ended up finding more than just wineries, but also craft breweries, olive oil makers, etc!  We had a great day of riding around in the hot sun and visiting several different wineries.  Definitely exhausted after the end of the day!

We tried to go rafting out of Mendoza but the rivers were low so we decided to go out to a hotsprings on the countryside.  It must have been a school holiday, because we were met by MANY middle-school aged teenagers splashing around in the water.  Definitely good people watching.  Outside of the hot spring complex, Dave and I experienced out first asado completo at a restaurant and nearly bursted our stomachs.  WOW, the amont of food was spectacular.  We were warned by some people that ordering the normal asado can sometimes contain all kinds of intestines (intentine, kidney, liver...even brain!) and blood sausage.  We opted for the more subdued meat menu but still aren´t 100% opposed to trying some of the more exotic choices in a nicer restaurant. 

The Spanish spoked in Chile and Argentina is SO different.  The accent, slang, speed...woooo!  If I´ve been having trouble, I can only imagine how Dave is thinking.  I´m getting better and better and picking out words through the pronunciation, but the Chileans cut off "s" in every word and the Argentinans slur and pronounce their L´s and Y´s completely differently.  Made me think how an English learner would feel if they were being talked at by a Scottish, Oregonian, Texan, Australian, Irish, English, etc and how they would discern the accents.  Tricky.

So far Argentina has been super fun and very different than any other country that we visited.  The prices here are relatively higher but the infastructure of the country reflects the difference.  Excited to head into Patagonia! 

Hasta la proxima vez, Elisabeth

Last stop in Peru and into Chile

Arequipa, Perú
After a few days in Puno we set off for Arequipa. The area around Arequipa is famous for having two canyons that are nearly twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Before you get too excited understand that the canyons are deep but not nearly as steep as the Grand Canyon. Apparently they are impressive nonetheless. Liz and I were hoping to visit one of the canyons via a rafting trip. We soon found out after asking around that while their was some one day trips in the rivers around the canyon, the only rafting through the canyon was a 5-day expedition that required you to have at least 5 people and cost a grip of money. Our other option for visiting the canyon was a 2 to 3 day trek. At the bottom of the canyon you can stay in little hostals around the villages that ar there. While that sounded incredible we were still recovering from our long trek in Cusco and didn´t want to push Liz´s achilles. We still have lots of incredible hiking and trekking to do on this trip!

So, after seeing the main sites of Arequipa which include a huge monastary, the central plaza and surrounding buildings and colonial architecture all over the city we decided to push on into Chile.

Border Crossing

The bus ride from Arequipa to Tacna was about 7 hr ride. By now when we think of bus rides, 7 hours seems like nothing. In Tacna, the last city in Peru, we headed across the street from our bus terminal and entered into another terminal to catch a collectivo (a shared cab among strangers). We had heard that the bording crossing into Chile was going to be hectic and read of some scams that had become a problem in recent months. With our guard up we hired a collectivo that we shared with a Chilean woman and her daughter and another random guy. Apparently toilet paper is cheaper in Perú than in Chile becuase both the mother/daughter team and random guy had commercial sized packages of the stuff. Between our humungous bags and their toilet paper, we had the car packed to the brim. The trip to the border and across came and went with no issues. Liz had a pleasant conversation with the mother daughter team and random guy and I were happy to sit in silence. 

Arica, Chile

Arica is the first city in Chile across the border and as far as close to the border towns go, it was pretty nice.  Even just across the border, Chile is much different than Peru. The infastructure is noticably better, people give you a little more space, and everything costs twice as much. In Arica we went to the beach one day, enjoyed an amazing seafood lunch, and organized our transportation to Santiago. We chose the 3 hr flight over the 30 hour bus ride through the desert.


Santiago, Chile


In Santiago we enjoyed a couple of days of city sight seeing. We even did a self-guided walking tour of the city following a predetermined route in our guidebook and reading about the different sites that we passed. One cool part of our walking tour was seeing the old men in Santiago enjoying some intense games of chess in the central plaza. We tried to adjust to the Chilean schedule of staying up super late and starting a bit later in the morning as well.  We went out on the town one night and were in awe of the perserverance of Chileans, wondering how they make it to their jobs in the morning considering how late they stay out on a Tuesday.

Chilean Mounted Police

Stately looking Chilean dude sitting in the Plaza de Armas

Ritoque, Chile
After a couple of days in the city we were ready to get out and enjoy some of the beautiful surroundings of Santiago. We decided on the beautiful and secluded beach town of Ritoque where there was a cool little hostel. We instantly made friends there as the German girl running the place was super friendly and her raft guide friends from Slovenia were also very welcoming. We joined them for a BBQ the first night there. Ali from Slovenia was the master griller and he prepared a couple of huge slabs of meat a cut them into bit sized pieces and passed the tray around the circle until it was time to re load with more meat. It was awesome!

We got off the bus and were starving so we went to the first food stand we could find.  Chileans love their "completos"...a HUGE hotdog with avocado, tomato, ketchup, mustard, and of course, TONS of mayo.

 Out for a walk on the cliffs above the HUGE waves

You can´t tell how windy it was...

Humble abode.  You can spot Dave on a loungechair in the background. 

Lago Titicaca

Cusco --> The Highest Commercially Navigable Lake in the World

Dave and I enjoyed our 1st row panoramic views from the top floor of a 2 story bus en route from Cusco to Puno.  Apparently (what I gleaned from a tour group that was sitting behind us on the bus) is the high plateau on the way to Lago Titicaca is an area where three mountain ranges join.  The scenery was really spectacular along the way...high snow-capped peaks, grazing alpacas, wide open spaces, and stretches of nothing for hours.  As we descended into Puno, the lake looked immense...but we were seeing only a snippit of the entire lake.  Puno is a bit of a ramshakle town but is also rich in culture history and is said to be the folkloric capital of Perú.   

  Panoramic Views from Isla Taquile, Lago Titicaca, Perú

The town steeply surrounds the lake like an amphitheater and it´s entirely deceiving that you are at high altitude...walking up the streets to get home and huffing and puffing is common.  Yes...the name of the lake is all too fun to say, but it`s origins are from the indigenous languages of Quechua and Aymara and refer to the shape and color of the lake.  Dave was hoping to get a solid picture next to a sign of LAKE TITICACA, but alas, we didn`t find one.

The lake itself sits at an elevation of 12,500 ft and lies in both Perú and Bolivia.  Five major river systems feed into the lake and only one runs out...this takes care of about 10% of the water balance, but the lake is nearly closed.  The other 90% is taken care of by evaporation, transpiration, and intense winds that rip along the lake.  During the winter time when the winds are high, waves of 8-10 feet can occur in the lake, halting all boat transfers.

Dave and I embarked on our first official "tour" of the trip in Titicaca.  As reluctant as we were to play follow the leader and sit and listen, we enjoyed our time and learned way more than we would have otherwise.  +Plus, it´s always good people watching and gaper spotting+  The first stop on our all-day tour were the floating islands of Uros.  The indigenous Aymara people of Peru and Bolivia used these islands in the past in a defensive position because they could be moved.  They are made of 100000s of reeds piled on top of another and they actually are just floating in the somewhat shallow parts of the lake.  It feels like walking on a mattress on the islands.  A few times, I was wondering if I might fall through on some of the really squishy parts.  The 5 families on the islands shelled out a canned 15 minute speech about how the islands were constructed, let us roam around, and then bombarded us with the ever-pleasant "now you need to buy all of our artisan handicrafts."  To put it a tiny bit more in perspective, one of the tiny huts on the island had a small solar panel outside of the door to their hut and a 12-ish inch tv inside.  Hmmmm...  When they were authentic...100s of years ago, they probably would have  been a bit more interesting to visit.  Still unbelievable though that islands can be made out of reeds and floating on the water (anchored down) in the lake. 

Aymara Women, bidding us farewell.  Click on the picture to get a close up of the woman in red. 

 

Women of the Islas Uros.  Preparing tapestries to sell.   

Boarded back into the boat...set off for the island of Taquile.  Two hours later we arrived at this beautiful island in the middle of the huge lake!  Now this was what we came here to see!  It was a beautiful day and we could see for miles and miles the expanse of the lake and pristine blue skies.  Taquile and the other islands are catered primarily toward tourism but are still interesting and unique.  They were inhabited by the Incan people during their reign in Perú and this is evidenced all over the islands by their extensive use of agricultural terracing--Incans were master farmers.  They have very specific cultural traditions and are tight-knit communities.  All of the people of Taquile live by the ancient Incan principles of don´t steal, don´t lie, and don´t be lazy.  Good rules!  There are no automobiles and very little electricity (only a few solar panels).  One thing that I thought was particularly interesting is that within the 2,200 inhabitants, they have started to have problems with unintentional inbreeding and birth defects on the island because they do not marry outside of their community.    We stopped and had lunch, learned about the people of the island, and took about a 45 minute walk up and over to the other side to get to our boat.  Three hours later we turned up in Puno...long but good day! 

Cute little punkin´ in Isla Taquile.  The children wear red hats and they put the tassle to the back.  When they turn 12 or 13 they move the tassle to the right, signifying that they are single and available.  If they have a boyfriend or girlfriend, they put the tassle to the left.  Once people are married, they wear white caps.

 

Isla Taquile..beautiful day

 

Cusco, Salkantay, and Machu Picchu!

We reached the top of the pass!  15,000-ish feet

Arriving in Cusco after a 21 hour lux bus was not as tiring as we thought it would be.  Cusco is a bustling city filled with colonial architecture, plazas, churches, pizzarias, and TOURISTS.  There´s no kidding why though...Cusco is Perú´s biggest cash cow because of it´s proximity to Machu Picchu.  Dave and I were excited to organize our own trek into the Machu Picchu area and decided to do something different from the Inca Trail for a few reasons:

1.  We would have had to book our Inca trek at least 2 months in advance (something that were are incapacle of planning for)
2.  Prices have skyrocketed in recent years due to the cut on people entering the Inca Trail (around $500 for 4 days)
3.  You get the pleasure of hiking alongside 500 people everyday

Granted that it IS the Inca trail and you get to pass neat ruins all along the way, it´s tough to fathom that amount of money to be next to so many people.  When I did the Inca trail 5 years ago, I was with only two friends of mine and we were a small trekking group.  We were able to squeeze into smaller campsites and allieviate ourselves from the hoards of crowds.  With no guarantee that we could be in a small group, I wasn´t going to risk a group of 16-20 including some mid-age Europeans or something. 

We chose to do the Salkantay Trail because it seemed the easiest to walk self-supported and it dumps you right out at the base of Machu Picchu, in the town of Aguas Calientes.  We scrambled around the day before we left for our trek to get Machu Picchu tickets, train ride back to Cusco, maps of the trail, all our food/water, and misc transportation logistics.  We wanted to make sure that we had our tickets in advance to be able to do the Huyana Picchu, as it often sells out.  The Salkantay Trek would be 4 days and 3 nights of hiking...averaging between about 12 and 15 miles per day on the trail.

Day 1:  Early wake up call at 4:15 am to quickly gather our things and be at the collectivo stop at 4:45 am.  A collectivo is basically a van that sits at the curb until it fills full of people so that it can go.  Our collectivo filled up by 5:15 am and we were off on a 2-ish hour ride to the remote mountain village of Mollepata.  From there, we started a long 7-8 hour slog uphill along a road.  Luckily, the scenery was MUCH better at the end of the day, but it was definitely tough going at the beginning.  At one point, a truck of trekkers whizzed by us in a cattle car.  We wondered why they weren´t hiking this first part, but soon stopped wondering after around mile 3 or 4.  The road turned into a beautiful spot to be walking about half way through when we were afforded beautiful mountain views.  It´s hard to walk along a road...something mentally just doesn´t jive.  A few mule teams passed us carrying impressive tanks of propane, backpacks, tents, and water jugs.  Dave and I were our own mule team of two.  As much as we were jealous at times of these fanny packs or small day packs that people had, we were feeling quite satisfied to carry our own weight.  

Our final destination that day was a huge BEAUTIFUL valley with tall snowcapped mountains surrounding us on all sides.  We could see Nevado Salkantay sticking up out of the thick clouds and knew that we would be heading in that direction for tomorrow...over the pass at around 15,000 ft.  Soon thereafter, we pitched the tent and took a nap until about 5:00 pm.  It became eerily foggy around dinner time and a bit windy, but we were glad to be done with our hike. We fell asleep almost immediately after a hearty vegetarian and buttery dinner of chicken flavored noodle soup.  There are literally no meat options to take along the trail, especially because I don´t eat tuna--and we weren´t feeling up for canned vienna sausage, sardines, or SPAM imitation. 

Day 2:  Another early wake up call at 4:00 am to tear down camp, make breakfast, and set out on the trail.  We knew that we would have a slightly longer day than the other trekkers because of our bag size, so we set off early and got passed by a few groups later on.  This day started off in a stunning valley heading up toward Nevado Salkantay along the Rio Blanco.  Passing green meadows with huge boulders, we needed to remind ourselves to look back from time to time and appreciate the scenery! 

We finally reached a huge meadow before the trail started to creep steeply upward with zillions of switchbacks.  Slowly and steadily, we crept uphill for around 3 hours and reached the pass.  From the top of the pass, the fog cleared a bit and we could see most of the mountains around us!  Sounds of ice and rockfall echoed in the 360 degrees of mountain ampitheater that surrounded us and we felt like at any time, we could just get obliterated by either of the two (it was far away----HIGHLY unlikely...just loud!)  After some pictures and hang out time at the top, we started our way down...down...down...down... and a little bit further DOWN the trail.  My body does way better with uphill than downhill, especially my knees---but we were flying!  We reached a foggy valley on the other side of the pass where we could see a group stopped and gathered, so we proceded to do the same.  At that time, it was precisely 1:50 pm and we were shocked with how quickly we accomplished Day 2.




Tent Pitched.  Mid-Afternoon Nap.  Wake Up.  Nobody is there.  Nobody is in the entire valley.  Valley is completely foggy.  Take out topo map.  Cannot locate ourselves. 

From that point, we were not going to pack up and leave, but we proceeded to wonder for the next few hours how much longer is was until the next camp.  We figured that we were either about 30 minutes or 3 hours.  Hoping that we were only about 30 minutes to the next camp, we ate another gut bomb dinner of pesto mac ´n cheese and fell asleep by about 7:30/8 pm.

Day 3:  Early morning wake up call again of 4:30 am.  We wanted to make sure that we left ourselves PLENTY of time to hike because we had around 8 hours (3 hours to get to the real campsite of day 2, and 5 more to get to day 3´s site.  The morning sunrise was absolutely BREATHTAKING and the fog had cleared so we were once again surrounded with high peaks.  One PRO of camping in the wrong spot :)  We started hiking and found ourselves once again going down...down...down on the trail.  We descended into the "cloud forest" which was not so cloudy at the time, but the foliage continued to change.  We followed the river valley for 4 hours until we reached day 2´s campsite.  Woops!  We were definitely a bit behind schedule.

With short breaks included, we hiked 11 hours that day up and down beautiful river valleys and through lush jungle.  Something weird starting happening on my right achilles which I´d never felt before.  I think that my boot was creating a sore spot on my ankle and the pain was unbearable.  Luckily, it didn´t feel like I had strained or sprained my achilles, but I was limping for the hours 10 and 11 of that day.  As soon as I took my boots off, I could walk around fine.  It must have been the combination of walking and the rubbing of my boot.  Dave was tired too.  When I focused and looked over at him, he was taking small staggering steps.  We were a mess and got totally WORKED by the trail that day. 

We rolled into the small town of La Playa and needed to make a decision...to camp here or not?  I wasn´t sure how much more hiking my achilles could handle the next morning and we knew that it was going to be a steep 6 hour ascent/descent.  We opted for taking a collectivo out of town so that we could still get to Machu Picchu on time...just from a different direction.  We were so lucky that we got out of La Playa that night.  It started raining about 2 hours after we left (@ 4 pm and continued DUMPING well into the late morning the next day).  So...the camping part of our trek was cut by one night, but we were lucky that not all of our posessions were soaked!

Day 4: The next morning was like torture putting the boots back on.  My achilles were killing me and there´s no way that I would have been able to do the hike for 6 hours up and down.  The most spectacular part of that day hike is the view of Machu Picchu from a different angle at the top.  With the pouring rain and fog, I think that the slog would have been somewhat forgettable and we wouldn´t have had views.  We justified our decision to get on another collectivo to the train station and head into Aguas Calientes.

Aguas Calientes is the town below Machu Picchu and is only reachable by foot (walking the railroad tracks) or by train.  We took the train into Aguas Calientes and arrived at our hotel, dumped our stuff, and I headed out to buy a pair of flip flops so that I could ditch my boots.  Found a pair of flip flops for 5 soles ($1.75) and didn´t take them off for the next several days.  Made a little backstrap of duct tape and I walked around Aguas Calientes, hiked up to Machu Picchu, Huayana Picchu, and back down in those things.  They literally saved me and I didn´t have any problems with my achilles the whole time!  Now, the only thing that would have been a problem would have been if it was rainy when we visited Machu Picchu.  SLIPPERY!

Day 5: Machu Picchu!  Dave and I woke up early again at 4:00 am feeling like crap from the gross pizza that we ate the night before and started the hike to Machu Picchu at 5:00 am after a quick bland breakfast and some strong antibiotics.  The hike to Machu Picchu takes about an hour of walking steps that traverse the road of the busses.  We were SO lucky to arrive on a beautiful sunny day.  We had warm weather, clear skies, and great views.  Yeah, the park started to get much more crowded as the morning progressed, but I felt like we had the place to ourselves when we got there at 6 am.   We purchased a small guide book in Cusco and meandered our way through the ruins, reading as we went.  Around 10, we started our hike to Huyana Picchu, the mountain behind the ruins.  We had great views from the top.  The hike is steep and it´s pretty much a sheer drop off from any given point on the mountain.  Dave was kind of getting the heeby geebies from being up there so we didn´t hang out for as long as I thought that we would.

Hike back down Machu Picchu steps.  Shower in Aguas Calientes.  Train to Cusco.  Taxi to hostel.  Soup. 11:00 pm sleep.  Man were we tired the next day...mostly from just being constantly on the move.  We slept in, took care of some errands, went out to a fabulous dinner, and drank some pisco.  Dave and I both had alpaca meat that night and it was fantastic!  Sounds mean, huh...but alpacas are so common down here and their meat is a huge staple in the Andean diet in Perú. 

Having a great time and hoping that my heel is only a minor problem and gets better quickly!  Next morning...off to Lake Titicaca!

Beautiful weather before the crowds arrived at Machu Picchu

  Postcard Panoramic

 This is Dave´s "let me tell you a little bit about these ruins" sleezy tour guide pose.  

Top of Huyana Picchu with Machu Picchu in the bottom left

 Crazy Incas and their stonework

 Trusty walking shoes!

 Trapezoidal doorways and impeccably placed stones

The view from our hostal´s terrace in Cusco

 

Cusco´s Plaza de Armas on Halloween.  Peruvians do it up on Halloween!