Cusco 2 3

Thursfriday, October 9t10h , 2008

Day 102-3 on The Big Trip. “Run, Run Away!”

NOPE! But Alisa’s good enough to go. So we

RETURN to Ollantaytambo and Ollantay Restaurant via 1 ½ hour Backpacker Train. I feel good and order Tequeños con Guacamole (so good), and the Fortaluza Sandwich (a.k.a. Sandwich Ollantay), con jamon, queso, pollo, y huevo (ham, cheese, chicken, and egg). Wow, excellent! Alisa doesn’t feel so good still, so she orders mate de coca and sopa de verdures (coca tea and veggie soup).

RETURN to Cusco means bed for Alisa. It also means the switch of one symptom for another. No more vomit.

DOCTOR 3 is soon to be needed and he arrives and gives Alisa’s pills. Later that night he’s asked to return because Alisa is in pain now, with a peculiar bump on her belly. This is the second night in a row that Alisa has scared me out of silly. Finally DOCTOR 3 gets back and since the lighting in Loki Hostel in Cusco is rubbage, I give him a headlamp that he puts on upside down before giving Alisa an injection in her nonexistent veins. Thankfully, he realizes it’s upside down when the light isn’t shining where he wants it to, so he flips it and gets to it. This dizzy-inducing shot makes Alisa hurt a little more in her head, but after 20 minutes and a dizzy bathroom-and-back escapade, Alisa rests and feels much much better.

THANK GOODNESS! Now we have an even newer set of prescriptions to fill. Or rather, I have an even newer set of prescriptions to fill for Alisa. My Spanish is sure getting better! But can’t it get better when Alisa’s better? I hope this isn’t all part of Alisa’s planned School for Spanish.

DAY 103, much the same as DAY 102, flows with laundry and a scheduled check-up to DOCTOR 3’s office, just off the Plaza de Armas. This doctor is cheaper, including all follow-ups under his original US$50 charge. Thanks to the pills I bought for Alisa the first night in Cusco coming in at around 64.50 soles, we now have a sizeable tally for this “Is it altitude sickness? Is it a flu? Is it a parasite? No…it’s G-Love!” sickness of Alisa’s. Let’s see where we are: $65 (S/195) + S/24 + $50 (S/150) + S/64.50 = S/433.50, or roughly $144. That’s almost as much as my Salmonella scare in Baños, Ecuador.

The highlights of the day were as follows: Finding out that Alisa had G-Love and was going to be fixed by farting and taking pills (emphasis on going to be fixed); getting two fried dough sticks for S/1 (or 2 for $0.33); making dinner for Alisa and surprising her with flowers from the market!

Stay tuned for another rest day in Cusco and the fun cities to come!

Macho Machu Picchu

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Day 101 on The Big Trip. “Up, Up, and Away!”
THREE A.M. strikes my forehead with a huge pine tree and no warning “timberrrrr”. I get first shower and organize everything we need for the day: snacks, snacks, water bottles, layers of clothes, electrolyte drinks, and a camera the battery of which is charging. The shower is cold. I can get it warm, but only if it is trickling out of the showerhead so that the cold air that sneaks through the bathroom window makes me just as cold as when there is more water at a colder temperature. Oh, bother. I hurry and dry off and put all of my clothes on, including my fleece and favorite insulating layer (my red Arc’Teryx Solo Jacket). I then put on some non-cotton socks, my damplike shoes, plastic bags, and skimpy poncho. Time for breakfast!

ANGEL CHOKO and granola con miel (with honey) mixed with strawberry yogurt…mm mm! By the way, Angel Choko is the name of the crunchy chocolate balls of cereal. Alisa sees me shivering in my layers of clothing and decides the shower is not for her. She takes a picture of me looking very silly, all wrapped up in plastic with my Seattle biking pants on (rainproof pants). We load up our CaseLogic daypack with everything we desire and put it on under my poncho, lock the Osprey Porter 46 that now contains our computers that we will leave behind in our hostel room, and walk down the stairs to leave the hostel.

FREAKY POSTURE is the name I give the tale depicting our attempt to get hot water for mate de coca on the morning of our Machu Picchu ascent. Because remembering this brief anecdote drudges up an unsettling image, I will make this short. Alisa wanted hot tea so she went downstairs in the hostel to the kitchen and reception area to find out how she could get some. She returned to the room without any hot water or mugs and asked me if I could go downstairs and try to wake up the person sleeping in the standing up position in the kitchen to see if we could get some hot water. After trying to wake him up by flicking the lights, saying, “Hola, buenas dias,” and even prodding him, I’m not sure what I will do differently, but I’m forced to try since Alisa really wants hot tea before this early departure and supposedly grueling trek.

RELUCTANT, I head downstairs, anxious to get on the way for Machu Picchu because I know that it’s a popular destination and that out of the many people going, a bunch will be certain to head out early to arrive first! I’d like us to be that bunch, hence the 3am wakeup and 4am departure for an expected 1 ½ hour hike up to the Machu Picchu entrance. It is also given that the first bus leaves at 5:25am and takes about 30 minutes to reach the top of its winding road, just before the gates open at 6am. Downstairs, the kitchen door is closed, all lights are off, and the front door is locked. I knock on the kitchen door. Nothing. I open the door. Here’s the freaky posture: man standing with light coming in slanted over his body from the kitchen window, his head leaning on his bent arms on the counter such that his body is arched. The posture is maintained even though the light shows that the constant dripping noise has left his entire left leg and left shoe drenched. How is this man sleeping? He must be sleeping through neumonia. I try everything Alisa tried, short of getting close enough to prod him; I stay in the doorway. I click my hands; I clap my hands. Nothing. Freaked out, I return unsuccessful to Alisa and our room. She understands and we get everything ready to leave.

WAKE UP, El Tumi hostel! Wake up! We need to leave and the front door is locked! We knock on another door near the would-be-entrance and a shadow figure emerges through the wavy grey glass window in the door. The shadow opens the door and pokes his head out enough to tell us to ring the bell. We’ve tried that. A lot. It doesn’t work. He shuts the door and comes out again, enters the kitchen and shuts the door behind him. A few seconds later and he comes out with someone else who is dry and has both normal posture and the key to the door.

FREEDOM AT FOUR AM: in Aguas Calientes, from Aguas Calientes, pertaining to us. We have spent too much time in this town for what it offers aside from access to the obvious masterpiece of Machu Picchu. I am very excited to be walking. It’s still dark out. One store is open and the man offers us water. We have water, thanks!

SECURITY guard stirs in his seat, and nods back at me, probably half asleep with that blanket. We walk on down the steep, the narrow, the well-watered street, the click of rain on the shops metal and plastic awnings ushering us onwards to the

PLAZA DE ARMAS, where a man is curled up and asleep on a bench. Every town in South America has a Plaza de Armas, however, whereas most are the centerpiece of the town, the showcase and go-to place with benches on all sides, Aguas Calientes’ differs. It seems to still be under construction but not construction that will provide views, a more central location, or a decent place to gather or relax. I feel as though the man sleeping on the bench in the three-day drizzle at four a.m. captures this part of our journey up to Machu Picchu, so I snap a photo of him in the dark as I look back.

RAILROAD TRACKS go right; we go across, now on the portion of the path to Machu Picchu that buses and humans both use. Only at a few minutes past four in the morning, humans have it to themselves, and their headlamps. We pass the luxurious hotels closest to the line of parked buses that heave and churn tourists up and down the road as long as daylight persists. The roar of Rio Urubamba is beside us for much of this even dirt road trek. I assume the river is there, too, even though I can only hear it through the rain on my poncho. Past the buses there are wedded bridges standing side by side. Tempted by the staircase on our side of the bridges, we decide to cross them instead, and thankfully so.

BIENVENIDOS A MACHUPICCHU the sign reads. I wonder where the other stairs would have misled us to. Knowing that the hike to Machu Picchu is up, we turn up the road and soon find our first “flight” of stairs. Up we go. One foot in front of the other. It’s still raining. We get out an Electrolyte drink – the strong version of Gatorade – and begin chipping away at it, believing that we cannot bring it into the site.

UP AND DOWN arrows are found at the top and bottom of each series of winding stairs. I didn’t expect the hike up to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes to be a) this dark, b) this well marked, c) this full of stairs and flat dirt roads, and d) this wet. We have to watch our breathing since this is a lot of hiking and the altitude is noticeable when you try and run or jog. The plastic bags on our feet ripped to dog ear flaps long ago and our feet notice the humidity change. The view from any normal vista on the stair-hike is mostly thick white clouds, tangible foliage 10 feet away, and some mountain edges that somehow poke through. It’s impossible not to wonder how amazing it will be when it begins to unveil itself!

FIVE THIRTY greets us at the top of the stairs, at the entrance to Machu Picchu. There are three Aussies there already. We find out they left at 3:30 in the morning, without headlamps or flashlights and that they followed the train tracks instead of the road to reach the bridge and the stairs! Oh well. We weren’t first, but we were 4th and 5th! I’m happy with that! We park ourselves on a covered picnic bench so we can shed wet layers for a moment to snack on our bread and Electrolyte.

FIVE FIFTY came round the bend, puffing smoke out the side, popping ponchos of all different colors with fresh smiles and walking sticks and full water bottles, ready to go. A group of fifteen or so hikers also make it up the stairs and get in line ahead of the three Aussies, and ahead of Alisa and me. The five of us realize that we should get in line before all of the buses chug-a-lug ahead of us, too!

OPEN SESAME! The first few ponchos scurry through the turnstyle into the bygone city. We realize they’re requiring passports with the tickets, so I quickly snatch them out of our bag and we’re checked to go…go…go! We’re walking like racewalkers who can’t bear walking anymore in the Olympics years ago, breaking into a run! We want to be the first ones in line for climbing Waynapicchu. Here's the first of two videos uploaded to youtube.com that capture Alisa running through the maze that is cloudy, 6am Machu Picchu:




WAYNAPICCHU is the large mountain near Machu Picchu that sports hefty stair-climbing, some ruins of its own, and of course some spectacular views of Machu Picchu. The trick of it is this: only the first 400 people to arrive in line for Waynapicchu get to go: 200 at 7am, and 200 at 10am. The other trick is this: the line for Waynapicchu is at the other end of the Machu Picchu maze! So here we go, running this way and that, following fast directions on the go from workers at the site, and heading off in that direction! I whip out the camera and film Alisa running ahead of me in the early morning when Machu Picchu is in a puffy cloud such that the only things you can see are the ground, the better than desultory remnants of buildings, and the alpacas grazing around them! If we looked back we would have seen all of the tourists swarming, but since we ran and since we were first, we must have been nearly the only ones to have pictures of just us and Machu Picchu! What a go of it!

WRONG WAY apparently. Oh no! Where did we go wrong? We had climbed a ladder and found what seemed to be the ceremonial rock – which I would love to have been allowed to boulder – and the alpaca-only area! Luckily we spot a fellow who had been so kind as to take a picture of us before we rushed off ahead, and he hollers for us to turn around and catch up! So we do!

THIS WAY and that we go, catching up and surpassing him and the other group of tourists who had discourteously hopped in front of us before 6am.

PHEW!!! We’re first in line! First two! “We’re not only going to be able to go up to Waynapicchu, we’ll be the first ones,” I whisper to Alisa, obviously extremely excited about this. Before we can go we have to wait until 7am when the gate for Waynapicchu opens. When the employees arrive and start going through the line, they ask everyone if they would like to go at 7am or 10am. Almost everyone behind us seem to get their 1-200 number stapled on their ticket, and head back to Machu Picchu until 10am!

EGOTRIPPING, I was. But when you reach the top of Waynapicchu after following paths and narrow stairs and eroding slopes and little crouch-tactic-requiring tunnels under rocks, you’d get why I was egotripping, and tripping over my shoelaces to reach the top!

WHITENESS blocks our views of the mountains that we know surround us, the valleys that we know are below us, and each other when we walk too far apart! We wonder whether we will have a view of Machu Picchu at all when we reach the top. Given the weather patterns that we noticed in nearby Aguas Calientes, I am guessing that the clouds will avert once the sun pops up, although who can tell for how long. Just yesterday, the sun was only out for a few hours! Either way, with the snacks and water we have, I am prepared to sit it out at the top of Waynapicchu until we can see Machu Picchu, and then we can head back and explore the actual site!

THE TOP is ours, as is a humble picnic on the boulder that sees all. We pop out the Luna bars that dad sent me to South America with. So far, now Machu Picchu. However, there is a lovely rainbow welcoming us! Little did he know, that if he’d planted a camera in one of them, he could’ve shared Machu Picchu with us from the moon. That’s really

WHY I wanted to climb Waynapicchu more than actually being at the site of Machu Picchu. That is, for me going to moon’s greatest result wasn’t really being on the moon, or taking that first step on the moon, or working out all of the logistics and contingency plans. Going to the moon’s greatest result was looking back. When they turned around and saw the Earth as a body, swimming in clouds, resting in the universe. Waynapicchu gave me that entirety of Machu Picchu that I couldn’t quite grasp from within its walls. It was nice on the top of Waynapicchu. We saw clouds rolling over distant mountains on the other side of Machu Picchu, and finally some wisped away part of the valley and the river that runs through it. With the clouds of changing pace and changing directions, different weights and different half-lifes, parts of Machu Picchu begin to appear. We start taking pictures and taking notes of what’s what in Machu Picchu. Is that the western urban area? That must be the guardhouse and then that’s the ceremonial rock we ran by on our wrong way! There are the steppes for agriculture!


THE STEPS in these cultures are ingenious. They don’t waste space at all. Each step is formed from the wall of rocks by a larger rock sticking out into space. Diagonally up an over from the first step will be the second, another rock with a flat top, sticking out enough for two feet to land on it, and so on until the top where food was planted. That way no land was wasted for stairs instead of crops!

A FEW HOURS on top of Waynapicchu is enough for us. The ten a.m. 200 people will soon be shuffling upwards, taking away our private enjoyment of it all. So we’re ready to head on to our next view. Although the skies between one land mass and another never really entirely cleared, we saw what we came to see. And perhaps even more magical it was, thanks to the clouds, and thanks to the possibility of seeing Machu Picchu only existing at the top of Waynapicchu and not on the hike up!

NEXT UP is Huchuypicchu, the younger brother to Waynapicchu – or should I say shorter brother, Sean? We tackle Huchuypicchu on the way back to Machu Picchu. It’s a quick hike and gives us a much closer – and still aerial – view of the magnificent city. From here we put on our warm jackets, record a Vlog entry, eat and drink more, and rest a bit. From high above, we see an alpaca rolling around on the ground like a dog might in mud. We get a good laugh out of that, then we wonder how many poncho-wearing, guide-following Machu-picchuers might be looking at us looking down at them. It seems that we have been lucky to choose this “bad-weather” day for our Machu Picchu trip. Consider the following: fewer people go to MP on “bad-weather” days; yesterday was the train and bus strike and as such, fewer people will make it to MP; it’s off-season for traveling and yes, even for MP! Looking out over the site, I think it’s pretty crowded. But then I remember these considerations and see that there can’t be more than 300 people at MP itself at the moment. For MP, that’s nothing!

MACHU PICCHU is nice to just roam around, especially after seeing it from afar since now we have a better sense of where we are in the city at any given time. I’m really inspired by the construction of these walls and houses and steps. Some rooms use a large boulder as the wall – maybe in Patagonia I can learn how to build my own house and I’ll try and use a boulder as a wall, that way I can wake up and boulder in my living room to get to the lounge upstairs! Well, we’ll see!

WEARINESS is sinking into Alisa as she keeps saying that she’s aching and worn out, not to mention damp and tired from waking up at 3am and exerting so much energy that NASA wouldn’t know what to do with it. After hiking up to Machu Picchu and Waynapicchu and Huchuypicchu, I’m excited and ready for more even though I’m tired and damp as well. So on the one hand, I really want to climb the highest mountain of them all: Montaña Machupicchu. On the other hand, Alisa does not feel up to it. We sit at the bottom of the trailhead up Montaña Machupicchu and rest, considering our options. There is also a much shorter, much easier paved path that leads to the sun gate of Machu Picchu. Since this would be our easiest ascent of the day, Alisa thinks it should go last. We consider the option that leaves Alisa at Machu Picchu and lets me run up and down the mountain, but staying together and taking it easy overrides that option, so we start up.

HALFWAY there, Alisa’s body tells her to stop. We find a block of rock for a seat and she waits there while I start running. It’s not long before two things happen: 1) I’m out of breath and need to alternate jogging and walking fast, and 2) it starts pouring.

LUCKILY I left my poncho with Alisa, so I just get drenched. Free wash!

22 MINUTES later I finally reach the top; it’s still pouring and clouds mask the new perspective of Machu Picchu and the two brother mountains we climbed earlier: Huchuy- and Wayna-picchu. I can see them, but don’t think the camera can. Just in case, I film myself on the edge of the mountain and the ocean of clouds, pointing out the city and its guard dog mountains.

JUMPING and running down these funky stairs is much quicker than going up. I have to blink every few jumps because of the rain that accumulates on my eyelids. I can tell that my legs are tired, but I trust them still and slow down at any slightly sketchy or precarious part. I arrive back with Alisa, who has put on my poncho over her rain jacket and is accompanied by an employee at MP. We say goodbye to him, and start down to MP. Alisa is definitely not doing well, and we think that it must be the weather and altitude sickness. It’s clear that our day should be done, so we march back through parts of MP to exit.

EXITING MP means navigating tourists who don’t follow the “Stay right except to pass” rule, which is more of a car thing to do, anyway. Outside of the MP entrance gate there is a huge line for the bus back down to Aguas Calientes. Which, by the way, costs US$7. Too pricey for us. Alisa needs the bathroom. We try and make our way past the line to get to the public bathroom at the bottom of a set of steps crowded over with bus-takers. A man is in Alisa’s way, so she says, “Excuse me, I’m not cutting, I need to use the bathroom, can you let me by?” The man just turns around and doesn’t budge. Thankfully this man had a wife who pulled him out of the way, nearly scolding him for not doing so. We run by, puzzled by this silliness, and gain shelter from the rain while Alisa hits the ladies room and I snack on yet another chocolate covered bar.

FOOD TALLY for the post-breakfast day is amazingly atrocious, check it out: 3 Luna bars, 1 Clif bar (thanks dad!), 2 Golpes (Twix meets cereal bar), 2 Choco Sodas (chocolate swallows saltine cracker), 6 Chocodas (Hydrox ripoff, just like Oreos), and 3 pieces of bread. This couldn’t have helped anything that caused Alisa’s oncoming sickness. Thankfully, I have a bit of a sweet tooth and was feeling stupendous after the treats and the hiking.

2000 more stairs await us. Since the stairs cut straight down through the winding bus road, occasionally we see full buses going down and near-empty buses headed up – some of them honk when I wave. Back in town, we get to our hostel and start hanging up our soaked things to dry. I want to make sure Alisa gets some good food, so we head to the nicer restaurants in town, which abide by the railroad tracks.

THOUGH decent, the food doesn’t agree with Alisa’s sickness, as she heads past the fireplace to the bathroom. Today is turning epic! We have to leave the restaurant for the hostel, where Alisa tries resting.

NOPE. I run downstairs and ask the receptionist where the nearest pharmacy is and follow his directions. After describing Alisa’s symptoms (fever, vomiting, tiredness, and sensitive skin) and telling the pharmacist what we did today (hiking, altitude, wet weather, insufficient food) I pick up some meds for 24 soles ($8) that should curb her sickness! Excited that I can now speak half-confidently and half-sufficiently in Spanish for these purposes, and bummed that it takes Alisa being sick to inspire this, I head back to the hostel, thinking that all of this will help Alisa get better and soon!

NOPE. Alisa’s fever spikes and I walk down the stairs of El Tumi Hostel once again to the reception desk. This time, I ask him to call the doctor and also ask how much I should expect it to cost. The doctor will be on his way, and it should cost 150 soles. “150 soles?” I repeat. Or 40 or 50 he says, depending on the medicine and the examination. OK, I say. At least this will help Alisa get better.

DOCTORS 1 and 2 arrive. They are like Batman and Robin. One does the talking and almost manages to hide the fact that he understands English. The other one practices being a statue. They give Alisa a big bottle of strawberry flavored electrolytes. They give Alisa 8 hours in which to consume the entire bottle. They charge us $65 dollars. We get a receipt for Alisa’s insurance. Goodbye. Thank you. Hopefully in the morning Alisa will feel much better, especially since we have already bought expensive train tickets back to Ollaytaytambo that leaves at 9:30am. Also, we don’t want to spend any more time in Aguas Calientes! It’s kind of dreary all on its own, let alone when compared with the Machu Picchu experience! (Don't worry about Alisa - She's doing great now!)

WHAT a day!

Aguas Calientes 2

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

Day 100 on The Big Trip. “Rest Up...In The Rain!”

HOSTEL HOPPING in Aguas Calientes, we are. Now, instead of paying $30/night (S/.90.00), we’re paying S/.40.00/night. That’s less than half! And the room is more comfortable. Wandering the town during the day we walk across bridges and up and down the steep and narrow main corridor! There’s a large artisan market in which we hunt for a gift for my dad, to no avail. Nothing seems to fit what I think he’s like! Oh well! Let’s just walk around. It’s probably just as well that we aren’t going to Machupicchu today since it’s been drizzling and raining all morning.

TICKETS for Machupicchu are what we bought this morning! Without going to a BCP bank ATM in this out of the way town, we have a limited amount of money to make it back to Cusco. So we do a money count, hoping to make it back to Cusco without withdrawing, and hoping to be frugral!

THE TALLY is this: after S/122 for non-international-student-card-carrying-me; after S/61 for international-student-card-carrying-Alisa; after the cost for each of us to return via a bus, a train, a taxi, and a combi; after two nights in our new hostel, we have S/200 left for food.

INGREDIENTS for breakfast today and tomorrow so that it won’t be as expensive as going out. Here’s what we purchased: Yogurt (S/5), Four pieces of plain bread (S/1), Three pieces of sweet bread (S/1), Granola with honey (S/3), Two bananas (S/.50), and a chocolate cereal (S/2.50) for a grand total of S/13 or $4.33.

LUNCH was sopas y saladas, jugo de piñas, y spaghettis. This cost us S/13 each plus S/3 tax for a total of S/29 or $9.66. Hence, total money spent today on food has been S/42 or $14.00. As long as our dinner is under S/58 I think we’ll be OK! And look: the sun! No more rain for now! Hopefully this will remain the case through tomorrow morning when we plan to hike up to Machu Picchu!

PANCHOS are everywhere here in Aguas Calientes, and I found the cheapest one for two soles.

EARLY BEDTIME: 6:27pm. We’re waking up at 3am to eat and leave by 4am for Machu Picchu!

TRAVELING IN PERU:

Chiclayo – 5.8. This northern city in Peru had bands playing in the plaza at night and very cheap hostels. Otherwise, it was just a stopping point before heading south.

Huanchaco – 5.6 ***. The coast is here and surfers and fish-lovers know it. Relax and find a new pace here.

Trujillo – 5.8. Colonial buildings lining packed streets mark this city.

Casma – 5.7. You might just be the only tourist in this town. Hop a bike 5k for some exercise to some ruins that won’t impress.

Lima – 5.9. If you miss home for the wrong reasons you might like the capitol. Think money, food, and citylife.

Paracas – 5.6 *. Back to the coast! Unfortunately, you’re not the only one looking for the cheap Galapagos and the gateway south to more fun! Claustrophobia may be triggered when choosing hostels and restaurants!

Huacachina – 5.5 ***. Sand dunes and fun abide here, as does the laguna from the S/50 bill, which doesn’t smell as badly as they say. Grab a buggy and hold on!

Nazca – 5.8 *. If you like spending money, see the Nazca lines from a plane. If you only just need to see them, grab a cab. Unless you also want to sandboard the meanest, largest dune in the world after hiking for hours up it, head out of this town.

Cusco – 5.6 **. This town has its share of tourists and for good reason. Cusco makes a great base to return to for many adventures, so find a hostel you agree with and trust.

Aguas Calientes – 5.5. The different price given tourists is more visible here, so smile and find the best price you can. Only stay here if you're doing Machu Picchu**** more than once or want to be the first one up, meaning you'll leave early the next morning! Also, enjoy Machu Picchu and the views from its unreal surrounding mountains (e.g. Waynapicchu****, Huchuypicchu***, Montaña Macchupicchu**).

More to come from your landescaper, n8 (Expect reviews for Puno, Arequipa, and anything else in the south that catches our eyes!)

Ollaytaytambo Aguas Calientes 1

Monday, October 6th, 2008

Day 99 on The Big Trip. “Get to Aguas Calientes”

AGUAS CALIENTES, the town nearest Machu Picchu, is our goal today. In order to do this, we shower and start walking down the steps and through the plazas to reach the train station where we are told that the train we want to catch is completely full, as are all of our options because of the strike.

THE STRIKE was unofficial until the night before and is a bus and train strike, or so it is rumoured. It is still unsure whether or not it will be just in Cusco or Peru-wide. Either way, as a result of the strike tomorrow, everyone has booked their trains to get to Aguas Calientes and we are left with very few options to get there by Tuesday. We are told that although there is no room on the trains, direct or not, we can go to Urubamba and beyond to Ollaytaytambo via two buses or one colectivo. The two buses would be cheaper at S/4 and S/2, but the S/10-S/15 colectivo would be direct and quicker. That’s our bet.

BREAKFAST is cuatro huevos revoltos (four scrambled eggs), pan (bread), and mate de coco (coco tea). Alisa has half the eggs I had, but otherwise the same. We’re doing alright for food since before the train trip we quickly snacked on granola with strawberry yogurt!

FAILURE occurs when we return to town to try and get my international student ID card which would cut many costs on this grande trip, including cutting the entry fee for Machu Picchu in half, from S/122 to S/61, or from $40.66 to $20.33. They would not merely accept my student ID card, even though Alisa’s int’l ID shows the same college and in the US this is all they required of her for her int’l card. In Cusco, Peru, they also require an expiration date on the card or proof that you are currently enrolled, neither of which I have handy. So we move on to our other errands for the day.

PACKING means consolidating our items for Machu Picchu into the day pack and my Osprey Porter 46, and leaving the rest of our stuff in Alisa’s big Osprey Exposure pack, locked and in storage at the Loki Hostel in Cusco, where we will return after this trip! We’re spreading our stuff all over the world!

LUCK is what we’ll need for this plan to work. The plan is to go to Ollaytaytambo and hope to convince people there to let us on the train, even if it means we have to stand up. This probably won’t work, but at worst it would mean staying in Ollaytaytambo for a night or two, which we’re OK with because we’ve been in Cusco long enough and need to start this journey to Machu Picchu!

COLECTIVOS are long-distance, four passenger minimum taxis. So Alisa and I share one with two other people, who apparently are going to Urubamba. So it won’t be a direct trip, but what can you do? We don’t make it to Ollaytaytambo in time for the 12:10 Backpacker train to Aguas Calientes, but we do get their soon after, which is nice because we still have plenty of daylight to figure things out in this new town! We can even go exploring!

LONG STORY SHORT is that there are indeed tickets, just not for the Backpacker rate of $31. Instead our options are a 4pm departure at a classy comfort-rate of $53 or a 7pm departure at a half-relaxed boxcar rate of $43. We decide that this is great that we can still make it there today, and decide on the better deal which also happens to allow us to explore this lovely town with ruins of its own!

FREE ruins are better than S/80 ruins. And the price is better, too! We lucked out again! From these free ruins we get an awesome view of the other ruins, which are more populated thanks to being on the tours that people take around Peru’s Cusco-based ruins. Also, we can take our time and just relax and enjoy the ruins without a bus or others waiting for us, or a guide yapping at us!

HOMEMADE restaurant in the plaza is fantastic. We get to walk up a winding staircase to the second-floor with a view of the main plaza indubitably named the Plaza de Armas, and order with confidence since the waiter tells us what is homemade and what is not and that the homemade items are WICKED GOOD!

THE GIST of this town, the things that make it stand out in the crowd of towns and cities strewn across Peru are the following: extremely brightly-colored bags and carpets of dizzying designs; canes with hilarious teethy heads and horns; alleyways and roads, most of which sport waterways that run on the edges and cross the “major” cobbly roads; a very touristy pick of restaurants with nearly identical menus, one of which even included French toast; two sets of ruins, at the edges of the small town, which is much closer than any other place we’ve been to! Kind of cool, Ollaytantambo, but six hours here is enough for us!

We head to the train station and wait as PERURAIL figures out its system. The train brings us through the darkness to Aguas Calientes, where it’s wet. We are met by someone representing our hostel –yes, we reserved a room for this heavy tourist town – and march our way through the rain.

INTERNET has been a problem this entire trip. Even when we do get wireless internet, it’s slow. Oftentimes in our experiences, when hostels say they have internet, either the power goes out for the block or their phone lines and internet stop working for the day we were hoping to stay there. At Pirwu hostel, our internet problem was different: there was none. When we used our precious internet time in Cusco, the Pirwu website claimed it had internet. Luis, our escort, told us that internet was only available at Pirwu’s other, more established locations. He then hands us a brochure that also touts Pirwu’s internet. We are not impressed and do not reserve our room for tomorrow night as we expected we would.

DINNER is good. A restaurant hooked us by cutting prices on the menu almost in half, which brought this otherwise expensive fireplace restaurant down to the cheapest in town! As a result, I ordered the Alpaca de la Parrilla (S/20 instead of S/32) and Alisa ordered the Fettuchini Alfredo (S/15 instead of something more). Even though Alisa received Spaghetti Alfredo, we both enjoyed our dinners and felt good about saving money in this expensive little town!

Cusco 1

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

Day 98 on The Big Trip. “Preparation”

Music was playing in the square and we went to the market where we purchased lots of goodies at good prices. We also met some friendly American ladies who wisely wore Obama pins and talked with us for a bit. Then we did laundry, conveniently 10 feet from our hostel. Alisa almost got a new red shirt of someone else’s thanks to a laundry mixup in her bag!

THE GIST of today was preparation for tomorrow, when we try to get to Aguas Calientes. Consequently, we relaxed, used the slow internet, and got to know the city a lot better.

Huacachina Ica Nazca Cusco

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

Day 96 on The Big Trip. “Pick up and Go!” and "First take a picture on your birthday above the Laguna in Huacachina that is on the 50 sole bill!"

Huacachina. Taxi. 10 minutes. Ica. 30 minute wait. Bus. 2 hours. Nazca. Nazca lines from a 30 foot tower. 6 hour wait. Bus. 19 hours. Should have been 14 hours. Cusco.


Saturday, October 4th, 2008

Day 97 on The Big Trip. “We made it!”

It’s past 3pm by the time we exit the bus. We’re exhausted, hungry, and dirty. We want to sleep, eat, and shower. In other words, we’re on a mission to find a hostel and then a restaurant. We do. We shower. Goodbye stinky feet from 19 hours of being crammed in a sandy sock in a sandy non-breathing boot! Finding food takes forever and includes a failed hunt for an Indian restaurant that was nowhere we wanted it to be.

Highlights of the days:

1. I really enjoyed being able to tell Alisa happy birthday very often.

2. Getting a huge container of donuts for her birthday that we ended up not liking, and proceeding to occasionally hand them out to surprised kids and a few adults, all of whom I believe we made a good impression on. This was a good turn-around!

3. The bus from Nazca to Cusco needed to be fixed about 13 hours into the trip. Given that we left at 8:40pm (40 minutes late), this put us somewhere in the vicinity of 10am by the time the soccer ball came out. The following is given: gringos passing a soccer ball around; a high school of Peruvianos was also on the bus, also waiting for over an hour for the bus to be fixed; competition; love of sport. The result, of course, was a five-on-five game with an entire double-decker busload minus ten for an audience.

4. Not being robbed or anything of the sort. We were worried at one point in Nazca. When we grabbed a taxi and he told us S/40 to the mirador and back, we thought two things. First, “What a great deal! That’s much less than the S/60 we were told to expect!” Second, “That’s a lot less; he’s suspect…” What didn’t help our nervousness was a quick phone call placed just before we took off, made by the driver, which included the phrase “I’m bringing two tourists to the mirador now.” More suspect was that he did it quietly. Before he handed the cellphone back to the Claro woman (Claro is the cellular company that provides for all of Peru, or so it says), I explained my thoughts to Alisa quickly, who agreed it was sketchy, and so I opened my door (beside the curb) and placed my foot out. The Claro woman told us it was OK and I looked inside to find the license plate numbers, and then shut the door, nervous. Alisa gave me one water bottle. I suppose that Alisa’s right: if a water bottle’s good enough for a pack of vicious Ecuadorian dogs, it’s good enough for a Peruvian or more with bad intentions. Luckily, Alisa started talking with the driver about how much better for us Peru and its people have been for us. This made us feel a lot better, as did seeing signs for the Nazca lines. Everything turned out swell! From our budget and pictures we’ve seen, going to the mirador (tower, really) for S/40 total and two lines is way better than flying for US$60/person/hour and 32 lines. I’ve been on a shaky plane and crab-landed and crab-flown and loved it (thanks dad!), and I get the idea of the lines from pictures and seeing it in real life even from 30 feet is enough for me! Cha-Ching! Weighing options saved us US$107! That’s roughly S/321! Yikes!

5. Last but not least on my list of highlights for the two-day trip to get to Cusco from Huacachina with a pitstop in Nazca occurred on the 19-hour bustrip. It came when we were about to see a really bad movie or really bad music sketches on the TV’s on the bus, and we thought, “Hey! We have movies in our daypack! We don’t have to sit here and painfully observe another bad movie! Let’s talk to the stewardess!” We saved the day for the entire bus! We watched The City of God in Spanish (Ciudad Dios). It was great. Everyone liked it.

Huacachina!

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
[Pictures Pending]
Day 95 on The Big Trip. “Bored? Dune board!”

Morning means making breakfast before the working crew takes over the kitchen for the Banana Restaurant Hostel. It also means the wild dune buggy ride is soon upon us! We each dress accordingly; I chose long socks, boots, and pants for armor. We meet the only other people staying at our hostel of two side by side huts: Daniel and Jamie. The other people who booked their dune buggy tour through our hostel start showing up and soon the driver is here, too.

As we’re about to pull out in our dune buggy we are told that we need a few soles per person to pay an additional fee to receive the ticket for the ride. Everyone has to make money somehow. Quickly I unbuckle and run back to the hut to grab our puny pocket change purse. I mistakenly believed that “paid in full,” meant that the ticket was ours.

And we’re off! The buggy cruises around the block before leaving the streets for the dunes. The buggy has a roll cage; aren’t roll cages ineffective for sand dunes? At least we’ll be splitting the time between cruising up, down, and around these sand dunes with sand boarding on our feet and stomachs with tremendous vistas!

The buggies park at the top of sets of dunes and release us with our boards and candlesticks. We wax our boards while looking down the dunes and wondering how we’ll each fare! Since I have two or three days’ experience snowboarding I am pressured into going early on to provide an example. Thanks! It’s great fun! It’s amazing and much more difficult to turn with these boards in the sand than it is to curve any which way you please in the snow, but otherwise quite similar.

The neat part about sand boarding is that you can treat the board like a sled, which you don’t do with snowboards. This way, instead of slowing down by turning like you do standing up, you just pick up speed and hope there are not that many footprints (speed bumps) at the bottom. If there are and you have a heart attack, you’re in luck: it’s like CPR!

The last run of our first four dunes in a row is the largest of them all. At the bottom we will be picked up and brought to another great boarding location. At the top of this last dune stand myself and Jamie, the block from our hostel, our hutstel. He wants me to go first, and I don’t mind one way or the other: we’re both going to be watched by everyone whose buggy still hasn’t left. There are at least three, maybe four buggies remaining at the bottom of this locale at this point, which means that there are about 30 people waiting down there, maybe more! Jamie decides he’d like to go last and see how I go down, pick up some pointers maybe.

I start cruising and try to switch board edges and turn, but end up flipping or something! By now I’m trained to close my eyes and roll a little, so I’m fine and quickly hop up and finish the huge run! What a blast! I unstrap the Velcro holding my feet in and run to join the others waiting for only Jamie now before lugging ourselves through the difficult terrain of sand to the buggies, 100 meters away. The group of us stand with our boards as our canes, backs against a magic carpet of sand of monstrous proportions.

Jamie takes off the top; we watch. He is coming straight down, not using any edges or going at an angle like I had and thus, he is going much, much faster. A few cheers sound as he comes down and nears the bottom, but wait. He stands up a little, just before the sand begins to crest back into flatness and this puts the tip of his board in: he flips forward, smacking once hard on the back of his neck, and around again he comes, screeching to a halt by body-flapping smack flat into the sand, head down. Everyone is stunned.

He doesn’t move and for a moment I think that he’s just showing us that he hit hard and he’s about to stand up, but no, not so. The group of us runs to meet him, as he doesn’t move at all for a “good” 10 seconds. As we meet him and roll him over a bit, he finally gains consciousness. Sand is in his eyes, coating them. Sand is dripping from his nose. Sand is where Jamie is. But this isn’t what we’re worried about: we’re worried about his head and any injuries he may have sustained. He doesn’t remember what happened. He thinks that maybe a buggy hit him. Water is poured over his face, and drinking water is used to clean out his mouth. Thankfully there’s a nurse on hand who makes sure that Jamie doesn’t sit up right away. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Ninny, but hey – we’re in the desert! Can’t find Ninny everywhere! The story ends up that he feels find and he graduates sand-eating to become a dune buggy tour photographer. In fact, because Jamie stayed with the dune buggy henceforth, he was the only tourist in our group who actually got to see the sunset! (Note: we took the 4pm departure dune buggy tour because the sunset is part of it and is supposed to be gorgeous. Thankfully, Jamie and the driver took pictures of the sunset using everyone’s camera!)


CAMERA REVIEW: Olympus 1030SW.
Jamie had our rugged Olympus 1030SW when he crash-landed into a sand dune, the camera crashing and flying out of his pocket into the sand alongside him. Although there was a bit of sand along the tiny ridges of the camera, it was easily wiped- and blown-off. A bit of sand is stuck inside of the function turnstile, which is otherwise functioning fine, at least for the time being. Otherwise, no sand was found within any of the important interior areas such as the battery compartment, behind the flat lens cover, or in the USB port. And of course, with all of the bumping and bouncing this camera did, all of the files were intact. Good job, Olympus!

After the dune boarding was done, we hopped back in the buggy for the trip back. The sun setting, we cruised around in the buggy with headlights, noting other buggies with lights darting in and out of dunes, even in front of us. The wind over the desert was strong, especially in the buggy and looking around behind me (Alisa and I had the front two seats next to the driver!), I note that only one other person besides myself and the driver are not wearing sunglasses! But of course we’re practicing our squinting faces! The driver would slow down almost to a stop before every dip or top of a dune, as we began our plunge down sand hills, some small, some very steep, and all a mystery until we crested the top and could see down!

We screeched back to our hostel, a great way to end the buggy tour. The driver tells us to get Jamie a drink, but of course we’ll be more apt to find him food, ice, and his bed! This fun of a trip with a group of travelers ends nicely with a beginning of introductions and plans for dinner and drinks. Unfortunately, with Alisa’s tummy not feeling so great, we have to make soup at our hostel, but tell everyone we’ll meet up with them for drinks – which we did - after we eat and watch the Vice Presidential debate!

A great night leaves us tired and not so much looking forward to leaving this relaxing and oddly exuberant town. I could easily go boarding and buggying for another few days! Anyone?!

On to the next day!