Wheezie!

Welcome to the Jungle

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:46:11 GMT

The day after Machu Picchu, Jackie was flying home, while Doan, Edwin, and I were off to Manu Jungle. We took a small private plane out there, which was all kinds of awesome. Aside from the two pilots, it was only the three of us on there. We felt pretty special, actually. The mountains looked gorgeous from the plane since we were flying a little lower. Our landing strip was mostly grass and two small cement strips. This is the "airport" we landed in.

I was still dressed for Cusco weather (it was freezing!) and as soon as we got off the plane, the heat and humidity hit like a ton of bricks. That, and the bugs. They were everywhere. The ground was a little marshy and I could feel it coming up through my [unfortunate choice of] water shoes that morning.

Our guide, Rivelino, met us shortly after and we were off on a boat for three hour ride down to the lodge we were gonna stay at. Before getting there though, we stopped at another island where we saw how the boats were made.

The boatmakers actually make pretty good money off the boats, with hardly any overhead and no taxes to pay. But then the money is all spent on beer and cigarettes, which was kind of depressing to hear.

These are from our first boat ride down the river. That was really the only way to get around.

This is Lorenzo. He lives at the lodge we were staying at.

He'd gotten too fat to fly regularly. Mostly he waddled around from tree to tree and said the occasional bad words in Spanish.

Our guide, Rive, was amazing. Really. He's got the most interesting life story I've ever heard. He was born and raised in the jungle. When he was a kid, the terrorists and drug dealers came to his school (with the intention of raising a generation of drug dealers and terrorists) and added bomb and gun building to the curriculum. When he got older, he learned how to make cocaine. He was hesitant to tell us about how it's made, but when he did, he got super science-y explaining how many kilos to get this amount and all the chemical processes the leaves have to go through before getting the powder. And then when he got older, he joined the army. Turns out half of his family is in the army and the other on the terrorists' side. He told us these relatively mild (I'm sure he's got crazier) stories about his life with the drug dealers and prositution. There are parts of the Peruvian jungles even the army doesn't want to go to, but he feels safe coming and going there since he knows everyone.

There was that, and he's like, jungle man extraordinaire. There wasn't a plant, bug, sound, animal, animal footprints, animal crap, that he couldn't identify, both with the local and scientific name. Lots of times as we're hiking through the jungle, he would pause and get all silent, motion us to come over, and then point out something practically invisible to the naked eye and say something like, "There! You see that? That's the endangered so-and-so." He'd pull out a telescope and then we'd be able to see what he's talking about, but otherwise, we were mostly in awe of how he was able to see something like that. During our hikes, he would pull out a mini ipod, attach it to a speaker on his belt, and play animal sounds to call them over. He did this mostly with monkeys and birds, though I think he had all the animal sounds on there. It was kind of amusing to see such a modern gadget thing in the middle of the rainforest.

So our first day there, as soon as we get off the boat, we eat lunch, followed by a two hour nap and then we were off to spend the night on an observation platform to watch tapirs come out to the clay licks. (That article is talking about macaws specifically, but the tapirs did it too). It got dark fast and as soon as we had our dinner, we fell asleep again, still exhausted from the Inca trail. Rive said he would stay up and watch out for the tapirs, wake us up when they came along, but we had to be quiet since they scare so easily. The first time he woke us up, we were still so exhausted that when we found out it was only 8:30 pm, we were surprised. It felt really late and that we'd been sleeping for hours. It was hard to get a good picture. There was a big flash light, but it only went so far and what with the tapirs being so skittish already, these are the only two I got and you can barely see the outline of them:

It was like a cross between a bear, boar, and anteater. Huge thing.

Tapir footprint. It might be hard to see from this angle, but it left a very deep impression in the mud. Our footprints next to it hardly made a dent.

I forget what exactly we were doing with most of these pictures, but more jungle-y stuff.

Giant ant.

Most of the trees weren't that firmly rooted in the ground. Actually, the riverbanks and river direction would change slightly every year, depending on the rainfall.

Translucent butterfly! It was hard to get this picture cuz I couldn't find it on my camera's screen. There were several blind attempts with the camera pointed in the general direction, but I eventually managed a decent picture.

The color is a little weird on this--actually, I think most of the color came out weird on my jungle pictures--it was too dark without the flash and off looking with it. Anyway, this tree was completely hollow. We stepped inside it to look at the bats.

For all the animals we saw, we didn't get to see a jaguar. Just his footprints and crap.

Giant uprooted tree on its side. I think the width was twice my height.

A pretend poisonous snake.

Rive and his dad (who owned the land we were staying on), had cleared a small section to make a hummingbird garden. It was gorgeous. There were butterflies and hummingbirds everywhere. (None that I could get a picture of).

This was taken through a telescope. A white-bellied parrot?

A stinkbug!

More giant ants.

I forget on which day we went, but we went piranha fishing for dinner. We took the boat to another island that had a lake in it. We hiked twenty minutes or so out to a lake to find the boat half submerged in the water. This made us very nervous, considering the piranha, if it didn't hold up. Rive jumped in, splashed all the water out, and we tentatively climbed in.

You see?

This part was actually my favorite part of the jungle, but I didn't take as many pictures as I'd like to because my hands were gross. We were using chunks of beef and chicken as bait.

Edwin catching his first piranha.

I caught the most! Only three, but still, I was excited. It was frustrating at first because they were super fast and snatching the meat off our hooks as soon as we threw it in. For the first hour we were out there, we were basically feeding piranha.

This is the lake we were on.

Fried piranha and catfish for dinner! There was nothing distinctive about the taste. Like any other white fish. Like tilapia, I guess. Pretty bony though.

On the boat ride back, the boat drivers had spotted a caiman on the shore. I don't know how, as it was dark and the only thing you can see until you get up close is the glint of the eye, but anyway, we pulled over and got to take a closer picture.

It's kind of an alligator looking thing. You see what I mean by the eye? They saw it in the dark from more than 200 feet away. So we're taking pictures of this guy, when I don't know if it was the flash or what, but something freaks him out and he comes charging towards our boat. I see this crazy scramble cuz Doan and Edwin were in front of us, as the caiman attempts to jump in our boat. He makes it halfway in, but splashes into the water. We were freaked out, all the while Rive and the boat drivers are laughing at us. It really was scary though! They said the caiman was just a baby and couldn't have done anything. I don't believe them. I just remember a paralyzing fear of holy crap, this animal is coming after us.

There was one morning we went to go see the macaws at their clay lick. We had to be up super early. Sunrise over the jungle had some amazing colors. We were speeding off on a boat, so it's sorta blurry.

And you know, in case we weren't convinced how beautiful it was out there, a rainbow for good measure.

These are the clay licks. We get there just as the sun is really coming out. The birds were all over that wall.

First were these purple and green parakeets. They were loud and cheerful sounding.

All of these bird pictures were taken through a telescope. We were too far away to get anything good.

Another caiman, just hanging out on the banks. There were a couple actually.

Anyway, after the parakeets left, it got eerily quiet and we sat for a few more hours, just waiting for the macaws to come. It took longer than usual because there were a couple of hawks chasing them around. They wouldn't come down to the clay licks if they could see the hawk, but once they did, it was nice.

One of the hawks.

After a few hours, they did eventually make their way down to the wall.

The colors were so vibrant. I loved seeing them swoop across as a flock. A short video of the macaws on the clay lick.

I think that same day, we went on a night hike. We didn't see a whole lot then, mostly just bugs.

A sleeping bird.

Tiny brown frog.

The same spider we first saw at the beginning of the hike, only this time with food.

On our last day, before leaving, we tried to see otters. It was late in the season and most had probably migrated already, but we wanted to try anyway.

It was just a platform on a boat. We had breakfast on there as we floated around in search of the otters.

Some prehistoric looking chickens? I think Rive said they were related.

Slightly different than the macaws we'd seen the day before. They're smaller and aside from the red, the color pattern is different. These ones are endangered, he said.

Bats.

I forget the name ofthis tree, but it's the biggest one in the Amazon.

The root of the belly palm tree.

After spending four days out in the jungle, this is what my arms looked like. It was either wear a long sleeved shirt and suffer from heat exhaustion or constantly spraying ourselves with deet that obviously didn't work too well. Our guides kept saying to watch our mosquito bites. That there were two kinds that wouldn't show up until a couple weeks later (after we'd left) that would either have eggs under our skin or cause deep pock marks from a bacteria (I think?). They told us if this happened to get treated by a travel doctor, cuz most doctors would prescribe some antibiotics that would only worsen a problem they couldn't accurately identify to begin with. I was worried about this, since I was heading to the Philippines two weeks later and wasn't sure if it did happen that I could get the right treatment.

It turned out okay though. I was itchy for a month, waiting for them to heal. It's mostly faded now, but I still have some dark spots left over.

After the otter thing, it was two hour boat ride down the river, followed by an hour in a taxicab through the jungle towns, and then another ten minute boat ride across, and three hours in a car to take us to Puerto Maldonado, where we would take a plane from there to Cusco to Lima. It felt kinda crazy, like we'd been out in such an isolated place that we had to take all sorts of boats and cars to get back home.

We flew into Lima, but still had a whole day before our flights home. We left our bags at a locker in the airport, and I took Doan and Edwin around the Miraflores area, where I'd stayed. Ceviche and pisco for lunch (of course!) and then we spent a ridiculous amount of time and money at the grocery store, Vivanda. I was all, oh god, I'm gonna miss all these Peruvian products. The first time I came back from Peru, my carry-ons were filled to bursting with potato chips. Security laughed at me and thought I was being ridiculous, but they have thousands of potatoes there. If anyone knows how to do potatoes, particularly the potato chip, it's Peruvians. This time I filled my carry-on with ceviche mix, microwave chicharrones (like microwave popcorn), Peruvian chocolate, this condensed caramel milk sorta thing that they would put on pancakes instead of syrup that my family later just ate straight out of the bag, and ohh, lots of other things.

Edwin and I were on the same flight home. We were suppose to have a twelve hour layover in Mexico City, but when we checked in, our flight attendant was nice enough to put us on a plane that would only give us a two hour stop. The whole time I was praying it went smoothly. I just wanted a real bed again and a nice, long hot shower. Other than a little bit of a hassle again at Mexico City Airport, we were home quickly enough.

As bummed as I am that I missed out on the other things, hiking the Inca trail and hanging out in the jungle was all so overwhelming. It was so much fun and lately all I can think about is making enough money to travel again, but this time for much longer and across several countries. I was definitely envious of all the backpackers I met and the adventures they had. Anyway, that's the last of my Peru stuff.

Finally at Machu Picchu!

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:34:03 GMT

On our fourth and last day, we were up super early. We were told the night before that we couldn't be late on this morning. The porters had a train to catch at 6:30 am and absolutely couldn't miss it. Otherwise, they'd have to wait until later in the day and pay their own fare, besides missing a day of work. We were packed and at breakfast by 4:45 am. The cook had made us a congratulatory cake.

Seriously! We were all very impressed and you know, spoiled for this being a camping and hiking trip. Breakfast was a quick thing. The porters were already breaking everything down as we were eating. We left shortly after so we could be at the last checkpoint early. I think we were the third or fourth group in line. We all stood there in the dark waiting for the gate to open and it was supposedly another forty-five minute hike to the Sun Gate. Once the gate did open, it was practically a stampede. The path was a lot narrower, the sun hadn't risen yet, and because we were at the beginnings of the rainforest, it was sprinkling on and off the whole morning, making a lot of the rocks very slippery.

I don't know why people were pushing to get there so fast. It was kind of annoying, actually. The equivalent of that asshole that passes you up while you're driving only to have to brake hard at a red light and it's like, wow, you beat me to stopping first. Awesome--we're both still at a red light. Edwin had gone on ahead because he wanted to do an extra hike. Doan, Jackie, and I were making our way along. At first we were trying to keep up with the crowd, but it was kinda dangerous and we gave up and let people pass us up when we could. My body was so weak by that point, that I was just willing myself forward and there was no strength in my step which made my ankles more susceptible to rolling on the wet rocks. We were all paranoid about injuring ourselves at that point because we were so close and everyone around us was rushing through. We weren't going slow either.

When it was light enough and not so foggy, this was the first picture I managed to take:

The closer we got, the more interesting the things on the path became.

An altar?

Not sure what this is, but it looked a lot more impressive in person than it did in the picture.

I wish I'd gotten a picture of it, but there were these stairs that the guides had called the "Gringo Killer Steps" (gringo referring to all strangers, not just white people). They were practically straight up and down. The height of each step was something like two feet and had a narrow ledge so your heels were hanging off. We had to use our arms to pull ourselves up these stairs and make sure we didn't fall. I think everyone got to those stairs and their eyes went wide, like "Holy crap, are these for real?" sorta thing. Added to the steady drizzle that morning, it was quite possibly the scariest point of the hike for me. Jackie, Doan, and I get to the Sun Gate where Marco had told us to wait for him, John, and Lyn to catch up. And what do you know, all the other tour groups were waiting for the rest of their group and guides to catch up as well. I was very smug feeling at that point. All that pushing and running those people had done, only to get caught at a "red light" like everyone else. At least I didn't hurt myself in the process.

Oh yeah, some guy had fallen and dislocated his knee something or other. Not sure. Sucks for him--all that hard work hiking and camping for days only to get to Machu Picchu and have to be carried down the mountain on a stretcher. He did bring it on himself though. We're all like, see! That's what you get for running on the trail. Sure, you got there first for nothing and hurt yourself in the process. If it were me, I would've been so pissed. I was so paranoid the whole time of spraining an ankle or aggravating my already bad knees. If I did hurt myself, I still would've gotten there, I don't care, and then dealt with the broken leg afterwards. Doan gave him some Ibuprofen and John examined him, but couldn't tell how bad the injury actually was.

It was still pretty foggy for awhile. We did get to put down our packs and get rejuvenated before starting the actual tour of Machu Picchu. I feel like my pictures don't show half the beauty of the ruins and the mountains. I kept just looking around in awe of the place because, really there are no words to describe it.

This is my favorite view of all the places we'd seen, but I couldn't get it just right on my camera. The whole time we were there, I'd tried several times to redo this shot and get it just right, but I couldn't figure it out. I loved the way the fog would roll in and out with the sun bursting through.

These are all of the Temple of the Sun. The only round building in Machu Picchu. It was built around the mountain.

An example of the precision of Inca construction. No clay or mud holding this wall together. And a picture of a clumsy restoration:

Your postcard picture shot.

The Temple of the Three Windows.

Apparently the precision of the building blocks only applied to the important buildings.

Surprisingly, not earthquake damage. The Incas had not accounted for water erosion.

Sundial.

Building around the mountain again.

This is the Temple of the Condor, but I couldn't get back far enough to take a picture of the whole thing without people getting in the way. The V shape of the rocks are suppose to be the wings and the rock on the floor is the head.

Marco had given us a three hour something tour, after which we had the whole day to ourselves. He was going to head into town (about a thirty minute bus ride down the mountain) where he would wait for us to give us our train tickets back to Cusco. The thing is though, being on the trail is tough and it's really good for seeing the classic Inca Trail and all those ruins along the way, but by the time we got to Machu Picchu--which is very, very beautiful--we were so exhausted that pretty much we're like, "Okay, great lecture, next ruins...more Inca ruins, great...next," sorta thing. It would've been nice if we had an extra day to rest and come back and spend the whole day walking up and down every single building, but we didn't know.

John and Lyn stayed the afternoon and I think had lunch there. We said our goodbyes to them and exchanged contact info. The invited us to visit them and were incredibly sweet. I thought how lucky their kids were to have them as parents. They're funny, open-minded, smart, well-traveled--I could go on and on. Afterwards, we followed Marco on the bus into Aguas Calientes, where we had a lunch of pizza and burgers. Upstairs, there was a place with hot showers and an hour massage for $20. That, and we found a lavanderia that would pick up our laundry and deliver it back to us, so we'd never have to leave the massage parlor. The shower was nice and hot, with good pressure. Jackie and I were in the same room. My masseuse was male, which I've never had before, but I wasn't worried, seeing as how Jackie was just a couple feet over with her own masseuse. I tell you, it was better than any other more expensive massage I've paid for before. My guy was good. He kneaded over every muscle twice. There were times it did hurt though, but I didn't complain because when he was done, the aches were gone. Afterwards, I didn't want to get up from the table. I think Jackie and I lay there for another half hour, wishing we'd paid for another hour. We sat around and relaxed, waiting for Edwin and Doan to finish. Wandered around town for a little bit.

By the time we came back and Doan and Edwin finished, it was time to catch the train back. There was a mixup with our tickets. Apparently we weren't suppose to be on the train for another 24 hours (and it was the last train of the night), but after some begging and pleading, we were allowed on. Eventually we make it back to our original hotel at around 11 pm or so. Doan, Edwin, and I had a flight to catch at 8 am to Manu Jungle. Jackie was headed home.

I missed that girl. I was sorry that she couldn't join us.

Inca Trail: Day 3

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:41:49 GMT

We got to sleep in a little bit this morning since we had an "easy" day ahead of us. After breakfast, the porters introduced themselves, which was kinda nice. Later on at dinner, they did it again, but also adding what they had carried for us on the trail. Like, "I carried the propane gas tanks," or "I set up the tents," kind of thing. I felt a lot more appreciative of all the hard work they did making us as comfortable as possible on this trip. We left shortly after the picture. Marco had told us it was only a four hour hike to the lunch campsite, where we'd also end up spending the night. There was a bar there and hot showers for cheap. All of us were exhausted and in agreement that if we took longer to get there, it'd be okay since we were spending the whole day there.

This is a picture of the ruins we didn't get to see from the night before. We were across the mountain, and not close enough to make a quick trip back, so this was as close as I could get.

Doan, pharmacist that she is, had lots of Ibuprofen. I took an 800 mg pill. By that third day, everything was aching. My body was screaming at every movement--even my arms because when my legs got tired, I was pushing myself off the trekking poles in order to keep going forward. About an hour into the hike, the pill kicked in and worked a lot better than I thought it would. As it turned out, it really was an easy hike that day. Not just because it was shorter, but most of it was a more gradual descent. It felt harder though because of how much our bodies hurt. The build up of the previous two days had sapped all of my strength and what was suppose to be a four hour hike, we did in six instead. I was able to keep up better on this day. Instead of being in the middle to last group, I was at the front. I don't know if everyone was just more exhausted than I or that Ibuprofen worked really well, or Edwin was trying to make me feel better about lagging--either way, it was nice to be able to be at the front for once.

It was freezing that morning. Frost everywhere.

See that tiny white peak on the left side? I believe that's Salkantay mountain. Every so often I'd stop and take a picture of it, just to see how big it would grow as we got around the corner from it.

Marco had taken a picture of each of us as we went through this. He called it the "love tunnel." To Jackie I said, "Is that what it's called because it's shaped like a vagina?"

All of this was stairs. You can kinda see the line coming around the corner in the top left.

Ancient Inca irrigation system.

Totally a fake trail the president had made for the lazy people! I think this route is part of the "two day" hike offered that joins up with the last leg of the regular four day hike.

When we got to the campsite, I threw my stuff down and was ready for a nap. We had lunch and I ate a lot that day since we didn't have to hike afterwards. I wanted to shower before we went down to the last set of ruins, but didn't have time. I had taken off my hiking boots and was just sitting in the tent massaging my feet. I considered not going that afternoon. I was exhausted and aching, my right toe was black underneath the nail polish, and I swear I didn't have any strength left. But I thought, "I'm here, I'm doing this, I should be maximizing this experience, including pushing myself for this tiny hike." It hurt and the thought of putting my boots back on was enough to make me cry (secretly on the inside), but I'm glad I went. It turned out to be my favorite set of ruins.

Huynay Huayna:

I got to wander around by myself, without feeling like I was pressed for time. It was really nice and kinda peaceful. I headed back to camp by myself and finally got to take a shower. It wasn't the best shower, but after three days of ridiculous sweating and baby wipes, it was pretty much the best feeling in the world at that moment. Our group then got together to throw in tip money for the porters and stuff. Dinner turned out to be pretty fun and extra fancy that night. The cook had carved animals out of vegetables.

We're like it's just us and we're camping...we don't need that, but still it was cute.

After dinner, the porters reintroduced themselves. They sang us a Quechua song.

We were all joking and laughing a bit. We then thanked them for everything (i.e. gave them their tip money) and went around shaking hands with them. Or rather, the guys shook hands with them, and when they got to the girls, they pulled us in a little closer when shaking our hands and kissed us on the cheek. I know this is a common Peruvian custom, but a couple of them got a little too close for comfort. I didn't say anything and let it slide cuz they'd been extra nice to me, but I knew what they were doing! Not wanting the night to end, we all headed into the bar.

Edwin and John bought a couple of rounds of beers and I bought a bottle of pisco. We thought about getting more, but we did have a 3:30 am wake up call. It was short, but it was nice to hang out in a more relaxed setting.

Since we were at a much lower altitude, it was nice and warm that night. I don't think I was even wearing a sweater. I was so looking forward to seeing the stars from up there, but the other two nights I was too exhausted to remember, and that night when I did, it was too foggy to see anything. It was the best night of sleep I'd gotten on the trail. I was warm and passed out immediately, didn't wake up at all rolling or anything, just slept straight through.

Inca Trail: Day 2

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:30:50 GMT

Dawn on the second day.

The porters came around to wake us up early, maybe around 5 am. They knocked on our tents with a thermos of hot water and coca leaves. Once I had a cup and was warmed up, I was ready to take on the day. It started out easy, but very cold. I remember hiking for a long time and not heating up, despite the exercise. My hands were frozen all morning. The first part of the day was gorgeous. There were more trees around and it was especially green.

Doan, posing for the camera.

I think Edwin had actually said, "Wow, it's like an Irish Spring commercial!" We were stopping every few minutes to take pictures of everything. Some time that morning, a llama herd came running through:

You can see porters from another group up ahead.

I don't know when it happened--about the time the sun came out--it just got harder and steeper and grew worse as the day progressed. Some parts weren't so steep, but either way it was all uphill, to the highest point of whole hike at 14,000 ft. It felt like we were going that way for hours. It was then that the muscles started to ache. We were doing lunges straight up for god knows how long. I was definitely taking breaks often. Not gonna lie, I thought I was dying. I wanted to quit. At that point, though, we were more than halfway up the hardest part and the only way back is the same way we came. I pretty much had no choice but to keep going forward. This is the logical thinking of course, but every few feet, I keep thinking how nice it would be to quit at that moment.

That's when I developed a mantra of just putting one foot in front of the other. I tried not to look up because it was discouraging to see how much further the trail was. I hated when I'd turn a corner thinking I was close to the top, only to see more hikers going up an even steeper side of mountain. (I'm sure it wasn't), but I swear there were parts of the mountain that were straight up.

See the crescent part in the middle? That's the highest point of the climb. That last stretch up there, all I could think of was that this was all my stupid idea in the first place and none of us would've been here if it hadn't been for me. I couldn't quit. And when I finished it, I'd have bragging rights, right? I should've chosen a place like India or something where I could be riding an elephant instead of such a demanding trip. All of these things kept replaying in my head.

The other thing though, was that all of us were working so hard to get up that mountain, we'd forget to stop and look around because the mountains were breathtaking. Literally and figuratively. I tried taking pictures of it, but my camera isn't doing the place any justice. I don't know how true it is, but one of the other hikers had said that he went skiing in the Alps all the time, so he's seen some beautiful mountains, but none of them compared to this.

This is the last stretch before getting to the top. By that time, I was so exhausted. I didn't care that I was almost there, I wanted to rest right that second. The nice thing was that Edwin had stayed with me through most of the hardest part of the day and was talking me through that last part.

Our celebratory picture:

We survived Dead Woman's Pass! (Named after the dead woman Hiram Bingham found when he discovered the place). You can see the valley and the trail behind us, which looks tiny and sorta annoys me that you can't tell just how hard it is by looking at the picture. It's okay. The important thing was that we made it to the top. It was all downhill from there:

Dead Woman's Pass from the other side. In theory downhill sounds easier. In practice...I dunno, it seemed just as hard, if not more so. The steps are huuuge. They're like the length of my whole calf, so stepping down and balancing myself on the trekking poles took so much concentration. I was definitely more focused on this part of the hike, trying not to fall forward, I didn't notice that my knees had started shaking. Some of our porters had turned around and were coming towards us. They went further up to talk to Marco, who was with John and Lyn, not too far behind me. Shortly after, the porters came to me, reaching for my backpack. Marco explained that he could see my knees were shaking as I was going down and that they'd carry my backpack the rest of the way to the camp, which wasn't too far. I felt guilty and kinda bad about that, especially being so close, but what the hell, alright.

Also, when I finally did pause, that's when I felt my knees giving out. I knew I'd messed them up before when I went snowboarding in March. I probably should've had them looked at then. They were incredibly swollen and sore for a couple weeks. I'm pretty sure the doctor would've just said that I did something really awful to them and that I shouldn't go on this hike because it'd aggravate the condition. But see, that answer doesn't get me my deposit back. I'm gonna go anyway and if I break my leg afterwards, then I'll deal with it, but until that happened, there wasn't anything that was gonna stop me from going.

We get to lunch--again, another amazing meal. During this time, Marco asks me where I'm from. I say California, but my family is originally from the Philippines. Apparently some of the other tour guides and porters were asking about me. They thought I was Colombian. I didn't see this, but earlier when the porters had taken my backpack from me, they were fighting over who got to carry it. Afterwards, that's what he called me, along with princesa and linda, which I don't mind hearing. He then asks the rest of us if we want to camp here for the night. The next campsite over is another four hour hike. It was tempting to stay there, especially considering the exhausting morning, but if we pushed it to the next campsite, it would mean we'd have a shorter day on the third day, get to the last campsite early, and be one of the first groups to get a hot shower. As opposed to staying at that campsite now, waking up super early, and having an incredibly long third day. We decided to leave after lunch. It wasn't so bad, just long. Beautiful though.

Can you see how high the steps are?

This is where we had lunch and where a lot of the other groups were overnighting. If you look carefully, you can see some of the trail leading into the camp.

Hanging out in the ruins.

So steep you can't see where you're going. My favorite!

This sorta reminded me of Pirates of the Carribbean.

I discovered what "macro" was. Except maybe I didn't do it so well. (As it turns out, I'm still discovering a whole bunch of features on my camera. Not that it matters. I don't know that I have the patience to learn how to properly use it).

We didn't make it to camp before sunset, except Edwin, since he's the strongest hiker out of all of us. There was another set of ruins the rest of us didn't get to see, which I was kinda bummed about. For awhile, we were hiking in the dark. It was a full moon though and pretty bright. A couple of porters had turned around to check on our group, which was nice. They told Doan and I that it was only another 20 minutes or so until we got to camp. (Although without having to carry anything, the record for doing the whole Inca Trail amongst the porters is something like 3 hours. Porter hike time is a liiiittle different and 20 minutes was an underestimation, to say the least). Edwin and Jackie had already made it. They went on to check on John, Lyn, and Marco. As we're walking the last stretch, another porter came up to us and took our backpacks as we walked to camp. I don't know how long it was. I'm sure another hour, but it felt longer.

We were exhausted by the time we arrived, but it was nice to finally be there. The third day was suppose to only be a four hour hike and we'd spend lunch and dinner in the same place and have time to lounge about. (In theory--but we ended up taking longer). It was incredibly cold that night, and I had curled myself up around a hot water bottle, which didn't help much. Some point during the night, I rolled off the mattress pad and was sleeping in a wet spot. I tossed and turned most of the night and didn't much sleep.

Inca Trail: Day 1

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:07:36 GMT

Jackie, Edwin, Doan, and I booked our Inca Trail trip with Llama Path. Several people on the Lonely Planet forums recommended them. It turned out to be a really good choice for so many reasons (and I can't say enough good things about them). We had a small group of six tourists, which made it really personal. They were very professional, cared about their porters' welfare, and just had it together overall. I really liked our tour guide, Marco. He knew his stuff and it was amazing to hear the history and stories from someone who was so passionate and emotionally connected with the subject.

Marco picked us up at our hotel just as we were checking out at 5 am, along with a bus full of porters and John and Lyn, an older couple that was joining us for the trail. John and Lyn were amazing, by the way. They were cute and hilarious. It was fun to watch them interact with each other. The best part was that John is a doctor and Doan is a pharmacist with a full medicine cabinet in her backpack. I figured we probably had the safest group to be traveling in. We had breakfast at Ollantaytambo, followed by a two hour bus ride to the beginning of the trail. None of us had slept much the night before and we tried to on the bus, but it was freezing. I was wearing a down jacket, a hat, mittens, and secretly trying to cuddle with Jackie, but I could barely even doze without the cold waking me up. We get to Km 82, which is the entrance of the trail. (We have this same picture on about five different cameras):

From left to right: Edwin, me, Jackie, Doan, Lyn, and John.

The lack of sleep was forgotten and we were just excited and pumped to be there. We had hired extra porters to carry our stuff, so all we had was a daypack. Still it was hard and it got to a point where I didn't even notice a difference in carrying a pack. Honestly though, I was kind of disappointed with the first impression of the trail. There are still lots of people living at the beginning of the trail and horse shit everywhere. It kind of took away from the grandeur of the mountains. I had no idea what it would really look like, but it's the Inca Trail, you know? I was expecting something majestically awesome (and it did get crazy amazing in the days to follow), but that first day, I remember being really focused on not stepping in crap.

The hike itself that first day wasn't terrible. It wasn't easy either, but the lack of sleep was definitely not helping. I didn't have a problem with my muscles at that point, it was more the breathing and altitude. I don't know after how long, but at some point, the ground leveled out a bit and I took this picture:

Marco tells us we're going to rest here awhile. I am definitely relieved to hear this. I get to the edge though, and this is what I see:

I forget how tired and sweaty I was and was just holycrapamazing! and taking pictures. He sits down on a rock and has us sit around him (not unlike Maria teaching the kids how to sing in the Sound of Music). He then goes into a lecture about the history of that particular place and I am completely fascinated by the whole thing. I took a short video of him talking, but unfortunately it was too windy and you can't hear anything.

Here's a picture of our amazing porters, by the way:

Unlike the other groups, they always traveled together and looked really happy. They would leave after us, pull way ahead, have the campsite and our meal waiting for us by the time we arrived.

We get to lunch that first day, there's soap and hot water to wash up waiting for us. As we walk into the camp, the porters would clap and cheer and you can't help but get excited and feel triumphant that you made it, waving your trekking poles in the air. The cook would make five different dishes each meal. They did this with our napkins:

There'd be a different shape each meal and you think, are we camping, for real? The food was dellllicious. And not just because we were hiking all day. It really was tasty and they accomodated vegetarians, no problem. Edwin would get his own special dish, besides the rest of the main dishes, half of which were veg friendly. The problem was that after hiking all morning, by the time we get to lunch, we were starving. The food being delicious as it was, it was hard not to overdo it. Of course, the "itis" would set in and it's hard to find the strength to hike another five hours to where we're suppose to overnight. (On the other hand, if you didn't eat enough, you found yourself starving on the trail, eating the snacks they gave you and then some).

Some other pictures from the rest of the day. I tried to take pictures every so often along the trail so I wouldn't forget it. But while I have the pictures to remind me what I saw and where I was, I forget what they actually are:

I think bears eat the flowery things growing out of the rocks?

I don't remember how much longer we hiked after lunch, but we managed it alright. Earlier that day, I was worried about how I was going to survive the second day. We were suppose to get up to 14,000 ft and it was gonna be incredibly steep. I was already feeling wiped out, but when Marco pointed out where on the map we were (maybe about halfway up the steepest climb), I felt a lot better. It was suppose to be an hour or two before dinner after we got to the campsite, so I decided to take a nap. Jackie came to wake me up, but I was so warm and sleepy in my bag already, I didn't care about dinner anymore. I ended up sleeping until the next morning.

Here's our first campground:

I slept, ohh, maybe a good 12 hours and woke up the next day ready for it.

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:18:34 GMT

Shortly after I'd gotten back from the last leg of my Peru trip, I'd gotten sick. I had all these symptoms that weren't related to each other. I don't know for sure, but I think it was the side effects of my anti-malaria pills. It was really kinda weird and extremely exhausting. Or maybe my body just breaking down after an incredibly hard trip. Anyway, by the time I got over it, it was time to leave for Hawaii and the Philippines and so I just haven't gotten around to updating and posting pictures.

I fell in love with Cusco. While Lima was fun and beautiful, if I had to get stuck in a city with no income, money, or friends, I wish I'd ended up in Cusco instead. Yes, more tourist-y, but it was more romantic, the history amazing, and just gorgeous everywhere you turned. It wasn't very pleasant to walk on, but I loved the cobblestone streets. We only had two days to spend there to get acclimated to the altitude, which was no joke. Our hotel was very cute, in the San Blas neighborhood, surrounded by hills with narrow steps built into the sidewalk. It was fine while you were moving, but when you stopped, you found yourself panting really hard and completely out of breath after just a few steps. We all had some altitude medicine, all the while we were sucking down coca tea, which is the local remedy for curing altitude sickness.

I don't really like this picture, but anyway, this is our first sip of coca. I don't know if it really worked, but it was tasty and very soothing. By the end of the trip, I was pretty much drinking it at every meal.

I don't know what church this is, but it seemed like there were a lot of them in the area. This is in the main plaza, I think. We ran into a parade of kids.

Had alpaca for dinner.

It tasted kind of like beef to me, but I imagine that was the marinade.

After dinner, we walked around the main plaza for a little bit. There was an outdoor concert going on, so we hung out there, but mostly we were freezing and went back to the hotel. The next day was suppose to be a tour of the Sacred Valley, but there was a mixup at our tour agency's office. We end up only being able to do half the tour, which was okay. The first part of the day was my favorite, actually, where we got to hang out with some llamas, alpacas, and vicunas. Also, did you know they're related to camels?

I thought it was gonna be a zoo sorta thing where we just walk through and take pictures. The guide goes down to the gate, opens it up and somehow I still don't really see what's going on until there's a llama in my face. The gate he was opening was actually the door to the pen. It was pretty intimidating, especially for me cuz I'm not a fan of animals in general. They're big and tall, and there's a lot of them. I do get close though, because when am I ever gonna get close to one of these in my life? So we're all standing out there surrounded by the llamas and petting them when this guy comes in holding a huge bunch of (I think) alfalfa and suddenly there's a stampede, all the while I stand frozen in place thinking, "Holy crap! Maybe if I don't move, they won't see me."

The guy gives us a few stalks and soon enough, they're running towards us and aggressively munching out of our hands.

Our guide showed us the difference in textures for the animals' wool, where they get the dyes from, the different products that come from it. I ended up getting my mom a scarf from here. It was handmade right on that farm, so the quality was guaranteed.

After that we went to Pisac and Ollantaytambo and saw some Inca ruins there. More pictures here. It was interesting, but honestly after being on the Inca Trail and seeing all the ruins along the way, these were kind of forgettable. Although we did run into another, religious parade in Ollantaytambo. As we were coming off the ruins trying to make our way to the main square where our guide told us to meet him, the parade turned down the street we were on and we were fighting through them in the opposite direction trying to get back.

We then headed back to Cusco. Our car broke down on the way back, and we were worried about missing our briefing for the Inca Trail the next day. The tour agency was nice enough to wait up for us. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was late, maybe 10 or so and we were suppose to be picked up the next day at 5 am for breakfast and to start the trail. We still had to repack our things and no one got much sleep before the start of a ten hour hike.

Anyway, I'm still sick. Or it's something new, I don't know, but somewhere between here and Manila, I seem to have caught a cold. Tomorrow I'll post the funner stuff.

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:56:20 GMT

I'm leaving to go home tomorrow night. I'll be back in a couple of weeks since I have deposits on the Inca Trail and rainforest stuff.

I'm kinda bummed though that I have to miss out on Lake Titicaca. I was really looking forward to it. So in the meantime:

Wed, 06 May 2009 19:42:53 GMT

My Spanish isn't terrible. If I try hard enough, I can very slowly carry on a conversation, but mostly I just use phrases like "where is..." "I want to buy..." "I need..." "how much?" etc. It's actually probably better than I think it is, but I'm not very confident in using it. Between that and my need to properly conjugate the verb in the right tense with all the pronouns in the right places, I end up overthinking it and being too slow for most people who by this time resort to their English and I end up not getting as much practice as I should.

So on my way over here, I had a four hour stopover in Mexico City. Having been up the night before my 7 am flight, I slept as soon as I got on the plane and missed the part about the customs/immigrations forms the flight attendants had passed out. I only had a stopover, so I didn't think it was gonna be a big deal, but apparently it is. When I got off the plane, it was apparent that I couldn't just walk over to my connecting flight and had to go through the whole thing. This is about the time I'm regretting choosing the cheapest flight possible, wishing I'd had a stopover in Texas or Miami instead.

I fill out the forms as best as I could, leaving things blank because I didn't know what to put since it was just a stopover. When I got to the immigration officer, he asked me a few questions in Spanish and I replied back in English. He obviously understood me and could tell my Spanish wasn't that great. At that point, he started speaking faster and louder. I got really nervous, only catching every fifth word or so, asking him to speak more slowly, which he refused to do. The shitty part was that when I got back in line and afterwards, I heard him speaking English to everyone else. (I was in the "foreigners" line). I was like wtf? I wasn't being difficult or anything that had warranted him lashing out at me.

When I got to customs, they asked me if I had anything to declare, and I said I had some oatmeal bars in my backpack. It was mostly okay, but one of the women there said something to me and I didn't know any of the words. She rolled her eyes and repeated herself louder and louder. Sure enough though, when the person behind me walked through, I heard her speaking English to them.

And then when I went through security, one of the guards stopped me asking to see my wallet. He spoke to me in English, opened up my wallet, my passport, went through my money. He was asking me questions like "Is this all the money you have? Are you sure? How old are you? Are you sure? Are you traveling alone? Why?" He made me really nervous the way he was questioning me, considering the fact that everyone else was just breezing through. I started to wonder if I needed to offer him a bribe. He let me go though, but I was still kind of shook up by it.

There's more about that leg of the trip, but it's just more people yelling at me in Spanish. It all seemed like such an unnecessary hassle. I think they thought I was one of those Americanized Mexicans coming through, not speaking the language and expecting everyone to cater to me. Or something. And why wouldn't I be Mexican, looking the way I do with my Spanish last name? That's really the only conclusion I can come to. It's not like I wasn't trying to speak Spanish either. I think that really only made it worse, hearing me butcher up my "native" tongue when it should've been my first language.

Anyway, by the time I landed in Peru, I was prepared to go through the same thing. Except for everyone just sorta waved me through and I was off the plane and at baggage claim within twenty minutes. In fact, the immigration officer who stamped my passport was falling asleep. He was sitting on a lower platform and from my point of view, it looked like he had his eyelids lowered to read my forms/passport. But then his head started nodding and I realized he was dozing off. He jolted himself awake, stamped my passport, scribbled something into it, and then let me go. Didn't say a single word to me.

The problem though, is that I didn't realize until weeks later that the immigration officer had only allowed me to stay in the country for 30 days. I need 61. I can stay here for up to 90 days without a visa, but the immigration officer is the one who determines the length of the visit. It's no problem to get an extension, just show an outbound ticket and pay the fee at the immigrations office. Of course, if I had been thinking straight, I could've gotten this done when I first entered the country without any extra fees, but after coming through Mexico's customs and immigrations, I was relieved and happy not to be hassled.

So this morning I wake up extra early to make my way to the Immigrations Office across town. It wasn't too bad this time around. Everyone here was more helpful, but I started getting nervous when more than one person was telling me it wasn't possible to get an extension. I'd read that it was fine in my guidebooks and the government travel website. I was like, I'm leaving for sure. I've got to be on the other side of the world a week later. By the time I got to someone who knew what they were talking about, apparently I don't need another stamp or extension. Everyday I stay over the days on my stamp, I pay $1. I said to the lady, "Really? You're sure? I can do that at the airport when I leave? You're not gonna fine me or deport me early?"

I guess that's good news.

It just sucks that I've been worrying about it and then having to go there and all the unnecessary crap that came with it. I keep thinking I should've said something when I first got in the country. It would've saved me so much time and money. I blame Mexico, really. It's only fair.

Sat, 02 May 2009 01:36:31 GMT

I went paragliding today. I don't know that I can really describe the feeling. It was surreal.

I had emailed the company a couple of days ago and they responded quickly, but there was a mix up with phone numbers. I finally got a hold of the guy, Sandro, this morning. The conversation went something like this:

S: Holá
Me: ¿Sandro?
S: Sí
Me: ¿Habla inglés?
S: Yes.
Me: I was told to call you...I want to paraglide...I don't know if I need a reservation or what.
S: Okay, well I'm headed to Pachacamac (one of their jump sites) right now and I've got one more space in my car.
Me: Yes! I want to go.
S: Great. Where are you?
Me: I'm in Miraflores. 136 Chacaltana. Mochileros Hostel.
S: Yeah, I know the place. I'll be there in five minutes.
Me: Five minutes? Okay. See you then.

As I hang up the phone, I frantically scramble around trying to get dressed and get my stuff together. He pulls up in an old VW Beetle and I climb in. I didn't even really have time to think about it before we were off. There were two other instructors in the car. They were fun guys, joking and laughing the whole time. They asked me how my Spanish was. I said not great, but not terrible. I definitely understood the putamadre parts of their stories. It made them laugh.

Pachacamac is about 30 km south of Lima. It's an archeological site with some biiiig hills. Or small mountains, I don't know. Anyway, we meet up with a bunch of other people--8 customers, and a few other instructors. They divided us into two groups and took the first half up. I was put in the second group, so I got to watch the others take off first.

This is not me, obviously, but this is what it looks like from the ground.

Landing!

The first group landed, looking dazed, saying how amazing it was. They unstrapped themselves, threw the equipment into the waiting pickup and then it was our turn. I wasn't ever really scared, just excited. But I also didn't have time to think a whole lot about it or psych myself out. I did think about the fact though that we hadn't signed any waivers or filled out any forms. The road up was long, dusty, windy, and narrow. Honestly that had me more nervous than anything else. It was an ancient, ancient truck that took us up. I could see the floor through the stick shift and the transmission didn't really sound like it was transmissing.

After what felt like forever, we get to the top, in about thirty seconds I'm strapped in, no instructions, and then take off! Again, no time to think about it, I was just there. Sandro didn't even warn me. He just clicked the carabiners in place, walked a step until the wind caught the parachute, and then we were up. We didn't even jump. It kinda just took off on it's own. Once up there, it was sorta serene and calming just hanging out and really flying.

These are pictures of the valley below. Taken kind of haphazardly while flying.

He said take a picture of your feet! So I did.

This one was taken while in the air.

We were up there chatting a bit. I asked him how strong the wind needed to be. He said maybe about 20 km, but Pachacamac had some underground thermal heat stuff going on, so it was easy for them to jump without much wind. He demonstrated this fact by feeling out the different air. He's like, feel that rocking motion? And all of a sudden we're swaying instead of gliding. That was the air from the ground pushing us up rather than flying with the wind.

My parachute!

Sandro

And me.

I was able to take a short video of the landing, but it seems to be taking forever to upload, so I'll post it later. When we were about to land, he said stand up when I tell you to. I said uhh, okay...Because this girl I'd met in my hostel when I first got here hurt herself during landing. When he said to stand, my legs couldn't reach the ground and I started to panic, but we weren't going as fast as I thought we were and it turned out alright.

He didn't do any crazy spins cuz it turns out one of his brakes had torn or something. Good thing he didn't tell me that until we were just about to land. It's alright though, the whole thing made my head spin a little bit and I was happy to hit the ground. The other girl in my group landed, told me she threw up while flying, and I felt secretly pleased I wasn't such a pansy.

I want to do it again, and if I had the money, I'd seriously consider their crash course in doing it myself. They said if I bring any friends next time, they'd let me fly for free. I was all, sweet, definitely hanging onto your business card.

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:01:07 GMT

On Sunday, I finally managed to go on a city tour. It was three and a half hours long in English and Spanish. It was a good tour, but I wish we'd had more time to walk around and take pictures. Some things we just drove by, others we stopped at. I'm thinking of going on my own back to the places I wanted to get a better look at. Sorry these pictures aren't that great. I was in a hurry and worried about getting left behind.

The buildings in the historic district of Lima are gorgeous. I seriously couldn't get enough of them.

But this one isn't even one of the good ones. There were all these embassies and other historic buildings that were gifted to Lima from other countries.

Anyway, one of museums we went through was Museo Banco Central de Reserva del Perú. When the bus pulled up to it, there was a parade going on. According to our tour guide random shows on the streets happen all the time:

I wanted to stay and watch the parade and take more pictures, but we had a schedule. The museum was nice. Smallish. Had all these artifacts from pre-Inca times. Most of the descriptions of the artifacts were in Spanish. All the Inca gold stuff was beautiful though.

July 28th is their Independence Day. July 27th though, is Pisco Day. Pisco being the national liquor of Perú, Pisco Sours with ceviche being an absolute must. On Pisco day, this fountain in the Plaza de Armas is filled with Pisco all day:

President Alan Garcia lives here:

I was like, man, the White House is so boring in comparison to any one of these buildings.

This is the Palacio Arzobispal:

I think our tour guide said these balconies were a relatively new addition to the building. Moorish influence, pretty common on most of the historic buildings. I forget, I can't remember exactly. I think they're beautiful.

Next to this building is this church:

Afterwards, we went to visit the Monasterio de San Francisco:

We couldn't take pictures inside, but the artwork and history seriously blew my mind. Apparently it's still a working church and monastery. Didn't see any monks myself, but supposedly they were around. It was Sunday though, so maybe they were all at mass. Underneath it, we were led through the catacombs. It reminded me of the Cask of Amontillado. The ceilings were low, the lighting not so good, the walls thick brick and there were bones everywhere. We were allowed one picture:

Awesome, huh?

So that was Sunday. I'm planning on going paragliding this week and then a trip down to the immigrations office that I'm not really looking forward to, but at least I'll get to see the historic section again and go through parks and embassies that we hurried through.

In other news, my allergies are crazy insane here. I ran out of full bottle of Zyrtec and had to go to one of the local drugstores. They don't have the same brand, but the lady gave me something with the same active ingredient, I think. It's just a sheet of pills with no instructions on it. (It's okay though, gamble!) It semi-works, but I feel like I'm taking more than I should. I know Zyrtec is a 24 hour pill, but I've been taking it twice a day. I feel like a freak sneezing every ten seconds and blowing my nose non-stop. My eyes are so dry though and itchy itchy itchy. I may resort to Benadryl. I'll sleep all the time, but at least I know it super works.

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:07:17 GMT

Admittedly since coming to the city, I haven´t done a whole lot of anything. Mostly I´ve been hanging out at the hostel doing the same things I´d be doing at home. I don´t really have a point in being here, which sorta bummed me out. I could be unemployed at home instead but at least I wouldn´t miss out on my favorite tv shows. At least if I were on the farm, I´d wake up feeling like I have something to do, but I don´t want to get tricked into participating in any more Hare Krishna ceremonies. On the bright side, my supervisor, Edwin, is coming in ten days earlier which should be fun and we could actually do the whole "backpacking" in Peru thing.

I´d left the farm with four other girls. They stayed a couple of days and I had lots of fun with them. They actually reminded me of my N st. girls (my old roommates in Davis) and it was nice to feel like I had "girlfriends" again, if only for a couple of days. Anyway, one day we went shopping and walking through Miraflores just to see what there is to see. I was amused by this brand of underwear:

Not just regular, but the deluxe pack!

I had ceviche for lunch yesterday.

It was freakin delicious. I´m not sure what kind of fish it was, but I don´t care, I could eat it all day. The corn here, by the way, is huge. We noticed this on the farm. They served us this sort of rice corn porridge thing for breakfast one morning and we couldn´t believe how big it was. For comparison:

The kernel is bigger than my thumbnail. Also, at the grocery store, I found these corn nuts the same size as this. They´re extra crunchy.

There´s this beautiful park not far from the hostel I´m staying. Just a few blocks down. I run there in the mornings, but mostly I like to sit and watch the coast.

I´m in love with this park. I think I´ve walked through it everyday. There are several benches right along the cliff´s edge. (Although it´s not really a cliff, just a steep incline into the rocks). I like to sit on these benches watching the surfers, reading, writing, people watching. Also, a bit further down is El Parque del Amor.

It´s super cute. There are couples canoodling all over the place. On the wall mosaics they have cheesy love sayings in Spanish. I took several pictures of the statue cuz I think it´s gorgeous.

In the center of all the shops and restaurants of Miraflores is this old Catholic church:

I really wanted to take pictures of the inside, but there were people praying and all, and I didn´t want to interrupt or be disrespectful. Although just inside the doors are a couple of souvenir stands which reminded me of that story about Jesus getting angry and whipping the money changers or whoever they were for doing business in God´s house. I was looking at the jewelry they had for sale and thinking man, are they in trouble.

I should do something more interesting. I was suppose to go on a city tour with this Canadian guy from another hostel, but I think he forgot or canceled or something as the tour bus never picked us up. It´s okay though cuz I han´t paid for it yet, but I was looking forward to going around the other sections of the city. I´ll probably end up doing it on my own.

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:56:40 GMT

Because I´m sure you didn´t believe me:

Last Tuesday night, everyone on the farm was talking about doing yoga on the beach in the morning. The yoga is the one thing I actually like on the farm and I´d missed yoga on the beach last time. The teacher is really good, and even though he´s speaking Spanish most of the time, I understand nearly all of what he´s saying. He´s got a good voice, sets a nice pace, and works really well with the class´s level. From the pictures I´d seen on their website, I was pretty excited. It was an hour earlier than usual at 6 am, so we could be out there at "first light." The next morning all the volunteers are up and ready to go, when the devotee leads us out to the beach. First we hiked (which is pretty hard in the sand) up this giant sand dune:

The whole area is always kinda foggy. The clump of trees on the right is the farm. Then downhill to the other side of the beach:

(There are huge areas of rock, so we couldn´t otherwise walk around.)

Chacra y Mar Playa early in the morning.

So we get to these awesome caves, which were kinda scary actually. I couldn´t get a decent picture (what with the fog and all) of what they looked like. The tide was coming in on two sides from the different cave entrances and it´s pretty strong. Within the last few weeks, there´s been a couple of drownings on the beach, including one of the devotees being pulled in with the tide. Anyway, once through the cave, there´s a dry area where some of the farm volunteers had painted one of the Hare Krishna gods on the wall. It would´ve been amazing looking except for all the trash that had washed up. Oh yeah, did I mention this turned out to be a Hare Krishna farm I ended up on? It was a surprise to me and the other volunteers as well!

Anyway, the devotee´s wife starts passing out these dried leaf bowls with flowers in them to all the volunteers. The devotee starts explaining about this particular ceremony, but it´s hard to hear with the tide coming in and out. He starts chanting and other people start drumming while the devotee´s wife starts clanging away on cymbals. They go on singing, chanting, clapping the saaaamme mantra over and over again for like thirty minutes. It was sorta random, really. Afterwards, we left the caves and went back to the beach to make an "offering" (the bowl of flowers) to their sea god, I forget the name.

Just more pictures of the beach. What you don´t see is all the trash on the shore, including a rotting dog carcass.

We never did get to do yoga on the beach. It´s just as well. I felt like such a douchebag in my matching grey sweatpants and jacket while everyone else is dressed all bohemian chic. The yoga there was a lot more intense and more of a workout than I expected. I really think it helped with my posture issues.

So I left the farm. On their website, they´re pretty vague about any of the religious stuff. They make it sound like the farm is the primary thing, and if you want to, you can participate in some of their Vedic philosophy classes. It´s more like a Hare Krishna temple with the farm being a faaaaarrr second. In fact, they hire people to work on the farm and the volunteers can help out if they want. And even then, there´s no real direction with the volunteer "program." All the volunteers I met there were sorta wandering around the first few days trying to figure out the place. Given, we did all arrive during a busy week, Semana Santa (Holy Week), and they were swamped with tourists, but still. It sucks because before I´d planned this trip and was researching communes, I´d rejected several programs when I found out there was a religious focus. I feel like they purposely leave out that fact from their website.

I wouldn´t have minded staying longer, but all the other volunteers were leaving by the end of the week. They made it a little more bearable and fun, so I left with four other girls last Thursday and I´m back in Lima in a hostel in the Miraflores section of the city. It´s a pretty nice area, though plenty of tourists which sorta kills the mood but does make it easier for me to get by. I´m pretty disappointed the farm didn´t turn out the way I thought it would. The point of the trip wasn´t really suppose to be a vacation (just the last part when I went to Cusco with my friends). I was looking forward to the isolation and simple living and learning about all the ecological stuff and stuff. But anyway, I´m here now and I´ll try to figure out what I´m going to do next.

Oh, by the way, for those of you worried about my bathroom issues, it seems to have resolved itself. I think I caught a stomach bug of sorts. I´m not sure from where--the unsanitary conditions on the farm, the one time I brushed my teeth with tap water, or maybe the transition back into meat after eating vegetarian food the last week? Not really sure. Either way, I let it run its course for a day before taking medicine to ease the insane stomach cramps I´d had all day. I may not have any pressing issues going on, but I really can´t spend the day pooing every couple of hours. I predict things will be okay now.

Not sure how long I´ll stay here, but it´s cheap (only 15 soles a night! =$5), clean, safe, and close to all the action of the city. I´ll explore a bit. Thinking of going to Máncora, but we´ll see what finances look like.

Baño Ecologico

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:21:12 GMT

Hey Guys,

I made it onto the farm, but I don^t think I^m going to stay the whole two months here. In fact, I´m going to leave by the end of the week. It´s beautiful and all, just there´s more to it than meets the eye. I¨m thinking of heading back to Lima and staying at a hostel the rest of the time and then exploring the city on my own. I might go crazy if I stay too long here. (I¨m having trouble with this keyboard as far as apostrophes and all go).

Some of you already know this, but for those of you who don´t, I´ll share, embarrassing as it is. Anyway, I have trouble pooing in toilets that aren´t my own. When I´m staying somewhere unfamiliar, depending on how long the stay, I either don´t poo at all, or I will but only a tiny bit and still not feel satisfied that I´ve pooed enough. Before, when I was telling people about this farm, I would (facetiously) say that it´s a hippie farm where they do yoga all day, do organic farming, vegetarians, compost their own crap. But they really do compost their own crap. The toilet is a white bucket with a toilet seat on it. You sit down, do your business, and when you´re done, there´s another bucket of dirt next to you, and you take a big scoopful of it and pour it on top of your business. This is how you "flush" the toilet. Later on, someboday takes it and empties it into the composting pile. Think of it as a kitty litterbox.

This is fine really, and I have no problem with the idea. I just have problems making myself actually use the thing. Every time I go, I don´t think I´m letting go fully and spend the whole day feeling like I have to use the bathroom still, but not a whole lot of anything does come out on either end.

Anyway, the other volunteers here on the farm are amazing. They´re all like, world travelers backpacking across countries and picking up a million languages on the way. I´m jealous and feel like such a naive baby when it comes to what they´re talking about. All their stories begin with something like "Oh, when I was in India..." or "This reminds me of when I was living in London." I wish I could go into more detail about it. I´m having a good time with them and maybe might tag along with what comes next. Except I probably brought too much stuff with me to backpack for real anywhere at a moment´s notice.

This is a picture of the inside of my room.

This is what the outside looks like. Notice the chicken on the right. It´s been hanging out there for the last three days. I can´t stand the chickens in the morning.

The thing poos everywhere.

This is the courtyard entrance to where the volunteers sleep. To the right, not in the picture is the door to my room.

This is the hostel area. There were actually quite a few guests staying, and it was pretty busy when I arrived because of Semana Santa, but it seems to have slowed way down today.

A jellyfish(?) I found when walking on the beach.

Sorry to my lj friends who´re reading this from their friends page. The monitor is sorta blurry, and I´m having trouble reading stuff, and my cut tags aren´t working.

Anyway, I´ll probably be back in Lima the next time you hear from me. Once I get off the farm, I´ll let you know the real story.

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:49:47 GMT

In case you don't already know (since this is my first public entry in about four years), I quit my job (today!) and I'm going to live on a farm in Peru. Everyone laughs when they hear this, as if I'm being completely ridiculous, but it's true. Here's a link to the place where I'll be staying:

Eco Truly Park

Years ago when I was still in Davis, one of my old roommates, Kendall, had asked if I wanted to go live on a farm in Nicaragua. I said sure, cuz I wasn't doing anything important anyway, and we spent the next hour or so on the internet looking at this program she'd found. Nothing ever came of it though and it was only something we'd talked about in passing. I just sorta remembered this idea in the last few months. I wanted to take a break from my job for several reasons, but I didn't want to sit around at home watching tv all day while I figure out what I want to do. That's when I remembered Kendall's idea and googled communes. The first link was to a directory of communes all over the world with a brief description of the place.

As soon as I read about Eco Truly in Peru, I was instantly in love. I went looking through all the pictures on their facebook trying to find out everything I could. The more I saw, the more I wanted to go. After picking up a guide book at Barnes & Noble, I thought hey, as long as I'm down there, I could drop by Machu Picchu. Apparently the only way to properly see it is to backpack and hike the Inca Trail, so I guess that's what I'll do. I invited several people to go with me and plenty were interested, but not so many that were able to go. One of my supervisors at work, Edwin, and my old roommate Jackie said they'd come along for the hike. Edwin then suggested a jungle tour as well. I mean, the Amazon is close by and we're already there, so why not? So that's how all that happened.

Last Wednesday I went down to REI to pick up some of the major stuff I needed. I don't know anything about camping gear, so I call Vaughn, geologist extraordinaire, and ask him. He starts naming all the specific things I'm going to need, getting into detail about cost vs. quality and necessity as I run around the store picking up the items up as I see it. Made the whole thing super easy as I otherwise would've wandered around for hours before deciding between one sleeping bag or the other. When I get home, I try out all my stuff again. This is when it starts to hit me that I'm really gonna do this. So I'm rolling around in my new down pomegranate colored sleeping bag in front of the tv when National Geographic's Locked up Abroad comes on featuring an episode in Cuzco (where the Inca Trail begins). It really starts to freak me out and I want to change the channel, but on the other hand, I should keep watching so I know what I shouldn't do.

I told my other supervisor, Tyler, about this. He says, "That's why I was telling you not to smuggle drugs the other day! That's the same episode I saw!" I thought he meant it as a general precaution. I saw Brokedown Palace. Edwin, if you read this, I swear if you let some girl liquor you up and trick you into smuggling drugs...

Anyway, only a couple more days. I'm not sure I'm prepared. I feel like I have so much stuff to do and I'm procrastinating by blogging about it all. The next time you hear from me, I'll probably be there already. I'll put pictures up and stuff. I guess I should offer to write postcards, but I'm actually pretty terrible at remembering this stuff. If you want one though, email your address to me at lbbayona@gmail.com and I'll try.