Four nights in busses, four in sketch hostals, a lost pair of pants, two marriage proposals, and some of the most amazing scenery in the world later, I can finally say “Look! I made it!” as I write this in the middle of the night from my comfy bed in Cusco. 

What I originally planned to be a 9 day trek around southern Peru and northern Chile got cut down to 7 days, 8 nights for a series of reasons, but I still got to do and see almost everything I’d wanted to. And it was absolutely amazing.

I should also warn you that this will be one of my longer notes for obvious reasons. I thought about splitting it into two, but then figured that I’d write whatever I wanted and people can read as they wish. 

So lets start at the beginning, well, before the beginning really, where my last note left off.

Juan and I did get together for lunch last Thursday (Mar. 25th) which was awesome. You may remember that he’s an Argentinian anthropologist who has worked at the CBC and is currently working in archives in Qoricancha which have not yet been opened to the public. He offered to show me around the back after I return!! We just have to figure out the paperwork to get me in since I’m a foreigner, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. I’m really excited about that. He also recommended several authors I should look up in the CBC library the next chance I get.

Also entertaining was our discussion about the unrelatedness of the spanish word ‘abogado’ (lawyer) and ‘avocado’ (palta). Apparently the french words for the two are homophones? I don’t know though, I’d have to look that up.

Not quite as epic as constructing the fourth dimension out of marshmallows and toothpicks (a vain but tasty venture), but still good conversation and awesome food. If you’re ever in Cusco, great cheap vegetarian places close to the Plaza de Armas: one on Ruinas as you head towards Tullumayu, and if you take a left from there another on Choquechaka. Lunch s/5, dinner s/4 and includes bread, soup, a main course, and a salad bar. Definitely a win. Just like when I was India, it’s hard to believe that I spend so much on food in the US. A meal like that would be worth $7 USD at least.

After heading to the market to get food and to the house to finish packing, I was off to the bus station! The bus left at 7pm, and most of the 10 hour journey was somewhere between entertaining and incredibly annoying for one of several reasons (1) An elderly man sitting next to me spent a good hour and a half explaining how two of his four sons have tried to kill him more than once. He then spent the next hour trying to convince me to marry his youngest son… are you kidding? You just spent a small eternity telling me your kids are insane, and now you want me to marry one? Um, no. (2) There was no toilet on the bus. For the record, that’s the worst idea ever. Don’t stick me on a 10-hour journey through scary mountains in the middle of the night without a toilet. (3) We had to watch three terminator movies dubbed in spanish. I don’t care how good of a voice actor you are, ‘regresaré’ will NEVER sound as awesome as ‘I’ll be back’ in an Arnold accent. (4) Infants, I love you, I promise I do, but why did you have to start crying at 2am? How about 7pm while I’m still awake or like… 4am when it’s time to get off the bus? Why 2??

Right, so got to Arequipa (the White City), bought my ticket on to Cabanaconde and the Colca Canyon, and bummed around in the plaza for the next few hours until things started to open. That morning wasn’t overly exciting, but I did get an almost free city tour by missing the combi stop for the Plaza de Armas and having to take the long way around. I saw a sign that said ‘de Piurana’ also. I have no idea what ‘piurana’ means, but I definitely read it as ‘purana’ at first (which means ‘old’ in Hindi) until looking again. Figuring out combi systems in different cities is becoming a hobby of mine. Not only are they a small fraction of the price of a taxi, but you also get to see a LOT more of the surroundings since they go roundabout ways. Our political science prof (who’s also running for Alcalde of Cusco) also says combis have a culture of their own, and I have to agree. Everyone from school children to professors to market vendors takes them; all socio-economic classes have to intermingle.

The canyon though, wow. I got off the bus to the canyon in the middle of a deluge around 7pm that night. The hostal I was staying at sent people to come get me from the stop (which was really lucky since if they hadn’t I never would have found it) and spent a nice lazy night in Pachamama. Oh, and hot showers. That was exciting. But lets not talk about standards personal hygeine during the trip. I was backpacking, lets leave it at that. I shared a room with this guy from Spain who’d been backpacking for about 3 weeks. He gave me some suggestions and tips for my hike down the canyon the next day, which was great since what I was planning originally would have been a terrible idea since what the map said was 10km was apparently really closer to 20km.

The next morning (Sat. 27th) I woke up at 5:30am to donkeys and roosters, which was weird because I didn’t see a single one near by. No one in the hostal was up (so much for breakfast included) so I left my payment for the night and was on my way. The 6:30 bus I was supposed to take didn’t show up until 7, but I still got to Cruz del Condor by 7:45. This mirador, or viewing spot, is the best place in the world to see the rare Andean Condor. With a wingspan of over 8 feet, it’s quite a sight to behold. I couldn’t stop taking pictures. The entire canyon was filled with morning mist which the sun slowly melted as the morning went on. Clouds literally flowed through the canyon as the cool morning air rushed through it, to later be replaced by more. You could also vaguely hear the bubbling of the Río Colca almost a mile below at the bottom of the canyon. After a while my brain stopped computing how deep it really is. Wow. I can’t put it into words, and pictures can only begin to describe it. All I can say is from Cusco it’s about an 18 hour $12 journey and the views and experiences are worth anything and everything you go through to get there.

It kind of felt like I was in some science fiction movie like Dinotopia (don’t laugh Kel, it’s a good movie and we both know it) or Avatar waiting at the edge of a cliff for some epic creature to appear on the crest and somehow confirm my worth. And watching them soar and circle through the clouds of the morning updrafts was really one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had here so far.

The tours are ridiculous though. They are minimum of s/50 just for transportation (which I did in less than half that), don’t arrive at the Cruz until about 10am – too late to see anything, and stay for less than half an hour. I spent almost 5 hours at the Cruz and could have stayed longer! Plus, the busses are cheap and frequent, it just takes a bit more effort to figure them out.

I originally intended to leave at 9:30, head back to Cabanaconde, and continue my hike down the canyon, but being the genius I am, I missed my bus and didn’t make it back until nearly noon. It worked out though since if I’d left earlier I probably would have gotten lost on the not-as-well-traveled-trail tha I’d wanted to take. I also wouldn’t have seen nearly as many condors as I got to. I got off the bus at another mirador and walked back to Cabanaconde.

Another stroke of genius: instead of walking back to the Plaza de Armas, I decided to ask people which way to the oasis. This resulted in a ‘scenic detour’ involving climbing down this watery bug-filled crevice which intersected with the main trail rather than taking the easier, slightly longer way. But short cuts make long delays, and since I didn’t have a guide with me, I did my best to suck it up and enjoy the walk. (Guides, while arguably better than not having anyone with you, are expensive and tend to treat you like an idiot, a child, or both even if you don’t ask if they know about elevensies)

Once I made it to the main path, I caught up with an Aymara woman originally from Puno who was married to an Arequipeño. She owns property in ‘the second town over’ (Coshñirwa) which was barely visible in the distance. Once every two weeks she makes the journey from Arequipa to check up on her crops and animals which she still owns and maintains there. To get to Coshñirwa from Arequipa involves a 7 hour bus ride, a knee-breaking descent of about 4,000 feet, and another 1.5-2 hour climb up the opposite end of the canyon. She looked at least 55 years old (8 children, youngest is 20), had a load on her back about as big as mine was, and I was almost running down the canyon after her. What any guidebook or person I’ve talked to said was a 3-4 hour descent into the canyon we did in under 2 hours.

By the end of the descent, my knees were killing me and it hurt just to walk. I couldn’t imagine continuing on another 15 minutes, let alone 2 hours mostly uphill.

The night at the oasis in the canyon itself was amazing. There was a small swimming pool and the cold water was fantastic to stretch in. Not having a bathing suit was not enough to stop me after the full day of climbing, plus the chlorinated water was a substitute for the showers that obviously didn’t exist at the bottom of the canyon. I slept in a bed in a hut built by the side of the Río Colca (Colca River) for nearly 12 hours – I was out cold by 6pm when it started getting dark.

The next morning was the tough climb up. A group of europeans and canadians stayed in the same ‘hostel’ for lack of a better term the night before and we all climbed up together. Total was about 4.5 hours, but it was intense and almost straight uphill, though the german shephard and lab retriever puppy that followed us up made the climb significantly more enjoyable. Once back in Cabanaconde, I spent the afternoon reading in the Plaza de Armas. The owners of PachaMama were nice enough to let me use their book exchange and restaurant area to rest from the morning hike and to take shelter from the afternoon storms.

I’m not sure how it seems to happen on any hiking/camping/caving/kayaking trip I’ve been on in the last two years, but somehow a pair of pants got lost. In Gainesville it’s not unusual on OAR trips for someone to find ownerless pants in their trunk/backpack/boat and bring them to the next Thursday meeting asking ‘anyone lose their pants?’ but losing one out of two pairs in a canyon in the middle of no where is a much bigger problem.

Plus, how did I manage it? I didn’t even unpack them!

But stuff happens, what can you do?

I prayed it wouldn’t rain.

I took a night bus back to Arequipa and continued to Tacna on Monday morning (Mar. 29). From there I found the international terminal to head south to Arica, Chile.

That was an adventure. I entered the terminal looking around confusedly for a bus/colectivo/random mode of transportation to get me the 50-something odd km south to Arica, the northern-most city in Chile. Almost as soon as I entered, a driver grabbed my arm, asked ‘a arica?’ Si? “VAMOS!” (‘to Arica?’ yes? ‘LET’S GO!’) Before I knew what was happening, I’d handed over a sol and my passport and was filling out paperwork to cross the border. About 20 seconds later, I was in a colectivo (a shared taxi, once it’s full, it leaves. S/12 Tacna to Arica) to Chile! All I could think was ‘holy crap… I’m leaving Peru… international border in a taxi… holy crap…’

So after the simple border formalities, I was in a different country! Of course the first step after changing money (approx. 530 pesos = $1, and Chile is MUCH more expensive than Peru. It’s amazing how much prices change within 20 miles) was figuring out where the heck I was going to spend the night. The cheapest not-creepy place I found was about $9 a night (crazy expensive by Peruvian standards, but budget in Chile) and several blocks from the main plaza. It was owned by a middle-aged woman and her sister, and was more or less clean and well-kept. It actually looked like a ship on the inside with odd looking fixtures poking out of the walls. My room was about 4 feet x 8 feet: barely enough for the bed let alone anything else, but it was warm and cozy. And a bed!

I also spent some time wandering around the city and realized that the two nights I originally wanted to spend in the National Park of Lauca were completely impossible for several reasons (1) Busses are really hard to catch since the only ones in service are La Paz, Bolivia to Arica, Chile and you have to pray they’ll stop for you. They also cost about 5,500 pesos one way. (2) I am a female traveling alone. While south America is mostly safe, camping alone in the middle of nowhere is not the best idea (3) exchange rates for traveler’s checks in Chile are absolutely horrendous. Most places won’t change them at all, and when I finally did find a place they charged almost 10% commission. That left me with significantly less money than I thought I had and go figure my American Express decided to stop working. (4) The parts of the park I really wanted to see are at over 4,500m above sea level, meaning altitude sickness would be a major issue. I wanted to climb Guane Guane, yeah, not possible when you can’t walk 30 feet without needing to catch your breath.

So I took an organized day tour on Tuesday. It was well conducted and I definitely got to see stuff I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, like the geoglyphs and the dysfunctional railroad, not to mention the black lava flows from Cotacotani and the smoking volcano in the distance. It was also kind of nice to just get to relax for the day and take cool pictures. The views were amazing and it was hard to believe that we were function at over 4,500 meters above sea level, nearly 1,000 meters above Cusco. We also got to see vicuñas (related to but rarer and smaller than llamas), guanes, a bunch of flamingoes, and a puma. The rocks were covered with this bright green stuff which I thought was moss at first but was as hard as rock and had a peculiar smell, almost like anís but not quite. No idea what that was.

Although I wasn’t that physically active, I got back exhausted because of the lack of oxygen at such a high altitude. It’s amazing to me that people live, work, and function almost without air. Even more amazing is that La Paz, the world’s highest capital, is about that high above sea level!

The following morning (Wed. 31 Mar.) , I walked up to the Morro overlooking Arica. Tacna, the southern most city in Peru, was part of Chile until about 1890 during the Pacific War. It was eventually returned to Peru by plebecite, but feelings on both sides were still bitter. Not only was the view of the sunrise from the top brilliant, but there was also a statue of Christ with both the peruvian and chilean seals reading ‘Amaos los unos a los otros como yo os he amado’ (Love one another as I have loved you) which I thought was awesome.

I asked the hostel owner if I could boil some water to take my medicine (dayquill for insane allergies) and she brought it to my room a few minutes later. It wasn’t hot, but I figured that it had been boiled a few hours earlier or something. I was thirsty, so I went downstairs with my glass and asked for some more. She pointedly told me that I could drink the tap water upstairs, refilled my glass from the sink, and stood watching me. Now, drinking tap water in south america is dangerous and normally downright dumb… but I’d already drunk a glass right? And I was thirsty… thank God there were no repurcussions.

That afternoon, my 48 hours in Chile ended happily. I passed the rest of Wednesday bumming around Tacna taking pictures and visiting the few notable museums I could find. The house of Francisco Zela, who gave the cry of Peruvian Independence on June 20, 1821 is a small museum which I found very interesting (and where I also sketchily charged my cell phone) and a few blocks away is a brilliant railway museum containing old parts, and more information about the war between peru and chile. Bonus points for engineers who can identify the parts of the trains in my pictures.

In the evening was a procession for Holy Wednesday and the people of Tacna carried a huge image of Christ carrying the cross through the streets surrounding the Plaza de Armas. They chanted the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary Full of Grace constantly, and stopped frequently to read passages from the Bible. Semana Santa celebrations here in Peru are awesome. I keep getting asked what we do in the US and it’s like.. well.. we have the easter bunny… and some people fast for the weeked or observe Lent… but it’s not nearly the scale that it is here in Perú.

 All in all, an interesting night before I caught my night bus to Arequipa.

Of course I arrived at 3:30am: way too early to do anything but catch a few winks of sleep in the station.

That morning in the Plaza I had an amazing conversation with this random Arequipeñan woman which began with a discussion about Bollywood and how Shahrukh Khan is not attractive and needs to stop flipping his hair like a 10-year old and which finished with how bad Peruvian education systems can be and how dangerous cities are. She lives less than 7 hours from the border of Chile and said she’d never even wanted to go, which really surprised me.

I really wanted to visit the Monastary of Santa Catalina while I was in Arequipa. It’s the only one of its kind and is literally a city within a city, completely self-sustained, and apparently the only one of its kind in the world, but go figure I had exactly 30 soles left and the entry was 30. And I needed to pay for two combis and the terminal tax (total about 3 soles). I tried to convince the ticket taker to let me in for s/27 since I was a student and had been to Chile and had a dysfunctional credit card etc. I wouln’t have been able to eat for the day, which totally would have been worth it, but to no avail. I left rather dejected, but tried to look at it positively. “I’m in Arequipa with 30 soles, what can I do?” so I found two museums and spent the better part of the afternoon eating delicious food: the goal was not to eat anything I’d had before.

That failed when I discovered a churro stand. These were my first churros since I’d gotten to South America and I was excited to find that here they are sugar coated, unlike the tradition Spanish ones I’ve tried which are not and have to be eaten with hot chocolate. I also got a very tasty ‘papa rellena’ or stuffed potato. Basically what they do is make a ball of marinated meat and spiced vegetables, cover it in mashed potatoes, and fry it. Delicious. Oh! And prickly pears! The cactuses all over the place grow prickly pears which tons of street vendors sell for about 30 centimos a piece and they are absolutely amazing. I’ve never tasted anything like it though, so I’m not sure how I can explain it… the closest I can think of is a cross between a persimon and a jamun (sorry, don’t know what jamun is in English) but that’s not it either. I also got to try a ‘yogui’ which sounds like it should be a yogurt sugary dessert thing, but turned out to be a hotdog-and-cheese-filled waffle on a stick. Imagine a corndog with cheese in the middle and with waffle instead of corn bread.

The highlight, however, was a traditional Arequipeño dessert called ‘Queso helado’ literally frozen cheese. If they made rass malai-flavored ice cream, that’s what it would taste like. Kind of like flan-flavored ice cream I guess, but it was more icy and not as creamy as normal ice cream. But omg it was amazing.

An overnight bus later, I was finally back in Cusco with a bed and working hot water. Friday was spent primarily reading and writing. I didn’t take my real journal with me because of the weight and the possibility of theft, but I had a small travel notebook with my itinerary and blank pages to use as a makeshift journal and sketchbook (speaking of which, my drawing is improving! I’m looking forward to being able to paint again when I get back to the US) so now I’m copying my observations and sketches into my actual journal. It’s also time to start working on the other papers I have to write for my classes since both weekends left here in Cusco are already booked (Machu Picchu next weekend and Puno the weekend after), after that I’m off to Lima and then back to the US in about 4 weeks!

In the afternoon, I started reading this amazing book called “The Book Thief” (highly recommend btw), wrote the better part of this entry, sorted through photos to be posted the next chance I get, started getting caught up in my journal, drank about 4 cups of coffee, talked to my dad for the first time in a week, and had an interesting conversation with a british girl who is interning here for the next two months.

All in all, the trip was a win.

Hope everyone’s Semana Santa was what you hoped it would be.

-Geeta