I haven’t written in a while, I’m sorry. Somehow, with my boyfriend here, the things that used to take up my day – like reading Dostoevsky and writing my blog – have slipped through the cracks of my suddenly much busier days. So I’ll try to give a relatively brief account of what those days have been busy with.
I met Tim in the airport in Lima (complete with the classic slow motion running scene and sharing an ice cream in the airport) and we spent a few days in Lima, exploring the city. I’ve decided that if I ever live in a city, I want to live in Lima. The houses are so cute! Each one in its own special way – some look like little stone castles, some like mountain chalets, some like brightly colored boxes covered in flowers, some like Greek temples – and all tiny and nestled in right next to each other.
We spent our first weekend and anniversary in a lodge in the Corodillera Blanca (the White Range), one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Our cabin looked out on a glacier and craggy peaks in one direction and on a sloping valley and more, distant mountains in the other, dotted with potato fields and tiny red-roofed houses. The couple that runs the lodge was really cool; the husband works as an environmental consultant all over Peru and the wife – when she’s not running the lodge or taking guests on horse rides – is working on all sorts of community development projects, from a mothers group focusing on early nutrition and childhood development, to a community center to facilitate tourism in the area, to an afterschool program to develop children’s critical thinking and creativity. The day we arrived, Diana saw our violins and asked if we could come play for the children that afternoon, to introduce them to a new instrument and culture. We agreed happily, and went to play duets for the wide-eyed children who asked, when we told them that our bows were made of horse hair, if they could make a bow out of the tails of Diana’s horses.
On Monday we were off again, this time to Cuzco, the navel of the world…or at least of South American tourism.
Everyone wants to do the Inca Trail – the sacred road that leads to Machu Picchu – but it’s crowded and expensive, even during low season. So we found a local guide who took us around the back way to Machu Picchu, on a lesser used but still authentic Incan trail. We passed by (and spent a few hours at) hot springs on day 1, then followed the train tracks to Machu Picchu Town on day 2, and on day 3 climbed to Machu Picchu itself.
The hike to Machu Picchu was grueling. We woke up at 3:30 AM to start hiking at 4 in the pre-dawn rain, and by the time we got to the base of the 2,000 steps our ponchos were soaked through. Every stone step became a waterfall as we heaved our altitude-sore legs up and up and up. We finally arrived at the gate at 5:30 only to find it locked and with a 200-person line leading to it. Why the line? For tickets to Wayna Picchu, the sacred mountain overlooking MP, to which 400 tickets are given out each day to reduce traffic. The result: only the most hardcore tourists – willing to wake up long before dawn and climb to MP before the first bus – get the privilege of hiking for another hour of impossibly steep steps on already exhausted legs. That’s us! (Since that day, Tim has had a phobia of stone steps, even if they just lead to the entrance of a cathedral. )
When we finally entered MP, the rain had stopped, and the ruins were playing hide and seek with the flitting clouds. Seeing ancient ruins emerge from the mist as if for the first time was worth all the rain of the hike up (at least in hindsight). It was magical. Even better, by the time we climbed Wayna Picchu the sun had come out and we saw MP spread out in all its glory behind us.
MP, said our guide, was a place of knowledge, where priests and nobles came from all 4 corners of the Incan empire to learn astronomy, religion, history and the arts. It was also the home of the Chosen Women, sacred virgins who wove the cloth for the Inca’s robes and rooms and led the rituals worshiping the moon, the second most important deity of the Incas after the sun. I’ve got to say, if the archeologists are right, this must have been the most awesome university ever. And I thought Midd had a beautiful location. Our hills and corn fields can’t compare to those huge jungle-covered mountains rising from the mist like so many grasping fingers.
We took the bus down from MP, too tired to take another step, and slept the rest of the afternoon until our train left. Next Stop: Urubamba, a little town in the Sacred Valley near Cuzco.
We only spent one day in Urubamba, but it was enough – it was Tim’s 21st birthday, and to celebrate it, I took him paragliding over the Andes. Every spectacular view I see eclipses all the previous wonders: the cloud forest in Ecuador was amazing until I saw the mountains and farmland of Intag, which paled in comparison to a sunset over the mighty Amazon, which was buried in my memory by the majestic mountains and glaciers of the Corodillera Blanca, which were obscured by the vision of MP in the mist, which in turn disappeared before the mountains and lakes and golden-green fields of the Sacred Valley, seen from thousands of feet in the air. I can’t even describe why this place was so much more beautiful. Perhaps it was the colors –red earth, green fields, yellow flowers, blue mountains – perhaps it was the light – bright and sunny where we were but with dark rain clouds over the mountains which gave the day an eerie brightness that accentuated every shadow – perhaps it was nothing more than one of the most beautiful places on earth. Anyway, the important thing is, Tim enjoyed his birthday.
Then we went to Cuzco and spent a few days being accosted by cute children in traditional clothes asking us to take photos of them and their little alpacas (for a price, of course) and street vendors selling hats and paintings and silver necklaces. We also saw some impressive Incan ruins and Spanish cathedrals (often at the same time – the Spaniards had a habit of building churches on top of important Incan temples. Did they have the convenience of future tourists in mind?)
I have to say, this part of my trip is very different from anything I’ve done so far. First of all, I’m traveling with someone else, which is a welcome relief. But we’re also walking the “Gringo Trail” and stopping at all the tourist destinations of the country, which changes me from a traveler (as I was in Ecuador and my first month of Peru) to a tourist, plain and simple. It changes my associates, too. As a traveler, my friends (and they were all my friends, even if I didn’t ever get their names) were the adventurous backpackers traveling all South America in a year or the people with round-the-world airplane tickets coming from Malaysia or Namibia with exotic stories to share. Now, half the people I see are middle-aged Argentineans here on tours for their summer vacation. It changes my impression of myself. I’m not sure I like this new identity, but I can’t spend 2 months in Peru and not see MP, right? So I grit my teeth and try to remember that I probably know more about coffee farming in the highlands and banana transportation in the Amazon than these people will ever learn. And then I ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ with the rest of them at the ingenuity of Inca ruins and the colorful clothing of the indigenous women.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Saturday, January 02, 2010
The last journey of 2009
I left Iquitos with a week to go before Christmas. The fact that it took me the whole week to get to Arequipa (where I spent Christmas and New Years with my friend Joaquin) still astonishes me. My concept of time in relation to travel is changed forever. When it takes 3 days to go from Iquitos to the nearest road, journeys counted in hours become mere trifles. 18 hours from Lima to Arequipa on a bus? Easy. And I wonder how the 4-hour drive to Boston could ever have seemed long.
The boat trip was enjoyable, though. I made friends with my neighbors – fellow travelers from Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia – and had wonderful long conversations about everything from 80s music to sex slaves in Mexico. When we finally stepped onto dry land again, I found myself suddenly sad – I’d been in the Amazon a whole month, gotten used to the heat, the rain, sleeping in a hammock, grown to love the awe-inspiring clouds and the smell of bananas, begun to expect to see river dolphins every afternoon, and here I was leaving…who knows when I’ll ever return?
The bus ride from Yurimaguas to Tarapoto was 2 hours of windy roads up into the mountains. How windy, you ask? Well, the first thing the bus attendant did when we set off was give everyone a little black plastic bag – not for trash, as I thought, but to be sick in, should the road affect you too much – and almost every single one got used by the time we arrived. I have never seen so many sick people in my life. Not the most pleasant experience.
From Tarapoto, my new friend Mayo (a jazz singer from Chile, living in Colombia) and I took the night bus to Trujillo, on the coast. I went to sleep in a jungle and woke to a desert – what a shock! For the girl used to relying on rainwater to wash her dishes every evening, used to the constant sounds of birds and insects from the forest, most of all used to being constantly surrounded by things green and growing, a dry and barren desert was hard to take.
I spent a day in Trujillo, going on a tour of Chan Chan, the largest pre-Columbian city in South America, and largest adobe city in the world. Some of the temples were amazingly well preserved, either because they were buried in sand until recent excavation or because the Chimor people themselves buried their temples inside newer temples, so underneath crumbling mud-brick walls you can find perfectly preserved paintings of gods and snakes and human sacrifices. It was fascinating. I have to say, though, if I were to choose an ancient Peruvian city to live in, I’d prefer Machu Picchu – true, the Chimor had great beaches, but I’ll take mountains and (especially) trees over that any day.
From Trujillo I went on down the coast, past Lima (and by ‘past’ I mean I spent 3 days wandering around the city) to Arequipa, where Joaquin lives. Joaquin was one of my best friends at UWC but I haven’t seen him since we graduated, so I was really excited to get here. And I was not disappointed. His whole family is super cool, and I passed a wonderful Christmas and New Years being entertained by silly jokes and intellectual conversations and lots and lots of illegal fireworks. Wow. I have never seen so many fireworks at one time. For both Christmas (or rather, midnight on Christmas Eve) and New Years, every single roof sets off fireworks, and in a city of almost 1million people, that’s insane. For about an hour after midnight, there were magnificent displays in every direction I looked. It was very much fun.
Some of the New Years traditions around here: 1. Wear yellow underwear for the New Year…apparently it’s good luck. So for the week between Christmas and New Year, all the streets were decked out little shops selling yellow underwear, yellow boxers, even lacy yellow thongs. It was crazy. 2. At the stroke of midnight, drink 12 shots of champagne, one per minute, each with a raisin in it. Why a raisin? I don’t know. It’s supposed to bring money in the coming year. I just ate the raisins. 3. If you plan on traveling, run around the block dragging your suitcase to ensure safe travels. I didn’t have my backpack with me, but I ran around with my shoulder bag and camera…that’s got to count for something.
Now I’m off to Lima again (on another short 18-hour bus ride) to pick up my darling Tim and start off on a wild tour of Peru’s greatest attractions. I’m so excited!
The boat trip was enjoyable, though. I made friends with my neighbors – fellow travelers from Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia – and had wonderful long conversations about everything from 80s music to sex slaves in Mexico. When we finally stepped onto dry land again, I found myself suddenly sad – I’d been in the Amazon a whole month, gotten used to the heat, the rain, sleeping in a hammock, grown to love the awe-inspiring clouds and the smell of bananas, begun to expect to see river dolphins every afternoon, and here I was leaving…who knows when I’ll ever return?
The bus ride from Yurimaguas to Tarapoto was 2 hours of windy roads up into the mountains. How windy, you ask? Well, the first thing the bus attendant did when we set off was give everyone a little black plastic bag – not for trash, as I thought, but to be sick in, should the road affect you too much – and almost every single one got used by the time we arrived. I have never seen so many sick people in my life. Not the most pleasant experience.
From Tarapoto, my new friend Mayo (a jazz singer from Chile, living in Colombia) and I took the night bus to Trujillo, on the coast. I went to sleep in a jungle and woke to a desert – what a shock! For the girl used to relying on rainwater to wash her dishes every evening, used to the constant sounds of birds and insects from the forest, most of all used to being constantly surrounded by things green and growing, a dry and barren desert was hard to take.
I spent a day in Trujillo, going on a tour of Chan Chan, the largest pre-Columbian city in South America, and largest adobe city in the world. Some of the temples were amazingly well preserved, either because they were buried in sand until recent excavation or because the Chimor people themselves buried their temples inside newer temples, so underneath crumbling mud-brick walls you can find perfectly preserved paintings of gods and snakes and human sacrifices. It was fascinating. I have to say, though, if I were to choose an ancient Peruvian city to live in, I’d prefer Machu Picchu – true, the Chimor had great beaches, but I’ll take mountains and (especially) trees over that any day.
From Trujillo I went on down the coast, past Lima (and by ‘past’ I mean I spent 3 days wandering around the city) to Arequipa, where Joaquin lives. Joaquin was one of my best friends at UWC but I haven’t seen him since we graduated, so I was really excited to get here. And I was not disappointed. His whole family is super cool, and I passed a wonderful Christmas and New Years being entertained by silly jokes and intellectual conversations and lots and lots of illegal fireworks. Wow. I have never seen so many fireworks at one time. For both Christmas (or rather, midnight on Christmas Eve) and New Years, every single roof sets off fireworks, and in a city of almost 1million people, that’s insane. For about an hour after midnight, there were magnificent displays in every direction I looked. It was very much fun.
Some of the New Years traditions around here: 1. Wear yellow underwear for the New Year…apparently it’s good luck. So for the week between Christmas and New Year, all the streets were decked out little shops selling yellow underwear, yellow boxers, even lacy yellow thongs. It was crazy. 2. At the stroke of midnight, drink 12 shots of champagne, one per minute, each with a raisin in it. Why a raisin? I don’t know. It’s supposed to bring money in the coming year. I just ate the raisins. 3. If you plan on traveling, run around the block dragging your suitcase to ensure safe travels. I didn’t have my backpack with me, but I ran around with my shoulder bag and camera…that’s got to count for something.
Now I’m off to Lima again (on another short 18-hour bus ride) to pick up my darling Tim and start off on a wild tour of Peru’s greatest attractions. I’m so excited!