Lima, with its never-ending cover of winter-gray reminds me at times of the depressed creature of the classic Pooh stories. A cloud followed poor little Eeyore around daily and managed to block out the sun despite the pretty day elsewhere. You always wanted to comfort the guy although at times you had to admit you thought he should just buck up and smile every once in a while. Life in Lima often resembles that view. There's a cloud that follows you around daily and basically is a constant fixture above your head here in the winter. Almost everywhere else in the country, there are rays of sunshine that at least shine out through the clouds. I must say, I like my sun... which leads me to the adventure for the week. I will lay a disclaimer and apologize now for the length of the blog post. You see, adventures are never told in short paragraphs.
I believe this month there have been no less than 15 people from North Carolina (Chapel Hill or Raleigh area) passing through or staying in Peru. How this happened, I may never know. It turns out that two of my college friends were living in Cusco for the month of June and another one of my friends, who is living in Bogota, Colombia now, was coming to visit Peru with his brother, sister, and girlfriend...and we all ended up being able to coordinate and meet up in Cusco. How we "coordinated" anything with this bunch, I have no idea.
Frank, who was the one who knew everyone in the group when the adventure began, went to UNC Chapel Hill as an undergrad and was part of Presbyterian Campus Ministry there (that´s how we met freshman year). He moved to Nicaragua for awhile after college and then decided to join his brother teaching English in Bogota. His girlfriend is Colombian and speaks no English. Our other friends from Raleigh generally speak no Spanish. (Jack Sprat could eat no fat...) Conversations for the week were quite involved with games of pictionary and "guess that cognate" (funny game, I might add). Frank and I ended up translating most of the conversations back and forth until we hit the religious conversations of "does God exist" and the political discussions of Colombia, FARC, and Hugo Chavez. At this, I called it a night. My vocabulary does not extend that far. Have fun Frank.
We all arrived in Cusco at different times. I got there on Sunday, just in time to be a part of the Inti Raymi celebration - the festival of the sun. It was practiced every year around the same time since the Incan times (remember their calendar is different) to sacrifice and praise to the Sun God until the Spanish conquistadors took over. In the 1950's the celebration was brought back to honor tradition and has been a staple of many tourists' travels every since. The whole central square was closed off with local people depicting the different parts of the Incan society. This festival brings in around 30,000 tourists leaving the town bursting at its gills with gringos. This year, I happened to be one of them. I hate this label...
After the festival, our whole group finally came together and decided to go to Machu Picchu. This is where the real fun began as every member represented a different theology of travel. I was the "I'd really rather plan this trip - book the train two days (at least!) in advance, call the hostels, and figure out our general schedule" type (honestly gotten from two parents whom I will not name other than to say their names start with "G" and "K" and end in "-ary" and "-aren"). My Raleigh friends were the "I'd rather figure it out when we get there but would rather stay somewhere with a bathroom and hot water that does not resemble a dump" types. Frank was the "let's do this as cheaply as possible" type and his brother was the "I'm going to fly by the seat of my pants, do things as rustically as possible, and do whatever I can to not spend any unnecessary money" type (aka another member of the McDougal clan).
The cheapest way to get there was to take a bus to Ollantantambo and then the train to Aguas Calientes, the jumping off place for Machu Picchu. The plan was to take the bus to Ollantantambo, immediately get on a train to Aguas Calientes, stay the night there, go to Machu Picchu the next day, and return by train/bus that same day...making it a two day trip. When we got to Ollantantambo the train tickets were double what it would have cost to take a round trip on the train from Cusco...so, we stayed in Ollantantambo for the night (night 1). The next morning we got up and caught the cheaper train that left at 6:10am to arrive in Aguas Calientes. The problem is, the tourist groups get to Machu Picchu around 9-10am and the place is swarming with gringos following flags that are leading the tour groups. So, we decided to wait until the next day when we could see the sunrise there and appreciate the wonder without tons of tourist bees. Our hostel owner told us of a reasonably "easy" hike that when you reached the summit, you could look out over Machu Picchu...and it was free to do. That being said, our group was on board. Everyone had told us it took about 1 1/2 hours to get up Putukusi and that the hike was definitely worth it. It ended up involving about 15 different rung ladders, steep inclines, rock staircases, and traverses that never ended. If someone would have really explained this trail to me before doing it, I would not have gone...however, given the situation and the view from there, I'm so glad I did it. 3 1/2 hours later four of us reached the summit and got to view Machu Picchu for the first time...absolutely amazing. You could see the entire expanse of the Andes there with Machu Picchu nestled in. You felt like you were back in time staring at the ruins for the first time. We met a Peruvian guide up top and told him that our only fear was getting back down all those ladders that we ascended to get up there. To my chagrin, he said, "Oh yeah, you should definitely be careful going down. It's pretty dangerous." Thanks so much! I knew that but didn't want to hear it out loud! Overall, the hike took up the entire morning and first part of the afternoon which was quite fabulous given that Aguas Calientes is a town set up as a base camp for Machu Picchu and has got to be one of the uglier cities I have seen in Peru thus far - "the armpit of the Andes" - even surpassing Lima! (night 2)
We spent the night there and 3 of us caught the bus up to Machu Picchu. Our other friends decided to hike up the traverses that ascended the mountain to get to Machu Picchu because it was free. They set out at 4:15am and arrived a little before 6am when the doors opened. I was quite content with the $14 bus that kept my legs from turning into jello for the second day in a row after not exercising that much here...at altitude. I probably should have done it... The views of Machu Picchu are amazing and no picture can quite do it justice. (At least in the morning before 2,500 people attack the ruins) We spent 8 hours there in total. This of course, in good McDougal fashion, means that I was running around the entire ruins snapping my brains out with pictures. (thanks dad). I think I could have taken more...honestly. Richard swears that Machu Picchu was actually referring to "Muchas pictures" because of how many pictures people take when they're there...haha. We finally descended back to Aguas Calientes around 2pm and spent our time wandering and window shopping in the insanely priced markets set up for tourist groups. Some restaurants even had the audacity to charge us tax. (this doesn't happen in Latin or South America. Tax is always included in the price they give you...period) So, of course, we argued a lot about taxes given that the meals were already WAY over priced anyway. (night 3)
We left Aguas Calientes the next morning on the train at 5:30am, caught a bus from Ollantantambo back to Cusco and basically crashed. 3 days of getting up before 5am and lasting until after 11pm take a toll when you are out of your element and traveling. Frank's brother decided then and there he had paid too much for everything and spent the rest of the week eating bread and peanut butter. The group decided that they were going to head down to another city, Puno on Lake Titicaca which coincided with the day that I returned to Lima on a plane and descended back down into a wall of clouds...haha.
No comments:
Post a Comment