There we were sitting on the bus from Vaqueria to Huaraz, having just completed a 4 day hike in the Cordillera Blanca (a 5 hour collectivos ride on a pretty gnarly mountain road), being forced to endure some pretty noxious BO (as none of the 15 of us in the van had showered in days) and we’re being subjected to ‘Mary from Middle America’ trying to convince us that she’s the most ‘experienced’ of all the ‘enlightened travellers’ on the well trodden backpacker route through South America. She had quit her fabulously high paying regulatory job (that she loved and was exceptionally ‘good’ at), given up that MBA they were putting her through in the process, forgotten to shave her armpits, recruited some burly Romanian who was apparently really good at “kicking some arse” and together with her other Israeli recruit proceeded to boast how they had managed to avoid paying the park entry fee. Incidentally the Israeli guy claimed to be so good at avoiding entrance fees that he had managed to gain entry into Machupicchu via some back entrance free of charge.
The conversation continued along the lines of who had been travelling the longest, had the greatest backpacking cred (whatever that is) and who was managing to spend the least amount of money possible... Yawn! Sure we’ve heard of Couch Surfing, we’ve even hung out with one of its biggest advocates (and we’re still amazed at how Daniel managed to go on holiday to Spain from London for a week on 50 pounds) but we’re not sure this actually amounts to the best travel experience. As we were being advised however, living on crackers and cheese alone for weeks is the done thing and wherever possible it’s best to avoid gaining any kind of knowledge from local guides – the preference instead is to ignorantly stumble your way through national parks and historical sites. The fact however that they were later detained and forced to pay a significant fine for attempting to enter Huascaran National Park free of charge was almost as amusing as our guide declaring at the same control that he was not a guide and had not escorted our group of 5 on the trek... But we’ll pick that one up later!
During all of this riveting travel banter I couldn’t help but reflect on our experiences in South America thus far. Weren’t we the ‘most experienced’ of all world travellers after all? With almost two years on the road, countless road trips and multiple borders, we figured the last few months of our world trip should go relatively to plan. However rewinding back to LA airport where at 1:30am we were being denied check-in to our flight to Lima perhaps this wasn’t all going to be so easy. Maybe we should have read the Peruvian entry requirements more thoroughly but instead we found ourselves trying to rationalise with this check-in chick who would not bend the rules in any way nor accept that we were planning on travelling overland out of Peru into Bolivia on a bus we hadn’t yet booked on September 3... 1 hour later, 1 Mastercard purchase of $1200 for flights to La Paz and we were on our way (don’t worry we recouped the funds 24 hours later in Lima by cancelling the flight).
From our first day in polluted Lima, riding local collectivos and attempting to see some of the city’s sites, it became very apparent we desperately needed to learn some Spanish. We relied on our hostal to book our bus to Huaraz, do our laundry and I think we paid the respective price for this – only double the going rate!
After a relatively comfortable overnight bus trip (the first of many and in hindsight the easiest) we arrived in the mountain town of Huaraz – approximately 400km north of Lima and at the heart of the Cordillera Blanca, which is home to Peru’s highest mountain, Huascaran (which at 6768m is incidentally the second highest in South America). Since we had naively booked our 2 weeks accommodation on the internet, our host Jamie was there to meet us. So we had overpaid for our room, there was no hot water as advertised, the internet was actually at the shop across the road and the breakfast didn’t exist. Lesson number 1; never book in advance in South America!! We managed to negotiate the price a little, insist on breakfast (which was actually a bad mistake as it turns out the fresh strawberry juice poisoned us and marked the start of our never ending stomach ails) and organise Spanish classes with Jamie’s sister in-law Sylvia. We spent the large part of the first 10 days taking Spanish classes and acclimatising to life at over 3000m. Gracias Sylvia! Me llamo Nicola, soy Australiana, quisiera un bebida y nosotros estamos yendo a Cusco por dos noches por favour! So that is about the extent of the Spanish we learnt but we are now able to book buses and accommodation, negotiate prices at markets and understand some restaurant menus – what else do you need hey?
We also managed to fit in some treks. The first one to Laguna 69 was a bit of a fizzer as Konrad was the first to go down from the dreaded strawberry juice and spent about 4 hours in some Swiss guy’s tent curled up with a high fever and making frequent dashes to the dunny with bad diarrhoea... Nice! A big thanks to the Verbier ski instructor Sebastian (how do we keep running into these people?) who kept me company and tried to assist with Konrad’s ails by providing a warm sleeping bag, coca tea and aspirin. Not immune to Granny’s evil tonic either, I was unfortunate enough to experience the same thing for the following 5 days which meant not a lot of action – other than lots of visits to the toilet (though I’ll spare you any more details). We did however make a day trip out to the ruins of Chavin de Huantar which we thought to do by local bus. Of course this turned out to take 3 times as long, involved sitting on the floor for 3 hours on the return journey as there were no seats left on the bus (reference title photo) and cost more than the guided tour! I suppose this is the price you pay for being so ‘experienced’! Also, we successfully hiked up to Lake Churup – which at 4450m was the first of our high altitude treks. This trek was not without incidence either as I started the day by vomiting, though persisted with the hike only to then encounter a rather challenging rock climb right at the end (see pic below). If you have seen me indoor rock climb then you will understand it is not my forte... I did manage to make it up there with the assistance of my mountain guide Konrad only to burst into tears out of shear trauma at the top and then have 3 Peruvian girls find the whole thing so hysterically funny they thought to laugh and point at me :( How rude!!
So with all this ‘experience’ behind us we next embarked on researching the 4 day hike to Santa Cruz/Alpamaya which unbeknown to us is apparently most beautiful mountain in the world? Now talking to the tourist office, local guides, tour companies, guide books etc we were repeatedly being told that we could only do this trek with a registered guide... and besides we have no camping gear either so this seemed to make the most sense. After walking around town and working out the going rate for the hike we finally signed with our chosen agency which ensured us a registered guide, the best equipment, food and of course expert local knowledge. So we again naively believed another Peruvian trying to sell us something! I guess we shouldn’t have been too surprised when our 22 year old guide Marco showed up, spoke only Spanish (luckily there was a French bloke who spoke a little Spanish who could translate from Spanish into French, which we could then translate to the other 2 Danish girls into English), was curiously taking us to a different entry point for the trek and seemingly knew very little about the surrounding mountain ranges! Did I mention the tent he provided us with had a cover which was 2 sizes too small thus allowing wind and rain to enter in during some exceptionally cold nights camping at over 4000m? Oh and that’s right, when it came to going through control he declared he wasn’t even a registered guide!!!! Well I guess we paid the park entrance fee, unlike our smelly friends on the bus! I’m not sure who was more experienced here though, ‘Mary from Middle America’ or Mr and Mrs Goulasz :) At least we had food for our 4 days and didn’t have to live on crackers... though I will say Marco’s carbo loading diet of pasta, rice, potatoes and bread all in one meal has to have caused the biggest digestive traffic jam either of us has ever had to deal with... better than diarrhoea I suppose! Sorry I’ll try not to talk too much about our guts but it’s hard not too when it’s been such a big part of the adventure in Peru so far! Despite this the trek was amazing and we were exposed some of the most ruggedly beautiful mountains either of us has ever seen – though we only saw the backhand side of Alpamayo for 20 minutes whilst the clouds cleared and thus can’t declare whether or not we agree with it being the most beautiful mountain in the world. We also hiked to 4750m and although we nearly punctured a lung or two along the way, it was a great achievement to get up that high.
Having completed our first mountain adventure, it was time to move south and onto the town of Nazca. Not much to say here actually... the most interesting bit is me throwing up for 3 hours on the bus due to a newly developed tendance towards motion sickness (sorry, there I go talking about my guts again). We did however survive a rather hair raising bus trip where our bus driver decided it was a good idea to travel at 120km/hour in virtually no visibility and continually overtake on blind corners – we had some really close calls and even Konrad was freaking out. If you have the time you should Google traffic incidents in Peru! I made the mistake and found out through a travel warning to all Britains that 776 people died in the first six months of this year and a further 1300 were injured. Needless to say we are now holding tightly onto the Virgin Mary which Bozena kindly gifted to us before leaving Oz to keep us safe. Unfortunately when we did get to Nazca, we didn’t take the flight over the lines due to bad weather that morning (even though we had a flight booked) but rather climbed up the pathetic viewing tower and took a trip out to an archaeological site – all pretty uneventful and we quickly moved onto the beautiful city of Arequipa.
We were very impressed with the Spanish architecture in Arequipa, in particular the beautiful main square with the El Misti Volcano towering behind, the churches and the Santa Catalina monastery. We also managed to find great French coffee and crepes and drink beer in a lovely French bar! There appeared to be a lot of French people in this town for whatever reason, in fact there seem to be quite a few French people on the backpacker trail who we constantly bump into and get the chance to practice our bad French :)
From Arequipa we ventured into the beautiful Colca Canyon. Again we considered doing this trip alone but after working out costs it proved more cost effective for us to join a tour group. This time however we were pleasantly surprised with an excellent guide who gave us a great insight into the canyon (Colca meaning store or shop and where the Incas came to gather food and medicinal plants), its fruits (including cactus fruits such as Tuna and Sancayo), plants and local communities. Here we were also fortunate enough to engage with a local family, drink chicha with them, make an offering to Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) and work one of their ancient terraces. We mustn’t forget viewing the flight of the magnificent Condors first thing in the morning either. And I know what you are thinking, what’s this about us being impressed with ‘travelling birds’? Guess you need to experience the grandeur of these creatures first hand to fully appreciate them – just amazing!
Of course no trip to South America would be complete without a visit to the jungle and with limited time we decided our best bet was to make our way to the town of Puerto Maldonado and the Tambopata Reserve (again this involved about 5 hours of painstaking pavement pounding and information gathering in Cusco before we made our final decision). As we are also on limited funds, we went against the advice to take the 45 minute flight from Cusco and instead opted for an 18 hour bus trip at a tenth of the cost! Okay, I don’t think either of us had any idea what we were in for and our decision was purely based on cost (if we had more money I swear we would have flown). When the bus turned up at the bus station, I thought Konrad was going to pick up our bags and walk out :)... Obviously he didn’t and instead we boarded the bus. So how bad can 18 hours on a smelly bus with non-reclinable seats, no toilets, loud chicha or jungle music playing constantly and seriously bumpy, unpaved road be? Hmmm – REALLY BAD!! I wish I had videoed Konrad’s comments at 4am but let me just say cranky does not nearly describe the mood!!
We eventually made it to our destination and once in our lovely jungle hut the pain of the journey became a distant memory. We spent the next 5 days exploring the Madre de Dios River (which eventually flows into the Amazon) and the Tambopata Reserve. We were lucky enough to have a guide virtually to ourselves for most of the excursions and quite fortunate to experience some great jungle walks, boat rides, local fruits (including the cocoa tree – see pic below for where chocolate comes from) and excellent wildlife. To name a few of the mammal species we saw; Saddleback Tamarin monkeys, Dusky Titi monkeys, Brown Capuchin monkeys, Coatis and the Red Amazon Squirrel. We also had the pleasure of observing about 10 Giant Otters feeding on fish in Sandoval Lake, saw some amazing birdlife (including Chestnut Eared and Yellow Ringed Toucan, Hoatzin and a number of Macaw, Parakeets and Parrots) and caught a glimpse of several White Caiman along the river bank.
Having just endured the 18 hour return bus trip from hell to Cusco (OMG!!) we are now taking in some of the sites of this beautiful town, recovering from another stomach upset and look forward to embarking on our Inca Trail to Machupicchu on August 28th.
‘Til next time and bon apetite :)
