Peru: Take Two

Yes, indeed we are greatly impacted by the weather. After all, we live in our van. We are intimately aware of the temperatures both day and night. We are tuned into the phases of the moon. And we are cognisant of our altitude as it impacts the temperature and thus plays a role in our general comfort.

And so……things shifted for us in terms of the weather and therefore our feelings about Peru somewhere near Arequipa. While in the north we had plenty of grey weather, in the south the sun came out for real.

Views from the Pan-Am north and south - we prefer blue over grey

Arequipa is a big city and a tourist nexus, not usually our kind of place. But, it is well laid out, clean, and the weather was perfect while we were there. Our set up at the Hotel Las Mercedes worked well and allowed us to explore and enjoy the city with ease. We strolled the streets and lolled in the Plaza de Armas (as the main plaza is called in many South American cities, as opposed to Parque Central as it was called in Central America), we dined out and generally enjoyed our time there.

Cathedral on the Plaza de Armas - Arequipa

My requisite tourist activity was a visit to the Monesterio Santa Catalina where I spent a relaxing afternoon marvelling at how beautiful it is. Built in the 1500s and still in use today, it is so big they refer to it as a city within a city. Sure, the history and information on the lives of those who live there was interesting, but the setting was stunning.

Scenes from Santa Catalina

At the Hotel Las Mercedes we bonded with Suzanne and Didi, a Swiss couple who are traveling north, comparing notes on highlight locations and best places to stay. It was a nice transition for us from northern Peru where we mostly ‘wild’ camped and interacted with few other overlanders.

The Peru-love meter began to climb.

Juxtaposed to Arequipa was the Colca Canyon, our next destination. About 3 hours from Arequipa and worlds away, Colca is deeper than the Grand Canyon. To get there we crossed a pass that was 16,000 feet—we were winded just driving.

Atop the pass there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of little piles of rocks...very cool, kind of weird.

I left a ´lucky rock´we´d been carrying since Utah on another rock on the top of the pass

The Colca Canyon was great for us—plenty of wide open spaces with camping possibilities at every turn. We soaked in hot springs, Chet and I hiked to a ‘geyser’ (really a natural steam vent in the earth’s surface—super powerful and somewhat scary), saw Andean Condors and took in a program at the planetarium to learn more about the constellations we are now seeing.

Pre Inca terracing in the Colca Canyon

Andean Condors

Roadside Art - Colca Canyon

Campsite near the geyser

Geyser - aka steam vent - Colca Canyon

Again, the weather was perfect: warm sunny days, cool, crisp nights (okay, the nights were really cold but we are equipped for that so it was no problem). There are a string of towns along the canyon rim and each had its own charming personality. In so many ways, the Colca Canyon was everything I had hoped Huaraz and the valley between the Cordilleras Negra and Blanca would be. The Peru-love meter climbed several notches.

From here we headed towards Cuzco. This drive could have been done in one day had we taken the road most traveled. But since the cute girl at the tourist office told Mike that a different road would take the same amount of time, we set off on the road less traveled. By the time we realized that the drive time was going to be far greater we were well underway and it was pointless to turn back. So off-the-beaten-track was this route the road was not on my map but as we all know, sometimes these ‘mistakes’ turn out for the best....we forged on.

We came to a crossroads with precious little signage. Wanting to confirm that we were indeed headed to Cuzco, we stopped to ask two women who were sitting at the side of the road near the intersection. They were working on some craft-type textiles destined for some tourist´s luggage and listening to a static-y transistor radio. In addition to directions we inquired about the availability of gas, having set off without knowing we were headed to the hinterlands. One of the women (the more animated of the two, though they were both darling) said she had gas in town, 3 kilometers away. We loaded them up into the van and headed to town.

Our two new friends piled into the Burly Beast

And when we got there she and Mike funneled gas into our tank and our spare can for the journey. She owned a tienda (variety store) and I also picked up a few veggies and TP and off we went.

Along the road less travelled

The first night we stayed along the road at the start of a long stretch of altoplano. Very beautiful. Only us. Doubt many gringos have been here, let alone stayed here. And in the morning we continued on, across miles and miles of altoplano and herd after herd of llamas, vacunas, sheep, etc. Desolate but beautiful. Dirt roads the whole way.

I eyed the map and dead-reckoned to identify a few places we might be able to stay the second night, knowing we probably wouldn’t make it as far as the main road to Cuzco. The best choice was along the Laguna Layo. More driving, no laguna. Finally, a roadside sign for the town of Layo. We turned right and headed into town.

We asked a few people about places to camp and had identified our best spot and then stopped at a small tienda for some bread and water. Eduardo, a boy of 14 tending the store, was interested in the gringa (me), and asked where we were staying. I told him and asked if he knew of another place.

He told me other people camp at the end of the lake and so that’s where we headed. Yup, another cool campsite. The lake was beautiful and we hung here for two days watching the sheep, cattle and llamas go out to pasture in the morning and returning in the evening. Super peaceful. Again, our Peru-love meter rose.

The daily comings and goings of the local livestock

Chet at sunset - Laguna Layo

And then we set off for our final approach to Cuzco. Again the weather impacted our first impression of the city, with a grey cloud cover dampening our spirits and the Peru-love meter slid a few clicks. And, while probably delightfully quaint 20 years ago, Cuzco sprawls down its valley for miles.

We worked our way to the famous-among-overlanders camping Quinta Lala and who should we find there but Suzanne and Didi our friends from Arequipa. They had arrived just two hours before. A ray of sunshine and the love meter climbed again. (Don’t ask me why I don’t have any pictures of them….we spent lots of time together but never got the camera out.)

Quinta Lala is a little oasis for travelers like us. It is just outside the city but an easy walk or short cab ride and it has what we need: bathrooms, hot showers, wifi, laundry facilities and a small kitchen. We stayed several days as other travelers arrived and left. Every few days llamas were brought in to help maintain the grass.

The scene at Quinta Lala

Sadly, there are many chickens at Quinta Lala and Missy Chettie has an appetite for chickens. We had to keep a close eye on her (never did tell you about the chicken she killed, and we subsequently bought, at a campsite in Mexico). At one point at Quinta Lala she broke her leash in hot pursuit and had a chicken in her mouth before, luckily for the chicken, I interceded. Remember, Chet is a bird-dog. I digress.

The cloud cover that had tainted our initial impression of Cuzco lifted and as the sun shone and as I explored the city on foot, the Peru-love meter again climbed higher. A tourist portal for those headed to the Sacred Valley and Machu Pichu, the city is crawling with extranjeros (foreigners), but consequently is set up to service our every need. We exchanged books, got haircuts and bought good bread, cheese, coffee and granola.

Exploring the side streets of Cuzco

Doorway Dogs - Cuzco

And then we had a decision to make: to Machu Pichu or not to Machu Pichu.

Reasons for going:

One-in-the-world kind of place

Certain to be powerful and impactful

People will think you are crazy if you were in Cuzco but didn’t go to Machu Pichu

Reasons for not going:
A bit of a harangue to get there
Height of tourist season—reports of having to jostle with hundreds of tour-group members
We are traveling with a dog (though a friend offered to care for her while we went)
We are not ruin site fanatics
Mike was sick
Who cares what other people think

Many, many conversations later we opted out of the Machu Pichu experience and headed instead to the Sacred Valley. This was the right decision for us and the Peru-love meter climbed again.

One of our campsites above the Sacred Valley

The valley is beautiful and we spent plenty of time poking around its many side valleys and towns. One night on our way up the valley out of Ollyantatambo looking for a campsite we picked up two young boys walking home from school who flagged us down (everyone flags us down, we look a lot like the local ‘micros’ or ‘combis’ that the locals use as their main source of transportation. Also, people walking long distances will flag down any vehicle going by and as a vehicle going by it’s a courtesy to pick them up. It often opens doors and conversations for us.)

The boys hopped in and told us they lived 20 minutes further up the road. As we climbed higher in altitude, we asked if they knew a place we could camp for the night explaining we sleep in the van, showing them the bed, fridge, kitchen, etc. One boy said, Yes, he knew of a place by his house. Both Mike and I feared a yard full of chickens but we continued on, chatting with the boys and telling them about our lives and adventures and asking about theirs.

Finally the boy pointed out his house, down in a valley (no access road to the house; not needed if you don’t have a car) and then pointed out a small, level plot at the side of the road where a new house was being built. The workers were just finishing up for the night and said it was okay for us to stay there. Cool. We got what we needed (a place to stay) and the buys got what they needed (a ride home). BTW, they walk about 2 hours (one way) to school every day.

One of the boy´s houses below our campsite

They stayed and talked to us for a long, long time just wanting to know about our lives. And we were joined by several other kids as they made their way home from school (Again, didn’t get the camera out. I feel awkward about putting a camera in someone’s face just for being who they are.)

The next morning as we worked our way down the valley we encountered some of the same kids (though not our two original boys) and each of them flagged us down. We ended up with 8 kids in the van and served as the local school bus that day.

Of course, we communicated in Spanish but I asked one of the boys what language he used when he spoke with his friends and he told me Quechua, the language of the indigenas. Such a treat for us to see this glimpse of a world so different from ours.

As we dropped them off at the school the teacher was waiting at the door (checking us out to make sure we meant no harm) and laughed when I told the kids to ‘Aprender mucho’, (Learn a lot!). Here, we did bust out the camera as by now they seemed more our friends than an oddity to be photographed.

Trish and the school kids

We tracked our way up and down the Sacred Valley enjoying the setting and the scenery. In order to appease the Ruins Gods for our decision to opt out of Machu Pichu, we toured the ruins at Ollantatambo thinking if we were so moved by the experience we could still make the trip to Machu Pichu.

We had a great guide who understood we were as interested in hearing the information in Spanish as we were in what was being said. He obliged us by telling us about the site first in Spanish and then in English, so we could check if we were ‘getting it’. He also doubled as our photographer, asking for the camera at all the key photo-op locations. (Reminded us of our wedding in Salzburg where, for $26, a man played Mozart melodies and doubled as our photographer…a story for another day).

And after our visit to the ruins at Ollantatambo we stopped into Inca Bucks for a coffee

The ruins were….interesting. While I wanted to be so moved I’d just have to go to Machu Pichu, I found them interesting and pretty, and that was that. Answer me this: if you go to (or live in) Colorado but have never been to Mesa Verde, have you seen Colorado?

We continued to poke around the Sacred Valley, with one more great encounter that must be discussed. We ended up one evening at Los Girasoles, a lodging accomodation owned by Peruvian, Jose Luis and his Austrian wife Christa. It is a little slice of paradise, very serene and peaceful. When Mike called in at the gate he saw a beautiful Westfalia parked on the property and figured it was another traveller.

The Westy was actually owned by Javier and his wife Patricia who are living in one of the houses on the property while their house is being built. We instantly bonded over the Westys and Mike shared lots of information on the various systems as they haven´t owned it very long. They in turn shared the home-made lp gas tank adapter with us, that made filling our tank the next day a breeze. They could be the only ones in all of Peru that have such an adapter and it was incredible that our paths should cross.

Patricia and Javier invited us to their house the next night along with Jose Luis and Christa. We shared a great evening and felt more like old friends than lodging guests. It is a rare gift indeed to be able to make people feel so welcomed and comfortable in such a short time. This sent the Peru-love meter higher still.

We eventually left the Sacred Valley and headed towards Lago Titicaca.

On our way to Titicaca we stumbled into the gorgeous Canyon Tinajani (not in any guide book or even labeled on the map) and spent two incredible days lounging in the sun, hiking and gaping at the scenery.

This forlorn sign....

...led to this scenic, Utahesque canyon

Then on to Lago Titicaca where we stayed in several different places, each with its own personality.


Puno: Big city with corrupt police who tried twice within our first hour in town to extort money from us for some fictitious infraction of the law. Our lodging was in a hotel parking lot, not our favorite, but convenient with a shower that rocked and stong wifi. Puno highlight: touring the Yavari, a ship that was made in England in the 1800s and shipped in pieces and carried over the Andies to Puno. Cool ship, moored right behind the hotel.

Yavari

Llanchon: My personal favorite. Small indigenous village at the end of Capachica Peninsula. Beautiful setting that gave us a glimpse of what the lake and its villages were like before the masses arrived. We met some kindly locals. We hired a local fisherman to take us to the island of Taquile that was beautiful but sadly, lost to tourism. We wild camped on the shores of the lake and watched local life go by for several peaceful days. At night we had great views of the lights of Puno across the lake.

Grazing sheep - Llanchon

Playa de Chatuma: Natural caves carved out of rock along the southern shore of Titicaca. A roadside sign lured us in for one more night on the Peruvian side of the border. It poured rain and we barely got out of the van; woke to a mini Lake Titicaca under the van.

Storm clouds gathering - looking towards the Bolivian side of Titicaca

By now you know that our feelings for Peru changed as we visited the southern part of the country. Our mode of transportation allows us to see places more in depth than just hitting the major attractions and random encounters with people positively impact our experience.

Hi All,

I can't wait to tell you where we've been and what we've been doing! We are currently in Northern Argentina, but first I'll have to catch you up on the rest of Peru and Bolivia.

We are doing great and having fun, but we just haven't been in many places where posting pictures is possible. I've got a couple blogs ready to go, and several more composed in my head but we'll need some time with a strong internet connection to post it all.

Meanwhile, here's a picture to pique your curiousity!

Trish

Peru….we hardly knew you

No matter what, it would hard to follow up Colombia and Ecuador. Despite our vehicle issues in Colombia, it remains one of our favorite places. It’s not spin to say that our time in Villa de Leyva and Jim’s visit was one of the highlights of our trip. And then there was Ecuador, Hacienda Sigsipamba and Lucho, again, a time that will always hold a place in our hearts.

Peru had a tough act to follow, made more difficult by it being invierno, or winter, here. Though this is the drier of the seasons, during winter much of the coast is blanketed in fog.

Everyone has heard of Machu Pichu. What most people don’t know is that as the heart of the Inca Empire, in addition to Machu Pichu, all of Peru is a ruin. No, not ‘in ruins’, but full of ruin sites. Every pueblo, no matter how small, has an archeological site in some stage of discovery based on funding opportunities. Mike and I are not huge ruin fanatics, but it is hard not to be moved by the extent of the Inca civilization.

In Tucume in northern Peru, we visited the Valley of the Pyramids, a pre-Inca site where twenty-six adobe pyramids are scattered throughout a valley. We were drawn more because of a great lodge I had read about that is adjacent to the site, but, okay we’ll be a little cultural and take in the site. It made for an interesting afternoon (and one of the few times we saw the sun in northern Peru).

Trish in the Valley of the Pyramids

Mike seeking enlightenment

The lodge was all that and more. We treated ourselves to dinner at their restaurant where we met five families traveling together to a remote ruin site even further north (They were ruin fanatics). Two of the men had attended school in Boston (BU and Harvard) and the entire group was warm and welcoming. Though living in Lima, they got misty-eyed when they talked about Arequipa, their home town. We usually avoid cities, but their enthusiasm swayed us into adding Arequipa to our itinerary.

But first we wanted a dose of coast. We spent some time in Huanchaco, a nifty little beach town that probably appealed to us more because it was off-season. We camped fronting the beach, made friends with the chicas at the coffee shop and were able to pick up their wifi signal from the van, and paid 1 Sole each for a shower at a nearby hostal. Chettie got some wave-action and indeed it was nice to see the ocean again. But although we were even told our time there was some of the sunniest they’d had in a while, we found it very grey.

One of the sunny afternoons in Huanchaco...believe me, it wasn't this sunny most of the time we were here. Every time the sun came out, so did the camera.

Reed boat in Huanchaco

Peruvian Independence Day (which is officially two days and is celebrated over an entire week) was coming up and we knew this quiet little beach town would be flooded with people. We chose to press south, made a left at Casma and headed toward Huaraz, nestled between the Cordillera Negra and the Cordillera Blanca, thinking the mountains might be a bit more sane for the impending holiday.

We began climbing out of the coastal fog as we ascended the Cordillera Negra. It’s hard to explain how seeing true, lasting sunshine after so long makes you feel. It was a bit surreal.

The Pana heading south...much of northern Peru is coastal desert and we saw lots of this view.While interesting at first after a few days it became monotonous and gloomy. Those of a certain age will remember a song with the line, 'Grey, grey, my world is grey'. We sang it daily as we followed the Pana south through northern Peru.

Coming out of the fog on the way over the Cordillera Negra

The road over the Cordillera Negra was under a massive construction project on the order of the Big Dig or Glenwood Canyon in the 80’s. As luck would have it, it was Sunday and the only day the road is open to through traffic. Even still, we had several delays as the crews worked on the road. It got later and later and we knew we weren’t going to make Huaraz by nightfall.

At 5pm we reached the top of the pass at 13,942 feet and pulled over. We were treated to sunset and moon rise all in the space of about 5 minutes. And then the temp dropped and we hunkered down for a chilly night.

Sunset over the Cordillera Blanca from the Cordillera Negra

Moon rise over the Cordillera Blanca

View of the Cordillera Blanca before decending into the Huaraz valley

The next morning we dropped into Huaraz; big and sprawly with little left of its original character after a number of earthquakes, I knew before we got there it wasn’t going to be our kind of town. But, no denying it was sunny.

After provisioning up, we headed for the hills above town to find a place to camp. We searched for most of the day, and not finding what we were looking for we went to The Way Inn, a well known lodge just outside Huascaran National Park . They welcomed us but told us they were full up for the holiday two days later (not a problem since we bring out own lodging with us) but that they also had a group of 30 campers coming…..uh-oh. We stayed for a couple of nights, loved the place and the people, did some hiking in the ‘foothills’ and moved on before the hoards arrived.

Trish hiking from The Way Inn Lodge

Hiking in the Cordillera Blanca. Chet spent the whole hike in this irrigation ditch.

(Aside: Let’s put things in perspective. In Colorado, we live at 7,000 feet and our mountains rise to 14,000 feet. In Ecuador, Quito is at 9,000 feet and we spent a lot of time between 10,000 (Pifo) and 12,000 (Papallacta) and the spine of mountains that run south along the Pana (Volcans Cotopaxi and Chimborazo) rises to 18,000 – 20,000 feet. In Ecuador, we regularly camped at 12,000 feet. Now, above Huaraz, Peru our campsite was at 13,000 and the mountains in the Cordillera Blanca rise to 22,000 feet. Phew!)

There are a string of towns along the valley floor and we checked many places out. For a variety of reasons we were not able to find our nirvana, and although it is a beautiful area and I so wanted it to work for us, it did not. None of the towns had the vibe and this combined with the crush of people escaping the grey fog of the coast for the holiday made us decide to move on.

Back to the Pana, back to the fog. The other route choice was to stay in the mountains, and while beautiful I’d heard the roads were terrible and the going was very slow. We had also spent a lot of time in the mountains in Ecuador and we were ready for a change of scenery. We decided to head to Arequipa, that had taken on an Emerald City allure since meeting our friends in Tucume.

We skirted Lima, the grey fog leaving a layer of city-grime on the van a quarter inch thick. But then somewhere south of Lima we began to see the sun again.

The Pana south of Lima. The road is literally cut into the sand between the beach and the desert dunes.

En route to Arequipa, we found a place that spoke to us: Paracas National Reserve. A great little-known park on the coast with incredible scenery. Okay, Paracas means something like Poncha, aka ‘place where the wind rips the flesh from your bones’ (at least that's what John Engelbrecht told me it means) but that’s only for a few hours in the afternoon and being pelted by wind and sand was far outweighed by the unbelievable scenery.

Paracas National Reserve

Mike seeking enlightenment

The Lima-grime covered Burly Beast in Paracas

(Another aside: There are no dogs allowed in the park, but the guy at the gate told us this and then said ‘Two dollars per person’. Okay, then. We paid and proceeded. A similar thing happened at the Valley of the Pyramids site, where the woman told us no dogs were allowed and then said in a quiet voice, ‘but if you wait till my boss is gone you can go in’. I attribute this to low funding and a desire at both sites to increase their attendance numbers. Both times we were prepared for the ‘no dogs allowed’ edict, but we were grateful to be given access and were very conscientious about our canine companion.)

After Paracas we made our way to Arequipa and found it to be a great city. We knew of a hotel that allows overland travelers like us to park on their grounds and it was a very welcoming place. Great wifi (I posted all those Ecuador pictures from there) and an easy walk to the main plaza made for a good place to hang for a few days. We met a fun Swiss couple traveling north and two great guys who were leading a tour of Aussies on motorcycles.

Hotel Las Mercedes in Arequipa

My next post will be of our adventures in sunny southern Peru, from Arequipa onward. Might take a while as we really don't have strong internet access often (due to our choice of camping in remote places) and when we do have it I prefer to be out exploring than sitting at the computer.....but I'll work on it.

Know that we are doing well, having fun and are happy to be able to do this type of trip. Funny things happen daily, sometimes things are trying and we've been on the road so long (over 10 months) that we are already looking back on memories of things that happened or people we met early on in our travels.

Implicated and Exonerated

We live in a very small space. Everything we have travels with us and everything has its place. There have been a few ‘accidents’ in which I was implicated.

One such accident involved a shampoo bottle spill in Mike’s kit-bag. When we discovered the spill, Mike kindly asked me to be more careful when packing the bag away into its hidey hole.

The implication being that when I stuffed it in, I had inadvertently snapped the lid open thus causing the spill. The accusation stung but I vowed to be more careful.

A couple of days later we traveled high up into the Andes and I came up with a different hypothesis. Perhaps the bottle popped open on one of the mighty climbs to higher altitude. Mike had to admit it might be possible.

And then a few days later we made yet another epic climb and that night we found the shampoo bottle had leaked again.

Exonerated.