Las Chiquitas (The Little Girls)

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Dulce y Diana... these two are inseparable!

Leydi y Nilda doing cross-stitch which then gets sold to help
raise money for the home

And despite the fact that I have not a crafty bone in my body,
they wanted me to pose as if I were contributing

With Nilda, the sweetest girl ever

The blonde hair was a bit of a fascination for the kids. They
spent hours brushing and doing up my "Barbie" hair

Judith y yo. She loved that she had the same name as my mother

Judith y Nilda being cool

Early morning breakfast before everyone
heads off to school

Dulce, Leydi, Diana, Nilda y yo

Take That, Grand Canyon!

Twice as deep as the Grand Canyon... suck it, AZ!

Ugh. Our last truly official touristy act and was it ever a doozie. Turns out that the world’s deepest canyons are in Peru, just about 3 hours outside of Arequipa. So, yeah, we had to go. And unfortunately you have to go with a tour company and, even more unfortunately, you have to leave at 3 am. Why you have to leave at 3 am, we have yet to come up with one logical answer to, but there it was anyhow. So at 2 am we dragged our sorry butts out of bed and took a cab into town where we were to meet the bus at 3. Three-thirty and still no bus. Now, I understand and am very patient with the time system (or lack thereof) down here but somehow it’s not quite so endearing at 3 am when you’re sitting in a cold plaza by yourself, ready to fall over from exhaustion. They finally showed up, which was such a relief as we assumed we could then spend the whole 3 hours sleeping but, no no, we weren’t counting on the blaring Latin music playing the whole way there. It was awesome!


La Cruz del Condor (Cross of the Condor). And
that would be condor, singular.

We finally made it around 8, exhausted as we were. Colca Canyons are twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, although not nearly as expansive and the walls of Colca are far more sloped so it doesn’t give the impression of being as deep, oddly. The canyons were always known to locals, of course, but weren’t discovered by the outside until the 1980s and not opened to visitors until the 1990’s. Turns out that a big draw to the canyons is the condors that live there and can regularly be seen soaring effortlessly in the vast expanse. Except when we’re there, of course. We sat for an hour waiting for them to show and…. a big, fat zero. Defeated, we finally turned to go… and a condor appeared! One lone, solo condor.



Look closely, there it is!THE condor of the hour, literally.

Hard to see but there are lots of the 'levels' of agricultural
farming that the Incas did here, too.

The coolest part of the day, oddly, was when we wandered off with a Dutch couple we'd met this morning into the tiny little town set in the canyons to have lunch. It was one of those places where the locals eat, and you walk in and order "one, please". You don't have to bother asking what they have because you don't choose, you eat whatever they've made that day. This day it was caldo, a broth-based soup with lots of veggies, some pumpkin shell, and a few big, grisly pieces of unidentifiable meat. The restaurant was a true hole-in-the-wall, open air with stray dogs running in and out. The meal for the 4 of us cost 12 soles, or about $4.50US. I love that stuff!

 

So, yes, we spent lots of dough to get up at 2 am and see a big hole in the ground with a bird flying through it. Can’t win ‘em all, eh? But, hey, still beats a day at the office!

We had a great evening, spent simply spending time with the girls at the home. We played UNO, we talked, the girls did my hair and we laughed. The evening redeemed the whole day, hands down.



A local church in one of the communities of people that
still live in the canyon region

 

Not too concerned about oncoming
traffic, obviously

Unexpected Awesomeness

Snow-covered mountains surround Arequipa

As Fernando could only host us part of the time, last night we moved to a hostel. I believe I can now assuredly say that I have officially reached the age where I am over hostels. WAY over them. I’ve done lots of hostels in my day, I’ve done lots of things way worse than hostels in my day, and I have survived all of them. I’ve survived bathrooms that make me want to gag (and I mean literally gag), beds where I’ve slept on a towel on top of the covers as I didn’t want to touch any part of the actual bed, sharing rooms with 2-10 strangers, spiders, rats, odors, filth and rooms where I have opted not to shower versus using the bathroom as I figured I would actually come out cleaner that way. I’ve survived it all. And I know that I can do it. And now I’m over it. Now I want clean, crisp sheets and hot water and a shower where I don’t feel that I will contract an untreatable disease if I don’t wear flip flops into it. I want natural light and wifi that doesn’t shut off and on every 3 minutes (again, I’m being literal) and to not have to turn the lights off at 11 and tiptoe and grope around in the dark after that so I don’t wake up my stranger roommates. I don’t need 5-star luxury, but I also don’t want to contract hepatitis by using a bathroom, either, so let it be known that my hostel days are behind me!

With good ol' Ekeko who, if you leave him a
small token, will grant your wish



Baby llamas. Say it together now: aaaaaahhh.

We went to see Juanita, a frozen Inca girl who was discovered in the nearby mountains in 1995. She was offered as a sacrifice to the mountain in hopes that it would appease it (the Incas considered mountains gods) and it wouldn’t erupt and destroy their city. Since the discovery of Juanita, there have been four other sacrificed children found, but not in such freakishly good condition. It seems so barbaric, obviously, the idea of sacrificing one’s own children but the children to be sacrificed were selected at birth and spent their short lives knowing their destiny. But it was considered an honor for the family, as well as for the child as it was believed that they were essentially just being ushered in sooner to the afterlife, where they would live with the gods. Today we think of it as barbaric and archaic and yet I’ve been told that it still happens here in Peru, in remote tribes that remain separated from modern society and over which the government has no control. So perhaps not quite as archaic as we think…

The Peruvian version of the clown car. I lost count
around 20 or so...

Laura and I are both pretty committed to eating the local food while in a place (Laura even more than me… she is the one who tried guinea pig, after all) and we try to go the “real” venues such as local restaurants, markets and street vendors. But we had heard about ChiCha, a 5-star restaurant here run by a famous chef that we were told we just HAD to try, so we caved and went all luxurious over lunch. Not only was everything totally scrumptious but it turns out that you can get a 5-star meal here for about $20USD… double score!

Typical hillside neighborhood outside of the city

With (very) full bellies, we braved a tour of the city for the afternoon. Arequipa is pretty big and there was a lot we hadn't seen yet so this was nice as it gave us a more complete picture of the place. It also got us out of the heart of the city, which I really liked. I'm good with cities for about a day or two but then, if on my own, always prefer to get out of them to see the outlying areas as I feel like that's where you see what a country is REALLY like, how the people actually live and what their lives really look like. And today we got to see some of that, how I think the majority of Peruvians actually live. I dig that.

 

A man and his donkey

And in the evening, the coolest (and for me the most unexpected) part of our whole trip began. Laura’s friend Diana, who we met up with last night, has connections at the orphanage (her mom works there) that sends the children’s choir to the States every year so she talked to them and they graciously welcomed Laura and I to stay with them and share a bit in their daily lives here.

Typical houses on the outskirts of Arequipa. An interesting
note is that a LOT of buildings here never get around to
finishing the top floor.

There are 14 girls ranging in age from 4 to 22 and one 13-month old baby boy that live in the home and we had been told to expect a non-stop “beehive of activity”. But we had no idea. The second we walked in the door, the girls started coming up to us giving us besos (kisses) and hugs, jumping into our arms and all talking super animatedly at the same time to us. And yet somehow it wasn’t even a little bit overwhelming. I immediately loved being there and found the whole scene to be completely endearing and it made me want to do nothing but sit and talk to each of them. Which is pretty much how the rest of the evening went. It is these moments where I am most glad to be able to speak Spanish. That I had the ability to sit and really talk to the girls, to laugh with them and express genuine interest in their lives and to be able to answer their questions about mine brings me unspeakable happiness. These are the moments I travel for.

Some of the sweet girls at the orphanage where we're
now staying

LtoR: Heidi, MariLuz, Papi Rick, Maria, Mama Sandra
y Elizabeth



Maria, Mama Rosa y Dulce

 

 

One of the streets within the monastery

We continue our chill ways in Arequipa. This morning we had a leisurely, and very late breakfast, in one of the most charming alleys I’ve ever stumbled upon in South America. We walked to the local market, the truest place to find out what and how the locals eat and to get a sense of the “real” Arequipa (always make the local market your first stop as discovering the real foods of a place gives you a lot insight to the culture).

In the afternoon we checked out the Santa Catalina Monastery, which was described as a “city within a city”. Have to admit, my first thought when considering touring a monastery was a big, fat “Yawn”. But it was a remarkably interesting thing to see the labyrinths of streets and alleys and tiny passageways that really did make up a… wait for it…. city within a city. The architecture and the colors they used were really beautiful and calming. But it also never fails to defy my comprehension of just what about that life appealed to the women of that day, the idea of giving up everything you know and everyone you love and leaving them behind, knowing that you would never see them again (as is how it was back in the day) so you could spend your days living alone in a cold, stone “cell”. To me it seems like voluntarily admitting yourself to prison but Laura said she could kind of understand it, craving that sort of simplicity and uncomplicatedness (I know, that’s not a word) and knowing that THIS thing is all you have to think about and set your focus on for the rest of your days. Yeah, yeah. It remains a big, fat “No, gracias” from me. (Even though it doesn’t seem quite so stringent these days as, no lie, today we saw of group of 6 nuns walking around a place taking pictures with their iPads. Uh, what was that about a vow of poverty?)

"A city within a city"... just as claimed!

In the evening we finally met up with Laura’s friend, Diana. Last year a group of orphans from Peru and Africa were formed into a choir and toured the US for nearly a year. Laura volunteered as a chaperone for a few months of their time in the States and Diana was the one who escorted the kids from Peru. How nice for Laura to see a familiar face down here, especially one she had shared such an intense experience with. We caught up over coffee and a late dinner of traditional Peruvian food. So we have a local connection in Arequipa…  ¡que bién!













 

One of the nun's "cells", although I think they're preeetty
nice, as cells go

 

Steps to nowhere

 

Laura and her Peruvian friend, Diana

La Ciudad Blanca (The White City)

Two ladies came up to us and asked if they could take
pictures with us, giggling all the while. It was India all over!

Cusco is officially a thing of the past. After one last chill morning there yesterday, Laura and I boarded a plane headed farther south to Peru’s second largest city, Arequipa. We arrived in the evening and headed to the house of our latest couchsurfer: Fernando. Somehow, no matter how many times I do it, it never quite ceases to amaze that you just show up at some total stranger’s house and they just let you in to crash in their place.

So not only does Peru have its own beer, so do several of the
cities here. And, always the good tourist, I am committed
to trying each and every one!

Even though Cusco had a population of around 325,000 people, it somehow still felt small and cozy. Arriving in Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru with a population 900,000, was a momentary shock. I like small and cozy when in other countries as I think that’s where you get the truest sense of what a place is really like. Just think, if someone were to come to the US and only visit New York City, would they really know what “real” life in America is like, how the average family really lives? Either way, Arequipa seems to be a lovely city so far and well deserving of its nickname “La Cuidad Blanca” (The White City) because most of the buildings are, well, white.

The  cathedral in the main plaza in Arequipa

Today we did a bit of exploration while acclimating ourselves to our new surroundings. We were supposed to meet a friend of Laura’s in the morning but that fell through so we were left to our own devices to figure things out. Cue lots of coffee, a lunch overlooking the main plaza, a tour of the main cathedral in town and some more coffee, and that was about it.

Inside said cathedral

We headed back to Fernando’s for a little nappie-poo with plans of heading out again later in the evening. And then two more couchsurfers from France showed up so we ended up spending time hanging out with them, shooting the breeze. Turns out there was a street party going on to celebrate the anniversary of the neighborhood plaza so we all headed over. The music was pretty terrible (some sort of bizarre Japanese rock, which left the Peruvian crowd standing pretty stone cold) but it did provide one our coolest and most authentic Peruvian experiences to date:

The bell atop the cathedral

In one of the buildings on the plaza, we noticed what looked like some kind of abandoned space that was filled with several “street vendors” selling various kinds of homemade foods, mostly meat and potatoes on sticks. At another table was a lady selling some sort of “spiked” hot tea. There was a long row of picnic tables and you just squeezed in wherever you could fit, squeezed in among a big crowd of locals, many of whom took interest in us and struck up casual conversations. In true South American style, there was some chaos to it all (the good kind of chaos) but the food was real and cheap, the drinks were hot and spiked and the company and the experience were both as authentically Peruvian as it gets. And THAT is the stuff I travel for.

The view from atop the cathedral

Me in front of the cathedral door.... you get
the idea.

Coolest Peruvian dinner ever, with our fellow couchsurfers,
Olivier and Elisse

Chillin' in Cusco

Scenes like this abound. I only wish there were
some way to capture them all.

Gotta be honest, there hasn’t been very much exciting stuff going on these past couple of days. After all the excitement and action and movement that was Machu Picchu, we decided we would spend our remaining days in Cusco taking it easy. And take it easy we did.

Wednesday I slept in a bit while Lili and Laura toured some churches, then we found a great little mom-and-pop restaurant for lunch, we meandered a bit, did some shopping, hit up a chocolate factory, more meandering and then a very nice dinner for Lili’s last night in Peru. And that was literally all we did. Literally.



Sometimes it's the little things that amuse

Thursday we did a little more shopping so Lili could make sure to have all of her gift bases covered, and then we escorted her to the airport. Turns out that one of us has a “real” job and had to be back in the US. So instead of being the Three Amigas, we are now back to being the dynamic duo.

After dropping Lili off at the airport, Laura and I decided the best use of the afternoon would be to get massages. This was my second of the trip and, while not the best massage I’ve ever had, at $8 a pop, who can complain? Indian food for dinner (go figure) and back to the hotel for the night.

 

And that is exactly how lame we are. But I guess it’s okay to have some down time while traveling (despite my inner voice screaming that I MUST use every minute of a vacation to the fullest). These past couple of days I’ve hardly taken any pictures as we haven’t done much and yet I somehow feel that’s a good sign, in a strange way. It means I’ve started to connect to this place, to feel like less of a tourist (even though I obviously still totally am) and to just BE here.

 

Since I’ve been the one of the three of us who can speak Spanish, I always end up in the front seat of the taxis we regularly take (you take taxis absolutely everywhere here). And more often than not, I end up having conversations with the drivers. In a cab in the US, you mostly sit in the back and there’s no conversation with the cabbie. But here, where it’s such a relational culture, you sit in the front seat (you also do this even if you are the only one in the cab, which took my American mind a moment to adjust to) and 95% of the time the cab drivers strike up conversations about where you’re from, what you’re doing here, etc.

 

And in this way I have learned a lot about life in Peru. I’ve learned facts and figures, I’ve learned about what we should and shouldn’t do while here, I’ve learned cultural tidbits and I’ve learned lots of history about the country. But the coolest thing I’ve learned is that I love the people of Peru. I love that they genuinely take an interest in the people visiting their towns and that they love their country and can speak about it with such pride. And mostly I love how, not only are they just doing their job and getting me from place to place, they show such interest in their fellow man and in being so genuinely kind and helpful and friendly while doing so. I love how obvious it is that relationships come first here and how, even from such a simple thing as sharing a cab with a stranger, I am growing to love this country.

And now, on a completely different note, in honor of our friend Lili who sadly had to leave us today, I give you a couple of my favorite expressions of hers. She is idiomatically challenged and we laughed an awful lot about both the ones she botched and the ones she just plain made up. Sure wish I could remember them all as there were some definite classics along the way. But these ones stuck with me:

 

“You can give a horse water but it still won’t drink”
“It’s as blurry as a cat’s eye!”

“It was as scratchy as a cat’s ass"

Lili's last dinner in Cusco

We also enjoyed the lightbulb moment when we cleared up what “Hindsight is 20/20” actually means (even though she’d been using it for years) as well applauding when, on top of Machu Picchu, she properly used the expression “It’s a sight for sore eyes”. We shall miss you and your endearing lack of ability to properly use idioms, Lili von B!

Machu Picchu or Bust!!

 

Typical street in Ollantaytambu

Laura came to Peru to visit friends. Lili came to Peru for a fun week with friends in a new place. I came to Peru to go to Machu Picchu. And today was the day! I’ve been wanting to get there for years and it was one of those experiences that after seeing so many pictures of it and thinking about it and reading up on it for so long, it almost seemed surreal once I was actually standing there.

Considering that Machu Picchu is THE thing to do in Peru, and what brings most tourists (as well as their money) to the country, you would think that there would be some simple, logical way to get there. And yet, not so much. After talking to lots of people and getting lots of conflicting information about both prices and modes of travel, we decided to figure it out ourselves. Think you could just go to one place to make all the reservations? Nooo, no, no. That would be far too easy and this is South America, after all! We spent Monday morning running around Cusco buying our actual park tickets in one place, our train tickets in another, our bus in yet another…. but we figured it all out and were out of Cusco and on our way by lunchtime.

For not being a kid person, I do seem to find kids in other
countries pretty darn cute 

We took a bus to a town about halfway between Cusco and Machu Picchu that we had been told was definitely worth the stop. The bus in and of itself was an adventure where it was one of those things where you go to the actual bus station to buy your ticket but then some random guy with a van approaches you and offers you a shared ride with others (which seems a tad iffy but I knew was legit from previous experience). So before we knew it we were crammed into a van with 11 other strangers, bouncing along through really lovely countryside. Another amusing sidenote about the buses here: they don’t leave at a set time (nothing here happens at a set time) but they leave when they’re full. So you can get in and leave in 5 minutes, or you could get in one and leave in 45 minutes. Always good to keep a book handy in South America….

My frustration at not being able to pronounce
the town name of Ollantaytambo

 

We arrived to Ollantaytambo (a town name I STILL cannot pronounce properly, no matter how many times Lili quizzes me on it) and spent the afternoon poking around along the cobblestone streets and small aqueducts running through the city. There are also some famous Inca ruins there, which we thought we would just quickly check out since we had some extra time on our hands, only to find out the admission price was MORE than that of Machu Picchu. So, yeah, we’ll hold off til the main event, thank you. We had the worst restaurant experience of our time thus far in Peru, but it was balanced out by offering the best view we’ve had so far. We also had the BEST coffee in Peru and took an unexpected tuk-tuk ride to the train station. Less than 2 hours later and we were in…

 

Look how perky we are at 4 am!

… Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu and the jumping off point for about a million tourists to get up the mountain. Once Machu Picchu became a huge tourist destination, the town of Aguas Calientes was created specifically to house tourists on their way to the site. So it’s only the train station, hostels, restaurants and shops. And tons o’ tourists. But the second you walk out of the train station, you realize you are entombed on every side with massive mountains that don’t slope, but rather jet STRAIGHT up all around you. We arrived at night and it was momentarily creepy to feel to closed in but it provides a really incredible scene during the day, a tiny little town set in the valley and completely surrounded by such majestic mountains.

Just chillin' with a 6-day-old llama at Machu Picchu.
You know.

Since I’d been waiting so long to get there and since it was my one and only shot, I wanted to be on the first bus of the day to the top, hoping we would be able to see the sun rise while we were up there, and to beat the crowds. So we dragged our sorry butts out of bed at 3:45 am, had breakfast (all hotels there offer breakfast starting at 4:30 as so many tourists do the exact same thing), bought our bus tickets and made the first bus as planned! And we did beat the crowds… but we did not see the sun rise. Doh! The day was super hazy and there was no official sunrise to speak of, it just got kind of gradually light. But, hey, we were in Machu Picchu so all was well!

 

The levels where the Incas grew their crops

There are several theories as to why the city of Machu Picchu was built: for the Incan emporer, as a residence for the noble families in the area, as a place to keep the most beautiful women of the time, or as a religious site. However, most agree that it might have been some combination of all of them: built for Emporer Pachacuti while having religious parts to it, as well as being a residential city and a farming community that supported about 150 or so upper echelon families. It was incredible to walk through the ruins and try to imagine real families living there, not just caricatures of people. To think of couples making homes there, children running around playing in the grassy areas, friends gathering, people working the fields and the community gathering for religious ceremonies.

 

Construction is thought to have started around 1400, but the city was abandoned about 100 years later as a result of the Spanish Conquest. They say that the only reason it still remains is because the Spanish never found the city and so were unable to destroy it, as they did so many other things at the time. In fact, ever since that time it has always been known to locals but only came to global recognition in 1911, when an American historian discovered it and published about it.

 

We hiked up, we hiked down, we hiked through it, we sat for long periods and soaked it all in. We took a coffee break and then hiked up and down some more. We saw houses, religious sites, the fields where they grew the food that kept them alive and the place where they figured out astronomy and how the seasons worked. While I think it’s easy to assume that people from way back when were less smart than people today, I’m pretty sure it’s actually the other way around. To see what they created, the ingenuity they showed with such basic means is actually mind-blowing.

 

We figured that while it was hazy, we would go around and learn things about the different areas and then by the time we were done with that, it would have cleared up and we could take our magnificent, postcard-worthy pictures we had come here for. We waited all morning… and then the haze finally lifted and we could see such amazing things!…. and then it started to rain. A lot. We tried to wait it out over coffee, but no. The ONE day that it has rained steadily here… doh!! But I decided that I was soldiering on and was going to get the most out of my one day at Machu Picchu. So we walked around in the rain and took pictures in the rain and never really got THAT amazing view of Machu Picchu that I had hoped for. And yet I can’t complain because I was still standing in one of the most awesome places that I have ever been in my whole life.

 

We decided that on the way back, we were going to hike down instead of take the bus. So we walked down 2,000 feet and thousands of stairs through the jungle path back down to Aguas Calientes. Despite the points where my legs actually felt like Jello, it was an awesome way to descend from the mountain and something I’m so glad we did.

So while our fellow Americans were back home electing a president, we were hiking Inca trails and exploring the ruins of their amazing ancient city. If you have to miss an election, can’t think of a much better reason to do so!

  

 

 

On the long, beautiful hike down

 

It's preeeetty hard to see, but on the
bottom left, you can just make out the little
town of Aguas Calientes set right smack in the
middle of gigantic and supremely towering mountains