Condor, Puma, Snake

Cusco from the ruins of Saqsaywayman

Monday, October 20, 2008

Yesterday we left Cusco and the Sacred Valley after an awesome week of trekking and Inca ruins. The net result, a new version of ro sham bo called Condor, Puma, Snake. I will show you the hand signals when I get home, but here is an interpretation of them by mis amigos borachos.

The Inca´s believed in three worlds, the upper world represented by the Condor, the physical world represented by the Puma and the underworld represented by the snake. Cusco´s shape, when viewed from above, resembles a Puma, with the sacred Inca site of Saqsaywaman just outside of town as the Puma´s head. Here we began our trek, ambling about the terraces, crawling through dark tunnels and then heading out of the Cusco area to the very small village of Quisharani to set up camp for Day 2 when the real climbing began.

The crew that kept us trekking Quisharani Market set up for the gringos

After the morning ruins, lunch in a market town and a several hour bus ride our group of 15 met the 13 locals (3 guides and a slew of mule captains and cooks) who would get us through the next 3 days of trekking.

Our tents were set up for us in the school yard where we would camp for the night. After a yummy dinner, we were treated to Quecha lessons before retiring to card games around the a table in a room that is normally a classroom for children of all ages from around the small agricultural community.

Our wake up call the next moring was a cup of coca tea coca tea and a steaming bowl of bathing water delivered to out tents. By 8 AM, we set off on Day 2, the first real day of trekking in the Urumbamba Range of the Lares Valley. The first three and a half hours were straight uphill, starting at about 3,600 meeters and ascending to the Huillquicasa Pass at 4,400 meters.

The trail wound through alpaca and and sheep country with stunning views of neighboring glacier covered peaks. After the summit, we had a lunch of warm soup and sandwhich fixings in a tent that our crew set up (the aclimatized mule train and sandal clad drivers move much faster than our group of gringos), we headed downhill for another couple of hours to arrive in yet another Andean village, Cuncani. Once again, our crew had beat us to the site and our little red tents were waiting for us.

Approach to Cuncani

We spent a few hours in the afternoon on a community project, building the foundation of a new wall to go around the school yard. Dragoman, in conjunction with the local trekking agency, have been working with this community for four years to build the school facilities and help provide for a teach and school supplies. Our work consisted of filling a trench that was about 30 feet long, 1.5 feet wide and 2 feet deep with boulders, little filler rocks and eventually dirt. This foundation will prevent the wall from being washed away by the adjacent river when the water swells. After the fence building, a few of us played a little soccer in the school yard with our head mule driver, guides and locals. 4 v. 4 in high altitude is, well, exhausting!

We woke up at 5 AM to begin our climb at 6:30 on Day 3. Yes, I got up at 5 AM....don´t fall out of your chair. When I heard the rain on my tent during the night, I should have offered some coca leaves to the Pachamama...but I didn´t. I woke up that morning with my first dodgy stomach but thought I would be ok for the climb. We set out, not straight uphill this time, but on a continuous climb through the mist toward the 4,800 M Pumahuanca Pass. We broke into 3 groups and I fell with my friend Sally and some others into the 3rd group due to my stomach troubles. We walked for the first 2 hours through a persistent mist. One of our fellow trekkers, an older woman, was tiring a bit, so she took a ride on the horse that was bringing up the rear for such purposes. Soon, however, the mist turned to spit, which turned to hail, which turned to snow. So, we spent three plus hours climbing rocky paths toward the summit in a cold, windy, driving snow. Now, we were prepared with waterproof jackets, boots and hats, though I could have used some waterproof gloves, so the climb was ok. However, some of my fellow trekkers forgot to eat and drink along the way and so we had a few bonks along the way. The husband of the older woman, actually bonked pretty hard, struggling with the climb, the altitude, the lack of rest and the inclimate weather. The guide was young and his solution was to press on to the summit as quickly as possible, so we kind of took matters into our own hands and made our friend drink some rehydration fluids and rest a little. Needless to say, we made the summit in a near white out, followed shortly by the pack of llamas who were carrying our tents and rollmats. So, upon just finishing a five hour climb to a 4,800 M pass in the snow, we had to step aside on the icy trail and let the llamas pass. They weren´t very happy either! I wish I had a photo, but we were all cold, tired and worried about ruining our cameras!

Within two hours of the summit, we had descended back down into a valley that was actually quite tropical with all sorts of cactus, vegetation and trees bordering the river. We were originally supposed to bush camp on the third night but had come further than expected, so once again we set up camp on the soccer pitch of a small agricutural community.

This community was even smaller and more rural, a collection of a few houses with sheep far outnumbering people. I even saw a heard of at least 10 guinea pigs, a local delicacy, scrambling through the stone enclosed yard of the nearest home.

A little morning football before the home stretch!

On Day 4, we had a short 3 hour hike following the river through the lush oasis like canyon where we met our bus to Ollantaytambo, which is a quaint Inca pueblo that has been continuously inhabited since the 13th centry and sits at the foot of the ruins of an impressive Inca fortress with the same name.

We spent the afternoon touring the fortress which was a great build up to our Machu Picchu visit planned for the next day, Friday. When we arrived in Ollantaytambo, we were all dying for a shower after four days of whore baths, but alas, apparently, they having rolling brown-outs in Peru too! No electricity meant no water pump, so I waited until after exploring the ruins before dinner for what was one of the most glorious hot showers of my life!

At Ollantaytambo pre-shower

For many in our group, Day 5 and the visit to Machu Picchu would be the highlight of the trip. The lost city sits atop a mountain in a cloud forest and from the air has the shape of a condor. The Rio Urumbamba river valley leads from Cusco to Macchu Picchu, representing a snake. In spite of sharing the grounds with close to 2000 other tourists, Machu Picchu was quite impressive. The citadel was inhabited for less than 50 years before being abandonded, most likely as part of the Inca attempt at evading the Spanish conquests. We returned to Cusco that evening and went out for a nice dinner and some dancing to celebrate the completion of our trek!

Afternoon light on Machu Picchu

Hopelessly behind (on blogging) and off to Machu Picchu

Well as you can see, I just posted the diary that I wrote on October 7 before joining with my Dragoman tour group. Since then, I have seen Lake Titikaka from two countries. We departed La Paz on the 8th for Copacabana on Titikaka´s Bolivan shore. We hiked 6 miles across the top of the sacred Isla del Sol. On the 10th we headed across the border to Puno, Peru, and a tour of the Dineyland-esque Reed Islands of Lake Titikaka. In Puno, I found my first wifi connection at a reunion dinner with my 3 British mates from the Uyuni trip and my new mate Sally, which led to some fun facebook uploads (check out the photos!). We arrived in Cuzco on the 11th after a long drive day in the Dragoman truck and now after a day in a half in Cuzco, I am getting ready to hit the hay for a few hours....we get up early to begin our 4 day trek (Mon - Thurs) in the Andes to visit various Inka ruins and contemporary villages, before heading to Machu Picchu on Friday. Will be back in computer land on Friday night and will post photos and more come the weekend!

My camera broke right before joining the group in La Paz, but fortunately, my new roommate, Ali, lent me hers for a few days. My camera is in for repair here in Cuzco, but I bought a new one to take on the trek. Here in Cuzco, I was able to burn a DVD of my photos thus far, which enabled the post on Uyuni. However, I have run out of steam to upload photos of the Titikaka trip!

La Paz to Mars and Back

Post Written October 7, 2008

I arrived in La Paz, Boliva early on October 2, 2008 with about 36 hours to acclimatize to the nearly 13,000 foot elevation before heading on my first adventure to the Salar de Uyuni and other natural beauty in the Southwestern Altiplano of Bolivia. The altitude sickness hit me like fill in your favorite hard hitting analogy here and I spent most of the time in bed. I even puked once.











3 days in a 4wd SUV with 5 other tourists and a 12 hour overnight bus ride on each end to get to the tour and back.




I checked out of my hotel on October 3 and whimpered around the city, finally feeling a little better before heading off for the terminale de busses and a 12 hour ride to the southwestern outpost of Uyuni for an an amazing 3 day tour. The local bus arrived in Uyuni at around 6 AM on the 4th, which gave me enough time for some breakfast and matte de coca with some Belgian tourists before setting out on my tour at 10 AM. I spent the next three days and two nights with five other tourists, 3 brits, 1 canandian and 1 dutch, in a 4wd vehicle with our driver and gia, Alejandro and our cook, Nate, a lovely traditional Bolivan woman.






Our tour started at 3,700 M/12,000 ft and reached as high as 4,900 M or 16,000 ft. Much of the terrain reminded me of my dear AZ desert and other parts of the southwestern US but then there were sights that were completely mind blowing and out of this world....12,000 sq km salt flats...a blinding white expanse with a cactus covered island in the middle; partly frozen, brackish lakes, some red, some white, some green, depending on the mineral and microrganism content, full of flamingos..yes pink flamigos in frozen lakes; beautiful mountains, dormant and smoking volcanos on the Chilean border; foxes that sadly often had one broken hind leg, probably from traps, which is why they were approaching humans for food; llamas, and expansive, expansive, I mean hours and hours of cruising on dirt tracks for 3 days, expansive deserts.

Salar de Uyuni from the Isla de Inkahuasi

I now know what the valley of the sun, aka, once upon a saguaro forrest, Phoenix, might look like with no people. The tour started in a town called Uyuni. When the sun rose and I peered out of my bus window after a good 7 hours of bumping down dirt tracks feeling completely ill from altitude and dramamine, I thought to myself, ¨"my family is going to laugh their asses off when they find out that I travelled to South American and took a 12 hour, overnight, bus ride to basically see the same terrain I would get if I went home!¨ I will reiterate though, that there were no people and no roads, I imagine much like home 200 years ago. Once again...no roads...did you get that yet? A few hours south of La Paz, the bus left pavement for dirt tracks and we spent the subsquent 9 hours bumping down what were literally tire tracks in the sand. No street signs, no lights, just random tracks that would turn and crisscross at random intersections. I have no idea how anyone finds their way around! And that was the way to the main city where the tour started!!



The next 3 days were more bumping around back roads, very much reminscient of how we used to 4wd around Northern Arizona, taking the back road from Pinewood to Camp Verde on the way home from the cabin turning the 2 hour drive on I-17 into a 6 hour human popcorn maker. After a day on the Salar de Uyuni, which is like the burning man playa coated with a virgin snow of salt, we stayed in a salt hotel on our first night.

Salt "Hotel" San Juan, Bolivia
Well, really a small salt cabin with a common area and maybe 8 rooms. Literally, everything was made of salt blocks...the beds, the walls, the tables, the chairs. Only the bathroom was made of "normal" materials, for obvious reasons!. Anyway, one of my fellow travellers had a brilliant idea...she brought a bottle of tequila and a bunch of limes....because you know that if you are going to stay in a place made entirely of salt, then there are a lot of interesting ways to do tequila shots. Fortunately, I only had one...shocking, I know, but that proves that I really am suffering from the altitude!

The hotel was run by some people from the pueblo where it was located, San Jaun. San Juan is in the middle of nowhere and as about 400 residents who are mostly raise llamas and grow quinois. A llama costs about 200 Bolivianos to purchase ($30), which doesn´t seem like much but for perspective, the average annual income in Bolivia is $900 and probably much much less for the campesinos. So, imagine, a small village at 12,500 feet, in a desert Altiplano, with no obstructions in any direction, with no light pollution for hundreds of miles and clear desert skies.....the stars were effin brilliant, and because we are in the southern hemisphere, completely foreign to me! We sat outside and star-gazed from the top of the world!

Day 2 of the trek took us over boulder filled roads to a series of lakes created by mountain snow melt. The minerals deposited from the run-off keeps the icy waters from freezing and creates green, red and white lakes. The ultimate in the chain is the beautiful Laguna Colorado, named for it´s red color. The microorganisms that give the lake surface this rich red also color the 3 varieties of flamingos that call the lake home! Our basic accommodations near the lake were in the middle of nowhere.































The night was freezing so we headed to our sleeping bags early to get some sleep before a 5 AM start on day three to see geyers, soak in some hot springs and then hit the long road back to Uyuni.




















Anyway, I am now back at my hotel in La Paz and am joining the group that I will be travelling with for the next 21 days. I haven´t showered since the morning of 11/3 when I checked out of this same hotel as there was no hot water at any of our accommodations (or on the overnight bus rides) and it was too damn cold for anything other than a whore bath. The group that I am joining have all been travelling together for awhile now, up from Argentina, and I am taking over the bed spot of someone who is leaving. So, I am waiting for her to clear out so I can get into my room and shower!



Steve (UK), Beth (USA)

Diane (Holland), Heidi (UK), Sophie (UK), Marlo (CAN)