Llanganuco Lodge Day Hikes

Aside from playing with the kids, Magge and I were relatively inactive during our time in Trujillo, so we were looking forward to the opportunity to do some hiking in the mountains.  The Llanganuco Lodge did not let us down, as its location is perfect for a number of day trips.  We were going to hike around the nearby lake the day we arrived at the lodge, but we had barely slept the previous night on the bus from Trujillo, and a much-needed nap derailed our plans.  Over the next four days, though, we were able to get a taste of what the Cordillera Blanca has to offer.  Following Magge's marathon post about the lodge, I will try to keep my writing short and let the pictures speak for themselves.

I'm Dreaming of an Andean Christmas

While I would never for a minute contest the fact that I am the luckiest girl in the world to be able to spend 13 months traveling (with my love), there are most certainly some drawbacks. Probably the greatest of these is not being able to spend the holidays with our families. My mother, knowing this time would be difficult for Jeff and me, and also knowing how much her daughter likes a comfy bed and a nice shower, generously offered to pay for a nice place for us to stay for Christmas.

Christmas in Trujillo

Trujillo's Plaza de Armas is dueling Magge's mother for the title of "Most Christmas Trees".  The city got a late start with decorations, with most of them put up in the last week, but has done a decent job creating a Christmas feel in spite of the warm weather.

Magge and I are headed to the mountains for Christmas and will not have access to phones or internet until we get to Lima next week.  In the meantime, enjoy pictures of Christmas in Trujillo at night in the full post.

Transportation in Trujillo

When we lived in New York, I used think I was quite savvy when it came to public transportation.  If you knew where you needed to go, I could tell you which subway line would take you there.  Preferred a cab?  I had a gift for hailing them. Transportation in Trujillo, however, is a whole other ball game.  As Jeff wrote earlier, the vast majority of vehicles on the roads are for hire and there are a number of different options.

Trujillo Ruins, Part 2

We followed up last week's visit to Chan Chan with a trip to the Huacas del Sol y de la Luna (Sun and Moon Temples).  The structures predate Chan Chan by approximately 1,000 years, and were built by the Moche people.  The Huaca del Sol has not gone under much excavation, so there is not much to see except for the exterior.  As with Chan Chan, much of it has been destroyed by the elements (only about 25% of the original structure is still intact), but the sheer size of what remains is impressive.  Our guidebook gave us the impression we could walk around, or even on, the temple, but our guide must have not read that book because he seemed confused when I asked for permission to get closer.  We were limited to viewing it from a distance.

At Least She Didn't Jump Out of a Cake

Just what the kids needed: a sexy Santa's helper

Peru Itinerary

The wife and I sketched out the rest of our Peru travels over lunch the other day.  It was probably the most planning we have done for this trip since we decided on which countries to visit.  We are posting it here so that our parents can quench their thirst for Google Earth, although others may find it interesting as well (anyone want to make last minute plans to meet us?).  The schedule will still be flexible, but as of now it looks like this:

• December 23-27:  Spending Christmas in a lodge in the Cordillera Blanca, the world's highest tropical mountain range.  I've also seen claims that it's the world's second highest mountain range after the Himalayas, although there are a handful of higher peaks in the Patagonia, so I'm not sure where that nugget comes from.  The range contains sixteen peaks higher than 6,000m.  In comparison, Mt. McKinley in Alaska in North America's only peak greater than 6,000m.  The lodge where we are staying sits in the shadow of Huascarán, Peru's tallest mountain at 6,768m.
• December 28-30:  Lima.  We actually don't have that much interest in the capital city, but we need to break up the long bus ride from the north to the south.
• December 31 - January 1:  Pisco.  Bringing in the New Year with pisco sours.
  
• January 2-4:  Huacachina, an oasis surrounded by giant sand dunes.  This is primarily a backpacker town, so we don't plan on spending too much time here.
  
• January 5-11:  Arequipa and Canyon Country.  Peru's second largest city and the world's two deepest canyons (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon): Colca and Cotahuasi.
  
• January 12-23:  Cusco/Sacred Valley/Inca Trail to Machu Picchu/Amazon jungle.  This is the part of the Peru itinerary that still needs the most work.  We know we'll visit Machu Picchu, but are still uncertain about hiking the Inca Trail.  We'd love to make the trek, but the standard routes cost more than I'd like to pay and I've heard that they are not necessarily good values.  There are some alternate routes which may be cheaper, and we're in the process of exploring them.  We've also decided that we will definitely make a trip into the jungle.  I had wanted to do a guided tour that goes overland from the Andes into the Amazon Basin, going through the cloud forest, but we'll be there in the middle of the rainy season, which renders the roads impassable.  Instead, we'll likely fly into Puerto Maldonado and take a boat up one of the rivers to a lodge.
  
• January 25-28:  Lake Titicaca (simmer down, children).  The city of Puno will be the launching point to the islands in the world's highest navigable lake.  How is "navigable" defined?  Probably in such a way that makes Lake Titicaca the world's highest navigable lake.  Regardless, it is supposed to be a fascinating place for both its indigenous culture and scenery.
  
• January 29:  Tacna, where we will take a train into Chile.
  

Deeper Into Alto Trujillo

Bruce Peru is throwing a Christmas party for all the kids this Friday, and in preparation, the teacher at my school and I spent time after class yesterday tracking down parents to sign permission slips.  I haven't done much exploring of the barrio (to give you an idea why: I have to wear a green tunic to school so that the residents know I'm there to help and will leave me alone; by leave me alone, I mean not rob me or worse), so the only parts I have seen are those that are visible from the bus ride.  I had no idea that the school was in an area of the neighborhood that is relatively nice and that some of the children live in even worse conditions.

To get to one girl's home, we had to cross a wide strip of desert that was uninhabited due to the presence of power lines (which don't supply power to most of the nearby buildings).  It was somewhat surreal to be walking across the hot sand, surrounded by jagged mountains with a view of huts scattered few hundred meters in the distance.  The juxtaposition of the stark beauty of the natural surroundings and the despair of the sporadic trash heaps and ramshackle homes was jarring.  Magge has used the term "post-apocalyptic" to describe her barrio before, but until yesterday, I had thought that was too severe a description for my barrio.  However, as we walked, I couldn't think of a more appropriate way to describe the area.  I wouldn't have been completely shocked to see Mad Max come out from one of the homes, which are made from reeds and plastic tarp, rather than the concrete slab constructions closer to the school.

The most amazing part, however, is that the kids were completely oblivious to the conditions.  They were running, laughing, playing tag and using abandoned contruction sites as play complexes.  I'm sure that as they grow older and become more aware of what they do and do not have, most of their attitudes will change, but for the moment, it is refreshing to see their innocence.

That's enough of clichéd, heartrending prose for one week.  I will try to get back to my usual schedule of eating weird animals and making fun of other tourists.

* Note: This picture is of a home in Magge's barrio, not mine, but it is typical of the homes in the barrios surrounding Trujillo.

The World's Largest Mud City

There is not much to do in Trujillo besides enjoy the great weather (the days' highs fit in that specific temperature range where you would feel comfortable wearing anything, and I'm pretty sure the breeze here is the world's best).  This area receives a small fraction of the number of tourists that southern Peru gets, but those that do come here typically do so for the archaeological sites that are just beyond the city limits.

The largest and most popular of these sites are the ruins of Chan Chan.  This massive city was built with adobe bricks by the Chimor people between roughly 850 AD and 1470 AD, when it was conquered by the Incas.  At 28 square km at its peak (roughly half the size of Manhattan), it was the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas and the largest adobe city in the world.   I've seen population estimates ranging from 30,000 to 100,000 (of course the local guides and Peruvian literature put the figure at the high end of the range).

As one of Peru's eleven UNESCO World Heritage sites, Magge and I decided before we got to the country that we would definitely pay it a visit.  On Saturday, we signed up for a tour that included a trip to the Huaco Arco Iris (a temple outside the current Chan Chan complex), the Chan Chan museum, the only partially restored area of Chan Chan, Huanchaco (the beach town where we went surfing last weekend) and a guide whose English was nearly as difficult to understand as his Spanish.  Despite the communication issues, the price of $5 per person was worth just getting shuttled between the sites.

McDonald's in Peru

To continue our feature on McDonald's around the world, Magge and I ate dinner at Trujillo's first, and I think its only, McDonald's on Saturday night.  According to my research (I'm taking this seriously), it opened in 2008 as the first McDonald's in Peru outside of Lima.  It is found in the food court of a fairly upscale mall, along with other healthful American staples such as KFC and Papa John's.

I know this picture isn't great - Magge took it.

How to Look Like a Clumsy Idiot

Step 1 - Take surfing lessons.

Congratulations, you now look like a clumsy idiot.

Our First Week of Volunteering, or: Where is Charles Dickens When You Need Him?

Since we arrived in South America, we have been amazed at the ages of the children selling goods in the street. There seems to be no limit to how young they must be to push candy and trinkets to strangers; as long as the child can walk and hold objects in their hands, he or she is deemed fit as a vendor. Magge likes to tell me that I am a cold, emotionless person, but I have a hard time seeing an emaciated five year old with tattered clothes and hands nearly black with grime begging passersbys to buy suckers and gum.

Education is constitutionally compulsory and free in Peru, but many children, especially those from the barrios (poor neighborhoods that typically rim major cities), never make it into schools. Supposedly, the matriculation rate at the primary levels is 97%, but I rarely ever believe data released from the U.S., so I'm not inclined to believe any statistics sourced from the Peruvian government. A number of children are born in their families' shanties without birth certificates or other records, so I don't think the government even knows how many children they are supposed to have in their schools.