Scenes From Another Planet

San Pedro de Atacama is a small town in the middle of the desert that has developed into northern Chile's tourism center due to its proximity to a number of natural attractions.  Despite its isolated and desolate location, hordes of Chileans and foreigners alike come here to spend a lot of money (San Pedro is easily the most expensive place we have been so far, even much more so than Lima).  Magge and I arrived in town not expecting too much, and left with some of our best memories yet.

Happy Birthday, Kiersten

Happy 14th to my little sister.  We had to wake up at 3:45am and brave sub-freezing temperatures to get these pictures.  Our hardship is her birthday gift.

These say "Happy Birthday" in Aymara (I think).  Aymara isn't as widely spoken in Chile as it is in Peru, but we have already done one birthday sign in Spanish.

Northern Chile: Not Like Southern Peru

Crossing the border from Tacna, Peru to Arica, Chile, we could definitely sense that we were in a different country.  While the language and the desert landscape remained the same, the Chilean side is less chaotic, has nicer cars and fewer taxis, is cleaner and seems less likely to try to rip us off.  Then it happened: for the first time in nearly three months, we got ripped off.

Peru Wrap-Up

Facts and Figures
Length of Stay:  Two months
Miles Traveled:  2,115 (2,865 since landing in Quito)
Cities and Towns Visited:  Piura, Trujillo, Yungay, Lima, Pisco, Huacahina, Arequipa, Cuzco, Ollantaytambo, Aguas Calientes, Puno, Isla Amantaní, Tacna
Intercity Buses Taken:  8
Times Jeff Ate Alpaca:  3
Times Magge Ate Pizza:  Lost count

Rankings and thoughts in the full post.

Lake Titicaca (We can't say it with a straight face either)

Disclaimer: As I sit here in Puno writing this post, one of Peru's at least once-weekly parades is occurring outside. One thing Jeff and I have learned during our time in this country is that Peruvians love a parade - the louder, the better. So, as irreparable damage is being done to my hearing, I will try my best to concentrate and get this post done.

Left: The ridiculous parade going on outside right now

Chile Itinerary

We've been in Peru for exactly two months as of today, and leave for Tacna, on the Chilean border, tonight.  Our schedule for Chile is more flexible than what we had for Ecuador and Peru, but here is what it looks like right now:

• January 26-27:  Iquique.  After taking a ten hour bus ride from Puno to Tacna, then a train across the border to Arica, then another bus, we will take a few days in relax in this beach city.  I missed out on parasailing in Lima, but may try again here, as it is supposedly a good spot.
• January 28-February 1:  San Pedro de Atacama.  A popular backpacker town in the Atacama desert that is close to hot springs, salt flats, geysers and mountains.
• February 2-5:  Copiapó.  Using this city as a base to venture into the seldom-visited Nevado Tres Cruces National Park.
• February 6-9:  La Serena.  This city has the reputation of being the prettiest city in Chile, architecturally.  It's also close to Pisco distilleries and obvservatories that take advantage of some of the clearest skies on the planet.
• February 10-20:  The Lakes District.  A region full of mountains and (you guessed it) lakes.  There are plenty of outdoor activities here, including the chance to climb a volcano.
• February 21-24:  Chiloé.  In relatively culturally homogenous Chile, the island of Chiloé is supposedly unique.  It is also famous for its oysters, which neither Magge nor I like.
• February 25-March 1:  Santiago and Middle Chile.  We're meeting Marcia and Lee (Magge's mother and stepfather) in Santiago, and will spend some time in the surrounding area and visiting Rachel (Magge's stepsister) in the coastal city of Viña del Mar.
• March 2-7:  Easter Island.  We'll continue with Marcia and Lee to this isolated island before saying goodbye to South America.
• Wild card:  Patagonia.  Due to the immense length of Chile and the cost of flying, we are not currently planning on visiting Patagonia.  However, we are keeping our eye on flight prices, and if we're able to find a deal, we'll accelerate the schedule (likely skipping Copiapó and La Serena).

Incan Ruins

Cuzco is a tourist attraction in its own right, but the primary reason for its popularity is that it is very useful as a base to explore many Incan ruins, especially Machu Picchu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Magge and I took four days towards the end of our time in Cuzco to explore six different sites.  (Picture to the right is of some storage houses on Pinkuylluna, by the town of Ollantaytambo).

The City I Want to Love, But Don't

Cuzo is the most visually attractive city we have visited so far.  Its mix of Incan and colonial Spanish heritages have created a unique architectural style, helping the city land on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, and the background of lush green Andean mountains certainly do not detract from its allure.  There are ornate churches built on massive Incan wall foundations, narrow cobblestone streets leading up to the hills, and a number of nicely landscaped plazas surrounded by well-preserved buildings that are hundreds of years old. (Unfortunately, due to our camera problems, I only have pictures of Cuzco taken from a hill and nothing from ground level).  It sounds like the kind of city I would love, and I expected to love it, ranking it #2 in my pre-trip city list.

Why We're Travelling

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

- Mark Twain

Colca Canyon Trek

Last Friday, Jeff and I embarked on a three-day trip to the Colca Canyon.  It was a rigorous journey, but well worth it.  While the canyon was a treat in itself, one of our companions, unwittingly, provided us with a great deal of entertainment as well.  Jeff has already written a post profiling our friend, Highlander (There can be only one!), so I will keep my refernces to him at a minimum.  The following post is a glimpse of our time on the trail. (Please note that I am very sorry there are no photos. It looks as though we may have lost thousands of pictures because one of our memory cards got messed up.  The picture to the right is from Wikipedia).

Colca Canyon Preview: There Can Be Only One

Magge has a lengthy post coming in the next day or two on our trek into Colca Canyon. To whet your appetite, I will introduce a key character in our weekend's travels.

Parental guidance advisory: The following post contains adult language and a reference to drug use.

The Santa Catalina Monastery Is Not Boring

We were not really sure what to expect of Arequipa before we arrived. Our guidebook says that it is an attractive and exciting city, but it also says that things in Peru cost half as much as they actually do and that the water in Huanchaco in December is warm enough for swimming. After we arrived from depressing Pisco, we found out the book is actually right this time. The city is flanked with snowcapped mountains and volcanoes and is full of colonial buildings built with local white volcanic rock. The highlight of the historical center, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the Santa Catalina Monastery.

You're probably wondering how interesting a monastery can be. I'm with you. Magge and I went to a monastery in Quito (also called Santa Catalina), and I was bored out of my mind. However, this monastery was one of the most interesting sites we've seen so far. It covers an entire block (20,000 square meters) and is surrounded by high walls, making it look like a fortress from the outside, but is colorful and intimate on the inside. Built in 1580, nearly no outsiders saw the interior until the mayor of Arequipa forced the monastery to modernize and open to the public in 1970. Magge and I spent two hours wandering around and probably set a new record for pictures taken in a two hour span.  Some more of these pictures are in the full post.

New Year's in Pisco

In an attempt to speed up our travels south, Jeff and I decided to spend our New Year´s in Pisco. We figured the namesake of such a tasty beverage would be a good place to ring in the new year. Perhaps we should have done a bit more research. The town was hit hard by an earthquake in 2007, though in many respects it looked as though the earthquake could have occurred yesterday.

I Still Have Sand in My Ears, Three Days Later

Huacachina, a desert oasis 5km from the city of Ica, is a strange little place.  It used to be an upscale resort, which is still evident from the one nice hotel still standing, but is now a town where foreigners come to sandboard and party and Peruvians come to sandboard and swim in a lagoon that smells worse than New Jersey.  Given our immense success surfing, Magge and I wanted to try our hands at sandboarding, so we stopped in Huacachina for two days on our way from Pisco to Arequipa.

Happy Birthday, Joshie!

Just wanted to wish my favorite big bobo a happy 31st birthday! (Sheesh, you're old)

Guilty Pleasures in Lima

Originally, the plan was to skip Lima if at all possible.  Magge had not been impressed with the city on her previous visit to Peru, and the travel descriptions are not too riveting.  However, we realized that the distance we wanted to cover was too great without breaking it up somewhere, so we decided to concede a few days there.  I booked a hostel in Miraflores, which is a quiet, upscale district outside of central Lima.  From my previous experiences in South America, "upscale" often means that the stray dogs have all four of their legs and it's safe to walk around until 10pm, instead of just until sunset, so my expectations for Miraflores were not all that high.  By the time we left, though, I was wishing we had stayed a little longer.

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.