Peru

Peru's a place that I can remember thinking I wanted to visit from a fairly young age. Proximity to both surf and snow was something that I thought was pretty cool. I'm not really sure what I was expecting when I got here, but it's safe to say I've been surprised, impressed and fascinated by what I've seen so far.

Starting in Miraflores, a suburb just outside of the capital Lima, I was please to find the climate to my liking, definitely shorts and t-shirt weather. I liked Peru already. An afternoon wandering the streets of Miraflores left me surprised at how modern everything was, and amazed at how crazy the driving is. There's more big shopping centers and department stores than I thought there would be, and more new cars than beat up old bombs. Cats roam free in Central Park which i found a bit weird, but i suppose they're healthier and cleaner looking than the stray dogs gracing Guatemala's streets. In general everything is pretty modern, clean and orderly. Except on the roads! All the streets are one way, which is fine, but there appears to be absolutely no semblance of giving way. Approach an intersection and you'll have traffic coming from either left or right. Toot your horn, maybe slow down a little but just keep on going. Indicators are optional, turning can be done from anywhere, at any time, you can even make third and fourth lanes on 'two' lane roads. Amazing, but it seems to go off without too much of a hitch.

You don't have to go far to find old stuff either. A 10 or 15 minute walk up a beautiful tree lined street and you come to an ancient ceremonial site that pre-dates the Incas by a lazy 800 years. Thousands upon thousands of bricks made from mud and crushed sea shells have withstood the elements for hundreds of years. Walls still stand near perfectly straight, and the half uncovered pyramid (work still in progress) might not evoke the same awe as some others around the world, but is still pretty cool in its own rite. The guided tour, complete with comical Spanglish speaking guide, was most definitely worth the $4.

A 10 minute walk the other side of Central Park, down a winding tree lined street, and you hit the Pacific Ocean. Oh to live so close to a surfable break. Continuing the tradition of beaches being completely different to what I'm used to, this one was a beach of black rocks, made smooth by the surging waves of the ocean. Difficult to walk on, especially without shoes, but apparently just as comfortable for the locals to lie on.

16 hours on a bus is surprisingly comfortable when you go first class (amateur backpacker, pffft). I slept for about 5, and don't really remember most what I did in the remaining time, so it must have been comfy. The scenery was unlike anything I've seen before, starting with vast arid rocky  desert meeting the even vaster (more vast?) ocean. What an awesome sight to wake up to. Once we left the coast it was just more desert, like a scene straight out of a movie, rocks and sand as far as the eye can see. We'd occasionally roll through tiny desert communities, which actually did look like badly crafted sets from an old school Western.

We eventually hit Arequipa in southern Peru, and if I thought the driving in Lima was crazy, here it´s just plain madness. Same road 'rules' as before, but these guys just took it up a notch. You'd be waiting a long time to see any polite waves in rear view mirrors. Arequipa is another nice old city, but I found there wasn't really a lot to do with only a day to spend there. Longer stays could involve mountain climbing, canyoning and rafting but for one day all I could really do was walk around, look at old churches and try some different cuisines. After that, back to the hostel for some pool competitions and gigantic Jenga (my new favourite game).  A pretty big night not leaving me in the greatest state for another early morning bus ride.

This bus brought me to Puno, on the banks of Lake Titicaca - the highest freshwater lake in the world,  in a mere 6 hours. Again, not a hell of a lot to do on the city itself, but there's day tours galore. An absolute must is a visit to the floating islands, centuries old communities that live day to day on floating islands made of tatora reeds. Life is simple for these people. So simple it blows my mind. Days are spent either out in boats collecting reeds to keep rebuilding your island or boat, gathering food to eat - usually in the form of fish, pigs or potatoes, or making tapestries and other arts and crafts to sell to one of the few tourist boats that come to your island each week. Overnight stays for tourists are possible, but I didn't have time for this unfortunately. I wish i did because i've been told its one of the most peaceful nights you'll ever experience. At the very least, it couldn't possibly be any worse than the hostel I stayed in.

I also took the opportunity to head out by myself on a hike recommended in my trusty Lonely Planet guidebook. Safe to say that a one paragraph description isn't really enough to get you to a place over 15 kilometers away by foot. I wasn't lost, but I never did end up finding the ruins I set out looking for. I did end up climbing to about 4300m before the setting sun stopped me and I had to turn around to get back to the main road to hitch a ride back to Puno in the dark. An interesting afternoon.

Not wanting to get another bus to get to Cusco, I again lashed out. The Andean Explorer is one of the most scenic train rides in the world, and the 10 hour journey was filled with colourful experiences. Starting with the train rolling slowly out of Puno, the tracks lead directly through a local market. Close enough to reach out and touch the market stalls, standing on the rear of the train allows you to see the market return to normal as soon as the train has passed. As the train trudges on through dead flat green farm land, it´s easy to forget that you´re actually at 3800m above sea level. Again, life in these areas is simple, and I can´t quite comprehend how these people do it. The scenery changes quite a bit as you enter a valley alongside the river and between some enormous snow capped mountains. This really is the stuff of postcards. On board there's local musicians and dancers providing some traditional entertainment, and the Pisco sour's flow, making the afternoon fly by.

Arriving in Cusco late afternoon, I switched back into true backpacker mode and headed to my hostel for the night, the busiest in town, and really more of a pub you can sleep at rather then a hostel you can drink at. Every night's a party of insane proportions, and bar tabs soar as the Blood Bombs and rum & pineapples flow.

So my first 4 or 5 days in Peru went by in a bit of a blur. Lots of time traveling and never long in one place. An excellent way to see the varying landscapes the country has to offer but again not enough time to see or do all that I would really like to. A couple of days relaxing in Cusco prepared me for one of the highlights of my trip, a nine day hike from Cachora to Machu Picchu, also taking in the Incan ruins of Choquequirao. More on that to come shortly...

Chance encounters maketh the memories

It's hard to believe I've been away from home for just 4 weeks now. While I'm certainly glad I still have 7 weeks of this amazing journey remaining, I could easily stop now and be content with the things I've done, the places I've been, and the people I've met. It's been a great trip so far.

A lot has happened in the last two weeks, so I'll try to keep this short, but allow me to first get a bit philosophical if you will.

Its been even more evident to me whilst traveling solo that small decisions, the willingness to take a risk or two, and more than just a hint of pure luck play a huge role in our enjoyment of the day to day things we do. Going through the motions and following a preconceived plan can be great, but it's been one of my goals for this trip to be more spontaneous, take more risks (within reason of course), do things that I hadn't planned on doing originally, and generally just take things as they come.

When I sit and think about it, there's literally been hundreds of forks in the road in my last two weeks. Junctions were I've made decisions, both consciously and subconsciously, that have led to the remarkably enjoyable time that I've had. Some are as simple as talking to a random person in a bar, others as difficult as doing a backflip off an 8m platform above Lake Atitlan. Its mind boggling when I think about how I could have taken the opposite path at any particular point. Would I have had as much fun? Maybe. Would I have met as many good people as I have? Probably not. Would I have been able to deal with the bad news I received from home so well? Almost certainly not. Every decision has combined equally importantly to get me where I am today (on a plane to Peru), and I'm extremely grateful for how things have gone down to this point.

Now onto the details, here's what I've been up to for the last two weeks:

My second week of Spanish lessons was just as intense as the first. Frustration rose as I learnt ton of new words, but couldn't string them together properly to form anything near what you'd call a coherent sentence, until it finally clicked together a little in the final couple of days. So after 40 hours of Spanish lessons, I found myself able to get around town, but I'll hardly be socializing with the locals any time soon. Proper conversations are still tricky, and I challenge you to have a conversation with someone today using only the present tense. You can even use your own native language.

I enjoyed a few nights on the town in Antigua, including one at Cafe No Se, where the famous Mezcal Bar runs by its own set of rules, if you're prepared to go through the 5 foot doorway adorned with the '2 shot minimum' warning message. Delicious Mezcal and good vibes await inside, a lot of fun.

A trip to the beach is one weekend I won't forget in a very long time. With the desire for a bit of adventure, we set off for a weekend in Monterrico 'the local way'. Two chicken buses, one comparatively luxurious mini-bus and a small wooden boat later we arrived about $6 lighter after three and a half hours of traveling. The journey certainly lived up to the hype. Monterrico is a pretty sleepy little beach town, and the first thing to strike you is the black sand. Coming from where sand is yellow or white, it's a strange feeling walking around in what looks like, but doesn't feel like dirt. The next thing that will strike you, literally if you let it, is the power of the Pacific Ocean. Churning black waves dump right on the beach, and just standing in the knee deep water is a challenge. If you manage to get through the breakers there is some respite, but the heavy undertow must be respected. A few minutes in the water and I came out quite exhausted. Watching the stars and listening to the power of the waves relentlessly hammering the shore in the darkness was a great way to spend the evening. A few bottles of Quetzalteca, and some great company were a fine addition to these natural wonders. A very memorable weekend indeed.

More chance encounters with fellow random travelers started one of the most enjoyable and relaxing weeks of my life. Everything slows down when you get to San Pedro, the Amsterdam of Central America. So it was lucky that by chance I'd stumbled across 4 genuinely good people to pass the time with as we'd wait for whatever it was we were waiting for. Card games and trivial pursuit quizzes were the norm once we'd ordered our meals. Unplanned hikes through coffee plantations, swimming in the lake, and kayak adventures filled the rest of our days. The trip over water to San Marcos was rewarded with the opportunity to jump from the 8m platform built into the rock face. Somewhat daunting the first time, it wasn't long before I found myself eager to get a little more adventurous thanks to being in the presence of an extremely talented amateur cliff jumper. A couple of backflips ensued, the second of which was caught on video and should surface on the Internet soon. Far from perfectly executed, but looking back I'm extremely happy with myself for giving it a go.

I returned to Antigua for the weekend, and it really was a weekend of mixed emotions. A birthday in Guatemala, a funeral back home. Through the highs and lows I was extremely glad to be in the company that I was, it made the hard times easier, and the good times even better. A couple of days relaxing and not doing much after the weekend had me feeling like a local, and not wanting to leave. But the flight was booked and more adventures await, on to Peru!!

Acatenango

Looking for something to do over the weekend, attention quickly turned to the volcanos constantly looming ominously over Antigua. Coming from Australia where these things simply don't exist, the curiosity factor was high, and I was quick to sign up for an overnight stay atop a dormant volcano.

Vulcan Acatenango presented  psychological and physical challenges like no other I've experienced before. At 3970m it's Central America's third highest peak, and the 'hard' rating is certainly appropriate. 

Starting at 6am, we left Antigua (~1500m) and drove through some more authentic Guatemalan towns, similar to Antigua in street scape, but obviously without the huge tourist influence. Kids play in the main street though the town, stray dogs roam free, and it seems that everyone in town has their own fruit stall set up by the roadside. We stopped amid some very picturesque farmland and started the days hike at about 2400m above sea level. 

There was four distinct sections of the hike through varying types of terrain. First was through farmland, which meant walking in the small passageways between fields. Sounds nice, but these passageways were just dry  little gullies full of 3 or 4 inches of loose gravel, it was one step up, half a step back. This section was hard! 

Next up was the cloud forest, the landscape suddenly changes to thick, lush, green vegetation, but surprisingly little wildlife (the whole hike the entire group saw a few birds and a couple of lizards, I only saw one bird myself). This section was steep, with lots of traversing, but solid underfoot, overall I'd say moderately easy. 

Moving above the cloud forest, the terrain dries right out again, and we had an hour and a half or so of walking through the pine forest. This section was less steep, as we did less traversing and just wound ourselves around the volcano. If you replaced the pine with gum trees, and flattened it all out a little, I could have mistaken this landscape for a piece of the Australian bush. 

Then things got tough again, tougher than before. Above the pine forest is where you realise your climbing a volcano, not just a mountain. All of sudden you're walking on black volcanic crushed rock, and it's like walking up a sand dune of fish tank pebbles. We set up camp in the saddle between the two peaks, then continued up the remaining 150 vertical meters or so to the summit. This section was extremely hard, there was no traversing, it was just straight up on 6 inches of loose gravel. One step forward, 90 percent of a step back at some points. Being at 3900m for the first time in my life probably didn't help the situation. 

Getting to the very top was every bit as exciting as I'd imagined it to be, climbing 1600m in one day is no joke, but the views justified the 6 solid hours of hiking. The barren alien landscape and the bright blue sky both equally different to anything I've witnessed before. Mind blowing stuff.

Of course once I'd recovered from the final part of the ascent and taken in the view, I had to have a crack at the tour guides challenge of running around the volcano's crater in under 4 minutes, we guesstimated it to be about 600m. Coasting for the first 2 minutes, I thought I'd be done in under three. Then it hit me, muscular fatigue like I've never experienced before, it felt like my lungs were the size of a couple of coin bags from the bank, or even smaller. I tried not to stop, but simply had no other option, my legs would not keep walking. Eventually finishing in 4 minutes and 14 seconds, I missed out on the free t-shirt up for grabs. Damn it. Next time. A pretty sweet experience though.

The tone in our guides voice changed when the clouds started rolling in a little thicker, and we could literally feel (and hear) the electricity in the air. We had to descend back to camp quickly, and just made it before the rain really set in for an hour or so. When it cleared the stars appeared, and we had a nice little meal and sipped some red wine before heading to bed for a well earned sleep. It was a cool night, and I woke up with a layer of ice atop my bivvy bag. Certainly the coldest conditions I've used it in, but I was dry, so I was happy. At 5:30AM we again started the tough climb back to the summit, this time by torch light in pitch black conditions. It was probably slightly easier this time because 1) the gravel was sort of frozen together making your footing a little more solid, and 2) without being able to see the top you had no option but to keep on trudging uphill.

If you've never experienced sunrise above the clouds on top of a mountain, you simply must do it, soon. It's hard to put into words just how cool it is, so I won't even try. Just do it! We even got to experience looking down on the nearby active Vulcan Feugo as it spat out a red hot rock or two, and saw them tumble down its side. Very cool indeed.

Once the best part of the sunrise was over, the weather changed in a matter of minutes yet again and a thick fog descended on the volcano. Visibility was down to about 5 meters so it wasn't really surprising when one of our party got a little lost on the way back down to camp. A rather anxious guide, along with our local porter & security guard searched fruitlessly for 15 minutes or so before our kiwi friend eventually found his way back on his own.

The descent back down to our starting spot was quick, and basically the reverse of going up. The loose gravel sections were easy to fly down, and the foresty sections were hard going with plenty of big steps down and lots of slippery tree roots.

After a few quick hours we were back to where we started the previous morning, weary, and somewhat looking forward to the cramped minivan ride back to Antigua. It was an amazing weekend spent with some pretty cool people, and full of experiences that I'm sure I'll be recalling for many years to come. If you haven't done something like this, I highly recommend you do. The world is just different, and even more amazing at 4000m, you won't regret it.