Arequipa

Arequipa is surprising very European…historic architecture, fine dining, good shopping…but probably at a tenth of what it would cost in Europe. It was a great place to rest up from our hike, eat good food, and catch up on writing and photography work. Went to santa catalina while we were there, a four hundred year old nunnery that housed a couple hundred during its heyday. It was a wonderful place to wander around and explore the various minimal living spaces, kitchens, courtyards, galleries, and so on. It was presented like a time piece museum and included more creepy Christianity art, sculptures, and bazaar masochism devices than I cared to encounter in one day…or one lifetime for that matter. Did some music shopping in Arequipa aswell, stoking up heavily on retro Peruvian rock.

Cachora / Choquequirao

The german girls, lea and laura, had arrived in abancay from lima to go on a four day trek to the remote ruins of choquequirao. They invited us along and we accepted. The four of us now, took a shared taxi out of the abancay valley over a mountain and descended back the other side to the valley village of cachora. It was a delightful little village with one paved street and lots of traditional mud brick houses, cool old ladies, horses, agriculture, and livestock. We stayed In a funky little guest house for a night where we arranged for a guide and four mules to escort us to choquequirao. We set out the next morning at dawn in the fog, having purchased enough food and whatnots that we would need for the journey.
The trek was magnificent, but grueling for sure, with over eight kilometers of rise and fall and 64 kilometers in total. It was certainly the most abusive hike ive ever done, and even though we had mules to carry our stuff and two of us up the mountains at a time it was still an unbelievable task non of us probably would have undertaken had we known so before hand. On the first day we hiked up one mountain and down the other side to where we camped by an unbelievably ragging river…one like I had never scene before…and inadvertently the same river that while we were hiking washed out the road to cusco which was to be our next stop. The second day we climbed up another mountain to a small scenic village where we set up camp and lunch and then continued onto the ruins of choquequirao.
The ruins we quite fantastic, nothing on the scale of machu picchu, but vast nonetheless, and the most amazing part is that we were the only one there, unlike macchu pichu that see some 2,000 tourists per day. We were greated at the top of the ruins by condors flying over head and a lone donkey that was super friendly and happy to see us and guided us around the ruins mowing the lawn as he went. The mountain top location of the ruins was spectacular, at the convergence of three valleys, one of which could have been hiked four days further to macchu picchu. We wandered around the ruins for the afternoon exploring the marvelous masonry involved in the stone structures, some of which were still shrouded in jungle, and soaked up the remoteness of the location.
The following two days were spent painfully retracing our steps up and down the mountains, taking moments to eat the wild cactus fruit that grew along the way, bathe in waterfalls, admire the multitude of flowers, foliage, and butterflies, and marvel at distances we were overcoming. The most useful tool of the journey was certainly the walking sticks that we picked up along the way that eased the down hills and aided in the hours of endless uphill climbs. The scariest part of the trip was springs allergic reaction to mosquito bites that spurred swelling of her legs, bruise like markings, and raw abrasions around the ankles…it was certainly a scary experience when on day two, thirty some kilometers from a mere village, we weren’t sure if spring was going to be able to walk the next day, but she powered through it and thankfully we made it back to the village, onto abancay, and to a pharmacy where we got some steroid cream seems to working.
After a day of resting up in abancay, and finding out the road was washed out to cusco, thousands of people were now stranded on macchu picchu and there was vast flooding in the highlands, we felt it necessary to take the next bus out of town before we got standed in abancay till the end of the rainy season. The night bus back through the mountains was torture once again, we were surrounded by a crying baby, barfing children, a snoring man, a woman with the most disgusting garlic breath of all time, and a kamakazi swerving bus driver that I was sure was going to kill us all. We arrived back in nazca with the realizations that cusco and the highlands weren’t happening because of the flooding, spring was tragically allergic to the mosquitos, and that peru was about twice as expensive as our outdated guide book had lead us to believe…it was a rough couple of days for sure…almost to the point where I just felt like the only rational thing to do was head back to lima to fly home. But luckily we didn’t and jumped on another bus ten hours further down the incredibly gorgeous southern desert coast of peru to Arequipa.

Abancay

Took a grueling ten hour night bus through non stop mountains from Nasca to Abancay. We got off the bus the following morning accompanied by only two other tourists…a major change from the gringo trail we were on previously. We started chatting and shared a taxi to our guesthouse and ended up becoming good friends with the two german girls. It was fantastic to be out of the desert and surrounded by lush mountains, in a town that sees hardly any tourists. , THe most amazing part of abancay was definetly the old ladies though, who dressed in amazing traditional outfits including top hats, lacy blouses, multilayered skirts, and legwarmers all in wonderful colors…it was like we were finally in peru. The Sunday market was particularly awesome…with tons of old ladies…where we bought fresh produce to cook up in the rice cooker we purchased in lima…the food in peru in general is very delicious but not terribly healthy, so nothing tastes better then a huge pot of fresh veggies on the road…well worth the inconvenience of lugging around…and great way to save money on eating out…the markets basically give away produce. Anyways, we went on a great hike into the outskirts of town which was super charming old fashioned farmy like…and one day headed up to the mirador(the Spanish name for look out) were they had all sorts of exotic animals on display including condors, pecunias, bears, felines, cayotes and so on…always a little depressing to see fenced in but beautiful nonetheless.

Nazca / Chauchilla

Five hours further south through mountainous rocky desert, agricultural valley towns, and stomach twisting curves we arrived in Nazca…a city famous for the gigantic earth designs found in the surrounding desert…so huge that they can only be seen from a plane. However, we opted out of the expensive tour and decided instead to visit the ancient burial site of Chauchilla, where thousand year old mummies are on display in their original burial tombs. It was a surreal and remote location in the middle of the desert surrounded by rocky mineral rich mountains and a dried river. The location was ideal based on its annual rainfall of a ¼ inch and the dryness necessary to preserve the buried bundled bodies for thousands of years. There were probably thirty skeletons on display in a dozen different sites with some belongings included for the afterlife. Many of the sites had been looted over the years for gold and artifacts…the skeletons were cast aside and bones could be seen strewn out across the desert...pretty awesome! Nazca the town was pretty nice also, with some decent shopping, restaurants, and very pleasant central plaza.

Huacachina / Ica

While we were in Paracas a nation wide bus strike took hold of Peru, making it virtually impossible to travel anywhere. Buses that did travel were vandalized by rocks and taken over by protesters. Despite rising gas prices, nearly $5 US dollars per gallon in lima, the Peruvian government wouldn’t allow the buses to raise its prices thus sparking a protest that lasted nearly a week screwed a lot of travelers, particularly ones try to catch flights home from lima. Luckily we weren’t to heavily effected and were able to catch a tourist van a couple hours further south to Huacachina without any interference.
The bus ride was once again through vast desert with smatterings of citrus agriculture, grape vines, and sand dunes. Just outside of the provincial capital of Ica, we arrived in the amazing location of Huacachina, a desert oasis village built around a small lake surrounded by massive sand dunes on all sides. It was super touristic, but gorgeous, with the major attractions being the hotel swimming pools, wandering around the oasis lake, sandboarding, and dune buggie rides. We attempted sandboarding which was pretty challenging based on the rudimentary homemade equipment available and bitching heat as you might imagine, but well worth a good fall or two to make the locals laugh. We did some hiking up to the top of the dunes at sunset for spectacular views of the endless dunes rolling off into the distance.
We ventured into Ica one day as well and went on a pisco tasting tour to an amazing old vineyard. Pisco is a southern Peruvian specialty grape whiskey that is particularly delicious served as a pisco sour made with sugar, lime, and blended with egg white…the keylime pie of alcohol…highly recommended. We learned about the distilling process and saw the tubs where they stomp on the grapes and some of the rudimentary presses mad from basically huge logs. From there we went to the cemetery which was fantastic. It was a traditional Spanish cemetery which I had never seen before…it was an efficient use of space if nothing else and a bit of a dark commentary on overpopulation, but interesting to see another cultures attempt to reconcile death by stuffing into a maze of boxes. From the cemetery we went to the local museum where they had ancient mummies on display that had been preserved in the deserts for thousands of years, as well as some interesting examples of head shaping, an ancient Peruvian tradition where skulls were elongated into conical shapes for aesthetic purposed from birth.

Paracas

Paracas is another desert costal town about four hours south of Pucusana. It’s a quant little fishing village overrun by tourist but it still has some charm. There’s lots of seafood restaurant along the beach, fishing boats in the harbor, and an abandoned resort just north of town. The real draw to the area is the national park called reserva nacional de paracas just south of town which was spectacular. The landscape is rolling barren desert butting up against cliffs that fall to the ocean. There were islands, grey and red sand beaches, thousands of exotic birds including flamingos, and a sweet little fishing village oasis where we stopped for cebeche and a dip in the ocean. I would highly recommend checking it out…some of the most amazing coast ive ever scene for sure.

Pucusana

Spring recovered enough within a few days to make our escape from lima. We got dropped off at the edge of the freeway, where most buses are caught, and were cramming into our first crappy little bus in no time. There wasn’t enough room to sit down, so I half stood half sat on my bag for the first hour facing the back of the bus till some room finally opened up. It was a major wakeup call from our cushy house stay in suburban lima. Before we knew it suburbia gave way to sketchy looking shanty’s , rubble dirt roads, and barren desert hills. Me and spring were looking at each other like holy shit…what did we just sign up for?
As we headed south, the barren landscape continued endlessly with towns reminiscent of indias rajasthan with funky little rickshaws, narrow bumpy roads, stray dogs, and billboard painted brick buildings. We passed through some extremely bleak areas along the way with tiny makeshift shakes strewn out in huge plots across the desert…no roads, no stores, just shacks and dirty sand.
Just as we thought all hope was lost, we arrived in Pucusana. After a super sketchy run up a steep dirt road in our first rickshaw ride to what appeared to me know where, we arrived at our very first Peruvian guesthouse. The owner greeted us warmly, we got ourselves a room, and were instantly blown away at the panoramic views from the veranda overlooking the town, the harbor, an island, and a truly stunning coastline.
It was heaven to be out of lima in a charming little coastal village, and it finally felt like our trip had begun. For the next couple days we had a blast exploring the beaches, trying out the local cuisine, swimming in the ocean, practicing our Spanish, and wrapping our heads around the fact that we are finally on vacation!