Cuzco, Qosqo, Cusco!!!

Monday, May 18th, we were done the Inca Trail and ready to just hang out for a bit. Made sense, especially because leaving the city to get to the coast meant at least 15 hours of bus riding. With that in mind, Matt got himself a week membership at Empire Gym, which entitled him to spin classes and boxing classes too. It was a good thing that we had decided not to rush out of Cuzco also because there was a transport strike for 48 hours (Tuesday and Wednesday) where large boulders were placed in the road to prevent entry or exit from the city via road. The airport was still in operation, which meant that Adele and Laura had to fork out some extra cash to make their departure flight from Lima on Thursday.
A beautiful city it is, which made us pretty stoked to spend at least an extra week there. While Matt spent plenty of time at the gym working out and enjoying some boxing lessons, Mitch opted for a much less healthy lifestyle for the week. I mostly hung out at the party hostel, occassionally venturing into the streets. It is unfortunate because the streets are not only flooded with tourists but also with people harrassing the tourists for their business, selling everything from paintings, to drugs to Inca massages and alpaca wool clothes. This made wandering the city a little less enjoyable then one would pressume from seeing pictures, but still an experience in its own.
We found a great restaurant called Jack´s Cafe. Apparently, so did all the other gringos because there was always a queue to get inside and it was worth the wait each of the 3 times. We also found a fabulous chicken place that had a free salad bar and dozens of rotisserie chickens on the go. One time we ordered a quarter chicken each, went to get some salad and returned to find our meal ready, fresh out of la brasa. It sure was swell.

The plaza by day...

The plaza by night.

More about the hostel: the mornings were a bit tricky, because the beds were so damn comfy and the morning air was pretty chilly that making that first leap from sheets to shower proved fairly difficult. Breakfast consisted of bread, jelly with tea or coffee. Fruit was extra cost and Matt and I brought our own peanut butter. During breakfast we would play pool in the vacant bar, often longer than we would like to admit, but it was all in good fun. The days were relaxing and great food was available all the time. The hostel was so great, it wasn´t even necessary to leave most of the time, but the city had plenty to offer. One morning after breakfast, we hiked to the northeast hill overlooking the city, where the Cristo Blanco statue was situated. A beautiful view and sunny day kept us gazing over the city for a little more than an hour. After that we paid a visit to Jack´s and then treated ourselves to a massage with hot stones. It was nice (and well priced), but my rocks were too hot. I thought they were meant to be hot, just not hot enough to burn my skin. A couple did and I had no luck getting a reimbursment. Meh.

The yard of the The Point hostel.

The nights at the hostel were consistently fun. Always new faces were coming and going during our stay there and the bar offered activities everynight, usually following happy hour. One night was strip twister, which Matt and I won because no other competitors were willing to take off more clothes (nobody got naked, just topless). Another had killer pool, which was very popular but we didn´t feel like our skills were up to par. Friday night was a Royal Army Party, where the staff led by example in getting properly blitzed and Saturday was Poker (as were many other nights). Sunday was the Drinking Olympics, but rather than representing Canada, we decided we had better make a split for it before we get stuck here like so many others.
With that as our idea, we hopped on a night bus headed to Ica. The bus departed at 6pm with an especially fast driver. The speedy swerving through the mountains made it a bit tricky to sleep, but eventually I got some sound shut eye. Waking up with the sun coming across the beautiful landscape made sleeping seem like a waste of time, so instead I played with my camera and got some better shots than I would have thought possible through a dirty bus window. Matt had trouble sleeping most of the night, but was out until about 7am when they decided to start blaring crappy Spanish music throughout the bus. Pretty brutal.
That wraps up the Cuzco blog but there is more coming soon...

Camino Inka-Inka Trail

We arrived in Cuzco on the morning of the 12th, giving us a couple days to acclimatize prior to our trek to Machu Picchu. The dry season just began this month, so the weather was great when we arrived. When the sun is beating down in the day, it is warm enough to wander in shorts, tees and sandalls, but as soon as the sun sets, the temperature of this city situated at 3300m gets mighty chilly.

Hanging out at the Horny Llama Bar

We checked into the Point Hostel, which is a party hostel for backpackers, by backpackers. It is a pretty sweet set up with a bar on site, great food available and a lovely yard with hammocks. Also, the best showers in South America! It is a bit more expensive, but you get what you pay for and the parties are pretty crazy most nights. Being that we arrived to this mountain town from sea level, we rested up to get acclimatized and set for our trek. We even met up with Dotan from our apartment in Salvador, Brazil, and Karen and Steve from our time in Colombia.

Wednesday, I bought a new camera, Matt found a gym to work out at and I went to do some laps for the first time since January. Later that evening, we had our trek briefing with our guide Hipolito then proceeded to purchase some snacks for our trek. WE FOUND PEANUT BUTTER!!! It was a great find.
Thursday morning, we were up at 5:30am to be picked up at 6am and made our way to kilometer 82, where the inka trail trek began. Also, the copious amounts of photos to be taken started.

And it begins...

Day 1 was about 10 km of walking mainly flat terrain, with plenty of informative breaks regarding flora, fauna and Inka history. At 1pm, we had our first amazing meal of the trek. I didn´t think that it was possible to have such amazing food on a camping trek. The food was not only delicious, but it was more variable then the expected rice and beans with meat. During the 4 days we had everything from oatmeal, to omletes, to chicken wings, soup, stuffed peppers, potatoes, quinoa and llama. Also, we had coca tea about 5 times a day to help with the altitude and digestion.

Some fellow trail users.

Night 1 was spent at about 2800m under a super starry sky in tents. It got a little cold, but we slept pretty good anyway. After 8 hours of sleep, we woke up to coca tea in our tents then had breakfast, introduced ourselves to one another (trekkers, guides and porters), then began our first pass at 7am. We were to climb 1200 vertical meters up the ´Dead Womens Pass´ and then descend 600m to our 2nd camp. It was meant to be approximately a 5 hour ascent and 2 hour descent, but Matt, Travis of Golden and I held a quick pace and did the entire hike in 5 hours. We got to the summit in 3 and a half hours, where we stopped for a snack break. We were sweaty of course and had to bundle up while we enjoyed the fantastic view and ate some snacks in the cold air. An hour and a half of steady walking down steps, we arrived at our camp just after noon before most of our porters even.

Another amazing view could be observed from our camp site, as we did while we waited for the rest of our posse and as the porters set up the tents. Lunch was at about 2pm, followed by a nap by most only to get up at 5 for tea and popcorn. At 7 we had dinner, played some Yaniv (an awesome game) then bundled up for sleep. I didn´t have a sleeping bag, just a sheet and fleece blanket but I was able to borrow Travis´ bivi sack to add warmth and Matt helped me score the table cloths for even more.

In the midst of the 2nd day climb.

The view from our 2nd camp.

Day 3 started much like day 2, with 5am coca tea followed by breakfast and setting off by 7. This day was a cultural day, where we were to visit 4 Inca sites: Runkuracay, Sayacmarca, Phuyupatamarca and Wiñay Wanya. To show respect to the mountain, we were told to bring a rock from Runkuracay to the 2nd summit. Some grabbed small stones to fit in their pocket, or a stone the size of ones fist, but Lito suggested that Matt bring a small boulder up the mountain and being the champ that he is, he complied. At the top of the second summit, our tour group (team yan-$%*&) made a cairn out of all of our stones, with Matt´s as a great base.
In total, it was a 10 hour, moderate paced day with stops for tours, snacks and lunch. Matt, Travis (Golden), Josh (Calgary) and I stuck together most of the day, sharing riddles, jokes and taking shifts counting thousands of descending steps. The tours were very interesting and each site we visited had it`s own purpose, depicted in the way it was constructed.

Our group of trekkers and the amazing porters.

We reached our last camp at about 5pm, had some drinks and played cards before an amazing dinner, then said our thank-yous and good-byes to the porters. Because we had been trekking all day and the wake up call was at 4am on day 4, we pretty much went to bed asap. The next day was to be so early so we could be some of the firsts to get to Machu Picchu, because as many as 1000 people go there each day in the high season (think off all the pictures!). The control point didn't open til 5:30am, but we arrived to wait at 5am and still had 50 people in front of us! The last stretch to the sun gate, overlooking Machu Picchu, was narrow, fast paced and competitive. Most people are going at a fast pace but it is tricky to pass the sloweres on such a narrow path. I took a bale at one point, then almost took Matt out by stepping on his shoe lace, but apart from me getting some bloodied up fingers, all was good and we made it to the sun gate before the sun.

Yeah we beat the sun to Machu Picchu.

Now, we were extremely lucky with the weather. Apparently it was meant to rain for our 4 days, but the first day was sunny and windy, the second day was mostly clear to observe the incredible vistas, the long 3rd day was cool and cloudy with some spits of rain (great for the 10 hours of walking actually), and the day at Machu Picchu was clear & sunny. Unfortunately, Matt and I were pretty trigger happy on the cameras, thus Matt ran out of memory and I ran out of battery.

Within the lost Inca city on a sunny morning.

Hipolito led us to the Wayna Picchu ticket booth immediately after we checked in to the control and checked our bags for the day. It was before 8am and apparently we were still too late to buy tickets for the 10am climb. They only allow a couple hundred people at a time to climb the little extra for another beautiful view. Matt and I weren´t too torn; our legs were tired, we had seen plenty of nice views and we wanted to check out the Aguas Caliente hot springs.
Our tour guide for Machu Picchu was Hipolito with Matt and I as the only 2 in the group. It was two hours long and quite informative. We got to visit the temples, different sectors, house of the high priest and the dozens of agricultural terraces. At the end of the tour, we had some snacks involving peanut butter, grabbed our tickets for the bus to aguas caliente and made our way to the hotsprings. To get there meant more walking with our packs up from town a few minutes. The muscles appreciated the warm water but the water was luke warm and some pools reaked of urine.
After a dip at the baños termales, we made our way to a restaurant where we said good bye to our guides and fellow tourists before hopping on a train part-way back to Cuzco. In Ollantaytambo, we boarded a mini bus for the last portion of our return journey. Arrived at our hostel close to 7pm, got cleaned up and went to the Horny Llama Bar. It was Steve and Karens last night of their 12 month trip around the world. We enjoyed a fabulous bbq dinner at the Point Hostel and proceeded to party.
It is nice to have done that trip we booked back in February, because now we can just chill here in Cuzco. There is plenty to see and do, and Matt would love to take advantage of the great deal at Empire Gym.

Life on a Bus

After a few days in Mancora, Matt, Kelly and I decided it was finally time to make up some ground to Cusco. First stop was to be the worlds longest left point breaking wave in the world, Puerto Chicama. Being new to the Peru bus system, we had a bit of trouble finding a bus with room heading south. Also, in most cities, there is no one main bus terminal but rather a number of companies with terminals in various places. After no luck finding a bus with 3 seats to Trujillo, we opted for a bus headed to Lima. We barely fit on the bus and didn´t even manage to get our bags and board under the bus.
The time to Trujillo was meant to be about 8 or 9 hours, but the bus was having some serious engine issues so it took closer to 10 or 11 hours. Also, being that the bus was headed to Lima, we managed to space out and stay on the bus right through Trujillo. The next town we hopped off and back tracked to the major city of Northern Peru where we ate and then bussed another 2 hours to Chicama.
Upon arrival, we could see the long beach with loooong waves and picked a cheap hostel with a great view of the break. There were a few other surfers at the hostel we chose, but they were on there way to Huanchaco for bigger waves. We had JUST missed the swell, so the surf was pretty flat. In addition to that, the water required 3.5mm full-body wet suits and was full of great big jelly fish. It wasn´t as much fun as we had anticipated and there is not much else to do in this town but surf. We mucked about in the waves a few times anyway but after two days and one night, we hopped on a bus to Trujillo where we would catch another bus to Lima.
We arrived in Lima at 4am, grabbed a cab to the Loki hostel in Miraflores and stored our bags. We killed a few hours then headed to McDs for some breakfast (it was too convienently close to the hostel). After some grub, I started my hunt for a new camera while Kelly and Matt rented some longboards and enjoyed a couple hours of surf. No luck finding a camera but the surf looked like fun.
At 1pm we took grabbed a cab to rush our way to the CIAL terminal for our 1:15 bus. Apparently there are more than one CIAL terminals in the city and our cab driver didn´t know where our particular one was. After some unorthodox driving, we got to the terminal at 1:30ish and JUST made it on our bus in time for departure. Phewf!
This 22 hour bus ride was pretty pleasant. I was sneezing heeps, so wasn´t as comfortable as some. However, they did give us blankets, snacks, drinks a dinner and showed us about 6 movies, with latin soundtracks between. The scenery was unbelievable as well. From Lima, we headed south on the PanAmerican wedged between the Pacific Ocean and desert sand dunes. Not much scenery was observed through the night apart from the full moon, but when dawn arrived we were weaving and winding up and down the Peruvian Andes. A handful of passengers ended up chacking too, probably due to a combination of the sharp corners and the altitude changes. One hour we would be at 2700m, the next 4100m. Despite the stench of some vomit, the view of deep valleys and snow capped mountains was phenomenal.

Me enjoying a nice sized brew on the beach in Mancorra.

Matt enjoying a nice cuba libre (rum and coke).

A fantastic Mancorra sunset.

Surfing in Montañita

One of the many sunsets viewed from our hostel balcony.


Just as everyone who had been to Montañita before told us, it is a very hard city to leave but due to our need to rush down to Cusco for Machu Picchu we managed a departure. It was a small, quaint town consisting mostly of restaurants, bars and hostels and had so nçmany gringos it was hard to remember that we were still in Ecuador at times. The streets were either cobble stone or sand and the beach stretched for miles. On busy days there were no fewer than 75 surfers out on

the waves, but luckily the waves broke at so many spots that you could usually find a spot with just one or two other surfers to share the glories of the ocean with. Mitch and I nearly surfed everyday that we were with the exception of Mitch taking a couple days off to have a quick cold before jumping back on the board. Mitch managed to remember everything he learned in Brazil but I sadly was set back nearly square one. With some determination and a lot of patience I managed to get back to my Brazil surfing level and then some. We could have easily spent a month or more in Montañita.

My mosquitoe net, matress and trunk.
Our hostel was situated on the beach and was the
cheapest place we have stayed yet. Sure all we had was a matress on the ground, a mosquitoe net and a trunk for our belongings, but it was a great place to meet people and we had to walk all of ten steps to check out the waves. I did however find sn English guy who was supposed to be sleeping on the matress beside mine curled up in my bed, snuggling my pillow one night. It was quite a mission to get him out too as he really thought that was his space no matter how much I told him that that was in fact my pillow and matress.





So on top of great parties with live music, delicious food and a lot of surfing, we also were lucky enough to see hundreds of little song birds as they were on their migratory path to Peru. They would sit on the power lines in the middle of town to rest for the night before taking off in the morning. We saw about three different sets of them, which is a lot of little birdies!

Lots and lots of little migratory song birds on their way to Peru.

We are now in Mancora, Peru and enjoying the sunshine and beach. I have yet to surf but Mitch was up bright and early this morning to get in a session before the crowd. Soon off to Cusco for Machu Picchu!